Table Of ContentLinda Seger and
Edward J. Whetmore
From
Script
i
Screen
THE COLLABORATIVE ART
OF FILMMAKING
2
From
Script
TO
Screen
THE COLLABORATIVE ART
OF FILMMAKING
Linda Seger and
Edward J. Whetmore
i@ ES ES lone eagle
From Script to Screen
The Collaborative Art of Filmmaking, 2nd Edition
Copyright © 2004 Linda Seger and Edward J. Whetmore
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Cover design by Sean Locke
Book design by Carla Green
Storyboards from A Beautiful Mind, courtesy Ron Howard
A Beautiful Mind still photo, courtesy of Universal Studios Licensings, LLP © Universal
Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Seger, Linda
From script to screen : the collaborative art of filmmaking / Linda Seger,
Edward Jay Whetmore — 2nd ed.
Seem:
ISBN 1-58065-054-6
1. Motion pictures—Production and direction. I. Whetmore, Edward Jay.
Il. Title.
PN1995.9.P7S38 2003
791.43’028—dc22 2003054672
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Contents
Acknowledgments
Sneak Preview: The Magnificent Risk-Takers
Doing the Write Thing
Close-Up The Writer: Akiva Goldsman
The Producer and the Long Run
Close-Up The Producers: Brian Grazer,
Ron Howard and Karen Kehela 54
The Director: From Vision to Action 60
Close-Up The Director: Ron Howard 89
The Actor and “The Kindness of Strangers” 94
Close-Up The Actors: Russell Crowe and
Jennifer Connelly 131
Behind the Scenes: Collaboration by Design 136
Close-Up The Production Designer: Wynn Thomas 167
Close-Up Director of Photography: Roger Deakins 170
Close-Up Makeup: Greg Cannon 172
Close-Up Special Effects: Kevin Mac 172
iv | FROM SCRIPT TO SCREEN
The Editor: A Way of Seeing 174
Close-Up The Editors: Mike Hill and Dan Hanley 197
The Composer: Invisible Bridges 201
Close-Up The Composer: James Horner 218
The Last Collaborator 223
Sources 229
Acknowledgments
My special thanks to the people who helped make From Script to Screen pos-
sible: Lee and Jan Batchler; Hindi Brooks; Mimi Cozzens; Linda B. Elstad;
Leonard Felder; Colin Greene; Linda Griffiths; Greg Henry; Chris Jorie;
Kevin Klinger; Barbara Lawrence; Jan Lewis; Lisa Lieberman; Cindy
‘Margolis; Carolyn Miller; Jim Pasternak; Ralph Phillips; Don Ray; Steve
Rekas; Ron Richards; Tom Shoebridge; Dov Simmons; Treva Silverman;
Sandi Steinberg; David Summerville; Howard Wexler; Judity Weston; and
Marsha Williams.
To my readers: Cathleen Loeser; Dara Marks; Anne Cooper Ready;
Madeleine Rose; Lynn Brown Rosenberg; and Helene Wong.
To all our interviewees and their assistants and secretaries who took my
phone calls and helped make the interviews happen.
And a special thank you to Ron Howard for the storyboards and for his
help on our case study of A Beautiful Mind.
—L.S.
Special thanks to all my readers: Shari Beauchamp; Kar Davis; Vincent
Fratello; Christa Taylor; Chris Kawamura; Jennifer Miles; and Rachelle
Whetmore.
And to two special filmmakers for their inspiration: Lawrence Kasdan
and Oliver Stone.
Dee.
Special Acknowledgment
To our editor, Cynthia Vartan, and our agent, Martha Casselman. Thank
you both for your patience and support. And particularly to Tom
Schulman, who helped us all the way “from script to screen!”
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Sneak Preview:
The Magnificent Risk-Takers
“That’s the fun part about movie collaboration,” Director Oliver Stone
explains with a sly smile. “You work intensely with a lot of people who are
different from you and you learn a lot from them. People you don’t always
like. But you learn to live with them. It teaches you tolerance.”
This was one of the first lessons Hollywood’s most gifted and successful
filmmakers provided as they tolerated our questions, responding with
remarkable and precise insight into the collaborative art of filmmaking.
While conducting some seventy interviews in busy offices, editing rooms,
wardrobe trailers and sound stages, we were continuously astonished by
their willingness to share what they have learned.
Those of us “in the dark” are generally satisfied with paying admission,
munching our popcorn and losing ourselves for a while in the mysterious
worlds filmmakers create. But if you have ever wondered what they do,
how they do it and why they do it, then this book is for you.
Countless books have been devoted to the creation of the story and the
writing of the script. Many others define precisely what an assistant direc-
tor or key grip does during production. From Script to Screen does neither of
these. Instead, we follow the path of the script as it passes through the
hands of all the collaborators. In their own words, they share with us the
secrets of the alchemy they use to bring a story to life. It begins as they sit
viii | FROM SCRIPT TO SCREEN
alone, reading the script. But the real magic is glimpsed most often in the
ways they work with one another.
In today’s Hollywood the production of a major motion picture is not
the work of one “auteur” director. Nor is it the result of the latest whim of
a box office superstar who helps draw the audience to the theater. These
perceptions are quite popular in the press and in certain film schools.
They are wrong.
The truth is that by the time the script appears on the screen, it is a
product of the collective effort of writers, producers, directors, actors, cin-
ematographers, editors, composers and others who have labored for years to
bring it to life.
Feature filmmaking has become ac ollaborative art, a unique synthesis of
artistic vision married to an unwieldy commercial marketplace populated
by a volatile and fickle audience. To make a studio film you need a willing-
ness to write checks every day for more money than most folks spend on a
house. Lace it with cost overruns and sprinkle with unpredictable weather
and you’ve got the recipe for a major motion picture. Amazingly enough,
about 500 of them find their way into our theaters each year.
Of these, only a handful will be considered for the major awards and
only a few of those will go on to be remembered as “classics,” films that
somehow profoundly move or affect the audience. Wherever possible, we
focused our investigation on these extraordinary films and on the artists
responsible for transforming them from script to screen.
Over the past two decades, these are the people who, have created
Academy Award-winning pictures such as A Beautiful Mind, American
Beauty, Dead Poets Society, Driving Miss Daisy, Rain Man, Thelma & Louise
and Witness. As we began to seek out those who always seem to be associ-
ated with the best the medium has to offer, the same names surfaced again
and again. In these pages you’ll meet them and share their personal insights
into the collaborative art of filmmaking.
In her book Uncommon Genius, Denise Shekerjian interviewed forty
recipients of the MacArthur Prize, which is also known as the “genius
award”. As she combed through the transcripts, she discovered something
quite interesting:
In the end the common themes linking these creative people separated
and floated to the surface like cream.... They were all driven, remark-
