Making the Good Better

Writing in Hollywood is often about compromise. Now, you can look at that compromise as a bad thing, as both of you losing out as you reach a point of agreement, or you can use the compromise as a way of writing better.

Travis and I are working on our third rewrite of Glory Days for Guy Walks Into A Bar Productions. On this particular notes call, our producer point out some issues that needed to be dealt with. To be honest, we didn't necessarily agree that they needed changing but when you're working under a producer, he's the boss. After all, if he's going to put his name on it he wants to make sure it's a good representation of his choices.

We were very fortunate that the producer, Travis and I were all on the same page about the kind of movie we wrote. Nonetheless, changes were required and rather than think we're God's gift to writers and ignore the notes OR just make quick adjustment changes, Travis and I found ourselves open to looking at the scene in a new way.

And that new POV got us brainstorming new ideas for how to adjust the scenes while keeping the parts we liked but incorporating the elements our producer felt needed to be in there. The scenes are better for it. In fact, the entire script is better because of our working with Guy Walks.

A lot of people think that when you sign on a producer, or a director, or an actor, that you'll have to acquiesce to their vision. That may be true (and may yet happen to us) but rather than looking at it as a loss, that the script is losing through compromise, look at it as an opportunity to better your writing. If you "compromise" that a scene needs to change then change to a better scene.

Take what they give you and make it the best it can be.