Post by lenlenlen1 on Apr 6, 2019 15:29:55 GMT
You're describing two different things:
The first is a synopsis.
The second is a shooting script.
Either way, they have little to do with directing or acting.
The synopsis/outline is for the producers and studio heads, so they have an idea what they're looking at. The shooting script (along with cinematics and storyboards) is for the director, cinematographer and production department heads so they know what they're actually shooting.
The most important thing a director can have is a clear vision of what he wants to communicate and the ability to use all the other departments to do so.
If the writing were so important they'd be the ones making big money in Hollywood, and we all know they're not. As a matter of fact its pretty clear that Hollywood kinda considers them low man on the totem pole. Some of our favorite directors can even be quoted as saying "I don't even let them on the set", and at awards show's they're always made fun of. I honestly believe that most producers and directors use the script as nothing more than an outline. Three separate directors could shoot the same script and you'd get three totally different movies.
Now that's a shame because clearly a well written script can be the thing that makes a movie great. But in movie making, its really all about the directing. If he/she fails in communicating an inspired vision... the movie fails, great script or not.
Who was a better writer, Stan Lee or William Shakespeare?
I'm aware of the difference between a synopsis and a shooting script. The point was that the writing includes everything from the long-dead person who came up with the original idea (as in Ovid with Pyramus and Thisbe) to what ends up in the final shooting script. Directors often have a role in the writing, although they may not be credited as writers. But some writers contribute much more to how a story looks and feels on film than others--the difference between films made by auteurs like Tarantino, Greenaway, or Haneke, who often write their works with a mind to how they will look on screen, and films that started out as novels by writers who were writing for writing's sake (like Joseph Conrad with The Heart of Darkness or Alice Walker with The Color Purple or Vladimir Nabokov with Lolita) rather than to create a work intended for film.
Actually we're discussing the OP's question and assertion "How Do You Judge Directing/Acting? To me, it all starts with the writing" and the OP's hope that he might "read something I never considered before".
And my response to that is that directing and/or acting have next to nothing to do with writing. Great directing is about the directors vision and visual style, and acting is about the research and preparation the actor does. A script is the bare bones you hang all that on.
To be clear I am not denigrating the efforts of the script writer. Clearly they are talented and important parts of the process. They just don't make direction or acting great. They're independent.