the watch of time

(a) “The word screenwriting is a kenning, which means it’s a composite of two nouns…  Everybody focuses on the screen part, because it’s Hollywood and it’s fun and it’s money and it’s fame…

The most difficult thing a screenwriter does, which is the most difficult thing in moviemaking, is to make a precise, detailed decision. It’s easy to say, ‘Let’s have an exciting chase along the beach here, where he finds out that his partner is gonna betray him’…

The precise second-to-second detail of that scene – what each character is doing, feeling, and saying – is really hard because it forces the mind to get as particular as mathematics. It’s the only reason moviemakers use screenwriters…  It’s too hard to try to come up with all those details while you’re making the movie.  You have to have them laid out first.”

(b) “Screenwriting is a very difficult thing to master…  It requires both halves of your brain.  You need that artistic, impulsive, creative aspect – and you also need that objective part as well, because a screenplay is precise…  You write it over a long period of time, but you experience it in a finite period of time.  And you have to find within that very precise structure ways to access very imprecise feelings and emotions and motivations.”

                         Excerpted quotes from (a) Mark D. Rosenthal & (b) Doug Atchison                                                                      Tales from the Script (2010)