about Lesley's own feelings or Lesley's own
experiences. In that sense, it's not in the tra-
dition of certain interpretations of method
acting. It's not about Viola Spolin's `Impro-
visation for the Theater' exercises. We draw
from real people out there in the real world
-- real social contexts -- and that's the key
to where it comes from."
them together to interact. "At the begin-
ning, there's no character," he explains.
"Gradually, relationships and histories start
to develop and form, and a whole world
starts to happen, out of which, eventually,
my job is to distill and construct the film."
cause of the way we create the character, it's
not something you have to arrive at
quickly," she says. "It's a very slow-cooked
thing, and it gets modified and changed and
shifted. Over time, as this `Person X' is
emerging, they're becoming clearer each day,
so whatever the source or sources might be,
they very quickly become their own person."
they've learned how to play that person in
any situation, meaning they can be intro-
duced into real-time interactions with other
cast members. "You reach a stage when im-
provisations can happen, where whole situ-
ations are explored," Leigh says. "But then
out of that, we have a very complex and
elaborate rehearsal procedure, so that we
can arrive at what was shot, which is always
extremely precise and very tightly scripted."
ten document with the film's dialogue and
behavior exists. "The process where some-
body writes something down and then the
actors go off and learn it doesn't come into
it," the director insists. "I never go away
and write a script and bring it back and
hand it out." The closest thing to a con-
ventional script Leigh prepares is a conti-
nuity guide for himself and the crew.
"Before I start shooting, I will write out the
structure of the film. You have to have
some sense of how this scene relates to the
one that comes before or after."
shooting. "Because I've developed with
the same wavelength and suggest appro-
priately what they might say," explains
Leigh, who insists, "Writing is not just
about dialogue. That's a tiny sliver of what
writing really is. Writing is about concep-
tion, construction, dramatic juxtaposi-
tions, dramatic storytelling." Though his
process is rooted in improv, Leigh bristles
at the suggestion that his films are "natu-
ralistic," taking great care to present a sort
of heightened realism. "I would hope to be
recognized as a writer of dialogue," he says.
"It's pretty good dialogue, by any stan-
dards, even kind of poetic."
evolve even as the film is being shot. "There
is nothing to stop me, on occasion, from in-
troducing things on the spot," Leigh says.
"That's the most famous thing that's differ-
ent about my films: People are always on the
case. They're not in their trailers wanking.
We're constantly saying, `OK, let's go and
run it a few times,' and while we're running
it, I can say, `Hold on a minute. Let's just
change this. I've got another idea.'"
unexpected character, although her basic re-
actions had been worked out and rehearsed
long before, Leigh settled on the particulars
of her speech -- a catalog of disasters that
involved her new car -- shortly before
shooting. "Out comes this long saga about
how she broke down and how the tow-truck
guy tried to take advantage of her," Leigh
says. "That was invented on the hoof and
brought to performance pitch and shot in
less than a day."
can't -- and we wouldn't -- improvise on-
camera because it would be a shambles,"
Manville confesses.
paint or sculpt, you do an improvisation
and then you work from that. But there's a
point at which an actor needs to be able to
just get on top and remember it," he says,
"The important thing is to be creative, and
not to be lazy and say, `Well, OK. That'll
do.' That's fatal. You've got to keep on dig-
ging and investigating and challenging
yourself until you get there. That must be
the experience of all art."
optioned.
advice. You're wrong about "so many awesome
scripts that start off with a VO. There are actu-
ally very few. American Beauty and Sunset Blvd.
stand out in memory. Here's something great
that William Martell wrote about VO:
ScriptVoiceNarration/hhvmn/post.htm
made, will the director keep your opening
voiceover or find a better way to do that
piece of exposition?
line system for producers and agents to view. It's
a meager four-point difference of a judge having
a good day or a bad day. It's very close to that
90-point margin. Can you make an exception?"
nalist status: a score of 91.5. I made the deci-
sion to reduce the threshold to 90 because it
involved adding only a few more scripts and a
score of 90 is generally associated with an "A"
grade, a rough equivalent of "Recommend."
Reducing the threshold to 86 would add 120+
scripts to the pile significantly more scripts
than are already there. My impression of pro-
ducers is that they don't want to hear, "Hey, we
have 200 scripts for you to read." They want
the (perceived) cream of the crop.
mirror of what happens when your script cir-
culates: The vast majority of readers don't rec-
ommend most scripts. We cautioned you
about taking the word of one contest judge as
the only, final word. Also, your rant convinced
me that you feel passionately about your story.
Good for you! And if it made you feel better to
tell us off, also good for you. Write on and
market on!
email or telemarketing (because it actually
includes all three). When 98 people out of
100 throw away a direct mail promotion and
only two of them buy it, a wise marketer gen-
erally considers the campaign a success. So
maybe you need another try. I'm sending
you a coupon for $45 off the entry fee in the
current AAA Screenplay Contest.
Editor and Publisher