Scripts and Novels

Chapter 115 Scripts and Novels

Ah, no wonder his novel output decreased in his later years, so that's why.

As for the status of screenwriters in the Hong Kong and Taiwan film and television industry, David searched his memory for information from that time and it seemed that it was indeed quite high, at least higher than Hollywood at the same time.

Leading creators wield absolute power. Martial arts authors like Gu Long and Ni Kuang, who possess top-tier intellectual property, and core screenwriters from the New Wave era, are box office guarantees. They can completely decide who gets to adapt their scripts and who will act in them, giving them immense influence within the industry.

At that time, senior screenwriters in the Hong Kong film and television industry were respectfully called "masters of the script". The script was the core prerequisite for the establishment of the entire production team. Without the output of the screenwriter, the entire production team had no basis to start work.

This is mainly because the film industry in Hong Kong is relatively small, and small-scale industries do not have the complex processes of layered investors, producers, and multi-departmental review that Hollywood has.

The script has a very short link from concept to implementation. The screenwriter can directly connect with investors and key creators, and directly control the creative process of the project without having their voice diluted by multiple layers of processes.

Hollywood, due to its massive industrial scale, has a highly standardized division of labor. Screenwriters are just one link in a huge production chain, and are easily replaceable, so their voice is naturally very small.

"Then why do you still enjoy writing your own scripts so much?" Catherine asked, taking a sip of mushroom soup. "You could just write an outline and have someone else expand on it for you, couldn't you?"

Because only I remember the specific plot of the original movie, it's easy to run into trouble if I don't try to recreate it 100%.

David thought to himself, but he certainly couldn't answer the question that way.

In fact, truly outstanding directors in Hollywood are often also outstanding screenwriters; being able to write scripts yourself is extremely important for a director.

Although many people online say that Nolan can't write screenplays, and that his film screenplays are all written by his brother, and that without his brother's screenplays, he would make a failure like "Tenet".

However, anyone who has seriously studied Nolan's creative journey would not have said such a thing.

Jonathan, the younger brother of director Yu Yi, only participated as a co-writer in a few works such as "The Prestige," "The Dark Knight," "The Dark Knight," and "Interstellar." He also only provided the original short story for "Memento," and the subsequent script adaptation was entirely done independently by Nolan himself.

Nolan wrote the screenplays for films like *Following*, *Inception*, *Dunkirk*, *Tenet*, and *Oppenheimer* entirely on his own, without his brother's involvement.

"The script is the narrative blueprint for a film. The director's personal involvement in writing it allows for the integration of cinematic language, scene design, and..."

The performance pacing was meticulously planned to avoid any logical flaws in the script.

After saying so many technical things, David decided to find a real great director to endorse him. "You know Akira Kurosawa, right?"

'

"I know, of course I know, the Shakespeare of the film world," how could I not know that?

""

Akira Kurosawa's "Kagemusha" was completed in 1980 with joint funding from Coppola and Lucas, winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes and immediately sparking a wave of attention in Hollywood;

In 1985, he released the epic novel "Ran," adapted from Shakespeare's "King Lear," and Spielberg offered him financial support.

In the late 80s, the "Big Four" Hollywood stars—Spearman, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, and Francis Ford Coppola—openly identified themselves as fans of Akira Kurosawa.

Scorsese paused his filming of Goodfellas to star in Akira Kurosawa's Dream; Lucas's Star Wars series was inspired by Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress, and they both considered it an honor to work with Kurosawa and provide him with assistance.

His cinematic language and narrative techniques have been widely adopted by Hollywood directors, making him a recognized pioneering master in the entire Hollywood film industry.

So much so that a saying has circulated on the internet ever since: "Hong Kong films of the 80s and 90s were all copies of Hollywood, while Hollywood films of the 80s and 90s were all copies of Akira Kurosawa."

0

"He once said something, do you know what it is?"

'

"What did he say?"

He said that even a first-rate director with a third-rate script cannot make a second-rate film. One must first become a good screenwriter before becoming a master director.

David wasn't sure exactly when Kurosawa said that line, and Catherine couldn't possibly ask him if he had actually said it, so he just used it to endorse himself.

In fact, directors writing their own scripts is partly to reduce communication costs. Directors who understand screenwriting and can write scripts don't need to repeatedly work with external screenwriters to refine and revise them; they can directly implement their requirements for visuals, sound effects, and narrative pacing.

This avoids internal friction caused by "not being able to explain clearly or make proper changes," and significantly improves creative efficiency.

"That's why you chose to write the script yourself."

""

"Yes, that's right. I also really enjoy writing. There's a big difference between pure written expression and audiovisual language."

'

"Then why don't you go write novels? Didn't you say there are people in Hong Kong who started as writers and then became screenwriters?"

Catherine sincerely suggested, "Why don't you build up a fanbase with the novel first before adapting it into a movie? Wouldn't that guarantee better box office returns?"

Well, what you said makes a lot of sense. I thought about that too when I first came into this world, and I even tried it, but I gave up very quickly.

There is a significant difference between novels and screenplays; in some ways, they are not the same thing at all.

The former is the final product directly presented to the reader, and it offers a very high degree of creative freedom, allowing for almost any writing style.

The psychological descriptions of the characters, the lengthy background introductions, and the author's side notes could all be written as pure stream of consciousness, but that would narrow the audience and easily draw criticism for being padded.

The latter has more requirements, but to summarize all the requirements in one sentence, all content must be able to be transformed into audiovisual images.

This means that there can be no psychological descriptions of the characters, and any explanatory authorial commentary is strictly prohibited. Everything must be presented indirectly through filmable actions and informative dialogue. Anything that the camera cannot capture is strictly forbidden.

"Wouldn't that make the story more engaging?" Catherine asked. "Don't readers enjoy stories with a fast pace?"

Hmm, good question. If you write a novel using the same techniques you use for screenplays, will readers like it?

That depends on whether it's a movie script or a TV series script, that's David's answer, because he actually read a web novel written by a movie screenwriter before he transmigrated.

That great writer's pen name is "Canghai Zhucheng Jiu" (meaning "The Sea is Boiled into Wine").

In terms of writing skills and literary talent alone, he is definitely in the top tier among online novelists.

He excels at writing about Hong Kong, and in this field, no one can surpass him. According to him, he is good at "imagining things in his mind before putting pen to paper," so his writing is as vivid as a movie storyboard, with clean scene transitions, making it like watching a Hong Kong gangster film.

Moreover, because he is a screenwriter by training, he builds his stories like he's polishing movie shots, resulting in crisp and clean plot progressions without any unnecessary filler.