Comments on: Can Screenwriting Be Taught?

By: Scott W. Smith

Scott W. Smith — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 18:46:16 +0000

Talent’s a funny thing. Last year Zack Johnson from Cedar Rapids stunned the golf world by beating Tiger Woods to win the Master’s. When Johnson was in college at Drake he wasn’t even the best player on the team.

On the other hand “Gone with the Wind” was the first and only book Margaret Mitchell ever wrote.

I took a workshop Linda Seger gave at AFI back when she was starting out. I have all of her books and enjoy her insights. Here’s a quote from her book “Making a Good Script Great”; “Your dreams , fantasies, hopes, goals–as well as your failures, disappointments, and betrayals–are all grist for the mill of your creativity.”

Scott

By: Jamey

Jamey — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:15:31 +0000

I teach a course in screen writing. For me it is a satisfying experience to see students develop and grow over the course of a semester. In my course students learn the craft of screen writing which is different from other mediums such as fiction writing or even play writing. So I would agree that it can be learned… There are of course some students that have more talent. Which in any field we all can grow our level of talent.

I’ve read Syd, and McKee and others. My favorite screenwriting author is Linda Seger.

Jamey

By: Edd

Edd — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:00:12 +0000

Yo Scott, I dig this blog. Keep it up, man. This last post was great. I read it a couple times to keep my mind chewing on the point through the day.

By: Scott W. Smith

Scott W. Smith — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:07:08 +0000

I had a teacher who was fond of saying, “you can’t say everything all the time or you end up saying nothing.” I’ll touch later on where ideas come from, as well as the passion and desire to write. I do think great teachers stir the imagination.

Thanks for stopping by.

By: princessod

princessod — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 03:35:23 +0000

I totally agree that screenwriting can be taught. But I also believe that fantasy that you really need to write can’t be taught. Cuz if you can’t come up with ideas for a script you sure can’t write a script. You can of course learn how to format and stuff like that but still you would be missing the ideas

But this was a great post. thanks for blogging.