Ya Ya!

I watched Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood this weekend. I had a bit of a learning moment 3/4 of the way through as I was sobbing -- I always sob when watching it. My revelation was this... Ya Ya was probably a really cheesy script.

Scripts are a whole different ball game than books. I've read really crappy scripts that made great movies. Well, crappy might not be the right word. The thing is, scripts lack the narrative freedom of a book and they're going to read differently. The trick is to be able to see what people -- actors, directors, producers -- will do with the words written on the page. Scripts are very limiting in the fact that they deal with only what you can see/hear. There's no Jason felt that, maybe, Chantelle didn't love him in scripts. You have to show how Jason feels. If Jason feels that Chantelle doesn't love him, you need to have him discuss it with someone... or have Chantelle be a bitch... of go off of Jason's facial expression. There's no narrative insight into his psyche. In a way, it keeps you honest: you really have to paint things out with dialogue and actions... But mostly, it's very restrictive for readers.

Ya Ya is a perfect example of a script that many non industry people would have rolled their eyes at while reading but balled their eyes out while watching.

I'm not saying that we should all accept that scripts are crappy or something. That's totally not where I'm going with this. What I'm trying to get at is that scripts are different. The story is told differently.

That's just my opinion, anyways. It'll probably change next week.