seems to be a bit horrible, and I have been considering this one for some time. The reason why we need to study the history of the development of movie scripts is because we can understand the development of things from the historical evolution process, some common laws, and then combine the actual situation to make a more reasonable plan for the next step in order to achieve the ideal goal faster . To make a simple analogy, two people cross the river, one crosses the river first, and mark where there are stones to step on and where there are deep depressions. At this time, if the second person is smart enough, he can stay according to the first person. According to their physical condition, they can judge the standard for crossing the river, so that they can reach the opposite bank faster and more safely.
Contemporary movie scripts are the product of the development of movies in western countries.
movie is a kind of moving image. As early as the Han Dynasty (202 BC) in my country, there was a record of a "horse lantern". Candles were lit in the lamps, and the heat generated by the candles caused air currents to rotate the wheels. There are paper-cuts on the axles, and the shadow of the paper-cuts is projected on the screen by candlelight, and the image moves continuously. In 1835, the Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau (Joseph Plateau) discovered the principle of persistence of vision (Persistence of Vision), which laid a theoretical foundation for the playback of movies, which also contributed to the improvement of later video frame rates. The frame rate commonly used in movies is 24 frames per second, and one frame is an image, which means that 24 consecutive images need to be played in one second to ensure the best visual coherence and smoothness. In 1879, British photographer Eadweard J. Muybridge invented the earliest movie player-Zoopraxiscope, which is a projector that can display moving images and draw continuous images. On the edge of a glass disc, as the glass rotates, images are projected out, so that these images appear to be moving.
Movies in the modern sense were originally just a kind of curiosity for gathering crowds, not for narration. The earliest and most famous film was shown by the French Lumiere brothers at a private party on December 28, 1895.
This film is composed of ten short films, each of which is about 40 seconds long, each with a subtitle, such as "Workers Leaving the Factory", "Baby's Breakfast" and so on. These short films can only be counted as plots, but their titles are marking the origins of contemporary film scripts and are called "Scenarios".
In order to better describe and promote movies, this format has been used in the early stages of film development until it was expanded to a new height by Edison Studios in 1897. The most famous description is About the film "Pillow Fight" (Pillow Fight).
"Four young ladies, in their nightgowns, are having a romp. One of the pillows gets torn, and the feathers fly all over the room."
"Four young ladies, in their nightgowns, are having a romp. One of the pillows gets torn, and the feathers fly all over the room. Being ripped apart, feathers fly all over the house. "
can see that this description is more specific and graphic than the previous headline description, but it also belongs to the Scenario.
Since 1901, as the length of the film has grown, the demand for narration has become increasingly prominent, and the importance of script writing has also increased. In order to maintain the coherence of the narrative, the movie script was born. The scholar Béla Balázs mentioned in the book "Film Theory" published in 1970: "When film develops into an independent art form, when its shooting must be arranged in advance, it is no longer possible to rely solely on the visual When the effect is improvised, the screenplay is born." In short, the script was born for more efficient production services. What must be mentioned here is the silent film "A Trip To The Moon" (A Trip To The Moon) written and directed by the French director Georges Méliès in 1902.
For the filming of this film, he wrote the script composed of a long series of scenes for the first time, explaining the scenesThe content and the order of the scenes.
I will not translate here. Such a script is only a technical aid to the director. It only tells which scenes to be filmed and in what order.
In 1903, the silent film "The Great Train Robbery" (The Great Train Robbery), written by Scott Marble for American director Edwin S. Porter, achieved a flyover in the format of the movie script. It is no longer a "plot description format". It marked the birth of the modern movie script format, the "Master Scene Format" (Master Scene Format), but it was just missing dialogue.
The beginning of the 20th century was a very important period. Not only did the format of movie scripts have taken shape, but also film production began to be industrialized. At that time, film production was centered on the director, that is to say, the director was responsible from the beginning to the end of the film, from the script to the organization of the production team to the marketing. This system was called "director-centric", and some major directors became Stars, such as David Griffith (DW Griffith). Remember, this was more than a hundred years ago.
However, times are changing. In the nearly 20 years from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, directors and videographers played a leading role in the filmmaking process. They decided on the set how to shoot, how they wanted to shoot, and how they wanted to change. People in this position are indeed majestic! However, as the complexity of the script story continues to increase, from simply ensuring the continuity of the story to the visual continuity, the scale of production continues to expand, and then the production cost continues to increase. The director-centric system is obviously out of date. Think about it. It would be a waste of time and money for hundreds of people to wait for the director to direct what to do next at the shooting site. Therefore, a new film production system is about to emerge.
In September 1911, a small filmmaker, Thomas Ince, wearing a borrowed coat and a rented diamond ring, walked into the office of Charles Baumann, the owner of the New York Production Company (NYMP), and requested to establish it on the West Coast of the United States A company came to make westerns.
Ince got his wish. He signed a three-month contract with a salary of $150 per week. He took his wife, cameraman, and common heroine to the west and headed straight to California. Soon, Ince and others arrived at the NYMP branch office in Los Angeles where the current Echo Park is located, and began to arrange his work. On a 1.9 square kilometer farm near Sunset Boulevard and the Western Pacific Highway, Ince founded his production company Inceville, the world's first modern film production company.
Ince started a revolution in the film industry. For the first time, he applied the assembly line theory of automobile production giant Henry Ford to film production. Through careful planning of the film in the early stage, he invented a new script format-"continuity" "Continuity Script" contains a variety of useful information for production, such as who will be in the scene, what kind of play, indoor or outdoor, the specific requirements of the camera, and cost control. Through the analysis of the script, he can plan the most reasonable shooting plan.
Ince is the ancestor of modern production companies. His most outstanding contribution is to transform the film script from a single film narrative to the blueprint of the entire film production. It transforms the film production from only one film at a time to simultaneously. By producing multiple films, the development of the production company has reached unprecedented speed and scale. Script writers, directors, videographers, lighting engineers, sound engineers, actors, post-editors, etc. work closely together to produce multiple films at the same time, greatly improving efficiency. As a result, the "director-centered system" method of production was disintegrated, and Ince's role changed from a director to a producer. He opened a new era in film history, and a brand new system was born, that is, the "producer" Central system", and all this is attributed to his innovation in the format of the movie script. The "continuous script" format invented by Ince has achieved Hollywood's golden development period. Several Hollywood production giants control the production, production, and release of the film, forming a monopoly, causing smallThe dissatisfaction of the production company. In the well-known Paramount case in 1948, the US High Court ruled that Hollywood film giants must give up control of movie screening rights. Before that, the giants had the ownership of the movie theater and could force the movie theaters to buy films for the entire quarter in batches. After the case, the giants could only bind five movies to the movie theater at once. It is conceivable that if they want the movie theater to show For more films, you have to do enough marketing efforts. Since then, the interests of giant companies have gradually shifted to financing and marketing, far away from the original intention of their establishment-making movies. The Hollywood giant system began to collapse.
At the same time, independent producers began to thrive. Their interest is to make movies. They find good scripts, find directors, actors and production teams, and then package projects to promote to giant companies to obtain financing and distribution channels. At this time, the format of the movie script changed with the changes in the film industry, and the "main scene script" format returned to the stage and has been in use today. Different from the "continuous script", the "main scene script" focuses on readability. It focuses on the story and becomes a text that attracts all parties to participate in the production of the film, so the description of the camera lens, the scene number, how to transition, etc. The information is withdrawn from the script. However, once the script is given the green light and the investment can be started, it will be changed to "shooting script" under the direction of the director, which is the previous "continuous script", as a specific guidance document for shooting.
It is not difficult to see that the history of the development of movie scripts is completely the epitome of the development of the film industry, and the changes in the format of movie scripts have occurred in response to changes in film production needs. I will specifically introduce the format of Hollywood scripts in detail later. I wrote this article because I urgently felt the need to regulate the format of Chinese film scripts.
I searched for movie scripts on the Internet, and I just searched a lot in English, but I haven't found a decent one in Chinese. In Los Angeles, the United States, the courses, discussions, lectures, etc. of film script writing are overwhelming. Writing scripts has almost become a national hobby, and most of them are amateurs. In China, I don't feel the atmosphere in this area at all. The Chinese scripts I searched on the Internet made me laugh and cry, and the courses of film script writing I found were also extremely disappointing. Since I started writing this column, people have often asked some questions about the format of the script, and there are many very basic questions. People are still vague, including some practitioners.
The director-centric system in Hollywood more than a hundred years ago has a feeling of deja vu in Chinese reality. Hollywood is the world's recognized film center, and the whole world is following it and learning from it. It is like the first person to cross the river, and those who cross the river can actually learn from experience and cross the river faster and more steadily. I cannot emphasize the importance of the format of movie scripts. Movies start with scripts. To prosper the film industry, we must start with standardizing the format of movie scripts. At least I think so.
The road is long and long, I will search up and down.
