The Sunday Haul

One of my writerly ambitions is to write a complete movie screenplay. I had this ambition in mind long before the idea of writing a novel occurred to me. Though the novel is almost done the screenplay remains to be completed. So this ambition burns inside rather intensely. I have a couple of stories in mind that I have to put in the form of a screenplay. Until recently I had no idea of what a screenplay was and how it is written. Sometime back I found Syd Field’s books about screenwriting and read them. Syd Field’s books have been helpful in giving me an idea about how a screenplay is written. I have also a copy of Robert McKee’s ‘Story’ that I asked someone to get for me during one of those phases when I was serious about writing my screenplay. I started, hesitantly though, work on my screenplay that is still far from completion.

Though I do not watch many movies I like to read about movies, about reviews and almost everything connected with movies. I have even a couple of books by movie stars (David Niven, Kirk Douglas, Dirk Bogarde,) movie critics that I found at Abids and elsewhere. I have picked up quite a few screenplays too at Abids where last week I found Syd Field’s ‘Going to the Movies.’ Earlier I had seen the same book at a secondhand bookseller but the price was somewhere over four hundred rupees. It was way beyond my budget so I did not buy it which was a smart thing to do since I found the same book and paid only sixty rupees for it last Sunday. The book is in good condition and I’m already itching to begin reading it right away. Maybe that will spur me to finish the script I am working on intermittently at present. Despite reading so many actual screenplays and books on screenwriting I still feel there’s something I have to learn.

Coincidentally, a few hours after I bought the book, I read in Eenadu about Robert McKee’s ‘Story Seminar.’ I read that the seminar is proposed to be organized at Ramoji Film City sometime February next. I do want to attend the four day seminar but the fee is putting me off. The fees is somewhere around Rs 33000/ if paid by end of January 2012 and Rs 38605 after January 31. I am at a loss to decide whether to shell out the money and attend it though I know the seminar might be of use to me in writing the screenplay. I hope I will take a decision before I chew out all the nails on my fingers.