A problem of writing what you see:

aceinc1 said:

The screenplays are supposed to read different than the movie.

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I wouldn't say that; but things happen during filming that will force a writer/director to make changes. Sometimes things look great on the page but not so much on screen.

I try to write a script that gives me the same FEELINGS that made me want to write the script in the first place. Some scripts, you can just feel how the movie is suppose to look without any use of camera directions whatsoever. I think that should be our goal as writers.

Scott Myers wrote about this using 500 Days of Summer as an example
http://www.gointothestory.com/2009/12/great-scene-500-days-of-summer.html

aceinc1 said:

I am a big fan of the movie APOCALYPSE NOW. I have a copy of the screenplay and the DVD of the movie. I watch it over and over again and read the screenplay over and over again. Don’t feel bored.

I noticed, that the screenplay although written by F.F. Coppola himself is not direct to screen. i.e. the screenplay is different at many places. I don’t understand what was the need for that? I know Coppola is not on our board but we can discuss.

Same with SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, I had memorized that script but could not get the DVD now it is being aired on TV and I watched it more than 4 times. There are changes at certain places. Again written by director FRANK DARABONT himself.

Now I take screenplays from the net and start practicing the shot selection on them. (No, I don’t shoot as I don’t have the rights and the budgets.) I watch the movie and see how mine differs from their vision. I think this has contributed to the problem of writing the script like a movie. I do remember the proof reader saying my scripts read like I was directing them myself without camera angles. I think this is creating a GAP with readers and I am ending up blaming them for being lazy. The screenplays are supposed to read different than the movie.

Would anyone wanna discuss?
ACE.INC1

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First off, the original screenplay for Apocalypse Now was written by John Milius and Coppola's final draft is still largely Milius' work.

That being said, I know of no screenplay, irrespective of who wrote it, that isn't changed, sometimes substantially, due to the exigencies of production or the creative input of actors or inspiration that inevitably arises over the course of production.

Things that seem to work well on paper sometimes fail or simply prove unnecessary, or they simply run out of time, or can't afford that location and so have to be rethought to fit a different location, or an actor becomes unavailable or they can't afford an extra shooting day and so his lines have to be given to another actor -- or someone simply comes up with a good idea and so they shoot it.

The whole "you talking to me?" scene in Taxi Driver wasn't in the original screenplay. The whole sequence in the Mines of Moria where the Fellowship gets stuck on that long bridge/stairway by the falling boulders and have to leap across as it falls -- that wasn't in the final draft of the screenplay. They thought it up afterward and stuck it in and never bothered to change the script. Why should they? They knew where the scene was going.

It happens all the time. Things are cut. Things are added. Things are changed. In production. In post production in the editing room and in ADR. And now even more with CGI things can be changed more than ever.

NMS