Today as part of our discussions we discussed how most of a scene can’t be written up in a script. I’m finding it hard to have discussions over zoom and I don’t think I effectively conveyed my point even though I tried. It’s hard to know who is going to talk and to have effective conversation over video chat. But I think I didn’t exactly understand our discussion!

I suppose I haven’t read enough scripts to know exactly how the ‘average script’ is, although I have read a few and think I have enough of a grasp on it. After we watched the second clip of the day, which was a scene from Corruption (1963, Bolognini), Robin asked if we thought anything in this clip could not have been scripted. This question confused me slightly as I think everything could have been scripted in this scene, if it was detailed enough. Or at least it could have been conveyed through the understanding of both the storyboard and script and maybe in conjunction with shot list as well. I think writing this down now has made my confusion with the question make more sense now. Maybe Robin meant just the script alone?

Of course, the ‘feeling’ of the film can’t be conveyed through the script of course. Which might include things like the colour palette, the exact locations, the pace of editing and the acting, which in turn contributes to the pace of the scene or film.

But I think my confusion remains. These all quite obviously can’t be completely conveyed in a script. But if a script writer wants to be extremely detailed and wants to plan and be organised, they can make the script as detailed as they want. They are able to add exactly how the dance scene in Corruption happens for example. Or how the shots will cut between the dance scene and the main characters face in the car and become more and more intense until he starts to cry and then cut to the credits. It *could* have not been in there, but it also could have been. That is my confusion is that it is totally up to the writer what they want to write, we can’t assume what would not have been in the script. Because even editing decisions could have been in there…couldn’t they? Maybe I will have to do more research into how scripts are written.

But I can agree that we can’t all imagine the scene the exactly the same as the writer does and that’s why writing can’t be the same as cinema. And that is probably a reason as to why many people are disappointed when their favourite book becomes a film and it’s not exactly how they imagined. Writing and cinema are not the same thing. But I do believe you can make a script detailed enough to convey almost every detail in a scene.