EXTRA CRITICUM

Rolando's Manifesto: Questions to Ask Before You Show

In the weeks since I first wrote this 3-page manifesto in response to a question from one member of my online scriptwriters workshop, I've continued to have requests for copies. So I figured, it wouldn't hurt to post the whole manifesto here for those who wish to revisit and share. Enjoy!

In the first meeting of the Sunday group, Candyce Rusk posed a question which I’m afraid I may have answered somewhat glibly and it’s got me thinking that there’s a whole can of worms here that needs to be addressed with more serious attention than I was able to give in the 45 seconds I took to answer in class. And I’m afraid it’s such an important topic, I just don’t want to put it off one more day. And I need to share it with both workshop groups.

Essentially Candyce’s question was about timing, specifically whether by January 28th, the date of a salon in Austin at which she’s been invited to share 15+ pages of a new script, she might realistically expect to have produced those pages.

I sort of chuckled at her asking me this, pointing out the obvious fact that she certainly is the ultimate authority on her own speed of output. But I’m afraid I missed the more important question behind her question. Not whether one might have produced enough pages to share by that date but whether to share pages of a brand new piece while it’s still in the incipient phase of being born is a wise thing to do.

See, here’s the thing, kids. There are countless activities we can point to which may surround and attach themselves to writing but are not in and of themselves actually writing. And some of these things, like soliciting feedback before it’s time, can do serious harm to the play or screenplay we’re birthing.

When I’m at the beginning of a new writing project of any kind -- prose, fiction, script, music -- I take great pains to resist the temptation to talk about it in anything close to specific terms until I’ve completed a first draft. I do this for a few reasons.

Serendipity and Meryl Streep at the Quad Cinema

On Tuesday afternoon, my plan was to take my Mom to see Claude Berri's THE TWO OF US at the Quad Cinema. About an hour before we headed out I learned that -- oops! -- in a last-minute scheduling change, that time slot would be filled instead with a screening of Ai Weiwei's Oscar-nominated doc, HUMAN FLOW. The film interested us both just as much so we grabbed our coats and headed the two blocks to the Quad.

I was surprised to see a big crowd filling the lobby of the tiny multiplex at 4PM on a Tuesday and apprehensively asked if there were two tickets available. There were. We went in, grabbed our seats and waited as virtually every seat in the theatre (70 total?) was slowly filled. 

The Quad's programming director walked down to the front of the theatre. As he did so, I realized that there was probably going to be a Q&A and I briefly recalled the time in 1999 when I had been called to the front of one of the Quad's screens to introduce my film, ALL THE RAGE. I remember still what I said that night. The film had already screened at dozens of film festivals across the globe and throughout the U.S. but that screening at the Quad would be its New York Premiere. And I made a joke about my delight at finally getting the opportunity to screen my film in "the center of the universe."

"We have a great honor this afternoon that the filmmaker, Ai Weiwei is here to introduce his film. And..." And he paused and cleared his throat for dramatic effect. "And I can hardly believe I'm saying this but to introduce Weiwei we have three-time Oscar-winner Meryl Streep."