A MacReviewZone exclusive interview with Syd Field!

Though I've only recently started using Final Draft software, I've been reading Syd Field's books about screenwriting since I was a creative writing student at Florida State University.  Anyone who knows screenwriting knows Syd Field because his books (including Screenplay, The Screenwriter's Workbook, ' and Selling a Screenplay) are the screenwriting textbooks.  Though he's been a confirmed believer in the power of Final Draft software since version 4 (see my reviews of Final Draft 5 and Final Draft 6 ), his support of the software has evolved into the creation of a new story formatting component of FD6 dubbed "Ask the Expert." 

I recently had the opportunity to talk to Syd Field about screenwriting, screenwriting software, and the Mac as well.  As always, his comments provide sage advice for novice and seasoned screenwriters alike.

RA: When did you begin screenwriting, and what drew you to the profession?

SF: I started writing freelance back in the late 60's making documentaries for David L. Wolper, I worked as a writer, producer, and director and researcher on some 125 TV documentaries, including Jacques Cousteau and National Geographic programs.  After that I freelanced as a screenwriter.  I wrote nine screenplays in seven years, two of which were produced [Jayne Mansfield's last film, Spree, and Los Banditos, optioned here by Robert Aldrich, but after he died, it was produced in Argentina].  Four of the screenplays were optioned [by Jane Fonda, Dennis Shryack, Jon Voigt, and Ronald Cohen], but with the last three, nothing happened.  I was told they were good, but nobody was interested.  I didn't pay attention to the market, and I like to do what nobody's doing [Field cites Antonioni and Fellini as immediate influences].  So I ran out of money, and looked for a job.

I took a position with Cinemobile Systems as a reader.  We reviewed seventy screenplays a week, and I was reading two or three a day.  Out of the two thousand screenplays I read, only forty were submitted, and as a writer, I wanted to see what made a good screenplay. I didn't know what I was looking for at first, so I asked myself what made those forty screenplays better than the 1960 other screenplays I had read.  It wasn't until I taught a screenwriting course at Sherwood Oaks Experimental College [a professional school run by professionals, where writers taught writing, directors taught directing, etc.] that I began to develop my ideas about screenwriting.  I became aware of how certain things happen at a certain point in time in a film, an intuitive pull, and I began to check those forty screenplays against my ideas until I thought I found a form, like a space really, or a shape, for screenwriting. I realized that nothing like it had ever been done. 

Then I felt the pull to go back to writing so I started writing, rewriting, a few of my old screenplays. Wrote a pilot for television, as well as an academy award-nominated documentary.  I also wrote a draft of my Sherwood Oaks curriculum, about 65 pages, and sent it off to an agent I knew in New York and it was bought immediately. 1 1/2 years later Screenplay, was published. And that started it all. Now I've written six books, the last one published called Going to the Movies , is a personal journey, a memoir of the people and their movies, and how they influenced my ideas.  Now I travel around the world giving lectures and teaching classes on screenwriting. I'm also writing a sci-fi fantasy screenplay, and creating software for the writer.

RA: When did you first begin using a word processor to write screenplays?

SF: Late. I avoided that as much as I possibly could, but in the late 80's I started working on a computer [an Epson running DOS].  At first I would write longhand and type it in, but then I started letting go of the handwriting and just writing on the keyboard.

RA: How do you find using a word processor to be different from writing longhand?

SF: Writing longhand is much slower, but it has a real, organic feeling.The computer allows me to go faster, allows me to capture what I'm thinking. You catch your thoughts much easier.

RA: And when did you start using Final Draft?

SF: Version 4.0 in the early nineties. I was not willing to make that commitment, but when the Final Draft people asked me to look at the program, I thought " My God, what have I been doing?" It makes it so easy?

RA: Which features make it so easy?

SF: It takes the margin for slug lines and dialogue out of the mix, and all you have to do is push one button and it does all of your formatting with no problem.  Their motto says it all: "Just add words." It just keeps making it easier and easier.

RA: You developed the "Ask the Expert" feature for Final Draft 6.0. How does it add to the software package?

SF: I pitched the idea last year. Rather than helping a user write through their mistakes, I thought it would be an interactive feature, that it would give writers a tool to sharpen their own skills. I took the material from The Screenwriter's Problem Solver , formed that into an interactive program and presented it to Final Draft.

RA: And how  do you see "Ask the Expert" developing from here?

SF: It could include scenes from screenplays as examples. It could even have references to current screenplays so people could see how someone else could apply it to their own problem.

RA: So it would be more interactive?

SF: Absolutely!  Up until 6, Final Draft was vertical software. With "Ask the Expert" they've added a totally interactive module so it will expand horizontally as well as vertically.  Without more horizontal modules, you're just adding bells and whistles. Now they've included a real tool to aid screenwriters.

RA: How would you compare your module to something like Dramatica Pro storybuilding software.

SF: Ahh, Dramatica. I would love it if it worked.  The Dramatica people asked me if I would be willing to try their software, and I asked them "what does the program do?"  After twenty minutes of theories, I thought it all sounded like gibberish. If they cannot explain what the program can do for the writer, I'm not interested. I just don't get it.

RA: I'm sure you knew this question was coming, but do you use Final Draft on a Mac, or a PC?

SF: On a PC. Probably because I was trained on a PC.  If I went into Kinko's, or an office, I know my way around, but with a Mac I don't know how to get to the programs. But I think Apple's going to be doing great things in the future -- their hardware is so far in advance of anything else out there.

Russ Aaronson
English Teacher,
Pompano Beach, FL

Check out the Books by Syd Field

Posted Tuesday, May 7, 2002

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