"Writing in Pictures" by Joseph McBride

[RayKelly]

Now that the power is back on in western Massachusetts, I have time to finish reading an uncorrected proof from Vintage Books/ Random House of Joseph McBride's Writing in Pictures: Screenwriting Made (Mostly) Painless. It is due out in early 2012.
No surprise here, it is a winner. This is highly informative and practical "how-to" book on how to develop a concept (original or adaptation) from synopsis to treatment to outline to finished screenplay. If you dream of writing for film or television, this is a readable guide on the craft and business.
Here is some of the early reaction to it provided by Vintage.

“I must confess that I had never read a how-to book straight through for the sheer pleasure of it, and I never expected to — until I got my hands on the splendid Writing in Pictures ... A word of warning: in this book you will not find the Six Keys to Compelling Characters, the Seven Secrets of Successful Plotting, or the Eight Jungian Archetypes No Studio Executive Can Resist. There are no magic formulae here — but if you have a story to tell, this book will give you the solid practical advice you need to tell it in the most effective way. Writing in Pictures is a short course in how to think cinematically. It will change the way you write. It will change the way you watch.”
— Sam Hamm, screenwriter of Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming

“In this unique contribution to the screenplay literature, Joe McBride invites writers to connect themselves to literary tradition, relying less on formulas and more on intelligent uses of classic storytelling technique. He blends general precepts, concrete examples, hard-won experience, and lively anecdotes into something more than the usual script manual: an invitation to participate in the great human adventure of sharing stories.”
— David Bordwell, author of Poetics of Cinema

“A real contribution to a much-abused genre. Most screenwriting “how to” books are either formulaic, craven, or both ... McBride’s book is something else. It’s a straightforward, considered and lucid meditation on the arts and crafts of storytelling for the screen, informed by McBride's unsurpassed knowledge of, and deep love for, the movies.”
— Howard A. Rodman, screenwriter, teacher, and vice president of Writers Guild of America West

"If it is possible for only one book to embody the ethos of screenwriting, this is the one, a guide to screenwriting that is more than a guide — craft, history, practical advice, philosophical bedrock, wisdom, wit — and through it all, as in the very best screenplays, the reassurance of one clarion voice."
— Patrick McGilligan, film biographer and editor of the Backstory series of interviews with screenwriters

“McBride offers the kind of friendly but honest advice that will make him the mentor to a new generation of aspiring screenwriters. Born of long experience and exceptional insight, he distills the lessons of screenwriting history into a first-rate primer for the screenwriters of tomorrow.”
— Julian Hoxter, screenwriter and author of Write What You Don't Know: An Accessible Manual for Screenwriters

[RayKelly]

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/doug_moe/doug-moe-anecdotes-illustrate-film-s-fickle-nature/article_a83770f6-6142-11e1-b93b-0019bb2963f4.html
From the Wisconsin State Journal:

By DOUG MOE

One of these years the Wisconsin Film Festival should invite Joe McBride back to town to tell stories of the glory days of film on the UW-Madison campus, as well as what happened to him later when he went Hollywood.

In fact, why not this year?

McBride, 64, who teaches screenwriting and film history at San Francisco State University, has a new book, “Writing in Pictures: Screenwriting Made (Mostly) Painless,” published this week. It is filled with practical advice and the kind of colorful anecdotes a festival audience would devour.

One of my favorites in the book, from a chapter on adapting works of fiction for the screen — and securing the film rights — concerns a night of drinking tequila with director Sam Peckinpah and famed author Ray Bradbury at a Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles.

Peckinpah’s legendary thirst left him face down on the table. McBride turned to Bradbury and told the author how much he loved one of his short stories. McBride said he would like to make it into a film, though he had no money to buy the rights.

“I have many short stories and very few lovers,” Bradbury replied, adding he would charge nothing for the rights.

McBride was stunned. He didn’t make the film — rights aside, there was no money for that either — but includes the story to illustrate how with a little chutzpah, there’s no telling whose head you might turn.

And don’t even get him started on Orson Welles.

Actually, Welles might be just the place to start, for it was the “Citizen Kane” director who made McBride fall in love with movies in the first place.

Originally from Wauwatosa, in September 1966 McBride was taking a beginning film class taught by charismatic UW-Madison professor Richard Byrne. “Kane” was screened one day in class, and the young McBride was blown away.

In the manner of young dreamers everywhere, McBride decided to write a book about Welles’ films. He secured a print of “Kane” and watched it 60 times over the next four years. McBride discovered there were 35 film societies on the Madison campus and eventually ran one himself.

By summer 1970, McBride finished his Welles manuscript and was working as a reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal. He was trying to reach Welles through the director’s New York attorney. The Great Man did not respond.

McBride gave up on reaching Welles and headed for Los Angeles. He and Mike Wilmington were researching a book on the director John Ford.

Once in California, McBride called Peter Bogdanovich, a young director and film writer he admired. Bogdanovich answered and said, “I’m on the other line with Orson.”

It led to an introduction for McBride, which led to a friendship. Welles eventually put McBride in his film “The Other Side of the Wind.” Though the unfinished film was never released, its legend is such that a Northwestern professor is writing a book on its making. McBride was cast as an earnest film enthusiast.

In all, McBride published three books on Welles, the most recent in 2006. During his Hollywood years he worked as a screenwriter (the cult classic “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School” is among his credits) and authored other film biographies (Frank Capra and Steven Spielberg among them).

In 2000, McBride moved north to San Francisco, and a teaching career. It was while searching for a textbook for his screenwriting class that the idea for the new book first surfaced.

“I wasn’t impressed with any of the books,” McBride said last week, by phone from California.

So he wrote his own. The new book is cautionary. McBride quotes his screenwriter friend, Sam Hamm, telling film students, “If you can do anything else, do it.” The odds are that long.

But those who won’t be dissuaded will find tremendous practical value in McBride’s book. He uses a Jack London short story to outline the entire creative process of adapting fiction for film. He encourages budding filmmakers to develop their original ideas into low- (or no-) budget films using new technologies.

Finally, McBride encourages new screenwriters to be leery of advice. He recalls his first agent in Hollywood telling him in 1973 not to write comedies about teenagers. They don’t sell.

One week later, “American Graffiti” was released. It grossed $115 million in the U.S. alone.

[Glenn Anders]

We have so many talented Wellsians, and Joe McBride is one of the best. Introduced to him by -- I believe it was Todd Baesen -- my first impression was that the man was both incredibly learned and superbly modest. But I shut up, myself, after learning just a few of his never-ending incredible accomplishments.

Certainly, this review of the book and the man is, as they used to say, BOFFO!

Speaking of the excellence of the people at Wellesnet, we should dip into our "development funds" and hold a seminar, utilizing even a handful of our great members.

[I'll shut up again. Beginning to sound like a booster!]

Glenn Anders

[RayKelly]

A fine interview with Joe McBride by Craigh Barboza at http://www.mydvdinsider.com/2012/03/01/joseph-mcbride-qa/ Here are the Welles-related bits:

Only a few years later, in 1970, you got to meet Welles and were working alongside him on one of the director’s unfinished films, The Other Side of the Wind. You had a role in the movie and helped write some of your dialogue. What important lesson about moviemaking did you learn from Welles?

I learned to write better dialogue that actors could play. I learned how actors are directed; Welles, I believe, was the best director of actors in the history of film. Orson Welles was my film school.

Your book “What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?” describes a number of projects that Welles toiled on but never completed before his death in 1985: a film adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes’ novel “Don Quixote”; a thriller called The Deep; and a Brazilian film from 1942, It’s All True. You once said you’d like to see these partially completed projects released on DVD so the public can enjoy them. Is that any closer to becoming a reality?

Parts of It’s All True are available in the 1993 documentary It’s All True: Based on an Unfinished Film By Orson Welles. It’s a fine film co-directed by Richard Wilson, Bill Krohn and Myron Meisel. But parts of the original film were lost, and there is a lot of nitrate footage slowly decaying at the UCLA Film and Television Archive for want of funding.

I had the Los Angeles Film Critics Association donate $9,000 we earned at one of our awards shows, which went to restore 20 minutes of It’s All True, but no other donors have surfaced. Stefan Drossler of the Munich Film Museum did a restoration of The Deep, which I’ve watched twice. It’s based on a black-and-white work print, since the negative is missing, and parts of the sound and image are missing and/or never recorded.

Welles’s companion and collaborator Oja Kodar has blocked the restoration. It’s not major Welles, and it’s not as good as Roman Polanski’s similar Knife in the Water, but it has its merits and should be seen. It’s too bad all the unreleased material can’t be put out on DVDs, at least, for the world to see more easily.

You teach a course on screenwriting at SFSU. Did Welles ever talk about wanting to teach?

I heard someone ask him how he would teach film during an event at the University of Southern California. He said he wouldn’t show any films; students have already seen too many. I think that’s one reason we see so many old films and TV shows recycled today.

Welles didn’t believe in filmmakers imitating other filmmakers. He said, “I would teach the history of the world.” I like to quote that, because too often student filmmakers know camera lenses and sound equipment but haven’t read enough history or literature and don’t know enough about politics, sociology, economics. You need to know all these things so you’ll have ideas for films.

[RayKelly]

Another interview with Joseph McBride on his new book "Writing in Pictures."

http://www.masslive.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2012/03/screenwriter_film_historian_jo.html

[Roger Ryan]

Good interview, Ray! McBride provides a lot of meat with his answers.