The Role of the Writer

The lord of the rings movie made alot more of the roles for females unlike in the book where most if not all roles were for males.

The lord of the rings book had predominately male roles due to the times that it was concieved in. During the years of 1937 - 1949, when the book was being written, people were very sexist. Men were viewed as more than woman. So to keep the movie with current views the movie writers added female characters.

In the book there was alot of characters who were not important for the plotline. So the movie writers removed those characters as they are not important for the main plot line and just take up movie time, which costs money and can cause the audience to become bored.

In lord of the rings, the exposition involves the fight where salron gets his fingers chopped off and the king loses the ring in the water. This allows the viewers of the movie to know what has happened up to the point of the movie beginning. This makes the story shorter so that they don't have to present all those actions before hand.

The actors worked around the script to change parts that they felt could be improved upon so that it suited their characters but without changing the main or additional plot lines.

Unit 24.1 - Writer roles Lord of the rings screen play

Script Terminology

Slugline

The slug line is the location reference for the scene that it is in. It is always in bold and capitals

So for example, in the harry potter script we see: 

EXT. DARKNESS

EXT shows us that outside is going to have DARKNESS and so lets the director know exactly how scene should be like.

OR 

INT. DARK ROOM - NIGHT TIME

INT means "internal" and so tells us that inside this room it is going to be dark. However it is followed up by NIGHT TIME showing us that the filming should be done at night time.

Action Description

The action description is the part of the script that shows us what the actors are doing that is not dialogue. For example this includes where they are going or facial expressions.

For example in the Harry Potter script:

"He leaves the house and heads towards the light"

This tells the person who is playing the old man exactly where he needs to go.

Personal Description

The personal description tells the actor exactly how to say something. So for example it could tell the actor to shout his line or to whisper etc.

Character Name

The character name in scripts are always bold and centered so that it's easy to distinguish whose line is whose. For example:

Old Man

Lord of the rings screen play adaptation

Commissioning editors

Commissioning editors spend their time actively looking for the best writers who are best suited to write the script for the movie that is wanted. They then sort through the writers treatments and bring all of the good ones forward for debate.

Producers

The producers are in charge of everything off set. They ensure that everything is moving along on time and that they are not exceeding their budget. Well respected producers often help the film out because of their good reputation.

Directors

The directors are in charge of everything that happens onset. They generally are the ones that completely oversee the creative side of the movie.

Script editors

The script editors have to make sure that the scripts dialogue makes sense and works well during the production stages before the actors start acting out that scene. If it doesn't it is also their job to edit the script to ensure that the script does make sense but without taking away from the plot of the story or any other side plots.

Agents

The agents are the people who are hired by artists to represent them. They are often the ones who do all of the talking on the phones finding jobs for the talent. They are hired by actors and even technical crew.

Writers

The role of the screenwriters varies greatly and it is a very difficult role to perform.

After the initial ideas have been written down by the person wanted to make the film. They then go to the screenwriters where those ideas are used and turned into long scripts with the main goal in mind being sales and production. Most of the time however the screenwriter is the person who initiates the movie because they generally come up with the ideas. Then the screenwriters will pitch the new script to the film studio, production company or producer.

From then on after the treatment has been created and accepted by a production company, the writer will generally have hardly any involvement in the production. Sometimes they are asked to come in as advisers or they can be established as the producer themselves and end up directing the movie. From here on the screenwriters however just look over the script with the script editors and help to continuously make improvements.