Is It Better To Write for Hollywood?

I found this interesting article from 2009 in the L.A. Times archive. In it one of Stephen Belber, a playwright, and a recent screenwriter and directors discusses the pros and cons to writing for the stage and writing for the screen. He seemed to find validity and problems with both, however it seemed that his heart was truly in writing for theatre. There were a few key points in his article that I thought were really thought provoking, the first being: "Playwriting is difficult, lonely and vastly underpaid compared with screenwriting". I actually happen to disagree with this thought. I think that play writing can be a very collaborative process. Recently I have been working on writing with some of my friends and I have found, that while at times difficult it can be a very lucrative process. I do agree about the underpaid, but if writing alone isn't your style you can change that. Again, this might have been said just to make a point of contrast, but I think that this statement corners play writing into a box and doesn't allow readers (especially those who aren't involved in theatre) to know the possibilities of play writing. The second point in the article that struck me was when Belber was taking about why writing for the stage was more appealing than writing for the screen. He actually brought up something that we talked about in class. He said: "without theater as a breeding-ground, my characters tend to fall short of full development, for they lack specificity in their fundamental . . . unspecific-ness". He mentions that because film is able to get up so close and personal that a lot of the action and depth of characters are eliminated because the camera picks up the small details, leaving a character a little bland. With plays, the up close and personal aspects of film aren't always there so characters have to be fully developed and have substance.

Over all I think this is a pretty good article. It made me think a lot about what type of writing is popular right now, and even the different ways of writing.

Here is the link to the article so that you can read the full thing.

PLAY WRITING V. SCREEN WRITING