Writing For The Screen
Dr. Christina Kallas is a writer-producer and the president of the Federation of Screenwriters in Europe (FSE), which unites 9000 screenwriters and 21 writers' guilds across Europe and is currently growing at phenomenal speed to involve Eastern European screenwriters too. She is a member of the board of the Screenwriters Guild of Germany (VDD), a member of the German and of the European Film Academy. She is also the artistic director of the Balkan Fund, the script development fund within the framework of the Thessaloniki Film Festival (which was fundamental in the development of the 2006 Golden Bear winner Grbavica) and a member of the screenplay funding commission of the German Federal Film Board. Kallas has been teaching Screenwriting since 1998 at the German Film & Television Academy in Berlin and since 2004 also at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She is the author of three books: European Co-Productions in Film and Television (Nomos Verlag, 1992), The Art of Invention and Narration in the Cinema (Nefeli, Athens 2006) and Creative Screenwriting. An Attempt at a Method (UVK 2007, working title). As the president of the FSE, Kallas is chairing a Conference on European Screenwriting in association with the European Film Academy, the Robert Bosch Foundation and CNC-funded Balkan Fund in November 2006 at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, aiming to tackle all the following issues and their implications for screenwriters.
German Films Quarterly spoke with Christina Kallas about screenwriting in Germany and Europe.
What is the situation for screenwriters in Germany? Would you say that Germany has a healthy screenwriting sector?
At the moment it is tough for screenwriters, that's for sure. There was a short period when Germany had started developing something like a healthy screenwriting sector in TV, but this is now also over. There are several reasons for that - to name just a few: cheap programming like reality shows and the predominance of the audience percentage quotas even on public TV, which leaves no room for trying things out. The cinema situation is the same as in the whole of Europe: no screenwriter can live from writing for the cinema alone.
Do you think writing talent is being recognized and reaching the screen, or does the system stifle originality?
Now, there are times when things go perfectly well, but often by the time you have gone through four co-producers, two commissioning editors and a couple of directors (especially the ones who do not stay in the film after all) the screenplay will be better in some ways but also lacking originality - and often miles away from what the screenwriter initially wanted to write. A screenplay is still considered as something formable, something on which everybody can and should lay their hands - screenplays are notably still referred to as "blueprints" which is even less than the architectural layout or design. With the result, however, that most writers with self-esteem will soon move on to write novels or direct - which is the profession which attracts all the attention and respect in the film business, in Germany but also in Europe in general. As Robert McKee says in an interview (Dennis Eick, Drehbuchtheorien, UVK 2006) "You don't teach them, you don't pay them, you don't respect them!" He adds that if he were a screenwriter in Germany, he too would rather write novels.
Do you think that screenplay development has been professionalized in the last decade or so?
There is a certain degree of professionalization, this is true. For one thing, screenwriting has been included in the curriculae of the film schools and academies. And there are a lot of screenwriting seminars, and some of them are excellent. But what has happened is that we have also imported the re-write practice of the American film industry. A producer who respects himself fires and hires writers as part of his job during development. People seem to think that this is the secret of success of the American films. Well, I don't believe that this is true and there is enough evidence to the contrary. The excellent screenplays, such as those by Charlie Kaufman or Guillermo Arriaga, do not go through that process. Besides, such practice is contrary to the European moral rights tradition.
Germany was one of the first countries together with France which recognized moral rights as rights of creators of copyrighted works and fought to include them in the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works in 1928. Now this tradition is destroyed through the back door. I personally believe we got something confused here. A screenwriter does need help in development and it is good to discuss scripts. But there are professionals who know what they're doing and who can help without stifling the originality of a screenplay: They are called script consultants or dramaturges or story editors and they are mostly colleague screenwriters: again, some of them are very good. Rewriting is a difficult business as in any other literary form, while half-education (which is the dark side of the many, often too short, workshops which have literally flooded Europe in the last decade) is sometimes more dangerous than helpful.
Where do you see the most exciting work coming from?
Screenwriting requires the creativity of a storyteller and the craft of both the dramatist and the filmmaker. Many writers who have tried both find screenwriting more challenging than writing novels or other narrative fiction. The most exciting work comes from writers who have understood this and who love the medium for what it is and not as an intermediate stage to directing or novel writing. And who manage and/or are lucky enough to stand in there and keep their voice and vision. This is still extremely difficult to do but it will get better as the times are changing. The notion that screenwriters are artistically legitimate is hardly a new one, but it's been out of fashion for quite a while. And it also partly lacked arguments whenever the high cost factor was brought up. Which is no longer the case, as we are in the middle of a big "turning point" connected with digitalization and its consequences both for film production and for distribution.
Are producers becoming better at identifying quality writing, and developing it carefully?
There are certainly producers around who are extremely knowledgeable and valuable partners for a screenwriter. But even they do not have the time and funds to be able to stand in as long as it takes. A producer in Europe usually only makes money when a film goes into production and the date of production often has more to do with financing than with having a finished screenplay. Which means that a producer will push the project into production even when he or she knows that it needs more work. I strongly believe that the subsidies, whether national or European, should trust the talent more than they do now. For instance, there are very few subsidies who allow for the screenwriters to apply. The German Federal Film Board is one of them. But most of the rest, nationally as well as internationally, think that the involvement of a producer can guarantee that the project is made. This is just not true and where it is, it does not necessarily mean that the project should have been produced as it is. It is definitely time to review this practice.
Does the writer get enough power in the process, or is it a constant struggle?
The situation has certainly improved and is constantly improving as writers such as Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovitch, Adaptation, The Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind), Guillermo Arriaga (Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada) or Andres Tomas Jensen (Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself, Mifune, Open Hearts, Brothers), to name a European, give new rise to the idea of the screenwriter as the auteur and creative generator of cinematic product. Taking into account the double character of the screenplay, there are signs of increased respect both for the role of the screenwriter in film production as well as for screenwriting as the literary form of the 21st century - but there is also definitely a long way to go. The time is right though and we may soon be looking at film history in a different way than the auteur theory has lead us to do in the last few decades. I like to think of Kaufman, Arriaga and Jensen as the pioneers of a new era for screenwriters and not as the big exception.
But isn't a film mostly the work of a director?
No! The director is often considered as "the primary creator in a collaborative process." This sounds like a paradox to me. The cult of personality and the romantic ideal of the genius, which are the basis of auteurism go against the collaborative nature of the cinema. Nobody gains anything from this silly insistence on auteurism - to the contrary a lot of very good screenwriters flee their craft because they do not get enough respect for their work. Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges became directors to protect their screenplays. Since then many others have followed. But funnily enough we have come to look at them as directors who write their own screenplays rather than the other way around!
Is team writing with the director then the best solution?
This is the approach which is being preferred at the moment in most European countries, for example France. But what does it mean? A director also works together with the DoP, does he ask to share his credit? Where the director is also a writer, it is very difficult for the screenwriter, as he is basically serving the director's vision - and it is not always the best for the screenplay. Team writing is as difficult and problematic in screenwriting as in any other form of writing. Another big European problem, totally ignored at the moment, is that there are almost no spec scripts written here. A solution may be that screenplays are published just like theater plays. It is also very possible that in the future screenplays will be filmed more than once (a sort of simultaneous remake), which will change our perception of the art of screenwriting completely.
What are the different challenges of the two mediums (cinema and TV) for a writer, and what are the pitfalls of moving across them both?
Moving across different mediums is always a problem. For instance publishers don't think highly of screenwriters, even if there are enough facts to prove them wrong. TV writers are considered even less highly than cinema writers, but on the other hand they have often more power and are treated with more respect. In some European countries (as in the UK, Ireland or in the small countries like Greece) the audience knows the names of the TV writers more than those of the TV directors. This is definitely an interesting development. But Europe also needs to attract and keep its writers in the cinema.
What about the improvised films? How does this work and what are the challenges?
This screenwriting method is very fashionable at the moment and there are more new methods and practices to come (think of interactive entertainment). But these are methods and not alternatives to screenwriting, which is not just the dialogues but, most importantly, structure and characters and thematic elements. Such methods do not eliminate the screenwriter, they make his job a bit more challenging, which means they require even more craft and experience.
What is the FSE and how do such guilds function in Europe? What is the difference between German screenwriters and other European screenwriters?
Screenwriters in Europe face more or less similar problems. The FSE (Federation of Screenwriters in Europe) unites all the European guilds - at the moment there are 21 guilds and 9000 writers. Part of what we do is to lobby and monitor on an international level and intervene whenever something goes against our rights. We are also trying to make the industries and the public aware of the screenwriters' issues and raise public and professional awareness for our profession. This year we will be organizing a big Conference on European Screenwriting, the first of its kind, which will address the status of writers for the screen throughout Europe. It shall serve as an occasion and platform for the understanding and discussion of the situation of screenwriters in Europe as well as the nature and state of European screenwriting, at a time when things are changing, also due to digitalization and globalization.
It is clear to us that the solution to the problems of the European film and television industries lies in improving the conditions of writers in order to improve the quality of screenplays which will then improve the quality of films. This is an important premise for the discussions that take place in our individual countries and at European level. The conference will be also the first of a series of events for the VDD, the German Guild of Screenwriters, which in 2007 will be celebrating its 20th birthday. We also have some intriguing plans for the upcoming Berlinale and for the Frankfurt Book Fair which we hope we will be able to realize in 2007. Our idea for the book fair is not only to get publishers and editors to present their upcoming novels to screenwriters (normally projects are presented to producers) but also to get screenwriters to present their novel ideas to publishers. The incredible publishing success story of screenwriter Robert Loehr's Der Schachautomat may be a good inspiration for attending.
So what about German copyright law? This seems to be a high priority for the Screenwriters' Guild of Germany.
The German Copyright law is being modernized and adapted to the realities of our digital age. In autumn of 2003, the first amendment to the Copyright Act (first legislative round or 1. Korb) implemented the mandatory guidelines of the EC Directive on Copyright in Information Society. Those issues which are not prescribed by the EC Directive but are left to be regulated by the member states were reserved for the "second legislative round" (the so-called 2. Korb). Unfortunately the interests of authors and originators were barely considered in the amendment, although the primary goal was, and still is, to improve their legal position. On the contrary, our position was further undermined. The VDD is now focusing on the new planned amendments which are of great importance to screenwriters, e.g. the proposed grants of utilization and exploitation rights to unknown exploitation methods, compensation for unknown exploitation methods in the future, transitional provisions as well as film ownership rights. In these issues the legislator was clearly led by the needs of the exploiting parties.
What about the new exploitation media?
For years there was exploitation without authorization rights of utilization in the new exploitation media, particularly in the Internet, and without paying the author and originator their legally entitled fair compensation. What's more: Screenwriters, in order to receive fair compensation for the legal grant of their rights are asked to identify and locate the actual exploiting party. The other way round - for the exploiting party, who is regularly and generally accepted to be the financially stronger party, to identify and locate the author - has been deemed as "too costly"! As a matter of fact, the VDD is considering to have the German Supreme Court review the constitutionality of some of the provisions, especially the provisions regarding the unknown exploitation methods and the transitional rules due to their expropriating character, in the event the German Federal Parliament passes the draft without any further revisions. This is no small issue for screenwriters. Given the rapid and far-reaching developments in digital media services, it is probable that within a relatively short period most consumption of audiovisual material will be outside the traditional methods of television broadcasting.
You were recently invited to talk in front of the European Parliament. What was the issue there?
I was asked to present the opinion of Europe's screenwriters at the public hearing organized by the Committee of Culture and Education at the European Parliament in Brussels on the proposed Audiovisual and Media Services Directive (AMS). The hearing ran for two days and included speakers from various stakeholders: broadcasters, independent producers, telecommunication companies, advertisers, scientists and consumer organizations. The aim of the event was to inform members of the European Parliament of the diverse views and positions of these stakeholders regarding the proposed directive. It is the first time that writers were invited to share their views with the European Parliament and we are grateful to Ruth Hieronymi, who extended the invitation.
The focus was the contentious issue of product placement, a form of advertising whereby products are woven into the fabric of the film or TV program on view. Well, placing a product in a program clearly is the combination of advertising and content. The current Television Without Frontiers Directive (TVWF) prohibits this combination, while the proposed Audiovisual and Media Services Directive allows product placement. A similar issue is being addressed by our colleagues in the Writers Guild of America who have organized a major campaign to try to ameliorate some of the worst effects of this kind of product placement and quote a depressingly long list of attempts by advertisers trying to change the content of program to make them more suitable for the placement of their products.
The European Parliamentarians particularly enjoyed the suggestion used to make the problem clearer, that they include product placement in their political speeches, suggesting that this would earn money for the Parliament, thus reducing the burden on the tax payer of paying for their work. Which could mean that only the nice speeches would earn the money of the product placement while the speeches (like drama) dealing with the many difficult issues, which our societies are grappling with, will not be as attractive.
What about European quotas? Will they stay?
Well, our view as well as the view of all the creative workers in Europe is that the Audiovisual and Media Services Directive's quotas for European works can and should be extended to non-linear audiovisual services: Given the rapid and far-reaching developments in digital media services, if such an extension of obligations were not included then the meaning and effectiveness of the Directive would be fatally undermined. But this view is not shared by many other than the creatives at the moment. What's more, copyright is seen as a roadblock to digital content distribution. The value of content still needs to be fully appreciated. If it is not, it is the end of Europe. Identity is not built on money.
Further information about the Screenwriters Guild of Germany and its activities can be found at 
www.drehbuchautoren.de
Further information about the Federation of Scriptwriters in Europe can be found at www.scenaristes.org