Good Scripts or Bad Scripts?

Someone recently asked me whether, as part of my work, I read a lot of good scripts or a lot of bad ones. A few days later, someone else asked me a similar question, but from the perspective of originality: do I read many stories that feel genuinely new?

It took me a moment to answer, because that is not how I approach a screenplay.

When a writer or production company submits a script to me, they are not asking for a script report; they are asking for a consultation. They expect an external, professional and constructive perspective aimed at helping the script reach its best possible version. To do that, I have retained the approach I developed as a film editor. I read a screenplay much as I once watched dailies for a film in the editing room: looking for exactly where the film lies within the material.

I draw on both analysis and instinct to listen to what the material is telling me, observe what is emerging, and understand how best to use it. I look for ways to tighten the narrative, to ensure the reader is engaged, emotionally invested and fully immersed. The screenplay should conjure up this film - and no other - in the mind of the person reading it.

I also aim to prepare the script to withstand the entire filmmaking process by ensuring it is perfectly understood by everyone involved, because the screenplay is the film’s totem, its central point of reference.

If its intentions are not absolutely clear, they may be interpreted slightly incorrectly or shifted off course, and the resulting film will be less powerful.

That said, the difference between script development and editing is, of course, considerable. At the screenplay stage, it is still possible to add, reshape, clarify and refine. In the editing room, by contrast, the material is already fixed and reshoots are rare.

So, do I mostly read good scripts or bad ones?

My answer would be that I read scripts that require varying amounts of work before they are fully realised. I am convinced that the quality of a screenplay depends less on the quality of its underlying idea than on the quality of its execution. In other words, on the angle from which the story is approached, the narrative choices that are made, the depth and authenticity of the characters, the dialogue and the interactions. It depends on the ability to make a story feel unpredictable while, in retrospect, seeming inevitable.

Above all, it depends on the talent to transform an intention into an experience for the audience.

Deborah Braun / 90pages

Script doctor

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