"Dan Simmons - The Offering" - читать интересную книгу автора (Simmons Dan)

The Offering
by Dan Simmons
Introduction

Just recently, as I write this in the early autumn of 1989, I optioned my novel Carrion Comfort to a film
and TV production group. As is the case with many would-be Ben Hechts, I wanted first crack at the
screenplay.

All right, said the production group, but first let's see what you can do with a half-hour TV script.

I've never written a teleplay or screenplay before, but being a child of the second half of the Twentieth
Century, I feel like I've lived in the movies for most of my life. As a writer, I've heard all of the horror
stories about doing work-for-hire in this particular collaborative medium: the senseless rewrite demands,
the producer's girlfriend sug-gesting a "great idea" that guts your script, the contempt so much of the
industry has for writers ("Didja hear the one about the Polish starlet visiting Hollywood? To get ahead she
slept with all the writers!"), the endless com-promises of quality in the face of budget or perceived
mar-ket demands or whim or ... you name it. The list of aggravations seems infinite.

That's why it was interesting to me that my first attempt at script writing was a lot of fun. The rewrite
suggestions not only were minimal but definitely improved the prod-uct. The people I dealt with were
professionals, and I al-ways enjoy working with people who know their business—whether it's in
carpentry or filmmaking. Of course, my agent says that it was a fluke ... that studio was OK but the next
will drive me to drink and beyond. My agent is a gentleman and a friend ... he humors me ... but I know
that in his heart he thinks that I should quit while I'm ahead.

Well, maybe. Maybe after one more TV show. Then perhaps a movie. Just a little movie ... and then, just
maybe, a twenty-hour mini-series. And then...

Meanwhile, I thought you might be interested in how I decided to adapt "Metastasis" to teleplay form.
Reading scripts is not the easiest or most enjoyable literary pursuit, so if you skip over this entry it's
understandable.

But if you do bear on, it might interest you to know some of the demands and restrictions a low-budget
syndi-cated TV series makes on the writer who's adapting a story.

First, the thing has to run about 22 or 23 pages to fit its half-hour format, averaging about a minute per
page, since the rest of the time is taken up by the fershtugginer commercials that keep so many of us
from watching these syndicated shows.

Second, as I'm sure you know, the "exciting parts" come right before the commercial cluster breaks.
(They don't really give a damn what happens the last few minutes of the show ... they don't need to get
you back after that break.)

Third, budget restrictions on this show allowed only three or four characters, or at least only that many
charac-ters who could speak. No exterior shots (but the director wanted the "windshield" shots in the
opening). Only two interior sets and those easy to construct. Limited special effects—one or two optical
processes, a few seconds of simple animation, and a guy in a monster suit and/or mask.

Fourth, they wanted a new title. "Metastasis" was out. They were afraid the audience would flip channels
rather than watch something with such an ominous, disease-ridden sound to it.