Full Script, Marvel Style or something inbetween...
So, I'm not around much anymore and now that I show up there is a chance I'm just causing trouble.
This (http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/4419/decompressed-006-mark-waid-and-matt-fraction-on-the-marvel-method/) has been on my mind... for a long time, but has been given a lot more thought lately. Full script vs Marvel Method is what it breaks down to, sort of. Those are kind of two extremes, and it can just mean where in the spectrum from really detailed script to really open script does your comfort zone lay.
For me... and I haven't talked to any other artists about this, so this is only my opinion, reading a script is painful. That may be a little harsh, so maybe difficult is a better word. I have to prep myself to get into a script. I've heard it said that some writers write their script to entertain the artist. This seems impossible, as a script really isn't a formatmeant to be read for entertainment... only to convey information. If I want to be entertained, then I will read prose (which I really do enjoy doing).
My favorite part of the linked podcast is the discussion of artists going through Alan Moore scripts, highlighting the necessary and crossing out everything else. I can see this as streamlining the working process down the road nicely.
Considering that many of the original group to this site came from an old forum that was an off shoot of a Warren Ellis forum, I can guess where a lot of opinions will land... but I might be surprised. So, thoughts from others (writers and artists) on either side of this debate.
Comments
Kieron Gillen interviews Matt Fraction and Mark Waid:
Apparently, full script writing has been the big way of doing things for a while now. This hasn't always been the case. Mark Waid describes how DC was the house of full scripts while Marvel (having developed the "Marvel Style" out of necessity) did more of a back-n-forth between writer and artist, to the point that the collaboration was sometimes plotter->artist->dialogue-er... all separate people.
Mark Waid has worked both ways, and says that you can get some awesome results from the Marvel method (he also gives an example of a case of some real crap). This is something that Matt and Kieron are just now exploring a bit more. Enjoying the results so far and wondering why they write the way they do. It comes down a lot to finding an artist you are comfortable/have a strong connection with, to work in a more open fashion.
As for me: I write full script because I want the artist to know how I see the panels and the page. I see both as I'm writing -- and the putting-together of that puzzle is one of my favorite parts about writing comics. I have an excellent sense of pacing and a strong visual eye, so my layout requests are generally observed.
HOWEVER: I always tell the artists I work with that if they can do it better, they should. Wanna change a row of verticals into a bunch of horizontals? Fine by me if it serves the story -- and as long as it doesn't screw up the pacing.
The level of detail I go into in a script depends on whether I'm writing something without an artist attached yet or with an artist -- and also who that artist is. My scripts for @marvinmann are bare-bones, because I trust him and I know what he will deliver, and that it doesn't require a lot of instruction. My scripts for a new partner are more detailed, especially if the artist is relatively inexperienced and may need some hand-holding.
My scripts for OLD WOUNDS, which John is drawing, are detailed for a different reason. We're building a new world in that story, designing places and characters as we go, and I put my suggestions in the script rather than doing a story bible. Also, because it's a crime story, there are specific things needed in specific places -- just as in the WWII stories I've done with Marv. And if I don't specifically request a type of weapon or uniform or provide photoref for that object, it may not be accurately reproduced.
Perhaps we'll try that someday, Russell.
I have gone through scripts occasionally (not Russell's because we talk them out heavily before hand, nor Josh H.'s for the same reason) and deleted a bunch of stuff I don't need, in only to help me focus on what's critical.
Scott would write out paragraphs that were anywhere from 3 to 6 sentences that were direct actions. He would then treat each paragraph as a page and take a single sentence or two sentences as necessary and group those into a panel. Once that was done he deleted anything that seemed like extra chuff and add dialogue to panels that needed it. Very bare bones and very open to interpretation. If I'm remembering correctly, for some sentences he would write (1-3 panels as you think).
I did Marvel style at DC, by their request. Actually I did it twice, once where I actually did write a plot script by their request, and once where they just used my breakdown as the script - my breakdowns are as detailed as Scott Lobdell's scripts. More so, actually.
I don't like it.
I'm not categorically against and it CAN work really well but for most of my WFH career, I have no idea who the artist is going to be, and so it's a complete gamble. It also more or less requires you to go back and dialogue over finished art, which for my own idiosyncratic reason, I don't like doing,
Likewise, my scripts tend to be dialogue reliant (although not necessarily dialogue heavy) and so it's hard when I don't know that the artist will do.
But that last bit is key - I would trust Tradd, for instance, to do Marvel style and indeed, will probably do a project that way with him. My scripts for him are already barely more than the most stripped down description possible, and he can and does change a bunch of panels in the process.
But my Thanos and Darkseid Carpool Buddies of Doom stuff are written only as dialogue. There's no panel description or even pages specified. That's all Rafer. Again, because I know (and trust) how he works.
Even within my usual script style, I don't put down page layouts (mostly) and I always tell the artist to let me know if they have a better way to do it.
I write to benefit my audience, and in the case of a script, the audience is the artist. Many artists I've worked with prefer to have the page layout direction in the script itself, as well as as much detail and I can provide (and I don't go into a ton of detail - I like to let their imagination work a bit) since this is an area they personally stuggle in, or find that it's a big time sink for them.
For the sake of efficiency and easier collaboration, I tend to write in full script with the panel layouts and a level of detail the artist has stated they enjoy receiving. That said, I would totally be down for providing less direction - Katie Cook just numbers her panels and gives basic descriptions on what's happening or who's talking for her MLP stories, for example - would be a fun exercise if the artist were comfortable working that way.
Later, I switched to full script because. Well.
On a good day, I've got a passion for the informational Tetris of page construction, especially since I also have a thing for digression and in-panel acting, and balancing those hard and soft storytelling needs is the puzzle and challenge and delight of writing comics.
On a bad day, I'm an overly precious shot caller who's not as clever as he thinks he is.
So, I'm currently a full-script guy, with the usual caveat that if the artist has a better way, they should go for it. I'm trying to be a lot less shot-call-y, but I'm doing a mixed job of it in the three things I'm scripting this year so far.
I'd actually love to go back to that borderline Marvel-style-with-dialogue style I started out with; for me to feel like I'm doing my job, I need to have the plot and stage business/acting and dialogue in there, more than I need to call shots and layouts, per se. Layout wise, I like/think in 5-7 panels split on three tiers prrrrettty much always, which is how I know what I write in a full script will fit, but it's probably fundamentally stifling on the artist end even when I don't call out the actual grids.
Misc. notes:
- The right artist is key.
- It's interesting that Jimmie (and Mike Allred, as mentioned in the podcast), despite being writer/artists, prefer having a full-script if they have to work with someone else.
- Possibly because everyone involved thus far's a Western comicker, nobody's brought up the name/roughs version of scripting out of Japan, where the "script" is dialogued layouts that are either run past the editor first, or given from the writer to the final artist.
I've done that...twice? I think? Once for an early version of R+M, and once for a project that hasn't happened yet, but where the artist has never drawn a comic in her life and wanted the layouts and a script to get used to the medium.
- It's less brave now that John's said it, but: I hhhhhhhate reading
scripts. Mine or others'. Pitches I love, but scripts are just always a
slog. It's reason number two I never put myself out there when there's a call for peer kibitzing.
In a scripts defense, I don't know if upon conception it was meant to be something that entertained the couple of people that will look at it to develop the project. It's simply a tool to convey the basic information that reaches the final project in the most successful way possible. Reading one is like reading the instructions to put together a complicated piece of furniture... not entertaining but necessary.
I wonder if when a writer attempts to make a script more palatable, if that is more of a candy coating for the editor or whomever may make the decision to green-light an initial project?
Fraction has described the feeling of the dynamic between the writer and artist to be the reason he's played with Marvel style. Wanting to make his collaborator feel more invested in the project. I'm not sure if this actually works that way, but it's an interesting experiment.
See, your example is the kind of situation where I'd draw the line at doing it as straight WFH at all; if I'm creating a book or a sustained cast whole cloth, I expect either royalties or some kind of creator participation deal, at least.
Whereas if I took a wholly WFH gig that happened to require more work than usual (let me use Daredevil as an example; I've got zero DD stories in me, that gig would be a wrench), I don't know that I'd expect more money on that, within reason.
I guess I'm coming at WFH from an office job perspective. Like, I'm contracted to work 40 hours a week. There's weeks that kick my ass within the 40 hours a week I'm contracted to work, and there's weeks that don't, and I get paid the same either way. If I work more than 40 hours a week, there can be overtime pay.
I guess I (and I stress "I") look at the method of creating a comic, on the art and writing levels, be they full-script, plot first, pencils only, pencils and inks, etc, as being the 40 hours a week of varying difficulty. Whereas creating original characters or concepts for a company's sustained use is more along the lines of above-and-beyond overtime, and should be compensated as such.
That's maybe an oversimplification; a writer/artist doing an entire book by themselves should definitely be compensated more, just off the top of my head...
Anyway, with me breaking it down into salaried time versus overtime...I can absolutely see a case for feeling that having to put more of yourself creatively into a WFH gig than what an average one requires of you as falling under overtime. I just sort of had to think through it out loud first.
So a writer saying that they couldn't work Marvel style is tantamount that if they were an artist they would find it hard to work from full script.
Who is in charge of the breakdowns? This is perhaps one of the reasons that some artists prefer to become their own writers.