As he spoke with confidence and passion about his craft, Hollywood script writing guru Syd Field enthralled the high profile crowd of Indian cinema through his words of wisdom. Invited to India by UTV Motion Pictures, Field, who is delivering a two-day long seminar on the nuances of screen writing, had the sharpest brains of Indian cinema present to hear him talk about the craft of what forms the basis of every film ' the screenplay.
'In Hollywood, filmmaking is all about hopes. Only after 11 years of hoping can your screenplay see the light of the day in the form of a film,' said the master screenwriter, who has collaborated with such noted filmmakers as Alphonso Cuaron (Y Tu Mama Tambien), James L. Brooks (Broadcast News, As Good As It Gets), Luis Mandoki (When A Man Loves A Woman), Roland Joffe (The Killing Fields, The Mission), and Tony Kaye (American History X). Over the years of writing various screenplays, reading some more of them while working at a production house, and teaching about screenplay, he said that he has now come to the conclusion that he does not aim to teach anything new, but just aims to sharpen the skills of the participants who attend his workshops. 'The principles of screen writing cannot be taught; it is a craft that has to be nurtured and sharpened,' he said.
According to Field, the film becomes an individual experience, which is larger than any culture. 'When a film like Rang De Basanti hits the international market, it becomes evident that the film is universal and manages to touch and inspire people globally,' he said, while talking about the elements that make a screenplay of a film unique. Among those present at his workshop included filmmakers Kamal Haasan, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Kamlesh Pandey, Sanjay Gadhvi, Ramesh Sippy, Raju Hirani, Sanjay Gupta, Farhan Akhtar, Ritesh Sidwani, Shashaka Ghosh, Govind Nihaliani, Aneez Bazmee, theatre Rahul Da Cunha, actors Shabana Azmi, Atul Kulkarni, Soni Razdan, Saurabh Shukla and Yana Gupta.
Calling the first 30 pages of the screenplay as most important, Field elaborated on the need to incorporate science and technology well in films, so that the end product is a seamless fabric of a story that flows with graceful undulations. He said, 'Hollywood is in the midst of undefined evolutions and revolutions in terms of the screenplay because films are now a fusion of art, science and technology. The evolution is similar to that what happened in the arena of art, where painters worked upon the evolution of how reality is depicted on the canvas,' he said.
Field began the workshop by asking the participants to reflect on what they would like to take back home after the two-day workshop, as he spoke of his own goal of 'expanding, enlarging and broadening the knowledge of the participants with regards to the comprehension and technique of screenplay'. He had the knack of breaking down the components of his talk into tiny details, while not losing out on the bigger picture. That indeed makes him the most sought-after screenplay writer in Hollywood today.