reading versus watching

I have one professor who's obsessed with reading screenplays and basically told us on the first day of class that as screenwriters, watching finished films is useless to us. I have another professor who told us on the first day of *his* class (in which we watch a movie every week, then watch it a second time and analyze it) that watching finished films was the best way to learn storytelling and we weren't going to get very much from reading scripts.

Prof #1 (the reading guy) makes a very valid point: you're writing a script, not a movie. No one is going to buy the imaginary movie that you create in your head as you're writing your screenplay; they are going to buy your script. And if you want the imaginary movie in your head to ever have a chance of becoming a real movie, you'd better write a damn good script. Which you can learn to do by reading other scripts and seeing how they work or don't work.

Prof #2 (the watching guy) argues that watching a film is primarily an emotional experience, and that we should be striving to get our scripts as close to the emotional journey of watching a finished movie as possible. He also points out, quite rightly, that "editing is the final rewrite" and that we can learn more about story structure from looking at a finished project that works well than from a script, even a great script, because things often change in shooting, and if the movie is good they should get better.

So who is right? Well, of course, they both have valid points. But after reading a bunch of scripts and watching a bunch of movies, and arguing vociferously with Prof #1 about this question, I have to say that I still lean toward the "watching is better" side of the debate. Of course I think you can learn a lot from reading scripts, and it would be ridiculous to try to be a screenwriter without ever having read a script.

I think reading scripts is entirely valuable for the technical, "how did they write this kind of scene?" knowledge. Certainly, if I was going to write, for example, a big action movie, I would read a bunch of those types of scripts to see how others have done it. What does that huge long chase scene at the beginning of Casino Royale look like on the page? That is certainly essential to know. But I think you can learn just as much about dramatic structure and audience engagement from watching a finished film--perhaps more, since a finished movie has been through the hands of actors, a director, a cinematographer and an editor, who, if they're competent, should know as much about cinematic storytelling as the screenwriter.

There's another argument in favor of watching, in my opinion. We're in the business of moving pictures. Movies may start on the page, but they're meant to be experienced visually--in the theater, on the big screen. Many people have written about how the human activity that's closest to watching a movie is dreaming. We go into a dark room, we stare at a bunch of still pictures, and our brain creates an experience out of them for us. David Howard and Frank Daniel, the intellectual patriarchs of the USC screenwriting program, write about how a movie should be experienced like a "seamless dream." (This is, by the way, in the introduction to a fairly technical book on screenwriting structure.)

I was in New York City for about three days over winter break, and during that time I saw four movies and two plays. And the whole time I was sitting in the audience, I was thinking THIS IS AWESOME. I remembered why I love movies and why I wanted to create them in the first place. I'd forgotten the magic of sitting in a dark room filled with other people and experiencing something beautiful together. Ultimately, film is designed to be experienced visually, emotionally and collectively. Even the best script in the world can't replicate the experience of sitting in the dark and watching a great movie with other people. And I definitely think you can't write a great movie without remembering this experience.

P.S. In the interest of full disclosure, the "watching guy" is my feature writing prof from last semester, and his class basically rocked my world. It's not hyperbole to say that his class fundamentally transformed my writing process in ways that I'm still only beginning to understand. The "reading guy" is my feature writing teacher this semester, and let's just say he has a very different approach. He and I have not gotten along so well this semester--I think we just have very different creative approaches. So perhaps I am a bit biased on this question. But of course, I still think I'm right.