Ethan Zimmer
Zach De Piero
June 15, 2015
Artifact Analysis
David Roy
I have decided to interview a somewhat successful screenplay writer and director. David Roy has written and sold many screenplays he is also working on a screenplay writing book to help young writers produce better work, so have decided to venture further into his writing and do a full analysis.
You first thing you have to notice is the genre. Well he doesn't write articles or informational essays, but he writes stories. He has a very Joseph Campbell approach to stories and even in his developing book about creating good stories he has written it as if it was a story itself. Stories are the corner stone of human communication sense the beginning of time. The neanderthal drew pictures on the cave wall to tell stories and thus began the humans interest of stories. David roy has drunk the cool aid and is not shaping the Joseph Campbell approach of story telling into a way that is pushing the the story structure and hopefully shaping a new era of story telling in Hollywood.
I have read some passages from his book that is in development, “Screw the Pooch” a satire on the famous screenplay writing book “save the cat” and I have also read two screenplays, Mad Song and Temptation both around 120 pages long.
When you're analyzing the works of a screenplay its a little harder to find a credibility statement, this could be a first time writer or someone with a large resume. You open page one and you jump right into the story, so credibly is hard but tone or rhetoric is easy to understand. In David Roy’s case it is incredibly easy to understand the tone of his writing, He does not write for children to say the least. He writes to make adults think of the present and to make the familiar task of life seem strange, “photogene”. He tries to make people take there fictional blinders off and see the weird fate of the world that is in front of them. I believe his stories are mostly to educate, question, persuade and entertain all at the same time, but he is playing in a tricky world. There is a fine line between having the audience question the wonders of life or just over shooting over everyones heads. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of people got a different reading from his writing then what he has intended, and that is the risk you take when you write open ended stories like he does.
I think the main points in both of his screenplay were the same, they are all about making you question and that no matter how much you plan or try and prevent something you cant stop fate or that fate can be random and unexplainable. The main points or theme remind me of the film “Don't Look Now” a film about what is real and present and what is the future and a vision, but at the end of the film it kinda comes out of left field and makes you wonder why, for days on end. David Roy tries the same approach and it works in one of his screenplays, but its conveyed through a day with a stripper and a day of a priest and when there paths collide the odd reality life takes you in a turn that is thought provoking. It works very well in this screenplay but he try the same in his earlier work, before Temptation, Mad song and it kind of misses. Maybe because the context was less interesting or I wasn't the target audience.
In conclusion David Roy’s work doesn't cater to the populous of America, he writes what he likes to see and he writes for the thinkers and the people who want to be challenged in everyday life or how they see everyday life. He is unlike the blockbuster studio cookie cutter writer you see coming out of Hollywood everyday. He is a fresh educated writer who wants to challenge the main stream and bring intelligence back to the cinema.
