Further Research on Screenwriting Including 2 Screenwriters Researched.

2 Screenwriters researched:
Aaron Sorkin
He started as an actor in the early 80's but properly got into screenwriting in 1991. He wrote scripts for three massive films for castle rock entertainment, which grossed about $400,000,000. At this stage of his career he was most definitely a script writer not a screenwriter but he was mastering his craft and in 1998 he started his career in screenwriting. His first big hit was Sports Night on ABC/ESPN which was a behind the scenes look at American sports. The show was critically acclaimed and many people wanted the show to continue thanks to how unique it was but cancelled by ABC/ESPN after its low ratings.

The west wing was his longest running show as a screenwriter. Started in 1999 it was described as a political drama which Sorkin went on to write 87 screenplays for. After 7 years and many awards the show ended, partly rumoured due to internal conflicts. This was by far and away his most successful time as a screenwriter.

I like how Sorkin has developed his ideas through his times in many different areas of the industry. The fact he used to be an actor meant that he could really finesse what was needed in a screenplay so that it was easy for the actors to use as well as the whole team producing his screenplay.

Even though he went on to write more screenplays West Wing was his biggest success. He actually launched a screenwriting masterclass in August 2016 so others can benefit from his knowledge.
From looking through Sorkin history it is really interesting to see his career path and it makes me think that I need to look at how others view my screenplay because they may find it hard to understand my ways of writing.

Joss Whedon
He started screenwriting in the late 1980's but his big start was Buffy the Vampire Slayer  in 1997. The series lasted until 2013 with many award wins and is what Joss is mostly known for. The most interesting for me about Joss' career is the amount of money that was spent on his ideas that never actually went onto our screens. At least $3,000,000 of producers money was spent on his ideas that never where actually produced. I find this fascinating because I can't image this much money going to waste.

I remember Steve telling us that he wrote many screenplays through his career which he was paid for, but never actually ended up on TV. I think this shows what a massive industry TV/Film is. If this sort of money can be spent without too much worry if it is actually used I think it shows how much money is generally being made.

Famously Whedon's work included anti authorisation, power, powerlessness and many more extreme subjects. I like when screenwriters test something different because that way we may end up with a very different show on TV and we can get shows like Breaking Bad that test the norm and do something different.

Further Research on Screenwriting 
Whilst looking further into screenwriting I realised that there always seems to be repeated storylines, for example Man vs Man or Man vs nature or the supernatural. It always seems to be A man against somebody else.

Dialogue is very important in a screenplay. Sounds silly, but it is very easy to overdo the speech and let the camera tell everything. However it is very important that when dialogue is used, it is in the right place and also is the right dialogue. It needs to impact the scene and actually make it better. It sounds silly but it's been a problem I have come across whilst writing my screenplay.

I wanted to look further into how screenwriting is as a job and what it pays and what qualifications you need. From the website I looked at it says you don't need a degree to properly get into screenwriting but it would of course help you. $58,000 is apparently the median salary for a screenwriter. However I seem to think that this is probably not the norm, at that most people probably earn a lot less as they could be contracted for only a few months and then not working for the rest of the year. Even though they stated that you might not need a degree to get far in screenwriting, looking at other sources it does seem unlikely to get a very top job without having studied something.