From the Room to the Set

I’m a big fan of journalists. I was one, full-time for almost a decade. However, as I’m presently a TV and film writer, I feel a responsibility to correct the misimpression that writer James Greenberg gave in “Actors Who Call ‘Action’ ” (Aug. 11).

He wrote, “The reality is actors know their way around a set better than most, certainly better than screenwriters who spend much of their day locked in a room.”

I don’t know one screenwriter who hasn’t worked on a film set. Indeed, when I left journalism to become a TV and film writer, I worked crew positions for four years on films such as “To Sleep With Anger,” “Fled,” “Mo’ Money” and “My Teacher’s Wife” just to see how a script worked on the floor.

It took another two years for me to sell my first screenplay and then get hired as a “Star Trek: Voyager” staff writer. Does Greenberg truly imagine that a writer writes great scripts by staying locked in a room, fantasizing he’s the literary equivalent of Vin Diesel, fast and furiously typing 24/7 so his scripts are cut and toned.

I and every writer I know can tell you the responsibilities of every crew position on a set, and have had contact with everyone from the best boy to the Teamster drivers.

Greenberg might also wish to take into consideration the fact that directors must know real life firsthand to present it visually.

Aside from the bigger-name writers, most of us need day jobs to sustain us between writing gigs.

Actors, due to their fame, often must lead a “reel” life compared with the “real” life we writers enjoy. My writer friends have marriages, their children’s games to attend, their education to provide for, family relationships and more that they could not attend to if they were, as Greenberg describes, spending much of their days locked in a room.

My weekly non-writing time spent in my community and with children provides me with insights and experiences that can be explored on the small or the big screen.

Before you criticize us unnecessarily in the future, Mr. Greenberg, it would be noble of you (and I do consider journalism a noble profession) to interview some of us. You’ll find our doors unlocked.

SKYE DENT

Los Feliz