The Final Rewrite: How to View Your Screenplay with a Film Editor’s Eye

This book offers a unique perspective on crafting your screenplay from an editor’s point-of-view. Special features include before and after examples from preproduction scripts to post production final cuts, giving screenwriters an opportunity to understand how their screenplay is visualized in post production.

By the time a script reaches the editing room, it has passed through many hands and undergone many changes. The producer, production designer, director, cinematographer, and actor have all influenced the process before it gets to the editor’s hands. Few scripts can withstand the careful scrutiny of the editing room. This book reveals how to develop a script that will retain its original vision and intent under the harsh light of the editing console. It provides insights that writers (as well as producers and directors) need and editors can provide for a safe journey from the printed page to the final release.

This book is ideal for aspiring and early career screenwriters, as well as filmmakers and established screenwriters who want to gain a better understanding of the editing process.

John Rosenberg is a professor at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts teaching the aesthetics of motion picture editing. For over thirty years, he has worked as a feature film editor, as well as a producer, writer and production executive, for such companies as 20th Century Fox, New Line Cinema and Artisan. Along with feature and TV work, John has written and edited a variety of reality-based and documentary projects, including for National Geographic.