Interview: Jiří Kubíček

“Enlightened script editing elevates the final film” 

Yesterday at the opening ceremony, the Anifilm Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to script editor, screenwriter, and teacher Jiří Kubíček. In the following interview, he talks about his professional career and the role of a script editor in the filmmaking process.

How did you get into the world of animation?

I graduated in Directing and Dramaturgy from the Department of Alternative and Puppet Theatre of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Then I immediately joined the Spejbl and Hurvínek Theatre, where I worked for seven years as a script editor and a director. But after those seven years, there was a sort of a little revolution. Miloš Kirschner, the main actor and director of the theatre, theoretically recognized that the director was the master of what happened during rehearsals; however, whenever he, as an actor, disagreed with the director, he stopped being an actor and addressed the conflict from his position of theatre director. So, at one point, several of us simply left, including the later brilliant animator Jan Klos, who worked at the theatre as a puppeteer. After that, we started looking around for what to do next. Puppets are closely related to animation, and the myth of Trnka and his collaborators was still alive and kicking back then. Stories and legends were going around about how people working at the studio worked 24 hours a day, drank red wine, and lived for animation. This myth really worked back then, so me and Jan Klos started trying to get into animation, and in 1973, we succeeded.

What were your beginnings at the studio like?

I started at the only available position, which was that of assistant animator. I assisted Stanislav Látal. I never animated anything; I just drove him around Prague in a Fiat 500. Then it happened that I started gradually moving up through the ranks from assistant animator to junior script editor and then to chief script editor.

What interested you about script editing and screenwriting?

I somewhat drew on my education. Emil Radok, who was Alfréd Radok’s brother and collaborator and a wonderful person, taught aesthetics at the Department of Alternative and Puppet Theatre before 1968. His deeply original aesthetics were based on a polemic with Marxist philosophy, which was scandalous to the people in charge at the time but at the same time absolutely liberating for us students. I never missed any of his lectures and they greatly influenced my opinion on and attitude to theory. I had studied both directing and script editing, and I had also worked as both a director and a script editor at the Spejbl and Hurvínek Theatre, so I was quite well prepared for the position of script editor of animated films. I was lucky in that in the 1970s, there was a lot of staff turnover at the Krátký Film Praha Studio, which also made animated films, because the studio staff was subjected to Communist Party vetting, which was taking place all over the country. Also, several people from the script editing department had reached retirement age and were leaving, so there was a vacancy. As a script editor, I took over the “Čiklovka” studio, where Břetislav Pojar worked. I became his “go-to script editor” at the time when he was preparing The Garden and collaborated with him on all his projects.

What films are closest to your heart? 

I definitely have to mention films by Břetislav Pojar. I greatly respected him, for example, for his series Hey, Mister, let's play, and at that time, I didn't even know what he was doing in Canada. Supervising and editing the script of The Garden, for example, was very interesting work. Pojar wrote scripts very slowly, painstakingly, responsibly. Moreover, after Krátký Film signed a contract with the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (UMPRUM), students studying at UMPRUM’s Film and TV Graphics Studio started shooting their graduate films in our studio, i.e. in a professional environment and with the aid of Krátký Film’s funding and script editing services. So I got to work with Pavel Koutský, Jiří Barta, and Michaela Pavlátová. I was there when these filmmakers started their creative careers at Krátký Film, and I did everything I could to help them do well and succeed in animation.

What do you think of how animation has changed during your time in this field?

I had the fortune to represent Czechoslovakia as a member of the board of the International Animated Film Association (ASIFA) in the seventies and eighties. Thanks to that, I could visit foreign festivals and I had a fairly clear idea of what animation looked like in the world. When I later became the chief script editor at Krátký Film, I resolved to do everything I could to bring our animation back to the top. And I think we eventually managed to do that quite successfully. The year 1983 came and with it, Jan Švankmajer’s Dimensions of Dialogue, Jiří Barta’s The Vanished World of Gloves, Pavel Koutský’s Visit Prague, the first Czech film made using the technique of “total animation”, and Ilja Novák’s What Is Your Opinion, Baron?, a healthily provocative film that he made at Krátký Film’s Prométheus Studio in Ostrava. It was a breakthrough year. Czech films suddenly started winning Grand Prix awards again. But most of these exceptional films were not exactly in line with the Communist Party’s policies and ideology, and who was responsible for that? Of course, the chief script editor! So, I became persona non grata and fully expected Pixa, the director of Krátký Film, to fire me at some point. The glorious era of Czech animation ended shortly after the Velvet Revolution. The entire film industry collapsed due to privatization. Another major change in the field of animated film, which had nothing to do with the previous one, was the transition from analogue to digital technology. I think this was probably the most significant change that has occurred in my lifetime.

What do the roles of a scriptwriter and a script editor mean to you?

This is a very interesting, topical, and quite pressing question. At the time when Krátký Film was active, specialised film script editing was one of the reasons why Czech animated films had such worldwide success. I’m not talking, of course, about its abhorrent offshoot – hard political censorship. Fortunately, I have not experienced that in animated filmmaking. Back then, a script editor was involved in the creation of an animated film from the first concept to its final mix. They had “power” over the film. And filming simply wouldn’t begin until they approved and signed the script. That changed dramatically after the collapse of the film industry. The studio system broke down, and script editing disappeared with it. Many wise filmmakers agree that the greatest problem with post-revolutionary free cinema, including animation, is the catastrophic lack of financial resources and the absence of script supervision.

The State Fund for Support and Development of Czech Cinematography was established with the aim of supporting filmmaking. Its Council, of which I was a member for fourteen years (on and off), exerted tremendous energy to address these issues. And it was successful to some extent because today an application for funding for the development or production of a film must include a script editor’s commentary. However... it's often included solely for the sake of meeting this requirement and it eventually has no bearing on the development of the script. For the producers, it’s a way to have their cake and eat it too. Yet we have some great and knowledgeable script editors or script doctors who can brilliantly analyze a script in the making and suggest to the writer ways how to further develop and improve it. Unfortunately, I know that their comments are often not reflected in the final version of the film at all. Why? Because they are not actually script editors and have no “power” over the film.

Enlightened script editing is characterised by the presence of elementary trust between the author (scriptwriter) and the script editor. It is important that they view the film from the same angle. The key advantage of the script editor is that they are not as “involved” in the project being developed as its author and always maintain a distance. Thus, they see what the author does not – and really cannot – see and are able to make adjustments to the project, which is sometimes invaluable. But if their role remains limited to the development of the script, as is now common, and they are not involved in reviewing daily work during the shooting, in the editing process, or in the recording of a commentary or dialogues and mixing, then their potential is severely underutilized, and it often shows in the final version of the film.

The indispensable role of script editing is now increasingly often performed by enlightened producers. They are truly masters of the films being made and have executive power over them. Therefore, it is very important that they have not just the necessary organisational talent but also a knack for script supervision. You can tell a great producer from an ordinary one by the fact that they are also a good script supervisor. I have met several such producers.

What does the relationship between a director and a script editor mean to you?

Similar to the relationship between a scriptwriter and a script editor, the relationship between a director and a script editor is (or rather should be) one of the most important relationships in filmmaking. Not to mention that in animation, the scriptwriter and the director are very often the same person. The director is the author of the film and as such, they are deeply involved in their project and too close to it. They need someone who, like them, is educated in the field, but is able to keep their distance at all times. This allows them to provide good, factual comments that will help the director.

You are also a teacher. What does teaching mean to you?

At present, it is my main and only profession. I’m trying to pass on to my students through teaching what I have learned in practice as a script editor. I teach theory, drawing heavily on what I have learned from Emil Radok and I apply it to animation.

What is the most important advice you give to your students?

Students usually have a quite clear idea of the visual aspects of their films, but they often don't think at all about what their films will actually be about. I help them to find a topic, to realize what they want their film to be about. And if it's a narrative piece, I make sure it has a beginning, a middle part, and an end. And that it makes sense.

What does the Lifetime Achievement Award that you were awarded by Anifilm this year mean to you?

It was a big surprise for me, because my profession, which is largely based on theory and mostly invisible to the public, usually doesn't receive any awards. It already happened to me at the PAF Olomouc festival, where I received an award for my contribution to the theory of cinematography, and I received a similar award at the Biennial of Animation Bratislava. But I'm very happy that someone noticed that I've contributed something to Czech animation. I'm not a director, although I did direct one series out of necessity. And I also wrote a few scripts, but I was always primarily a script editor – even when the name of the script editor was not allowed to be in the credits, so their work was completely anonymous.