Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 723: The Essentials of Screenwriting with Pilar Alessandra

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IFH 723: The Essentials of Screenwriting with Pilar Alessandra · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

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You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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Enjoy today's episode with guest host Jason Buff. On today's episode, I'm going
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to be talking with Alessandra about screenwriting. I just read her book, The
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Coffee Break Screenwriter, and I mean it's it's an amazing book. It's got
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all kinds of activities you can do to kind of jumpstart your creativity and start
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really figuring out what your screenplay is about and what the characters are, you
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know, what their motivations are, what they want in the story. I
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really enjoyed it, and it's got a lot of stuff that I haven't seen
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another screen You know, there's a million screenwriting books and I try to read
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as many as I can, and this one had a lot of great new
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stuff in it. So I highly recommend it. Here's my interview with the
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amazing plar Alessandra. I have like a typical work week for you, Like
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what I mean, are you do you have like a pile of screenplays that
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you are going through? Orre you talking with screenwriters on the phone? What's
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kind of your world? Like you there, My world is a little bit
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busy. I wouldn't recommend it to everybody unless you want to commit to workaholism.
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I help on two scripts a day and I run not Already Funny monday
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to day. I run four different private writers groups. This is These are
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things I actually don't advertise. They're made up of writers that I've picked out
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of clients that I think that are really at a certain level with their writing
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and are as good in a room. So I run those private writers groups
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four times a week, and then I also have six week classes that I
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teach, currently teaching one on Saturdays, so I've thirty to three thirty and
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that's those tend to be first draft classes, and then I also do rewrite
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weekends and the occasional specialty class. I'm very very excited because I'm also teaching
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a TV collapse about every two months now and it's usually a one day intensive
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and then when I'm not doing that, I'm really lucky. I get to
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travel and teach in other countries and recently just got back from South Africa,
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which was amazing. I guess they spent five days with an animation company called
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trigger Fish and thirty five writers from all over Africa, So that was really
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cool. Is that ever intimidating to you? I mean, do you you
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kind of pinch yourself and say, you know, wow, Yeah, Like
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every time I'm invited somewhere, I just think that they've just sent the email
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to their own person. Imposter syndrome. Yeah, we kind of go through
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that for a little bit, like well you know this and you know,
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and they're like no, no, you. So so yeah, I'm very
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very lucky and it's really cool. So yeah, I work really hard,
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but it's a great job. So working with creative people, do you is
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there something that they have in common that they're looking for that they need in
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terms of they have a certain way of thinking, they have a certain way
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of wanting to create and want to write, but they just need somebody to
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come in and organize their thought or something like that. I think everybody wants
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to know are they expressing their intention? They had this idea in their head,
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or they had this person in their mind, or they had this amazing
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scene. Is it there? I think one of the reasons I called this
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on the page my business was because it really all came down to was it
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there? Was it on the page? It can live in your mind.
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You can help a director brings it out or an actor, but if it's
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not on the page, then it's just not working. But that's what everybody
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wants to know. Am I seeing it? Is it there? Will audiences
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see it? And if it's not there, then we talk about what's the
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best way to express that so that they can get their intention out. One
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of the things that I've had to learn over the years was, Okay,
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where is my talent? What am I good at? What can I You
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know, I can see when I write, I kind of see scenes.
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I see it, and it's almost a way of like taking dictation, putting
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it on the page and saying, Okay, I've got a movie, now
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how to So I take that movie and then structure it right and put it
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right so that what I'm actually seeing is what I'm conveying to people, you
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know, right. And then there's the tricky part because if what you're seeing
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is sort of a list of things, I see things like yeah, I
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see the other thing, that can get monotonous and it can feel cutable.
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But if you phrase it in a way, you know, I see it
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and it looks like this thing. You know, if you're using a simile
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that works for you or a metaphor. I mean, people don't don't appreciate
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I think how much screenwriters are writers. They have to find the right phrase
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in order to convey visually within their head because they're A list of things doesn't
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work. It has to be a sometimes it's concise sentence. So the word
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choice is everything page work. It seems like a lot of you can take
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a lot of liberties with certain things when it comes to kind of making your
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vision come to life, And I was wondering what you thought about that in
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terms of just do you find that there's a lot of as long as they're
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getting their vision through that they can kind of play with that. Yes,
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if it's readable, it's working. If it doesn't make the reader stop to
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notice the format or look at the page number, it's working. People are
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so hung up on you know, there am I doing the correct format?
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But I really believe over the years it has loosened up because at the stage
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that you're submitting your script, it's for people to grasp onto the story and
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characters and then start pushing it upwards. So if that's not coming through,
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if they're not completely involved, it's not going to go anywhere. They're not
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going to path on it because you did some kind of incorrect formatting. They're
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going to path that they're bored. So yeah, even oh I call it
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waiting. Sorry, everybody will just assume you use some bad lay language there.
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So it'd be really funny if it just kept okay, okay, let's
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try to let's you know, let's keep it on the table here. Don't
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work blue. Even David Trottier, he wrote The Screenwriter's Bible, and he's
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known lovingly as doctor Format. You know, he's he's over the years said
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as much. You know, if it's working on the page, if it's
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you know, the things, the objects you want notice are being noticed,
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and the visuals are coming through, and the dialogue is clear, and you're
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working down the page with them with a certain pace. It's one of the
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biggest things that I remember was when I was in my younger years, i
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read, you know, Shane Black screenplay for Lethal Weapon, which is kind
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of like what everybody has to read when they're first starting out, and it
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just blew me away, like, you know, even noting parts of it
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where it was like, you know that he was in the kind of house
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that I would buy if I sold this screenplay, and like all these little
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things that he put in just to kind of keep people interested. And it
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just seems like in the good screenplays that I've read, it's all about just
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keeping people's attention, you know, building that tension, making sure that every
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scene has a reason to be there and everything is pulling you in and just
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affecting you, versus some of the more amateurist things that I used to read,
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which was you would just have people talking in dialogue that kind of went
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nowhere, and people would be creating a world, but they wouldn't necessarily be
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creating a story. No, I totally agree with you, and you know,
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fortunately, I think writers have there's so much more out there now for
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them as far as resources go, that they know now that you know,
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just hanging it on dialogue is not the way to go. The scripts that
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I've read over the years have gotten better and better and better. We'll be
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right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
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And the bad news is that means your competition is getting is also getting
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better. So now when people sort of when it's not screwing, when when
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people so now, when it's not working page wise, it's not so much
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because people are hanging it on amateur. Wait, sorry, I'm getting a
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little bunsent. So it's not that people are getting amateur and they're writing.
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It's that they sometimes they're just actually too full of bells and whistles. Now,
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now it's like, I'm not going to tell you the story. I'm
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going to go to a really cool flash forward. Now I'm going to go
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back in time, and now I'm gonna go from somebody else's point of view
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and witch genres. I'm so clever, and so when that starts happening,
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that's sometimes what I see is screwing things up. Not because you shouldn't be
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invented, because you should, but because they're throwing all the cool spaghetti against
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the wall and it just feels like spaghetti. It's cool. Kind of the
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Michael Bay version of a screenplay sounds. I think, what Michael Bay does,
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you know, he commits to I think if people don't know what they
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want, like, you know, if they're writing a Michael Bay movie,
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fine, commit to it. But if you're writing a Michael Bay movie but
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it's half that and it's half Tarantino, you know, and it's also a
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super India at the same time, it's like, okay, make up your
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mind. It's that kind of spaghetti mess that yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Well I remember when when I was in film school, Tarantino was Tarantino had
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really just come out, when I think pulp fiction was out and Reservoir Dogs
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came out. I think when I was a sophomore, and it was funny
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because you know, I was taking a screenwriting class and every single person in
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that class started writing Quentin Tarantino screenplays, you know, and they had the
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dialogue between two guys that was kind of like didn't really have anything to do
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with anything, and there was something kind of you know, in the background
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that you were supposed to They just kind of missed the point of that and
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just went for the funny dialogue versus it's funny dialogue because you know something bad
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is going to happen. It builds that tension, you know, the kind
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of hitchcock way of showing you something bad is going to happen and then having
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people do stuff you know they would just forget about that part. Yeah,
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you've totally just nailed why that scene works, which is it gets our defenses
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down. You think, wow, these are just two guys who are just
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talking about just dive, fun stuff. And then when you see the blow
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of the scene, which is you know, they're on their way to kill
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a room full of people. That is what that scene is about. That's
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why it has to be there, and you're right after that. People wrote
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a million copies and I read them all because I was videos at the time,
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and they didn't have any reason for being there. They were just clever
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and and you know cleverness without contact, which without it connects think anything.
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You know. It's a cute scene, but it feels it kind of wrecks
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the screenplay. It feels out of place. Now I want to I want
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to step back a little bit and talk about your time at Amblin and working
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with Amblin and DreamWorks and that that period. And so if we can just
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go back in time a little bit, that's a long way back in town.
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Oh my goodness. Well, I can't let it go because I'm a
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huge Spielberg and Zee Meccas fan. You know, I first took on a
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job because it was a really cool job. It was like, oh,
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well, this would be great. You know, I can I can work
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from home, and I can do with the other things I was interested in
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and hang out with my friends. But my work workaholism. You know,
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soon, you know, thing got in my way where I was reading tons
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of scripts for them. When I first started, it was the heyday of
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Amblin. Jirass Park had just hit Findler's List, and you know, everybody
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was feeling really good about the content and it was a real or sort of
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happy, go lucky place that I remember, right I was in my in
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my t you know, I need to show up and on Friday people were,
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you know, having a beer and you know it felt like yeah,
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and you know you go in every day and the place looked a lot like
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the Flintstone Compound to me, you know, had these cute little hutches and
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yeah, it was, it was. It was pretty amazing. I think
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I remember seeing that in like a Barbara Walter special or something because he knew
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that am and then they had all the Jurassic Park stuff around in dinosaurs.
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Yes, and it was. It was such a cool place to be working
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in the twenties. You know, I was like, wow, this is
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this is awesome. And I was definitely learning on the job. You know,
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I made some screw ups, but I also had you know a couple
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of creative executives really thought I knew story and you know it would would you
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know, give me some of their more trusted work. And over there,
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once you were trusted and we're working your butt off, you know, you'd
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also start doing notes on existing projects. So that was interesting for me to
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as a reader, what you're usually doing is going yes or no. As
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somebody is doing notes. You're saying, well, of course, because it's
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a project, and this is what you can do about it, this is
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how you can make it better, which is very much the kind of work
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that I do now. And when it became dream Works, you know,
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I I got to be senior story analysts, one of one of a couple
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of senior story analysts, which really just meant work harder. And then when
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Bob Zamchi did have a deal with dream Works and he lives on the lot
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for a while there I was sort of reading a sort of a go between
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between both companies. It was interesting, just tons and tons and tons of
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content that was coming my way, and I was really getting I think,
16:11
pretty good at homing in on what made a script exciting and where it might
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not work for the executives I was working for. And that was what led
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me to create a bunch of writing tools that I used in classes and became
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the root of my book. It was a great learning experience. Where were
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most of the screenplays coming from. Were they just people that were submitting screenplays
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or were they now it was all the big agencies at the time of CIA,
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I C M, Brain, Morris, APA, just just a you
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know, the big ones, which I can't always say, and by opinion
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from from reading so many scripts over the years, is necessarily always a good
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thing because since you know, since that work, and now that I've been
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on my own for so many years and I've read so many writers who aren't
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represented or represented by smaller agencies, I have to say I think sometimes the
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studios are missing out because there are some wonderful work out there that that isn't
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wrapped by a big, shiny agency, and and and you know that's where
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a lot of unique voices are. So you know, I've read some,
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i would say, over the years, even better stuff than I read back.
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Then, do you think it's important for writers to try to get an
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agent so that they can get into that world? Yeah, unforceually it still
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is, because you still need somebody who can champion your work and has the
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connections that can that can reach out for you. So yeah, you still
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want to try very very hard to get an agent or these days a manager,
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because a manager manages your entire career and may understand that you have more
18:11
than just one sellable project, that maybe you have something that would be good
18:15
as a writing sample to get you work or to staff you up, or
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maybe you have an incredible play that needs to get out there or a web
18:22
series. So that's what a manager does is tries to get you out on
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all kinds of levels. An agent in turns around, it tries to sell
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the script. Okay, now, when you were reading these screenplays, would
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was there any is there any sort of moment when you would kind of know
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that it wasn't a good screenplay? I mean, is there a typical pattern
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that you would see in terms of, you know, a screenplay arrives,
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you start reading it, and then you start seeing maybe like red flags.
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Well you know, there's something that happens in the second act, and it
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happened then, and it happens now where I'll read something. It has a
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really strong first act, it has a great concept, but I kind of
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call it spinning its wheels, and the second act it doesn't really know what
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to do with that concept, and it starts playing one trick over and over
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again, and you start going, Okay, I've been here before, we
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get can we get out of here? You know, can we get out
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of this mud? And know that it's spinning its wheels and if it has
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fails to ever sort of cleverly get out of there, and then usually that's
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that's that is a problem that I see. Sometimes the problem is actually the
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third act, where everything has been sort of interesting and fun and games,
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and you know, it's trucking along in the second act, but then there's
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no clever There isn't a clever resolution. We'll be right back after a word
19:52
from our sponsor, and now back to the show. There's just sort of
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a cheating resolution. You know, Oh, they get the treasure, they
20:03
get the girl, they live happily ever after, but there wasn't an interesting
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way of getting that treasure or the girl or living happily ever after, And
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the writers just hoping that the audience will be okay with that. And I
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don't think audience is like to be cheated out of a third act, so
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that could be a problem as well. It seems like a lot of times
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screenwriters will keep setting up things and setting up things and making things like,
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oh, well, I'm going to throw something in that's going to make you
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it'll pull you into the story and make you more interested, but it's not
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paid off at the end. There's nothing that it really leads to. You're
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absolutely right, I think too that's sort of the secret to coming up with
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a clever ending is mining whatever you created in the first half. And so
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writers get stuck because they think that they have to come up with something completely
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out of thin air, and it's like, no, just look look behind
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you, what did you event Along the way, the smallest thing could be
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an incredible payoff. And I think when we see thrillers that work for us,
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or even romantic comedies that work for us, they're often pulling from something
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that we didn't expect. But it was there. It was there, it
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was right in front of our nose, and then they used that to their
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advantage in the resolution. And that's what I teach and class and I find
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that, you know, I'm constantly surprised. So when somebody does do it
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well in a great script, I'm like, ah, that was a great
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payoff. And in when I was working with studios that would get passed upwards,
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and now that I'm not, I do see those scripts move on to
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success. Now. One of the things that full disclosure is that you know,
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I've been working on a screenplay for the last two months, and I
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got your book in order to talk to you about it, you know,
21:48
and I actually when once I started reading it, it kind of blew me
21:52
away because it's exactly the kind of thing that I need because I'm a very
21:56
disorganized, all over the place kind of person. And I absolutely loved the
22:02
concept of just being able to have somebody guide you through and say, Okay,
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let's focus on what's the log line, what's the idea, what's this
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and what you know? Talking about the third act. One of the things
22:14
that completely made the screenplay about one hundred times better was the concept of working
22:19
backwards from the third act. And it was just like, it was so
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great. Yeah, in TV writing, and you know, over the years
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my work has changed from just just dealing with screenwriters. I would say half
22:33
and half of it is it's TV. And that particular exercise works really well
22:37
for TV writers too, because if you're plotting out TV, your act breakers
22:44
are everything, and when you're figuring out your TV show, you need to
22:48
think about act break backwards. So let's say you asked five acts. If
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you ask what is it, you know, what's my act breaking to be?
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And then do that kind of work of well how did I get there?
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That will help you figure out how to tell your story. So so
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I'm very glad that worked for you, because I do think that it is
23:11
something that can help people in outlining, especially if they're not outliners. How
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long do you think people should be outlining before they actually jump in. I
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mean, one of the things that I have found for myself is I'll go
23:23
through and I'll try to get everything together, but I'll still have a lot
23:26
of scenes that I haven't worked out, and then once I start writing,
23:30
it almost becomes like this improvisation, you know, And I want to make
23:34
sure that I have the tracks laid out and I can kind of stay there,
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but I kind of go into these wild ideas. All of a sudden,
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I'll invent a character over here, and I'll have this happen over there,
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and it's like, oh wait a second, I got to get back.
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You know, I'm going off a little bit. But it's also good,
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I think, to have that first draft out there so you can just
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start generating all those ideas. You know. I think what you said is
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perfect. I am the I a foot weaver in twenty five page outlines.
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I think all you've done then is spend time on a twenty five page outline
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where you could have been writing your screenplay. So in classes and in the
24:08
book, it's very much what you just said. I provide a blueprint so
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that you can see big picture with your screenplay or with your TV pilot,
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and then as you're writing, I think you're right. Sometimes the characters go
24:29
a place you didn't expect. Now, if they're starting to go in a
24:32
place that could completely modify that outline and you like it, go back into
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the blueprint, adjusted it a little bit so that you can see what that
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butterfly effect is going to be, and then okay, you've got a new
24:45
blueprint to work with and go from there. But your outline should be something
24:49
that is changeable, because I agree your writing is going to change that story
24:55
as you go. You sometimes can never really know until you're actually writing it.
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Do you find that people when they're writing their first draft tend to say,
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oh wait, wait, wait, I had an idea, and they
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want to go back and start changing things. But going backwards thing it can
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be a problem. It's not so much that they usually go back to say,
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oh, I had an idea. It's usually that they want to make
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whatever they did just perfect before they move on, and what ends up happening.
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Are those perfect first acts that we talked about and those god, I'm
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so tired third acts. So if you have an idea and you're like,
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oh, I want to change the first act because the idea now is the
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better one to help you move forward by all means do it, just don't
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spend a lot of time rewriting all the stuff around it has changed that idea
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so that you can see now how it's going to retrigger the second act.
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That's the mistake that I made for a very I ended up rewriting a screenplay
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for almost a year and a half that I would go in and I would
26:00
watch a movie and I'd be like, Oh, I really like the tension
26:03
in this scene. I kind of like what's going on here? And I
26:04
would be like, maybe I can use that, and I would go back
26:07
and like start changing the screenplay around a little bit, and it just became
26:11
this gigantic mess. And so now that I'm when I write now, it's
26:15
more pay a lot more attention to the outlining process and making sure that I
26:18
don't get into it and say, oh, I want to change things.
26:21
You know halfway through, right, you got to get to the end.
26:23
In my classes, it's all about in the first draft class, it's all
26:26
about you got to move forward and just finish this. We can go back
26:30
and make it pretty later, can go back and nuance it later, But
26:34
it doesn't matter if you're the most beautiful writer in the world if you never
26:37
have anything done. Now in your classes, do you find that there are
26:41
certain different approaches to screenwriting? Oh, in terms of personalities, okay,
26:47
yeah, I would say if I've got thirty students, there's thirty different ways
26:49
in and there should be. There should be. You know, everybody's got
26:53
to have their own style and their own stamp. So that's why again it's
26:59
important to loosely outline and not get hung up on saying to people certain plot
27:04
points have to be at certain pages, I believe, because they don't have
27:10
to be. Uh. Your story should be unique and it's telling not only
27:15
in its subject matter. So we could talk about patterns that have been in
27:19
successful movies and TV shows. But then once you know that, once you
27:26
feel confident in your outline, you should just go and see what happens.
27:33
So yeah, there's a million ways to tell the story, fortunately, and
27:37
that's what keeps gets us watching movies and TV because we just never know what
27:42
the next approach is going to be. Do you find that some people are
27:45
more into the structure side of it, and then other people are just more
27:49
more like me, that are just like more creative and not really like I
27:53
mean, I remember I had a conversation with Corey mandel botchuaka intuitive versus con
28:00
Yeah, yeah, that's what I was talking about. Yeah, I love
28:03
that. I love that approach that he has. And you know, you
28:04
can say the dummy version of it, which I'll say, which would be
28:08
like getting inside out or outside in, you know. And there are the
28:12
conceptual people. Those are the outside in people, the people who see big
28:18
picture and see the outline and then have a hard time sometimes finding the scenes
28:25
and they have to work at the dialogue and they have to really work at
28:26
their craft. And then there are the people who are, as he calls
28:30
out, the intuitive people I call the inside out people who Corey's way smarter
28:37
than I, the people who love their dialogue, know their scenes but have
28:44
a hard time seeing the big picture and some times can get lost in the
28:47
minutia and in my classes, I like to think that we do both at
28:52
one time. I'll start everybody big picture, but as we are fleshing out
28:57
the big picture, the craft issues are coming in and we're dealing with them
29:02
as we go, so that you're sort of having a flip between both minds
29:07
and you're not abandoning one over the other. But you really do have to
29:14
get strong at both, and I think that's why the experienced writers over time
29:19
have done that. I always think of it like, you know, somebody
29:23
who's a right handed person having to sit there and try to write with their
29:26
left hand for you know, a couple of days to start strengthening that up.
29:30
It doesn't have to be as difficult as that it could be. Can
29:34
your right hand do to things at one time? Can you multitask? You
29:40
know, and anybody who has texted somebody while they're writing an email and posting
29:48
Facebook, you're doing three things at one time. Well, you can probably
29:53
look big picture at your script. We'll be right back after a word from
29:59
our sponsor, and now back to the show and right from within without having
30:11
to completely go to your left hand, you know what I mean. It
30:15
doesn't have to be as foreign as that. Now, can we talk a
30:18
little bit? I know you talk a lot about log lines, and I'm
30:21
sure that you're probably a little tired of it. Be mind explaining the importance
30:26
of having a long lin log line and how that guides you as a writer.
30:30
Oh, screenwriting teacher is ever tired of talking about God, we love
30:34
our log lines. I think the reason that everybody will hung up on them
30:40
is they serve a purpose for the writer and they serve a purpose for the
30:44
listener. For the writer, knowing what your hook is and being able to
30:48
articulate that in one line means that you always have a thesis statement you can
30:52
go back to whenever you're lost in your writing process, so you can go,
30:56
oh, my god, where am I look at your log line and
31:00
say, oh, that's what I wanted, That's what my intention was.
31:03
So that's why it's important for the writer. For the listener, it's important
31:06
because it's a mini pitch. We get and we get an idea right away
31:11
of the kind of movie or TV show you're going for, and what's special
31:15
about it? What's special, indie, what's a special idea? Not with
31:21
special thematically, although that should bubble through, but you know, what's that
31:26
cool idea that we haven't thought about before? We want to explore more.
31:30
And that's what happens in a log life. But that's why it's important.
31:33
What is the key do you think to creating? Like, if you're a
31:37
little bit lost, are there some ways that you can create your logline or
31:41
figure it out? Because a lot of people will be well, write screenplays
31:45
and they're in the middle of the story and what you know, one of
31:48
the common things that you'll do is go up and be like, what is
31:52
your story about? You know? And for whatever I mean, people would
31:55
do that to me and I'd just be like, well, you have half
31:57
an hour plan and I never It wasn't until I started focusing on that idea
32:05
of creating an idea log line that I you know, I can be like,
32:08
oh, well, I really need to know how to say this quickly,
32:12
and it's about it's actually a good way in to find you look,
32:15
like, what your story about? It's about a person who experiences this thing
32:20
so they have to do so and so. Or it's about a person who
32:22
wants to do something in a particular way, or it's about this group of
32:29
people who, in their attempt to do such and such end up in conflict.
32:34
So yes, just starting with it's about it's a great way in But
32:37
yes, you're The answer to that question is usually a sentence, it's not
32:42
a half an hour. Now, can you walk through a little bit of
32:45
how to deal with act structure and just structure in general for how to lay
32:50
out their story? Yeah, I'm you know, I have a second edition
32:52
as coffee break screenwriter. Be No, no, no, this doesn't bit
32:57
Yeah, but I just want to tell you what's all right? Well the
33:00
books, no, no, no, no, there's something that's going to
33:02
be in there that that I'm using in classes now that's not in the first
33:07
one, and I can tell it to you right now. You don't have
33:09
to buy the second edition at all. But I want to tell you it's
33:14
it's just the idea that for screenplay structure, all those books, everything we've
33:17
been talking about, all the annalysis really comes down to, in my opinion,
33:22
for things trauma, training, trials and trials, and the idea is
33:27
that in act one, if you will, or the beginning of your pilot,
33:31
trauma is that thing that sort of traumatizes the character into a new experience.
33:37
And it could be positive, it could be negative, or it could
33:39
be positive. Falling in love the trauma. Then the training is kind of
33:44
an on the job kind of training where you're sort of learning about your new
33:49
experience or your new environment by doing, and that could be seen as you
33:53
know, the first half of second act or the first part of the middle
33:59
for your pilot. Then we've got trials, which is a real pushback and
34:04
testing. Really you think you know what you're doing. Oh yeah, well
34:07
here's this big conflict that's going to happen. Deal with that. And then
34:10
we've got triumphs, which doesn't have to be happier or after. It's just
34:16
that solving of the problem that we talked about, some kind of closure and
34:22
in a pilot that tends to be sort of a mini solving of the problem
34:25
with a greater question asked. So trauma training, trials, and triumphs you
34:30
ask my takeout structure, That's pretty much what it is. Ther words that
34:35
I can say really quickly and that sound kind of cool. I like it.
34:39
Thank you, you can put it on a shirt. There you go.
34:44
So it kind of reminds me of the hero's journey a little bit.
34:45
It's yeah, and I think it's sort of that idea of what everybody saying,
34:50
you know, we're all trying to say it in different ways. Well,
34:52
I thinks out of those four things, there you go, Okay,
34:55
moving on. One of the things that I struggle with a lot is not
35:00
so much the second act. But what you have in your book is the
35:02
second second act that you be that middle part. Yeah, h huh.
35:08
Now that it seems like a lot of kind of screenplays that's where they die
35:13
in. Well, that's where that trials part comes in. And it is
35:16
that pushback. And that pushback can be from an antagonist where somebody goes,
35:22
you know what, I see you learning on the job and I don't like
35:25
it. I don't want you to accomplish a goal. I'm going to do
35:28
something really big. So in act you b you might be thinking, okay,
35:31
wait a minute, somebody is really going to try and stop them in
35:36
a major way. Or sometimes it's the character's flaw that's the pushback. You
35:42
know, the character was doing really well and even sort of you know,
35:45
dealing with their flower, overcoming it, but something about their nature just screwed
35:51
it up. Their flaw was triggered, and that's the pushback. Sometimes it's
35:57
an event that happens. We talked about that midpoint, and then that happens
36:00
right before that section that focuses the main character and forces them now to really
36:07
accomplish one mission instead of several little moments of fun and games, and that
36:15
can make feel more important as well. And if you look at that as
36:21
pushed back, it's the idea that that person now has this mission and that's
36:25
going to be really hard. They thought they were learning on the job,
36:30
they thought they got it okay, now they have to do this. So
36:32
those are the some ways I would be thinking about to heighten act to be
36:37
make it interesting and different so that the reader doesn't go, oh, here
36:40
we are more of it. One of the things that I think a lot
36:44
of writers get lost in and one of the things that you guys do I
36:49
think a really good job of on the podcast is talk is analyzing what people
36:52
are writing, how they've put it together, and how if somebody is going
36:58
over the top in terms of explaining what the details are in the room,
37:01
every painting on the wall and everything like that, what what do you in
37:06
terms of rewriting so that people are actually making progress? What is your advice
37:10
for them? A big believer of essence statements, so instead of you said,
37:16
you said, you know all this stuff in the wall, and you
37:19
know the set decorating. So instead of set decorating your environment, is there
37:23
a comparison you have, Is there a way of describing it in one sentence
37:29
that is the personality of the room, the essence at the room. So
37:32
I think an example that I use is, you know, uh, build
37:37
the office screams CEO. So if a room is if an office is screaming
37:44
CEO, you know that we've got a big desk and a huge chair and
37:50
an imposing environment and you know, uh, the diplomas all over the wall.
37:55
Something like that. The set decorator can do their job. You don't
37:59
have to say there are all those things. The personality is that they're screaming
38:02
CEO. So I'm looking for those personality descriptions for environment for your rewrite,
38:08
an essence of character instead of just physicalizing them. Those kind of things help
38:15
paint the picture and make your writing better. One of the things I love
38:19
about doing the podcast is I get to do a lot of research. So
38:22
you know, I've been watching some of your presentations that are on YouTube,
38:27
and I really loved what you said about you don't want to. You want
38:30
to make sure characters aren't just saying what they're thinking, you know, and
38:34
that's a problem that people get into. It actually made me. It reminded
38:37
me of that. I don't know if you ever saw that SNL sketch with
38:39
Joe Montana where he just walks in and he's a guy that can only say
38:44
what he thinks. You know, Leslie, I can talk to you for
38:46
days, do you I'd like to jumper bones same here. You know,
38:53
I haven't even noticed the time, Doe. I wish he'd jumped my bones.
38:59
Whoa, I didn't realize how late it was. You know, you're
39:02
welcome to spend the night here in the living room if she says yes,
39:06
I'm home free. Oh gee, you know I really shouldn't. I don't
39:10
want to seem too trampy. Well suit yourself, Okay I will. Oh
39:23
great, that's my roommate Stu. Damn it, what a time for him
39:27
to show up. Terrific. I'd love to meet him. Oh no,
39:31
he's going to ruin everything. I think you really like Stu. He's absolutely
39:36
the most sincere, genuine, straightforward person you'll ever want to meet, a
39:39
real honest guy. What a jerkey. Is he sounds really nice? Bod
39:46
he sounds boring. Oh, here he is, Hey, Stu, come
39:52
on in. Oh, I hope I'm a lot to disturbing you. We'll
39:58
be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the
40:05
show. I hope I'm not disturbing them. He got up at all.
40:14
God, he's gonna scare her away, Stu. This is Leslie Leslie,
40:17
Stu. All right, I'm very glad to meet you. I'm very glad
40:21
to meet her. Well, it's nice to meet you. God, those
40:27
guys are still Leslie was going to sleep in the living room unless that's a
40:32
problem for you, in which case she could sleep in my room and I
40:36
could sleep on the floor. Come on, you waddiot help me out.
40:39
Okay, you know, maybe it would be bitter if I stayed in dance
40:43
room, because we don't want to inconvenience you. Hey, it's fine with
40:45
me. If you stay in the living room, you won't bother me at
40:47
all. It's fine with me if she stays in the living room, it
40:51
doesn't bother me at all. Well, thanks a lot, Stuve, Yeah,
40:55
thanks a lot, jerk. You know you are so sweet? Is
41:01
this guy, lame. Well, listen, Stu. I think Leslie and
41:06
I are going to stay up a while and talk. So I guess we'll
41:07
see them. Great, see you tomorrow. Great, I'll see them tomorrow.
41:15
Do you listen. We'll we'll talk quietly so it's not to disturb you.
41:19
Okay, Oh, he won't disturb me. I'll be in my room
41:22
masturbating. They won't disturb me. I'll be masturbated. It just follows it.
41:31
I'll send you a link to it. But it's like exact plek on
41:34
the thing that people, you know, if you're reading a screenplay, it's
41:37
like, you know, I'm angry at you for this, well, I
41:39
think because you did this, but you know what I mean? So can
41:43
you Can you talk a little bit about dialogue and the way people, you
41:45
know, use dialogue that's not just like on the nose and the different kinds
41:50
of dialogue. I guess you're awesome. You don't exactly what you're talking about,
41:52
the fact that a lot of people don't understand that on the nose means
41:58
saying what you absolutely feel. It's so weird for a grown up to say
42:05
exactly what they feel. Like we've learned how to lie. That's that's what
42:07
being a grown up is about. We've learned to say, Wow, it's
42:12
great to see you instead of oh god, I can't believe it's you again,
42:15
because we're in the civilized society and uh. And you know, that's
42:22
why with comedy, often the comedy comes out of somebody who's simply unfiltered,
42:28
who's just telling the truth. So if you look at one example I give
42:32
in in classes, I show a scene from silver Lining's playbook, And you
42:37
know what makes those characters so incredibly quirky and funny is the fact that they're
42:44
in a romantic comedy and they're saying things like you know, they're they're just
42:49
speaking the truth to each other, and it's just so weird and unfiltered and
42:52
wrong that it's hilarious. Well, I'll be okay, we wrong, the
42:55
sister coming over? Be okay with that monist Tiffany, Tiffany and Tommy.
43:02
Yeah, I mean, just Tiffany, what happened to Tommy? He died?
43:07
Tommy died? Cops die? How did he die? Please don't bring
43:10
it up? Said Hey, Tiffany, this is pat pat systema. Tiffany,
43:22
you look nice. Thank you I'm not flirting with you. I didn't
43:25
think you were. I just see that you made an effort. I'm going
43:29
to be better with my wife. I'm working on that. Want to acknowledge
43:31
your beauty. I never used to do that. Do that now because we're
43:36
going to be better than ever. Nikky, it's practicing. I'll Tommy die.
43:40
What about your job? I just got fired? Actually, I mean
43:46
I'm sorry. How how did that happened? Does it really matter? Before
43:51
it's it's I should say it's a completely new take on a traditional mob com,
43:59
right, So yeah, I think that you have to be careful that
44:02
if you're writing dialogue and it's not intended to be funny and somebody is just
44:09
saying what's on their mind, it's going to seem really cheesy. It's going
44:14
to seem like, you know, oh, I feel this mixture of attraction
44:17
and revulsion right now. It's like, really, are you a human being?
44:22
Don't you know how people really talk? Which is the lie? You
44:25
know? Instead of saying I'm feeling this mixture of attraction and revulsion, they
44:30
might just say hello, and the action underneath would show the subtext. You
44:37
know, they might do something to express how they really feel. But that
44:43
line itself is as simple as hello. I hope that makes sense. Yeah,
44:46
I mean, I think that one of the you know, as a
44:49
screenwriter, you're always looking for things to make your audience curious, to make
44:54
them want to know more, and to really pull them through the story,
44:58
and you know, Spielberg is great at doing that. You always want to
45:01
know what's going to come next, and when you when you have characters who
45:05
aren't giving up everything and that you're you know, maybe at some point you're
45:07
going to figure out what is actually going through their brain. But I mean,
45:12
it's it's a really important thing I think to make people wonder. I
45:15
wonder what that person actually is thinking, you know, versus what they say.
45:20
And it was a great scene to go back to an old classics s
45:22
Pielberg scene that I just think shows that, I don't know, there's there's
45:30
more subtexts and subtlety in certain Philberg movies than than people give those movies credit.
45:36
For the mass potato scene in Oh Yeah, you know. I love
45:44
the mass potato scene because there you are at a family dinner and this guy
45:50
becomes obsess with building a mountain out of his mass potatoes right in front of
45:54
his family, and they're looking at him like he's the craziest guy in the
45:59
world. When he looks up, one of the kids is crying. The
46:02
mom's mouth at the gate, and all he's been doing is showing what's in
46:07
his head by playing with his massacatos. And it's a great scene. It's
46:14
just it's it just sort of expresses it all without having to completely talk about
46:22
it. Now it does trigger him to finally say, Okay, this is
46:25
what's going on with daddy, but the story is really told before he actually
46:30
says that. No, is that the same scene where it's like you kids
46:35
might have noticed the dad scene a little bit. Yeah, yeah, it's
46:39
just so cool. Well, I guess you've noticed. It's obtain it's a
46:46
little strange with Dad. It's okay, though still dead. It can describe
47:05
it when I'm feeling what I'm gonna taking. This means something, it's important.
47:19
But if he started to see the data, your kids might have noticed
47:22
that and blah blah blah blah, it would feel artificial, it would feel
47:24
on the nose. We needed the expression of what was in his brain through
47:29
activity first, and that triggers him to finally have to admit, Okay,
47:32
this is what's going on. Yeah. I mean, I think something that
47:37
I did back in my early screenwriting life is I would try to make things
47:40
sound natural and how people. You know, You're like, okay, I
47:45
wanted to be real, so I'm gonna I'm gonna write like people actually talk.
47:47
But at the same time, it's like you you can't do everything in
47:52
your scripts has to be deliberate, you know, it has to be moving
47:55
you towards something. So I would just sit there and write, you know,
47:58
two people talking to each other, and then this would happen. Then
48:00
that would happen. In my mind, I was like, oh, I'm
48:02
just setting up this world, but it wasn't there was no point to it,
48:05
right, and how people really talk. I'm not saying that people in
48:09
movies shouldn't talk. Why people really talk. There needs to be an authenticity
48:14
to the voice. But if we included every and stutter and you know,
48:20
and all those things that we do, it would be really difficult to watch,
48:27
which is why we added a lot from the tops and bottoms of scenes,
48:31
because often it takes us so long to gets the point where with scene
48:37
work on screen, we're able to get to the point much quicker, and
48:42
we can lop off all that hemming and hauling that gets us there. Now,
48:45
another thing in your book that's really helped me a lot is the concept
48:50
of goal action and conflict as you go through your scene. Can you talk
48:54
a little bit about that and the importance of you know, breaking things down
48:59
into those the idea of goal action and the conflict that it calls. It's
49:04
one of the ways that get people to outline and just figure out their central
49:07
beat so they can figure out what their story is. I ask, okay,
49:10
well, you take all those scenes that you think are this part of
49:14
the story and ask yourself, what's the goal, What does a character want
49:16
to do, what's the activity, what do they actually do not, what
49:20
do they think or feel or plan? And then what's the complication? What
49:24
gets in their way? And if you can do that big picture, you
49:28
can start to find your major beats. But you can also do that in
49:31
your scenes in terms of what does your character want from the scene and what
49:37
and how do they intend to get it. So, yeah, it could
49:40
be done in the macro, could be done in the micro, but it
49:44
always sort of keeps to you on story. So yeah, it's something I
49:47
would just recommend as far as outlining and for rewriting. When you mentioned the
49:52
idea that it's a macro and a micro way of doing things, we'll be
49:58
right back after a word from our answer, and now back to the show.
50:07
What I ended up I was going through and I was putting together the
50:08
different you know, in the book it breaks it up into first act,
50:12
second act, second act, B, and third act. And so what
50:15
I I ended up doing though, was I found that even in a moment
50:20
by moment level, I was looking at it, you know, So I
50:22
would have like five or six different moments in the first act alone where I
50:25
was asking myself, Okay, here's this character, what is their goal,
50:30
what do they want? What is the action that they're taking to get that
50:32
goal? And then what conflict is that causing? And it caused the scenes
50:37
to be so much more dynamic, and you you understood the characters much more.
50:40
I'm so glad I worked for you. Oh I don't know if I
50:43
want to go around going it's the gag this incthent I kept throwing up a
50:46
little bit. I got to I'm already making sure can you talk just for
50:51
just a second about once somebody has a final screenplay, once you've worked with
50:54
them, once you've gotten it all like ready, what is kind of the
50:59
next phase after that? So I think are you talking about sort of like
51:02
how would you push it toward a sale? Yeah? I mean, I
51:06
just the idea is that a lot of people that listen to this, and
51:08
you know, there's a couple of things I wanted to go into that I
51:12
want just in terms of like people who are not in Los Angeles who want
51:15
to write, and people who are trying to sell screenplays. Are you finding
51:20
the people that you're working with are trying to build a career as screenwriters,
51:22
like full time screenwriters or is it something that's kind of like a part time
51:27
thing. And is it a viable option for people? I mean, what
51:30
can they do once they have a screenplay that you sign off on, that
51:34
you say, Okay, this is really good. Well let's talk about the
51:37
people who don't live in LA first. Okay. There's all kinds of different
51:40
feelings about competitions, but my feeling is, why not when you submit competitions
51:47
competitions know first of all that you might not be an LA person, which
51:52
actually is to your advantage because they're looking for diverse writers and that means the
51:59
verst city of experience in place as well, so that gives you an advantage.
52:05
Another thing is it's a writing competition, not a selling competition, So
52:08
copetitions are looking at your craft and not necessarily you know whether or not they
52:14
want to take this on and thinking about oh, but there's a competing project.
52:17
So both of those things can work in your favor. And once you
52:22
do win a competition like that, it's become a bit of a vetting situation
52:28
for agents and managers who may not have their own personal reader pool and use
52:32
competitions to as a reader pool in a way to help them find undiscovered material
52:40
so and undiscovered writers. So I do think that it is worth submitting to
52:46
copetitions, you know, high level competitions, not necessarily you know your friend's
52:52
cousins copstition who's just like, yeah, bay me fifty bucks, and you
52:55
know, you want to make sure that there's some kind of podigal that the
52:59
inenternet rainbow. So I would do that. Are there any competitions that come
53:04
to mind, Well, the Nicol Fellowship is definitely the most prestigious that's through
53:07
the Academy at film festival. Screenwriting competition is also prestigious, the kind of
53:15
the ones that are typical tongue for people those who've been around the longest,
53:20
and that usually means that they have the most success behind them. Blue Cat
53:25
Screencraft is doing a good job as a new screenwriting competition because they are genre
53:30
oriented and that means that it doesn't have to just be a drama that wins,
53:35
because they have their own comedy or horror category just for those films.
53:39
So I think that's a good one. There's also a lot more open for
53:44
TV now for competitions and short films too. A lot of short film competitions
53:49
are out there that will give you money to make your film, which is
53:52
awesome because making your stuff is also a great way to get people of attention.
53:58
If you're from outside LA and you have a good camera and a really
54:02
tight, smart script, and I'd be thinking about, you know, really
54:07
short form content and you feel like you could make it without mortgaging your house
54:14
and put it on YouTube and it's something that could get eyes on it.
54:20
That's another way to go. People are looking for talent online. Another way
54:25
to go if you're you know, the pitch beest. A lot of cynicism
54:31
around them that and I can understand because there's this sense that there can be
54:37
a little bit of a circus. But once you are one on one with
54:40
somebody, that's your opportunity. It can be a pretty intimate, intimate moment,
54:45
and it's an opportunity for face time with industry that you might not have
54:51
otherwise. I think it's replaced the query letter as far as being sort of
54:54
a cold look at your work. So all those things can be good for
55:00
people who don't live here. For people who do live here, they're doing
55:04
the same thing. But also they're looking for who do they know who?
55:08
Who knows somebody? And they're trying to mine their contacts. And in that
55:14
case, what they're usually doing is saying, hey, person who knows my
55:20
friend, not can you read my screenplay, but can I take you out
55:25
for coffee and can I pick your brain a little bit? And if you
55:29
make that relationship by the end of coffee, they might say, yeah,
55:32
sure, script. But you don't want to start with a favor. You
55:36
want to start with mining relationships. And that's what people in LA do and
55:42
why the caricature of that is known as uh, you know, as us
55:47
being very shrewthy, but really, you know, it's it's it's how an
55:53
LA person moves up is they have to make their relationships. And a lot
55:59
of people in the industry live out here and they got to make friends,
56:02
you know, and I think making friends is actually not a bad thing.
56:07
So yeah, So that's my advice for moving things forward, just a little
56:13
bit of it. Because the people who come on my show, they always
56:15
have interesting stories about how they got in and neevitively it's always some kind of
56:23
random moment. But the only thing that ties them together is that their work
56:29
was ready when they got that opportunity. They had a great kick ass script,
56:34
which is why I tend to stay on the content side trying to get
56:37
people to write a kick asscript. The people need to have a body of
56:40
work. I mean, should they have, like some people say, three
56:44
screenplays or four screenplays that they can show. I don't know if there's a
56:47
magic number, but I do know that the first thing somebody says after they've
56:52
read something is what else you've got? So you want to make sure that
56:55
you're at least knee deep in something else, you you know, paper your
57:01
script all over town because if the answer is well, I don't know,
57:06
well if I have, you know, at least be like, yeah,
57:10
I certainly do. Got something else. And as soon as I've done polishing
57:15
it up, I'll give this talk yourself in a room and finish the effort.
57:20
Right Well, you know, I know you got to go. So
57:23
what how can just so people can get in touch with you? I assume
57:27
most people have already heard of on the page, but what what does?
57:30
Uh? What's your info right now? I don't know. If most people
57:35
heard on the page, that would be cool, and they have, but
57:37
if you haven't, it's just so you know. Yeah, there is a
57:39
podcast called on the Pages, so not on iTunes, but also I think
57:43
a catch all for my classes, the podcast, my book. I also
57:49
have some recorded classes for people who live out of town. It's just go
57:52
to on the page dot tz that's my website. It's got it all there
57:57
and uh and and I'd love to work with you some day. I want
58:00
to thank Jason so much for doing such an amazing job with this episode.
58:05
If you want to get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
58:07
head over to the show notes at Indie Film Muscle dot com. Forward Slash
58:10
seven twenty three and if you have it already, please head over to Filmmaking
58:15
podcast dot com, subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It
58:21
really helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you again so much for
58:22
listening to guys. As always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream
58:25
alive, Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks
58:29
for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at Indie Film Hustle dot com.
58:34
That's I N D I E F I L M h U S T l
58:37
E dot com.