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BPS 292: The Million Dollar Mini-Movie Screenwriting Method with Chris Soth · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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  You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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  podcasts, just go to IFAH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof
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  Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number two ninety two, except no one's definition of your
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  how to make your screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
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  Enjoy today's episode with guest host Jason Buff. Today we are talking with
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  Chris South, the author of Million Dollars Screenwriting and the Mini Movie Method,
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  And we're going to talk a little bit later about what the mini movie method
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  is and how you can use it to help you with your screenplays. I'm
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  not going to go into that now, but you definitely want to stick around
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  and learn about that. It's a way of putting your screenplay together, the
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  structure and everything that I had never really heard of. And Chris pretty much
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  he is the inventor of this method of putting a movie together into these mini
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  movies. All right, let me get to the episode. Here is Chris,
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  So, So, what I wanted to focus on first of all is
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  a little bit about your background in screenwriting and you know where where how you
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  got into screenwriting? From the beginning. Sure, absolutely. I well,
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  I guess I've been sort of a nut for a story and structure since I
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  was a kid. I was an undergraduate major in drama, and I started
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  studying your plays and play structure there as well. I wanted to be an
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  actor at the time, and I just felt like, you know, there
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  was something better and we could we could know more about this than we had
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  been given by Aristotle. Was kind of out there in the general knowledge pool.
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  And I did climb my traded actor for about ten years also of the
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  comedian and the magician, and started writing in my own material and started using
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  some of this story structure that I had studied to, you know, to
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  make that material a little better. I sort of found if I was doing
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  a six minute comedy set, because I told a little story and there was
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  a story shaping the whole thing, I didn't have to be as funny,
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  so where that needed funnier, and so I would do that, and I
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  started reading up on that and wrote a novel. I worked on cruise ships
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  actually, and I was doing those comedy acts there and I had play a
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  free time. So I wrote a novel with that free time. And then
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  I wrote the screenplay at that novel and after that, you know, the
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  bug had bitten me and I had to know everything about screenwriting, started reading
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  all the books. At that time there were about three of them, and
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  now, of course there are three hundred. And I come sort of from
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  an academic family, and if you want to do something in my family by
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  and largely get a school for it. My dad's a college professor. So
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  I went back to school, University of Southern California Film School, and that's
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  where I found a far better structure method which they call sequencing there, which
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  I use and have you know, studied and gone in depth with ever since,
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  and sort of heightened and refined to the mini movie method. I was
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  very lucky at USC that I wrote a screenplay there that was my thesis.
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  I am a graduate screenwriting program and that's old for three quarters of a million
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  dollars, and that became a movie called fire Stool. So, you know,
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  very fortunate to you know, have one of those big splashy specs sales
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  on the front page of Brian Hollywood Requarter the next day. Very fortunately get
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  the movie made, and lucky enough to fly my trade in Hollywood ever since,
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  and have kind of always taught as well. I mentioned I come from
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  an academic background and started teaching at USC shortly after I left start at the
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  usday Light Extension. And what I found was outside of USC, people were
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  not getting this method, this better way of breaking stories down to you know,
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  to sort of givous the overview of the method. Rather than three acts,
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  which is taken from playwriting, the mini movie method breaks a story down
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  or a screenplay down into eight mini movies. So if we take Peter that
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  two hour time pray of you know, one hundred and twenty minutes, we
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  have eight sixteen minutes chapters or eight mini movies that all add up to the
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  story of the movie. And maybe as I say this, you're thinking of
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  movies you've seen, or you can remember some movies you've seen where you felt
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  like, you know, do a certain visual queue or music queue that you've
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  been given by the director of the film makers. Oh, something has ended,
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  everything's changed now and something new is beginning. Right though, at the
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  end of back two, you know the cops partner will be killed and uh,
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  you know he'll look at this, you know, into the sky and
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  holler no, righting. We know that law on that way right, and
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  the camera ends up into that God shock because after he's talking to God,
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  he say, no, God, I dare you do this? Right?
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  Well, a generally around the end of back two or I would call him
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  in the movie sick. And it's kind of said, you know, one
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  chapter is ended and another chapter is beginning, and the music will smell uh
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  two, But that they're actually eight of those. And good stories have a
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  structure that um of eight different tensions of breaking the main tension the story down
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  to eight different tensions each days on a hope and fear on which they know
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  the outcome of the main story will rely. And once you've had that breakthrough,
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  it becomes much simpler. I mean, it's never easy to write a
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  story, but let's say this is about eight times easier. Uh That that
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  really helps you out. So that kind of as you were saying, you
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  know, people specialize in different areas. That was where I found the need
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  and the niche work that We'll wait a minute, this isn't the industry standard.
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  Everybody should be doing this so much simpler, so much easier. Um,
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  you know, why aren't all the screen letting books written about this?
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  Methu I don't know how much you know you gaple one screen letting or your
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  listeners too. I know it's hard to all kinds of film this year,
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  but if you want to tell a story that is going to help you.
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  Um, you know, if you've ever heard, you know, act two.
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  If you read your for a screen letting book in token you write thirty
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  pages, that's hard enough, and you've got that landmark of the acts one
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  turning towards right. And now your reward for that is you get to like
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  six more without any sort of landmarks to guide you on your way. Uh,
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  you know that that's a nightmare. And I think everybody knows that act
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  two is where good screenplays go to die, right you know? Yeah,
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  I mean how many movies have a promising start and kind of falter in the
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  second act? I can tell you, you know, for every movie that
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  does that, there are a thousand screenplays and didn't make it right and and
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  died there in the second act. And this is the way, you know,
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  this is a great way to kind of keep your your second act popping
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  right and really have a tension and a build and you build you a really
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  strong climact and have a little mini climactors and mini movies along the way as
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  each tension resolve and in terms, So now do you do you chart that
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  in some sort of way where you, you know, say, okay,
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  the first mini movie needs this, needs to happen, the second mini movie
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  this. You know, do you give a old guideline of the things that
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  need to happen along the way? Oh? Yeah, absolutely. I mean
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  we are after you know, hundreds of years of stories and over a hundred
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  years of movies. Tally thousands of years of stories and about one hundred plus
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  years of movies. We can kind of figure this out and the method actually
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  trumps from the fact, and we sort of it starts to emerge because I
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  would argue good stories always did this kind of by accident, and I think
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  that you know, what's making them good starts to emerge when you know,
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  by serendipity, U film starts to be shot on reels and a real hole,
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  you know, pretty close to fifteen minutes the film, and the early
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  filmmakers, as they develop what becomes a modern day feature film, you know,
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  find an advantageous to plot out a chapter per reel. Right, So
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  I don't think you know, Sam's Goldman was ever, you know Champas and
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  Arson, we have problem in act too. He wouldn't have known what an
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  act was. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and
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  now back to the show. I don't think Ben Heckt in the golden age
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  of Hollywood was saying that either. I think he was saying, we've got
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  to fix the fifth wheel. So there's absolutely attempt with a pattern that you
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  know, between me and you know, Joseph Campbell and you know a lot
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  of other people who have studied stories in the folklore, we can say many
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  movie one is very typically going to do this. Many we choose and to
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  typically do this, and you can identify it sort of a broad tumeric way,
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  mainly because of you know where it is on the time one. Right,
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  if if a story is if if, if a mini movie is the
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  beginning of the story, there are certain obligations and task it has to perform,
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  introducing the main character, setting the main tension, showing this world things
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  like that. There's you can generate a checklist pretty easily likewise at the end,
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  and then it's sort of filling in that that middle where you know things
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  are in this Cheshire but there's a much more you know, detailed template than
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  that that I gave in my book A million dollars screen running the mini movie
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  method. That is actually the more Amazon relatively recently to only be able to
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  get from my website at ten times time. So I advise everybody Amazon,
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  um and and you can identify those kind of broadly and cherically, and then
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  you can sort of separate them by genre too. You can say, okay,
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  well, are they in a monster movie. This is kind of a
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  thing that starts to be happening. It starts in we see in many movie.
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  One can come up with different patterns as well. Likewise in a love
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  story, right, uh those those free There's three famous Hollywood sentences boy meets
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  girl, right, that tends to be the end of anu we want boy
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  loses girl. We all kind of know that the end of that too,
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  that's heart break occurs, and then boy jets girl will be somewhere there in
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  the third act the movie seven or eight. So you know there's a plot
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  points they're talking about what they ploy Girl jets girl, right. Uh So,
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  so yeah, there is is a general pattern and it breaks down a
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  genre. And then you know, in my mentorship program that that springs by
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  mentor dot com seeing through to check it out. I will guide you the
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  deptop through just you know the genre of story that you're doing, not just
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  what all stories do, but what your specific stories do. I feel like
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  that's that's what we all have to master. We oft to master the story
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  in general. Then the dictates the genre, and then we have to find
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  what our own unique stories to tell and howden's best told, because that's what's
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  going to differentiate it from all the other stories of the genre and all the
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  other stories in the world. Right right now, when I was wondering if
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  you could do just to give an example of the eight mini movies in action,
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  Um, is there a movie in particular that you use to demonstrate those
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  eight mini movies just so that people can have an idea of how it breaks
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  down. Yeah, I don't know that I have one absolutely by heart and
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  by memory, but I know, uh, you know the notes I'll go
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  to when I when I'm asked this question, and I probably could get you
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  one of these two movies entirely from memory and give you all eight of the
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  mini movie. But people are hearing this are saying, well, now,
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  that's that's interesting. I'd like to see that in action of what movies I
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  look at. Um. Absolutely, the movie seven. When I first heard,
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  uh that conceit, you know, I was in It was in my
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  second year of grad school at the time, and I interviewed Arnold Copeleson,
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  who had bought the script, and he said, oh, it's about a
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  serial killer who is killing people, uh in you know, in the mode
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  of the deadly sins, right, And I immediately knew, oh, well,
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  that's one deadly sin for many movies, right right, and it it
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  almost is. It's it's a little more sophisticated MAP. But once in a
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  while on I had, you know, like an idea like that where there's
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  sort of a number, you know, right in the concept that is,
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  you know, very close to seven or eight, and and I say or
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  six, And I say, well, okay, now now the six,
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  I say, now my story three quarters outlines, right, that's story the
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  seven, seven eighths of the way two outlos. Uh. It's slightly different
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  than map, and that I can I mean, I I don't have it
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  my memory so much that I can say, you know, many movies three
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  is uh lust right, Um, well, that's a pretty good jazz actually
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  U right, um so it's seven really. Six of the mini movie of
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  seven are dictated by are all sort of short films of leading up to a
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  ghastly tableau where in which someone has been killed that is staged to look look
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  like a declining of one of the deadly sins um that happened six of the
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  of the eton and it is a full um eight mini movie structure. Uh.
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  They just they knock going off right away in the free credit frequency of
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  the first scene is brad Kitten mortars even showing up at one of these,
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  So now now they're sticks left. Maybe that mini movie ends with another one.
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  Uh. And then in the to minuvie four that's all about chasing the
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  killer. They're they're on the track of the killer there and he shows up
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  at the police station, his fingerprints cut off in safety as a chiller they
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  called John Joe. Uh and then he escaped down that's going to movie before
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  so uh so two of them are knocked off by by bring two in the
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  movie one and one is one is eliminated by in the movie four and the
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  other six each steven start in a mini movie. So if I would if
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  I had that brilliant idea, I would just say, okay, well this
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  is the Lust mini movie, and that is the slowth in mini movie,
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  and this is the Glutton movie. Um, and I would you let the
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  attention to find that and I would let that scene means view the pages I
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  was writing, and seven is very well written and doesn't appear to us as
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  epicomic at all, because it's all sort of all those pearls are hung on
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  the string um touching one serial killer who is perpetrated all of these acts,
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  right, and we learning a little more about game each time. So there's
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  a great example. A very good movie and a very good screenplay, but
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  sold the respect using this method. And I feel like you have sort of
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  a little laugh of recognition where I said that, Uh, they like,
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  oh of course, and but we don't experience you know, the movie that
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  way and go, oh, well this is just spordilaic Uh. Oh my
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  job is cool and park at twisty right. Uh. Likewise, a winner
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  of Best Picture and Best Screenplay. I'm probably a little old living more.
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  I love it from my childhood. Its divisional deVie. Uh. Seven Oscars
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  swept the Oscars that year, A great period con man movie called The Sting.
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  So in the Sting, at least through the second act, um title
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  cards come up that give a title to each mini vie sou. So there
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  in that all important second act, I think it actually goes into the third
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  act too. No, I know, I could be wrong about that.
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  Um. So that second act is chaptered very specifically with tensions that are almost
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  exactly fifteen minutes long. So, uh, you'll really see it there,
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  and you'll see it in the second act where it's so important that things don't
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  get static, that you haven't been trying to resolve the same tensions too long,
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  that it is evolved a little bit, or the stakes have whistle that
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  your you know, your heroes are now trying to do something different to solve
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  the problem. Um. The second act is where you know, you know,
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  as an audience or a reader, which can kind of look at a
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  lot saying looking kind of be statics for a long time, nothing really changes
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  here. Let's let's you know, quicken the pace guy. Um So they're
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  all chaptered quite quite specifically. Uh. And it's a great one treat for
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  you to see a study because hey screens best picture, right. Um So
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  I could go into more detail about that, and I could picture to you
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  by Numary. I don't know if it's you know, our best, our
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  best possible study here, but uh, it's you know, it's the go
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  go take a look at yourself. You're the um. Just quickly at the
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  end of the year, we won. The Robert Redford character once or Gange
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  against the gangster shield his combat partner. At the end of two he enlist
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  the Paul Newman character to help him. Now that's what you've probably been taught
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  to call act you want and you're demitted to. Uh, they're going to
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  pull the big comp on the gangster. Uh. And to do that they,
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  I think Paul Newman says it in the first act. We've got to
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  set the hook so we can tell them the tale that we can pull the
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  wire and uh, and that'll sting it right. And those are the four
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  title cards. They are the hook, the tail, the wire, and
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  the state will be back after a word from our sponsor and now back to
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  the show. Um, and they're all sort of mine cons they have to
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  pull along the way to pull off the big con, which it is ultimately
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  the sting into which the movie takes the title. So the con and you
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  know, getting the money from the mark is called the sting, and that's
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  the tension. The way up there in MINII seven is a break up to
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  break the third act um I'll make I'll just I just said one and two
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  or what you've heard called the first act these three to four or five and
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  six. There is what is called the second act ends seven and agor what
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  you've heard called the third act. So you'll see, you know, we
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  divide this by fifteen, you know, one hundred and twenty pages or minutes
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  by fifteen. You'll see that. You know, two of my plotting sort
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  of ones you're familiar at the end of act two, at the end of
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  that, at the end of actual one, in the inter BacT two.
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  Uh so, uh you know, the tension of the hook is they got
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  to hook the marking who wants to be in you know, uh in this
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  con that she will actually think he's a con man. Uh So they got
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  to set the hook in you know the fish. Uh. There, and
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  our ship is we hope they can we fear that the whole calm be blown
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  because it will be along it's going off. So does that make sense?
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  And you know just and I didn't an exercise within seven to actually recommend this
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  to my clients and my students and anybody out here who you know, wants
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  to use the mini movie weapons. It's a good exercise to title to your
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  mini movie. You're gonna title the movie. Uh, you know your movie
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  will have a title. Why not give your mini movie a title? So
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  I said, you know, I'd call that the the Pride, uh mini
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  movie right, uh, you know for anvie called Pride. Except they don't
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  have title. Clients come up from seven, right, Uh, but they
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  do. They literally do in the thing, you know, the great great
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  Scott chops on Marvin Hamler's score will come up, and the title card the
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  sort of Norman rock wellish image from the Coming when the Few will will come
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  up and it will play the hook. Right. It really, you know
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  creates in your mind as when you returning a page you came through chapter five
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  and it's a title. Um, you know if it creates sort of a
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  preparation the viewer's mind that oh, we'll coming to something new, okay,
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  so something has ended, something new beginning. Now you know that's not going
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  to work for every movie because of that's a stylistic wave of telling a story.
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  In some movies, you know, you want to go by so fast
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  and not have that quaint if the new chapter sort of feel that we experienced
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  them seamlessly. Kind it's a little harder to see these plot points and new
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  turns intention but they are there. They are none there and they're working to
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  support. Now, what is your process when you're creating a screenplay? How
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  far do you go with um outlining and creating somewhat of a blueprint before you
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  actually get into the you know, the writing phase. You know, it
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  depends, and it is anywhere from absolutely outlined to you know where writing the
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  screenplay is an afterthought to jumping in having one eight sentence out one Uh yeah,
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  and that's uh, you know, you know it's I keep using at
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  number eight. Right, and there are eight mini movies. So I wrote
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  Firestorm, the you know, the screenplay that sold for requarters a million dollars
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  that they bee over a million year with a long haul. Uh, just
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  with those eight sentences and what they were was just a turning point I would
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  jot down to end each mini movie. Right, So, uh, now
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  do I outline and more detail than that? I do? What I might
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  do it in process. So if I so, it kind of depends on
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  the work situation I'm in and and sort of my mood. If I can't
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  wait to get right in, I might you know, brainstorm there's a turning
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  point and dive in. If I'm working with a studio or other producers or
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  a collaborator, and it's a good idea that we all are on the same
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  page. Uh, and understand you know that what the story is going to
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  be. I mean there, you know, in a want of detail,
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  I might create a treatment that is quite detailed, the most I would ever
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  create what being paid point? Is it again? Eight page treatment? And
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  it will shock you to when that's one page for any movie? Right?
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  Um? So uh and you know my collaborator who you know through my role
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  points, you know, I'll points by anybody. I liked it with the
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  many movie method. But when I'm working with a client, um, you
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  know, it's sort of up to them. Uh. And I'll say,
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  listen, you can bring in an outline or you know, uh, let's
• 25:11
  do let's do our brain, sir. But we've come up to the eight
• 25:12
  turning points of the mini movie. And what um, and I might say
• 25:21
  next week, blow each of those those sentences up and do a paragraph.
• 25:26
  Uh, and then maybe blow each paragraph up and do a page. Uh.
• 25:30
  And then we're going to take each of those you know, pages of
• 25:33
  pros written and treatment style, and we're going to blow the weapon of at
• 25:37
  ten to fifteen page and with the screen set. That's a very typical process
• 25:42
  for me. Now, when I'm running myself, as I said, I
• 25:47
  might just jot down the turney all in so you know what, and it's
• 25:51
  it would be kind of like you just heard me do for this two,
• 25:53
  for this pain, at the end of the day one, his partner is
• 25:56
  killed. If the end of ady the two he gets a new partner at
• 26:00
  the end of the NEWE three, he'd set the hook right now. I'll
• 26:03
  know what that means. I'm all strolled on the back of an envelope somewhere.
• 26:07
  Uh. And then I might actually start writing description, but I will
• 26:10
  do more outlining. It's just sort of in processing or will in process,
• 26:15
  which means, you know, when I get to that mini movie that wasn't
• 26:19
  really very full in my mind, I guess very often enough movie five,
• 26:23
  I guess I'm a good point. I'm always that you know which is the
• 26:26
  end of the four through the map right all the strong good point five to
• 26:32
  me, sometimes the most amorphic new movie than that that can happen back to,
• 26:37
  which is you know one of those places its intis got to die.
• 26:41
  And I I'll outline the mini movie in more detail, and that might start
• 26:48
  with be a brainstorming a list of highlight which would be trouble list of seeing.
• 26:53
  I might actually, if I'm really sort of up against it night,
• 26:56
  I'll sort of break the many movie down into microvis which means, you know,
• 27:03
  these eight steps of structure that I have are kind of the structure of
• 27:07
  everything. If you're going to work on attention in fifteen in it, uh,
• 27:11
  the steps are going to be the thing. If smaller, uh,
• 27:15
  then as if you're working not over one hundred and twenty games right on,
• 27:18
  the ratio will be the thing. So about you know, one quarter of
• 27:22
  the script will be you know, the beginning, and then we'll reach the
• 27:26
  end of the beginning of that whole of the day. True, because that's
• 27:30
  kind of the golden meaning or ratio of the storytelling or drawing. So I
• 27:34
  might then outline further. But to me, those eight turning points are key.
• 27:41
  Um. The analogy of the easing resently is it's kind of like having
• 27:45
  a map quest for the Jersey you go on on your screen plight. Uh.
• 27:52
  You know your your screen plays going to have eight turning point. Maybe
• 27:55
  a map quest has eight turns. Right, appen to live in San Diego
• 28:00
  County. If I'm driving up to LA, I'm probably gonna go on the
• 28:03
  five, And depending on where I'm gonna go in La, I'm asking to
• 28:07
  get off the five at some point. I kind of don't care, at
• 28:11
  least at the beginning and even on most of the drive how long I'm on
• 28:15
  the five, if that's going to be seventy miles or something like that,
• 28:19
  I care about that turn. Uh. You know my offering because I know
• 28:26
  I'm going there, and I know that I can figure out the drive that's
• 28:30
  going to be kind of a straight shot. Uh. Um, So I
• 28:36
  you know, and when whenever we used to give directions, if you come
• 28:37
  from an age before math test, it was always you know, uh,
• 28:42
  you keep going on this road and take her right off. You know,
• 28:47
  we were very rarely mentioned how long it's going to be might say a long
• 28:49
  time, right, uh, you know, or going to be a a
• 28:53
  quick left. But you know, the turn defined the shape and it's turn
• 29:00
  define the joke. And when I have those, I really know the shape
• 29:06
  of my story. I can still in the details h that along along the
• 29:11
  purple line of the blue line of map quests or Google maps as I got.
• 29:18
  Now, do you have any exercises once you have your outline and everything?
• 29:22
  Do you just rely upon the writing process for creativity to come out?
• 29:27
  Do you have any tricks for kind of like making putting yourself into a creative
• 29:32
  mode or is it just something that comes out as you're writing. Well,
• 29:34
  you know one of my favorite closes from Stravinsky and it and it is the
• 29:40
  news will only visit when she sees you are hard at work. Um,
• 29:45
  and you know I working hard and uh and uh and and doing the work.
• 29:56
  If you expect that bolt from the blue to strike, we'll be right
• 30:00
  back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
• 30:10
  I think it will come sort of when you're in the zone, or you'll
• 30:12
  cross over into the zone when you are doing the hard work. But you
• 30:18
  know, the views is sickle, and sometimes that hard work does not you
• 30:25
  know, cause or descend from heaven and I think, you know, having
• 30:30
  a craft and having a series of best practices and principles that you can reliably
• 30:37
  put into twenty is the core and the very base of what is called professionals.
• 30:45
  You know the story is going to be very good or you know,
• 30:49
  quite good, because you know these principles and you have an aesthetic and you
• 30:55
  know what good it is, and then you know the views only has to
• 30:59
  come and can do a little bit to do crossover to great maybe. And
• 31:04
  and I think if you actually do study the great movie, even if that
• 31:08
  writer did have that bolt from the blue, uh, that that gave them
• 31:14
  that brilliant idea, and they they weren't, you know, assiduously practicing the
• 31:19
  craft and you know, doing the grut work that it takes to do that.
• 31:26
  After they have you can dissect it. And by and large, I
• 31:30
  think a lot more than people are willing to admit in the arts dissected and
• 31:37
  see what makes it great and duplicate it in your own work. And that's
• 31:41
  that's why I think movies and UH and stories and television are getting better and
• 31:48
  better hum partially by the sheer volume that we have, partially by the technology
• 31:56
  that allows us to generate more multiple drafts, faster and easier. Uh and
• 32:01
  uh uh and just a better understanding of what makes it good. There is
• 32:08
  you know, working against that all of the fact that you know, once
• 32:12
  once a great story has been told, you can't really tell it exactly that
• 32:15
  way again there come up with a really you know, reinvention, or let
• 32:19
  it be your inspiration for something else that is also great, or you're hoping
• 32:24
  great but you know, as far as that goes, as far as you
• 32:29
  know, but you know, kind the creativity and being being in the zone.
• 32:34
  I think of myself as a craftsman more than I do as an artist.
• 32:37
  And so to have them any movie having in the end you really study
• 32:43
  this, uh is I hate to say that's almost a way to mcguiger around
• 32:49
  about having to have h the views strike. I don't want to say not
• 32:54
  even not having to have creativity, because these are enough too. And both
• 33:00
  creativity that we study and the craft that we you know, dedicate ourselves to,
• 33:06
  right. Uh So it is it is creativity. I mean, there's
• 33:10
  and as far as that, you know, the brainstorming that you know that
• 33:15
  you do, and you know, just trying to get yourself you know,
• 33:17
  in a creative mode. I find hard work is the best thing. But
• 33:22
  if I'm not doing that and I want to like just get ideas and that
• 33:25
  you know you've probably heard that, uh, that victim of you know,
• 33:30
  one one percent inspiration ninety nine percent perspiration, right, Uh, having the
• 33:37
  craft and having the aesthentic and having the you know, the best principles and
• 33:40
  a hard work ethic that all fifth in the nine Uh. The one percent
• 33:45
  is that inspiration of the great idea, right, I think? And I've
• 33:52
  um and for that, I watch a lot of movies. I read a
• 34:00
  lot of books. I do a lot of reading. I try to keep
• 34:02
  myself stimulating. You know, I a friend in a writing group, and
• 34:07
  I am you know, very intelligent people that I try to keep in my
• 34:10
  life that really and provide stimulating conversation with it. And in my own mentorship
• 34:16
  program scheamfill venture dot com. You know, I work with you know,
• 34:22
  dozens of clients who are great writers that I've always having a sigulating conversation,
• 34:27
  you know. And lafter you have the one big idea, right that one
• 34:30
  percent of the process, you have to have a million other little great ideas
• 34:36
  too, And so you have you know other smaller one percent. You need
• 34:38
  be good idea screed this scene, you know, which is inspiration as well,
• 34:44
  and the good idea for I do this in the dam, the good
• 34:45
  idea for this plot twist, or ideally the great idea for that puntwist.
• 34:50
  But nobody you've ever seen in this wore. So you're continually challenging yourself that
• 34:54
  way. And you know, I don't know in a way, I don't
• 34:59
  want to you mystify it, um, but I well, I do want
• 35:02
  to do asify I feel it. I feel like that were that word creativity.
• 35:07
  Uh, you know, uh, and waiting for the news to strike
• 35:10
  is sort of an ego trip. A lot of writers and other people in
• 35:15
  the arts take that and they sort of mystify it so that it can be
• 35:22
  a holy and religious experience for them. And uh, and they can,
• 35:28
  you know, maybe you put themselves a little above other people who don't have
• 35:30
  it or don't get it right. And you know, I would much rather
• 35:37
  say, uh, let's de mystify it. You can't. You can do
• 35:39
  it, and you can find great ideas of those screenplays if you just followed
• 35:44
  these steps. Um. And you know, I you know who sold the
• 35:47
  screenplay. So it's your great million dollars. It's not magic. I'm not
• 35:52
  better than you. You you can learn the same things I learned. And
• 35:58
  uh and maybe not the screen places were a million dollars. But right one
• 36:01
  is that is is good U or better as one that did? Uh and
• 36:09
  uh and I you know far prefer that uh to sort of the uh uh
• 36:17
  oh you know uh kind of you know, a leanism that comes with uh,
• 36:24
  you know, creativity and uh, you know what people call brilliant and
• 36:29
  inspiration. Um, you know, God has shown to favor me with his
• 36:32
  brilliant idea. Therefore, uh, you know, I'm I lord it all
• 36:38
  over all of you. He congratulates. You know, you had a good
• 36:42
  idea. You're gonna actually have about you know, a million of those had
• 36:45
  a screenlight career, So get back to work. Um. Do you feel
• 36:50
  like deals like that still exist? I mean it seems like that's kind of
• 36:52
  like, I mean, even even for the day, it was very uh,
• 36:58
  kind of you know, bizarre and kind of unique in its own way.
• 37:01
  But it's like it seems like that kind of thing, you know,
• 37:06
  doesn't that that world of filmmaking is kind of a bygone era at this point.
• 37:10
  Unfortunately, uh, you know, they do still exist, but they
• 37:15
  are you know, as you say, we're rare back then, and they
• 37:17
  are even more rare now. And this has happened, you know, I
• 37:22
  think in my lifetime, in my screenwriting career, if we you know,
• 37:24
  want to put our fingers on why, I would argue, you know that
• 37:30
  it's always uh, it's not even really that uh. Uh. You know,
• 37:37
  a lot of specs got bought for a lot of money and some of
• 37:40
  them turned out badly. Um. Uh you know that's that's part of it.
• 37:45
  But the truth is a movie studio just since I've been working, uh
• 37:52
  in Hollywood, have become more corporate. So uh, you know, twentieth
• 37:57
  century Fox became part of news Ports, right, and uh, Paramount became
• 38:04
  part of the uh Summer Lips and Gigantic Muni and Colomberates. They all of
• 38:08
  the movies became used to be their own corporations and sell their own stock uh
• 38:15
  and uh and have their own shareholders. And they got bigger and bigger and
• 38:21
  became you know, just a small part from Baston Musician Golomberates, of which
• 38:25
  they're only you know, uh four to six pound and uh and it is
• 38:32
  harder to justify to your shareholders that you bought a screenplay for a million dollars
• 38:37
  and then went and lost one hundred million dollars on the movie. Uh uh
• 38:43
  than it is to say we thought it was going to work. It was
• 38:45
  by the writer of Harry Potter or or you know or whatever whatever else that
• 38:52
  you know, it's been successful in another media in the uh in a publishing
• 38:57
  company that are that are that arm unicn Colomber own it's the best seller over
• 39:01
  here right so uh, you know, it's a video game that our company
• 39:07
  also owns. It is based on a song that the music branch of our
• 39:12
  of our backs municking Lombards. The studio is a small piece. Oh so
• 39:15
  that synergy Uh it is you know, kind of what has has replaced in
• 39:22
  the the odd Specs sale and the journeyman screenwriter who kind of wins the lottery.
• 39:29
  Um. So, what advice would you have for screenwriters to you know,
• 39:32
  how to get their screenplays read and how to get you know, how
• 39:37
  to try to have a career as a screenwriter. Sure, I think that
• 39:42
  you know you you want to write those baby scripts, speck screenplays and you
• 39:46
  want to play that lottery. Uh, while at the same time you have
• 39:52
  other works in your portfolio. We'll be right back after a word from our
• 39:58
  sponsor, and now back to the show that are smaller budgets, and we'll
• 40:08
  uh go to uh to smaller conglomerates or you know, outsits that aren't conglomerates
• 40:16
  but are still profitable. So what do I mean, Well, you know,
• 40:21
  I think it might be worth everybody to uh take a look at a
• 40:27
  book called The long Tail, right. So, uh, it's sort of
• 40:30
  about how the market is shifting. And the long tail refers to the you
• 40:35
  know, the tail at the end of a bell curve on a graph about
• 40:38
  who's making the money in a business. Right. Um. So as that
• 40:43
  graph, you know, swelled up high and we see there's paramounts of Disney
• 40:46
  and Universal making billions of dollars in the entertainment thing. Uh and as they
• 40:54
  have become more corporatized. H And and aren't you know one hundred million dollars
• 41:00
  used to be a blockbuster, right and a studio kind of only wants to
• 41:04
  make a movie these days that they think the upside of three hundred million dollars
• 41:08
  and that still next to click after every million part. And as they've moved
• 41:15
  out of the movies that nearly make a hundred million dollars, that has left
• 41:22
  room for us on the long tail to make movies and go to entities with
• 41:29
  our screenplay that that might be making movies will ten to forty million dollars that
• 41:37
  that are only going to make a hundred millions. And the opportunities there where
• 41:42
  hedge funds are stepping in and other you know, conglomerates are stepping in with
• 41:50
  you know, cash liquidity, where the studios to abandon it and smaller conglomerates
• 41:54
  can move in. That's where your opportunities are. They a little harder to
• 41:59
  find. They are are you have to do a little more work, be
• 42:01
  a little better connected. You probably are on the very far end of that
• 42:07
  same long tail. Uh is you know, uh, your friends who all
• 42:13
  want to make a movie for ten thousand dollars uh and uh and these are
• 42:17
  converstrates you can write and fund yourself and in between our you know, every
• 42:23
  every number of budgets from you know, ten thousand dollars, which I could
• 42:28
  have picked the lowest you can make a movie forward is probably not not the
• 42:31
  lioness between uh, um, everything between ten thousand and uh forty million and
• 42:39
  uh and between the forty million and what the studios maker dose for uh.
• 42:45
  You know there there's room as well. So there are other entity defining stepping
• 42:50
  in the profitable area uh that uh, that the larger studios have abandoned.
• 42:59
  Now are you going to sell a screenplay four million dollars uh to any of
• 43:04
  those empties that will be rare at first? And I am thinking, you
• 43:10
  know, might come back again. Um and but you know, could you
• 43:16
  make you know many more million dollars of dollars if you are a producer on
• 43:21
  such a movie and you raise the funding for a movie uh and our profit
• 43:28
  participants in a screenplay you also work but hypenated you know, uh and became
• 43:34
  a letter producer on That's what I am attempting to do. Now that's where
• 43:38
  I think, you know, my next million dollars is and I hope my
• 43:42
  next tens of millions of dollars are and a higher level of creative control and
• 43:46
  for the film as well. So UM, and I'll say this, uh,
• 43:54
  I you know, spent many cares the writer and of course had that
• 43:58
  first lesson success clearly on. That was very exciting and caused me to write
• 44:02
  you in that genre and at that budget range here for our next ten students.
• 44:06
  Like I'm now as excited by the creativity it takes to get the movie
• 44:13
  funds have been made as I once was by the new creative challenge a little
• 44:17
  more traditionally called the creative challenge of actually writing the scripts and deciding the events
• 44:22
  that they take place in it. Um, finding the funding for a movie,
• 44:28
  uh, you know, building or following you know, as I have
• 44:31
  amongst writers and people who want a partner and making with me has been you
• 44:37
  know, a very h one have that breakthrough to realize these could be the
• 44:40
  same thing. These are just all just challenges that have that are begging creative
• 44:47
  solution. Once I realized that it was the same thing, I can get
• 44:52
  as excited about seeking funding person as I can for the original idea for the
• 44:58
  sh You know, the former is just a little more how should I say,
• 45:04
  out of my hands than the other view. Of course, I just
• 45:07
  have millions of dollars at my own disposing. Yet, now, how do
• 45:13
  you how do you feel about places like ink tip and the Blacklist? And
• 45:19
  what do you have a resource that you use, for example, if you
• 45:22
  have a screenplay that you want to get out or is it just a question
• 45:27
  of trying to get it in the right producer's hands. I mean talking about
• 45:30
  strictly working as a writer. I certainly working as a writer. UM,
• 45:36
  I recommend all of those sources. I have gotten a lot of work myself
• 45:40
  through a tip, including the movie that was made that I appeared in m
• 45:46
  and I my own experience within tip is I got a lot of work on
• 45:52
  it. I don't know that I actually listed my own scripts on because I've
• 45:58
  always had an agency manager is uh since since that first Big Spects sale,
• 46:02
  Uh to get script to uh, to get my scripts read. Um.
• 46:07
  I I do hear lots from great stuff abouts of resources. I had a
• 46:10
  movie made that I wrote an assignment from from the Antent news letter. Uh,
• 46:15
  you know my second produced credit after Firestorm and UH. And I know
• 46:21
  a lot of people who have had their their script picked up in an addicial
• 46:24
  way the Blacklist. You know you were on on the playing field. My
• 46:31
  guess is become something very good sort with that brand and being sort of recognized
• 46:37
  as quality. I think it should do well. I'm a little less h
• 46:44
  familiar with their business mome Um, I actually know people in extipency to them
• 46:49
  regularly, but haven't been the case with the blacklist as yes, so,
• 46:53
  but I recommend all of those resources, you know, always saying, you
• 46:57
  know, copy copy, ACTEMP tour, But you know, I am one
• 47:00
  of those resources myself. I'm much more about the craft of the screen light.
• 47:05
  I am like the marketing. But certainly if you uh, you know,
• 47:07
  register the meter, screenplay mentor dot com, I'm going to advise you
• 47:12
  in the marketing. They help you practically query uh and coach pitching as well
• 47:15
  on the values sold multiple pitches myself. So I think these resources are a
• 47:22
  great idea. I'm you know, I'm a piece of that uh. But
• 47:27
  like anything else, they're they're a good one and they're a bad one,
• 47:30
  and you know, the bad one for you may be the great one for
• 47:34
  me. Uh And so at all I think, you know, kind of
• 47:37
  defense. And I regard all these people you know as my colleagues and not
• 47:40
  my competition, but we're all part of, you know, the same machine
• 47:45
  that is trying to get you know, movies made and right and dot writers
• 47:51
  to own their craft and to get their work seen and and make movies and
• 47:55
  television and novel than any other media better bell, you know, as well
• 48:05
  as being a writer of fiction myself. You know, I'm creating you know,
• 48:08
  non fiction book about book about the craft of writing, and other nonfiction
• 48:13
  materials about the craft of writing all the time, and to make the art
• 48:17
  better. And I would even like the art of creating those books. And
• 48:22
  you know, I would like there'd be better books on screenwriting and sort of
• 48:24
  structure. And that's why you know, contribute those. I obviously think that
• 48:29
  there's a better method than it would sort of be a dominant paradigm out there.
• 48:32
  And that is my message in Natalie. Okay, well what do you
• 48:38
  think about, for example, like save the Cat and that kind of thing.
• 48:44
  You know, I knew Blake and uh and he was a colleague and
• 48:47
  we sort of emerged on the market at the same time and kind of from
• 48:52
  the same kneed, you know, which is to say, you know,
• 48:54
  the three act structure is not um sufficient to our tast You're gonna you're gonna
• 49:01
  fall apart and act to the and uh Blake uh um. So I like
• 49:09
  Safercat, I mean, I really like anything that makes it easier. And
• 49:14
  you know, I I recommend kind of everybody and all of my colleagues as
• 49:20
  I say to uh, you know, to too my students and say,
• 49:24
  you know, or to anybody who acts writer, and you know, you're
• 49:28
  going to read all of these books eventually along coups or writers just likely gonna
• 49:32
  have to have millions ideas and you don't know what book is going to give
• 49:37
  you the idea for a new movie, or you don't know what book is
• 49:40
  going to which book is going to get solved the problem, Uh that you're
• 49:45
  having the screen slight. So when I have a hot project, I'm working
• 49:50
  the screen slight. I usually have a bactmnly good research in books. I
• 49:54
  would always have, you know, a stack of books that my research for
• 49:59
  the project. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and
• 50:07
  now back to the show and the latest screenwriting book there. So I would
• 50:14
  be you know, uh, I might do my research in the morning and
• 50:19
  then my writing in the year during the day, and then uh, you
• 50:22
  know, read a little bit about the craft. But I've just been practicing
• 50:24
  all day, uh, you know, before I get to bed that night,
• 50:29
  and you know, I could you know, point to Uh, to
• 50:34
  most of the books I've bet on screenwriting and say, oh, well,
• 50:37
  this thing that I always do that came from that book. And uh,
• 50:43
  this thing that I always say to my students or you know, one of
• 50:46
  my mentorship clients, that came from that screenwriting book. And I always say
• 50:52
  it for my version of it. If I say their versions, I say
• 50:53
  you should go look at while of the Keys book, rap of the Keys
• 50:59
  Book. I actually thing that can actually close the page number on which is
• 51:04
  uh, you know John Truty. I think that's a lot of great and
• 51:07
  very original stuff. Uh. And save the cat as well. Um,
• 51:15
  some of my students who you know, as I said Lake I act to
• 51:16
  have lived at the same time and some of my students who read our books
• 51:20
  both around the same time. I feel like a student. You sent me
• 51:23
  a spreadsheet that lays Blake Snyder structure. Over month, we've heard me say
• 51:29
  of you know, the three act structure. You know, two of my
• 51:31
  plot lens are the end of BacT to one and Act two. It's it's
• 51:36
  the same thing. I don't say, don't use the three act structure.
• 51:39
  I say use that and of it. And likewise I would say, you
• 51:44
  know, if you know, Blake structure, use that and mine if you
• 51:50
  know John Truty's twenty two steps, uh, you know, figure out where
• 51:54
  those are going to go as well. Uh. And you know if something
• 52:00
  from the key is helping you out lay that into your story as well.
• 52:06
  Uh. I sort of feel like, you know, you study all of
• 52:09
  this and you synthathize it, you know, maybe into your own method.
• 52:13
  Uh. And and maybe you can write a book as well. Uh and
• 52:19
  and contribute something to the dialogue about what makes good good screenwriting and what makes
• 52:24
  good movies. So I I quite like, like if there's if there's one
• 52:29
  thing that I kind of envy with him, At least for the first couple
• 52:31
  of years when I was teaching, I always there was a lot of the
• 52:35
  fact that I would be USC glad wherever I departed from what I had learned
• 52:38
  to USC and said something that was just my own theory. I would make
• 52:43
  a big point of saying, so like, maybe this is crazy, but
• 52:45
  I think and Blake just you know, went crazy and gave all of his
• 52:52
  blockquens, blacky backroom names that people still use them, right, and maybe
• 53:00
  part of the language. And no one's very flattering to me when someone says,
• 53:04
  oh, yes, it's in the three, particularly when it's someone I've
• 53:06
  never been right. I you know, I always felt like it reaching the
• 53:10
  first couple of years. You know, if you if you use the term
• 53:13
  mini movie method, you've just had a conversation with me quite recently. Well,
• 53:16
  you've just read my book and now you know I will I'm putting myself
• 53:22
  out there a little more. I could email from someone I could you know,
• 53:23
  picked up putting one of the folks on Amazon and say, uh,
• 53:28
  you have been using the mini we method two years and I've never met them
• 53:30
  and never never heard of uh and uh and you and I've had some conversations
• 53:36
  because said, oh, yes, I always used this method. And you
• 53:39
  know they're in Australia or they're in Canada and somewhere else the far reaching to
• 53:44
  the English speaking world, and you know, and I've never heard of them.
• 53:47
  Then we have never spoken that work and we've never spoken their met very
• 53:52
  no, we've never had uh. And you know, when you put yourself
• 53:54
  out there and start to reach that far uh, you know, it's it's
• 53:59
  very patterning. I feel like, yeah, I actually am I change of
• 54:01
  the world a little bit for the better. Well do you. Um.
• 54:07
  One thing I want to talk about a little more is uh going into the
• 54:14
  movie method, the mini movie method. Um. One of the things that
• 54:19
  I wanted to talk to that we didn't talk about was the concept of creating
• 54:22
  tension. And I wanted to get your opinion on how you create tension in
• 54:28
  each of the mini movies. Okay, absolutely, um, and this is
• 54:32
  this is my ANSWER's favorite talk. I probably should lead with it. I
• 54:35
  hope that was to the podcast. Um. You know, I actually would
• 54:40
  say, you know, you've hit upon what I think is the most important
• 54:45
  thing I teach. What I what I get complimented on the most is oh,
• 54:49
  this jets beat through the second act. That's nothing else right now?
• 54:52
  Now, it's you know, four little fifteen page Steffs, I never know
• 54:55
  the difteen page of the way on from the major attorney for it. And
• 55:00
  that's so much better than the sixty pages away right, um, department.
• 55:05
  Uh so what is a tension? Okay, attension is going to defined by
• 55:14
  I'll even back this up a little more and I will I will say that
• 55:16
  I believe Stinging toward his right book the Pleasure Principle, when he said that
• 55:23
  all pleasure is as the least of attension. So pleasure comes from tension reduction.
• 55:30
  If you get a massage and they're loving your shoulder something to say,
• 55:35
  a tense that feels good? Why because the attension is being relieved. Uh.
• 55:39
  If you take a nap, you know you've go's intension. If you're
• 55:44
  tired and cranky, Uh, that's you're leaving that sative of exhaustion. Uh.
• 55:50
  These are Ford's example coming up here. If you go to the bathroom,
• 55:53
  that relieves at tension of a full bladder. About of course, you
• 55:57
  know, the physical act of love is a build up, and to build
• 55:59
  up and a field up in the release of sexual attension. Right, So
• 56:04
  if we like anything, it means it's reducing attention in it. If we
• 56:10
  like a story, that means it is releasing attension. So you've heard this
• 56:17
  phrase ramatic tension. Maybe you even know how important it is. Right,
• 56:22
  It's the source of all pleasure we take in drama, not the tension,
• 56:27
  but the release of it. So a story is going to build and build
• 56:32
  and build and build dramatic tension and then release it in a surprising and gratifying
• 56:39
  way. So how do we build up pottension in any Okay, here it
• 56:45
  is. Here's my magic formula for at tension. If you ask me,
• 56:49
  this is the E equals mc squaredest story. This is the equation I we
• 56:52
  shall all relies. Tension equals hope versus. In every movie, there's something
• 57:02
  we're hoping for. You probably hurt us hear maybe you heard was called a
• 57:07
  rooting interest. We're rooting for the hero. And what does that mean.
• 57:10
  We're rooting for him to get what he wants, probably which might just be
• 57:15
  escaping our monsters trying to kill him, which might mean the heart of the
• 57:20
  fair Maiden, which might mean, not to be sexist about it, the
• 57:25
  heart of that hunky man. Okay, So whatever they want, we're generally
• 57:32
  rooting for them to get it, and we hope they will. We fear
• 57:38
  not just that they won't, but that they will suffer great consequence in the
• 57:45
  attempt of getting so innovated the Lost Art. We really hope that Indiana Joe
• 57:52
  gets to the Lost Art. We really fear that he shall die in his
• 57:54
  attempt to get and worse yet, if the knock will have it and they
• 58:00
  will become an undistoppable armit right, So note the stakes that are attached that
• 58:07
  help him here. Well, that's the hope of fear of the entire movie.
• 58:10
  That's that's what I would call the main attention of rated the Lost arc.
• 58:15
  Right. Likewise, each minie has at tension on which that relies.
• 58:23
  So at the end of the minu we won when the CIA if we dolss
• 58:28
  back then coming to Indian says we need your help. We found this the
• 58:34
  word staff of Raw in the telegram. Indie say the headpiece and the staff
• 58:38
  of Braw. You take it into the maturum of Tannis in Tanis at a
• 58:42
  certain time of the day. It shows your location of the will of the
• 58:45
  souls. Well, he is that line of dialogue just the way Paul Newman
• 58:50
  does, and the sting lays out the tension of the next three new movie.
• 58:55
  The next mini movie is about him getting the headpiece and the staff rock.
• 59:00
  We hope that he can be fear, that he shall buy in the
• 59:04
  attempt and the Nazis will get it so he gets a successful either. One
• 59:07
  after that is all about getting into the map room un detective and finding the
• 59:12
  level of the souls, and the one after that is about getting to the
• 59:15
  role of dissolier then getting the arc right. But if any of one of
• 59:19
  these goes wrong, we're hoping in the triumph in each mine. If any
• 59:22
  of them goes wrong, but the nazis going to have the arc and rule
• 59:25
  the world. So hope and fear is your technique and it is your sure
• 59:35
  fire way to build trension in a movie. In a mini movie, I'll
• 59:40
  go, I'll go further that in a scene or in any interchange of dialogue
• 59:45
  or beat of action, with anything, every little beat of action or every
• 59:51
  line, if somebody says, must move the needle on the tension leader,
• 1:00:00
  we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to
• 1:00:07
  the show. And it's going to swing it from hope to fear, or
• 1:00:12
  fear to hope, or hope to fonder hope or fear to even the worst
• 1:00:16
  fear. And if it's not doing that, then that scene, that mini
• 1:00:22
  movie, or worse yet, that movie is static and doesn't have attention and
• 1:00:31
  is going to be boring. And that is the worst client you can commit.
• 1:00:37
  As they story each other on a filmmaker, am I right to be
• 1:00:43
  boring? So so do you go back and like check out a scene and
• 1:00:45
  say, Okay, this scene is it's kind of like it's okay, but
• 1:00:50
  I want to add a little more conflict to it. I want to add
• 1:00:52
  just a little more spice. Absolutely, yes, I do that all the
• 1:00:58
  time. And what is that that's really running? Polishing? I mean,
• 1:01:00
  I think you know when you say you're rerunning that maybe kind of vague,
• 1:01:05
  but uh, this is by and large what you're doing, or at least
• 1:01:08
  you know in this phase when you're right. So of course I'll go with
• 1:01:10
  you and say, okay, well what else uh here will uh will make
• 1:01:16
  will make this tension really top? Uh? You know, this line makes
• 1:01:21
  me, gives me a little hope, you know, but the next line
• 1:01:27
  is going or or feed of fear of action is making me fear it?
• 1:01:30
  But how could it give me even more fear? What could make it look
• 1:01:34
  like the outcome is even worse? Because we watch the story, or read
• 1:01:37
  a story, or go through our daily lives, we are constantly trying to
• 1:01:42
  forget the future, right, and we're constantly trying to get evidence. Cheo
• 1:01:49
  Copy talks about this and talks about how that's an adaptive behavior, right?
• 1:01:52
  How why would that evolve? Right? Because the people condict the future of
• 1:01:55
  the best are going to survive better, uh, and are going to you
• 1:02:00
  know, carry their genes for this generation and are you know, going to
• 1:02:04
  get all the food and they're they're going to do very well. Right.
• 1:02:07
  So so that adaptive behavior helps us out of and that's why stories to light
• 1:02:14
  us because uh, they variously stool us and get us caught into that a
• 1:02:20
  lot kind of happy national, happy, xtional happy and act right. So
• 1:02:23
  if if I give you an event that seems to point towards a very dire
• 1:02:28
  outcome, a fear right, uh, and then I give you anotheryone that
• 1:02:32
  makes it even more to the thing that is surely going to happen, and
• 1:02:37
  then I spring a surprise because guess what it happened. But it was ten
• 1:02:39
  times worse than you thought. And I'm exceeding your worst spears at every term.
• 1:02:45
  Right, So that's constable what I'm asking myself, what would raise to
• 1:02:50
  take of this, what would make this deep worse? That's a very good
• 1:02:52
  vanda or a or a focker hope. But you know the way the way
• 1:03:00
  the drama structure that's golden in the drama that you know, three quarters of
• 1:03:02
  the of the drama will be the story will be convincing as very that stuffing
• 1:03:07
  that happen, right, and that right stepping in usually the happy ending,
• 1:03:12
  stepping into the day to day about three quarters the way through, or maybe
• 1:03:15
  it's the very last one. Now, talking about sorry, creating conflict,
• 1:03:23
  I assume that this means what you're saying is, once you at the very
• 1:03:29
  beginning, you need to establish what it is your protagonist wants, and therefore
• 1:03:37
  that's going to be something that drives you through the entire story. Is abolutely
• 1:03:42
  yeah, okay, right, And that that's a tension as well, right
• 1:03:45
  in their desire line, you know, creates that at tension. Um.
• 1:03:50
  You know, I said, we're rooting for them to get what they want,
• 1:03:53
  right, So there's our hope that they will, our fear that they
• 1:03:58
  will suffer great, great consequence in the attempts, right, they'll fail and
• 1:04:04
  be destroyed in some way by it. Uh So uh and this this applies
• 1:04:10
  by the way, I mean, I'm using these broad terms that you know,
• 1:04:13
  destroyed by it? Uh and you I right, Actually ventures so people
• 1:04:17
  kind of think, oh, well, this is the only way you apply
• 1:04:20
  in that genre, but absolutely not. It's you know, Uh, if
• 1:04:25
  we say their heart is broken, then it applies to a love story.
• 1:04:28
  If that is, if we define their destruction is that their heart is broken,
• 1:04:30
  they shall never love again because the one person they could love that they
• 1:04:35
  would ever meet here on this entire planet has married another. Well, there's
• 1:04:41
  your love story. There's the stakes of you know, of many a romantic
• 1:04:45
  comedy. And you know, if you don't overliteralize me, if you sort
• 1:04:50
  of you know here, either literally or symbolically, at the end of these
• 1:04:56
  things, I'm saying, you will realize they apply to every single story you're
• 1:05:00
  ever going to write. And yes, you know, Um, I talk
• 1:05:03
  about this structurally, and I kind of see everything as structure because that characters
• 1:05:12
  want is really our hope. If you want something, you hope you get
• 1:05:16
  it right. Uh, it's the same thing. Uh. You know,
• 1:05:21
  the sort of two verbs can use almost interchanges. But I think if you
• 1:05:25
  look in the dictionary under hope, you see want or desire as a synonym
• 1:05:31
  and vice versa. Right, So, uh, they're they're used interchange lens.
• 1:05:35
  So far as we talk about character, I think we should be called
• 1:05:40
  human wantings rather than human beings. That defines a character and a person so
• 1:05:46
  much. If you say, you know, you and I are talking about
• 1:05:48
  a third party friend of ours and I say, what's he about? I
• 1:05:53
  think you're usually going to answer that you know what he's trying to do in
• 1:05:56
  his life and what he wants. UM. So that does define character for
• 1:06:01
  us, and that's where character and the story are so inextricably bound. Off
• 1:06:05
  the point, Now, how does that relate to creating a log line?
• 1:06:14
  Okay? Uh? You know, generally, uh, I think a long
• 1:06:19
  line. This is not the template life specifically used, but I can give
• 1:06:24
  you my own template for log lines, you know, the defining aspect of
• 1:06:29
  the movie. Maybe not the sect pitch, but uh. Generally, a
• 1:06:33
  you know, a long line will be one sentence, the subject will be
• 1:06:39
  the protagonist, and it will depict what he wants. Uh. And usually
• 1:06:45
  have a position, my own uh uh template for log lines. Uh.
• 1:06:57
  You know, I have you know, a whole hour lecture that leads up
• 1:07:00
  to this phrase, of which the phrase is sort of the punchline. So
• 1:07:03
  I hope you're we don't have time for that. I hope you will stipulate
• 1:07:09
  that I that I support it well and make my point. But I think
• 1:07:13
  that the finding aspects are a hero, a villain, and a world or
• 1:07:18
  a protagonist, an antagonist and a backdrop. So so if we said a
• 1:07:29
  m you know, uh, an archaeologist battle the Nazis to control an ancient
• 1:07:38
  artifact that's raided the lost arc. Right, we can get more specific,
• 1:07:45
  uh, But so it would be an archaeologist battle de Nazis to retrieve the
• 1:07:53
  lost art of the countant. Right, So that's right in order a hero
• 1:07:58
  of villain of world, right, And that's rated the lost art and the
• 1:08:03
  other thing I will say. And the reason I think long lines are important
• 1:08:08
  is only one movie. It's that description. And I think that if you've
• 1:08:15
  got a good long line and you slapped the question what's that movie? Where
• 1:08:23
  to put your long line after it? And then put a question mark at
• 1:08:27
  the end, there is only one answer. So, what's that movie where
• 1:08:33
  the poor boy? No, pardon me, all we are fraides, what's
• 1:08:36
  that movie where the rich girl falls in love looking poor boy on the doomed
• 1:08:42
  ocean liner? As everybody you know, we only have to say Titanic.
• 1:08:47
  It topped everybody's head the moment I said that. Right now, I could
• 1:08:51
  say on the Titanic and that would be even bigger chief, right, But
• 1:08:57
  I didn't because I wanted to pop that movie poster and maybe that horrible song
• 1:09:02
  into your head, right, And you cannot help but answer that. Now,
• 1:09:10
  how great a tool is that for you to have as a defining essence?
• 1:09:15
  Did you even more heady? Here? The plutonics form of what your
• 1:09:18
  story and movie is going to be? Right? That what your movie is
• 1:09:21
  that no other movie ever has been or will be could be defined by that
• 1:09:27
  sentence. And I think if you get specific about your hero, specific about
• 1:09:30
  your antagonist, and specific about your world or a backdrop, you'll get Um,
• 1:09:36
  I don't know if you were ever the movie plot generator sort of a
• 1:09:41
  maybe it will see it's another writer's story was selling and probably look it up
• 1:09:44
  on Amazon. But it was, you know, a sort of three books
• 1:09:47
  and you want we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and
• 1:09:56
  now back to the show. Because it had three steps of pages that you
• 1:10:01
  could flip and so as you you know, flip the top one, it
• 1:10:05
  changes then they're too below it, right, So, and so you could
• 1:10:11
  change an element of a movie. You could generate movie plots with it.
• 1:10:15
  And they were basically laid out like that. Although you know, I was
• 1:10:18
  talking about this long line temple before it existed. Uh you know, it
• 1:10:23
  was basically the top the top bunch of pages were a hero, the middle
• 1:10:30
  were a villain, and the third world world or something they were tempting to
• 1:10:33
  do or something like that. So I think that, you know, buy
• 1:10:39
  and large is the way to generate your long line. And you know,
• 1:10:44
  I will make no bones about it, but you know, for a while
• 1:10:46
  there in through the eighties and nineties, a lot of people they made a
• 1:10:50
  lot of money, myself included by kind of changing the world of die Heart.
• 1:10:57
  Right. I firsted over the Forest Fire, right, and die Hard
• 1:11:01
  in a blank was a you know, a great sort of uh you know,
• 1:11:08
  we saw a lot of those movies and more even more scripts sold,
• 1:11:13
  uh back in that day. Now, I also changed the hero, and
• 1:11:17
  I also changed the villain, right, But essentially it was a hostage situation,
• 1:11:24
  which is kind of uh you know what what die Hard is. Uh
• 1:11:28
  maybe one of the first two where to uh dramatize that through an entire movie,
• 1:11:33
  although I think it goes back to you know, movies called Desperate Hounds
• 1:11:38
  in the sub days that came off a season sixties, so you you know,
• 1:11:43
  so and the this meets that right sort of pistedly here in Hollywood.
• 1:11:47
  Um. Always they're always thinking, you know, one of those three elements
• 1:11:53
  from this and another one or two of them from that. So yeah,
• 1:11:58
  you can also uh uh pitch die Hard pitched Firestorm, my my, my
• 1:12:03
  specs sail uh you know as die Hard in the forest fire, right,
• 1:12:08
  or you could pies die Hard meets backdraft. Right. So we're taking that
• 1:12:12
  hotage situation and we're putting in the world of fire, taking a patagon it
• 1:12:15
  too, you know, battles fire uh and uh and the hostage situation.
• 1:12:21
  It's really the situation. So you are the world uh and combining it with
• 1:12:27
  the world of backdraft. This is fire. Uh. You know, um,
• 1:12:30
  you know I would I pitched a couple of times. I was writing
• 1:12:34
  in with the cliffhanger set on fire. Um and uh, you know,
• 1:12:42
  so one of my friends a lot of people run will be this is what
• 1:12:45
  happens to be pointing down around um uh this to me, you know,
• 1:12:50
  up the stakes eating on cliffe right click. I noticed too very well,
• 1:12:55
  let's done on fire. It's done better even even more of them. So
• 1:12:59
  that that's you know, uh, that's long line for me. A hero
• 1:13:05
  and a villain and the world. Now you can say a hero battle the
• 1:13:10
  villain or maybe the fourth one. It is a bird implying conflict. So
• 1:13:13
  if you really want to get a more detailed complict U, A protagonist subject
• 1:13:18
  is a protagonist. The bird always implies conflict. The direct object of the
• 1:13:24
  sentence gives the end is the antagonist. And then there's a prepositional phrase uh,
• 1:13:30
  indicating the world. So see my own movie fire Song, a smoke
• 1:13:35
  temper goes up against to escape convict and biggest forest fire the other STA National
• 1:13:42
  Park History. U is exactly the things in the hold. Now, when
• 1:13:48
  you're going through something, you know, when you're writting that screenplay, do
• 1:13:51
  you go check out die Hard and say, okay, let me get the
• 1:13:56
  screenplay for that and see what beats this is hitting, like what page and
• 1:13:59
  things like absolutely Uh. If you know, certainly, when I was the
• 1:14:04
  USC and I was luck enough to have access to a screen screenplay library,
• 1:14:10
  I would get the strings probably read the entire first year I was at a
• 1:14:15
  screenplay every single day. Uh and uh and not uh and um. And
• 1:14:21
  you will not surprise you at all to to know that I go through and
• 1:14:27
  I create a reverse engineer from what I would call a structural complate in any
• 1:14:32
  movie outline, right, I will check what's happening on page fifteen, on
• 1:14:38
  page thirty, on page forty five sixty, I'm ninety one oh five,
• 1:14:42
  and and what's happening you know in the last page? Uh kind? What
• 1:14:46
  are the terms? I get the map plus structure of that story. So
• 1:14:54
  I'm i'll certainly, you know, read the screenplay. But you know I
• 1:14:58
  I w so many screenplays, you know that that year that I was able,
• 1:15:04
  I would get them, you know, not just that they were a
• 1:15:09
  great structural template, but I would go get them if they just had a
• 1:15:14
  similar character to why I was considering even a minor character, I would.
• 1:15:20
  You know, there have been you know, thousands, if not millions of
• 1:15:25
  movies, um, most of the problems that they've confronted and solved and solved
• 1:15:32
  to bearing degrees of h of billions to buy somebody. You don't have to
• 1:15:43
  re invent the wheel every time, now, can you? You know,
• 1:15:45
  if you're very specifically creating a minor character that you know is very similar to
• 1:15:50
  a well known minor character. Can you do everything to those people be found
• 1:15:55
  a feeling their lines, the words no persecution, but they can be your
• 1:15:58
  inspiration and you can isolate principles about why that working. That did my study.
• 1:16:03
  So if it was going to be similar in tone uh to what I
• 1:16:09
  was like, I would go read and that that was another part of my
• 1:16:15
  you know, Uh, I only mentioned the reading part of life, my
• 1:16:18
  creative process. I'll watch you know at you know, after the data's work
• 1:16:24
  is done deep into the screenplay, I'll watch a similar movie too. Um.
• 1:16:29
  So you know, there's certain templates I find myself bringing up all the
• 1:16:31
  time to people like, oh, you're gonna you know, you should go
• 1:16:35
  make a many movie outlook and this one I do when I can, and
• 1:16:40
  people write these downs and collect these outlines from starting to archives as a resource
• 1:16:45
  for my conduc dot com. Uh. Basic instinct I think is a great
• 1:16:50
  great for your detective story. And there's some some unique structural things it does,
• 1:16:57
  uh that have been sold them a lot and continue to inspire. Um.
• 1:17:03
  Three Days of the Condor is you know great for for a thriller as
• 1:17:09
  well? On that spying freed um and uh oh yeah, uh, Men
• 1:17:16
  in black is sort of uh something I mentioned a lot to people for people
• 1:17:20
  to study uh for their own quirky uh actually a secret organization. Uh movie.
• 1:17:30
  So if you see, you know, lots of things have been done
• 1:17:34
  before. You're very lucky when you know when you have a really unique idea,
• 1:17:39
  but you're also very challenged if they're if no one has gone before you
• 1:17:43
  down, it's fast. So um and uh. Some movie is sort of
• 1:17:48
  you know, sailed by on on that and being sort of a wonner,
• 1:17:54
  as they used to say, one of the kind. But I think that
• 1:18:00
  they're the movies that we're seeing the very by and large a fault do fall
• 1:18:03
  into the very gratifying. I don't want to use the word formula because it's
• 1:18:10
  formulaic, is uh is a negative. I don't think of that that.
• 1:18:15
  You know, the polio vaccine is a formula and it's great for us.
• 1:18:21
  You know, I need to solve a problem of not getting polio. Please
• 1:18:26
  give me something formulaic. So you know, I think, uh, you
• 1:18:30
  know, if you make what people mean when they say it's formulaic and there
• 1:18:35
  and the implication is bad, it's not original. Bro. Just to make
• 1:18:41
  origionality part of the formula, right, So I say, you know,
• 1:18:46
  uh, Cliffhanger set on Fire, Well, if it was just Cliffhanger,
• 1:18:49
  that would be original. Combining Uh, those two elements is what brings the
• 1:18:56
  originality. And I would say, uh, you know, if you read
• 1:18:59
  my script, you would say raising the ball actually and take made that.
• 1:19:05
  You know that scrips worth buying that movie with making whatever the results me.
• 1:19:10
  But it finally was made. So I think, you know, making sure
• 1:19:15
  that it's a fresh take and it's original. H. I don't know that
• 1:19:21
  you're necessarily going to reinvent the structure. So I did an interview with Brian
• 1:19:28
  Junivitch a couple of weeks ago, and one of the things that he said
• 1:19:30
  that I think is very similar to what you're saying is when they make a
• 1:19:34
  movie and he's he's a producer, Um, he says, basically, what
• 1:19:39
  they try to do is have eighty percent of the movie be familiar and then
• 1:19:43
  twenty percent be kind of new with new ideas. So people don't want to
• 1:19:47
  watch movies they are one hundred percent you know, original, because they don't
• 1:19:51
  even know where to go with it. They want to have something that's familiar,
• 1:19:55
  and then they help want to have something that kind of surprises them within
• 1:19:58
  a template that's already kind of familiar to them. We'll be right back after
• 1:20:03
  a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. I think
• 1:20:13
  that's that's absolutely correct. Um uh, you know, and and and there
• 1:20:18
  are you know, very you know, very original movies that are one hundred
• 1:20:23
  percent of original, and I generally can't stand them because you know, they've
• 1:20:26
  also bought a narrative about the doors. So I mean, you know,
• 1:20:30
  lots lots of people you know, like uh, you know Kleani SCOTTSI,
• 1:20:33
  which is you know, basically you know, Philip class music with end just
• 1:20:38
  images from around the world. There's not a character, there's not a story
• 1:20:41
  to follow. Um, you know, it's I don't even call it a
• 1:20:45
  movie, right Uh. But it's also filmed, so I guess we have
• 1:20:51
  to call you know, and it's a moving pictures, so we have to
• 1:20:54
  call it a movie. But that's not for me. Uh. And as
• 1:20:57
  a very small segment of the of the popular shoo are h going to uh
• 1:21:02
  watch and love that? And I think they're getting a different thing from it
• 1:21:09
  then they're getting from from what we call a movie. I would almost argue
• 1:21:13
  that boyhood that that uh I thought was such I actually thought was good this
• 1:21:19
  year, but not for all the reasons why normal think a movie is good.
• 1:21:23
  I did think it was slow, which I think, you know,
• 1:21:27
  the greatest crime you can commit. And yet it did add up to something
• 1:21:30
  and it was such a worthy project at undertaking and exploration is to you know,
• 1:21:36
  a combination of movies and living life. But I would have been happy
• 1:21:42
  if he won the album h you know, just to reward the dedication of
• 1:21:48
  those filmmakers and those people who showed up those twelve years. And it does
• 1:21:53
  kind of add up to something, and you know that you do kind of
• 1:21:57
  feel like, particularly the next Charnce um or a boy uh, it has
• 1:22:02
  a little something to say about life as it's being lived in nearly part of
• 1:22:09
  this money party people who grow up that way. Um and so but I
• 1:22:16
  almost want to say, not a movie almost its own art form. So
• 1:22:20
  there's an example of you know, two things that are not really movie that
• 1:22:26
  one I don't like him. One I kind of game. Um, I
• 1:22:28
  don't know, you know, mister Linkletter would be a steps here to say
• 1:22:30
  he's very fine to because not a movie. Um, but I think I
• 1:22:35
  read somewhere that he like made a comment about hating plot, you know,
• 1:22:41
  and I thought that was interesting that if you watch his movies, he just
• 1:22:44
  can't stand plot and likes to you know, have more organic kind of scenes
• 1:22:49
  that don't necessarily hit beats, you know. So it's just a different you
• 1:22:53
  know, some people can get away with that. I so so few do
• 1:23:00
  and and listen, I'm not going to people to again. I'm glad.
• 1:23:03
  I'm glad I did. I'm glad it was done. Uh, you know,
• 1:23:06
  I think it's never gonna make the money the transformed it does or you
• 1:23:14
  know, a lot of other things. So what's like what was a Tree
• 1:23:17
  of Life too? Was kind of like that, you know, you know,
• 1:23:20
  to this day this will be telling. I have not seen a Tree
• 1:23:25
  of Life to this day because I just fear that I'm gonna go pretty pretty
• 1:23:30
  and fall asleep. Um, I don't know, maybe, I mean,
• 1:23:34
  uh, some people do like it, uh, you know, a sort
• 1:23:39
  as Alex work goes. I love bad Lands, which was pretty you know,
• 1:23:42
  story driven, and I feel sort of defined a genre, you know,
• 1:23:45
  between it and Bonnie and Clyde that you know, uh, um,
• 1:23:49
  the you know, young couple on the run, pull and height uh.
• 1:23:55
  Um was defined by that and UM and you know seminal as a certain kind
• 1:24:00
  of story and there's no natural born killers about it, and a certain certain
• 1:24:04
  other and most some one where weeds about it, certain other stories that we've
• 1:24:08
  seen. UM. But uh I and I understand you know, as a
• 1:24:15
  certain then the philosophy that uh that you know uh uh God lasts or doesn't
• 1:24:23
  even notice the tiny small thing that then trying to do and care about it.
• 1:24:29
  I guess that you know, mister Alex has that viewpoint. UM,
• 1:24:33
  and you're probably right, you know, probably it's true uh it to me,
• 1:24:41
  it doesn't make for the best entertainment once once you grab it one of
• 1:24:45
  you, they'll see three of life probably uh. You know, I I
• 1:24:49
  think that you know it's better Uh that's better or less to a philosophical discussion
• 1:24:56
  for me to really gradic idea and not not demonstrated uh dramatically through story.
• 1:25:01
  UM. And you have certain ideas you know, uh having better treatment uh
• 1:25:09
  in other media. I guess, so let me let me change gears for
• 1:25:14
  a second if I can. UM. I wanted to since we're we're coming
• 1:25:16
  up on um an hour and a half. I want to I want to
• 1:25:21
  make sure I hit a few things. UM. Now, uh, you
• 1:25:25
  know a lot of people that listen to this are you know, starting out
• 1:25:28
  as screenwriters and um, first time screenwriters are people that are struggling to to
• 1:25:32
  you know, write their first Um, can you talk a little bit about
• 1:25:38
  some of the biggest mistakes that you see when you have new students come in
• 1:25:42
  that are that are creating their first screenplay? Are there any common kind of
• 1:25:45
  pitfalls that people run into that you see a lot? Well, you know,
• 1:25:50
  uh, I sort of feel like this, you know, the first
• 1:25:56
  step is still off from the misstep, which is uh, sort of bad
• 1:26:01
  idea selection for what you're going to write a movie on. And I sort
• 1:26:09
  of feel like there are two mistakes people make. Their one is not sufficiently
• 1:26:13
  differentiated from other movies. They don't even really recognize that it's so similar it
• 1:26:20
  you know, it doesn't have this twenty percent in that age twenty the ratio
• 1:26:24
  that you know that you were talking about, Um, you're a producer prime.
• 1:26:29
  I would mentioning UM, and and I will speak to someone and I
• 1:26:34
  will say, well, how is that different from this from on film?
• 1:26:39
  And I won't get it good enoughing, uh, and there's this desire to
• 1:26:44
  cling to it because you you know, you love this idea and maybe it
• 1:26:48
  even got you to be a writer. And if it did that, it
• 1:26:50
  was worth it? Is it? Everything made? Maybe not the other?
• 1:26:55
  The other is taking something that doesn't that attention to it and isn't going to
• 1:26:59
  be you know, a good story when you're done an idea, this is
• 1:27:02
  not a good idea and having that esthetic, you know, having studying that
• 1:27:09
  movie to know, h what you know what a good idea is because it's
• 1:27:14
  going to provide a great tension, to conflict and ideally yield a theme.
• 1:27:18
  Um, I think it's key. I think that's that's a very common distep
• 1:27:24
  that only gets the actual writing, uh, you know, over directing and
• 1:27:28
  putting things in in the narration that uh, you know couldn't possibly be acting
• 1:27:33
  or dramatized or seen, you know, the things that development executives and are
• 1:27:40
  whether I how do I know? Uh you know, uh in the margin
• 1:27:44
  devent so you know the main character thinks at the time when he was three
• 1:27:47
  years old and went the old Fisian hole, right, you put that a
• 1:27:50
  narration? You know, I've been an actor. I cannot put an expression
• 1:27:55
  on my faith even in the closes that shows you I'm thinking of that,
• 1:28:00
  right, um so? And the over directing and really having such a strong
• 1:28:09
  visual in your controverting that goes on, but it's doing a lot of things
• 1:28:11
  that jump matter story. Can you put in any sort of I mean,
• 1:28:15
  I know that people who are writers and directors, you know, like pt
• 1:28:20
  Anderson will put camera moves and things into his shooting script. Is there is
• 1:28:25
  that just completely taboo to put any sort of like camera movement or I mean,
• 1:28:30
  can you do like angle on something or focus on there? I think
• 1:28:38
  it's because it's becoming less and less taboos, and as you will see more
• 1:28:44
  more screenplays. I am none the I'm nonetheless I partially because I'm just an
• 1:28:53
  old dinosaur and I grew up saying never do it, and books that say
• 1:28:58
  that say never do it, and and do it over direct my my opinion
• 1:29:05
  on why you shouldn't do a little different thanyby else. You know, don't
• 1:29:10
  tell the director how a director can across all of stuff out uh, and
• 1:29:14
  he's going pissed off of you. My attitude is much more, at least
• 1:29:17
  than in the spec scrip of the line to be read. Let's put the
• 1:29:21
  word camera in it, okay or angle is to jar the leader out of
• 1:29:30
  what you're hope, out of the flow state. They should get into such
• 1:29:33
  a state leadingership that they forget that they're even leading. It should flow through
• 1:29:40
  them and and to put and they should so they should feel like they're flying
• 1:29:47
  on the wall watching these people have these experiences, and then they should so
• 1:29:55
  forget themselves and uh lease their their self consciousness so much so there's even for
• 1:30:00
  not even you're flying when there should be no wall. We'll be right back
• 1:30:03
  after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. And
• 1:30:14
  that's what you're trying to do. You syd just achieved that then state of
• 1:30:18
  flow with your reader. And so they so they should only realize when they
• 1:30:24
  get to the script that they were even reading. A director of Zigniel calls
• 1:30:29
  thegree in state um and say camera that Shu say angle is to remind them
• 1:30:35
  they're watching you there they're being the should in scripts for a movie that will
• 1:30:39
  ultimately failm that actors are going to be playing these roles and to take them
• 1:30:43
  out of their reality. The same reason I am against we see and we
• 1:30:47
  hear about in the script. There's no read there are There is only the
• 1:30:55
  flow of this story. You're not forget that. You are change and hearing
• 1:31:00
  it. H Let it flow through. That's what I want to see in
• 1:31:06
  the spec script now when that is changing for shooting script, I avowed the
• 1:31:11
  next one I will I'll probably Cabra directions in you because it seemed perfectly obvious
• 1:31:17
  to me that this had to be a close up than I said, you
• 1:31:19
  see it tear on its face? Then it wasn't. I wouldn't say you
• 1:31:25
  see I think I would play tears on the space. Um, you know,
• 1:31:29
  Cail, I go to coded stuff like that. I've described somebody's face.
• 1:31:34
  It means closest. I'm trying to get you into the visual of the
• 1:31:42
  movie I have in my head, But I don't actually feel that we seem
• 1:31:46
  to be here? Does that so you would just say instead of like we
• 1:31:50
  hear a car honk outside, you would just say a car honks outside or
• 1:31:56
  something like that. Yeah, okay, yeah, all right, UM let
• 1:32:01
  me what wasn't that an improvement that? But what did you did you hear
• 1:32:06
  a car honking? Or will you in your mind. You what's going to
• 1:32:11
  be different from the screen in the movie, They're going to be the same.
• 1:32:14
  Yeah. Now, when you were at USC, were there any screenplays
• 1:32:19
  that were kind of do well? Did you have any like I hate to
• 1:32:23
  say this phrase, but any like aha moments when you just like kind of
• 1:32:28
  got it for the first time, or when you when you realized like,
• 1:32:31
  Okay, this is this is really someone who has talent and this is a
• 1:32:35
  screenplay that you know is going to inspire me. Um. You know,
• 1:32:41
  I read all of William Goldman's works, Uh, and it was particularly The
• 1:32:45
  Princess Bride. And I actually never read the novel in Princess Bride, but
• 1:32:49
  I quite like the movie where I said this, you know, this is
• 1:32:55
  an incredible piece of work and it's you just your eyes are just pulled down
• 1:33:00
  the page. Uh. Shane Black, who you know, sort of everybody's
• 1:33:03
  idol coming up in the in the Square and room. Had you happened to
• 1:33:06
  him what we all want to have happened to him? Uh? Is on
• 1:33:10
  record of thing. I read all all William Goldman, I read all of
• 1:33:14
  Walter Hill, and so I took my writing style from them, and so
• 1:33:19
  I they pointed reading all those Golden scripts, I then pointed reading all Walter
• 1:33:24
  Hill script and I did have one thing coming up. The Shane Black did
• 1:33:28
  not have this word. I also had Shane Black. So I read both
• 1:33:33
  produced and unproduced and a lot of others. As I say, you have
• 1:33:36
  a splight of slopment, but two that really stand out a heart of reading
• 1:33:41
  screenplay Joe that I would say that the Princess Bride screenplay was so beautiful made
• 1:33:47
  me cry more than seeing the movie ever had. I'm not like the cults
• 1:33:51
  fan sent this problem that everybody else that's love it just not you know,
• 1:33:57
  like I'm telling you with you again. Um. And also the movie uh
• 1:34:02
  field of Dreams between type of feeling of dreams I am seeing that movie was
• 1:34:08
  very emotionally affecting, affecting on me, and I let the writ attack had
• 1:34:13
  at least the same emotion, probably more. Um So, I guess it's
• 1:34:18
  you know, I'm giving you the ones that made me cry. Um.
• 1:34:21
  I also read a lot of a lot of the ones that give you this
• 1:34:29
  emotion, and those probably inforcement writing sound more exactly sure that that emotion is
• 1:34:33
  uh uh so I'll just sort of gives the reaction, which is whoa cool
• 1:34:40
  I read a lot of those, um and in fact, my my producer
• 1:34:45
  said, you're going to carve yourself a nichean Hollywood be cool stuff. Got
• 1:34:49
  um and that that is what I tried to do. And that's that's kind
• 1:34:54
  of what I learned to write quickly. Um. Now I've written, I
• 1:35:00
  have written screenplay since that don't make you Cry in frantic comedies, in a
• 1:35:03
  family movie and things like that that that came over the waves of my ahash
• 1:35:10
  and the remember that you stick with me or you know what, like you
• 1:35:13
  remember being on an exercise, exercise like reading to you're streaming down my face,
• 1:35:18
  or feel with the princess road all right? Now. My final question
• 1:35:26
  is always the same. I call it the time machine. If you could
• 1:35:29
  go back in time and talk to yourself when you were, let's say,
• 1:35:32
  eighteen twenty years old, what advice would you have for yourself about filmmaking or
• 1:35:40
  screenwriting or life in general. Okay, filmmaking way, I think I would
• 1:35:47
  say, uh, start writing now, because that came to writing in life.
• 1:35:59
  And I'm always very jealous of the people who are at that age and
• 1:36:02
  know they want to be writers, because I went through two careers before I
• 1:36:06
  really started writing. And then I would say, because it is all writing,
• 1:36:15
  also making its writing, or all of writing and filmmaking and art in
• 1:36:21
  general are the same thing from other things. And as best as I can
• 1:36:29
  determine, there's a relatively recent revelation for me, I certainly don't how action
• 1:36:33
  he is. They are leveraging the most meaning that you can into the smallest
• 1:36:44
  possible piece of information. So the most meaning you can and do into a
• 1:36:51
  visual, the most meaning you can into a word or words. If you
• 1:36:58
  have a line to spite word and quite meaningful. If you can past one
• 1:37:02
  word and lose no meaning, you just increase the ratio of words, meaning
• 1:37:09
  of a syllable's meaning last, and so still everything with meaning. If I
• 1:37:20
  only had four words to say that eighteen year old, I would say that
• 1:37:28
  about about writing. I would say that about filmmaking. I would say that
• 1:37:31
  about art. Since you asked, yes, I would say that about life.
• 1:37:40
  Well, Chris, I really really appreciate you coming on today, and
• 1:37:45
  thanks for spending the time with us. Jason, it's been a real Please
• 1:37:49
  send me a link and let me know when it's talks. All right,
• 1:37:53
  Just so so people know, can you do you want to put your links
• 1:37:56
  up and you're how to get in touch with you and find your books and
• 1:37:59
  things? Sure? Absolutely. Uh, if you searched my name Chris Soap
• 1:38:03
  in the Kindle store, you'd see I think at that at this point five
• 1:38:08
  books there. I intend to kind of be publishing it like a Kindle single
• 1:38:12
  size book, several times a year, maybe as much as once a week.
• 1:38:16
  Shortly, I do sort of a regular screams by Mastermind group, and
• 1:38:19
  I sort of started to transcribe those and publish them. The people say to
• 1:38:24
  me, I want that information, to get that to me, so you
• 1:38:27
  can find that Amazon. I have I guess my flagshift books now, screenplay
• 1:38:32
  mentor dot com and uh there's another one million dollars screenwriting dot com. And
• 1:38:39
  if you want to reach me personally that first name and las name Chris sop
• 1:38:45
  hl I s h ATKLO dot com or gmail dot com. You can get
• 1:38:51
  some either way. Chris doll All right, Chris, thanks a lot.
• 1:38:59
  I appreciate it. Thank you, Jason. It's been fun. I want
• 1:39:01
  to thank Jason so much for doing such an amazing job with this episode.
• 1:39:05
  If you want to get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 1:39:08
  head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv Forard Slash two ninety
• 1:39:13
  two. Thank you so much for listening. Guys, As always, keep
• 1:39:15
  on writing no matter what. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening
• 1:39:19
  to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.