Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 411: Beyond the Script: Gordy Hoffman’s Guide to Emotional Storytelling

Transcript

BPS 411: Beyond the Script: Gordy Hoffman’s Guide to Emotional Storytelling · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the IFAH podcast Network. For more
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four eleven.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: First Think, second Dream, Third, Believe, and finally dare Walt Disney.
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  Speaker 1: Broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood when we
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  Speaker 1: really should be working on that next draft. It's the
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  Speaker 1: Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and business of
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  Speaker 1: screenwriting while teaching you how to make your screenplay bulletproof.
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  Speaker 3: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
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  Speaker 4: I am your humble host, Alex Ferrari.
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  Speaker 2: Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage.
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  Speaker 2: dot com. Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: My next guest is a screenwriter and director.
• 1:43
  Speaker 6: His film Love Liza won the Waldo Salt Screaming Award
• 1:47
  Speaker 6: at the two thousand and two Sundance Film Festival. His
• 1:50
  Speaker 6: other film, Dog Bowl Well premiere it at the twenty
• 1:53
  Speaker 6: fifteen Sundance Film Festival. We're going to talk all about
• 1:57
  Speaker 6: Paul Thomas Anderson, and we're going to talk a little
• 1:59
  Speaker 6: boitam thread. We're gonna talk about all that good stuff
• 2:02
  Speaker 6: because this guest.
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: Has you know, been down the road a couple of times.
• 2:06
  Speaker 6: And we're also going to talk about obviously the Blue
• 2:08
  Speaker 6: Cat Screenwriting Competition, which some deadlines are coming up, but
• 2:12
  Speaker 6: I've also linked to those in the show notes, and
• 2:13
  Speaker 6: also all the movies we talk about are in the
• 2:15
  Speaker 6: show notes. Again Dave Bullis dot com. Just remember that's
• 2:20
  Speaker 6: in case you need it for later. But with guest
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  Speaker 6: Gordy Hoffman. You know, Gourdy, I've actually you know, followed
• 2:27
  Speaker 6: you for a while. I've I've actually entered the Blue
• 2:29
  Speaker 6: Cat a few times. I've seen a few webinars. You know,
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  Speaker 6: not only is Blue Cat awesome, but but Gordy, you're
• 2:36
  Speaker 6: kind of like the the the guy that you want
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  Speaker 6: to learn writing from because you're so like good natured
• 2:41
  Speaker 6: and you just like have that attitude, you know what
• 2:43
  Speaker 6: I mean, Like you just seem like you you not
• 2:46
  Speaker 6: only know what you're doing, but but you know what
• 2:48
  Speaker 6: I mean, like it's that that you're that you have
• 2:50
  Speaker 6: the personality that sort of comes through if you know
• 2:52
  Speaker 6: what I'm trying to.
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  Speaker 5: Say, Well, you know, well thank you. That's that's very
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  Speaker 5: sweet to say. And you know, I learned probably a
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: long time ago that you know, when I was directing
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  Speaker 5: and when I got into teaching, that.
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  Speaker 2: You know, being.
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  Speaker 5: Loving and kind and courteous when you're talking to somebody
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: about their stuff and trying to be makes them more receptive.
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: I mean, if you ultimately want to help people and
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: serve them and give them some information and help them
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: with their writing. You want them to be able to
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: listen and hear what you're saying. And you know, people
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: get you know, no one wants to be sort of
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: get negative or sort of shaming or anything, or like me,
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: denigrated or discouraged in a way. It just it shuts
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: people down, and they're not going to produce. Actors getting
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: that nervous crew gets angry, resentful, they're not going to be.
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  Speaker 5: But if you're kind of courteous and respectful when you're
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: making a film and and when you're talking to people
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  Speaker 5: about their work, it's difficult sometimes to navigate that. But
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  Speaker 5: it's something that we stress with our readers often. You know,
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: we just say, you know, you got to be you
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: are talking to the reader when you're setting you know,
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  Speaker 5: writing up the notes and and no one you know,
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  Speaker 5: it's just natural. It's just no one wants to People
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: tend to shut down. They're not going to listen, they're
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: not going to hear the notes if if they're delivered
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  Speaker 5: in a way so over time, I think, you know,
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  Speaker 5: I'm just not the you know, it's not really I
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  Speaker 5: guess that you know, there's probably some higher ethical reasons
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  Speaker 5: why you should be good to nice to people. But
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  Speaker 5: it's also it's also very practical, you know. It's also
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: it's also practical if you want to actually tell a
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: better story, then it's good to collaborate and work with
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: writers and work with your fellow collaborators in a way
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: that fosters that spirit so that they're relaxed and they
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: feel entitled in the work and excited. So yeah, I
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  Speaker 5: don't want to crush people's spirits, Dave, crust their dreams.
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  Speaker 5: You know. It's just like it stays with you for years,
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  Speaker 5: you know. I mean it's like it's not a good look.
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: So yeah, so I think it's just I think all
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: anybody who likes to teach and has been teaching a
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: while kind of learns that it's a it's a much
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: more effective way to help a student. And that's what
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: you want to do when you're teaching.
• 5:27
  Speaker 6: You know, in your journey, Gordy, you know, through through
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  Speaker 6: going through all these different you know, uh places like
• 5:33
  Speaker 6: you know, like Sundance and going on to you know,
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  Speaker 6: doing these webinars, and I mean, I'm sure you've met
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  Speaker 6: a ton of ton of people, you know, and and
• 5:40
  Speaker 6: so you know, having done all that, have you met
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  Speaker 6: screenwrinning teachers who are who are like that, who just
• 5:45
  Speaker 6: give like these very like paint like these notes that
• 5:49
  Speaker 6: are just like directing to the point and very maybe even.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, I've I've for yeah, I've heard of students going
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: coming back and being like, oh, you like saying you know,
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  Speaker 5: And I think some people just feel like that's I mean,
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: some people think that that and you know if and
• 6:06
  Speaker 5: I think some people maybe like that, I don't know,
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: they like the oh I need to be I need
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: somebody to be tough on me, you know. And I
• 6:13
  Speaker 5: guess that. But I've had a lot of good writers,
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: talented people, people that are back have pretty good backbones.
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  Speaker 5: You know, people just fold, you know when they do that.
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: But yeah, absolutely there's people that because it's, you know what,
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: it's easier to yell. I mean, it's it's easier to
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: just freak out on people, you know what I mean.
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  Speaker 5: The work of being like a teacher and the work
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: of getting somebody effective notes that's struggling in this Wither story.
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: The work of being a respected director and effective director
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  Speaker 5: is is is being is kind of being able to
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: react with grace and be able to be respectful It's
• 6:54
  Speaker 5: so easy to be a jerk, you know, I mean
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: to just be like why what were you know, like
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: whatever it is? And but you know, the thing is,
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: I'm a writer, you know, and I'm and I'm a
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: filmmaker myself. And I think that's that's why Bluecat, I
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: think is flourished the way it hasn't grown the way
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: it has And and I think that's what makes me
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  Speaker 5: an effective teacher as well, because I'm like, would I
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: want to hear this? How would I want to hear notes?
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  Speaker 5: How would I want to hear this? Like? What would
• 7:25
  Speaker 5: I what do I think would be fair? And you
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: know that having that perspective really helps. And I think
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: some maybe some teachers aren't we're never really writers or
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: they haven't been writing for a long time, and they
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  Speaker 5: maybe it helps them so, but most teachers, you know,
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  Speaker 5: I think a lot of really affective teachers, you know,
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  Speaker 5: approach it with a pretty even keel. I don't think
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  Speaker 5: you really hear a bunch of you know, here too
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  Speaker 5: much about lunatic people. And I just don't think that that.
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  Speaker 5: I don't think that screamers really. I mean, writing is
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: such a personal action, you know, it's a very vulnerable
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  Speaker 5: thing all creative artistic pursuits. You know, it's like you're
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  Speaker 5: really opening yourself up. You know, your instrument is your
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: personal life. And you know it can get a little
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: hairy when somebody's coming after the writing because it feels
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: like they're coming after you. So yes, and you only
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: know that. I think if you experience the process of
• 8:28
  Speaker 5: writing yourself and you know how personal it is, so yeah.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, you know that that's that thing. You know, how
• 8:34
  Speaker 6: do you differentiate between the writing and yourself? You know,
• 8:37
  Speaker 6: you hit the nail on the head right there, because
• 8:39
  Speaker 6: you know, it's kind of like if you write a
• 8:41
  Speaker 6: screenplay or a short story and you turn it in
• 8:45
  Speaker 6: and the judges or the script consultant or whomever, or
• 8:49
  Speaker 6: you know, the writers group doesn't like it. So you
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  Speaker 6: I mean, you feel like I've been there before. I
• 8:54
  Speaker 6: feel like it's an assault on me, you know, and
• 8:56
  Speaker 6: you're like, how dare you? You know, and then you
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  Speaker 6: start cogitated.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, and that's and that's that's a good it's a
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  Speaker 5: good professional it's good exercising professionalism to be like, you know,
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  Speaker 5: this is not about you, and sometimes things are very personal,
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  Speaker 5: and you know, it feels like oh god, you know,
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  Speaker 5: and somebody's like, I think that character is a certain
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  Speaker 5: way and you thought differently, and that might reflect on
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: your values, and it might reflect on your ethical uh
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: you know core, you know, and and that can it
• 9:28
  Speaker 5: starts to feel like you're kind of getting It's kind
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: of like, oh, you know, you you think I'm a
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: creep or you think I'm angry, or you think I'm like,
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: you know whatever, or you think I condone this or
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: you know whatever. And the professionals, I think, you know,
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: I think it's good we all fall into that. And
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: I think it's always good for me to remember that.
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: You know. It's like, you know, this is a story.
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: You know, you're creating something. You're going to create more.
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: You know, you're gonna have a body of work.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: and now back to the show.
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: It's not you, it's not your life, it's you know,
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: and everything is so personal the reactions from people. I mean,
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: people are so spot get so wound up with feedback
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: sometimes and it's it's like haven't you ever gone to
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: a movie? It's like people that you love, like your
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: family or your best friends or your spouses, or your
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: partners or whoever, and you walk out and one person goes,
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: I hated that, and the other person goes, god, I
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: loved it, you know. And then and no one goes,
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: oh my god, we need to move out, you know,
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: or you know, there's no there's no big fallout. You know,
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: it's sort of like, okay, yeah, you like Star Wars,
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: I didn't you know, or whatever, and and you like
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: Shape of Water and I didn't. There's something, and and
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: that's it. Then you just go home and get dinner,
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: and you know, you just kind of go on. But
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: like when people have a reader or a writer's group,
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: or a manager pass or a producer never get back
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: to you, it's like and it's like, oh, you know,
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: it's so devastating. It's like, you know, they're just people
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: and it's just another reaction. And sometimes you might have
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: expectations about you know, wanting a reaction from like say
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: a contest, or from a producer or from a colleague.
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: You want that reaction to be you know, the work.
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: You know, you have expectations. But that's that's also something
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: that we you know, as professionals, we want to keep developing,
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: you know, a healthy sense of expectations and keep things
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: in check and know that it's not at the end
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: of the world if something doesn't, because you can as
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: a writer. Writers always you know, there's always another movie,
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: there's always another great idea. I mean, I'm you know,
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: I get so worked up and then you know, and
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: then you know, I come across another thing it's so incredible,
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: and I go and I'm so excited about the idea
• 11:56
  Speaker 5: of writing it, and I go, you know, and it
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: makes you free of everything else, you know, so lower
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: your expectations and realize everything is you know, everything's coming
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: from a personal their own personal plays. And just remember that.
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: You know how many times you've gone to the theater
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: and walked out with divided reactions and it's so perplexing sometimes,
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: you know, like what do you mean you didn't like that?
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: You know, and it's like no, I didn't, and it's
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: like okay, you know, and and it's just that's what
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: makes everything kind of fun, you know, that's what makes
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: the storytelling, you know, interesting.
• 12:31
  Speaker 6: I think, yeah, you know, it reminds you that episode
• 12:34
  Speaker 6: of Seinfeld where where mister Peterman he didn't like he
• 12:39
  Speaker 6: said he took English Elaine to see the English patient
• 12:42
  Speaker 6: and she hated it and he actually fired her. It
• 12:48
  Speaker 6: is so funny because you know, not only does that
• 12:50
  Speaker 6: speak of character within Seinfeld, but it's also I mean,
• 12:53
  Speaker 6: you know, that's comedy because it's the ordinary that's brought
• 12:56
  Speaker 6: up to the extraordinary. Because it's so ludicrous that that
• 13:00
  Speaker 6: a boss fire an employee because he didn't she didn't
• 13:02
  Speaker 6: like what movie.
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: Is right and that. But that's how impassionate we are.
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: That's how emotional we are about our decisions and our reactions.
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: But as a writer, you know, it's it's like, yeah,
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: and a lot of people get get really hung up
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: on you know, and and you know, blue Cat gives
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: out feedback and you know, and there's there's going to
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: always be somebody who's going to be like this person
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: you know, didn't you know, And I'm like, well, you know,
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: that's what it's going to happen. You know. It's not
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: a perfect process. You know, it's not math. It's not
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: two plus two equals for and it's just not we're
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: not doing that and not when like some people watch
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: call me by your name and have one reaction and
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: other people. I talked to a guy last night who
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: walked out. You know, he just thought it was too slow.
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: And other people think it's a masterpiece, you know, so
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: and both of everybody's right. I mean, you know, love Wise,
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: it was a movie I wrote. It came out a
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: long time ago. It was reviewed in that you know,
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: and people some are you know, came on theater, so
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: it was reviewed by the press, and and you know,
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: I realized that it was like the people that just
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: thought it wasn't even worthy of a short. They just
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: thought it was crap. You know. I'd be like, oh
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: my god, you know, and then and then but then
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: the people were like, oh, this is like a this
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: is this is genius. And I realized it's like they're
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: both sort of wrong and right, you know what I mean,
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: Like I can't go to the genius people. People that
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: think it was a masking roll. Well, you're right, that's
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: a good review, you know what you're talking about the
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: person who didn't like it. It's like, no, they're both right,
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: you know, they're both like somebody likes something really like,
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: oh my god, this is incredible. They're as crazy as
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: the person that says something's horrible, you know what I mean.
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: They're just it's just it's you know, it's all emotional
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: response and personal history and you know it's it's but
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: I mean, I hope you know, if anything, it's like
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: I always I'm glad I think it when people when
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: writers can like really look past that, because it really
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: frees you up, you know, you realize it's like it
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: keeps you going, and I think it gets you back
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: to folks, you know, on developing better story instead of
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: just focusing on reactions and all that stuff.
• 15:05
  Speaker 6: So yeah, and you hit the nail on the head too,
• 15:08
  Speaker 6: Gordy when you said about you know, this whole idea
• 15:12
  Speaker 6: of story, because I think too many times when when
• 15:15
  Speaker 6: you I mean, there's ten thousand screw running books out there,
• 15:19
  Speaker 6: and the problem is you start to read some of
• 15:20
  Speaker 6: these and it's all about a formula, you know what
• 15:22
  Speaker 6: I mean. It's it's the precise, you know, and it
• 15:25
  Speaker 6: is like you said, it's not math. But some of
• 15:27
  Speaker 6: those books, though, they treat it as such, where it's
• 15:30
  Speaker 6: like on page this, on page that this has to
• 15:33
  Speaker 6: happen and blah blah blah blah, and then you start
• 15:35
  Speaker 6: to get just lost in this. And that's why I think,
• 15:38
  Speaker 6: I mean, you must see a lot where you're kind
• 15:40
  Speaker 6: of like, this feels like they're not really writing a story,
• 15:43
  Speaker 6: but they're trying to solve like a like a math problem.
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: Absolutely. I mean, you know, there was a really there
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: was a period of time where people were Saved the
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: Cat was sort of you know, I mean with all
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: credits to Save the Cat and the and the principles
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: that the really healthy story principles that it so that
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: it affirms and everything, and it was a period where
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: it was like, you know, maybe ten years ago where
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: it was like everybody was like, you know, really ablaze
• 16:12
  Speaker 5: with that, and people were using it left and right,
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: and and scripts some of the scripts were just ain't
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: coherent because they were just they weren't even they had
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: lost offense. They weren't even connected to their own story
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: intuitive sort of compass inside, and so they were like, well,
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: this is what the character is supposed to do on
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: this page. And it was like with them, and you'd
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: read it, you'd be like, I don't even know what's
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: going on, you know, and and and you and the
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: emotional thing wasn't happening and everything else. So yeah, you know,
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: you kind of look for you can you know, the
• 16:42
  Speaker 5: books are great and if you get stuff that inspires
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: you incredible, If you get something that makes sense, it's great.
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: A teacher, an analyst, a consultant. You know. It could
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: be the guy, some guy you need at Starbucks who says, oh,
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: I want to read your script, or some the barista,
• 16:59
  Speaker 5: you know, anybody wants to you know, I'll read it,
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: you know, And then they go, I just didn't think.
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: I mean, I've gotten notes from everywhere, you know what
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: I mean, and it just doesn't there's no there's no
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: bad source of notes. It's just the one that actually
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: help you move forward. And know that. But yeah, you
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: have to strike a balance between what the what formula is,
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: what kind of this is? What this is the third act,
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: you know whatever, and knowing that the only rule of
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: storytelling is emotional investment and getting an audience to care.
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: I mean, you know, I mean, good example, call me
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: by your name. I mean, I don't know what formula
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: that followed or were like act structure or anything like that.
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: I don't know. I don't know where a phantom thread.
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: You know, you can't. I don't know what I mean.
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: I mean, I'd have to probably watch it again or
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: a couple more times to see. But I'm sure that
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: Paul Thomas Anderson did not, you know, it was not
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: even thinking about that. He was just telling an emotional story,
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: creating characters that he thought an audience would be interested
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: in and invested in emotionally. And that is what drives
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: That's what drives affected storytelling. That's what that's what drives
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: classic movies making, and that's what that's what drives profit
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: in the marketplace is emotion. I mean, wonder Woman was
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: wonder Woman because people loved wonder Woman and they were
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: so gratified by her performance who she was, we were
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: able to connect with her. It was like, oh, you know,
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: and it's you know, and so this this happens, Whereas,
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: like you know, the thing with Star Wars. It's like
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: there was some mixed reactions out there we can all
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: kind of safely say, and some people were like, I
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: am not and basically boiled down to I am not
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: feeling Luke Skywalker. I do not. I'm like I've lost
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: my connection with Luke Skywalker. That's really what happened. It's
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: like it's like they did something else with Luke and
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: made some choices about the story, and that's what happened.
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: You can't. I don't think anyone can deny that there
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: was an emotional breakdown with some of the audience because
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: of who they knew, Luke Skywalker should be so anyway,
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: So it's all emotional investment. And so as long as
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: we can remember that when we're when we're writing, I mean,
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: just just you know, make a balance between. You can
• 19:29
  Speaker 5: read stuff inspired, get you thinking about things, get you
• 19:32
  Speaker 5: thinking about conflict and tone and things like this, you know,
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: get it's good to think about these things and study
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: them and look at other movies and how they function
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: everything else. But don't forget that eight year old child
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: that knew how to tell a story, you know what
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: I mean? You can you can. You can go to
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: a ten year old and go what happened after school today?
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: And they'll tell you a story. They'll know at a beginning,
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: to middle and end it. They know what the inciting
• 19:57
  Speaker 5: incident is, they know what the payoff is, they know
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: what the ending.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: and now back to the show.
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: You know, and they they know what that is. It's
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: in their bloodstream, it's in their DNA. And so we
• 20:16
  Speaker 5: got we we want to strike a balance between what
• 20:19
  Speaker 5: we learn and what we already.
• 20:21
  Speaker 6: Know, you know, yeah, you know, and uh, somebody once
• 20:25
  Speaker 6: told me about kids storytellers that one of the main
• 20:28
  Speaker 6: reason that there they actually become such good storytellers is
• 20:32
  Speaker 6: is because they they're not afraid to fail, and they're
• 20:35
  Speaker 6: you know, they're not really concerned about that, and they
• 20:37
  Speaker 6: just sort of they.
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: Just go in full force of that story.
• 20:40
  Speaker 6: And it's not until you start, you know, going through
• 20:43
  Speaker 6: you know, your your young adult life or what have you,
• 20:45
  Speaker 6: you start to go, oh my god, the pure pressure,
• 20:48
  Speaker 6: Oh my god, what if I look, don't you know,
• 20:49
  Speaker 6: what if so many things, I'm an idiot?
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: What if this isn't good, I suck? Then if this sucks,
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean?
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: Right right? There is definitely a definitely an open, open
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: feeling about what they're doing and everything else. Absolutely so.
• 21:04
  Speaker 6: And by the way, I know you mentioned Paul Thomas Anderson.
• 21:07
  Speaker 6: You know, I actually saw your am a on on
• 21:10
  Speaker 6: Reddit Gordy and I last when you when somebody asked
• 21:14
  Speaker 6: are you the Gordy that but Paul Thomas Ayerson thanked
• 21:16
  Speaker 6: at the end of the master and you just responded
• 21:19
  Speaker 6: back with the the Heisenberg meme of your damn right.
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, it was funny. As I was. I
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: remember that, I think I was. I had an intern
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: in the office and he was like, no, let me
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: get this any and I was like, okay, just put
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: it up there, you know. He was he thought that
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: was funny, or somebody was somebody in our office was like, yeah,
• 21:41
  Speaker 5: he kind of grabbed that meme and put that up there. Yeah,
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: I was. I was. I looked at the master a
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: little bit along the way the script, and and you know,
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: I'm obviously you know, Paul was very close to my brother,
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: and they were like best friends and like literally brothers
• 21:59
  Speaker 5: in their own right, you know. And and so we're
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: very been very close to Paul for for twenty oh,
• 22:05
  Speaker 5: you know, over twenty years. I mean, I you know,
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: I mean I saw, you know, the Boogie Knights. I mean,
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: my brother was telling me about Boogie I gave. I
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: gave my brother Love Lies than the Fall of ninety six,
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: and that was when he was shooting Boogie Knights, and
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: he was telling me about this movie that he was
• 22:22
  Speaker 5: making about the peign industry. You know. So it's I've known,
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: you know, Paul, he's amazing. He's he really is our best.
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: He's really the best we have, you know in America.
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: I mean he's just he's like a Kubrick level genius.
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: And he's gonna be I mean, the best is you
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: have to come. I mean he's gonna Phantom Thread totally
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: says that. You know, he's going to different play, he's
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: gonna be, he's gonna everything is gonna he's gonna make
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: so many great movies and then you know, in the
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: second half of his life. It's really exciting. But yeah,
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: I'm very honored. And he's always been very such a
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: such a humble he's always very respectful of me, and
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: you know, he's always been respectful of me, and he
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: always he likes my judgment. And he's just a great guy,
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: you know. I mean, he's a wonderful man too, is
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: a good guy.
• 23:13
  Speaker 6: So you know, as we were talking about, you know,
• 23:15
  Speaker 6: directors and giving notes and stuff like that, so you know,
• 23:19
  Speaker 6: in your experiences and working with him, you know, does
• 23:22
  Speaker 6: he sort of have that sort of same mentality where
• 23:25
  Speaker 6: you know, it's it's not so much of hey listen
• 23:28
  Speaker 6: to me because I'm the director, but it's more of
• 23:30
  Speaker 6: like he knows how to collaborate, you know, the right way.
• 23:34
  Speaker 6: Because I've had people on here who've worked with like
• 23:35
  Speaker 6: Quentin Tarantino, and that's one of the things they say
• 23:37
  Speaker 6: was his strengths was was that, you know, he would
• 23:39
  Speaker 6: get into this groove and they always knew when he
• 23:41
  Speaker 6: likes stuff because he would start, you know, laughing and
• 23:43
  Speaker 6: stuff like that, and and and you know, they they
• 23:46
  Speaker 6: knew his vibe is this does Paul Thomas.
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: And I'm not been on the sat with Paul, so
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: I can't really speak to him as a director and
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: like what that is. But I mean, you know, so
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: I just all I can say is from my vantage point.
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: You know, he obviously knows how to cast. He knows
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: how to direct an ensemble of actors and and bring
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: them together in the scene. You know, he's very very gifted.
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: I mean, it's he does so many things well. People
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: just don't understand that he you know, he's writing on
• 24:19
  Speaker 5: a certain level that is highly original and authentic, emotionally authentic,
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: and he delivers high conflict. He never he doesn't run
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: from emotional emotional beats and high highly intense emotional situations.
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: You know, he knows how to cast he has an
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: incredible he has a Shakespearean sense of comedy and how
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: he balanced his comedy in his stories. So, I mean,
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: you know, you're a limited I mean, just in what
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: I just said, you're eliminating like several major directors that
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: are in this country, around the world that can't do
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: all of those things. They do not do all of
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: those things. They can't they can't do all that. And
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: you go on, you're not even talking about, you know,
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: where he puts the camera, You're not even you're not
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: even talking about how he employs score and sound. I mean,
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: it's it's it's it's off the charge. So it's like
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: he has so much of that cupboard. He's literally like
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: I mean to me, I mean, I I you know,
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: obviously you know I might biased, you know whatever, But
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: the fact is is that it's like, I mean, not
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: anyone who knows anything I think probably would agree with me.
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: But he is one of our he is he is
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: the master. I mean, he is one of the greats,
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: you know. And by the time it's all done, I mean,
• 25:42
  Speaker 5: he's because he's gonna keep going. He's a young man
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: and he's gonna keep going. And he's he's got all
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: his faculties, and Phantom Threat was such a such a
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: step forward I thought in so many you know, it's
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: such a mature there was something so mat sure about
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: the movie, and it was a real, real achievement. And
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: you know, and obviously the Academy you know, agrees because
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: they they not only nominated the movie Best Picture, but
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: also nominated him for directing and and I think that
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: that was well deserved. They know it, they know that
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: it was it was, it was truly, it was truly
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: an achievement and really really wonderful to see.
• 26:21
  Speaker 6: So, you know, Gordy, that's that's actually one of the
• 26:25
  Speaker 6: movies I want to see this year. I haven't actually
• 26:28
  Speaker 6: been you know, either it wasn't playing at the time
• 26:31
  Speaker 6: I went, or I you know, I haven't been able
• 26:33
  Speaker 6: to sort of schedule time to go.
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: It just came out. I mean, it just came out.
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: I mean it just came out, like I mean, in
• 26:39
  Speaker 5: la It's been out since the end of the year,
• 26:43
  Speaker 5: end of twenty seventeen, but it just was released I
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: think last weekend a lot of places, so a lot
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: of people have not caught up to that one yet, so,
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: you know, But so yeah, so but everyone will get
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: a chance to take it in. But I encourage every
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: all writers to look at that, you know, to go
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: to go to that movie and and think about what
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: what is successful and what is what is effective about
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: the story telling in the movie, and and and take
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: it in and I think you'll you know, it's a
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: good it's a really great movie for screenwriters. You know.
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: That was my mistake.
• 27:19
  Speaker 6: Which I actually thought it came out like the end
• 27:21
  Speaker 6: of November beginning December last year.
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: So but but no, it didn't.
• 27:25
  Speaker 6: Yeah, no, I was just gonna say, I I I
• 27:27
  Speaker 6: sometimes I get like released it's all mixed up, you know,
• 27:30
  Speaker 6: and uh but yeah, yeah, but but you know, you
• 27:33
  Speaker 6: made a good point. I want to I want to
• 27:34
  Speaker 6: actually ask about it. Is you know, when you're a screenwriter,
• 27:38
  Speaker 6: you know some of the you know, the the ideas
• 27:41
  Speaker 6: of becoming a better screenwriter or you know, you have
• 27:43
  Speaker 6: you have to read aize screenplays, and obviously you have
• 27:46
  Speaker 6: to go to different movies. Do you feel that there's
• 27:49
  Speaker 6: ever like an advantage of one over the other, Because
• 27:52
  Speaker 6: I I one time went to a screenwriting seminar and
• 27:54
  Speaker 6: the person said, you can't judge a you can't watch
• 27:57
  Speaker 6: a movie and try to dissect it that way because
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: you don't know what the script even look like. You know,
• 28:03
  Speaker 6: they actors could be improvising, you know, this scene blah
• 28:05
  Speaker 6: blah blah, and and I wanted to.
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: Ask you what do you think of that advice?
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: Well, I mean, the fact is is that you know,
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: that sounds I mean, it sounds like, uh, a fairly
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: reasonable point. But the fact that a screenplay is is
• 28:27
  Speaker 5: it's it's part of making the film. And I think
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: that ultimately, because there's a lot of scripts that you know,
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: so you're so you can't judge the script. Well, if
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: the script, you know, it doesn't matter in the end.
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: We need our audience. We're not writing scripts, you know,
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: we're right, We're trying to make a movie, you know.
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: So yeah, So, I mean I think ultimately it's it's yeah,
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: that sounds like, okay, well, you can't judge the movie
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: based off of this stuff? Are you? Are you saying
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: you can't judge the screenplay based off of the movie
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: that we've just seen.
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 29:01
  Speaker 6: That that's what they were saying was because Okay.
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: I think generally, I think generally, I mean, I think
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: I'm sure there's exceptions where people, you know, drop the
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: ball or the money doesn't happen, or there's bad performances
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: or you know whatever. There's probably a number of reasons,
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: but I think it's generally, you know, strong writing, you know,
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: tends to reflect in a strong movie. It's it's very
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: difficult to make a great movie from a mediocre script.
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: It's just, you know, it's just difficult. They are very
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: much correlated. I don't think there's a lot of variants there.
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: And yeah, so interesting question though I've never heard that.
• 29:46
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's why I always like going and and you know,
• 29:49
  Speaker 6: just interviewing people like you, Gordy, just you know, people
• 29:52
  Speaker 6: out there in the field, and and you know, that's
• 29:54
  Speaker 6: why I want to do this podcast because they get
• 29:55
  Speaker 6: to hear all these different different takes on different things,
• 29:57
  Speaker 6: you know what I mean, and you get to share knowledge.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: and now back to the show.
• 30:10
  Speaker 6: Because I think that's what technology has done. I mean, honestly,
• 30:13
  Speaker 6: you know, once I started, it's it's kind of I
• 30:15
  Speaker 6: kind of had my Aha moment, you know, with all
• 30:17
  Speaker 6: this technology and the way media is the way it
• 30:19
  Speaker 6: is now, you know, that's that's what it is. It's
• 30:21
  Speaker 6: it's sharing knowledge and communicating with each other, just a
• 30:24
  Speaker 6: lot faster and on a much now it's on a
• 30:27
  Speaker 6: global scale, because I don't know if there's anybody on
• 30:29
  Speaker 6: this planet anymore that you can't talk to if you
• 30:31
  Speaker 6: want to, right, But uh, but yeah, and of course
• 30:36
  Speaker 6: we've seen with movies you know now it's you know,
• 30:39
  Speaker 6: you know you can put them on Netflix, Hulu, all
• 30:41
  Speaker 6: that good stuff, and then you can you know, that
• 30:43
  Speaker 6: show is distribution. But but I wanted to get back
• 30:45
  Speaker 6: to to you. Gordia is talking about, you know, your
• 30:47
  Speaker 6: career and everything.
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 30:49
  Speaker 6: You've actually, you know, directed a few movies, You've written
• 30:52
  Speaker 6: a few movies, so I actually wanted to ask you
• 30:54
  Speaker 6: about some of those and some of your experiences actually
• 30:57
  Speaker 6: making those.
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: So you know, your your first movie.
• 30:59
  Speaker 6: As you as you mentioned earlier, was Love Liza, So
• 31:02
  Speaker 6: you know, I wanted to ask you where where was
• 31:04
  Speaker 6: the impetus for writing that screenplay and how did you
• 31:07
  Speaker 6: go about being able to direct that movie.
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: I didn't direct it. Todd So directed it. Yeah, I
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: wrote it, and I was I was a cab driver
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: in Chicago and I saw somebody near a gas pump
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: and I was like, I was like, is that person
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: sniffing the gas? And I didn't really see them sniffing it,
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: but I was like, and I was in my cabin.
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: I wrote that down in an index card. I used
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: to have all these blank index cards with me. I
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: wondered where those are. I like, I wish I could
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: find them. I wonder where they ended up. But I
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: you know, I had like, yeah, I got like, uh
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: to find some of that stuff. Anyways, Yeah, I wrote
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: down a man starts hopping gas and and you know,
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: and then that was the germ of it where I
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: was like, well, why would he start doing that? It's
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: just like, well, what if his wife committed suicide? And
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: then I started to write that, and and he finds
• 32:01
  Speaker 5: a note and I found that I didn't plan on that.
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: He finds the note, and the note ended up driving
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: the movie. But that's where love WISEA came from.
• 32:10
  Speaker 6: So you know, sometimes when I find pieces of material
• 32:13
  Speaker 6: that I've like written on an index card or back
• 32:15
  Speaker 6: of a receipt or something, I'll look at it Gordy
• 32:18
  Speaker 6: and I go, what the hell was I trying to say?
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, that doesn't happen to me too much anymore
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: but sometimes yeah, I'm like I'll look back on something
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: I write down in a little idea file. Usually I write,
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: I get the idea, and I put it on like
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: a little document, and I just you know, I have
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: so many of them, and but I usually I know
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: myself that I better explain it so that I can
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: look back on it and know exactly what it is,
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: because if I just write down macaroni and cheese, it's like,
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: I'm like, what the oh was that idea? You know?
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: You got to like looks like, oh what was that?
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: It's like so yeah, But I think we've all had
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: that experience of looking back at something we jotted down
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: and been like, Okay, I guess that one's gone.
• 33:03
  Speaker 6: You know, I've gotten into the habit of using my
• 33:06
  Speaker 6: phone now. I use I use like ever note to
• 33:09
  Speaker 6: to take down all yeah, because it helps you organize things.
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: And also you're not like counting around tons of sheets
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: of paper.
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, yeah, that's that's electronic. You know. That's the
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: technology that we have now, is that. Yeah, you don't
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: really have index cards anymore. You just I just usually
• 33:26
  Speaker 5: just write an email to myself, send it to myself,
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: and then it ends up on my little movie folder
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: idea lists for the year, and then uh, and I'm
• 33:37
  Speaker 5: backing it up every couple of days, the whole computer.
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: So I got creak. Sure I have everything. So it's
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: all it's all different from back in the days twenty
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: years ago when I came up with the idea for
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: Love Lives.
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: And I find it interesting too.
• 33:52
  Speaker 6: Gordy, you were you were a cab driver in Chicago
• 33:55
  Speaker 6: and you were just you know, I guess in between fares,
• 33:56
  Speaker 6: you were just you know, on index cards. You would
• 33:59
  Speaker 6: just sort of outline brainstorming ideas that you could put
• 34:02
  Speaker 6: into a screenplat.
• 34:02
  Speaker 7: Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, I mean that's the thing.
• 34:07
  Speaker 7: I mean, you know, it just that was what I
• 34:09
  Speaker 7: was doing. And I you know, to this day, it's like,
• 34:11
  Speaker 7: you know, I mean, you know, it's like anywhere.
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: An idea will come up. But at that time, you know,
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: that's what that's what my day job was. It was
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: a whole nother experience, you know. And I drove a
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: cab in Chicago for three and a half years and
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: and and that was yeah, I can still remember exactly
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: the gas station that that happened, and and it was
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: just one of the random things it was like and
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: and and I just decided to go with it. You know,
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: it was an idea, and you know, I just remember that.
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: It's like sometimes you sit there and go, Okay, what
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: ideas should I work on? And and you know, any
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: idea that you pick, you're gonna make great, you know
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: what I mean. So it's like it's like, I'm like,
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: don't be so worried about whether or not this is
• 34:55
  Speaker 5: the right idea, because you're going to work on it
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: and it's gonna be awesome, you know, I mean, so
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: you'll make everyone everything work. And so it's like it's
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: such a and I forget that because I'll be like,
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: you know, like I don't know. And it's like even
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: because if I was forced to write my worst idea,
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: I would I would make it great, you know what
• 35:18
  Speaker 5: I mean. I would just be like, but one, I'd
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: be like, Okay, I got to write on that, and
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: then I would lean into it and I would start to,
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: you know, my imagination would kick in and I'd start
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: to come up with ideas. You know.
• 35:29
  Speaker 6: Stephen Pressfield once said that you could if you can
• 35:33
  Speaker 6: get like a sentence out, you can draw a whole
• 35:36
  Speaker 6: novel just from that one sentence you can pull just
• 35:38
  Speaker 6: from that one absolutely, and and and he said, I
• 35:42
  Speaker 6: oh sorry, go ahead, no, no, no, I'm sorry. I was
• 35:45
  Speaker 6: just gonna say that he actually wrote the legend of
• 35:48
  Speaker 6: Backer Vance just from that one sentence. He had like
• 35:50
  Speaker 6: this moment where he kind of jotted down the sentence
• 35:53
  Speaker 6: and then he has pulled the whole novel from.
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: That, right, I mean, you know, and that's it's you know,
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: do you usually like one little idea, a few little
• 36:02
  Speaker 5: words you jot down, and then it's like the idea
• 36:04
  Speaker 5: is there, and and and then you're off to the races.
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: And but you know, I've done that in classes too,
• 36:11
  Speaker 5: where it's like I have people, you know, brainstorm like
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: ten ideas for scenes, and then I ask them pick
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: the worst idea out of all the ones, and that's
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: the one I have them right on, and to show
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: them that basically, any anything you can make anything work,
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: you know, you do not have to It does not
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: have to be the best idea is not have to be.
• 36:35
  Speaker 5: I mean that's really why Ford any kind of writing challenges,
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: any kind of forty eight hour film. That's where that
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: comes from. It's because it's for it's people can give
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: given restrictions, you know, they can still have fun and
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: be creative and everything else.
• 36:54
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and again it's I think it's just when you're
• 36:57
  Speaker 6: having fun, because I think that I think that's a
• 36:59
  Speaker 6: lot of things that people forget. But I mean I've
• 37:01
  Speaker 6: been there too, Gordy, where I'm like, you know, I
• 37:04
  Speaker 6: completely forget this is supposed to be fun, and it
• 37:06
  Speaker 6: becomes like so definitely serious, and you start kind of
• 37:09
  Speaker 6: doubting yourself along the way, and then it becomes a
• 37:11
  Speaker 6: little more, a little more, and then by the end
• 37:13
  Speaker 6: you're like, this whole thing sucks. I gotta get rid
• 37:14
  Speaker 6: of this whole screenplay. I gotta star it all over again.
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: And then you can. It becomes a habit that you
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: have that you have to break.
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: Well, every every screenplay. You know. It's like, you know,
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: any kind of master screenwriter or filmmaker you know will
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: tell you it's like anything you're working on, you're gonna
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: get to a wall. You're gonna get to a place
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: where you're like, this is awful, and I'm bored as
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: hell and I want to start something else, and there's
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: this has so many problems and I don't know how
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: to solve them. And and this is like taking forever,
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: you know, I mean, it's true despair. And and the
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: thing is now I know that like when I get
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: to that place, I'm like, okay, I'm making that way,
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: Like I know, it's like, okay, I'm actually halfway through,
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: you know, like because you are always going to hit
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: that spot and it's like and you are, and you
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: never get oh man, this is like a this is
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: so awesome. You know. It's never like that. You always
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: get to a place where like I'm I hate every page,
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: I'm like all this stuff. I'm sick of reading this thing.
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: I'm like, you have that feeling, and it's like in
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: that and when you have that feeling, it's like, oh, well,
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: you're getting there, You're almost You're you're probably rounding second.
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: Just keep going and then suddenly it will come back
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: and you'll fall in love with it again, and you'll
• 38:31
  Speaker 5: come up with new ideas and your problem you're you know,
• 38:34
  Speaker 5: solve these problems, and you'll have another draft and then
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: you'll start and then you'll be like okay, and you'll
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: own it all over again, and then you'll really have
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: something special. But we have to fight through, you know.
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: The boredom, the despair, you know, just the just the
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: loathing of the script. You know, at times it comes
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: up where you're just like, oh God, like I'm so
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: sick of looking at this and thinking about it. I
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: think it's sucks or whatever. And you know, you're like
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: four drafts.
• 39:04
  Speaker 6: And you know, yeah it yeah, just even in the
• 39:08
  Speaker 6: outlining stages, you know, sometimes you're like, oh my god,
• 39:11
  Speaker 6: what the hell, what the hell was I thinking?
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: And uh, you know, yeah.
• 39:15
  Speaker 6: One of the things that I've learned too over the
• 39:17
  Speaker 6: years is just like little tips or so to speak,
• 39:20
  Speaker 6: or if you want to call them a hack.
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: Uh you know that's a popular word now, Gordy hack.
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: So so everything to hack.
• 39:26
  Speaker 6: So one thing I've learned is, uh, is if you
• 39:30
  Speaker 6: to start an argument, uh, you know, have one, you
• 39:33
  Speaker 6: know obviously that's where conflict comes from, Right, I want
• 39:35
  Speaker 6: a Uh you want a and uh we each have
• 39:39
  Speaker 6: a different way of how we're going to get it
• 39:40
  Speaker 6: or maybe you know what I mean, and then which
• 39:42
  Speaker 6: we both need this thing, And that's where this conflict
• 39:45
  Speaker 6: comes from, is that you know you want something and
• 39:48
  Speaker 6: you can't get it.
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: I want something and I can't get it.
• 39:50
  Speaker 6: So if you started you know, starting an argument, and
• 39:52
  Speaker 6: and that's why I make little notes where I'm going
• 39:55
  Speaker 6: back through stuff and just saying myself.
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: and now back to the show.
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: This is.
• 40:09
  Speaker 6: You know, maybe this is something that I can do better.
• 40:11
  Speaker 6: And then you know, like Stephen King once said, if
• 40:13
  Speaker 6: you if you take a draft or something, put it
• 40:14
  Speaker 6: in your drawer for two weeks or whatever, go back
• 40:16
  Speaker 6: to it and that's when you can look at it
• 40:19
  Speaker 6: again with fresh eyes.
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's great out time changes things and you can
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: look at stuff and be like, oh yeah, you know,
• 40:28
  Speaker 5: and you can definitely you know, there's a lot of
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: that stuff. But yeah, that's great advice.
• 40:34
  Speaker 6: So you know, Gody As you took Love Liza and
• 40:37
  Speaker 6: you were able to write a full screenplay, you know,
• 40:40
  Speaker 6: how how did you go about you know, just sort
• 40:42
  Speaker 6: of even pitching it and you know, getting it into
• 40:44
  Speaker 6: the right hands to get it produced.
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: Well, you know, it was a long process. But you know,
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: my brother read it and like I said, he had
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: not started shooting Boogie Knights yet, so he wasn't a
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: movie star or anything like that. He just young and
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: he read it and he loved it. You know, and
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: I didn't wasn't giving it to him to be like, hey,
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: you want to do this, but he wanted to play
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: the guy, and and that's what it is. So we
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: attached he was a task. We got a director, we
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: got Todd Deliso, and then we started to a couple
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: of producers, and then we started to talk to people
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: that could add access to money and uh find you know,
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: producers that you know, could raise raise actually the money
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: to make the movie. And so it took a you know,
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: it didn't take that on maybe four years from from
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: like the whole period of like starting to think about
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: it and people looking at it, you know, and then
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: and then then we found some folks and and made it,
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: you know, and got was able to get Kathy Bates involved,
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: and and that was how we we got the money.
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: It was a very low budget at the time. And
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: and then you know, it got into Sundance. You know,
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: people responded at Sundance to it, and it got to
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: Sundance and and then it was bought by Sony Classics
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: and they distributed. So yeah, so that was that's sort
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: of the journey. And I think it's I mean, somebody
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: told me it's on HBO right now, so I think
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: if you have HBO you'll be able to watch it.
• 42:32
  Speaker 5: And obviously it's on Amazon for rental, but it's but
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: Sony ended up Sony Classics. The same guys that were
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: involved with Love Wise Are, you know, are still running
• 42:46
  Speaker 5: Sony Classics, you know, and uh call Me by Your
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: Name is a Sony Classics acquisition that they picked up
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: before Sundance. And yeah, so you.
• 42:57
  Speaker 6: Know, go do you mentioned Sundance and you mentioned, uh know,
• 43:00
  Speaker 6: call Me by your Name and also you know, with
• 43:03
  Speaker 6: the Love Liza. I saw an article and I don't
• 43:06
  Speaker 6: know if you saw this yet in the La Times
• 43:08
  Speaker 6: that says the SPECS script is dead, and what they
• 43:12
  Speaker 6: mean is is that Hollywood only wants to make the
• 43:14
  Speaker 6: big budget blockbuster movies you know, based on you know,
• 43:17
  Speaker 6: superheroes and things like that, or or remakes of classic
• 43:21
  Speaker 6: movies and stuff like that, you know, you know, and
• 43:24
  Speaker 6: that the SPECS scripts now all good at Sundance. So
• 43:26
  Speaker 6: if you want to make an original movie, you know,
• 43:29
  Speaker 6: the place to debut it, to show it and get
• 43:31
  Speaker 6: it bought, et cetera is Sundance.
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 43:33
  Speaker 6: I don't know if you've read that article, but but
• 43:36
  Speaker 6: do you do you agree with that in today's current
• 43:39
  Speaker 6: market for screenwriters that you know, Sundances is where you know,
• 43:43
  Speaker 6: independent movies really go.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 43:46
  Speaker 5: I mean, Sundance is an incredible market. I mean, you
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: get into Sundance, I mean, all eyeballs are there for
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: acquisitions and you can, you know, pick up a movie
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: that can do considerable performance at the box office and
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: also could win Academy Awards. So you know, obviously it's
• 44:09
  Speaker 5: a it's a great launch pad now, you know. I mean, look,
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: if you write a great screenplay, you know you're gonna
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: be able to do a lot of things, you know,
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: and that's never going to change the idea of Yeah,
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: the what was happening in the nineties. The market's changed,
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: there's uh the you know how they but you know,
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: but the nineties were also different from the forties, you
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: know what I mean. So it's not like some you know,
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: like some evil thing has happened. It's just the market changed.
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: Storytellers can go different places, but you obviously can you know,
• 44:48
  Speaker 5: if you write something special, you know you might be
• 44:51
  Speaker 5: able to get you know, involved in television and television
• 44:54
  Speaker 5: episodic is obviously sort of that there's another golden age
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: U right now in terms of you know, storytelling and television.
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: But you know, but then you can also you know,
• 45:07
  Speaker 5: write a get Out or write a Lady Bird. Obviously
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: these people have access and everything, and there's certain you know,
• 45:15
  Speaker 5: opportunities that might have been afforded Greta Gerwig or whatever.
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: But the fact is is that you know, three billboards,
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: you know, these are all movies that are doing doing well.
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: They're going to do well. No one who is involved
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: with making them is on is like, wow, I wish
• 45:30
  Speaker 5: I hadn't have been involved to get Out. I mean,
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: it's like no way and get Out was you know,
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: a low lower budget, did not have any kind of
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: like Avengers type of budget, and it was. But it
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: all goes back to the writing, you know, and you know,
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: so just you know, people find you know, writers, and
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: people want to find like well spec market or you know,
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: make some you know, ideas about and the bottom line
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: is it's ultimately an excuse not to do like to
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: not to deal with the truth. The truth is is
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: that we have to do what we were talking about earlier.
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: We have to fight through the boredom to just spare
• 46:10
  Speaker 5: keep working on our drafts and make them so good
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: that it blows people away. I mean I got my
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: short got into Sundance two years ago and got me
• 46:19
  Speaker 5: a job, like a feature writing job shortly thereafter. And
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: it was all because of the work that I put
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: into the short. And I made the short as best
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: I knew. I just made it best I could, and
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: you know, and it worked. You know, it got into
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: Sundayance and people saw it and and land and you know,
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: it led to a really nice you know, it helped
• 46:44
  Speaker 5: it can help my career and then moved everything forward.
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: And you know, somebody would be like, oh, how you
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: know it didn't follow any kind of formula or anything
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: else in terms of I just decided to make you know,
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: I was like, I want to make the short to
• 46:57
  Speaker 5: kind of show people I can direct, and and then
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: up doing things that I did not anticipate or expect.
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: And but I but the thing that I did plan
• 47:06
  Speaker 5: on doing was making it as best I could. And
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: so everybody, and I know, people were like, well whatever,
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: you know, yeah, sure right, it worked really hard on
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: your screen place that's really great advice. Well you know what,
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: that's what happened. I mean, it's like where do you
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: think get out any of these movies, anything that's like
• 47:28
  Speaker 5: comes out of nowhere, any you know, anything that like
• 47:31
  Speaker 5: it's like interesting, Where do you think it comes from?
• 47:33
  Speaker 5: It comes from people like picking up, you know, opening
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: it up, getting going with their movie, working really hard
• 47:40
  Speaker 5: on it, continuing to take notes, continuing to push it forward.
• 47:45
  Speaker 5: That's that's stuff that's never that's that has not changed,
• 47:48
  Speaker 5: you know. And yeah, the idea, maybe it's a good
• 47:51
  Speaker 5: thing that like, oh, you can't just put together a
• 47:54
  Speaker 5: high concept and the movie movie. You know, the studios
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: are so scared somebody else is going to get it,
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: so they buy something and it's like sort of half
• 48:04
  Speaker 5: baked and it's not even that great, and then you
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: don't even get to really work on it after they
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: bought it. I mean, you know, maybe that's not really
• 48:12
  Speaker 5: what we want, you know, Maybe we want a system
• 48:15
  Speaker 5: that is like that is exactly like that. It's like right,
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: a big sick right right, write something like three billboards,
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: come up with something creative, righte, create a dramatic story,
• 48:27
  Speaker 5: write a really funny comedy, rte a really scary horror movie,
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: and just make it the best you can, you know.
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: And I think the market's going to find you anyways,
• 48:37
  Speaker 5: and it might be better than if they bought your
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: high concept you know a thing fifteen years ago or
• 48:46
  Speaker 5: twenty years ago and did that you know.
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and the movie you took the Sundance was dog
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: Ball correct.
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, that was a short I had a couple
• 48:57
  Speaker 5: of years ago that I that I had there. That's
• 49:00
  Speaker 5: also that's on Amazon Prime. So if anybody you know
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: wants to see it, it's it's on Amazon Prime. So
• 49:07
  Speaker 5: if you have Amazon Prime, you can watch it for free.
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: And I'll make sure to link to that in the
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: show notes as well.
• 49:13
  Speaker 5: So yeah, yeah, just you know, so if you're like,
• 49:15
  Speaker 5: you're like, I want to see if this guy that's
• 49:17
  Speaker 5: what he's talking about, I would see his crappy short,
• 49:19
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go check out his short.
• 49:22
  Speaker 5: See if it's good.
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: Man, I want to check out on you Gordy Hoffman.
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: So yeah, yeah, you gotta you gotta check out you
• 49:29
  Speaker 5: gotta watch dog Bowling Man. See like, come on, man,
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: check it out. It's nothing like you know, you go
• 49:34
  Speaker 5: and check out his movie. You're like, oh man, he
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: really but I think people are like dog Will's good.
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: It's got some nice, great actor. I mean, the star
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: of is excellent, and I think people enjoy it.
• 49:46
  Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, I remember, you know, I saw you
• 49:50
  Speaker 6: are crowdfunding for that, and I just wanted to ask Gordy,
• 49:53
  Speaker 6: you know really quickly, you know what were your experience
• 49:55
  Speaker 6: is crowdfunding?
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: That movie did?
• 49:57
  Speaker 6: Was crowdfunding what you thought it would be? It was
• 49:58
  Speaker 6: a little harder, a little easier.
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: and now back to the show.
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: Oh man, it's like, I mean, for somebody with low
• 50:13
  Speaker 5: self esteem, I mean, it is brutal. You gotta you
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: gotta like you know what, you gotta ask people for stuff.
• 50:19
  Speaker 5: It's like, oh, I mean it really but you know
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: what it was like, I was, I you know, I
• 50:25
  Speaker 5: you know, I stumbled onto a lot of things that
• 50:27
  Speaker 5: you do well. I mean, it's a whole nother podcast,
• 50:30
  Speaker 5: but you know I I you know, I found my
• 50:33
  Speaker 5: way through it and people. I had a lot of
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: people that wanted to help me and I so I
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: had a successful run. And then I hadn't finished the
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: script yet, and I like, I raised all this money
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: and I was like, oh no, now this has to
• 50:46
  Speaker 5: be good and talk about pressure. I was like whoa.
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: And but then I you know, then I kept it
• 50:52
  Speaker 5: was great. I mean, you know, I really made you
• 50:54
  Speaker 5: committed to like making a great movie. It was an
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: excellent way to fund the movie. It worked. I mean, man,
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: I mean think about all the kickstarter campaigns or crowdfunding
• 51:06
  Speaker 5: campaigns you've been involved with, and you know, and fortunately
• 51:10
  Speaker 5: for my backers, you know, they backed a film that
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: went to sundancee. You know, so they were like they
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: were like, wow, this is awesome. And then it went
• 51:18
  Speaker 5: and then it went. You know, I played all over
• 51:20
  Speaker 5: the country and you know, so people were able to
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: most a lot of people that backed it were able
• 51:25
  Speaker 5: to see it in a theater, like at a festival,
• 51:28
  Speaker 5: and and I was at a lot of those festivals.
• 51:30
  Speaker 5: So it was really it was super fun and and
• 51:34
  Speaker 5: but yeah, the Kickstarter was a lot of work. I mean,
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: you know, it's again it's a whole other podcast. But
• 51:39
  Speaker 5: you know, there's a lot there's a few few tips
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: for that. But if you ever want to do a Kickstarter, uh, like,
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: like as I did two campaigns with dog Ball, one
• 51:49
  Speaker 5: at the beginning, one at the end. And yeah, I've
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: got a raft of experience about that and I always
• 51:55
  Speaker 5: always want to share that because I think there's a
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: lot of things that people do and they can avoid
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: and and I think it's a great way to find
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: the money to make a short film and show people
• 52:09
  Speaker 5: that you can write and show people you can direct,
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: and you know, I think it's Kickstarter is fantastic. But
• 52:17
  Speaker 5: there are some things that I think people get, you know,
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: and it usually goes ultimate you know, in many ways,
• 52:23
  Speaker 5: it goes back to you know, something that bogs writers down,
• 52:27
  Speaker 5: bogs filmmakers down, is a lack of patience. I think
• 52:30
  Speaker 5: people are impatient to launch their campaign. They're impatient to shoot,
• 52:35
  Speaker 5: so they don't want to like do another draft, they
• 52:37
  Speaker 5: don't want to write another movie. They want to get
• 52:39
  Speaker 5: to shooting. And I think with Kickstarter, it's like you
• 52:42
  Speaker 5: just kind of want to launch it. You know, You're
• 52:44
  Speaker 5: like I want to Okay, we're ready, you know, and
• 52:46
  Speaker 5: then you launch it and you know, you don't really
• 52:49
  Speaker 5: have your ducks in a row. You're not really ready,
• 52:51
  Speaker 5: and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, you know,
• 52:53
  Speaker 5: like I'm like, no one is no one, I don't
• 52:57
  Speaker 5: really I'm not really getting the money I thought I
• 52:59
  Speaker 5: was gonna you know, And I think it goes back
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: to having some patience and you know, preparing and doing
• 53:07
  Speaker 5: the right work and getting it all ready and doing
• 53:09
  Speaker 5: exactly what you would do if you were, you know,
• 53:12
  Speaker 5: wanting to shoot a script, you know, just taking the
• 53:14
  Speaker 5: time to do it.
• 53:15
  Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, I crowdfunded way back when, in like
• 53:18
  Speaker 6: twenty ten, and then I did it again in twenty eleven,
• 53:21
  Speaker 6: and you know, it was explaining people what crowdfunding was
• 53:24
  Speaker 6: it that time, because you know, not you know, nowadays
• 53:26
  Speaker 6: everybody has a Kickstarter.
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: It seems I think some people.
• 53:29
  Speaker 6: Get a little burned out, right, But I mean when
• 53:31
  Speaker 6: you're actually doing it, Gordy, I mean I hear you.
• 53:34
  Speaker 6: I was right there with you, because it feels, you know,
• 53:38
  Speaker 6: you're like, my god, is this seeing even gonna be possible?
• 53:41
  Speaker 6: You know, are people you know, because everyone will tell
• 53:43
  Speaker 6: you what I what I usually do is and this
• 53:45
  Speaker 6: is really quickly bring out of time.
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: I call it the one percent rule.
• 53:50
  Speaker 6: And so if you ask one hundred people to donate
• 53:53
  Speaker 6: to your crowdfunding campaign, ninety nine everyone everyone's gonna tell
• 53:57
  Speaker 6: you yes, but ninety nine won't do it, and that
• 54:00
  Speaker 6: one person will actually go through, and and and give
• 54:03
  Speaker 6: you some money. So if you use that one percent rule,
• 54:07
  Speaker 6: that's what the that's the multiplication that you're gonna have
• 54:10
  Speaker 6: to do to make sure that you have your movie.
• 54:12
  Speaker 6: So your multiplication your and your your division. And then
• 54:15
  Speaker 6: if you you you figure you have to tell that
• 54:16
  Speaker 6: many people. So if you know that you're gonna need
• 54:19
  Speaker 6: maybe like I don't know, twenty thousand dollars, twenty thousand dollars,
• 54:23
  Speaker 6: you have to kind of can you know, figure out
• 54:25
  Speaker 6: how many people that you're gonna have to talk to
• 54:27
  Speaker 6: in order to get that done, because you know, everyone
• 54:30
  Speaker 6: does what's called Chinese math, and they're like, well, if
• 54:32
  Speaker 6: I had twenty thousand people each give me a dollar,
• 54:35
  Speaker 6: i'd have one have them all the money.
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: Or I need only need one person to give me
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: twenty thousand dollars, you know what I mean.
• 54:41
  Speaker 6: So it's kind of like, you know, using all that
• 54:44
  Speaker 6: to your advantage, you have to figure out, you know, okay,
• 54:46
  Speaker 6: these are where I could go, these are the family,
• 54:48
  Speaker 6: these are their friends, they can give me thirty percent.
• 54:50
  Speaker 6: You know. It's stuff like that that you know you've
• 54:53
  Speaker 6: learned as you as you go about.
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: Doing all this stuff.
• 54:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, it's a you know there's a lot of
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: stuff going on with it, but I think it I
• 55:04
  Speaker 5: mean it boils down to content, how you present you know,
• 55:09
  Speaker 5: your idea, and I think there's a lot of pitfalls
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: with that. I figure people think, oh, I should make
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: a four minute video. No one in the world has
• 55:17
  Speaker 5: ever watched a four minute video. No one watches four
• 55:20
  Speaker 5: minute videos. Ever. It's like, you know, and it's like,
• 55:23
  Speaker 5: let me explain it, let me bring everybody in. Let's
• 55:25
  Speaker 5: talk for seven minutes about what the movie's gonna be about.
• 55:28
  Speaker 5: No oney want to Nobody wants to watch that. You know.
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: It's like so there's these things that you sort of realize.
• 55:33
  Speaker 5: It's like, you know, make a forty five second video,
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: you know, and and like write a little bit about it.
• 55:39
  Speaker 5: People want to read it. They're going to find it.
• 55:41
  Speaker 5: But basically, just give them a little video reminder. Make
• 55:44
  Speaker 5: sure you have a ton of rewards. Make sure you
• 55:46
  Speaker 5: have a lot of different ways for people to get in.
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: If you only have one twenty five dollars award and
• 55:52
  Speaker 5: then the next one seventy five dollars, you're gonna be
• 55:54
  Speaker 5: in trouble, you know. But if you have five different
• 55:56
  Speaker 5: twenty five dollars awards. You know, some people don't want DVDs,
• 56:00
  Speaker 5: you know, they don't want a poster, you know, And
• 56:02
  Speaker 5: it's like if the only thing at that money level
• 56:04
  Speaker 5: is a poster, and then they're like, I don't want
• 56:07
  Speaker 5: a poster, you know. But if you're like, oh, you know,
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: I won't give you anything at twenty five dollars, you
• 56:12
  Speaker 5: get people signed up for that because they don't want
• 56:14
  Speaker 5: anything nail to them. So I mean, it's like, it's amazing.
• 56:18
  Speaker 5: I mean, all these things that I sort of learned
• 56:20
  Speaker 5: while I was doing it.
• 56:22
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it's it's all the things, you know, speaking of
• 56:25
  Speaker 6: the video really quickly. I know, we were almost out
• 56:28
  Speaker 6: of time, but really, but I once had a friend
• 56:30
  Speaker 6: of mine hit his crowdfunding campaign was not going anywhere,
• 56:34
  Speaker 6: and he said, could you you know, he goes, Dave,
• 56:36
  Speaker 6: I've know you've done this before, would you mind looking
• 56:38
  Speaker 6: at this for me? And I looked at it and
• 56:41
  Speaker 6: and Gordie he had him he had like a nine
• 56:44
  Speaker 6: or ten minute trailer so to speak, and it was
• 56:47
  Speaker 6: him talking on the couch.
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: I said, my god, I said, what could you pop it?
• 56:51
  Speaker 6: There was no like other shots, There was no like
• 56:54
  Speaker 6: footage of the movie or even concept uard or the
• 56:56
  Speaker 6: storyboard or nothing, even the screenplay. For godsakes, it was
• 57:00
  Speaker 6: literally him on a couch talking for like ten minutes,
• 57:02
  Speaker 6: and I said, dude, I know you and I don't
• 57:04
  Speaker 6: want to do any money to this.
• 57:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's it's it's really I mean
• 57:11
  Speaker 5: I learned that like right when I was doing it.
• 57:14
  Speaker 5: They I mean somebody, I was reading a blog and
• 57:17
  Speaker 5: somebody was like, we we watched we watched videos for
• 57:21
  Speaker 5: six months, like we just studied Kickstarter campaigns for six months.
• 57:26
  Speaker 5: And I was like, wow, okay, and they were like,
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: and we ended up making a movie. We ended our
• 57:31
  Speaker 5: video ended up being two minutes or a minute and
• 57:35
  Speaker 5: a half or something like that. And they said, and
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: we should have made it shorter. And I was like
• 57:40
  Speaker 5: when I heard that, I was like, whoa, And so
• 57:44
  Speaker 5: my you know, my video is seventy seconds. I think
• 57:48
  Speaker 5: it's like a minute. And I made it like a
• 57:51
  Speaker 5: deconstruct I did like this. I just came up with
• 57:53
  Speaker 5: a quick concept and went out and shot it, and
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: it was it was a little bit slapped together, but
• 57:58
  Speaker 5: it was like I just I was like, I'm gonna
• 58:01
  Speaker 5: sort of do the anti Kickstarter video and not really
• 58:04
  Speaker 5: it was different, but people love the video, you know,
• 58:06
  Speaker 5: and it was like it was people really responded to
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: the video because it just reminded people like, oh, Gorty's talented,
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: is funny or whatever. You know, they just said enough
• 58:16
  Speaker 5: and then you know so, and then I just I
• 58:19
  Speaker 5: And I also believe I had a lot of rewards.
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: I had creative rewards. They were funny to read, and
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: I had a ton of different ones, you know, not
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: so many that people couldn't make a decision, but I
• 58:30
  Speaker 5: just had a lot of ways for people to participate.
• 58:33
  Speaker 5: And I also just remember that it's like just remember
• 58:37
  Speaker 5: not everybody wants a DVD, And if you apply that
• 58:41
  Speaker 5: principle to every war that you give, then you're gonna
• 58:44
  Speaker 5: come up with alternatives and you'll be surprised that people
• 58:47
  Speaker 5: will actually they'll take the other thing. And you'll be like, oh,
• 58:52
  Speaker 5: they don't even want a DVD or they don't even
• 58:54
  Speaker 5: want to a download, or you know, they just want
• 58:56
  Speaker 5: to this, you know, they want to actually have that
• 58:59
  Speaker 5: or whatever. And but yeah, the videos, you know, I
• 59:03
  Speaker 5: don't think I've ever watched a video, I mean anything
• 59:06
  Speaker 5: that's over like literally and everyone you go on there
• 59:10
  Speaker 5: I was like four minutes long. Five It's like, you
• 59:13
  Speaker 5: kidding me. I mean, no one watches, nobody wants Nobody
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: watches that, not even you know, not that anyone related
• 59:18
  Speaker 5: to them. Nobody, nobody watches. You know. It's just too long, man,
• 59:22
  Speaker 5: It's too long, dude. Okay, come on, man.
• 59:26
  Speaker 6: The best crowdfunding video I've ever seen, Gordy. This guy
• 59:30
  Speaker 6: actually pretended he was kidnapped and they filmed it and
• 59:34
  Speaker 6: he was actually and his guys were like, well, you know,
• 59:37
  Speaker 6: you need this money, and he would goes, well, I'll
• 59:40
  Speaker 6: get it, and they're like, who's gonna give you this money?
• 59:42
  Speaker 6: He said, I'll go to crowd I'll go to Kickstarter
• 59:44
  Speaker 6: and or Indy go go. And he goes, I'll ask
• 59:46
  Speaker 6: the money on that and he goes. They go, really
• 59:48
  Speaker 6: you can do that, and they That was the pitch
• 59:50
  Speaker 6: and it was actually it tied into the movie as
• 59:53
  Speaker 6: well because it was about a kidnapping, so it was
• 59:54
  Speaker 6: actually pretty creative.
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: And it was the body by Kenny G.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: and now back to the show.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 6: Not not the musician, by the way, it was, but
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 6: it was another another Kenny G. But but but I'll
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 6: link to that everyone in the show notes but it
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 6: was actually a really really good, uh good crowdfunding campaign
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 6: and he ended up making the movie. But but you know, Gordy,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 6: I know we're running out of time. I just enclosing, Gordy, Uh,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 6: I just want to talk about Blue Cat again. I
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 6: know Blue Cat it's open for submissions right now for
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 6: the twenty eighteen season. So if you could, you know,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 6: just in the in a few minutes we have left,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 6: could you just you know, give us a little bit
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 6: more information about Blue Cat.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 5: Well, everybody should know that we have really great readers
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 5: and we provide written analysis on every script that enters.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 5: So if you enter Bluecat, you will get notes back
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 5: on your script. Google read your entire script and you
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 5: will get notes back. So that's that's a lot of
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 5: people still don't know about that, but Blue Cat's been
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 5: doing that for you know, over fifteen years now. But
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 5: that's that's that's one of our traditions and we do
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 5: that as a part of the entry fee. We accept
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 5: features shorts pilots both hour and a half hour, and
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 5: we are also accepting short films this year, the first
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 5: time we've ever done that. So we're gonna have a
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 5: screening next June of the top short films that we receive.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 5: The deadline's February twentieth, and the next I'm not sure
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 5: when you're airing this, but February twentieth is the is
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 5: the next is the final deadline. And you know you
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 5: can google us and sure you guys will have the
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 5: links for that. But yeah, I mean, and if you're
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 5: ready to submit, you'd like to get some notes, Bluecats
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 5: great for that. If you've got if you're really really
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 5: excited about your script, please send it to us. If
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 5: you're still like knowing you needed to work on it,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 5: then work on it. Fend it to Nichols or Austin
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 5: later of the year and you can you can get
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 5: back to us in the future. But you know, just
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 5: use Bluecat use screenplay contests to you know, to help
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 5: you and encourage you to develop yourself. And and only
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 5: when that happens, you know, should you be using screenplay contests.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 5: But yeah, we're really excited. We you know, we have
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 5: a great such a fantastic group of readers. I'm very
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 5: proud of them, and and and everyone really loves our feedback.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 5: So you know, looking looking forward to meeting the next
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 5: winner and you know, the next winners and uh and yeah,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 5: so I'm looking forward to getting your scripts.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah and uh.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 6: Like I said, I've entered group blue Cap before and
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 6: I really like the feedback that I got. And like
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 6: I said, gord to you, somebody I have one to
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 6: have on here before because you have you have the right,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 6: you know, added to the personality to run a screwing competition.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 6: You're you're not only the founder, but you're also like
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 6: this brand ambassador for it. And you know you have
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 6: that right attitude for it.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: Man.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 6: And uh, I and uh, you know that's why it's
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 6: so cool having you are on Gordy exent every interview.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: You know what I mean.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 6: It's like you're the type of guy like nothing bothers you,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 6: you know what I mean, You're just like you just
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 6: go with the flow.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Well I appreciate that, man. I mean hopefully I
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 5: can remember that sometimes when I'm a traffic out in
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 5: Los Angeles. But yeah, I uh look forward to being
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 5: back on again. Man. It was a great talk. I
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 5: could we could probably keep going. I mean, so if
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 5: you ever want me back on, I'd love to talk
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 5: about anything. You'd you know, and want to get into
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 5: there's a lot of stuff and the just a great
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 5: interview and love having love being.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 6: On oh and I'd love to have you back on
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 6: Gordy and and before we uh we we sort of
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 6: cut this off.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: Where can people find you out online?
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 5: Well, you can find me if you Google, you can
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 5: find my probably my Instagram account and I you know,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 5: I don't really tweet a lot, but I do have
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 5: a Twitter account, and you know, you can reach out
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 5: to me through Blue It's pretty easy to find Blue
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 5: Cat and you can reach out to me the air
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 5: and stuff. And I'm also you know, one of the
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 5: things that we do where there's a lot of interaction
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 5: is we have something called the Blue Cat Writers Group
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 5: and that's on Facebook and it's a closed group but
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 5: pretty much anyone who wants to join just gets approved
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 5: and we always have weekly discussion questions, and you know,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 5: there's a lot of interaction and it's very positive and
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 5: it's not overwhelming, and there's not a lot of you know,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 5: extra stuff in there. It's really you know, it's really
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 5: about the craft of writing and sort of give and
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 5: take around that. So that's another place that people can find.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 6: Me and I'll make sure everyone to link to all
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 6: of Gordy's social media links in the show notes. But
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 6: Gordie Hoffman Man, it has been a blast talking to you,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 6: and I definitely would like to have you back on
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 6: because we you know, like I like, we were just saying,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 6: you know, we could we could talk for another whole
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 6: another hour or.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 5: Two, right, Well, looking forward to it, Dave.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: Forward slash four eleven. Thank you so much for listening
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: to guys, as always, keep on writing no matter what.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: I'll talk to you soon.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting
• 1:05:21
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