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IFH 771: Beat by Beat to a Better Screenplay with Jim Mercurio · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, Episode number seven
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: seventy one. We must let go of the life we
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: have planned so we can accept the one that is
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: waiting for us. Joseph Campbell.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the Back Alley and Hollywood. It's the Indie
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the film biz.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: I am your humble.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of
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  Speaker 2: the Film Entrepreneur. How to turn your independent film into
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  Speaker 2: a profitable business. It's harder today than ever before for
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  Speaker 2: independent filmmakers to make money with their films from predatory
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  Speaker 2: prey upon them. The odds are back against the indie filmmaker.
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  Speaker 2: is broken and there needs to be a change. The
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  Speaker 2: film entrepreneur. In Rise of the Film Entrepreneur, I break
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  Speaker 2: down how to actually make money with your film projects
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  Speaker 2: This book shows you the step by step method to
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  Speaker 2: The book is available in paperback, ebook, and of course audiobook.
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  Speaker 2: If you want to order it, just head over to
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  Speaker 2: www dot filmbiz book dot com. That's film bizbook dot com.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Now today on the show, we have Jim Mercurio Now.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Jim is a filmmaker, a writer, and an author and
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: is a screenwriting con sultant. And Creative Screenwriting ranked him
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: as one of the country's top story analysts. He's worked
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: with OSCAR nominated and A List writers as well as
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: complete beginners. And I was introduced to Jim by a
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: course that I actually have on IFHTV called a less
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Screenwriting and when I saw his workshops, I was extremely
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: impressed with his take on story and his approach to
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: helping writers with their screenwriting process. So I called Jim
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: up and I said, Jim, I got to have you
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: on the show. And he was so kind and giving
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: of his time to come in and share his knowledge
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: and experience with you guys the tribe. So, without any
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: further ado enjoying my conversation with Jim Mercurio, I'd like
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  Speaker 2: to welcome to the show, Jim Mercurio. Man, thank you
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: so much for being on the show.
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  Speaker 4: Hey, Alexil, thanks for having me. It'll be well, I
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: think we'll have some fun today.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, man, I'm here to pick your brain about screenwriting
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  Speaker 2: and how to write a better script.
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  Speaker 3: Sounds good.
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  Speaker 2: So first of all, how did you get into the
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  Speaker 2: film business in the first place.
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  Speaker 4: Oh, you know, I always wonder if I'm really like
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  Speaker 4: in the film business. You know, I spent a decade
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  Speaker 4: making these low budgets films from like two thousand to
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  Speaker 4: twenty ten, and they didn't make a bunch of money.
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  Speaker 4: But you know, it's like the passions there, the experiences there.
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  Speaker 4: So I've kind of been like I'm outside of the
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  Speaker 4: Hollywood system, and you know, in the last decade things
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: have changed a lot. So I'm back to where like
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  Speaker 4: a lot of writers are writing specscripts and you know,
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: taking a little assignments here and there. So I just
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: you know, I love filmmaking. I don't want to sound
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: the cliche. I wanted to be a director. I thought
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: screenwriting was definitely a way through, and I got a
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  Speaker 4: master's in film, but there wasn't a huge emphasis on screenwriting.
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  Speaker 4: So when I first moved to LA in the nineties,
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  Speaker 4: I wanted to figure out screenwriting kind of inside and out,
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: Like I had to kind of teach it to myself,
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: so you know, kind of over the years of like
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  Speaker 4: being the student and then you know, segueing to like
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  Speaker 4: development and you know, producing and teaching and stuff. Uh,
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  Speaker 4: I don't know's it's always been just about wanting to
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  Speaker 4: eventually direct and just be able to tell stories on
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  Speaker 4: this big, grand scale. But like even as even as
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  Speaker 4: a kid though, like you know, like my friends were
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: watching Star Wars when I was watching like seventies Scorsese
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: and movies and conspiracies. I always came to film like
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  Speaker 4: as an adult, like thinking could do really smart stuff
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  Speaker 4: and you know, theme and like, you know, really gritty
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  Speaker 4: character stuff.
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  Speaker 3: So I don't know, I've always loved movies, I've loved.
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  Speaker 4: Storytelling, and cinema just seemed like maybe maybe the Hollywood
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  Speaker 4: I imagined existed when I, you know, first came out
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  Speaker 4: to Hollywood. Never really was there or something like I
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  Speaker 4: missed by a couple of decades. But I just you know,
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  Speaker 4: always wanted to tell, you know, be part of telling
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  Speaker 4: these great stories, these great character studies and like great
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  Speaker 4: exciting stories, you know, on this big, grand scale.
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  Speaker 2: Now, how did you get involved in teaching screenwriting and
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  Speaker 2: your theories behind it?
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  Speaker 4: Well, like I said, I said, part of my you know,
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: quest was I have to figure out the screenwriting thing
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  Speaker 4: for myself. So the first few years in Los Angeles,
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  Speaker 4: I was like working another job, and I was just
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: like you know, reading every book writing. And then I
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: started writing for Creative Screenwriting and I said to him,
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: to Eric, my buddy who eventually produced a couple of
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  Speaker 4: movies with me, I said, let me go take all
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  Speaker 4: these story guru classes. I was trying to like you know,
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: be smart and resourceful, save myself a few thousand dollars,
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: and I'll write a review about it. So I don't
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: know twenty some years ago, you know, I went to Uh, Well, I.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: Think I'd take him a key, but I had everyone
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: takes my kay. Well, I think I did it before that.
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  Speaker 4: But then as part of this process, I did Trueby
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  Speaker 4: and Walter and Kitchen and Hay and uh and just
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: a bunch, just a bunch of people. So it was
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  Speaker 4: like and then eventually.
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  Speaker 3: It was interesting.
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  Speaker 4: I ended up directing like forty DVDs with a lot
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  Speaker 4: of those people. So it's like I was immersing myself
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  Speaker 4: as the student. But it's like to know something so well,
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  Speaker 4: you kind of have to like if you can teach something,
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  Speaker 4: you know it better than if you can you know
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  Speaker 4: what I mean. And so like I was learning this
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  Speaker 4: stuff and I was integrating it, and I wasn't thinking
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  Speaker 4: about teaching. I was just like trying to learn it
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  Speaker 4: from myself. But then these chances came up to like
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  Speaker 4: I do notes for a friend, you know, write a
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  Speaker 4: script review, Oh you let my notes?
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: Someone else want me to do notes.
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  Speaker 4: So as I started kind of figuring it out for myself,
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  Speaker 4: I would call on what I learned from other people.
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  Speaker 4: But I started kind of like figuring out wait a second,
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  Speaker 4: So either are kind of the rules of principles that I'm
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: using for myself, and they seem to be working. They
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: seem to like aligne or pull together fifteen different theories
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: or three or four different gurus into a way that
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: makes sense for me. So it just started kind of naturally, like, oh,
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  Speaker 4: I can explain it to myself, so I can explain
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  Speaker 4: it to someone else fairly Well.
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  Speaker 2: So why do most people and screenwriters, why do more
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  Speaker 2: screenwriters fail at screenwriting?
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  Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's interesting.
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  Speaker 4: The thing with like first time scriptwriters, beginning of scriptwriters,
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  Speaker 4: people always ask me, well, what's the most common thing
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  Speaker 4: that's wrong with the script?
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  Speaker 3: And I'm like, well, kind of every thing. I don't
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  Speaker 3: mean as a slight. I don't mean it's a slight.
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  Speaker 4: I mean like they don't know what they're supposed to know,
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  Speaker 4: Like they don't know the care and the time and
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  Speaker 4: the attention.
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  Speaker 3: That it takes.
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  Speaker 4: So it's like a lot of times I think, like
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  Speaker 4: with beginning screenwriters, or if Fron'm working with someone as
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: a coach or you know, a consultant, it's like the
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  Speaker 4: first and best thing I can do is kind of
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  Speaker 4: like open their eyes to say this is what great
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  Speaker 4: screenwriting is. These are the expectations you kind of you
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: have to have. And I'm allowed to go on a
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: little tangent. Sure you know you should a movie with
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: The Arrival, Yes I did.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: Okay, coolest sci fi movie.
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: They used a hyperbolic version of this thing called the
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: Sappier War hypothesis. It's this idea that language that like
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: your language that you have, affects your worldview, so that
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: it was very hyperbolic, and that movie it was like,
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  Speaker 4: if you learn their circular language, you'll be able to,
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: you know, visit the future in the past, and that'll
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: be super powerful. And obviously, you know, real life doesn't
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: quite work that way, the cliched example.
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  Speaker 3: And I don't even know if it's true, if this
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  Speaker 3: is scientific more.
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  Speaker 4: But like let's say an Eskimo has forty different types
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: of snow they recognize, so when it snows, they see
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: something different than say, maybe we're else see because they
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: know it exists.
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  Speaker 3: So like there's a different view of the world.
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  Speaker 4: And the same thing with screenwriting, like if you know
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  Speaker 4: thirty different things and you just have a name for them,
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: like you know, whatever in ellipses or exposition or reframe,
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: just like little tricks that writers do or craft principles
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: even if you don't know how to do them yet,
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: but you're aware of them. You're already ahead of the
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: game because you're gonna be learning the faster. You're gonna
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: recognize them in other movies. You're gonna expect that. You're
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: you know that your films and your story should have them.
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: So it's like if I say, hey, man, you're opening
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: image should always augur theme and be like right on
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: the nose or on point with what the movie's about.
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: And you've never even thought about that, But now that
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: you think about it, you go back and watch your
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: ten favorite movies and you're like, oh, hey, wow, Like
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: I didn't realize it, but Citizen Kane has an opening image.
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  Speaker 4: It does that exactly, and so does you know this
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: movie and still The Seven, which I know you're a
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: finsure fan in these movies.
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: It's all of a sudden you're like, oh wait a second.
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: Every great movie that I've loved I just realized has
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  Speaker 4: a really profound and concise opening image that like august
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: theme and sets up the character and every time the
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: characters introduced.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: It's like the Dilemma's right there.
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: So it's like if you start seeing things that you
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: didn't even know existed, you know, like you already ended
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: the game, you're gonna learn faster. You're gonna start having
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: that expectation for your script. So it's like a lot
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: of it is I mean not to you know, say, hey,
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: those of you who aren't in the club yet, it's
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: hard and you don't know what's going on. It's like, hey, no,
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: just respect this. Like there's a lot to learn structure
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: and character and theme, and then when you get all
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: that stuff down, then there's like rewriting and subtlety and nuance.
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  Speaker 4: So it's like, I just feel like it takes a
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: while to do, and a lot of times it's it's
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: not even that Hey, a beginning script is like hey,
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: there's a problem. It's like, no, you're exactly where you're
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: supposed to be. Like, there's there's talent, there's some into where.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: There's some great moments, you know, you know, and depending
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: on your skill level or if you believe in innate talent,
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: there might.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: Be different levels of where a script is.
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: But it's not supposed to do everything like the first
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: time or the second time. It's like that's why you know,
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: I respect and like, you know, like it would be like,
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: you know, it would be bad self esteem for me
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: to say, like, oh, well, I spent all this time
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: trying to help people learn all the nuances and you know,
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: and Finessa's that can be done with screenwriting if it's like,
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: oh yeah, it's kind of easy, and like you know,
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: it's only ten things you should know and if you
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: know that and read one book, that's enough. It's like, no, man,
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: this is this is really hard, and like, you know,
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: I'm still learning myself or you know, or like in
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: the last five years of my twenty years of figuring
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: this out, there's still stuff I'm learning when I read
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  Speaker 4: like great screenplays.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: No, absolutely, And that's the thing. A lot of a
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: lot of screenwriters and filmmakers with them, and I think
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: it's an easy process. And like, oh, if I just
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: if I just put the hero's journey on everything, or
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: if I or if I just you know, use Truebe's technique,
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: or if I just use this technique or that technique. Uh,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: there's no one answer.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: But the thing is, though, like we'll tell you want
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: to talk about this later, but like I have a
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: I've kind of focus on seedwriting and I write about.
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: It somewhat and it's like, you know that that specific
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: approach is it's not that.
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: You know, truebe structure or sid field or say the
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: can it's not that I have to say no to
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: any of that, but it's like like an improviss yes,
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: and it's but it's like you know, one thing isn't
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: going to answer at all, Like you know, like voglar
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: stuff is really good, especially for some sorts of stories,
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: but like you can, I would say, like like a
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: lot of voglar stuff for a lot of stories is
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: what's how do you phrase it? It's it's necessary but not sufficient.
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: So it's like you know, yes, every story will have
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: some kind of reluctance in the first act maybe and
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: threshold guardians. It will be some kind of forces or
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: people or elements that try to stop the person or
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: the protagonist from going to that new world. But if
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: it's just an obstacle, if it's just an ogre in
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: the road with a club, that's not going to be enough.
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: It has to be also on a psychological level, So
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: it's it's it's it's true that, yes, all these stories
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: will have these obstacles, but if you have the obstacle,
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: it's not enough. It also needs to resonate on psychological level.
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: It also has to be aligned to that character. So
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: it's like I'm very often saying yes and like, yeah,
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: we'd say the cat read Richard Walter read Michael Hag
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: If ruby works for you, especially the genre stuff, yeah,
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: use it. And nothing I say should really ever contradict it.
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: It should just kind of enhance it or maybe reframe
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: it in a way that works for someone better.
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  Speaker 3: So you're what you're.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Saying is that ogre with the club should be the
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: long lost father of the character that creates more interesting.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: It might not be so on the nose.
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: It might be right, but it might be just the
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: smallest hint of that. Like, you know, I'm ready to
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: I'm ready to leave town and I'm driving out of
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: my hometown and a policeman pulls me over.
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  Speaker 3: Well, that's that's like a over with a club.
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: But wait a second, I wonder if it's like a
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: guy from high school who kinda thinks I think of
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: a big shot or kind of puts me down or
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: thinks or kind of reminds me that hey, you're not
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: really supposed to leave this town. You're you're destined to
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: be this small town person. You're supposed to go to
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: Los Angeles.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: Or who are you to have these big dreams?
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: And all of a sudden, it's like, yeah, it's the
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: negative father figure, or it's like you know, the uncle
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: who's a foil character who failed at it, reminding you
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: of the stakes. It's like it could be a very
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: shut away but like I don't I don't want you
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: to get a ticket from a policeman because you're going
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: too fast. And that's the point I want. I want
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: that to represent something, and if it doesn't, then that
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  Speaker 4: policeman doesn't belong on the script, like that, that incident,
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: that scene doesn't belong there. You have to find the
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: thing that does two things, both story and character. And
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: you know, like when I talk about you know, scenes,
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: it's like you want your scene to change at.
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  Speaker 3: The story level, but also the character level.
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  Speaker 4: And pretty much your goal has to be always doing both,
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: Like really, there's almost no reason to only do one
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: of them. Or if you do it a few times,
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: that's fine, but you know, you don't have a certain
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: amount of opportunities to get insight into character and to
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: make these important changes in the story, So why would
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: you pass them up? You're always looking for like the
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: internal in the external to kind of like move forward
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: and change at the same time. And that's a tricky
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: thing to do as a beginning screenwriter, so it takes
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: a while to learn that as a skill.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Now, what makes a character? Since we're on the topic
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: of characters, what makes a character interesting to an audience
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: in your opinion?
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  Speaker 4: You know, I don't know, like that's interesting because I
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: don't necessarily I don't necessarily like to like have these
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: rules of like, well, this is what makes them likable.
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: This is I'm more like, here's how you make a
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: good character, and the essence of a great character.
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  Speaker 3: It is very simple.
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: It comes down to one simple dilemma. So look at
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: a craft level, like if you could ask the god
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: of screenwriting or the music of screenwriting, like one question
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: that would pretty much define or help you write your
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: entire script, it would be and it can be phrased
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: a couple of way, but one of them is like,
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: what is my character's dilemma at his core? You know
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: what is it that he's afraid of? What is the
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: hard choice he has to make? Because that will pretty
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: much answer everything. So if you have that nailed down
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: really specifically, that's what makes a great and complex character,
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: then I'm not gonna be the one to judge like, well,
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: is he likable enough or what kind of traits does
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: he have to have?
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: I'm not gonna say that. I'm just gonna be pushed you.
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: I push writers and storytellers to be like, I want
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: you to be good at this, and I want you
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: to be good at writing characters. So I want you
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: to understand what makes a dramatic character work, like it
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: all boils down, you know, to one thing. And one
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: time I was saying this to a class and they
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: were like, you know, oh, well, I don't think Shakespeare.
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, Shakespeare. What's the first thing that comes
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: to mind? They were like, well, to be or not
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: to be? I'm like, well, dug right, I mean, you know,
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: like one thing, you know, Godfather Michael, you know, be
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: in or out or the family's going to fall apart,
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: and that's horrible. I have to be I have to
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: be a criminal, which will eventually need to me killing
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: my brother, but you know, to protect my family and
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: the legacy of my family. It's all going to go
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: away if I don't step up and do this. And
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: obviously you know, he has his own flaw, but you know,
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: or even Napoleon Dynamite, like the most important thing in
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: Napoleon Dynamite is to be cool, right, But then what
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: does he risk?
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: But what does the risk at the end for Pedro,
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: he does that dance in front of everybody. He's willing
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: to be a dork, and it's like that's actually huge,
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: Like if he's just like, hey, vote for Pedro, because
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: I have this logical argument that that's not well, that's
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: not good strawtelling.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: But it also doesn't give me inside in the character.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: Oh well, the character's smart.
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: And when Bush comes to shove, he's able to use
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: rhetoric to defend his friend who's running for president. No, no, no,
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: a guy who's so afraid of being unliked and being
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: a dork is willing to sacrifice to make the choice
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: of I will risk not being liked, being so uncool
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: if because of friendship and support and my alliance with
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: a friend, it's like, you know, the idea dilemma is
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: kind of there at its core, and it will basically
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: help you write I don't know, notin even percent of
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: your script. So it's not so much I want to
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: tell people what a good what like a good character
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: should be, but like I want to give them the
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: power to bring to life the characters they're trying to
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: aim for and to know kind of what they're their
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: aims should be, like how well they should know a character,
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: Because if you know a character really super specifically, it
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: then allows you to you know, create the supporting characters
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: that are more specific. It allows you to write great dialogue.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: Everything stems from that really specific understanding.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Do you agree that a hero is only as good
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: as their villain that they're facing.
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: Well, yeah, it's kind of back to what I was saying.
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: It's like chicken egg. The perfect antagonist is the one
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: who tests the.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: Weakness of the character.
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: So if you don't know what that is, so so like,
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: oh hey, hey, I like to the protagonists on the antagonists,
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: I'm going to get in your way. I mean, does
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: that mean like I put my arms up and like
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: move to like just block you from taking the stuff forward? Yeah,
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: you know it's sorry, that's part of it. But like,
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: but if I know you weakness and if I can
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: pray on that, then that makes me better antagonists and
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: that challenges you more. So now there's more conflict, so
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: you have more you know, you have more to kind
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: of fight. You know, at the beginning of La Confidential,
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: you know Dudley Smith is a great antagonist. He's a
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: little bit like Darth Vader, and that he's like he's
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: more in full and more whole.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: Than Luke is. And he says to actually he's you know,
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: by the.
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: Book Goodie two Shoes. He says, would you plan evidence?
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: Would you rough up somebody to get a confession? Would
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: you shoot somebody in the back? And ironically that's for
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: shattering what has to happen later, But he's also saying.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: I know your two Goodie two shoes. I'm reminding you.
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: As conflict, but I'm also for myself testing. I know
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: you wouldn't do those things, so I know you're already beaten,
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: Like you can never beat me because you're limited into
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: what you can do.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: And once you know that.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: That specifically, then you can write better scenes. Like for instance,
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: there's a little moment like a second where I show
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: it to my class and the first time they watch
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: it three or four times.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: And they don't get it.
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: It's Christmas party at the precinct, right, and he goes
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: off to the side to talk to him and he
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: grabs two glasses of punch from someone in his hands
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: exally it and he won't drink it. He doesn't take
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: a drink, and it's like, oh my god, he's so good.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: At two shoes. Even at the Christmas.
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: Party, the holiday party, he won't take a sip of
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: punch because it has alcohol, and that's breaking the rules.
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: And it's like, do you see how that's why that
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: script wins an oscar because that moment and that specificity
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: of character is able to be put on display.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: So you might in your.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: Head think your character is so well defined that you
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: know him or her. But until you can use craft
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: to reveal that, you know, it's back to intention. You're
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: not doing great screenwriting until you find ways to express that.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: So I mean, I always use the example of The
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Joker and Nolan's Batman. We'll be right back after a
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: word from our sponsor, and now back to the show,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: which is as perfect as an antagonist as you can create,
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: would you agree.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: Absolutely absolutely, I mean I mean the way he wants
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: to kind of break the value system of Batman. He
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: wants to show people are corrupt and he wants to yeah,
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: I mean yeah.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: I mean he has his own method, he has his
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: own metho methodology, in his own mind, his own his
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: own core beliefs that are counter and he wants to
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: literally break Batman psychologically as opposed to like the nineteen
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: sixties Batman, where the Joker was just a kind of
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: buffoon in his way, there was no depth there. If
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: you're going to compete, if you're going to compare like
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: the same characters written.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: I would say that's totally apples and ore just but
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: I know, I know, I know it's not really fair.
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: You may even have done some of this because I
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: know I've seen like a lot of people going to
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: depth about that relationship and in philosophy, and that's the thing,
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: like you know, ideally you have like like I don't
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: believe that you have to write that one hundred page
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: you know, backstory for everybody. I actually kind of believe
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: in precision, Like if you can nail your antagonist to
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: lemma and a sentence like those values then become like
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: a contrasting sentence for the uh you know, for the antagonist.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: You know, it's like almost exact values.
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: Like you know, if in a love story, you know,
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: if if he's if his character is supposed to believe
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: in the power of love to overcome stuff, well, then
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: the antagonist is someone who obviously is negative, doesn't believe that,
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: and is really kind of good at showing or convincing
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: that person that love is can't overcome and maybe he
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: isn't real you know what I'm saying. Like they're challenging
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: the exact most important things to the protagonist. So it's
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: like kind of chicken egg, Like, yes, your antagonists becomes stronger,
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: your protagonist has to become stronger to fight them. So
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: it's like you need to align them kind of perfectly
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: because you might have a great antagonist there's the wrong
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: antagonist for the story. Or you might have a great
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: protagonist but it's the wrong protagon for the story. So
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: you have to make sure that what the antagonist is
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: good at challenging and making difficult or the weaknesses he
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: or she can pick at are specific to in align
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: with the protagonists.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: Does that make sense?
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: It makes perfect sense. I mean, and I always I
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: want to ask you a question. This is now a
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: personal question I have because there's a character that I
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: found extremely difficult to write for, which was.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: Superman.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Superman is such a difficult character because he literally is
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: a god. So it's so difficult to create an antagonist
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: that could even even do anything against them. So you
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: got the Lex Luthor with the real estate scams of
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: both two different movies.
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: Right, well, a couple of movies, did it pretty well? Yes,
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: the Superman the movie, the nineteen seventy eight versions excellent,
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: right right?
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: Okay, so a couple of things.
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: It's set up with the who's the father Drell Jurell.
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: He says you not that you kind of you should
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: You must not reveal you are because then people will
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: hurt the people you love. And so it's like, okay,
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: so now we's set up. Okay, Superman is are vulnerable,
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: but people he love could be vulnerable. So so what
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: does Lex with Just he sends the two rockets and
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: opposite directions, and the lowest lane is in one direction,
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: and you know, New York's and the other kind of
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: kind of the same thing that the Joker did, you know,
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: and uh in Batman with you know, with the Harvey
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: and uh yes and and that that but yeah, I
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: mean I never saw that gatch but right, he creates
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: he creates the dilemma and and then it's also set
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: up and this is you know, it's a little bit contrived,
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: but you have to do the work. You know, you
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: can't change the course of things. So Superman has to
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: decide whether he'll go in circles and turn back time,
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: which is a little bit out of the blue, but it's.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: Like but but but it's at least on point.
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: He has a big, huge moral question will you tamper
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: and play god, you know, uh as Superman or will
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: you not do it? He makes a mistake, but not
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: a mistake, I mean he chooses it, which makes him.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: Imperfect and human and human in a way which you know,
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: we kind of like.
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: And then in this and in the The Man of Steel,
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: U you know, some flood stuff with a couple of
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: things like it's really interesting that you know when Kevin
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: Costmin that the dad character says you can't let people
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: know about you, and it was for something different reasons
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: because they won't understand.
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: You know, his faces.
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: But an interesting thing was he goes, so, Dad, should
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: I let those kids on the bus?
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: So I let them have died?
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: He kind of said, And I forget if he says
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: or if he just kind of implies it, but it's
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: kind of like, yeah, maybe it's like whoa, I go.
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: That's like that's pretty intense. So in that final scene
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: where you know he breaks the neck of zodf the
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: lemma is.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: Right there, Zod is fighting to hurt humans.
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: He's like his his vision is like inches away, so
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: he's fighting to pull his neck back. So it's like
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: the only way he can stop him from killing those
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: humans is to kill him. So Superman makes a choice
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: that he never really makes or or its very kind
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: of bold and like, yeah, exactly. At least it set
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: up so it's like you can't say, oh, he killed
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: him because it was all he really could do, or
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: he was mad. No, he killed him because it was
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: either him or humans would die. So once again, it's
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: like they they they have to make vulnerable people be
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: important to him, and then the vulnerability to the bad
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: guy comes through the humans that are vulnerable, and it's
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: you know, it's I'd say it's an effective Saturday because
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: otherwise you know what else?
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: What else are you going to do?
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's what I loved about Superman too, the
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Donner cut, not the original, but the Richard Donner cut,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: which he had literally three Superman versus him and he
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: lost his powers and he had to do all the
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: things that he did, and there was just a lot
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: of complexity there with which arguably I think one of
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: the better Superman. Those two are probably the best still
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: to this day.
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: And I'll tell you what though, I mean, like story
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: wise and plot wise, yeah, there's a lot of fun
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: stuff going on there, but no, but I have a
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: question though, Like if I say, like, man, you come
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: out of Superman the movie, the first one, what'd you
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: kind of learn? And like and I know, I say, yeah,
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: you know, like man, I shouldn't play guys, you shouldn't
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: turn back to and you're really vulnerable humans and stuff.
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: But like if I say, what do you like, like
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: what's the theme? What's the character arc? Or what what's
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: the thing he learned in Superman two? Like now I'm
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: study and we may go back and it might be there,
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: it might be subtled, but like, like do you have
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: an answer? Like like because I feel like it doesn't
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: resonate as much for me. And this is back to
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: my like kind of telling you like I kind of
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: movies as an adult, you know. Like, so it's like
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: I don't want to be simplistic and say, well, movies
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: should only be deep, dark, thematic character studies. But also
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: I don't believe movies should only be obstacle course roller coasters.
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: Now when I say that, people always say, what about
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: Waider's a lost Car? And I'm like, okay, I'll tell
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: you what if one time in the history of cinema,
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: like the most talented kinetic filmmaker ever was able to
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: make a movie that was mostly a roller coaster that
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: was amazing, you know what, Steven Spielberg. But like, but
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: that can't be your goal. And it's like it's like
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: a dilemma. So a lot of times writers think they
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: have a choice. I need to make it the roller coaster,
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: I need a plot, I need to have this cool twist,
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: or I need to be deep and have character. And
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: I'm like, in my kind of growth as a teacher
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: and as a writer, is like, no, it's not either
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: or it's both.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: You know, and it's a choice.
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: You have to choose to attack your weaknesses or to
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: make sure that the side that's harder for you to
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: do that you work on that and make sure that, hey,
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: my character study doesn't have to be boring, and my genre.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: Piece doesn't have to be fluffy and light.
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: I mean, La Confidential, Leave the Weapon Seven, Silence of
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: the Lambs. I mean, these are some of the best
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: Hollywood movies, you know, and there genre movies, and they
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: don't compromise.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: They're not like, well, you.
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: Know, Signs of the Lamb, we take away some thrills
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: because we're so thematically profound. No, No, it's it's like yes,
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: and it's like, you know, and this is what screenwriters.
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: You're like, Oh, well, I'm a first time screenwriter and
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: I wanted to write something deep and dark, fun, But
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: is it fun?
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: Does it hit the genre beats? Well, I don't have.
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: To because I'm doing this extra stuff. It's like, no, man, like,
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: do that extra stuff, do what special to you? But
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: but then don't like shirk the responsibilities of like what
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: that everybody has. So it's like, you know, you know,
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: my kind of thing is like, as a writer, you
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: have a dilemma and the choice is kind of like no, man,
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: do both like like choose the hard choice of you know, uh,
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: movies can be both things. They can do more than
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: one thing at a time.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: No, absolutely, So what are some of the story elements
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: that you find in today's blockbuster films that make it good?
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: Because I mean, look, Marvel obviously is you know, has
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: done something that nobody has ever done in the history
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: of cinema, So they obviously are doing something right. Some
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: other movies are amazing, some of them are not as good.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: Well, off the top of your head, what are your
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: favorite ones? Which ones work the most.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: The ones that work the most, the one on a
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: story point, the story just on story and structure and
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: script and screenwriting and storytelling. Winter Soldier is excellent, I thought,
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: because The Winter Soldier to me was just like just
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: a good spy movie, like okay, kind of like The
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Dark Knight was a heist film. You know, you take
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Batman out of it, it's just a damn good heist film.
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: You know. It's it is.
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: It's funny because I'm like the things I love about
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: Dark Knight or like we're the things that like I
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: don't like about Dark Nighters sometimes bogged me down when
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: I'm watching it again, it's like.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: Is the action sequences.
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: I'm like the character stuff and the theme stuff, and
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: like the dialogue is so amazing.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: We forget the chase scene, like yeah, I know it's
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: gonna happen.
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, well done. But but I want to get
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: back to this stuff. But when are soldier though, Okay,
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: so give me. I mean I've seen him once or twice.
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: I haven't studied it, so so give me like the
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: one sentence log let up when he shoulder, just just
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: just refresh me.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: And then when there soldiers he's got to fight his
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: because I haven't seen it in a bit. I just
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: remember loving it. He has to fight.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: Not only.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: He has to stand up for his for his ideals,
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: but he also has to defend his best friend. We'll
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: be right back after a word from our sponsor and
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: now back to the show.
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: Okay, okay, stop stop the right right there. Hey, uh
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: remember I said about a dilemma?
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: Uh? Is there s gron dilemma there? Very much? And
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: yeah you said it.
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: But even even in your description, which you know, which
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: was unprepared, and that's spot it wasn't. It wasn't perfect.
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: You you merely went to what resonated with him. He
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: was like, man, a guy is caught between his values
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: and fighting his friends versus his best friend defending him,
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: or defending his best friend versus what's supposed.
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: To be right. It's like, well, there you go. I mean,
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: so it's like it's.
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: Like once again, like I'm not I'm not the super
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: commercial guy that's going to tell you, oh, these are
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: the elements.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: That make it right.
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: But but you know what though, but but the things
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: that make a story great or re potentially great are
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: those deep things like dilemma and character and theme they
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: had originate and it obviously doesn't.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: There the early Spider the Spider Man movies that Sam.
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: Raimi did you know the film Alvin Sargeant wrote them,
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: I mean, the coming of age aspect, but the dilemma
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: and his uncle teaching him the lesson, you know, with
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: great response, with great repetition comes great redundancy.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: Just kidding that stows up a few times. But actually
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: they somehow didn't make it this last one.
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: But the movies where the characters have something at stake right,
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: where it's real. Now, once again, if you do those
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: movies and they're boring and they're just a drama. I'm
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: not gonna I don't think that makes it like, you know,
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: like if I was the film Staw maybe I was
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: in my twenties and I said, well, that's what makes
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: great movies. Well, no, that doesn't really make a great
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: superhero movie, right, But these but these movies have like
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: like we do with Superman, especially Dark Knight. I mean,
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: these characters have really crisp and clear dilemmas. Things matter
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: to them, you know, that they relate to the real world,
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: and it's like, these are the things that can make
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: something powerful, that can anchor it, that can make it
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: once again.
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: I don't know how to say popular.
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: I don't know how to say like, you know, commercial,
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: but it makes it good at being a story.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: It makes it being good at what like you know,
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: really pulls people in.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: So it's like, well, I mean look at Iron Man.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: You know, that was pretty much launched the Marvel universe.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: That was remarkable. I mean a lot has to do
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: with with Robert Downey and his amazing performance of that character.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: But that character changes dramatically from the opening character to
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: the one at the end of the movie, and he
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: does have dilemma and he does have you know, issues
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: with who is the antagonist is? And it was really
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: well well done, what's your opinion?
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: Yes, And he has the fill character like the father
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: who is the flat I want to say evil, but
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: the flat morally like limited or morally uh ambiguous.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: Right fishing.
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: I mean the father made the choice of like, uh,
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: make this stuff so I can make money, like like
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: he never had it. He never had the conscious or
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: or the you know, the doubt of his conscience. But
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: but but he does. So it's like there's a foil character.
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: Are you gonna go that way?
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: Or are you gonna go some you know, perfect goody
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: two shoe ways where you don't do it roll? And
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: he literally becomes like the Iron Man. He becomes the mixture.
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: I mean, I don't even know if this is like
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: on a conscious level, but like he becomes the machines
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: and technology, and he becomes human, like he's the iron human.
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: So he's the guy who finds some way to bridge
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: the technology and the.
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: Power with human guess what well with a heart right.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: Literally literally and figuratively.
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: Exactly, no, exactly. And the thing is, though you're forcing
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: me to talk about these things. You know a lot
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: of times I watch these movies and just have fun
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: with him. But like, but if it works and you
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: start thinking about wives of work, it's like there's a dilemma.
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: He's but he's both sides. He represents them. He's the
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: only character can straddle that. So it's like, you know,
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: like a protagonist who can synthesize and be in two
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: worlds at once. It's really kind of powerful, and there's
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: really a lot of times where make someone special. This
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: isn't necessarily like some deep literary theory that like I spouse,
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: but you know, it's other people have talked about this.
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: But like, okay, so iron Man can be iron and
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: technology and weapons, and he can be humor and he
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: can have a heart.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: But you know, in good role hunting, Will can be
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: the blue collar guy who beats.
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: The crap out of a Haliver Harvard snobs, and he
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: can be the most efficiently productive mathematician in the world
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: and solve problems that can save the world. And to
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: have a character that can straddle things like that, meaning
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: their whole or they have the potential be whole, that's
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: really you know, that's really kind of interesting because even
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: like in a okay, even like in a this.
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: Isn't a superhero film, but like a great genre film.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: Beth a weapon, Oh Shane Black at his best right,
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: but like okay, character dilemmas or character struggles.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: One character wants to live.
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: I'm too old for this strap, one character wants to
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: die right right? Can you be more? Can you be
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: more concise? You know and specific? And it's like each
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: of them has to grow to say the story. So
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: I would say, like the pretty much cope one of
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: the times that you have cope protagonists, like right before
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: the climax of the movie that you know the daughter
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: is taken, and it's it's the uh all is lost
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: moment when we're not only are you physically And this
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: is back to uh the paradigms, So like all is Lost,
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: rock Bottom, Dark Cat of the Soul, whatever Blake Snyder
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: calls it. Yes, you need to be as far away
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: as possible from the goal. So in leath the weapon
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: they've kidnapped the daughter. That's pretty far away.
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: But that's not that's necessary. But that's not sufficient.
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: You also need to have the character the most for
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: this to wayh psychologically, the most regressed, the most, the
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: furthest distance from the where they need to be in
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: order to save the day. So like in a love story,
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: it's not only boy loser's girl. Boy becomes or a
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: girl becomes the worst version of themselves that aren't worthy
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: of love, that couldn't win that love back, that don't
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: deserve it. So so Roger is lost his daughter or
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: his daughters. You know, he's a getter back, right, he's
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: really far away from the goal, but he is buy
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: the book It's safe because he wants to survive. And
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: he has this guy in front of him who's presenting
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: the attitude of lethal weapon whatever to kill and and
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: he says, you have to do it, and it's really
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: you know when it's really like great craft, just foreshadowing
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: as Ali's set up. He's like, you have to listen
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: to me. We shoot to kill, we take no prisoners.
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: We got to risk this craft. That's the only possible way.
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: And he believes him and trust him and they go
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: in even though they get it doesn't work right away,
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: Like he has to grow and learn from him in
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: order to have a chance to save the day in
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: order to kind of kick but at the end and
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: save the day. And it's like, well wait a second,
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: but yeah, well what did what did rings have to do? Well,
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: a scene before that when they fake his death, remember right,
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: he the reason why they can fake his death is
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: you get shot. He goes through the glass and Roger
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: goes over and worried about him, and he's like, surprise,
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: you were the you.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: Wore the bulletproof vest.
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: You have proven that you love yourself in life again,
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: that you're not self destructive, that you're not suicidal.
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: I trust you now. So when you say we get
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: a risk.
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: Because it's the right thing to do, I can believe
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: you now because now I don't think you're that self
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: destructive suicide thing that I was like ready to you know,
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: kill or hate, you know, thirty forty.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: Fifty minutes ago in the story.
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: So it's like he needed to do that and have
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: that growth so that Roger would then accept his risk
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: taking attitude as not as self destructive, suicidal stupidity, but
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: as like a conscious, clear choice that he's making now
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: as his friend. So it's like, you see how like
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: in this hey man, it's just fun people getting shot
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: and kidnapping and shooting stuff. No, it's also this character
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: stuff and it's like the same things of the superhero movies.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: Man, Like I don't know.
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: Like it's like, you know, there are people who probably
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: specialize in talking about, oh, the elements of the universe,
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: and they can compare those movies. And a client comes
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: from me with that kind of story. We'll picture of
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: three movies and we'll look at them and I'll break
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: them down. And I'm kind of like, you know, when
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: I put my mind to something to see something, I'll
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: see stuff that other people don't see and we'll find that.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: But like, all I can say is like, you know what,
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: if you want to write that superhero.
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: Movie, here's here's what a good movie is. Here's what
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: a good story is. And don't think that you can't
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: have themes and foil characters.
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: You have to don't think that it can't be.
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: Unified, because you know the dilemma and the specificity of
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: the character is what brings units you to everything, and
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: that unitsy is what kind of you know, brings you power.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: So it's like, well, I mean it's a perfect example.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: And I and I use this example a lot on
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: the show. As I've said this before, is like you
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: look at the Avengers and then you look at the
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: Justice League, right, and one failed, one launched an entire
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: universe that made billions and billions of dollars. So to
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: analyze the two of them and how both of those
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: films what led up to both of those films, you
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: can obviously see so clearly where one you were so
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: emotionally connected to all the characters because you would worried,
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: went on individual journeys with all of them, as opposed
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: to the other one where you kind of knew somebody,
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: and then there was a new Batman that no one
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: ever knew, you know, like.
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: Interesting, it's interesting to say that because you're talking about,
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: you know, the level of how good a movie can
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: be is based on the antagonists. Wasn't the attagonist the
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: stupidest antagonist ever? Well, event but he wanted to uh
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: have some power and do stuff like.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, like what was right?
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: Yes, So so it's like you know, the like like
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: they were trying to rush, they were they were doing
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: they were doing fun stuff like Superman coming back.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Can we'll be right back after a word from our
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: sponsor and now back to the show.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: Being a temporary obstacle.
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: You know, like that was interesting, I guess or scary
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: or interesting, But then it's like that was more interesting
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: then then then the dilemma or the meeting of trying
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: to kill the other dude, I mean the bad guy
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: was like, well, yeah, killing he's a dude, and like,
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: oh yeah, you all have a complementary skills and you'll
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: use different ones. Well that's interesting for like a seven
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: or twelve minute cartoon, but like it.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: Doesn't written right, but I mean like, oh, we all
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: special skills. We're gonna come together and do it like
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: the Aea. But that was the sixties Patrick.
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: McNee Avengers, you know, like for a forty seven minute
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: British spy show.
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: But that doesn't that's not it doesn't fly today. Yeah,
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: well it's it's just.
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: Interesting now for actually, you know, if you want a
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: tangent on this, you know, Fincher and some of the
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: genre stuff might be a great person.
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: I know, I know you're a Fincher fan huge.
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: So in one of the movies, I was talking about
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: a seven. So we're gonna start to do this moment,
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: but like at some point we can kind of.
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: Like segue over because I think he's a good example.
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: Of like like the best genre Hollywood movie making.
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: But that doesn't sacrifice these higher you know.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, I mean look at fight Club. I mean look
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: at Gone Girl. I mean look at any of his work.
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: The game you.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: Could create a spectacle but yet have so much depth
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: and character and theme and hidden things that you will
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: see years later. Like I could watch fight Club now
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: and it's a different movie than I saw when it
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: came out.
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: Right, And I'll tell you what. Fight Club is a
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: movie that watched once or twice, love it. I recognize
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: his brilliant I just never really kind of had a
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: reason or like to like I don't want to say
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: ruin it, but like I just never studied it to death,
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: Like like I get it the stuff, and on our
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: second viewing it has extra levels because all the setup
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: for the you know, like he'll do the fight scene
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: with the guy and then he'll do the point of
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: view by himself.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: Right, But that's but that's that's brilliant.
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: I mean that that's that's how you If you can
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: get surprised and twist and scenes that are completely based
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: on setup from what you've already shown us, then that
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: scene doesn't need set up an exposition, it just is.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: And then the power is that.
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: You're seeing it with already a set of expectations and
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: already an understanding of what you want to get from
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: it and why the things you see you are surprising.
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: So rather than having to have the moment where you
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: explain why this next scene coming up is interesting or
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: what people want in it, it's already in the in
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: the texture of the movie, and talk about We'll tell you, ok,
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: let me tell them talk a little bit about Fincher
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: for a second.
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: Let me just let me, let me just claim this.
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: I don't I don't think that my appreciation for Fincher
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: or my finding some common ground.
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: With with obviously where I feel like.
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: Is his ethos of filmmaking. I'm not saying I'm as
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: good as that, or I'm worthy or whatever. I'm just
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: saying it's like I watch this stuff and it's like
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: if I had written the perfect screenwriting manifesto and put
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: it out in the world, it was as if like
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: cam Brak, because he never ever violates a principle that
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: I teach, And it's like, I'm actually more proud of
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: myself that like I've come up with like all my
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: theories and stuff. And then one of the greatest filmmaker
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: storytellers you know, alive working right now seems to kind of,
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: you know, implicitly almost prove or show.
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: That I'm on the right track in some way, like
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: he just won't.
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: So like for instance, like I say, opening image is
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: always right on. Of course you remember the opening image
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: for a Gone Girl.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: I don't know off the top of my head. I
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: don't remember this.
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: It's in a book too, So good for her because
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: you know the author was doing this. But it's the
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: picture of the wife's head, and he's like.
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: I want to get in that head. And it's like,
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: oh my god.
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: He means psychologically understand her, to see if emotions, can
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: see the social path, but it might mean, and it
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: does mean I want to crack it open, and that's
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: what you're supposed to think it means.
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: It's like, oh my god.
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: In like an image in five seconds, this movie has
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: already announced what it's about, what it's going to be about,
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: like the irony of liked the two of like wall,
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: Wait a second, is you're getting in her head? Like
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: you know, you know, figuratively or did he break into
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: her head? So it's like it's so right on, so
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: like like in Sampony introduction of characters, like in the game,
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: which I don't I haven't really studied that much. But
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: like one time, I said, you know, Fincher always introduces.
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: His characters very very very concisely.
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: So I said, one of the first images of the
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: Michael Douglas character is that beautiful sodow San Francisco down
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: the hill and his car is smoothly in the grooves
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: of the UH trolley tracks, and it's like this guy's
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: an autopilot. He's like he's on the tracks, he's going
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: straight forward.
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: There's no whole lot of thought.
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: And someone said, oh my god, no, that's just so
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: reading into it. That's so like stereotypically, you know, bad
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: Teachers story and lists like me, Okay, I'm like, okay,
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: so okay. So let's just imagine that I'm wrong, and
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: that when he introduced his character, he doesn't make them
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: so specific. It's so unique to the character. Okay, Well,
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: how do they introduce the oh on the phone call
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: oh line to your brother? No line to a guy
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: named Seymour Butts. So he's already playing jokes. He's already
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: practical joker before we even see him. And the brother
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: instantly knows, Okay, that's my brother because my brother plays
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: jokes and.
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: Then in the restaurant, and I mean, this takes some work.
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: I don't know if it's in the script, but as
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: he's walking up to him, Sean Penn has or he
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: grabs it all.
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: Maybe he has it with him. He has a spray
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: bottle with him, and he goes up to when he
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: sneezes and sprays with his mother. Right, But that's like,
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: that's like a pretty extreme specific thing. Why is that?
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: Because he's a trickster, he plays games, he's a practical joker,
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: and you need that because you know what the entire
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: movie is going to be based on. You believing that
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: this guy would spend I don't know, one hundred thousand
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: dollars to play a joke a game with his brother.
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: If that's not the essence of the character, if he's
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: not someone who lives and breathes and walks and talks
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: like that, it's like, well, yeah, believability.
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: But here's the thing.
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: You might say, well, that's too far and it's incredible,
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: and that always lost me. Fine, but you know what,
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: the filmmakers were good storytellers. They did everything they could
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: do to make that kind of work. So it's like,
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: so it's all there. So so opening images and introductions
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: of characters.
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: Can I talk about that for a second, sure? Please?
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: So you know I always talk.
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: About opening images being like so powerful and so important,
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: and then I tell writers, you know, writers say, well,
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: how long do I have to do it? And then
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: like a page, a paragraph, two pages. Well, Andrew Kevin Walker,
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: in his draft of seven, created.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: An on point opening image that did what I'm telling
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: you that they should do.
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: In the first five words, he says, light fights through
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: the soot, right darkness, Light find find light. And then
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: I think in his draft, at some point Somerset takes
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: a switch blade and scrapes away grime.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: Off the wall. There's a rose there.
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: So this idea of you know, light trying to fight
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: through the darkness, good trying to find good and.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: Through evil, all that stuff that's right there. So so
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: he did his.
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: Job as a screenwriter, like he knew what his movie
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: was about, and he did it in five words, right right,
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: I mean, I mean you can almost say you know
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: it's dark, you know it's about darkness. You probably even
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: know like it's a mystery, because what's you know, what's
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: shrouded in darkness? And you know a story about light
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: and darkness.
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: You know, so it's like it gives away it tells you.
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: The genre, it tells you the themes, and it's going
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: to actually tell you about the character. Or second two, well,
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: Fincher did something a little more specifically, he which.
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: Is what you're supposed to do, and this is what
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: you can do as a writer.
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: Like you look at your first draft and you say, oh, well,
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: it takes me a page and a half to get
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: to my like theme and all this stuff. But Jim
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: he says it should be done in a couple of sentences,
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: and Susan Kane does it, like in a couple of sentences?
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: Is in Kane like no trespassing right right, no tresspassing
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: the fence.
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: Guess what?
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: The camera moves up and over it, and you were
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: gonna get you're gonna vade this guy's life. And you're
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: gonna like, you know, that was the whole point of
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: the movie, Like you're gonna like violate this guy's life.
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: You're gonna think that you could figure out what's going on.
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: So Fincher takes what some of the ideas in that
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: draft and he doesn't think really specific. So the very
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: first shot is rather than trying to kind of you know,
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: I don't have it to show and I'm not gonna
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: lull you into it. It has a shot where Summerset
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: walks in and ports our coffee walks out, but he's
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: framed between two very peculiar specific things, and the background
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: is the window with the sounds of the city, and
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: the script had set up that the sounds of the
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: city were there. He was trying to block them out
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: and it was like chaos and it was like the
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: evil world and stuff, and the front in front of
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: it is something that I couldn't quite tell what it was,
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: but man, it looked really closely and it's.
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: A chess set. So I'm just gonna leave you to it.
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: So in the very first frame, the very first shot,
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: you have a character who's visually caught between unknowing chaos
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: evil that's out there. You can't know it's uncontrollable or
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: a finite logical, complete information world where wisdom can win,
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: where there's a clear winner and you can do it
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: because like chess is like an interesting game because chess
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: you have perfect information. I'mlike poker, where you don't see
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: the other person's cards.
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: You see.
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: I mean, now how you got right you got there
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: maybe affects it, but like you see, everything that's available
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: to anybody, we're right there on the thing.
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: So right there, he sets it up, so it's like sorry,
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: I bumped the mic. It's all good.
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: So immediately he sets it up and you say, well,
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: once again, Jim, you're being a little bit too much
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: like okay, just let's stick with me for a second.
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: Let's say it's the chaos and even when they're knowing.
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: Let's call chaos versus the order versus wisdom and experience
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: and knowledge can win. Right, let's say chaos and order
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: for a second. Right, Well, the very first shot of
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: him getting ready for work, which getting for work, ready
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: for work, showing he's a cop.
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: That's necessary, but it's not sufficient.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: You want to do more than that. It happens to
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: show him picking a piece of lint off his jacket,
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: so it's order. And then the next shot, which is order,
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: but ironically it's order and has chaos within it. It
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: shows the five or six tools of his trade, pen
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: the badge, switchblade, a notebook, right, and they're all lined
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: up so, so as content, it's, oh, that's order. He
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: has these things all lined up, right, So it's the
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: first shot was chaos versus order?
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: That's the question. Then it's order.
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: The way he gets dressed, then it's order to surprise.
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: Within that order is the badge and the notebook and
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: the pen versus the switchblade, right right, violence versus order
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: or or you know, knowledge and taking notes in the pen.
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: Versus the switchblade.
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: And then it goes back to him getting dressed, and
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: it's once again, what part of getting dressed? It's him
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: with just his tie, right, so it's back to order.
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: It's not just oh, I'm putting on my pants or
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: this is my bad this is my uniform. It's I'm like,
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: you couldn't show a more specific, like, you know, orderly
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: aspect if they dressed right, So then if I'm right,
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: right before he walks out and the sequence is over,
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: we're gonna hit you know, the note of order chaos
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: again right well, as he walks by, he walks by
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: his bed, the camera pants and lands on something.
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: Do you remember what it land's on?
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: Uh, don't off theop on my head.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: It lands on a metronome.
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: Oh yes, yes, yes so, And actually in the writer's draft,
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: the metronome is there like uh you know, or like
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: I mean literally the most specific, unique, most powerful example.
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: Of what order is right, and he's usually to go
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: to sleep.
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: It might even like resonate with like the way puppies,
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: you know, you put a chicken clock with a group
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: of puppies and makes it sound like the mother's heart.
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: It might even have like more resonance.
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: But he's sitting there listening to the metronome to block
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: out the sounds coming in from the window. So all
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: those ideas were there, But look up what Fincher did.
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: Chaos in order in a shot, then in order, then order,
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: which has some chaos in it, then order, then complete order.
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: Then the absolute next shot is a jaggedly framed image
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: of a bloody dead body. So in content and form,
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: chaos right, so metronome to bloody red body.
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: So so it's like, you know, kind of like in
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: a true romance.
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: So in I Lion when I see you know, tell
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: me if you tell me if I'm lion, like chaos
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: in order that that unity in specificity is so right
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: there and Fincher is like he's like a precision surgeon
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: where it's like nothing is wasted, and like then later
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: on we'll see that the floor of his of his
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: kitchen is checkerboard. Right. At one point he gets frustrated
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: and he throws he throws his fush blade and or
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: the metronome onto the checkerboard, right, So he's colliding these
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: things and it's like once again, this rule is like, well,
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: if you know we opening imagere supposed to do, and
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: you know how fast you can get to it, and
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: you know you can introduce characters like the very first
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: thing you see about them. You know, here's a guy
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: who's struggling to keep things in order and believe that
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: he can with T T talk approach to the world,
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: he can save things. Here's a guy who struggling with that, right,
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: and it's all there, I don't know, thirty forty seconds,
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: seven shots, ten different paradigms. So like if you see
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: that specificity, and that's your job to be so specific, right, Like,
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: so you do it your first draft. I'm not gonna
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: do your second draft. I'm not gonna do it. Then
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: you gotta sit around and like you're beginning writer you're
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: a third time writer, You're like, Okay, well, I got
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: to aim for that. So then you write a version
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: that's a little bround the nose, but you're getting closer, but like,
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: you're not gonna let that go. You're not gonna think, oh,
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: I'm done until it does. But that does. So it's like,
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: you know, these ideas of dilemma and knowing things and specificity,
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: they they turn into magic. They turn into the elements
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: in the in the scenes that make your stories kind
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: of special and unique.
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: Does that makes sense?
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: It makes it makes perfect sense. And I know a
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: lot of people listening to part it's like, oh, I
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: think I think Jim's going a little too deep on
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: Fincher as far as like I think he's he's reading
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: into stuff that Fincher is doing. But I would say
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: from my point of view that you are not, because
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: anything and everything that Fincher doest purpose.
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: Well listen, Okay, So if Jim Mercurio can come up
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: with this and you believe some of it, so guess
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: what David Fincher is better definie on.
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: In fact, David Fincher is a master.
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: I mean I mean here, I mean some people have
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: been criticizing him he's too cools into intellectual but like, okay, okay,
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: so so so already you have a guy who working
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: in commercials has already worked on the smallest sort of
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: of forms known as like you know, a monster for details,
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: and like, if someone in the world is gonna do
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: a perfect movie or a perfect sequence, we're gonna do
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: something when nothing is wasted. Why wouldn't it be one
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: of the top two or three directors work, right?
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: I mean?
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: So it's like you know, no, no, no, no, trust me,
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: he's doing that. And it's like, once again, if you
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: think I'm wrong, go pit the top your top top
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: ten movies, or or be a film snob and tell
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: me the top five movies you think of the greatest
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: movies of all time. And I promised you eight or
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: nine of them will have that amazingly succinct introduction of character,
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: that amazingly succinct opening, because it's like, wait a second,
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: so you tell me the guy who has her head
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: and in voiceover, I want to get inside that head.
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: As the very first five seconds of Gone, girl doesn't
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: know what he's doing and this isn't control of what
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: he's no right, right.
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: All you gotta do is watch seven and Fight Club
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: and Social Network and.
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: All of them.
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: No, exactly exactly. You see a thing of still from Network.
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: You know he has an eight minute long scene right
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: the toping scene. Yes, but then I say, an opening
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: image sums it all up. So you say, wat, Jim,
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: that wasn't opening image, that was eight page of talk. Well,
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: first of all, if you listened to the ten things
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: opening images is supposed to do, that does eight of them?
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: Sets up the world, sets up the rules.
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: Okay, But then in the script there's like four or
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: five lines, three little paragraphs of him walking back to
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: get to the dorm, and it says, and he only
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: place he feels comfortable. Fincher turned that into like a
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: three million dollar sequence. It's one of the biggest sequences
• 56:14
  Speaker 4: of the movie. He goes through Harvard. Every single moment
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: someone's doing something. Always in couples go in the opposite direction.
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: No one's ever going in the right direction. Oh well,
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: that's that's you picking on it. Well, okay, look at
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: the seventeen shots and time we do. How come never
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: one person is alone. Never one person's polling in the
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: same direction or moving the same direction. He's going against
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: all that stuff. He gives you the opening image second,
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: but he goes through and even though he kind of
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: doesn't have to because he probably nailed it in all
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: the dialogue so he can't spend ninety seconds Wes Sroken does.
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: But Fincher decided to spend two minutes of the film
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: in like four days of shooting, in a two million
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: dollar sequence of him going right. It was so important
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: to get him across there and show that and set
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: them up. So it's like, once again, tell me I'm
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: that line, Like, so, yeah, he broke the rules about
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: opening him.
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: We just know he did.
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: He bent the rules and then did exactly exactly what
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: I said he you should do and he should do.
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: So it's like, yeah, he broke the rules, bent the rules,
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: but guess what, he did everything we just said.
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: We should do.
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: So it's like, you know, I play fleet challenge you,
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: you know, or at some point if you do a
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: follow up, like you know, let's let's think about ten
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: classic movies of all time and just ask yourself, Wait
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: in a second, did they do that?
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: Those filmmakers, and you're gonna find You're gonna find always
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: that you know, Uh, pretty much always that it's right
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: there that you know the filmmakers are doing that. It's
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: funny because I sometimes do people say, Jim, you go
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: too far, Because as a filmmaker, I definitely bring my
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: my kind of filmmaking and understanding of like all the
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: other parts of filmmaking editing and lighting and and you know, cinematography.
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: I'll bring that into my screenwriting teaching. And if you
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: were to say, well, here's where most people say screenwriting
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: ends and directing and filmmaking kind of begin. You know,
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: our scale from wonder hundred, let's say, like screenwriters enter
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: forty and then the process filmmaking process, it takes over.
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: Right now, There's definitely gonna be times when I might
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: talk maybe someone what I was talking about.
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: Maybe some of it is a little bit more of.
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: The filmmaker stuff, like like the checker, the checkered floor
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: is probably filming. But let's say I talk about stuff
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: that's in the eighties, nineties, and like, you know what,
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: that's definitely director stuff. But I'll tell you what, almost
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: or not on attend, screenwriters will be better off, you know,
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: misfiring in my direction, starting or trying to put a
• 58:27
  Speaker 4: little bit too much or worry about a little bit
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: too much details, because the.
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: Movie is what you see and what you hear.
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: The only difference is on a screenwriter has the page,
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: a director has the whole actual canvas.
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: In the screen to do it.
• 58:36
  Speaker 4: But it's like most screenplays are not as visual as
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: they could be. They're not using as many of the
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: tools and understanding.
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: Of what you know, kind of of what film can do.
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: So it's like, I definitely believe that on the average
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: screenwriters need to come more in my direction and kind
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: of take more responsibility for the visuals and images and
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: details that they put on the page. And if they
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: overshoot by a little bit, fine, It's really easy to
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: cut back.
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: As much asier to pull back then it is to push.
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: And the thing is, though I promise you almost you know,
• 59:09
  Speaker 4: none to nineut of one hundred screenwriters would be better
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: off if they air a little bit more assuming I'm
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: wrong or towards my side of like, well, wait a second,
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: go a little bit further when the screen running books
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: tell you as far as what you can do, because
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: you know, if you if you can nail how someone dresses,
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: how it sums them up, then you know, kind of
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: put you know, put put that in there. And it's
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: like or if you even know, wait a second, I
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: know that wardrobe is something that I can use. So
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: like in the Dark Night, remember he goes to the
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: Matthew Modine character and he says, it's not like I'm
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: expecting you to walk down main Street with your your
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: your dress blues on or you know, your your fancy
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: you know out there.
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: Guess what.
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: Then in the Climb his climax later on the movie,
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: his character has on that blue outfit. He's walking down
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: the street. Sort it's like, oh, he did do the
• 59:58
  Speaker 4: most audacious, bold thing that he was challenged to you.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: He actually did that. So like the fact that you
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: knew wardrobe.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: Will be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: Could have a meaning.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: But and actually what you did, more so than the
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: wardrobe was you use foreshadowing and you know, in words
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: to charge that item. But it's like, you see, how
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 4: like you can do something that maybe another person, another writer,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 4: wouldn't have venten. But like, like I don't think that's
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: outside of the realm of Screenwriting's that should be part
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: of screenwriting.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: And if you're doing those kind of specific things.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: You're gonna be better storyteller than the average you know,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: the average writer, and then go on.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: No no, no, no, go ahead, go ahead.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: Well, just nowadays aspects scripts mean you just have to
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: execute it. Like there's no development money. People don't want
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: to develop stuff. They want to be on the page.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: So you want to write like actor bait. You want
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: to write director bate. You want to write scripts that
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: are like, oh, hey, you know what this is on
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: the page? This could be shot in three weeks. I
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: could send this out to directors. I could send this
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: out to actors like so like my focus on scene writing,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: in the nitty gritty details that I focus on it.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: Because the best thing I can do for you business
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: wise is help you write and execute the script's in
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: your head, the script that you want to write, because
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: if you can nail it and make it really attractive
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: to all the other allies you need like an easy
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: can say, wow, this is really these set piece scenes
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: are really a showy I can send this to a director,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: or this role is really fun and those monologues are great,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: and there's some set piece scenes for the actor to do.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: I know actress who would play this if you can
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: get that in your storytelling, in your execution, you were
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: you were so far ahead of the game because people
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: don't want to develop stuff.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: They're not buying concepts anymore.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: It's not like the nineties were like a log line
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: and a concept, you know, we'll get a million bucks
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: exactly exactly. So you have to you have to nail.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: You have to be great, you have to be you
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: have to be both sides. Yes, genre, yeah, transcends the genre.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: Guess what, it's great characters, it's great themes, it's it's
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: roles that people would want to play.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: So like you have to be all things.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: Question, Now, do you suggest writers outline their screenplays?
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: Of course, but once again, like it's it's a back
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: and forth process. Like uh, I think, I think I
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: listened to one of your podcasts and they were saying
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: someone were saying, you know, a writer's make mistakes because
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: they don't do enough preparation. That they don't they don't
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: outline enough. But here's the thing, something they don't that's true.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: But also they can't because like to do it right
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: to develop a story that's both working on the external
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: level and the internal level, which is what your goal
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: is like a lot of times people talk different ways,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: like you want a story that has resonates, or that's deeper,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: or that has meaning or it's theme. They're really what
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: it means is that every step of the way there's
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 4: an eternal journey, an external journey, and and it's like you.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: Can't do that right away.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: So so it's like writers should work on structure and
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: they should be prepared, but then they write a little bit,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: and then they stumble upon and discover turning points and
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: things that come next, and then they can use that
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: to augment and expand their outline. And as long as
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: they don't like, you know, write thirty forty pages really
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: fast and they get stuck to it and say, these
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: pages aren't going anywhere, but are willing to look at
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: that as like that's kind of you're outlining, you know,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: and you discover, So you write ten to fifteen pages,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: you just you might discover a turning point. After writing
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: ten pages, you throw away all those pages, but now
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: you know the turning point you're aiming to with a
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: fincher like precision, and like that created your outline.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: So those two days of writing weren't wasted.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: They help you write an outline that covers ten percent
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 4: of your script, right, but you had to write ten
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: pages and throw them away. So it's like it's a
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: back and forth. It's a chicken egg. So like you
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: always want to ask yourself what happens next? But like,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: I'm just trying to build good habits. Your scene should
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: always have a change that are a story and the character.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 4: Also another way to think about it what happens next?
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: Also a different way to think about it is what
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 4: would my character do next? And if you can follow
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: those things and align them, that's the skill it takes
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: to be a good storyteller. That's not something that's gonna
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: happen the first time you sit down. It's not something
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: that you're gonna be able to do for like outline
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 4: one hundred paid story.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: So it's like if you know that's your goal.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: He had the habit of like, well, okay, the next
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 4: thing is he has to go after interrogate these people.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: Okay, that's generic. Well how does he do it?
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 4: Well, now he's really impatient, or now he's mad, Now
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 4: he's willing to break the law, you know. So it's
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 4: like a perfect example is another confidential you know, he
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: was told earlier, was you rough up somebody to get
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: you know, a confession. No, I wouldn't do that when
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: he goes to rough up the DA with with Bud White.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 4: But I it's perfect because Bud White's the mentor.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: Leading the way.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: He's like, on your journey to quit being the good
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: two shoes, quit being the super ego and getting your
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: hands dirty. Here's the second or third step before the
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 4: very end. So we're gonna take you on that journey.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: You're gonna get information from the DA that turns the story,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: but you're gonna do it in a way that's really
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: fun because it's new to you, like you haven't done
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: it before. Presents growth, it represents like you moving in
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 4: the right direction. So it's like that's a perfect example
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: of like the story external stuff and the inner journey
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: internal emotional character arc stuff. You want to put those together.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: And yes, you do want to be prepared. You do
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 4: have to have preparation, but don't lock yourself into thinking
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna nail it all in the structure in the
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 4: outlines stayed. No, you are working for what I call
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: it a phantom treatment or phantom outline. It's something that
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: grows and builds as you're writing, but don't be afraid
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: to spoil a little bit.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: Then come back and sploi a little bit. Come back,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: because it's.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: Gonna take work the first few times to get you know,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: all these things working. And that's back to the thing
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 4: about a lot of times letters don't even know what
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: you're aiming for. If you're first time beritter, you don't
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 4: know you're aiming for that, you don't know like that
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: the next step of oh the col pest interrogate the
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: people also has to have some personal character aspect specific
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: to your flaw, or the antagonist has to make it
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 4: harder in some way that's specific to that character. So
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 4: it's like, you know, first time screen with it, maybe
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: they don't know that's that's not like just the lofty goal,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: that's the bare minimum, like that's what that's what storytelling is,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 4: that's what great storytelling is. So it's like, yeah, they
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 4: have to, but also, you know, it's it's not about
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: rigidly like, oh, okay, just commit to it because you
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 4: say you're gonna do it. You can just magically have
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 4: those skills they need to develop over time.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: Now, can you tell me a little bit about your
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: new book, The Craft Screen of Scene Writing.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's actually the first ever book that focuses, you know,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: just on scenes. And at first, you know, I was
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: defensive about it, like, oh, it's just for people who
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 4: do short form stuff commercials. So but as I wroted it,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: I kind of realized, no, no, no, no, A scene is
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: you know, really small unit. I mean a beat is
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 4: the smallest unit. Like a little change, a little moment,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 4: and then a few beats me up to a change,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: and that's a scene.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: But the scene is the first unit of drama.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 4: That's the story in and of itself. It's storytelling in
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: its purest form. You're leading up to a change, and
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: the craft to turn that change, to understand that climax,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 4: like I just said, to make the character and story change.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: That's a skill.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: That's probably the most important skill in screenwriting.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: And people will say it on Jim, you're being too extreme.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 4: No no, no, I mean your climax of your movie
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 4: is where your character art comes and like the clever solution,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 4: guess what that is.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: That's the story change, and that's the character change. I
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: call it the killer rending, where the goal and the need, the.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 4: External and the internal unifying the once sustinct action that
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 4: aligns them, that pulls them together. So it's like, if
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 4: you can turn a moment using both character and story
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: and you do it perfectly, that well perfectly means you've
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: drawn from character, You've drawn from the deep recesses of
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 4: the character, You've drawn from the clever setup you created,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, Like like an fight club,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: when he has that fight with himself and you see
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 4: just him right, well, that scene works and the surprise
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: comes from the fact that you saw the fight the
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: first time right without it or I know, you know
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: what I know, you know, like an eight mile I
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 4: know everything you have to say about me. I know
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 4: your favorite movie is Shots like Redemption, but look at
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's a movie that that a lot of
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 4: the success is having great scenes. It's so carefully planned out.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: So think about how carefully it's orchestrated. They decide to switch,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: well they switched the perspective a few times, but they
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: decide to show the escape from the warden's perspective.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: So it's a mystery.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 4: It's a suspense and we see it come up and
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 4: so then when you're ready to show it later on
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: which is a really conscious choice. It's like a scene
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: running choice. But also like on a one level, the
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: scene or sequence where it's shown now has power because
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: of the setup you created for it.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: It has a couple of things.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 4: It answers the question of hey, how did that happen?
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: But also because Red's telling the store and voiceover, it
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 4: actually has an extra level to it. So it's like,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 4: if you can nail scenes and understand how structure they work,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 4: that's going to help your scenes be sharper and crisper.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 4: That's going to help your sequences, that's going to help
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: your acts, it's going to help your entire story. So
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 4: it's like if I see three or four scene the
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 4: first few pages in our wishy watching, and the climax
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: has fat after it, it's not concise. I know, why
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: would I think that your climax is going to be
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 4: any difference, because that's all it is. It's a change,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: is reversal. So yeah, I feel like I focus on craft.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: It's something I do is kind of special, and I
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: think writers will get something really unique out of my
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 4: really kind of microscopic approach. And it's not a niche,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 4: it's really something that's really super universal, and I'm hoping
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 4: that it'll kind of get people kind of excited. It
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 4: will be like a new canonical book, because I mean,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 4: all the great great screenwrining books, like if i'll list them,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 4: all but one or two are from like, you know,
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 4: I don't know, thirty years ago.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: I'm used to go back to right, used to go
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: back to Walter Haig.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 4: Field in some ways, right, I mean, but m Key's
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 4: book is solid, he's good, but that's hard to read.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: Like I can't say, hey, first time screen go read it.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: McKee is not an easy digest.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 4: I mean, like me as a teacher, I got to
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 4: read it, or someone who like is trying to synthesize
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 4: all the stuff, of course, or as advance screenwriter you
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 4: might you might do it, but you know it's hard.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 4: And the very first thing in my book now anyway,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 4: this epigram epigraph, the epigraph from my book, A little quote
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: in the front of my book is from uh Renoir,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: Pierre Augusta and Moore. He says, first, learn to be
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: a craftsman. It won't keep you from being a genius.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: So it's like learning this stuff seeing what other people do. Like, like,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 4: it's not gonna prevent you from using your intuition or
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 4: every piece of talent you have. If I tell you
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 4: your opening image has to augue the theme and be
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 4: right on, Like, look, what are you going to argue? Well, no,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 4: I thought I'd start my movie off with some junk
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: that doesn't really nail it doesn't really belong to it.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: Well, if that's the case, guess what happens? You cut that?
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 4: You know, if you have that in your script, well cut, cut, cut. Oh,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 4: here's where the story becomes itself. Here's where the story
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 4: presents itself and it's themes and what it's about, and
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 4: it's essence.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: That's where you start your movie. Why would you start
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: with that?
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 4: So it's like, even if you follow my room and
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 4: do that, you still have to have the magic.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: You still you know, you still have to find.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 4: The way, the clever, unique way of being on point
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 4: and saying, hey show me or I'm gonna show you
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 4: the essence of my movie in a sentence or an image,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 4: right or three sentences, and you're gonna go back on
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 4: the second or third reading. You're gonna know or you're
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 4: gonna appreciate. Oh my god, this movie is what it
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 4: was about. New it was about from the very first
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 4: frame to the very first story. That's that's something that
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 4: it's hard to achieve in your great movie that you love.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 4: Not you, but like the movies that like, you know,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 4: aspiring writers or beginning writers love, they probably do.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: That and there not even aware. And that's the thing.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 4: The very first thing I can do is say, man,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 4: appreciate this craft, like let me be anal and show
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 4: it to you. And it's like the Sapper word hypothesis.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 4: If you know what exists, it should.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: Change your world.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: Like if you know that nine or ten of your
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 4: favorite movies do these things, what are you fighting against?
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 4: Like, yeah, it's hard, it'd be easier not to shortcuts
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 4: are obviously shortcuts.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: But well, you know, I don't mean to interrupt you,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: but like it's a perfect example of like, if you
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: don't know what the hero's journey was, if the hero's
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: journey has never been brought to you or even brought
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: into your world, imagine when you first heard about the
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: hero's journey Joseph Campbell's like it changed everything. Whether you
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: use it or not, but you know it's there once again.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: You can steal from all the stuff.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 4: So it's like, okay, so we know stories go up
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: and down. We know things have to go down, So okay,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 4: Dark Knight of the Soul, and you know, Jim's rock bottom.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: Character goes down. He's he's he's far away from the goal.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 4: Psychologically, he's regressed to be his worse self, like Bud White.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 3: Bud White goes and.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 4: Punches his girlfriend in the face, He becomes his father,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 4: he becomes the worst version of himself before he goes
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: on and then starts thinking and helping out with Actually
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: he goes from his very worst to his character arct
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 4: Like that's the twist, and that's the you know, surprise
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 4: reversal that I talk about in my film with like
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 4: you know, with great detail, Like if you can do
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 4: it with a line of dialogue or a couple of
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: words of actionscription, then you can do it with the
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 4: entire story. So this is back to the yes end.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 4: So like you know, stories go up and down, and
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 4: you know at some point the character farther aways from
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 4: the goal and also regrets for the worst self like
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 4: the other confidential Bud White punches his girlfriend in the face,
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 4: becomes his father, he becomes his worst self the moment
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 4: like split second before he becomes the character arc of like,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 4: you know, helping out using his brain, not being like
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 4: this angry.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: It like creature. So let's say you know that you have.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 4: That in your story, but then you read Vogeler and
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 4: then you think about mythology, and then you think phoenix
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 4: rising from the ashes.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 3: Oh well, that's like a cool limage.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 4: So like in one of the Spider Man movies, something
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 4: crashes in on Peter and then boom, he jumps up
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 4: and all.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: This stuff flies out.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 4: And to me, I always thought of like, oh, it's
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 4: like the phoenix wising from the access. So like you
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 4: may get an idea for an image or a beat
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 4: from like one of these paradigms, and it's and it's
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: not like, oh well, I was never ever gonna know
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 4: about this beat. But it might just give you, like
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 4: a specific idea, or it might just give you a
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 4: specific way through it. Or my challenge to say, okay,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 4: make him the furthest way possible from the goal. You know,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 4: if you're the guy who's writing a drama, you might
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 4: be able to say, okay, I need to push the
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 4: story further away, or if you're the guy who writes
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 4: the story roller coaster obstacle course movies, you might stay
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 4: wait a second, regression psychology. I didn't think about that,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 4: but let's take I got to think about that for
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 4: a second. What is the worst thing that could possibly
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 4: you know, And it's like some little paradigm or some
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 4: little specific insight or example might give you a scene
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 4: or visual or just open up something for you. So
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 4: it's like it's to me, like if any of these
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 4: paradigms resonate with it just means they're working.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: It just means because they're all.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 4: Metaphors, so like if it resonates with you, it just
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 4: means just some truth to the metaphors it's mapping somewhat accurately,
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 4: or some truth in honesty the storytelling thing.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 3: I don't think any of them are perfect.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 4: I don't think mine's perfect, or I don't think any
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 4: of them are necessarily complete. But if like all of
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 4: them do eighty percent, or if all of them have
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 4: some good things you can pull from them, like yeah,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 4: definitely learned from ten different places that that's how you know,
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's how I.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: Became like a good teacher.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 4: It's like I went down all these paths and all
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 4: these different perspectives, and I said to myself, well, I'll
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 4: take the best and leave the rest of all of these.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 4: I'll collide them, I'll compare them, and like I kind
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 4: of came up with this like creative way of like
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 4: you know what. I don't think my stuff violates or
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 4: goes against or puts anything down that's out there. I
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 4: just think it also will add something specific and give
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 4: you different new tools. No matter where you are, what
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: paradigm you're thinking about, I believe mine will compliment it.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 4: So it's like I'm kind of a positive guy. I
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 4: wants to be yes, and I want you to do
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 4: all things. I don't want to do just one thing.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 4: I don't want to do just my paradigm. I don't
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 4: want to say Michael Haig's better than Truby. I think
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 4: this hagg stuff that's good. I think this Truby stuff
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 4: that's good. It is my stuff that's good. We'll get
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 4: it all. But I would rather say yes to like
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 4: seven things out of us than say, well, I say
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 4: yes to three of those things, but these other things
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 4: are kind of counterintuitive and hard for me. So I'm
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 4: just not gonna make that policeman threshold guard and I'm
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 4: just not gonna give a big psychological resonance. I'll just
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 4: make it funny. It's like, no, man, like you've lost
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 4: the battle right there. It's like you can't take away
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 4: in every time you take away from something, you have
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 4: to add more, and probably even add more than you
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 4: take away.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 3: And even like sometimes like you know, Robert Oltman.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 4: Used to make these like deconstructions of genres where he
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 4: would like trim stuff down and take things away, but
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 4: I would argue, as an art film or as a
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 4: smart guy, or as an experimental filmmaker, he was adding
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 4: way more than he was taking away.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 3: So it's like you always you always want to look for, like.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 4: You know, ways to say yes and yeah, I'll do
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 4: what everybody else does and then I'll transcend it and
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 4: then I'll go deeper in these areas that usually most
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 4: people don't do. It's like you want to be able
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 4: to set yourself apart. You want to aim, aim to
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 4: be great. Your expectations have to be you know, you
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 4: shouldn't be amying like oh, I'm gonna do like a
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 4: cool boddycop movie that's kind of funny, or that's kind
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 4: of reminiscently the weapon. It's like, no, right, nowadays, you
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 4: gotta write something that's betterly through weapon or its goodly the
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 4: weapon or that's the modern day version of me the weapon.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: It's like you have to kind of go for it,
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: all right, man, So me, I'm gonna ask you the
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: same questions I ask all my all my guests. What
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: advice would you give a screenwriter whind to break into
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: the business today? Uh?
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: Well, like I said, I mean, just go, I mean
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 4: start writing. Understand that your writing process yourself is going
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 4: to lead you to things like there are things you
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 4: only learn from writing to write, read screenplays, read some books,
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 4: read or read parts of books, or read some blogs,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 4: and just go back and forth with it. And it's
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 4: like you're gonna do all these things at once because
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 4: the more you know.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 3: Of, the more you're aware of.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 4: If you go and read an article, but analyze the
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 4: screenplay and like he points something out that Fincher does,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 4: now you know it's possible you could do that. If
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 4: another guy gives you a good idea about how to
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 4: break in your second act, well, that's cool. If you
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 4: read three scripts and you see every single modern comedy
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 4: has an inciting incident in the first eight pages rather
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 4: than eleven, then you can, you know what I'm saying, Like,
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 4: just just go blindly forward for a while and things
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 4: will start catching up and kind of aligning and occurring,
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 4: and like, don't think that there's one way I can.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 4: I must outline and must vigially plan, or I must
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 4: just write from the seat of my pants because I'm
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 4: a genius. The answer is no to that, no to this,
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 4: it's yes and yes, yeah writ some don't be afraid
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 4: to throw it away, you know, discover go back and
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 4: let that be a structure. And then you know, one
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 4: of the people you can come to is me, I
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 4: had this big, huge ten hour DVD set book eventually,
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 4: or you know, I work with the clients that have
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 4: made billions of dollars in box office and complete beginners,
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 4: so it's like, you know, that is something I do.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: You can check You can check out my website for that.
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 2: Now, can you tell me what book had the biggest
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: impact on your life or career? Screenwriting book, either screenwriting
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 2: or any other kind of book.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 3: You know, I mean, I don't know. I don't.
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 4: I don't know how two books did I mean when
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 4: I was in college and writing my first screenplay, Like,
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 4: I went to the bookstore and there was twoor three
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 4: books in the shelf.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 3: So I picked up like I.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 4: Think, Walter and Field, and they were like they were
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 4: like incomplete, but they were solid, and they were like,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 4: you know, they gave me a framework.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 3: Oh god, don't you know what. I don't. I don't
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 3: have a grands If you know, I'm gonna ask that
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 3: we can move on.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: It's all good.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 3: I think of the screen running books.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 4: I think Michael Haiges writing screenplays that sell really started
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 4: aligning theme and.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 3: Character with story. I love that.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 4: And I think Linda Seger's book Making the Script Great,
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 4: which is which is actually in some ways not because
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 4: of her writing, but because of the complexity and the details.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 3: It's a hard read.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 4: You actually need to have watched the movie, almost have
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 4: in front of you, and almost outline it because to
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 4: really understand what she's saying, the setups and payoffs and
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 4: nippicky stuff, you really have to kind of know it
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 4: and in my book, I do the same kind of
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 4: stuff where it's like I'm gonna give five examples and
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 4: three of them are gonna be like, oh, I'm not
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 4: sure about that movie, but the two that you know
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 4: are gonna be so specific, a so on point. So
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 4: her book was very specific and really about showing you
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 4: how movies are about setups and payoffs.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 3: I think that was very powerful.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 4: And then as when I was a director, a friend
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 4: of mine who was produced the movie said, you don't
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 4: know the actor actor language.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 3: You don't have to talk to actors yet.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 4: And he made me read this book called Audition by
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 4: Michael shirt Left, and it was like our actors prepare
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 4: yeah for And what it did was the book is amazing.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 4: It's helped me amazing, help me help me my writing
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 4: to take those principles, but the idea that you must
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 4: consider the other perspectives of other people, cinematographer, editor, actors.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 4: If you understand their point of view better, it makes
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 4: you better screenwriter, not just on some theoretical like intellectual level,
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 4: but like on a deep personal emotional level. If you
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 4: know that extra, that actor playing that small role is
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 4: a person and is invested and it's gonna spend forty
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 4: hours making up a backstory for the guy who gives
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 4: the tickets out.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 3: On the boat.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 4: You're gonna put more emphasis, you know, in details and
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 4: thought into your minor characters because you know, an actor,
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 4: a real.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 3: Live person is going to play it.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 4: So like sympathy and empathy and understanding for those other
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 4: things intellectually and emotionally. Like that that was a book
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 4: that was like first opened me up to that mindset.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 3: Very cool.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: Now, what is the lesson that took you the longest
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: to learn, whether in the film industry or in life.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 3: Let's see.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 4: I think it's that that that yes and or do both?
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 4: Like like for ten years I was making movies two
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 4: thousand and twenty ten, make a little bunch of movies.
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 4: And you know, there is a thing called liberate practice.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 4: Like I was learning to be a better screenwriter and
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 4: I was learning to be a better teacher.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 3: And it wasn't like that time was wasted.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 4: But I think I wasn't running as much during that
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 4: time because I said to myself, well, I'm making movies,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 4: so I don't have to be the writer all the
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 4: time too.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 3: I don't have to crank out of scripts.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 4: You know as the guys who aren't also spending five
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 4: thousand hours making movies. And it's like, no, no, you know what, man,
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 4: it's hard, but you have to do both. Same thing
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 4: with I want to write action movies. What do I
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 4: care about the mane character? No, you have to do both.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 4: I write dramas.
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 3: What do I care about twists and turning points? No,
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 3: you have to do both. So this idea I.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 4: Think of like being whole and not like I don't
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 4: want to market because I'm just a genius. I gotta admit,
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 4: I don't teach anything about marketing. Business is not my strength.
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 3: I don't like it.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 4: So like, as a teacher, I'm allowed to do that.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 4: As a writer, guess what I have to come up.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 4: I have to write the log line, which I hate
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 4: and I'm not good at. I have to query people,
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 4: I have to do everything.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 3: So it's like you got to do both things. You
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 3: have to make yourself whole.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 4: Look, you have to have your character arc as a
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 4: writer and as a person business and craft character and
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 4: story and you know fun uh internal external.
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 3: You gotta be whole. You gotta like kind of because.
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 4: For you to put your best self out there, you
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 4: have to access your whole self.
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: And three of your favorite films of all time.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 3: Oh my god.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: Well okay, just the ones that come to your mind
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 2: right now.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 3: Okay, okay, okay. I got to give you two quick answers.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 4: The cliched version is everybody loves these and I feel
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 4: like I'm boring Godfather Chinatown, any Hall, like like everybody
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 4: Bicycle Thieves is that it's probably like my favorite of
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 4: the classical I'm Italian. It just hits me movies that,
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 4: like I thought, I appreciated that really personal. I found
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 4: something surprising end Breaking Away, Midnight, Night, Cowboy, dead Bingers,
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 4: not as a hundred in movies. I say, like, you
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 4: know what, there's my voice. I wish I could have
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 4: written that. Alexander paying Election Sideways kind of comes to mind. Sure,
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 4: Breaking Away, Midnight Cowboy are so jam packed with theme
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 4: and coherency there, they're just well.
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: I was like, that's like ten movies.
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 3: You did a good job. I'm sorry, but it's all
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 3: you can't be pinned down. It's like, no, I got you,
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 3: I gotcha. I'll tell you what though, if you.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 4: Think I'm going too far, like you could watch the
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 4: first like three minutes of Midnight Cowboy, and you could
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 4: pick out thirty I'm not kidding, thirty things that point
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 4: the theme, the way we talked about seven and the
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 4: way you think I went to the way you imagine
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 4: that someone would say I went too far.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 3: You could look at the first three, four five minutes
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 3: of mid that Cowboy.
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 4: And you could easily pick out thirty clearly defined craft.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 4: You know, techniques and attempts to make meaning and to
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 4: set things up.
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 3: But it's it's so jam packed.
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 4: It's perfect, and we're Can people find you my website
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 4: jamespmacurio dot com.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 3: Uh, you can sign up for a news letter there
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 3: which is free.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 4: Some back issues my DVD set there is there at
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 4: a really super reduced price now And if you want to,
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 4: you know, talk to me about the coaching or script consulting,
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 4: you can email me.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 3: We can have a talk, no pressure.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 4: I mean, my sales pitch usually is you've listened to me,
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 4: if you like what I said, you think I can
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 4: help you, you'll know, so like that if there's the pitch,
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 4: so like, if you want to talk about it or
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 4: if you want to check it out, Yeah, go to
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 4: James P.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 3: Mercurio dot com Jim.
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 2: Man, thank you so much. This has been an epic
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 2: conversation to say, thanks body.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 4: And also, like I said, man, it's more appreciation for screenwriting,
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 4: like you appreciate it, and like I think you get
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 4: excited because sometimes you learn.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 3: Stuff too, but like it's so fast, it's so fast.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 4: How happy you know the things you have to know?
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 4: And I appreciate you fighting the good fight to get
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 4: that out there.
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 2: And I appreciate it.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: Man.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: Look and I've listened. I've listened or I've spoken to
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 2: many of the people you've talked to, almost all of
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: them that you quoted in this interview. And it's true,
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: like I've learned so much over the course of the
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 2: last three years of doing this because you learn from
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 2: these different you're just learning. I always look at it
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 2: as this way, we're all looking at different pieces of
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 2: the elephant right in the room. No one's got it
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 2: all figured out, but if you start piecing all of
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: them together, you get a much more holistic approach to storytelling.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 2: And I think it's beneficial to everybody to learn from
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 2: as many different sources as humanly possible. So thank you
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 2: for dropping some major knowledge bombs today on the Tribe.
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Jim for coming on the show
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: and dropping some major knowledge bombs on the tribe today.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 2: If you want to get links to his course, his
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: workshops on IFHTV, or if you want to get in
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 2: touch with him for some consulting, head over to any
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 2: film also dot com, Forward Slash seven seventy one, and
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 2: if you haven't already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: dot com, subscribe and leave a good review for the show.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: It really helps us out a lot.
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 3: Guys.
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: Thank you again so much for listening to guys. As always,
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 2: keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive, stay safe
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 2: out there, and I'll talk to you soon.
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: indiefilm hustle dot com. That's I N D I E
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: F I L M h U S T l E
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: dot com.