Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 290: Writing for Spielberg & Creating the Cult Classic Tremors with S.S. Wilson

Transcript

BPS 290: Writing for Spielberg & Creating the Cult Classic Tremors with S.S. Wilson · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

0:03
You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
0:08
podcasts, just go to IFAH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof
0:13
Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number two ninety except no one's definition of your life,
0:19
Define it yourself. Harvey Fierstea broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood
0:26
when we really should be working on that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting
0:30
Podcast, showing you the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how to
0:34
make your screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome,
0:41
Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble host
0:45
Alex Ferrari. Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage. Now.
0:50
Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses on the kind
0:56
of project you are in the goals of the project you are, so we
1:00
actually break it down by three categories, micro budget, indie film, market,
1:03
and studio film. There's no reason to get coverage from a reader that
1:07
used to reading tent pole movies when your movie is going to be done for
1:11
one hundred thousand dollars, and we wanted to focus on that. At Bulletproof
1:14
Script Coverage, our readers have worked with Marvel Studios, CIA, wm E,
1:19
NBC, HBO, Disney, Scott Free, Warner Brothers, The Blacklist,
1:23
and many many more. So if you need your screenplay or TV script
1:27
covered by professional readers, head on over to cover my screenplay dot com.
1:34
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis. Hey, Steve, thanks a
1:40
lot for coming on the show. Sir, You're welcome. You're welcome,
1:44
So, you know, Steve, just to get started, I wanted to
1:46
ask what got you into the film industry. Was it, you know,
1:49
did you like films as growing up or was it just sort of one of
1:53
those things where one day you found yourself, you know, sort of writing
1:56
screenplays or on set somewhere. Well, it tends to happen, right.
2:00
My story is a little different. I did love films. I was a
2:05
huge film buff as a kid, and my dad supported that. And early
2:08
on, when I was I don't know, ten or eleven, he bought
2:10
a eight millimeter camera and I was one of those kids who made movies in
2:15
the backyard and tried to do special effects with gunpowder and gasoline, which he
2:20
also supported, interestingly, you know, and then my dad, then when
2:25
I went off to college, actually changed my life. I went off to
2:30
college and said, I don't know what I should do. I guess I'll
2:34
be a psychologist like my dad. That's what he was. And he came
2:38
up after I'd been there a week or so, he said, you know,
2:39
what are your courses? And I said, it was what I signed
2:42
up for. And he said, well, this makes no sense. You've
2:45
been making movies in the backyard for ten years. What's going on? And
2:50
he went to my advisors and he said, do you have anything like film
2:52
or movies or television? And he changed my whole course schedule. This is
2:55
absolutely true. And I had never thought about actually trying to do it for
2:59
a living, even though I've been making movies for years and years and doing
3:01
stop motion animation. And then I you know, never looked back. I
3:05
went, oh, well yeah, because then, you know, then there
3:06
were people in the departments. You know, we didn't have much of a
3:08
film program at Penn State all those years ago, like one television course and
3:15
like two film courses, and you had to borrow cameras from the local PBS
3:19
station whatnot. But uh, yeah, but that's what happened. And then
3:24
then I got drafted that I went to USC Film graduate School and uh and
3:30
there met a lot of the people that I still work with. And even
3:38
though it took almost ten years from graduating USC to actually break in and make
3:43
Short Circuit, we were working in the film business making short films and little
3:47
short animated things and films for schools and libraries, TV commercials and whatnot.
3:54
You know, it's funny see that your your dad was able to change your
3:58
whole curriculum because uh, you know, I actually used to work at a
4:00
college and grades and all that stuff were so secretive. Uh. They actually
4:05
fired a professor one time because he told a student's father what he got in
4:10
the class as a final grade before the kid if the kid did and they
4:14
actually just fired the professor on the spot because of it. Wow. Yeah,
4:18
it's just but no, that's just it's funny though. Uh, you
4:21
know, it's funny how college has changed so much. But but you know,
4:26
you went to Penn State, and you know, I've actually you know,
4:29
been up there. I actually attended a Penn State football game. I
4:31
didn't go there for college, but you know I've been there once. Lions
4:36
small world, right, because you're out in LA now right, I'm actually
4:41
I live in Arizona. Oh okay, you know I actually have a few
4:46
friends out there to go to LA went as needed, I see. So,
4:50
you know, just to ask, does Penn State ever asked you to
4:53
come back to maybe talk about screenwriting or directing or anything. I've been bad?
4:57
It's funny, ironic timing. You know. They occasionally send me alumni
5:01
stuff. I've never let them even know what I do. I should do
5:04
that, but no, they haven't. They haven't tracked me down. They
5:08
have no idea you know who I am or wearing. I was kind of
5:10
an invisible student, geeky guy, and I just went through and left.
5:17
Well, I thought me they'd have some kind of alumni you know, sort
5:21
of headhunter trying to kept tracking all this stuff, you know, but I
5:26
have. I've never responded to any of it, so I really actually have
5:30
it on my desk as we speak. I said, oh, I should
5:31
let them know. They probably would like to know. Well, then you
5:35
know, you could just send on this podcast instead. I'm not gonna go
5:39
back. Just listen to this podcast I'm talking to Dave. So you know,
5:43
you brought up A Short Circuit, by the way. I watched that
5:46
movie religiously as a kid, by the way, So I want to ask
5:49
you know about your whole writing style. I'm actually always fascinated by people's writing
5:55
styles and their approach to their own art. So I wanted to ask you,
5:58
Steve, how do you approach writing? You know? Do you know
6:00
do you subscribe to any sort of methods? Do you do very long treatments
6:04
first? Or you just sort of jump right into writing. Brent and I,
6:09
who have written practically everything together at least certainly everything has been made,
6:15
and we've been working since the days at USC, both in the short films
6:18
and then we wrote Short Circuit, which was our big break. We have
6:24
a very our approach is outline, outline, outline. We don't normally write
6:30
a treatment for tremors. We did only because we were trying to sell it
6:33
and we could haven't sell it as a pitch for because well we couldn't and
6:38
that didn't have The treatment didn't sell either, by the way. But let
6:42
me go back, so we outline in great detail. We are not comfortable
6:46
until we know where the story is going, and we're very story oriented.
6:53
Some people can start, you know, sort of with a character. Don't
6:56
just say, oh, there's this character and he's a drug addict and he's
6:59
got the problems and I'm just gonna think about what he does because he's a
7:02
drug addict. We can't do that. We gotta know where we're going.
7:06
So and we can't really get excited about something until we know where we're going,
7:11
even if it's a rewrite, which you know, you get offered quite
7:13
a bit in Hollywood. This is pretty much all Hollywood does anymore, even
7:17
if it's a rewrite, we will sit down before we even say yes to
7:19
a job. We'll say, okay, we gotta go through this movie figure
7:24
out what we would change, or maybe they're telling us what they want changed.
7:28
We got to be sure that we can make that work, and we
7:30
got to know where it's going because your ending is so important in a movie
7:33
in our opinion. In fact, somebody well known, maybe one of the
7:39
Zucker brothers, said, you're ending is fifty percent year a movie. Somebody
7:43
said that, and we kind of believe that. So we gotta know where
7:46
we're going, what the surprises are, where the twists and turns are so
7:50
long. Answer to that question is we outline like crazy. In fact,
7:55
we used to drive studios crazy. And back in the day, early on
7:57
when we were getting started, you used to get twelve weeks was a normal
8:01
time to write a script, and we would outline for eight and they'd be
8:05
calling us, so you're writing, are you're writing? Well, now we're
8:09
so outlining They're like, are you out of your mind? And but then
8:13
we would write it and you know, four weeks because it was done.
8:18
So you know you mentioned Tremors when you finally started outlining. Uh, you
8:22
know, did was there ever a sort of an emphasis for that movie where
8:26
you said, you know what this is where we want to take it?
8:28
So you know, you know what I mean? So we already know,
8:31
you know what the monster is going to be, and we sort of know
8:33
where the location is going to be. It's going to be in perfection.
8:37
Uh did that? Was that a part of it or did that sort of
8:39
come in during the outlining phase? Well? There again, we outlined it
8:43
in great detail, worked on it with Ron Underwood. Because the goal with
8:48
Tremors was to become producers. We were frustrated that everything we had written up
8:52
till then, um, we discovered naive that we writers that we were,
8:58
that writers aren't really welcome on the set once you're done with this script.
9:01
They don't want to hear from you again. And we would go to movies
9:05
and that we had written and go, a boy, that's that's not what
9:07
I would have done. And our agent told us, We'll look, you
9:11
guys want to produce, then you want control, and to get that,
9:13
you're going to have to control the material from the get go. You can't
9:18
be rewriting the studios material. Blah blah blah. So she said, what
9:20
do you have in your portfolio and your piles of notes? And we came
9:26
up with We came out of our piles of notes with we got this underground
9:31
monster idea. And she said, that's kind of cool. I've never heard
9:33
of that before. And so first we sat down with Ron and we outlined
9:39
the whole story, figured out who the characters were, where it was going
9:43
to go, and then we pitched it all over town. Couldn't sell it,
9:46
and then she said, well, that's maybe you should write a treatment,
9:50
very detailed, like twenty five page treatment. Did not sell, send
9:52
it to everybody so well, I guess you're going to have to write it
9:56
on speck. So in between, you know, the regular Hollywood movies we
9:58
were writing, we were writing Tremors on its back. We'll be right back
10:03
after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. And
10:16
then took that all over town and it was a It was a huge Our
10:20
agent was a huge part of getting this done. She was sentral. We
10:24
call her the mother of Tremors. This is Nancy Roberts, later our partner
10:28
in Stampede Entertainment. Uh. She handpicked, you know, who the script
10:33
was gonna She did what an agent really is supposed to do. She handpicked
10:37
who the scripts, and she knew the studio people. She told us in
10:39
advance what they were going to say. You know, there were there were
10:43
situations where because of her relationships, there were certain times if she had a
10:48
spec script, she couldn't not show it to certain people because then they would
10:52
be mad that they were shut out of the process. So she said,
10:56
Okay, this is gonna be weird. I have to send this to Disney.
10:58
They are going to say, we we hate this because it's got so
11:03
much dust in it. They headed dusts and We're like what, Sure enough,
11:09
that's exactly what came back. And all of this was, of course
11:11
off the record, you know, under the wire. But she got off
11:15
the phone. I think I was there at some point. No, no,
11:16
she was on the phone to somebody Disney, and they were passing in
11:20
a very polite way. Well it's not, you know, right for us
11:22
at this time, and she said, come on, Eisner doesn't like dust.
11:26
There's puns on the other end. But that's all really, really true.
11:33
And then she handpicked Jim Jack's wonderful, wonderful executive, classic old school
11:37
executive who who at Universal, who loved movies, loved all kinds of movies,
11:46
knew exactly what Tremors was. He saw exactly. It's B movie,
11:50
monster movie roots and she knew that Jim would get it and he would fight
11:56
for it at Universal, which is exactly what happened. And then she enlisted
11:58
Gail Anne heard she was on to rout Gail and hurd In because Gail Anne
12:03
looked at our buddy Ron's short movies, which is all he had at the
12:07
time. He had not done a feature. When we did Tremors, and
12:09
the studio was like, wow, we're going to hand off this movie to
12:11
a guy who's only directed films for schools and libraries. And Gail looked at
12:16
the movies fun guy as a filmmaker, don't worry about it, and uh.
12:20
And then she shepherded us, especially at the beginning, you know,
12:24
made sure we weren't going off the rails in some way to get her in
12:26
trouble. I guess she was executive producer. She saw the dailies and said,
12:31
good, is it gonna work? Yeah? You know, I really
12:35
like Tremors. And I'm gonna tell you why, Steve, because you know,
12:39
first' it just seems everything happens naturally, you know what I mean.
12:43
It's you know, and I again when you said you were you started with
12:46
characters, you know, when you were working with the idea, it's because
12:48
you know, all those characters seem like they're real people who live in that
12:52
world, and they all seem you know, and when they you know,
12:54
when some of them finally die. For anyone listening, I'm not who hasn't
12:58
seen it yet, I'm not going to spoil it, but for anyways,
13:00
when they finally die, you know, you actually say, oh my gosh,
13:03
you know, there isn't a ton of guys you know that are just
13:05
getting mauled. These are all the characters right here. So when they finally
13:09
die when not when some of them die, they go, oh my gosh.
13:11
You know that actually is impactful in the story. It's those escalating circumstances,
13:16
you know what I mean here, Oh well, my my, you
13:20
know, you're very welcome and uh you know, and because when when when
13:24
you see the worm for the first time, you think that's the monster,
13:26
and then it becomes bigger, and you're always escalating that further and further and
13:31
further, and it's always, you know, they find a solution, the
13:33
problem escalates, They find a solution, the problem escalates. I mean that
13:37
that's just it's phenomenal. And I don't know if you know who read Letter
13:41
Media is, but they actually are a popular online review group and they actually
13:46
gave it a you know, they actually have this one segment where they talk
13:50
about movies they like, and they actually review Tremors and they said it's one
13:52
of their favorite movies. It's always like to hear all the things you're saying,
13:58
we're worked very hard on. They were all very portant to us.
14:00
We uh My partner is not a being movie monster fan. I saw them
14:03
all, you know, up until the mid seventies or so, I saw
14:07
everything. Uh, and I knew all the cliches we were playing with.
14:13
My partner is just all about character. And again and both of us,
14:18
it was very important that yes, the characters matter, that they they seem,
14:24
that the plot, things that happened seemed to come naturally out of the
14:26
situation. And uh, and even the even the monsters are consistent in what
14:33
they do. You know, they don't change the rules, They don't suddenly
14:35
become indestructible or anything like that. And one other compliment I want to give
14:41
you two is the way that you constructed this with sound, because you know
14:45
what I mean, Like in the beginning, when um, Earl and I
14:48
forget Kevin Bacon's character, Yeah, well yeah, uh Earl and Val when
14:54
they're looking for you know, the doctor, they're you know, they're not
14:58
yelling his name, they're just sort of walking around and you could really you
15:01
know, they're hearing the planks walk, you hear the bucket kick, and
15:05
you're you know, and then you know, valsas we know, where's that
15:07
music coming from? You know what I mean, and you know, and
15:09
and it just it always escutes with that sound. And then when when you
15:11
have Chang's joke store, you have that that that refrigerator that always makes that
15:16
noise, and then that causes you know, further conflict. I mean,
15:20
that's really really good writing and using that audio for filmmaking. Oh yes,
15:24
sound was well. We knew sound was gonna be critical. We were a
15:26
low budget movie and we and that's why we that's part of the reason we
15:31
picked Underground Monster. That's one of the ideas that we decided to develop.
15:35
We thought, oh well, every underground most of the time, we'll never
15:37
see them. Heaven knows. We had endless problems even even though we in
15:41
theory weren't seeing them. But we knew that sound was going to be critical.
15:46
H We had great sound people, you know, and it was you
15:48
know, years ago people have asked me, you know, what what is
15:50
the base sound of a grab boid? And sadly, I don't know,
15:54
and I have lost track of the people who invented that sound. Yeah,
16:00
you know, uh, because for everyone that's seen the movie, you know,
16:03
that's that sound that they make, you know, and it's you know,
16:07
it just all ties them very well together. And everyone I'm gonna link
16:10
to Tremors in the show notes to filf Amazon or Best Buy, because it's
16:14
right, it's totally recommended watching. I remember seeing Tremors years ago, Steve,
16:18
and it just blew me away. But but see, and I didn't
16:19
know what I was watching because I know now, you know, I've I've
16:22
studied filmmakers, I've study this. When I go back, now I can
16:26
I can sort of go through with a surgeon scalpel, and I can pick
16:29
out all this stuff. Oh, this is why I found this so fascinating,
16:32
you know what I mean, This is why I found it so entertaining.
16:34
So and then and then I get to talk to the guy who wrote
16:37
it, and uh, you know what made it so uh so, now
16:41
you can tell me how wrong I am. No, I'm just kidding,
16:42
but um but um no, no, no, it's just uh you know,
16:45
it's it's just it's a phenomenal film. And that's why I'm so glad
16:49
you know that that the you know, I got to see uh, the
16:52
franchise, you know what you mean, like Tremors two, Tremors three.
16:55
Uh you know, I know you guys you did uh four as well,
16:57
and you also did the TV series, and it was always great to see
17:00
you know, this sort of franchise expand, and you know, because you
17:04
know, I always talked to you know, my friends and always say,
17:07
you know, some franchises, you know, they they sort of go this
17:10
way, some go that way, you know, I mean, Friday thirteenth
17:12
to night right now I'm street. But Tremors always sort of kept it in
17:18
perfection one way or another because there was always you know what I mean,
17:21
there was always a sort of reason why uh that you know, uh,
17:26
you know, like like Tremors three when it's called back to Perfection, right,
17:29
and that's where Melvin's creating that whole town right and actual leads in the
17:33
whole TV series. But it's just stuff like that, you know what I
17:34
mean, that's it's all comes organically. Well. We yeah, it was
17:37
very important to us to make the world consistent, and it wasn't easy.
17:42
You know, we never expected even to do Tremors too. That came along
17:45
years later only because of the success of VHS. You know, Tremors one
17:51
was not a huge hit. I mean, you know, Kevin Bagan review
17:53
viewed it as a flop. And he absolutely disowned it for many many years.
17:57
And uh, it wasn't I flop per se, but it but it
18:03
did not do nearly what the studio hoped it would do, and they were
18:07
disappointed. And so we were Florida and we got this call from video department
18:11
who said, hey, what about tremors too? He said, what about
18:14
it? They said, we wanted what? So then we all had to
18:18
sit down because we were busy doing all kinds of other stuff at that point
18:21
in our careers, and said, God, can we come up with the
18:22
tremors too? And then you know, then we said, well, all
18:25
right, the big cliche is there's a queen grab boid and we all went,
18:27
Okay, no way we're doing a queen grab. We're not going to
18:32
do it. And what do we do instead of that? Then finally I
18:37
get I'm gonna say it was me. I think it was me. I
18:38
was driving along in the desert as I often am, and I said,
18:41
I wonder if they just turned into something small, how weird would that be?
18:45
And then we ran with that idea. Yeah, and I remember seeing
18:51
that too, because that's when they were actually walking on land. And I
18:55
forget the name that that in the movie that that the characters give them shoot
18:57
myself shriekers. That's right. Yeah. And then because it's the third that
19:03
they're called ass blasters, right, well, that's their third incarnation that gave
19:06
us that told us where to go with the third one. We thought,
19:08
okay, well they'll change into a third form. And at the time,
19:14
again, it was really important to us to keep the characters consistent, the
19:17
rules consistent, other than but still come up with surprises. You still can't
19:21
you can't just do the same thing over and over. So that's how we
19:23
came up with the ass Blasters, And in fact, the effects guys Tom
19:27
Woodriff and Alla Gillis of Amalgamated Dynamics are the ones who came up with ass
19:32
Blasters because they were just as invested in we were in protecting their monsters and
19:37
making them consistent. And they have a wonderful design approach. It's a very
19:41
real world based and volumes and volumes of books about animals and creatures and skin
19:48
textures. And they literally came in one day and said, hey, or
19:51
you are you aware of the Bombardier beetle And we're like, no, we're
19:53
not. They said that's a beatle that mixes chemicals and it's butt and makes
19:57
us sound like a firecracker. And we're like, we'll be right back after
20:02
a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. That's a
20:10
real thing. Absolutely we think that's what asked blasters should do. And we're
20:15
like, we're totally on board with that. H something else I was gonna
20:21
say, oh, oh yes, And then we got thrown a curve by
20:22
Universal because they said, Okay, Tremors three will definitely be the last one.
20:26
There will definitely not be anymore. We understand our market perfectly and we
20:32
know exactly how the DVD world works and this is it. So we said,
20:34
okay, we'll wrap it up. That will be that's cool. We
20:37
will say that this is the last form that creatures take. Boom the end,
20:41
Goodbye perfection. And almost immediately was well, no, we we did
20:47
really much better than we thought. We must have Tremors for Yeah, because
20:52
I I you know, I actually saw Tremors for and I actually was kind
20:56
of shocked because I thought, you know, because I was like, oh,
20:59
well, I didn't know they made another one. And you know what,
21:00
this is funny, Steve here, you know as you could kind of
21:03
tell him a movie buff. I didn't even know you did a TV series.
21:07
I actually didn't know you did a TV series until last year. Well
21:11
it's easy to do. I mean, there's so much material. Now,
21:14
that's a lot of stuff that I don't know. I means the stuff that's
21:17
being you know, I'm probably not even up on half of Netflix's shows and
21:19
all this stuff. But anyway, I don't blame you. Well, I
21:25
mean, because you know, I'm such a moviehead and I'm always like,
21:26
you know, you know, looking for different stuff. And I said they
21:30
did a Tremors TV series before I said, wow, I didn't notice that.
21:33
So I actually I actually bought it offline and I actually went through and
21:37
I was like, oh, okay, so it sets up it's you know,
21:40
it's it's three into the TV series and then four is a prequel.
21:44
Yeah. Uh, you know, I have to ask, you know,
21:48
when you make these Tremor movies. Michael Gross seems like the coolest guy in
21:51
the world. Is he Is he the coolest guy in the world, because
21:53
I mean he just seems like he would just be an awesome guy to hang
21:56
out with. Yes, he's just a wonderful, funny, intellectual, not
22:02
full of himself actor. He's very he's great on the set, you know,
22:07
at understanding you know who has the scene. You know, he's not
22:11
trying to, you know, steal other people's lines or anything. He's he's
22:14
an actor's actor and uh and he's so he's become you know, he became
22:19
Burt. He took over Birt, you know, from us and uh.
22:25
And he would always on Tremors two and three and four, even though he
22:29
wasn't playing Burt. Uh, he would. He would always come to this
22:33
set with little penciled, delicately penciled lines in the script. And then he
22:37
want to sit down and sit down with us before we've been he said,
22:40
okay, I got this idea for a change here and change here, and
22:42
then we could go back and forth. It was, well, if you
22:45
say that, then we won't know this. He's, oh, yeah,
22:47
yeah, you're right. Never mind over mind. But a lot of times,
22:48
you know, especially with the Bird character, he's he defends the character
22:53
and uh and and and he loves it. I thought at some point I
22:57
thought he was going to get tired of it. But I always have to
23:00
tell this quick story. You know, he was a huge television star when
23:06
he did Tremors one, he had just finished Years and Years on Family Ties,
23:10
playing a guy who could not be more different from Burt and they asked
23:15
us to read him because he was a big television star and they felt like
23:18
that would help the movie. And we went read the Father on Family Ties
23:23
and we don't know, Okay, we'll do it because they want us to
23:26
do it. Well, he blew us the way. You know, he
23:27
came in because he's an actor, and he completely just Ron tells the story
23:34
that he was actually jumping up on his desk at one point, being showing
23:37
how afraid he was of the monster underground. Anyway, Then some years later,
23:44
Michael told me the story walking down the street in New York and getting
23:47
that look that fans get when they start to recognize you, and the guy
23:52
was walking toward him and he sees the look he knows the fan's gonna say
23:55
it. And then the fan says, you're that crazy gun guy. And
24:00
Michael said, yes, I finally escaped Family Ties. I thought you were
24:07
gonna say, oh, yeah, I was the Downald Family Ties, a
24:10
crazy gun guy. Yeah. You know, it's funny because I introduced a
24:15
friend of mine two tremors, and he actually goes, wait a minute,
24:18
that's the dad from Family Ties and I said, yes, he's with the
24:21
heating family and uh, I'm start Keaton and Heaton and I said yeah,
24:26
you know, and he goes, wow. He goes, this is a
24:27
different role for him, and I said yeah, and I said, he
24:30
fits it like a glove. Because one of my favorite shots of the whole
24:33
movie is where Reba McIntire and Michael Gross are in their underground bunker and the
24:40
wall starts to shake and they see that the grab boid come through and they
24:45
start to fire. They have those rifles, those bold action rifles, and
24:49
they're at a amo very quickly, and the camera just pans over to the
24:52
wall of guns and they literally just they're pulling guns off the wall. And
24:56
I mean, it's it's so I again, organic characters, and that fits
25:02
so well because I would actually be disappointed, Steve if they did not have
25:04
a wall of guns. They knew that was a key moment in the movie,
25:08
and it was great at the premiers end, at the test screenings,
25:12
you know, the audience wouldn't they would laugh through the next all the way
25:17
through the next scene. Yeah, and you know it was you know,
25:21
a phenomenal. Tremors is definitely one of my favorite movies. And I think,
25:23
you know, when I when I go back to you know, writing
25:26
and writing my own stuff, you know, I always like to dissect movies
25:30
that I've I've watched, you know, and I've I liked to dissect movies
25:33
that I've really liked, and uh, you know it. And now because
25:36
this podcast, get to talk to people who've who've written great stuff that I
25:40
like. So you know, it's just it's you know, it's just great
25:41
being able to talk to you, Steve, and you know, finding out
25:45
these little intriticities. I think I just butcher that word, by the way,
25:48
But but uh, but you know, and I want to ask,
25:51
you know, Steve, you know, you have such a great career.
25:53
You know, you did short circuit batteries not included a short circuit too,
25:56
Tremors, as we all just talked about, I did go that. You
26:00
know, is there any sort of writing advice you could give to anyone listening
26:04
who's writing a screenplay right now? Well, if you like our style,
26:08
and that's step number one. If you like the movies we've done. Then
26:11
do what you're doing. First of all, analyze the stuff you like.
26:15
That's a lot of you know, pros it will call ourselves that would say
26:19
that, because you won't be copying the stuff that you like, you'll be
26:23
learning from it. You know, you obviously understand setups and payoffs. For
26:27
example, it's a big thing for me and Brent setting something up early in
26:33
the movie having a payoff later in surprising way, those are hard to do.
26:37
It's hard to do those correctly and without cheating, and a lot of
26:41
times to see movies cheat. I feel a little at odds with kind of
26:47
the current moviemaking scene giving anybody advice, because film after film that has no
26:55
plot and makes no sense is wildly successful. And I've begun to under you
27:00
know, I rail at this and I go, oh my day, and
27:03
blah blah blah. And yet you know, this is for years now I've
27:08
been seeing this. I've started to think, well, the audience has really
27:11
changed. I think the younger audience maybe does not care as much about what
27:18
I think is important in storytelling, and they truly do enjoy these movies.
27:23
You know, part of me says, well, they don't really enjoy them.
27:26
It's just that's the only that's the only thing they you know, that's
27:29
the only thing on this weekend, so they go. I'm less and less
27:33
sure of that. But anyway, I would say, analyze the stuff you
27:36
like, whatever it is, you know, if it's ordinary people, analyze
27:38
that and and write a lot. By the way, you'll hear this too
27:47
from other people. Don't get hung up on your one script. Brent and
27:52
I did this. You know, early on we would write a script and
27:53
go over and over and over and over. I mean we've looked at one
27:56
of those early scripts. This is like four or five scripts before or a
28:00
circuit. You know, well, it wasn't very good, and none of
28:03
the versions we did for very just wasn't very good. You gotta you gotta
28:07
move on. Write something, get it done, say goodbye to it,
28:11
write something else. If you're if you're a writer, you have plenty of
28:15
ideas, and the worst worst cases you find out, well maybe I don't
28:18
like it. You know, you do four or five scripts and you know
28:23
I don't like this. That's fine too, But write a lot. Don't
28:27
get hung up on one thing, and you know, and beat it to
28:30
death. You know, push yourself to a degree, look outside your comfort
28:37
zone. Although I do think that, you know, if you like emotional
28:41
h what's the Julianne Moore pictures you just did where she was a lady with
28:48
Alsheimer's. I can't think of. I'm I can't remember the name of it.
28:52
That's a very emotional picture that I would never try to write, right,
28:56
but maybe you know other people would, they would take That's exactly the
28:59
kind of movie I want to do. Study those, um and write a
29:03
lot. I already said what I'm gonna say. You know, you know,
29:07
that's great advice, you know, Steve, you know, just going
29:11
through and analyzing, you know, movies that you like and why you like
29:14
those and uh like. For instance, I had Victor Miller on here,
29:17
and Victor Miller wrote Friday the Thirteenth Part one, by the way, which
29:19
also started Kevin Bacon by the way, Wow, yes, yes, small
29:25
world right, so uh you know, and uh we were talking about,
29:29
you know, how do you you know, how do you break it down?
29:32
And Victor said, listen, he goes, I've been doing this for
29:34
thirty years now, whatever, he said, I'm still always looking for different
29:38
ways of writing and telling a story. He goes so and he said to
29:44
me that, you know, he's always looking for a different method, something
29:47
to sort of crack the story, or another way to write. We'll be
29:51
right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
30:00
And you know, it's just it's just very reassuring and unassuring at the
30:03
same time to hear veterans like you and him, you know, just talk
30:07
about screenwriting and always say, you know, they even with hits because tremor
30:12
you mean, because again you have you've had tremors, You've had you know,
30:15
short Circuit, and you know, even and he's you know, had
30:18
Friday Thirteenth Part one, he's had a few Emmy Award winning pieces. And
30:22
it's still it's again, it's reassuring, and it's it's a little worrisome to
30:26
hear that, you know, there's always they still don't have it all figured
30:29
out. Oh you know what I mean. Even if even if these hits,
30:32
every script, yes, every script has its own life that it takes
30:36
on and its own problems that it throws at you. And you suddenly find
30:38
yourself going, why did I even like this idea? I feel so trapped
30:42
now and uh, you know, sometimes you're beating your head against the wall.
30:47
But but you know that's that's the great thing. It is a creative
30:51
process. They yeah, they do it, they do each one is different.
30:55
With Brent and I are doing one right now as a matter of fact,
30:56
that is that is very different from I think we've ever done. Ron
31:00
challenged us, He said, you know what, I would really like to
31:03
do another little budget movie. Ron is big in television right now. He's
31:06
directed every TV show you've ever heard of, and he goes from show to
31:11
show to show, and he said, you know what, it'd be fun
31:11
to do another low budget movie like we did Tremors. Why don't you guys
31:15
write a sci fi movie with no special effects? And we went really wrong,
31:19
and then we thought about it. We sat down and so we actually
31:22
have come up with an idea. We're about, I don't know, halfway
31:25
through the process now, our anguishing process. It was really hard. I
31:29
mean, we just you know, because we just we just had to throw
31:30
out idea after idea after an idea until we came up with this idea.
31:34
But I don't want to talk about but anyway, Yes, good good note,
31:38
Yes, good writers are always questioning what they're doing, and always a
31:42
lot of times I think foundering quietly in their dark corners. And you know,
31:51
I'm not even a professional writer yet, Steven, but you know I
31:55
often feel that way, right, feel. I always feel like, what
31:57
the hell did I start? Um? But uh, you know it's funny.
32:02
I actually pitched an idea one time and the producer hated it, right,
32:07
And he came back to me later on and he goes, you know
32:08
what I mean. This is later months later, and he was already working
32:12
on something else, but he goes, you know what, I was driving
32:15
down down down this uh this interstate and he goes, you know, and
32:19
all of a sudden, they couldn't stop thinking about your script idea. And
32:22
I started laughing at myself, and he goes, you know, it's a
32:23
lot better than I thought. I said, See, it's always a rose
32:28
colored a rare producers. Yeah, but um, but you know, uh,
32:34
Steve, you know, we've been talking for about thirty minutes now,
32:36
and I just want to ask you in closing, is there anything that you
32:39
know we we didn't get a chance to discuss that you wanted to or is
32:43
there any sort of thing you want to say, sort of put a period
32:45
the end of this whole conversation. Oh um, I'm writing novels now,
32:51
I'd like to mention that to plug them, um, among the other things
32:57
I'm trying to do. Um. But as far as uh seems like,
33:01
was there's anything else advice wise, I would say nothing springs to mind.
33:09
I'm much better the questions where you will find you out online? Oh well,
33:15
the stamped Entertainment maintains a website, um, you know, and we
33:22
always have hopes that we will sell something of our own and ramp up into
33:24
production stampedefafan entertainment dot com. And then I'm on Facebook of course as ss
33:32
Wilson, and and the books are available at Amazon, Tucker's Monster and Freddy's
33:39
Fredy Cats. And I will link to all that in the sis. Everyone.
33:45
Um, you have an impressive list of podcasts. By the way,
33:50
there's like one hundred and fifty of them or something. Uh uh yeah,
33:55
like one twenty seven or eight. Now, Okay, I overstated a little
33:59
bit. I was quite impressed when I went to your site and I listened
34:01
to a few things, of course before I agreed to do this, and
34:05
so I was impressed with your with your polished approach. Oh thank you.
34:09
I've actually been proud of that because I had somebody I won't say who,
34:15
but they came on and they said, Dave, thank you for not being
34:16
that guy. And I said, what do you mean? They said,
34:19
you know, they said, like, there's so many people who have podcasts
34:22
now, and they said, you know, they're they're sort of like in
34:23
their mom's basement and they get people on the podcast so they can just like
34:28
sort of like be malicious, you know what I mean. And it's just
34:30
like, oh, so you made a movie, huh. And I'm like,
34:34
no, I would never be that guy. I hate people like because
34:37
I actually steve you know, real quick. I was on a podcast with
34:39
a friend of mine and he asked me to be on his podcast. So
34:43
I went to his house, which, by the way, we went to
34:46
his mom's basement to a goin this and then he started going like, oh,
34:51
so you made a TV pilot and pitched it to NBC. Huh.
34:53
And I said, yeah, well, is that is that bad? And
34:58
he's like, well, you know, this is the podcast by the way,
35:00
and he's like, oh, it could have reminded me too much of
35:02
clothes I said, Oh, I said, yeah. I was like and
35:07
and and and. Honestly, Steve, I'm I'm pretty good at thinking on
35:08
my feet. So what I did was I started, you know, I
35:10
was like, if I started insulting you right now, dude, I said,
35:13
believe me, I said, you would cut this all out. And
35:15
then finally he started to like ease up a little bit after we exchange a
35:19
little words. But uh, but yeah, I never would would it would
35:22
bring somebody on just to insult them. And I thank god that I've never
35:24
had one bad podcast. I've never had anybody had bad feelings with. Everything's
35:29
always been great. So I'm proud of that good. Well you should be.
35:31
That's that's good. That's good to hear. And I'm for a Warren.
35:35
I haven't had that experience yet, so I can put you. Yeah,
35:39
I can give you that warning. I'll be like the harbinger of hair
35:42
of horror. Uh you know what I mean, like always warning you about
35:45
things that are coming. Uh, kind of like old friend and tremors.
35:46
But he was he didn't tell them, he just he but his dead body
35:50
showed them that there's something right. Uh, Steve, I want to say
35:53
thank you very much for coming on the podcast, sir, and please stay
35:57
in touch me anything let me thank you, take care about to bye bye.
36:02
I want to thank Dave so much for doing such a great job on
36:06
this episode. If you want to get links to anything we spoke about in
36:07
this episode, head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.
36:12
Forward slash two ninety. Thank you so much for listening, guys, as
36:15
always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk to you soon.
36:19
Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcasts at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.