Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 294: The Essentials of Screenwriting with Pilar Alessandra

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BPS 294: The Essentials of Screenwriting with Pilar Alessandra · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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