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BONUS EPISODE: Mastering Screenwriting in Hollywood with Mick Hurbis-Cherrier · 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 ifahpodcastnetwork dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast,
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Episode number one seventy. It's kind of fun to do the impossible Walt
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Disney broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood when we really should be
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working on that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the
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craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your screenplay bulletproof.
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And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another episode of
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the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble host Alex Ferrari. Now,
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today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof script Coverage. Now. Unlike other script coverage
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services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses on the kind of project you are and
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There's no reason to get coverage from a reader that's used to reading tempole movies
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if you need your screenplay or TV script covered by professional readers, head on
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over to covermiscreenplay dot Com. Well, guys, today on the show,
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we have filmmaker and best selling author Mick herbis Cherier. Now, Mick is
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not only an award winning screenwriter working on multiple projects currently, but he is
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also an instructor, a teacher, and the best selling author of the textbook
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Voice and Vision, a Creative Approach to narrative film production. Now, in
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this conversation, Mick and I go deep into what it's like to be a
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screenwriter, what truly is, what the business is all about, his kind
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of horror stories, what mistakes he sees young screenwriters make, his ups and
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downs, and so much more so, without any further ado, please enjoy
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my conversation with Mick herbs Cherier. I'd like to welcome the show. Mick
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herbs Cherrier. How are you doing. I'm doing great and you did perfectly.
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I thank you. I mean, it was we were, we were.
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I wanted to make sure I got that name proper and didn't massacre.
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So I'm glad I did. How are you doing, my friend, I'm
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good. I'm very happy to be on your show. You know, I've
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seen a number of your podcasts, and I think that we have a kind
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of a similar mission. You know, we we love films, We love
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good films. We want to make sure that good films continue to be made,
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and so informing people how what is a good film? What makes a
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good film? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it is a mystery because
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they're they're becoming less and less nowadays. Believe. It's just it's not as
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easy to you know, when I was growing up in the eighties and the
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nineties, I mean, there were so many masters at work during that time
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period, and many of them are still at work. And every time I'm
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like, oh that was a great movie, I'm like who made it?
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I'm like, oh, someone from the eighties and nineties. But not to
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say that they're not amazing artists doing work today. I mean, look at
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Chris Nolan, I mean look at Fincher. I mean these kind of guys
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who came up well the Fincher came up in the nineties, but Nolan and
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those kind of guys, they're newer generation. There's so many great great filmmakers
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and screenwriters nowadays, but it's harder to find. But it's harder to get
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a made. And that think that's the biggest problem is there's a lot of
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great scripts out there, but there's not a lot of great scripts that are
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being given the opportunities that they were given in the eighties, nineties and even
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in the early two thousands. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I
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think it's much harder. Obviously, it's harder to sell a spec script,
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you know, these days, even even if you have some sort of property
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that's an interesting property. What I've noticed recently is that so much depends on
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the team you put together, because that makes a producer, that makes a
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production company feel more comfortable and more safe that this is a team that has
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a track record, they know how to put this thing together, they recognize
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good stuff, I like the stuff that they've done. And then and they
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don't necessarily feel like they're taking a big chance because you know, everybody's job
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all the way up the ladder is on the line and it's always to say
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no. It's their job is to say no. As much as they might
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want to say yes, their job is to say no. Because there it's
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the whole town is run by fear, the higher town. Although interestingly,
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you know, I fairly reached. Just before COVID hit, I went on
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a you know, a pitch session to a number of different production companies.
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Have their job is to say no. They don't like to say no.
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They don't. They don't because they don't want to be the person who said
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no to the thing that got made. So they're very always, very positive.
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And then I kind of lose them, you know, Alex. I
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was at a pitch session and it went well. We pitched. There were
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three of us pitching. It went spectacularly. It was for a television program,
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and the producer jumped out of his chair and said, okay, well
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we need for you guys. What we need to do is get money for
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you guys to write a pilot and get a bible together. And I was
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like, my god, is it true. The first person we went to,
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we sold the show in the room, and so I walked out and
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I talked to the person I was writing with, who's much more experience than
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I am in some of these things. And I said that that was an
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amazing response that he just said yes right away. He said, oh,
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no, no, that's not a yes, so that we don't know what
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that is. No, I mean, I've never la in hollywoods in general,
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it's an art form of how they say piss off. I mean,
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it's really it is. It really is artful in the way that they give
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back negative critiques, but they do it in such a way that you don't
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even know that you're just being told to just grow off. It's it's what
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because they don't want to be the person. So this is the two fears.
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I don't want to be fearful enough to green light this, and then
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at bombs, I lose my job. I don't want to also pass on
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the next big thing they when they find out about it, and I lose
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my job. So it's all about losing my job. So what's the bigger
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fear? And generally speaking, the bigger fear is to produce something that bombs,
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because that's more concrete. So that's why they say no. But they
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don't want to say no. They want they want your project to be the
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next big thing. They want it to make a billion dollars and to launch
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a franchise and and all that kind of stuff. But that's just the way
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the world works. But yeah, you know, it's kind of a vice.
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It's kind of a squeeze for them because you know, they need new
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content, they need new makers, they need fresh ideas, they need people
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who are good writers. They need these things. It's the lifeblood of the
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industry. But they are, you afraid of making some wrong choices. So
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that's sort of the thing that keeps people going is that, you know,
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they need they need talent. But I would argue that everything you just said
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really focuses mostly on television now as opposed to features. Features, if you
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notice, are not new ideas. They're all based on existing ip especially at
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the studio level. Indies are different. But indies are are going the way
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of the Dodo. They really are. In many ways. It's not as
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robust of a business as it was in the nineties because in the nineties,
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you know, you know, I was speaking to some of filmmakers from that
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era and they said, the reason why my film got picked up is because
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there was a business starting to come around VHS home videos. You know,
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then DVDs, there was an actual industry, a business way to make money
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with films like Slackers and Clerks and El Mariachi, and there was a business
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that that that infrastructure doesn't exist now because there's so much competition now for it
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that it's for features I'm talking about, but for television, it's all about
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original ideas. It's completely about original ideas. Yeah, I mean it's really
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interesting because there's no there's no way you're gonna get it if you're not a
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known writer. There's no way you're going to get a commission for a feature
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film. It's just not going to happen. But and and and you know,
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there's no way you're going to get money for a page or a treatment
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or something like that to develop it. In television, that still happens because
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it's the wild West. Like which of these you know, billion platforms streaming
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platforms are going to survive and in order to serve they need new content,
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they need original content, and so they're out there looking for that stuff.
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And you know, I also think, actually, you know, a young
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filmmaker these days, or a young writer, somebody who wants to be a
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writer or a filmmaker does have to think globally in term cinema, you know,
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because there's still those pathways for interesting feature films happening in international co productions,
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and sometimes that's the avenue to open some doors in Los Angeles even if
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you want to go there. You know, I have a very good friend,
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Sami Zawabi, who is a Palestinian Israeli fantastic filmmaker, wrote a screenplay
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in English that was supposed to be in Hebrew and Arabic. Tried to get
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it done here, nobody would pick it up. And then he went to
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France and French producers were interested. They got together with we see. It
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was like France, Israel and Luxembourg and that was the co production. That
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film did extremely well. It's a wonderful film. It's called Tel Aviv on
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Fire. Fantastic film. And now you know he when he goes to the
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Los Angeles, people know him. He's created his own and I'm not going
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to say brand, but he's sort of developed a profile that people now can
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recognize and feel comfortable. So and he's on his way. We'll be right
10:26
back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
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Yeah, And that's another thing. A lot of people think the only place
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you can make it is Hollywood, but you're absolutely it's They would be wrong
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because it is there's such more of a global marketplace than it was in the
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nineties and the eighties and the nineties. Even in the early two thousands,
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it wasn't as a global place because the Internet hadn't really taken hold yet.
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And it really and I know people listening like a budge of old farts talking
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here, but you know, but I remember logging into Netflix and looking at
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what they had to stream. I'm like, oh, this is all garbage,
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Like it's just compollete. Before they had anything, it was like,
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oh, it was complete garbage. Uh you know on Google and thinking you
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can't trust any of this stuff. Yeah, exactly, this is all business.
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This is horrible. Yeah. So, but but because of the infrastructure
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that has been built over the years now with the streaming services the world,
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it's look look at squid Games. I mean, look at a show like
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Squid Games that showed up, like I haven't seen a Korean based elephants show
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ever in my life. Yeah. And when I heard and I only watched
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it purely because I kept hearing everybody talking, I'm like, if you see
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squid Games. Seen squid Games, I'm like, what is this? I
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gotta watch it? And it became one of the biggest shows in Netflix history
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from Korea, not from America, but from Korea in Korean. This is
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just after what I can't remember the title offhand, at the Spanish heist film.
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Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you were
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talking about. Yeah, there's that again, you know, out of nowhere,
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not particularly popular in Spain, but a huge hit for Netflix, you
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know, another here. So there's a lot of those, those kind of
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things so international, and there's also opportunities internationally that they're just not here in
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the US because there's just everybody's here. Yeah, you know, but if
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you go to France and have a France, Israel, Luxembourg co production,
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the amount of competition you have in Europe is a lot less than you have
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here to make films, especially have a certain kind of genre and so on.
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But I was going to ask you, how did you get started in
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this insane business? Wow? Get started in? Like I sometimes I feel
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like I have three full time jobs. You know. I love writing screenplays.
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I write screenplays. I don't relish, you know, sacrificing a lot
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of things for years in order to break in. You know. I also,
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you know, since the time I was a kid, you know,
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I wanted to be a college professor. That was a goal of mine,
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even before films. That was a dream of mine. My father was a
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college professor, My mother was a teacher. My sister's a teacher, my
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brother is a teacher. You know, there's so it's in the family.
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So I always wanted to be a professor. And cinema, and of course
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my third job are the textbooks, which I sort of stumbled in more recently.
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But I really love writing these books. It's really a lot of fun.
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But cinema kind of came into my life very early on. I was
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I'm an American citizen, but I grew up overseas. I was born in
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Izmir, Turkey. You know, I've been in Columbia, I've been in
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Puerto Rico, really where I grew up, with Singapore, and so two
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things. And so this is like from the age of eight to thirteen,
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and this is most of the seventies that I'm living in Singapore, and so,
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uh, the Shaw brothers who were all over the screens in Singapore,
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and I, my brother and I would just go to Shaw Brothers Productions.
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Every you know, kung fu movie that came out. We were there and
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we had we could not speak Chinese at all, did not matter, you
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know. So I I mean, you know, all those films with you
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know, with those great titles like Blind Swordsman, The Blind Adventure, The
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Sentimental Swordsman, the One Armed Swordsman, you know, five Deadly Venoms,
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five fingers of Death whatever, and of course and of course any Anny Bruce
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Lee. Of course, so that that was like one side. And then
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on the other side, being an American and having never lived in America,
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have never never been to the United States, I was obsessed with like absorbing
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any American culture I could. And so when films came, and US films
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came, even though they were heavily censored, I would have to see them,
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uh you know, uh Soilent Green. You know, it wasn't a
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big film in the patent was a big film, Anny James Bond film,
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The French Connection, The Exorcists, even though it was like like it was
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practically cut in half, you know, by censors. It was a short
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film. It was a short film I got, but they and they still
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had the ambulance you know in the uh in the parking lot, you know,
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promotional thing going on. And then The Sting was one of my one
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of the great films. I must have seen that, like, you know,
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fifteen times. I loved that film. And then at one point I
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saw a film called Mash, Robert Altman's Mash, And the only reason I
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want to see it is because I knew that there was American football scenes in
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it, and I was just obsessed with American football. So I went and
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I remember, boy, I must have been eleven, and I remember thinking,
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this film is making me feel funny. I don't know what it is.
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I don't quite understand what's going on, but it's not like The Sting
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at all. Sure, sure, sir, And I think I think that
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sort of started my whole love affair with films and films that does kind of
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push the envelope was right there all right. Now, you've I've been teaching
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for many, many years. What is the biggest mistake you see screenwriters make
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early young screenwriters make young screenwriters, well, you know, struggling with the
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language and struggling with formatting, and stuff like that. I don't consider that
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mistakes. That's just the way it goes. And you know, young young
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writers. You know, I teach a Hunter College, and so not all
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of my students are young young So when I say a young writer, I
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mean an emerging writer. Yeah. I think one thing is that is the
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lack of patience to develop their craft. You know, they watch movies,
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they feel movies deeply, and they know how to write. Therefore, they
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feel ready to write a magnum opus immediately. And you know, you wouldn't
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feel that way listening to music, thinking I'm gonna sit at the piano and
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write a great song though I don't know how to play the piano, right,
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But we feel because we know language and we use words and we can
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write somehow, they feel like what comes out right away has to be great.
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And I tell them to, you know, and and it's because they're
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fueled by passion, and so I tell them, relax a little bit,
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write a lot, right. You know, your your your first few scripts
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are not going to be that great, I guarantee you. But you will
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learn from those scripts and you will get better and better. It's like it's
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like anything. It's like playing a guitar. It's like it's it's it's like
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it's like Stephen Curry shooting three pointers. It looks absolutely easy and effortless.
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When I watch Stephen Curry shoot three points, I think I can do that.
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That's easy. It looks so easy. It looks so easy. But
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the amount of drilling and training and practicing that he's put into those shots in
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his life makes them look so easy. So you know, I that's the
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thing. I I give them the opportunity to allow them to be patient with
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their own progress. Yeah. Yeah, So, I mean I feel too
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that a lot of in a distance is definitely my. It was definitely me
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when I was starting out. Is there is that little thing called ego that
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also creeps It creeps in and everyone's like, when I've just written my opus,
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why has in Hollywood seen my genius? And the trucks of money are
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just dumped in my front yard, Like I don't understand, and that ego,
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like many many filmmakers and screenwriters walk into the business for the wrong reasons,
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meaning I want to be rich and famous. We'll be right back after
19:18
a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. I don't
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want my ego strokes. I want to be on the red carpet and all
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that kind of stuff. And I always tell people, because I've been around
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the block a little bit, I got some strap. Noel. I just
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go's like, what are we going to do about Bobby. I'm like,
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don't you worry. The business is going to take care of Bobby. It's
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not a problem at all. Bobby's gonna be just fine. The other hammer
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is going to come down any minute now. And if it doesn't come down
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any minute, it's gonna come down in five years when he's still hustle and
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going, wait a minute, maybe what I'm doing is not working. And
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I always try to warn people about that that pitfall because I was I mean,
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when you're young, you do things like that. You're just like,
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yeah, obviously, it's like you you know, you watch reservoir Dogs and
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you're like, I can do that. And then you sit down and go,
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why why is my dialogue not a snappy or even worse, you start
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doing that again. It's already been done, do you know, but you're
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not even doing it again. Well, you're doing it again. It's it's
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it's derivative. So in other words, and by the way, how many
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I mean for us at a certain age. You know, when pulp fiction
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came out, how many pulp fiction ripoffs came out within the like in the
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next three or four years. It was just constant pulp And you could see
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the writers of those movies trying to emulate the tone and energy of Quintin.
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And that's not possible. It's because there's only one Quintin. There's only one
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sork and there's only one Shane Black, there's only one Chris Nolan. These
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these people are so specific with the way they write that you can't emulate them,
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and you shouldn't because it's like me trying to emulate it anyway, like
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right. And also, you know, a Sorkin wouldn't make a Scorsese film,
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though he might scorseset better than Child and make a Scorsese film, because
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only Scorsese makes a Scorsese film. Yep. Yeah, you know, I've
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been teaching long enough that I see it in waves. You know. I
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remember when everybody wanted to be David Lynchon, and I remember it when everybody
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wanted to be uh his first name is escaping me Kaufman. Oh, Charlie
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Coffman, Charlie Kaufman, that was another wave. Write like Charlie, you
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write like Charlie Kaufman. Are you kidding me? Exactly? Are you kidding
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me? That was the error when I couldn't sell the reacts structure to save
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my life, you know, right exactly? A Tarantino Kaufin just screwed everything
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up. Uh anyway, And I think you know there there There have been
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others, of course, but but you know, I actually think that that's
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going away. It's significant these days because and it's a very interesting challenge for
22:04
teachers, and because there isn't anymore that I can see a common like lexicon,
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a common grouping of films that most of the students in the class have
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watched. I'm seeing students breaking apart into much smaller niches. Some of them
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love the long form limited series television. Some of them are into Asian film,
22:30
some of them are into animated films really in a big way. Some
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of them are into the narratives that go into video games. And they inhabit
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those niches with great passion. So you mentioned, you know, you know,
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you mentioned Chinatown. Nobody's seen Chinatown. You know, you mentioned there's
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a few films that have stuck around that you can still Godfather, God The
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Fight Club. Interestingly, The Graduate and I and I, oh, that's
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interesting. Let's ask my class, like, why do you all know The
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Graduate if you don't know you know China? And they say, oh,
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because it's it's placed all the time on television, so they eventually they catch
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it. So anyway, you're absolutely right, because you know, I mean,
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coming up, there are there's a group of films. You know,
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there's like a hundred or two hundred films that everyone's seen, and it's it's
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it's very comfortably everybody understands. You know, you've seen Goodfellas, you've seen
23:33
most of Scorsese's work. You know, you might have not seen After Hours,
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but you definitely saw Goodfellas. You might have not seen Last Temptation of
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Christ, but you probably saw Casino. You know, like, there's there's
23:42
a handful of movies from directors and of writers that people. But in today's
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world, you know, when we were coming up, there were less films
23:53
to watch. You know, we would get maybe twenty movies a year,
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twenty five movies a year. Now we get twenty movies an hour. Uh
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release everybody knew like what the what the Oscar nominees were and see them and
24:08
the winners, and so I could go into a class and say, all
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right, here's an example and everybody would understand that example. These days,
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I say here's an example, and I see like blank faces. That's the
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challenging part of teaching. The good part is you can you can, you
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know, you can show them, uh, you know, a film like
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ed Wood and blow their minds, you know what I mean, because nobody's
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seen it before, and they think, oh my god, how do you
24:37
know about this stuff? You know, you can. You can show them
24:40
Raging Bulk, you know, and they're like, oh my god. I
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never imagined I had this experience. The other day, I was talking to
24:47
these three students who are working together and their film has some resonance with Wings
24:52
of Desire, and I said, of course, you guys have seen Wings
24:55
of Desire. Never saw it, never heard of him vendors they see City
24:57
of Angels at least, no, I know. So you know, they
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they watched it and they called back and they said, Professor, you've just
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changed our lives. I thought, well, that was easy. It's it's
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yeah, because you're right, you're right, And I've even seen that when
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I talked to filmmakers sometimes like you know that movie that this like I was.
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I was when I was color grading back in the day. I was
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working with one of the biggest music video directors, uh in the in the
25:27
in the world at the time, and I'm color grading one of his music
25:30
videos. I'm like, oh, so do you want me to do this
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like very like Blade Runner esque? And he's like, what's that? Yeah?
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And I'm like, you're a music video director. You've never seen Blade
25:40
Runner? Are you kidding me? I felt like slapping the guy. Don't
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you know you wouldn't even exist as a video music video director without Blade Runner?
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Without really without really in general, you know, let alone all that
25:52
jazz, you know, Bob Foss's all that jazz. But exactly, I
25:56
think I only got to one of the main mistakes. I think you asked
26:00
no, no, just no, just one of the biggest mistakes. But
26:03
you know, there's can you discuss a little bit about how I think one
26:07
of the biggest things I've see when when when I read screenplays from from younger
26:14
or newer writers is their use of description and they don't the concept of a
26:21
sea of white is seeing as much white as possible and what that experience is
26:26
as far as screen because honestly, it was I think it was Shane Black.
26:30
I think when Shane Black showed up, he made the screenwriting reading a
26:36
screenplay experience like reading a book, like reading a novel. His descriptions were
26:41
so tight, so small, but so descriptive. It was an enjoyable read.
26:45
And that's when I think we began to think about as this industry,
26:49
like descript needs to be enjoyable to read and also not have blocks of description
26:55
that are for like it's it's it's not a novel. Can you talk a
27:00
little bit about that. Well, you know, a screenplay is a very
27:04
complicated type of manuscript, dramatic manuscript, because it has a technical function as
27:12
a blueprint for production. Correct it also has to present to the reader as
27:22
a movie going experience, but it also has to be a good read in
27:26
terms of its language, and it has to contain some of the attitude of
27:30
the movie, the tone of the movie, the genre of the movie,
27:33
in its language. And this is kind of the more advanced sort of level
27:41
of screenwriting, and we're seeing people more and more understanding that you can push
27:49
rules of screenwriting. You can push some of the things in order to have
27:53
a dramatic effect or in order to develop a voice. I mean, I
27:56
was just reading the screenplay for BookSmart, which I have to say was a
28:00
great fun read. They break rules all over the place because they really want
28:06
to communicate the attitude of the movie, and they really do so, you
28:14
know, I tell my students and I try and do this, you know,
28:17
to be vivid and pithy at the same time. And part of that
28:22
means you have to know language. You can't use lazy language and be right
28:29
in a vivid way, in in a visual way, which means that writers
28:33
need to read. And that's one of the that's like number two problem with
28:37
with beginning screenwriters is that they want to write, but they don't read.
28:42
And you're not going to get what you need by watching the film if you
28:47
read the scripts for that. And there are a lot of great scripts out
28:48
there that they can read and they can see exactly how this writer presented the
28:56
material so that the reader and the director sees it in a visual way.
29:02
You know, I I go back to you know, I go back to
29:04
people like Lawrence cast and who I had a workshop with when I was a
29:07
student, was one of the first people who really talked about this in any
29:11
in any way. And of course Paul Schrader was another one who was a
29:19
phenomenal writer. You know, I just funny. I I helped with the
29:27
read publication of a bunch of books by Edred Dimitric, and I worked on
29:37
the on screenwriting, and I read some of his screenplays and it's just not
29:40
interesting to read. It's kind of like, Okay, here are the shots,
29:42
and uh, it's it genuinely was a blueprint for a film and rather
29:48
than a good read on the page. So you know, I think that,
29:53
uh. And in fact, this is the book that I'm currently writing.
29:57
I'm writing a screenwriting book. And you know, you think, oh
30:03
man, not another freaking screenwriting There's like three of those out there. There's
30:07
not that many, all right, So this actually has nothing. This actually
30:12
has nothing to do. I don't talk about structure. I don't talk about
30:15
building character, I don't talk about subplots or I don't talk about any of
30:18
that stuff. This is kind of a style manual. We'll be right back
30:25
after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. The
30:33
first half of it is the proper way of writing a screenplay. It's kind
30:37
of like learning a language. You know, you learn French, you got
30:41
to learn the proper way of speaking French in French one on one, in
30:44
French one or two. Then you go to France and people are taught saying
30:48
something else. Of course, it's the same experience as screenwriters. They're taught
30:52
in a class. You know, this is how you write. These are
30:55
the rules of screenwriting. Then they go and they you know, they read
30:59
uncut gems and they say, wait a minute, I was told that that
31:03
wasn't allowed. Oh no, you When I started reading Lethal Weapon and you
31:07
know, all of Shane black stuff, I'm like, this is not this
31:11
is not or Quentin, God forbid you read a Quentin script. Jesus.
31:15
Yeah, but yeah, but Tantino scripts leap right off the page. They
31:21
are in your lap, slapping you around as you're reading it. No,
31:25
there's no question, there's no question, no question. So so so the
31:29
book I'm writing, that's what that's what it is dedicated to. The first
31:32
half is like, here's the proper way. Here are like, if you're
31:36
a jazz musicians, here are the scales. This is what you need to
31:38
practice. Now, here's how we improvise. Here's how professional writers write.
31:42
Here's how professional writers allow the reader as they're reading to see a movie come
31:55
off the page. And the one thing that young writers get mixed sort of
31:59
mix so is that they think, Okay, I want to give them that
32:02
cinematic experience. Therefore I'm going to describe everything that's in the scene. And
32:07
that becomes overload, right because a writer, a reader reading a screenplay doesn't
32:14
know your world, doesn't know your story. They're reading and they're finding the
32:21
clues to what that story is about, what is important, what's not important.
32:24
So if you have a character walk into an office and you describe absolutely
32:30
everything in the office, it's a flat scene. You may be describing a
32:34
lot, but it's flat, and it's confusing because there's too much visual detail.
32:38
If you expend less language on the environment and more language on those and
32:45
more flamboyant language on those things that are really important, then the reader gets
32:52
gets that and holds that as an important thing. The envelope on the desk
32:57
right, which is which is? Which is? Yeah? Because if you're
32:59
putting the envelope on the desk is on an ornate wooden desk that's succeed.
33:05
It looks like the one from the Godfather, and its weight is this,
33:07
and it just starts going and going and going. You're just like, what
33:09
am I supposed to focus my energies on here? Precisely? You know?
33:14
And young writers love to write about like the light is streaming and through the
33:16
wind. You need to know that who cares? You know? The deep
33:20
people take care of that, don't worry. And actually that's another thing now
33:24
that you're now that you've got me talking. I think young writers are are
33:34
resistant to the idea of filming a collaborative art form. They want to control
33:38
everything, and you simply can't control everything. They want to tell you how
33:43
everybody is dressed, what their hair looks like, where the light is coming
33:46
from, the color of the world. Camera, camera moves, the camera
33:51
moves, the camera moves. It's like, you know, no, take
33:53
it easy, take all that stuff off your shoulders, and then tell your
34:00
story and then we'll get to exactly when you were talking about Alex. It's
34:04
clean, it's got energy, it's got the energy of a movie that's unfolding
34:08
before your eyes. You know. So it's clean, it's got energy,
34:13
and the story jumps off the page and the actions reveal right, it needs
34:21
to be revealed. I was reading the other day the script for Bound by
34:24
Theosarskis. This is the movie right before the Matrix, and in this in
34:29
the script, in the script, it actually wrote like there was a there
34:34
was a very big love scene between two girls. And this is also early
34:38
in late nineties, so this is being made so it's not as open as
34:43
it is today in regards to that kind of stuff. And they go at
34:45
the end of it, they go and we're not going to cut this scene
34:51
in the script. And we're not cutting the scene. That's that's radical.
34:57
That's a radical thing to do, right, you're reminding me. I just
35:00
read the script for First Man. Yeah, Gazelle, Okay, yeah,
35:06
Now he takes a lot of liberties in that script, which is fun.
35:09
But you know, when you have a track record and people know what you
35:15
can do, you can take more liberties than when you're a beginning writer,
35:19
for sure. But anyway, there's a scene in there where Neil Armstrong goes
35:22
into the capsule for some Gemini lift off. I can't remember the number of
35:25
the Gemini lift off, and it's a beautiful scene in the film where everything
35:30
is shown through Neil Armstrong's point of view and what he hears and what he
35:37
sees, which is nothing. It's just like a little little triangle of a
35:40
window. The entire lift off, which is super dangerous, is told through
35:45
the image through this little triangle window. And he says in that scene,
35:49
he says, we're in we see what Neil sees, we hear what he
35:53
sees, and we're not fucking cutting away. It's literally he literally says that
36:00
in Uh, I don't know if I can say that on you. It's
36:04
fine, It's fine, okay, anyway, he literally writes that we're not
36:07
fucking cutting away to an external shot or something anyway. So it's just very
36:12
funny. He's like, because he knew what was gonna happen, he's gonna
36:15
go, oh, well, when can we get a wide shot on this?
36:17
And like, well, that's that's it. But he's also write a
36:20
director and he knows how he's gonna execute it and so on. But he
36:22
just wanted to make that clear as a fun, as a fun thing to
36:24
do. What was the script I was reading the other day just oh,
36:31
I was reading I think it was Shane Black or Tarantino, and you know,
36:35
you start seeing some spelling errors in it, sparing and some even grammatical
36:39
errors. And I always love fulfill young screenwriters who're like, well, I
36:44
was reading, uh, Shane Black script, and you know he had a
36:46
couple of punctuations, and I'm like, he's Shane Black, that's right.
36:52
If he wants to misspell something, no one cares because he's Shane Black,
36:58
or he's Quinn Tarantino or he's Nolan. Like, they don't. They are
37:01
at a whole other place that you are not. They've established themselves. And
37:06
when you're coming up, I promise you that True Romance and Natural Born Killers,
37:10
which were the first two scripts that Tarantino sold, were immaculate. Yeah,
37:15
exactly, exactly. And you know the reason that you if you're a
37:20
young writer, the reason why you can't afford to make any mistakes in your
37:22
script is because you lose the faith of the reader who doesn't know who you
37:28
are. And so if they can't trust that your writing is in order,
37:31
then when you do something in the script that is funky or whatever or really
37:36
super interesting, they're like, is that a mistake or is this person in
37:38
control of their language? You know, so you have to you know,
37:45
I you know, I have a very good friend who's an a list writer
37:47
and he was a former student of mine, and he would rather die than
37:52
submit something with a mistake, even though he I mean, he just sold
37:55
a script for like four million bucks, you know, or five million bucks
37:59
and one of the big deals in the last ten years. And we worked
38:04
on a project and we sold. We wanted to write the scripts, but
38:08
the people who bought it from us only wanted our treatments and they wanted to
38:14
write their own scripts because it was television. They have the writer's room all
38:17
very they you know, they don't want to integrate new people. So we
38:22
were happy, like okay, wow, okay, bye, you know,
38:24
pay us for not writing the script. Lime And so they wrote the pilot
38:34
and they sent it to us just so we could give them some feedback on
38:37
it. And they were like five typos and like the first two pages.
38:44
And my friend Bill said, can you believe that? I said, well,
38:47
yeah, I can believe that. They'd have over six hundred hours of
38:50
television produced already, so what does it matter exactly? At that point,
38:54
it doesn't matter. And yeah, I think that comparison to established people or
39:00
even legends or masters as young screenwriters is rampant. I mean, like you
39:05
said earlier, they're like, oh, Quarantino or and we keep using the
39:07
same name, or Kaufman or any of these, any of these screenwriters,
39:12
and they compare themselves to it, and you can't. You need to find
39:15
your own voice. You need to find your own path. Whatever they did,
39:19
you can't follow that path. We'll be right back after a word from
39:23
our sponsor, and now back to the show. It's so interesting. When
39:31
I was starting out in the business, I would analyze every I would read
39:36
every autobiography I can get my hands on on filmmakers. I would try to
39:40
study the way they got into the business. So you're like, okay,
39:44
so Robert Rodriguez made a seven thousand dollars action movie and all right, clerks,
39:47
okay, so he did this and he did that, Okay, great
39:50
Ed Burns, Okay, he did this, this and this. You know,
39:52
Spike Lee did this, this and this, And you would start and
39:54
I'm like, okay, maybe I can get this way, and maybe I
39:57
was always trying to hack my way in and I it took me years to
40:01
realize. You like, that's their path that can never be replicated ever,
40:08
because of the timing of who they are and what they're like. You know,
40:12
when I had Richard link Letter on the show, I asked, do
40:15
you think do you do you think Slacker is gonna if if Slacker shows up
40:16
today, do you think it finds an audience? And Rick and Rix's and
40:21
straight up like, you know, does it find an audience? And Rick's
40:24
like, probably not. Yeah. And I said the same thing to Ed
40:28
Burns. I go, if Brothers McMullin shows up today, do you think
40:30
you get it a theatrical and it makes thirty million off of a off of
40:37
a thirty thousand dollars? Do you think that is gonna happen? He's like,
40:39
absolutely not. If they were a product of their time, where in
40:45
today's world they wouldn't. They will probably be just thrown into the soup like
40:47
everybody else. Not that they don't have any talent, and not that the
40:51
movies aren't great, it's just a different environment and a different audience as well.
40:55
That's true, that's true. But you know, I always do a
40:59
few fer sizes with my students to help them. I guess the term is
41:02
you know, to use the term of Michael Raebagger, who with whom I
41:06
wrote a co wrote a book to find their own themes like who are you?
41:10
What are you interested in? What obsesses you? Yeah? What are
41:15
the genres of film that you that you like that you can be inspired by?
41:21
But but how is it? How do you make it yours? What
41:23
are the things? Like? Like I said, what are the things that
41:29
obsessed you? What are the things? Who are the people you know who
41:32
are fascinating characters? Whe are the places you've gone that you think this would
41:37
be an awesome place for a film. So, you know, a writer,
41:45
you know, like any other artists, has to find out what their
41:47
unique contribution is. But getting back to reading scripts, I do when I
41:52
finished my screenwriting one class, which is a about all about the shorts,
41:57
I give my students a list of like five scripts that will take their language
42:01
to the next level, not to copy them. And they're always quite different,
42:07
uh genres. And then they are also as contemporary as I can find.
42:14
So do are they? Are they? Do they change? Or are
42:15
they? Can you give? Can you give those five scripts out now?
42:17
The names? Sure? I can? I mean there I find these online.
42:22
I just say, you know, I just Google download pdf, sure
42:28
and you find it, you know, as you know, I'm sure you
42:30
know that when when award season comes around, you know the Yeah, they're
42:35
all available on Bulletproof Screenwriting dot TV. Yeah. Well, well, like
42:40
Jeff Nichols's film Loving that was a beautiful guy. Yeah, and the script
42:46
is the same. It's a very elegant, very quiet, very powerful script.
42:52
The language is super precise and it there's no flamboyance to it, but
43:00
it just tells its story in very simple language, myth methodically, but really
43:08
accumulates power over time. The screenplays for Chernobyl are phenomenal. Oh yeah,
43:15
well did Craig. Yeah, They're just perfectly written. You know. Jordan
43:22
Peele's get Out is another great script to you know, uh d Reese,
43:27
Uh, Mudbound is is a little bit more flamboyant. It is a little
43:31
bit more you know, uh uh you know, really indicating shots and uh
43:37
and cuts. But but it's powerful. You see the movie, you feel
43:43
the movie. Like I said, BookSmart, I like to give students All
43:47
as Lost, which has no dialogue, and that's like what is it?
43:53
How long is all is? Lost is uh. I think it's like forty
43:57
pages or something like that, right, no sideways, Oh, another beautiful
44:02
script, Yeah, great script, debigranhics, leave no Trace is the simple
44:07
script, elegant script, beautifully written, beautiful film over kind of a kind
44:13
of an overlooked film. But I think it's a phenomenal film. So that's
44:16
that's the kind of stuff I will give them. Now, what what advice
44:21
would you give on writing great dialogue? Because dialogue is such a difficult thing
44:25
to get the tone, to get the the energy of a character, and
44:30
also how not to write on the nose, which is so like it's like
44:35
I love watching great television or great movies, and I'll just go, oh,
44:39
I see where they just dropped off that she's been divorced for five years
44:43
without saying, hey, hey dad, how does it feel being divorced for
44:46
five years? I don't know, son, it's pretty hard as opposed as
44:52
opposed to a look on the letter, like a look at the paperwork of
44:55
oh I have to sign the divorce papers. No one ever says anything something
44:59
subtle like that. Get that information across. But how do you write great
45:01
dialogue? Well, you know the you know there's a first. The first
45:07
thing you have to think about, and I'm going back to beginning writers.
45:10
The first thing that beginning writers, big mistake the beginning writers make with dialogue
45:15
is that they think they have to tell the story in dialogue because they don't
45:19
trust that. They don't trust yet that an audience will see an action and
45:22
understand the inner life of a character who performs that action. They won't they
45:29
understand the motivation of somebody who does a particular action. They don't trust that
45:36
yet. So they'll do the action and then they'll they'll do exactly what you
45:38
just said. We'll see the divorce papers and they'll write the dialogue. Oh
45:44
I've got to sign the divorce papers. You don't need this, you'll say
45:46
it. We're seeing it right. Just so, that's the first thing,
45:50
show don't tell, show don't exactly. Dialogue that's redundant, is kills your
45:54
movie. It's just stop the momentum. It stops the momentum completely. The
46:00
second thing is that is that there's again, it's it's just that people who
46:05
don't trust that their movie can that they're already telling their story. Is that
46:09
there are many times when a look a gesture a glance will say exactly what
46:15
dialogue needs to say. So the first the first in terms of dialogue,
46:22
the first step is to strip away all the unnecessary dialogue and then strip away
46:27
a little bit more dialogue than that, and then you know, you need
46:31
to dig deeply into your character and you have to say, so, what
46:37
what is the purpose of this dialogue? What does it reveal about my character?
46:39
Not what it does it tell about the story, but what is it
46:43
going to reveal about the character. What kind of language would this person use?
46:46
How many words would this person use? I mean, I think that
46:50
Loving is a very interesting script in that sense because he has he has two
46:55
characters, especially especially the male lead who's super taciturn, not particularly articulate and
47:06
doesn't talk about things much, right, or a first man. We were
47:10
just talking about first Man. You know, he Neil Armstrong is not somebody
47:15
who talks about his feelings. He never would have been an astronaut. So
47:23
you have to understand the you know, the language your character uses, and
47:30
how much language your character uses, and the fact that you have to really
47:36
understand that they inhabit that story as in life, and so they wouldn't go
47:43
you know, explaining things for people who don't know what's going on, right,
47:47
And I always find it so irritating when you when they when writers add
47:52
backstory in a very brutal way where they're just explaining it. I think the
48:00
best example of writing backstory or what's the word, it's completely escaping me when
48:08
you have to tell the Scion exposition, thank you very much, is James
48:13
Cameron. James Cameron when he wrote Terminator. I think he's still one of
48:16
the most underrated writers of his generation. He's not as a filmmaker, but
48:20
as a writer. You read Alien script and you're just like, oh my
48:23
god, one of the most perfect action scripts ever written. But if you
48:27
read Terminator, there's so much exposition that has to be laid out for because
48:34
we all know what the Terminator mythology is now, but in nineteen eighty four,
48:37
nobody understood what the hell was going on. Yeah, and he's like,
48:40
if you've got exposition, write it in an action sequence, write it
48:44
in something. So there he's literally explaining. Reese is explaining to Sarah Conner
48:51
what's going on as they're being chased by the Terminator, writing shooting boom.
48:55
I'm from this boom, and this is what happens. Boom, he's a
48:59
machine. Boom, he has flesh over his body. Boom. It was
49:01
all but it's done like this as opposed to them sitting down a coffee like,
49:05
well, you know, I'm from the past, and it's beautiful.
49:08
It's a beautiful technique. It really is. Yeah. Well, you know
49:12
with exposition, exposition is tough because x X Okay, what we do is
49:15
we do narrative. Narrative is the act of telling a story. Exposition is
49:21
not the act of telling a story. Exposition is the act of explaining something
49:24
right. So that's why if you don't handle your exposition well, it puts
49:29
the brakes on your story and it becomes uncomfortable. The first thing is you
49:34
ask yourself, do I need this exposition? You know, think of Thelma
49:36
and Louise. We never know what happens, what happened to Louise in Texas?
49:44
We never know what right is in Chinatown? Do we need it?
49:47
We don't need it. Maybe it's better in the minds of the audience.
49:51
They can imagine what happened. So do I need it? Do I need
49:54
all of it? Because sometimes you can pare it down a lot. I
50:00
need all of it in a chunk, or can I pepper it throughout the
50:02
script? And then and then like you say, put it in a put
50:07
it in a scene of action and tens or comedy that comedy. You know,
50:14
it's a sugar that lets anything go down. And uh, and of
50:20
course motivate it. You know you can't. You can't have a scene with
50:22
two lawyers or one lawyer says the other, my client's going to plead the
50:28
fifth you know what that means. That means he doesn't have to testify against
50:30
himself. Of course that he knows what that means. We'll be right back
50:36
after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. So
50:45
find a scene. Guy. The lawyer goes to the to the defendant's mother
50:51
and says, I don't want you to worry. I'm going to have him
50:52
plead the fifth and she's like, what's that? Is that dangerous? What?
50:54
What? What does that mean? But it's okay, it's okay,
50:57
take it easy. It just means he doesn't have to testify against himself.
51:00
And now there's a reason for exchanging that information right exactly as opposed to it
51:06
being the other way. Around. You know what that means. Yeah,
51:07
it's like, do we know what john Wick did prior to John Wick going
51:15
crazy because they stole his car and killed his dog? Like do we do?
51:19
All we know is that when they say his name, it's like the
51:21
Boogeyman walking into the baddest baddest MF guys in the world, the criminals of
51:25
the world. They're like, wait a minute, john Wick, Like,
51:29
I just watched the movie. Did you watch? Nobody not yet? It
51:32
is wonderful. It was written by Derek Derek I forgots last name, but
51:37
he wrote John Wick, and you can sense the John Wick esqueness of him
51:42
in there, and you like and they have scenes like that where someone's doing
51:46
research on on Saul. I can't remember his name, better call Saul him
51:52
the main actor, Bob Odenkirk, thank you. And when they and when
51:57
the person sees it, they're like, yeah, don't pay me, I'm
52:00
out of here, and that that's how much of a bad ass he is.
52:04
I was like, oh, so brilliant, but no one knows,
52:07
like, and he says that, I think at one moment he's one sentence
52:09
to explain who he was, and that's it. In the entire movie,
52:14
he explains one sentence of who he was, and you're like, that's all
52:16
you need. You don't need flashbacks, you don't need to see a scene
52:20
of him being a badass one thing. But like even I don't even think
52:24
it's been explained yet what John Wick has done in the past. They just
52:28
know he got and for three movies, you still don't know what john Wick
52:34
did or why he's just renowned. I mean, everyone just knows he's a
52:37
bast the table. I don't know what. No, he did something,
52:42
and there's been some little things of like how he left, but the reason
52:45
of how his legend became who he is has really never been explored very off,
52:51
very much. So it's it's it's sometimes better to leave it. That's
52:53
true. And I think that that's really interesting. I don't really thought about
52:57
John john Wick that much, but it would be What would be interesting to
53:00
look at John Wick is where do we get the sympathy for him? Where
53:07
do we get like we like him? You know, we want we don't
53:12
want him to die? You know, and why what is that? Where
53:15
is that located? Because I'll tell you, Oh, I'll tell you why.
53:17
There's there's we'll just go back to the first movie because now the second,
53:21
third movie, we already love John. John seems like he's trying to
53:24
do the right thing. So he's trying to he's trying to be a good
53:29
guy. Secondly, they stole his car, which is a badass car,
53:36
and that gets a certain demographic of the of the audience. So like,
53:40
you don't scratch a man's car. I mean, it's in pulp fiction,
53:43
you don't. You don't do that. You don't mess with another man's vehicle.
53:46
So there's that. And third, the oldest trick in the book,
53:52
they killed his dog. What do you want to do to establish a villain
53:55
have him kick a dog? Of course it's the oldest. It's the old
54:00
this trick in the book for writers. So what do they do? They
54:02
killed his dog. And of course the villain is just such a dumb ass
54:08
on time, he's not even a badass. He's a dump because if it
54:10
was, but there's a perfect example the guy who does all of this and
54:15
sorry for all the spoilers, you haven't seen John Wick. But if this
54:17
all happens in the first fifteen minutes, the bad the idiot who he doesn't
54:23
know what he's doing first of all. Secondly, if that character would have
54:27
been an absolute badass, it wouldn't have worked as well. It needed to
54:34
be a complete buffoon who He was a complete just ego centric, over the
54:39
top buffoon who did all of this. It makes it all the sweeter of
54:44
what's going. And then the dad is the real badass. You see.
54:46
You filled it in for me because I did not see the I missed the
54:50
first john Wick. I picked it up because I watched I watched the one
54:53
where he fights Boba Mariyanovitch because I'm a basketball fan, so like, oh
54:57
that I got to catch that john Wick one. John Wick one honestly is
55:04
as far as action is concerned, it is such a well written script.
55:07
I mean, Keanu is Keanu, you know he is he is? Uh
55:12
he is obviously Jesus but uh no. But all seriously is though that that
55:19
first film, there's a reason why there's so much love for that character that
55:22
it spawned two and three and now they're going to do four and five back
55:28
to back. Uh. And the thing is also that we feel for the
55:32
character because he you know, he lost his wife. He's trying to he's
55:37
trying to turn a new leave. He's trying to reinvent himself. He's trying
55:40
to all things that check little boxes inside it pull on certain strings of our
55:47
heart that you normally don't see in an action hero. And then he's and
55:52
he's quiet. That's the other thing he he doesn't talk. He's a man
55:55
of action. He has a little bit of dialogue. One of the best
56:00
scenes in the first John Wick is after John. They someone said a hit
56:04
squad for John Wick and burnt his house down or about to burn his house
56:07
down or something like that, and he dispatches all of them. And then
56:10
the cops show up, the cops. This is what's so beautiful about this
56:15
movie. The cops show up, knock on the door, and the cop
56:19
is there and goes, hey, John, how's that going? And then
56:23
he looks inside, without blinking, he looks inside, he sees a dead
56:28
body. He goes you working again, John. He's like, nah,
56:32
man, it's just an accident, okay, just checking and walks back,
56:38
just walks backwards, just like, have a good night, John. Like
56:44
that. That mythology that they've created for that character is so wonderful that now
56:52
there's a show I know the showrunner of the show, and he's writing a
56:55
show about the world that they created that Derek was able to. So it's
57:00
just it's just beautifully written. And hasn't it. Look we see action movies
57:05
come and go, when we see action heroes come and go, and you
57:07
know, this is not a John Claude vond And film or a Semas the
57:09
Gulf film. This is a well written, well performed, well directed action
57:15
But that's three But at the end of the day, it's about emotion.
57:17
It's about emotion and connecting to that character. And it's not just about the
57:21
spectacle. Spectacle's fun, but we've seen an action before. It's his character
57:24
that moves everything. Yeah, but what's interesting is how little, how little
57:30
one needs to actually because we're so used to genres and watching films, how
57:36
little one needs to actually use for all of that to come in for the
57:40
audience. And then they get to the other stuff. You know, we
57:45
feel, we feel in a lot of stuff, and this is one of
57:46
the other things about writing, and this is one of the things about using
57:50
genre. You know, audiences have seen so much. They understand film nore,
57:54
they understand westerns, they understand the tropes that are used. They understand
57:59
the mele drama that nowadays writers can use these genres as shorthands. Just a
58:05
little hint of brings the whole genre and many of the issues are the themes
58:10
of the genre into your movie. So we don't use them fully anymore.
58:15
We just liked like a little shorthand and it accents our films. And like
58:21
in you're watching movies like from the seventies, they had to do things so
58:25
differently than now because there's been so much content from the moment of the seventies
58:30
up until now. We're talking about fifty years that there's generations have been raised
58:36
on watching movies again. And also in the eighties is when we got vhs.
58:40
That changed the game. Now we could watch things a thousand times again
58:45
and again. So there's we're so much more the audience is so much more
58:47
educated, which is good and bad. Good because like you said, you
58:52
can use shorthand, but bad because now you're like, well, I got
58:53
to come up with something that they haven't seen before. Yeah. The other
58:57
thing too, is that you know you have that generation of things that you're
59:00
filmmakers that you're talking about. The Fincher's and the Tarantinos and these people who
59:04
are so film literate, who you know, are so profoundly knowledgeable that and
59:12
they're incorporating all this stuff and so it almost is like little what can I
59:16
say, a little master classes in every film. You know, every scene,
59:21
every scene is a master You watch the opening scene of Social Network,
59:23
and that's a masterclass in dialogue, in direction. That's another script I'd give
59:30
my students to read this. I mean, well, that's just I mean,
59:30
that's that's probably Sorkin's best script in my opinion, and he's written some
59:36
doozies, but it's just such a tight, tight, tight, tight film
59:39
and the way that Fincher and it's probably Fincher's best. And I love Fight
59:44
Club, Yeah, I absolutely adore Fight Club and seven seven is a masterpiece
59:50
in this genre as well. But we could just geek out forever. Yeah
59:53
yeah, Nick, But let me ask you, so, what's up next
59:55
for you? What is the book you're writing. We'll be right back after
1:00:00
a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. Well,
1:00:08
yeah, the book I'm writing is I was mentioning you before. It's a
1:00:12
screenwriting book. Really, It's like I said, it's not about drama.
1:00:15
It's not about structure, it's not about character. Really, it's a style
1:00:17
manual. Here's the proper way of writing screenplay, and then here's the way
1:00:22
professionals push break the rules to you know, for dramatic effects and what you
1:00:30
can get away with. Yeah, it's a mastering screenplay form and style is
1:00:37
what it's called. Okay, So yeah, that's that's next up. And
1:00:40
I'm also working on a couple of screenplays. Like I told you, I
1:00:45
just we just me and a friend of mine just sold something to Sony.
1:00:50
It was just we just sold treatments for our series. Now they got it.
1:00:54
So that sort of freed me up to work on some other projects.
1:00:57
That's awesome. Yeah, I have two scripts screenplay projects I'm working on,
1:01:01
very very cool man. And I'm gonna ask you a couple of questions.
1:01:04
Ask all my guests, what advice would you give a screenwriter wanting to break
1:01:07
into the business today? Oh wow, that's uh. I would say for
1:01:22
a screenwriter, I would say, write a lot, but I would find
1:01:25
ways to get your work made, even if it's just you know, pulling
1:01:31
together friends who are directors and crew and get your stuff see your see your
1:01:40
writing finished, even if you're just posting it on the web. And also
1:01:46
be flexible with the form that you are interested in, because writers these days,
1:01:53
you know, writing for television, if you're in a writing room,
1:01:57
it's a different skill than if you are creating a television show or writing a
1:02:00
feature film. It's a very different skill. Be prepared to write shorts,
1:02:08
small shorts for YouTube, be prepared to write for TV. We have to
1:02:15
be a little bit more. Writers need to be a little bit more sort
1:02:19
of polymass, you know, they need to know a broader range of skill.
1:02:23
And I would say, just keep knocking on doors, you know,
1:02:32
just keep knocking on doors. It takes you know, it's always been like
1:02:37
this. It takes tenacity, It really takes tannasty and always maintain enthusiasm and
1:02:45
energy and passion for your own work because it can be tough and you can
1:02:49
start to lose that. And no producer wants to hear somebody pitching the script
1:02:53
that they're not that writers not particularly interested in it. It is about skill,
1:03:00
experience, and luck and luck has from speaking to the people I've had
1:03:05
the pleasure of speaking to, they always tell me I was lucky. It
1:03:07
was the right place, right time, right script. And but the point
1:03:10
is you can't put yourself in that position unless you're knocking on doors. Yeah,
1:03:15
but there's a quote in the world of chess which is the people who
1:03:19
work the hardest of the luckiest. Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly.
1:03:23
If you keep knocking on those doors, it's just like one day someone's going
1:03:27
to open and go, where have you been? Here's a million dollars.
1:03:34
Meet people. Don't don't drop people, seek out other talented people and stick
1:03:38
to them. Yep, absolutely no question. You know the other thing about
1:03:43
about I mean, I'm not somebody who thinks that you have to go to
1:03:45
film school, although film school offers a film school offers a broad range of
1:03:51
experiences in a more compressed form. And you know, my first book I
1:03:57
wrote basically you know, out of friend who said, you're writing us all
1:04:00
out of a job. It's all there. Why do they need teachers anyone?
1:04:02
That was exactly my goal with that book. But students, when they're
1:04:11
in school, that's where you form the peer group that is going to be
1:04:15
your first professional account, first professional relationships out of school. And so you
1:04:20
need to find those people you can work with and start collaborating with them as
1:04:27
soon as possible and don't let them go. I agree with you one hundred
1:04:30
percent. Nick, Thank you so much for being on the show, my
1:04:32
friend. I truly appreciate it and continue the great work you're doing. Brother.
1:04:38
All right, all right, take care and it was a pleasure.
1:04:42
I want to thank Mik so much for coming on the show and dropping his
1:04:45
knowledge bombs on the Bulletproof Screenwriting Tribe. Thank you so much, Mick.
1:04:48
If you want to get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
1:04:51
including how to get his new screenwriting book, head over to the show notes
1:04:56
at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv forward slash one seven zero, and if you haven't
1:05:01
already, please head over to Screenwriting podcast dot com, subscribe and leave a
1:05:08
good review for the show. It truly truly helps us out a lot.
1:05:11
Thank you so much for listening, guys. As always, keep on writing
1:05:14
no matter what. Talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof
1:05:17
Screenwriting Podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting dot tv.