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IFH 714: Zero Draft Thiry - Inside Writing for Hollywood with Scott Myers · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking 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 IFH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Indie
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Filmhustle Podcast, Episode number seven fourteen. Yeah, I didn't get into sundancy
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either. Anonymous broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie Film
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Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive and thrive as an indie
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filmmaker in the jungles of the film biz. And here's your host, Alex
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Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast.
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I am your humble host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise
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order it, just head over to www dot film bizbook dot com. That's
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film bizbook dot com. Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis, the
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founder of Zero Draft thirty is actually the guest on this week's podcast, who's
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a screenwa and founder of one of the most popular screenwriting blogs, Going a
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Story, which is also the official blog of the Blacklist. He also reins
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also runs screenwriting Masterclass, and he's also an instructor, which we're going to
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get into as well, and without further ado, with guests Scott Myers.
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You know, my guiding light through most of my life has been Joseph Campbell
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and that simple little phrase, follow your bliss. Find that thing that you
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are passionate about, that that energizes you, that you feel you have a
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talent for and creatively, I've just always done that. And one of the
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things along the way was I discovered teaching. While I was writing. I'd
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go and do these presentations, be invited, and people say, hey,
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man, you're really good at this, maybe you should teach. So that
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started with teaching online through UCLA Extension. And then when we moved to North
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Carolina where I was, I love as a producer for a production company they're
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called Trailblazer Studios for eight years. I started teaching one class semester at UNC
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Chapel Hill and the Writing for Screening Stage program, which was great. And
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then the DePaul University School of Cinematic Arts here in Chicago came to know me.
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One of my colleagues now here Brad Riddell, who's a working screenwriter and
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had four movies made. He's now an associate professor here at at the program
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and the chair of our program Screenwriting program. And he got in touch with
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me because he know about my blog. He was a huge fan of the
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blog. So we started talking and it's very, very exciting things going on
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at De Paul. It's a fast growing school with incredible facilities. The school
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has three sound stages that it rents for the students at the largest studio system
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studio facility outside of Los Angeles and North America. This is the same facility
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where all the Chicago Fire, Chicago Hope, all those shows are filmed,
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Empire was filmed. There are lots of movies are filmed there. So the
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students not only get a chance to actually get hands on experience making movies like
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right away, a very diy spirit here at the school. They have incredible
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gear and these sound stages and a three time grip truck. They are also
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segue into working for these productions for NBC and whatnot. So that combined with
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the fact that the faculty here is tremendous, the support from the administration is
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outstanding. The school is extremely diverse. A lot of schools talk about,
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well we want to you know, we're into inclusion, we want to diverse
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student bodies. Well, DePaul actually has that. I mean my current MFA
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cohort, the group that's going to be graduating in twenty nineteen, that MFA
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group is fifty percent non white and over fifty percent women, And it's really
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exciting to work with people who have diverse backgrounds and to be able to help
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them find their voice and facilitate their writing process. So, circling back to
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how I got here, it was just one of those things you put yourself
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out there, you do something that you are passionate about, and as Campbell
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says, the universe will open doors where there used to be walls. And
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the Paul invited me to come here and apply for the position, and I
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got it, and I moved here two years ago, and I love it.
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It's just a tremendous place to be and very exciting working with these students.
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You know, during the application process, did you know they ask any
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sort of like questions about production or anything like that, like how you would
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handle something, because I mean, I imagine you you were kind of I
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mean not just about screenwriting, so imagine you you kind of have your hands
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and you wear a lot of hats. As what I'm trying to say,
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Oh yeah, I wear a lot of hats. And the great thing about
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the Paul School Cinematic Arts is that we've got eight eight areas of concentration.
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So there's screenwriting, there's directing, there's creative producing, there's all sorts of
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a post there's an animation group that's terrific. So we don't have a silo
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system. We work together students. Again, the students are I had a
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freshman last year. He was like three weeks and I mean all my students,
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one on one and all my classes. I just think that's important to
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do. And I was saying, well, I hope you take advantage of
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your time here because it's it's really amazing that you have all these facilities and
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resources to go out and make these short films. He said, I'm already
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making one. Three weeks in. He's already making one. So there's a
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lot of communication between the directors and the writers. We have meetings every quarter
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whereby students get together in this big group and they pitched these projects to each
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other and it's incredibly collaborative things. So yes, I'm involved with helping them
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with the scripting thing, helping them with their edits, helping them with some
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of the directing choices they're making. Is I oversee some other thesis projects and
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whatnot? You know, I should note that just recently, uh de Paul,
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you know, Hollywood Reporter came out with their top twenty five Film schools,
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and DePaul's thirteen in that list and rising clearly the number one film school
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in the Midwest. We aspire to be more than that variety. We made
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that list at the top film schools. So it's a it's a really exciting
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place to be and we're having students go to LA now and schieve some success.
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So yeah, one of the reasons I enjoyed being here is that I
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get a chance to wear a lot of hats and work with students in a
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lot of different ways. So, you know, Scott, you mentioned that
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the student that that, you know, three weeks in he was already shooting
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something or planning to shoot something. Do you ever have the opposite? I
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mean, is there ever a student who shows up and and just says,
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you know, uh, you know, maybe they start dragging their feet or
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they have to kind of say, how are you, hey, aren't you
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going to make something? Do you ever have that? Uh? Yeah,
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there are students who you know, and I don't you know, I don't
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denigrate them at all. If they come here and they just want to be
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writers, you know, or perhaps they just want to work in post,
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you know, in visual effects, they don't want to go out and do
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production, you know. Having done some of that, I think I agree
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pretty much with what William Goldman said when he said paraphrasing here, he said,
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the first day. The most exciting day of a screenwriter's life is a
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first day on a set on a movie set. The most boring day in
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a screenwriter's life is the second day in the movie set, you know,
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because it's a lot of set up and just waiting her out for things,
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you know. So I found that when I was doing TV producing out in
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the field and whatnot, it was okay, I didn't really enjoy it that
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much. I really enjoy more working. So there are students who I respect
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that. But then there are other students who have to be encouraged who they
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have a creative idea and they've got a good visual sense of acuity and say,
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okay, come on, yes, get out there and try it.
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There's no there's no downside here. It's not like if you make a short
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film and it stinks, well, you've learned a lot. There's things that
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you can only learn, but being out in the field and making movies.
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You just can't learn it all by sitting in a room writing. And so
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I encourage people to, you know, all my writers that I work with,
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whether it's through to Paul or through a screenwrinning masterclass, or interfacing with
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my blog or going out to these conferences and festivals I've been going to more
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frequently now, I encourage them to go make stuff. This is a time
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right now where with everything going on and the second golden age of TV or
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peak TV, digital filmmaking where content is King, Queen, Prince, duke
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whatever, and who is responsible for creating that content, for coming up that
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stuff at the inception stage is writers will be right back after a word from
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our sponsor and now back to the show. And so this is a fantastic
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opportunity for people who are creative and I have a good way with words and
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know how to write and craft stories, to do that and then see if
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they have a directorial shops that way, you can control your material a lot
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more so. Yeah, I have students who run the gamut, you know.
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I have students that come in and you know, many of them have
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they can name for you every single shot in a Martin Scorsese movie. And
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I mean I've had those kind of students. And I have students who come
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in who their parents, you know, have them majoring in economics or business
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or whatnot, but they're creative. And so they come in here and they
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can take a double major in screenwriting a BFA or a BA or even a
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minor, you know, and to see them light up and see them really
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grow creatively, and maybe it's only an advocation for them moving forward and not
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a vocation, well that's great. At least they've discovered something that they're passionate
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about and they have a talent for and they can do that and uh and
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have them mature and fuller life. You know, I thought you were going
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to say the William Goldman quote nobody knows anything, So yeah, well that's
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true. I mean, oh, we're seeing this right now, aren't we,
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Dave, Like, you know, up until about a year ago,
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it was like, oh, rom coms are dead, nobody wants to see
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romantic comedies. Rich Crazy Rich Asians comes out, boom three of them,
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Green Litton one week, you know, spec Script Singles Day, the sequel
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to Crazy Rich Asians and a K pop projects in Korea. So you know,
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now we're seeing articles about how crazy rich Asians has resurrected the rom coms.
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So people when they say these things, you know, they don't understand
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the cyclical nature of the business. And yeah, so I think that's probably
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true, Golden says, nobody knows anything. Yeah, it's kind of like
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how zombies we're always you know, considered played out or what have you,
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and then the Walking Dead came around and now suddenly they're you know, they
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were cool again, and then then then you know, now now it's cycle
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all over again. Well, I'll tell you another thing because you know,
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you know me, I tracked the spec script market and I've been tracking it
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since well, I broke in in nineteen eighty seven by selling a canine and
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then really started in earnest to track it in eighty nine ninety. So my
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blog going to the story, you can go and see that I've got over
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two thousand spec script deals annotated. They're dating back to nineteen ninety one and
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up through two thousand and fourteen. Not one time in the entire period of
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tracking spec script market. The twenty some nine years of doing that was drama
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in the top three in terms of genre sales. It was always comedy,
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action or thriller always, and then for the last three years the number one
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genre in the spec script market has been dramas. Again, nobody knows anything,
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so we're in a new cycle here and trying to interpret that. It's
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quite interesting. I think part of it is that people have grown up with
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reality TV a whole generation, and so they're used to and interested in,
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quote unquote real people, and so in the case of historical dramas, they
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actually are like real people. I think part of it is nostalgia. We're
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a wash in nostalgia right now, and so when they see a picture,
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you know, like a script that was on the top of the Blacklist of
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years back about Madonna or before that, about Michael Jackson toil from the perspective
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of his pet mockey Bubbles. You know, those type of historical dramas,
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they hit there, they hit on a you know where the reader or the
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viewer knows them. It's like nostalgic. And I think the final thing really
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going on there is just the studios are way into pre branded content. You
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know, they want content that people will know about, and so historical figures,
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you know, is a way of doing that because people will know about
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a figure in the past, you know. So so yeah, it's it's
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a it's a it's a fascinating time. We really is. It's just an
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interesting time right now, and it's great to be a creator in that type
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of environment. So so, Scottli, what have you read any like unpublished
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or I'm sorry unpublished? Have you read any any unproduced screenplays recently that have
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just like floored you? Yes, I just got done doing my twelfth Blacklist
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feature Writers Lab in La got back about two weeks ago, and there were
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six projects and all of them were really good, and a couple of them
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were just we're you know, one of them was like almost ready to go.
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I mean, there's some rewriting they could do on it, but you
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could totally see it. It's a genre peace elevator, genre peace and so
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yes, you know, there's there's great material out there now. The specscript
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market is down this year, and it's compared to last year, and last
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year was down compared to the previous year, and I think in large part
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that's due to the studios, you know, again just relying on pre branded
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content. Franchise material and whatnot. But I still believe this to be true
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that if you write a great script, it'll find its way. Someone's going
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to respond to that. And so, yeah, there's great material out there.
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You know. I've got students here written scripts that they'll need to rewrite
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them, but they get strong concepts, great character execution. So yeah,
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there's still some really good content being made. That's the key. It's just
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you write a great script. So so let's talk about that. You know,
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when you're working with students, you know, what are some of the
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advice that you give to these college students. Well, the first thing is
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to remind them constantly that movies are primarily a visual medium. There are some
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who will tend to rely too much on dialogue to drive the action. Not
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to say that dialogue's bad, it isn't, but for certain genres action,
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comedy, depending upon the type of comedy that's thriller, science fiction, fantasy,
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those type of movies really lend themselves to visual storytelling. And that's the
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type of thing that Hollywood does better than anybody else in the world, you
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know, visual storytelling, And so I remind them that. Look, for
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the first three decades movies existence. There was no dialogue. It was silent
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films. Yeah, we had those little inner titles, but largely it was
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just visuals. And in some ways we're circling back to that kind of paradigm,
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I think because now with the box office receipts, the revenues seventy to
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seventy five percent of those generated by the international markets. Whereas a joke,
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a line of dialogue, an exchange of dialogue may not translate that well from
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say the United States to China or Brazil or Germany or whatnot. Someone slipping
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out of an antipedal and falling on their asses universally funny. So that's the
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first thing I hammer with them, like every quarter, is you know,
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it's a visual medium. You've got to think visually. You know, whenever
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you start to construct a scene, that's your starting point is a visual storytelling.
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I'd also say this because you know, I stay on top of the
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business. It's weird that I'm in you know, I'm more connected now in
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Hollywood than I ever was when I lived two and a half miles east of
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twentieth century Fox. Because of my blog. You know, is there are
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several things going on relative to cultural trends and technological developments. The generation right
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now, the young gener young people you know up through the millennials, but
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these eighteen year olds up to that, they have seen, heard, or
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read exponentially more stories than previous generations if you consider stories to be snapchat conversations
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and text conversations and YouTube videos that sort of thing. And those are stories,
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you know, beginning, middle end, many of them. And so
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they just intuitively no story on a level that I think previous generations don't.
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So, for example, they don't need as much exposition now as it used
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to be, which is why I think you've seen this shift back in the
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eighties when I broke in what is now what used to be the end of
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act one then is now the middle of act one. You just don't need
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all that set up. Get into the story and get going. And that's
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another thing, because young people nowadays are so used to getting their content when
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they want it, how they want it. Now now now that another thing
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I take to teach my students is get into the story. Drop them in.
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There's a Latin phrase and media race. Drop them into the middle.
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We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the
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show. Just put them in there. They want that type of thing,
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they want to get into the story. They may not even need to know
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that much about the characters. You think about movies like Ex Machina or Lucy.
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There's a couple of movies that come to mind, you know barely anything
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about the protagonists. Within two to three minutes, boom, they're into the
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plot. And so I think young audience is kind of like that, like,
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okay, as long as I'm not confused. Let's say I'm here with
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this character and we're into the action, I'm going to find out all that
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exposition along the way, not sort of lay it out up front like we
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would traditionally used to do. So there are definitely some things going on in
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terms of technology and cultural mindset that you know, we need to be cognizant
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of as screenwriters, and I try to pass that along to my students.
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So when you mentioned that, you know, it used to be in the
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eighties, the end of act one is now the middle of act one?
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Do you sort of so so let me ask you this guy, let me
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kind of rephrase that my question, do you kind of think like you know,
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usually in the Hero's Journey with Joseph Campbell. You know, there's a
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there's the call to action, and then there's the refusal of the call.
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Don't you think that the refusal of that call sometimes can be a little too
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is maybe not needed? And here's what I mean by that. You know,
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if you go to see like a road trip movie, nowadays, you
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already know the going on the road trip. So is there really any need
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to have a refusal of the call? Because, I mean, hell,
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the you know that then being on the road is the whole reason that brought
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you into the theater, do you know what I mean? Well, that's
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you're raising an interesting point, Dave, which is that the awareness level of
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people going into movies is such based on trailers and the inundation of marketing,
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and I think that does have an impact. So if you know that this
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is a road picture, do you really need to spend twenty five pages setting
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it up? No, you don't, you know, You're just you're just
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gonna You're gonna bore the younger generation. They they just want things to I
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think, in their storytelling to move much more quickly. So in terms of
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the refusal to call, Well, this gets into a bigger area. And
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this is another thing that I hammer my students on, which is that you've
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got to ground your story crafting process in the characters and so in particularly the
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protagonist. And so if the question for you know, if you were like
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a student who came in and said, I don't know whether I should have
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a refusal of the call to adventure with this character or not, you know,
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I would say, well, don't look at it from outside the story
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universe. Go inside the story universe and get to know that character. Are
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they the type of individual that would refuse or are they the type of individual
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who would leap at the opportunity. You really need to ground the storytelling and
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what I call the protagonist's journey. In fact, I'm working up a book
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proposal right now. I was approached by a publishing company to write a potential
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textbook in which we invert the way we look at I think typically, or
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at least the way that kind of floats around in the screenplay universe about how
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to approach story structure. So much of the emphasis is on plot and on
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these page counts and whatnot, which I think is a rather wrongheaded way of
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approaching it. Much better to go at it by immersing yourself and engage in
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the story universe and engaging yourself with all the characters, in particularly the protagonist.
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The protagonist's goal, the protagonists want and need. All that stuff basically
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sets the spine of the story. And so how much better to come to
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the plot by working with the character and determine it's their story, you know,
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it's their fate. I call it the narrative imperative. That story that
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happens to the protagonist. If it happened two weeks ago in their life or
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a month from now, it would be a different story. It's happening right
24:04
now. There's a reason why you type fade in at this moment with that
24:08
story. And there's a reason why that character intersects with other characters, the
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specific set of characters as they go along. There's a reason why those events
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happen and acts one, two, and three, because it's facilitating the protagonist
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transformation that journey. Again, this is inverting the idea as opposed to looking
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at the plot. First look at the plot as a way of facilitating,
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servicing, and supporting the protagonist transformation. Joseph Campbell said, the whole point
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of the hero's journey is transformation, and so that's another big area that I
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focus on with my students. We do a ton of work on character development.
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In fact, I created a class here called story development, and we
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spend it's an entire quarter working with characters and out of that working up an
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outline. So then you move into writing a first draft. So back to
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your question, I mean this thing about whether there's a refusal look call any
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of that stuff. You have to be mindful of cultural trends and you know,
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audiences in terms of their interests and predilections, but everything needs to be
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grounded and working with the characters. As far as I'm concerned, I mean
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character equals plot and so let's put some flesh on the bones there and actually
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make that come to fruition. Is it when you see these students come in,
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or even when you're working online with different people, do you see a
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tendency to do that formula sort of plot points? Well, there are some
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books and you know them, I won't name them, that are that you
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know that that have very specific paradigms, and you know, I just have
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I have concerns about that. I have concerns about that multiple levels. If
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you reduce screenplays to you know, these specific sort of page count. This
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needs to happen here, and this needs to happen there, you're it's problematic
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on several fronts. One, it demeans the craft. It makes it look
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like we're dealing with widgets as opposed to the creative effort and the creative skill
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and talent that's required to write a rich story with multidimensional characters, surprising twists
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and turns and all the rest. You know, that requires creativity. If
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you're out there espousing something then you have a software system that you can plug
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things into and come out with a paradigm or whatever, then that demeans the
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craft. And that extends to the experience of professional screenwriters working in Hollywood right
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now. If you're studio executive who maybe got an MBA from Stanford or Harvard,
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you meet with them and you and they're giving you script notes and they
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say, well, I'm sorry, but you're act one end's too late.
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You know, it needs to break into Act two on twenty five. Well,
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if that's all they know about story, is that sort of formulaic approach
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to screenwriting, then why do we end up with so many formulaic script movies.
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It's because of that type of thinking. So I think that any attempt
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to codify some sort of so called rules or these kind of formulas is really
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working at counter purposes to what it should be, which is a true creative
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effort. And that again, lean into the characters, see where they take
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you. You know, it's exciting to see scripts like A Quiet Place.
27:55
Did you read the script A Quiet Place? Or you've seen the movie right,
27:57
probably, David, Yeah, the movie. I didn't read the screenplay.
28:00
Well, you know, it breaks like so many of the so called
28:06
rules. I think it's like sixty eight pages long. They include photographs and
28:12
images, they mess around with thoughts. I've actually interviewed those guys and they're
28:18
actually coming to Chicago and the end of September for our Courier twelve conference and
28:22
going to be panelists here, Scott and Bryan. And so you read these
28:27
scripts and see that there are these creative choices being made and the stories work.
28:37
You know, they don't fit the they don't fit the sort of formula
28:42
paradigm. So yeah, I'm fortunately for me, most of the students I
28:49
deal with, except for the graduate students who may have had more experience and
28:53
you know, immersing themselves in screenwriting the world of screenwriting, and not most
29:00
of my students are undergraduate and they haven't been tainted by that, you know,
29:04
which is great because then I can just deal with them like you've seen
29:07
them, you know, thousands of movies and TV series and whatnot. Great,
29:11
you've got in an eight understanding of this, and so let's build on
29:15
that. But let's start with characters. Okay, let's start with your characters
29:19
and see where they take you. Yeah, so it's it's kind of like
29:26
you're you're letting the characters kind of lead the plot rather than having, you
29:29
know, this sort of template that comes in. I always see those templates
29:33
like like training wheels. You know, it's fine to use it if you're
29:36
doing like your first you know, screenplay or whatever. But if you start
29:38
keep doing that, you kind of end up with those formulaic movies that you
29:41
know, you and always talk about. Well, and some of those formulas
29:45
were created back in the nineties, you know, are they relevant twenty years
29:51
later? We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now
30:00
back to the show. You know, apart from three X structure, and
30:06
perhaps the idea of sequences. You know, is there anything really that is
30:12
kind of sacrosanct in terms of the craft visa visa this, you know,
30:18
screenplay structure. I don't think so, you know, I think that again
30:22
you yes, have follow the characters. It's their story, they exist,
30:27
they know it better than you do. They're inviting you to tell the story.
30:30
They want you to tell the story. So it's much better to have
30:36
uh, you know, we go through these brainstorming exercises, like I take
30:38
my students through. We do six sets of brainstormy exercises. We spend an
30:42
entire couple of weeks just doing brainstorming, you know, forget any of the
30:51
construction construction of the story. The first we just get to know the characters.
30:55
And so they'll do the traditional indirect engagement exercises like questionnaire, some biographies,
31:00
and I'll have them, you know, write a scene just to kind
31:03
of with the characters and just get them loosened up. But then we move
31:07
into these direct engagement exercises, which are great. It's like, all right,
31:11
imagine you're a psychiatrist and you're gonna have this patient as one of your
31:17
characters, and they've been court appointed. They have to see you, and
31:22
they have to answer questions. They can I get out of this unless they
31:25
answer your questions. And so now you move from dealing with the character as
31:27
an eye it relationship like they're over there, you're dealing with them directly as
31:33
an IU. And so I'll have them do these exercises where they interview the
31:37
characters. Then they'll even get a little bit more into that kind of California
31:42
New Age thing, which is a lot of fun when I'm dealing with some
31:45
students who are a little bit more left brain oriented. Okay, so I'm
31:48
going to have you go in our room, close the door, turn off
31:52
the phone, get a piece of paper and a pad of paper and a
31:56
pen, or get in your computer, and I want you to do some
32:00
deep breathing. It's like meditation. I want you to deep breathe in and
32:04
out for about a minute or so, and I want you to be thinking
32:07
of that character and get into their headspace. And for the next ten or
32:13
fifteen minutes it set a timer. I want you to blind type what are
32:16
they thinking? What are they feeling? And yes, your mind will go
32:21
well, I have to do this, and I've got to go wash the
32:22
dog and whatever. That's just chatter. Let it go. Come back to
32:28
that character and keep reaching out to them and try and get into their headspace.
32:31
You can do that as like stream of consciousness. You can also do
32:35
that as like monologues, like what are they going to say? And so
32:37
you just blind type. You do that for ten or fifteen minutes. Now
32:42
what you end up with maybe eighty percent of it is nonsensical, but twenty
32:46
percent of it, whatever percentage twenty fifteen can be gold. You've like accessed
32:55
that character. Moreover, if it is like a monologue or even just articulating
33:00
what they're thinking or feeling, you're starting to get a sense of their voice.
33:06
And so it is that weird thing I call writing wrangling magic. You
33:10
know where you're you're believe in this magical thing where the characters exist in this
33:16
weird way, and so if you really believe that, then you'll start to
33:22
see and hear them. It's like the inverse of that, seeing is believing,
33:24
Well believing is seeing and hearing. You reach out to them, they
33:28
wouldn't have appeared to you, and they wouldn't want you to write their story
33:31
if they hadn't shown up that they did show up somehow in your conscious subconscious
33:36
or conscious life, and so reach out to them and so we do all
33:39
this brainstorm It's great, it's really great. And I have to say I've
33:45
done that, and I teach it to Paul and screenwriting master class. I
33:49
have that prep class I started eight years ago and I've done that like thirty
33:52
times. That's the thing that I mean, apart from everything else that they
33:58
enjoy, the writers enjoy about that process when we get through that brainstorming and
34:01
they create this master brainstorming list and they got all this content that they've surfaced,
34:05
ten twenty pages of stuff before they even moved toward plotting. I get
34:10
compliments about that all the time, like, oh my god, that was
34:13
such a mind blowing experience. I can't believe how great that was. How
34:15
much more in touch I am with the story? You know? And I've
34:19
added benefit. When you're in touch with the characters and they're alive and they're
34:22
speaking to you and you're seeing them and you're hearing them and you can't get
34:25
them out of your mind, how much more motivated are you to write the
34:30
story because you're connected with them? So yeah, you know I preach the
34:35
character a lot. I'm sorry, I get off of my soapbox on that,
34:37
but I just it's a counteractive to formulaic writing. It's just working with
34:42
characters. And moreover, it's just I think the right headed way to do
34:45
it. You say, I think it's kind of like it gives you,
34:49
like that north star, that north star that's kind of like this is where
34:52
you're going through story, rather than kind of making the writing of its selfish
34:57
U stream of consciousness, you know what I mean. So it kind of
35:00
it allows him to have a lot more or even just you know, anyone
35:02
doing this in general, it asually have a lot more of not where to
35:07
go. But also you kind of know, okay, well, these are
35:09
some different scenarios or situations or what have you that that I've already kind of
35:14
thought about. But before I get to the outlining phase. Oh yeah,
35:17
and the brainstorming, I tell him, don't pre edit. I mean,
35:21
you may be sitting there typing right this stream of consciousness and all of a
35:24
sudden, chocolate milkshake pops to mind. You may think, oh, well,
35:30
that's just dumb, No put it down. Imagine what orson wells if
35:34
you'd been brainstorming and said, snowglobe, what's that? Threw it away?
35:38
You know, no, became an essential part of Citizen Kane. So you'll
35:43
have scenes up here, You'll have lines of dialogue up here, You'll have
35:45
moments up here, You'll have characters pop up. You may be working on
35:51
the protagonist character and all of a sudden, the nemesis pops up. Okay,
35:54
go off and work with the nemesis. They evidently want to talk to
35:58
you right now. Now that said, you can if you're working with the
36:02
protagonist, I think you talk about a north star. The protagonist is your
36:07
north star. In most stories, the protagonist's journey is what dictates like virtually
36:15
everything. It's why those are the characters exist. If you think about,
36:22
for example, not Ron Best. Robert Town had that great question. He
36:27
said, one of the best ways to understand a character is to ask,
36:30
what are they most afraid of? Okay, well, let's run with that.
36:35
So what if you work with a protagonist and you come up with an
36:38
answer to that, what are they most afraid of? Right? Clarie Starling
36:43
in the Silence of the Lambs, most afraid of confessing that horrible experience she
36:49
had in the Montana farm where she saw that witnessed the spring slaughter of the
36:53
lambs. She grabbed a lamb and ran off with it. She was trying
36:59
to save that, I am, but it was so heavy, it was
37:01
so heavy. She says, Well, if you really drill down into the
37:06
psychology of that story, she is that lamb represents her father. She's trying
37:10
to save her father. Her father was slain when she was like ten years
37:14
old, and so what she's most afraid of is the boogeyman who killed her
37:20
dad. The random chance he opens a door, these guys are stealing a
37:23
TV boom boom, they shoot him and he dies. So so if she's
37:29
afraid of facing those the associations that she has with her father's death and those
37:35
bad guys, you know, with that experience in the Montana farm, well,
37:40
so what better way to create drama than to have her face a boogeyman
37:45
at the end who is Buffalo Bill. So, now all of a sudden,
37:51
you've got a specific psychological connection between your protagonist and your nemesis. It's
37:54
not just generic that nemesis is a projection or physical realization of the of the
38:01
protagonist. Shadow using this language and so okay, that's cool. Well then
38:07
you think, all right, well, so what about allies along the way?
38:10
Well you'll meet like a mentor figure or two. You know. Well,
38:14
in case of Clarie Starling, that's just the great you know. It's
38:16
just that that movie is like the perfect thing for me to teach because it's
38:20
like fits everything that hits everything that I kind of believe about storytelling, mentor
38:25
characters. Hannibal Lecter perfect guy for her, not only because he's tied to
38:30
the Buffalo bill case, but also because he's a strenk and so he's he
38:35
can absolutely guide her into herself, which is what she needs to do.
38:40
If you look at the story the Silence of the Lamps from a meta standpoint,
38:44
you know, what is the narrative imperative? Why does Clarisse get called
38:47
into this story? It's yeah, it's to solve the case and to save
38:52
Catherine Martin. But on a personal level and her psychological journey. It's the
38:57
intersect with Hannibal Elector and they do that qui pro quote you tell me,
39:02
I'll tell you things. You tell me things clear, but not but personal
39:06
things, right, So you know she Crawford says, don't let him inside
39:10
your head. Boom, she lets him inside her head, and so the
39:14
mentor helps her go all the way down and tell that thing that she doesn't
39:17
want to confess, which is the story of the month Ni Farm. So
39:21
if you work with the protagonists and you start thinking in terms of their journey,
39:24
you can even by asking the question, my language system, what's their
39:29
opening state of disunity? What are they disconnected from in their in their psyche.
39:37
There's stuff they're repressing, their their core of being, their their needs.
39:42
When we talk about need not need to obtain something, but need to
39:45
emerge, what needs to emerge from inside? Right, Glinda the good Witch
39:51
says to Dorothy, Dorothy, you've had the power to go home all along.
39:53
It's already there. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
40:02
And now back to the show. Ovid says, the seeds of change
40:07
lie within, and so the character, the protagonist, has that stuff inside
40:12
and it needs to emerge. So they're in a state of disunion. They're
40:15
just connected from that. But if you can identify what it is that needs
40:17
to come out, that suggests the endpoint unity, positive transformation. Obviously,
40:23
there are stories where the protagonist doesn't have a positive transformation. So just by
40:29
working with the protagonist character and looking at their their psychological state to depth,
40:35
you can surface all sorts of things. And of course brainstorming will help surface
40:39
this subconscious stuff that you know can really enrich a story. Again getting off
40:45
on a soapbox that day. But I'm passionate about this stuff. You know,
40:49
I want people to write stories that are vibrant and alive and you know,
40:54
not formulaic, that the plot emerges from working with the characters. You
40:59
know, that's my true passion. Yeah, it's just like this interview,
41:02
like I'm Clarice and you're you're kind of accountable lecter. I've come to ask
41:07
you for over for help, and yeah, well I I funny. I
41:14
did the London Screenwriting Festival last year Screenwriters Festival, and they invited me back.
41:17
I'm going again in a week and I'll be doing a masterclass and four
41:22
presentations. But I talk about one of the presentations I did last year and
41:27
they asked me to reprise it this year is writing a worthy nemesis. And
41:32
my thesis there is that the best way to come up with a worthy nemesis
41:37
is to start with the protagonist again, what is inside them? If you
41:43
ask the question what do they fear the most, and then put the protagonists
41:46
in the situation where they have to confront that fear, that's just great drama.
41:51
So but yeah, I back. The point is that I do a
41:53
little Hannibal Lecter interpret impersonation. But I do that, and uh, some
42:00
people really like that last year, so I guess I'll try try and do
42:02
that again this year. It's something that somebody wants pointed out to me.
42:06
Now I can't hear it. It was I I ate his liver with farber
42:12
beans, a bottle, a bottle of key key yeah, and somebody said
42:15
it's actually key key anti or something like. Apparently he mispronounced it in the
42:20
movie and I didn't even notice it. And I'm like, now, now,
42:22
whenever I hear him, kind of like, oh, well, he
42:23
says it, but he I think he's being ironic. I mean, I
42:28
think he purposefully miss mispronounced it because he you will listen to it, it's
42:31
hang there, he goes with some fava beans and a nice canty like he's
42:36
from New York or something. You know, Uh that, Yeah, I
42:39
think he does kind of mispronounce it or whatever. But but you know,
42:44
I'm gonna have to watch we watched the movie and h and pay attention to
42:46
that part again. But but you know, I wanted to you know it,
42:49
Scott. I know we're kind of pushed on time, but I wanted
42:52
to talk about zero Draft thirty. It's it's you know, it's uh,
42:55
you know, I wanted to interview you again before it's started, and it's
42:58
actually starting in what two days for first Yeah, yeah, so two days?
43:02
So, uh, you know, could you just you know take us
43:05
through, you know, the impetus for you to start zero draft thirty and
43:07
what it is for those who don't know. Sure, Well, back in
43:13
October twenty fifteen, I've been working on a script project and developing it and
43:16
it started writing it when something happened in the news that basically blew up the
43:22
story. And so, you know, I've had situations where projects had gotten
43:28
kind of pulled out from underneath me, but this was particularly veccine because I
43:30
put a lot of time into it, and so I was very frustrated.
43:34
Well, I had this comedy that I'd been sitting in my back burner for
43:37
some time, so I just said on my blog, all right, I
43:40
haven't even worked the story out. I know the characters, I know kind
43:45
of where I want to go. But starting November first through November thirtieth,
43:49
I'm just going to write this script. And it's like nantal write moo.
43:52
I mean, it's not like an original idea. They used to do a
43:55
thing called script Frenzy, but they stopped doing it, I think in twenty
43:59
thirteen. So I've just invited people to do it with me. Well,
44:01
I got picked up by indie wire. It was translated into like Spanish and
44:07
other languages, and I think we had over a thousand as far as I
44:09
could tell, guestimate people doing that, and we had dozens and dozens and
44:14
dozens of people who finished the script. Somebody came up with this idea I
44:17
called it zero drafts, and then they came up with the idea of zero
44:20
draft thirty, like zero dark thirty on the zero draft thirty, and so
44:23
that became the moniker for it. The basic idea of zero draft is it's
44:28
like a pre first draft. So if you have problems with perfectionism and you
44:32
have problems with procrastination, and procrastination largely is about well, I'm afraid that
44:37
what I'm going to produce is not going to be any good. So that's
44:39
perfectionism. Well this is a great way. It's like a blast at that
44:45
because it's all about productivity rather than you know, the quality. It's about
44:52
quantity pages, not quality pages obviously, right those best you can. But
44:57
the point is to get from fade into fade out with the belief that by
45:00
having done that, you will have learned a lot more about your story than
45:05
when you began it. Even if you've outlined your story, and you will
45:08
across that psychological barrier which you've gotten to the first draft, and so now
45:13
you can have something to work with as opposed to just staring at a blank
45:16
page. So what happened was we did that, and then my theory is,
45:22
and I always tell people that if you're outside the business and you want
45:24
to break in, you need to be obviously watching movies and reading scripts,
45:30
but also writing pages. And so write two specs a year. Even if
45:34
you did one page a day, you spend a month prepping a story you
45:38
wrote for four months a page a day, that's one hundred and twenty pages.
45:40
And then you spend a month rewriting it. Well, you could do
45:44
two spec scripts a year just by writing one page a day. So what
45:49
I did was on the blog. We decided to do two zero Draft thirty
45:52
challenges a year, one in September and one in March. March is actually
45:58
thirty one day, so you get a bonus day, and so they're basically,
46:01
you know, spaced six months apart. And there's a Facebook group Zero
46:06
Draft thirty Facebook group which is a public group, but it's private in the
46:09
sense that you have to join it. We now have thirty one hundred members.
46:13
That's an ongoing thing. You know, it's a terrific group. It's
46:16
very much like going to the story. It's everybody in there, you know,
46:22
understands that it's a real hard to road to hoe that the competition is
46:24
fierce and success it is hard to come by. But we're also optimistic.
46:30
We're also we lift each other up. You know. I kind always just
46:34
point to myself say, look, I was completely outside the business. I
46:36
knew one person and I wrote my third spec script and sold, so you
46:39
know, I can't deny that reality. It does happen, even though the
46:43
odds are long. So the zero Draft thirty challenge starts in September one ends
46:47
in September thirtieth. I do a blog post every day with some inspirational stuff.
46:52
We I look, you know, there's a hashtag ZD thirty script.
46:57
I look there, I look at the Facebook group, I look at blog.
47:00
I see what people are posting. Every day. I'll select somebody and
47:04
give them an award. It varies. Sometimes it's the Anita Loose Award,
47:08
who was one of the first great screenwriters in Hollywood, a woman, And
47:13
sometimes it's a Dalton Trumbo Award, And so they just get a little picture
47:16
with their name on it and just a little something to motivate people. But
47:22
it's great. And we also this year have a harmonic convergence for reasons which
47:28
I can't get into. It's just too long. But the spirit animal for
47:32
the Zero Draft thirty group is a hamster called scamper. We don't go writing
47:37
sprints. We do writing scampers. Again, it's like, have some fun
47:42
with this, right, so we do this thing. We've now done it.
47:44
I think like thirty times every first Friday night or Saturday, you know,
47:49
twenty one one am to Sunday, twenty four hour period, we do
47:52
what we call our writing scamper a thon. So there're twenty four hosts around
47:57
the world each hour of the day that you know, you just pick a
48:00
day, pick pick time slot, you're going to know that somebody's going to
48:05
be there to usher you into your hour and congratulate you on spending that hour
48:09
writing. The point of it is to get people to write on weekends,
48:13
and the point of that is to get people to write every day. You
48:15
know, if you get writing every day, there becomes a habit and you're
48:17
more productive. So it just so happens that this September Challenge, starting September
48:23
one at twelve or one am, I'm going to launch the next twenty four
48:30
hours scamper thought. So people are interested, they can go to the zero
48:34
draft thirty Facebook group. Just look that up. Against tremendous group of people
48:39
there. We get some wonderful moderators who oversee things and there's no we don't
48:44
allow anybody to promote any consulting services or any contests or any of that stuff.
48:50
It's like a completely ad free, pressure free zone. It's just people
48:53
who you know, want to support each other and help each other and and
48:59
you know, write groups form off that. You know, private writers groups
49:01
or people will say I have some pages. I'll read pages in exchange for
49:06
you reading pages. You can do that offline. So but anyhow, that's
49:10
zero draft thirty. It's the zero draft approach. There are there are professional
49:15
writers who do this. There's a that's Scott Fraser five or six years ago,
49:20
got on Twitter one day and said I'm going to write a draft in
49:22
twenty four hours, and he commented along the way uh in on Twitter,
49:30
and he did. He wrote that draft in twenty four hours. It was
49:32
a real rough draft, like sixty pages. But that became a movie.
49:37
He wrote the script and sold it and then became a movie. So there's
49:42
real value in the zero draft approach, and particularly if you're a perfectionist and
49:46
you tend to procrastinate. Do you know what that movie was called? That
49:51
he I can look it up. He's been on Twitter for quite some time,
49:59
but it was yuh, I'll have to look it up. We'll be
50:02
right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the show.
50:13
I can email it to you, Okay, yeah, yeah, I just
50:15
did. That's actually pretty interesting, Scott. But yeah, you know,
50:19
I'm actually going to compete in Uh, we'll compete. I'm actually gonna participate.
50:22
Yeah, and Zero Draft thirty because you really don't compete against anybody with
50:25
yourself. But but but uh, you know, yeah, I want to
50:30
participate this year. I try to do it last year and I just kind
50:32
of fell off the wagon there, I guess I don't. I just kind
50:36
of it kind of fell off the rails. And so I'm gonna participate this
50:38
year. I got that handy dandy calendar out and I was like, so,
50:43
yeah, that thing's awesome. So whoever made that that, you know,
50:45
great, it's great work. Stephen Dudley did that. He's one of
50:49
the zero Draft thirty members. And so if you go to my blog,
50:52
I have blog posts all this week prepping people for the challenge, and you
50:57
can see there's a doubt you can download this wonderful calendar, you know,
51:00
where you can just fill in every day. There's a little motivational things in
51:04
there and whatnot. So yeah, and I'm going to link to all that
51:07
in the show notes, Scott, just you know, all of the things
51:10
that we've talked about, so you know, just to sort of you know,
51:14
put a period the end of this whole conversation, Scott, is there
51:15
anything you wanted to to sort of add in conclusion, Well, just that
51:20
again reinforcing the point that the odds are long, you know, astronomically long
51:28
to be able to make a living as a writer, and yet people do
51:34
you know there it was nice to see that the number of people in the
51:38
feature film side of things in Hollywood in twenty seventeen there was an uptick in
51:45
the number of people, pretty substantial one. So there, you know,
51:49
it is possible to work as a writer in the business. But beyond that,
51:52
just if you pursue your passion. You know, if you're creative and
51:59
you don't give voice to that and you don't pursue that, that's such a
52:04
loss for you and perhaps the universe. But if you do pursue it,
52:09
you know, then you're putting yourself in alignment with some authentic part of yourself.
52:16
And you know, again, folly or bliss, it's it's more than
52:21
just three words. It's it's like a fundamental thing. Can you imagine this
52:25
world, eight billion people, who are each of them able to pursue the
52:31
thing about which they were the most passionate, the thing that enlivened them.
52:37
You know what a place this would be. So I just encourage people to
52:43
don't think about the odds, don't think about anything other than just what it
52:47
is that excites you. If you're a creative person, and pursue it,
52:52
whether it's an avocation, whatever it is, you know, woodworking, painting,
52:59
poetry, kite flying, do that because it's just gonna have an incredible
53:06
benefit for you and you'll know at the end of your life, you know,
53:09
you won't say I regret not doing that. You will have done it,
53:15
and so follow your blisses. I always always say that's it's profoundly important
53:21
inside into life. Yeah, it's goods Uh, you don't want to live
53:24
life with regret or you know, we kind of look back and say why
53:28
didn't I do that? Or what went wrong? You know, why didn't
53:30
I Why wasn't I able to do that? Then you know, and uh,
53:35
you know, I agree completely Scott, and I think that's a great
53:37
way to to sort of put a period at the end of all this where
53:40
you'll find your online Scott, Well, there's my blog. Go into the
53:45
story. You know, that's based on a little anecdote I had with my
53:51
youngest son, he was about three at the time, and I was joking
53:53
with him while I was overseeing his bath. I said, well, you
53:57
know, my dad, Your dad's gonna write a story tomorrow, a new
54:00
script, and do you have any advice for me? And he looked up
54:02
at me and without hesitations that go into the story and find the animals,
54:07
which I just thought was great. And so that's my blog, Going to
54:12
the Story. It's not ten years old. Launched in May sixteen, two
54:15
thousand and eight. It's the official screenwriting blog of the Blacklist. There are
54:20
twenty four thousand posts there. It's covers basically everything you could possibly imagine.
54:23
You can follow me on Twitter go into the story at Going to the Story.
54:29
I think of fifty one thousand followers at this point, but the very
54:32
active feed there all screenwriting and writing and creative you know oriented. Also there's
54:42
the zero Draft thirty Facebook group which I started back in November twenty fifteen and
54:47
terrific community of people there. And then the DePaul's University School of Cinematic Arts.
54:53
If you know anybody, Oh I should I have to say this day,
54:57
I gotta tell you this. We just recently starting classes here in September
55:02
sixth will be the first BFA and MFA a set of students for comedy writing
55:13
and film writing in conjunction with the Second City. We've partnered with the Second
55:16
City, which is the premier improv group. You know, it's been around
55:21
for fifty years, and so DePaul University has partnered with the Second City and
55:24
we're now offering the world's only, to my knowledge, BFA and MFA programs
55:30
and comedy writing and filmmaking. So the students get to actually go to the
55:35
Second City site there and work with those incredible faculty that they have who are
55:40
just phenomenal teachers when it comes to comedy and an improv. They actually work
55:49
with them at the Lincoln Park facility over there. I live five blocks from
55:53
there, and then they also work here at our DePaul University taking classes.
55:59
So they're getting an education, but they're getting an education in which they're going
56:04
to end up with a portfolio of content and an incredible experience developing their comedy
56:10
chops from just like top tier faculty in both worlds, the improv and sketch
56:15
world and then the screenwriting and writing world. So so it's De Paul University
56:21
School of Cinematic Arts is where I am, and I think that's probably pretty
56:24
much about it in terms of how you get in touch with me. Oh
56:28
can I mention mentioned one other thing. If you're in the UK and you're
56:31
listening to this, I'm going to be at the London Screenwriters Festival from September
56:37
seventh through the tenth I believe it is or seventh of the ninth, sixth
56:39
of the ninth. Then I'm going to be in Cologne the first week of
56:45
October, Cologne, Germany for a two day master class, and then I'm
56:49
doing a keynote address for their Film Festival, and then I'll be at the
56:52
Austin Film Festival at the end of October. And then if you're in France,
56:55
I'm going to be in Paris in March of twenty nineteen for a three
57:00
day workshop there too, So doing a lot more of this type of thing.
57:05
So I will definitely link that in the show notes, because Scott,
57:07
I think I think the UK is like the third biggest listener based on this
57:13
podcast. So all right, so well, I think that's a it's a
57:16
good sign. So but you know, it's gotten a link to everything you
57:21
said in the show notes a great having a conversation with you again, Dave.
57:24
I want to thank Dave so much for doing such a great job on
57:27
this episode. If you want to get links to anything we spoke about in
57:30
this episode, head over to the show notes at any film huscle dot com
57:32
Forward slash seven fourteen, and if you haven't already, please head over to
57:37
Filmmaking podcast dot com, subscribe and leave a good review for the show.
57:43
It really helps us out a lot. Guys. Thank you again so much
57:45
for listening to guys. As always, keep that hustle going, keep that
57:47
dream alive, stay safe out there, and I'll talk too soon. Thanks
57:52
for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at Indie film Hustle dot com.
57:55
That's I N D I E F I L M hustli dot com.