10 Screenwriting Tips from Charlie Kaufman on how he wrote Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

[Music] say who you are really say it in your life and in your work failure is a badge of honor it means you risked failure your writing will be a record of your time it can't help but be but more importantly if you're honest about who you are you'll help that person be less lonely in their world i think we try to be experts because we're scared we don't want to feel foolish or worthless we want power because power is a great disguise the whole the whole point of writing something is to have people experience it but i think the relevance is the relevance you know it's about it's about relationships and it's about how we think about people and when they struggle what that's about and i think that's eternal you know [Music] let's not worry about what it looks like let's not worry about failure failure is a badge of honor it means you risked failure and if you don't risk failure you're never going to do anything that's different than what you've already done or what somebody else has done and just know that that that's the choice you're making when you when you won't put yourself at jeopardy like that um i'd be remiss if i didn't talk to you about uh one of my all-time favorite films which is eternal sunshine of the spotless mind um and i feel like that movie with the creation of social media has actually almost become more relevant because now there's this thing that people do if they're in a relationship and they have a bunch of pictures online on facebook or whatever if they break up the first thing they go do is immediately erase all the signs that uh that until which which every time that that yeah you know if it's ever happened to me or i hear friends of mine i think of eternal sunshine do you feel like that movie has become more relevant since its release or have you thought about that at all well i didn't know about this thing that you just talked about i don't have a social media account so um um so i haven't seen that but um no i think it's i mean i guess that's new but i think the relevance is the relevance you know it's about it's about relationships and it's about how we think about people and when they struggle what what that's about and um and i think that's that's eternal you know that's always going to be that case how do you write is it a compulsion or is it like a a structured exercise where you say i'm going to sit down and write for three hours today it's neither um it's hard for me i i i'm not disciplined that way i wouldn't say it's a compulsion i would say it's my job and i have to do it to pay my mortgage and i try to do it in a way that feels i mean i like doing it sometimes and i i can't think of anything i'd really rather do but it's hard i i i feel like when i'm doing it i would like it to be something that's meaningful and that's that feels honest to me i don't want to do something that puts what what i feel is garbage into the world so so in that sense i mean it's important to me but it's not like it's not like this joyous experience or or or some sort of like you know i don't think of myself that way i think of myself sort of staring off into space a lot or looking at stuff online while i'm trying to write mostly what it looks like people are starving they may not know it because they're being fed mass-produced garbage the packaging is colorful and it's loud but it's being produced in the same factories that make pop tarts and ipads by people sitting around thinking what can we do what can we do to get people to buy more of these and they're very good at their jobs but that's what it is you're getting because that's what they're making they're selling you something and the world is built on this now politics and government are built on this corporations are built on this interpersonal relationships are built on this and we're starving all of us and we're killing each other and we're hating each other and we're calling each other liars and evil because it's all become marketing and we want to win because we're lonely and empty and scared and we're led to believe winning will change all that but there is no winning what can be done say who you are really say it in your life and in your work tell someone out there who is lost someone not yet born someone who won't be born for 500 years your writing will be a record of your time it can't help but be but more importantly if you're honest about who you are you'll help that person be less lonely in their world because that person will recognize him or herself and you and that will give them hope and it's done so for me and i have to keep rediscovering it it's profound importance in my life give that to the world rather than selling something to the world don't allow yourself to be tricked into thinking that the way things are is the way the world must work and that in the end selling is what everyone must do try not to do you it isn't easy but it's essential it's not easy because there's a lot in the way in many cases a major obstacle is your deeply seated belief that you is not interesting and since convincing yourself that you are interesting is probably not going to happen take it off the table agree perhaps i'm not interesting but i am the only thing i have to offer and i want to offer something and by offering myself in a true way i am doing a great service to the world because it is rare and it will help i don't like to talk about the themes of anything that i write and the reason is is because you do something and when you're done with it when you make a film or a piece of art it's then an interaction between the person who's viewing it and the piece and to um not allow that process to take place by by saying what this thing is it limits that possibility of interaction um and i you know i specifically write things so that hopefully it's layered enough that people can come away with separate and individual uh reactions to it it's it's always great to hear different things because it means that the piece is successful you know it's not it's not sort of this kind of constricted piece with a message at the end it is it is an open-ended conversation with an audience and yeah i i love that with anything that i do the whole the whole point of writing something is to have people experience it and if i sit here and say well this means this and this means this not only is it pointless because it either means that to people or it doesn't it also gets in the way of people having their individual experience of of the movie so um i try to put enough of in there so that so that so that people can inter interact with it on an individual basis so my sort of pontificating on it would be meaningless there's your interpretation and your interpretation is is your interpretation it's not it's not i don't even have a right to question it i mean in my mind you know it's it's it's yours this is i did what i did and you do what you do in watching it uh you know uh oftentimes whenever a filmmaker has uh uh ambiguous aspects to a story in their film they don't want to over explain or answer questions to the audience often times you know i've been told like i kind of want the audience to figure it out for themselves but i'm sort of curious whenever you have an actor on the set do they do you feel obligated to explain it to them if they come to you and say like charlie i don't understand this and i need you to explain it to me do you then feel obligated to to explain the ambiguities yeah yeah i'll explain to them what i'm thinking but i mean the interesting thing about that is we can then develop even within that they can have their own ideas and we can sort of move into something else because they're my collaborators they're not an audience yeah i definitely would would tell them what i'm thinking the questions and the discussions that i have with the actors are about their characters and you know what what's going on at this moment in a very human way in the scene it's not a they're not philosophical you know what does this mean kind of thing they're you know what is what's going on between you know caden and adele at this point in in the movie and and that's that's a very that's a very straightforward i mean it's it's easy but it's a straightforward discussion think about your reaction to me think past it why do you have that reaction why do you react this certain way to certain things what does your reaction have to do with your wants how does it correlate how would you how would you reaction to what i'm saying change if i were older younger female a different race british what does it mean about you that it would change what does it mean about the subjective subjectivity of your opinions what if i was me but had a different demeanor what if i was more confident less confident what if i was more effeminate what if i was less effeminate what if i was drunk what if i was on the verge of tears think about all the assessments all the interpretations that occur with each react interaction think about all that you bring to each encounter multiply that by all the people here how much is going on in this room and how do we weave that into a movie the challenge of multiple points of view forces us to come up with new solutions to throw away conventional approaches movies tend to be very concrete in their construction of events and characters it's a tricky medium in which to deal with interior lives but i think it's really a great medium for it movies share so much with dreams which of course only deal with interior lives your brain is wired to turn emotional states into movies your dreams are very well written i know this without knowing any of you people turn anxieties crises and longing love regret and guilt into beautiful rich stories in their dreams what is it that allows us the creative freedom in our dreams that we don't have in our waking lives i don't know but i suspect part of it is that in our dreams we're not constricted by worry about how we will appear to others it's a private conversation with ourselves and if we're worried about it this becomes part of the dream i think if we were better able to approach our our work this way the results would be different and the second viewing of this was almost like watching a completely different films because i i knew certain things that i wanted to look for there were things i wanted to listen to closer i'm sort of curious whenever you are writing and directing a film to what degree are you focused on our first viewing of it and to what degree are you focused on subsequent viewings things that we might catch that second third or fourth time around um i'm interested and focused on all of the different viewings that i i like to sort of pepper it with enough stuff so that it resonates in different ways at different times and depending if you've seen it once or you find new things or you're in a different point in your life that you might have a different reaction to the movie you know um so that's my goal so i'm always thinking about all of that so that it sort of feels expansive there's a lot of things that happen in this movie that are not probably um see witnessable the first time and you know because there's a lot of stuff that kind of on the surface that you need to pay attention to but i think if you watch the movie again you'll start to see other things in the background which which have their own resonance um and are and are intentionally placed there i did i saw it the second time and i was watching a whole new layer of stuff so it's really interesting i had an impossible time figuring out how to get into that business that i wanted to get into and i was 30 when i decided okay i'll try to work in tv it wasn't something i really wanted to do it was with an eye toward maybe getting in getting people to know me and having a chance to write screenplays so um so that was the pivotal moment deciding this is what i'm gonna do i'm gonna try to get a job on a tv show and um and i was very sort of focused and pragmatic and and tenacious in a way that i hadn't been because it was kind of like a last-ditch effort for me i thought i was at the time i was answering phones in an art museum in minneapolis and i was making like you know six dollars an hour which was good for me and um it was it was good for me and um and you know that was it you know i borrowed money i borrowed three thousand dollars and i i went out to la and tried to get a job and if i if i didn't get a job i wasn't gonna be able to pay that money back it was you know then i got lucky i'd send things out to people thinking that they would read them and of course they wouldn't um finally uh i decided that okay i'll try to get into television because i i sort of know what you have to do you have to write a spec this was at a point when there were a lot of sitcoms you write a spec sitcom you get an agent to read it and then it doesn't matter if you have any experience they just if they like your script they hire you so this that seemed ideal to me so i did that and um eventually got an agent and i got a job and then i worked in tv for seven years at the same time writing screenplays hoping to get into this and and then you know spike jones um found being john malkovich and and decided to direct it and so then i kind of left tv and did that where do ideas tend to come to you some people say in the shower some people say it's a you know they'll take long car rides or whatever where do you find that most of your ideas have have come to you um i walk a lot i would say that you know i always i walk every day and i carry a notebook with me when i walk and i jot down things and i would say that you know that's probably if there's a place that's where it is where do you actually write i write at a desk but i imagine yeah but where is that desk that desk is in an office this is fascinating in that office and office is my house okay all right no well that's what because you know so i guess you're able to be productive in your own home you don't have to like get it no i go out every day actually my my um my habit or my process is to go out every day to a coffee shop i walk and i think and i write when in the coffee shop sometimes in my notebook sometimes i bring a computer and then i i go home and um i like being in an environment i like being out it's a little um claustrophobic being in the office by myself uh do you write outlines in other words do you like to know where your story or your script is going before you start it i prefer not to it's better not to for me because i feel like when you're starting out if you're writing an outline before you've thought about this thing then you're kind of committing yourself to something you don't yet know so i like you know sometimes i mean always i'll come upon something a month into writing um that'll change everything and um i like to have the i don't want to feel like i'm bound to something that i've that's preconceived and so um it takes me a long time to write because of that but i but it's the way i prefer to write and are you writing on a laptop are you writing on a typewriter what's your what's your name um i write longhand or i write on a computer i i go back and forth so how long might you write for on a given day do you do it will you be disciplined and say i'm a you know whatever nine to five guy or do you just do it when it strikes no i spend most of my time not writing most of it like 95 96 of the time i don't write i stare i stare at the at the well i look at stuff online which is a big mistake i it's a habit that i i need to break because it's because that's just terrible but um but you know i just do anything not to write but i'm always it's always in my head so it's not like i have a reprieve from it it's always sort of burdensome and waiting there and hovering um and i think in in some cases that there is stuff that's churning and happening i i the idea of being blocked is something that i've come to terms with as as valuable so it is a real thing writer's block um no i don't think it is but it is but but it feels like it is i think stuff is happening when you don't know what's happening at least for me and i think the time needs to be taken at least for me i and um i can only speak for me and and that's the thing about like people who want to follow in my footsteps as you said it's like there's no footsteps you know i just did i this is what happened to work for me and it could as well have not worked for me you know you

Channel: Outstanding Screenplays

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Keywords: video essay, screenwriting, screenwriter, analysis, screenplay, scriptwriting, screenplays, screenplay tips, quick tips, writing, studio binder, script, tips, oscars, review, filmmaking, motivational video, tips from screenwriters, directors chair, charlie kaufman interviews, charlie kaufman best interview, charlie kaufman writing advice, im thinking of ending things, eternal sunshine, being john malkovich, chaos walking, synecdoche new york, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, antkind

Id: 38OC0vvB4h8

Length: 17min 9sec (1029 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 23 2020