10 Screenwriting Tips from David Lynch - Masterclass Interview on Writing, Creativity and Film

i started making films i've told this story a bunch because i wanted to see paintings move the more you suffer the less you want to create van gogh did suffer but i think he didn't suffer what i was paying he went out to paint because he loved to paint find your own voice stay true to the voice and true to the ideas i like uh habitual behavior because it's it's a known factor and then your mind is free to think about other things insist upon final cut and it's sort of it's an honest film but it's very abstract so it's not fair for me to say that's a definite you know way that has to be interpreted no no idea no idea and then boom you see it you hear it you feel it you know it all at once the film is such a beautiful language it can it can do abstractions the most important thing is what you fall in love with and the reason you fall in love is an abstraction nobody knows why they fall in love with this woman and not this one this is not like anything you've ever done before right i um it was it was curious i i i'm reading the script and i'm i'm feeling things and i've always said that the film is such a beautiful language it can it can do abstractions it can do abstractions and it abstractions are they're the combination of all these different elements that you have in a film um it can do an abstraction of emotion and i felt this emotion coming from the script and that's what i really that's what lit my fire that the emotion of what the emotion coming from a scene from a word from a look when you read something we all have the experience we picture it in our minds and those pictures those initial things are what guide us from then on and so as this thing you know i was picturing it i'm at the same time i'm feeling things and i'm thinking film can do this and it could be beautiful this is a very beautiful important question and this is part of the myth i think van gogh did suffer he suffered a lot but i think he didn't suffer while he was painting he went out to paint because he loved to paint and it might have been one of the happiest only happy times in his life when he was painting it was so thrilling for him to be painted but he didn't need to be suffering to do those great paintings and i know van gogh would have been happier if he'd been able to transcend dive with him and i know his work would have been as good better or even better than good it stands to reason the more you suffer the less you want to create the if you're truly depressed they say you can't even get out of bed let alone create if you're truly angry occupies the whole brain poisons the artist poisons the environment little room for creativity and i use this example if you have a splitting headed splitting headache and you have nausea your vomiting and you have diarrhea on top of that how much work are you going to be doing and how much are you going to enjoy it give the person the technique to lift that sickness lift that negativity and enjoy life but i guarantee you if you have enough stress you won't be able to create and if you have enough conflict it will just get in the way of your creativity you you you can understand conflict but you don't have to suffer in it and you can get ideas from it the whole world most things we just reflect the world they just reflect the world and but i say if you're really and truly depressed you can't get even get out of bed you can't create and if but if you've got a notion of um because you want to live the art life and you've got this melancholy you know thing and the chicks really dig this then you'll just keep playing that role but you're not really suffering some people have heard the story that i went to bob's big boy for seven years every day at 2 30 and had the same thing that was my longest habit pattern i think but i like habitual behavior because it's it's a known factor and then your mind is free to think about other things good morning good morning it's september 16 november 12 2020 and it's a monday and it's a wednesday thursday here in l.a here in a clear morning about 45 degrees fahrenheit here we go for today's number it's september 30 november 2 10 balls numbers one through ten swirl the numbers swirl the numbers pick a number today's number is nine four nine today's number wes is seven so what are you eating at first tell me what you're eating i'm eating um for lunch tomatoes tuna fish feta cheese and uh olive oil now here's what's interesting about you you eat that every day every day every day you eat the same thing yeah it's well i it's it's very good you know i'm sure it is otherwise we wouldn't eat it every day right right so what do we eat for dinner chicken little pieces of chicken and broccoli and a little soy sauce every day yeah every day except when i travel then i go off that is this can we can we say you're a creature of habit yes uh habit in a daily routine and um and then when there's some sort of order there then you're free to mentally go off uh any any place you've got a safe sort of foundation and and a place to spring off from yeah and and you view that in terms of the creative process it's very important it's very important for me for you right you don't like a cluttered room when you're thinking no i the the pure the environment the more you know fantastic the interior world can be it seems to me do you have any advice for maybe younger artists sure how to do that it's very simple to do that um and succeed well now that's not a guarantee see that's the problem um there's a bunch of stuff you could say but i always say for anybody find your own voice uh stay true to the voice and true to the ideas never turn down a good idea but never take a bad idea always have final cut insist upon final cut if whoever these people are that are giving you the right to make this or funding it they have to trust the filmmaker to you know make the film the way he or she wants it made and if you don't have final cut what you're saying is this isn't my film these are this is i will never be guaranteed that i can hold my head up high and say this is my work because somebody's going to come in and fiddle with it i always say the painter is painting a picture people don't come in and say i don't like that particular blue change that blue or i don't like this i would you the artist would probably leap on the person and and beat him you know and and uh so the same way with all the arts you have to have freedom and you need support from the people you work with and you should have fun in the doing you should go down the room a road with like a family uh working together and enjoying the work i write them down so i don't commit suicide later having forgotten the idea yeah i've forgotten probably two or three major ideas and it may make you sick it just horrible write the idea down you say well i'll never forget this idea you can do feel this thing in the air and it might alter our thinking a hair um you you you don't know what you're going to fall in the most important thing is what you fall in love with and the reason you fall in love is an abstraction nobody knows why they fall in love with this woman and not this one yeah or why they fall out of love or why they fall out well they know that a lot of times yes they do but so and you can't figure it out in other words you can't you can't sit here and say to me i can tell you what was in the air it was this this and there's no no it's just it's a it's a beautiful beautiful extraction of some kind of a psychic thing i know that there's a thing called writer's block but just that term uh if it becomes kind of a reality if you believe in that term you could maybe uh get writer's block and um uh fearing it you would bring it to yourself or i don't know if that's true but um all it means is the ideas are not coming uh you out fishing your hook is in the water you've got bait on it but you're not catching anything today so it doesn't it doesn't it just means that uh you just keep fishing you have to have patience i started making films i've told this story a bunch because i wanted to see paintings move what happened to me though when i started making films with stop motion love for this medium of film started growing a love for it and ideas started coming ideas for cinema and i always say that every medium that we have available is infinitely deep and these mediums will talk to us and once we start getting a dialogue with the mediums ideas flow for them and it's magical you um you're going along there's no idea no no idea no idea and then boom it's like like you could say a big movie screen in your head in your brain this idea comes on the screen and you see it you hear it you feel it you know it all at once and then you go and write it down and you write it down i say with words so that when you read that those words again later that idea will come back in full david lynch has described his uh film eraserhead in this manner a dream of dark and troubling things and uh would you like to expound on that a little no no what sort of reaction were you thinking of do you want people to have or do you want anyone well see the thing is like when we were making the film we weren't thinking about an audience i wasn't thinking i was i mean i wasn't really thinking about what it would be do we would sometimes fantasize you know and think you know but we never really thought that we'd even get it just distributed you know and uh i remember when filmix came around we thought this was it it's going to be seen one time and that's going to be it and um so the reaction it the eraserhead is eraserhead you know and it was it was meant to be just that way and however people react to it is is you know is fine and the next film i make i'd rather i'd like to think more about an audience and you know what they're going to be reacting to and like that but uh it wasn't that i i just went about it haphazardly eraserhead was a real definite you know thing in my head but um i didn't think about how people were going to react to it anything goes you know like if somebody sees it and wants to make a political film out of it you know they can do that you know it's it's fine with me because it's not fair for me to say oh you didn't get it you know because the film is is so abstract and but it's not just like throwing together abstract it's it's meant to be abstract it's meant to be that way abstract you know so it has a it has a right kind of feeling to me and it's sort of it's an honest film but it's very abstract so it's not fair for me to say that it's a definite you know way that has to be interpreted you

Channel: Outstanding Screenplays

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Keywords: video essay, screenwriting, screenwriter, analysis, screenplay, scriptwriting, screenplays, screenplay tips, quick tips, how to write, cinema, writing, film, script, tips, oscars, review, how to, outstanding screenplays, filmmaking, directors chair, david lynch masterclass, Mulholland drive, blue velvet, david lynch theater, david lynch youtube channel, twin peaks, eraserhead, elephant man, inland empire, directing, david lynch funny moments, david lynch weather report, todays number is, dune

Id: pebAgX13bRI

Length: 14min 45sec (885 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 16 2020