A conversation about screenwriting with a Slamdance script reader

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down and chatting with my friend Joselyn Jensen who's an accomplished writer and actor as well as one half of script eater which is a service that provides coverage and feedback for writer screenplays in addition to all that she's also served as a reader for a bunch of different screenplay competitions including slam dance by her count she's read well over a thousand screenplays and she just has so much knowledge and insight and it was really fun to sit down and pick her brain about screenwriting and I apologize the audio in the first half is a little bit wonky but it does get better near the end but in our conversation Jos give so much knowledge and insight that I doubt that you'll have any problems overlooking any technical difficulties so without any further Ado my conversation with my friend Joselyn [Music] Jensen do you see that there's like patterns like if you you know for a contest or reading like scripts like are there things that you see like happening in all of them or is there like kind of seasons of things that yes are common there's so many patterns like you could be like a beautiful mind about how many patterns there are like you could go nuts but I think there are lots of patterns and like things that become in Vogue for like formatting like oh we're all doing bolded slug lines they're like oh no one's doing that anymore or oh we're like really talking to the reader Direct IR l in the description where there's like these little this is something that's kind of come in and out of fashion but just as an example like you'll read in the scene description a lot of like but don't worry about that that'll come up later and I'm like what is that who who started that why is everyone doing it like sort of like uh almost like yeah like little little things that are like fairly internal writing like nothing to do with the story but like to enrich the read I suppose and it's not something that I kind of I mean there's exceptions to every Rule and that's not something that I would say is like quite to my taste as a reader because I'm like yeah I'm like I'm going for Content yeah and it's never going to be the thing that tips me over into like liking something more if the other elements aren't like popping yeah so again like an expert level writer can like make that work just like anything else right but as far as Basics are concerned like I don't really think that's that important but that is something was trendy for a while and then don't everyone stopped doing it oh interesting and then even just like my beloved community on X formally known as Twitter like so many we'll just fight over anything we'll fight over if we should say we see in the description or if we aren't doing that or if you should talk about like camera angles in the description or if that's not our job to say or if some director just going to do their own shots anyway so just like don't waste your time and every all those things and that's just the trends in like formatting then there are Trends in like everyone's writing about a woman going home to take care of her you know or to settle the Affairs after her parents died I've read 50 of those guilty is charged you know it's like it's like a good place to start a story and they diverge from there and theme and narrative but that set up most very common I think that is common and coming of age is really common um kids mov moving like kids or teens like moving and they just moved kind of like sand lot style where they've just moved and finding a new community so it's a good way to introduce all the new characters because we're seeing them from the protagonist perspective but I would say if I had to choose the most common like setup it's definitely the young um like the young person who has to work on something themselves having to like reconcile things after a loved one is died and is it when you see these kind of like common threads or common tropes like does that as a reader like turn you off to the script or is it kind of like I mean yes and no like something that really like goes from that familiar premise and is really good it it like really turns my cheek because I'm like wow I could care less about this is not like extremely original but to do it well for someone like jaded toward this topic and I I I feel like I'm presenting myself as like really like dated or something and I love to read so it doesn't really matter what I'm reading like I like I approach everything thinking like this could be a good idea and like I'm the right person to read it and understand like if the people are open if the writer or writers are open to my suggestions like I could help them make get better like that's how I approach everything right so if I read something and it's like 10 pages in the dad dies and she's on a plane I'm like okay you know I feel kind of like you know it's like like a reality show or something like I'm like okay contestants time to impress me because you have really like set yourself up for something that requires like more care now like you really need to take this premise and like do something different or do something really extremely well to make it something that I'm going to score high if I'm reading it for contest or something that's going to go to the next round or something that is like worth remembering at the end of a 200 script season you know do different contests have like any sort of like mandates or sort of like aesthetic criteria that they give you as a reader like generally speaking there's like a sort of like a mission statement that's available to everyone so you can read it if you're entering the contest and they'll say like what specifically they're looking for and usually it's like originality execution um maybe like diversity across the The Winner Circle so it's not just all one type of person or one age group or one gender one gender expression whatever so there are things like that that that help eliminate scripts that are like equally as good plus it's never Apples to Apples with scripts like it's never like you could compare a great script you know like a yoro leimo script to like sha Shank Redemption like it's not going to like be equal like they're both going to score differently and and and different readers too like no readers Aesthetics are the same so what I've I've learned like if I ever run my own contest one day it's just like the secret is diverse readers and diverse writers so that you have a lot of readers reading everyone has their own preferences so by the time you eliminate them down it's come from like a hive of people that are not all the same right and that's like basically how determinations get made after you're dealing with like all great scripts like the top 20 amazing Scripts it could go any way but now we're just making decisions just like anything else based on right like cosmetic issues yeah yeah when you in a situation like that where you're reading like I don't know how many dozens maybe 100 scripts or whatever like are there certain things that make a script stand out from the rest well I will say there are like key things that I think separate the cream from the coffee the CH the cream from the not cream um and for me my like bugaboos are transitions and subtest these are the two things that I think any person listening can apply to their work in progress because even myself with my own writing for higher or like passion projects like sometimes I sleep on these things too but sometimes when you're reading especially when you're reading a lot of scripts back to back there's just no transitions there's just no it's just this happen happens and this happens and sometimes they follow one another and sometimes we just need a scene with this person and that's how it feels like it doesn't feel to be connected to the main story it doesn't feel to flow and like when there are issues with Pace to begin with OR things run long where scen don't end soon enough and there's just like no attention paid to the transition it becomes hard to read like that is what makes it hard to read I think when you say transition do you mean like causality between sces like I think causality but also just general transitions like preap the end of one scene into like a a um like provocative image to the next setup or or like match cut like anything like literal transitions too like not just like where your mind goes next like when you're telling a story usually if you're telling the story verbally to a group or something you do this naturally like as you tell stories you think like and then we went here right but in a screenplay when you're working in a visual medium like sometimes you need more than just the next scene happening and sometimes it's literal like you could just pre-ap that or sometimes it's literal like just match cut like it's so similar and to see what like if you're dealing in like a romantic comedy and like she's chopping vegetables and he's dropping an axe just please draw the connection there so you have a nice kinetic thing that ties them together that's just like an example off the top of my head but I feel like sometimes as a reader I see those things so naturally that I I sometimes see them where they're not there oh interesting and so I'm like I want the I want it so bad for you that I'm like oh I see how this be great and like that's when I love to give feedbacks I'm like oh that's easy we're all going to agree there because we're both having the same thought right but on the page it's not like transitioning in a way that really could help and when you say preap for somebody that doesn't know what that is oh oh okay so and I might not even be using it correctly because the first thing that I think you learn is a is it like formatting is an illusion and everyone uses like voiceover versus offscreen dialogue completely differently and I just try and keep up on top of Industry standards so when I say things like preap like most people know what I mean so what I mean when I say preap is like if if we are in a scene together and I go who could possibly do this job right it's like a it's almost like that line could carry over from our scene into a shot of the guy who could do the job you know what I mean like it's it's like and that the the the term preap basically just means dialogue from a previous scene like piped over a new scene where you're not hearing them in the space and it's not like voice over like a PA system but it's basically like an editing thing where you're like you're using the dialogue or sounds it could be like the phone ringing she's the phone's ringing in one scene and it continues to ring as the guy doesn't answer because he's running on the treadmill whatever it could be sounds but stuff like that it is just another method of transition that just makes you feel like everything is happening Matters from one thing to the next right they flow together um and then subtext is the other thing that I feel like is um easy to miss only because I think maybe I'm wrong here but it seems like most people really want their characters like when they find when it finally Clicks in for someone that like oh my character needs an objective and they need to be trying different tactics and they need to be having these kind of like tangible and intangible goals that they try to get to by the end if you're making a feature or show the promise of if you're making something that's more serial and un ending and I think because we want so badly to make sure as writers that that is understood sometimes we're saying like way too much like on the notes stuff in the words that the characters are saying to each other so I think it's really expert level writing when they can talk about something else but you can understand what's going on and like a good example is like if People's broken up and they see each other again it might not be realistic or it might not feel right for them to be like it's just really hard to see you because I'm so brokenhearted still but if they're talking about the weather and it's infused with all that tension it's better for me like I think it's better right and of course there's like exceptions where people are too vague and I don't know what they're trying to say right because people just keep talking about the weather and I'm like what are we doing here but that's like a different problem and I think it's much more common for people to be like writing on the nose a lot right and subtext I think like can always you can always do more totally with your with your subtext and your characters and what they're not able to say so much more interesting to watch too right than what they are able to say and that can say so much about what they're hand ups are and what their like fatal flaws may be if you yeah if you care it's kind of Shifting Gears like what would be examples of like red flags in a script when you're reading it I don't know I mean like I said everything uh there's exceptions to every rule so there's not like anything that I'm like I hate this it's never right but I think something that I see that rarely works is like when the writers themselves seem to be judging the characters M even if the characters are bad guys quote unquote or bad girls bad girls um I think I think there's like there's sometimes and this will happen and I'll it'll like raise the hair like get my hackles up shackles hackles when it's like a male writer let's say and they're writing about like an old woman who's wearing too much makeup and she's too tan and she's too fat and you're just like just say what's going on without commentary and like let me see if there a judgment I need to based on the situation and like with visual stff like too much makeup it's not actually very good visual description because too much for me too much for you I don't want to split hairs I'm just trying to read your script right but if it's judgy it's like you might actually be taking the place of like story and character attributes that need to be in there by saying something judgmental in the description as you introduce a new character right like you may actually be it's sort of like I liken it too like when I read a script and there's a lot of the word clearly or obviously it's like she's clearly upset or she's obviously fat or she's clearly you know clearly could stand to lose a few pounds I don't know why I'm harping on this like fat like thing but that I'm like just contrl F search for clearly and check yourself because usually you're you're using that in the place of just description that I need right right you to do not me like don't leave it to my imagination as the reader like I want you to do it right so like it's the same thing with judgment like you're judging the character which really has nothing to do with like how you feel about them is existing outside the story I'm trying to immerse myself in so it usually means I just need you to describe them without commentary right so that's something that like I don't really love to see there are sometimes like people are breaking the rules or shaking up the rules in the description where there does seem to be like the script is literally written by like a narrator almost like another character in the description yeah and I think that's because it's become popular for a writer to have a narrative voice and like I love it but also sometimes it is hard to it hard to find the story in all the tap dancing that you're doing like in the UN unseen unheard only for the reader never going to be in the movie type stuff right you think that that distracts from like the sort of job of a screenplay which is sort of like to layout of text and action and dialogue and things like that I think so but the first time I've ever tried it in my own work was when I wrote a romantic comedy for higher and I just tried being like a little bit more romantic in the scene description than really cold and kind of like she walks to the chair she sits the you know yeah and I really liked it I thought it worked really well and it's a script that people like to read I think for that reason because it has some kind of like butterflies in the description so I feel like it's just like anything else you just need to like know where you're at and if you're a beginner and you don't feel like you want to [ __ ] with that like don't like or just write your script first write your first drop first and then see if it if you want to go to intermediate or advanc yeah like I I think yes it's distracting and if I had to choose like never reading another script like that or reading every script that way I would definitely say just skip it like just focus on your narrative like that's not really a character right that's going to be felt by the audience and I think every reader is different I'm always reading thinking of how to help the the people that seek my feedback like get their script to be as similar as the viewers experience as possible oh okay but there's like tons of nugs in there like just for the reader yeah it's not that I don't like it it's just that that's not really like the medium that you're working in yeah so like it's the same with internal writing when like all this story is happening in the description but they're just sitting there thinking you have to find a way right to bring that out into the picture because like that's the goal you're trying to write a script to mirror the experience of the viewer not just be a fun read and so I mean like if I'm going to kind of just go along with the competition thread sure like if you're a screenwriter starting out like what do you think they could get out of like entering a competition well I think if you start with the cons the cons are that like most competitions cost an entry fee and sometimes like depending on like sometimes like festivals are going to get their nut like they're going to get their bag like they're going to take take take from you whether it's like your film freeway like or your coverfly or whatever it is like it's a business and I think that can wear on you like find financially and also just like mentally spiritually so yeah it costs money so if you're in a position where you have extra money or you want to treat yourself in this way to spend like 50 to sometimes a hundred bucks if you want coverage to enter these contests do they always give you coverage they don't and like sometimes that costs more and sometimes it's like oh you get a a paragraph of coverage for free and then if you want to upgrade to full coverage you have to pay for it to cover the person like me to do it and of course I want to be paid right it's on a perfect system but I think for first time writers I would recommend contests as long as it was something they could afford and there are contests out there that are free or like more you know 10 bucks or something like the price of a Cofe for week or whatever and um I think the the pros are I think the biggest Pro and this is maybe controversial is just like finding a way to celebrate having finished your script because writing is so solitary and if you're not in a writer's group or comfortable sharing your work with like your friends or your colleagues like how are you going to be done right and like a lot of times like I have I have kind of rule for myself where I don't like to submit the same piece even if I've edited it it's the same contest even though I know there's like a panel of readers it's just not something I I'm always moving forward so I'm like I'll write something else something else because I'm not really precious about my work anymore but that's from the volume that I see going through yeah in and through me and I think um I like the feeling of finishing something or getting into a place where I feel like it's comfortable to submit paying that money and just celebrating like that's the way I finish right well I mean a deadline is also like useful for a lot of people deadline is amazing and like maybe if you don't have the the time or interest or money in submitting to a contest you could celebrate by going out to dinner or celebrate I do think people should celebrate I do want that to be clear like whether it's with a contest or not like it's important for me to like have little like celebrations for myself because otherwise it's still have a lot of work and nobody really throws you a parade when you finish your screen time and you don't really feel that good either so you have to like have some kind of thing you're going to do for yourself even if it's just like I'm going to walk to my store I'm going to get my little treat I'm going to have my dinner I'm going to take a break from my reading you know and writing today to be finished and be happy and be proud um do you do this at the end of the end of it the process or like at each draft end or what do you well depends like some things are never done and some some other writers that I know will submit their same work in progress every year until they get it to a good place and then they'll start writing something else I'm talking about giving yourself a treat oh I give myself treats even at the end of a writing day oh okay it's just like I plan a big something to do with it whether it's like I'm going to let you read it I'm going to let Frank read it I'm going to submit it to a contest like right that's like the celebration of the end of this chapter but like I got to do this on the daily like I to do this at the end of my workday just like if I read five scripts today like I'm getting a coffee tomorrow yeah and like you have to I don't know how people are not doing that maybe I must be much more disciplined than I am and I feel that I'm very disciplined because of the treats like or they're less uh productive Maybe Maybe I'm Wrong here but it seems like a lot of people I talked to are like so so much of their heart goes into their work that they feel that they're not like very prolific or like things take a long time to grow and like get past a certain idea stage or onto the page or the first draft or whatever and I think what's worked for me is like even if you have to kind of fake it for yourself like you just have to believe you'll have another idea so like if if you don't believe that this is your one and only idea you may be able to finish it quicker so that's when deadlines come in that's when little treats come in but it's like if you can just finish this you'll have another idea yeah you'll be just as excited about that idea right and that's the same thing I tell myself when I watch a movie that's like similar to my little idea and I'm like oh that was my idea okay but my idea is enough different or if it is too similar like I'll have another idea you have to believe in yourself at least to the point where you're like finishing this doesn't mean I'll never do anything again right that is one of the most brutal things that can happen to you is like you have an idea or you're writing a script or something and then it's like they're like uh the new like Zack brth movie is like BL and it's like tangentially similar to yours and you're just like [ __ ] yeah you can't be press with your ideas you have to just know that even if something is similar your perspective is the difference right like your what you bring to it is the difference your movie about a woman going home to take care of her dying parents or whatever is going to be different than all the other ones that's right hopefully that's right and also I feel like it's expert level to take a premise that feels familiar and do something fresh with me through all this process of all these screenplays you've read like have you glean things that you use in your own work in your own writing for sure I think I'm I learned just as many things that don't work us do to my own taste but there's no better feeling especially when you're in the trenches and you read like five scripts a day for the last six months there's nothing better than like you sit back you bre something you go that's sck like I'm going to use something like that and it's not like biting the story it's usually it's usually just the things I like like transitions cool transition cool reveal cool point in the story to give that really important piece of information like I read something I'll try to talk about it because I read it today um and uh I won't give specifics but like it it starts with a sex scene between a couple and um later you see the same couple again but you learn that they're married to different people and they're all on vacation together interesting so you're like okay but I thought oh that's kind of slick like you could open it with them having an affair open about that you could Infuse all that tension but like it was much better and satisfying to see them again right and like how comfortable they seemed with their routine of like being friends like family friends but you know what's going on behind that it was a great it was a great time in the story too to like on un unravel that what you already think you know and like flip it and that's not like revolutionary or anything I was just like oh I I remarked upon it today I go oh that was slick I like that and so I'm thinking about my own Works in progress and like what I'm working on and I'm like maybe there's room for that there somewhere maybe I should think about like is there is this a like story that includes a reveal and like when do I want to do that interesting because not every story does but when it does I I really love when the reveal is like planned in a way that's like this is the best most impactful most satisfying time right to make this Revelation and like you've I've seen like good and bad mysterious stories that like some nail that and some tell you right off the bat or in the trailer like you're talking about Civil War there's a shot in the trailer of like the president getting pulled out of the office and you're like well that's like the climax though like whether or not they get to that point is like a huge part of what you've so I just think not to pick on whoever add the trailer of civil war that movie I quite liked but I just think the point is like when you make a reveal is really powerful right and so when someone does it right I totally remark upon that and think oh how can I how can a beast look like that in my own work are there things that you see in like in like tons of screenplays you're like oh [ __ ] I have to stop doing that yeah I think um even though it's not a problem I feel like I am so self-aware because I give these notes to everyone else like I know what my problems are too and like this isn't a big one for me but it's something that everyone could get better at which is just like repeating stuff the audience has already seen like when two Cara like let's say you and I are brother and sister and like you have a fight with Mom but I'm not there and then I see you in the next scene and you're like I had a fight with Mom she called me a [ __ ] it's like the audience has already seen that though so like how quickly can you get caught up or is it just better to enter the scene with me being like she called you a [ __ ] because then we haven't wasted time like repeating any of the [ __ ] we've already seen yeah and and that is really easy to do because it's very logical right because like when something happens to me in real life I love story so like I'll tell my husband and then I'll tell the exact same story to you and then I'll tell the exact same story to my cooworker you know it's like you you repeat things and you embellish each time yeah so I think like the cheat code for that as a little tip is if you need to catch another character up one little Slick Trick is like add just a little bit of new information that we don't know right so if we see the scene with you and your mom fighting I'm the sister I come in you go mom called me a [ __ ] I push her down the stairs but we didn't see that now we're talking it's like Justified why we've like heard something we've already seen right anyway that's just a specific example that I think a lot of people fall into and I do it sometimes too and I I think oh okay I'm doing the thing anything to so I just wanted to give you a heads up we're about to switch over to the better audio now are there like resources or things that you like sort of Point writers to in order to sort of like hone their craft I think the most important thing is just like if you want to try something go for it because what do you have to lose like yeah unless you're like writing for a studio or you're you're dealing with a bunch of notes or something like all of these contests are like meant for you to like practice and take risks right and I will tell you from so much firsthand experience so often we're like awarding things that are risky and not perfect way above things that are like you know softballs but well done huh that's interesting especially at slam dance where I work primarily like it's it's like a punk rock Al like Risk takey Vibe yeah so like we're always looking for stuff with like the slam dance like aesthetic and that means something different to everyone and we have a mission statement of like what it literally means but to me it's like more about like guts than it is about perfection so like if you're doing something with like a really big swing and you fail hard even I I'm scoring it higher for in that category of like Vibes then than like something that I'm like oh it's basically like Forest Gump but like you did it yeah yeah yeah and you're like yeah it's good it's great actually like I I do quite like it but it's not the same as somebody you can tell it's just like growing out of the set of shoes they have and like trying to like go further in One Direction and like take risks and [ __ ] [ __ ] up and like have fun I think goes a long way for a reader like me who's just like looking for someone like you know like the meter at the hospital like looking for someone to like raise the dial for me I always want to read something cool and like weird I mean we were talking about sort of like like you were talking about the bookstore the like classic Scripts that you see like are there I mean do you think for screenwriters it's important to sort of read like produced classic scripts or and like if so like are there any kind of like famous ones that I really like to read like the old kind of like Billy Wilder stuff because it's amazing like how the formatting is like super different yeah um and how all the stuff that you're like taught in like really popular books like save the cat or whatever is like all the stuff that they're doing like I don't know not always is but I think to just like touch B at least for me someone who likes history and film history and old movies like to stay connected to like how the medium is the same and how it's like completely changed and like even just we used to write cut to at the end of every scene and now we like now we understand that when a scene ends and another begins there's a cut like you know like certain things in formatting have changed right but I think it is cool to like learn from these scripts that are highly acclaimed even if they're not to your taste I think like one of the biggest things that I do for myself is like watch and read watch movies and read scripts that are not like to my taste but that I can objectively say these are good but you should read and and take stuff in that's like not for your demographic or like this is me my experience with romance like I got hired to write romance and then I was like [ __ ] that's not really my aesthetic like am I going to be good at that do I even want to be associated with that but then I started like ging romantic movies and I was like this is like Comedia Del like I was like so into how formulaic it is and how much fun you can have within like a really set um world of like it has to be happy at the end and they like they have to kiss and like that's work backwards and like try to make the most twisty and turning and and false high or false low like depending on what you're working with by the end and I think if I hadn't been interested in like researching or brushing up I don't think I would be as good at at that job I don't think I would be as good at that job or that script for higher yeah because I think I would be like forcing myself to come up with ideas that I thought needed to be different instead of acknowledging like oh everyone is the same and that's what people like yeah and that's okay it's okay to like something or respect something that you personally find boring or totally beneath you or just kind of like popcorn compared to you who's like up here with the gods you know right I think that's like a real humbling and like important experience if you want to write stuff for higher right which most people would say that they would I think I mean ideally like sort of the all all the conventions that you were talking about of like uh you know the page count that you learn in film school and stuff like are there sort of any of these conventions that you think that writers don't need to or like isn't quite as important to follow I think definitely formatting is just who cares I feel respected when a screenplay is formatted at like to the the bare minimum level like your indentation over here is your scene description and your dialogue is centered and beyond that I'm kind of just like do your thing so like Courier new 12 isn't like no but I I feel like it does give you this like void to identify other it's kind of like if you're sitting in a blank white room and you're like find the dog in this room you can go there it is but if you're in a room with like flashing lights and the dog barking and like it's you're disoriented so you're like distracted by something and it's harder to find what needs addressing as far as feedback or what I'm calling the dog in this scenario but like that's why I feel like it's respectful and it's clean lines and it's very just like give me your you know aame like you approach this you're caffeinated you're ready here I am respecting your time like I like that I will say but font come on I'm not going to I don't waste my time giving formatting notes almost like 90% of the time that's interesting unless unless the one exception is if it's inconsistent like sometimes it's bold sometimes it's not I'm like you might consider a version where you like stick to one thing is that do you think that that's common like are are there other people that are total like sticklers for like a specific format yeah I like this is stuff that I discuss with other readers too and the one person that convinced me my friend said the one thing she always mentions is like a newly appearing character's name in bold because that is like an important way for all creatives who read the script from actors to like everyone to like identify a new character oh interesting so like why not do that like there's no she's like in my mind there's no reason why you shouldn't be doing that in bold or in caps in caps EXC did I say bold yeah I mean and caps like I was like you know where it's like Dean D EA all it's like 30s like you know glasses like whatever there in the description yeah um and then another one I kind of like like if I while I'm at it is like okay first you say man man in a hat and then later he's identified as Dean it's like just call Dean from the beginning we don't want to get too confused like there's logical stuff that I'll say if I feel like um the there's more than just formatting to discuss I'm just like hey here's like two quick formatting things that you can change and like like that and you won't care probably and I won't I'll care a little and we'll just get to the next right most important thing to say yeah but um I think the people who are sticklers about formatting are people who really care about the art form and like really feel value they like they they feel proud to have learned these things and they feel like part of their job as a reader is to like pass down like general knowledge and it's not that I disagree with that I just don't find it as important as like story yeah and like Arc and characters and theme and stuff that I'd much rather talk about so like my report is like already five pages it's like do I want another like paragraph about bold font like not really yeah I mean I think also like I feel like writers need to sort of remember that like screenplays are sort of like blueprints you know in a way and like there are people that need to do need to understand it to like on a technical level in order to do their job like so yeah to sort of standardize it almost makes more sense because it's like okay like I need to you know do the Wardrobe for this like I don't want to have to like figure out how you're writing or whatever yeah and one thing that you just said that reminded me is like people who aren't in the industry like my parents came to a reading of um a screenplay that I wrote where we had like a backyard thing and my parents came into town to see it and we had someone on site like reading the scene description and my parents who've like never read a screenplay before like didn't understand they're like oh it's like a court transcript and I was like oh I've never thought about it that way like once in my career have I thought like oh it's just the transcript of like doing your best to describe what's happening in the courtroom and then who what's saying right what's being said by whom so like I don't know maybe that's helpful for someone to like think of the script as like right not not worry so much about all the other elements because it's just like doing your best to kind of gloss over what you need to know yeah because someone else or you yourself as a director if you're writing your directing your own work they'll color in the blueprint like they'll they'll make the world from the transcript yeah it's different than like reading the transcript I don't know it kind of blew my mind CU I was like oh you need someone from the outside perspec to remind you like oh yeah you're just sort of noting what needs to what I need to know to to get through the story and no more unless you want to or unless you feel like that's your style yeah but the Le like the leaner the better for me baby I do not want to read like I do not want to read all that I'm like thirsty for the story right like the leaves on the trees like sure if it matters but if it doesn't matter would it be in the court transcript of this scene yeah or like I think plays are also a good um example of this cuz when you read plays most of the time it's like extremely barebones action description and then it's like mostly like you know dialogue or like what you need to know literally it's not like very flowery most of the time because don't you feel like and maybe I'm I'm just haven't thought up thought out what I'm about to say but don't you feel like plays like inherently are going to be produced beyond their like Premiere right so they wants to be um wiggle room yeah like you don't want to say too much or be too specific cuz like well what if the actor that they get doesn't have green eyes or does that even really matter totally so like it would be such a fun experiment to write a screenplay as though it was going to be made over and over and over oh wow because I think you would say half as much [ __ ] yeah cuz you'd be like oh let them do it like let them figure it but that's what playwriting is like it seems like they're horny for the like leanness of it because they're like here you are to play with with just the minimum needed right and sometimes like don't you love to read a play where the first page is like this must be performed cuz you're like oh that matters to the like that's cool I'm with that yeah but like has anyone ever like set out to write a screenplay in that style where they're like this should be produced over and over and over it could be yeah and I'm just giving the bare minimum I mean I love yeah I love in plays when they're they're so vag they're like yeah like you know there's some music playing in the background maybe it's like always and I'm like whoa that's so cool if they're just kind of it's so it's such a good point too because I love a maybe in a play and a ha a maybe in a screenplay it's like a different medium you know so like if someone says maybe maybe he's you know maybe it's Tribe Called Quest I'm like is it or isn't it like this is your this is your you this is your time yeah so tell me if it is cuz like I I feel like a a comment I give a lot is like just to prove a point to be like a little a little rascal I'm like why is why don't put the guess work on me as the reader to know maybe it is maybe it isn't maybe she's crying here okay well who's that in a note for you yeah fix it like it's coming to me I want it done right like I don't want to think okay I'm imagining her she's sitting at the table she's got her coffee maybe she's crying like that's not my job but in a play it's like okay sure maybe it's tripe called quest we're all in this like maybe maybe World maybe all the characters are played by one guy cuz like the the that's their concept for this like check off rendition you know like plays are different totally but I still think it would be cool to write a screenplay and a playw writing St yeah I mean somebody needs to be the first one to do it I have something mind-blowing to say that I just thought of okay this is something that I heard in a lab that I was a part of from this woman Esther who was like a guest speaker in the lab and she um she's a writer and producer and she works at HBO Hungary and she her like presid presentation within this lab was about the difference between like a feature and a Serial story a great lesson that I hadn't really I thought I kind of just got the vibe you know like when I have an idea in my little notebook I go oh this is a TV show idea and I couldn't really Define why but here's what you taught me and it it's like my favorite thing to pass on to people so I hope this is helpful to you and I hope people like this okay a Serial story like a TV series a pilot anything with multiple episodes miniseries three-part Saga Star Wars whatever Trilogy it's all centered around a central question that cannot be answered so like if we'll use like Seinfeld as an example so Seinfeld let's say we're working with an active thesis on Seinfeld that the central like unanswerable question is like how to be what's the best way to be a New Yorker yeah right there's no like clear answer to that and it's not like a feature where you would make a conclusion by the end whether the person ends on a high note or a low note there's like a thematic conclusion to that question it gets answered but with a series there's no answer right so keep that in your head every Central character in that series represents a different possible answer to the question oh wow so like maybe Jerry is like dating maybe Elaine is like you know working or whatever and and George is being neurotic and Kramer is being free so that's just like off the top of my head because any great show you can do this with because it's a great serial idea and maybe you didn't know it was because you didn't think about it this way but trust me every time I think of a great show every Central character represent like you can formulate a thesis and plug in each character into that interesting and I think that's been so helpful when I'm like developing something or figuring out what's missing or like halfway through writing a feature that I realize could be better as a pilot or a series to develop or opposite and I think this there's probably something similar that someone smarter than me could develop for a short film version of the feature because so many features with like a really slick log line I go this would have been a killer short oh interesting but there's just not enough here to like sustain an entire fulllength story unless there's other elements involved I think that hot take log lines the back nine of like 95% of log lines are just like BS words that don't matter like it seems like more than ever there's like a log line that is specific to the plot and then the back nine meaning like the second half of the run on sentence or the second sentence is just like in a heartwarming story of love and loss it's like that doesn't mean anything that means less than nothing like if you're telling me it's hilarious I don't why am I not laughing from the first half of what you've told me right if you're telling me it's scary why is it not scary in the first half why do you have to tell me that it's scary and I go I understand like I'm really heated about this like these are my opinions but I also think the purpose of a logline is like sales and like not just sales in a literal sense but like selling me the reader yeah to your idea it's a completely different skill set than writing it's like complet it's like writing your own bio where everyone knows it's you but you have to make yourself sound good it's like they don't teach that enough like there's not enough crazy people like me who care to say like this is what we want to see you doing in your log line like we don't need this like random right Trail off toward March toward death like we get it it's we can tell by we should be able to tell from the title and the specific first half of your log line like the genre what we can expect and not too much about the plot interest like give me a I mean can you come up with a good example of what you're talking about it's from a short film that's called posum and this log line does my favorite thing that log lines have the power to do which is use the title jux opposed against the log line itself to like have this really satisfying like Harmony okay so here's it's called pum and here is the log line a lonely Widow gets more than she bargain for when she brings a stray cat home from the cemetery wow that's so you can tell from the title being paum a little something about what might be going on with that stray cat and like this kind of like it just calls to mind like this sort of like Mr meoo kind of wild ride and the the tone of the short film is different but like how it gets you in the door is like extremely satisfying and you can tell they've gone the extra mile because she could say that it's a posum in the log line she could title this short film a night at the cemetery but you wouldn't have that Harmony there and that like attention to a good title and a good log line so I mean I I think the thing I'm sort of gathering is like you appreciate like kind of nuts and bolts craft but also like sort of like Synergy or like context or things playing off of each other like like elements of a a film or a story or a screenplay like not existing in a vacuum but like interacting with other things yeah because the the way that I enter the community of of screenwriters when I'm a reader is like through these like portals that we call log lines so like if it's not if the attention isn't there and it's not like I'm saying I haven't read amazing scripts with like kind of shitty log lines because I think it's a completely different skill I'm just saying I do do like that Synergy cuz when that is hitting you're like oh it's such a self-awareness and it's the difference between like when someone's like I'd like to sing a song and you're like oh God I'm nervous versus someone who sings well and you know they sing well so you know you're in good hands or like someone's improv team or something and you're like if it's good it's great if it's bad I want to kill myself and leave this town so I feel like as you said I like the I like when all the cylinders are f ing because it tells me that not only are you a good writer you're self-aware about how to sell this project not like sales and dollars but just like how to talk about what you've done you know what you've done and you're like talking about it well versus this kind of Disconnect I see with a lot of great scripts which is like I don't think they know what they're doing they labeled their genre incorrectly by my standards it's not a horror it's a thriller or it's not a thriller It's a drama just cuz she cheated It's a drama you know like it's not erotic like horror just cuz there's a sex scene you know like know what you're doing and like that is important I think to knowing like how to submit yourself how to pitch like we could talk for another freaking hour about like pitching and like what that means but like I just think that self-awareness is really important it's a totally different skill than like writing on the page and formatting and storytelling and stuff but it is part of our job whether we like it or not I hope that you enjoyed my conversation with Joselyn make sure to check out her links in the description below I'm hopefully going to have more conversations like this with friends about screenwriting and film making so make sure that you subscribe so that you don't miss any and until then I will see you in the next one [Music]

Channel: Dean Peter2on

Views: 21,739

Keywords: joslyn jensen, slamdance, film festival, screenplay competition, screenwriting, filmmaker, writing

Id: 2zw8GzqOhh4

Length: 49min 53sec (2993 seconds)

Published: Fri May 03 2024