Aaron Sorkin Screenwriting Tips from The Trial of the Chicago 7 - 10 Lessons from the Screenplay

give me a moment with your friend i've never been on trial for my thoughts before i wanted the courtroom to feel cavernous and i wanted to sort of feel the full weight of the federal government coming down these guys and the kind of power that frank langella's character that julius hoffman will be doing he's carrying the energy settling things down how's that working so far second drafts are really important a friend of mine once uh said about me that uh i don't write scripts i rewrite scripts how much is it worth you what's your price to call off the revolution my life but uh i didn't change the script to mirror events events change to mirror the script you want to avoid all kinds of stereotypes not just because of uh racial or ethnic uh sensitivity stereotypes are just bad in uh in writing you can write heroes you can write villains but there's no such thing as an interesting character who doesn't have a conscience you're aware that this important story and people's lives and reputations are are in your hand movies are very powerful things they're seen by a lot of people and that to me was was the more important truth one of the things that i looked at a lot during prep was protest scenes for me so many times in film and on television they don't look real i looked at a bunch of movies where i thought well they did a really good job argo for instance what ben affleck did with the opening of argo archival footage news footage stock footage he cut it together with very tight shots of people he hit stage we do the same i got a couple of wide shots but mostly everything is tight just a billy club hitting a skull we were able to do that because we were shooting those protest scenes in grant park where they took place after a lot of research because i knew nothing about the chicago 7 when i uh started this uh after reading a dozen or so books that have been written some of them by the defendants a 21 000 page trial transcript but most critically uh uh the time i spent with tom hayden who was alive when i started this he passed away a few years ago um uh is that is what gave me a look into the personal tension between tom and abby two guys on the same side who want the same thing who plainly can't stand each other and each thinks that the other is harming the cause what i was gonna say was after the research there's the period of just pacing around and climbing the walls and trying to figure out exactly what story you're going to tell uh the film organized itself into three stories what you just said the the courtroom drama the evolution of the riot had in what was supposed to be a peaceful protest evolved into such a violent clash with the police and the national guard and then finally this personal story uh between tom and abby uh and i decided i'd tell those three stories at the same time and hope for the best my advice for uh for new screenwriters is this get a hold of a couple of screenplays of movies that you like and get a hold of the dvd and watch the movie with the screenplay in your lap and kind of read along as the movie goes and you can see what what what your favorite movies looked like when they were on the page keep doing that and you'll start to get the feel of of what a screenplay is you walk into the art department you would see many many boards of just the aesthetic of 1968 and 6970 was which is when the trial happened the one note that i gave everybody at the beginning and then every day after that was don't lean into 60s iconography hippies and hard hats the tie-dye peace sign psychedelic aesthetic because this movie is not about 1968 it's about today and i want to put as little as possible between the movie and today's audience shane valentino was our production designer did a phenomenal job and his sort of the crown jewel of his production design was the courtroom the actual courtroom where the trial took place didn't look enough like a courtroom i was less interested in journalistic accuracy than the truth of the more important story that we're telling i remember the day where he showed me the different almost murals that would be on the wall it was fantastic i wanted the courtroom to feel cavernous and i wanted to sort of feel the full weight of the federal government coming down these guys and the kind of power that frank langella's character that julius hoffman wielded caitlyn greenridge says if you are writing a marginalized character whose identity you do not share can you imagine your way into that character through their joy and not their imagined trauma yes uh uh you can empathy uh right same blood that goes through your body goes through that person we all have as humans the power to empathize with each other uh to understand each other's lives and to put any character we want into a dramatic situation because the most important thing in your story is it going to be someone's sexual orientation their skin color their religion whether they are able-bodied or disabled the most important thing is in your story is going to be intention and obstacle what does this character want and what's standing in their way of getting it and i assume that because you're interested in telling this story you are interested in what the character wants and what's standing in their way of getting it or you think it's a great comic premise with which you can use your sense of humor or you think it's a great premise with wish to tell a murder mystery or a romantic comedy or anything like that but i really think it's important that writers not start to get cautious because they're scared of of being offensive stereotypes should be avoided whether it's as you say someone from a diverse population or someone who looks exactly like you um you want to avoid all kinds of stereotypes not just because of uh racial or ethnic uh sensitivity stereotypes are just bad in uh in writing i can be different in every possible way but if that person is a father i'm a father if that person is also a father i feel like i know everything about them that's important to know that you can know uh as a stranger i can empathize with that person you don't want to judge that person you want to defend that person you want to be able to make that person's case to god why they should be allowed into heaven do not do not do not feel that you are required to write about yourself and your world write about any world you want you're making the world uh sorry i don't mean to be yelling you i'm just i'm passionate about this uh okay you ma'am are not confined by any guard rails i've been asked a couple of times if i change the script at all to mirror events and i didn't i rewrote the script plenty of times in the 14 years since i was asked to write a movie about the chicago 7 but just to you know in the normal process of a screenwriter rewriting a script to make it better including by the way great notes from paul greengrass and david fincher uh but uh i didn't change the script to mirror events events change to mirror the script uh look when i started doing this it was just a good story to tell um uh i thought this was uh uh you know i thought this could be a good movie and then things started to change uh a few years ago when donald trump uh at his rallies began to get nostalgic about the old days when they'd carry that guy out of here on a stretcher and i'd like to beat the crap out of them and there was um descent was being demonized and that was the atmosphere that we were making the film in uh last winter we thought it was plenty relevant when we were making it last winter we didn't need it to get more relevant uh but then i think it was in may that george floyd was killed and brianna taylor and ahmed arberry and so protests in kenosha and seattle and lexington and washington dc and uh around the country protesters uh were being met again by police nightsticks uh uh tear gas um and it was a chilling return to 1968 so like i said we thought the film was plenty relevant when we were making it we didn't need it to get more relevant but it did when those sound categories come up at awards shows i am now very interested in who they are they are truly unsung heroes and sound is one of those areas of filmmaking where the audience doesn't know that that was a big reason why they loved the movie [Music] i would give notes like when the phone rings in the middle of the night and wakes up hayden and bernadine by this news that's coming on the phone i just kind of said that ring should sound like you're able to get a couple of hours sleep for the first night in a while and just the world is being cracked open they're able to take a note like that and they create it conspiracy office you ask about the difference between good and great and often times it's sound what we were making with chicago 7 or with molly's game or with charlie wilson's war the social network of steve jobs is a painting and not a photograph because i don't feel that the important truth is what size the courtroom was i feel that the more important truth was the fact that the justice department was engaging in politics and eliminating political enemies of this newly elected president richard nixon you're aware that this important story and people's lives and reputations are are in your hand movies are very powerful things they're seen by a lot of people and that to me was uh was the more important truth now uh aaron 2020 has been one for the books i'm curious does watching a year like this play out make you want to write about it and what would the finale look like please tell me it won't be revenge of the murder hornets uh it wouldn't be if i wrote it uh i think but uh listen a lot will be written about these uh about these last few years uh by screenwriters and by playwrights but uh my my prediction is that you'll never see donald trump as an on-screen character that will always be off-screen that you'll see him on televisions and news footage because he's simply implausible as a character uh and i you you can write heroes you can write villains but there's no such thing as an interesting character who doesn't have a conscience i've been watching your work be directed by some of the greatest filmmakers of all time for years rob reiner obviously david david fincher doing social network danny boyle's brilliant work on steve jobs miller's work on uh moneyball um and i wonder as you were watching these films become the movies they were based on your screenplays what elements of those directors and the way they approached your material changed the way how you become the filmmaker you are today i mean are there things you can pinpoint from specific films or directors that you go all right that director really approached my material this way and that influenced the director that i became on this film and molly's game yeah i would say and also added to the list of directors you named mike nichols and tommy in television as the principal director of the west wing uh you would have to really not be paying attention uh to stand next to these guys for uh for as long as i was able to stand next to them and not pick up anything uh so uh so i i i try to um well i try to steal as much from them uh as i can uh i i i've watched the way they work um and i either think uh well that's that's a shoe i could fit into or you know that's that's not how i would uh i want to work um mostly what i try to pay attention to is stuff that speaks to my blind spot a literal blind spot which is that i have a very weak visual sensibility um i i've spent my life paying attention to how movies television shows and plays sound uh and not as much attention to how they look um but i'm told that uh a visual element in cinema is important to some people um so i'm trying to get better at that was there something specifically from fincher um like on social networks specifically that you learned yes but in the way a freshman uh would pick up a little something from a guy who's teaching a phd course in something like you could sit in the class and maybe you could pick up a couple of things but there's so much you have to learn before you can understand what what he's talking about with david i'm talking about specifically the care he puts into uh creating a frame uh you know i've i've seen him spend hours uh on an exterior shot trying to get just a little spill of light from a street lamp that's two blocks away [Laughter] and you know i would think to myself at the time boy i don't know if this really makes that much difference this spill of life and then i'll look at a shot of mine that really could have used a spell of life so i'm learning the hard way but i'm learning all right holly jack uh people who write stuff how do you approach second drafts blank page and start again amendments to what you've already got any thoughts tips would be appreciated yeah great second drafts are really important friend of mine once uh said about me that i don't write scripts i rewrite scripts and here's what he meant in the process of writing the first draft by the time you get to the end you've sort of discovered what the movie is about uh because it may not end up that first draft being about what you thought it was going to be about when you started writing it you plotted a course to go due north but as you were going you started going a little bit east and then a little bit more east and and when you end up you're you're going northeast so you've figured out uh what the script is about it's probably fat it's probably long go back to the beginning of the script start writing it over again peel away the things that don't have anything to do with your story hang a lantern on the things that you need to bring into relief uh in the story you're gonna discover that a problem that you have in the third act isn't really in the third act it's because you didn't set it up properly in the first so second drafts i say re-type the whole thing sharpen up that joke that's kind of clunky sharp enough that's that dialogue that's kind of clunky get it down to its fighting weight that's what i do anyway thanks a lot for the question you

Channel: Outstanding Screenplays

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Keywords: video essay, screenwriting, screenwriter, screenplay, scriptwriting, screenplays, screenplay tips, how to write, scriptwriters, writing, film, studio binder, script, tips, story, oscars, review, how to, outstanding screenplays, filmmaking, motivational video, tips from screenwriters, directors chair, social network, oscars 2021, best screenplay, chicago 7, sacha baron cohen, aaron sorkin writing process, The Trial of the Chicago 7, best original screenplay, academy awards, aaron sorkin

Id: 79uD00NCBSw

Length: 16min 41sec (1001 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 21 2021