Essential Skill Sets Screenwriters Need To Write Professionally - Corey Mandell [FULL INTERVIEW]

Cory I know as we were setting up for the interview you mentioned about the last three years being much different in terms of the screenwriting and getting out there right you talked about some of those changes the currency yeah and especially in TV writing where a lot of the action is so if you go back 10 or 15 years and you ask yourself of all the scripts that are sold let's put them into three different categories we have paradigm driven scripts we could also call these formula driven rules driven so these are scripts where like if you watch a bunch of three camera comedies it's the same story structure just different joke or you watch a bunch of superhero movies over the summer it's kind of the same story beats are happy at the same time so these are formula or paradigm driven scripts so that's one category of scripts that people can write and try to sell then there's imitative scripts so when Breaking Bad was a phenomenal hit everyone's writing their version of Breaking Bad or people write their version of Arrested Development so you'd read someone's script and you'd be like oh this is like Mad Men but kind of different and then the third kind of script is pitch perfect authentic and so that would be a script that like when you read the pilot script for orange is the new black it's not like anything you've ever seen it's like orange is the new black love it Mike it hate it is completely original we've never seen these characters we've never seen this world and the story is not formulaic it doesn't hit these preordained plot points it unfolds in a way that's most compelling for what Jenji Kohan the writer is trying to communicate Mad Ben's another example community Sopranos we just go on and on moonlight so these are scripts that don't follow a paradigm they don't imitate what somebody else did they're a wholly original piece of work original characters story and way of telling that story so if we go back 12 or 15 years on the TV market who's buying pitch-perfect authentic scripts HBO Showtime that's it everyone else is basically buying paradigm driven shows genre driven shows or a show that imitates a successful show so if you want to break into the business 10 years ago even seven years ago you might follow a formula you might follow a paradigm also you're looking to get staffed on a TV show so TV shows hire lots of writers so if you want to be a comedy writer you might write an episode of jane the virgin or episode of silicon valley you're a drama writer you'd write a version of a drama to prove it you could imitate a show everything is completely different now so now when you ask yourself who's buying pitch-perfect authentic scripts HBO Showtime Netflix Amazon a.mcf X and the network's basically everybody and the reason is they're all chasing the key demographic which is 18 to 49 and our generation we've grown up on on-demand video demand platform so we've seen so many movies we've seen so many TV shows we know what's original and we know what is imitative and by and large our generation doesn't watch formula and so basically the the key demographic wants something that's original want something that's new and different and there's so much you can watch on TV it really needs to be special to grab your attention and so you'd be loyal so people are loyal transparent they're loyal to Game of Thrones they're loyal to Jane the Virgin and these are pitch perfect authentic shows so I've read every script that is sold in the last three years and the vast majority are pitch perfect authentic scripts now there are paradigm driven scripts that sell their our imitative scripts that sell but the people who sell those are people who have a real serious track record in that genre and what agents will always tell my classes is if you have a standard follow the dots comedy or drama or procedural unless you've been an executive producer above on a hit show in that space in the last three years your scripts dead on arrival normally even read the script further showrunners now when they staff shows they won't look at imitation scripts they don't want to look at your version of a show they want to read a pitch-perfect original scrip and what they always tell my classes is if you can write to a show if you can imitate my voice if you can follow a paradigm or a formula that doesn't mean you're a great writer if you're an amazingly great writer you can eat my voice you can follow how I tell my stories so it's really heartbreaking because there's so many books and classes and seminars that probably made a lot of sense five years ago that are teaching people these paradigms or teaching people how to imitate and a set of rules that no longer applies so it's like writers are being trained for a war that doesn't exist anymore and just real quick in features if you're going to work for the studio's you are going to be doing a Pixar film a Star Wars film or a Marvel action song that's basically sure three choices and they Pixar has a way they tell their stories Marvel has the way they tell their story Star Wars has a way to tell their story but I have students I have a student who's got her first writing job at Pixar but the script that she wrote was a pitch-perfect authentic script so even though when they hire her they're going to expect her to write a Pixar script you don't break in with a Pixar script you don't break in imitating or following a formula you break in with a script that when everyone reads that they go holy moly who wrote this this is amazing this writer I have to meet this writer I have to be in business with those writers so when you look at the writers who are writing all the features for the studio's they either have amazing track record of credits like Lawrence Kasdan or they wrote an amazing pitch perfect authentic script that no one had seen before blew people away and then Marvel's like hey would you be interested in doing our you know whatever movie we're making and yes at that point when you got hired you're certainly going to write it the way Marvel wants you to write it but the mistake I see has so many writers write their superhero scripts or their paint by the number of scripts and they can't figure out why they can't get a career they're just simply writing the wrong kinds of scrubs Corey what are some of the tell-tale signs when you but they have a student in one of your classes that they're using this old model that it may just be three years there was an outdated way but but what are some typos so when I work with writers I separate story design from story execution so story design is just so if you were going on a vacation and you wanted to have a romantic relaxing vacation and you ended up in a war zone where people are completely getting killed there's no room service because everyone's dead dead bodies in the pool can you have a relaxing romantic vacation and the answer is you could but it's very unlikely if you go to a very relaxing romantic resort and everything's perfect that doesn't guarantee that you'll have a relaxing romantic vacation because you still have to have the vacation and you might be stressed you might be thinking about work you might be having a fight with your partner but if you go to a very relaxing romantic spot you you get there in a you know fly first-class or you take a night train through Europe and every the design of your vacation is just perfect it makes it so much easier to have a relaxing romantic vacation the mistake that so many writers make is they have a problem with their story design but they try to fix it through execution so that's like you're in a war zone let's turn the volume up so we don't hear the dead people as much let's take the dead people out of the pool yes that does make it better but just leave and go to Hawaii and you'll be in much better shape so I always start with story design and make sure people I'm sorry if I cab a cup so the key is when someone's having a problem with their script is it a problem with design or is it promised execution because other writers will have a great design but they'll mess it up in execution get feedback that it's not working and throw their design out so if there's a problem with design and you keep trying to fix it an execution that's like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic but the same time you might have a great story design that you just aren't able to find the right execution so people will often do a consult with someone and the scripts pretty good but the ending is terrible and when I talk to them it always comes up we're like well that's not my original ending and I go what is your original ending and when they tell me I'm like that's a great ending like I know but everyone said I didn't believe it it was trite they have one had criticisms they were criticizing the execution not the design so the sorry I'm taking a long way around to the question but so when I'm working with story design it's when someone is working from a formula or a paradigm or a set of rules first of all you're just not interested when you hear it it's incredibly predictable and it just feels generic it feels like an Ikea piece of furniture it's like I've seen this story a million times and the other key thing is at some point I'll just stop them and I'll say why does this happen like why did the character do this and the real answer is because the writer wanted or needed or felt like they needed the character to do this so it's not authentic it's non-organic and it's not the best way of telling the story if it's literally following a recipe okay so how are you I'm fascinated by this so let me just see if I can understand the difference between design and execution so design is like the structure of it and they're doing this perfect sort of three-act structure but it's too predictable whereas execution are the little details no execution is actually when you're writing so it's the dialogue it's the characters it's the comedy it's the actual writing of it the design is having the entire story worked out before you've written a word okay and you need to be able to create pitch perfect design and then execute it authentically where these are real characters that were compelled with and everything that's happening feels this is really what the character would do but it also is what's really interesting to the story because the problem that a lot of writers get into is if they slowed things down they'd realize that there's key points in their scripts where they ask themselves if this was a real person with character what would they really do and let's say it's this they would do this then they ask themselves from a story point of view what makes for the most interesting story and it's that and so some writers will just do what the character would actually do and their scripts feel very organic but they're not strong stories other writers will follow oh this is what makes for the best story but so they have good strong structure but doesn't feel organic or believable so one of the key skill sets and so when I work with writers this is the the first thing that I teach them and I think that this is the foundational skill set and I call it creative integration and so the way it works is writers tend to work from one of two places inside themselves and it has to do with the brain and there are a conceptual part of the brain and intuitive part of the brain and most writers tend to be more conceptual or more intuitive so conceptual writers tend to work outside in they tend to be very concerned about the story that the story logical that the story makes sense that the story is interesting to other people conceptual writers are very concerned about what other people are going to think about this writing and will they think this is good they think I'm a good writer so they want really interesting things happening and they want a lot of interesting things happening and they want it to make sense and they wanted to have causality and that's really really important to them intuitive writers are completely different the intuitive part of the brain doesn't care what other people think it just cares about what is authentically true to you so intuitive writers are navigating towards what they would do in that situation or just what's interesting and compelling to them or what the character would really do and it's a very different way of writing one the conceptual is outside in and the intuitive is inside out so a conceptual writer would say I have this great idea and I've got to figure it out I got to break the story before I could write it if you don't know where you're going how you're going to get there it's a very systematic logical approach to writing the intuitive writer is going to be someone who says I need to write this out to figure out what the story is they find it through the journey they find it through exploring intuitive writers explore conceptual writers decide and they each have different inherent strengths and weaknesses so let's start with conceptual writers conceptual writers when you ask them why did you write this what why is this script important to you it's almost always a big idea a let if something that could be commercial a new way of doing a comedy I thought this was a great idea for a horror film or it's a theme they want to explore an intellectual theme and so they're really good at big ideas big concepts and they're really good at making sure everything happens for a reason and there's forward momentum and there's causality and they have lots of interesting things happening that we're just not that interested in and one of the reasons we're not that interested in it is their characters are never compelling enough their characters feel kind of like they were invented to tell this story because they work they're kind of like puppets who are there to tell the story and we just don't get an emotional connection to the characters the other reason that they hit a glass ceiling they can't get through is there's all these interesting things happening in the script but we're not that interested in them because we don't feel anything because the writer didn't feel anything when they wrote it and it's an energy transference business so conceptual writers got great ideas lots of big great things happening but the characters just aren't where they need to be and it's just not emotionally engaging and most of those writers know that they don't know what to do about it and Tudor writers are the opposite they believed on the page and these characters are like real people to them they don't invent the characters they don't designing the characters they discover them and that's why a lot of intuitive writers don't often get lonely when they write because they're spending time with their friends they're spending time with people that they care about and so if I'm working with a conceptual writer and the character is not engaging enough they'll say well what can we do to change it should we make her older younger let's make her bisexual let's change or ethnicities let's take her arm off let's make a record Ripley Jack what can we do to make her if I'm working with a deep intuitive writer and their characters aren't interesting enough that would be like talking to a mom and saying your daughter is not that popular at school let's take her arms off let's make her a quadriplegic let's make her older if you like that's crazy this is a real person you can't change who they are intuitive writers like they're very connected to their characters and as a result they tend to create really compelling characters really compelling emotion and these really compelling characters are forever searching for a compelling story they can't find because the intuitive writer is so inside out and so connected to emotion and character that part of them cannot create strong story it's the the conceptual brain has a perpendicular processor and it has a certain way of syncing and strength so weaknesses into the brain as a parallel processor and anyone if they're interested on you can email my assistant which is Lisa at Cori Mandel net and we can get you a bunch of information on this if you're interested but to take this further what happens is most writers if not all writers when they're writing they're trying to write the best script they can write and if you're smart and writers are very smart you play to your strengths and you hide your weaknesses so if I was a playing tennis against you for the championship and I'm really good at my forehand but I'm weak at my backhand I would try to play everything than my forehand and hide my and you of course would try to make me play my back here so writers are always writing to their strengths and trying to hide their weaknesses and maybe they know they're doing it maybe they don't but they're doing it I see this all the time and so what happens is over time as their strengths get stronger and their weaknesses get weaker and that is why there's so many writers who poor heart and soul and all this time and energy to have a career and they can't get there because your scripts aren't quite good enough when I work with the writer I will train them through creative integration so what we will do is we will make them write to their weakness and hide their strength so if I'm right hand I do everything is my right hand and my left really uncoordinated I literally tighten my right hand behind my black my back for a month and I do everything my left hand it's going to get stronger and more coordinated now during that month I might spill a lot of things and be very inefficient but over time I'll develop my left arm and coordination in the strength then I'll learn how to integrate the two so for a conceptual writer they will work exclusively from the intuitive part they will learn how to turn off the conceptual part the conceptual part is the part that has all these big ideas and worries about story a lot is all this anxiety and judgement and turn that off and teach them how to create from a pure authentic emotional space now their writing may not be well structured it may not be something they're going to show an agent but they will through that process their characters will come alive their dialogue will come alive and you'll one of the key things when I do intuitive training is to get you to think about something in your life where you feel something very strong and then you're writing when other people read it they're going to feel what you feel so you can get people to have the emotional experience you had when you wrote it then when I help you learn how to discover actual characters and a whole bunch of training to get to the point where that's a real person for you then you can write that person from what they're feeling and people will feel that then you can start putting characters into conflict and it will all be authentic characters and so that's the intuitive training and when they get to the point where their characters and their dialogue and everything is organic and authentic as best of the best writers out there then I'll teach them how to integrate that back to the conceptual side so that they all have the best possible stories and the best possible characters and then obviously for and into two writers the opposite they will turn that part of the brain off they'll work purely from conceptual until they're a rockstar and then we'll integrate and that process it's just so rewarding to work with writers because if they come out the other end literally their agent their manager or their spouse will say but we the script and say I love you but you didn't write this I hear this all the time I don't believe you wrote this because your stories aren't this crisp and compelling this has all your great character work but you can't like who helps you with the stories or someone will say you don't write characters this great I love you I love your writing but this was like you know orange is the new black or Maddy I mean this is just that high level of characters and it's like it literally is transformative and then the last thing I'll say which is really cool about creative integration is that most writers occasionally they have these flow days where everything is just pouring out of them and it's so great you're doing your best material and you love those days and you wish you could live in those days and then writers have those days which is the exact opposite where you're pounding your head against the wall just trying to get something on the page and I think for most writers that I work with they're often somewhere in between the really great thing about creative integration is almost all your days will be flow days because this is what cause float this is what happens when a writer is writing there's what would be best for the story what is the best thing to make the story move for in the most interesting way and a lot of writers especially intuitive writers they don't know the answer and that's really confusing and frustrating excuse me now even if you do know the answer and let's say it's that then of course what would my character really do and if it's the same thing and then you ask yourself what do I most want to write today what gets me most exciting about writing date it's the same thing all three navigational systems lying up that's a float that's when it's all coming out of you it's your best writing you want to live in those days when you don't know what the character would do or you don't know what's best for the story or you know but this is what's best for the story this is what the characters do this is what you both want to write it's all those are the worst days so the creative integration does is it allows people to train and know what the set of suite of tools what would be best for my story they'll be able to go to another part and know what my character really do those another part and know what they're most interested in writing and then they'll have tools to integrate which is to bring those three things into alignment and so I can't say that every writing day will be a flow day but most of writers are trained they'll say used to be 10 to 20 percent for flow days now it's like 80% and so they not only does the quality of the writing greatly improved sort of quantity so let's say somebody knows you know I'm very right brained very intuitive right and I resonate with music and emotions and color right but I really have trouble connecting the dots right and staying on task right and I'm actually speaking personally about myself so if I know that about myself as a writer and I know that what's going to show up on the page is that the story is going to lack any kind of continuity probably there's going to be with some issues how do I rein myself in because as a right brain person that that's one of my issues I have trouble reining myself sure so how would somebody who's so used to being oh I'm going to go with this emotion I'm gonna go with this right so make themselves more linear so it's different for every writer but generally speaking what I would probably do if I was working with you is the first thing I would say is we're going to turn off your intuitive side and develop your conceptual sight so that you're going to be able to naturally and easily build to connect the dots but not only connect the dots but do it with real strong stakes and clarity and strong escalations and you're going to be able to create as strong of a story as anyone in the industry and that story in a sense is is a glass and then we're going to teach you how to pour your characters and your dialogue and your emotion and all that intuitive stuff into that structure so that now your characters and your dialogue will be in service of a super strong story so and then usually the writers like oh that's exciting I want to do that how do I do that then I say okay well here's step one I need to imagine that we're going to go behind the barn and take everything that you love about writing and we're just going to shoot it in the head and that's the writers like I don't want to do that but that's what it feels like is what we need to do is turn off that part of you that is that dreamy intuitive emotional connective instinctive part of you now we're not going to kill that forever that is such a valuable part of you but we are literally going to turn it off because here's the thing if it's on your conceptual brain can't be on they both can't be on the same time they're connected by a corpus callosum and just physiologically speaking they can't be on same time it would it would short-circuit the fight-or-flight mechanism so we're going to turn this off and so the training in the beginning is we're going to be creating simple stories and then more complex stories and eventually scripts that there'll be no characters and there'll be no dialogue and we are literally like going to be playing with just puppets and we are going to be doing we're going to going to drill you day in and day out week in and week out on exercises for story logic and for story company but so if I may back up the there's a really cool class up there called drawing from the right side of the brain I'm sorry yeah driving fire so they bring and they have the before and after pictures they have these people who are terrible illustrators they do self-portraits and you look at it and you're like you I wouldn't even call these stick figures because I'd be an insult stick figures these are durable joined and then they have three days later the same person does their same self-portrait and it's like this is amazing like how could someone in three days go from being such a terrible drawer to such an amazing car and so the key is she has broken down the drawing into five specific skill sets and one of them is contrast one of them is shapes and this is the key she teaches you contrast or she teaches you shapes completely separate from all the others so you can't learn shaping if you're worried about what the picture looks like if you're worried about it being a good picture you just learned shaping you just learn contrasts you just learn color I actually don't know what the five things are by heart but you learn all five things in isolation and then the end should teach you how to integrate it so that's what we would do so we would be drilling you on story logic and you'd have a whole week of those exercises but they're not real characters it's not a script you're working on these are just training exercises then we're going to drill you on five weeks of story causality then we're going to work on logic and clarity and perspective and then we're going to be working on escalation then we're going to be creating conceptually strong characters and moving them and you're going to ultimately create a story where we don't know anything about the characters we have no emotional connection but when you look down at that story you're going to say that is a clear beginning and it has forward momentum and escalation if that story was populated with super compelling characters and dialogue it could be amazing and yours gonna be able to do that over and over again you probably won't enjoy this training it probably won't be fun in fact writers usually complain because they're like this feels like math and this is I want to be a writer because I hate math right when can we do this fun stuff and it's like you cannot do the fun stuff until you are an expert at this because here's the truth and this is really sad intuitive writers when I read their I'll give you a true story I'm a mentor for filming the pendant and they have a lab and they bring in these writers and then you are mentored by writers and directors of some of the best independent films and I came in at the end sort of clean up where the writer had all these notes and before they went to do the rewrite I would work with them sort of make sure their plan was in good shape so I kind of came at the end of the process and I worked with this writer it's wonderful woman and she had gone to one the major film schools and had an MSA and she ever since she was a little girl all she wanted to do is be a writer and she she was so excited to get in this program and she had written the script and some of the writers and directors of her favorite movies read your scripts and gave her feedback and so my job is to see what her rewrite plan is and see if I can bring any value to it so I go hey how's it going just it's going good but she said it and I really like things are not going good way and I goes what's going on shows I quit and I'm like you're not going to write this shows no I quit and I'm like what do you mean shows I'm not gonna write anymore I'm done and I couldn't be happier this is a load off my shoulder and like she starts crying it's so sad and this is a very representative story I see this all the time so I get in touch why are you quitting what happened so what happened is she's this really intuitive writer and so she's in this program and she had a character she loved more than anything and she loved the story more anything she wrote this script and she said everyone was giving me feedback Dave it was like the feedback with contradictory like they all read a different script that's what happens with intuitive writers because they have no they have no story structure and they have no clarity and literally everybody does read a different story so all these really great writers and directors were giving her feedback on the stories that played in their head when they read the script none of them were the story that played in the writers head but the real coup de Gras was she knew she wasn't good at story structure but she thought she was great at characters and they all told her your character is not that strong you you need a write stronger character so she said I can't do story structure and my character is not that good and these are the best people industry telling me that I got nothing so I have to quit I got nothing to hang my hat on so I said do me a favor before you quit we just answer some questions and so she said okay so I asked her all these questions about her character why didn't you love your character and what does your character do and tell me about the story and what happens here and why does this happen and and we after about an hour of questions I could really experience and see what she was seen in the experiencing and it was one of the most hauntingly beautiful characters and it was such a great story but I told her I got almost none of that when I read your script and the movie that plays in my head when I read your script it was really boring and I didn't understand or care about your character but the character that you experienced the character that's inside of you that is a really powerful character you need to learn how to develop these conceptual tools so that you can take this amazing character this amazing wine and get it into the right vessel the right structure not a formulaic structure but a custom design structure that will showcase your character in a story you want to tell and she's like I like to never do that I could have in anyway she did end up taking classes from me and it took her longer than most people it took her probably a year to get really strong at the conceptual site and probably another year to really learn how to integrate that that she then wrote that script everybody loved it she didn't sell it that she got an agent off of that and now she's a very successful TV writer and the funny thing actually is the person who hired her at one point said you're you're really great with characters but I just hired you because you were I just knew someone who's so good with stories and she could see had to call me because he's like I got hired because they think I'm really good at story the thing is she's really good at story it's almost like someone who's been heavy their whole life and now their sin they still think they're heavy like she still it took a while for her confidence to catch up to her abilities so what breaks my heart is that there's all of these into two writers out there and people are reading the scripts and they're just not that interesting they're not that good but if you could know what was playing inside their heads and their hearts you'd be like now that's powerful but they don't know that and they don't train themselves so it's like how many you know how many trans parents have the world not had or how many Sopranos or moonlight how many of these projects never came to fruition because there's a writer out there who has something like that inside them but they can't get it on the page where we can experience it and conversely you have these conceptual writers I have a Nick who's one of my students who then went on to sell a script and and directed and invisible sizable hit so now he's kind of a big new comedy guy so he's looking for his next project to direct and we had lunch a few weeks ago and he's complaining because he's like I'm reading all these scripts they are so smart there's a great premise for a comedy there's all these funny set pieces but these characters feel like stock characters they feel like characters I've seen before and it's funny but there's no heart to it like he wants to do is you kind of do something like in the vein of Groundhog Day something that's funny but it has some heart to it it has some depth to it and he's like all these writers can't do that and then I read these other writers and they've got so much depth but it's just so incoherent and mess right so these conceptual writers when I work with them if they are working from a pure intuitive place that the metaphor I would give a conceptual writer is you're writing a horse and you need to get home and you're guiding the horse is taking it there but you're guiding the horse you are the conceptual person the horse is the intuitive and you're guiding the horse where you want it to go sometimes when you get lost you have to let the horse guide you and that's what we're going to do is we're going to let your inner horse your inner intuitive just take you over it wants to take you to and you're not going to judge it you're not going to control it now it's going to take you wandering around and you're like this isn't a good story this is off topic this is de-escalating no one's going to be able to care about that yeah the horse knows where it's going and the journey won't be a great story but the horse is going to take you to some clearing with the Sun and the lake that it's just going to be the most beautiful place you've ever been and and it is going to be life-changing that you experience that and then we'll teach you how to create a story around that space but you'll never find that inside you and let until you let the horse just go where it wants to go but most consumption or like okay I'll let the horse take me at once and a horse starts doing pages and it's like yeah but this part of the forest is boring I'm bored by I know a reader be bored but I couldn't sell this anywhere okay stop it horse I'm gonna help because you don't know what you're doing it's like no the horse is taking you somewhere if you let it and so sorry for talking your ear off but I think what for me what is so frustrating is that there are writers out there that sacrifice so much in terms of time and money because they want to be writers and they're you know that you have to work a lot you know you have to write a lot of scripts and all that time and energy is time energy that you're not spending elsewhere in your life it's a big sacrifice plus they spend money on classes and seminars and books and software and it's a big investment and they have a dream and they want to tell stories and they want to live a creative life and they want to bring their visions to life for other people and so many of them they just like keep writing all of these scripts thinking they're getting better but they're just creating a larger pile of similarly flog scripts and it's because they don't have the right tools they don't have all the right tools and just as an example there's so many writers that were like I know my characters and dialogue aren't that strong Balinor to do about that just things are something wrong with me and then they always write big concept comedies or big concept thrillers where it doesn't matter if your characters are that good because they love to write the King's Speech they'd love to write Silicon Valley they loved write Mad Men but they're like not good enough and their agents and managers that won't find them because they're like I can teach you structure to some extent I can't teach you an ear for dialogue I can't teach you the right but if you don't have that you don't have that but what I would tell those writers is if you want to be a carpenter and you want to pound nails into wood and you can't do that you can't pound nails into wood you're never going to be a carpenter and people are trying for years to panel nails into wood and it doesn't work and they're like I guess I just suck as a carpenter but no they're using the straw they're using a drinking straw to pound those nails into it they're using the wrong tool if you gave them a hammer they might be a little clumsy up but after they got good with a hammer they're like oh I can do this their conceptual writers are using their conceptual tools to try to create characters it doesn't work and intuitive writers are trying to drink a milkshake with a hammer you know so if we can give everyone a straw and a ham if we can give people the various tools get them really good at those tools then suddenly writers can write at a whole nother level they didn't even know existed it sounds like left brain ie conceptual writers have a lot of trouble letting go they're just they're so formulaic and there's so much about you know making sure that this makes sense and that you know whereas with these right brain people they're just all over the place and there's just too easily led so it sounds like you do exercises to help the left brain people let go and the right brain - yeah so or no thing so it's a great video that can send people again you can email my system which is Lisa creme Internet and so it's neurologists and she'll really break down the conceptual intuitive parts of the brain and literally what one part is good at where the part is good at but they can't talk to each other these because they have a different processor it's like the old days with pcs and Apple so like you have a dream which is a very intuitive experience nonlinear non-causal but it's really evocative and you try to tell someone about the dream which is a conceptual exercise and the best you can do is kind of like get them to go oh I see how you had a really interesting dream but they don't necessarily experience it that way so yeah it's the the hardest part is turning off your home base and then when I can get you over to this other side I will give you exercises because everyone knows about the 10,000 hours to become an expert at something well even Malcolm Gladwell has said the 10,000 hours was the wrong thing to focus on that there's nothing magical about 10,000 hours what he said was 10,000 hours of dedicated practice everyone latches on in 10,000 hours everyone forgets dedicated practice dedicated practice is way people become an expert in something is sure they got put a lot of time and energy and passion into it but it's not it's what they do what their training is how they train and so if you think about if you want to be I trained at Second City improv they don't let you on stage for a year and a half because they are you're doing specific exercises every day to learn certain key skill sets that ultimately they'll integrate together and then they'll put you on stage same thing with Juilliard and acting same thing if you're a professional athlete it's about specific exercises to train yourself to develop the key skill sets and integrate and so I and I'm sure we'll talk about this at some point now I was a working studio writer for 11 years and while I did that I taught once a year at UCLA to give back and for fun and then over the last six years I've been building a teaching business and teaching and working with rioters and I have a lot of friends and a lot of people who are very successful writers and almost all of them either figured all this stuff out themselves which takes about 10 to 12 years for most people or they had someone help them and use two kinds of people that helped them a manager or they get to be a writers assistant and staffed on a TV show and that showrunner following that showrunners process I know someone who worked on Breaking Bad and working with Vince Gilligan for three years taught her how to change her process protected to the greatest story she was very intuitive and she got on to Breaking Bad and Breaking Bad what will happen is in gaining the season Vince Gilligan Alaska all the writers in the room to come up with certain ideas and pitched ideas and if you like the idea he writes it on an index card and it goes on the board and ultimately there's all these ideas on the board that they're going to start to work with to develop the the season well if you're a new writer you really want to get a lot of ideas on the board because if he's going around the room and none of your ideas get on the board that doesn't look so good well his rule was the idea had to fit on the card so if you start pitching an idea and he's writing and he runs out of room might be a great idea but he ran out of room on the card it doesn't go on the board and she's like I couldn't get my ideas out concisely enough she said I didn't know how to speak an index card and so she had to learn and this is one of the things I trained intuitive writers to do is how to take what they see and feel and how to communicate it in a very concise way and so that's just one example I'm sure she learned a million things I'm working with someone like Vince Gilligan but that's just one example she learned how to be very concise in how she thought and felt and pitched so the way that most writers get here is they worked in TV for several years with a really great showrunner and through that process you learn these skill sets and you adapt and you develop or you just get pushed out or there's a manager who will work intently with you because the reality is most writers if not all writers they have certain strengths certain weaknesses and certain blind spots blind spots or weaknesses you don't know you have the key is to a figure out what your blind spots are so now that least they're known weaknesses then how do you turn those weaknesses into strengths and that's what that dedicated practice comes in and it's very difficult to do this yourself so a manager who really knows what they're doing they will develop right over you know they'll take a writer who's really good but not exceptional and they will train that right over one two or three years to do this and then when that writer can write at that level they'll go out with a script pretending that that was the first thing the writer wrote by definition when you sell something that's the first script you ever wrote you never talk about the rest of it so the writers that I know who have career especially the best careers generally speaking either they were trained by showrunners because they were able to work in TV early on or they were trained by managers very few of them were self trained it's possible I know some examples but it took a decade and and they're rare that they got there well the reality is there are a lot of writers who don't live in LA so they can't work on the show and even if you live in LA and you're like okay I'll work on the show for training where do I sign up it's not that easy it's very competitive and the thing about managers is they're so busy servicing their clients no one wants to do development anymore so the manager has to really work with they're their top writers and really help them develop their material they don't have time to work with their new writers their emerging writers so as all these writers who are like having a manager but they won't spend a lot of time helping me and there's always managers saying god I really wish I could be helping these writers but I don't have time so it's really hard to find someone to do that kind of training so that's when I used to teach at UCLA for a long time I was and someone challenged me this like can you develop a training program to train writers like this if they don't have a manager and do this for them if they're not yet able to get on a TV show or they don't want to or they don't live in LA is there another way they can learn these skill sets because a lot of the the programs out there they're just telling people to take your writing and put it into this paradigm but so what I did is I wanted to create a series of workshops that could teach these these new skills so that's where this all came from I know you'd said in another video that when you were teaching at UCLA that each and I'm forgive me if they're on the semester system or the quarter system but okay each quarter or semester you would see maybe two people in the class that you really felt were like the gem and the gems and the other ones although with time and with proper training they could become that I'm wondering first of all those two people that's hypothetical would they really know could they see that they were different from the other writers good really okay how would they know and what would they how could they see it and how could you see it so I was talking on us with a manager the other day and I'm afraid I'm going to over answer your question so I apologize ahead of time so one of the key skill sets in addition to creative integration is to build the right and compelling conflict and compelling conflict is what takes great characters and great dialogue and just makes it pop off the page it's just it's hard to explain that you have that you of a visceral experience when you read you can read you look you read some stuff that's just bad and then you read some stuff and it's got some great moments and some great characters of dialogue but it's messing really happening then you read some stuff and it it's good things are happening and it's interesting but then you be something just pops off the page it just you can tell I was a studio reader and I could tell within one page if someone knew what they were doing if it popped off the page or not now that one page was great I don't know if they could write out a whole script I have to keep reading but if that one page didn't pop I knew they couldn't and yeah if I had a class of about 20 people there usually about two people and their writing just sort of popped off the page more than others they even didn't know why necessarily but everyone could tell and I think they could tell they would often not say anything it's like in a writing group there's usually one person who's writing just is better than everyone else or an MFA program it's just maybe people don't know why but it does what I've learned is it's because they're writing and compelling conflict and I find that about 5% of the writers that come to work with me naturally do that I don't have to teach them it just has that popping off the page and about 5% for to do that and the other 90% are anywhere from they need some work today they suck at it they just sucked at it but you can keep people how to do it so a great example is Neil Simon the playwright he has a book called rewrites which is his autobiography he talks about like year after year when he was a younger man he'd write these plays and he loved the characters and in every one thought they were sterically funny but there was just something missing it just didn't hold together this wasn't interesting enough and over time he's like I know something's missing I don't know what it is and I know a lot of writers who feel that way it's a really terrible feeling he eventually did the one thing he never wanted to do is he went to his older brother who was a really successful writer and his older brother read his stuff and said you're not writing a compelling conflict and Neil Simon's like what are you talking about what is this and he said my older brother taught me what it was and then the light bulb went off and so then he said I would just structure my compelling conflict and then pour in all the character and comedy and that's how he did his career David Mamet and this was on my website or you can look online he did a memo about a decade ago or so to the writers of the unit his TV show and he basically said you will learn how to write in compelling conflict or you'll be in the blinking unemployment line or the bread line and a lot of f-bombs in this memo but he's basically saying this is not a natural skill set for most people you will learn to do this or you will not survive and so I didn't know it at the time and and to go back to your question actually that the for the truth of my experience was the eighteen people who stuff was in popping off the page they weren't I wasn't able to get them there and so I like a lot of teachers and I talk teachers at UCLA and other film schools and they'll say this privately I don't know they'll say this publicly it's like yeah when you teach a class you're teaching for that one or two person or people who have what it takes the rest don't but let they have a dream support them be encouraging don't tell them that they don't have what it takes they'll figure it out and then when they figure it out they will give up this dream and they'll find the dream that they have the talent for because not everyone could be a real clash f91 could be a professional athlete and so we teach for that one or two that have what it takes and for the rest we don't tell them that they don't have what it takes we could be wrong but they'll figure it out and that's a real fixed mindset way of approaching this and one of the books that changed my life as a teacher is mindset by Carol Dweck I make all of my students read it's the only thing I make them read she talks about the fixed mindset in the growth mindset and the growth mindset is okay these two people who this does popping off the page why what skills what talent today how the other people don't have an the growth mindset says talent is repeatable skill sets and in maybe you're born with them maybe you develop them through nurture and childhood or maybe you learn them as an adult it doesn't matter how you acquire them it's just a skill set that's repeatable as opposed to luck so repeatable skill set is you know you learn how to drive a car you can drive me now you can always drive a car right a bike and so they have the people that pop off the page they have certain skill sets certain tools that other people don't you can figure out what those are compelling conflict and then you can start how to teach compelling conflict then you can teach those skill sets to other people and they can learn that talent and with so I I have I had a writer that kind Kang to me his name's Gary and he had a manager and he was always taking meetings but he could never sell anything you can never get hired he felt like he was that close to a career for five years and then at some point you're like okay this something's not here something's not working so he came to me deeply into it a writer that he wrote the most amazing characters in dialogue I didn't all I taught him on that front was don't change what you're doing he knows like you're amazing just keep doing that don't let anyone interfere with that but on the conceptual side you've got some real weaknesses and him specifically was escalation how to keep making things get strong like keep making things worse and worse in an organic way that was his so he was an easy case in that he had everything but one skill set he was really missing one skill set so I gave him those training exercises and then unbeknownst to me when I was done with that class he spent the next three months doing those training exercises every day for four hours I didn't know that that's a growth mindset guy that's a guy who's like I want to become an expert at this skill set that I naturally am terrible at and at the end of those three months he was as good at that as a natural conceptual writer is good at that he was just as good at that as anyone he now has a movie coming at I think it's released in the fall starring um or what's her name anyway not Reese Witherspoon but someone like anyway he has a movie that that come out yes came at the agents he sold to TV pilots and he had everything but that one skill set now at the same time I've worked with writers who are graded escalations and great at big concepts but their characters and dialogue it's just like these are puppets and through the intuitive training they could come off the other end where their characters and dialogue are just as good as these people who are naturally great so the key is you have natural talents and then there's talent that you don't have or you're not that strong yet if you train the right way you can if you're willing to put the time and effort in the right way you can end up being just as talented as someone who's naturally that way and that's the growth mindset so for years I honestly and I'm embarrassed to say this but for years I would teach a class and I'd come home and I'd say how it goes I go these two people I think could have careers the rest of them not so much and over time usually those two people would go on and have careers and none of the others and I'm like well I teach for those two people I encourage everyone else because you never know but probably going to find out they don't have what it takes when I change this approach and it took a long time l effort I remember I had a class where there it was only ten people there was one person who you could tell how to take the other nine know and within four years one of those nine people dropped out because of long story so that left eight and of that eight six of them went on to got careers and I wasn't a smarter or more dynamic or I wasn't a better teacher than prior I just had a different teaching approach and it was the approach that was radically different until creative integration skillset saying approach so it took me years and a lot of help from other people I didn't just invent all this myself but that's the really cool thing about talent and is that it's repeatable skill sets and you can learn these skill sets and you can develop them if you know how to train yourself and you want to put the time and energy into it let's talk about this hypothetical class of twenty people two excellent people that you think have potential to have careers and the eighteen that don't do you think those eighteen people want to hear the truth knowing that they can be it's malleable they can you know sort of you can mold them too but do they really want to hear it and talk about this growth mindset versus what's the other side of that coin which is fix my exam okay and so how do you know you're experiencing a student that has the fixed mindset offer and they don't want to hear it perfect perfect perfect question that is such a smart question so the fixed mindset first of all believes that if you want to be a writer you have this talent or you don't so then it's you are constantly have this voice in your head that says do I have what it takes do I have the talent am I wasting my time am I going to get a career or is it never going to happen for me that constant cheer base fear-based chatter is that fixed mindset and because of that the fixed mindset and you have such a smart question it desires an outcome so if I have a script and I go hey will you guys read my script and just give me your feedback I'll know what you think there's the fixed mindset in the growth mindset and they're both there I don't think it's one or the other I think they both exist it's just sort of a ratio are you 90 percent growth mindset and ten percent fixed or divisor when I give you guys a script it goes tell me what you think my fixed mindset wants an outcome it wants you to to say well now I know why you had a career now I know why you teach others this is maybe the best script I've ever read I am I'm literally in awe to be in the same room with you I didn't know human being could Isis this well this is this was the most amazing script ever like that's what my fixed mindset wants to hear and when it doesn't hear it it's going to throw a temper tantrum and at that point it has two choices and only two choices which is what's wrong with you guys or what's wrong with me so you always hear writers out there saying yeah my manager said that the characters weren't strong enough you know I got changed managers I mean he doesn't know what he's talking about or they'll say yeah the manager said the characters weren't good enough I don't I don't know why I know good at characters because something wrong with you or something wrong with me the only choice is that it has the growth mindset does not crave or desire an outcome it desires the truth so the growth mindset wants to know what did you honestly think and why did you think it and let's say that there are parts of my script that you really loved and there was a section of the script that you just didn't care for why and not in a defensive way and not in an attacking way but why because it's like a detective it's like hmm what plays in my head is amazing it's not amazing for you I want to know why where is that disconnect maybe there is a piece of information there context that I knew that you didn't I didn't get out well enough and if I could just rewrite it so that becomes more viscerally clear to people maybe you'll then have the experience along maybe that section I like it for very personal reasons but it actually disconnects from this there's a whole million reasons but if I and maybe maybe the reason you didn't love my script the honest truth is the characters just weren't compelling enough for you they felt kind of flat they felt kind of like they all spoke the same way that's not now a rewrite which is the mistake most you'll make that is okay I'm not yet strong enough at characters or the story the characters great but it kind of wandered around and it just it just didn't seem like it had a forward thrust and maybe I'm just not good at that forward thrust great the growth the fixed mindset of course is freaking out but the growth mindset is celebrating because it's like okay now I know what I can do be moving forward to get better as a writer now I got to figure out how do I train myself to get better at forward thrust or soul or better at characters and so if you follow a growth mindset when you get feedback if you love my script top to bottom and I know the process that I use to create it and I can replicate that process that is great news for me if you didn't love my script top to bottom and I can talk to you in the right way to figure out why you did it where the disconnects were and I could realize where I have a weakness where I need to get better at a skill set where I need to create a new talent or get better at a talent and I can figure out how to do it that's amazing so the growth mindset is not looking for an outcome it's looking for the truth so your question was really profound those 18 people did they want to know that they are in 18 people if you ask them they all say yes the reality is if you were to tell them and I never did I never that was for right or wrong reasons that was a line I would never cross I would never tell someone if I thought they had what it took or didn't I just didn't want it because I felt like that's just my opinion what is my opinion worth at the end of the day and I don't want to inflict that on someone positively or negatively so I don't know I'm not saying this wisdom of the right decision but as a teacher to this day if someone says do you think I have what it takes around well first of all say go read mind set because that's a fixed mindset question but even if I actually have an opinion I'll never tell someone anyway but if I if someone were to tell those people the they would say I want to know the truth and that is true for their growth mindset but their fixed mindset does not want to know the truth it wants an answer it wants a specific answer it won't say yes or the fixed mindset would be okay with I don't think you have what it takes but I don't think it will take that long for you to get there the six mindsets like oh all right I'll settle for that but anything beyond that and then the fixed mindset it's like well what do you know or yeah I don't you know so and the reality is what I've learned is that we are always both fixed mindset and growth mindset and if you really do the work you can feel you know kind of the ratios and in fact like people often ask me why I teach and there's a lot of answers but I'll tell you one of the main reasons that I do this is as a writer I had a very unhealthy relationship with my writing it was really torturous experience because as a writer I was about as fixed mindset as you could be as a teacher I'm about as growth mindset as you can be so for some reason teaching is that one space in my life where it is just so easy to be egoless and growth mindset and you know for other people maybe that's religion or parenting or whatever for me it's teaching not sure why but it is and I didn't even know about mindset at the time that's something I learned later on a brilliant student said hey you should read this book I think and I was like oh my god where's has been my whole life and but yeah so for me teaching I'm sorry writing had all these demons and and anxiety and fears and it was just as I was was a very angry person and it was either what the f is wrong with my agent or this executive and this and just or what is wrong with me and that was a my only two choices and as a teacher it allows me to live in a growth mindset place and to be a much it's very healing for me and it's just I get so much out of that and then I really love working with writers and really helping them find and stay in that growth mindset because that is so important to a writer Cory from your time at film school and also you know having writing instructors talk to you when you were in college did you feel embraced or discouraged some thinking about like a Ray Bradbury interview I saw he said he advised a lot of people not to to take writing classes because he felt that they were always discouraged um how do you feel as a student really encouraged teaching okay but that's actually why I would have people think twice about taking those classes because there's fixed mindset encouragement and there's growth mindset encouragement and so you know the very first teacher that I let me said that a lot of teachers that I know have a philosophy that the more you write the better you'll become and so they're in job is to encourage writers and yeah I mean you you're going to point out things are not doing right you're going to criticize you're going to but you always couch that with three compliments you know like that's the sugar with the medicine and also the other day your job is to make these people feel like they can do this that they have what it takes and I'll see some writing and the more they write the better it'll become and I don't I don't do that as a teacher for a variety of reasons first as I said I think most writers when they first start writing they see significant improvement because when we first start writing we make lots of really dumb mistakes that we don't know we don't know what we don't know so if you're if you're somewhat open to feedback and criticism you're trying to get better and you have reasonably smart or really smart people in your life reading your stuff and giving you feedback I do think people really start to make a real improvement then they hit a plateau they'll stay on forever and that plateau is where the more they write the more the higher the pile of some early flawed scripts are because if they have intuitive weaknesses or conceptual weaknesses you can keep writing as much as you want you're just going to keep making those mistakes so I don't believe I know writers who've been on it for 10 or 12 years and what they're writing today isn't really any better than what they're writing eight years ago so I don't believe I believe the more you write the better you become without the right training and tools is for most people kind of a Santa Clause Tooth Fairy fantasy further I do think it's really important to have someone in your life for people right who who believe in you and love you and support you and when you're feeling down they're like no you can do this and they can be the wind in your sails when the wind you know goes away and you're just sort of loose confidence and you lose your way I think that's absolutely essential I would never do that as a teacher I don't think someone should pay for that and also I don't want something to become dependent on me so I want them to find people in their lives and ultimately themselves to be able to have that you know confidence in love and the further I think that the six mindset confidence is always point out what you're doing right and complimenting it you're so good you're so good you have what it takes that's so fix mindset I think the growth mindset is there's tools that you can learn and let me teach you a tool and so let like what is your biggest weakness as a writer let's spend four weeks doing nothing but training on that tool and then we're going to have you write a scene or a sequence and you're going to see and or you give to other people and they're going to see oh my god you're you're suddenly better at this thing and then you're like oh that's the confidence I want to give someone I had a weakness identified it or it was identified for me I had a specific training regimen I came out the other end stronger at that and maybe you're not as strong as you need to be yet but you can keep training and you can keep training and you realize I can get to the point where I'm as good as I need to be okay now Andy I've got six other things I need to do that on and so maybe it can take six months or a year that's growth mindset confidence that's what I want to instill in people so my experience for the most part in film school was very gentle everyone came in and told us you can make this you can do this you're amazing and in my class there were 12 of us three of us went on to have careers and nine didn't and one thing that the three of us had in common we weren't smarter than the I certainly wasn't smarter than some of the others or a lot of the others we didn't work harder honestly I didn't work that hard in film school I'm not proud of that but I had a lot of procrastination issues what we did have in common is we all had a manager not to saying that everybody all had a manager who in their own way said you're not as good as you think you are and you need to get better in certain skill sets and I can help you do that and in my case it was a year of looking with this manager turning weaknesses that I didn't know I had or I did know I had into strength that's a big reason why I teach because I had access to that if I didn't I would have been like the nine who didn't I mean I I had certain things I was inherently really good at and I had certain things I was inherently really bad at and I had things I didn't know I was bad at and no one in film school was really helping me with that it was it was the manager who did that work so I I think yeah classes where they just sort of tear you down and discourage you should be avoided at all costs I know people who have troubles with their writing and they don't feel confident and they find the teacher that gives them confidence and support and they love that teacher and they become addicted to that teacher and they'll take and it's a good business model for the teacher because they'll keep taking classes because they're taking classes to feel that feeling right but that's not solving the problem if I can make you feel confident or good about your writing or special I can make you feel like you can get there that doesn't mean anything what matters is when you can feel that way and the way you'll feel that way in my opinion is through proving to yourself that you're making progress and confidence through your training so it sounds like this sort of military style you know boot camp breaking you down is going to harm someone or the same then too much hand-holding and babying and oh you're one of our prize you know that sounds like that's also damaging like that I think there's I think highly addicting but it's not getting any better feeling good but that was like junk food she'll be good but it's not nutritious it's not making you healthier so I'm wondering with this manager do you think you were more open to hearing then than some of the other people I mean I mean if you say that you feel that you were on the same level right right well there a difference that you were maybe mother great that's a great question and as I said earlier I was such an incredibly fixed mindset person so I was absolutely not open to here I mean I got very lucky so this is what happen and I want to share this because I try to share as many writers as I can because I think this is a really important story and there's some being here that they can do which I would highly recommend so what happened is I wrote this script and the story of the manager was that I was in a writing group and there were some professional writers there's actually Academy Award nominated writer we met at her house so I was really exciting and I had written the script they were giving me feedback and long story short it got to the point where they're like this scripts amazing this script will sell the only question is how much it will sell for do you want help getting an agent and of course that was like magic to my ears and then I mentioned this to my professor at UCLA who you know a lot of really big writers had come through that school and through his class and so he volunteered to read the script and you know this is one of the three best scripts I've ever read in 20 years at UCLA and again I'm thinking of all these amazing writers that so I'm like well I guess I'm as good as those and he goes this will definitely sell you want help in getting the manager an agent and I was interning for a manager at the time just as an intern so as a favor as a favor to that manager I'm like do you want to read this because I like it's going to sell it gee what do you want your 10% or not buddy and so he agreed to read it took like three weeks which told me crazy and then we had a meeting I'll never forget I go in there and he's like this is a pretty good rough draft don't show it to in the industry because when you show stuff to people industry they get coverage reports on it and those are database that's your first impression but if it's not great coverage you haven't just blown your chances at that production company they're going to share that coverage with everybody so database so you you blown your first impression across the board and he said this will not serve you well but you have some real strengths you have some real weaknesses you have you know some blind spots I could help you with that if your was giving me this old talk and the whole time I'm like what is wrong with it and like did I tell you what the Academy award-nominated person's I say it my professor who represented Stevens or you know top Stevens it wasn't slate you know and he said look they were all telling you the truth this is a better script in most scripts it's an impressive script but it's not nearly as good as what you need in the industry you look your people on the writing group are working writers your professor at UCLA all smart people but they're not in the business of breaking writers into the business I am I know how good something has to be this isn't closed and I'm like didn't want to believe that my fixed mindsets like he's an idiot and so what he said and all this was the best thing anybody could have said is hire three studio readers pay them under the table if this script came through the tracking system what coverage would you write and then give me the coverage the honest coverage and the coverage isn't good it's not going to hurt you because it's just you only see it nobody else sees it and I'd have a lot of money but I did this I paid him like 100 hundred fifty bucks three different people someone had imagined someone at Warner Brothers and so when it Scott Rudin's company and the coverage came back and it wasn't terrible and it wasn't bad it was okay which is terrible it would have hurt me it was clear that his coverage was like this is okay not being special nothing great here and then on the writer it says you know recommend consider it was low marks on the writing on two of the three and that you can't hide from that and then the manager said I'll work with you if you're willing to put your ego at the door and do this training so I did and it was like 14 months it was grueling he was he was not a good person but that his training was good it was it was marine it was much rougher than it had to be but okay and at the end of that time he said I now think the script is where it needs to be all pay for coverage reports and he paid for three coverage reports of three different people real actual readers and it was all just exactly what you want exceptional coverage and literally three weeks later Ridley Scott hires me to write metropolis eye flies me to London I mean like my whole world changed my whole life changed and it never would have happened if that manager hadn't sort of forced me to pay for coverage and so because at some point it takes mindset hide and that's what I always tell people if you're thinking they the biggest mistake you can make is go out to the marketplace before you're ready and just because your friends think it's great and just because your teacher thinks it's great and just because the script consultant you hired is great and I I don't do anymore I used to do script consulting but I say don't listen to those people because they often they're running a business in a business want happy repeat customer so they often tell you what you want to hear and even if you find the script consultant has incredible integrity which is rare but they exist they're not in the business of breaking writers into the business and and I wouldn't listen to their advice per se I know people who are like I had the script consultant said this this and this I went out to the marketplace look at the coverage it stunk it happens all the time I say hire actual readers under the table in TV or feature wherever you are and get the actual coverage report that they would get and if all three coverage reports come back recommend recommend highest marks then you're ready to go up then then yeah get on the highest mountain pound your chest and get everybody to read your script if that's not the case stay off the radar you don't want people reading your material it's going to hurt you and figure out how you can train yourself to get better so sorry for a long answer but no I was very fixed mindset and if that manager hadn't done that for me I'd be taking classes a day I wouldn't be teaching them core let's talk about someone who has an agent and two scenarios either they've been dropped by their agents and I don't know how you would be dropping B via email telephone call and on the flip side those who feel that they should drop their agent so two scenarios well the second one's hard because of course the question is why do you want to drop your agent and it's usually because they're not working for me and they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing and I'd have a career or better career if they were well the challenge you're in a really tough spot because if you're going to try to find another agent they're going to know it's sort of like trying to find a wife but you're married right so they know you're married to someone so then the question is why are you leaving your wife and why do you want a new life and then because if the writers start saying well my age is not doing this not paying attention to me everyone in towns going to say you're blaming your agent but it's you and your writing is not good enough and and oh yeah I want to say I'm a super busy agent what I want to do is take a client who's not that good who always blames their agent also as an agent you know what I love is spending time and energy on someone who's not loyal to me so yeah let me jump in business with you when you have an agent and you want to switch agents like that's the hardest place to be and if you really are there first of all just stop and and the question becomes imagine that there is a factory that's polluting a river and then down river all these kids are getting really sick and Doctors Without Borders flies into that village and they start working with those kids giving them medicines and treatments to help those kids get sown Doctors Without Borders doing a great thing but they're running in a circle because they can't they're not fixing the problem they're fixing the consequence of the problem the only way to fix the problem is to stop the factory from polluting or get a different water source for the village so the question is is the problem that your agent isn't working for you probably not that's probably the sick kids what's the factory so if I'm with that writer let's sit down and talk about why your agents not working for you because in a day an agent is a salesperson and an agent is selling writers and material and they have only so much time and energy so they're going to prioritize on the ones that can sell so if the means your agent is not prioritizing for you why not and nine out of ten times the problem isn't the agent the problem is with you or your writing and if you don't realize that and work on that you can try to switch agents as long as you want all that's going to happen you're going to reputation of someone who blames everyone else and is it loyal and you're going to be in a really bad shape now is it possible that just something happened to your agent and there's nothing to do with you it's possible but it's very unlikely let's say that's the case I don't think you as a writer should be trying to change agents you need to find the intermediary so you're going that's why you have a manager or an entertainment lawyer but that's why you owe everyone has a manager today so if your agents not working for you you talk to your manager and your manager will tell you it's your fault Chuck this is what you need to be doing or if it's something with the agent then the manager can talk to another agent and sort of put the thing in that you might want to try to steal this person but you don't want to be out there doing it okay so let's suppose you get the call or the email that you've been dropped what do you do well because I believe in working with rioters is when something like that happen I believe that you should give yourself a 24 hour fixed mindset pity party because like when you try to say growth mindset and it's so exhausting when you're pushing everything down so scream cry drink yell blame your mom blame your dad blame your a blame your cat I mean 24 hours just have your meltdown but then then in 24 hours that's done spend those 24 hours wisely now it's time to go to a growth mindset and now what you want to know is why they dropped you and you may not be able to find out because agents won't always tell you the truth it'll depend on the agent in your relationship again you probably have an agent and a manager and the manager should be able to tell the truth and the manager won't tell you the truth probably not the best manager for you so you try to figure out the truth and if you could figure out the truth then that will lead you to what you want to do about it but if I can step back for a second I love my agent I think he's the best agent in the world I'm RuPt abrupt at WME there was another agent WME who I think of the second best agent I rolled their names Audrianna Alba Getty and she said something once they think it's so important for writers to hear she said that some writers get it and some writers don't get it and the writers who get it are all working and the writers who don't get it most of them aren't working and so as an agent she just wants to work with writers who get it and this is what it is a lot of writers think that you know to write a script that changes your life to write a script that gets you your first job or to get really Scott to hire you or to get a whatever it is you're aspiring to you have a career we're trying to take to the next level they think it's about writing having the right script at the right time at the right place that's not it that's a mistake that surrenders all control and power to the universe the reality is your job is to think in six script cycles and you have to be writing the right kinds of scripts pitch perfect authentic we talked about that earlier and let's assume you trained yourself that still to do that you need to write six of those every two years and the reason is if you write six of these pitch perfect authentic scripts one of them is going to go out to the marketplace and just fizzle and you'll never know why and then two or three of them will go out and they'll start to get some traction but then something will happen in Darrell it and then they'll be one or two that's absolutely going to happen you have the director tasks you have the stars there's a bidding war there's no way it's not going to happen and something is a very left second is going to derail it and one of the six will actually go the distance and sell or it'll be that script that gets you the next three or four years of getting staffs on show there'll be one of those six scripts that will just catch lightning in a bottle one of those six you don't know which one it'll be so if you're not working right now you ought to be writing three or four of these scripts a year because you're thinking and six script cycles so any one script goes out and ultimately doesn't do what you need to do you don't feel like a victim that's one of six this is the key if you are working you have two jobs now you have your day job and your weekend night job so if your day job is a feature assignment for Ridley Scott or your day job is you just got staffed on Jane the virgin one of my students just as I keep saying stressed out she's very excited you have to do everything you have to that you have to excel at that job but then at night so we can you got to be writing pitch perfect authentic scripts and maybe you're not writing three or four a year maybe you're writing - a year because but you don't stop writing these scripts and creating these scripts because one of these scripts is going to be the thing that takes your career to the next level and so the writers that don't get it is I'm working I'm making money I've made it Disney it's like I have a family I am writing there's no other time and I get that but the reality is the writers that get it even though they're working they're still always creating these new material and they think about it in six script cycles and so a lot of times agents drop the writers who aren't doing that and you know I get it because like when I was a working studio writer I wasn't continued to write the scripts I was just doing my Studios assignment work and I was making good money and I was really I was too busy I didn't want to do that my agent kept telling me to do this I didn't and he said at some point your writing career is going to end badly and I worked non-stop for 11 years but I was a working writer but I never became an a-list writer and the only way I could have become an a-list writer is to keep writing the script so there was another writer Erik singer who wrote a script and he started getting all these studio assignments and he was making a lot of money but he kept writing on his own time he's pitch perfect authentic scrap year after year after year and eventually one of them hit and it was American hustle and so he's now suddenly a huge writer I know the guys that wrote the NIC same thing you know they're their staff writers and they were making really good money but they were writing stuff that they really believed in and the Nick was one of them and that's that script just took them to a whole other level Alan Ball it's American Beauty we could go on and on and on so often agents drop writers who might be really great writers but they don't get it they don't keep creating this new absolute so it's either they don't keep creating material or they're not creating the right kind of ensure it's not good enough I have a lot of friends or agents and if you keep creating the right kind of content even when you're working and in the contents amazing and you play well with others it's very unlikely they're going to drop you because that's exactly the kind of person they want to represent and in that case if they drop you it it could be a conflict of their client it could be a lot of things have nothing to do with you but if you're not doing all of those things and an agent drops you then you have to look in the mirror okay so the time of this interview is we're in 2017 is it better for a screenwriter to focus on spec screenplays or a spec television pilot so I think that TV writing and feature film writing are different art forms there's a lot of overlap but they're very different so I think that someone has to first of all say do I want to be a feature film writer or don't want to be a TV writer now it's possibly possible they want to do both but generally writers have a preference to one or the other now that said there is so much more opportunity and money in TV than there is in feature features are getting better but not as good although I know a lot of TV writers who are sneaking over to the future' neighborhood because a lot less competition but that said I do have clients and students who want to be feature film writers but want to become TV writers as their day jobs while they keep writing their moonlight or their Manchester by the sea or whatever they're writing but what I would say is you know there's this training of all the creative integration and skill sets and then when you really get to that the last train of really designing and executing on your stories and your characters it's there's different training for TV or feature so I would say if someone is sort of new to this whole game I pick one of those forms and really get strong at that before you try to learn the other I wouldn't be bouncing back and forth because then you kind of become kind of good but not grated either now if someone's really great at one form yeah focus on the other so it is really hard to sell a feature film original script but it's getting a little bit easier which means it's gone from impossible to almost impossible a little bit it I ain't I have in the last two months I've had four four students sell feature scrubs and so it is certainly possible but you see more action on the TV side but I think the mistake a lot of people make is they want to go buy a TV script cuz they think there's more action and it's easier but their hearts not really into it they don't really want to be a TV writer it's not really trained to be a TV writer and they're wasting their time so I maybe I'm a romantic but I just think that there's going to be so much training and so much dedication and sacrifice to get into the business and and what people don't understand is that getting in the business as hard as that is is a lot easier than staying in the business and if you're going to go through all of that then do it for a career that you want do it for a life that you want I mean TV writing and feature film writing is very different I was the future phone writer for 11 years I had total control of my schedule I would take meetings maybe one or two maybe one or two days a week but only when I wanted to most the time I I could be in Europe writing I could be here writing I could do what I had so much control over my schedule I would work really intently on something for three or four months and I could take two months off TV writing is very different you're going to be working maybe eight nine months intensely and then you get time off you're going to be working in a room a lot with other people some people love that some people hate that there's a lot more politics that can go in the TV writing some people can thrive in that some people hate that now teacher phone later I would constantly be writing scripts pouring heart and soul into something ever got made and I friend a friend who was a writer on that man and she would write something and then you know a few months later we could watch it and I was so jealous of that she was so jealous that I did my work literally in Paris for two months at one time she was very jealous of that so I would say like think about your life I think what I always tell writers is if I couldn't guarantee you success writing for movies or TV which would you pick and whichever one you pick if I could guarantee you success writing any kind of thing you know any kind of TV show comedy drama or a movie what would you pick and then work backwards from there to see what kind of spec scripts you should be writing and so how about vision for what kind of career you want what kind of life you want work backwards and write those kinds of scripts and that's plan a and hopefully final work now over enough period of time it's high na is not working you can consider Plan B Plan B is would be the easier script to sell where where's the market plate how do i game the marketplace that doesn't set you up for the life you want or the career you want that's just I want an agent I want to sell something the mistake that I made that I help others don't make is plan D was my plan a I was in film school and I said eh I heard the story how Jim Carrey and I'll know this is true or not the struggling comic and he said someone told him to do this he wrote a check to himself for 1 million dollars and he post dated a year later and he said in one year I'm gonna go to cash this cheque and within one year he got living color and he made millions of dollars is that a true story I don't know I hope so I don't know but I was 23 years old when I heard it so I thought it was a true story so I didn't write my I was I started by a check but it was I just couldn't do that but I did write in my calendar one year later I will have an agent and I will have sold the script I wrote that in that account I told everyone a year from now I'm going to do that so my when we were walking we moved in the direction of where we're looking that's our intent so that was my intent in one year I'll have an agent in solo scope and it was actually 13 months later so I didn't quite make it I had an agent I actually didn't sell a script but I sold a pitch to Ridley Scott and he flew me to London and was on the front page of variety so I was willing to call that a success okay and what I realized as after I finished metropolis and was on the front page variety Ridley was going to make it and he said very positive things about the script and me I was named on the front page of variety made my mom's day and something I was a hot writer in town and I was getting all these job offers and I remember thinking all these offers that I'm getting are four kinds of things I don't really want to be writing so I called mange and I'm like I don't want to be writing those kind of things I'm so stupid I'm like I'll be writing these kind of things so get me those kind of offers and I forget what she said she said it's such a polite classy Martin woman but she basically said you idiot if you wanted to be doing this why did you write this script in the trolley everything you wrote lines you up for this career if you don't want this career and you want that career why did you write those scripts why did you sell metropolis and the honest answer is because I was just trying to get an agent and sell something I hadn't thought I was 24 years old I didn't I was so fixed mindset I said if I can't sell a script in a year I'm going to law school because if I don't sell the script in a year means I don't have what it takes which is very fixed mindset and very stupid and so I tell people don't make the mistake I made Plan B is okay I just want to get an agent just want to sell something I just want to validate I can do that's the plan a is what career do I want what life do I want and reverse engineer but you should be writing to give yourself to that you mentioned being the hot young writer you know being on the front page of variety your names out there you're probably your phone's ringing and I know you you've talked in other interviews about how some of that went away for a little bit can you talk about if someone else is in a similar situation how they regroup yeah what I'd like to do is give the single best piece of advice that I ever got that I ignored and so what happened is when I was in the front page a variety and all these offers were coming in there was an agent at my agency Barbra Dreyfus who didn't represent me but she took me out to lunch and she gave me the following advice she said the next script you write is the most important trip she'll ever write it will determine the trajectory of your career so right now you were an unknown person now you're on everyone's radar he worked as a high profile director he's planning on making the movie he said how great your script was everybody in town wants to work with you so everyone is like so hyped up on you now there are writers who are commodity writers they go in and they write these big summer movies these big good action movies make a lot of money but there's nothing special about them then there's writers who are ALS writers writers who have these amazing careers the next script you write will put you on a trajectory so her advice was this don't take any job that you wouldn't have done for free which is to say you love this project and you believe you could just knock it out of the park you love this so much you would do it without getting paid now we're going to get you paid but don't take anything that falls short of that and you'll have to say no to a lot of stuff because most of what they're going to offer you is crap or just not a good fit for you and the offers will start to slow down and you're going to panic and think you have to grab the next best one don't and the offers will keep slowing down and I'm telling you this that even you'll think the offers will eventually go away and they won't but even if they do literally you've said no to everything spec your next script and make it something that you love and knock it out of the park because she said if the next one is amazing and that puts you on a trajectory that then people see with certainly later on is the time to do it for the money later on we'll grab a lot of money but right now this next script that you're on now everyone knows who you are this next script is going to tell them what kind of writer you are and when she said that I had that chill up my spine that this is absolutely true I need to hear this and do this and I said no to something I said no to something the third time I said no is a Disney project and they doubled my quotes and I said no and they doubled my quote and I said yes and I'm embarrassed to say that that project of all the projects was not only a script I didn't want to write it was a movie I wouldn't even want to see but it was sudden I don't come from money I had student debt and it was more money than I ever thought you could make in years and I was going to get paid for three months and so the precedent that I set I think with myself at that point is I'm in this for the money and and I and that really locked me into a career path and it was I wish I could go back in time I feel like that was a really big test and I failed it I I could see where a lot of people would not blame you I'm not even sure which project you're referring to forgive me but I mean so you really feel like even the money that you took and probably it changed many things for you because money money can do wonderful things it can also hurt but I mean but here's the thing if I hadn't taken that project and that project never got made and you know as a writing sample I think it was it was good but it wasn't special I'd waited and waited and took something else or even to something original and if it was great I would have made so much more money down the road Delma I mean so you know my agent you know represents me but he also represents Aaron Sorkin I worked non-stop as a studio writer for eleven years I made a lot more money never thought I could make you know the difference between how much money Aaron Sorkin is me I don't know but I can I'm sure that what Aaron Sorkin makes is not even in the same zip code is what I made he also represents JK Rowling now I'm not saying that I could have become Aaron Sorkin or that level or I could have been JK Rowling I don't know but what I do know is that the choices I made prevented that from being a possibility I was a studio writer I just kept doing a bunch of action movies and summer action comedy movies sometimes I thought they were fun sometimes I didn't but I loved the paycheck and I loved just making the money and the deal and I never stopped and wrote from my heart I never wrote and I'll tell you one of the main reasons is I was so fixed mindset I was so afraid of rejection I was so afraid that every script I wrote I was afraid that people would say oh you're not that good of a writer you're a fraud now if I wrote something from my heart if I wrote something that was authentic that exposed me into the material now they could say you're not a good writer and you're not even a good person like they could reject me if they rejected my material and it was very personal and that was like they were rejecting me as a person and that was too painful I was not going to allow it happen you might agent was begging me to write something authentic and from there my wife was dead giving me my manager was begging me my golden retriever was begging me and I just wouldn't and so it's just it's just a it was short-sighted first of all money isn't everything but even if money is everything I potentially could have made so much more money but more importantly I could have written stuff that I was in love with and I could have look maybe I would have I could have tried for that career I could have written authentic stuff I could have swung for the fences I could have tried for that a-list career and maybe come up short and and then back in the career I had maybe there's no I don't know but I know that the choices I made meant I was never going to have that career I was never going to be creatively fulfilled I was never going to write the stuff that I really want to be writing I was never going to writing from love I was always been writing from fear I regret that and so part of the reason I teaches I want to help writers do it the right way and help empower them with the tool I wish someone taught me creative integration up front and some of the stuff but I hope that I can be an influence on writers so that they can have the best possible career that they're capable of and maybe even a better one than that so if you were to take yourself to lunch that is that woman in that way was it was an older you talking to that younger you would you say the exact same thing I would have a little and I would have said and look I'm from the future so let me tell you and I would I would have told them all the terrible things that happened and I honestly think that that younger me would have made the same decision and the reason is if he he was so fixed mindset and takes mindset you're just working from fear and you just can't see the truth or you can't and hopefully that's not true hopefully I would've but anyway I'm not confident that I would have made a different decision I'm not proud of that but I think that's the truth but I will say you know one of the things I like my knife always sees like the real truth and you know one of the things she says like all of things happen in my career is actually a blessing I mean it softened me up it got me out of this fear space and and I wouldn't be the teacher that I am now had I not made those mistakes and gone through that and I did make a lot of money which is nice so it's like you know it it had a lot of perks but yeah I wish I could have done it differently so you've worked with a lot of young students and I'm curious what the the idea in their minds of what it's like out in the real world is versus what the real world is like in terms of whether they were the two best writers in the whole class well I think you know when I teach a class that UCLA or my private workshops there's all these people that just want to be professional writers I have no idea what it's like to be a professional writer and I don't think you ever know until you do it and so it's just I want to be a freshman writer and I have a vision of what that would be I think most people's vision is I sit in a room or in a room with other people but let's say I sit in a room and I write what I want to write and I write it in a way that I want to write it and I write what I love and everyone else will love it it don't work the Helly people have a process to how they write and that process usually is what's comfortable because it plays their strengths and hides a weaknesses and it's learning how to write in a way that other people love it as much as you love it and it takes a lot of work and a lot of training and then there's deadlines and there's politics it's there's a lot that goes into having a writing career beyond just the writing I mean the reality was like you have two careers you have the writing you know you have you have to create the content but then there's the Career Management and the me and the marketing and always be looking for your other job there's a lot that goes into it but at the same time I mean to get paid and to be able to make a living playing with characters and playing with stories and and doing something that especially if it's creatively fulfilling and you get paid for it you know for people who do it right and train themselves the right way they literally do something that they would do for free and they get paid and perhaps they get paid millions of dollars perhaps they get paid tens of million dollars perhaps they get paid hundreds of thousand dollars perhaps they get paid a hundred thousand dollars to do what you would do for free that actually is possible and I have a growing list of clients and students who have that lifestyle so I think anyone who really is drawn to this should absolutely pursue it you know and just pursue it in the right ways we talked about though the beginning stages of their career where a lot of its going to rest on discipline and being your own taskmaster and I think it's easy when you think okay I have to you know get back to this person's email on do I have this vintage and finish well when in the beginning is going to get a lot of time alone right there's gonna be a lot of time being your own task writer and how difficult that is yeah so it is really difficult in the beginning and a lot of writers have this fantasy or this illusion and I did and I was wrong is that you know you're you're working and you're making money and you know and you're trying to write and you're so busy and writing so hard and it god when you sell something when you get hired then you don't you can quit your day job and you can quit this you can just write an oh what a luxury that would be because you're so time starved but when you first break when I first broke in the business you know I had two months to write the script for metropolis but almost every day I had meetings and I had to go in meetings and I was talking about other projects and pitching and I actually was spending more time on that than I was on my day job so I actually had left time to write and you would just pulled in so many directions and so discipline really matters so one of the things that I teach writers from the very beginning non writers who were starting and then the what and a lot of them won't do this but the ones that do not only do they become better writers this will save their rear ends when they have a career is I teach them the idea of a writer schedule so what that means is if you have a job that pays the bills in Thursday at 3 o'clock you have to do a marketing proposal to your boss I know where you're going to be Thursday at 3 o'clock you're going to be doing that proposal if you don't feel like it and you don't like to Fogell that good you're still going to do the best you can and if you feel like watching TV or napping you're going to be there or you're not going to have a job and you know from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. you are supposed to meet with this client you're going to do that and you schedule your life around that so what I tell people is no one is going to treat you like a professional until you are a professional no one's going to invest money in you until you put the money where your mouth is so you have a career perhaps you have a family perhaps you have all of these poles on your time I get that every Sunday night you're going to create a writer schedule for the next week and maybe you can only write 45 minutes a day ideally an hour or two hours let's say 90 minutes a day you will block out that writing time be it at 7:30 in the morning be it at six o'clock whatever it is for every day for that week now if you've blocked out Thursday from 7:30 to 8:30 is your writing time I know what you're going to be at 7:30 you're going to be writing and it's not if you feel like it because that's like your marketing meeting with your boss so you schedule out your writing time every single week and then you honor that and if you're not willing to do that and you're not willing to honor that why should anyone else invest money in you and so the writers who will adhere to that and have that writer schedule and stick to it before they have a career then when they have a career when they have that beginnings of a career because the games are career you have so much demands on your time and all of these meetings that you need to take these meetings you need to strike while the iron is hot you it really saves them because they'll carve out that time and they'll put everything around that right time so I think a writing schedule is really really important we talk about managing distractions because I mean it's one thing if someone's got a writing schedule in 1992 but now we have the internet we have text messages we have even we have all right so what I would I tell writers and what I see the successful writers do is they live in 1992 so but they what they'll do is often not depends let's say this person is a morning writer so basically let's say they get up at I don't know they get up they do their exercise or they have their breakfast and they have their three hours of writing and that's going to end at 12 o'clock from 9:00 to 12:00 so from the moment they wake up until 12 o'clock they have no internet they will turn their router off and where you can actually program your router to go off or you can program it quick so they don't check emails they don't check text they don't check their phone they live in a pre-internet world until 12 o'clock and they don't their phone is turned off now actually no one writer and I thought this was this was brilliant they were like just in case my wife needs to get a hold of me they actually got a pager it was really hard to find a pager but you can you can actually go 1992 if you get a pager he's got a pager and the only person that has that number is his life in his agent but his agent knows you only page me if it's an emergency and same thing with his wife and so he has his pager there but that's all he has no other electronics that work and um and then at 12 o'clock he joins 2017 and he takes his meeting and or people do that at night or the afternoon but I would say for your writing time it party like it's right right like it's 1992

Channel: Film Courage

Views: 72,559

Rating: 4.909235 out of 5

Keywords: corey mandell, screenwriter, screenwriting, screenwriting tips, screenwriting help, selling a screenplay, television writing, screenwriting tools, screenwriting skill sets, professional screenwriting workshops, filmcourage, film courage, interview, professional screenwriter

Id: hZgWw5juPJ8

Length: 107min 46sec (6466 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 28 2017