Horror Screenwriting Tips and How Jeffrey Reddick Created A Horror Franchise [FULL INTERVIEW]

Film Courage: Jeffrey, going back to before you were a Hollywood screenwriter, what made you think you could tell stories on a Hollywood level? What gave you that confidence or feeling, that intuition that you know this is something I think I can do? Jeffrey Reddick, screenwriter of The Final Destination franchise, Tamara and many more: I think it's the ignorance of the young you know I talked to a friend of mine once it was probably a couple years ago when I was home and she said when I was like 8 or 9 she asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up and I said I wanted to be a movie star so I kind of always knew I wanted to work in film I was growing up thought I wanted to be an actor and I went to New York to study acting actually at the beginning of my career and that didn't pan out really because non-traditional casting wasn't a thing back in the early 90s and they cancelled the Cosby Show so then non-traditional casting that was like your only place said then English was my second favorite subject and I'd been writing you know from the time I was young I just always would write stories and my English teachers kind of my biggest inspirations as far as school goes so I was like well just write stuff to be in so that's kind of why I said wait into writing but you just when you're younger you don't think of you know Hollywood does seem like this far away magical place in a way but you also are very naive about how the movie business is so you think oh you just you write something and somebody likes it in and they go out and pick up a camera they make it and then it comes out in the theatres and that's kind of when you're younger that's kind of all you could think about you don't know it's the whole like convoluted twisted process of screenwriting and you know getting something from page to screen when you're young so you're kind of in that magical like illusion land where you did I can do it you know so yeah that's again the writing wasn't always my wasn't my first goal but but moving working in movies has always been pretty much just what I want to do my whole life so that's kind of my only get career game plan boy how small was the town that you grew up in um we had like that I think 100 students in her graduating class I almost feel like I should Google that I should know that it was a very small town it took us it wasn't for like a 40-minute bus ride to get to school every day oh wow so we were like the last stop out there down the hills so it was Eastern Kentucky so it was very small town they didn't have a theatre program like my English teacher when I was a sophomore I talked her into creating a theater program for once the the one year and then it kind of died out after that year but yeah I was I was pretty determined you know it's very interesting when you're young and you're driven because you that's one of the things you try to tell people to hold on to because it as you get a little older you know that the drive doesn't necessarily go away but it's you know the realities of the business and the distractions can kind of get your way so when you're young you just have that that boundless like energy and faith and optimism and you know so you try to hold on to that magic you know even when you start getting into the business side of things right because as you get older you kind of talk yourself out of it knowing all the things that can go wrong right and it's almost a shame I mean there's that just like at this protective part that is there for that reason but then yeah but you know parent you know and it's nobody encourages a career in the yards like if you tell anybody we know you want to be an actor or a writer or they're always saying well you know that's great what are you gonna do for a real job like that's pretty much the reaction my mom did not know that I majored in theater in college till after I was in college like I tell her I was majoring in math and she got so mad she found out I've made majored in theater because she's like you're never gonna be able to make a living doing that and you know so there is a reality but for me like again I just never had a back-up plan so you know I think you know luckily I was good at English and writing was was a another passion of mine so I found a way to stay in the business and not give up when the acting didn't kind of pan out as soon as I had hoped it would so but yeah people like well usually tell anybody who says they want to be in the film business or any kind of art they're like oh that'll be a good hobby what are you gonna do for a real job and so that's kind of just part of our society we don't really value I think in in this country I think in other countries they do value their arts more than we do here but usually arts programs are the first things to get cut in schools you know it's like sports number one then science and math and stuff and then the arts are usually kind of down here as far as his priorities go which is it which is interest because I think the arts are probably one of the more helpful just to help you as an even being to kind of grow and like expand your horizons open your mind and just you know also get in touch with your emotions a lot of stuff that it a lot of other fields don't really emphasize or help you do I think the arts that's why a lot of people love the arts but um it is you know that's something I think we have to start valuing a lot more in our country it's funny you mentioned sports because I think I heard you say in another interview and I laughed out loud when I heard it that people that are into horror probably weren't people that were playing sports yeah yeah and they weren't the cheerleaders and they weren't the job yeah I thought that was great because it's true you develop this this interesting imagination that when you're in that sort of herd mentality trying to be popular all that probably isn't isn't going through your mind so I talked about that and there's a lot to I mean you know if you're an athlete to like that's your whole life like you're always practicing you're always you know when you're not at school practicing you're practicing at home you're watching what you eat you're working out you're so that's your whole life so you don't yeah I think you know most of the people that I know are artists you know they smell most their time at home like you know watching movies or reading comic books or you know doing kind of nerdy geeky things like just you know what you know really playing in their imagination or with their imagination and I think that's a kind of a common thing you find you'll find with artists you know a lot of artists will you know didn't have like a big clique that they hung out with or weren't really you know super popular and some of them were but but again it is you know especially in high school it's because I know it's like schools like a machine you know you have so it's very important obviously get an education but you have so many kids going through every year that you don't have time to like everybody's got their own individual personality you can't really get to know people so you kind of have to shove them in boxes to like you know just to process people it's a you know it's a weird thing that I've noticed as we grow up because people still try to generalize you know in a way and so that's even when I talk when I Joe it's not even joking when I talk about like you know the jocks and the cheerleaders aren't the ones that were home watching a lot of horror movies it's also because they were out practicing and doing sure their thing but it's into how we still kind of keep those boxes as we get older and you know I sound a little like a hippie right now but no no I found it I thought it was funny because there's a lot of truth to it so you know how many screenplays did you write before final death nation I think about seven and these were feature yeah yeah seven features of varying degrees starting from really awful - okay - good cuz that yeah I wrote my first one I was in middle school no high school and I sent it to Line Cinema to get coverage on and I'm like oh I got great coverage but it's not right for us and then when I started working at new line like five years later I dug the coverage up and they were like this is awful it was obviously written by a middle schooler I was like I was in high school so it's interesting because I that I always just tell people like that's why you you can't take rejection when you get it because if I'd have seen that coverage when I was that in high school I probably would have just been like oh I don't have any talent out of given up but you also have to be open to growing you know cuz I also meet a lot of young people and you know God bus I'm you know but they just they think that they're already there they're like you know how you know I'm like this script script is the best thing you know Hollywood's ever gonna make and it's like you're 15 I'm sure that I'm with all due respect I'm sure that's not the best thing that Hollywood its kind of gonna read so you know you need to kind of let your ego go and realize it you have to have to grow so I was very I wrote a lot um I didn't again just learning you it's a learning process but I just it was a foot when I was young it was just a lot of fun you know just to write and then you know you start learning structure as you get you know older and then when you start working in a studio then all the sudden you start realizing oh there's a hard craft of this that you need to kind of learn to so it's mixing the business with the creative and this was a script based loosely on like Nightmare on Elm Street that was one eye that was the treatment I wrote when I was 14 which I wrote I'm gotten to hello cat a little visitor here that I wrote for a night run Elm Street and that's what got me in touch with New Line Cinema when I was 14 and I stayed in touch with him till I was 19 and I started interning there when I was 19 and so yeah they made they made final destination when I was 30 just to date myself but um but um the first finalization originally started off as a spec script to get an agent for an x-files episode because they want you to write something you know of your own and they also want you to write something that's already on TV so that you can show you can write different characters voices so I wrote is a files episode and I didn't submit it to the show because when my friends at newline said this will make a great feature and then I worked on it and it ironically ended up with two guys who worked on the x-files James long and Glen Morgan so it was kind of a I think I think it was kind of a karmic thing you know that's kind of meant to be with the x-files connection there I'm curious so what is keeping in touch was that like that's fascinating Oh Morty neroli yeah I'm just gonna be keeping in touch with new line well no but well cuz that you because I you know Bob Shaye at first he didn't read my treatment because it was unsolicited and then I wrote him kind of a snarky not snarky but you know kind of a you know I was like hey I've seen three of your movies and I spent money on you I think you can take five minutes to read my story yeah yeah so so he did and you know got back to me and and then his assistant would you know her name is joy man she's like just amazing woman would you we had she passed years ago unfortunately but just amazing woman and she would send me like movie posters and like little you know merchandising things for the movies that she was sending scripts to read so I just would stay in touch with them and send them scripts and you know they were always very very gracious to even spend time with me and when I they I don't know if they ever knew I was actually gonna get to New York or not but I ended up at my collar I was pretty crafty I should be craftier I make a good supervillain if I if I use my craziness for evil but um when I was in college we started I had to do a special program where I could go to New York for the summer to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and then would get credit for it so they the school paid for my whole trip to New York and my whole summer there but then I got an internship at new line while I was up there and got an agent I was like ah screw school and decided to stay to stay in New York and stay at new line so so that so it was they knew you were 16 or however old you were when you sent the script in yeah I think yeah joy I think I don't know if I heard I don't know when I told Joe how old I was I think she asked me one because I I would call her - I got the phone number from information so I would just call her and she would say she would talk to you that's right yeah I mean and this was back when new line was you know I mean nightmare had come out so they were they were definitely growing but they hadn't turned into like the powerhouse that they that they became but um you you know it definitely wouldn't that wouldn't happen today but um you know it was a real blessing I mean I you know I always give credit to Bob and enjoy for you know just if they hadn't stayed in touch with me and inspired me and then brought me on as an intern when I first started you know in when I went to New York I mean I'm sure I still would have been in the business like that just was my path I think but um but yeah they were they were really crucial and I'm missing I mean Warner Brothers like absorb a new line so it you know it's not the same place anymore but it was it was probably one of the best I think studios probably to ever be built because it was so artist friendly and you know they really cared about like the B Bob Shaye was a huge film lover like he started distributing like John Waters films out of his apartment to college campuses and doing like these tour like so he's a huge film lover so he created this company that was full of film lovers and now you have a lot of great companies but a lot of them are run by business people who don't love film so they they understand the equations of like you know well if I put this formula together it'll make money but they don't understand the creative side of it and new line was just just a wonderful like fostering environment to work so yeah I got really lucky with that one so your first year there as an intern you were 19 yeah do you remember what that was like I mean it must have been surreal because here's this group of people that first they turned you down but then they keep in touch with you and they send you things and now you're there it's some it's it was it was surreal in a way but it was kind of it's a weird thing because just because I always knew I was gonna be working in the movie business somehow like I didn't get except I wasn't like super I can't would hit me sometimes but it didn't hit me when like when I found that coverage for that first thing I wrote it I was like wow if I'd have read this if they did tell me the truth I might not be here but because it was kind of all happening and you're again when you're younger you know you're so like 19 you're still at that like I can do anything in the world and I think it's not me and you know so I never I always have always been so appreciative of the opportunity but I wasn't like I was ever surprised you know but it was cool it was really cool like because I never got to meet all the people from Nightmare on Elm Street and so meeting all these people that I had grown up idolizing was like cool and I remember we were at the 7 new line did you know 17 this amazing movie with Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman and we're at the premiere for that and I'll send him talking to Morgan Freeman for like an hour around like you know because they teach you when you work they're like don't act weird around when the celebrities come in because they would come in all the time for meetings so you just said that you'd learn how to like kind of shut that geeky part off of your brain right right sometimes but then I you know I had lunch with Jane babbler who was in V the miniseries that came out in the 80s and played Diana the the evil like lizard alien queen and that I liked I had lunch with her and that was the first time I've actually been starstruck where I like I couldn't talk like it was read it because I never knew what starstruck meant until I had lunch with her and then I was like I can't talk right now and I can't this is really embarrassing I'm a grown man and why might like this but yeah it's it's um again it was it was it was a wonderful thing and it was a wonderful convergence of again the right people like Bob enjoy like taking the time because even you know Bob could his hurt and in that one thing and written me off and joy could have been like oh that's cute and you know but you know she did she would stay in touch with me I probably just probably I probably bugged the hell out of her I was always like hey do you read this can eat it and she was just very patient and yeah just it was yeah it was a wonderful experience yeah it was so then if I understand this right that final destination was the first screenplay that you actually sold first one that was the first one I sold I wrote one it never got made but I was actually hired to write a sequel for a movie called Pumpkinhead which is one my favorites and they're remaking it now so hopefully I can use my sequel idea for the sequel for the remake but I got hired actually before I had an agent I got hired because Brad krivoy was a producer and yeah he was taking pitch meetings and I wrote a pitch that he liked and he basically hired me in another writer right Dreyse of the script and then they ended up the company got bought by somebody and all this so neither one of our scripts ever got made but no that was my first paying job as a writer which was fun that was a little crazy because you're like wow I'm writing something that I grew up loving so that was the first thing that I actually sold and I and I'd written like five or six seven scripts before before a final destination that never got and rightly so for some of them when you go back and read them it's like whoa these are pretty pretty bad but there's a couple of this I would like nuggets of ideas that I might turn into something someday so then what I'm just wondering how how did it happen what was the what were the details so you're working at new lines oh no years you know me for years you know I had the TV I was trying to get a TV agent and then my friend Mark Calhoun was like oh this would make a great idea for a feature so I back in the back in the day you could actually sell a treatment to a studio you know you didn't have to write a whole script and because I worked at the CIA I knew how the when the winds would change very frequently like it so you know something would be hot one week and not the next week so I was like well let me write a treatment because it's a great concept and then I'll some friends of mine worked for a producer outside of the studio that had a deal with the studio someone could let me work with him and their producer partner and bring the idea back to the studio because I knew that would give me a better chance of getting it set up it was what the producer attached so I you know had the treatment but then and it was about they were all adults and then scream came out and I love scream and Kevin Williams is a dear friend of mine but the minute that came out of Psych well let's make them all teenagers so then I had to go through and rewrite the treatment to make them teenagers and then sue there's like they just couldn't get their head around death being the killer if they're like this it's a great it's cool but how can you make death a killer you that just doesn't make any sense I'm like that's the whole point like it's it's death you can't so they Pat they the Souter just kept passing on it and finally the producers it was Warren's IDE and Craig parry they were like well if you don't if you pass on it again we're gonna go to dimension which was kind of new lines rival Miramax at the time it said they're like we'll buy it so then they bought the treatment then they hired me to write the jerk there's the first route of the script and then we went on to directors after that so it was a pretty quick process and we sold the original story 97 and movie came out in 2000 so that's a in Hollywood time that's pretty pretty fast so when you did the casting for it how did you find the lead they actually new line did all they all the casting through their casting Department I mean I you know I'd put a little list together like my dream cast at the time but you know I loved the cast that we ended up with and it's funny because I'm friends with Devon you know he's directing now and he's got a new TV show on and so I directed his or produced his first short that he directed he's really talented guys so we've actually reconnected in the last few years and he's just a he's just a great guy but um it is funny because when I was writing the movie I was kind of you know trying to turn some of the tropes on their heads and so there's you know there's very few movies I had like a final guy and it's always a final girl so I wanted to write a movie like a final guy in it and his character I think is definitely stands out as you know he's such a great actor too did a great job and he was Casper so as always it's just very funny making fun of him because he was in Casper floating around with Christina Ricci and her kids dance ridiculous Devin I would see him in so many things like because I used to go into blockbuster all the time yeah I'll just remember you know there he was again yeah so yeah but at that time was he yeah he was really he was really he was really hot then too I think he dumb he dumb oh man there's something North blank on the name of it but um there's a group of there was some coyotes and kids in them I ain't gonna move yet but it was it was it was a really big man it was Casper and then they that when he did idle hands I think idle hands might have been I know if that was pre or post final destination I think it might even post final destination but yeah he was definitely like on everybody's like yeah you know ones to watch list so and we shot in Canada so we got a lot of Canadian talent for the film as well does horror screenplay structure different from drama I don't necessarily think so I mean I think all screenplays kind of follow the basic three act to kind of save the cat kind of structure I think the biggest of with horror is is they do want kills pretty frequently so you know the the standard rule is like every 10 pages they want to have either a really scary scene or a kill so in drama it's not like you have to have like a super dramatic moment every 10 minutes like you can have you can build the drama you can still do that in horror as well but a lot of times just the formula at some point you know I can take a media project I've been over there like it's been a while since somebody died yeah nobody's died here in a while so uh they want to throw another death in there so then you guys had a didn't care to kill off so but you know I think all of the screen you know it's like I think comedies are very close to horror cause it's always building up to a joke and horror you're building up to a kill but with comedies that's a lot it's a lot of you know more jokes and with horror again you have more of a pacing with your with your kills but they all do follow the same general structure but usually you know the joke and horror when it's like well what's this character's motivation it's like to get away from the guy with a knife you know it's like that's pretty much it or well I'm dating myself with all this but I think it seems like Friday the 13th there were definitely more kills but if you look at like carrier which I know you brought that up yeah she doesn't really get her revenge until the very end which it would have been nicer to see her do it sooner right rather than the Exorcist I guess a long time yeah that's a almond was pretty that's a thing is like they don't yeah movies and it's all but they blame it come online on a DD now everybody's like you know so overly you know overloaded with information that they can't concentrate so that they act like the quiet movies don't work anymore but then you see something like get out which was definitely not like a Gore fest at all or even like the early conjuring films like didn't have like you know a lot of like it wasn't like a kill every 10 minutes so people still want to go see a good story and they liked suspense and dread but it really depends on what what you're writing if you're writing a splatter kind of Friday the 13th movie which for that one they just want blood and pretty people getting hacked up and or if you're doing like a conjuring which is more like they want people want to go on you know just fill that dread and jump and scream and you know without the body parts lying around right I think Nightmare on Elm Street too there was many more kills but I was covering if the kills have increased now because of you know you're saying yeah I think it it depends on the filmmaker like I think if a studio is behind something they definitely want to kind of stick with formula and make sure I mean I've had that note on a couple projects ever written I did I did I'm finishing one for a French company and they're they I have more Leo with him because they're you know they let me develop the character a little bit more than I think I would if this was if it was an American film but I still have enough good scares in there but there's not a lot of like gore and I again and I love writing gory stuff and I love writing a non gory stuff too so I think it's just fun to try to scare people in ways that I haven't seen them get scared before how important is screenplay structure to your overall writing I mean is there a specific structure you try to follow I try to I found because I I kind of learned how to write through reading a ton of scripts like a new line I was there to read all the scripts all the time so I find that most of my stuff does kind of fall into the you know traditional like three act structure save the cat thing or that's the inciting incident I don't get into there's some stuff and I shouldn't roll my eyes at it because people do but you know there's some books that are like well you have to have they have like they've broken down it like super micro science and for me it's just like too much like you know in a way you don't wanna be at the creativity out of somebody by giving you too much of a structure you know I think that's why I think the three-act structure is enough or yes you know at the end of your second act something's got it like propel you into the third act and you know things have got to get you know more intense and more intense to your finale but you know I think a lot of times even like I have a lot of friends I go to film school and their one thing is like they're like I wish I had spent that money to make a film because they just they're like we would have learned a lot more and it's not you know anything against going to film school but it's just again if you're trying to teach somebody somebody whose artistic how to you can teach them how to channel that into a format that's going to be more palpable to the masses but if you start getting too much into like you know page 20 this has to have been on page 30 this has to happen then you're like stifling people's creativity in a way but there is a reason if there is a structure like that sometimes because I had friends give me a script in it like the first drafts like a hundred and forty pages I'm like I'm not right this is not a script it's like a miniseries like they're like oh but if you understand it's like if they can tell the Titanic and 120 pages I'm sure you can tell your story about a woman who's trying to find true love in her small town in less than 140 pages so you know there there there is a wisdom to the basic structure but all when I sit down to write something usually I start with a concept I'm very concept driven just because I think that's working at a studio for so long I know that the concept is what's going to get people's attention or not get it so I start with using a concept and then I think of some scares as well and then start you know with building a story around the concept it's how I approach you but I know a lot of people start from like characters and some people start from a story so it's everybody's got their own personal kind of creative style and how they um how they work but for me I always I always start with the concept of the story and I try to think at least some concept that's kind of high concept that you can kind of if you tell somebody in a minute and they're like all that sounds cool you know so that's that's kind of where I start off when I'm writing what do studio executives and producers say about story structure or do they not is it just this isn't working here or do they narrow it I think it depends I mean it's every studio so different now and the studios of honestly they've changed so much since when I started off like I said a lot of them you know are run by business people with no creative background at all so you know they're you know it sound like they're relying on their creative team and that's not that's not every studio buddy by any means but but it has got a lot more business oriented so I've been in a lot of meetings where it's like it's this isn't working for me I don't know why but it's just not and they so they don't know they just know that they don't like it and so then you have to like try to fish around to kind of figure out what they don't like about it or what's not working for them and and a lot of times it's it's it's just a very interesting business because you meet somebody interesting type-c made some really great smart creative people but you also meet some people who got their jobs and then you're like how does this person like working you know I don't understand because they obviously know nothing about film and I'm gonna even saying that like some of it's like sometimes ridiculous where they'll say what can you put like can you make all the people 13 it's like well they're carrying machine guns that is in fighting monsters so that might look a little ridiculous with the 13 year old minute machine gun like well just try it you know so a lot of times you'll get nails like that or they'll give you a really crazy note that will derail your like I don't think a lot of people understand like you know what you do knit a screenplay together so if ya if you pull string out over here it does have an effect in other places a lot of times they'll be like well just you know my the producers sister wants a part so just give that girl a best friend and just put her in once and like well then it wouldn't be her best friend if she's only one scene but then that affects all this other stuff and they don't we'll just make it work so you'll get that a lot of times or it's like they'll give you like a really crazy note so what I've learned to do over the many many years now is is you have to be a little passive-aggressive with them you have you because they do at the end of the day everybody working in the business at least wants to be heard and you try to again decipher what their note means if their note sounds stupid like if they're if they're saying you know well if they're just telling you to put somebody's friend in the movie that's that's not a creative no but if they're like well we see there just needs to be a cat we just want to I want a cat here and you're you try to think well why do they feel it so important I have a cat here and then it's like oh okay maybe there's like some emotion that's missing here or there's like you know because when you see a cat it just gives you the warm fuzzies that maybe there's something that's missing in this scene that they want so other times if you go back to them and you say well I you said you wanted a cat here but what I think you were going for was that you're not feeling this in this and it's not like yeah that's what I mean so a lot of it is kind of deciphering what what they say but as far as structure itself goes I mean they'll they'll know structure a lot of times but other times it's like it's committee stuff so you know they'll have a reader cover script first you know so if the reader doesn't like it then autumns won't even go to a development executive or creative executive critically the executive likes that they'll give to somebody higher up if somebody ups higher up it's like it likes it they'll put it on their weekend read which means that all the executive team will read it and that's still a roll of the dice if they're gonna let you know so it's it's a it's a tough business but the great thing is there's so many other companies out there besides the major studios that you can go that's why I always tell people to focus on because um getting into the studio just really hard because it really it's a machine now like and so they're all putting out remakes and sequels and things based on comic books and video games and so all the original content goes to there you know if Chris Nolan wants to make inception yes they will give him money but then they're like well our slots full you know you know we've got all of the Marvel movies coming out for five years now and one one movie that's not a Marvel movie so yeah they don't care so much about structures it's more of the business model I think Oh a lot with the studio's so you learned that in that it helps you take your ego out a lot of stuff so you don't take it personally because it really it really is a business I think they do care more about business models and they do structure do you know when that changed I mean I realized you probably can't say yes it was 2001 oh yeah no I mean I think it I think it started to change in the 90s you know I think it started changing and like because I think when I start working at new line it was in the early 90s and it was those I think it you know 60s was very clot of times I'm you know 60 70 I think a lot of that was creative but I think in the nineties as I think when a lot of the corporations started wanting to be in the movie business so then you had like you know Ted Turner buying like you know the studio and then you know Warner Brothers buying the studio and then then everything too started turning into big corporations and you know then when you're it doesn't you know this is no offense to business people when you're a business minded that's all you think about is your bottom line that's like well how can i Matt you know how can I take off as many boxes to make sure this movie has the widest appeal as opposed to like if I make this really good movie even though I don't get it at all you know I'm gonna take a chance on it cuz I trust that there will be enough people that will watch it like that's why I Love New Line Cinema you know cuz Bob Shaye really fostered that it was a very maverick you know thinking back then and Mike DeLuca was one of the really one of the best development executives I think that ever worked in a studio I mean he was you know he would do a movie and you know like a movie like blade he would be like he wants to see a black Vampire Slayer well a lot of people you know who wants to see a movie about a guy that puts on a mask and he's you know can do this great who wants to see him you know like about these two really dumb guy you know he would come he would really champion all these movies that most studios would never ever take a chance on but he got the he got it he's like no I'm trust you have to trust me on this like people will go see these movies and you don't see that that I'm fearless as much anymore in studios and that's just they just like to play it safe and that's you again you can just see it from their slates that's why they're you know they're remaking remakes now and you know the thinking is well if it's if people know the title then that gives us a leg up over an original film so it's a safer business proposition so it's kind of that's why I love people we might going to TV now is because that's where you can go and be creative and you know they're spinning almost as much on TV they're spending on movies now and you can have a really great creative storytelling and not be like stifled so back when you were at new line do you remember the that people would know sort of character arc and and it was much more about the craft of writing that they could understand and dissect certain parts and why they didn't like it do you remember um yeah no I think I think in like yeah I think in the develop meetings there was definitely like there was stuff that people the notes were definitely much more like this isn't working because of yeah it's not the creative stuff isn't being satisfied in it whereas later on I was just like I don't like it or there's not a big actor attached or I can't make a toy out of it but you know even new line they started a vision called fine line that was more for their art house films that didn't you know fit the traditional blockbusters you know structure or you know would probably win an Academy Award but would probably not make a lot of money so they created a division especially to let like auteur filmmakers do their thing you know without having to worry about is this going to make a hundred million dollars at the box office or not so yeah they were that was part of the just a film lover kind of company like creating like an offshoot to make like kind of artsy films that most people would read the scripts would be like what is this Helen Hunt with a piano and her daughter sitting on a Milano where what does it make any sense so do you remember the first movie you saw in the theater um I don't actually which is really really weird I remember seeing that on Elm Street when a in in 84 in Kentucky in Kentucky I remember seeing that when you were there sorry to interrupt but yeah I think okay I were you already thinking of writing this other script no I just thought this is the best movie I've ever seen in my life because it was a double feature it was like alone in the dark which new line put out as well which was a slasher movie about some escaped mental common you know mental patients who get out during a storm one night Jack Palance was in it and terrorized like a town in this house and and so nightmarish it was a second movie after that so the first one was scary but it was I mean now straight when you touch when you're 14 is like it was just brilliant like I was like what the hell is this movie so just kind of blew my mind so it's it is funny almost I mean I remember seeing like so slod on TV but it is funny as far as the movie theatres go for some reason my brain is just oh no I do remember I know this isn't the first one I saw this is awful but they used to do these like these are these movies and they were they were rated R movies but they were stupid like pom-pom girls or something some cheerleader pop so my cousins and my mom of all people is my mom was a little bit of a hippie they would take us to the drive-in and they would sneak us in but they would make us turn our backs to the screen during any nudity stuff but but we'd sit with like a little pig I remember I remember I don't remember the name of the who it was something in the pom-pom girls are some cheerleaders that I think that was the first drive-in movie I remember seeing that I remember least me and my sisters from the most sort of time with our back to the to the scream eating eating popcorn and hot dogs and stuff but um yeah I remember that because we had a they had to sneak us in the theater under him nice thinking good old hippie if you were to get notes and maybe they wouldn't put it in these terms but to dumb down a script oh yeah had that happen oh you have okay in those exact words okay so what is dumbing it down and what would that be and what is like braying raising the vibration if you want to use it yeah term no I mean um I wrote a script and returned to Cambodia like actually it was a TV movie and it was a sequel and Jed Nelson was in the first one and so they got the him back and the director back based on my script and literally the one of the creative executives like called the producer probably about a month before they started shooting and was like you know we think the scripts just too smart for our audience so we're gonna bring somebody into to dumb it down and so all that meant was that they just went for the very generic with the characters and just the base generic stuff so it's like it was based on a the first movies based on the killer who needed inspiration so he started murdering people and he lived in a cabin by the lake and would murder people women and drown them in the lake and then he would write about it so I wrote a script that was about the making a movie about the the first movie so it was kind of very screamish and so like in my script this is one simple innocent but in my script like he was dating the lead actress it's all these other actresses like throwing themselves at the director and he was like in love with the leading actor so he in there like what you know he should be sleeping with all the actresses I'm like but that's like the obvious that's just knows obvious stereotype like I'm trying to do something different so they made you know so that's a dumbing it down it's like going for just the base like simplest thing we can do with no nuance and I think if you if you when I've gotten notes that the script needs to be elevated it's just because I haven't done enough work on the characters you know there's not there's not enough depth their interactions their interactions maybe you're very on the surface in some scenes or the story's very maybe those points in the story they're very on the nose so I think they're I think nuance is usually when they want when I'm asked to elevate something see a bit add more layers or to add more nuance to something but yeah dumbing it down I mean that was a prime example where it's just like they they're like he should just be sleeping with everybody because you know he's a director and the producer should be doing coke and that you know so it was just and so it was and so they brought one of their people on today like they didn't even tell me and the producer would not even ask him to send me this screener that the script and she's like I can't I'm like is it that bad she's like I can't I'm here watching with some friends I was like I was in there like a little tear like that in the end when you lit her like on the side but I like a little tear went down my eye was like wow but it's it's pretty funny watching it I mean it's it's a camping movie so in the director I think once he saw I think he cuz he signed on based off my original script and I think when he saw this change companies like screw it I'm just gonna make this like a comedy and so he just like went really over-the-top and gonzo with like the sound effects and everything so it's almost him was shot like a comedy version of a horror movie so it's it's pretty interesting to watch now I don't I should have kept a copy it's like selling on eBay for like a hundred and some bucks now bro I know I was like wow I should have kept economy and every thought about it so do you get more notes to dumb something down or to flesh something out um I get more notes at the writing stage to flesh this out but and I think one thing is I want to production that's when things start getting you know expecially in horror movies they're like we need to get to the kills quicker like that's the kind of the common note that I get for horace we need to get to the kills quicker so any jokes or character stuff that they can cut out they'll try to cut out just to get to the kills quicker so I wouldn't even say it's dumbing it down unfortunately I would say it's you know they just want to get right to the to the blood and the murder or so is there a time frame when the movie starts you know like within 30 minutes there should be conflict or whatever's yeah same thing is there yeah with Rome's it's usually there's usually you having a death in the opening of a horror film and then you know ten ten minutes and or fifty minutes and you have another one and you you kind of keep up they want you to keep up a steady tick with them so it's some interesting what movies don't do that and I've certainly written stuff where there there hasn't been a death in the opening but then people you know you start watching it and it's like people want to get to that death quicker so if you test market it or you or do a test scream out test my buddy test screen the film people might be uh took a while to get to that first kill or it started off boring and they're like okay they want you know so sometimes the answer is actually just shoot of death seemed to stick in the beginning of it see get it out of the way yeah because I would buy you some I've learned to do that now like cuz I've tried in other films not to do that and I've just learned that if you if you open with a really big death that will give you a lot of like real estate to it build your story and so cuz people will still be thing about that death for a good five or ten minutes and so you've got some time like build characters and not have to jump right into another one right away so instead of the hero's journey the serial killers turn right there's different things that they need to follow as well yeah and then too in terms of the the evil character are is there times when you know it you're making him to humanized or to to likable can you tone them down and make them so you don't know what the motive for yeah I mean I've I've written a couple of like thriller kind of horror movies and I think you want for me it's like you want to either have a villain that that just terrifies everybody completely or is a fun villain because they kind of relish the bad stuff they're doing so it depends on what kind of killer they are I mean you don't want to romanticize your killers like if you know and I might try to stay away from even though I watched him and I love them but I try to save more like the torture II like you know let's like let's tie a woman up and like torture for ten minutes and that's how a guy open towards him for ten minutes like I tried to stay away from that kind of so cuz it just doesn't hold my interest for very long when I was young it did because it was bloody and that's all I cared about but but you know if it's a killer like that you don't want to humanize them I don't think because it doesn't because in your in this weird place where it's like okay I'm just watching this person like torture people for 90 minutes and now you're trying to make me have sympathy for them and you know it's again there's enough of that in real life like there's enough Shore you know there's just enough really bad people out there in real life though I think when you go to watch them horror movie you want to be like scared in your tained but it's still you want to escape I think you you don't want to go there to be reminded of like real life stuff so yeah real life sociopath is gonna be like the neighbors like oh he was such a nice guy even though he's quiet and he was chopping up people so it's like you don't want to necessarily have that be urgh you're killing in a horror film well going back to Carrie though you could see why she got to that stage yes and you just like you had said and I felt the exact same way I wish he'd gone to that stage earlier yeah but so I think with Carrie you were able to feel maybe more empathy yeah and she was never I mean cuz it kept they kept had John Travolta numb oh my gosh I'm blanking on the character's name but the mean you know the girl ya mean girl and you know so you had the villains who were actually so she was still she was always the hero that just got pushed to the breaking point and so you get you can have it I think somebody like that you can have somebody who we get to see turned dark because of the circumstances they're put into but if it's a kind of a traditional horror movie you've got like the good you know the good person versus the the evil killer like I think there's you want to you want the audience to maybe understand where the person's coming from but if you get too far into where they sympathize with them like I think that's one of the reasons the one of the disagree to me my friends have about the movie don't breathe you know I thought it was beautifully shot and well done but I thought the Proby I won't spoil anything for anybody I thought that the protagonists the kids were very unlikable and then I thought the antagonist they went too far to make you sympathize with why he was doing what he was doing like when you you know but the whole set up this is in the previews but when the whole setup is three kids are gonna go bot go rob a blind veteran you know that kind of you're kind of set up some character that you're like yeah we don't really like and then you find out this isn't a spoilery but the money he's got the money because his daughter got killed by a drunk driver so it's like okay you're really bad people no like you're robbing from a blind veteran who has money because his daughter got killed by a drunk driver so it's hard to you know so they throw him beat they throw in moments in the movie where they try you know flashbacks or scenes where they try to make you if they try to force you to feel like some sympathy for the characters but it for me it just didn't you know I was just like you look you lost me at the beginning and then they didn't they made the villain so so sympathetic that you actually get I wanted him to like end up just killing them at the end of it which is not I don't think what you want a movie when do you start writing everyday about 11 o'clock I usually roll out of bed and have my routine we're all you know say some prayers meditate a little bit not much read the news see what's going on and pack up and you should go over the coffee shop and start writing so but I'm also a night out too so I stay up late writing so it's it's sporadic them because I'm usually working juggling like four or five different things at one time so I'm kind of hopping usually hopping around to make sure I'm kind of on top of whatever needs to be done first how long are you writing for it sound often - pretty much all day I mean you know I'll be up late watching TV but still have my laptop on writing a little bit so you know I it depends if I have a writing assignment and I'm I'll be more structured in it in fog that I'll make sure that I focus on that and then try to like have fun didn't have a life the rest of the time that I'm not writing but if I'm in a stage where I'm like working on four or five different things trying to get them off the ground then I'm just I'm usually writing quite a quite a bit so you go to the coffee shop do you ever write here apartness sometimes but if I stay here I get very destroyed like it's you know I want to watch TV I want to take a nap you know very comfortable here so I like to go up to the coffee shop cuz they get my socializing done too because I you know have friends there and stuff like that so I like to get out and do that as well there's a lot of regulars there that we have to oh yeah yeah there's a lot of them self thanks a lot of writers do they ask you what you're writing on or no one really asks that they just kind of know people yeah people will talk to you and especially if you go there a long time and you've made friends with people they they kind of know what you're up to and you know they follow you on social media in your time on stuff they'll be they'll ask you about what you're doing and things like that so yeah it's it's a pretty it's fun it's you know it's very transitory though too because there's a couple of regulars but you know a lot of the writers will you know if they moved and they'll go to another coffee shop or they'll go work it like the WGA has a you know space to work at or people like rent spaces now which I'm actually think not doing because I think I broke it down and some I forgot what the place is called but there's a company where you can like over in a space an office space and Cameron Bure any of these names but I did the math it's like oh well for the cup of like a Starbucks coffee and done it every day I could actually rent this place for a month and they have free coffee all day but I I drink tea so no no I have to check to make sure they have tea it's only not as good as Starbucks no no but it's like it's a cool like you can get like a desk and like a run shooter do you have your own little spot so it you know it does if you're actually leaving your place to go to work it does kind of put you in a different mindset because even if I'm walking in Starbucks and on time no I'm going there to work it's like I'm gonna see my friends I'm gonna you know be distracted and you know you never know what's gonna happen so it's it there is some definitely some wisdom to having like it's a writing space that's like an office you know so that's that's kind of I'll do that at some point I haven't done that yet but you know I'll have a place where I'll have like an office that's just a separate you know building aside from where I'm you know where I'm living right yeah I was always opposed to coffee shop writing for the longest time and then I noticed that if you have headphones on and you can still sort of see what's going on around you it actually is invigorating yeah yeah whatever you're working on even if you're not screenwriting you're just working on something right we have headphones those are important because those people just come here talking to you oh that's true yeah it's a good mother it's a good social buffer yeah but also libraries too I mean I'm just surprised that actually it does feed you and why I was opposed to it for the longest time and I I can tell now why people need to get out of the house cuz you got a you you need that little segue from being in your home to your brain going hey we're going to work now it's hard to you know if I'm just going for my bedroom to the living room it's hard to just sit over here and say okay turn on my work brain because I'm like wait what's on TV and I'm gonna take a nap really quick and yeah right or if I see an interesting article on like Flipboard or pocket or something and then I'm like let me just read this and then and I'm distracted so yeah what you get to rail then it's kind of right you get to work here the focus back again would you say you're very disciplined when you know that you need to get these four things done that you're pretty good yeah I think my friends think I'm more discipline than I am like I think I could probably more disciplined I I do work hard though but it's it's um I guess I am I guess I am but in my brain I'm not disciplined enough and my friends like you're so disciplined I'm like that I feel like it'd be done more if I was more disciplined but I'm usually always juggling a lot at the same time so but you always always want to make sure you don't have more on your plate than you can like really dedicate quality time to so I've definitely learned the art of saying no as I've gotten older because when you're young you want to say yes to everything because you think oh this could be my you know these three opportunities could be the only things I ever get so you're always like saying yes to everything and as you get older you start realizing like you know it's okay to say no to stuff if you're not passionate about it or if you don't think you'll have the time to to really do it and I've done that where I'm like this really isn't my thing and I don't think I'm the best writer for it so you know I know a lot of writers it will take you know jobs just to have a job and I'm Ellis I think it's something that I could do justice to I'm not going to take it on as a it's a job unless it's a challenge but sometimes there have been things where people have brought me projects where I'm like this isn't in my wheelhouse but it would be really fun to try to write it so then I'll do that but it's got to be something that really strikes a chord with me do you know any writers that write 8-10 hours a day yeah yeah yeah okay so do they usually I mean I'm assuming they stop for lunch or they do something yeah yeah I mean yeah I know that I have a lot of writer friends that they they do if they're not on staff there they're very much like they treat it like a nine-to-five job so they'll you know get the morning they'll do their thing they little right to lunch time they'll take lunch so we're right till 5:00 and they'll stop writing for the day and that's again that's I think that's great if you're if you're working on one thing at a time you have the luxury of doing that more I think if you're trying to do two or three projects at the same time then it's harder to to do that but you can do it you know I certainly have friends that have that that do it you know what are some of the most important questions you're asking yourself when you're developing a story idea I think who my audience is you know it's a story interesting enough usually for my horror stuff it's like is there enough is there enough stuff in here to care about the characters but am I also coming up enough scare so we haven't seen before those are the kind of things I ask myself like it's interesting cuz I I love doing it and I've done it for so long that it's it's definitely it's not easy work at all like people because people don't understand like again especially when you're threading a script together and you know dissecting and making sure that everything kind of lines up in pieces together you want to put your best foot forward but you also realize that a lot of times that once you sell the script and it's out of your hands a lot of that stuff just goes out the window so that's why I'm not as harsh when I see a movie I like that I reserve judgment on the writer until I see read the actual screenplay because you just never know what changes from page to screen but for me it's usually especially because it's always horror or films it's like you know do I think this is also do I think this is going to strike a chord of people like you know fundal assassination dealt with death which is kind of a universal fear so I try to think of concepts that will tap into something that's will reach a wide audience you know I'm not gonna lie about that like I do try it you know you you want to hit as many people as you can I think with your concept but that's what I love about horror of the horror genre I think themes are you know the fears that we have most people are universal fears that are you know regulated to like one region or one part of the world or or any but you know I think we all kind of have the same fears deep down so that's one thing I think I love about horror is you can kind of tackle a whole bunch of different kind of stories and still have it play well around the world I like how you use the analogy if it's like knitting you know and that if you you know how let's suppose you're knitting or crocheting something and then you just pull one little string here that it can really affect the whole like you know yeah sweater or whatever right no people don't realize that when they it's just when they give you know it's the like I I know at one time I had a project where a director came in the producers were all literally like we think he's full of shit but we're gonna give him a shot directing because he directed a couple things before but his pitch he kind of came in and had an opening scene that was because the movie hope the whole movie built around this plot twist about these characters not knowing each other and his opening scene was basically it was very clear these characters into each other and so you know my first meeting with him I was like well you know I was trying to be very diplomatic well how do you propose that we how do you propose that we do that opening scene so that we don't spoil the fact that they know each other because that's kind of the whole twist of the script and it was somewhat one that's well you're the writer you figure it out and so it's like okay you're that's like the you know I will spoil the end of usual suspects oh if you haven't seen that but that's like that's like going you know pretend that's you know Kevin Spacey didn't make it all up in size or Kyser so he's a real person but you like but the whole point of the movie is is in and then they are like or you know the end of the sixth sense it's like well pretend Bruce Willis is like a real person and not a guy you notice so you know when that when they come to do something like that it gets it's a little they obviously don't understand like you're you're taking the core of what makes this movie like the core mystery and you're giving it away at the beginning so that's going to change the whole movie and then there's ice okay you'll figure it out so it's just shows a certain level of not understanding about you know how much thought you do need to actually put into a good screenplay and then when you said something earlier about you know that even something that you write that you are Precious about at some point there's like a letting go process because you know that once it's sort of out of your hands it could be changed yeah yeah and you have to you have to and I think that's another you know kind of blessing of working in a studio as I got to see that they're you know even though you know again Newland was very much about you know artists and then and you know protecting their vision and things like that there were a lot of times where you know we would get a script in it had like Jim Carrey attached to it and there was another script that came in with nobody attached but it was a great script well they're gonna go with the Jim Carey script first obviously and so that's just part of the business so there's so many decisions it's just like with acting like it's so much different when you sit in an audition room than when you're going into audition because you know obviously the people in the room they don't know how much time that you've audition and how much you know you've taught - you've audition for your friends and you've taped it you've got a you know you've hacked in coaches like coach you down line delivery and you're seeing and on the other side of the table when actors come in and they leave and it's like you know that was the best actor but you know his hair color the same as the other two guys that we have and you know it's like what we could dye his hair and then it's like yeah yeah but then it you know and then some of the smallest things will like be the deciding factor and it has nothing to do with a person's talent so you have to learn to detach at a certain point otherwise you just you know because of the business no matter what part of the business you work and you're gonna get more nose and yeses like it's it's it's it's to get somebody else to make everybody it's easy to make your own movie now because you have that you can make a movie on your iPhone it looks professional it's high-definition now but you know it's almost impossible if you think about the odds of getting someone else to put up money to make your movie so getting a movie made in and of itself is a miracle it really is so to think about that and then how hard it is to get cast for something you know for every role that you know when we put out a casting thing forever oh we'll get like 500 you know people that are submitted for like one role and you have to narrow those all down to people that come across good on tape to the people that you actually call in to them to the rooms and then you Whittle those people down and you bring them in for chemistry reads and there been so many times where it's like we had two great actors that we love for a part but when you get them together they just had no chemistry whatsoever and then the these two actors you know that we didn't think we're as great as ones before come in and have great chemistry and you're like you know it makes you rethink the whole thing so so yeah that was a long answer about letting go but you have to kind of let that that has that filters over into any any probably any part of your life you know because we all no matter what we do for a profession like we put you know we kind of identify ourselves by that so we identify our or well our well our value by how well we do in it so you know if you no matter what you do whether it's you know you're a doctor or lawyer or whatever if you're not succeeding then there's a part of you that feels like you're a failure and you have to realize like so much stuff is out of your control all you can do is your best like that's why I like writing because even you know acting is even worse because you don't have any say over auditioning like you you don't know if you're in addition but at least with writing I can write like nobody can stop you you know from physically writing all the time so like that's one thing I have control over so you can only have you can only worry about this if you have control over and do your best but there are so many things outside of your control that have nothing to do with your talent and and oftentimes we do think it you know if we don't get apart or if we don't get a writing assignment or if our movie doesn't get greenlit we're like it's because we suck or writing sucks well you know but and you know I'm sound like and that's that's just a common feeling I think we have as human beings about stuff if we don't succeed at something we think it's a personal failure you know for us as a human being like we're failing when it's really not that at all it's just there's so many other things that we can not we have no idea that factor into that you know final decision about what gets going or what movie gets made or who gets cast did you always think like that I mean because that's a pretty mature way of looking at it and I don't know does that just come with having been rejected or having seen the industry from the time when you were 19 working at new line I think it was a little bit I think it was seeing an industry from when I think those who partly same industry from when I was 19 I think part of us how I was was raised Who I am my mom was very you know very much an you know she a single mother raised me and my sister but she was very much about us getting education we we were biracial we grew up in it really not accepting part of America when we I mean while all of America wasn't very accepting we were first born so you know we were in you know we were raising the Baha'i faith which is very much about like unity of the whole world of equality of men and women and races and equality of religion and so I've definitely mom is always in you know just that upbringing has always taught me to think about the bigger picture you know like a you know I feel and it's it's not doesn't make me any smarter or any better or wiser than anybody it's just that you know I grew up thinking about the world community as if as opposed to like just you know my town and you know my country it's like I you know of course I love my country but I realized that our country was part of a big world and it seems like a lot of people didn't quite start realizing it until the internet came along and they start going on there's a whole world out there of other people that were connected to so I've always tried to and it's it's it's been to my benefit and to my detriment like I always try to see like all sides of an issue I try to you know I have friends from every background and on the planet you know some people that are that are hardcore like 80s and people that are hardcore religious and people that are right wing and left wing and you know people that you know and because I because I the one thing that my mom always taught us growing up is in again it's you know being born in 69 you know that was when the last school was there was the last school was desegregated in 69 so you know people people tend to kind of forget how we haven't had as much time from a lot of the ugliness that we think we'd like to think that we do and so I got to see a lot of that firsthand growing up but my mom was always like don't judge these people by what they're doing now because they're only treating you how they were taught to treat you this isn't defining who they are and so you have to like you know pray for them and wish them well and not do that so I tried I try to take that approach with everything and sometimes myself and Santa I fail miserably at it a lot of times too but I think that that taught me at a young age just is so not to separate but just to kind of see a bigger picture kind of point of view because I I knew you know I wasn't thing so we're always gonna be horrible like you know and when I was like facing racism growing up and you know on top of that then I came out being gay and it was like well we can't call them this word but now we can call them this other word now and then you know so it's just it's so you see people just kind of replacing you know prejudices with other prejudices and it all comes from places of like fear and you know and and ignorance I don't mean that in an educated way but just you know when people don't aren't exposed to something like I sure I did it to a podcast the other day and the topic was but you're not like you're not like the rest of them and that's what I heard a lot of times growing up where people there were racist or like oh but you're not like the rest of those black people are you know the rest of those gay people didn't though you just say all these horrible like stereotypes about them so it's it's interesting when you see the world kind of from that perspective is a little bit of an outsider who is trying to understand like all the sides of something because you realize a solution lies in the middle somewhere and not screaming at this side or this side and that there really aren't two sides it's just you know it makes us feel better if we're like fighting against somebody is to pose to trying to like look for a solution so that kind of thinking has just been that was inbred in me I'm not an bred in me but you know and saying like that was kind of it still I'm a writer emotional I'm sure to bring those yeah I mean yeah but that was instilled at me from a young age mom always taught me that the world is bigger than me and bigger than what was what was in my immediate vicinity so like you know even if I was going through a rough time and you know growing up in like you know priests middle school and things like that is she's like you know there's a world beyond that that you're gonna get to at some point and you know and I just you know so that's always taught me just not to internalize stuff as much but the bad side is that now I'm my life I am very much a people pleaser where I want to make everybody happy and I want to I want everybody to get along because it really is such a simple it's so it just is simple sometimes just sitting down and listening listening with somebody instead of talking and I talk a lot because I'm a writer so I'm you know I always joked like we don't interact that much with people because we're always in front of it in front of our laptops so it's hard to shut us up when you get us out there but but when you actually you know that's why I'm able to have friends with so many different beliefs because I actually sit down and we don't agree on everything but it's so funny when you like people there's a there's automatic defenses that they go to when you talk about certain topics and things and so I know Sartre because I see them people just fall into those defenses all the time so then I always try to figure out how to talk around those and how to you know I'm saying not to it's like when you have a sibling I love my sister to death but she knows how to push my buttons so it's like when she pushes a button I can either react in a different way or I can react the way that I've reacted for my whole life and say the same thing back to her that I always say that I was gonna start a big fight you know what I'm saying so that's kind of how I view life is to is like you know if you're when you're going through life it's like dealing with people dealing with situations it's like you could see it's easy to get caught up in the emotion of that moment and react and I feel like I'm like going off tangent here now but do you put in your scripts I mean especially being in a town where there is such a maybe a look of like this is the right way this is not the right way and feeling like that Outsiders I think that shapes a lot of artists in a very intense way you think you've got a lot of that in your script um I don't I I don't put a lot I think I think I try to be much I think I try to just write stuff and then have the inclusivity like speak for itself even the love that gets taken out of my scripts like I I'll write scripts that have like people from different you know racial backgrounds or you know most of my scripts except for a finalist session you know or very you know strong women I'm at the center of it like I haven't written none of my scripts of had nudity and them just because I don't think I need it now sequels have you know but for me it's like I don't think I don't think I need it unless it's you know I did there was a butt shot in my last movie but it was it was tastefully done oh good um and it was from afar I was just maybe walking out of the bathroom but but you know the so I try to like it's more like I don't because I never wanted because I write horror movies I mean I kill people on screen so it's like I you know I can't really you don't want to get too preachy with messages you know like in fun ELISA nation I mean you could say yes it's you know you never know how long you have to live so enjoy life while you can but but on top of that I know that I can write like you know a really you know hopefully complex like female character or I can write a gay characters not a stereotype or I can you know have a Muslim character in there a lot of times again these characters get taken out after I've sold a script so I've had to learn to kind of let that go and I'm you know moving more into directing and producing now so that I can kind of put that stuff back in there because for me it's just about showing people as people and I think that's how you break down walls and it's it's sometimes it's easier it's kind of a joke that does tie into the topic but it's like you know I've been sober for like 11 years now and and I noticed that every time so all my friends every time somebody gets sober like all three scripts always then have somebody who's either an alcoholic or just got sober and their scripts like it and I you know it's just because all of a sudden you feel like when you you don't realize how prevalent alcoholism is even though you're not supposed to ever diagnose anybody else is being alcoholic it has to be self diagnosed but you just never realize how prevalent alcohol is you know until you get sober and then it's like you go to a party that's sponsored by a Skyy Vodka and then you're like can I just get a coke and they're like seven dollars I'm like but you're giving away vodka cranberries for free yeah but that's our sponsor I'm sober I don't care seven dollars so you don't realize how much alcohol is like pushed on you until you don't drink anymore so when something like that catastrophic happens in your life when like when you quit something you know like that then I think a lot of times you'll find rioters like we'll put that in our in our stuff or we'll bring it up and you know but I think the outsider thing in general is what is a kind of a common theme you'll find amongst tour writers in general is I think that you know a lot of them were like weren't the super popular kids you know and there's some really I mean in there and there are some writers that already I know that we're really popular you know and we're prom king and queen so but a lot of them weren't you know a lot of them were like the kind of comic geeks and the people that like to you know just go off and do geeky things and not not but not play the sports and try to be popular kind of people so it's a pretty eclectic mix but but yeah I think you just everybody does there does their thing I have some female horror writers who some of the stuff that I read of there is I'm like wow this is actually has more nudity and leering at women than if a straight guy wrote this like wait a minute you said this is a feminist whore right I know it oh but I guess maybe you're you know like I can't speak for but I know writers that will try to make sure that they put a message you know like in their movies or something that's really important and for me it's more like just trying to like I have a movie outlines get right now that's got it pretty much in like a 95% african-american Latino cast and it's not about it's just a hormone it's a slasher movie and I just tell people it's just like if you're watching screen where it's like a bunch of pretty white kids and there's like well not even the first one they didn't have any black people in the first one but you know one of the later screams were you're watching a bunch of pretty white kids and they have like the one black friend as our movies like you're just focusing on all the pretty black and Latino kids and they have a couple of white friends so it's it's not that you're making a movie that's about race it's just you're casting a movie that's just focusing on a different group of friends than most of the horror films do so I think that that that type of movie in my humble opinion will actually reach a wider market because again you know white audiences just want to go see a good horror movie you know like they don't care what color they the characters are and then people of color who are horribly underrepresented in horror films are a huge audience for horror films we've just done all the tests even at new line we did test marketing back and you know the 90s and it was like in all the major cities it was like 50 percent you know the whore audiences in all the major cities were African American Latino and it's such a horribly underserved market that they'll go to see the movie numerous times because they've never seen themselves represented on screen it's just people and regular horror fans and not recognize it's awful I'm trying to be so PC right now screw that I'm most snow flake you know but you know a horror fan white whore fans and songs is a good slasher movie they're gonna go see a couple times too so that's gonna be a really good kind of social experiment and it's taken me like 20 you know I've been trying since I tried to have a you know black leading one of the final destination movies and it isn't it never happened and um you know so it's taking me like yeah that's taking me 20-some years to like finally get a movie going you know so it's it is it's funny when we when we talk about you know were races and is it an American it's like oh we're you know we voted for Obama so we're post-racial now and everything's hunky-dory and it's like yeah it's not you know it's like kids cuz you know Holly was pretty frigging liberal but they they know what sells and what won't sell and they know how people like pigeonhole kind of movies and sometimes they do underestimate definitely they underestimate people's intelligence in a way or what they'll go see but there there's just also the hard reality that you have to prove to them like I'm gonna be like girl triple that came out with Jada Pinkett and Queen Latifah and you know makes thirty million dollars opening weekend and they're like wow you know and Wonder Woman comes out directed by a woman and about a woman superhero what they act so surprised and it's like nobody wants to take a chance on something that's different so you have to you have to find that person that will or that studio that will and then once you do I guarantee you once this movie comes out there's gonna be a whole bunch of you know slasher horror films that are like you know heavily like diverse cast so so again it's kind of like a quiet fight you know I haven't been running around like you know yelling after every fun listen he comes out when I wanted a black character to be the lead and they wouldn't like I you know that's not gonna do me any good that's just gonna upset people and make people think that I'm like crying grace you don't say like it's not gonna be productive so you just kinda have to put your put your best foot forward to put your money where your mouth is and try to do you find that people that like kind of get behind the movie like the one that we're doing now so did you try to add a non-white character to any of the final destiny yeah and and what would happen oh they would just cast a white person so they you would write it into the script yeah as to who this character was and then when you saw the final product yeah and it you know it was Friday and the the the reality is is internationally movies if the lead is a person of color they don't sell as as well internationally and you know I get except for like if you know like Halle Berry or Denzel Washington or there's you know there's a there's there's like maybe five names that will in certain genres will sell internationally but you know movie like get out comes out and it makes a hundred million here and it only cost like five million to make it's like who cares what it makes internationally like you're gonna make that money here so there there is a little bit of business reasoning behind it a lot of its like until you you try to break the mold you never know what the mold you know you never know until you try to break the mold and you know that's why I think this last year with get out and Wonder Woman we're so important is because even though I even I'm on my facebook before it came out I'm like I'll bet my life that one Iran is gonna be one of the top selling you know superhero film so all time and it's just because people don't they underestimate how powerful of an impact Lynda Carter had his Wonder Woman so pretty much everybody you know in their forties you know 50 you know and above and you know late 30s anybody who kind of grew up on seeing Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman love that character and she's been around forever and then you got younger people meeting her in the Justice League so I knew the movie was gonna do like huge business but nobody you know it's like when people say oh if an openly gay actor were to play a you know like James Bond nobody believed it I'm like why don't we try it first you know like cuz I I think people that go watch movies like know that Robert England's not a you know child molesting serial killer that wears you know I'm sure I'm sure that they know he's not like that in real life so I don't know if this is it's funny so you just try to make whatever changes you can with your art and a lot of times it doesn't even happen and again I work in the horror genre so for you know again it's it's even more it's even harder to try to like you know you don't want you can't get too high-minded in you know in a horror film you can you know again you can try to again make strong female characters you know make interesting dynamics between between everybody you know showed the diversities of just people of any like religion or background and you know you can try to put all that in your movie but a lot of times that ends up getting out of your hands you know once you sell the script so you just kind of again that's when you learn to kind of let go and you know be grateful you had a movie made you know can you think of an example where you wrote yourself into a corner and then how you wrote yourself out yeah yeah I'm pretty easy Tamra was it movie I wrote myself into a corner because it was um you know like that's a tough thing in horror films as you create your your villainy you make them really strong and it's like you have to come up with a way to stop them and you don't want to do something super generic but you know Tamara was kind of my homage to carry about a girl who's picked on and bullied and these kids pull a prank on it makes identity killer and she's you know in the description supposed to be like really frumpy and unattractive and then they bearer in the woods and the next Monday she comes into school she's really smoking hot and she knows all their secrets and their sins and she uses that to turn against them but I made her you know she was really powerful and so I'm like you know how if I stop her it's either gonna have to find a spell since using the witch Heather had find a spell to stop or which is kind of you know it's just we've seen that a hundred times like how am I gonna and I made her so strong that you can't kill her because she came back from the dead so what do you know what do I do and so I had the if you haven't seen Tamara spoiler but no but so I basically had the you know I tied her fate to the teacher that she was in love with so he ended up sacrificing you know doing the heroic sacrifice and like you know grabs Tamara and jumps off a building with her and you know sacrifices himself to stop her so you know heroic sacrifice is always a good way and a whore to get yourself out of a corner because you that's the thing when you create a monsters you had to figure out a way to kill it and then it's like you don't want it to be something overly complicated but you don't want to be something as simple as a spell just killer so yeah that I would definitely wrote myself into a corner on with that movie and I was like well I'll I'll just yeah I'll have a teacher you know sacrifice his life to stop her and then when you got notes let's say the first few times around showing them what we're what were the notes what would the feedback about Tamara like was she too much this not enough this Tamara was actually Tamara's probably the easiest that was probably the easiest project to as far as you know we found a studio that wanted to do and they did it like it was um it was pretty easy easy so cuz I wrote that one cuz I want to have fun with the movie because I already been like bringing something like final destination bring us something and they you know that's yeah and then you bring this something L this too much like final destination it's like stop like so if I just wanted to write something fun and like in my MI and you know it was just like a fun I wonder I like a fun like quotable like can't be sexy you know horror movie I mean it turned out really well I did joke because we because of the budget you know we hit we had we had a certain budget and then magically half that budget like disappeared um before when we started shooting so the movie turned out not you know we didn't have the money that we went in the movie having so I was kind of joke it's kind of like the pg-13 you know ABC Family version of an r-rated horror film that I wrote so when you watch it you can definitely see like a lot of places where it's like this story that kind of chopped out a little bit and then stuff didn't go like wow they could have really pushed the envelope here and they played it really safe and that was that was all because of like you know budget stuff or things like that so that was another one where like I actually wrote a book with a friend of mine JD Matthews him we put it out just based on the screenplay so that people could see like what the original story was like because if the only thing we had to change on that because there were some pretty intense stuff in there but nobody ever said take it out but and that's what's always funny because a lot of times it's the studio that wants you to take out stuff and play it safe and the couple movies were odd that's happened to me it hasn't been the studio that's done it it's been like either a producer like kind of running off with some money or or yeah or or somebody on the on the movie set like oh no this is yeah let's tone this down let's do this so I've had the opposite of what a lot of people have where it's like the studio wants to play it safe like I had a couple movies row I'm I can't believe they're letting me get away with this and then you get on set and one of the actors like I don't want to do this and then they're like okay no Mike damn it it's like usually the studio stops me not an actor so it's a very again it's very it's a very interesting business that we're in so having final destination and and the various ones that you were a part of under your belt do you think that sometimes it's difficult because they pigeonhole you is that and you want to do something and a little bit of a different realm or it is it nice because you're known for that so then they have confidence I mean for me it's nice I mean just because I've I'm a horror fan and I'll probably you know I've you I have a science-fiction kind of horror overtones to it but a big science fiction project right now we're doing but you know I might branch out a little bit but I'm very happy writing horror so I've just yeah I love the genre so and I used to in part of its like also from just growing up you would read in Fangoria magazine which is like the Bible for for people but you know you'd read directors they would do a horror film they're like well it's not really a horror film it's more of a supernatural thriller and they would try to say everything but say it's a horror film and then they would do a horror film because they know they're gonna probably make a profit and then they would quit making horror and go off and do other stuff so I've even directors to be like well this is really a stepping-stone to do what I want to do and so growing up you get really like screw you you know this is a great Jean ruisseau you know and it is and so yeah this is something I am very you know embrace holy I love going to horror conventions and and yeah it's just a lot of fun it's a lot of fantasy there's a great it's a great fan base and you know a lot of the you know the people that I work with now that are my peers were all horror fans like me we grew up loving the same stuff and watching the same stuff so it's a really fun community to be a part of Jeffrey will you write on days when you don't feel inspired yeah yeah I mean I always joked my inspirations I had to pay rent and I have to yeah I have bills to pay so that's yeah you yeah you I mean there are but there are times where I will just I will give myself a break because I'm like okay I've been working you know I've been writing every day for ten days and if I want to take a day off it's okay like so that's that's usually what happens with me it's like I don't it's yeah I learned to not do it I because I read a great quote somewhere tonight and I some making Google and find out who said it but they were talking about how you know people you don't wait for your muse to come you know like you grab the muse and you strap it down to the chair and you choke it until it you know we're because yeah you will writers will find any excuse to not write you know will you know it's like working out or doing anything that's that you want to do but you're a little like a fearful that you're not going to reach out for it you're gonna find any excuse to put off writing so you have to learn like not to you know you can't say whether you're waiting for inspiration because you can inspire yourself if you start writing even if you write a call pages a day even if it's crap you just train your brain to write so it's you know it's a chemical thing that you do if you make yourself write every day at a certain time I don't do this because I again roll out of bed and we'll start writing pretty early but you know I during the earlier times there were what you know when I was kind of like I don't feel inspired I would just do that I would just get up and be like alright I'm going to square write two pages even if it's like awful stuff and then you're you do actually get your brain wired to where you'll that those two hours will start coming in your brain will start percolating before before noon hits and you'll start writing and you know so you it you have to kind of train yourself to do it but I understand like I understand that I don't feel inspired today or whatever but there comes a point where you have to make sure you're not just doing that because you're afraid of writing because you you know I was talking to a friend mine recently and you know she was complaining about how she's like she's written this you know you mungus outline this humongous tree before and she just hasn't started a script and I said well because you know when you finish the script you have to give it off and it's like you're one step closer to like handing over people so you're like stuck in this this area and a lot of times that's why we're procrastinating because we know once we start writing and we finish that script we have to give it to somebody you know and that's when the judgment comes so I think that that's all the time the reasons that you know that's where that not feeling inspired is just like I think that's just kind of not wanting to write really also - because you're close to your characters and I'm not sure if this is the same for horror genre but that you you're losing your friends in some sense because that's who you've been spending time with right so handing it off is like almost ending a relationship ya know it's it there is a weird place you get when you write something you love it and you're yeah in and you want to hand it off and you want people that read or read it to just love it as much as you do and if they don't immediately you're like you know yeah there's like a it's like you're saying goodbye you're ending something but then then it's like sending them off and having oh people I can go why were you in a relation with that thing that's enough hideous choice for a partner what were you thinking so you don't want people to like not like your stuff to when you hands it off so it's um you it's it's like when you audition when you go up in an audition in front of people that you don't know I mean you're you're putting yourself up there and basically even if you're being a character or though you still feel like you're like all right love me and want me for this part and if you say no then you're rejecting me so this you know that's that's just something it's it's really hard to like no matter how successful you get or how long you've been around it's hard to let that go you know even now I like if I get a pass on a script you know it still stings a little bit even if it's a place that you know it's not right for you know would you say screenwriting is hard because I'm sure a lot of people could look at your story they could look at your credits and you make it look easy in terms of wow that's a really cool story here you were 14 and you send this you know script idea off and although it's rejected and you don't know what the notes are you still have this relationship that really shaped you in a lot of ways and I think it's a really cool story and not a lot of people probably have that opportunity but it is it hard because it looks easy yeah from the outsiders yeah it's it's it's hard it's it's always interesting cuz if sometimes if I if I have a story that I love and I've outlined it then it's just fun but when you're again when you're definitely trying to do a lot of things and get a lot of things like because then you know you know I'm at the point my career now where I want to you know just branch out and tell you know still horror stories but like do something like the Lionsgate project which is you know I think gonna it's just a really important kind of thing that you've you know where you had to fight for it it is hard because you want to you you you want to write something that's gonna strike a chord to people who you want to write something that's successful you want to write something that's going to spawn a franchise and and I've had you know for better for worse for some of my films they've done really well and other ones that we're supposed to turn out well didn't quite turn out the way they're supposed to and what you know directive video or didn't get a good release and you know there's so there's again there's it's you definitely have to stay in gratitude a lot of times and you have to find the joy in it all you know in the joy in writing and I still love writing especially when I'm you know if I'm writing something else and I get something this inspires me to like you know like this I hate to say it kills thing but you know I could kill I'm like oh my god I remember like I just thought of a great scene for a movie that you know I was so excited and I called the producer about and he's like was in love with it and so that's a fun stuff you know I was like trying to come up with new new things but you know it is hard to sit down in front of the computer every day and you know writing a hundred page script you know that's it is it is work and it's and it's not it's not easy you know because you're you're trying to write something that is going to be creatively satisfying you're trying write something that you think will sell because this is your livelihood so you're trying to juggle both of those things but not get too far down the road that you're not focused on the finishing the actual script you know so you've got to keep all those other things out of your or try to keep them out of your head about is this gonna sell is it's gonna make money or people gonna like this yeah they try not to like focus too much on that and just get the script done but that can be hard in and of itself you know it's not future tripping about you know what's gonna happen with the script once you're done with it so it's um it's fun but it's not easy it's not easy and there are hard you know it's always it's like with actors you know when because acting is not easy to be a good actor is not easy but you know you know it's not like we're going into you know putting out fires and you know putting our lives in danger and you know doing like physically hard labor it's just mental it's just mental exhaustion you know it's a lot a lot of mental work did this screenwriting career that you envisioned look the same in terms of the day-to-day because you know how people have a romantic notion about what something is really I see you know no not at all yeah yeah because you don't you don't really envision with the writing like I you don't realize how long it takes to write a script first of all and then you know like I you know I had a friend once who was like oh yeah I just took a took a weekend trip to Hawaii and wrote my script on the beach with some mai tais I'm like oh that's what writing is you just go out for a weekend and you write a script and ya know the day-to-day grind of getting you know two or three or four or five pages a day done is like it's a it's a grind and then you've also got life that you're living and you also have to try to get out and have a life because if you don't have a life you know like I'm kind because we are you know writers or some very solitary but you know I do go out to the movies and I do go out to dinner I do go out and do stuff with my friends because otherwise if you sit at home all the time you're not experienced in life and so then you can't bring anything else to your scripts than what you've already experienced so you're just kind of regurgitating the same experiences that you've had so you've got to kind of make sure your cup is like flowing over with other things besides just work but you have to take time out to do that too so in terms of what most people would have envisioned like you know you're at the keyboard and you've got it well not a drink but you know some people in you know they think that that's part of with the cigarette and just like this toilet existence oh yeah and you're pounding out and then this thing is beautiful in it but it sounds like it's it's there's more of a science to it and it's not just there's a science but for some people again everybody has a different method which is is very interesting it's like it's like with acting like you have your method actors who have to be like you know they have to become the character and they have to you you have other actors who when the camera when the director says you know rolling you know then they just they they go and then cut then they drop back and who they are and I think they're writers that are the same way to like you know yeah there's a stereotype that's why I quit drinking it's like I was becoming that serotype is something here drinking at home and you know thinking I'm writing some brilliant stuff and yeah the first couple pages were great and then the rest of its like what the hell was I writing so you know you think you do think that that's kind of I do have some friends that do torture themselves without the drinking or anything they just you know it's like they obsess about every single line of dialogue and it's like you're never going to finish your script if you're like that but again that's how they are so everybody's got a whole different process and so that's why I always tell people don't don't judge yourself harshly if your process isn't the same as somebody else's you know because it really is your end result that matters it's like getting that script finished so you do obviously have to follow certain you know structural rules and certain you know your dialogue needs to be good you're you know it has to be an engaging story but sometimes it takes people a lot longer you know I've known friends that where it's taken them 10 years to write a script you know it's not they're working every day 8 hours a day on it but you know 10 years yeah yeah I had a couple friends that have like yeah I've been working on this for 10 years and and it's great some of this stuff great and I've read some scripts where people have written script in a week and it's great not consistently but you know but it's everybody's got a different thing and I think that's what's always interesting too is we always have our ideas in our head what everybody's life is like and it's like you know even what you think an actor's life is like like it their lives you know the celebrities lives I mean they're you know they were like trudging into Starbucks with their dog and their kids crying and have to go change her kid's diaper and you know just like everybody else is you know like you know so you you definitely the glamour of Hollywood that they used to project and it was so important back in the days of you know the olden days with the with the Hollywood stars you know which when it was like the stars ran everything and they had to keep up these perfect images like we've lost all of that now with like the internet and access to everybody's private lives and you know we see people now on the street you know people are taking pictures of people and it's like oh wait I mean they're just like a you know like that's even a I think people are something has a whole thing like celebrities they're just like us and it shows pictures of them like walking a dog and before that you thought these are there were these magical creatures and you know you thought these writers were these like tortured you know sitting in a dark room like with you know just pounding away at a keyboard and you know sipping from their bottle of whiskey and you know curse in the heavens and yeah it's it's it's different for everybody assume for everybody but they're all at Starbucks I mean they definitely a coffee shops are full of writers in California that's definitely a cliche that you can't that's one cliche that's true it's like you go every coffee shop there's somebody's work there's five people working on the screenplay at any coffee shop that you walk into so it's pretty funny how much time do you spend outlining a story I know you had talked about a friend that had this like really long outline and you and do keep it to one page or how do you do it um I usually do like maybe two or three pages like I'll do like a super rough outline and I'll just flush out a little bit more and then try to write the script after that because I I find that most of the the fun stuff comes when I'm writing so I definitely try to have everything planned out as far as like this is what's gonna happen in the story and these are the characters they're gonna make it to the end and you know here's when this person you know I try to plot all that stuff out but sometimes I leave stuff open because it's when you're writing it all of a sudden like a lot of times you'll get and fired by some fun stuff how do you get better at writing was it through the notes that you got when you think about let's say you know being sixteen and writing something versus now what do you think was the main thing to really get you better at it to really improve your craft um I think it was just thought I think it was reading scripts and also that which you know you learned it ferment to it positive is that insecure feeling that you have that you know and I know I hear people talk about this all the time about like actors of whatever they're always like the way they always were it is like they're afraid that someday somebody's gonna realize that they were a fraud and they're not really that good you know as an actor writer and I think people that get better and better with people that have that thing and then where they're worried you know that they're not good enough yet so they strive harder so that's for me it's like I think if I ever get to the point where I'm like oh this is this is the best horror script that's ever gonna ever be done and so I've written it and I can just quit now then I'm screwed because I again I meet people like that all the time or they're like trust me this is gonna be the best movie you'll ever you know and it's like it's not gonna be the best movie ever you know don't say that like if you guys get me aids so I think that that drive to constantly get better and top yourself as far as like the last thing that you did like you know like you know final destination I'm very proud of that because it was kind of a because it was it was a you know this is the first time that death had actually been like the killer in a film so you know we you know it was a kind of a benchmark kind of film like I'm just trying to be nice but it was it made a you know it has it definitely has a bookmark in horror history so that's enough of something to make me happy but I want to you know with the Lionsgate project evolved that to be another bookmark as far as that was the first you know studio release film with a you know diverse cast and you know it's it's my first slasher film too so I'm getting back I'm on the slide or not back in but I'm you know hopefully will kind of kick that any new way with the slashers off so now I actually know how I forgot the point was they owe in terms of getting better so it's not getting better ya know it's it's you know I don't want to I always joke I don't want a milk final destination yeah I don't want that to be my graves don't like hero final destination that's like you know my only thing like so I wanna I want more I want a couple more franchises before I die so I know to do that I have to keep writing and I know that I have to write good stuff and you know hopefully something will stick you know how many pilots or TV series have you written pilots I have five pilots we're out with two of them right now two of them didn't get didn't get picked up but there's always a shot and then one I had option for a while and then got it came back to me once the company kind of changed their mandate so say I've written five five pilots and um that's fun I mean TV the great thing about TV is you know they treat the writers are kind of like at the top of the food chain and TV which again is is is how it should be just in general because again unless somebody actually writes something then everybody else whether it's a director actors all the crew like they would they don't have a job unless there's something written like so you know having a theater background like you know the play was always so important to us like even the director was always like you know it's about the written word and then you moved to Hollywood and it's like writers are below anybody hey the guys that clean the toilets out you know it's just I'm exaggerating a tiny bit but it really is like you know directors actors crafty you know gaffers and then the writers like down here somewhere because you know Hollywood there's definitely again it's a perception of what Hollywood's about and you know there there came the time when the auditor filmmakers started one and have their names over everything so it was like a film by Alfred Hitchcock so it's like sound like oh it's all--it's Alfred Hitchcock's movie the writer you know doesn't matter at them and then it was you know we have this cult of celebrity to where it's like we you know we idolize celebrities so then it's like directors and the celebrities kind of became the focal point of everything and the writers kind of got a lot very lost in the shuffle and then but when you get in TV because you have to crank out the work and they realize that it's the writers that are actually cranking out the work and then you know the directors are hired on and the cast is hired on but the whoever creates the show is usually also an executive producer on it has like creative control so that you that's why you see a lot of people moving again into television as well is because it's you know they just treat writers better it's just you know the bottom line and they there's a just a level of respect and it's not even about ego like you want to be like you know worshiped it is you know sometimes it really literally is about you know just respect like I had a friend of mine I was talking to today and they had a they had a cast and crew screening of the movie he rode and didn't invite him invited everybody else everybody and you know and that's just kind of typical you know this is typical of Hollywood and you know it's things when you because I guess already get a movie made and then you write something and because of you know politics or whatever it's like they just don't invite the writer and it's like so you know it's you know that's not the only reason to get in TV there's also something really gratifying about writing something and it comes out like a month later and you can watch it whereas in movies God you can write something and you know it never gets made it gets made ten years from now 15 years from now it's gone through 20 other writers so by the time it ends up on the screen you don't even see anything that you wrote left in the movie so there's something very gratifying about TV because it the turnaround is so much quicker from when you finish the script to when it comes out but um but yeah there is there is just the the way they treat writers is in T visas is is much cooler much more appropriate than they doing it future world a lot of times how many attempts have you made to break into television yeah I think maybe three really because because the you know the two scripts that I have now kind of gone out with them at the same time and and they have it hasn't really been a concerted effort it's more like if I get an idea that I feel is better suited for television I'll do it but you know like there was a time when I there was a time that I had a project with a really big producer and it was you know it was our project and out of the project that she was focused on the other project like got picked up first and just took off and so then all it sounds like well we can't really focus on two at the time so it's like you know you get you get a little bit like yeah yeah but then you just keep going and then you you know you but again my foot my focuses on features but I definitely am interested in the TV world too because I I just like how now there's so many different ways you can write six episode like event miniseries now or you can write you know you know anthologies like American Horror Story or you can write you know a 22 but there's so many different ways that you can write so there's a different kind of stories you can tell so I'm just interested in exploring that world too and kind of creating some of that's a little bit more because I grew up watching TV all the time too so it would be cool to have something on TV as well when you finish a screenplay what do you do well that's a good question um I usually take a nap no I do I do I don't I don't go out do anything crazy like celebrate I just I get I get very happy and I'm like yes and I send it off and I usually go take a nap because especially when I'm in that last stretch where something is either do or I'm almost done that's when I start getting a little like super Ayin where I'm going back through everything and I'm paginating the pages and you know one of the tricks I learned is like you know to try to have you know the last line of it on a page be something where they have literally make it a page-turner where they have to turn the page to see what the next page is gonna be like that was a trick I learned from a friend of mine and so you know I try to go through and make sure like unless it's the very end of a really great scene that it like every end of every page is something where you have to flip the page to at least finish it because if you get them over the next page they're probably gonna keep reading it's like if you stop them at at the end of a page with something like but they may not turn the next page so you know I do all those like after I've worked on the script itself then I do those like little like you know mine gave me things to like make sure it's a page-turner so by the time I'm ready to send it off and I have to go back to one more time and I have you know then I take a nap cuz I've I've wore myself a hot also - is it a sense of accomplishment where you feel like okay I can rest now yeah I'm sure like up until a certain deadline it might be a lot of sleepless nights or maybe not it's nice and it's stress but ya know when I when I finish something there is definitely a sense of accomplishment where you're like yes especially if you if you know it's good you know if you're not sure then it's kind of like send with your fingers crossed but I'm still gonna go take a nap but then it's like but um but yeah when you feel like you've really nailed it it's good but that's again the interesting about the business is you can do a script that you're a hundred percent confident in and your producer loved it and then but one person in the studio region is like me anything like so again it's a rollercoaster ride it's really you know that's why again I'm very big on people like doing their own content and trying to you know do your own content because that's if you really want to ensure something gets made done the way you write it that's the best way to do it but but yeah there's it's very very gratifying when you type the end and you mean it and you can hit Send with whoever you have to turn the script over - so it's you definitely feel like good job so if you're not a writer for hire for something it's your own like passion project and you finish it then what's your process then I usually try to you know then I'll send it to you know my agent or manager to look at and then you know figure out like what place is this into - or now what I've started doing really because again I'm getting more into like producing my own stuff is you know connecting with some people that I think have access to invest you know more than into more the business side of it like okay well this might be good for this company these companies so let's try to you know attach somebody or let's try to you know now I've gotten more business-minded I'm in the last couple of years especially because um again it's really you know I'd love to someday be at the point where I'm running my own company where I have like assistants that can read a bunch of scripts - and like we can make a whole bunch of movies but you know right now it's like a you know I I have some some good stories that I want to tell and something like all right I got to maximize the chance to get those made so that means if it's something that I've written on my own a lot of times in Latin now I'm going out and looking for independent financing as opposed to trying to get it set up somewhere so that's been a fun like learning experience in the last year or so

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Keywords: Screenwriting tips, screenwriting techniques, screenwriting advice, screenwriter, screenwriting, selling a screenplay, screenwriting help, writing a horror screenplay, writing a horror movie, scary movie, thriller, final destination, final destination writer, Jeffrey reddick, interview, filmcourage, film courage

Id: gHeDa4TFIuw

Length: 101min 47sec (6107 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 13 2018