Jordan Peele Interview on writing Get Out - 10 Screenwriting Lessons from Oscar winning Screenwriter

i i stopped writing this movie about 20 times because i thought it was impossible i thought it wasn't gonna work i thought no one would ever make this movie but i kept coming back to it because i knew if someone let me make this movie that people would hear it and people would see it it was i allowed it to be my hobby i allowed it to be the project that i would go to instead of watching television that would be the most fun thing i could do with my time it started with dreams and ideas and things that were bubbling up from my subconscious and then at some point figuring out going on this mission to figure out what i was trying to tell myself if you can predict what and where an audience is gonna go or what they think you're going to do you can use that momentum against them you know i sat down and i would smoke a little bit of weed and try try and write a uh you know mind-bending horror film my favorite genre uh and at some point i just followed the truth if you're telling a story and you're not bearing part of your soul or telling your truth i think that you're not you're not doing that right [Music] that's in so many ways this movie is all of you all the parts of you uh being biracial being in show business and getting two different messages like the best genre stuff this is an incredibly autobiographical movie in a lot of ways isn't it yeah and and i think the the only way to [Music] you know i will ever attempt to create anything again is to be vulnerable with my own emotions and it has to it in some way it has to be autobiographical if you're telling a story and you're not bearing part of your soul or telling your truth i think that you're you're not you're not doing that right as well certainly certainly that that's the case for me and um you know the i i i i think when i when i in invented that that party sequence that was a huge moment for me of saying you know what these these fears um justified or not justified um you know however they come these fears of mine uh i've never seen them portrayed in film and um and you know the the whole process of figuring out what this movie was about was about digging deep and exploring my my fears first and trusting that if i got that across that we're all human we're all we're all made up of the the same emotions and that you know and this is what what you sort of finding in comedy to in comedy as well is if you put your truth out there however specific it feels however much you feel like this is just me no one else is gonna relate to this no one no one's gonna care um that's not the case people are people are drawn to truth like magnets in in in art i think um and and you can you can see that i mean it's really really easy to see in comedy because when something feels true and when something rings true you get a laugh and if it doesn't you don't and it's just like it's just that simple you know i was trying to bring a piece of the conversation i'd never seen put on on film before i felt like there was this void in the way we talk about race especially at the time when i wrote it which was actually very similar time to when we wrote the the obama luther translator sketch we felt like racism was not being called out um sufficiently enough for it you said you're trying to tell your own truth what is that well really my truth as a black man you know that my perspective that i haven't seen in film before i haven't i haven't seen that represented um so like well in the party scene in get out for example there's it's a scene where uh you know it's a group he's the only black guy it's a bunch of older white people who are trying to connect with him with on on his blackness first and saying things like you know i i i know tiger i think every minority has been in i think i think i i imagine you you know if you're a woman in a room full of men you're viewed as a woman um before you're viewed as a human being and it's those little it's you know uh on the surface it's it's a harmless thing but what i i wanted to point out with this film is that it's connected to the the real the deep horror of racism you know comedy is where i'm from and and uh the the the the process of doing sketch comedy you know week after week on on key and peel um very much became about this idea of of jujitsu of judo you you if you can predict what and where an audience is going to go or what they think you're going to do you can use that momentum against them um so that you know all over this movie i knew i wanted to have reveals i knew i wanted to have twists but most importantly you know i figured them if an audience thinks they know what's going on and whether they like it or they don't if you can show them that they've been watching something completely different the entire time i think they have a respect and there's a there's a real intellectual catharsis that comes with that and and and and it's fulfilling for an audience so you know for there was a while i mean the real big one in this there's there's a few big ones there's the rose reveal which you know it was a very difficult thing to hide that rose was evil um because you know it's like you look on paper she's bringing him there to expect an audience not to think that is almost impossible so i had to kind of direct her and write that you know as if i was it was a different movie as if it was this love story and to you know try and convince the audience to just root for the two of them to escape together or to think at its worst something is going to happen to one of them and the other one that was uh that was one of the most fun reveals to protect in the writing of this how do you separate the crafting the narrative and building the drama versus the integration of all these ideas making social commentary that you're talking about how many traffic is that tag a lot of drafts this oh you like started this five years ago you said right well no i started longer i started 2008 i developed the story for five years before i put pen to paper and wrote the script so for five years this was a project that i felt like was ambitious enough that there was a good chance it would never get made and and i thought ambitious in the subject matter the idea of doing a a thriller um that explores the the victimization of black people um by starting with a scene that basically is the scene we're used to seeing with a black guy disappears he's never heard from the rest of the movie i mean that alone is like a great idea so well and and and a terrifying idea to write because i you know again i thought no no this isn't going to pass the smell test for anyone you know but every white person in this movie is evil you know that doesn't you can't make that movie you can't make a movie where a black man kills a white family at the end in cold blood and the audience is rooting for him like that movie doesn't get made so i had internalized this idea and said look i i can't worry about this movie getting made i have to write my favorite movie that doesn't exist and so that put me on this path of working on this and it wasn't like i was every night i was like for five years it was i allowed it to be my hobby i allowed it to be the project that i would go to instead of watching television that would be the most fun thing i could do with my time and the whole purpose of it was to help me get better as a writer because i just i know that from key and peel when you're when you're having fun writing that's when you get like the east west [ __ ] you know where it's just it it works fun works and that's what i that's kind of my advice to anybody dealing any writer or artist dealing with writer's block which we all deal with and i you know follow the fun follow if if if you can't if you're not having fun writing you're doing it wrong shift up your tactic well so you know the question is a great question how how much does hollywood the studio um the producers it sort of interfere with my vision now my person i can speak from my personal experience um which is you know i made a cheap movie i made a movie for 4.5 million dollars part of the reason part of part of the reason that was a good fit for my first movie was because um you know that's that's very little money in the film industry so because of that i knew i i had the leverage to push boundaries to push buttons to um stand by my you know what the film was meant to be for me um you know when there were debates and when there were differing opinions of how something should go my strategy was not to was not to pop off the hard part i listened i i felt i feel like every note that somebody can give you um has something of worth in it has something of value so if somebody tells me hey don't you know you shouldn't have this happen in the movie because it's too violent well i'm thinking well you're supposed to be bi what i what i don't do is go in and change my movie and take out the violence what i do do is ask myself how can okay i hear that so how can i put in something earlier that makes that violence feel better how can i make how can i bring this person into the perspective of the person who's committing the violence enough that i will never get that note again from anybody so i think it's important to be respectful of people's opinions even if they're they're wrong there's there's some there's some reason they're having that reaction and then to engage in dialogue with them and stand stand up for what you know the film needs to be for me these movies like the stepford wives rosemary's baby movies from the 60s 70s they had this pace and it's intelligence to them yeah where you know you're you're headed towards this crazy twist right but you don't know what it is and then when you get there it it's it becomes obvious you've been watching it the whole time right right right i love those movies i love i love i love the the the mind game right those movies and and i think you know people do audiences like that i think they do too i think people want to think and i think you gave us a chance to do that and figure it out as it goes along oh well thank you hey you know i the way i feel is like if you start with how how it feels and like i said you put you know lakeith in the scene you can you can be transformative like you can make um a movie where black people recognize and feel that feeling they that that we feel yeah um on a day-to-day basis and white people can come in and be like oh oh that was offensive i'm feeling i'm what just i'm feeling knowing that too like that it made me uncomfortable made me i get it so to me that's like that that's why a good movie a good story can can do more for for social change and i think we need it right now more than ever i'd like to know what is your writing ritual or routine um great question and thank you um for that um i you know i i'll talk about the way this movie was written because it's it's the process i'm gonna try and replicate as best i can but as i was starting to say it it started with dreams and ideas and things that were bubbling up from my subconscious and then at some point figuring out going on this mission to figure out what i was trying to tell myself um this this one was one that i i started very early you know really as a as looking at it as a producer as well and saying okay well this is you know obviously if this movie gets made i'm we're not it's not going to be a huge budget and um so let's mine the the the things that work that you don't require a huge budget um that is you know so that's why i put a lot of the the horror and the scares in the the dialogue in the performances in the moments in the ideas because i knew i wasn't gonna be able to do any sort of sweeping huge monsters or any kind of thing like that so it all kind of it was all very this combination of strategy and and gut inspiration and you need both and it took a long time because it was you know weaving these things together i was doing scary movies similar to doing comedy uh great question i mean they're both for me they're both about truth if you if you're not accessing something that feels true you're not doing it right and it uh they also the technique of them you have to be very tuned into the audience and their their emotion and that's why with both um both forms the the technique is tension building and release you know when we're a teenager and all that and we feel the most isolated i did i you know felt you know i had friends but still felt kind of like an alien or like someone who was misunderstood the more and more i'd be drawn to stories that explore the power of the other side the dark side you know when i when i started writing get out i was in a state of great fear low in my life and these projects have dug me out of that darkness and so when you're standing up the back of a cinema and you watch an audience watching get out or watching ass and you see them leap with fear is that a little moment where you feel like god for that one brief second i can tell you know i've i've done you know comedy for you know over 15 years and gotten some great laughs nothing really compares to the feeling of getting the audience to shudder again there's a mischievous pleasure i you you will see me in the theater laugh if i get the audience on that level there's a lot of therapy that goes into this moment there's a lot yeah and i don't know you know something about it is that i have less of an exact science for wielding fear as i call it it's more of the an alchemy than comedy which became almost mathematic at a certain point nothing beats hearing the audience be afraid and then giggle afterward i think this means so much because writers know how and hard it is to write something this was a passion project it was something that i put my love into i put my soul into so getting this from you means so much i started writing it in 2008 and there was a lot of ups and downs i had to tell people you know people ask on what are you writing what are you working on i'd be like i'm writing this thing about a black dude that goes to a white white girlfriend's house and the parents perform brain surgery on him and try and swap heads i'd give away instantly and people would just look at me like uh-huh okay you're losing your mind i just want to say thank you and everyone in this room that is a writer keep taking chances take big risks put your love into it um it does pay off and it's the hardest [ __ ] thing and it can take a long time but our voices really do matter thank you very much you

Channel: Outstanding Screenplays

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Keywords: video essay, screenwriting, screenwriter, analysis, screenplay, scriptwriting, screenplays, screenplay tips, cinema, writing, film, studio binder, script, tips, story, oscars, review, how to, outstanding screenplays, filmmaking, motivational video, tips from screenwriters, directors chair, get out, us, big mouth, jordan peele interviews, key and peele, jordan peele oscar, the twilight zone, blackkklansman, big mouth season 4, candyman, hair love, lovecraft country, sweating profusely meme

Id: 493XUW4Eux8

Length: 18min 45sec (1125 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 06 2020