The Real Truth On How To Become A Professional Screenwriter - Mark Sanderson [FULL INTERVIEW]

how does someone really know they're a writer maybe they just like the idea of being a writer the identity of it no it's a good question as always um i found with actors as well people who i've come in contact with that some people like to play the role and others like to actually do the work and so there's a uh you can see because when it starts getting difficult those who want to play the role go um this is hard and then it becomes like well do you really want to do this and you know writers i always say writers write you know there's writers are a special breed you know what i mean um i know if it's hard to explain but you're the one up at two o'clock in the morning with passion and you can't to use a double negative not right you know it's it's something that you that's in your blood it's in your dna to be a creative person like that so those people you know i said i used to work in a restaurant as a waiter and there were some people who wanted to be actors and writers as well no i'm working on the thing and they never finish something that's also another indication where you can't see it through where this person who writes yeah it's it's there's a lot of fear involved because it may be crap you know you may not you may not be at a level where you want to be but you have to get through that to get to the other side to master anything um martial arts whatever it is that you're studying so a lot of the people wanted to be actors you know liked the you know i'm brooding yeah but you know i'm an actor you know wearing the leather jacket and you said well you're going on auditions well no are you taking classes well no you know i have a good look okay that'll get only so far you know what i mean so i think um you can some people may try try writing like say oh i think i'd like to write a screenplay which is fantastic it might not be the um you know maybe novel writing is better suited or maybe both of them are not you know it takes a big commitment so i think you find your way but for me since i was 11 i knew that this was kind of my calling you know making movies and things when we were we were shooting films short movies at 11 years old i i knew you know because i nothing would would stray me from that so um yeah i think it's uh i think you either find out that it's not what you really are passionate about or you early on you know it's your passion and nothing's going to stop you from it so i think that's what what designates you know a writer for the long haul and the test of when things are uncomfortable and looks like it's not going to happen yeah i always say failure is um is a test to see how badly you want it you know and and this life of a writer is filled with rejection failure and criticism and it's not going to go away even when you start working in fact the stakes i think are even higher because then there's money involved and contracts and pressure like i have to work under a deadline and that was the first thing that was difficult for me when i started working professionally is that you're supposed to be creative under a deadline and how can you do that and some when you're working on your specs it's open-ended right you well i won't work today or i'll go to the beach and when it becomes your job it's the job with any responsibility like a job has to do you clock in and you know your clock in time might be you know three in the afternoon as long as you get those pages done you know at a certain time so how did you learn to write screenplays i don't know if i still know but you know how did i learn how to write screenplays um well early on as a kid when i was making films with my friend we just we wrote by on pen and paper and just made a couple of notes and really didn't know what we were kind of doing but we knew we had to have something on paper and i'm not sure if we actually read a screenplay per se or not because a lot of times scripts in that those days were hard to find you know you couldn't just say oh i'm going to look up on the internet blah blah you know unless you were working in the business you're not going to find a screenplay unless you have someone in the business so we started with pen and paper and then eventually realized you know moving into high school let's say because i was when we were 11 years old and in middle school realized that we had to have some sort of you can't just shoot the movie make it up as you go and so we started writing screenplays and um after we sort of veered off on our separate paths my friend making his own you know we had our own camps of actors and you know a stable of people i remember in high school actually physically writing typing you know my script it was like 60 pages now it was a short but it wasn't a feature either so it was kind of this weird nebulous place but it was you know exterior blah blah and um of course then before college is when the real studying began you know with books and then learning how to like write a conventional screenplay as you would as you would think um but yeah basically it was it was winging it at the beginning and then moving into sort of like well i should probably study you know if i'm going to want to work someday and then college was definitely you know film school was definitely the study of the screenplay were there any books you picked up before you entered the first semester yeah sid field's book which is a famous one i have an autographed copy oh nice um and of course joseph campbell and um there was i don't remember the other ones but the ones that you would think and then it was just getting on to to writing you know and also seeing screenplays and in classes we would be given scripts as well there was more access to that and our teachers were always industry professionals so that helped as well for them to sort of you know train us and keep us in the in the uh you know guide us along into the way of this is how scripts written at least you know in hollywood per se would you as a class go through it like you know there'd be 50 copies passed out and then you'd read it like how did yeah there was one class that we each got a copy of the script and it would movie that i think was um going to be made and the teacher was going to make the film so we got to see how a movie was broken down and it's you know what i mean so we could see that from a writer's perspective like oh it has to be broken into days and you know it's not filmed in order and all these things that you know sometimes writers who are just starting out don't think about you know that a movie has to be broken down into how many days you can't have too many scenes for a particular budget because how many scenes are you gonna shoot per day you know these type of things so um it was a great study in the ask the actual um you know being a savvy production writer which i think is important as well and did they ever make the movie that teacher oh geez i don't remember oh okay maybe maybe not i'm not sure i wonder if you got to see that no i didn't no it was probably proposed and maybe probably couldn't get the financing you know so yeah would the students give feedback would they become their own sort of like note givers or was it simply just to read along yeah i know i don't think he was interested in in feedback sounds like a writer okay yeah writer producer director yeah i don't think he was like i don't you're supposed to listen to me not the other way around i wasn't sure if that was how yeah the class was yeah well other classes that we wrote screenplays in our own you know we'd get feedback on our own scripts you know from from our our collective class which was small luckily i think one class we had eight people so it wasn't like you know like a film studies class we have 300 people so and then you know we'd each give notes and the teacher would give notes and you know at the end of the semester we have a finished script so that's really in in film school when i started to you know write feature-length screenplays per se how long did it take you to write where you felt you were writing at a professional level hmm probably five feature-length screenplays because it was my fifth spec that actually um was optioned and sold so i'm like well i must be doing something right sure but it took about in the ones before were kind of bumbling and there was you know it wasn't obviously quite up to par to compete those those are the ones that we see you have to get out of your system you know the first two or three and a lot of many times um writers write their first script and they're like where's my agent you know this is their first script of their first draft you know and say this is brilliant and you're like well the first of anything is not going to be unless you're a genius which you very well may be but most the time there's so many things that so many moving parts you know that it's hard even at best to get it like wow this is you know 100 there so that takes time and so about the fifth one um you know it was about okay i think i've got this under control you know and then you know and then from that also that was a learning experience to work with producers because it's one thing to write your script it's another to now it's real you know where you don't live in your bubble and you're like everything's exactly the way i want and you're like well now it's being taken away from me and i have to compromise and make changes and there's budgets and all sorts of things you know and you stick to you stick to the creative aspects of it because you wrote it but you have to realize that filmmaking is a collaborative you know art form and there's other people involved starts with the script but a script is just a script you know it's words on paper it has to be brought elevated to actors and someone to direct it and you know so i think it was the fifth my fifth back and so not just the fact that you were being hired to do something but was it also the ease or the the comfort in your own skin of like okay i'm working with other people and they may not like this and i'm going to get feedback and i'm going to be okay with that or what was there like something that also shifted not just the fact that you got these jobs which is huge but i mean did you also feel like oh yeah okay yeah this is i'm doing this yeah but even now to a certain extent you know there's still that um with an artist i don't think it ever goes away especially writers where you know this voice is going oh my gosh this is the one that they find out you're a fraud you actually were able to fool them you know 16 times and now is the one where they catch you you know um but it's a constant learning experience and i always say i get butterflies before every job because i respect it such and i don't take it for granted like oh this will be a walk in the park or i know how to do this i do but every time out is different every script's different every producer's different so it's not going to be the same as last time so you can't say well this last one and some are easy and some are just the worst thing ever you know i mean i'm not saying the worst thing ever but some are very difficult and you just wonder like wow how is it this one is so much so much more difficult than the last that was a breeze and you don't know i mean it's just a weird combination of of elements you know and it's so uh but it's better yes absolutely after i'm working on my 40th screenplay so i you know but i still like i say bow down to the craft been and respect it because i learned something every time that i didn't know before then i should be open to that i think writers should be should we never you get to a plateau and you're like i know everything you know a master martial artist is is not only living it but also continuing to learn you know so it's like that kind of i keep using martial arts because i'm studying right now a little bit yeah so it's it's helpful in the in the writing aspect philosophy of almost the same thing because you know the first moves are like that's not it you have to do this now the pressure has to be on that foot you keep but if you just keep at it you know and be open to learning you know and with martial arts would you say it's 50 physical 50 mental i think well i i'm not deep into it i've been you know i've been interested for many years but a lot of it is mental and the physicality is you can be a small person and still ward off an attack because of what you know you know what i mean it's it's using force against it's using you know against your own you know what i mean it's like you don't have to be hercules in person to defend yourself but it's not about defense you know i'm just saying but writing it's it's a discipline and i think it should be followed as such and it's a lifelong learning process so um like i say even after so many scripts some are terrible some are the best i've ever written and i i keep striving to have the next one be better than the last one and there are a lot of factors when it ends up when you actually have a movie that's filmed it's out of your control you you write the script but you're not there directing it you're not there producing it there's a lot of there's a lot of choices that can fall short from what your vision of it becomes so at that point you have to step back and just go well on to the next one you know and it doesn't mean you don't care but you can't care so much that every time you're just destroyed you know and and that's why i say about detachment is so important over the long haul because it doesn't mean you don't care and believe me still i'm making changes now in a script and i'm just like you know i care but i have to get this thing through the conveyor belt you know into the into production so um you know it's a lot less stressful for you over the long haul to care but just sort of be don't hang on too tightly you know um so that's just my personal experience do you think going back to the analogy of martial arts that writing is similar 50 i wouldn't want to say physical but the act of writing and and you know and then the other 50 is like this mental thing of showing up every day not putting it off not going to the beach and not letting the little voice say this is horrible i'm not going to finish this and and yeah yes and a lot of it is feel too you know writing is not just um mechanical there's a there's feel like you're like you're sculpting i think like with clay you know you're writing a scene but your your technique is through you know a laptop or whatever you write on and it's coming out here onto the page and so with that it's a combination of all things mental physical but also um one you know it's it's amazing because once when you feel and you get a move right and you don't have to think about it it's like you know and you but how would this person ever study for so many years and do all these different things because it just same way of screenwriting how could you study and know all these different things because you just keep doing it again and again and again you know and that's back to your earlier comment about who's a writer and who's not if you're a writer you're right you don't talk about it you know hemingway had a quote about that writers don't talk about their stuff they're too busy working and what i mean about that is like oh i'm you know doing my pages and this and that which is fine but you better be doing the pages you're talking about you know what i mean otherwise it's just you're doing more talking about your work than actually doing the work and it's always about the work so we can talk about our work but if there is no work that's real and i'm not saying you have to sell something either you know writers who write you you're absolutely a writer you know but if you if you find that it's not for you that's okay too because i see people come up against that wall all the time and they're fighting desperately it's like you let go it's okay to let go if it's not right for you why do you want to try to force it you know i mean because it's a long it's up and down journey to be a writer you know so it's you that's why i would say you have to really love it more than anything else because it's going to be it's going to break your heart and it's going to be the the best thing you've ever experienced in your life at the same time what makes the first draft of a screenplay crucial to a writer's success hmm i'm glad you asked [Laughter] because there's a lot of theories going around that the first draft can be crap you know and it has to be and i don't believe that it has to be crap absolutely not and ernest lehman who the great six-time nominated academy award six-time nominated screenwriter who did west side story north by northwest sweet smell of success he said the first draft is dangerously important because it's difficult now this next part is paraphrasing to totally change something into another direction once you you've had it down and it is difficult it's like building a house and then having the walls don't quite have the right structure and the windows so you know you have to go back in and now you're dismantling things to try to rewrite it and everybody has their own way of working which is fantastic whatever's best for you but i always think why would you waste the time that it takes to write a first draft and know that it's not going to be good and know that 60 70 percent of it is going to be thrown out or rearranged or maybe not even used to get a kernel of of something that can be used and i always say by the way when you start working which is the intent i suppose of screenwriters is to work meaning they're being hired to write scripts that you know going produced into movies is that you can't turn in a crappy first draft you'll be fired so on assignment jobs my first draft has to be really pretty good to work with it can't be like well that was a nice pass you know now we're behind in development you know sort of and so you want i've trained myself over the years to really and had to have the first draft to be really solid because the outline was really solid and that's another discussion about outlines and also people well i just wing it i you know i sit down i write a script and then you get lost in page 40 and you can't really see the rest of where you're going you know and so it becomes a muddled mess and it's like what you know and i know it sounds that it's like some kind of formula like well just do this this and this but sort of when you start writing professionally there are steps that's how you're paid too it's steps so we turn in the first draft and then we have notes and then we execute the second and we move on and on so um yes the first draft i believe is really important you know and it doesn't have to be perfect there shouldn't be any pressure like i can't write it because i know it's bad but if you're if you've already done like really the heavy lifting in the outline then the first draft should kind of kind of be a breeze because you've already kind of in a way seen the film worked it out before you've ever gone to pages you know pages of the actual screenplay and i have found that every time because the more time you work on the outline the more details and and again now people are going to say it stifles my creativity there's no room there's complete room for freedom and creativity but you have a safety net you're not falling off that high wire and dropping down the canyon into the river below you're the boom you know you've got the net that that captures you and so many things come out while i'm writing the script that i never thought of in the outline because i'm in that world and i have that that room to play and go this way but i know what's coming next because i've already thought of it you know kind of thing so the first draft i think is really important just to play devil's advocate what if i say well i'm already hesitant as a writer i already don't believe in my ability so if i do a quote vomit draft that helps me sit down and and and realize okay wait maybe this isn't that bad and if i couldn't do that vomit draft then i wouldn't write okay it's to me it's kind of like rolling the dice i suppose i don't know okay all right i like vomiting i don't like vomiting i don't know um okay uh i get it i understand uh but my point again a hammer back there's no vomit draft when you start working i haven't experienced it maybe some people have they'll get pages i'll see in a month you know do whatever you want to do the investors don't care the network has no idea what you're doing because it's just you know so as i say writing specs i believe is a training ground right because that's how you learn to write bad spec after bad specting becomes a good spec and next time you learn from this bob out in the notes and how to execute notes that's how you start learning how to write screenplays because you write bad spec you learn from your mistakes you get notes you take you know the blows and you come back stronger next time what not to do and you become a more efficient screenwriter rather than wasting time you're not going to be able to waste time when you're working professionally you're going to be under a contract and i know i'm coming from that angle but it's the only angle i can come from because that's my experience as of the last 20 years so i do remember when i was writing the specs in college and you know i still write specs but it's different because they're on my own time you know and there's no pressure there but if you've never sold anything you know you again i i suppose i guess we could have the argument with you know but i'm just saying i think it's great to train yourself now to sort of be more structured if you're a writer who wants to work in the hollywood system hollywood system meaning a producer hires you to write a screenplay or they hire you there to buy your screenplay you're gonna have to do rewrites on it and things like that so if you hired an architect and they give you this vomit draft of the blueprints it probably is not going to fly probably and the architect might go hey look at my other homes you know and that's not the way i work man you know i like to just wing it you're like why is the window facing up i don't underst you know what are we looking at so um i think it's yeah i think um and i know people just have to i wish i could just vomit a script out you know where it's like soup to nuts it's it's all done it's perfect but that vomiting can be done in the outline where you're like wow making those mistakes there before you ever go to the screenplay and then like i said the screenplay should be a pleasurable experience it should be like huh and today i did five more pages you know what because i know what i'm doing i've lived with the characters i'm not first seeing them on this blank page of the screenplay i've i've lived with them in the outline i i know what's going to happen i know the intent of the scene and stuff again always comes out brilliant stuff that you go that would be great because you're living in that world you're not suddenly trying to make it up as you go you can do that in the outline nobody's going to see the outline i mean eventually they will see it but what i'm saying is um that's like the pre-blueprint you know the pre the pre-screenplay is the outline and the more time you spend on that story the easier the script is going to be to write and and and you're going to know more about it you're going to see the story in your head and to continue that not every every time that the outline's accepted and you go to script let's say are they going to like the script either and that happens too all the time happens recently where it's like yeah but you agreed to didn't we agree to the outline but when they see the finished product this part doesn't work they thought it did and so um you know it's like if the house was built and you go well in the blueprints i kind of liked that but now i don't so that happens too you have to be prepared for that and other times there's hardly i've done a script where they're like we hardly have any notes you're like oh my gosh that's never happened i think because of the solid outline what makes a great story i think what makes a great story is something that someone can watch and have an emotional response to and and perhaps learn something from or be uplifted by and you can really see that the the person creating the film or whatever is really passionate about their their point of view or their voice and also something that you personally if you're going to write that story are passionate about as well you know great stories as you can see with films stand the test of time so there's a reason why we go back and we keep seeing these movies over and over again that that you know in the pantheon of cinema that why do they touch us and you know from people around the world because it's like a universal theme you know good versus evil it's a basic one you know but it's something that transcends um uh countries it just it finds the essence of the human condition so and that's uh honestly hard to find but you people you find it you try to stick that interject you know into what stories you you want to tell as a writer or filmmaker i mean i know you have your outline but at what point are you really honing in on that dialogue um i you know when i'm doing the outline i'm not if i have a line that comes up you know i'll throw it in just for my own sake so i remember it but i'm i'm running those scenes in my head you know about what what people are going to say and you know the characters and when you know this is the first time you're going to sit down and craft the scene so you two have never been together and i have to write it and if i if i stand that character's voice in my head for the most part it'll continue through but then you do another pass and redefine and say man they really wouldn't say that and and this and that so um you know first draft is good for that is to be with your characters and sort of sussing out the first time and it may not be perfect it won't be about their voice because you got to find it you got to get a handle on that for the different characters um so uh it helps you know like when you do your character profiles if you decide to sit down like an actor would and really suss it out to think of how this character speaks what their point of view is you know things like that because many times i do read scripts and you could take the names off from characters and they kind of sound like the same person and that's something you don't want it should be like you take the names off and i go ah i knew who that is oh i know what this is you know it has to be that distinct because otherwise it just all blends into people just saying things and they people don't speak the same way you know and at what point do you thin out the dialogue or maybe you don't need to in that you start to read it and go you know this just sounds too like people wouldn't really say this let me thin this out have it be more modest second draft okay yeah or usually gets the the notes about cut this speech or you know cut the first line out you're saying the same thing and and that's you know it's second draft should be more you know redefining not like throw that out let's you know and i've worked on scripts like that you know as a script doctor where it's like this is complete you see everything that you're reading here yeah you can't use it oh it gives you the title the character names everything's got to be recalibrated rewritten um so second draft is great for going through that and polishing up and then you know you put it away for a week and you come back to it and it really is glaring like did i write that you know um this does it bumps for me this character doesn't sound like and and many times uh people find it's good to speak the dialogue aloud you know or have table reads where they can hear it uh you know like like they do with plays you know it's like that doesn't quite sound like that character and then an actor is a good is a good person for that to really you know read it and go this kind of doesn't you know what i mean like in a reading an actor would take the character in and and go it's done right sound right you know okay you know if you're workshopping that type of thing if if someone can't get a bunch of actors together for whatever reason would it be helpful maybe to speak into a tape recorder their idea oh sure and the software is the software has um you know you can put it it really read the script for you you can listen so but the voice is is okay you know but yeah it'd be good i speak you know the dialogue people probably what's the guy talking to himself you know [Laughter] like oh i'm crazy i decided to be a writer you know these people leave you alone on the street yeah exactly yeah i'm writing i'm writing constantly in my head you know how do you know you're getting the dialogue right again i i feel you know i mean personally for me it's a feel and a feeling and sound you know and and vision about the you have to really know your characters to write each one individually and what they would say and more importantly what they would not you know a lot of time dialogue is written and i see a scene and i'm like you know this character doesn't have to say that line let them emote you know with you know 60 feet on the screen with a look rather than you know you want to err on action first and dialogue second you know so um dialogue is extremely important but that shouldn't drive your you know it shouldn't drive the narrative by people speaking because most time people don't say what they mean you know so a lot of times it's going to be like the subtext below that about what they really mean you know dialogues it's hard to do well you know you read things and like i said you've got characters that all sound the same and it's just sort of like it sits there on the page and it's not you know i could strip the name off and i would go i they both sound like the same person you know so it it takes time and and like we discussed earlier about maybe you know tape it you know with your phone or something to listen back and if it doesn't say you know there's a thing about sound the way people talk their diction what they would what they would say what they wouldn't say what they would reveal and not you know the tone the tone sure exactly because you could say one thing it would sound completely friendly and kind of another and it's just a matter of tone and then when you start working with actors that's like the workshop level because they'll take your piece and go okay and then internalize it and then go this doesn't because i've seen it on sets where the actors like i don't this doesn't work for me you know i need to change this and it's like okay songs are not too changed because you know you take that line out earlier you know we're not talking about a big rewrite but you know i mean internalizing it and saying because now i know my my character wouldn't really say that and you go okay that's fair you know in writing it i thought it would and now on the set it doesn't work you know so there's there's that thing so it's constant evolving uh you know entity is the screenplay you know because you're you're shooting it for the first time and you know it's create creative process things there's choices made on the set all the time in what ways does a screenwriter disrespect format by not learning format pretty much um i know many people say format who cares and there are there's no rule book there's there's a accepted way that scripts are written of course and so people who read scripts a lot are going to expect a script to be written that way exterior you know with slug with the location header followed by description followed by dialogue and there are particular ways of doing that but it's not writing the script in crayon you know i mean it's and importantly enough what i always see is is if something's not clear and so when you read a script and the style isn't clear or i'm like was that character in the car you know i don't it's confusing that's going to kill you because a reader is going to get your script and they're going to scan it they're going to you know they're not going to read word for word you know they scan the script they have a lot of scripts to read readers and if it keeps bumping that way and it gets confusing you have to go back and turn the page back and say i didn't quite oh it's you know it's not going to reflect well upon you as a writer or the project and sometimes people say well you know they'll they'll see through you know all that stuff to my genius of how the idea is there's a lot of great screenplays out there so there's no need to weed through you know a bunch of mess to try to find the genius idea in there you know it's all about the execution of that idea so format is extremely important because also it shows if i'm the script that i'm reading i could look at the title page and then i flip to page one just one page and i can see you know okay maybe this person is a professional writer or maybe they're not but format will give you away every time because of what you don't know and so if it doesn't look like a script you know it's going to be hard to get through it and understand the nature of how a script is written to read it and that's the thing i want to read the script and be able to see it and understand and format is what does that so people maybe mistake novel writing the same format with with yeah there's also two camps about that where you know it doesn't matter i want to write what's in the character's head you know and the other camp is you can only write what you can see or hear on the screen period and you can deviate but when you start to read scripts that read like a novel you know he walked to the window and stared out thinking about his girlfriend back when he was 12 how do you show that you're telling me that if you show that where he picks up a picture and he sees his girlfriend at 12 or i say it in dialogue those are two ways to do it cinematically but the other way is just telling us you know and for a director to read that an actor might go okay that's all think about but how am i gonna show that so that you know there's two camps vying for that and i tend to err on uh you can only write where you can show so how do you keep the audience engaged in the script you keep them engaged by making them work you know they they're they're a an observer of the movie and you're leading him along the path but like billy wilder said you give an audience you you allow an audience to add up two plus two equals four they're going to love you forever right so we want to watch a movie but we also want to oh you know yeah that you know setups payoffs i had this discussion recently with another writer goes well i don't write a lot of those you know setups and stuff like the commercial movies you write i was like okay um but setups we love that you know because in act one when we set up this thing it saves in act two and we go that's the i wondered why they showed the the keys in the thing right everything's for a reason nothing in there is is left to chance you know what i mean um so you keep an audience engaged by interesting characters too you know so a setup is a little clue yeah setups and then sometimes the setup is not paid off you know there's there's films many times maybe like in a noir or something you go you thought was gonna and it doesn't you're like that's okay but when you when you have little setups that that later on you know oh my gosh um that's why he left the knife in the thing because he thought you know and so when you get that you're now being you're active in your mind not just passive watching a movie go by you know it becomes more interesting you know um i don't know just so clues but some of them can be false sure to keep them and feel on their toes and um twists and turns are extremely important we don't want to just go ah you know the minute that you you bring us along and think we're going one way we sag on another you know that that's going to keep my interest you know well yeah where it's not just i've seen this before you know what's going to happen the killer's going to be behind the door with the thing and then when that doesn't happen you're like oh you know it didn't wow it's different it's refreshing you know rather than like a formulaic cookie cutter i've seen this a million times before which happens you know or also the the benevolent nature of the character like you think somebody is right in their camp sure yeah characters as well uh changing sides and allegiance and you know all that stuff is that's why um you have to have it all throughout to make it interesting to make us want to or in a screenplay want to turn that page for like uh you know i want to have a page turner just like that's the way the movie's going to be hopefully a page turner you know i can't wait to the next scene you know um cliffhangers you know it's a tv show cliffhanger we end up this episode they come at the end of the cliff you know they're going to go in the next oh you caught my no they got saved you know or especially like in films where everybody seems dark in terms of their motives but actually you find out like i'm thinking of margin call was great great did you watch martial no oh you didn't see that okay yeah it was about um well we'll skip it it's good but everybody seems except for stanley tucci's character but most people there you're like all of the characters their motives seem you know this is during the recession and you're not sure who's going to lose their job right right who's kind of quote selling out and uh yeah just it keeps you on your toes because you're not sure yeah that that definitely keep an audience watching you know look at some of the like i say some of the best films um and and look at those and say how did that work you know um and again characters too we want to go on the ride where we like these characters that's another thing too when i read the script i'm like we want to care about them it's another thing when i read a script i'm like i don't really care about just because they're here on the page right yeah you know i want to i want to root for them you know or or be surprised or you know something some kind of emotional response let's say glenn gary glenn ross yeah so not all of the characters in fact many of them were not likable sure but there was something in them like to say jack lemmon's character yeah you cared about him right you saw the desperation and you wanted you were you know there would be they weren't maybe necessarily people you'd want to work with yeah there was something in them that you cared for yeah that's hard to craft i mean absolutely what do new screen writers need to know about story structure what would you teach them a story structure that you have to have an idea that that can can fill let's say a screenplay many times someone sits down to write they say i have an idea for script and it really quite isn't a fully fleshed out story with a beginning a middle and an end and so i would say before you sit down you can have a kernel of an idea which blossoms into something bigger but try to work on it where you can step back away and get is this a movie as we know movies you know is it going to be big enough um and there are small stories i'm not saying that small stories aren't movies but if you're going to write a feature film for you know big hollywood for you know 4 000 screens it may not be this little idea you know and sometimes even when i see an outline there's not enough story there to facilitate 100 pages you know you think it is and you're like well you kind of skipped over most of the second act here you didn't quite think through all that and structure is extremely important so screenplays are built on you know telling the story um so your story was originally i mean your your question about structure do you think then a lot of people just have a great beginning and then a a a finishing and then in the middle is very muddy yes it's always muddy in the middle and the first act is the easiest setup because it's all set up right we're all setting up the you know the thing and then you have to go on the journey in act two and that's where it starts to get more difficult because like i say if you're just winging a script it's always those big barren wasteland in the middle that's really you know you could know the ending hopefully it'll get you there i know the ending scene fantastic you know where you have to get but all that stuff in between you know that that always seems to be the issue is the is the big let's say it's act two the middle the middle part which is pretty much the meat and potatoes of you know the movie what has helped you get to a better second act well knowing the ending for sure but also um really getting to the essence of what what am i trying to do with this story you know what i mean what's um what's my theme what is my what's this about what's you know is it just well two people on a car ride and they drive across the country great that could be an amazing story but what happens what is it about you know what's the what's the problem what what do they have to face what to get to that ending part and working on an outline i hate to refer back to that is working on the story so you just and sometimes story you think it's something's there and it doesn't work you know and other times i i've done many drafts of an outline where i couldn't find the story and i kept trying to fight it and then i realized that it had to do with characters and so the story was there the a b c and d of it but it still wasn't working so a lot of times you can have an idea which you have to work at the i you have to work it into its you know it's full essence of what it can be and sometimes it you may want to just leave it alone and say you know what i don't think that's i don't think that's a story that i can manage together and i'm going to move on to something else that's okay too do you think a lot of people have trouble letting go of their stories like what if it's a very personal story well yeah well if it's a personal story um it would be hard to let go trying to force it but then i might say maybe it's not meant to be a screenplay maybe it's meant to be something else maybe a book you know or i don't know what what uh it could be but and that's for the writer to decide if it really is not it's not working and it's okay to move on to something else there's no no harm no foul you know have you done that where you're like you know what i i love these characters but for some reason this isn't going i mean for things that you've written on your own yes and paid to write uh i i have a hard time i'm so strict about it has to be like like a really good idea of my own that it sort of i have this inner filter that it limits that unfortunately so um yeah many times i've said this one just is not it's not working and other ones you other ones you see right away because the characters are so vibrant and alive and you're like yeah i can i can see this you know this is what what it works and like i said there's no there's no harm in maybe putting it aside too maybe another time as you can become a more experienced writer that you can go back to it and work on it so nothing's ever dead you know you don't have to discard it completely um nor do i think you should but to move on is okay as well you put it in you know in the in the notebook and say oh you know and that's how you build ideas that's how you build an arsenal of stuff that you can go back and work on and keep your well and your creative well full you know you've also talked about just living life as well to how do you know when aside from not being on an assignment that it's time to go and and fill the well because i know that the life behind the computer can get very wonderful yes i hate uh sitting at the keyboard it means it's a necessity but um you also have to live your life and like we were talking about that you know an authentic life outside your comfort zone is a good thing you know do things that you're afraid of i don't mean jump off a cliff but um i was skydiving once you know and that was uh one time only [Laughter] but it wasn't just to go oh i mean some people were going and and they said hey you want to come and i'm like yeah i do and it's not something i would ever do again and i'm not a daredevil type person but it was amazing experience and those kind of experiences you know you can write into your projects where it's not just you're living in a little protected bubble where you're writing stuff that you've seen on television or movies where you're just regurgitating which could be cliches to begin with which probably are you know that that's where your own personal experience comes into characters and and your unique voice and things because i've lived it i went to blah blah i've been you know i've been there you know type of thing so yeah writers should have interesting lives if possible yeah because i was watching a master class with david sedaris oh yes it's hilarious and he picks up garbage i guess around the little town that he lives in wow and he says that you know he wears his vest and he does it and people don't realize a lot of times that he's this writer this author sure so sometimes they'll be like oh sir you actually missed a piece over here and he goes with it yeah and he says i would have this is this gets me out this is where i'm able to see people in ways that i wouldn't see them when i'm speaking in front they're not going to talk to me like that you know and he goes with it any any oh yeah sure sorry about that and so that's part of his way he's doing a good thing and he also gets out and interacts with people and he's he's observing life too you know as a actor or writer it's good to observe the world around you get off the phone you know and actually go oh my gosh that's interest this is real life out here you know this interesting character or oh i heard that little at the coffee shop this person said that thing you know write it down in your notebook these are these are cool little things you can start building upon as being it's part of your job to be an observer as well as an adventurer you know i think so i mean i don't mean you know take off quit your job and you know sail across the world if that's your thing but you can do it like you say um with small things that just are kind of different like we normally wouldn't do that and don't be afraid to try that because it all will it all will filter back hopefully into your work you know it's your writing so when someone reads something it won't be i saw this scene in last week on television you know or you know what i mean it's sort of like different fresh unique because it's it's personal it's it's a personal experience you know it feels like in some ways there's less places to go these days you know a lot of bookstores aren't around anymore yes i know and that used to be one place where you could just get out you know yes and yeah you can go to a coffee shop and there's some great ones but people are also busy with headphones um they're all um doing their own thing you know not sort of like i'm in my own little world you're in your right world yeah yeah but it is helpful because you just don't know i mean aside from from maybe vacations or something what are some other things you do to get yourself out of that well just try to get out in the world you know try to you know i tend to be an introvert sometimes when i'm working so then you got to be like get out of there you know go go uh it's not like it hasn't been done in the past obviously but you have to you have to keep yourself in check that you don't it doesn't become like you know 80 20 of 80 introvert 20 you know when it was more before because it can slip very easily that way where you're like uh i don't want to go out i want to do this thing um just being around people too good bad and different whatever sure you know sure yeah i see all sorts of stuff out there yeah yeah was it jackie gleason who said his advice for like people then the industry was get out like don't be a shut-in and also i think get out of the the business you know because hollywood is like this weird little place where everybody around is talking about the business you know and you're like is there anybody saving lives here at this party do we have a doctor or something you know i mean let me know at times it really is like you know and we all want to congregate together because everybody's bibbidi-bobbidi network but many times it's really great you know some big actor i remember his his best friends are not even in the business they're just you know people not in the film business and you're like yeah that's refreshing you know i have both both you know in and out you know so um it's good to have a nice mix but if you're just around that only it's sort of like this fake world you know kind of thing so what structure have you used the most often the pseudo 3 act but you know for tv movies it's nine eight acts and a quota at the end so it's um you know it's about nine to 11 pages per act but the first one's the longest which i like uh breaking it up that way because it seems a lot less you know this big middle act you know let's say i'm just paraphrasing you know let's say act two starts on page 20 you know goes to 80. you know it's 60 pages you know but if you but if it's you're like oh i'm not even through act 2 but if you're sort of like well i've done 11 pages i'm now into act 3. you know it's sort of structured in that way but um [Music] you know specs are the basic around act three kind of structure type thing you know so forgive me with tv because sitcoms aren't aren't maybe what they used to be and you're you're watching more serialized content yes without breaks yeah so it's it's changed then so the sitcom structure was one thing yeah i'm talking about i mean um like network television which you still have commercials but yeah streaming there's no you can it would be the same as a movie almost yeah okay i would think yeah i mean this the scripts i've read you know streaming they they have the ability just to have you know i mean 35 minutes is you know kind of thing i mean the game of thrones were over an hour some of them were like hour five maybe you know which you'd never find on network tv it'd be like the 60 minutes or on to the next thing right right but then there's a continuation so yeah there's more there's more um [Music] i think it's great there's more room to to play with that you know on streaming platforms and things you know it didn't have to be adhere to this exact like it's got to be you know like the old it was um half hours 22 pages with commercials and the hour is 42 with commercials you know it's like that strict kind of thing which they go no it's it's 65 oh 70 minutes you know because you're just watching the thing right so so there's there's a resolution within each episode but then there's a through line that it's going to continue yeah okay unless it's the final unless it's just a one-off i mean sorry a movie yeah yeah absolutely but i still think it it still does follow the same a b and c you know first second third act wrap it up type of thing even within that one yeah yeah 30 40 minute serialized because essentially we you know you sit there for some movies out now or almost three hours so you know they it was reading about we only we've been trained into watching movies and we start to if you start to shift you know you know it's the attention span too sure because you know if it's if it's engaging i'll sit there for three hours and forget it is you know well some movie theaters have comfortable chairs yes i will say it's true yes they've changed a lot somewhere you're in an amazing recliner yeah you could fall asleep you know sure i missed that middle hour it didn't matter and then others are like it feels like it's you know at a family barbecue and somebody got a but if it's engaging i think if a movie like you were saying how do you capture the if it's engaging i'll watch a three-hour movie and i'll just be like wow that was three hours you captured my attention but other times if you're shifting and this is too long you know this is like or you're just like what's going on let's wrap this as a self-indulgent you know yeah you know it's interesting when you sit next to someone or near someone that's enjoying a film i feel like it's contagious yes and then the opposite right if they're fidgety or they're you know or there's like this family drama going around and they're changing scenes right yeah what are you doing you know the movies season you're living no and i've seen that and then i've actually moved and i sat next to a woman who loved the film and it was great and we were both laughing at the same parts never saw her again but it was enjoyable yesterday that collective energy where you go opening night and you know that energy of like everybody's there to be entertained you know and you can feel it it's almost palpable you know yeah yeah in the same way you're talking about where people like you know taking phone calls in the aisles and yeah or the phone lights up and you're like oh my gosh you just ruined the thing for me i'm a purist i have to when i go in there's no talking absolutely i went with a friend and i'd never been to the movies with him and uh i didn't realize he was the worst person in the world to go to a movie with and we're watching and they think it was some action movie and oh it's uh and he turns to me and i see him on the corner of my eye and i don't want to look at him like and he i'm like what he goes oh my gosh he goes that was so crazy it would never happen but you believe it right and i'm like why are you talking to me so i put him on the list never to see a movie with him again you know it's scary because now i go alone i'm like i don't want anybody you know before the trailers it's very important because that's that's the um i say it's the the church of cinema you know you're going in for the the one time you're probably gonna see it and that first time is so important how how you feel and you know you see a movie successive times and it could be one of your favorites but i don't want to be interrupted i want to have my own thing you know and a lot of times now it's just it's it's hard even when you go on off times you're like don't you people have jobs it's like the movie's you know filled at noon so you know it's like isn't everybody working you know i like to see movies with people i do too but not when they're on their phones and i've definitely seen i've witnessed some major arguments during the movie but it's more yeah if you go to the theaters like the cinema tech there's going to be a different type of you know fan moviegoer there because they'll respect the process i found that hopefully hopefully you're right yeah but you're like okay with the munching and the thing and the swirling of the coke you know right back here that's happened too with the big gulp you know i'm like or the picnic lunch that was brought in one time yeah the whole theatre is empty i go great i'm gonna see this movie alone and a couple come in with their picnic and they sit down i'm in the middle of theater empty they sit down right in front of me of course crinkle crinkle crinkle you want this and i start smelling like smells i'm like you know foods not popcorn like you know food meats barbecue yeah but i'm like oh my gosh crinkle crinkle you had to sit right in front of me huh sure of course because it's the collective yeah yeah so that part of uh that's what shies me away from going to the theater you know yeah well i had a woman that wanted me to clean her seat because it was dirty and i said well maybe we could just look at this anyway we won't work we still love going to the movies i do i love it i love it when you see it with the right audience and they're enthusiastic and they're respectful it's fantastic sometimes you walk out and you're you know ah it resonates with you and you just want to go home and write a fantastic movie like you've seen you know that's that's when it's magic sure you know and that that happens every so often or you have the rare conversation with the total stranger sure about the subject matter sure and it's and and you see in that moment how powerful just that experience was sure with all these strangers in a darkened theater and you're like wow we don't even know each other but we're here for i don't say church but you know it's a similar thing it really is we're all coming into this is where the movie was meant to be seen not on your phone no i didn't shoot it in 70 millimeter for you to you know go on a rail stop and go that's great you know so we can watch it how we want but it's you know it's nice when you you see the pure cinema that was meant to be you know from its intent rather than you know it's become movies have become just another thing now you know it's a disposable like oh yeah it's another form of movies used to be the only thing you know and then television came in but then they had to compete so we got to make bigger you know widescreen and keep all that but now there's so much stuff video game there's so much noise and things to distract you that it's just it's another thing people used to dress up to go to movies i mean dress up like with tuxedos like it was a night out to be you know we're going to the movies uh you know more people went to the movies like in the 40s and 50s than they do today the depression yeah yeah yeah yeah and and i i love that people want to be there and i love to be in a in a crowd of truth popcorn smell the anticipation you know the greatest childhood memories are going in that movie theater the lights come down and you know the logo you know then there's star wars you're like oh and it takes you away to this galaxy and you're like oh man i want to do that you know how do i create stories you know how do i that's fantastic i want to be a filmmaker you know that's the greatest memories of being a kid is going to see that and being influenced by movies sure i can still see e.t yes what are the top three mistakes a new screenwriter is likely to make on their first screenplay big one i think number one is overwriting not knowing what to put in what to leave out so the script is you know big speeches and things it can be cleaned up as long as you know that it has to be cleaned up in the second draft you know i mean hopefully there will be knowledge to know that uh number two not proof reading the script you know typos and also format issues um which maybe format would be the third thing you know separate those typos basically not being you know people get excited about finishing something and you have to keep it close until it really is worth having someone read it because you know it's a big problem if if uh you know it's going to represent you and if it's not in a good shape you know it's not in a proper form to be read then you won't get a second read or that person you know will look upon you and say you know the writer is not good how does a writer determine their strengths and weaknesses good question a lot of times a writer's strength um could you know i was thinking back to writing partners uh which i had at one time for a number of years and what our strengths were and my partner's strength was coming up with the idea he would have a dream and say i have a coffee in the morning i just i have our next movie and i would be that wouldn't be such a strength of mine because i'm very picky about ideas and you know they they come few and far between for me not you know some people are like everything's an idea for a movie it kind of isn't you have to work more at some and others are definitely not you know just boom so his strength was coming up with the idea my strength was actually for us to be able to sit down and write the idea you know structure all this kind of thing so and he knew as well but i was the one at the keyboard you know and so sometimes a writer also can have a strength of dialogue so let's say a partner is like really good with dialogue and the other's good with structure or both of them are good at both you know but uh i think when you the more that you write and find what your strength and weaknesses are will be from what notes you receive you know over time and time again like well structure wise this is off and that your dialogue's great uh your character's in you know what i mean so i think you can only find out what your strengths or weaknesses by doing it and then when you find a weakness try to build upon that and get better you know maybe make it a strength sure so it's only by um getting feedback and if you don't have a writing partner sending it out for notes having sure a friend yeah or writer's groups or a consultant or someone to read it and you know these things it takes time of course and from let's say you write a first script you're not going to have any idea what your your strength is that you got to page 100 you know and you may have all the strengths uh possible but you also everybody has a weakness that has to be built upon you know i mean to be to be uh to have it all be up at the same level so what you want to do is calibrate that and it comes it'll take time but also like you said it'll take i think from feedback because you'll see time and time again what um what am i not doing right what's what's not hitting the mark you know well your dialogue still isn't it all sounds the same you know i'm kind of weak at dialogue but i can really craft a great structure you know type of thing so i think after um two or three or more scripts maybe you start to say well i should really study dialogue more you know like we were talking about record it and be out in the world listen to how you know inflections tone diction things like that so yeah i'm always shocked at how in i mean personal conversations like on people's cell phones it's i mean i guess you could get some incredible stories from them i'm always surprised that people are willing to share such personal information oh sure of course space and you only hear the one side yeah and i've heard some doozies in my time just being in a store and like oh my goodness like right this person has either they don't care the text came back yeah i've heard all sorts of stuff you know and so yeah and you can only imagine what's being said on that other side that's great you know which is a technique you know like in the scene too where it's like we don't you know we we can only know what's on this side and in our mind you know type that's true yeah yeah because it keeps like i'm thinking who who is this other person on the right and usually it's someone that's not doing a lot of talking sure or they don't say hi honey or you know it's a you know what's going on here right you know with that you would say well that's like good i love how everybody says that's a good idea for a movie you go it's not what is it you know it's like okay it's a kernel which could be built but what is it about you know what do we you know or someone comes to your party and says hey you write scripts don't you yeah when i can and they go i got a good idea for a movie you're like great i say you should write it they go i'm not a writer i said well i'm you want me to write your idea they say yeah it's great and then they pitch it to you and you go yeah okay i'll think about it and not to sometimes you know but it's like every idea is an idea for a movie you know if it's worked on yeah and sometimes like like we were talking about you beat the dead horse and you walk away you're like it's not you know forgive me for this question what's the stupidest way to write a screenplay well you're talking to someone who's a big fan of the outline so i would say and not that the person who does it is stupid but those are my words not yours yeah your words my words uh send the letters and cards yeah they know the email it would be just to sit down and say i got an idea a half-baked idea that really wasn't thought out and you can do what you want which is fine but i just think you know and you may find there's a scene in there that's great and brilliant but a cohesive through line and all that it takes time it takes it takes work you know um this isn't something that just spills out some people say i can just spill a script out in a week well that's fantastic and and we'll see how good it is and maybe you can do that everybody's got their own way but uh there are a lot of pitfalls in in that in doing that you know with the story and things aren't working and it's just it's i hate when i sit there and i write something and i know it's just bad i the best times and you know we all go through that but the best times are where it's i'm it's like this weird uh channeling and i can almost i can see it in my mind's eye and that's going on to the page and i feel good about it because it's like i watched it i already watched it in the theater but it hasn't existed yet except in my head going to so it's in a way when when it's really good it feels like you're channeling it and when it's bad there's something the channel is not those waves are not coming through not to be like you know oh you know you're all done you age yeah dial up versus sure your own you're tapping into your your creative um thing your well whatever you want to call it where you go and it's it's it's you know the signal is not and you just write down a scene you're like that's going to have to be rewritten you know imagine now you probably person probably wouldn't think that just burning through a script oh this is great oh you know but you you when it's just bad and you're like that oh my god it's garbage it's terrible like a placeholder instead of the real scene you know yeah okay well this is just this is the bad version as everyone says you know you get that note from people say well um here's the bad version and they tell you and you're like that's really not that bad but you know no no i don't want you to do that but here's an example of what not to do you know the bad version as as you hear in hollywood a lot and i'm like are you ever going to tell me the good version and they said no that's for you to figure out oh you're right you're right i cuz i'm the writer right throw me a lifeline here you know i'm drowning because i got the bad version that's the real bad version is this sunset boulevard yeah exactly yeah yeah is it almost similar to the people that in college said i don't have to study i just show up for tests in a way and there's some that can i've never met any but um yeah i especially especially with the i think with the um with the odds that there's so many scripts out there and so many good scripts too that i think a lot of times writers don't may not see the mountain that they're climbing every day or what they're you know you're not only up against your own competing with yourself you know to be a better writer next time and next time and learn like you should uh but also what's actually out there if you want to work in the marketplace type of thing and i know when you say that when i say that it sounds very non-romantic you know but it's a business you know so why not put your best foot forward in creating that you know unless you have no um if you have a good day job and there's no pressure you know to to that this script has to sell you know to make your rent or your mortgage payment and you're just like yeah i'll dabble in it but dabbling takes time as well and so you know while you're dabbling another person is working 24 hours a day and learning the craft and really you know patch they want it more than anything else and it can be a hobby it's fine you know but i think there are ways to approach a career or a writing career in a certain way and people can try it however they want but the this your back to your original question is just to go i think i have an idea and not really whoa you know hold on a second you know what are you doing here with this idea you know every idea is a kernel of a premise that builds now but do we have enough is you know type of thing and that's a second guess like what's selling if it's really a passion idea you want to write absolutely go you know you must do it but you also yeah and what about people that say well i don't want to write for tv or i don't want to write a movie that doesn't have a-list talent in it and they they stomp on something because it's not star wars sure what do you say to that they want to be a screenwriter they want to work in the industry but oh no that's not that's not 48 hours or you know i'll pick more there's some movies sorry let me pick something in the last few decades um no i know what you mean right okay it's not it's but you're saying they stomp on the the smaller ideas yes i i read a lot of uh scripts that are big big ideas you know big hollywood ideas which is fantastic but the real odds of an unknown uncredited writer it could happen it does once in a great not as much as it used to in the past you know selling that thing that's the only thing they've written because intellectual property ip is all the the rage you know it's already been a book it's been you know a comic book it's been it's been a sequel a prequel you know star wars is a perfect example we just we just manufacture until the end and then we come up with a new series right that's all done we'll veer off on this one and we'll take that character and we'll make a whole series on that one um that's a bigger that you're trying to you're trying to hit a home run out of the park which we all do all the time but you're i think you're also shrinking your your possibility because they already have the a-list writers out there you know who are filling those jobs and how does how do they get there well i don't know everybody has their own journey if you trace um i was saying a writer who's a big tv person now and features started on xena princess warrior now people would look down and go xena that's a ridiculous uh you know blah blah everybody starts somewhere and was it his heart's desire to work on that show forever no but that was a stepping ground and everybody has that stepping ground you just don't my experience and the people i've known you just don't start out at the top you know you take the job and you go yeah okay it's not my perfect thing but all now i'll do it's a step-by-step process so um i would say in that way don't step on those little ideas because those are the ones that can be made you're taking a bigger gamble writing this hundred million dollar script that's locked into that budget you know can't be made for less so then you say well where can it's be made i don't know there's four studios that could possibly do this let's say they all pass were you gonna go with the script somebody's gonna shell out a hundred million dollars of their own money i mean you know what i mean so the smaller idea um smaller in scope meaning you know we're not out to save the universe the universe could be your own life you know your your little universe uh could actually be made five million dollars two you know it's not it's not um glamorous like like a lot of writer well i'll just sell my script for millions of dollars and and you think that your life changes overnight you still have the same problems you still have the same relationship you still have you're still a person it's just it's job you know what i mean it's sort of and i hate to sort of shrink it down to that but but it's like oh a screenwriter yeah i used to think the same way too in film school oh my god you know you read the trades you're like oh he's i'm gonna live the life live the life yeah you're gonna be living the life at two in the morning writing the screenplay that's what it is it's work it's not glamour there's times when uh you're forgotten about it a screening happened where they thank everybody yeah bling bang and then they thank the craft service and then they go let's run the film and you're sitting with the stars and they look at you and you're mortified you're like and then afterwards of course it was it was just a it was an oversight and at the party it was like oh my god i'm so sorry have another martini you know i'll call you yeah wow wasn't that bad but it was just you know what i mean it's not all going to be uh and if you're in it for that fame and fortune and fanfare not the writer i mean we've made inroads a little more than the past but it's still you know you're still the writer i mean it sounds it's the most one of the most important people because that's where without the scripts is they say there's nothing right but you know that's why you should like try to be a hyphen writer producer you know writer director or something like that eventually i mean or start out as that that's your that's your choice you know that's your career direction but just the writer it's you know it's an interesting road what's the difference between a professional level script and one that's written by an amateur professional level script can i would say compete in the professional marketplace where someone could receive a screenplay and read it and not go hmm this has too many problems that this person probably isn't they're not writing at a professional level meaning that somebody would say oh my gosh this we we could make this you know it's not plagued with the problems i think we spoke about before about you know the the first time overwriting the script and and you know the structure doesn't really work and i don't it's confusing and it's not fulfilling the ending doesn't wrap it up you know things if you were to read that and and also as we mentioned before format too you know you look at the script and if it's all over the place where it's kind of clunky and weird and like i've never what is it's going to be it's not professionally written professionally written um how soon into reading a screenplay do you know that it's bad well it's uh it's usually in the beginning but many times you're fooled because the beginning is easy to set up so you're like oh this is great and then the longer it goes on it runs out of steam and then it just really is like okay or or that it's it's too long it's like too many pages and there's a whole nother story and a half there that that shows that should needs to be have a lot of editing you know for in if it was a first draft it's a script and a half almost you know a script in a third let's say which is overwriting um so so then a reader will know fairly quickly a reader uh will probably know uh in the first page or two if if it's the format giveaway or it's just the style giveaway where it's you know what i mean you can tell i mean people all the time post one page on the internet you know they put up a page of their script and you can see it and go okay you know you can it's a giveaway it's clear giveaway um or you can see another page and go wow you know it's it's so clear like you're seeing what they meant to you know like you're seeing what they're writing not it bump and i was that who got out of the car and you know oh oh you know and that goes back to you know in a way it goes back to format and how you know what you're going to put in or what you're not based upon the story what do you think about 99 percent of screenplays being rejected after the first page um i don't know if there were well i i think they would be read they're not thrown in the garbage after page one i think a script is given a chance i mean i would hope you know from a reader and then it's the overall feeling of it but like we were discussing before if there's too many bumps and you know the famous thing is oh this bumps for me you know it's like it bumps okay it means i mean i know what they mean but it's probably like boom you know it sort of bumped in and not a good way where they it was confusing or the story was like why did it go that way and i didn't understand it was this and that and a lot of times sadly it's because of skimming you know where someone just literally you know i read one time that some people just read the dialogue or some producer just reads dialogue he doesn't read the directions just reads the dialogue you know i don't know what you know that's not really reading the script but um i think as we were discussing before you can tell in the first few pages if it's going to be one of those scripts or if it's going to be like wow this is a page turner i can already see that you know it's hard to hide that if you're not writing at a particular level i mean so that'll be a dead giveaway which is not good so you think though people give it more than just a scene oh sure oh you do yeah you know the old adage is like well it doesn't happen within the first 10 pages it used to be the first 20 but now it's shrunken down if it doesn't happen you know if i'm reading and it doesn't happen for me i you know you sort of have to know what we're getting into uh but again these aren't rules not coming from me i'm just saying that some movies like you know european films take longer to happen and you know i'm talking about hollywood if you want to work in that system you know it better happen the reader's got to go 10 pages i still don't know what's happening you got to get an idea like oh we see this and that you know i mean that's what they're talking about is is happening you know and they'll read through the script no but if you if you're plagued with typos three or four page it means you don't care enough to proofread your script and you don't care about enough for the person who's reading it's time so right away there's a disrespect there like well i just gotta i just wanted to blow through it because you know my idea is so good i don't have to proof read the script okay you know i mean these are these are attitudes that um won't serve you well in the long run what are your thoughts on hollywood stealing an unknown writer's idea does this happen a lot i think i think it happens a lot less than people believe because like my old writing partner and i used to say we'd make more money off the lawsuit than we would on the screenplay you know go ahead and steal and you know we'd be so pleasure it'd be such a pleasure for you to steal our idea that means it's something good you know but uh you writers do a writer asked me like okay um what's this process of copyright you know before i let anybody read it i was like okay you can copyright the script it takes a process it's money and you know or you can register at the guild or you know some say that even by the mere existence of creating it is a copyright so there's all sorts of factors but what i've read is that the copyright would protect you more in court but the thing with that is that you never own the copyright of a screenplay because the minute you sell it it becomes a work for hire so you always have to sign over the the rights to the company so that was given away a long time ago um in in guild negotiations that the writer never owns a copy out of the script so you're it's okay to do that but uh when you see uh on the cover it says registered wgaw number one two six five five by five you know that's just a dead giveaway of like an amateur that's afraid of of my stuff being stolen you know what i mean no no professional writes that on the on the cover of a script i think professionals expect you to do your due diligence and what i think more the more chance of something being stolen is a pitch because that's an ether you know like i i was saying bef uh my writing partner and i would go on these these pitch fest you know that their agent would send us on to like 12 companies and we'd do the same pitch around town and at two o'clock we've got with with this person and our manager would ask us agent manager go how did it go and we'd say well it didn't they didn't know their eyes didn't light up they go okay maybe you should switch and change this element so from the afternoon on we changed a different version of of the thing but my point is it's all a living breathing thing and so somebody could wake up the next morning and go now they might not be the exact pitch but they but let's say an element of and go you know what i have an idea and that works in what do you do about that but you can't be you can't be um that way where you think everybody's gonna steal your stuff you know it's just not you can be smart and when you send out your script you should keep track in a log or journal uh or spreadsheet who's reading the script every time out if you don't have an agent manager who that's their job you know obviously they'll know that it'll be through an official channel but somebody says oh yeah give me the script i work at a company okay that goes down who read it when because these are important things to know who you don't want to send your you know you want to know who's reading it that's important too because if it starts getting bad feedback you never hear about it and then suddenly things start being like why why do i get a meeting with that company because people are talking now you know the old days would go in a database and there'd be coverage the studio would not have the coverage you couldn't you couldn't fool them because they go oh yeah we read that two years ago they're trying to pawn that off on us again you know so i wouldn't be too fearful of and there was a few stories about outright theft but i think it's so i mean you can't be afraid to send your stuff out you know and and it's sort of an arrogant idea where it's like well my idea is so genius that they're going to steal it like warner brothers doesn't have enough amazing ideas already and yours might be the one they steal but it'd be a good lawsuit but that being said though don't be irresponsible sending it out the log the date the place absolutely the address even oh yeah no keep it all because you want to you want to keep track of who's reading your stuff you want to keep in control of that and that's why when writers post their stuff like a script up on their their web page i would say don't do that you don't know who's reading it you don't know who's stealing your ideas right you have no way of tracking that if you're if you're afraid of that that's even worse because somebody's just going to your website and i know it's it's a way to promote your stuff but that's not the way you know to have your full script on on your your your website for someone just to read who's reading it you know that's you want to keep track of that what are the best ways to make people read your script well you could put a gun to their head maybe a softer approach yeah a softer approach um well you have to ask who what are we talking about industry people or friends people that could actually well know people they could actually have something done with it or get it to an appropriate person to have something have it made well before that happens like we were discussing before it had better be in a professional uh level of writing and also presentation execution and so when you get one chance um like i would say you may have a friend at a company that's runs the company right and you go ivan in there okay that's great but when you're going to play that hand of sending that script over you know it better be ready you know you can't play that hand you should be follow uh you know be very disciplined and be patient because sometimes people get excited they want to play all the hands and it wasn't the script you know and then now it's like i'm your friend but i also have a business you know what i mean so i just can't hire you i just can't buy your movie and it's going to be more difficult to go back there um again so um you know you don't know if somebody's going to like your script you you have to like it and the way that you make them like it is show that you're passionate about what you're writing and that you've done all those things like proofreading which sounds simplistic but it's important i mean it's offensive when you you i'm gonna take the time to you know you open it up you're like you know and you want to be a writer you know you can't you know there's spell check you know there's things like that your scripts are all about the tiny details and those are looked over and so what what what attitude is the person reading going to have of you you know about being serious serious meaning you want to be a professional when you're writing a screenplay do you ever think about the money you'll make off of it as you're writing it no because i already have a contract so i know now a spec yeah you can have illusions of grandeur you know as much as you want but after years in the business you know the realities of like okay but no you shouldn't you shouldn't write from a place of that you should forget about all that like i say you should do your best job ever if you're paid 500 bucks or you're paid 5 million bucks there should be no no difference in in your desire because then what are you doing you're chasing money there's other businesses to do that that are that are far more lucrative than spending you know years of your life toiling away and trying to have that one this is the one that's going to do it you know so um no you should just bathe in the creative process and not you know it's when you're writing your specs when you're writing an assignment you already have a contract you know what you're making so and then it becomes you know stressful because you're actually making something so you're like oh shoot this is due when this better be good you know this is what they're paying me for so that comes at a different level you know when you leap over into that other realm of working like we discussed earlier about um being creative under a deadline than just toiling away you can work it's great to work when you want you know you know my spec i'm just doing you know this and there's no nobody else not working with anybody else this is all my words which it has to be to get to a certain point absolutely but then you step over that line into the other world and it's like well we don't like the ending and then the number and it becomes you know like they say filmmaking is a million um compromises to get something done and sadly yeah but to get something done is amazing and does that go back to what we're talking about with the tai chi or the the karate example which is part of it's the physical and part of it's the mental and maybe that pressure of like i've got to be creative and i've got a deadline and not not cracking under that pressure sure it's uh a lot of it i mean tremendous amount of is mental you know but then those disciplines you can fall back on on not straight because you can get into this terrible wheel that you're not producing at the best level you can because you're too worried about the other thing if you just trust yourself and dive into the work you'll get it done you know if you're not constantly worried about well i got eight days left you know just do it how important is sticking to one genre for a new screenwriter i personally think it's you you eventually have to find what you know what you like to write and some people um say well i like to write horror i like to write drama romantic comedy and that's great uh i'm not sure many people are good at all of that you know you sort of gravitate toward what what you dig you know it's like what what i really liked what movies do i like and some people like i only like romantic comedies okay and some are like i could not write a romantic comedy so don't write what you don't like basically i think william goldman said it don't write annie hall if you don't like romantic comedies it's pretty simple but you have to test those first scripts or that's what they're for is to try to figure it out like wow i don't like action movies you know i mean to write them it's kind of follows this thing and that and now if you write drama you know a lot of most popular movies are hybrid they're not just one thing you know they're um supernatural sci-fi horror you know if you you can find those different elements those are the most popular films that don't just stick to one thing you can you can find multiple uh genres within this you know sub genres in the in the one genre but generally the the first thing that you sell is probably going to be the thing you're going to work at because that's what they're going to sort of pigeonhole you and know you as a blah blah oh you write drama so when the agent or managers are sending you out they're not going to send you to the romantic comedy people because you're not a comedy writer and you say well i can i can write comedy um you know what i mean so but i think you have to find your way and and not to say you have to stick to one genre you could be good in many but um just know that the first thing you sell is probably gonna chart your the way that you're going you know because you always hear that about actors that they seem to get the same roles because hollywood likes to kind of pigeonhole you right they like yeah but they work all the time so i say pigeonholing not a bad thing you know if you if you want to work you know you say well i want to break out of that and some do you know some do character actors you know great because but yeah i think those first specs are ones to figure out to find your way unless you really know i like these movies you know i only write these i'm not interested and you can whittle it down but you can also see that you might write a hybrid you know supernatural horror movie or something like that you know where you've got two genres mixed mixed together but i don't think if you sell that and it does well they're going to say hey we're going to hire you for a comedy next and yeah really do you do comedy unless you have one but would you be working on that simultaneously you know i always think writers writers can write you know in the old days in the studio they would have you on a noir and then next week you'd be on a western you know when they have the stable of writers like in sunset boulevard you know and so they would write all different kind of movies you know they have the the freedom and ability to do that and then they're today they're auteurs who are known for one type of thing which is great if you can be that you know if you're the working screenwriter you may fall into a place where you start to work in a genre and you're like wow i didn't realize that was my genre now not bad it's okay you know what's the biggest screenwriting pitch you've ever gone out on and what happened yeah there was a pitch that i had with my writing partner we had a lot of pitches um one solo i've been on that haven't been like you know oh my god this is with it's been with you know heads of television or whatever but i specifically remember one pitch we did and the head of the company was there the whole strata of people were there the assistant the vp and we went on for way too long i mean it was absurd how long the pitch was they basically told us we saw the whole movie you know it was like a 20-minute pitch and no one stopped us and we were crazy enough to rather than make it five minutes or oh and you know and we walked out of there and our manager said they're gonna they're gonna buy this and blah blah blah it was just like oh my god and uh something happened where it wasn't it never materialized but um there was another pitch it wasn't big but the the guy made us wait and he was late and then we're sitting in the lobby and we see him in the office and he sees us and he like pulls the blinds and we're like i know that's a good sign and i hadn't we had been around and i hadn't had lunch and i was like freaking out i was like i gotta eat something so i went in their pantry and i was like ripping open bags of cookies and stuff and oj i got to get my blood sugar up you know and then he comes out hey and he walks us into his room and we're like okay he's back in our you know and we sit down and what do you got for me and we go well here we go and we always would pitch where um my partner was like p.t barnum you know and i would fill in the blanks here and there we start to pitch and about 30 seconds into it he stopped oh stop stop stop stop he goes it's it's it's crap because it's just i don't believe any of it and we're like he's joking you know of course he is right he was serious and we both look at each other mortified and we're like wow that's never happened and then he uh came around from the desk you know and leaned on the desk and said okay here's the thing i got an idea from my nephew and he sent me a 10-page email and now he's pitching us and i've never had it where where ever i mean all the pictures of my entire life so you never know but they always let you finish i mean they'll interrupt you but they'll let you finish the pitch he cut us off at the knees and then he pitched us he twisted around and you think well okay um maybe that'll be our idea and he says what do you think and we're like i don't know what to think i think we got to get out of here you know so we both left and um he rode the elevator down with us oh wow he said you need validation i said i was hoping it was from you but yeah i need it for the 18 to park you know because you were late 45 minutes with your other meeting uh cookies were great in the pantry but that doesn't you know so uh he said all right you know go off and blah blah and we never saw him again but so you never know pitching is a really mixed bag and i've also been on a pitch at a big production company with the heads of television and they i mean it was out of body experience i mean i was almost sitting like who is this guy i mean i was sitting like next to myself watching it because i and they were late which many times you know they'll make you wait you're not just like the doctor's office you're like it was for 11 30. they're like i know but it's 12 and i'm sorry i'm sorry you know would you like some water no i'd like scotch please excuse me and then you begin and that was on you know sometimes you know you're just on and you can see it and the questions that they ask are at the end which is great they don't interrupt you in the middle and then your train of thought you're like uh you know and you're you know then the questions were just um what city do you see this happening they weren't like i didn't get the part about the thing and you're like oh no you know because you practice your pitch backwards forwards before you go and it's it's a lot of it's improv too you know what i mean and you have to leave those spaces open for them to go could it be a thing yeah yeah that's great i love that oh my gosh you've made it that much better yeah yeah but you have to leave it open for it to go you know certain ways and i left and they were like thank you very much and i called my manager and she was like oh my god i wish i could have been there and seen that i said it was it was high it was it was a great high walking out of there now they didn't buy it but i pitched at a professional level where that door is completely open so it's not like who that yeah you know what i mean so you never know you're just talking about pitching it's a mixed bag but you have to it really helps to have a writing partner you know when you when you both go in except the one guy we wanted to like flip his desk over and go what and break the windows and say you know he turned the tables on us for sure so when you leave a situation like the one that you just mentioned not not the one where you've you've had an outer body experience almost but oh the bad one the bad one yeah how are you regrouping like how are you saying well at that time we went back to our handler you know and said oh my gosh and this is like ridiculous we had such good pitches during the day and that one was just off from another planet i don't know what happened there and um you know you don't let it rattle you too much you got to move on and that's not the end-all be-all it was just a freaky deaky situation you know you don't want all of them to be like that sure i remember another pitch um the person was like you know almost falling asleep and that's not good either but you're like at least you could hide that you know i know you don't like it but and then the minute that we finished you know she got up and said well thank you very much for coming in you're like this is was just a waste of time everybody you know maybe you could tell like they can you know you can read and another one's like oh my uh there's one at a studio there were like diapers around the office so i my nanny usually has the kid but i had to there's like a little we're like yeah don't be distracted we're only trying to you know pitch for our lives here you know it's always like you never know when you come off of one that was like magical sure how soon are you finding out they're telling you it's a pass right away uh usually they get back to your agent or manager right you know shortly thereafter it's not like weeks after no and then they say yeah you know we we really like uh what was going to buy it i mean out of sometimes they buy it in the room you know it happens but but more importantly about that is that you you show that you have ideas that you that you you know you have cohesive ideas that can actually like we were saying what makes something a tv show well you can pitch something they go yeah that's like the stuff we do you know and so it's on that level of like oh it's convoluted it's all over the place it's not even a good pitch you know so many holes in it that's what you don't want so you've done your homework before you ever get there and then that keeps the door open and then of course you send a thank you card which i always say you know handwritten thank you card after that not an email to those people that you met with because they'll get it a week later and they'll even if they pass they go oh mark yeah you know what he because they're busy with a million other pitches you know 100 a week or whatever you know and it's like oh yeah i really like mark you know that one pitch was was close and the closer you get each time it's a little closer and maybe the close only is here for a while and sometimes the close has actually become something you know so even though you didn't get it's like the one that got away yeah it sounds like you still are left with a feeling of i almost got there rather than one where it almost you feel cheap yes when you leave like it's a bad date yeah and just like there was going to be violence i mean when the guy was like he came out from around the desk and goes it's ah yeah he's yelling at us we're like we looked at each other like he's he's got to be joking and he wasn't you know it's one of those weird situations oh yeah whoo he's serious okay this train wreck just went off is even worse and now we're left with a i don't know what we're left with you know but what gets you into the pitch is your project so they have to read something right so they read something they go oh wow this is a great pilot do you have anything else i get this other idea i've got two other ideas come on in you know it's the round robins when you try to there you get those fans of your writing you want that at a lot of different places so that they can be that door's open what else do you have that's why i say for writers that you must have a lot of material you know a solid body of work that you've worked on that's at a professional level because that script will get you in that company and then they'll listen to your pitch and then they'll say we passed but they won't say in the room they pass but they tell your handler and they say what else does mark have that's similar well he's got another thing oh we'll send it right over so there's your next chance now who knows if it'll sell or not but you keep that you can see how you can burn out stuff quickly too but you need that constant um uh wheel you know turning of creating material you know not just the one script because the one script could be a one-off where they go this is fantastic you got anything else that you've written well i'm working on something and i'll be done in six months well we'll see ya i won't be here i'll be fired i'm the executive you know but whoever's here maybe will answer your call or won't and you know so you have to keep that constant and it would take two or three scripts i think whether tv or features you know and if you have a little accolade like whoa i almost placed in a contest or something oh great you know rather than i'm just another writer here with a script please buy it you know did you get any of those you said you got them through an agent because you had a handler yeah agent and a manager well at that time just a manager what do you think about when you're creating a protagonist versus an antagonist trying to make a protagonist um you know you you can fear on the side of maybe they're right at the edge of being bad you know bottom line complex that's the key you know it can't be just a one note uh character and many different facets and with those then you know you can almost help create the story out of out of that because you know this is that person's past or you know this is why they are feeling that way or this is what they need you know this is their desire they're trying to find something you know on their journey that they have to fulfill and at the end hopefully they do maybe they won't you know type of thing uh but bait also somebody that we want to follow you know so hopefully you look at the best characters in cinema and you're like well you know i i like them you know i like i want to spend time and i want to champion their cause you know type of thing so um and maybe i could see a little bit of myself in that in their journey as well what about for the antagonists well they the typical villain you know can't be too um cookie cutter either you know sometimes you see it's just like they're all bad you know they have to be you have to also in a way understand like joker you know if you understand not do you have to like them but they just can't come from like that out of hell crazy place and just they're all evil all stems from something is it their childhood is it the way something happened you know that that that helps to be like oh it's a more believable um uh character you know to go up against and when um the antagonist push is too much the protagonist then they have to somehow act you know like well well well am i okay it's it's go time you know and that that they feed on each other and sometimes you know the bad guy at the end has redemption you know and says i was bad you know type of thing make it make it interesting you know turns around doesn't mean that you forgive them but you know on their last breath i'm sorry you know or something i don't know and does the good guy always have to win for the story to be fulfilling i don't think so i mean sometimes people i i know that's a way when someone would see it maybe go ah i wanted you know but you know life's not always that way it's it's more in the gray area where you know there's temptation and and um i think those are the most interesting characters that it's not the white knight you know it's it's the wow that's you know that's different you know and uh i don't know if you can think of a commercial film where the where that's happened i'm not sure um oh where the where the good guy doesn't win yeah um yeah commercial commercial i would think tender would want that sort of hollywood ending type thing you know but i think films more today you know like the bad guy can uh the bad character that can get away with it and you're like that's not right well not everything is fair you know did you see richard jewell no not yet okay yeah i was gonna bring that up um well once upon a time in hollywood sure some of the characters i don't want to you're right yeah some of the characters didn't have a happy ending but um sure yeah yeah but yeah that's based on a real life you know stories right parts of it are i know yeah but you're right yeah hollywood ending i don't know that's why i would say we go back to that point about the big movie if you're writing that big hundred million dollar film do you think you could have where you know the the protagonist hero doesn't win i mean maybe if there's a sequel um uh but if you wrote the smaller film you know be more i'd say unique but you know what i mean you could work maybe you could stretch your stretch it out a bit more to make it more interesting you know you and you would have the um the ability to do that in that world that's true and i think art house audiences will be more forgiving oh sure if the quote-unquote bag or good guy doesn't sure right off into the sunset whereas yeah well you know the noir is the the poor sap that ends up you know it's just that's why one of my friends i hate those movies i'm like yeah you know sunset boulevard he's not gonna end well for him i'm sorry but that's we know in the beginning though it's not gonna end yeah but that's uh i like those movies because that's um the world's not always you know there's there's injustice and never gets in you're like that's how do you d you know so those are interesting ones yeah what's the most amount of time you spent on a screenplay the most amount of time um boy those are years ago not a lot of time now but um i think it would be my fifth spec and only because i stopped on page 60 and that was because of a personal uh tragedy and i didn't know if i was going to be able to go back to it because i felt guilty about not going through my grief some someone passed away and it took me probably six or eight months of stopped on page 60 to go back and finish that first draft so i had good momentum and then it was just you know i was knocked out um and just couldn't focus but that experience uh worked its way into the script because there was loss in the screenplay as well um so it was really um you know really found its way in there in in the success of you know drafts after that not in the first obviously because it was only 60 pages but it was you know upon the other drafts it really you know so that i think that would have taken the longest time but i don't you know from writing assignments because there there's a schedule i really like to get a script done you know in in in obviously the time that the contract states but just as in my own spec too i don't want to work on it for years you know i want to have something available and do successive drafts and then have something to be like okay this is the one that at least that i can show people so i would say um you know three pages a day is a feature in a month easy it's very doable um and people say oh i worked on a script for a year and again you can work on it for a long time without doing pages you know i mean because you're doing the research you're doing you know all these other things to get to that point that could take time as well you could spend months uh that particular script i did spend months of research before i even started you know because it was a dream so i had this little like we was talking about all i had was it was a little like a little scene and i was like well that's interesting but what like e.t what about if someone was left behind and so started building out characters and story and you know it was historical movies so there had to be some research done so you know it's not always like oh write the script in a month it could take like the iceberg there's a lot of work that has under the surface that has to be done so um i don't know if i've answered your question when you finished the one uh screenplay where you stopped the 60 pages yeah something bad happened yeah and then there was this guilt how did you feel once you finished that screenplay because you said you took some of that emotion and put it in well i um i felt it was almost um that it was almost a uh a mission you know to finish it because uh the person would have wanted me to do that and so that helped me get through the guilt of like well how could it be writing this script you know when this happened and um somebody passed away and uh so i thought you know this person would want me to go back and do that they wouldn't want me to honestly waste my time but you know what i mean on this this thing and so that helped motivate me to go you're okay there's no guilt in finishing this thing you know so yeah because you never know um you know when you're writing your life can get in the way and does and you know it's this other thing that you do and if it's your vocation you know that you get paid to do it um you know you can't just toss it aside and say oh well i mean you know stuff stuff happens in life too sure um but like we were talking about earlier but using your personal experiences you don't want to have to go through that stuff but if you do you know you tap into it you know use it it's real it's authentic you know it's authenticity um actors love that kind of stuff you know and so writers should do certain as well the script that you're referring to wasn't that the first screenplay that you sold it was yeah it was a world war ii picture called remember april and uh it bumped around town for a number of years and uh it finally got optioned and made so it was like seven years from the time that i wrote the first draft to uh first first day of photography and not like i say not every project is that way and some never get made and you never like like we were talking about earlier you never know the journey of a project it could sit around for years on a shelf and then someone discovers it or it could sell tomorrow for big money you know there's everything in between so yeah what did that experience teach you because didn't you have a day job or you had another job during that time when you had to yeah yeah oh absolutely um during those seven years sure and i also wrote other specs and um uh you know the whole the whole gamut uh what it taught me was that you know if if you really believe in a script you know don't don't give up with it now you have to see the writing on the wall but this one it almost won the nickel fellowship and i say almost that year they picked the top eight people you know out of 3 500 you know to get the fellowship and my script was in the top 20. so they actually called me and told me that and i was like oh wow okay and so from that i was you know i was able to get some people to read it and this and that but the the personal connection i had at the time with this company that was just starting was the way in it wasn't from an agent it was is my own networking so that's also important that everyone says oh i'm looking for an agent you know and your own networking i think is almost more important because it's the face to face i've got you and you know an agent unless they're just starting doesn't need a 25th client in in the way now some agencies are actually signing with the writer's guild about you know about everybody had to fire their agent you know who was in in in the guild um and some agencies are signing now to say okay we're going to follow the you know the rules um but you should be networking you know that's the most important thing is to have because that wasn't sold by an agent it was my own connection into that company so that's that's what i learned as well where were you networking like what like you don't have to name the place but was it was kind of an impact it was my friend's friend who was in the business so my friend had said oh my friend is an assistant to blah blah and they were just starting a brand new company they already had a company cut two million years later that assistant became president of that other company and then he went off and left to have his own company so you see how you know what i mean it moves on so every assistant is not going to be an assistant forever you know they want to look at the rolodex and and find that amazing script to bring to their their producer and say look what i found and you want that script to be yours and you want that assistant to be somebody that you have a contact with because they're going to grow and move into producers and whatnot you know and that assistant because of that script then as president of the company hired me again and again and then when he went off to hire me again you know so i mean that's how you build that none of that was from an agent or a manager now they're great to have but but i i see people i wrote my script i got i got to get you know it's like you should be out networking you can't you can't rely upon your career and give it to somebody else you're the one thinking about it 24 hours a day you know like networking where um you know around town like in there's there's functions all the time um isa international screenwriting association has a final draft has them stage 32 has them meetups get-togethers things like that uh so just or or just be out you know like you're saying in los angeles you never know who you're going to run into and then there's no there's no studio gate there that says they're not getting in i mean seriously i mean my friend uh was chatting up someone and they were the assistant to one of the biggest producers in town wow now nothing happened but then we were talking blah blah okay but they could have said oh that's an interesting story because they're looking for that interesting story right and they want to be the one who brings it to the monkey muck and says look what i found now they have to read it first it has to go through hoops but you know i mean it has to go through um hurdles but isn't that much better than you know oh i'm uh struggling writer and i you know here's my stuff and the agent or agency gets back to you six months later you know i mean though those can get you to different levels absolutely necessary but my point is don't think that's the end-all be-all those will come when you're ready that's the thing they'll come when you're ready they won't come when you just finish your first screenplay and let's just the most amazing thing you know and then they already has bids on it and stuff like that you know so don't stress it by getting representation right away that only comes plus you have to be a workhorse if an agent is going to take you on or manager they want to see that you're working like okay you got this this is good we need to work and change you got another then what else you working on you have to be working not just the one script throw in the ring and go am i done no you're not done it's just the beginning do you think desperation um scares a lot of would-be deals away yeah you um dickinsen's a desperate writer a million miles away when you're like you know the best place to be is where you don't need it where your life doesn't uh rest upon this 100 pages you know uh that's you know that's where it's and plus the desperation can work into your writing too you know so no it's and it's hard you know desperation and fear and those all things you gotta you know you gotta constantly keep in check when you are selling a screenplay what are different types of deals you may encounter well there's the the option agreement you know which is to shop the material so they're not buying the script i mean there's provisions for purchase of it but it's an option which means they have the rights for let's say three to six months and they can have you do work on it or possibly somebody else but they're they're optioning the rights and you have to be uh i say careful but it's gonna take it off the market you know obviously because they're paying you now my first my first script sale the spec was optioned three times in a row so i was doing all the rewrites which is good so they'd optioned it for a number of uh for quite a while six months at a time and this allows them to find financing and that may fall through so they don't want to let the project go and also have their imprint on it you know what i mean so when it came time to execute the option that means they had to purchase the script and that was all in in the contract um so and then there's also the um the outright purchase of the screenplay you know and then you're usually given a chance to rewrite it uh one draft and with notes you know with the polish and then if it doesn't quite gel then there's a provision for you to be let go and somebody else can be brought on and then it's always every time it's a step deal so there's steps you know money to start so when you read in the trades that the scripts sold for a million dollars they didn't hand over a million dollars it's only if the movie gets made does all the money get paid so it all sounds great but you know you get money up front to start and let's say you have to do the outline or treatment you get money for that to start and turn in so there's steps then rewrites and so the first draft you know if you're doing an assignment it's the same thing for money to write the first draft money when you turn it in so it all goes by steps and then there are provisions in each step for how long it takes to read it and also how long that you're given to to write it i mean after you write it how long that you know there's responsibilities on both sides your responsibility to write it and the producer's responsibility to read it in a timely fashion so meaning that you know they can't go away for six months and then suddenly get back to you you know what i mean so those are traditionally the type of of working contracts what do you wish you'd known before starting down this screenwriting path hmm i wish i had known how difficult it would be and how much of my life would my choice not complaining would be given up for it and wouldn't have it any other way i could change a few things in the past but that's only because of lack of experience and knowledge that you have now you can only look back and say ah i would never have done that or boy did i blow that opportunity you know uh which in in my book i i i have those um kind of stories and also disciplines about that um and you know you never even whatever level you get to you still make mistakes and you still go well i you know i shouldn't have done that or you hopefully make fewer of them uh but just to realize how i mean out of film school you know the spec was crazy money was going for specs and we all thought we would just you know write a good spec and have a career you know and some did and but the the amount of time it takes and how it can affect your life you know the pursuit of this uh like i was thinking recently that i don't know if i would today if i was 11 years old that i would go hmm you know um basically i can't say because i only have hindsight but i don't know if i would pursue it today um you know the business constantly evolves and changes and i always say wow i wish i had worked in the 40s as a writer you know it would have been you know of course um like in the one movie everybody's looking back at a different era with romanticized oh the 40s weren't it you should have been a writer in the 30s the 30s well pretty much before then movies weren't around you know the 20s okay but you know and then authors were the big thing you know so we always look back but the main thing i think was um which i tell writers today you know this is going to be a long haul you don't think it is for you i i know it i know you don't you're going to be different and you could be but it's going to be a long haul it is for everybody if you if you talk to anybody and you know on your videos that you interview everybody everybody has a different story of how they and i don't like to say make it because you never make it in my opinion you're we're always looking for our next job you know we are as writers you're on a tv show the show ends you get residuals great but you got to get your next gig you're always gigging you're always looking for you know unless you have your own production company and a funnel of money then you can call all the shots but you're always looking for your next job so making it is getting your next job and the first one i always say is the hardest but the second one's pretty pretty difficult too and then your third and then your fourth and fifth and you're like oh wow and they're not always in in sequence meaning they don't they don't always come right after each other there are periods that are dry and not for lack of trying it's just the nature of the beast of the business they'll be slow periods and they'll be oh my gosh i've got so much work i don't even know what to do you know and everyone everyone's journey is going to be different of how they break in and so i was saying earlier about networking you know extremely important about getting getting those relationships and not and and not just being um you know oh you're my contact i expect you to help me be a good contact help people out if you can you know i've done it so many times when somebody i see a guy they didn't know i caught hey you better call so and so they've gotta they got the job now they say oh it's because of you i go no it's because of you but i just happen to see that opportunity and tell you about it you know and people remember that they remember completely for years and years that you know my friend of mine still to this day says you got me five years on a tv show i said that wasn't me he goes no no if you and he knew he knew the producer anyway but he wasn't in the right time right place and all i did is bring it up at a dinner and i said what's going on i said whoa he's actually looking for work really why did you have him give me a call it was that easy or it's that difficult if you're not at that dinner somebody else is going to get that job now of course he has the experience and all that stuff we're not talking about that but we're talking about the absolute weird you know somebody leaves home and you know at nine o'clock and if they left at 9 30 the bus wouldn't have hit them we don't know but it's weird stuff going on you know so yeah even if you were able to look back at age 11 or whenever it was let's suppose you chose a different route and that was to be you know have your own carpet cleaning business and you were the best carpet cleaner in all of your you know the tri-city area oh yeah do you think that you'd be standing in that same spot saying i don't know this was real much harder than i thought don't don't do you think that for every profession somebody goes to or any endeavor that most people say the same thing that it was much harder than i thought yes but i think the film business even more so because i don't love the carpet cleaning business but no you know i don't know how 50 000 scripts a year bouncing around you know what i mean everybody's trying to do the same thing at least in la many people are and across the world everywhere because you know everyone wants to be a filmmaker you know and suddenly they'd say oh everybody wants to be a filmmaker really oh okay like great when i was 11 not everybody wanted to be a filmmaker you know we we had our little weird click you know of maybe five of us but we were looked upon as you know the film nerds like film you know uh you know what i mean so um it's the democratization of filmmaking because it's accessible to everybody so we all can try it that's absolutely great um but then you learn if you really have a passion for it and you can but then there's that other thing about getting a job you know you can make your own movie that's fantastic but so you have to you know there's people make movies and it's on amazon and that's fine and i know how many clicks it gets you know if you want a wide range of something you know it depends on how how you set your goals and a lot of times as the more you you know you get knocked around in the business uh many times your what's your vision of what it was changes just by the fact of you know you get older you know and you start to be like wow okay well i wanted to hit for that you know this and you go i'm okay with this you know you know i mean things change from what you originally thought at 11. but you got to keep that wide-eyed dreamer alive otherwise it's all gone so that the 11 year old kid is still in here somewhere even though the jaded person is you know uh but you got to keep that inside of you because that what keeps you going you know like like we were talking about going to a movie theater in the popcorn the lights go down and you're like take me and and you're like the magic of cinema the movies you know and that's just what i it just clicked with me it wasn't carpet cleaning it wasn't being a lawyer it was that's what i want to do and thank god i had a friend who got a camera and maybe i would have you know eventually got one of my own but that spark sort of clicked at the same time you know so who knows i mean who's to say and i had very supportive parents that's also important you know who said go for it you know we never got to do what we wanted and it's going to be tough but will be yours you know to back you up and that that helps to have someone in your corner who believes in you rather than you know has the the doubts and you know whispers in you oh what do you think you're gonna sell something yeah you're right all right i might as well give it up now you know get a refund for that software you know you know you think jade is being and i'm not saying you're jaded i'm not cheating i was joking but there is a level that's needed don't you think it's a self-pro protective layer because sure absolutely and it only comes from getting like say knocked around uh so the wide-eyed kid on one side and the you know the boxer on the other going i'm gonna you know because i've been down that road before i've been in that situation i was taken advantage of because i allowed it because i didn't i wasn't smart enough not smart enough but i didn't have the information i needed to say no and no is no okay thing to say when you say this isn't for me you're dangling you know carrots and riches and it's i'm walking away and i did to a certain extent with that spec a company wanted to buy it outright and you know to tell me to walk away and you know i needed the money at the time sure it would have been it's not you know life-changing money if it was who's to say but it was sort of like yeah okay i can make matin you know how many months doing my waiting job you know but i wasn't gonna walk away i said this doesn't feel right for me i'm gonna just i'm gonna just take this back and you know someday somebody will find it and they did and it happens and it doesn't happen but there's no guarantees in this business but the only guarantee as i always say is the mantra is that if you if you stop writing you're really guaranteed to have no chance of success so you can only look in the mirror and complain um to yourself if you're not doing the work and you know you can blame hollywood you can blame your agents you can blame you know i'm a victim blah blah blah no if you're not doing the work then you only have yourself to blame and the minute you stop doing the work then you're out of the game you're in the game doesn't mean if you sold something or not as long as you're writing screenplays and you've got a you've got a cohesive plan and you've got a schedule i was reading something recently writer said yeah i've do three scripts a year i'm like that's great i did three last year assignments but um and you know try to work on a spec but okay but if you have a plan of what you're going to do not just not have a plan and kind of wing it time goes by so fast you know you turn around it's five years and you're like oh wow what what what happened you know every year re-evaluate i'm on my blog i have a year-end checklist it has seven points and it says re-evaluate the last year don't beat yourself up but learn from it what what did you excel in what did you fail in you know where where's your strengths and weaknesses like we were talking about for writers what do you have to improve on you know take it seriously not just i'm going to write a script you know because it's you it's you incorporated you know there's no one out there there's no one out there pushing you and we all decided to go down this journey no one forced any of us you know so you have to take responsibility for yourself and also um you know your career plans and what you know your what you're gonna do you know do you write down all of some of the things that you thought you could improve on or you just put that out there like for for 2019 the end did you put down specific things that you oh in the blog yes you did okay what were some of those things that you um either could have done better or that you were really happy that you did well uh you know what projects did you work on what did you have in your arsenal was it scripts was it tv pilots was it pitches was outlines you know in your in your folder of where wherever it is in your computer um what's in your arsenal what do you got you know and what are you working on and what's going to be finished first and what do you think you know you got to strategize and what are you going to do with that script what are your plans i'm going to enter nickel fellowship great i'm going to do this and that fantastic i've got to contact it blah blah blah you know so now you have a you have a goal and you set set those those goals and okay where did you fail what did you make mistakes on okay i sent this script out too early you know they gave me horrendous notes you know or i had it i failed i didn't get in this festival or whatever that's again festival's a whole other story but um you can't look at his failure if you didn't win a festival but i'm just saying things that you failers that you would uh you expected to happen in a positive manner that didn't that's what i mean about that or or outright failures they rejected the script and said it was horrible you know um things things of those that nature and um and then you know with networking who did i meet you know keep keep a log of that and and follow up new year's was a great is a great time to send out that email hey you know always look for a reason not just a cold call email to somebody you may have met it's like hey yeah we just want to wish you happy new year i just i hope your project's doing well i happen to be working on this and bubba but you know things like that of that nature um cards are old school but they're a great way again if you get that card you know the uh i was told that the assistants put the handwritten cards on top of the mail so when the mail comes in the handwritten stuff's on top so whose card is going to be there hey happy new year and you're like hey hey were the mark guy you know and that yeah yes there you go yeah that's my ride it's taking you to the studio exactly um so you know you remember that mark guy yeah you know puts you back on the radar and it's old school email's like so cold and you know um so various things like that where you you look over the past year and analyze it honestly and and then what are you going to do this year you know what do you have plans i mean the year goes by fast so what are you doing you know instead of like well you know i set up a set up a schedule i want to finish the script by march 1st and damn it if i'm not going to meet that and i only have to do two pages a day great rain or shine just like talking about studying martial arts rain or shine my my sifu says did you study today i said yes okay don't and boy do talk about procrastination it's like yeah it's late you know you know last night i did my my training um and i didn't want to but it becomes ingrained where then you do want to and then when you see results of that you want to even more because nothing's done if you don't do it i mean it sounds so simple but the same way with writing you know so by march 1st i don't want to hear somebody who committed to that made a self-commitment to themselves which is the worst thing for me to break a commitment to myself because you know i don't like to do it to others but to yourself um and you you he unless something terrible comes up right but you finish it by march you're like damn i can hit a deadline you know and i'm not expecting it to be amazing but i got a first draft done and now what are you gonna do with i'm gonna go through the thing and you know you know what i mean so uh it's just being aware of just not like treating it like a business almost you know if like we have to have plans for this thing that's you the screenwriter to get you to these different levels so would you say that you are a working screenwriter seven days a week in terms of you work on your career in one fashion or something i say screenwriters don't get weekends off and this weekend will be exactly the case because today and before i came i got notes again from a polish of a script i've been you know i wrote an assignment and um you know i want to turn it around as fast as possible because um i want the thing made and so you know um and there's sometimes but something in my life always has to do with screenwriting you know something always is something you can't just uh there are times when i can be away from it but then i start getting antsy you know because i like to work and i like to create so um yeah it's a big it's a big part which is the way i've planned it you know i want it to be a big part of what i do so yeah mark you added off camera some interesting tidbit about writers that you were maybe surprised by yeah sometimes um when i consult i find that writer is not able to upon a second read um execute those notes you know to make the draft like that much better or say well this part wasn't working and then it comes back and it's still not working you know and that's going to be a problem in one's career if you can't execute notes if you want to stay on the idea is to stay on a project and not get fired not just sell a script you know because it's gonna look bad if if they take you off the project and um yeah you might share credit but you'll be known as like you know you probably might not work with that producer again because you couldn't execute the note you want to be the only person on that you know and it happens there are other people that come in you know and i've been on the other side where um you know i was hired to rewrite a script because the writer was given many chances to do notes and it just wasn't working and so traditionally what they do i mean they tend to say thank you very much but we got to get somebody in here because we're not going to trash the project we're still going to make it but it's not moving where we need it to move you know so i think that's very important is to is to be able to rewrite the script and i think that comes from a place of knowing structure knowing all the elements that it takes to write a screenplay and many times like with the script i had to dismantle it to its essence and then start again you know like tear the house down but leave the bathroom like okay but it's still going to be a house and we still want it to be you know mediterranean style you know with eight bedrooms you like got it but all this other stuff is not working and uh you know like like i was telling you off-camera about um i just finished a polish um and then i got notes this morning and it's a polish so it's going through and refining you know you know stuff it's not like dismantling you know it's switching things around and it's maybe hopefully three or four days of work maybe five you know it's but it's not a huge you know you want to get to that point if you do a polish then you're like oh okay most of it's settled but this has to be you know raised in this scene you know it's too subtle you know things like that or uh in this case you know for reasons of production so you go back through and you polish it because you know we want to cut down the number of scenes we want to streamline this aspect things like that but you have to be able to do that on your own screenplay you know if you want to stay on the project you know executing notes is extremely important do you think that the reason screenwriters or maybe new screenwriters aren't successful with that is a resistance or they don't understand it and they're not trying to be difficult they just can't see outside of their own i think i think it's more that uh than resistance uh could be a little resistance because my words my vision you know and then you quickly learn like well it it started to be your words and vision and now it's a rewrite you know and hopefully a lot of it stays but it's a collaborative art form and you want to be a team player to uh you know work once you know like i say with my producer and directors i work with you know my once the script is now in the development process my job is to help get it made you know and then uh there are things that like i said before you know you fight for if you really believe in a change and you'll talk respectfully and maturely and say because you're talking to other creative people who aren't out to like make a bad movie per se sometimes it happens but you say well i don't think this would really work because of this reason and as long as you defend it you know with concrete evidence and then you can convince uh uh to keep it unchanged but you also have to be open and more times than not um thank goodness there's a producer to guide it because you know i some of my choices are like oh i get why you're doing that okay oh okay i see yeah actually actually that's better so it's not about who thought of what because you're all in you're all in it together you know you put the ego aside and it becomes like let's just all work together to get the movie made you know the best version possible but back to your point about i do think it's just um lack of experience possibly where someone has never received notes maybe they never had a critique on their script so they wouldn't know how to go back in and make those changes so that rewriting is a good way uh you know rewriting your bad scripts rewriting your good ones is a good way to gain that experience over multiple drafts and you know multiple screenplays to be like okay i i know what you're talking about but then you'll get into a situation where many producers are vague you know what i mean and so there's no school to go to where a producer you know each like i said before each screenplay is a different experience out of the gate different producer different working experience and one producer i worked with i you know i tried to capture what he was saying and i felt bad if i went oh you know i don't quite understand because then it makes me look like what do you mean you don't understand we hire oh and then i start feeling like oh well you know but it was all over bouncing all over the map big broad ideas that were changed on the fly whoa um did we go with this one or the other one you know so you have to be available ready for that you know so um yeah there's all sorts of situations but um execution of the notes i i just always have to say is extremely important yeah that was my next question that you already went there but that was what if it's not to let the writer off the hook but sure the the notes that are being given are not clear and so then the writers fighting against that or not but just or not even fighting but just trying to understand sometimes you'll have maybe the assistant you can go off to and you know because you don't want to look like you don't know what you're doing you know and talk to them and they'll be more than happy to be oh you know i'm speaking on behalf of whatever um but i've been lucky that that um people i've worked with are like razor sharp you know like okay pitch 48 you know and i love those kind of notes i don't like the broad stroke notes because it leaves it up to you and then you go this way with it and they're like i wanted you to paint this way with a twist you're like okay so you know and then it gets bogged down in development hell and no one's ever gonna say that it's their fault you know they're gonna you're not working you know it's not working and you just oh okay all right so of the sag screeners that you saw or of some of the screeners or the films that you saw for 2019 what was the best script what was the best writing of all of the films well i saw um but you know it's funny because it's a script you know i look at i the scripts are available so when you see the movie i always look at the screenplay and like jojo rabbit was literally on the page and some scripts you read because you don't know what draft you're getting if it's a production draft or was the final fine you know what i mean and it was like oh that's because you i always love to do that from years back is to see a movie you don't want to read the script before because you'll ruin it see the movie and then go back to see like oh how would i have written that scene and there's a particular scene i won't say it in there and i was like hmm and i looked and it was exactly you know we're not showing what we're not showing and it was written on the page and i was like wow that's that's you know that's that's a good um that's a good thing for writers to do as well you know and to read you have to read all the time you know screenplays and uh just i always say be careful of the ones in awards season because they're in a protected bubble so they're not specs so you can get away with a lot more because you know it's it is in development you know what i'm saying then you're spec i'm saying with regards to format and things like that because then you know what you want because we're all we're on this protected bubble now it's not a speck where i don't know you i'm just i can only know you from what's on this page you know what i mean so i see some writers want to try to emulate certain styles you know what i mean but i just say be careful because those are either the directors writing the script for the screen and can put a lot more things in the script than let's say maybe a spec would or should what about dialogue of the 2019 contenders that you watched who had the best dialogue and what what was it it's funny um parasite you know was talking about don't be afraid of the inch and a half you know subtitles and i i've always loved foreign films so i had no problem with subtitles but yeah they all i mean once upon a time the dialogue you know was was really good i mean tarantino but i mean they're all there for a reason these movies you know what i mean there's there's some that didn't get nominated it was the snub and you know but we all we all should um champion a year of great filmmaking you know rather than oh who didn't get the award or who wasn't nominated you know we have such a wide choice of stories and things now to to you know it's gotten so much better um because everybody's a game you know the game goes up you know what i mean and you can see like oh that's not you know and who benefits but the filmmakers and also the viewers you know i really like bruce stern's dialogue and once upon a time in hollywood that was really funny that was supposed to be uh burt reynolds to play that part ah yeah he passed away unfortunately oh so yeah it's just interesting how that would have made a different type of character you know i don't know because bruce dern can kind of uh disappear into a character and bert was a great actor i think but he's still burt reynolds sure you know so how do you get around for that and the last movie that he was in i saw was the what was it called um it was his last film before he passed away it was great he played a aging film star who goes to a film festival i think it's called the last movie star okay possibly yeah does a screenwriter have to live in los angeles preferably no but but um it helps you know tremendously to live in los angeles to be around the business there's no doubt about it uh like we were talking about earlier you could be out anywhere and run into somebody you know not that your choice of networking but you're around it there's so many any night there's a screening there's um academy screenings there's writer's guild special things where you can meet the filmmaker and american cinema tech has it all the time the filmmaker's there you can ask questions you know to learn and study and you don't get that in smaller places or places that aren't hollywood you know and now you can work it but let's say you get a meeting you're going to have to fly in and that meeting could end up being just a general meeting that yeah you'd drive to pasadena for you know 28 miles but you're going to fly across the country and it could end up you know you want to maybe schedule a few of them but you know what i mean it's sort of it's it's not um it's not impossible so no one should say well i don't live in hollywood i won't be a screenwriter a lot of people live outside of hollywood but you're going to have to throw your stuff into the ring and come out for meetings and have that expense be able to get off from work these type of things and and traditionally um i don't know what town size that somebody might be in but you're not running in those circles or somebody says hey come to this party or i got the screening you know to meet people you know to put it out there uh or or the festivals that that are here all the time you know you can enter you can enter your film obviously from elsewhere but to go to them and network you know and stuff like that so um it's not impossible but there's so much here if you work it you know what i mean if you yeah what about not knowing the temperament is the wrong word sort of having a pulse on the end of such a cliche or having a pulse on the industry but really there is a different way of working in la and just because somebody says great we'll be in touch it doesn't mean that where it might mean that more in the midwest where people oh sure might be more apt to keep their word and or i'll read your screenplay okay right so so six months later and knowing that actually two years later they could actually call you so you don't want to get mad and shoot an email yeah how dare you know so there is like this different protocol here and and if you don't live here and you're around different surroundings where things may mean what they mean right then you hold them to a higher standard which they they don't they go we what did you mean you believed me well i believe a person of their word you expect me to be that way well forget it jake it's hollywood you know well sometimes they keep their word it's just several years later yes it just takes longer of course yeah and and so the natural inclination would be to be hurt or angry and but really if you just kept that door open it could actually happen yes you want to burn any bridge ever right right but maybe people don't understand that there is like a different way yeah they'll learn quickly if they if they come out here you know and and you know go wow this is i have to change my you know the way i deal with people well i wouldn't change myself i would still be that person who you are i don't you know drop to that but it would be frustrating when no one else like you were saying is is plays that way they play with their own rules sure or you could be so you wouldn't hear from someone for a very long time and then the next thing you know now you're always hearing from them yeah that kind of feast or famine sure yeah yeah that happens so so from just visiting here i don't think you would get that no you wouldn't just cut to come out for a meeting you'd be wined and dined and or maybe not maybe it's just a general meeting you know me sometimes a meeting is just a meeting get a soda yeah cigar is just a cigar so um people online oh i got a meeting you know blah blah and they boast about okay that's great um but what happens when i've been to a million general meetings myself and they just want to meet you and say glad to meet you and that's great but it doesn't mean you know i i used to love to have oh my god i got a meeting you know because the potentiality of the whole thing you know then you learn some people's job is just to take a meeting they want to have a face with a name and that's it and maybe if you've got a product and you can show them a script that's something great but it doesn't mean they're going to buy it tomorrow but you build on that you know you build build build over a number of years you know um so then being oh sorry so then being here it's not just the cost of going to a meeting and getting off work and being no it's also knowing how things work and what a word being uh in a way in front of them more than out somewhere where you know what i mean you could potentially i don't see you know if if i disappear you're off my radar i mean you could there's still email yes but i'm saying that face to face like and then what about the last minute meeting that came up you're not going to be able to get a plane flight red eye to fly out you know what i mean so if things bob and switch you can tomorrow go oh my god i can i can go to warner brothers it just opened up or you know what i mean so you know but don't leave your family and your job and say i'm all in you know because it's going to be rough you know unless there's a guarantee like they're flying you out you know type of thing you know it's it's a done deal they're buying the script you know but i just think living here puts you around it all the time if that's on your if that's what you want to do you know what about jinxing something by saying guess what i got this meeting or guess what of course all the time that's why i tell i have a blog article about you know keep your like in poker you know have your don't spread it out there because many times it's gonna bomb and then what do you you know it's gonna look like yeah you know you're boasting about this meeting it could be it and you're let down um in front of everybody else you know your your failures which is fine but you don't want to present that too much you know it's a private thing you just say yeah i'm working on it you know i got some meetings and it looks good you know because a lot of energy is spent and i understand the anticipation the excitement of it you know you want to share that but it's also a big fall you know they're going to make the movie well not until the check clears you know i've been many many times and the head of production goes oh we'll be shooting in you know six weeks and it's seven weeks what's going on you know if i told everybody you know oh i'm gonna quit my job and do that you know be a high big fall you know so it's a lot easier to blow just to be sort of even keel not these too hard to over the long haul to have these big ups and downs it's just the middle the middle areas the best place to be what's the best screenplay you've ever read both i've read quite a few good ones i actually i'm not gonna name his name but a close friend of mine i read his script and it was it was like i was re i was seeing the movie i mean no i'm not kidding i saw the movie i mean sometimes you read a script and you're you have to conjure up this was i was seeing the movie on the page which you hear and you you don't see a lot or read a lot and um it's one to be studied by me as well because it was like wow he really worked a long time on it as well um but that was one um recently that i read was just you know off the charts type of thing and you you try and strive to be you know to try to get to that point obviously and that's what rewriting does you know to try to whittle it down to its most effective uh way of what you're trying to do you know trying to present your story how many people had seen his script had read it to get it to that stage well it was a uh spec but it was um it hadn't been made but it was a you know professional this is from a professional you know screenwriter um so it um still to this day hasn't been made but doesn't mean you know it's just sometimes it happens but were you the only person oh no no no no no no i had gotten a copy later i had no input on or anything but i was just i got a copy to read and i was like okay i was like whoa you know do you know how many uh eyeballs saw the no it i mean it it had been around to like real actors you know considering to be in it type of thing and i can see why wow because of how good it was you know interesting yeah and how long did it take for him to earn it that didn't know oh okay i'm not sure but i know that wasn't the first draft back to our point about you know first drafts oh my god like yeah great great starting point you know did he outline um i i'm sure he did because um he had told me on his recent film he big studio picture he had outlined i may have to but it was like 50 page online so i mean imagine that when people like i don't want to outline try 50 pages because it needs to be that before you even get to you know stuff so by that you'd be you've worked out you know it's just now write the script pleasurable experience you know so that's almost like two minutes like i'm trying to think of like what how does that break down time-wise yeah i don't know you're right it's a page or something or yeah but it may not be because you never i mean yeah i don't know yeah yeah apparently this could be two minutes of screen time who knows i mean that's true why would a writer stop writing writer would stop writing when they have nothing else to say maybe you know or they would stop writing because they haven't achieved a level where they thought they would be maybe i'm giving up you know i'm not i didn't sell an a-list script i'm going to go sell carpets you know carpet cleaning something whatever job it is um you would hope that a writer would you know would stay in the game and because we got you know like officer gentlemen i got nowhere else to go you know i got nothing else i want to do you know i i i need to tell stories i'm a storyteller you know and it's tragic when you hear people writers you know give up and i understand because everybody has their limits and they you know it's like it's uh and you know it could be not giving up let's say pursuing it full-time but maybe dabbling on the side and then that takes longer and sure life can get in the way and then you know it's it it falls along the wayside and maybe wasn't as interesting of a pursuit as the writer thought it was you know and because it went up against that test you know the difficulty test and you know that's always like i say how badly do you want it rejection criticism failure that's usually the litmus test of how bad you want to be in this you know because we're all gonna experience in that even after you make it you start working you're gonna be fired you know and stuff um so yeah all fear too maybe i'll never you know achieve what i thought i would you know but i say the longer you're in it that kind of changes too just by its nature of being in this you know at least for me how you look at things you know so it could be a number of reasons why someone quits you know but i always it's always a sad day for me to hear that going ah one of her you know brethren her sisters stopped you know they you know maybe it would just be around that next corner you know maybe it's that next script but that's also the chasing the dragon you know like well not this one and we all have to maybe it's the next one maybe it's the one after that and then you know what i mean so everybody has to have their own uh self-reflection about you know how long you're going to give this you know i like i say i never put an expiration date on my screenwriting dream so i didn't say but by this date i have to you know and thank goodness stuff worked out a bit you know but i don't know if i was doing it for 10 15 years and there was no forward movement what i would think about it you know so i think it's a personal thing everyone has to every writer has to ask themselves so when you started writing you had one mindset for it and now you've gone into something that's just maybe a little more relaxed or real okay realistic okay yeah not relaxed about the work by the way but just know about about certain goals and and in terms of yeah sure it has to be you know i have to be here by this point kind of thing yeah or what you want to do don't you want to direct it's like you know i'd rather produce and write you know directing there's a lot of directors you know and having done it in film school yeah but i have no project to show someone it's like oh you're you're the one over this person in fact i would probably um on a project step aside and let a director who i would pick direct the movie that's more of a producer's thing you know um so i don't know it changes you know out of film school i kind of always wanted to be a writer but then the longer you're in the business you go hmm writers get kicked around a lot stuff gets changed a lot and you're always at the mercy of someone else hiring you but if you're a producer writer or you move into producing where you say this is my project you don't get it i'm going to put the elements together you know and i now i'm a producer you know type of thing so things can change since our last interview which was 2017 i believe around the holidays yeah 2017 have you changed your mind about any of the writing process maybe you were in one camp where you said i'm not going to do it this way or i only do it this way and then now several years later you've changed where you've loosened up on that or you've completely anything about the writing process that has changed for you where you were very dogmatic about something and then um i don't know i think the dog was still there but i think the process of being uh i wanted to get back to more like i can remember the days when ideas would just pop up you know and this and that and uh i would find an idea that i would be so passionate about that i would see it ah you know and you know when you're working on assignments it's kind of different i mean you have to do that but it's it's you know i i like uh what i'm trying to say is i want to get back into more of that spec stuff for me cells are not whatever you know i've got um other spec uh ideas that i have are pretty decent shape they've been you know i pitched them and they've been around and stuff but um to maybe take one and and expand it into something else instead of a tv pilot make it a feature or maybe write a book of it you know type of thing so i'm one thing i would say is i'm opening my mind more to different creative possibilities than just the the straight and narrow type um so yeah in that way but the way that the way that um i work no you know i'm open to suggestion but so far you know um it seems to work you know for what i'm doing so yeah but i'm always open to you know you always have to be you know like water flows you know so it's like is that part of the tai chi you think either the tai chi changed that or you already changed and then you wanted to do the tai chi because it's kind of about the flow of energy and different things yeah i think um that's going to help me more in this next plateau you know in in in studying the certain philosophies to try to um uh you know have them dictate toward writing in a way you know trying to make them sort of similar or it's life you know i mean these kind of philosophies are for life too as well you know discipline right you know patience things like that and with tai chi it's not if you hit back it's you shift your energy yeah it's it's it you're always you're always it's a flow you know what i mean so it's um trying to flow through life that's what i'm trying to do and uh you know when you come up against these hurdles with screenwriting um not to take them as the end-all be-all your life's over type of thing you know and i say that for beginning riders as well you know especially because you're going to hit a lot of knocks that you could want to give up you're going to say well i'm not i'm not selling anything and nobody's reading my stuff or how do i get to do that and you find a way you find you find that one move that works you know but yeah i saw a documentary uh came out i think 2019 about miles davis career and he reinvented himself so many times yes and there were times when he wanted to give up or sure different things happen with his health but yeah he was always kind of reinventing himself because you had you know he spans so much time that he you can't keep doing the stuff back you know you were doing in the 60s you know you have to evolve in and change you know and so um yeah i believe in that too you have to as you grow as a person you know so too you have to grow as a screenwriter you know what i mean and uh it's storytelling so right so he would infuse different things i think he did like sort of he had a more latin percussion phase that he put into his music and different things with different costumes different looks and it really helped keep this career going yeah and it keeps you fresh that's the key you know and you don't look at it's like this thing you know that i have to do you come back to it from that 11 year old kid that was like oh this thing that i love to do that i'm blessed to do that i'm blessed to get paid to do you know i was blessed to do it anyway but get paid is even better you know because so yeah

Channel: Film Courage

Views: 34,928

Keywords: Screenwriting tips, screenwriting for beginners, screenwriting 101, screenwriting techniques, screenwriting advice, screenwriting masterclass, selling a screenplay, screenwriting help, screenwriter, screenwriter’s journey to success, mark sanderson, interview, filmcourage, film courage

Id: nAqSC5rZ41A

Length: 176min 34sec (10594 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 12 2021