Screenwriting Quote #178 (Brad Bird)

“A screenwriter friend of mine said your number one goal is to get to the end. So write it fast; don’t look back. If you have to have characters yak about something and you don’t have a solution, do it anyway and let it suck. Then go back over it in a couple of weeks, and you’ll be much clearer on what’s strong and what’s not strong and then attack the ones that are too verbose. At least you’ll have a laundry list of things the audience needs to know—but don’t hang up on finding the visual solution and not move forward on your screenplay.”
Oscar-winning writer/director Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille)
Interview with Peter N. Chumo II
creative screenwriting magazine, Novemeber/December 2004

Recap:
—Write it fast
—Don’t look back
—Let it suck
—Move forward

Scott W. Smith

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Writing “The Incredibles”

“I was working on The Simpsons as a consultant, and I was trying to get movie ideas off the ground. I could always get on the runway—I could always get a project backed, and I could develop it—but I was never getting cleared for takeoff. And I wasn’t getting cleared for really dull reasons—because my guy would get fired and then the new guy wouldn’t want anything that the old guy had, or some other movie was vaguely related would tank at the box office, so they’d say, ‘Naturally, yours will fail too.’ So I was frustrated, and at the same time I was starting a new family. So it was the twin anxieties of trying to find meaningful work and being a good father that fed into this story. At the time, I just thought I was making a funny idea about an over-the-hill superhero. It didn’t occur to me that it was life feeding into it. But I think the reason I was so taken by the idea was because on some level I related to all the characters in the story.”
 Writer/director Brad Bird on The Incredibles (Oscar-winner for Best Animated Feature Film)
Interview with Peter N. Chumo II
creative screenwriting November/December 2004

Related Post: Screenwriting the Pixar Way (Part 2) 

Scott W. Smith

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