Screenwriting’s One Unbreakable Rule

Note: On this re-post Saturday I’m going to post one of my favorite screenwriting quotes by one of my favorite teachers of screenwriting—Richard Walter. The original post back in 2011 (which had a different title) was the end of seven days of posts revolving around an interview I did with Walter. (The informative links to the interviews can be found at the end of the post.)

Also, yesterday I mentioned I was going to post some quotes from screenwriter Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, Iron Man 3) next week. Black went to UCLA where Walter is now the Chairman of the MFA Program in screenwriting.

If you happen to be in L.A. this summer (June 24—August 2, 2013) and are a UCLA student (or even a non-UCLA student) you can take an advanced screenwriting workshop with Walter at the Westwood campus. No guarantee you’ll become a multi-millionaire screenwriter like Black, but if you have the time and money, it’s a great opportunity to learn.

Here’s the original post called “Don’t bore the audience!”:

“Screenwriting’s one unbreakable rule: Don’t be boring.”
Richard Walter
Essentials of Screenwriting 

The above quote was how I ended yesterday’s post after seven straight days of posts taken from an interview I did with UCLA’s Richard Walter. And as a perfect segue for today’s post I picked up the book The Paris Review’s Playwrights at Work and stumbled upon this quote under the heading ADVICE TO YOUNG PLAYWRIGHT:

“What shouldn’t you do if you’re a playwright? Don’t bore the audience! I mean, even if you have to resort to totally arbitrary killing onstage, or pointless gunfire, at least it’ll catch their attention and keep them awake. Just keep the thing going anyway you can.”
Tennessee Williams

I’ll always regret not meeting Williams when he visited a small theater in the Orlando area shortly before he died. A few years after he died in 1983 I remember doing an actor’s workshop in LA where I spent six weeks just working on the opening monologue of Tom’s in The Glass Menagerie. (“I have tricks up my sleeves…”) It was in that workshop taught by Arthur Mendoza that I really began to appreciate the power of words. Names like Ibsen, Chekhov and Strindberg were revealed to me.

And as I mentioned yesterday, the best way not to bore the audience is through conflict. There’s always talk about writing from theme and plot, and having interesting characters in the stories you tell, but somewhere above your writing desk (or taped to your computer) you won’t go wrong if you—Write from Conflict. (Ideally, meaningful conflict.)

“Airplanes that land safely do not make the news. And nobody goes to the theater, or switches on the tube, to view a movie entitled The Village of the Happy Nice People.“
Richard Walter

P.S. If you’d like a free copy of Walter’s book Essentials of Screenwriting: The Art, Craft, and Business of Film and Television Writing shoot me an email at info@scottwsmith.com and tell me a couple ways I could spin this blog in a new direction that would make it a better blog. (Podcast, videos, interviews. Anybody with info on publishing ebooks or gumroad would be a bonus.) I’ll pick the three most helpful ones and send the book to those three for no charge. Thanks for your help.

Related posts:
Robert McKee vs. Richard Walter

The Enemy of Creativity
Screenwriting’s Great Divider
Keeping Solvant and Sane
The Death of Originality
The Advantage of Being from ________
Filmmaker as Artist/Entrepreneur
Finding Your Voice

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Filmmaker as Artist/Entrepreneur

“Art is not only a vehicle for self-expression or exclusively for the pursuit of the spiritual. From the very beginning, drawing an animal on the wall of a cave—you would be able to control the animal and this magic would help the tribe.”
Milton Glaser
Art is Work
(Popularly known as the artist who designed the I “Heart” New York logo.)

“Creative expression is not logical, circumspect, intelligent, or responsible; it’s illogical, unreasonable, manic, and irresponsible, especially as an activity preoccupying grown women and men. Is screenwriting any different from the other arts? Yes. It’s crazier.”
Richard Walter
Essentials of Screenwriting

This is part 6 of an interview I did with Richard Walter, Chairman of the UCLA Screenwriting program.

SS: The is no question that Hollywood is the major leagues. But now that digital cameras have gotten better and cheaper, I see a new crop of filmmakers popping up all over the county (and the world) who are starting to make their own films outside the Hollywood system. Then you have traditional Hollywood-types such as Edward Burns making smaller films (Nice Guy Johnny; 10 day shoot/$25,000. deferred budget) and self-distributing them on iTunes and finding an audience. Do you see a new league rising up? The entrepreneurial filmmaker who writes, produces, and distributes his or her own films outside mainstream Hollywood.

Richard Walter: I think the least interesting films being made are major Hollywood movies. They are not really movies that stand alone, but they are parts of franchises. George Lucas —it’s not his fault, I wouldn’t have done it any differently—started it all with Star Wars in 1977. That was an important year.

As big as Star Wars was, and it was the biggest thing ever in terms of ticket sales , still that was pretty small when compared to the ancillary considerations  with the toys.

So suddenly the actual movie became only one component in a package—in a cluster of other considerations.  And that has to have a suffocating influence on the imagination.

I see much more interesting stuff on cable TV than I see in theaters. I haven’t seen a movie recently in theaters as good as the last episode of Mad Men from the third season, or some of the best stuff on the Sopranos.

And as you said, now that it’s become cheaper and cheaper to make a movie, and because of the internet, distribution is now available to anybody— The question is how do you get people’s attention and so on. You have to be clever about that.

But it doesn’t need to be a blockbuster success—nothing wrong with a blockbuster success like Avatar—but it’s not all there is.  To me it’s not as interesting as what you just decribed that Burns is doing. Absolutely, that’s a much more interesting way to go.

You don’t need to be a trillionaire. If you can get by and be sort of comfortable I think you can have a much more satisfactory life artistically and every other way if you don’t focus on this very narrow arena called mainstream Hollywood.

SS: When I was in college, I remember a photography instructor in Florida telling me that he felt fortunate to just be able to make a living in the arts.  And as I’ve gotten to know working artists in Iowa I find that they’re not encumbered like many screenwriters in that they are not trying to get rich and famous—that rarely happens for most artists— but they’re simply working on their craft and content to earn a living. Do you think it would be healthier for most screenwriters and filmmakers if they had a more artist-like mentality?

Richard Walter: If you can modestly survive and work with your imagination and create narrative what can be better than that? What’s there not to like about that?

Related posts: A New Kind of Filmmaker

Sputnik. Sundance & Kevin Smith

How to Shoot a Feature in Ten Days

The 10 Film Commandments of Edward Burns

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The Advantage of Being from _________

(Richard Walter, UCLA Screenwriting professor, Interview Part 5)

SS: The title and subtitle of this blog is “Screenwriting from Iowa….and Other Unlikely Places,” and it was in part inspired by learning that Diablo Cody went to college in Iowa, just about an hour where I live, and wrote the distinctly Midwestern screenplay Juno in a Starbucks in the suburbs of Minneapolis. I think that part of her wild Oscar-winning success is that she tapped into not trying to do what everybody was doing?

Richard Walter: I totally agree with you about Diablo Cody. It was my privilege to be at the Academy Awards the year she won the Oscar and I got to hang out with her a couple of years ago at the Cinequest Festival in San Jose. But you’re absolutely right. One question I get all the time is “Don’t I have to be in L.A. if I want to be a serious screenwriter?” And first all if you want to be in series television, yes.  You have to be available to make pitches. And especially in sitcoms if you succeed in selling a few freelance episodes you will ultimately end up on staff and you have to come in everyday.

But most people want to work in features, theatrically distributed films, and to them I actually say it’s actually an advantage to be from Iowa, to be from anyplace other than L.A. or New York.

There’s a certain kind of cache that applies to being from the midsection. I know one writer, believe it or not, who launders his scripts through a phony address he has in Murfreesboro, Tennessee,  outside of Nashville, because it’s just more exciting than one more writer from the San Fernando Valley.

So there’s much merit in what you say. Unfortunately, a lot of the writers that ask me ,“Do I have to come to L.A.?” really want to come to L.A.  They want a reason or an excuse to come to L.A. and I appreciate that—this is a beautiful town. It’s a diverse culture. It is a world-class international city that has everything that you’d ever want including awfully good weather. With that said, you do not need to be here. You’re actually better off if you want to succeed as a screenwriter being in an other section of the county.  That’s the way it seems to me—very, very clearly I have to say.

Related Posst:

The Juno—Iowa Connection

Screenwriting Quote #1 (Diablo Cody)

Scott W. Smith

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Screenwriting’s Great Divider

“To reach audiences, writers have to take chances. They must confront the awesome challenge inherent in peddling their fantasies. All writers, in particular new writers, face the overwhelming likihood that what they write will come to no fruitful conclusion.”
Richard Walter
Essentials of Screenwriting

“There’s always that existential question: If you write a script and no one reads it or no one makes a movie from it, are you really a writer? It’s very complicated.”
Screenwriter Phil Johnston (Cedar Rapids)
Cinesnobs

(Richard Walter Interview Part 2)

The Screenwriting MFA at UCLA has trained so many talented screenwriters that it is continually listed among the best places to study.  But for every graduate like Oscar-winner Alexander Payneg (Sideways) there is a group of graduates who have yet to earn a living as screenwriters. Some are working in various jobs on films and TV programs, some are teaching, and some are working regular jobs and writing spec scripts at night. That led me to today’s question for the Chairman of the Department, Richard Walter.

SS: You’ve obviously seen some incredible talent come through UCLA, they’ve won Academy Awards and written blockbuster Steven Spielberg films,  but not every graduate from the program goes on to have a successful screenwriting career. What do you think separates those who succeed and those that don’t?

Richard Walter: “Well, in a word I would say stamina. Another word is patience.  Life’s all about time. Time is really the great divider. You’ve got to be in it for the long haul.  You’ve got to give your life to this.  That’s not a cynical, brooding, or pessimistic view. I can’t imagine what would be more glorious to give a life to besides creative expression.

I mean, we literally traffic in our imaginations—we swap out our daydreams for money.  Writers when we get paid at all, we get paid a lot of money what other people get scolded for, which is daydreaming.  It’s worth giving it the time, because to succeed is such a phenomenal blessing.

It’s also so human, it really distinguishes us from the rest of creation.  Beavers don’t do this, termites and plankton don’t write —And if you’re not creative in some aspect of your life you’re not really fulfilling your destiny and your nature.  So you just have to stick with it.”

Though screenwriter David Seidler (The King’s Speech) didn’t go to UCLA he is the poster child for sticking with screenwriting. You can view the 73-year-old’s Oscar acceptance speech on You Tube.

And speaking of UCLA grad and Omaha-native Alexander Payne, he was one of the producer’s of the movie Cedar Rapids currently in theaters. (The movie is the first produced script by Phil Johnston who was born in Minneapolis, raised in Wisconsin, and worked as a weatherman in Iowa. He had sold some scripts but was having trouble getting produced and is quoted as saying, “Someone told me, you’ll make a great living as a failure.”)

Related Post: Preparing for an Oscar Speech (David Seilder—Style)

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Robert McKee vs. Richard Walter

“I wasn’t a character in the play, but that was my childhood.”
Alfred Uhry 
Speaking at a Master Workshop on his play Driving Miss Daisy 

Robert McKee vs. Richard Walter is not the latest MMA match-up. Just my way of showing how two well-respected screenwriting teachers can disagree on a fundamental point.

In light of several posts on emotional autobiography I think it’s a good time to address two different schools of thought. What Tennessee Williams called ‘emotional autobiography’, I believe Richard Walter, chairman of the UCLA screenwriting program,  calls “identity” and “self-revelation.”

Walter believes strongly that writers “should tell their own personal story.” On the other hand, screenwriting instructor Robert McKee in his book STORY says that’s exactly what writers shouldn’t do. Screenwriting wars!

Mckee writes, “The ‘personal story’ is unstructured, slice-of-life portraiture that mistakes verisimilitude for truth. This writer believes that the more precise his observation of day-to-day facts, the more accurate his reportage of what actually happens, the more truth he tells. But fact, no matter how minutely observed, is truth with a small ‘t.”

This is how Walter, in his book Essentials of Screenwriting, explains his view:

“Decades spent writing and teaching have taught me that writers’ own personal stories are the only story they should write.

Even if a writer attempts vigorously to do otherwise, even if he works on an assignment writing a script for hire based on someone else’s idea, even an idea totally alien to his own experience, he will nonetheless end up telling nothing other that his own personal tale. Whatever the original concept, however specific, however narrow, in all instances is filtered through the peculiar sensibilities of the specific writer. In the end, despite himself, the writer will create a tale that is personal.
Why fight it?
My advice: Surrender.
It is one battle in which defeat actually amounts to victory.
Self-revelation lies, after all, at the center of not screenwriting alone but all creative expression.”

Interesting. Two well-respected teachers, and two totally different views. One calling the personal story where every writer should start and the other saying it’s the first typical mistake of the failed screenplay.

So who’s right? If you got the two instructors together, you could probably have a three-day conference discussing the topic. Is there any way, they could both be right?

I have seen many films (usually shorts) and read quite a few scripts that I would call small personal stories. Little or nothing happens in these stories and to use the words of  director/film teacher Alexander Mackendrick they tend to fall under the description, “Long, too long, much too long.” They’re personal, but they’re boring.

I think McKee is talking about literal personal stories. We cook, we iron, we type and so on. Personal everyday stuff. Perhaps all McKee means by “personal story” is what Hitchcock meant when he said,  ”What is drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out.”

Walter in using “personal story” to address the big picture. We are writing about ourselves in terms of our deepest fears and desires. We are tapping into the core of our existence. It has nothing to do with ironing and typing,  but of a hunger for significance.

Rocky is a personal film, not because Stallone was once a club boxer whose day job was collecting money for loan sharks. But Rocky is a personal story because Stallone was once a struggling actor/writer who knew if he got a shot he could do something special.

If you read the backstories of screenwriters and directors time after time you will find that in the movies they’ve made they were telling an aspect of their own personal story. Hitchcock, Spielberg, and Scorsese are all personal storytellers.

The script I just finished is about a young, inexperienced cop in a small town in Iowa who is faced with solving the first murder in the town’s history. I’ve never been a cop in a small town in Iowa, but I am aware that the theme of the story deals with my own personal story. The power of theme in movies is what’s on screen interacts with the personal stories of those in the audiences.

McKee understands universal themes, so maybe at the end of the day maybe he and Walter can shake hands just say it’s a matter of semantics over what is meant by “personal story.”

Perhaps that’s why I  like about the phrase ’emotional autobiography.’ It’s less ambiguous. The King’s Speech and Toy Story 3 are recent examples that I’d consider emotional autobiography. In fact, I think the definition of Pixar is emotional autobiography.

The great thing about this film (Up) and any film we work on is that it contains truths taken from our lives. Pixar lets the directors create an ‘autobiography.’ In other words, things that are important to us make it into the film.
Director Bob Peterson (Up)

I’ve learned a lot from both McKee and Walter over the years. And, in screenwriting, like most creative disciplines you will find many different ways to approach your writing.  Find what works for you. And the best way to do that is keep cranking out the pages.

At the end of last year I was fortunate to interview Walter and over the next several days I will be posting several of his comments from that interview as well as pulling quotes from his various books. If you are unfamiliar with his work check out his website RichardWalter.com.

This is what one of his former students had to say about him;

“Richard Walter is the best screenwriting teacher in the business.”
Screenwriter  David Koepp
Jurassic Park, Carlito’s Way, Spider-Man

Scott W. Smith

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Emotional Autobiography

“Tennessee Williams observed, even works of demonstrable fiction or fantasy remain emotionally autobiographical.”
David Bayles & Ted Orland
Art & Fear

“Principle  1: Whenever writers sit down before blank paper or glowing green (or amber) phosphor, their personal story is all they can write.”
Richard Walter
The Whole Picture

In Richard Walter’s book The Whole Picture he has a section called “Identity: The Only Choice” where he makes this profound statement:

“We spend much of our lives trying to reconcile these two halves of our spirit and soul—call it identity—as we struggle to figure out just what and who it is we genuinely are. The reason we go to the movies is precisely to explore these perpetually unanswerable questions regarding our identity.  It’s the same reason we go to church, temple, mosque, ashram or meetinghouse: we seek to answers to the wonderful and dreadful puzzle of our existence.”

Look at the movies that you and your friends watch over and over again and ask how much identity plays a part of liking the movie. Beloved movies that I find fit this category well are The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, Pretty Women, Erin Brockovich, Braveheart, Rocky, Titanic, Dead Poets Society, The Matrix,  An Officer and a Gentleman. On the Waterfront, Good Will Hunting, Thema and Louise, Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles (Pixar, Pixar, Pixar) and, of course, Field of Dreams. (Just to name a few.)

“If we look at some of the Academy Award winners of the 80s and 90s, we can see an identity theme shimmering through many philosophical, theological, and/or psychological ideas.
Linda Seger
Advanced Screenwriting

And certainly the most recent Academy winning best film, The King’s Speech, is heavy on identity. On one level you could identify if you were a stutter, but other levels of identity for audiences are if you have any physical trait that is holding you back from performing your best in life. Some could identify being the parent of a child with a handicap. Others could identify with being a gifted teacher whose teaching may be effective, but rather unorthodox and not respected by those in power.

There is no doubt that the screenwriter of The King’s Speech identified first hand with the material he was writing. And as we learn from now Oscar-winner David Sielder, sometimes writers aren’t always aware at first the themes which they evoke.

“I wanted to write something about my hero George VI who had given me hope as a kid, because my parents had said, ‘listen to him, he stuttered far worse than you and yet he can give these stirring, magnificent wartime speeches that rally the world.’ I didn’t see it, the fact that I was actually writing about myself. Now, with a bit more maturity, now I can see it very clearly that I was writing my story through the King.”
David Sielder
BBC interview

Sieldler wrote an emotional autobiography.  So when in The King’s Speech when King George VI says, ”I have a right to be heard. I have a voice,” you know this is the former stutter Sielder’s speaking as well. And how many in the audience connect with that emotionally as well?

Richard Walter’s adds, “More than a quarter of a century of professional writing and decades spent teaching have convinced me that writers’ own personal stories are all they should write.” Walter’s former student and graduate in the MFA program at UCLA, Alexander Payne, did okay writing an emotional autobiography called Sideways for which he won an Oscar (with Jim Taylor) in 2005.

I like the phrase “Emotional Autobiography” because it describes what writers do when they tap into identity themes.

“Emotional autobiography is what is going to bring your story to life, and what will make your reader connect with your characters. I bring this idea back to Tim O’Brien’s brilliant The Things They Carried. I’ve never been a soldier, but I intrinsically identify with all of the emotions those characters are feeling. The author’s emotional autobiography replaces factual accuracy and becomes my own emotional history. And that is what we should all strive for when we take the seeds of our own experiences and transfer the spirit of what is meaningful from our lives to the page.”
Eric Wasserman
Writer and Assistant Professor at The University of Akron
Embracing Emotional Autobiography Over Factual Representation in Fiction

Note: In the next few days I will begin a series of posts based on an interview I did recently with Richard Walter who was the first one to introduce me to the whole concept of identity in relation to movies and screenwriting. Walter is Professor and Screenwriting Chair at UCLA and the author of Essentials of Screenwriting.

Related post: Screenwriting the Pixar Way (Part 2)

Can You Identify?

Scott W. Smith

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Diablo Cody+3=823

“I never wanted to write a screenplay. To me, writing is this wonderful, indulgent activity where you just fill the page with words.”
Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody
Iconcinema.com

Three years ago today I created my first blog post ever (Life Beyond Hollywood). I started out with a little Diablo Cody inspiration and a modest goal to consolidated my writing notes gathered over the years from film school, books, magazines, seminars & workshops in hopes of it becoming a 50,000 word book—and perhaps helping a fellow writer or two.

Three years later I’ve written 832 posts and over 300,000 words. (With roughly 833 estimated typos, which I blame on posting daily without a copy editor. Like Jimmy Buffett I’m not aiming for perfection—just trying to “capture the magic.”) I’m now in the process of distilling those 832 posts into three books which will be much more refined.

Actually the idea of a book predates the blog. Since I had read quite a few film and video books by Michael Weise Books, and  had just read Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat at the end of ’07 (which they published, and I thought was great)  I sent them a book proposal toward the end of 2007 and got this email back from Ken Lee:

Please email me your table of contents and a sample chapter

Thanks

Ken

Ken and I traded emails a few times and I ended up sending him three or four chapters and we spoke on the phone a couple of times and he asked me to think about what I’d like to write and blog about over the next five years. At the end of the day, while there was no deal with Michael Weise Books, this blog in part was an indirect result of my communication with Ken. (If you’re looking for a theme to write about “Success out of Failure” is a great concept because everyone can identify with losing their locker like Rocky did in that first film.)

At the same time I had written those first four chapters I started to read about Diablo Cody’s story about writing the Juno screenplay in Minneapolis, her blogging, and having gone to college at the University of Iowa. Lightning struck. A couple of people showed me the ropes on how to start a blog and four days after seeing the movie Juno I launched my first post exactly three years ago today.

I even traded a few emails in January of 2008 with Blake as his blog was one of the first screenwriting blogs I ever read. In fact, I just found this email from him that ended with: “Best to you in ‘the great 2008′ and yes, I am happy to help in any way I can.” Miss ya Blake, but long live your books & influence.

Later that year, in October of 2008, the Screenwriting from Iowa blog won a Regional Emmy (Minneapolis) in the category of advanced media. A few months later Diablo Cody walked away with an Oscar for writing Juno. Fun.

“I’ve never read a screenwriting book. I’m really superstitious about it too. I don’t even want to look at them. All I did was I went and bought the shooting script of  ’Ghost World’ at Barnes and Noble and read it just to see how it should look on the page because I like that movie.”
Diablo Cody

The day after my first post I received this email  from Scott Cawelti, an English professor and writer at the University of Northern Iowa: ”Ready for a collaboration?” It took a little time, but we recently finished a spec screenplay, have done a couple re-writes, and are just now shopping it. (As a quirky sidenote, Scott was once in a band with Robert Waller who wrote The Bridges of Madison County.)

There was early support from Mystery Man on Film. For the record I think Mystery Man’s post The Raider’s Story Conference is the single best thing you’ll find on the Internet on the process of storytelling. (Make sure to follow the link to the 125 page transcript of Lucas, Spielberg and Kasden as they discuss what became Raiders of the Lost Ark.) I was also encouraged by emails from readers and fellow blogger Scott Myers at Go Into the Story.

Last year the shout out by Diablo Cody on Twitter as well as the TomCruise.com plug were bonuses and will keep me going another year. And I hope some things I write encourage you in your own quest as a writer. In the coming days I’ll have some posts based on interviews I did with UCLA screenwriting professor Richard Walter and screenwriter Dale Launer (My Cousin Vinney, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels). This blog has brought me into contact with producers and writers in LA that would be hard for me to connect with otherwise. So if you have a blog in mind, go for it.

But for now let me say thanks for stopping by, best wishes on your own writing and if you need a little inspiration today I hope this helps:

“I can actually give you a really specific bit of advice that I give to everyone. I would not be where I am, I would not be any sort of professional writer if I had not self-published. We live in a day and age where there’s so many opportunities for writers and filmmakers with YouTube to self-publish, to make their own work available without having to go through the rejection letters and the middleman and, you know, it used to be that you were, that if you wanted to share your work with other people, I mean, you had to go through so many channels and jump through so many hoops. And now, you can just put it out there. You know, the internet is a miraculous thing, so just share as much as you can self-publish blog, you know, podcast, whatever you need to do, just make sure that you are not withholding your (unintelligible) from the world because we have so many opportunities now.”

Diablo Cody
NPR transcript Feb  2009

I never would have dreamed that I’d write 823 posts in three years, but that’s what happened. The Writers Store has an article online that talks about Jerry Seinfeld’s method for success where he marks on a calender with a red “X” over everyday he writes new material. Each “X” forms a chain and his goal is to not break that chain. You want to talk a day or two off every week from writing, that’s fine (and healthy) but do your best to have at least 20 “X’s” on your calender each month.

Writers write.

Related Posts: Juno Has Another Baby (Emmy)

Screenwriting’s Biggest Flirt

The Juno—Iowa Connection

Beatles, Cody, King & 10,000 Hours

Scott W. Smith

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Writing Quote #22 (Dara Marks)

For Christmas I received a book that I’ve heard a lot about over the years but have never read. I’m sure I’ll be pulling a few quotes from Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc by Dara Marks in 2011, but here’s one for 2010.

“The single most important connection authors make with their audience is forged through the protagonist. In effect, the audience enters the story through the protagonist; as the protagonist encounters conflict, hardship, and obstacles, the audience encounters those same problems right along with him or her. This is how we become emerged in a story.”
Dara Marks
Inside Story

And since Christmas was yesterday, here are a couple fitting example that’s Marks goes on to discuss in her book.

“In the beginning of both It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol, the audience knows that George Bailey’s life is already valuable and that Scrooge would be happier if he were kinder. But the characters don’t know this yet because they are both stuck in old patterns of behavior that distort their perceptions. The drama, therefore, is designed around knocking down those old barriers.”
Dara Marks
Inside Story

And here’s a quote about Dara’s book from a producer at MPower Pictures who I met years ago in LA when he was an actor;

“Theme, character, and transformational arc often get convoluted and confused in the complicated process of script development. Dara’s Inside Story takes the highly complex craft of screenwriting and breaks it down into the simple art of good storytelling.“
John Shepherd
Bella, Bobby Jones: Stroke of a Genius

Creative Screenwriting magazine and UCLA Professor Richard Walter have also spoken favorably of Dara’s book. (BTW—I recently did an interview with Richard Walter and will start the new year off with several posts based on that interview.)

Scott W. Smith

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Screenwriting’s Biggest Flirt

“The fact is, when I wrote Juno—and I think this is part of its charm and appeal—I didn’t know how to write a movie.”
Diablo Cody

Today marks the two and a half-year anniversary of starting this blog— Screenwriting from Iowa. A blog that got its start after seeing the movie Juno and reading the articles about screenwriter and University of Iowa grad Diablo Cody who jump started her career by blogging. Two and a half years ago blogging was still pretty much a mystery to the masses. Just put your stuff out there and see what happens was Cody’s encouragement to anyone who would listen.

She walked away with an Oscar in 2008 and later that year I won a Regional Emmy in Advanced Media for Screenwriting from Iowa. (Juno Has Another Baby.) It was all the sweeter that I received the Emmy in Minneapolis where Cody happened to write Juno.

My goal with this blog from the start has been to encourage and inspire writers and filmmakers around the country to hone their craft as they pursue writing for Hollywood, ultra low-budget filmmaking, or something in between. Along the way I’ve also shown writers in Los Angeles who write stories that take place far from the shadow of the Hollywood sign. (Usually, because they came from outside L.A. originally, or they are adapting a novelist who set a story in their neck of the woods.)

Cody was not the first writer outside L.A. to breakthrough, nor will she be the last. But I believe she is the poster child for screenwriters originally from outside L.A. who desire to write something so original that it leap frog’s the zillions of other more experienced screenwriters. Really, how many screenwriters does the public know by name?

That doesn’t mean that she is loved and adored by everyone. I’m sure she even understands some of the Cody backlash, because how many people walk away with an Oscar on a first script that they were just flirting around writing?

“I think I went into (writing Juno) as an experiment; I didn’t really have a whole lot invested in it. It was more something I just wanted to try. I had no idea throughout the whole process that this would ever wind up being a produced screenplay or that this would ever end up being cast with these amazing actors. There was absolutely no pressure on me because I was just sitting in Minnesota writing for my own edification. So I think that was freeing in a lot of ways.”
Diablo Cody
Filmmaker magazine Fall 2007

That has to make all of those screenwriting gurus cringe. And tick off a few writers who have been at it five, 10, 20 years. And if that doesn’t, this will:

“I guess ignorance is bliss is the best way of putting it. [laughs] The only thing I did was I went to Barnes & Noble and bought the shooting scripts for a couple of movies that I liked so I could see how they looked on the page and that gave me a little structural guidance. but that was all I did. “
Diablo Cody
Filmmaker magazine Fall 2007

But what about all those screenwriting classes and workshops you’re supposed to take and all those books on screenwriting you’re supposed to read, on top of the years of writing screenplays? Nah, remember Cody was just flirting with screenwriting. Juno was her first attempt and she cranked it out in six weeks at a Starbucks inside a Target store in the Minneapolis suburb of Crystal. Was it a flawless, script? Perfectly tuned like the screenwriting gurus tell you it has to be? Not according to Cody.

“When we sent that screenplay out it was riddled with typos and formatting errors because I had no idea what I was doing. [laughs] My manager was so stunned that I had turned out something vaguely coherent that he just said, ‘Let’s just throw it out there and see if anybody likes it.’ We didn’t really obsess; I think it was just a case of expectations being so low that there was not a lot of polishing and spit-shinning going on.”
Diablo Cody
Filmmaker magazine Fall 2007

It would be easy to just say Cody got lucky. That would be a mistake. How did she get a manager in the first place? Because her manager-to-be (Mason Novick) came across her blog and saw talent and originality. Perhaps a freshness that’s not easy to find in L.A. when everyone is going to the same screenwriting workshops, reading the same screenwriting books, going to the same screenwriting expos, and hanging out at the same L.A. restaurants or sitting on the same L.A. freeway.

“Thanks in part to the plethora of new books and seminars on screenwriting, a new phenomenon is taking over Hollywood: Major scripts are skillfully, seductively shaped, yet they are soulless. They tend to be shiny but superficial.”
Richard Walter
UCLA Screenwriting Professor

Part of what sets Cody apart is, to use Colin Covert’s phrase, she is “scary-smart.” She had 12 years of Catholic school, was raised in the Chicago suburb of Lemont, and has a Bachelor’s degree in Media Studies from the University of Iowa. While not in the famed Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate program, that was part of what attracted her to Iowa. While she had never written a screenplay before Juno, she thought of herself as a writer and had been writing on a regular basis (poems, short stories, etc.) for 15 years before she turned her hand to screenwriting. (Beatles, Cody, King & 10,000 Hours)

And I love the fact that not three miles from where Cody wrote Juno is a Minneapolis bar called Grumpy’s where screenwriter Nick Schenk wrote much of Gran Torino that in 2009 would become Clint Eastwood’s highest grossing film that he’s ever starred in. (Screenwriting Postcard from Minneapolis.) If Cody and Schenk don’t inspire you nothing will.

“Aspiring screenwriters always ask what’s the best way to break into the Hollywood? I say move to Minnesota.”
Writer Ken Levine (Frasier, MASH, Cheers)
How to sell a screenplay by drinking in a bar

Thanks again to Ms. Cody for the nudge to jump into the blogging world. And thanks to everyone for stopping by to read what I post, because without readers it would be hard to have written the 600+ posts I’ve written so far.

P.S. In yesterday’s post I mentioned that I’d explain why Clark Gable would be attracted to Diablo Cody and here’s my reasoning. A Time magazine article said, “Gable liked his women to be both sacred and profane.” It doesn’t take much reading about Cody to realize she is both scared and profane. While the profane aspects get more press, Cody’s sacred side is more fascinating to me. And it certainly doesn’t hurt her originality.

Read her 2005 post Finding My Religion to see a theological side to Cody that probably can only be matched in Hollywood by the Calvinist-raised Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver). One thing Cody says she’s never flirted with is atheism. Here’s a sample of her pre-Juno writing;

“I’ve had my share of core-rattling Touched By an Angel moments–brief instances in which God seemed to be standing right beside me, tousling my overprocessed hair like a kind scoutmaster–but most of the spiritual epiphanies I’ve had in my life were far earthier, borne of personal reflection, diverging beliefs, and the admission that I can’t ever fully grasp the sacred.”

Related Post: The Juno-Iowa Connection
Juno Vs. Walt
The Oscars Minnesota Style
The Fox, the Farm, & the Fempire
Life Beyond L.A. (The first blog on January 22, 2008)

Update June 23, 2010: Here is what Diablo Cody (@diablocody) wrote on Twitter: “@scottwsmith_com Thank you for writing that kind and lovely piece. I truly appreciate it.” Yeah, that’s a good way to start your day.

Scott W. Smith

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There’s Something About Jerry

“Pearl Harbor is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle.”
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times

“I’ve always said that you should have different critics like in the music press – you don’t have an expert on opera reviewing Kid Rock.”
Jerry Bruckheimer
Producer, Pearl Harbor (domestic gross $198 million)

What is it about Jerry Bruckheimer that has allowed him to tap into films and TV programs that people want to see? Here’s just a partial list of some of the films that he has produced:

Beverly Hills Cop
Top Gun
Flashdance
Crimson Tide
Bad Boys
Black Hawk Down
National Treasure
Pirates of the Caribbean (All of them)

And just this past weekend Bruckheimer’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time opened with $37.8 milion. (And his soon to be released The Sorcerer’s Apprentice will probably make a dollar or two this summer.)

Which means he’s been able to work with some of the biggest names in Hollywood; Tom Cruise, Will Smith, Eddie Murphy, Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Sean Connery, and Johnny Depp. And for good measure he produces for TV as well. (CSI, CSI Miami, Cold Case, The Amazing Race)

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s box office secret is really no secret at all, he simply says, “I just make movies I want to see.” Simple, right?

CSI creator Anthony Zuiker says Bruckeimer is “ferociously commercial.” He makes the kinds of films that a large group of people want to see on any given Friday and Saturday night. Of course, it’s his ferociously commercial spirit that brings more than a few critics to his work. But he is called Mr. Blockbuster not Mr. Small Contemplative Art House Producer.

“If I made films for the critics, or for someone else, I’d probably be living in some small Hollywood studio apartment.”
Jerry Bruckheimer

And here are two more quotes that some would scoff at if Bruckheimer himself would have said them.

“No artist—notably no film or television writer—need apologize for entertaining an assembled mass of people.”
Richard Walter (UCLA screenwriting professor)
Screenwriting, page 12

“I like (audiences) to enjoy the film. It’s an arcade amusement; it’s not penicillin. It’s an arcade amuesment—take people’s minds off their troubles and give’em a little bit of fun. And sell some popcorn.”
David Mamet
Conversations with Screenwriters
Interview with Susan Bullington Katz, page 200

And while Bruckheimer’s films have allowed him to own nice digs (slightly nicer than a studio apartment) in Los Angeles and Ojai, California, as well as a horse ranch in Kentucky, he grew up in humble circumstances with Jewish-German immigrant parents in Detroit, Michigan. At a young age Bruckheimer developed a love for photography and movies.

“I’m a big fan of David Lean. Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, and Doctor Zhivago are movies that were seminal films for me when I was growing up. I admire the filmmaking and the storytelling ability of Lean and [screenwriter] Robert Bolt, so that’s what I look toward for inspiration.”
Jerry Bruckheimer
Barnes & Noble Interview

Many people also overlook that Bruckheimer has also produced the more down-to-earth and inspirational films Glory Road, Remember the Titans, and Dangerous Minds.

He went to college at the University of Arizona where he didn’t major in film but psychology. He returned to Detroit where he began making automotive commercials. He did that well enough to take his talents to New York while still in his early and mid-twenties, but left the lucrative world of commercial work to try to make his mark in Hollywood.

And for the last 30 years that’s what Bruckheimer has done. To the tune of four billion plus box office dollars. (Yes, $4 billion.) An average $110 million per picture on over 40 films. A couple of weeks ago Bruckheimer got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Tom Cruise was on hand to add his sentiments:

“We’re here to celebrate the greatest producer in modern history. He certainly stands very tall in the pantheon of producers in Hollywood. He’s not only a hard-working, dedicated filmmaker but he’s a loyal friend to everyone within our industry and to all the fans around the world.”

And even though Bruckheimer is as connected to Hollywood as you can get, he’s still connected to the world outside of Hollywood.

Bruckheimer’s wife Linda (who is a novelist and producer) has bought and restored several buildings in her hometown of Bloomfield, Kentucky where she and her husband own a house. Last year Jerry & Linda gave the commencement address to Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. Jerry told the class, “God has given everybody a gift, and your task is to find yours, develop it, and dream beyond your ability. Look to your past and preserve what’s most valuable for your future…just as the next generation will look to you for guidance.”

Tomorrow I’ll look at two screenwriters also from Detroit that Bruckheimer has recently worked with.

PS. Interesting Kentucky connection—Johnny Depp (who Bruckheimer has made a film or two with) is from Owensboro, Kentucky. Tom Cruise, who moved a lot as a youth, lived (and was a paperboy) in Louisville, Kentucky for a short time, not far from Bloomfield. (Toss in that George Clooney was born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky and it’s fun to think that at one time in the late sixties or early seventies Depp, Cruise, and Clooney all lived— at the same time— in the state of Kentucky.)

Related post: Screenwriting from Michigan

Scott W. Smith

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