“The main thing is for him to be a super hero in the best sense of the word, which is John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery tradition of a man who we can look up to and say, ‘Now there’s somebody who really knows his job…’” George Lucas in 1978 Raiders story conference discussing the character that became Indiana Jones
“I have read from cover to cover, books like Leonard Maltin Movie Guide, which contains thousands of plot, character, and movie ideas. I encourage my brain to try to mix these themes together in the hope that my mind will meld a new form. This process is called ‘bi-association.’ the joining together of two forms to create a new one.
Jaws in Outer Space? This is bi-association that could be called Alien? Dinosaurs in modern America? You could call this Jurassic Park. Star Wars is akin to Robin Hood in the future. What about Casablanca on Mars?
The story of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves started in my idea files as ‘Robin Hood—Raider’s Style.’ It was there for some time before the concept of framing the story around a Muslim hero and a Christian Robin Hood working together against an evil force solidified my creative direction.” Writer/Director Pen Densham (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) Riding the Alligator
And since we’re talking about cloning and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) we must make a point of mentioning King Solomon’s Mines. Though that was a 1985 movie, it was based on a very pre-Raiders book by H. Rider Haggard (1856-1925). Haggard is said to be the founder of the “Lost World” literary genre and you can download his books at Project Gutenberg. In fact, King Solomon’s Mine was first made into a movie in 1950 with a script by Helen Deutsch, and perhaps a movie little Stevie (born 1946) or George (born 1944) watched on TV growing up.
In 1975 (around the time Raiders was first being developed) the old 30s & 40s pulp book adventure hero Doc Savage came to life in a TV movie called Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze.
“Remember the movie Soldier of Fortune with Clark Gable? There was a good deal of Rhett Butler in the character. The devil-may-care kind of guy who can handle situations.”
Steven Spielberg
1978 Raiders story conference
If you want a Michael Douglas/Indiana Jones check out Romancing the Stone—1984. Tom Selleck—High Road to China. If you want a female version of Indiana Jones watch Angelina Jolie in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Just to name a few, of course.
And though there are reports that Harrison Ford wants to kill off Indiana Jones, apparently Shane Black is developing a new script on Doc Savage.
“The problem with Our Thing (screenwriting) is that it’s fertile ground for delusion… Most unappreciated writers are unappreciated because they suck.”
Screenwriter Craig Mazin
First let me say thank you to all of the readers who helped this blog in October cross the 10,000 views mark in a single month for the first time ever. The first year I did this blog I barely got 10,000 views the entire year. One of the problems that first year is I wrote 1,000 & 2,000 word essays. Way too long for most blog readers. But as a throw back to 2008 here’s my longest —and most controversial post that I’ve ever written.
And really this post is way too long, so feel free to come back tomorrow when I’ll be back to shorter posts. But right now I’m kind of ticked off.
(11/5/10 Note: Because Mazin himself believed this post was “disguised mostly as a personal attack on me”—which was not my intent—I have removed a couple paragraphs that make reference to where he is from, where he went to school, and any mention of reviews of his produced films. And for the record, I have shot video on the campus of Princeton and think it’s one of the most beautiful in the county, and I have nothing but respect for the place. In fact, one of my favorite professors was a graduate from there back in the day when Einstein could be seen walking around . (Though, overall I think Harvard has produced much better writers.)
The past week has turned into anger week as I pulled several quotes from The Angry Filmmaker (who I happened to met last Monday) and I then dealt with the anger following an auditor’s report of abuses in the Iowa Film Commission who apparently misapproved 25 million dollars in taxpayers’ funds. So why not keep this thing rolling and talk about the angry screenwriters?
Who are the angry screenwriters and what are they angry about? What screenwriter isn’t angry? It could be said that being angry is a prerequisite for being a writer. Something must drive you to write whatever you write and anger has to be one of the top things that motivates most writers. Want a short list of examples?
But today I want to address what’s bothering screenwriters Craig Mazin and John August. It’s mostly screenwriting consultants and those who give screenwriting seminars. The ones who aren’t successful screenwriters and who charge fees for seminars and script consulting.
Mazin started the thing a few days ago when he came back from Austin Film Festival and wrote a post called Screenwriting is Free on his blog The Artful Writer. Keep in mind that these are his unedited words, not mine:
“You go to screenwriting conferences because you want to be a professional. You want to sell a script. You’re a student. You want to learn.
Good for you. Listening to and questioning the people who do the job you want is a smart move.
What is NOT a smart move is listening to the people who DON’T do the job. And who are they? Oh, you know who they are. They’re selling books. They’re selling seminars. They’re ‘script consultants.’ And for a small fee, or a medium fee, or a goddamned flat-out ridiculous fee, they’ll coach you right into the big leagues!
Horseshit. Let me say it loudly and clearly: IF THEY WERE ANY GOOD, THEY WOULD BE DOING WHAT I DO, NOT DOING WHAT THEY DO.”
I actually can take either side of this argument. But what’s the fun in simply agreeing with Mazin? Perhaps Mazin’s heart is in the right place—he wants to save aspiring screenwriters from wasting a boatload of money. Good for him.
But his passion (Anger? Look at all those capital letters) leads him down the wrong path as a sweeping generalization against anyone who teaches screenwriting. John August adds fuel to the fire with just the title of his post “Those who can’t write, teach seminars.”Though August is more generous in his response.
Mazin believes if you are going to buy a book or take a seminar on screenwriting that there should be this criteria;
Don’t spend a dime unless the seller has worked, is working and is gonna BE working. Multiple credits. A hit or two would be nice. Or recent critical acclaim, like a script on the Black List. A recent spec sale, or a spate of new gigs. Awards and nominations never hurt….”
That’s the major flaw in Mazin’s thinking. That just because you can do something means you can teach it. I once took a screenwriting workshop from Alfred Urhy who not only won an Oscar for writing the screenplay Driving Miss Daisy, but his play of the same title earned him a Pulitzer Prize. For his play The Last Night of Ballyhoo he won his first of two Tony Awards. (I believe he is still the only writer to ever win an Oscar, a Tony and the Pulitzer Prize.) Can you get anymore solid writing credentials than that?
Even Mazin whose credits include Scary Movie 3 and Superhero Movie I think would say that Uhry is a well-respected writer. I think Uhry is a brilliant writer. But as a teacher Uhry was weak and even admitted that he didn’t know what to say about writing. Now the workshop was worth it just to hear Uhry’s anecdotes about Hollywood. (In fact, just his story of how he was taken off the project The Bridges of Madison County was worth the fee I paid.)
By the time I took the Uhry workshop at least ten years ago, I had already been through film school, taken extension classes in screenwriting at UCLA and workshops at AFI (including one with Linda Seger, who Mazin takes to task in his post), had taken Robert McKee’s seminar and had read hundreds of screenplays and quite a few books on screenwriting, and had watched thousands of movies, and written three or four unproduced scripts. (Yes, Craig Mazin, I know that that, and even the short films I’ve written and directed, technically only qualifies me as a failed screenwriter.)
Perhaps the best example of a successful screenwriter who wrote a weak book on screenwriting is Joe Eszterhas’ The Devil’s Guide to Hollywood: The Screenwriter as God!* Eszterhas was once the poster child for angry screenwriters. How many screenwriters have punched a star actor? (Or was it a big name producer?) Don’t look for an Oscar or a Pulitzer on Eszterhas’ shelf, but according to Box Office Mojo 14 movies from his scripts have a total domestic earning of almost $400 million.
He’s a successful screenwriter with a long career and I think Mazin would agree. But Eszterhas’ book on screenwriting, along with his book Hollywood Animal, will not help you much to become a better writer. Because his screenwriting book is really about Joe Eszterhas and his experiences in Hollywood. It’s full of interesting quotes by producers, directors, and writers that serves as kind of a disjointed history of the film business. If you like Hollywood anecdotes then Eszterhas’ book is a goldmine. But understanding the screenwriting process? You’ll get better insights from McKee (who Eszterhas hates along with a long list of people in Hollywood).
For a while I was confused why Uhry & Eszterhas couldn’t unpack the mysteries of screenwriting as well as McKee and Seger. Then I came across this passage by Robin U. Russin and William Missouri Downs in their book Screenplay—Writing the Picture:
“It is interesting to note that few Hollywood screenwriting gurus have ever sold a movie (and Aristotle never wrote a play). This is because the ability to structure a story and the ability to analyze the structure of a story are two totally different talents. They come from different parts of the brain…Good writers seldom have an analytical understanding of what they do or how they do it. Instead they have a practical understanding of dramatic techniques.”
That’s not saying that writers can’t be good screenwriting teachers, or that screenwriting teachers can’t be good writer’s—but I think it’s rare to find one person who can do both well. There tends to usually be a dichotomy between the two. William Goldman comes closest with his Oscar-winning screenplays and his book Adventures in the Screen Trade. And though playwright & Oscar winning screenwriter David Mamet doesn’t think writing can be taught, he’s a pretty good teacher. (Ever read Mamet’s famous memo?) And based on his screenplay Big Fish and his blog, I would put John August in that category.
But keep in mind that a good deal of writers are introverts and public speaking is not at the top of their skill set. So even those few writers who can write great movies and can also proficiently write about the screenwriting process doesn’t mean that they could hold a room for a day (or even an hour) speaking about screenwriting. And now that we’ve whittled the number down to maybe a couple dozen people in the world (who are too much in demand as high paid screenwriters to even care about giving a seminar in the first place) there isn’t enough people to fill the demand to give screenwriting advice.
(Now the question of why there is so much of a demand for screenwriting advice is a whole separate can of worms for a post of its own.)
Of all the screenwriting books I have read over the years (way too many that I’d like to admit) most of them are written by writers who don’t have a single feature credit to their name. And those few that do usually have films that were either were poorly reviewed and/or box office failures. It would even be fair to say that almost every single screenwriting book is written by a failed or not very successful screenwriter. And if having a produced feature was the only criteria to teach in film schools then colleges and universities everywhere would have to clean house and who would fill those slots?
For what it’s worth, I doubt Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen would be very good teaching a class on songwriting. And I’m not sure how coherent a screenwriting workshop by Quentin Tarantino or Charlie Kaufman would be. The best way to write like those guys would be to extract some of their DNA and somehow infuse it into yours. If you can’t do that than you’re best off reading a lot of Elmore Leonard.
Sanford Meisner, was a frustrated and failed actor who went on to become one the greatest acting teachers in American history. His students included actors Robert Duvall, Gregory Peck, and Sandra Bullock, directors Syndey Pollack and Sydney Lumet, and writers Arthur Miller and David Mamet. (I’m guessing that at one time those wannabe actors, directors, and writers paid money to learn the Meisner Technique.)
I think that top screenwriters are gifted and talented people who simply tap into the magic in a way that works for them but is not easy to convey to others. Uhry was at least honest when asked by students why he did certain things in his script and he replied, “I don’t know.” I’ve read where the great Horton Foote gave basically the same answer. That’s the mystery of writing.
The best screenwriting teachers & seminar leaders (and I imagine the top screenwriting consultants) are really cheerleaders who help point the way based on their unique mix of education, & life and work experiences. Does charging $5,000. for script coverage seem high? Absolutely, especially when people are making feature films for under $5,000.
Are there scam artists? Sure, as there is in every profession from politics to religion. (You can insert punchline.) But I believe that teaching is an honorable profession and if you do it well you may be honored to some degree. You may gather a following. And sometimes when you gather a following you are well paid. Either accidentally, by good word-of-mouth, or via good marketing some of these screenwriting teachers have in fact become well-paid screenwriting gurus. But like A-list screenwriters, well-paid screenwriting gurus are pretty rare.
Mazin is correct that screenwriting is free. Mazin is correct that the best way to learn is reading screenplays, watching movies, and writing screenplays. (And thanks to computers and the Internet all of those are easier to do today than when Syd Field published Screenplay in 1979 and started the modern day screenwriting teaching cottage industry.) But to think that you can’t learn a kernel of truth and get a little inspiration from someone unless they are a successful screenwriter is just plain arrogant. (Whether any book, teaching DVD, workshop, expo, conference—or even college—is worth the price, is perhaps the big question. Remember the old maxim, “Make every purchase a wise investment.”
The only real criteria for any writer or teacher/consultant/guru should be “Are they any good at what they do?” In Seger’s defense, two -time Oscar-winning director Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind) is on record saying, “I’ve used Linda’s concepts from Making a Good Script Great on all my films starting with Apollo 13.” In McKee’s defense, Oscar-winning Akiva Goldman (A Beautiful Mind) credits McKee with helping him make the transition from a failed novelist to a screenwriter.
Honestly, these days there is way more than enough free info out there for anyone who wants to learn screenwriting. And if August and Mazin—along with Go Into the Story. Jeff Goldsmith’s podcast, Wordplayer— and other free screenwriting blogs were around in the 80s perhaps McKee, Seger, and the like wouldn’t have risen in popularity. But even if there is more than enough free info out there, what there will never be enough of is teachers who take an interest in their students and invest time to inspire, correct, and encourage them to be the best they can be in a given field.
My guess is Mazin’s not going to be impressed with a yahoo in a small city in Iowa who has a blog on screenwriting, a stack of unproduced feature scripts, or a couple dozen awards producing videos, TV programs, and short films. But then again my goal with Screenwriting from Iowa is not to mimic everything being done in Hollywood, but to come at things from a different angle and to encourage writers to write solid original stories in that vast, often overlooked, and despised area known as flyover county. (Or some other unusual place around the world.) And to echo the words of The Angry Filmmaker who said to me this week about a script I just finished, “Don’t wait for LA or NY, do it yourself.”
Now, if you want to read where I agree in part with Mazin check out the post I wrote a couple of years ago called, Screenwriting, Infomercials & Gurus. It’s a post that has a photo I took of Yoda when I visited ILM and a great quote from Tootsie screenwriter Larry Gilbart, “So many gurus and so few good writers. Where are all these lessons going?”
Another related post (and one of my favorites) is Can Screenwriting Be Taught? And finally let me say it’s not about screenwriting blogs, books or gurus but about putting in your 10,000 hours writing.
*Eszterhas’ memoir Hollywood Animal also won’t give you much practical advice on screenwriting because it’s really a book about Joe Eszterhas (it is a memoir after all) but it’s an engaging read if you want to will learn the details about Eszterhas’ affair with Sharon Stone, about his battles with alcoholism, and about how much he hates the business. Perhaps the real takeaway from Eszterhas is if you want to write like Joe Eszerthas you have to live the crazy life the Joe Esterhas has lived.
Update 3/28/11: This may be as close to a Charlie Kaufman seminar you’re going to find:
“I just felt like I didn’t come to Vancouver not to pull out the big guns.”
Shaun White
Watching Shaun White win a gold medal last night at the Olympics in Vancouver brought back memories of Tiger Woods’ first big win at Augusta National back in ’97 when he won by a margin of 12 shots–the most in the tournament’s history. Woods was in uncharted territory. And so it is with White and his “Double McTwist 1260.”
You don’t have to know a lot about snowboarding to know that White is way ahead of the competition. And actually the comparison to Woods at this point in his career is fitting. White began skiing with his family at age four which is around the time Woods began playing golf. Both were mentored by their fathers. And while White’s mother was also an avid skier, it was White’s father who would literally carry White on his back at times because White was so small that he would sink into the snow walking back up to get his runs on the halfpipe. White entered his first amateur snowboard contest at seven and won. He soon had his first sponsor.
White’s dedication and talents stood out early and by the age of 12 he turned pro and soon began winning events and gaining more sponsors. By the time he was 16 he owned three cars and three homes. These days he earns $10 million a year. And after his gold last night those earning are just going to–like him on a snowboard–soar.
It’s easy to look at 23-year-old Shaun White with his casual smile and long red hair and forget that it’s taken him 19-years of work to put him in the position where he is now. It all goes back to the 10,000 rule–which White probably hit with snowboarding before he hit puberty. But along the way he also had a few major set-backs. The first came just after he was born when he had to have two major surgeries to correct a heart defect. About ten years later as a rising star skateboarder he collided on a doubles skateboarding run with Bob Burnquis that knocked him out and left him with broken bones and fractured skull. And a desire to quit. But his mom wouldn’t let him.
Then in 2002 he missed earning a spot on the U.S. Olympic team by three tenths of a point. All of those things set the stage for him to win the gold medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics. His money and fame haven’t seemed to diminish his passion for the sport. But keep in mind that before he was cruising around in a Lamborghini he was cruising in a converted van/motorhome improving his skills far from his San Diego home.
“It was insane because we’d all just camp out in the motorhome. It would be my brother Jesse, myself, my sister Kerri, my dad and my mom all in a van. We’d take trips up to Mammoth and all over the place. It is funny now to fly first-class out to a mountain and stay in a nice hotel. It means so much more because of that.”
Shane White Snowboarding Magazine
I wish White the best. But one thing we can learn from Tiger Woods (and quite a few other atheletes) is an early success does not mean there won’t be some bumps ahead in the road professionally and personally. Since this is a screenwriting blog I came across a fitting quote on that topic by Shane Black:
“I sort of slid off the map a little bit after Long Kiss Goodnight was such a failure back in the nineties, and I don’t know quite how I got back on the map. Because the turnover in these offices, the executives at the studios are now twenty-five, and they saw Lethal Weapon when they were eight—so there’s a sense of being an old-timer before I’m even an old-timer. I had to reinvent my career at age forty. That’s the disadvantage of succeeding early.” Shane Black Tales from the Script
Page 292
P.S. It’s funny to think that when I first started skiing in Colorado in the 80s snowboarding wasn’t allowed on some of the mountains. Times change. I’ve read in some places that snowboarders now make up more than half of the ticket sales. After watching Shaun White last night I wonder if any kids starting out want put on a set of skis.
This weekend I picked up the book Tales from the Script; 50 Hollywood Screenwriters Share Their Stories edited by Peter Hanson and Paul Robert Herman. The book flows from a 105-minute film that is a series of interviews with–I’m guessing 50–screenwriters including Shane Black (Lethal Weapon), Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) and William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). Visit the Tales from the Script website to learn about screenings in L.A. and New York in March or to order the DVD which will begin shipping also in March.
The book is full of more quotes that reinforce what I’ve been blogging about here for the last two years. I’ll pull a few quotes from it this week beginning right here:
“The first screenplay you write is rarely going to be sold and made into a movie, but it might be a good sample to get you hired to write something else. I probably wrote a dozen scripts before I ever got paid to do one.”
Screenwriter Mick Garris (The Stand, Amazing Stories, Master of Horror)
I saw where highly regarded screenwriting teacher Michael Hauge will be teaching a one-day workshop in Minneapolis Saturday (9/26/09) and this offers a good chance for Midwest writers to get a taste of whom Shane Black (Lethal Weapon) said, “When I pick up the phone for help, Michael Hauge is the call I make.” He’s taught screenwriting at UCLA, USC and AFI.
Two of Hauge’s books that I’ve read are Writing Screenplay that Sell and Selling Your Story in 60 Seconds. So in light of him coming to this neck of the woods I thought I’d pull some quotes the next couple of days.
“‘Lack of originality’ is consistently a stated reason for the rejection by producers and studios of screenplays and story concepts. And it is true that while audiences seem to support ‘more of the same’ in TV and theaters, people still want to see something they’ve never seen before when they go to the movie theater.”
Michael Hauge Writing the Screenplays That Sell
page 26
(Something that’s never been a problem from Minneapolis-raised Coen Brothers.)
“The key to a good action scene is reversals.”
Shane Black Lethal Weapon
William C. Martell says that action films have to be filled with action. But it has to be more than car chases and things exploding, right? In his book The Secrets of Action Screenwriting, Martell poses this question and then answers it; “How do you write exciting action passages? Use reversals, suspense, ticking clock, rug pulls, and twists!” So what is a reversal? Martell defers to someone who as made millions writing action screenplays:
“It’s like a good news, bad news joke. The bad news is, you get thrown out of an airplane. The good news is, you’re wearing a parachute. the bad news is, your rip cord breaks. The good news is, you have a back up ‘chute. The bad news is you can’t reach the cord. Back and forth, just like that, until the character reaches the ground. He’s gonna die…no he’s not…Reversal, reversal, reversal.” Shane Black
We’ll look at some of the other ways to write action in Part 6.
Since I just covered descriptive writing for screenwriting in five parts I think it’s important to address the Shane Black factor. When Black came on the scene in the 80s he was the latest hotshot screenwriter to come on the scene.
He quickly had a couple hit movies (Lethal Weapon, Last Boy Scout) and made a ton of money. Along the way he gathered a cult following that continues to this day. One of the things that set Black a part was he was a rule breaker. And the main rule he broke in terms of traditional Hollywood writing is he interjected notes into his scripts. Here’s an example from Lethal Weapon:
EXT. POSH BEVERLY HILLS HOME - TWILIGHT
The kind of house that I’ll buy if this movie is a huge
hit. Chrome. Glass. Carved wood.
When I was a kid Willie Mays was towards the end of one of the greatest careers in baseball history. It was a career than spanned 22 years. There were many skills that set Willie Mays a part from the crowd, but a lasting image I have was his trademark basket catch.
It was unorthodox way of catching the ball that, of course, many little league and sandlot players tried to emulate. Coaches hated this because it was never considered the most effective way to catch a baseball. I remember one coach saying, “When you are as good as Willie Mays, then you can make basket catches.” (Meaning never.)
And that’s probably the best advice to follow in regard to writing quirky notes in your script like Shane Black was famous for. When you’re the hottest young rising talent in Hollywood you can get by doing things a little more unorthodox.
Here’s how screenwriter and teacher Robin U. Russin tells it:
(Shane Black’s Lethal Weapon is) the one script that broke all the rules and got made anyway. Remember that crucial word: It was the one script that broke all the rules and got made anyway. In the four years I worked as a reader and script analyst, I read perhaps a hundred other scripts that attempted to copy Shane’s flamboyant style, but not a single one of them copied his success. You may want to thank a spouse, a teacher, or a friend, but it will only make your script look unprofessional. Send them a thank you care but leave it off the script.
Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve seen a baseball player since Willie Mays retired in 1973 make a basket catch from a routine fly ball.
But perhaps too much is made of Black’s not so subtle technique. If you go back and read his scripts probably 99% of the script is written in the tradition style as I wrote about this week in descriptive writing Parts 1-5. The bottom line is he wrote a script that did become a big hit and at least put him in position to buy a posh Beverly Hills home. (With Chrome. Glass. Carved wood. I hope.)
“When you drink from the well, remember the well-digger.”
Chinese proverb
Last Sunday one of my partners at River Run Productions had 15 seconds to make it into his basement with his wife and dog before an EF 5 rated tornado ripped through his Parkersburg, Iowa home.
In less than a minute his house was gone and both cars totaled. But he, his wife and dog were safe. A total of seven people were killed in the storm and over 200 homes were destroyed and another 400 damaged.
Iowa is no stranger to tornadoes, but this one was the most powerful to hit the state in over 30 years. It’s one more reminder that things can change in a New York minute—or even an Iowa minute.
Friday I went to Parkersburg to shoot footage of the destruction and interviews for an insurance company. I have been through a hurricane in Florida and a major earthquake in California and I have never personally seen the devastation that I saw as the result of that tornado.
From where I took the above photo, every direction I looked basically looked the same. It’s amazing that more people weren’t killed. Human beings tend to have short memories so this is one more thing to help remind us how fragile life is.
I’ve written a lot about writing on this blog but not much about keeping life in perspective with a creative career. The fact is most of us have difficulty balancing our lives.
I’ve collected some of my favorite quotes over the years that are a little random, but I hope there’s something in here that you can hang your hat on—or at least cause you to smile or reflect on your life and dreams. But mainly I want you to understand that whatever creative dreams you have there’s more to life than chasing that rainbow.
“My biggest disappointment so far is that having a career has not made me happy.” Shane Black
Was paid $1.7m for The Last Boy Scout
“It’s an accepted fact that all writers are crazy, even the normal ones are weird. William Goldman Adventures in the Screen Trade
“I don’t dress until 5 p.m. I have a bathrobe that can stand…Yes, I am divorced. One writes because one literally couldn’t get another job or has no choice.”
Akiva Goldsman A Beautiful Mind
“I got into screenwriting for the best of all reasons: I got into it for self-therapy.” Paul Schrader Taxi Driver
“For the first couple of years that I wrote screenplays, I was so nervous about what I was doing that I threw up before I began writing each morning. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s much better than reading what you’ve written at the end of the day and throwing up.”
Joe Eszterhas
“I’m not very good at writing. If I succeed, it’s by fluke.”
Shane Black
Lethal Weapon
“If you get rejected, you have to persist. Don’t give up. It was the best advice I ever got.”
Anna Hamilton Phelan Mask
“The myth about me is that I sold my first screenplay and it’s true. But I had also worked very hard as a fiction writer for ten years and that’s how I learned the craft of telling stories.”
Akiva Goldman A Beautiful Mind (He also has a masters
in fiction from NYU)
“I spent 18 years doing stand up comedy. Ten years learning, four years refining, and four years of wild success.” (It’s worth noting that Martin was on top when he walked away from stand up comedy and never performed as a comedian again.)
Steve Martin Born Standing Up
“Starting in 2002, I knew for a fact that I had to get out of this business. It was too hard. It wasn’t that I wasn’t good enough, it was that it was too hard. What kept me in it was laziness and fear. It would be nice to say it was passion and I’m a struggling artist who didn’t give up on his craft. All of that sounds good, but the truth is it was laziness and fear.”
Alan Loeb Things We Lost in the Fire
“Like the career of any athlete, an artist’s life will have its injuries. These go with the game. The trick is to survive them, to learn how to let yourself heal.” Julia Cameron The Artist’s Way Dee: ”Jane, do you ever feel like you’re just this far from being completely hysterical 24 hours a day?” Jane: “Half the people I know feel that way. The lucky ones feel that way. The rest of the people are hysterical 24 hours a day.”
from Lawrence Kasden’s Grand Canyon
“We’re constantly buying crap we don’t need and devoting ourselves to endeavors which, perhaps on reflection, with a little bit of distance, would reveal themselves to be contrary to our own best interest.” David Mamet
“Everything in this town (L.A.) plays into the easy buttons that get pushed and take people off their path; greed, power, glamour, sex, fame.” Ed Solomon Men in Black
“Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who read your work, and enriching your own life, as well.”
Stephen King
So life in general is hard, and being a writer or in the creative arts is a double helping of difficulty.
Several years ago Stephen King was hit by a van when he was on a walk. One leg was broken in nine places and his knee was reduced to “so many marbles in a sock,” his spine was chipped in eight places, four ribs were broken, and a laceration to his scalp required 30 stitches. It was as if his characters Annie Wilkes (Misery) and Cujo had ganged up on him.
But he had learned a thing or two about adversity after an earlier bout with drugs and alcohol that he eventually won. One of thing things he learned was to not to get a massive desk and put it in the center of the room like he did early in his career. That is, writing shouldn’t be the most important thing in your life.
“Put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down to write, remind yourself why it isn’t in the middle of the room.Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.”
Stephen King
Two years ago I produced a DVD for a ministry in Minneapolis based on the book Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper. The concept was to shoot a Koyaanisqatsi-style video that that showed the arc of life from birth to death. I shot footage from New York City to Denver. I shot footage of a one day old baby in a hospital, people walking into an office building in Cleveland, snow failing in a cemetery and the like. One of the shots for that video was in Parkersburg, Iowa.
It was a traditional Friday night high school football game at Aplington-Parkersburg High School. (What makes this school unique is though the town only has a population of 2,000 it currently has 4 active graduates playing in the NFL.) That high school building is a total loss because of the tornado. Here’s a photo of the scoreboard sign that was blown down during the storm.
There will always be the storms of life. And as I’ve written before, movies can help us endure those storms and even inspire us. (“Throughout most of the Depression, Americans went assiduously, devotedly, almost compulsively, to the movies.”-Carlos Stevens) So work on your craft because we need great stories that give us a sense of direction, but don’t waste your life just writing screenplays.
