“I try to make my screenplays as readable an experience as I can.” William Goldman
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid screenplay by William Goldman
Both Aaron Sorkin and Tony Gilroy talk about one of the important things they learned personally from William Goldman was trying to give the reader of their scripts the same experience emotionally as they would get from watching the movie.
To do this sometimes you have to cheat on the page. To at times tell the reader what is going on in a character’s mind. (Common in novels, but often looked down on in screenwriting because it’s not something you can shoot.) Or write things that aren’t filmable. Or writing something that is a wink to the reader could be seen as a cheat.
Screenwriter Scott Frank, who was also mentored by William Goldman, said he read the ButchCassidy screenplay as an 11-year-old that last line from the fight scene made him want to be a screenwriter. When Goldman begin the scene which is going to introduce the superposse one of his lines is (in all caps): THE LONGEST TRAVELING SHOT IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.
I imagine if that line was written today in a student screenplay that more than one college professor would give a note that read, “Save us the ALL CAPS and the hyperbole–it’s the sign of an amateur. And don’t try to tell the director and the director of photography how to do their job.”
But Goldman came to screenwriting as a novelist and decided he didn’t want to follow traditional screenwriting. He wanted to have fun on the page. And make it for the reader. But he also wanted to draw attention to important scenes like the jump off the cliff, the fight scene, and the superposse showing up.
Mission accomplished. But Goldman wrote Butch Cassidy in the 1960s, and it’s fair to ask if that style is done today.
Gilroy (The Bourne Supremacy) says that he’s desperate to not lose the reader’s attention. And because of that, he’s willing to reach into the whole bag of tricks to convey his intentions.
Look, as we well know, there’s so many things that work better on the page than they do on the screen, and there’s so many things—so many more things—that work better on the screen than they do on the page. And a tiny little slug in a script of a moment—of a camera moment— that can be so critically important to a film that just disappears on the page. If you know when you’re writing it it’s important you have to lean into it. You have to let the reader, you have to let the actor, you have to let the director, you have to let the cameraman, you have to let everyone know this really means something here. I’m going to reward this here with a disproportionate amount of real estate in my script so that you understand that this is really important.”
Writer/director Tony Gilroy The Moment with Brian Koppelman (11/27/18)
44:22
This is what “the three horses scene” looks like on pages 15-16 of the screenplay of Michael Clayton.
Gilroy wrote, “And later on we’ll understand all the forces rolling inside him, but for the moment, the simplest thing to say is that is a man who needs more than anything to see one pure, natural thing, and by some miracle has found his way to this place.” That would qualify as a cheat. Screenwriting professors are getting out their red markers—or digital equivalent— for that sentence. But that line is there to shine a spotlight on the importance of that moment.
Gilroy doesn’t want that moment to be lost as the reader, the actor, the director, or the DP to miss it. Tony Gilroy passed on what he learned from Goldman to his brother Dan Gilroy who wrote Nightcrawlers. You can see the unconventionality if Dan’s script in the first line where is forgoes writing “EXT. LOS ANGELES – NIGHT” and just jumps right into scene description. Later he tosses in a logo of a video company.
The first lines of the Nightcrawler script
Playing with fonts and font sizes in Nightcrawler
Nightcrawler is one of the screenplays that inspired screenwriters Byran Woods and Scott Beck as they were writing the original version of A Quiet Place script.
“We were looking at the Walter Hill and David Giler draft of Alien, and Dan Gilroy’s draft of Nightcrawler, and were just really in awe of how they were able to use words and spaces on the page to really just convey a mood, a tone, and a pace as well. That was always super important for us to crib from them.”
Scott Beck Go Into the Story interview with Scott Myers
Beck and Woods used a whole range of cheats that many would call gimmicky. They also played with font sizes, added graphics, and included hand-scrawled words.
At though there is almost a 50-year gap between the release of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and A Quiet Place (2018) both screenplays share a common bond in being fun reads. The only thing that I would add is that make sure when you cheat that you do so with a spirit of intentionality. Do so because you want the reader of your screenplay to experience the movie by just reading your words.
“I was so programmed to fail. I had shown no signs of talent as a young man. I was an editor at the school literary magazine at Oberlin College, and I would anonymously submit my short stories. When the other editors – two brilliant girls – would read them, they would say, ‘We can’t possibly publish this shit.’ And I would agree. After that I took a creative-writing course, where I got horrible grades. Do you know what it’s like to want to be a writer and get the worst grades in the class? It’s terrible.” Novelist/screenwriter William Goldman (The Princess Bride, Misery) The Guardian interview with Joe Queenan
April 24, 2009
“When people ask me if I went to film school I tell them, no, I went to films.”
Writer/Director Quentin Tarantino
“Ang Lee and I were in the same class. Also, another person instrumental in my development as a filmmaker was the great cinematographer Ernest Dickerson.” Spike Lee on the benefits going to NYU film school with talented classmates
(As a DP, Dickerson not only shot Spike’s student films but Do the Right Thing,She’s Got to Have It, and Mo’ Better Blues for Spike. He then became a director himself.)
“Is film school worth it?” is a simple question, but a complicated one to answer. But it’s best to ask another question first. What does the “it” in “Is film school worth it” mean? There are many layers there.
If you got into a top tier film school on a full scholarship, then the “it”could be just four years of your life for an undergraduate degree or 2 to 3 years for a graduate degree. In that scenario, I’d say yes it’s worth it. Ditto that if your parents are paying for school.
But if the “it” means going into going into debt for $330,000 (as I wrote about yesterday) then my answer is no. I’m sure there are exceptions, but why stack the odds against you in a field where the odds are already stacked against you? (Compounded interest can even make your student loan grow despite your making monthly payments.)
For everyone between getting a full scholarship and having $300K+ of student loans my answer is—It depends.
Over the years I’ve noticed that there are four major ways that writers, filmmakers, and content creators at the top of the pyramid got their education.
Top Film Schools: USC (George Lucas), UCLA (Francis Ford Coppola), AFI (Darren Aronofsky), NYU (Spike Lee), Columbia University (Kathryn Bigelow), University of Texas, Austin (Robert Rodriguez), Columbia College—Chicago (Jansuz Kaminski), Florida State University (Barry Jenkins)
Elite Private Schools: Harvard University (Damien Chazelle) , Stanford University (Alexander Payne), Wesleyan University (Lin-Manuel Miranda), Oberlin College (Lena Dunham), Northwestern University (Garry Marshall), Drake University (Jim Uhls), Carnegie Mellon University (Steven Bochco), Dartmouth College (Shonda Rhimes), Emerson College (Norman Lear), Syracuse University (Aaron Sorkin)
Miscellaneous Public Schools: Iowa (Diablo Cody), Michigan (Arthur Miller)
Little or No College/Self-education: Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Spielberg, Gordon Parks, Frank Darabont, Casey Neistat, Tyler Perry (net worth $800 million), Clint Eastwood, Sam Shepard, Steven Soderbergh
People come from everywhere. But those above schools have a higher headcount in Hollywood than most places. Some of this has to do with established pipelines to the industry. Many Hollywood executives come from Ivy League schools where Harvard and Dartmouth have deep ties in Hollywood making it easier to get introduced to the business.
It’s also true that the educational standards at most of those places are high— matching smart, talented, and driven people with a solid and proven education. But scholarships and grants aside, some of those colleges and universities are $50,000+ a year so it’s obviously not for everyone.
Of course, some people on that list went to film schools back in the ’60s, ’70s, or ’80s which was a different era. Back then it wasn’t as common for students coming out of school to have insurmountable student loans as it is today.
“The greatest obstacles to making films was getting access to equipment. And so my generation went to film school.”
Spike Lee on going to film school in the late ’70s & early ’80s. American Black Film Festival
In the era before digital technology, it was expensive and complicated to get your hands on film equipment. In the ’60s, ’70s, and early ’80s VCR machines were either non-existent or too expensive for the masses—and there was no internet—so film schools were the best place to get caught up on film history.
The film school question today is a totally different question than it was 20 years ago. The film business is different than it was 20 years ago. I’ve heard it said for all the film school grads to have a job out of school, everyone working in the film industry today would have to quit. I can’t quote the source, but it should cause you to at least pause before you rush into film school.
The average 15-year-old in the United States today has so many resources available—for basically nothing. From blogs, YouTube tutorials, and streaming movies and TV shows to DVD/Blu-Ray discs with director’s commentaries. Toss in an iPhone and iMovie and you’re off to the races.
Let Scott Beck and Bryan Woods be your heroes. They met in middle school in Iowa and had a common love for movies and started creating things. In high school they made features that they showed at local movie theaters for friends and family. They both went to the University of Iowa where they majored in communications.
After graduating in 2007 they kept writing and making low budget films until one of their scripts found its way to producer Michael Bay and last year became the hit film A Quiet Place.Just last night Emily Blunt won the SAG Award for best supporting actress in that movie. Here she is thanking her husband John Krasinski for directing the film.
Now Beck and Woods are working on a script from a Stephen King book. Not everyone gets a Hollywood ending like that. In fact, most don’t. (One top film school professor reportedly said, “I prepare students for unemployment.”) That’s why I don’t think you go $300K in debt for film school. To paraphrase financial radio host Dave Ramsey—if you have $300K in student loans you better be able to operate on people. (You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to be a filmmaker, but you may need to be a brain surgeon to pay off a $300K loan. An indie filmmaker might not do that in his or her lifetime.)
I won’t give you a cut-off dollar wise but anything over $25,000 for film school should give you pause to ask—is there a better way of doing this? Be creative looking for alternative ways to pay for school without having a large debt. Look into scholarships, grants, and diversity programs.
The main pluses for going to film school is you can compress your learning curve by benefiting from knowledgable professors who inspire you. Sometimes the right professor can pass on your work to the right person in the industry. You’ll work alongside talented and passionate classmates. They will push you to be better. (Both Ryan Coogler and Barry Jenkins built their core teams at USC and FSU.) You may have alumni connections through your school that open doors for you years down the road.
And a college degree (in anything) comes in handy outside of Hollywood. It’s kind of the threshold that human resources use at companies to sort out people looking for jobs. It shows that you’re well rounded and have studied a variety of disciplines. One of my professors told me when I was questioning my education, “You don’t go to college to learn how to make films, you go to learn what to make films about.”
That answer by Professor George Capewell is even a better answer today than it was when it was given to me back in the 1980s. College is a great place to do a deep dive into humanities, history, literature, business, psychology, sociology, biology, religion, etc. Black Panther writer/director Ryan Coogler’s undergraduate degree is in finance. (I’m sure that helps him count all that money he’s making.) But it was a creative writing teacher in college that changed his life.
“She said, you should consider being a writer. . . . You should maybe even consider going to Hollywood and writing screenplays. I thought she was crazy. I didn’t even know what a screenplay was.”
Ryan Coogler on novelist Rosemary Graham who teaches at St. Mary’s College 2017 interview
Let me default back to Beck and Woods who in an interview talked about getting the roots of the idea for A Quiet Place while students at the University of Iowa.
Beck: As a filmmaker—as important as it is to study film—it is also important to get enough life experiences. For instance, we took this nonverbal communication course. So much of [A Quiet Place] is about the nonverbal or what’s being said behind the dialogue. That was a really interesting study into human nature and applying that to writing and directing. There were a lot of foreign cinema classes that we took that exposed us to different cinema experiences around the world. Those exposed us to new forms of storytelling.
Woods: We always felt it would be advantageous for us to get a well-rounded education. It never felt like we were making movies outside of class. It was all one thing. Class was informing us as people—how you are as people impacts how you are as writers.
So while I am anti-$300K debt, I am pro-college. Even pro-film school . . . if the conditions are right.
But . . .
You’ll find established filmmaker after established filmmaker—from Spike Lee to Sean Baker— today just encouraging you to make films with whatever digital camera you can find. Even if that’s with the phone in your pocket. No film school needed. Just talent, guts, drive—and an incredible work ethic. But don’t just take my word for it . . .
P.S. I did my undergraduate work in Cinema and have a graduate degree in Digital Journalism. It didn’t make me the next Steven Speilberg—though I do have a signed certificate from him for my work on the Shoah Project—but working in production in one form or other has paid my bills for over 30 years. It’s been a good ride.
This is a great time to be a content creator. Colleges all over the country are offering degrees in film, digital production, multimedia journalism, electronic arts, and the like. And those grads are working on corporate productions, in broadcast and cable TV, in education, with internet companies, and their own start-up production companies. But most of them are not pulling in salaries that could make a dent on $300K.
As I think back over the people that I’ve personally worked with in production over my career and I’d estimate that 85% of them do have college degrees—and studied film or television. So I imagine they’d all say it was worth it. But I don’t think any of them have student loans over $40,000. But not everyone is built for college and if you look at the above list of people who have little or no college you’ll find some incredibly accomplished people.
“I graduated [from film school in] 2016 with $330,000 worth of debt and I’m on the road to paying it back.”
Writer/director Reinaldo Marcus Green (Monsters and Men) WTF with Marc Maron podcast
December 31, 2018
I’ve never heard of a $330,000 student loan for film school, so I’m just going to let this one sentence be the post for today and comment on it tomorrow. But the least I can do is put on the trailer for Green’s 2018 movie Monsters and Men.
“If you was hit by a truck and you was lying out there in that gutter dying, and you had time to sing one song—one song that people would remember before you’re dirt. One song that would let God know how you felt about your time here on Earth. One song that would sum you up. You tellin’ me that’s the song you’d sing?” Sam Phillips to Johnny Cash in Walk the Line (Screenplay by James Mangold & Gil Dennis)
Here’s a snapshot of encouragement about working in indie films today from filmmaker Sean Baker from his Q&A at Rollins College this week:
—It’s a hustle.
—It’s a balance of art and commerce.
—Do not wait. All the tools are there for you. You can pull out a phone from your pocket and shoot a movie, edit it on iMovie, and post it online.
—If you fail you will have learned a lot.
—You can make a bad film and bury it.
—“Put your heart into it.”
That’s a pretty good short list. I don’t recall Baker saying anything about having to go to film school. And while he did go to NYU, that was over 20 years ago before you could shoot HD digital footage with relatively inexpensive cameras and edit on a laptop. I just heard a podcast about someone who recently got their MFA from NYU and said he has $330K in student loans. That’s not a typo—$330,000 in student loans. That’s crazy.
One of my favorite posts from last year was this one from Ted Hope:
“If I ran a film school, I would require the students to make a feature film for just a thousand dollars. They’d learn tricks that they could apply for the rest of their lives, no matter how poorly the movie turned out.” Ted Hope Hope for Film, page 15
Since Ted Hope is busy with his day job at Amazon Studios, I don’t think he’s running a film school anytime soon. But you can still take his advice and make a $1,000 feature. How? Take Sean Baker’s advice and use your phone.
He shot Tangerine with a 5s with the FilMiC Pro app. It played at Sundance and opened doors for the career he’s now enjoying.
Here are some other past posts from this blog that will help you pull this off.
Coppola & Corman: “Of all films I ever directed, the one that survived the longest as a genuine ‘cult classic’ is the one I did the fastest and the cheapest. It only took two days on a leftover soundstage to shoot the principal photography for The Little Shop of Horrors.”—Roger Corman
Don’t Wait for Hollywood:“If you have a good idea, try to make it on your own as cheaply as possible… on your phone.” —Producer Jason Blum (Whiplash, Get Out, Paranormal Activity)
Shooting a Feature Film in a Coffin: “Stealing a page from Hitchcock’s playbook, I decided on writing a story that takes place entirely in one small location. In my case, this was inside an old, wooden coffin.”—Chris Sparling on writing Buried
‘Don’t try and compete with Hollywood’: “People ask, ‘What’s the advice you’d give young filmmakers?’ And I always say, ‘Don’t try and compete with Hollywood. Take your lack of resources and make it work for you. Look at Clerks, El Mariachi, Metropolitan, even McMullen, Slackers.”—Edward Burns
The best thing about making a $1,000 feature is you’ll have saved $329,000. You don’t have to be in debt for the rest of your life. Want to learn from Professor Spike Lee without having to go to NYU? Pony up $90 and watch his MasterClass.
Even Spike Lee says “You do not have to go to film school. I’m going to say it again, you don’t have to go to film school to be a filmmaker”—but you do have to be a student of cinema. Learn your craft and “put your heart into it.”
And if you spend another $90 at MasterClass (no I’m paid to plug MasterClass) you can get the all-access pass and also learn from Martin Scorsese , Ron Howard, Shoda Rhimes, Werner Herzog, David Mamet, Jodie Foster, Ken Burns, Aaron Sorkin and others.
“Location scouting for @thebrooklynnk’s directorial debut. A short called Colours. She writes, stars and directs and oh… she’s 8 years old.” —Tweet from writer/director Sean Baker regarding Brooklyn Prince’s first film
“Some people glow really early, in their twenties and thirties, then in their fifties they are not doing as much. But I feel that growing up and maturing, constantly maturing—aging is the impolite way of saying it-—I like to think there is an expansion going on philosophically.”
—Clint Eastwood Devil’s Guide to Hollywood written by Joe Eszterhas
I hope I don’t offend any 7 and under or 89 and over filmmakers with my title, but I had to land somewhere. And 8 to 88 has a nice ring. Plus I could back it up with filmmakers.
When I went to hear filmmaker Sean Baker speak the other night he mentioned that he was executive producing 8-year-old Brooklynn Prince’s first short film Colours. She may not be the youngest to ever make a film—but she may be the youngest to direct with a Panavision camera.
That news is unusual enough to already get her press coverage in Vanity Fair,W Magazine, IndieWire. No word on the storyline, but the budget already looks like it’s more than Sean Baker’s first feature (Take Out) that was made for $3,000.
On the other end of the spectrum is Clint Eastwood who was 88 when he directed The Mule. He didn’t direct his first film (Play Misty for Me) until he was in his 40s, and he was in his 60s when he won his first Oscar for directing (Unforgiven).
One thing that Prince and Eastwood have in common is neither went to film school. In fact, Prince hasn’t even made it to middle school.
“In all this darkness, is there anybody who can make out the truth?” The Twilight Zone/ episode I Am the Night —Color Me Black (1964)
Writer/director Sean Baker spoke at Rollins College yesterday and asked the question, “Can cinema change the world?” He talked about the filmmakers and their films that have inspired him over the years.
As with his own films (The Florida Project, Tangerine), Baker is drawn to films that are “passports to the underrepresented,” and ones that shine a light on a specific subject or problem, and have potential to have a positive impact on society.
Nicholas Meyer (The American TV movie The Day After Tomorrow, with and a nod to the BBC TV movie Threads—both movies sparked a debate about the fallout of a nuclear holocaust.)
Those films—as well as An Inconvenient Truth, JFK, and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel— give you some insights on why he would be interested in doing a film about the hidden homeless or about an illegal Chinese immigrant.
Starting with an issue or a theme can be a dubious beginning as it can be seen as didactic and stepping into the murky waters of propaganda. Baker acknowledged that he doesn’t have all the answers, but he is committed to asking the hard questions. He’s working toward change knowing that change takes time. Sometimes years or even a generation.
As a side note, Rod Serling began with a theme on The Twilight Zone episodes yet eventually found a universal audience with timeless truths.
“In my case, first I think of a theme and then chose a storyline or a plot to go with it. Once this is chosen, the characters fall into place.” Rod Serling letter to Dave Pitt
Read Serling’s 1968 Moorpark College speech and you’ll see where he stood ideologically. But in the early ’60s he couldn’t overtly write about racism and other social concerns, so he used metaphors. He could address xenophobia by writing about space aliens, as he did on The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.
“[Rod Serling’s] optimism about the human condition led to stories that made one feel good about the race and its chances for emotional triumph. That, well told, will always sell.” Producer Buck Houghton (The Twilight Zone) What a Producer Does
I wrote many positive posts on this blog about The Florida Project, but one thing it wasn’t was a film that gave us hope for an emotional triumph. I think that is why it had a limited audience. Audiences like to see a character change for the better, even if it’s just one tiny step forward. Halley (Bria Vinaite’s character) took (at least) two giant steps backward and devolved (taking her daughter with her) making it difficult for some to even finish watching the film.
Baker’s a bold filmmaker. It takes him three years to make a film so he made the film he wanted to make. And maybe the change—the emotional triumph— that he wanted to see was not one that happened on the screen, but one that happened to those that watched the film. Personally, no film resonated and haunted me more in 2017 than The Florida Project.
Baker said last night that “the true success of The Florida Project” was that Rollins College has promised a full four-year scholarship to Christopher Rivera, the child actor who plays Scooty in the film. Rivera was living in a hotel in Kissimmee, Florida when he was cast to be in the film alongside Brooklynn Prince. (According to the Orlando Sentinel, with room and board at Rollins that offer is “roughly $250,000 at current prices.”)
As Baker pointed out, change can be on a micro level. One life changed because The Florida Project co-writer Chris Bergoch learned via news outlets about the hidden homeless living in hotels in the shadow of Disney World.
P.S. I know one of the conventions of indie filmmakers is unconventionality. Offbeat (even unlikeable) main characters, mini or non-plot stories, and downbeat endings. But if you want to nudge the world a little—to borrow Tom Stoppard’s phrase once again—please revisit On the Waterfront. It’s Hollywood filmmaking at its finest. (Marlon Brando, Elia Kazan, Budd Schulberg, Eva Marie Saint, Leonard Berstein) And it’s based on articles by Malcolm Johnson (see the book On the Waterfront) based on corruption that was common on the New York Harbor.
It’s a film that’s very specific to New York City/Hoboken, New Jersey in the ’40s & ’50s, and yet a timeless story that’s played out in one form or another throughout the world, throughout history. Considered a great American film—by some—and an anti-American film by others. Nothing like a controversy to keep the conversation going. It’s number eight on AFI’s 100 Films…100 Years list, and one of my favorites that I return to again and again.
On the Waterfront won eight Acadamy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay. Here’s the screenplay. The film is available on Blu-ray as part of The Criterion Collection.
Not all writers agree on the role they have in plying their trade. Playwright/screenwriter David Mamet writes in On Film Directing, “People have tried for centuries to use drama to change people’s lives, to influence, to comment, to express themselves. It doesn’t work. It might be nice if it worked for those things, but it doesn’t. The only thing the dramatic form is good for is telling a story.”
On the other hand, when Charles Dickens wanted to address child labor laws and other poor social conditions in London, he didn’t write a pamphlet encouraging reforms—he wrote Oliver Twist, Hard Times, and A Christmas Carol.
They’re closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks Foreman says these jobs are going boys and they ain’t coming back Bruce Springsteen/My Hometown
Musician Bruce Springsteen walks that line of entertaining large crowds, yet at the same time writing and recording songs with a social consciousness. Youngstown is one of my favorite Springsteen songs because it connects me to a grandfather I never met who spent over 30 years working at Youngstown Sheet and Tube steel mill.
I’ll write more about Springsteen and his Broadway special later, but one of the reasons his songs are both gritty and hopeful is he mixes blues with gospel music over and over again in his songs.
“If you look at all my songs – ‘Badlands,’ ‘Promised Land’ – it’s the way I sing ‘Badlands;’ it’s the verse of ‘Promised Land;’ it’s the chorus of ‘Born in the USA.’ The spiritual comes out in the choruses, which I got from gospel music in the church, and then the blues and what the song is — the details of what the song is moving to transcend are almost always contained in the verses.” Bruce Springsteen NPR interview with Terry Gross
“I wanted to explore what it means to be African.” Writer/director Ryan Coogler (Black Panther) Rolling Stone
Yesterday was the 11th anniversary of this blog and I’m committing to blogging for another year —and posting daily. Because I’ve been on the tail end of finishing the book version of this blog it’s made posting in the last two months difficult. More on the book and coming days.
Since Black Panther, The Green Book, and BlacKkKlansman received best picture Academy Award nominations yesterday it seems fitting to mention the woman I dedicated my book to—Annye Refoe.
Monday was Martin Luther King Day and I happened to eat dinner in Sanford, Florida that evening. After dinner, I walked by the Ritz Theatre in downtown Sanford and it reminded me of a day I spent driving around Sanford with Annye last year.
Annye grew up in Sanford where as a child and teenager in the ’50s and ’60s she went to the Ritz Theatre every Saturday and saw films like The Ten Commandments, Pyscho, “and all the Elvis movies.” A routine American experience, except after buying her tickets she walked up the stairs on the side of the building and watched the movies in the balcony where black people were allowed to sit. (Not the stairs in this photo, but stairs on the inside accessed via what is now the stage entrance.)
When The Great White Hopestarring James Earl Jones came out in 1970 Annye was in college and no longer had to watch the movie in the balcony. Segregation was coming to a close. (Keep in mind we’re talking less than 50 years ago.)
James Earl Jones in the pre-Darth Vader days
Annye drove me around for three hours last year and I recorded her audio for a future project on Sanford. She showed me where Willie Mays and Jackie Robinson stayed during Spring Training, and where Zora Neale Hurston once went to a party. We drove by the area where her father was a principal at a black school and talked about her attending Seminole High School in the early days of integration. And we talked about Trayvon Martin who was shot and killed in Sanford.
It was a mesmerizing three-hour cultural conversation that I’ve yet to unpack. Sanford, Florida is many places all rolled into one. It’s a little Old South with brick streets and Victorian homes and a little of the microbrewery scene complete with hipsters. It’s a city in transition.
Its downtown is about a 30-minute drive east of downtown Orlando and sits on beautiful Lake Monore. Across the lake, which is part of the St. Johns River, is where Winslow Homer used to fish and paint in the winter.
The White Rowboat, St. Johns River/ Winslow Homer
Sanford is one of those places that has many faces depending on which angle of the prism you are looking. There are rundown shacks with bars on the windows and not far away will be a gated community with million dollar homes.
Annye has many fond memories of growing up there and how it shaped her to be the person she is and the teacher she was before retiring. She began teaching at Lake Howell High School in 1974 and I walked into her creative writing class just a few years later.
She showed a class full of white students A Raisin in the Sun and opened my eyes to a world of possibilities. And it set me on the path of being a content creator. And when I worked on productions in Cape Town, South Africa, or Compton, Californa, or near Cabrini-Green in Chicago I especially remembered sitting in Annye’s classes and gaining a new perspective on various battles people face around the world. And the power of stories to nudge the world a little. (To borrow Tom Stoppard’s phrase.)
Here’s a short excerpt from my conversation with Annye when I asked here about going to the movies at the Ritz and watching Black Panther.
“The expectation was you knew you weren’t going to see any black people [when you watched movies], and if you were you going to see any black people they were going to be cooking the food, serving the food, shining shoes—that’s just the way it was. I didn’t expect to see myself. . . . I’m not a comic fan, but I knew I had to go see [Black Panther]. And I didn’t go with a lot of expectations because I had not heard that it was a good movie. But when I went I was very, very, very pleasantly surprised. The idea that young black kids can now see themselves not only as thugs, or rappers, or athletes but this man is a king. And he’s in charge. And he’s articulate and smart and respectful of women and all of those things. And young black girls can see themselves as those guards—I mean those women were off the chain! It’s like night and day.”
Annye Refoe, Ph.D.
P.S. Looking forward to hearing filmmaker Sean Baker (The Florida Project) speak at Rollins College tonight.
Statistically, in my own case, I suppose half of the screenplays I’ve written have actually seen production. And I am being dead honest when I tell you this: I have absolutely no more idea as to why some of them happened than why some of them didn’t. Of course it’s more than possible that my work wasn’t much good. But remember, executives are not necessarily in pursuit of quality.”
William Goldman Adventures in the Screen Trade
Screenwriter Scott Frank (Minority Report, Get Shorty), in an interview with Brian Koppelman, said there was a five year period between 2007 and 2012 where “one script after another” that he spent up to a year and a half on that didn’t get made. A process he found “agonizing” and said of those experiences, “It makes me feel that I’ve just wasted a year and a half of my life.” But part of the process that led Frank to get Oscar and Emmy nominations in 2018 for his work on Logan and Godless.
Screenwriting from Iowa 