The Director’s Chair: Stephen Fingleton’s Writing Process | Kinolime Podcast Episode 20
JS
Hosted byJohn Schramm
SF
With guestStephen Fingleton
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Show Notes
With our first round of voting for our top 26 short films underway, Kinolime Head of Development, John Schramm, sits down with Stephen Fingleton, Director of The Waif (the winning script of our inaugural feature film competition) and The Survivalist (2015), to learn about his writing process, tips & tricks, and the importance of practice. Hear about rumored rituals from directors like Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch, and others!
Initial Concept Development:
The first step is selecting an idea that can connect with an audience, often validated by pitching the concept to others to see how they respond.
Identifying a "conflict engine" is essential for generating the scenes and structural beats of a story.
Structuring and Planning:
Many writers use physical tools, such as index cards, to map out scenes and identify connections between them.
Generating story beats can be achieved by filling in the gaps between known plot points, such as the beginning, middle, and end.
Creating a treatment—essentially a visual "blueprint"—is a common practice, though some writers prefer to explore the story directly through a draft.
Writing Environment and Tools:
Writers often employ specific techniques to manage fatigue, such as Pomodoro timers, working in public spaces, or changing environments to refresh their perspective.
The "Long-Form" Struggle:
The writing process is a skill honed over time, and writers are encouraged to "fail quicker" by completing projects rather than spending excessive time on a single draft.
Resistance, or "the eastern winds," often manifests when a writer is close to finishing, leading to self-sabotage or the desire to quit.
Feedback and Growth:
When receiving feedback, it is important to look for common denominators across multiple sources rather than reacting to a single person's opinion.
True artistic growth comes from cultivating self-critique and continuing to work despite the inherent challenges and rejections of the industry.
Key Takeaways:
- central theme is the importance of "distraction-free writing," which may involve using minimalist software, dedicated writing hardware, or physical locks like "kitchen safes" for phones.
Full Transcript
[00:00]
It's all about distraction free writing.
[00:01]
I think that's what we're getting out here.
[00:03]
Everybody is like, I mean, if you can write
[00:05]
with distraction, God bless you.
[00:07]
I can't do it.
[00:08]
Stephen obviously wants to eliminate distractions.
[00:10]
So you gotta find what works though.
[00:12]
You gotta like try things out.
[00:14]
I know Tarantino buys a notebook.
[00:16]
You know, when he's gonna write a movie,
[00:18]
he goes to the store, picks out one notebook,
[00:19]
bunch of pens, and he writes his entire screenplay
[00:22]
in a notebook and just throws it up in a notebook.
[00:25]
So you gotta find your process.
[00:26]
I think there is no right way.
[00:28]
Just you gotta find what works for you.
[00:29]
Some people write on a computer with seven different apps
[00:32]
up and phone's ringing and that's fine.
[00:34]
But go find your process, explore your process.
[00:36]
[♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪
[00:45]
Welcome to the KinoLine Podcast slash video show.
[00:49]
We have Stephen Fingleton here.
[00:52]
The future director of the Waves.
[00:54]
Welcome again, Stephen.
[00:55]
Thanks for being in studio.
[00:56]
Pretty cool, I have to be here.
[00:57]
So why we're doing another talk with Stephen
[01:00]
is Stephen's here in New York,
[01:02]
because we're doing some development work
[01:03]
on the Waves screenplay so we can get it shot hopefully
[01:07]
in the spring and to you soon thereafter.
[01:10]
And it got us thinking, I was talking about writing process.
[01:13]
So that's something I love to think about.
[01:15]
And actually, we were bonding over a book
[01:17]
that you pulled out of your backpack.
[01:19]
That was one of the first books I ever bought on screenwriting.
[01:21]
It's like 101, what's the title?
[01:25]
Sorry.
[01:25]
101 screenwriting tips.
[01:27]
Have it some highly successful screenwriters.
[01:29]
If I will get the title, we'll post it in the comments
[01:32]
below so you guys can have it at home.
[01:33]
It's one of the first books I ever got.
[01:34]
And it was just someone interviewing writers
[01:36]
and talking about asking them 101 questions
[01:39]
about their writing process.
[01:40]
Because we often get hung up on structure in this and that.
[01:43]
But there's also like a process to writing.
[01:45]
There's a way to like, there was some metaphor.
[01:47]
Someone talked about turning on a faucet every day.
[01:49]
And eventually, like the water will come out and flow.
[01:52]
And then someone told me who's a quite a big TV writer,
[01:55]
producer, she said, just nail your ass to the chair
[01:57]
and write every day.
[01:57]
But there's always some process that gets us going.
[02:00]
So I'd love to dig into your brain and hear
[02:02]
about your process when you approach feature, film, screen
[02:06]
plays.
[02:06]
Let's talk about an original concept, for example.
[02:09]
What's your process like?
[02:10]
And that's a very broad question.
[02:12]
So the first thing in terms of process
[02:14]
is what you don't do.
[02:16]
In terms of what you do, so you have to choose what you're
[02:18]
actually going to write.
[02:20]
Because a mistake you make when you're younger
[02:22]
is you work on something that doesn't have a place in the world
[02:27]
or can't connect with an audience.
[02:28]
So that's part, the first step of the process
[02:33]
is having the idea and maybe talking to people
[02:36]
about the idea and seeing how they respond,
[02:38]
which continues to this day.
[02:40]
I pitched the wave to someone like a few days ago.
[02:43]
I could see them really getting interest in the concept,
[02:46]
which was cool.
[02:47]
So then when you've got your concept,
[02:49]
you have to kind of work out what is the conflict engine?
[02:52]
Or this is what I do anyway.
[02:54]
I tend to work with in genre.
[02:56]
But even if it was a drama, there would be a conflict engine,
[02:59]
which is what is the thing that is producing the scenes?
[03:03]
So if it's a chase film, it's based on somebody wishing
[03:08]
to create proximity, somebody wishing to create distance.
[03:12]
And that produces the conflict in all the scenes.
[03:15]
So I want to pull you there, because I want
[03:17]
to go on the first two points.
[03:18]
These are excellent, excellent points.
[03:19]
Point number one is to think about the concept,
[03:22]
get it out, talk to people, pitch it,
[03:24]
because naturally we are storytellers.
[03:27]
We've been around story a whole lot, especially with YouTube
[03:30]
and all the movies we watched, et cetera.
[03:32]
So pitch it to your friends, pitch it to your neighbor,
[03:35]
pitch it to the person at the coffee shop.
[03:37]
Eventually you'll get into a rhythm of seeing
[03:39]
what's six and what doesn't.
[03:40]
We had Fred LeBot on here a few weeks ago,
[03:43]
and he wrote while you were sleeping,
[03:45]
the Sandra Bullock-Romcom.
[03:46]
And he says when he's thinking of a film,
[03:49]
when he's going to write, he takes months,
[03:51]
a whole month and a half, actually just walking around
[03:53]
and thinking in his head and talking to people
[03:55]
about the concept.
[03:56]
So I love that.
[03:57]
And point number two is finding your conflict engine,
[03:59]
your conflict points, and seeing where you can build
[04:02]
from that, because that is the basis of storytelling,
[04:04]
his conflict.
[04:05]
So I love those first two.
[04:05]
Sorry, I just want to jump in there.
[04:07]
Yeah, and the great part of it talking to people about ideas
[04:10]
is they change the idea.
[04:11]
And you find out that people latch onto some things,
[04:16]
and they're not interested in the others.
[04:17]
Or you find when you're telling it, actually,
[04:20]
this is the best kind of form of telling the story.
[04:24]
Now, there are some things that you're not able to describe.
[04:26]
You just know it will work.
[04:27]
I've got a creature feature film that I can't pitch,
[04:32]
but I know totally it works.
[04:34]
There's a monster and there's people,
[04:36]
and it's the environment's interesting.
[04:39]
So then you come to, well, creating the story.
[04:45]
I said the conflict engine helps inform that I like
[04:48]
to have it in place, because I know we'll have a movie then.
[04:50]
But sometimes I don't.
[04:51]
Do you run it on index cards?
[04:52]
Do you?
[04:53]
Yes, I use five by four index cards.
[05:00]
Not six by five, five by four.
[05:02]
I'm just messing with you.
[05:03]
Well, you can put on your jacket and stuff like this.
[05:07]
I typically actually don't mind them getting mixed up,
[05:13]
because then when you're trying to rearrange them,
[05:15]
you find these connections that are quite interesting
[05:17]
between saints.
[05:18]
So your index cards, I mean,
[05:21]
Lynch, David Lynch use them as well.
[05:23]
And his stuff is very structurally unusual.
[05:26]
What was his thing?
[05:27]
A 60 index cards?
[05:28]
He has a number.
[05:29]
You can write 40.
[05:30]
There's some 40 to 45 or something.
[05:32]
If you can write, so David Lynch would say,
[05:35]
when he was beating out a story, he would put 45, 60,
[05:38]
someone look it up, and we put all your scenes together.
[05:42]
And then eventually, if you have enough of those cards,
[05:44]
he will have a movie.
[05:46]
Yeah, Robert Rodriguez talked about this recently
[05:50]
on his kind of podcast, I think he gave his kids a gift
[05:54]
of these index cards in a box, and he says,
[05:56]
you know, this can make you a million dollars.
[05:57]
Like I did for a minute.
[05:58]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[05:59]
So I once talked to the screenwriter, Todd Davies,
[06:05]
who is the partner of Alex Cox, the filmmaker.
[06:09]
And I think she used to teach at UCLA the screenwriter
[06:13]
or something.
[06:14]
She was very interesting.
[06:16]
And she had a very simple way for generating
[06:18]
the gaps between scenes.
[06:19]
So let's say you know, you've got three scenes.
[06:22]
Or let's say you know, you're beginning and you're ending.
[06:24]
Okay.
[06:25]
Do you know what happens in the middle?
[06:28]
Okay, great.
[06:29]
What happens between the first scene in the middle?
[06:32]
Okay.
[06:33]
What happens between the first scene and then that scene?
[06:37]
And just by filling in the gaps between the things
[06:39]
that have to happen, sure.
[06:41]
You're able to generate the necessary beats
[06:43]
for your story.
[06:45]
And it's also great we find in the most efficient way
[06:49]
for your story.
[06:50]
So once I've got the index cards,
[06:53]
I will typically work to a treatment or a pitch,
[06:56]
depending on where it's oriented.
[06:59]
How long does that take for you typically?
[07:01]
You know, weeks.
[07:03]
In terms of the index card, it depends on the project.
[07:06]
If it's an original or a rewrite.
[07:08]
An original is probably my favorite part of the process
[07:12]
because it's so free.
[07:14]
But the treatment is really important
[07:16]
because the way I write the treatment is like
[07:18]
the way I would write a screenplay.
[07:19]
So I'm visualizing everything.
[07:20]
I want to make sure it kind of makes sense.
[07:23]
But it can take, for me, actually typically the stuff
[07:27]
that takes the most amount of time is the long form.
[07:29]
Yeah.
[07:31]
For example, I spent a couple years ago,
[07:34]
I spent seven months on a single script,
[07:37]
which was a re-write on the long form.
[07:39]
Oh, wow.
[07:40]
Which was a very, an interesting misuse of time
[07:44]
when it's made, of course, I'll feel it's different,
[07:46]
feel differently.
[07:47]
Of course.
[07:48]
But you can get trapped in the long form
[07:49]
whereas with the shorter documents they are what they are.
[07:52]
When I've got my kind of long treatment,
[07:55]
and sometimes I'll do a very long one,
[07:57]
I'll do what Cameron would call a script.
[08:00]
I always love the idea of trying to create minimal viable products.
[08:03]
So you're creating the earliest form of the story
[08:08]
to give to someone so that it can be,
[08:10]
you can walk away from and cut your losses.
[08:12]
Yeah.
[08:12]
It's not, if it's not right, or you avoid going down a path,
[08:15]
it's not very useful.
[08:18]
And then I get into the long hunt.
[08:20]
And I try to keep to a page kind or,
[08:22]
or I try to keep to a number of hours a day.
[08:25]
And I go through the treatment with highlighter
[08:28]
and I strike off what I've written.
[08:31]
How close do you say to the treatment?
[08:32]
Because that's an interesting debate among writers
[08:35]
is to treatment or not to treatment, right?
[08:36]
You hear people, they say,
[08:38]
I'm very strict with the treatment
[08:40]
and that's when I have my treatment,
[08:41]
I was just really putting it,
[08:43]
holding it into the screenplay form.
[08:44]
And some say I just have a loose treatment
[08:46]
just to know where I'm going.
[08:47]
Or some just like, I don't even need a treatment.
[08:48]
I'm just going to start writing.
[08:49]
I know the writer, director of Barbie.
[08:54]
All right, it's given me.
[08:55]
No, I'm bombic.
[08:56]
That's cool, cool.
[08:57]
Right, great, great.
[08:58]
Great to go, Rick.
[08:59]
She doesn't, I don't think she writes a treatment.
[09:01]
I think she just writes a very long first draft
[09:03]
and that's how she finds her story through the process.
[09:05]
So it's interesting to see what people do.
[09:07]
I mean, probably the best way to think about it
[09:08]
is which is faster for you.
[09:10]
Is writing a draft you'll reject
[09:13]
or an exploratory draft for finding material
[09:16]
is not the way you can work.
[09:19]
But I'm a professional by the stage.
[09:22]
And when I'm writing material,
[09:24]
it's not selling or is not meeting a delivery.
[09:28]
Then my creative freedoms are getting reduced.
[09:31]
Sure.
[09:31]
Because I need to get hit for what I'm doing.
[09:33]
So I want to have that most efficient way
[09:35]
of kind of working.
[09:37]
In the same way that I decided to focus on genre work
[09:41]
because I felt it was much easier to get it towards an audience
[09:44]
and something I personally liked.
[09:47]
And I've kind of put on the back burner
[09:48]
the kind of more experimental work
[09:49]
that I really want to be doing.
[09:51]
But I'm not in the position to do it.
[09:52]
But you know what to do, the minute.
[09:53]
Which is the way I kind of look at it.
[09:56]
It's always the tug of a paid writers.
[09:59]
Like, you know, we have this where we're doing the stuff
[10:01]
that paid the bills and get us going.
[10:03]
But then there's also the other stuff
[10:04]
that we would love to do that we don't have time to.
[10:07]
Which is a shame.
[10:09]
I know James Cameron talked about the early days
[10:12]
of his writing where there is no expectations free.
[10:15]
I can write what I want.
[10:16]
And there's endless, you know,
[10:18]
sea of opportunity.
[10:19]
And then once you're in it and you're sucked into the machine,
[10:22]
which, you know, it's hard to break free from that.
[10:25]
So from my perspective, the challenges
[10:27]
were best to be innovative.
[10:28]
So Zach Craig or something that struck me
[10:31]
about the way he made weapons was he was very concerned
[10:35]
with making it polished kind of Hollywood horror.
[10:38]
Whereas I think his sketchwork is more interesting
[10:42]
in some ways in terms of what he's going.
[10:43]
But I feel, but I'm in a similar kind of position,
[10:45]
which is because I haven't worked at higher levels of budgets.
[10:48]
As a director, I want to, I want to demonstrate that.
[10:51]
And then I can, I can work on a various,
[10:54]
but also you can take the paychecks from bigger things
[10:59]
and you can actually make complete films these days.
[11:01]
Which is, which is, they ran out.
[11:03]
And I would rather rather write an experimental screenplay
[11:05]
so I want to make experimental films for myself
[11:08]
in that regard.
[11:09]
Not, but for me, accomplishing a genre piece
[11:13]
that an audience really likes, it's the craft.
[11:16]
The problem of experimental work is there is no yardstick
[11:21]
or marker for what you're achieving
[11:23]
in terms of what you're doing.
[11:24]
So, so the long form is quite interesting.
[11:28]
I've got a, a beddest days, I've got a set process.
[11:30]
I haven't written by hand in a while.
[11:32]
I used to write quite a bit by hand,
[11:34]
I write dialogue, time by hand.
[11:36]
But I picked up something from John August,
[11:38]
which is you can get kind of similar field writing by hand
[11:41]
by writing in no path or a very basic,
[11:44]
screenwriting or very basic text software.
[11:47]
So you're not even formatting it.
[11:48]
So I typically begin the long hand,
[11:51]
not even putting in the character names.
[11:53]
Just just the dialogue back in the fourth,
[11:56]
because the dialogue's typically the kernel of the scene.
[11:58]
I use a program called Word Grindr,
[12:00]
which is free, I think it's multi-platform,
[12:02]
I'm not sure if it's on Mac,
[12:04]
but I think it's on Linux and Windows.
[12:07]
And it doesn't even see even text files at certain.
[12:10]
It's one thing, but it's very, very basic.
[12:12]
I don't think you can even use,
[12:15]
there's limited mouse compatibility.
[12:17]
I work in that.
[12:19]
Then I export what I call RoofPages.
[12:23]
I reformat it so it's in font.
[12:26]
Now is that to eliminate distraction?
[12:28]
Or is it, okay.
[12:29]
So.
[12:30]
Yeah, it's concentration,
[12:31]
because if you look at the UI of a feed-in,
[12:33]
which is the best screenwriting software,
[12:35]
of course it's difficult.
[12:37]
You always have to move over to FinalDraft
[12:39]
at some point for scheduling things like this.
[12:41]
And it's FinalDraft,
[12:44]
well, I don't want to run a sponsorship,
[12:46]
but I want to do it.
[12:47]
But basically, no, feed-in, feed-in to where it's at.
[12:50]
But the reason is I want, I just want the text out.
[12:53]
I just want a wall of text.
[12:54]
In fact, when the AI's a bit smarter,
[12:57]
I will just create a laptop
[12:59]
that boots straight in to WordGrounder.
[13:02]
Something like this.
[13:03]
It's known as a name.
[13:04]
I just love the name WordGrounder.
[13:05]
It does what it says in the team.
[13:06]
It seems like a novelist dating app.
[13:08]
There's never a good one called Q, which is quite good.
[13:10]
And if you've got an iPhone, by the way,
[13:12]
there's an excellent piece of software called Pieces.
[13:15]
It's a very minimalist, very elegant way of working.
[13:19]
I was using that this morning on the subway.
[13:21]
And we were bonding over the keyboard that we both have.
[13:24]
I forget the name is slipping me.
[13:26]
The old school word processor.
[13:28]
It was an educational work processor,
[13:29]
which is really good.
[13:30]
And I import, because there's literally just one little screen.
[13:34]
And you can't see, there's no format, but I just blah, blah,
[13:37]
and then I upload it into the computer.
[13:38]
And then it's all about distraction-free writing.
[13:41]
I think that's what we're getting out here.
[13:43]
Everybody is like, I mean, if you can write
[13:45]
with distraction, God bless you.
[13:47]
I can't do it.
[13:48]
Stephen obviously wants to eliminate distraction.
[13:50]
So you've got to find what works, though.
[13:52]
You've got to try things out.
[13:53]
I know Tarantino buys a notebook.
[13:56]
When he's going to write a movie,
[13:57]
he goes to the store, picks out one notebook,
[13:59]
bunch of pens, and he writes his entire screenplay
[14:01]
in a notebook and just throws it up in a notebook.
[14:04]
So you've got to find your process.
[14:06]
I think there is no right way.
[14:07]
Just you've got to find what works for you.
[14:09]
Some people write on a computer with seven different apps up
[14:12]
and phone's ringing, that's fine.
[14:13]
And go find your process, explore your process.
[14:16]
Yes, and if you're not finding out what works
[14:18]
and does work, you're not writing.
[14:20]
I met a young screenwriter a couple of nights ago
[14:23]
who told me they'd been working on a screenplay for 10 years.
[14:26]
And my hope is that this is one of the great scripts
[14:30]
because it needs to be, if you're spending that amount of time,
[14:32]
and my argument was you need to be failing quicker.
[14:35]
You need to be writing quicker.
[14:36]
And if you're not doing the full process,
[14:38]
you're gripped by what Stephen Pressfield will call
[14:43]
the Eastern Winds.
[14:44]
OK, the Eastern Winds are.
[14:47]
He talks about the scene in the Odysseus
[14:48]
where the ship is almost within sight of,
[14:52]
or so within sight of Ethica, they
[14:54]
can see the fires burning on the shore
[14:57]
from the sacrifices to the gods.
[14:58]
Sure.
[14:59]
So Odysseus is like, yes, we've made it.
[15:01]
I'm going to take a nap.
[15:02]
So he rests.
[15:03]
And while he's sleeping, the crew on rap,
[15:09]
one of the gifts he'd been given along the way,
[15:12]
which were the so-called Eastern Winds,
[15:15]
and it blows the ship all the way across the world again
[15:18]
and they have to begin over.
[15:20]
And Pressfield uses this as a matter for never completing
[15:23]
something, or when you're writing things.
[15:25]
Yes, yes, yes.
[15:26]
Thank you for wanting the time.
[15:27]
That resistance will find a way of sabotaging.
[15:30]
Start blowing the most dangerous elements
[15:32]
when you're close to finishing.
[15:34]
Then voice gets in there, oh, you're good.
[15:35]
You're done.
[15:36]
Just you chill.
[15:37]
Under the terror of showing something.
[15:39]
Big time.
[15:40]
That was one of my first early fears of writing
[15:42]
is you're exposed.
[15:44]
You show your originality, your vulnerability to someone,
[15:47]
and they can be like, this is garbage.
[15:49]
And then what do you do as a writer?
[15:50]
How do you recover from that?
[15:51]
Well, first of all, you shouldn't listen to one person.
[15:54]
I mean, I had a script recently, which
[15:58]
had two years of rejections from actors.
[16:02]
That I find so many that was interested in it.
[16:05]
I really got it.
[16:06]
A detail.
[16:07]
It wasn't the script.
[16:08]
It wasn't the script.
[16:10]
And so ideally, what you want to cultivate
[16:15]
is your own self critique.
[16:18]
Because one of the most devastating things
[16:19]
when you're writing early is when you get feedback.
[16:23]
And a classic example is somebody said,
[16:25]
I just didn't understand what just happened.
[16:27]
And in the screenwriter, you said, hang on.
[16:29]
There's a two-page model explaining
[16:32]
after a thing.
[16:33]
And I repeat in this.
[16:34]
And the whole point is, yeah, great.
[16:36]
You feel to succeed.
[16:38]
Sure.
[16:38]
And even, by the way, if they didn't read it carefully,
[16:42]
if you get enough reads in the problem,
[16:43]
that's keep coming up.
[16:44]
Yeah.
[16:45]
The way you're explaining it is interesting.
[16:47]
The URL is always responsible.
[16:48]
That's great.
[16:49]
I want to pause on that for a second.
[16:50]
Because when you get notes from someone,
[16:53]
let's say your neighbor, that's just one set of notes.
[16:56]
Now, if you keep hearing the same note over and over again
[16:59]
from 10 people, that's when I, that's
[17:01]
my spidey sense kicks off.
[17:02]
OK, obviously, something's happening
[17:04]
that they're not getting, or I'm not conveying properly.
[17:07]
So that's something to zero in on.
[17:08]
But if you get a note from one person,
[17:10]
it doesn't mean it to throw the baby out of the bathwater.
[17:12]
Just get as many notes as you can
[17:14]
and see if there's a consistent common denominator.
[17:17]
And maybe there's an issue there.
[17:19]
Something I want to sidetrack to you real quick
[17:21]
is talking about building your craft.
[17:24]
And I like to say the 10,000 hours of work.
[17:26]
I know, speaking with Oliver Stone back in the day,
[17:30]
and his right, he, when he was driving a taxi, which some say,
[17:34]
taxi driver was loosely based on him.
[17:36]
It's not.
[17:36]
But he was writing a ton at that time,
[17:40]
and just honing his craft.
[17:42]
I think he had like seven or eight scripts that he wrote,
[17:44]
or maybe less.
[17:45]
But the point is, I think something I learned
[17:48]
is the writer of Juno, it's a Diablo Cody,
[17:54]
wrote it for a screenplay, sold it on an Oscar, boom.
[17:57]
That's very rare.
[17:58]
You have to put in the time.
[17:59]
You got to write and write and write and hone your craft.
[18:03]
There was a cost, I think, for Diablo.
[18:05]
Sure.
[18:05]
Oh, yeah.
[18:06]
She became a very well-paid screenwriter.
[18:09]
Like that.
[18:09]
Like that.
[18:11]
And I haven't read it.
[18:13]
But it's a judgment I heard from development executives,
[18:16]
which is they were paying her and a lot of money.
[18:19]
Oh, yeah.
[18:19]
And they were dissatisfied with the results.
[18:21]
Sure.
[18:22]
I would argue that's not necessarily because of her lack
[18:24]
of the ability.
[18:24]
She's very, very talented.
[18:25]
Yeah, Juno's great screenplay.
[18:26]
Yeah.
[18:27]
But there's a difference between that
[18:28]
and some 15-year veteran who has been hired
[18:33]
on these specific types of gigs we have to deliver.
[18:35]
So, for example, that wouldn't be my skill.
[18:40]
So I wouldn't be able to write immediately on a studio
[18:43]
film doing a rewrite, and more specialized in the indie sector
[18:46]
when I kind of do rewriting, which is a very different thing.
[18:49]
You're actually all you're really doing most of the time
[18:52]
when you're rewriting independent films
[18:53]
is you're trying to get them ready for an actor.
[18:55]
That's it.
[18:56]
Your concept is good.
[18:59]
The acting writing isn't good.
[19:00]
Let's get the acting right.
[19:01]
Yeah.
[19:02]
Actually, transforms a lot of the rest of the script
[19:03]
because the motivations have to be sharper
[19:05]
and have to be characterized and things like this.
[19:07]
But going back to the 10,000 hour thing,
[19:09]
so I want to get your take on that.
[19:10]
What do you feel about building your crafting,
[19:14]
giving yourself the grace to be like,
[19:15]
hey, I've heard someone say,
[19:17]
I got to write 10 shitty scripts
[19:18]
or nine shitty scripts for the 10th one to be there.
[19:21]
100% who wrote the Grilla Phil Micros handbook?
[19:24]
Oh, yeah.
[19:25]
Yeah.
[19:26]
I don't know the name, but I have that.
[19:27]
The Mechrosmith and Inium of Stimes.
[19:28]
And he said you have to make five bad films.
[19:30]
Yeah.
[19:31]
It's very make a good one.
[19:32]
Right.
[19:33]
And I think I don't have any bad films on me,
[19:34]
but it was my short speech.
[19:36]
It takes a while at the same screen pass.
[19:39]
And people don't like that.
[19:40]
Give yourself some leeway on that.
[19:43]
We often put ourselves up against the writers,
[19:46]
like Matt Damon Benaflick, they write Goodwill Hunting
[19:49]
and they went in Oscar or like Diablo Cody.
[19:51]
Bill Goldman.
[19:52]
Yeah.
[19:53]
Helping on it to power.
[19:53]
100%, but it's the image that they're seeing
[19:55]
is like, I can write one screenplay and change my life,
[19:57]
which you could, but we don't hear that it's thousand
[20:00]
other stories of the working person writer
[20:02]
whether just grinding and grinding and rejection
[20:04]
and building their crap.
[20:05]
Because it's a skill you're developing over time.
[20:08]
Aaron Sorken says it's the only profession
[20:10]
where you get better as you age.
[20:12]
Right.
[20:13]
A surgeon will get better as the agent.
[20:14]
And then eventually their hands are going to start shake.
[20:15]
They're going to start to go down,
[20:16]
but you can progressively get better as you age
[20:19]
because you're getting more life experience
[20:20]
and honing in the muscle.
[20:22]
Yeah.
[20:23]
Probably one of the big challenges for film
[20:24]
isn't the lack of skill.
[20:25]
It's a lack of passion.
[20:26]
It goes on because it's really interesting.
[20:28]
It's a, in some way, a screenwriting is a limited form
[20:31]
in that it's so rigidly dominated by the rules
[20:35]
of what's dramatic.
[20:36]
But truly that reflects a lack of imagination.
[20:39]
It's just that we can lose our imagination
[20:41]
or our naivety as we.
[20:42]
Is that why Steven Spielberg was able to sustain
[20:45]
such a long career of making high quality films?
[20:48]
Because I often think of, like, I love Michael Mann, for example.
[20:51]
You love Michael Mann.
[20:53]
And you just see like his work tail off a little
[20:56]
as he's got an, I wonder they get too
[20:59]
into the nitty gritty of the mechanics,
[21:01]
whereas like his early work is just
[21:03]
character-based and perfect and thief and heat.
[21:06]
It's very, Michael Mann's a very complicated case.
[21:09]
I actually have a monologue about Michael Mann
[21:11]
in the Ben Conway film.
[21:14]
It was written by Ben Conway at night right.
[21:16]
They talk about it.
[21:18]
So I actually, I've a bit of insight into Michael Mann
[21:21]
because I knew his editor.
[21:23]
And what I would say is his passion is still unbelievable.
[21:27]
But did it shift from store?
[21:28]
Where does the passion go?
[21:29]
Because you see?
[21:30]
He's when he stops shooting on film.
[21:32]
I don't know why that is.
[21:34]
But his work on film is amazing.
[21:36]
And when he switched to digital.
[21:38]
And the funny thing is, his working digital is ugly,
[21:41]
but still revolutionary.
[21:42]
Hey, Miami Vice is, that's an underrated potential masterpiece.
[21:47]
Well, that's the, I'll go toe to toe on that film.
[21:48]
That this, this is a recreation of the dialogue
[21:51]
about Miami Vice in my film.
[21:54]
But it's a complicated one.
[21:56]
I like this Ferrari film, for example.
[21:58]
And there's behind the scenes that, like, the buy
[22:01]
where he's going into extreme detail,
[22:02]
but it's working method.
[22:03]
But with Spielberg and Tarantino,
[22:06]
and you'll find this with Sayagra right as well,
[22:08]
to understand, they have a huge,
[22:11]
onabashed lifelong love of film.
[22:17]
Whereas to give a contrary point,
[22:19]
if you take it somebody like, who wrote the player?
[22:22]
Was it Michael Tobak or?
[22:23]
No, no, the player was Tim.
[22:26]
Robert Altonfilm.
[22:27]
Robert Alton.
[22:27]
Yeah, it was based on a novel.
[22:28]
No, but Robert didn't write it.
[22:29]
Oh, he didn't write, okay.
[22:30]
But what I mean is, there is, there is,
[22:32]
and this is actually a common trope among screen writers.
[22:34]
You write novels.
[22:35]
Yes, the Gated Screenwriter.
[22:36]
Yeah.
[22:37]
Okay.
[22:38]
So they've got all the wealth, the gold success,
[22:39]
the glamour, you know, get, they're not artists.
[22:43]
And this is the, this is the cross they have to bear.
[22:48]
There's a lack of,
[22:52]
enthusiasm that that braids a self-grading cynicism.
[22:56]
Whereas these over people, like Tarantino, for example,
[22:58]
by this stage, I don't know if he'll direct again.
[23:02]
Yeah, but he's writing, he's still like writing.
[23:04]
It's just, he's bored by the concept of
[23:06]
the direct and something he's done.
[23:07]
Of course.
[23:08]
Yeah.
[23:08]
But it's interesting because, yeah,
[23:11]
if you're Steven Swoeberg or Tarantino,
[23:13]
it's easy to, I think, well, maybe not, I shouldn't say that,
[23:16]
but to flame the passion flame, you know,
[23:19]
to fan the flames of passion is easier when you're,
[23:21]
now imagine struggling as a writer for so many,
[23:24]
it's hard to keep that passion up.
[23:26]
Peter Jackson's probably a great example
[23:28]
because he's got an amazing start to his career.
[23:31]
And he's truly a passionate, sort of film nerd.
[23:34]
But he was kind of killed by the Hobbit.
[23:37]
It took something out of him, where he was redoing
[23:40]
something from the past.
[23:41]
It was a lack of kind of much, so, you know,
[23:43]
it is, it is a big struggle.
[23:45]
You, for me, there are many competencies I still need
[23:50]
to master, the genres that I need to master in screenwriting.
[23:52]
So I can look towards that.
[23:56]
But what I try to do is streamline my writing process.
[23:59]
So it's the same, even when I'm trying to attempt to,
[24:01]
to do something else so that I'm always consistently able
[24:03]
to, I put rather than, find excuses not to write.
[24:08]
So let's go back to that.
[24:09]
So you long, long form, or?
[24:12]
Just a few more things I used to long form.
[24:13]
I've got a kitchen safe, which is a device
[24:16]
for basically cookies and phones.
[24:19]
This is very cool. He showed me this by the way.
[24:21]
So you put your phone in the kitchen safe
[24:23]
and you put a timer on it, and it will,
[24:26]
you can't access your phone for the time being like this.
[24:29]
When I was in L.I. actually, I used to work
[24:32]
at the writer's guild.
[24:34]
Well, not the library, but they built a writing room there.
[24:36]
Yeah.
[24:37]
And I couldn't go anywhere because, you know,
[24:42]
I would use Uber or Lyft.
[24:43]
So when that phone went in the box.
[24:45]
Oh gosh.
[24:46]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[24:47]
That was it.
[24:47]
From the balls.
[24:48]
I was stuck there.
[24:51]
And I used Pomodoro timers.
[24:54]
So I typically write 25 minute bursts
[24:56]
with a three to five minute break.
[24:58]
And I measure work in terms of how many
[25:01]
Pomodoro's I do a day.
[25:02]
So I can do four Pomodoro's and two hours.
[25:04]
But the reason for that is the little break
[25:06]
is helpful for orientating and moving things like this
[25:10]
and left brain, right brain switching.
[25:11]
Yeah. So I heard that in an interview
[25:13]
with the writer of 500 days of summer saying,
[25:15]
they after an hour and a half, your brain switches
[25:18]
like hemispheracles from like working on this side
[25:20]
to this side.
[25:20]
After an hour and a half of grinding on your work,
[25:23]
you feel like a fatigue.
[25:24]
You just almost feel like a fog.
[25:25]
And that's when like, okay, time to take a break.
[25:27]
I'll work in 90 minute bursts, right?
[25:29]
I'll go 90 minutes.
[25:29]
I'm actually can't even go to an hour and 20.
[25:32]
And then I stop take a break, recalibrate, go back in.
[25:35]
But it's funny how, you know,
[25:37]
you end up finding what works for you.
[25:39]
Exactly.
[25:40]
You can only find a free personal discovery.
[25:42]
Some, you know, for example,
[25:43]
I also prefer to work in public places.
[25:47]
I can't, I typically can't write it on because.
[25:50]
Interesting.
[25:51]
For example, I, I, I, I find it very easy to go to sleep.
[25:54]
Okay.
[25:55]
So if I'm at home, I will like to come brothers
[25:57]
and always talk about that.
[25:58]
They're just like, we take a lot of naps when we write.
[26:00]
But where I find out is the fact that this were,
[26:02]
I can be in the library or something like this.
[26:04]
Yeah.
[26:05]
Just like, I'm then getting some interesting ideas.
[26:06]
I've got some interesting ideas for what we're working
[26:08]
on in the minutes through that.
[26:10]
So that's funny.
[26:11]
Bring up the nap.
[26:11]
I just want to pause on that.
[26:12]
There's something also that I read.
[26:14]
I don't know who it is.
[26:15]
I'm very bad with names, but it was an inventor.
[26:18]
It was Edison.
[26:19]
He would sleep.
[26:20]
It has sleep, yeah.
[26:21]
With a ball, a metal ball in his hand, at the edge of the bed.
[26:24]
And he would, because when you go into that sleep state,
[26:27]
that's when the ideas come.
[26:28]
I think the person who invented Nintendo would go underwater
[26:31]
and I'd stung.
[26:33]
No, no, it was Edison.
[26:34]
I think it was Edison actually, because I've read this in,
[26:36]
it was in one of the books by the Rosa Parker.
[26:39]
But getting yourself into that dream state
[26:41]
where the ideas come.
[26:42]
So he would sleep on the edge of the bed with a metal ball
[26:43]
and then the ball would drop and wake him up.
[26:45]
But he would keep doing it over and over again
[26:46]
to crack the code.
[26:47]
And like the Nintendo guy would submerge himself
[26:50]
underwater for long periods of time,
[26:51]
because he felt that's when he could think the best.
[26:53]
So again, it's personal discovery.
[26:55]
Obviously don't harm yourself.
[26:56]
But finding out that process, I guess the whole thing,
[27:01]
the whole theme of what we're talking about,
[27:03]
is you've got to go and discover your process.
[27:05]
Go.
[27:06]
There are no rules when it comes to this.
[27:07]
I think just find out what works for you.
[27:09]
He likes public places.
[27:11]
I don't.
[27:11]
I like public places actually when I'm on a first draft.
[27:14]
It's the weirdest thing.
[27:15]
Writing an outline, everything has to be in my office
[27:17]
home silent.
[27:18]
But I'm writing a first draft.
[27:19]
I need the energy for some reason.
[27:21]
Maybe it's just because I need to power through.
[27:23]
But then I can't, at second draft, I can't have to think.
[27:25]
So but everyone's got their own process.
[27:27]
I think that's what we're saying is go find, go out and play.
[27:31]
If you're not discovering what's not working,
[27:33]
you need to experience failure in order to make it happen.
[27:38]
But I also know the absolutely main thing
[27:41]
that I want to resist doing is writing the long form.
[27:44]
I will do anything to avoid writing the long form.
[27:47]
I will come up with any number of reasons
[27:49]
because it's very difficult.
[27:51]
Which if we could be a little scandalous
[27:55]
and going into it as why, I think AI can be really useful
[27:58]
at that.
[27:59]
Saying AI is useful for research is nothing interesting.
[28:03]
But I think AI could be a very effective co-writer for helping
[28:07]
break that hump if there's something to give you
[28:09]
like a rough draft.
[28:10]
Get you off that blank page.
[28:11]
Get you off that blank page.
[28:12]
And so it's worth looking at.
[28:14]
The thing I've just been working on, you know,
[28:15]
developing with you guys like zero AI.
[28:18]
But it's actually probably the first time in a while
[28:21]
when I haven't used it in some capacity in terms of pros.
[28:24]
It was a very interesting experience.
[28:26]
But one, I'll give you a basic one, which is if you look
[28:29]
at the great pro stylists in terms of action,
[28:33]
like say Kurt Vimmer or Helen Geiler or Cameron,
[28:37]
actually Cameron's great.
[28:38]
Oh, that's fast.
[28:38]
Yeah, it's so good.
[28:40]
That's very difficult to recreate on the page.
[28:43]
Yeah, it is.
[28:45]
It's not so difficult with a very well prompted LLM, OK?
[28:50]
Which allows your script to have a real conformation
[28:53]
verb.
[28:54]
And I had an experience recently of somebody
[28:55]
sending me a script who was an amateur.
[28:57]
And basically you can tell from the approach usually what
[29:00]
it would be like.
[29:00]
And it read really well.
[29:01]
Oh, wow.
[29:02]
It read really well.
[29:03]
But there was issues with it.
[29:04]
Issues, yeah.
[29:05]
And I realized that they were, they
[29:07]
must have written it with an AI.
[29:10]
But on the surface.
[29:11]
On the surface.
[29:12]
It was very impressive.
[29:13]
I felt like it came from a rep.
[29:15]
Yeah.
[29:16]
So that's a little aside.
[29:18]
But do you have any treats or anything that gets you going
[29:21]
when you face the long form?
[29:24]
What do you do to get yourself going?
[29:29]
Besides me calling you up constantly.
[29:31]
Well, we can go.
[29:32]
We can go.
[29:32]
No, but there's something that gets you moving.
[29:34]
I give myself an espresso.
[29:36]
Like, I know I'm going to have an espresso an hour and a half.
[29:38]
I get to be my little.
[29:39]
That's a good question.
[29:40]
I mean, I'm trying to stop tricky coffee.
[29:42]
Over the long term.
[29:43]
But when I'm on a deadline, it works.
[29:45]
I've also used Medaphinal, which is kind of a concentration
[29:49]
drug, which I quite, which I've used in the past.
[29:53]
I haven't used it in a long time.
[29:54]
But it's very good for doing your taxes.
[29:57]
It's really good.
[29:59]
It's pretty easy.
[29:59]
I mean, it's, you know, it's it's it's interesting.
[30:03]
One is quite commonly used by by questions.
[30:05]
But actually, typically you should try to avoid
[30:08]
crutches because if it's like both, I don't have the
[30:11]
confidence.
[30:12]
That's interesting.
[30:13]
That's kind of a problem.
[30:14]
So what you ideally want rituals, which are independent of
[30:16]
context or setting.
[30:18]
So I try to have writing rituals.
[30:21]
Like when I'm writing that aren't based on some
[30:25]
externality that I can't have.
[30:26]
Because if it's like, well, you know, I'm not in my favorite
[30:30]
chair or I know, people get crazy with that.
[30:32]
Yeah.
[30:33]
But all you're doing is you're programming yourself to get
[30:36]
into that state of writing.
[30:38]
Yeah, the flow.
[30:39]
And trying to find ways that are or miss, but typically
[30:42]
it will be a coffee, but it'll be first thing if I'm doing
[30:44]
more than you know, I think if it's afternoon, it's different.
[30:47]
And also the everything I would say about writing in the
[30:49]
afternoon, that's when I get pretty sleepy.
[30:50]
So it'll be a longer stretch of writing.
[30:53]
I'll probably probably miss half a palm of
[30:56]
door because I'll be snoozing like this.
[30:57]
And then I'll get into it.
[30:58]
And then the other thing I would say is tiredness can work
[31:00]
in your favorite.
[31:01]
Sure.
[31:02]
Yeah.
[31:03]
That flow state.
[31:04]
Yeah.
[31:05]
Just where it just goes out of you.
[31:06]
That's where I say the turning of the false.
[31:07]
The water comes out and just kind of flows.
[31:09]
Yeah, you need to show up.
[31:10]
I think.
[31:11]
Ask in the chair, folks.
[31:12]
Ask in the chair.
[31:13]
It was it was it was an astronauts.
[31:15]
I think you says in one of his books, I think he made up
[31:17]
the word, but it's a citizen flesh.
[31:19]
It's a dark strength.
[31:20]
Yeah, yeah.
[31:21]
That's what you need.
[31:22]
It's a fit.
[31:23]
Although, Bo, you don't need to say you can't you can work
[31:25]
with standing desk and stuff like this.
[31:26]
I love what you do.
[31:27]
It's standing.
[31:28]
Yeah, I know it's switch because it's different flow.
[31:29]
Yeah.
[31:30]
But you need to explore by empiricism what you're doing.
[31:33]
You need to give yourself an alliance for doing
[31:35]
stuff that's not very good.
[31:36]
You need to attune to people's criticism
[31:40]
and be able to use it in a productive way.
[31:42]
And by the way, sometimes nine out of 10 people can be wrong.
[31:45]
Yeah, as long as you're confident you know why.
[31:47]
That's right.
[31:48]
And then when you translate it, it'll be fine.
[31:49]
One tiny example was when Guy Richie was making
[31:52]
a lock-stock and two smoking barrels.
[31:53]
Which is one of my favorite movies.
[31:55]
Rifle, everyone, everyone like Vinny Jones
[31:57]
was telling them on set the titles to long guy.
[32:00]
You've got to get ready.
[32:01]
Help.
[32:02]
Of course.
[32:03]
He stuck to his guns.
[32:04]
Stuck his guns.
[32:05]
You know, they were just short as they call it like lock-stock.
[32:07]
Yeah.
[32:08]
Oh, it's so great.
[32:09]
It's so bright.
[32:10]
I'm such a great title.
[32:11]
It's such a great title.
[32:12]
Yeah, talk about like coming out of the gate
[32:16]
with a great first film or you know,
[32:18]
I've not thought it's first film,
[32:19]
but it's like the real first polished film.
[32:21]
That's amazing.
[32:22]
I've actually met Guy.
[32:23]
How do I know that?
[32:24]
He watched the short film.
[32:25]
My many years ago, it was up in awards with him.
[32:27]
But she got an award.
[32:28]
And it's very interesting, very interesting character.
[32:31]
And if work with loads of actors,
[32:32]
he's got to work with one of my favorite directors.
[32:35]
And he's got a super unusual style
[32:37]
because he is the guy who sets the tone for the film.
[32:43]
But he's not necessarily the guy telling everyone
[32:46]
exactly what to do.
[32:47]
And yet his work feels so authored.
[32:49]
Which is really interesting.
[32:51]
Yeah, his last, in the last five years,
[32:53]
there's some guy which he was that really risen
[32:56]
and then there's some like, I don't,
[32:57]
I couldn't believe that was him.
[32:58]
Yeah, it's like the military films.
[32:59]
It's quite strange.
[33:00]
Oh yeah, that was the Jake Jillin-Haw one.
[33:01]
Yeah, which is good.
[33:02]
I love that.
[33:03]
Yeah, I love it.
[33:04]
I thought that was such an interesting departure.
[33:07]
Was it the interpreter?
[33:08]
Something like that.
[33:09]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[33:10]
Great film.
[33:11]
And then he did the Josh Hart at one
[33:12]
that felt very lazy to me.
[33:15]
I think the Harvey Plaza,
[33:17]
Carriels, anyway.
[33:19]
Oh, the comedy one with, yeah, yeah.
[33:20]
It's like, but it's in his kind.
[33:22]
Thank you, grandson.
[33:23]
Yeah, yeah.
[33:24]
It's his mind from Uncle sort of sort of in.
[33:25]
Kind of, yes, in the same universe, I think.
[33:27]
Bizarrely is Keith Conquer TV.
[33:29]
Yeah.
[33:30]
In really interesting ways, actually.
[33:31]
To talk about passionate filmmaker, he's still to me,
[33:34]
I think, has the passion behind it.
[33:36]
I think that's what breeds.
[33:36]
So look, we could go on for hours about this.
[33:39]
He's a, Steven here's a wealth of knowledge
[33:41]
when it comes to the writing process.
[33:43]
And so I guess at the end of the day, guys,
[33:45]
everyone out there just write, find your process,
[33:48]
like go to Park.
[33:49]
I think we read it in that same book.
[33:51]
Someone writes on a car, they need the claustrophobic.
[33:54]
One more tip.
[33:55]
Please.
[33:56]
Iron Sorkin, whenever he hits a block in his writing,
[33:58]
he has a char.
[33:59]
Oh, yeah, that's right.
[34:00]
That's right.
[34:01]
And he changes his clothes every time.
[34:03]
Or he'll change in a scene, the weather, too.
[34:06]
He'll be like, go make it storm, just to rejig some ideas.
[34:10]
I mean, yeah, you gotta just go out.
[34:11]
I go for a walk, like go find your process.
[34:13]
I think that's the fun part of where you're at as a writer.
[34:17]
Go find yourself, find what works for you.
[34:20]
And then, like, Steven and myself,
[34:22]
we end up having just these, like, they're not rigid,
[34:24]
but our process.
[34:25]
And it's immense in us and we can change a little bit.
[34:28]
But now you know, it works for you.
[34:29]
Go out and find what works for you all.
[34:31]
And Steven, thanks again for coming into the studio
[34:33]
and sharing your writing process with us all.
[34:37]
And we'll look forward to chatting more about this
[34:40]
in the future.
[34:41]
Great.
[34:42]
All right.
