John August

First Person

Other interests and hobbies

First Person, QandA

Do you play guitar, or do some other type of hobby in order to get inspiration for your writing?

— Jesse Leal

I don’t play guitar, though I’ve always wanted to learn. I tried to teach myself on my father’s guitar, but never even mastered tuning it, which made the rest of the process painful to the ears.

I can read music, and play piano and clarinet on a grade-school level. But I wouldn’t say either of them inspire my writing. So, for the truly curious, here’s a quick run-down of John’s Other Interests:

* Gadgets [Treo 650](http://palmone.com)? Check. [TiVo](http://tivo.com)? Check. (Early Adopter points: I got my first digital video recorder in 1998.) [Toyota Prius](http://www.toyota.com/prius/)? Check. (We have two in the family.) [Wireless Weather Forecaster](http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?cookie%5Ftest=1&catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F010%5F001%5F001%5F000&product%5Fid=63%2D1085&hmsub=ad2)? Check.
* Languages
I like to travel, but my interest in languages is borderline obsessive; I spent six weeks learning Japanese in preparation for a 72-hour visit to Tokyo. I’ve spoken Spanish since grade school, and French since high school. I’m fascinated by the evolution of languages, particularly how English lost its Germanic declensions and re-imported so much of its vocabulary from French (which resulted in having both ‘regal’ and ‘royal’).
* Warcraft My name is John, and I have Warcraft problem. Kudos to the good folks at [Blizzard](http://blizzard.com) for their digital crack.
* Reality Television If I only watched The Amazing Race, no one would question my taste. But my TiVo also holds Big Brother, The Real World, and The Real World/Road Rules Challenge.
* Home improvement I’ve renovated two houses in four years, by which I mean telling a contractor what I wanted and blissfully ignoring the actual labor involved.
* Information architecture
Beyond the work I do designing and running this website, I also love to keep up on XML, RSS and other emerging standards.
* D.C. heroes I know there’s a lot of love out there for the Marvel pantheon, but I’ve always been a D.C. guy. Ever since I watched Superfriends as a kid, Superman and his brethren were my gods on Mount Olympus. I was never much of a comics reader, but somehow I learned all of the heroes’ mythology.

Finished a short film: Now what?

First Person

One of my most frequent pieces of advice to would-be writer/directors is [to make a short film](http://johnaugust.com/qanda/93.html). After all, with the wonders of digital technology, any monkey with a good idea and a long weekend should be able come up with something watchable. Right?

The next step is getting someone to see your miniature masterpiece. That’s where my knowledge comes up a little lacking. Fortunately, my assistant [Chad Creasey](http://imdb.com/name/nm1548657/) has just been through the process. He and director [Dara Resnik](http://imdb.com/name/nm1551542/) recently made a charming short film called [“Great Lengths.”](http://imdb.com/name/nm1551542/) You can read all about it at their [website](http://www.greatlengthsentertainment.com/index.shtml).

Pretty much every weekend this spring, either he or Dara were flying to some festival across the country. With this in mind, I asked Chad to write up advice about short films and festivals. He was gracious enough to reply at, well, great length:

Take it, Chad:
***
first personYou did it! Maybe you had to destroy your great aunt’s guest cottage and illegally tap into the city’s electric line because you couldn’t afford a generator. Maybe you had to bribe the local sheriff to NOT make his 3:00am rounds in order to get that awesome explosion shot. And maybe you subjected your body to experimentation to cover the cost of the final audio layback. But dammit – you are now the proud owner of a completed short film!

So what do you do with it?

Chances are, you want people to see it. Although the internet offers venues like [IFILM](http://www.ifilm.com/index.jsp) with which to showcase your work, nothing beats the rush of the live audience screening. You can always rent a screen at the local multiplex (costly), but most filmmakers prefer to show their work at a variety of film festivals.

The festival circuit

The past five years have seen a tremendous surge in the number of festivals. It seems like every city from [Ashland, Oregon]( http://www.ashlandfilm.org/) to [Dubrovnik, Croatia]( http://www.dubrovnikiff.org/default2.asp) has one now. What’s fantastic is you have literally thousands of places to submit to — but the overall quality of these festivals varies greatly. I’ve been to ones that treat the filmmakers like they were A-list celebrities, and others that made me buy tickets to my own screening.

After going through it, I have a couple of recommendations.
[Read more…] about Finished a short film: Now what?

David Dean Bottrell on How I Write

First Person, Writing Process

A few months ago, I asked several screenwriters to write a bit about their process for the [First Person](http://johnaugust.com/archives/category/first-person) section. The first one to email me back with an answer was David Dean Bottrell. While I waited for the others answers to come in, I promptly misfiled his response.

This week, David emailed me to ask what the hell happened, and I could only cite my own idiocy. Fortunately, he’s a kind person who will forgive me for it.
***
first personWhen I have an idea I really like, I launch into a fairly detailed treatment of it. This is where I find out if my seemingly ingenious idea will really translate into a viable (and fun) story. I do this because once I start writing the actual screenplay, my focus will naturally shift to the characters and dialogue and I can easily lose track of the big picture. Writing a treatment gives me a clear perspective on the overall story that I’ll never have again. And since (as we all know) story makes or breaks a screenplay, attention paid to it now will save me a ton of time and grief later.

Once I start the screenplay, the task is to make sure my story is fully and truthfully lived out by the characters — and if they seem to want to do things a little differently than I had planned, I let them do it. I never try to write well on a first draft. I just hammer it out. I never edit while I’m writing (that comes after I’ve finished a draft). After about three passes on a script, I’ll show it to someone I trust. Usually they confirm my worst suspicions and then the repair work begins.

From this point on, other people are going to be involved and my job becomes about shaping and reshaping the script based on the feedback I’m getting. The greatest lesson I’ve learned from this part of the process is that (contrary to MY former beliefs) other people sometimes have terrific ideas that can significantly improve my script. Not always, but sometimes. Sometimes I agree to a change that I don’t initially like only to find that within a couple of days I love it and can’t wait to take full credit for the idea! In my experience, screenwriting (kinda like life!) is about choosing a path, then accepting the inevitability of change and learning to deal with it creatively.

I have yet to have a normal day at work. I write daily though I don’t keep specific office hours. I’m not one of those guys who can write in coffee shops – mostly because I live in L.A. and inevitably someone always comes up and asks what I’m writing and then wants to tell me about what he’s writing and then I somehow wind up agreeing to read his script.

Sometimes, my work day is dictated by deadlines so there are occasional late nights. Generally speaking, I protect my writing time by turning off phones and disconnecting from the internet – which can be a very tough thing to do since writing is at times a lonely process. I’ve found that not much good work happens if I am in a bad or cynical mood so I have lots of goofy (AKA “borderline idiotic”) tricks I play on myself in order to stay happy and interested in the work — And if you think I’m going to tell you what they are, you’re sorely mistaken, bub. Mostly, I try to respect and take pride in being a writer which helps me sit there and do it when I’d much rather go out and get drunk.
***
David Dean Bottrell co-wrote the screenplay for the Fox Searchlight feature, [Kingdom Come](http://imdb.com/title/tt0246002/). He has sold both spec scripts and pitches, rewritten scripts by other writers, adapted novels and written for feature animation.

Jessica Bendinger on How I Write

First Person, Writing Process

jessica bendingerfirst personI think of myself as a very non-linear, intuitive writer. I have discipline and focus when I need it, but I allow myself to be very messy and unfocused and all-over-the-place, and I find both ends of the spectrum very useful (as you’ll see from this response)! I find balance through exploring the two extremes, then using them in a conscious way. I can get very bored, so this vacillation serves me really well.

My process has many parts to it and there’s no simple answer, and I’ll say with as much authority as I can muster through text:

"BEWARE THE EASY, ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL ANSWER!"

There are many ways to come up with ideas, write outlines and birth screenplays. The biggest journey we all have is finding out what works for us, and the beauty of that is that it will be so radically different for everyone. But as for me? I believe in following my enthusiasm, my curiosity and my fear. Not necessarily in that order.

The World

For stories, I begin by exploring arenas and worlds I am secretly or overtly enthusiastic about.

  • What lights me up?
  • What do I want to try, go,do, be, see?
  • What are my closet fascinations?
  • What are the things I TiVo or scan at the bookstore?
  • Who and what am I drawn to?

If it’s a really personal or compulsive fascination that I wouldn’t necessarily discuss with just anyone, or a theme that is so intrinsic to my fantasy life or dream life that it’s almost invisible? Then I am really onto something. These are where my best ideas for arenas are born. This process of warming to an area can take me a while. My big ideas are gestating for a long time before I even get to story, character or outline. Sometimes I’ll get random scene ideas or visuals, and I just tuck them away. I know they’ll be useful eventually, or might lead me somewhere I’m supposed to go and were merely a conduit. The point is, this part can be meandering for me. When it starts really pulling my attention, or filling me with images and ideas I know it’s time for arena to meet story.

The Story

Once I have the arena, then it’s onto the story itself. If I’m unclear, I use a question method to spitball ideas, or will start randomly combining things that interest me without attachment to outcome. For Bring It On, that was simple: I was bananas for those crazy cheerleading competitions, and I loved hip hop and started asking ‘what if?’ Hip hop’s assimilation and appropriation into the culture had been so thorough, I thought, “How can I illustrate that in a fun way?” I started there and kept asking “what if” questions until I got a story that felt really fun, meaningful and juicy for me.

  • What if the best squad in the country had been cheating?
  • What if the squad they’d been stealing from was sick of it?
  • What if the perp tried to make it right?

As I said earlier, I resist easy answers…so my remedy for that malaise is almost always questions. Questions are at the heart of my process, and I keep asking them until I have an idea I am happy with.

The Character

Once I have arena and story, I like to hit the brakes and move into character in a pretty in-depth way. That means more questions.

  • Who is the character?
  • What is their core fear?
  • What do they need?

What do they believe they need or think their goal is, versus the real need and real goal necessary for meaningful transformation in their life?

The tension of that discrepancy helps me to build the narrative. But I’m of the “Character Is Plot” school, so this stuff is my fuel. Otherwise, the process is just too flat for me, and I get really bored. I want a thorough understanding of who he/she is emotionally, intellectually, physically and spiritually. I use those four markers to give my characters substance, and each marker is invaluable to me. If a character is an agnostic or an atheist, for example, that knowledge gives me a valuable place from which to understand how they operate in the world. If someone is a people-pleaser because they were neglected as a child, I can really play with what potential reactions for them will be given the confines of the idea (even if that is never announced anywhere in the script!). I revel in knowing what the inner push-pulls are before I dive into story, so the world around the character can toss him where he needs to go.

The Outline

Once I have the character and the idea, I start working the story beats out from macro to micro.

ROUND ONE (aka Three Big Beats): Beginning, middle and end.

ROUND TWO (aka Nine Medium-Sized Beats): The beginning, middle and end of the (drumroll, please) beginning, middle and end!

ROUND THREE (aka Twenty-Seven Bitty Beats): The beginnings, middles and ends of each of the aforementioned beginnings, middles and ends.

I used to use eleven beats per act and thirty-three total for my outline, but I always ended up with scenes I didn’t need. I’ve grown to prefer a really tight first pass because it’s easier for me to see what’s missing when I’m not floating in excess. But sometimes I over-write, and whittle down, too. It really depends on my mood. If I can beef up twenty-seven scenes into three or four pages per scene, I’m looking at a nice, first rough draft.
[Read more…] about Jessica Bendinger on How I Write