John August

Projects

Writing the music before shooting the film

Projects, The Nines

Alex Wurman, who composed the music for my film The Nines, has the soundtrack up on SoundCloud. [Take a listen](https://soundcloud.com/alex-wurman/sets/the-nines-score).

The composer often comes on board a project while it’s in post, but for The Nines, I needed Alex to write the main theme of the movie before we’d shot a frame. That’s because during one scene in Part Two, Gavin (Ryan Reynolds) plays the theme on the piano. It’s a major plot point, and I knew we couldn’t fake it. So Alex and I spent a few days hashing out the musical idea of the story.

When talking with a specialist (a composer, a cinematographer, a choreographer), I’ve found it best to describe feelings rather than functions, using similes rather than concrete vocabulary. So I said things like:

* broken clockwork
* skimming across a summer lake, but there’s something dark under water
* an unanswerable question
* something half-remembered, and you’re not sure if it was something positive or negative

This got us to the main theme, called [Knowing](https://soundcloud.com/alex-wurman/knowing-theme-1?in=alex-wurman/sets/the-nines-score):


The theme shows up all over the movie, often on piano, but sometimes pushed to other instruments and other tempos.

I love Alex’s music in The Nines, but if I had it to do all over again, I would have found a way to get bigger with the music at the end. Right now, it all feels a little too delicate and same-same.

We had a very limited budget, but the visuals would have better served with some serious strings. In my head, I can hear this theme re-orchestrated, and it’s what the film wants: the boldest expression of the musical question and its answer. To achieve that, I would have re-prioritized other elements to free up some money.

Writing an album in two weeks

Big Fish, Writing Process

In an interview with Billboard, producer Patrick Leonard talks about [writing “Like a Prayer” with Madonna](http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop-shop/5944767/madonna-producer-patrick-leonard-talks-like-a-prayer-at-25).

> I like to start really early in the day. She would come in about 11 and I would have the musical idea on whatever piece of gear I was using. I think it was just a Yamaha sequencer or something at the time. […]

> I would just put the track, the chord changes, some kind of drum beat, bass line — something simple — and say, “here’s the idea, here’s what I have for the day.” She would listen, then we would talk a little bit. Oftentimes I’d say, “here’s the verse, and here’s the chorus,” and she’d say, “no, it’s the other way around, switch ’em.” So I’d switch ’em. This thing is an hour old, it’s not etched in stone.

> Then she would just start writing. She’d start writing lyrics and oftentimes there was an implied melody. She would start with that and deviate from it. Or if there was nothing but a chord change, she’d make up a melody. But, a lot of the time in my writing there’s a melody implied or I even have something in mind. But she certainly doesn’t need that.

> She would write the lyrics in an hour, the same amount of time it took me to write the music (laughs). And then she’d sing it. We’d do some harmonies, she’d sing some harmony parts, and usually by three or four in the afternoon, she was gone.

> That’s how “Like a Prayer” was written, and then the next day we wrote “Cherish,” and then the next day we wrote “Dear Jessie.” And that’s how it was. We wrote the album in less than two weeks.

This recap demonstrates something I’ve often found to be true: a large part of making art is showing up to work.

As a writer, yes, sometimes you get flashes of inspiration and genius, but if you sit around waiting for them, you’re unlikely to get much accomplished. Most screenplays are written a scene at a time.

One of the great things about writing with a partner is the ability to hold each other accountable. When working with Andrew Lippa on Big Fish, we had limited days — sometimes hours — to get stuff accomplished. So we buckled down and tackled items one-at-a-time. This song. This moment. This transition.

That’s how you finish things.

Old Projects

Big Fish, Dead Projects, Go, Projects, Television

Maybe I’m hyper-aware because yesterday was the 15th anniversary of Go, but I’m encountering all sorts of references to past projects this week.

In THR’s interview with Susanne Daniels, she cites my first series:

There was this very good pilot that Dick Wolf did for me when I was at WB, which was called D.C. I distinctly remember he called me after he had sent me the pilot and asked me what I thought of it. The very first thing I said was, “Why didn’t you shoot this one particular scene that was in the script that I loved?”

Fourteen years later, my heart still flutters to learn she thought it was very good!

People and projects circle back into your life. I’m not crazy about the idea of power rankings, but The Wire’s recap on the cast of Go illustrates just how special that group continues to be. I keep up with a surprising number of those actors, and write them into everything I possibly can.

Yesterday in the halls at Disney, I bumped into Ricky Strauss, who was integral to getting both Go and Big Fish happening at Columbia. He told a colleague, “John wrote Fantasy Island for us.”

Wait, of everything I wrote, you single out Fantasy Island?

In every screenwriter’s career, there are so many scripts that never become part of your filmography. But they still matter. People remember them.

And some projects never die. A few weeks ago, I got a call about a rewrite on a project. As I spoke with the executive, I dug through my hard drive to find my notes from the last time I pitched on the movie.

My notes were dated October 6, 1996.

They are still trying to make the movie.

Source code on screen

Geek Alert, Prince of Persia

Finally, a Tumblr documenting and discussing all those [scrolling shots of code](http://moviecode.tumblr.com) on computer screens in movies and television.

I love when directors and production designers take the time to get this right.

And look! Here’s some vintage [Prince of Persia](http://moviecode.tumblr.com/post/72240625132/in-the-tv-series-revolution-series-1-episode-6).