John August

Psych 101

Past mistakes

Psych 101, QandA

Now that you look back on your career, what was the single biggest mistake
or wrong assumption you made early on that someone else could learn from?

–Damion

From the moment I got to Los Angeles, I felt I didn’t deserve to be here.
I was never a classic movie buff; I didn’t have a favorite director; my Honda
was rusting out, but not in a glamorous, beauty-in-poverty way.

I felt like a fraud, an imposter. Worse, I was taking up a slot that some
genuinely deserving person should have gotten. Working in Hollywood was never
my childhood dream. It was almost a flip-of-the-coin decision. For all I knew,
the next Spielberg was stuck flipping burgers in Wichita because I had taken
the last available opening.

Honestly, I felt this way for about three years. I kept waiting to get found
out and sent back to the Midwest.

Thinking this way was easily the biggest mistake I made. When you don’t think
you deserve to be in the room, no one else will, either.

But the truth, which took me an embarrassingly long time to realize, is that
all of the smart, confident people I was meeting really didn’t know any more
than I did. Okay, I had never seen Terrence Malick’s BADLANDS. But I had seen
every episode of "Bewitched," and that was just as valid.

And I could write better than most of them. That seems like an egotistical
statement, but considering I was marking myself lower in every other category,
that lone bright spot was a beacon of hope.

It’s hard to synthesize this advice without making sound like insipid pabulum, "just
believe in yourself." Perhaps it’s best expressed in the negative: "you’re
no stupider than everyone around you."

Writing is hard

Psych 101, QandA, Writing Process

questionmarkI’ve been busy
writing a script, and I have the whole idea mapped out in my head. But for
some reason, my writing doesn’t seem to flow. I struggle to get from one point
to the next. Is this normal? If I go back through the script
again after I’ve jotted down my rough dialogue, will it flow then? Do you do
a quick rough draft before you get into the real writing?

–Bob

answer iconWell, are you a good writer? I ask because it sounds like this is your first
screenplay, and there’s every chance you’re a terrible writer. It’s my experience
that most people in Los Angeles feel like they could write a good movie. The
reason why most of them aren’t successful screenwriters is that they’re really
aren’t good writers.

It’s easy to see how they get mislead: If you read a script, you’d think any
monkey could do it. Most monkeys can’t.

I’m not picking on you, honestly. I hope you’re a terrific writer who’s just
realizing how incredibly difficult screenwriting can be. It’s great when the
writing flows, but most of the time, it doesn’t. You work your ass off to get
to the end of a sentence, then start another. You end up deleting scenes that
took you four hours to write, then rewriting entire scripts based on problems
you should have spotted before you even started writing.

It’s not grueling, back-breaking labor like building a road, but it is labor.
It’s exhausting. And while Final Draft might make formatting your script easier,
it’s still just as hard to write.

Often, when I approach a scene, I will do a quick rough draft, by which I
mean all of a scene’s crucial dialogue lines scribbled on the back of an envelope.
It’s mostly just to get the shape of the scene, but it is "real" writing
just as much as the endless tweaking that will inevitably be entailed.

Above all this, I would stress: Don’t wait for flow. It might come; it might
not. But it’s your job to keep writing anyway.

How old is too old?

Psych 101, QandA

All my life I’ve been fascinated with the process of movie making.
Throughout my twenties I focused on acting (workshops, plays, student films,
local commercials, etc) but never found much enjoyment or satisfaction. I’m
now 32 and just starting my college education and wondering what road to go
down (writing, producing, etc). I guess my question to you is have you seen
many 30-somethings start later in life and manage to be taken seriously in
our unfortunately youth obsessed culture?

–Dave

You read so many stories about young people storming the film world that it’s
easy to think that no one successful was born before 1970. The truth is, most
of the movies you see were written, directed and produced by people in their
30’s, 40’s, and 50’s. The reason why 19-year old wunderkinds are so fascinating
is because they are so rare.

I started working in Hollywood when I was 22, ten years ago. I’m a better
writer now than I was then, partly through experience in the industry, and
partly through the simple passage of time. As you experience more of life,
you simply have more to write about, and a better understanding of the subtleties
of the world.

Will you have a tougher time starting out in your 30’s, rather than your 20’s?
Maybe. But starting a career in film is difficult at any age, so if it’s 15%
more difficult, I can’t imagine that would deter you. Yes, Hollywood can be
youth-obsessed, but it’s also a meritocracy at a certain point. People don’t
care where you come from as long as you can do the job well.

Looking back, I think the only real advantage I had with youth is that I was
willing to be poor. Since I came straight out of college, it didn’t really
bother me to eat spaghetti five nights a week, to sleep on the floor rather
than a bed, or drive a rusted-out Honda. If I had been better established in
life, with a comfortable job and a distaste for ramen noodles, it might have
been hard to give those things up.