John August

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Working on multiple projects

QandA, Tarzan, Writing Process

Do you prefer to work on one project at a time, from start to finish? Or do you prefer to keep a couple things going at once, maybe writing a couple pages on each a day?

–Jason Rinka
North Hollywood, CA

When the situation allows — that is, when I’m not horribly behind on a project I owe somebody — I prefer to work on one thing at a time. Unfortunately, I’m usually behind. As of this moment (March 2004), I’m on my third draft of CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, my second draft of CORPSE BRIDE, and finishing my first draft of TARZAN. Generally, they get prioritized based on how soon the movie shoots, so CHARLIE gets the bulk of my energy, even though TARZAN is horribly overdue.

I would never try to write two first drafts at the same time — there’s too much planning involved. But a lot of rewriting can effectively be done in quick bursts, so working on multiple projects in one day isn’t as onerous as it seems. Once you’ve written the screenplay, it’s pretty easy to get back in the right mindset when a director calls with a quick change.

Television writers in particular have to be ready to work on any script at any time, since any given moment they have an episode in outline, an episode in prep, an episode shooting, and an episode in post. Of course, television also benefits from having characters and storylines that continue — you’re not reinventing every 60 pages.

Selling a story if you’re not a screenwriter

QandA, Treatments

Like millions of other Americans out there, I have what my peers consider a few great movie ideas based on some recognizable cartoon characters. It’s a live action big budget concept with tons of special effects and an extremely clever twist. I can’t write the thing myself, but I can participate in its development. What course of action do you recommend? Is there a pool of capable screenwriters waiting for people with ideas to draw from? What can I do to sell my concept and have others develop the story?

–Paul Threatt

We don’t usually publish last names, but “Paul Threatt” seems so cosmically calculated for success, who could resist? If I were you, here’s what I would do.

  1. Even though you’re not a writer, do the very best job you can writing down the ideas, just in prose form. Register these treatments with the Writer’s Guild. (Refer back to one of the upteen columns I’ve written about that.) Keep in mind that this is really very little protection, since you don’t own any of the copyrighted characters your idea is based upon. But this whole venture is a crazy longshot, so even a fraction of a percentage of prudence is worth something.
  2. Move to Los Angeles.
  3. Get a job working for one of the following places: a big agency, a major studio, a powerful management firm, or a successful filmmaker (producer, screenwriter or director). This isn’t easy, but it’s not impossible. Start in the mailroom, or as an intern. Learn everything you can. Figure out who the best writers are.
  4. Work very hard, so that you’re promoted a few rungs up from the bottom. This may involve switching companies several times.
  5. At this moment, and not before, present the very best of your ideas to your boss, or another powerful person you’ve befriended along the way. Convince them that this is the movie that will make their careers. Then seek out the filmmaker who could get it made, and the studio that controls the rights.

If everything works perfectly, you could have a movie in production in less than five years. Which is a very long time, granted, but par for the course in movieland.

This whole scenario may sound far-fetched, but it’s essentially what’s been happening for decades. Pretty much everyone who comes to Hollywood has one or two great ideas that they’re convinced should be made. And fortunately, remarkably, they’re right. Good luck.

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

Elephant and Columbine’s actual events

QandA, Story and Plot

I just saw Gus Van Sant’s ELEPHANT and at the end there was a disclaimer saying that any similarity to actual events or persons is completely coincidental.  How can he say this?  I know it’s not a retelling of the Columbine story, but it sure shares a resemblance.
 

–Brad Sorensen
Ottawa, ON

I’m curious how Van Sant would answer, and whether there was any discussion about exactly what the end crawl should say. The phrasing of “any similarity to actual events or persons is completely coincidental,” is pretty much boilerplate these days, designed to protect against libel and defamation in case Hannibal J. Lector of Boise, Idaho gets annoyed that people mistake him for a devious cannibal. Most movies say something like this, sandwiched between the American Humane Association disclaimer and the IATSE logo.

Was it fair to use the phrase in this case? In my opinion, sure.

Although the Columbine shootings were certainly the inspiration for ELEPHANT, the story itself — that is, the characters, the scenes, the dialogue — was fictional. The movie didn’t purport to be about that particular Colorado high school, but rather the culture of high school violence. The Columbine killings were “the elephant in the room,” but were never directly addressed in the sense of Michael Moore’s BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE. While another filmmaker might choose to phrase it differently, one can understand Van Sant’s desire to draw a distinction between his movie and the real events that happened at Columbine.