TEACHING at UCLA

Teaching screenwriting at UCLA Extensions on and off and a student, overwhelmed with facing the blank page, asked for help.

Some of her concern - and it's something that everyone feels, whatever level you're at:

I am having a hard time starting my 10 pages. I have read the

chapters you listed, but am still having a hard time. I have never written in this style and format and it is nerve racking. What do I do to even get started. I think most here have already done this by looking at their work. They have some idea of what they are doing. And, how am I suppose to critique some else's work when I don't even know what I am doing, much less them. I don't know if they are formatting correctly and if they are doing their story correctly. I don't feel qualified to correct their work -

I think anyone can relate to that feeling, to that concern - to just feeling clueless sometimes. But what the hell to do with the feelings of cluelessness?

Well, all I can tell you is even the professional writers, when they sit down with a new project, feel much like you do. "What the hell am I doing? And what the hell do I know?" are things I hear from my friends who do this for a living. So in that sense - you are doing just fine!

We are all story tellers, our lives are stories and what compels us about stories that we love is that they speak to some deep inner place our ours that knows about struggles, dreams, disappointments, hopes and failures. We've all had them in our lives - and we've all had mentors, allies and enemies.

So I think you're very much qualified to tell a person that something rings true in their work, or doesn't, that a piece of dialogue is emotionally moving, or perhaps should be looked at again to nuance more emotion out of it (we must critique gently after all), etc.

As to starting - the first page is always the most difficult. And yes, there is a specific structure required for the modern screenplay. No way around that. however, if it feels all too much at first to do structure and creative writing, abandon structure for now.

Write everything out in single line format, like a play. Character left margin, with a colon after it, followed by dialogue - then space inbetween next character, space inbetween your next narrative/description of action.

That way you can get into the flow of the talking and the action without having to worry about structure - you can always structure it later, that's mechanical, but creative writing needs to flow and we have to serve that as best as we can (I do this kind of writing sometimes, by the way. when an idea comes fast and I don't want to have to worry about structuring it...)

So - go for it. Sit there. Something in you wants to do this, or you wouldn't have signed up. Give it some time at the desk to manifest, sit there even if it's not coming, because it will. Pace around the room if you need to, jog, stationary bicycle while thinking - come back and sit down again - walk around with a tape recorder and act out the lines as they come out - they don't have to be perfect, you'll take the ones you want later, or sit and over-write knowing you can edit later, or if you dictate come back and transcribe, there are as many methods as writers, find yours. (Rod Serling, supposedly, dictated EVERYTHING and had someone else write it up, how about that?)

And remember to be a bit light about it all - after all, it's something you chose to do, something you want to do - that's pretty cool. (As opposed to being in a flood or being chased by angry bulls in Spanish streets, you know?) This is something you're doing for you.

You shall prevail.

Tony Gilroy Master Story Teller

Check out the Bourne Ultimatum at any free script site for style and brilliant economy of words - particularly Gilroy's descriptions and actions. But, needless to say, his dialogue is sparse, succinct and emotional.

I have read it several times, merely for my own enjoyment, and came away accidentally with an education.

Whether or not you are in the same genre, you can take inspiration from Gilroy's craft. When the action hits - it's easy to over write and try to explain it all. What a mess.

The real trick is being the 'eye on the page' and leading us - important/crucial image to important/crucial image - and leaving a lot out believe it or not. Fragments, half sentences, hanging words match the breathless cutting of visual action.

You're the poet placing drops of paint on the canvas, that's it - let the reader fill in the rest. That absence - that vacuum inbetween the description - pulls them irresisttably along.

Prexy of Production

Meeting with a President of Production carries a certain weight to your time spent, in that you feel it's time well spent. To get where he is the guy knows what he's talking about and has experience making movies (more often than not).

So when you discuss theme, tone and casting you know he's not play acting - he's really done it.

Upside - he knows the dollar value of each sequence, the drawing power of a certain name, what story beat will appeal to what age group (quadrant) and are you making a 'four quadrant picture'? (Getting every demograhic into the theater - sort of neccessary in the 200 Mill and up club.

Downside - he'll want your picture to be four quadrant, may insist on a certain name to drive a film, get stuck on story points he's worried won't play for a mass audience.

I was in such a meeting today, discussing a script I'm writing and getting feedback. What comes at you -

1) What's the tone of this story? What are we going for here - is it broad, or is it real? (This is when you supply the films that this story is like, still a very tried and true Hollywood requirement, so they can feel it. "We're shooting for Pirates here, National Treasure say, not a Will Ferrel movie."

2) Who do you see starring in this? (More than likely he's worked with him.) Have your names ready in your head, often the list isn't long, and you'll know right away if you're both thinking of the same film. If you say Nicholas Cage, and he says Chris Rock, you're making different movies in your mind.

3) Fight for your characters, they will be what's remembered. The quirky and quixotic in the midst of major set pieces - they are what's remembered.

4) Is the hero emotionally tied into the ending - ? I got that question - and it's a good one. The people who have it together ask that note - as often act three becomes very situational, driving and intense but not emotional.

5) And what's the theme? It's really not an academic, or student film class question only - it is deeply important to good story telling. Know your theme - it often indicates the emotional drive.

Bones is Back

After a long hiatus, I have returned to the web to share my extremely personal and peculiar experiences in the Hollywood.

Words as Toys

I have a friend who was lamenting the other night that he didn't write something like MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING, because even though it was crap it did so well at the box office.

Are we having fun yet?

First of all, I thought the movie was funny.

Second of all, all I could think of to say was - the author didn't write it to make a box office smash, she wrote it because she loved writing it and it cracked her up.

Same for JACKASS, by the way. Sure there's a financial formula involved, but those jack asses really LIKE what they're doing and it shows.

The energy that goes into any project, is the energy we feel coming back out of it.

If that energy is fun, if your happiness goes in, or even if it's bittersweet and you're writing a tragedy, if it's still thrilling to you, soul healing, or just plain fun, we'll feel it.

Andthat's contagious.

So don't forget to play with words as if they were toys.

And don't play with words as if each line has to make $200 mill at the box office.

It's more of a problem for those who are successful. You begin feeling like you have to feed that success and you begin to second guess and doubt yourself. When the reality is, if you just be true to the fun you're having, the success will just come.

I'm a bootleg music collector, Beatles primarily, and the one thing that has blown me away when I hear a rehearsal track, or an out take of an incredibly famous song, is how much fun these guys were having together when they worked. Experimenting, trying different versions of the same song, not afraid to completely kill a slow version of something and turn it into something fast and you suddenly recognize the hit. What starts as a ballad on one track, becomes a hard rock hit several tracks later. Same song. Or the heavy metal sounding jam because a lighter rock hit because they pulled way back on the intensity - and you recognize the hit. They were incredibly unattached to what something had to be - they just loved an idea, ran with it, played with it, listened to it, followed the flow where it took them - until it felt right.

Don't be afraid to follow the flow and play even as you work within an outline.

And truly, the energy you put into your project is the energy people will get back out when they pick it up and read it.

Think of words as toys.

Write the Unsaid

Real dialogue has as much said as there is unsaid, as there is in any real discussion between two (or more) people.

Furious at your father, you may not mention your feelings.
In love with the woman you're speaking to, and she's unaware, you may not mention it.
Dreaming he'll ask you to marry him, it may not come up when you chat, but it's on your mind.

In drama the unsaid is very powerful, and it pulls us into that empty moment.

How do you write the unsaid?

You must know the emotional life of your characters. You must know not only how they feel in a specific moment, but what is the arc of emotions in their story. Often a character's mind wants something - that drives the plot (money, sex, power, an item) and their heart want something as well - (love of a stranger, reconciliation with a loved one, redemption for past failure) and that is what is completely UNSAID.

Specifically, it is unsaid TO the primary object of affection.

Crucial that is IS SAID to a trusted friend, ally, or piece of paper with a voice over.

That's the challenge in the spoken drama, how do you get OUT of the character's head? The friend can be a shoulder to cry on, or the voice of conscience urging action. So that the HEART story can be voiced. But when it comes down to closing the deal, the hero can't do it. They can't say what needs to be said, can't heal the wound, and has a moment of LOSS, an opportunity missed, perhaps eternally, where the loved one moves off. That is the power of the unsaid - the hero has to be facing the abyss of LOSS after a moment where they could have succeeded. Perhaps time and time again. But ultimately that is too unbearable, forcing them to grow - take a chance - and face their heart's desire and finally SAY the UNSAID.

We've seen it a thousand times in love stories and when it works at the end, it's incredible. Sometimes the unsaid is an action and it's the spontaneous passionate kiss - and when the lovers melt into each other - nothing needs to be said, you've shown it.

In an action film - not surprisingly - action has to accompany this moment, and it's often the physical action that has been UN-ACTIONALBE. Can the hero slay the dragon, essentially, after past failures and current narrow escapes where friends and loved ones have been lost in the struggle? The weight of failure resting so squarely on their shoulders that victory seems a distant dream. But the hero never gives up hope, or re-discovers hope, and re-commits to their mission, so that in the final moment, when they do slay the dragon, it carries that same power.

Less is more.

Write the unsaid.

Let the work reveal itself

You've heard this before, but you've got to be in love with the process, as well as the product.

After I get a great idea, and sit down with my outline and figure out exactly what I'm going to do, that's when I really discover how little I know about my own idea.

Happens to me, anyway, just about every time.

Interestingly, my structure usually stays pretty much the same, usually 75%. But as the interior life of the piece goes from dough to diamonds - that's where the real brutality lies.

Because the only way I can let my idea out into the world is to write it out, over and over, until things start happening i never thought of.

I throw away first drafts and first passes as motivations that seemed to make sense in an outline don't play in scenes. Characters that were just glimpses of an idea, suddenly talk with more authority than my lead.

I used to take this as clear cut evidence that I had no idea what I was doing.

Now I realize that it's more like I'm being done to.

The way a seed grows from the inside out, so I find I have to write from the inside out, in that if I'm not wholly in my character's voice, or thoughts, it all pales anyway.

And something cool plotwise that worked mindfully in the outline - may not make sense once a character locks in tighter than I expected.

That's how I know I'm writing something worth while. When it begins to reveal an emotional solidity, an undeniable reality that seems as real as memory.

Let the work reveal itself even if it shies from away from first thoughts. It may be leading you to it's best self.

If you're re-writing, and are assigned to keep your structure, find this in the inner landscape of the characters. Let their inner lives reveal things that make the spaces you are in make a deeper sense in their story.

Remember how loss connects us to a place, fills us with doubt, haunts our lives, creates the need for redemption or rebirth.

How does that reveal itself in your story?

Can't Write in Longhand

Getting back from my trip at the end of august I asked my computer to restart a way it couldn't and pretty much shut off its brain and it wouldn't restart. Then my lap top was connected to an external hard drive that was shut of incorrectly and wouldn't restart. Then when it did, it wouldn't connect to the internet. I basically pulled out all my remaining hair in the first 24 hours of coming home. And none of my hardware worked. Couldn't write, couldn't burn disks. So I was pretty much crippled.

It was not a nice feeling. You don't realize how much you rely on something until it's gone.

Don't wait until this is a wife, girlfriend or boyfriend out there by the way.

Anyway, without computers and internet for so long was very disturbing.

and i just can't write long hand anymore.

So up and running again. Will post more today. Wll be sending out CD's very soon! Thank you for your understanding out there!

Traveling For Much of August

Be back soon, honest. Blogging from out of country has not been user friendly.