It’s very important that what you do is specific to the medium in which you’re doing it. And that you utilize what’s specific about that medium to do the work. And if you can’t think about why it should be done this way or needs to be done this way, then it doesn’t need to be done this way and then you should figure out what it is about this – if you want to do it – that needs to be told in the form of a movie.
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read a book called save the cat, watch every great pilot, read as many tv scripts as you can, watch you tube videos on great writers processes
Finish them! DOn't be the guy that writes half a script. Write a full script or make a film and post it! you have so many cool avenues these days! But no matter what, finish! Even if it's bad, then you have something finished to work off of and show others and get their thougths! Finish, then show others and take their precious free thougths!
There’s another quote that I like, this one’s a little long, but I think it’s good. It’s by a guy named John Garvey: ‘I am increasingly convinced that the need to be right has nothing whatsoever to do with the love of truth, but to face the implications of this means accepting a painful inner emptiness; I am not now what I sense somehow I am meant to be. I do not know what I feel from the bottom of my heart, I need to know. The beginning of wisdom is not to flee from this condition or distract yourself from it. It is essential not to fill it up with answers that have not been earned. It is important to learn how to wait with that emptiness. It is the desire to fill up that emptiness which le...
I don’t feel that way about myself, I don’t think that way. And I would never intentionally play on it. I always try to do something that I don’t know how to do and I always try to do something different but I’m a person with a very specific existence and a very specific background, like everybody is.
And the stuff that comes out of me might resemble other things that have come out of me, but don’t try for that. In fact I try for the opposite. This thing that I just wrote that hopefully is going to get made is a musical, you know? I’ve never done that before, so I did it.
‘Do not write jokes to your readers in your stage directions.’ You know what I mean by that? People do that. Don’t do that. Your job is to create an atmosphere. You’re trying to establish a mood. You’re writing a story and what you’re trying to do is to help this large group of people who are going to come together to understand the tone and the spirit and the feeling of this movie so that they can come together and make it. That’s what you should spend your time on, not with winks and stuff. Not winking at people.
Question: When I think of dialog, it sounds good in my head. But when I put it on paper it becomes garbage. How would you solve this problem?
Answer: hmmmmmm. good question. what's it sound like when you say it out loud? it doesn't need to look good on the paper if it's a script....a novel maybe, but a script is just a temporary thing....good for the actors, not for reading....
Yeah, because there's a lot of people jockeying for the job of "making shit up," which means there's an overwhelmingly statistical potential for disappointment in your chosen field. And that's great news because it means you're either going to realize that if you had to, you'd do it for free or you're going to realize that when push came to shove, you'd be fine doing something else and maybe writing as a hobby, etc. Nobody can tell you that it's going to work out. Outcome can't be controlled, we're not luck writers, we're screenwriters. So all one screenwriter can say to another is, hey, it's a tough racket for a really long time with random pockets of insanely good fortune to be found..ther...
I can’t tell anyone how to write a screenplay because the truth is that anything of value you might do comes from you. The way I work is not the way that you work, and the whole point of any creative act is that. What I have to offer is me, what you have to offer is you, and if you offer yourself with authenticity and generosity I will be moved. You are born into a body, into a family, into a situation, into a brain chemistry, into a gender, into a culture, into a time – as am I. At times I can feel the massive gravitation pulling of all these various things, pulling me in different directions, creating me.
I like the idea of the job a lot. I get to think about things I want to think about, I get to write jokes that sometimes make people laugh. I mean, it’s a great job, but it’s very hard for me. I don’t sit at my desk and laugh. That’s very, very rare. Mostly I sit at my desk and look at stuff online. That’s mostly what I do, because I can’t think. I don’t recommend that because it’s a terrible thing, and I’d like to fight against it in my life and in my offering tonight. It’s not a good thing.
A screenplay is an exploration. It’s about the thing you don’t know. It’s a step into the abyss. It necessarily starts somewhere, anywhere; there is a starting point but the rest is undetermined. It is a secret, even from you. There’s no template for a screenplay, or there shouldn’t be. There are at least as many screenplay possibilities as there are people who write them. We’ve been conned into thinking there is a pre-established form. Like any big business, the film business believes in mass production. It’s cheaper and more efficient as a business model.
But I don’t want to talk about that aspect of screenwriting. Here’s what I know about a screenplay; simply that it is a text which desc...
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Chris was always doing that bit to me at work. We shared an office, and you had to walk through our office to get to Chris Rock & Adam Sandler's office, so these 2 microscopic offices were back to back, and Chris' desk was behind mine, and he didn't really know how to write, or read, really (kidding!) but he would come in bored, because I would have to write my sketches to try to get on but they would always let him on, so he would get behind me and be bored, everyone would write him sketches, and he would say "Davey… turn around" and I said "if this is Fat Guy in a Little Coat I'm not turning around, it's not funny anymore." And he would say "no, i've got a whole new thing I'm doing."
And ...
Question: You've worked with a lot of the same people since your early 20s (Bridges, Elswit, Tichenor, Sellar etc). Did you pick these people very carefully out of admiration for their work, or was it more coincidental? Especially with Elswit - did you immediately know this was your guy?
Answer: Elswit was the only one who had a resume. The rest of us all found each other and started getting to work - big dreams and all...
Elswit was nice enough to work with me and teach me everything. He was and is my hero.
He goes, "Yeah, I approve, 99.9 percent." And I'm like, "Wow, and what's the 0.1 percent?" And you think he's going to say, "You know, I never said that," or whatever, and he goes — director to director — he goes, "Yeah, James, I think you should look at lighting in the beginning of [the] movie." And I'm like, "Oh man, I'll tell my cinematographer to watch The Room for pointers."
But then we realize only later that he had been wearing his shades through the whole movie, so it's like, "Yeah, of course the lighting is off." ...
I realized in that screening ... when [the audience was] cheering for him, they were cheering his story. They were cheering him on and the will it took to get his mov...
Seth Rogen and myself are really good friends. We started out in the business together, so he was calling friends for favors, he wanted me to do a cameo and I agreed. It was a funny cameo; he explained the premise to me and I agreed.
I really love the way Wes writes with his collaborators, I like the way he shoots, and I like HIM. I've become so fond of him. I love the way that he has made his art his life. And you know, it's a lesson to all of us, to take what you love and make it the way you live your life, and that way you bring love into the world.
I'm a big Woody Allen fan. I'm a big Alexander Payne fan, Paul Thomas Anderson... Soderbergh... but probably Woody more than anybody. People are calling TOP FIVE "Woody-ish" but if you're not stealing from Woody, you're not doing anything, you know? If you're not stealing from the Beatles, you're not making music!
Question: You've been listed as a video editor on most of your projects. What program do you use to edit and why have you decided to take on this role?
Answer: I love editing. I have used Avid in the past but I exclusively use Final Cut Pro now, though I am concerned about the future... You always have to put three dots after the future...
editing is part of the process. it's how you form everything. In some ways not editing yourself would be like a sculptor dropping some clay off at a guys house and saying "Make a naked lady chasing a bull. and do it nice."
Those were not based on my testicles. However, Oscar winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis allowed his balls to be examined for the prosthetic balls to be made.
Side note: Those are, no joke, $10,000 worth of prosthetic balls that you see in that movie.
Loved having the breasts on my head. The make up dept. really made them authentic. Filled with condoms full of water. Everyone wanted to feel them, guys and women. At the end of the day when they were removed no one cared about me. It was then I realized how powerful it was to have breasts!
Well that was great fun. It was great fun, because it just dragged on and on and on. And it was this fun bunch of people. First we went to our friend's farm, and we all stayed at her place for a handful of days while we recorded during the day and then at night we would have these magnificent meals and we would all tell stories. We had a LOT of great food, a lot of great wine and great stories. It went on until people started literally falling from their chairs and being taken away. And then we had to go to another place and do it again, we went to George's place, but then something happen and the whole party broke up, and George said "you don't have to go, do ya" and I didn't, so we just ki...
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