The big news out of the Folkman apartment this past week was the finishing of the first (and second) draft of our first feature spec! Looking back on its history, the basic idea came up around March of last year I think and I didn’t seriously start writing it as a feature until January of this year. (The plan was that Nick and I would both write our own features and then exchange them after the first draft to revise. I think we abandoned this around page 65 of my script.)

So what have I learned?

1. Get the hell away from wherever you live. Up until this past month, I think I did most of my writing either in my bedroom or living room-area. Sometimes this would yield good stuff, but most of the time it felt like I was fighting against my surroundings and/or the internet.

What say you, William Monahan?

One thing which is bugging me recently is working on a computer, because for all the convenience and speed, you’re trying to work on a machine which is also a communications center and a newspaper and a television and a magazine and a movie theater and also you’ve got your music on it.

I can’t do anything about the computer thing (I write in notebooks, but I still transcribe it to the comp), but we do make it a habit now of writing in public places. For whatever reason, it keeps me focused on what needs getting done and, most of the time, there isn’t internet so I don’t have to deal with that. Also, if I write where I’m living, I am often tempted to just put off writing to make a sandwich.

2. Outline. In some cases it’s worth it to just write a scene to see where it takes you, but a lot of the time it’s necessary and beneficial to outline. You can catch a lot of big problems early on and as you get more in depth, you’re able to see the smaller ones before you get into the nitty-gritty of actually writing the scene. I more or less just try to get the story beats across in my outlines and elaborate where needed, but there’s no method for it. Aronofsky is apparently a big fan of grafting the outline onto the hero’s journey. I might try it for my next feature.

3. Write what you want to see. You’d think this would be common sense but it’s surprising how often you can just write yourself into a hole and think to yourself, “What am I doing? I’ve seen all of this before a million times?” Always write for yourself because then you’re able to bring out something genuine. Scratch your own itch.

So what’s next? Gonna register that script, get some notes from people, revise some more, and hopefully we can get it on some desks. As for other projects, we’ve got some stuff we’re dusting off and some new stuff that’s exciting, for us.

Maybe we can actually shoot something soon. That’d be cool.

Collider has just posted an amazing interview with William Monahan.

Monahan is one of our favorite living screenwriters and any interview he does is worth reading. I haven’t even finished reading this one but it’s already one of the greatest interviews I’ve seen, ever.

I was even thinking about posting excerpts but there are far too many.

UPDATE: Found another one! This is right after he was nominated for the Academy Award. It’s a much shorter interview so I WILL post an excerpt.

The thing about this business is that you have to come out of your shell and deal with certain realities of commerce and collaboration and still come up with a masterpiece at the end of it. And you know what? The masterpiece also has to make money. It’s not easy to walk into that set of problems and come out with a work of art at the end of it, but it can be done. As far as getting notes is concerned, I‘ve spent thirty-odd years studying English drama, so I’m personally at a point where I’m post-conscious about craft, but that’s a pricey personal evolution, that’s a thing I chose to do, and you have to remember not everyone’s had time for it, any more than you can expect some other guy off the street to know kung fu or biochemistry. So yeah, there I am, and I sure I know English drama, plus film, and sometimes the other guy knows what somebody at a class told him a screenplay needs, and there’s a difference, but I tell myself what I’d say to my kids or anybody else: when your boss is talking, you listen. The studios catch a lot of crap from the peanut gallery but they’re the guys who pay for the movies and they are rightfully concerned about their investments. I don’t expect an MBA to be Northrop Frye, but I do want to hear his opinions and I’d ask for them were they not given. Do I want to hear is “arc” and “journey” and how does someone “change” through the course of the movie? No, I do not. People change in stories about people changing, not in every story. Not every story is A Christmas Carol. You get this crap about “story” because of these chuckleheads out there running script classes, who really prey on confusion about art and people’s genuine desire to learn. It’s shameful what they’ve done to discourse about motion pictures and to film itself. Writers literally get fired in this business because they aren’t providing enough “journey” in a story that doesn’t call for any. There are no general rules to any sort of writing. Each work has its own inherent rules. You discover them. You don’t import them.

The screening went better than expected! We had a very nice reaction and we also had excellent company with the films before and after us. This one went on before us and I was smiling through the whole thing. After all the films screened, the filmmakers were invited on stage for a Q&A (our first!) which was a lot of fun. Afterwards we stood around in the hallway, looking lost I guess, and were surprised at the number of people who came up and congratulated us. Did not expect that at all.

Anyways, we’re days away from finishing a script so it’s all hands on deck for that. I’ll leave you with a quote from Jim Jarmusch.

“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic.”

Oh, and also, for those in LA. The New Beverly Cinema is a required visit for all of you. We just went there for a first time today and for seven dollars we saw a double feature of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and The Seven Year Itch.

Apologies (again!) to everybody for our lapses in posting. I never wanted us to be that blog/website that always says they’re on top of things and will keep the updates coming on some sort of schedule, but… shit happens.

First off, I implore everybody to listen to the Creative Screenwriting Podcast for Monsters. Monsters, being, the incredibly inspiring indy movie that was purportedly made for 15 grand. We were able to go to the screening and Q&A (which everybody should try to do if they’re in LA) and it was fantastic. The fact that they pretty much just had a treatment/rough story outline and let the actors improv most of, if not the entire movie, is astounding. Seriously, they had at most eight people on their crew. So many precedents are being set here.

I know that we never talked about how the internship on the feature went. It went well! Met some great people who’ve since gotten us more work (paid too!) and it was definitely a worthwhile experience.

Having said that, I wasn’t sure about what advice to give so I’ll just copy/paste from a post over on Amanda’s blog. It’s talking about working towards a Writer’s Assistant job, but it applies for all production work, IMO.

a) Be the hardest worker in the room. Get it done. Be proactive. Anticipate what they need. Follow thru. You don’t want them to have to remind you of anything. That’s your job. To remind them.

b) Attitude. Have a good one. You don’t want to be the person who makes it clear how difficult it is to do the task handed to you. The answer is always YES. You want them to WANT to ask for your help. Take every opportunity to show off your work ethic. It matters.

c) Don’t be creepy. Creepy comes in all kinds of colorful flavors and spices, but if you’re sweating bullets, trying to shove your script in their face, trying to be best friends without probable cause, or just feeling like you’re three seconds from a nervous breakdown, it freaks people out. They do not want your nervous energy polluting their air space. Somehow you have to be really damn good at all of this while remaining cool, calm and collected.

Don’t be creepy, guys. You know what I’m talking about.

UPDATE! I forgot to mention that Monsters is available to rent on iTunes. I implore all of you to check it out if you’re interested.

How sweet is that, huh? Thanks again to Graham D. Pilling for knocking it out of the park, again.

The LA Comedy Fest screening of Carrot Cake Soup will take place on Saturday, November 6th at 9:30PM at the ACME Comedy Theater.

BE THERE OR BE THE ULTIMATE SQUARE.

Carrot Cake Soup is going to be in the LA Comedy Festival next month! We’ll post more details when we get them, but for now WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! It’s the largest live comedy/film festival in the US!

We are excited.

We are interning on an indy feature!

The thing you hear everybody say about film sets is that the most exciting day is your first day, and then you realize how much waiting around there is. That’s true to an extent but I’m still having a great time. I’ve been helping out the camera crew and we’re shooting on RED so I’m trying to glean whatever advice and tips I can from them. There’s been drama but overall it’s a really great crew and it’s been a great experience to learn from. Best advice that we can give so far is: Do whatever they tell you but don’t let them take advantage of you, be a Johnny-on-the-spot with everything, be aware of what’s happening, and at least look happy to be there. And always have a hot brick on you, extra sides and walkies.

Also going to take this opportunity to post our twitters for you mooks.

No joke, I’ve got a slinky next to my computer right now to help my “process.”

Draft is coming along but things might get complicated again as we’ll be interning on an indy feature starting this week(!). Only advice I can give is network, network, network. It’s a nonpaying gig, of course, so we’re still technically unemployed, but that shouldn’t stop anybody.

I forgot to mention SigAlert in my last post. Real time updates on LA traffic makes it pretty much a requirement to have on your body at all times. Plus it’s got a mobile version!

This city is ginormous! Since getting here, the Yelp app on my iPhone has been running almost nonstop. Not wanting to trust strangers, however, I’ve asked some friends for their recommendations on sights/places to eat. Most of the great descriptions comes courtesy of our buddy Todd over at Range Life.

Should you like our list, you may download it here.

CLICK FOR MORE, AND ALSO TRAFFIC TIPS!

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I’m in a very good mood at the moment because we think we’ve found a good ending for our latest short we’re itching to make. Writing on it has started and stopped with huge gaps for the last few months and if I were a lesser person (re: pussy) I would chalk this up to writer’s block.

But I don’t believe in writer’s block and neither should you.

John August certainly doesn’t.

“You know who gets writer’s block? Non-writers. They think it’s cool and romantic to struggle to make Art. They make sure everyone knows how torturous the process is, so when they finally squeeze something out, it won’t be judged on its merits but rather the emotional anguish involved in its creation.

Writers write. Hacks Posers whine about how hard it is.”

Now we need to just revise the shit out of it and then finish our features.