If I could choose a first and a second:
I think being a screenwriter is this amazing opportunity to constantly examine the human condition, why we do what we do. It’s sort of an excuse to learn more about yourself and ask hard questions and grow as a person. I think if you do it right you’re forced to live through all these people that you might otherwise dismiss and maybe in your personal life even loathe, but have to go into their skin and understand why they do what they do and sympathize with them so you can write them properly. I think that makes you a more well-rounded person with a better life perspective.
And second it would just be the schedule. I mean, I don’t have an alarm clock. I get up when I wake up. I get to play with my dog all day. I can arrange it where I have time off anytime I want. As long as I’m disciplined enough to get the work in or make up that time, I get paid for what I do, not to show up some place. I think that’s really satisfying.
7) Has being a full-time screenwriter impacted your personal life in any way? How do you balance your hobbies or personal interests against your need to meet deadlines?
My last job that I showed up to every day was when JP and I were in that process of just pounding out screenplays, trying to get our voice down and write something worthy of being sold or put on-screen. I worked for Ryan Seacrest. He does a morning radio show out here and I wrote jokes for his show. I had to get up super-early and it was a love-hate thing because it was definitely a fun environment, but you have to be there and you have to deliver on deadline.
When it was over, we started writing full-time with no other supplements to our income. I don’t think people realize how much socialization you get from being at work, seeing people every day, small talk, having some sense of community, being on a schedule that other people are on so that your nights and weekends matter. For me, a Wednesday and a Saturday are pretty much the same thing. You tend to get really excited because you can go to the movies in the afternoon when no one’s there or eat at restaurants at odd times when there’s no crowd. Then you start going, “Yeah, but I’m kind of removed completely from society because I’m just not on its clock anymore.” You’re just sort of part of this drifter community of nomadic self-starters. There’s value to it, but you do feel kind of like you’re out of stream.
8) How does that tie in with people back home [on the East coast] that you’re still in touch with who are on that regular 9 to 5 grind? Has that made it harder for you to stay in touch or to feel relatable to them in any way?
Definitely. My parents are retired, so that’s not a problem, but I definitely speak to my brother a lot less.
There are plenty of screenwriters who have 2.2 kids, drive their kids to practice, and are married. For me, in the pursuit of this goal, I really put my career first and decided I wasn’t going to let anything derail me getting there. I made choices in terms of my life and not getting married. I’d say the combination of that and my schedule sometimes makes me feel like I’m a little separated from the masses. You get to the point that your career has been in the forefront for so long, you realize parts of your life maybe aren’t as developed as those of your friends, but we all cope with stuff like that.
But you don’t feel like it really hinders you in any way creatively?
Not creatively. I had a really rich and kind of wild life through college and after. I’ve definitely seen a lot of things. Would I, for instance, jump on a chance to write a story about a dad just trying to cope because he has two kids and a regular job? Probably not. That would be harder for me to write than a story of a samurai cowboy in space. It would be way easier [for me]to relate with that guy.
9) How do you get these ideas, then, that don’t necessarily fit in with what a regular person experiences on an average day? Do ideas usually come to you ‘boxed’ from directors or producers, or do you have a lot of your own ideas that you pitch?
You know, it’s kind of gone back and forth, but we’re at a point now where we’ve worked for most of the studios and most of the work we get now is a studio or a producer approaching us with a piece of material or an idea that they are already invested in. Then JP and I take that idea and if we connect with it in some way, we develop it out with that producer/studio. We might also be one of a half dozen teams of writers they’ve brought in who kind of all vie for this job.
We still come up with our own ideas, but we’ve been so busy with doing these assignments, that hasn’t really been at the forefront of our business — just writing specs or creating new things. We do it, but primarily we work on assigned material or pre-existing ideas or remakes — things that already have a nucleus.
We are in a rare position, though, because we’re usually brought in because the idea isn’t fully formed, or tonally it’s a really difficult idea to execute because of trying to balance drama and action and comedy all together, or there’s a genre involved in the idea that sort of makes it more challenging. We tend to be good at cracking those things. From a writer’s perspective, we’ve become more like world builders and problem solvers, but based on stuff that already exists.
10) That’s a good place to be if people are coming to you and asking, “Will you take this on?” Or am I misunderstanding it? Maybe you can you briefly talk me through the lifespan of a script, from spec to production or pitch to production.
Well, there are a lot of different types of examples, but I’ll give you one. Let’s just say there’s a comic book that gets released and I’m not talking Iron Man. I’m just talking some small, independent comic book that has a really good idea. A lot of these studios and production houses will have creative execs and junior creative execs who are given a certain amount of discretionary money to look for ideas to develop that fit the specific brand of that producer or studio. So these guys will come in and buy a certain amount of properties and then they start bringing the writers in. That would be when we get involved.
They might just sit in a room with you and talk to you about certain comics they’ve purchased or there might even be more momentum because the head of that production house or the president of that studio really loves this book. So you talk about it and normally it’s not a Harry Potter situation where it’s just like, “Hey, this is already so ripe to be adapted for the screen.” Usually there’s something there, a germ or a seed of something, a hook that we think can really work, but we don’t know how to execute it.
JP and I will then start talking about the idea and how it might make sense in a movie and there might be other writers doing the same thing. For a process of probably one to three months — and this is a process you don’t get paid for, this is just the price of doing business — you will work on a proposal or treatment based on how you would approach that idea. You may or may not be having communication with that exec in terms of him giving you his ideas or him telling you what the studio doesn’t want or what he feels is lacking from what you’ve presented. You just keep adding layers onto this treatment. At that point, depending on the project, if it’s a production house that might be the first step before you go to your agency or the head of that studio and pitch out your idea and say, “This is what we want to write.” Or if it’s the studio itself or a more established production house, you might just be given a one- or two-step deal to write that movie, if they choose you. If it’s pitching, it could be another three months of trying to figure things out.
Once you have the job, you usually get about four months to write it. Usually there are producer passes and other things, so typically you don’t turn it in for about a half a year. If you’re lucky enough, you’ve gotten a second step, which means a guaranteed re-write of your idea. You get all the notes from the producers, notes from the production heads, notes from maybe a director, notes from an actor — often notes that completely contradict each other. You just compile all these ideas and then you try to navigate your way through them and deliver another draft. Through this all, you might be working on this thing for a year or two years, as this process goes on, and you will probably work on other movies in the interim.
Screenwriting is a long, laborious process. No one wants to invest millions upon millions of dollars on something they’re not confident can get them their money back.
(Continue reading Chad’s amazing story on the next page.)
