February 16, 2023 • 17 mins
I've been taking a screenwriting class where the main exercise has been to copy brilliant scripts that have already been made into award-winning films and TV shows.
Page by page, word for word, type the exact dialogue, action lines, character descriptions.
When the teacher mentioned this I immediately thought "ah ha!" Why didn't I think of that?
I've done it in so many other formats. Studying novels to refine my writing. Learning cover songs to understand melody and harmony and rhythm. Rehearsing salsa shines until the basic patterns are ingrained.
Artists used to learn through apprenticeship. Taking time to perfect the style of the masters who came before. It's the best way to know how to break those rules.
You have to know what the structure of your medium is, before you can figure out how your unique voice will shine in it.
Come check out the Hot Mess series on TikTok, and watch as I lose my mind - and find it again - writing, producing, and acting in a show!
#CreatingIsHealing🦋
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi my friends.
I am having one of those dayswhere I am just sitting here
convinced this is gonna be aterrible episode and I have no
idea what I'm saying.
And, um, trying to convincemyself I know what I'm doing and
finally just decided to hitrecord.
And, um, so kind of, you know,so much of this podcast.
(00:22):
Well, it's funny, I don't thinkit's what it started when I had
the title, but it still applies.
Um, be Your Own Muse, uh, youknow, was about really turning
inward and letting yourself bethe reason you create, you know,
rather than this external ideaof someone else inspiring you.
I think everything can inspireyou, but there's such a gendered
(00:44):
idea behind a muse.
And especially as an actor, Ialways felt this sense of loss
of agency.
Like my goal was to make someonethink that I was, you know, the
reason for making an entirefilm, which I love as an idea,
but I don't know, I, I, I wantedto figure out, because I was so,
(01:04):
um, struck by how much agency Ikept giving away that it was
actually leeching all of mycreativity.
Because I was always trying tofigure out, well, whose muse am
I supposed to be and how do Iget them to discover me and how
do I figure out what they wantand what they're looking for?
And it's the worst way to gothrough any kind of life.
And so I've been forever lookingfor this internal compass, this
(01:26):
internal, not even motivation.
I feel a lot like when I wasyounger I had such a clear sense
of who I was and why I didthings.
And it bothered me much lessthat people thought I was weird
or could kind of hear my owninternal systems more.
And the more I grew up, the moreI kind of got scared of that.
(01:46):
And it didn't seem definitelynot cool, but not even like
functional or normal.
So I got really good at kind ofnot listening to my internal
orientation and taking cues fromthe outside to, which is really
good for surviving middle schooland high school and college
depending on where you went toschool.
(02:07):
Um, but not a way that I wannalive my life.
And I think anyone who's anartist hears their internal
compass, their internal voice orguidance way more than the
external.
And that's why they wannacreate, it's an expression of
you, right, of the divine of theenergy, the that flows through
you.
And so that was the idea behindthis, right?
(02:29):
How do you turn inward for yourinspiration?
Um, and let that be your guidingforce.
But the other thing that'shappened in this podcast, which
I'm actually really proud of,um, terrifying as it is, has
been a really pullback whew.
And look at the messy middle,you know, and look at the, I
(02:49):
don't know, in this age ofInstagram, we just see so much
of the after product of howthings are when they are done
and when they are finished.
And
Speaker 2 (02:59):
We don't get to watch someone be terrified and do it
anyway.
We don't get to watch someone oreven like, hear their thoughts,
you know?
And people will sometimes sharethat, which I love when they're
like, oh, I did this thing and Ilooked really polished cuz
someone did my hair and makeup.
I had a glam squad, but I wasshaking on the inside, you know?
Um, and it's so hard.
It's funny when I hear peoplesay that, I always think, oh
(03:21):
yeah, uh, that makes sense.
But I, because I can't feel liketheir outsides look so different
from the, uh, insides that Ifeel that it's hard for me to
relate that my shaking and mypanic and my voice is telling me
I suck and this will beterrible, are similar to someone
who I really respect and admirehaving the same voices, right?
So I think part of it is justnormalizing the fact that our
brains are always going to tellus we suck and this is a
(03:44):
terrible idea and you should notdo this.
Um, and for myself, justnormalizing that, showing up
when I'm exhausted and my braindoesn't feel fully online, and,
um, and yet I really care aboutshowing up for this podcast.
So I'm choosing to show upanyway, not even what I came
here to talk about.
(04:05):
Um, I wanted to talk about, Isigned up for this class that
I'm really, really loving calledScript Shaq, this teacher named
Carol Seagers.
Um, I, I don't know if he's outof Australia or Austria, I
should really know this, but Ido believe he worked in European
film markets for a long time andis a writer and did acquisitions
and re and a producer and reallyunderstands what sells in a
(04:27):
script.
And what I love about hisprogram is that he has us taking
pa pages from published scripts,from scripts that were turned
into films that were reallysuccessful and worked really
well and just copying exactlywhat's on the page.
And it's funny because thisfeels mind blowing to me, but
then as I've been thinking aboutit, I'm like, oh, I've been
doing a similar thing in otherart forms for a very long time.
(04:48):
I just never thought to do it inscreenwriting.
And, and the reason he has hisdo this is the same reason
Picasso talked about, you know,he learned all of the painting
techniques that came before himand experimented with all these
different phases before he threwout all the rules and came up
with his own.
The way that we really learn howsomething works is by copying
(05:11):
our predecessors.
There's a lot of, um, novelistsor writing teachers who tell you
to like, hand write someoneelse's novel.
And it sounds kind of weird, butit's actually because there's a
rhythm to writing and there's apacing to it and there's a way
that sentences make sense andstructure makes sense, um, that
you learn just by creating amuscle memory for it.
(05:34):
And so what I'm loving aboutScript Shack is first of all,
there's a real, um, range ofthings.
He's got us looking at some ofits tv, some of it is film, some
of it is action movies, some ofit is drama, comedy, um, really,
really different things.
And, and I realize I like thatcause I wouldn't necessarily
write an action film, butlearning how, how a really good
(05:55):
writer communicates action, um,very succinctly and um, in a way
that really engages part of thedifficulty about writing a
script, right, especially if noone has bought from you before,
you're not an establishedfilmmaker, is that you're really
writing it so that a producer, afunder can read the script and
see it in their mind and see thepotential of it can see it on,
(06:17):
on, on the big screen as they'rereading it.
So it's very different fromanother format, like a novel or
a poem where the goal is forthem to experience the novel or
the poem.
And, and part of the goal of ascript is for it to have a lot
of white on it.
So you want to not have a ton ofwords, it should read really
quickly.
And there is an art to that, youknow.
(06:38):
And so when I was looking at theaction lines, I realized how
well selected the verbs were,how much that made every line
zing.
And I could totally keep up andI didn't need a whole bunch of
description.
Um, and part of it too, what is,he shares different, um, scripts
from authors who have tackleddifferent ideas, um, in
(07:01):
different ways, like having asplit screen or something like
that.
And how does, how does thatauthor, that filmmaker represent
that on a page so that theproducer way before they've
hired a director way beforethey've gotten the funding for
it, understands the story andkeep up with the story.
And so it kind of blew me awaybecause I'm loving this.
And uh, and then I was thinkingabout how I, cuz I have a
(07:23):
writing date with a couple offriends and, um, we took a
writing class together, a memoirwriting class with be, uh,
Beverly Dia, who's a phenomenalmemoirist and has written a few
books and also writes essays.
And what she had us do in ourworkshop was she brought in a
lot of samples of flash memoirs.
Again, not a thing I knewexisted and I'm now obsessed
(07:45):
with because there are like oneto two page essays that are
short moments in someone'smemory, um, that always end with
a, you know, a a thought learnedor like, um, you know, when you
go back and you tell a story andsuddenly you see what was in it
to the lesson learned to be init or how you relate to your
(08:06):
past self by telling the story.
Anyway, it's fascinating.
Um, and in this age of adhd, like not being able to
or short attention span, youknow, like not I'm having a hard
time finishing novel.
So the idea of writing somethingand reading something really
short was great.
What was extra great about itwas she brought in all different
kinds of writing samples ofpublished authors and published
(08:28):
essays and they all haddifferent techniques.
Some of them we would analyze,you know, is it in the second
uh, person, is it in the firstperson?
Is it in the third person?
Is the verb, are the verbs inthe past tense?
Are they present tense?
Are they imperative?
Is it as a list?
Is it short paragraphs?
Is it long rambling sentences?
And it was so fascinating to seehow different tempos and rhythms
(08:53):
and, you know, communicated atexture to the story.
And so I was on this, uh,writing date with a friend and
my friend had said that we had,we just read something that was,
I think, um, I dunno what wasit?
I think it was something aboutthe tenses, uh, or the kind of
short choppy sentences.
And she took that as anassignment.
And on our next we just pick aprompt and we write for 10
(09:15):
minutes.
And her next prompt, she justpracticed that.
And I was like, oh, that's sosmart.
You know, take different writingtechniques that you've seen and
try them out and they might notbe the right fit for you or the
right fit for that particularstory, but you are going to
learn so much by stretchingyourself.
It's like an actor learning todo Shakespeare, learning to do
(09:35):
comedia del arte, learning todo, you know, mime work.
It stretches your muscle andteaches you a different way of
communicating story of relatingto story so that you have more
tools in your toolbox.
And, and it just, was it kind ofthe light bulb went off that, of
course this is what, you know,this teacher has us doing in
scripture.
It's the same thing that we'relearning from Bev.
It's the same writing as scriptwriting.
(09:57):
Um, it's the same thing thatPicasso has done.
And I've also heard comics talkabout how, you know, as kids,
they had memorized all ofRichard Pryor's, you know,
entire, uh, comedy, I thinkdisks at the time that he, you
know, they came out beforebefore YouTube.
But, you know, really learningthe pacing of a joke and, and
how to deliver a punchline andthe setup of a joke by
(10:18):
memorizing someone else's andrepeating it enough.
And, and in fact it got methinking about how, you know,
I'm learning to play the guitarand sing the entire beginning of
learning to play guitar and singis playing covers of other
people's songs.
It's how you learn to play and,you know, not everyone goes on
to then write their own songs,but it's, it's just the same
(10:41):
idea of there is such incrediblework out there.
And, and what's interesting toois I was thinking about this
because, you know, as I wasthinking of, you know, are you
stealing or learning from yourmasters that you get to choose
who your masters are?
Um, that like for, you know, forsome people, and I hate to say
(11:02):
this cuz people will have manystrong feelings, but, um, I
don't particularly care for TheGodfather.
I know it's a brilliant film andeverybody loves it and talks
about it, and I just, it's justnot my, it's just not my thing.
Like, I'm just not that excitedby it.
Whereas promising Young Woman,which is a film that Emerald
Fennel wrote and directed withCarrie Mulligan is to me just
(11:26):
like this brilliantrevolutionary film.
And that's the kind of thingwhere I'd wanna go back to the
script and write it out and seehow did she put this together?
How did she communicate thistone, you know, or this story or
this character or thisinflection from this actor.
How, how much did CarrieMulligan bring to the role?
How much did the director bring?
I mean, again, she was directingher own script, so maybe that,
(11:47):
you know, changed therelationship of how much needed
to be represented in the script,but knowing who the people are
that you want to learn from, andwe live in such an incredible
age that you can really do this.
And so I've been, again, sickfor a couple of weeks.
We're not gonna talk about it,but I was thinking about how,
(12:08):
you know, in this day and age of making plans and getting
knocked off course for whateverreason, life keeps throwing you
off.
Um, that one way to create spaceto get back into a project.
Like if you've been wanting towrite for a very long time and
you haven't been, maybe just sitdown with a novel that you've
loved and write, copy out onepage of that novel.
(12:30):
Or if there's a script you wannawrite, there's a great TV show
that you're trying to crack.
Maybe you sit down and you writethe first couple of pages or the
first 15 pages of a script.
And if you give yourself thattask, that space to sit and do
the work every morning, or ifnighttime is your day or your
lunch break, whatever works foryou, 20 minutes of that, you
(12:51):
will build muscle memory fordoing that work.
And it will seem less dauntingto you to then do your own work
because you will have built likesacred time and sacred space,
right?
Your brain starts to associate,oh, it's 9:00 AM I sit down at
this desk and I create and Iwrite and I'm used to having pen
and paper and having all thisstuff and I'm used to just
(13:12):
writing and it's, it's, youknow, I'm always looking for
gentle bridges back to the work.
Um, and, and it was sointeresting because, you know,
in this class, in the ScriptShack, he was really selling us
on why this mattered.
And my first thought was like,oh, this is so brilliant.
This is the one thing I've neverreally done, is copied a script.
And it's been so exciting todiscover other people.
(13:34):
And now the work has actuallymoved on to other things like
synopsizing.
I dunno if that's a verb, thescript that we've read.
And I realize having been sickthat I need a gentle reentry
into the work.
And so I was thinking maybethis, again, I teach what I need
to learn, you know, maybe thisis great for me to go back and
listen to my own ideas and spenda week just copying scripts
(13:56):
because it was so delightful.
I learned so much.
I got so curious about languageand verbs and how to, you know,
I, you know, I am, I'm a bigreader, but come more, much more
from books.
And so when I think aboutcommunicating on a script page,
I tend to write way too muchbecause I think about the
interiority of a character andon in a novel that's what you
(14:19):
do.
You get to write for three pageswhat someone is thinking or how
the action is unfolding anddescribe every single leaf or
whatever in the scene and in ascript that doesn't work.
And so I'm aware that one of mygoals is to really learn how to
strip down a script to where itcommunicates tone and, um, and,
(14:40):
and action and, you know, thepacing of it and the character
and the energy of it, butwithout taking up all of this
space to explain that.
And that's a whole freakingtalent that I haven't mastered
yet.
And so to be able to go back andjust feel really good about this
practice of stealing from theMasters, um, to just spend time
(15:03):
letting that be the thing that Ilearned and also trusting that
it's like doing scales.
I'm actually a very big fan ofjust practicing chords over and
over again.
You sit a metronome and just doit over and over again.
And what's fascinating to me islike most often, my finger's
missing about three of thestrings every time.
So my notes sound terrible, butwhat I've learned is even if I
(15:25):
don't get better in thatsession, the next time I do it,
my fingers are closer to hittingmore of the strings every time.
So even if you're, even if itfeels like you're not really
accomplishing anything, there'sa muscle memory being built in
doing something as simple ascopying someone else's work.
And so this is my invitation toyou.
(15:45):
If you are not sure what's next,if you feel like you've got a
really good idea, but don't knowhow to translate it into the
medium that you wanna take, youknow, take it into, if you've
watched TV shows and films for along time and wanted to write
your own, look at a script,spend time writing someone
else's script over and, andreally get to see the bones of
(16:07):
it, um, it's a very, yeah,gentle way into the work.
And also like an incredibly, Ithink what's interesting is it
feels really gentle, but I thinkit's also incredibly powerful.
It's a real, um, uh,foundational tool.
You're really buildingscaffolding so that whatever,
right?
You're incredibly unique ideasof stories that only you can
(16:29):
tell the voice that only youhave still requires that
structure in order to bedelivered.
And so by copying someone else'sand getting a sense of how
writing in general is done, thenyou have this incredible
scaffolding that you don't haveto think about when you start
writing your own.
And I think that's a huge giftto your future self, to your
future self who wants to bedoing this kind of work in the
(16:50):
world.
All right, um, here's togoogling the internet for all
the things that you wanna belearning this week.
And, um, I'm really glad I cameback for this.
Be well, my friends.
Hi my friends.
I am having one of those dayswhere I am just sitting here
convinced this is gonna be aterrible episode and I have no
idea what I'm saying.
And, um, trying to convincemyself I know what I'm doing and
finally just decided to hitrecord.
And, um, so kind of, you know,so much of this podcast.
(00:22):
Well, it's funny, I don't thinkit's what it started when I had
the title, but it still applies.
Um, be Your Own Muse, uh, youknow, was about really turning
inward and letting yourself bethe reason you create, you know,
rather than this external ideaof someone else inspiring you.
I think everything can inspireyou, but there's such a gendered
(00:44):
idea behind a muse.
And especially as an actor, Ialways felt this sense of loss
of agency.
Like my goal was to make someonethink that I was, you know, the
reason for making an entirefilm, which I love as an idea,
but I don't know, I, I, I wantedto figure out, because I was so,
(01:04):
um, struck by how much agency Ikept giving away that it was
actually leeching all of mycreativity.
Because I was always trying tofigure out, well, whose muse am
I supposed to be and how do Iget them to discover me and how
do I figure out what they wantand what they're looking for?
And it's the worst way to gothrough any kind of life.
And so I've been forever lookingfor this internal compass, this
(01:26):
internal, not even motivation.
I feel a lot like when I wasyounger I had such a clear sense
of who I was and why I didthings.
And it bothered me much lessthat people thought I was weird
or could kind of hear my owninternal systems more.
And the more I grew up, the moreI kind of got scared of that.
(01:46):
And it didn't seem definitelynot cool, but not even like
functional or normal.
So I got really good at kind ofnot listening to my internal
orientation and taking cues fromthe outside to, which is really
good for surviving middle schooland high school and college
depending on where you went toschool.
(02:07):
Um, but not a way that I wannalive my life.
And I think anyone who's anartist hears their internal
compass, their internal voice orguidance way more than the
external.
And that's why they wannacreate, it's an expression of
you, right, of the divine of theenergy, the that flows through
you.
And so that was the idea behindthis, right?
(02:29):
How do you turn inward for yourinspiration?
Um, and let that be your guidingforce.
But the other thing that'shappened in this podcast, which
I'm actually really proud of,um, terrifying as it is, has
been a really pullback whew.
And look at the messy middle,you know, and look at the, I
(02:49):
don't know, in this age ofInstagram, we just see so much
of the after product of howthings are when they are done
and when they are finished.
And
Speaker 2 (02:59):
We don't get to watch someone be terrified and do it
anyway.
We don't get to watch someone oreven like, hear their thoughts,
you know?
And people will sometimes sharethat, which I love when they're
like, oh, I did this thing and Ilooked really polished cuz
someone did my hair and makeup.
I had a glam squad, but I wasshaking on the inside, you know?
Um, and it's so hard.
It's funny when I hear peoplesay that, I always think, oh
(03:21):
yeah, uh, that makes sense.
But I, because I can't feel liketheir outsides look so different
from the, uh, insides that Ifeel that it's hard for me to
relate that my shaking and mypanic and my voice is telling me
I suck and this will beterrible, are similar to someone
who I really respect and admirehaving the same voices, right?
So I think part of it is justnormalizing the fact that our
brains are always going to tellus we suck and this is a
(03:44):
terrible idea and you should notdo this.
Um, and for myself, justnormalizing that, showing up
when I'm exhausted and my braindoesn't feel fully online, and,
um, and yet I really care aboutshowing up for this podcast.
So I'm choosing to show upanyway, not even what I came
here to talk about.
(04:05):
Um, I wanted to talk about, Isigned up for this class that
I'm really, really loving calledScript Shaq, this teacher named
Carol Seagers.
Um, I, I don't know if he's outof Australia or Austria, I
should really know this, but Ido believe he worked in European
film markets for a long time andis a writer and did acquisitions
and re and a producer and reallyunderstands what sells in a
(04:27):
script.
And what I love about hisprogram is that he has us taking
pa pages from published scripts,from scripts that were turned
into films that were reallysuccessful and worked really
well and just copying exactlywhat's on the page.
And it's funny because thisfeels mind blowing to me, but
then as I've been thinking aboutit, I'm like, oh, I've been
doing a similar thing in otherart forms for a very long time.
(04:48):
I just never thought to do it inscreenwriting.
And, and the reason he has hisdo this is the same reason
Picasso talked about, you know,he learned all of the painting
techniques that came before himand experimented with all these
different phases before he threwout all the rules and came up
with his own.
The way that we really learn howsomething works is by copying
(05:11):
our predecessors.
There's a lot of, um, novelistsor writing teachers who tell you
to like, hand write someoneelse's novel.
And it sounds kind of weird, butit's actually because there's a
rhythm to writing and there's apacing to it and there's a way
that sentences make sense andstructure makes sense, um, that
you learn just by creating amuscle memory for it.
(05:34):
And so what I'm loving aboutScript Shack is first of all,
there's a real, um, range ofthings.
He's got us looking at some ofits tv, some of it is film, some
of it is action movies, some ofit is drama, comedy, um, really,
really different things.
And, and I realize I like thatcause I wouldn't necessarily
write an action film, butlearning how, how a really good
(05:55):
writer communicates action, um,very succinctly and um, in a way
that really engages part of thedifficulty about writing a
script, right, especially if noone has bought from you before,
you're not an establishedfilmmaker, is that you're really
writing it so that a producer, afunder can read the script and
see it in their mind and see thepotential of it can see it on,
(06:17):
on, on the big screen as they'rereading it.
So it's very different fromanother format, like a novel or
a poem where the goal is forthem to experience the novel or
the poem.
And, and part of the goal of ascript is for it to have a lot
of white on it.
So you want to not have a ton ofwords, it should read really
quickly.
And there is an art to that, youknow.
(06:38):
And so when I was looking at theaction lines, I realized how
well selected the verbs were,how much that made every line
zing.
And I could totally keep up andI didn't need a whole bunch of
description.
Um, and part of it too, what is,he shares different, um, scripts
from authors who have tackleddifferent ideas, um, in
(07:01):
different ways, like having asplit screen or something like
that.
And how does, how does thatauthor, that filmmaker represent
that on a page so that theproducer way before they've
hired a director way beforethey've gotten the funding for
it, understands the story andkeep up with the story.
And so it kind of blew me awaybecause I'm loving this.
And uh, and then I was thinkingabout how I, cuz I have a
(07:23):
writing date with a couple offriends and, um, we took a
writing class together, a memoirwriting class with be, uh,
Beverly Dia, who's a phenomenalmemoirist and has written a few
books and also writes essays.
And what she had us do in ourworkshop was she brought in a
lot of samples of flash memoirs.
Again, not a thing I knewexisted and I'm now obsessed
(07:45):
with because there are like oneto two page essays that are
short moments in someone'smemory, um, that always end with
a, you know, a a thought learnedor like, um, you know, when you
go back and you tell a story andsuddenly you see what was in it
to the lesson learned to be init or how you relate to your
(08:06):
past self by telling the story.
Anyway, it's fascinating.
Um, and in this age of adhd,
or short attention span, youknow, like not I'm having a hard
time finishing novel.
So the idea of writing somethingand reading something really
short was great.
What was extra great about itwas she brought in all different
kinds of writing samples ofpublished authors and published
(08:28):
essays and they all haddifferent techniques.
Some of them we would analyze,you know, is it in the second
uh, person, is it in the firstperson?
Is it in the third person?
Is the verb, are the verbs inthe past tense?
Are they present tense?
Are they imperative?
Is it as a list?
Is it short paragraphs?
Is it long rambling sentences?
And it was so fascinating to seehow different tempos and rhythms
(08:53):
and, you know, communicated atexture to the story.
And so I was on this, uh,writing date with a friend and
my friend had said that we had,we just read something that was,
I think, um, I dunno what wasit?
I think it was something aboutthe tenses, uh, or the kind of
short choppy sentences.
And she took that as anassignment.
And on our next we just pick aprompt and we write for 10
(09:15):
minutes.
And her next prompt, she justpracticed that.
And I was like, oh, that's sosmart.
You know, take different writingtechniques that you've seen and
try them out and they might notbe the right fit for you or the
right fit for that particularstory, but you are going to
learn so much by stretchingyourself.
It's like an actor learning todo Shakespeare, learning to do
(09:35):
comedia del arte, learning todo, you know, mime work.
It stretches your muscle andteaches you a different way of
communicating story of relatingto story so that you have more
tools in your toolbox.
And, and it just, was it kind ofthe light bulb went off that, of
course this is what, you know,this teacher has us doing in
scripture.
It's the same thing that we'relearning from Bev.
It's the same writing as scriptwriting.
(09:57):
Um, it's the same thing thatPicasso has done.
And I've also heard comics talkabout how, you know, as kids,
they had memorized all ofRichard Pryor's, you know,
entire, uh, comedy, I thinkdisks at the time that he, you
know, they came out beforebefore YouTube.
But, you know, really learningthe pacing of a joke and, and
how to deliver a punchline andthe setup of a joke by
(10:18):
memorizing someone else's andrepeating it enough.
And, and in fact it got methinking about how, you know,
I'm learning to play the guitarand sing the entire beginning of
learning to play guitar and singis playing covers of other
people's songs.
It's how you learn to play and,you know, not everyone goes on
to then write their own songs,but it's, it's just the same
(10:41):
idea of there is such incrediblework out there.
And, and what's interesting toois I was thinking about this
because, you know, as I wasthinking of, you know, are you
stealing or learning from yourmasters that you get to choose
who your masters are?
Um, that like for, you know, forsome people, and I hate to say
(11:02):
this cuz people will have manystrong feelings, but, um, I
don't particularly care for TheGodfather.
I know it's a brilliant film andeverybody loves it and talks
about it, and I just, it's justnot my, it's just not my thing.
Like, I'm just not that excitedby it.
Whereas promising Young Woman,which is a film that Emerald
Fennel wrote and directed withCarrie Mulligan is to me just
(11:26):
like this brilliantrevolutionary film.
And that's the kind of thingwhere I'd wanna go back to the
script and write it out and seehow did she put this together?
How did she communicate thistone, you know, or this story or
this character or thisinflection from this actor.
How, how much did CarrieMulligan bring to the role?
How much did the director bring?
I mean, again, she was directingher own script, so maybe that,
(11:47):
you know, changed therelationship of how much needed
to be represented in the script,but knowing who the people are
that you want to learn from, andwe live in such an incredible
age that you can really do this.
And so I've been, again, sickfor a couple of weeks.
We're not gonna talk about it,but I was thinking about how,
(12:08):
you know, in this day and age of
knocked off course for whateverreason, life keeps throwing you
off.
Um, that one way to create spaceto get back into a project.
Like if you've been wanting towrite for a very long time and
you haven't been, maybe just sitdown with a novel that you've
loved and write, copy out onepage of that novel.
(12:30):
Or if there's a script you wannawrite, there's a great TV show
that you're trying to crack.
Maybe you sit down and you writethe first couple of pages or the
first 15 pages of a script.
And if you give yourself thattask, that space to sit and do
the work every morning, or ifnighttime is your day or your
lunch break, whatever works foryou, 20 minutes of that, you
(12:51):
will build muscle memory fordoing that work.
And it will seem less dauntingto you to then do your own work
because you will have built likesacred time and sacred space,
right?
Your brain starts to associate,oh, it's 9:00 AM I sit down at
this desk and I create and Iwrite and I'm used to having pen
and paper and having all thisstuff and I'm used to just
(13:12):
writing and it's, it's, youknow, I'm always looking for
gentle bridges back to the work.
Um, and, and it was sointeresting because, you know,
in this class, in the ScriptShack, he was really selling us
on why this mattered.
And my first thought was like,oh, this is so brilliant.
This is the one thing I've neverreally done, is copied a script.
And it's been so exciting todiscover other people.
(13:34):
And now the work has actuallymoved on to other things like
synopsizing.
I dunno if that's a verb, thescript that we've read.
And I realize having been sickthat I need a gentle reentry
into the work.
And so I was thinking maybethis, again, I teach what I need
to learn, you know, maybe thisis great for me to go back and
listen to my own ideas and spenda week just copying scripts
(13:56):
because it was so delightful.
I learned so much.
I got so curious about languageand verbs and how to, you know,
I, you know, I am, I'm a bigreader, but come more, much more
from books.
And so when I think aboutcommunicating on a script page,
I tend to write way too muchbecause I think about the
interiority of a character andon in a novel that's what you
(14:19):
do.
You get to write for three pageswhat someone is thinking or how
the action is unfolding anddescribe every single leaf or
whatever in the scene and in ascript that doesn't work.
And so I'm aware that one of mygoals is to really learn how to
strip down a script to where itcommunicates tone and, um, and,
(14:40):
and action and, you know, thepacing of it and the character
and the energy of it, butwithout taking up all of this
space to explain that.
And that's a whole freakingtalent that I haven't mastered
yet.
And so to be able to go back andjust feel really good about this
practice of stealing from theMasters, um, to just spend time
(15:03):
letting that be the thing that Ilearned and also trusting that
it's like doing scales.
I'm actually a very big fan ofjust practicing chords over and
over again.
You sit a metronome and just doit over and over again.
And what's fascinating to me islike most often, my finger's
missing about three of thestrings every time.
So my notes sound terrible, butwhat I've learned is even if I
(15:25):
don't get better in thatsession, the next time I do it,
my fingers are closer to hittingmore of the strings every time.
So even if you're, even if itfeels like you're not really
accomplishing anything, there'sa muscle memory being built in
doing something as simple ascopying someone else's work.
And so this is my invitation toyou.
(15:45):
If you are not sure what's next,if you feel like you've got a
really good idea, but don't knowhow to translate it into the
medium that you wanna take, youknow, take it into, if you've
watched TV shows and films for along time and wanted to write
your own, look at a script,spend time writing someone
else's script over and, andreally get to see the bones of
(16:07):
it, um, it's a very, yeah,gentle way into the work.
And also like an incredibly, Ithink what's interesting is it
feels really gentle, but I thinkit's also incredibly powerful.
It's a real, um, uh,foundational tool.
You're really buildingscaffolding so that whatever,
right?
You're incredibly unique ideasof stories that only you can
(16:29):
tell the voice that only youhave still requires that
structure in order to bedelivered.
And so by copying someone else'sand getting a sense of how
writing in general is done, thenyou have this incredible
scaffolding that you don't haveto think about when you start
writing your own.
And I think that's a huge giftto your future self, to your
future self who wants to bedoing this kind of work in the
(16:50):
world.
All right, um, here's to
the things that you wanna belearning this week.
And, um, I'm really glad I cameback for this.
Be well, my friends.
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