Dean Peterson on "What Children Do"

What was your filmmaking background before making "What Children Do"?

DEAN: I went to film school at Columbia College in Chicago and barely graduated. After school I spent months spinning my wheels and bagging groceries at Whole Foods before realizing that a big check wasn't going to fall from the sky to shoot a movie and fueled by absolute desperation, decided to lift myself up by my bootstraps and make a feature film by any means necessary. Which ended up meaning moving back in with my Mom in Minnesota, working part time at a liquor store, and doing a Kickstarter to raise the very meager budget for my first feature Incredibly Small.

We shot the film in 14 days, premiered it at Raindance in London and went on to play it at a bunch of festivals and put it online where it got some attention and a Vimeo Staff Pick. In the intervening years I made a bunch of shorts, moved to New York, and shot my second feature film What Children Do in April of last year.

Where did the idea come from and what was the process for writing the script and getting the script ready to shoot?

DEAN: The idea was loosely inspired by the death of my grandfather in 2014. His funeral was the first time my entire family had been back in the same place in many years, and I was fascinated by seeing how all of the conflicts, rumors, and tensions that had laid dormant for so long were reignited the instant we were all back together.

I also wanted to explore the relationship between sisters which I had never seen done in a really satisfactory way in movies before. I have two sisters, and even though the characters in my film aren't based on them, I find that basic dynamic utterly fascinating. 

I wish that I could say that I had an elegant and thoughtful process for writing, but I would be lying. I was working awful 9 to 5 time jobs while I wrote the script so my process was to force myself to come home from work and write for 1-2 hours as often as I could muster.

The first few drafts were utterly appalling, but with each successive draft it got better and better (I hope???) as I tried to hone in on the voices of the sisters as well as work out the kinks with the plot. My sense of humor is really random and often non-sensical, so many passes on the script were just trying to solve problems like "which scene can I work this Applebee's joke into?"

What was your casting process and did you change the script to match your final cast?

DEAN: The two sisters were difficult to cast because they're such dynamic roles. I needed to find actors that were able to pull of really big jokes but were also capable of incredible emotional honesty, often within the same scene.

I saw Nicole Rodenburg in Annie Baker's play "The Flick" and was floored by her performance. I looked her up online the next day, and I'm still not sure why, but chose to DM her on Twitter. Within a minute of our first meeting, she mentioned that she had a frozen Cornish game hen in her purse AND applied drops of oregano oil on my tongue after finding out I had a cold, and I decided to cast her on the spot.  

I had originally seen Grace Rex in her short film This Is She and was taken by her look and the way she commanded your attention on screen, without even saying anything. I also found a bunch of comedic short films she had done online and after meeting with her knew immediately that her voice and instinct as an actor were exactly what I wanted. She was so talented, and her filmography is so intimidatingly impressive, I never thought in a million years she'd want to do the movie, but I was able to somehow trick her into signing on.

I'm always completely open to script suggestions from actors, and we made a few changes here and there to personalize the characters, but I would say the script remained about 95% the same. A lot of the details about the characters like their wardrobe or choices they make inside of scenes were from the actors though. I cherish these kinds of contributions and try to continually encourage people I work with to bring these ideas to the table. =

What type of camera did you use and what did you love (and hate) about it?

DEAN: We shot on the Canon C300. I love the image quality and versatility of it. You can have a really small rig and easily sneak into places and steal shots which we did a lot of. It's also really good in low light so you can shoot out in the real world with a small crew and move from scene to scene quickly, which is fantastic because I hate standing around on set.

Did the movie change much in the editing, and if so, why did you make the changes?

DEAN: The movie changed a lot in really subtle ways. I cut lines that would change the tone of the scene, extend pauses to increase tension within a moment, and I actually end up cutting 8 minutes off the very end of the movie which totally re-contextualized how the story ends.

My editing process is wholly instinctual and I'm never able to intellectualize why I do anything. Something just does or does not feel right and luckily I edit my own films because I doubt I would be able to intelligibly convey any information to an editor.

Can you talk about your distribution plan for recouping costs?

DEAN: With my past two features and all my shorts I purposely worked using really small budgets which offers me the freedom to be adventurous in distribution as well as not being excessively beholden to financiers. I gave my first film away online for free and am interested in pursuing similarly unusual modes of distribution with this film. That said, we haven't even started playing festivals yet so it will be hard to say what it's life will end up looking like.

What was the smartest thing you did during production? The dumbest?

DEAN: The smartest thing that we did was to have everybody stay in the house that we shot in. The cast and crew were always 15 seconds from set, so nobody was ever late to call time, it also freed you up in the event you finished early and wanted to shoot something that wasn't on the schedule because everyone was just in the next room. It also created a really fun, communal, family-like atmosphere on the shoot. Every day after we wrapped, we would eat dinner together, have some drinks, and listen to music. 

The dumbest thing I did was try to cast a micro-budget feature during pilot season. You're literally at the bottom of every agent's priority list. 

And, finally, what did you learn from making this feature that you will take to other projects?

DEAN: Shoot your goddamn movie. Don't wait around for years and years trying to raise a budget that may never come in. Set a date, tell lots of people what you're doing so you'll be thoroughly humiliated if you back out, and then press forward every single day, ignoring anyone who is doing anything other than enabling you to get your movie made.

I learned that if you can shoot movies for very little money nobody can stop you.

Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!

"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control." 
Roger Corman, Producer

★★★★★

It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!

• Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos

• John Sayles: Writing to your resources

• Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes

• John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots

• Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals

• George Romero: Casting

• Kevin Smith: Skipping film school

• Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection

• Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity

• David Lynch: Kill your darlings

• Ron Howard: Pre-production planning

• John Carpenter: Going low-tech

• Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking

And more!

Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!

It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!

Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.

"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond

John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.

The book covers (among other topics):

• Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories

• Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature

• Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period

• George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget

• Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories

• Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations

• Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive

• Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous

• Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget

• Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget

• Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror

• Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget

• Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting

• L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting

• Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing

• Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres

This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced! 

Henry Jaglom on “Someone To Love"

What was the inspiration for “Someone To Love”?

HENRY: I was alone, and I didn't understand why I was alone. And I looked around at my friends and I realized that I was part of a whole generation of people that were alone and that it wasn't just a generation but that it was a function of something that was happening at that period in the 80s and the 90s. People who always assumed that they would be married and have families found themselves somehow in the middle of their lives on their own. 

So, I thought I would try to make a movie about it, but what I would do is go through my phone book and actually pick out people I knew who were alone and put them together in some central location. 

And then I was talking to Orson about it at lunch one day. He and I had lunch once or twice a week for the last eight or nine years of his life. He was very interested in it. 

And during that time, I was editing my film Always, about the end of my first marriage (which was the reason I was alone at the time of Someone to Love). Orson came one day and sat behind me in my editing room and watched the entire film of Always and smoked his big, Monte Cristo cigar. 

At the end of it he did an extraordinary thing. He was silent for a while, and I thought, 'Oh, Christ, he hates my movie.' And then he said something very quietly, so I couldn't hear him, which was not like him. So I said 'What? What?' And he said, 'I'm jealous.' 

For a crazy moment I thought he meant he was jealous because the film was so wonderful; he didn't mean that at all. 

But I tried to reassure him, I said, 'My God, you're Orson Welles, you've made a dozen of the greatest films of all time.' He said, 'No, no, Henry, I'm not jealous about that. It's a very good film, I like the film very much. I actually love the film. But I'm not jealous because of the film. I'm jealous because you, as a filmmaker, in Always reveal yourself completely, nakedly, without any masks on. You don't make yourself attractive, you show yourself warts and all. As a matter of fact, you're going to get criticized for some of the whining and the baby talk and all of that. You really allow us to see you without a mask on.' 

And Orson said, 'All my life I've hidden behind a mask. I've never been on screen without a mask. I'd like just once before I die to do that.' 

So I said, 'Well, Orson, you just heard about my film Someone to Love. I think we've got a solution here.' He said, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'It's all about my generation of people and all of us trying to figure out why we're alone in life. If I had somebody from your generation -- you -- sitting in the back of the theater as a sort of Greek chorus and telling us just as you have at lunch over these years, talking to me about life and death and love and loss and men and women and movies and theater. If you'll do that, we'll do it without masks. You'll get to appear without a mask.' 

And Orson said, 'Great.'

Then he showed up three months later, when we started shooting, with a big make-up box in his lap and was made-up like a Greek. He had a funny, weird accent and he had a big nose on. I said, 'What are you doing? Remember, the whole point of this was no masks.' He said, 'Oh, you don't like the Greek? Come back in a half hour.'

I came back and he'd put on some Arabic make-up and had an Arab accent. I said, 'Orson, you're missing the whole point. The whole point was, no masks, remember like in Always, we want to see you.' He said, 'Oh, nobody wants to see me just with this little nose.' 

I don't know how to explain it. He was goading me into tricking him (though of course you couldn't trick Orson, so it was his manipulation) into tricking him into doing the film the way he really wanted to but couldn't admit it finally. He allowed me to say, 'No Orson, no make-up, no accents, I don't want you to memorize speeches, I want you to really be you and just help me solve my dilemma but also help me solve the movie, because I don't know how to end this movie, there's no way to end it.' 

So he said, 'Oh, I'll give you an ending!'

I had a plan, a super structure, but I left it up to the individuals as to what they would say, and I certainly left it up to Orson as to what he would say and depending on that was what I would say. 

I knew what I wanted to talk about in terms of loneliness and relationships, but I was actually seeking the movie as I was in the movie. I decided I would just do it that way and then when I got back to my editing room, I would look at what I got and what everybody gave me and find a way to put it together into a narrative.

How much of your plan did you reveal to your cast?

HENRY: No one knew anything. I just told them I wanted them to be in a movie, and I wanted to be able to deal freely with the facts about their own single situation in their romantic life at this moment. I confirmed with some of them that they were in fact still single, that they weren't involved, that I didn't miss anything, and that's all I asked them to do.

And only one person ended up leaving. Kathryn Harrod left, she didn't realize it would be that personal. The truth was, she was uncomfortable, and I thought more people would be uncomfortable, but actually everybody likes to talk about themselves.

How much did you find that movie in the editing?

HENRY: One hundred percent. Actually, fifty percent in the shooting and fifty percent in the editing. But nothing in preparation. It's the kind of movie where you absolutely cannot prepare, because you don't know what people are going to say. 

Several of my movies have a mixture of a storyline -- which is a narrative, which is created by me -- and an interview structure, which is spontaneous and real and comes from the people. So, I can prepare one half of that, but I can't possibly prepare the interviews without interfering with the reality of it.

Like in Eating or in my movie coming up next, Going Shopping, or Venice/Venice, anyone one of those movies which have an interview threaded throughout. 

But in the case of Someone to Love, because the entire thing was about somebody making a film, there could be no preparation. It would be absolutely wrong for me, from my point of view, to have anybody know anything in advance of what anybody was going to say, including Orson. All I told Orson was to go over in his mind all the things he'd talked to me about over the last couple of years when we'd talked about relationships and men and women. And then he just came up with all this stuff.

It really captures Orson the way if you had had lunch with him. Everybody had this image of him as this intimidating ogre. If he had a chance to, he might put on a little bit of scary persona, but in fact he was a sweet, sweet man, and I think that's what shows in the film.

The narrative is created in the editing rather than written beforehand, and that's true of many of my movies. Orson said to me once, 'Everybody else makes movies, but first they decide what the narrative is, and out of the narrative they try to find their theme. The difference with you, Henry, is that you choose your theme first, and then you try to discover, out of your theme, the narrative.' And that's very true of my process.

I didn't set out to work this way. It's the way I like finding stories.

During the making of Someone to Love, Orson looked at me suddenly and said, 'I know what's going on. You remind me of this old Eskimo I say in a documentary about Eskimos. There was this old Eskimo, who was sitting and carving this gigantic walrus tusk. And the filmmaker goes up to the Eskimo and says, "What are you making?" And the Eskimo looks at the filmmaker, totally bewildered, and says, "I don't know; I'm just carving and trying to find out what's inside."' 

And Orson said, 'That's the way you make movies, Henry, you carve away at yourself, at me, at your friends, at the whole culture, trying to find out what's inside of all of us.' And that was as good a description of my process as I've ever heard.

I understand that you don’t like rehearsals.

HENRY: I hate rehearsal. 

What’s the benefit of not rehearsing before you shoot?

HENRY: The magic of reality. The honest surprise of what happens the first time when somebody thinks of something or you see them thinking and discovering it and saying it. And then they have to re-create it and try to pretend to be thinking and discovering it. 

You can't do this on stage, where you have to repeat everything at 7:45 at night the exact same way, but on film you just have to get it once. 

And the most truthful moments, it seems to me, are the moments that just happen and even surprise the person themselves as they're saying something, because they don't know they're going to be saying it. If you rehearse, no matter how good you are, you know you're going to be saying it. And unless you've got a Brando or a Meryl Streep or the handful of actors who are better each time, you've got human behavior which is better and truest the first time. 

God, I would die if I rehearsed and someone in rehearsal gave me a great moment, because a great moment is what you look for in film. It's all about the moment.

I was complaining about not having more time, not having more money to do something I wanted to do, and Orson said this line that I now have over my editing machine. He said, 'The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.' 

That was just about the most important thing that has ever been said to me, because if you don't have limitations you start throwing technology or money at a problem. But if you have a limitation, you have to find a creative solution, and therefore you create art. 

For me the most valuable lesson from Orson, and it happened during that movie, was make whatever happens work. It's good to have limitations, because you have to find an artistic or creative way to surmount them. And it's more fun.

Did I tell you why I started improvising in movies?

To make my first movie, A Safe Place, I had to write a script to get the money from Columbia Pictures. I had written a play called A Safe Place, so I adapted it into a very funny screenplay. It was a more hip version of a Neil Simon thing. The studio loved it, everybody loved it.

My two friends, Jack Nicolson and Tuesday Weld, two of my very closest friends, I knew them extremely well and I'd written this wonderful scene and it was really good and I'd done it on the stage and it worked beautifully. 

So I had them do the scene, and they're tremendous actors, but there was something missing and I didn't know what. So I said, 'Okay, let's do it again.' And I did about five takes, and I said, 'This is really strange. This isn't as interesting to me as Tuesday actually is or as Jack actually is in life.' 

So I said to them, 'Look, just forget what I wrote. You know what has to be accomplished in this scene. Just get through that, but don't worry about my words.' And it was magical. And I didn’t look at the script for the entire rest of that movie, to the horror of Columbia pictures, because I can't it into a poetic and abstract film from what was a very simple narrative. 

The bigger lesson that I got was that actors are to be encouraged to delve into their own lives and into their own expression and their own language and their own memory, because they will come up with fresh and extraordinary things that you could never in a million years create. 

And all you have to do is get that to happen once on film and have that moment and then figure out how to put it together with the next moment. For me, that was it. I never looked at my script again. I drove the crew crazy, but I made the movie I wanted to make.

How do you edit?

HENRY: I edit on film, on a KEM, on a flatbed. 

You’re a good candidate for non-linear editing. 

HENRY: Everybody tells me that. But what I like to do is splice myself, go back and forth over a piece of film, find things, find things that I otherwise would have missed. I don't know, maybe I've become a reactionary in this area; it seems hard to believe. 

I was the first person to have a KEM. It was because of Orson, once again, telling me on A Safe Place, after I shot the movie. Everybody was still cutting on movieolas. And he said ' There's this great thing, a flatbed KEM,' and all the editors didn't want to get it because they realized that they could be dispensable then, because you could learn how to do it yourself. 

Which is in fact what happened, and halfway through A Safe Place I let the editor go and I ended up editing it myself. And I've edited all my movies since. So maybe it's just the familiarity of that to me, and if I had the other I would need a technician, that I don't want to work with.

I guess, it's old dogs and new tricks.

You have very strong critics. Some people just seem to hate your movies.

HENRY: My movies violate a lot of the conventional rules of filmmaking, which people really resent. They really resent that, I don't know why, I didn't expect that, but I found that out starting with my first films. They see film as a narrative medium, and they don't see it as an art. They're willing to accept in music or in painting, even to some extent in theater--a sort of surrealist thing, where lights are used and sets are used, but they're not naturalistic. 

But on film, they want to know where they are. It's become such an entertainment rather than art medium, that when you defy that and make people explore certain things emotionally or violate some of the rules. 

I found, on A Safe Place, because I violated all of those rules on my first movie, because I didn't know people were going to resist it, the anger started right there. 

I remember Time magazine saying 'this movie looks like he threw the pieces of the film up in the air and it landed totally at random in a mix master.'  

But I think that those people who don't like that really hate it. They feel violated. Then they translate that as I am either amateurish or self-indulgent or all those kind of words, because I don't think they like to be taken out of their narrative convenience, out of the safety of the narrative.

We deal so much with people revealing themselves, people really expose themselves in my movies, these wonderful, brave actors. I had about 53 of them in Going Shopping, I had 38 of them in Eating. These aren’t just actors who are good actors; they're revealing and opening up very personal and frequently painful parts of themselves and exposing it. 

And a lot of people don't want to see that. It's understandable. I'm always surprised by how many do (want to see it). I'm never surprised by the negative reactions; I'm always surprised and delighted by the degree of openness with which so many people are willing to receive and accept the films. 

And those people who do like them, they really do become a part of their lives. I get these incredible letters, thousands of letters from all over the place, with very touching things about terribly sad and painful moments in these people's lives when the films were really helpful. They feel less alone, they feel less isolated, which is really the goal for me of making films like this.

Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!

"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control." 
Roger Corman, Producer

★★★★★

It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!

• Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos

• John Sayles: Writing to your resources

• Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes

• John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots

• Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals

• George Romero: Casting

• Kevin Smith: Skipping film school

• Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection

• Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity

• David Lynch: Kill your darlings

• Ron Howard: Pre-production planning

• John Carpenter: Going low-tech

• Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking

And more!

Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!

It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!

Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.

"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond

John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.

The book covers (among other topics):

• Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories

• Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature

• Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period

• George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget

• Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories

• Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations

• Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive

• Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous

• Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget

• Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget

• Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror

• Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget

• Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting

• L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting

• Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing

• Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres

This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced! 

Cat Hostick on "The Meaning of Life"

What was your filmmaking background before making "The Meaning of Life"?

Cat: I grew up in the arts. I was a painter from a young age, and studied art in Amsterdam, Berlin and Spain throughout high school. At this time, I was also acting and pursued that once I moved to Toronto, Canada. I was always interested in storytelling – directing, acting, writing and so I began dabbling behind the camera.

In University, I got lucky with a part time job at Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Canada as a publicity assistant, working on all of the Marvel movies. Shortly after this, I began working more and more behind the camera, joined the Director’s Guild of Canada and started directing professionally as a full-time job a year or two later.

Where did the idea come from and what was the process for getting the script ready to shoot?

Cat: The movie originated from two things -- One is the title of the movie. What is the meaning of life? I feel like we all question it and there are only metaphysical answers in my opinion. I wanted to explore why some people get a short life, why some get a long life, and what do we make of the time we have here. 

The second inspiration is music and art as a therapy to heal. Music therapy is an integrative therapy used with medical treatment that has great results, backed by science. In the movie, Finn is a musician who gets a temporary job as a therapeutic clown at a hospital playing music for sick kids, and primarily for a 9-year-old leukemia patient named Sophia.

Also drawing from personal experiences, I struggle with an autoimmune disease, and I haven’t had any luck with medical treatments, but arts therapy has actually helped the most.

As you know, the process is long and complex, but first and foremost, we needed a hospital to shoot in or this movie wasn’t going to happen. We ended up getting very lucky with our associate producer that made this happen. We got to use a shutdown hospital for a very reasonable price. I can’t tell you how lucky this was. You can’t get a hospital set for less than $3000 per day. 

What was your casting process and did you change the script to match your final cast?

Cat: I wanted a musician to play this role, since the lead character was one. I was aware of the risk, in that I may get a good musician, but a bad actor and it’s a lead character that has to carry the entire movie.  My partner in life and in biz, Russ De Jong (Director of Photography/ Executive Producer) had worked with tons of artist, everyone from Shawn Mendez to the Weeknd. We started thinking of who would fit the role best. We landed on Sony-signed, Juno nominated pop singer Tyler Shaw. 

Tyler was about to go on tour with Selena Gomez and was very busy, but we got lucky and had him for 10 short days of filming a feature film. We actually did not even get to audition Tyler. I did a skype read with him while in New York. I was freaking out, but deep down believed he was capable. 

For the rest of the casting, we needed a strong cast around Tyler since he was not primarily an actor. We had one of the best child actors around – Sadie Munroe who plays 9-year-old leukemia patient Sophia Hill, and we also had Sergio Di Zio (Flashpoint) who plays her father. These two actors are just brilliant. Our company North Film Co. casted half of the characters, while a well-respected Canadian Casting Agency called Parasyn Casting did the other half which includes Sergio and Sadie.

Sadie wasn’t the original look I was going for. She is an adorable red-haired girl with freckles, but I pictured someone else. However, Sadie’s audition was so emotional and compelling that I cast a different mom to make Sadie work.

What type of camera(s) did you use and what did you love (and hate) about it?

Cat: We used the Red Dragon 6k with ultra prime lenses.  I love the cinematography. My partner/DP Russ De Jong is brilliant, and I have no complaints. Lots of people love Alexa, we love Red.

Did the movie change much in the editing, and if so, why did you make the changes?

Cat: Funny story, it was originally a short film that was 20 minutes. In the editing room, due to my directing, we had a lot of drawn-out moments and it ended up being a 40 minute film! I brought up the idea of a feature and Russ turned it down, but then changed his mind. We decided to go back to filming to finish it as a feature, but due to Tyler’s schedule among other actors, we had to finish on a certain date, and I basically had to write the feature portion over a weekend. The entire movie was shot in 10 days on 10-hour days. 

Can you talk about your distribution plan for recouping costs?

Cat: We have had quite a few offers in Los Angeles and here in Canada. We have not signed anything, as we are deciding the best deal for us. This was a low budget movie, and more than making money back, we just want a picture deal for another movie if we sign any agreements.  However, I will say I’ve learned that this movie has a big audience, and it is easier to sell than a thriller per say. 

What was the smartest thing you did during production? The dumbest?

Cat: The smartest decision was to make the decision to finish it as a feature film. As well, make a movie with a positive message – these movies have a big audience.

And, finally, what did you learn from making this feature that you will take to other projects?

Cat: I learnt that anything is possible; you just need to discover how to use your resources properly. 

Another major lesson I learnt as a first-time feature director is that there were moments that were pivotal in the movie that I could have made stronger. We shot this move in 10 days, on 10-hour days, and most people after watching this movie are shocked at that fact in terms of the quality overall… Because we move at such a fast pace, and I wasn’t allowed to do any reshoots, it was a challenge for me. 

But when you have limited time and a limited budget, you don’t have these luxuries, and they are good habits to have. You need to do as much prep work as possible, and in the moment, know exactly what you need to cover to get your story and don’t waste time on shots or takes that you don’t really need.  

This just comes with experience. 

Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!

"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control." 
Roger Corman, Producer

★★★★★

It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!

• Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos

• John Sayles: Writing to your resources

• Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes

• John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots

• Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals

• George Romero: Casting

• Kevin Smith: Skipping film school

• Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection

• Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity

• David Lynch: Kill your darlings

• Ron Howard: Pre-production planning

• John Carpenter: Going low-tech

• Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking

And more!

Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!

It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!

Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.

"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond

John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.

The book covers (among other topics):

• Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories

• Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature

• Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period

• George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget

• Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories

• Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations

• Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive

• Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous

• Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget

• Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget

• Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror

• Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget

• Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting

• L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting

• Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing

• Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres

This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced! 

Stephen Belber on writing "Tape"

Three people in one room. 

That’s always been considered the perfect construct for a low-budget movie. However, to keep that interesting is a lot harder than it looks. 

Stephen Belber and Richard Linklater pull it off in Tape, primarily because they trusted the source material they were working with. Belber wrote from his gut when creating his characters and the ever-changing dynamic during their meeting in a slightly-seedy motel room keeps the story constantly evolving and involving.

(Be aware that this interview contains spoilers about key plot points.)

Where were you in your career before you wrote the stage version of Tape?

I was not very far along. I had just quit my day-job to work on The Laramie Project. It was the year that we were researching the murder of Matthew Shepard. I was going out to Laramie every couple of months and then coming home. So I was just starting to get paid. I had been writing plays for a long time, I'd come out of the Playwright Fellowship program at Julliard, but I was sort of adrift and not sure. 

And then Tape came along. It was not one of the big plays I was planning on writing or was working on. It was something where two old friends of mine came along and they wanted to showcase themselves as actors in the New York theater world, and they said, “Can you write us something that can really show what we can do?" 

So I really wrote it for them. Then one of the actors was dating this girl, so I added her because it got boring with two guys after awhile. So it wasn't like, "I'm going to write this big play." I was just doing it because I liked these guys and I liked their work and it was fun.

We produced it ourselves way off-off-Broadway for a very low-budget. Eventually, a Broadway producer came down to see it, because it got a nice buzz, and he wanted to option it because he was looking for something to do with Ethan Hawk. 

He was going to do Albee's Zoo Story, and he was looking to couple it, because Zoo Story had first been coupled with a Becket one-act back when Albee first wrote it. So he was looking for a young, new writer to pair up with an older writer, which happened to Albee.

So we did a reading of it with Ethan and some other actors, and then it fell through because Edward Albee didn't want that to be the play to accompany his play. He ended up writing his own. But Ethan remembered it and when InDigEnt came to him, Ethan said, "How about this? It would be fun, quick and easy to shoot."

So he brought it to Rick Linklater. And Uma Thurman had been at that first reading that Ethan had done, so she was familiar with the play. It was all very lucky.

How did you generate the idea when your two friends said "write something for us"? You weren't thinking screenplay at that point, right?

I had written maybe one screenplay, for fun, at that point. So this was really something to get gritty -- it was the antithesis of what you'd think of as a movie. It was one room, a screwed-up, fucked-up relationship. 

I was thinking of something we could do low-budget, production-wise. We got together one afternoon, we tossed around a couple ideas. It could be in a motel room, they could be brothers, what is it? And then they went away and I worked on it for a couple weeks. And they came over for a reading, just in my living room. It was very subterranean and organic that way, which was nice. 

It was a good lesson for me as a writer, because I tend to think epically and think I'm going to write the Great American Play and I over-plan it and I don't let spontaneity in the process. And this was good to remind me to write from the hip a little more and write closer to home. These are the types of guys I'd grown up with and I know these types of situations. These are 28 year-old guys and this was something I was familiar with at the time.

Once you determined the location, how did you generate the story? It sounds like it came pretty quickly, if the two actors came back in two weeks for a reading.

I don't know why. It was right around the time that Bill Clinton was debating whether or not to apologize for slavery and I was fascinated with the idea of apology: When is it gratuitous and self-serving versus when is it genuine and important? And that was a question that was valid at the time for Clinton. So I think that was on my mind, those types of questions. 

And I wanted to write about people who were very close, so I based it on myself and another guy, the repartee that you have with your close friends. But I wanted to get to something darker beneath that and what happens when those types of competitive friendships get cross-referenced with intense issues, such as date rape.

Did you outline the story?

I don't know that I did. I certainly don't have lots of notes like I have for most of my plays. I must have realized, semi-early on in thinking about it, that there was going to be a dark secret and that the one guy was taping the other. I had no idea how it was going to end, and as I said, the girl was added on.

The play used to end when Robert Sean Leonard's character leaves the first time. And the play ended with her looking at him, like "You're an idiot." But I knew there was more there and after a public reading I went back in and said, "Well, what if he comes back and makes that effort to apologize?" But when writing it, I didn't think very far ahead in terms of what happens when a friend confronts another friend. 

What was your day-to-day writing process?

I guess I'm pretty intense when I come across an idea and I don't sort of do an hour a day. My wife is French and I remember trying to describe this idea: A comedy about date rape was how I was forming it at the time. And she sort of laughed me off and said I should come up with a different idea. But I was able to keep writing. I remember starting over at one point, fairly early on and scrapping what I had when I came up with the idea that she might show up. 

I was writing by hand at that time. I like to get really into it when I'm writing and get a first draft done as soon as possible, then go back in and work on it.

And you're able to do that even if you don't know exactly where you're going?

Yeah. I had, at the time, a philosophy that when you're dealing with those types of tight friendships, where you don't know yourself where the conversation is going, that it would be truer and more genuine to write within that vein and to have a general goalpost that you were headed for, but to let the turns happen. 

If you're writing quickly enough in your mind and keeping up with your pen, let those twists and turns come at you, almost as quickly as they're coming at the characters. At least for this type of play, where it's sort of down and dirty.

Were you hearing anyone when you wrote?

Yeah, I guess I was. I always hesitate to say this, because I'm not a date rapist, but it was myself and a very close friend of mine. 

I always felt in high school that I was a step behind him. He was more popular with the girls and everything, yet at this point in life he was not sure what he wanted to do and I was really going after what I wanted. And I love the dynamic of how those friendships can shift and change over the years. 

I actually wrote a whole second act to this play that takes place ten years after the event in the motel room. Things have changed, and actually Vince is married. They live a sort of antiquated, domestic life. And John has gone on to make really, quote-unquote, important documentaries. 

He comes back again, there's another pretense for a reunion of sorts, where things that were obviously left unsettled that night in the motel room pop back up. I never ended up doing it, because it felt excessive and a little redundant. 

But I do like the idea of thirty years of friendship and the turns that it takes, because the decisions that we make at 18 reverberate and cause different decisions at 28 and those reverberate and they make up our persona at age 38.

I thought it was interesting, character-wise, that Vince is so likeable, yet isn't really that nice of a guy; John is attempting to do the right thing, yet is really not all that likeable. How do you strike that balance in creating characters?

It's so easy to make them so unlikable that the whole's thing's dismissed and people are bored. And making unlikable people likeable in context is hard; I tried it in another piece and it doesn't always work. 

I think because I was basing it on a guy that I love -- the Vince character -- I felt that he was the most unconstrued character, in a good way. He was very organic and he came out of someone with whom I do have a complicated relationship, so it just felt easy that way, to depict him with all his flaws.

But I also just got lucky in that I happened to set it up so that we were rooting for this guy. He can snort all the coke that he wants and be as much of a jerk as he wants, but we're invariably rooting for him because he is a) trying to do the right thing and, b) his second motive is that he's doing this because he's in love and he's desperately in love, from the position of an underdog. And those are just traits that if you endow a character with them, you can get a lot of mileage of them.

But you weren't consciously considering that while you wrote it, were you?

No, I don't think I was. I would like to say I was, but I just happened to hit upon that dynamic. I don't think I even knew how much his real motive was that he was in love with her. I sort of realized that while I was writing it. I had this notion that he was trying to compel his friend to do the right thing and apologize. 

But because those two motives -- the desire to have Amy love him and the desire to make his friend do the right thing -- were so imbued in the same character, it made him someone we could all relate to, because we all have mixed desires. 

I think so often when you go to playwriting school they teach you about single intention, and certainly as an actor you can't play two intentions at once, and from moment to moment that's probably true. But I love trying to create characters who have these both genuinely deeply rooted intentions. It's great. Plus, he's a fun character to play.

Ethan Hawk, when he did the reading of the play, he played John. He was more of the good guy and that was more of his reputation up to then, playing that sort of higher than thou characters. I think he realized that he could stretch himself and show another side of himself, so when the movie came around, he very much wanted to play Vince, which I totally understand.

It's not just playwriting school that teaches that; screenwriting schools do the same thing, telling you to create characters who have one goal that they're going after. But in Tape, their goals shift constantly.

Yeah, exactly, and the responses of their opposite guy affect their next motives as well. 

And it's true, in screenwriting it's even more of a problem. They want heroes, and if not, they want anti-heroes, but less often do they want highly-flawed characters who are not self-aware and who are not clear in going after their intention. 

Were there other things you learned from having a reading of the play?

I went in there thinking I had a much clearer idea of what was going on. I really did want to talk about this notion of apology and the worthiness of apology. And when I came across the idea of not just bringing Amy into the room, but keeping her around and having John come back and her not allowing him to have that apology on the grounds that he wanted to have it on, I think I started to realize that the play is actually potentially more interesting than my psuedo-politically-correct take on it. It’s also about power and it's about gender wars in terms of power. But also the Rashômon element came in, in a way I had not preconceived. 

I thought I was just into this relationship between these two guys, having them sock it out, have a battle, and suddenly it became about who owned the past, who owns memories, and who owns apologies. 

If we're basing our personas on events that have formed us in the past and someone comes in and takes the rug out from underneath that memory, the way you've solidified that memory in your mind, you have to reevaluate not just the memory but everything henceforth. It plays a real mind game. 

I don't think I was really thinking about those things until I brought John back into the room on the second go-round and realized that it's not just about right and wrong, it's about who gets to do what when, on who's grounds. And also that memories are pliable. They're not set in stone.

When you were adapting it into a film script, was there ever any talk of "opening it up"?

There was briefly talk about it. That would be the first instinct for any filmmaker. 

That's the great thing about Linklater. We talked a little bit about opening it up, but his inclination was definitely not to, that it was going to be more interesting to keep it enclosed. The problem was how do you not repeat the theatrically that comes when you try to film a play, because so often it doesn't work. 

Because the DV cameras allowed you to go into a motel room or a soundstage that really felt like a motel room, he was going to be able to capture a cinematic way of telling the story. So, only very briefly did we talk about doing some exterior stuff, which made me delighted, because I was worried that they were going to ask me to write stuff that didn't fit this play. 

You did lose some of the timing that you get in the theatrical version, because you have two cameras that you're trying to edit together. The theater piece runs an hour ten, and this ran an hour twenty-five. They added fifteen minutes because there wasn't the overlap that you get in live theater. 

The trade-off for me, which was exquisite, was the sense of intimacy and a whole other layer of my writing, which is the silences between the words. We got to look into these guys' eyes and chart their reactions. 

So the reactions were not as quick as in the theater -- boom, boom, boom -- but we got to see them process the other person's line and then come up with a response, all within the veil of 'hey, buddy-buddy,' the quick cut down repartee that guys have. But we were able to even see within that and it became, for me, more interesting that way. 

You can get that in theater, but film, and especially a DV camera, can get in there in a way that an audience member, who's free to choose where to look in the theater, could never get that close. So, for me, it was a great lesson.

And to watch it with a crowd in a movie theater was a great learning experience. We're taught as screenwriters that audiences don't care about dialogue, that it's all about the visuals. But I felt that it was a nice synthesis of both, of them yearning for dialogue that they don't usually get in film. They were ready to listen to these people talk and with it they were getting the unspoken subtext very intently and clearly. 

In terms of losing text, there wasn't much. There's one long speech that Uma Thurman has that is not as long in the film, where she finally goes after John. That was the only thing that Rick Linklater cut, and we talked about it. It wasn't just him saying, 'I'm cutting this.' He explained what he thought and it made sense. It just felt very overly-written. It's about twice as long in the play and it's much more intense. But it's probably not realistic that she could come up with that in the moment.

In the film you can see, if you watch closely, it's cut off. They filmed the whole speech and so she didn't really land it in the way she might have, but she does a great job. I just think she did a great job in the movie, capturing the essence of that character.

What I love about the movie is that it raises more questions than it answers. Most movies aren't willing to do that.

Well, that's the golden rule, to tie it up and provide those answers. And even in playwriting, I think, it's a very fine line. Audiences will feel ripped off if you're intentionally ambiguous for the sake of it. If ambiguity serves a purpose, at the risk of sounding pretentious, it's to turn it around and challenge them to ask themselves, “What would I do in that situation? What have I done in past situations? And what have I done about those things?” That does seem to serve a purpose, and if nothing else the movie does poke it back at you. It's so pointed at a particular generation were the words "date rape" just became a phrase.

My wife translated it into French and there is no expression for date rape there in that country yet. And it's relatively new to America. So I think the people who respond to this movie are people who have grown up with those words.

So, in terms of adaptation, it sounds like you basically handed Linklater the script to the play and said "Have at it."

Yeah, he was great that way. It was the opposite of what you expect the Hollywood machine to do to your work. 

Basically, the put it in screenplay form. Robert Sean Leonard's character was originally Jewish; he makes a crack about being Jewish, but we didn't think we could pass off him as that. We also changed his name. There were also one or two cultural references which we thought would potentially date the film, so we cut a couple lines. One about David Hasselhoff.

Ethan improvised a dance bit that was from his high school days that he wanted to get in there. He put the word “fag” in at one point, which I was hesitant to do because I don't like it, but it was fine because guys like that say that word in that context.

Were you involved in the rehearsal process?

Yeah, again, I was really lucky. I was out of town, working on The Laramie Project. When I came back into town, they had rehearsed for about two days. They spent two weeks in a friend's apartment, just going through it. I came toward the end of the first week and it was amazing. It was like a theatrical experience. Ethan has a great theatrical background and Rick studied theater in college. 

They started with real, genuine table work, which is what you do the first two days of any play, sitting around and talking about intention and motive and all that stuff around a dining room table. I couldn't believe that they were doing it exactly the way I would want it to be done. It was lovely.

And when they started shooting, I showed up whenever I wanted to, it was great. They built the set on a soundstage and the set had a retractable roof, so when they wanted to get certain shots they could light it. But for the most part inside the room was a sound guy and Rick, holding one camera, and the DP holding a camera, and the actors and me. It was really nice.

So you didn't have to make any changes to fit the budget?

No. The film was shot so cheap. They rented a car, so that when you opened the motel room door you could see a parked car, that was the big luxury. And that wasn't even in the script.

Rick's company completely knows how to produce at that level when they need to, and InDigEnt was scrappy and just starting out. They hadn't yet had the success that they would have. So everyone was pitching in and calling in favors. It was sort of corny but nice.

When you finished the stage version, how did you know when the script was done?

We did this first reading where it ended abruptly and I felt it was too abrupt. I knew there was more. I was so interested in the female character and I was writing out of my element so much, so I remember calling up a lot of female friends and asking what they would do in that situation. I was really clueless about the feelings that the character would be going through.

I knew it wasn't finished after that first reading, but I didn't know if I should write a whole other act or add another twenty minutes. I remember it was my first case of real theatrical soul-searching, because I knew I had something that I really liked for once. There was a nice feeling in the room and the dialogue was rolling and the characters were knowable. 

So I went off for a while and I worked on that, and we did another reading, again in my living room. And that one felt like there was a nice resolution. I guess I just knew that it was finished.

Again, I don't trust myself, because subsequently we did it in a larger venue in New York. I wrote monologues and a prologue, as well as an epilogue that took place ten years later, with all the characters speaking to us from the future. We actually produced that in New York and most of the people who knew both productions said you don't need it and it ruins this nice little thing you have. I was, as a playwright, thinking I should be writing epic, three-act plays that deal with the world and time passing, but it did feel like this moment had come to a close where the play ends now.

In terms of going back and re-writing, I actually felt like I hit that one pretty smoothly. Once I got a take on the female character, that she was not necessarily going to play their games, that she was going to not cede the power to them, regardless of what happened. I don't think it's changed much since then. 

Little tiny things have changed, because the initial actress really was very helpful in charting it when we were first doing it. But in terms of structure, I never went back and excessively re-wrote it or changed it structurally. Of course, there wasn't that much structure to change.

Do you ever put a script in a drawer for a while?

Oh, absolutely. I have about twenty-five things in a drawer right now. 

I think if I had put Tape in a drawer at that point I would never have gone back, because it's not the heftiest play. But I know that it hit a chord with people, because it was compact. I always complain when I see plays that are successful that they aren't as deep and profound as they should be, but that's not what audiences necessarily want or connect to. It has a tightness that is very satisfying and a compactness -- at an hour twenty, it definitely had that.

Did you learn anything from this process that you've taken to other projects?

Yes. I think letting a degree of spontaneity into my writing, which was something that I had excised at Julliard. Learning to let spontaneity back in and knowing that that makes for better writing.

I learned that there is a market and an audience out there for dialogue-heavy films and character-driven films and that this fast give-and-take actually can work. Everyone says it's so theatrical that it doesn't work, but if you put it out there, an audience will follow it. It's not particularly complex. It's not Tom Stoppard. But we're used to it and we can be conditioned, as filmgoers, to follow and like it. Dialogue that's fun and appropriate to the contemporary world is something that audiences will respond to.

And I learned that drama doesn't come from just visuals. Drama comes from classic dramatic structure and shifts in emotions. 

I'm writing more and more studio stuff now and I literally do cling to that idea – and I'm sure that I'll get killed for it – but I cling to the idea that you can infuse that into even these big things that I'm trying to work on. 

Do you have any advice to writers working on a low-budget script?

They'll tell you not to worry about budget when you're writing, but I think if you really are intent on doing that, you can do both at the same time. You can find low-budget ways to tell the stories you want to tell.

In theater, the best things are the plays with no set. So you have to remind yourself that “I want to tell this story. I want to tell it the way I want to tell it,” but to know that if it's a period piece that takes place over forty years in five thousand locations, it's a problem. You can probably tell the same story in a different way. 

What’s the best advice on writing you've ever received?

Write strong. There's so much prettiness and cleverness that we all strive for, but you should write for the heart more, which is different than saying write about what you know. Write to the gut.

With Tape, I guess I am most proud of the fact that it feels guttural, it feels like it's coming from a very true place. I'm sure people think there are too many plot twists and stuff, but basically these are people who are talking from their gut. And especially when it gets heated, they're talking on instinct and they're talking in the moment and there's nothing “writerly” about it at its best moments. 

And it's something that's so easy to forget, the better writer you become – because you do want to show that you're a good writer – is how to click back into that, write from the gut, write strong. At least in moments, to know that you can find that, access that, no matter what the situation, we can, as human beings, relate to it. Because that's why we all go to movies and theater: to see human beings. 

So if we just write to the human moments, those moments of human drama, that will pay off, because people connect to it.

Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!

"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control." 
Roger Corman, Producer

★★★★★

It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!

• Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos

• John Sayles: Writing to your resources

• Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes

• John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots

• Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals

• George Romero: Casting

• Kevin Smith: Skipping film school

• Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection

• Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity

• David Lynch: Kill your darlings

• Ron Howard: Pre-production planning

• John Carpenter: Going low-tech

• Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking

And more!

Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!

It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!

Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.

"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond

John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.

The book covers (among other topics):

• Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories

• Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature

• Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period

• George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget

• Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories

• Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations

• Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive

• Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous

• Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget

• Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget

• Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror

• Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget

• Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting

• L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting

• Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing

• Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres

This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced! 

Actress/Writer Susan Coyne on “Slings & Arrows"

How did Slings & Arrows come about?

SUSAN COYNE: Well, I hadn't really set out to be a writer. But, I hit my late thirties, and I had two children and I couldn't travel across the country in the same way. And, famously, the parts thin out a bit as you get older. So I sort of hit my mid-life crisis and thought, "I'm just going to sit down and start writing," without really knowing where it was going to lead me. And then I got hooked up with somebody who said, "You know, I have a friend who works at Stratford and loves hearing your stories. Would you like to come up with a proposal for a TV series about Stratford?"

So I said, "Sure. I can do that." And then I came up with the premise for the series, basically, although at that time it was a half-hour comedy. We shopped it around and we got wonderful producers, Rhombus Media, involved and they put me together with Mark McKinney of Kids in the Hall, which was really kind of brilliant. 

That was an interesting choice.

SUSAN COYNE: He was not the first person you'd think of pairing us with, but it was really great because Mark is so smart and really thinks outside the box constantly. He's worked a little bit in theater and so he knew something of this world as well. He said right away, "This isn't a half-hour, this is an hour, because there's too much good material here."

I think that was one of the most important things that happened, because we thought, “We're doing Shakespeare, we don't want this to be just punch lines and then cut to a commercial. We want to be brave about this and tackle what it's like to do these big plays.”

I'd never seen something like this done very well. I'd often seen actors made fun of, and it's easy. It's easy to satirize actors. I think we do it to a degree in the show. It's also easy to sentimentalize. But between those two extremes I've never seen anybody try to really show what it's like, and that in some ways it certainly matters to the people who do it and it might even mean something to those of us who watch. It might have some value, it might have some weight to it, it might not be a silly thing to do with your life. And that these people might have some passion that has some dignity to it.

Even as I say that I'm always cautious not to give it more weight than it's worth, but I think that when theater works well, everybody recognizes that there's something very powerful about it, transforming and ineffable and not silly at all. It's rare, but when you see it, there's nothing like it. You feel a little bit wrung out afterwards and your heart's beating faster and you feel chemically altered in some way. 

It's that we wanted to get at: What is that thing that happens and how do people achieve that? We wanted to show people the kinds of conversations that go on in rehearsals as well as how terrifying it is and the ridiculous things we do to get ourselves where we have to be. All of that.

I always think that when there's a great deal of passion, then there's got to be some kind of dramatic or comic story. Or both. 

How did Bob Martin get involved?

SUSAN COYNE: Bob was invited to join Mark and I after we had been wrestling with the series for a couple of years (in the midst of doing other projects- in my case, co-founding a theatre company and writing my first book).  Neither Mark nor I had written a TV series before, but Bob had.  His experience was the key to making us into a fully functioning writing team. 

When you started the project, did you think it would only be for one season?

SUSAN COYNE: Exactly. Mark and I worked for a couple of years, because we were both doing other things. And it took a long time to figure out how this was going to go. We had six episodes in mind, we knew the play was Hamlet, we came up with the idea of the ghost and that our character was going to be a sort of Hamlet figure who was haunted almost in the same way that I was haunted by my theater school teachers. The ones who said those wonderful things and those terrible things, and you're always trying to prove something to them even if they're dead.

It turns out that three is a good number for a writing team, because we could always gang up on the other person and persuade them. The three-legged writing team is quite stable, actually. If you can't quite see something, one of the other two can explain it to you. And also Bob had real experience writing television in a way that Mark and I didn't. And he also has an amazing comic sensibility and a really delightful wit. 

So when that came together the work started to go faster and we decided that six episodes would be really satisfying to tackle Hamlet. And that really was the plan until we finished it and watched it. The network said, would you like to go another year? And we looked at each other and I said, "Well, I think we should do a trilogy. If we're going to another one we should do three and we should do youth, middle-age and old age." That made sense to us and felt like it would be a satisfying arc.

We had the idea that, each season, we wanted to watch our characters through the filter of the play -- not in the way that you could draw straight lines between the stories and the play, but in a sort of general way being influenced by Shakespearean themes.

One of my favorite scenes in the series -- and one that really lays Shakespeare out and explains what's he's doing -- is the scene in the first season when the director, Geoffrey, explains to the actress playing Ophelia exactly what her "nonsense rhymes" actually mean. Did you find that there were scenes you created based on things you'd actually experienced?

SUSAN COYNE: There were. But some of them are so disguised that they take on a difference resonance. For example, Geoffrey reminds me of a director I worked with early on who directed me in The Glass Menagerie. He was a refugee from the Second World War, a Holocaust survivor. His family perished, and he escaped to Winnipeg. He talked to me about how theater had saved his life, and it meant so much to me, the way he talked about it. It was a life force for him.

I guess there's an element where I've worked with really great directors for whom theater has saved their life. And that passion for its humanity -- for the idea of theater being a place where we can be very human with each other -- is something that I've retained, and I always aspire to in the theater. The idea that it's about people communicating; there's no tricks, there's no cinema, it's just us. We're all in the same room breathing together, and if it all works out, we'll all end up having the same heart-rate at the end of the show. 

Were you saddled with handling the female point of view on the show and the female characters or was that shared?

SUSAN COYNE: Oh it was definitely shared. Martha Burns, who plays Ellen, is one of my closest friends. We've known each other a long time, we grew up in Winnipeg together, so I loved coming up with storylines for her, like Ellen getting audited. But we all wrote the Ellen character and we all wrote the Anna character.

I loved aspects of Anna, but the boys, actually, I think loved Anna even more. They loved putting her in these terrible situations. The scene where she had to have sex, Mark wanted it to be really explicit and hardcore, and I finally said, "Look, guys, it's me playing the part. So let's just re-think this, shall we?"

And that's when Bob said, "Well, we could do it in the dark." I said "That sounds very good."

Do you have any special or favorite moments from the series?

SUSAN COYNE: I loved everything to do with Bill Hutt in the third season. I was in a production of Lear with him, at Stratford in the young company, and he is a hero of mine. He's gone now, and his Lear was never filmed. So to get the little bit that we get of him, doing the great speeches, that I feel proudest of, actually. 

That is the most important thing to me about the series: that we got him. We always wanted him; we wanted him in the second season and he wasn't available. But we got him in the third season. And then within 18 months he had died. So it was amazing. He was such a wonderful guy and he threw himself into it. I loved that.

Other than that, there was a tiny moment, backstage in the second season, between Geoffrey and Ellen, where they're watching Romeo and Juliet. And Ellen says, "I hate this play." I must say, watching Romeo and Juliet as a middle-aged person, you watch it and you think, "I hate this play." I mean, I love it of course, but you're in such a different headspace from the first time you played it, you can't help thinking, "What, are you nuts?"

What did you take away from the Slings & Arrows experience?

SUSAN COYNE: I learned a lot from working with two other people whose sensibilities were similar to mine, but who also pushed me ways into places I otherwise never would have gone. Although we fought a lot at the beginning, we got into a place where it was much easier to say, "Here's a sketch of the scene, but you should write it because you have that voice down better." It became very respectful -- and although there were still fights, they were good fights; not pulling in different directions, but creative fights -- where you just knew that the other person, it was just their thing and they could write it better. And you knew that when it came time to take over another scene, they would say, "You should have a go at that."

I think that's hard to replicate, when you have developed a working relationship like that with people.

As for the acting, that was more intimidating. Film is socially so different from theater. You don't have an audience; the only person who's actually watching your performance is the director, because everyone else is watching other things, like how your scarf is tied. So I found that a bit intimidating. 

But there was a very collegial feeling, and we had so many theater actors coming onto the set, and so it felt much more about the work than it usually does. That was very freeing for me, because I've always felt that I'm very uptight on the set and never felt very free. And so to be with this wonderful team, on a series that you created yourself, playing this lovely character was wonderful. I adored playing Anna.

Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!

"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control." 
Roger Corman, Producer

★★★★★

It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!

• Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos

• John Sayles: Writing to your resources

• Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes

• John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots

• Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals

• George Romero: Casting

• Kevin Smith: Skipping film school

• Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection

• Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity

• David Lynch: Kill your darlings

• Ron Howard: Pre-production planning

• John Carpenter: Going low-tech

• Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking

Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!

It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!

Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.

"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond

John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.

The book covers (among other topics):

• Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories

• Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature

• Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period

• George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget

• Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories

• Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations

• Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive

• Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous

• Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget

• Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget

• Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror

• Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget

• Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting

• L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting

• Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing

• Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres

This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced! 

Andrew Kightlinger on "Dust of War"

What was your filmmaking background before making "Dust of War"?

ANDREW: THE SHORT ANSWER: I was born and raised in Madagascar, which is where I got the filmmaking bug. I studied International Politics and French in undergrad and got my Masters in Film at Boston University.  

Before Dust of War, I’d directed one major short film called You Don’t Know Bertha Constantine, which was a creative blunder but the best crash-course in Producing 101 that no film school could ever teach you.

Since Dust of War, I’ve directed four short films, including Paper People, which has screened at over 25 festival, including the Palm Springs ShortFest. I’ve also directed a WWII webisode and an experimental short about film projectors.  My latest project is a short called “Destroyer” starring Alan Ruck (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Spin City). Next up are a few feature possibilities, including a WWI project and a horror film.

THE LONG ANSWER: I always say that my film education started when I was 5 years old. I lived deep in the rainforest of Madagascar in a research village called Ranomafana. My parents were microbiologists studying rare diseases and I was just along for the ride (complete with worm-infested feces).

My entertainment was limited mostly to my imagination for the first few years of my life. Then we got a VHS player when I was about 5.  And the first movie we ever popped in was E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Despite being only 5 years old, I intellectually understood that this wondrous movie didn’t just appear out of thin air.  I knew somebody had made it because it came on a black rectangle that you inserted into a black box. SOMEBODY had to have put it on there.  So that was my first understanding of film and it has fed my fascination ever since.

One of the most interesting aspects about growing up in Madagascar and being disconnected from popular art in America was how information tended to shrug its way to the tropical island. 

There was this armoire in a rustic building in the capitol city that harbored a collection of pirated VHS tapes. We called it the “Red Island Video Club” (because Madagascar is famous for its red earth) and to borrow movies from this armoire, you had to drive 3 days by rough dirt road.  And to open this armoire was to dive headfirst into Heaven. I would indulge in the works of Joe Dante (Gremlins, The ‘Burbs), Richard Donner, and many Chevy Chase films.  But the rotation of movie was never frequent, so I’d burn through these moves over and over again until the tracking got bad and they were unwatchable. I even watched Robert Altman’s Popeye over 100 times simply because it was there. I wonder if it holds up?

Another odd thing I did that probably was a harbinger of things to come was that I’d lock myself in my room and literally act out movies for hours -- movies I’d seen. And movies I hadn’t seen, including about 7 sequels to Jaws and The Mask.

So, flash-forward to 1998, my parents finally move back to the U.S. (to South Dakota of all places…but my father grew up in SD, so there’s that connection). I’m lost in translation at first.  My 11-year-old mind struggled to adjust to the American school system. But after wading through a few years of awkwardness, I came into my own high school and became heavily involved in the arts and overall ‘entertainment’ of the Pierre, South Dakota community.      

The acquisition of my first camera is an age-old story. My parents got it for me.  I don’t think they realized that they were ushering their son into a career with very low-income opportunities, but they liked that I was passionate about something and that it helped me make friends. So, I started making remakes of SNL skits with my buddies. And then started making our own original skits.  And then we decided it was time to make a full feature.    

So, the FIRST full-length feature I ever made was a documentary about my high school Cross Country team. It was brilliantly titled ‘The Pierre Cross Country Documentary’ and it ran an unforgivable 86 minutes.  We played to a packed house at our high school auditorium and demand for a sequel was at a fever pitch.  So the next year, we did XCDOCII: D.I.L.D. (aka Do It Long Distance); though we thought we were HILARIOUS because DILD reminded us of ‘dildo’.  Young and reckless idiots we were.  Subsequently, the school ended up banning the sequel due to some homoerotic references and language.  In 2004, talking about ‘gay’ issues was still taboo, especially in a high school setting. 

Anyway, I attended a Lutheran college in South Dakota where I got a degree in International Govt and French.  But I continued my filmmaking hobby by making silly shorts that eventually evolved into making very pretentious short films about topics I didn’t know.  Thankfully, I went through the ‘suicide and homeless people are deep’ stage BEFORE film school.    I was also heavily involved in directing, acting, and improv.   The directing classes were in theater and I’d do the craziest stuff. Pour paint on people’s bodies and essentially go for shock value.  Haven’t grown out of that stage, but I know when to curb it.  

It was also in college that I learned how to respect the craft of acting and understand how vulnerable acting can be. I put actors through the ringer in college, but only for things that I would do.  I’ll swim with the jellyfish. Thus I hope an actor will be willing to do the same. It earns their trust and fosters a working relationship based on mutual respect and shared vulnerability. In fact, I’ll usually audibly fart or make weird sounds in front of actors just to remind them that I’m the biggest idiot in the room and they are the pros…that way they’re aren’t worried about being judged.  Because I will be -- because I just farted.  It’s odd.  But it works.  

Of course, going to film school wasn’t an easy decision. As my senior year of college approached, I faced three options: Get a master’s in Francophone politics, join the Peace Corps, or go to film school. I struggled to decide as my parents encouraged me to choose a path less risky than film, though the decision WAS mine.   

And then everything changed. My mother passed away from a SUDDEN heart attack at the age of 59. I had just turned 21. And the LAST conversation I had with her was about my GRE test scores and my future. Naturally, this event rocked the very fabric of my world. And one day, about a month after her death, my dad buried my face in his trembling hands and he implored me to follow my dream. We even set aside the life insurance money to pay for film school. And so the search began.  

Boston University ended up being the ONLY film school I applied to. Perhaps I was still easing into the idea of a film career, trepid about doing right to my mom’s memory. But I got accepted. They took me in.  And when that happened, I threw my entire being into my film career. I was going to make my mother and father proud. And to this day, my respect for my father and for my mother’s memory drives me.

In film school, we started off shooting on celluloid, beginning with The Bolex.The first shot that got my Film 1 professors' attention was a raw fish hooked onto razor wire. And then I directed a short B&W film that received the first 100% in the history of first year films at BU (at least for this prof).  This accolade was accompanied by my professor's stern warning to stay humble.

To finish my time at BU, I had to direct a short thesis film.  It was called “You Don’t Know Bertha Constantine” and featured a grieving woman tugging her husband’s body through the Badlands as part of a burial ritual.  My choice was to raise way too much money and make a short film in Badlands of South Dakota. This proved to be both a blessing and a curse.  The short was too long and too plodding, with not enough coverage and a script that got lost by being meddled with too much.   BUT the experience of raising $70,000 (yes, I could shoot a feature with that moolah now) and putting it in the wrong places showed me the value of putting the story over everything else. My very expensive thesis film was a crash course in how NOT to produce a film and it was very humbling to my ambitions.   

So, the experience of my thesis film crushed me creatively and yet fueled my passion to direct “Dust of War”. Every mistake we made on my thesis, we did the complete opposite on “Dust”.  

Where did the idea come from and what was the writing process like with your co-writer?

ANDREW: Our goal was to make a micro-budget feature and make it look like $1 million.  And for some reason, an epic apocalyptic tale was the answer.   The idea came from our producer’s love for Star Wars. I took his idea and tapped into my love of Mad Max and Flash Gordon and wrote a grounded sci-fi yarn that featured very classic archetypes and borrowed more from Nicholas Roeg than it did George Lucas.   But the producer seemed cool with my interpretation of the idea. A more ‘elemental’ sci-fi yarn meant a lower budget and that’s where we found our common ‘creative’ ground.

I wrote the first draft in 1 week. And spent 3 months after that tweaking.  I could have spent a whole year ironing out the script, but we had investors to answer to and perhaps our own ambitions nagging us along.  The only struggle was to keep the script at 80 pages, which I did not want to do, but had no choice in the matter.  The producer said, “You only have enough days to shoot 80 pages. So write ONLY 80.”  Yes Captain!

Can you talk about how you raised your budget and your financial plan for recouping your costs?

ANDREW: We raised the funds locally, almost 75% coming from our hometown in South Dakota where we had fostered positive relationships with people of influence over the last 10 years. Hint: be active and upstanding in high school and it might pay off down the road.      

We put together an investment plan and basically made the pitch to dentists, doctors, and businessmen. Like that teapot once said, a tale as old as time…       

Our overall goal was to deliver a solid final product, make our investors some moolah, and then make bigger film after that.   When they say film is 90% business, they’re not joking.

On a side note, force majeur is a delicious beast. One of the more interesting episodes of the fundraising process was the onslaught of a 500-year flood.  About 3 months before principal was slated to start, a MASSIVE flood hit South Dakota. The Missouri River rose 10 feet and the town shut down for 2 weeks as people sandbagged houses on the banks of the river.       

And of course, most of our committed investors lived BY the river and their homes were underwater, so we lost a bunch of pledges. And what could we do?  Complain?  “Hey, I know your life is waterlogged right now, but we’re making a movie dammit!”      

So we had a moment of pause (literally 5 minutes) where we discussed pushing the shoot back. But then we decided to screw force majeur and do the film anyway. Some of our pre-prod suffered as a result and a lot of the rough edges in the film are a direct result of an act of God. Classic story.    

And the creative by-product of the flood was shooting at a time of year when the land is usually very dry and ‘apocalyptic’ looking. But the flood turned everything green and vibrant. Color correction was ‘fun’, to say the least.

What kind of camera did you use to shoot the movie -- and what did you love about it and hate about it?

ANDREW: We shot on the Red One in 4.5K. I love the look of Red because not only are you given ample latitude in post-production, but it looks like what I'd imagine digital would have looked like in the 70s.  But I hated its girth. It's a whopper of a camera and when we're shooting 95% handheld, you need to find a cam-op with a massive sweeping back. So the best thing to do is hire out of Austria (I’ll touch on this a bit more later on)

But what I've quickly learned is that the camera barely matters. It's the glass that counts. We shot DoW on Red Primes, but I just directed a short using 40-year old Nikon primes on a Red Epic and the look is stellar. So get good and versatile lenses, and KNOW what look you want before shooting.

What's the biggest secret to shooting an epic on a small budget?

ANDREW: Throw everyone and everything in front of the camera. And by that I mean, Location, location, location. The ONLY reason we embarked on this adventure was because we knew we could create a post-apocalyptic landscape in our backyard. So if you want to go big, make sure what you're shooting looks epic. 

You wore a lot of hats on this project -- director, writer, producer, editor. What's the upside and the downside of working that way?

ANDREW: I'm not sure there is an upside.  The more delegation I can do, the better. On this particular project, we simply didn't have the infrastructure to delegate as much as we wanted. I believe that having to direct and visually conceptualize the film took a toll on writing a tighter story. And having to raise funds took a toll on, well, everything.

If there is an upside, it's that you get to control the story that's being told, but everything might suffer in the long run. I have yet to direct a script that isn't mine, but I welcome the day when it arrives.

In the end, no matter how many positions you have, be a collaborators.  Film is about one artist.  It’s about ALL the artists.  No one person is capable of making a film great. Get that through your thick skull in film school.

What was the smartest thing you did during production? The dumbest?

ANDREW: The smartest thing was hiring a DP who was willing to break his back to make this film. He fought hard for the position (he filmed an entire car chase on a consumer camera as an audition) and delivered in spades.  Since DoW, we have developed into frequent collaborators and only grow stronger as a symbiotic creative unit.  I hope I'm telling stories with him for the next 50 years. (It also helps that he was born in Schwarzenegger's hometown.  Austrian thunder blood runs through his veins.  That's gotta count for something...) 

The dumbest thing was neglecting to invest in a casting director.  While we ultimately had a great actors working on the film, the process of finding them was a spirit killer.  I had to be my own casting director, and operated under the pseudonym of Chud Becker (yes, just like those cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers).  Chud managed to nab Tony Todd.  Some agents furrowed their brows at the name Chud.  I just said it was of Azerbaijani origins.    Hiring a casting director may have opened the door for a wider array of talent.  But ultimately, we lucked out with a fun cast nonetheless and their dedication is on full display in the film.  I have no regrets other than the creative time casting took away from pre-production.

And, finally, what did you learn from making the film that you have taken to other projects?

ANDREW: Casting is key, continuity is relative, and sound reigns supreme.  

First off, when they say that half of good direction is good casting, they aren't kidding.  Good actors will relieve the stress of actual scene work and will instead be collaborators in protecting the story.   

As for continuity, I believe that if you shoot for the edit and block correctly, continuity will fall into place.  Continuity helps in the editing process and guides the audience along geographically, but if someone notices that a cup has rotated from one shot to the next, you aren't doing your job as a storyteller. Screw the damn cup!   After all, art is an unattainable quest for perfection.

Lastly, I cannot stress enough how important it is for directors to sit in a sound mixing/editing environment and immerse themselves in that process.   Sound is the glue.  It holds EVERYTHING together.  Knowing how sound works will save you on set.  Since ‘Dust of War’, I’ve been able to make so many impulsive decisions on set purely on the basis of sound.  Appreciating the art of foley and the complexities of the design will give any director a leg up. 

Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!

"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control." 
Roger Corman, Producer

★★★★★

It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!

• Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos

• John Sayles: Writing to your resources

• Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes

• John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots

• Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals

• George Romero: Casting

• Kevin Smith: Skipping film school

• Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection

• Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity

• David Lynch: Kill your darlings

• Ron Howard: Pre-production planning

• John Carpenter: Going low-tech

• Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking

And more!

Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!

It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!

Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.

"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond

John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.

The book covers (among other topics):

• Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories

• Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature

• Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period

• George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget

• Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories

• Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations

• Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive

• Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous

• Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget

• Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget

• Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror

• Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget

• Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting

• L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting

• Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing

• Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres

This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced! 

Jim McBride on “David Holzman’s Diary

Do you think David Holzman’s Diary was the first fake documentary?

JIM: There was a film by Stanton Kaye. It was just a year or two before mine. It was called Georg. It wasn't a very famous film. It was a guy, standing in front of the camera, and it was very political. I don't remember too much about it. He blew himself up at the end, in front of the camera.

What was your inspiration for David Holzman’s Diary?

JIM: It was a combination of things. Michael Powel's Peeping Tom had a big impression on me. I saw it when it was banned in the United States; maybe it was banned everywhere, I don't know. On my first visit to California, a guy I knew got a hold of a print of it and showed it at midnight at a movie theater that no longer exists here. I was just knocked out by it. The whole idea of self-examination. 

Then, in addition to that, I was very interested in Cinema Verite. Kit Carson and I were going to write something for the Museum of Modern Art about Cinema Verite, and we interviewed all these filmmakers--like the Maysles brothers, Ricky Leacock, Pennebaker, even Andy Warhol--who were making films that purportedly were for the first time entering into real life and finding out the truth. 

People were really passionate about this idea that you could find the truth with this new, light-weight equipment and faster film stocks and synch sound--all the stuff that was very new in the sixties. So at that time I was very passionately interested in all of that, and at the same time I felt there was something wrong here. 

Did you set out with the goal of fooling the audience?

JIM: That certainly wasn't the idea. One wanted to make a movie that would be believable. Yes, on one level you wanted people to believe that it was real and to affected by it, but on the other hand, I didn't set out with the intention of fooling people. But just as with any film you make, you want people to suspend their disbelief, you want people to believe it.

I know that this film is an important film to a lot of people, and always, constantly surprised when people come up to me and say, 'I saw your film when I was in college.'  My own experience with the film is that it's never had any kind of commercial release, it's never shown in theater. It really only has a life at film festivals and colleges. So I'm always surprised that more than seven people have seen it.

I know that at a lot of early showings people walked out, but I think that was more from being bored than being fooled.

I guess a lot of people did believe it, but I think the more common reaction is to be caught up in it as it's going along, and then maybe be surprised when you see the credits at the end, but then feel that, 'Oh, that makes sense. It was worth the trip that it took me on.'

What was the process for making the movie?

JIM: This was actually the second go-round. In 1966 I was working at a company that sold land in Florida. And it did it through films. I was serving an apprenticeship there, learning to shoot, learning to edit, stuff like that. I got this idea for what was later to become David Holzman's Diary, and they let me borrow their equipment on weekends. 

We shot a bunch of stuff, all most all of it improvised--and not very well, I should add--and then as we were shooting, I got fired. So I packed it all up into a box and put it in the trunk of my car, and I went around looking for a cutting room that someone would lend me so I could put these pieces together. And when I finally did locate a cutting room a couple of weeks later, I went to the car and opened it up and discovered that someone had stolen the film. 

In those days, 16mm was associated with porn, so my guess is that's why somebody took it. They must have been terribly disappointed. And I was terribly disappointed myself, but as time went by, I was kind of relieved, because it really sucked. 

But somehow the experience of doing it made me realize how I should have done it differently.

Then, about a year later, I hooked up with these two guys, quite separately: Kit Carson and Michael Wadleigh, who was a cinematographer. It was actually Michael who encouraged me to try it again. 

I had been working with him as a soundman; he was a Verite cameraman and we did a lot of work and went to some interesting places. He was a very talented cinematographer. He sort of organized it all in a way: We'd do a job during the week, and then we'd keep the equipment over the weekend and turn it in on Monday morning. But over the weekend we would shoot stuff for David Holzman's Diary. We used short ends from jobs we'd been working on, and we'd actually send the stuff through the lab with stuff from the companies we were working for. So really it didn't cost anything and we did it in a gradual way, accumulated footage.

For those parts of the film that took place in his apartment--we really did it all in one long weekend, I think--we spent several days beforehand with just a tape recorder in a room. I would give him a sense of what I wanted to have happen in a given scene, and then he would put it into his own words, and then we'd listen to the tape and I'd say 'I like this, I don't like that, change this.' 

Later on in life we became collaborators on various screenplays, but this was our first collaboration.

It's a lot simpler when it's just one person talking into a microphone than two or three actors trying to do something dramatic together. It was very much controlled improvisation, and by the time we actually went to shoot the scene--although it wasn't written down--we all knew exactly what was going to happen. Because we didn't have a lot of film to fuck around with, so we had to get it on the first or second take. So it was pretty carefully rehearsed.

What’s the story behind the woman in the Thunderbird?

JIM: That pretty much happened, just as you see it on the screen, except that Kit choked and it was Michael Wadleigh who was asking most of the questions.  

We never bothered to get a release from her, of course. I didn't have any equipment of my own, but I had a friend who had a movie projector, so we would often go over to his house to screen dailies, without sound. 

A few weeks later, this friend who owned the projector called me up and said, 'I had this amazing experience last night. I met the woman, who was in your movie. I was walking along Broadway at two o'clock in the morning, and she pulled up in that Thunderbird and she threw open the passenger side door and patted on the seat. I recognized her and I hopped in.' So he went home with her and slept with her. And he said to me, 'I don't know if I slept with a man or a woman.'

Now cut to a couple years later than that, and we actually have a legitimate company that's interested in distributing the film. But, of course, they want releases on everything. So some guy from the company went out and found her and got a release from her. It turned out she was a transsexual who lived in the neighborhood, and she was happy to be on film and happy to sign a release.

Because we had no commercial ambitions for the film, we never worried about releases. So we felt quite comfortable filming on the streets. And I think some of the best material in the film, such as people sitting on benches and other kind of neighborhood stuff, that if we were making a film that we imaged would be released in theaters, we could never have shot that stuff, because there would be no way to get everybody's permission.

What was the best decision you made on the film?

JIM: It's hard to think of everything being intentional. Stuff kind of evolves. I guess having the idea was the best thing I ever did. The actual enacting of it I have to share blame or the credit with my collaborators, Michael and Kit. It really was a group effort in many ways.

I've actually written a script for a sequel to David Holzman's Diary, that I've been trying to raise money for. One of the producers was telling me recently that she felt there wasn't enough of David in the story. I was trying to take Pepe's advice and keep him off the screen. And she said, 'No, no, he's so charming, you have to get more of him on the screen.'

Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!

"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control." 
Roger Corman, Producer

★★★★★

It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!

• Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos

• John Sayles: Writing to your resources

• Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes

• John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots

• Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals

• George Romero: Casting

• Kevin Smith: Skipping film school

• Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection

• Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity

• David Lynch: Kill your darlings

• Ron Howard: Pre-production planning

• John Carpenter: Going low-tech

• Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking

And more!

Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!

It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!

Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.

"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond

John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.

The book covers (among other topics):

• Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories

• Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature

• Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period

• George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget

• Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories

• Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations

• Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive

• Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous

• Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget

• Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget

• Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror

• Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget

• Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting

• L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting

• Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing

• Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres

This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced! 

Richard Glatzer on writing/directing “Grief”

There’s a well-worn adage that says you should “write what you know.” That’s what the late Richard Glatzer did when he decided to make his first feature film. He took his experiences as a writer/producer of the TV show Divorce Court, and combined it with the loss he had recently suffered after the death of his partner.

The subsequent film – filled with such indie stalwarts as Craig Chester, Illeana Douglas, Alexis Arquette, Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov – is really a quintessential independent film: Funny, sad, personal and in its own way, universal. 

What was going on in your career before you wrote Grief?

RICHARD: I had sold some scripts to Disney and had written afternoon specials for ABC -- one of which actually got produced -- but mostly I found that I was making some money as a writer and getting very frustrated at never seeing any of my words come to life.  I basically had given up on the idea of doing anything in Hollywood; I was doing a nightclub one night a week and just goofing off, after having produced Divorce Court for a couple years.

Producer Ruth Charney suggested that we work on a movie together. I said I had no interest in doing anything unless it was a movie that we could make on as little money as anyone could make a movie. Otherwise it wasn’t going to get done. I had enough experience trying to get things done through more conventional channels. So, I thought if I conceive of a movie that’s basically one location, and think of it as an independent, independent, independent film, then maybe we can actually do it.

She suggested that I do something inspired by my experiences working on Divorce Court. I thought about it and thought I didn’t want to do some Soap Dish-y thing; that I wanted it to have other stuff going on. A lot of the film is autobiographical, and I had been dealing with my lover dying at the time I was working on that show. And I thought that would make it more interesting then if it were just some sort of satire of Divorce Court.

So then the idea of it began to take shape. To me, that became more interesting, if you limited it to one location. To conceive of a film from the outset as ultra-low budget is the way to do it.  You don’t start with a bigger idea and then whittle it down.

Let’s back up. How did you get into producing Divorce Court?

RICHARD: I sold these two scripts to Disney, when there was a different group of people in charge there. And then one of them ended up as the producer-story editor for Divorce Court. I was still living in New York at the time and thinking about going to LA. I spoke to the guy who had been the head of the studio and he said I should talk to this woman who’s over at Divorce Court and see if she can get me some work there.  And I thought, “Oh my god -- Divorce Court.” 

But it ended up being more regular employment and more fun than anything else I ever worked on. I thought I’d be there for a week and it ended up being five years. I ended up producing the thing.

Once you had the idea, how long did it take to write Grief?

RICHARD: I wrote it quickly; it was the easiest script I’ve written. I usually don’t keep journals, but I happened to write down in a little notebook the day that Ruth suggested thinking about this. It was the end of October in ‘91, and I had a draft of the script by early January ‘92; and I hadn’t even started thinking about it at the end of October, ‘91. So it was pretty fast.

How did you go about funding the movie?

RICHARD: I had about $20,000 saved and we raised another $20,000 from people who were willing to put up $5,000 investments -- none of which was easy. 

I think the gay content helped a little bit, that people felt that it was some sort of community function or something. But it also, obviously, limited the film in terms of people thinking they were ever going to see a lot of money coming back. Ruth put up $5,000. It was mostly little bits and pieces, mostly from friends.

We raised $40,000, and at the same time we were doing that, I put together my cast just by going to Sundance and seeing Craig Chester in Swoon and meeting people at parties or wherever.  

That’s where I met Illeana Douglas. Just as I was leaving -- I hadn’t even spoken to her, really -- and I got my coat and was on the way out the door, it suddenly clicked that she was perfect for Leslie. I just went up to her and said, “Hey, you wouldn’t by any chance do some low-budget, independent fag film, would you?”

And she said, “I bet you’re the kind of guy who loves Edgar Ulmer movies.” And I was a big Edgar Ulmer fan, so within a day or two she said, “I’ll do your movie,” as soon as I got her the script.

So I assembled the cast and felt like I had this really great group of people. We’d all been hoping to get more money than $40,000, but there was nothing coming. 

Did you write the script with particular actors in mind? 

RICHARD: No. Alexis Arquette and Jackie Beat I knew from this club I was doing; they both performed there. I was thinking of them as I was writing the script; not from the outset, but as I was writing it, I started to realize that I was hearing Jackie Beat saying these lines. 

So by the time I finished the script I definitely had them in mind for those two roles. But it wasn’t like from the beginning I was going to write a role for Jackie Beat or write a role for Alexis.  

How long did you shoot?

RICHARD: We shot for ten days. It was ten days for the bulk of the shooting and then we did an extra half day in the courtroom.  That was our big production value, which of course we made look like shit by deteriorating it. We shot it on film and it looked really good and then we went and shot it off a monitor.

At the time we didn’t know how it was going to work. And I thought if I shoot it on film, I have the option to use it on film and if I shoot it on video, then I’m stuck with video. It was basically a half day; we were out of there at three, three thirty. 

Did the script change much during shooting?

RICHARD: It was an ongoing process; I was always scrutinizing it and always fiddling with it. Then working with the actors was really helpful. 

We did have a week of rehearsal and that was really great and crucial, especially for doing a movie that fast -- and one like this, which was so character and performance oriented. I felt that was the highest value of the film, the quality group of people I put together and I wanted to make sure that the parts really came alive.

Did you change the script after the week of rehearsal?

RICHARD: There was a lot of re-writing in rehearsal and throughout the whole process -- in the editing room as well. The finished movie is maybe 75% of what was in the original script, but there are little things tweaked here and there.  

This was especially true of emotional stuff; you’d see it and think, "Wait a minute, there’s not enough here, it’s not sounding right." So I would scribble things down on slips of paper and hand them to them. Later I had to get a continuity script together for TV stations and I was like, “Oh my God, where did I put that scene?”

It’s not really like I threw the script out, it’s not that. It’s basically about three-fourths of what was in the script. It’s trying to make all of it right. It was just constantly fiddling with it.  

And I felt really good about that, because I think everyone’s hesitation about a writer-director is that you’re going to think that every word is sacrosanct. I felt like I was very able to put the writing behind me and just listen to it and watch it and see if it was working or not.

My actors were a really smart group of people, so I could trust them, if they said “Wait a minute” about their character.  Most of the time they were right and that was really good, because it was a great sounding board. Actors are always like that, but I think some actors are better able to see what’s missing or know when something’s not sounding right than other actors are. I credit them with a lot of that.

Then also, in the editing room, I thought, “Oh, everything’s fine,” and then you’d put it together and realize, “Wait a minute, there’s a beat missing here,” or you’ve got to move this thing before that thing or it doesn’t pay off. Just all that kind of stuff.   

So you were re-writing even while you were editing?

RICHARD: I shot the bulk of the movie in ten and a half days, but six months down the line -- after I had a rough cut of the movie -- I realized that there were some important emotional beats that were missing. So we went back and shot an extra day’s worth of stuff. 

These were pretty crucial scenes. There are other scenes they replaced. All the stuff that was taking place near the stage -- because we couldn’t have access to our original location again.  

The big scene where Jackie Beat talks about being fat and the scene where Illeana asks Craig to marry her, that was done somewhere else and we just made it look like it was part of the sound stage in that same building. 

There were things that were replaced by those scenes, but those new scenes were really crucial.

The Love Judge scenes were very funny. Did you ever intend to include more of them?

RICHARD: I wish I’d had money to really do the whole shooting of The Love Judge, rather than just do scenes from the episodes -- to actually see the judge carrying on, to see the actors have the scripts re-written under their noses, and all that kind of stuff. I thought that could have really been fun. 

But it just seemed like then we’d have to rent real video cameras and real lights and all that stuff that we didn’t have a budget for. That was the closest we could get to it.  

Since you lost your original set for the re-shoots, how did you come up with the idea to set the scenes backstage at the show?

RICHARD: It was just a way for us to make up for not being able to re-shoot in the original location. I don’t know if I would have even tried that if we’d had access to the original location. So it turned out to be a blessing that we didn’t have access to it, because it let us fake it. And all that set was, was a stage at this place called Lace, which is a performance art theater/gallery downtown. There was nothing there, it was this black, empty space. So we made it work.

Do you think there were any advantages to not having a larger budget?

RICHARD: I set out to make a movie in one location for financial reasons. I think the whole idea of grieving and the fact that Mark’s dealing with the death of his boyfriend, to me is so much more interesting indirectly and seen only in the office. 

I think if we’d had money to go shoot Mark crying at home, or something -- just because we maybe had the money, and you’d think, “Oh, we have to cover that” -- to me the movie gained its identity and meaning from giving him that sense of privacy and from being limited to the office. That was a budgetary limitation that ended up working in the movie’s favor.

Of course, it probably would have been distributed wider and seen as a more mainstream movie if we’d had more locations -- a lot of running around and all that stuff.

Did you write the scenes from The Love Judge for an existing set?

RICHARD: No. My producer, Yoram Mandel, made phone calls to see what he could get cheap. The people liked him over the phone; he explained how there was no money in this film, and they said “We’ll let you have the set for $500,” which by LA standards for a day is great. The only thing they said was that we had to go with their schedule and I never knew from one day to the next when it would be available.  

So we only had two days notice to get up there. I had Tim Roth and a couple other people who were going to do cameos in those scenes and they couldn’t because of the last-minute scheduling.  But I was thrilled that Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov were willing to do it.

How long did it take to finish the movie?

RICHARD: It took forever to post it. We didn’t have enough money; the $40,000 was to shoot it, but we didn’t have anything left to do any of the post. We were trying to raise money and trying to find freebie stuff. There was this UCLA student who had this KEM deck at home and she was synching dailies for us. She let us in there to cut some stuff.  

It’s so frustrating when you’ve got this in the can and you want to work on it and you can’t. It took us about a year to edit the thing, getting a few bucks here, a few bucks there and begging favors everywhere.  There was a post house near me, an editing facility that would let us go in there for free. They were sympathetic and trying to help us out.

And really the only reason it ever got finished was because Mark Finch, who was the head of the Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in San Francisco, saw a rough cut of the film and loved it and said he would give us the closing night if we could finish. So then it was this panic to finish it.

I put up more money -- fool that I was -- in order to finish it. No one was coming up with any money. I made him a personal guarantee that I was going to get the film done and we had two or three months and there was no money and so I finally just put the money up.

Did that festival help?

RICHARD: It was a partial success story.  It was a huge hit there and it was like a dream come true to be there. It’s a 1,500 seat theater and that town’s just insane. These people go there and they have these wild opinions -- they either love it or they hate it -- and luckily with me they loved it. They just decided very early on that they loved this movie and they were screaming and carrying on throughout the whole movie.  

Then we got a great review in Variety and all of a sudden all these festivals wanted the film and there was this big Hollywood producer who had to meet with me and who loved the film. It just felt like, oh, now everything’s happening.  

Festival-wise, the film did really, really well. It played everywhere. St. Petersburg, New Zealand, Jerusalem, just every corner of the globe I could think of, it’s been.

Most of the time I went with it; a lot of these people can’t afford to fly you all around. But I went to Australia with it and I went to Berlin with it and I went to Italy and London a whole bunch of times. I could have gone to Hong Kong if I wanted to pay half my airfare, but I said no. I also could have gone to Jerusalem and I stupidly didn’t. It was right when it was with all these Italian festivals and I would have had a day here and a day there and it just seemed like, what’s the point?

I traveled with the film for about a year and a half, which was fun.

How was your Sundance experience?

RICHARD: Not very good. The film had been to Toronto and to Vancouver and to the Gay & Lesbian Festival in San Francisco and in Los Angeles. Most Sundance films are pretty new to the public, so by the time the film got there, it was sort of considered old news. I heard that in the first half audiences were pretty good, but by the time the second half happened, it was all these Hollywoody people. And they’d literally walk out during the opening credits.  

I’ve talked to a lot of people who have had similar experiences. And then we didn’t win any prizes and however stupid that is, you still want it. And you have to keep reminding yourself that Sundance prizes don’t really mean a hell of a lot. It’s usually the audience award that seems to indicate something about any commercial success. But nothing else seems to indicate anything.

I guess for my film, Sundance wasn’t that important. I’ve seen my film with audiences, like in Germany where the film was not subtitled, where they loved the film. Or in Toronto, where the film went over really, really well. 

And then I was there at Sundance and it felt like a total bomb. The audience, those Hollywood people, were completely inattentive and didn’t get it and didn’t give a shit and it just felt really bad. 

That’s not the festival’s fault, but that’s who’s going there these days. And they go there wanting the new Tarantino or something. My film is very quiet and you have to pay some attention and stick with it. And I definitely don’t think Sundance is the place for a film where you have to stick with it. Because they just don’t; they get up and they leave after five minutes. So that wasn’t fun.

What have been the positive effects of writing and shooting Grief?

RICHARD: Creatively, it’s the most gratifying thing I’ve ever done. No question. And financially, not. If I had it to over again, I would absolutely do it.  

It’s been an amazing thing to me, just really amazing to think how many thousands of people have seen this thing around the world and that it’s really moved some people and really gotten to some people and that I’ve gotten to meet so many people, filmmakers, through this. 

I really feel that there’s this great community of independent filmmakers, which is so unlike the Hollywood community and which has a real integrity to it. I’m just amazed how open filmmakers are. I’ve met so many people -- and I hope I’m this way, too -- who really are encouraging with other independent filmmakers. There’s no sense of competition, there’s only support. That’s been fantastic.

What were the downsides?

RICHARD: The financial, really.  Because of the financial thing, at times I’ll get down. I’ll see a film like Go Fish, which I really enjoyed, but which to me was like, that film, there was such a hoopla over it, such a huge amount of money given to them and such huge distribution for it. And I would think, “Is my movie not as good as Go Fish and why can’t my movie get that kind of release?”  

And I get resentful -- not toward Rose, who’s great, and not because of the film, because I really enjoyed the film -- but because of that sense that the marketing thing, that this is the first hip lesbian movie and so it’s going to get this big send-off and my movie’s just not.  

I’ve always fought with myself not to be resentful over -- especially over films I like -- but still there is such a freaky quality to what’s hot and what’s not. It doesn’t have anything to do with the reviews, because my film was really well reviewed. It doesn’t have anything to do with anything but how we can market this film and we can’t market that film or somebody at one of the distribution companies suddenly gets really worked up over something or whatever.

It’s hard to be satisfied. At one point I would have been satisfied just to finish the film, because I thought we’d never get the money to finish the film and I thought, “Oh, if I can only finish it -- it doesn’t matter if it’s distributed, if only I can finish it.”  

Then you get it finished and then you see it received well, and then you’re like, “Oh, well now I want more and I want more and I want more.” And then you think of all the films, independent films, that never get finished or never get out there or get to two festivals and then they disappear. I was so much luckier than that. 

Mostly, I’m really grateful for the whole thing and feel like -- absolutely -- if I had it to do over again, I would do it over again, because it was a really great experience.

One last question: Am I nuts, or is the actor who plays The Love Judge doing an impression of Lionel Barrymore?

RICHARD: Yes, the Love Judge is doing Lionel Barrymore. You’re the only person who’s ever figured that out. 

The actor, Mickey Cottrell (the clean freak in My Own Private Idaho) loves to do shtick. That morning, when we were at the location of the courtroom scene and he’s getting dressed, he said, “You know, I do a really mean Lionel Barrymore.” I said, “Let me hear it.” And he did his Lionel Barrymore. And I said, “That’s perfect, just do that.”  

It was perfect, it was just what I wanted -- a curmudgeonly character. But no one else has picked up on it. That’s so funny. 

Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!

"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control." 
Roger Corman, Producer

★★★★★

It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!

• Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos

• John Sayles: Writing to your resources

• Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes

• John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots

• Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals

• George Romero: Casting

• Kevin Smith: Skipping film school

• Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection

• Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity

• David Lynch: Kill your darlings

• Ron Howard: Pre-production planning

• John Carpenter: Going low-tech

• Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking

And more!

Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!

It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!

Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.

"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond

John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.

The book covers (among other topics):

• Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories

• Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature

• Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period

• George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget

• Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories

• Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations

• Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive

• Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous

• Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget

• Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget

• Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror

• Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget

• Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting

• L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting

• Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing

• Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres

This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced! 

Brent Kado on "A Short History of Drugs in the Valley"

What was your filmmaking background before making "A Short History of Drugs in the Valley"?

Brent: This is my fourth feature film. I have done many commercials, some music videos, web series and shorts. 

Where did the idea come from and what was the process for writing the script and getting the script ready to shoot?

Brent: The idea came from growing up in a small town and the stories that you hear or are told growing up. People love to idealize how peaceful and joyous small-town life is, but often it's as unpredictable a place as anywhere else.  

I wrote the film. It was a combination of two scripts I had. I decided to combine and refine the two stories, which is a total independent film thing to do. My wife and I collaborate on many of our projects, and we had decided to do another feature (this is now my fourth) after she had just completed a personal short film that I produced. So, we agreed to do this film that I had wanted to do.  

Combining the two screenplays and adding some more scenes was the bulk of my writing which I did over a three-month period. Knowing that I am shooting it with actors who I've worked with before and producing it ourselves, the screenplay is definitely not a completed project. Plenty of room to work in setting the scenes and tweaking dialogue. It wouldn't win any screenwriting contests, that's for sure.  

What was your casting process, and did you change the script to match your final cast?

Brent: Casting was all hand selected. We did not audition anyone. We'd worked with many of them in other projects before. The rest came out of my wife's improv classes or local community theater actors I'd seen perform.

We only made minor changes. The biggest change was that my wife, who is a successful commercial and theatrical actor, was also producing the film with me (we work in tandem on many projects) decided to reduce her role and we cut it down in the script considerably to make the story flow better and add extra shooting time for the remainder of the script. 

What type of camera did you use and what did you love (and hate) about it?

Brent: A Canon 6D and a few scenes with a Canon 5D Mark III. The cinematographers did all the shooting, so I just trusted their comfortability and vision. 

Did the movie change much in the editing, and if so, why did you make the changes?

Brent: The editor (Lee Bacak) gave me two cuts after his first pass. One was close to what I had in the script and the other was his ideal version. We went with his version because it was very concise, clear and only about 5 to 6 minutes shorter. Turned out to be a good choice. 

Can you talk about your distribution plan for recouping costs?

Brent: Our initial plan was pretty undetermined. I work in the YouTube ecosystem in various capacities, and I hoped that with the recognition of the musicians involved that getting it up on our YouTube would give us some nice views and maybe a bit of ad dollars. But getting released on Amazon changed all that of course. 

What impact did the length of the movie (around 50 minutes) have on getting a distributor interested? 

Brent: When the editor and I settled on the final cut, the Youtube route (and possibly using the film as a "pilot" for a sequel or series) seemed like the obvious direction we were going to go.  

I had another film in The Rhode Island International Film Festival and met an Amazon Video representative there and they said they'd look at it. Getting a micro-budget film of this length up on Amazon is just a testament to the changing world of independent film. 

What was the smartest thing you did during production? The dumbest?

Brent: Smartest- There are so many. Haha. I have to list two.

One, casting actors I trusted and giving them the space to do what they are best at. 

Two, scheduling in extra half-days of shooting as buffers even though it was hard to make that happen. We shot in two time blocks: six days, then a week off and then six more days. I needed the extra half day during the first time block. We did not need it in the second and it just became a time to experiment in the final scene of the day and give everyone a couple extra hours to relax and sleep.  

Dumbest- There are so many! Again, I'll have to list two.  

One, not confirming my shoot with a local State Park that I had gotten a permit for. The ranger on duty had no clue what was happening and shut us down. That is when we had to use one of those buffer half-days and shoot at a local farm instead.  

Two, not keeping up with all the dailies and confirming I got everything I wanted/needed. 

And, finally, what did you learn from making this feature that you will take to other projects?

Brent: Going with your instinct on length, structure and approach concerning the final product. With the changing landscape there are viable homes on quality platforms for all types of projects. 

Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!

"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control." 
Roger Corman, Producer

★★★★★

It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!

• Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos

• John Sayles: Writing to your resources

• Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes

• John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots

• Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals

• George Romero: Casting

• Kevin Smith: Skipping film school

• Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection

• Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity

• David Lynch: Kill your darlings

• Ron Howard: Pre-production planning

• John Carpenter: Going low-tech

• Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking

And more!

Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!

It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!

Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.

"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond

John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.

The book covers (among other topics):

• Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories

• Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature

• Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period

• George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget

• Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories

• Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations

• Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive

• Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous

• Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget

• Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget

• Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror

• Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget

• Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting

• L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting

• Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing

• Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres

This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced! 

Roger Corman on "Little Shop," Demme, Bogdanovich and Coppola

Tell me about the genesis of Little Shop of Horrors.

ROGER CORMAN: I would take advantage very often of what is called a scene dock in a studio. When a picture is finished, they break down the flats and store the flats. 

So, I would be aware of what was in the scene dock, so that I could pull out existing flats and re-arrange them to fit. In that way, I didn't have to spend money building the flats -- we would assemble the sets for what we wanted, generally from flats in the scene dock.

In the Edgar Allen Poe pictures, we built the first sets, then we broke those sets down, stored them, then used those and built new ones for each film; so each film got a little bit bigger as we used what we had before and then added to it.

So, in essence, you had the set for Little Shop and built the movie around it. I understand you paid the actors for five days on that film and spent three of those days rehearsing.

ROGER CORMAN: I'm a strong believer in rehearsals and in pre-production and preparation. I want to be able to come onto the set and shoot. Ideally, everything is worked out in advance; practically, it never quite works that way. You always are faced with new problems, or maybe you get a better idea. But at least you have your framework before you shoot.

If you don't have time for a full rehearsal, I like to have at least a reading with the actors, in which we read and maybe do some improvisations and do some loose rehearsals -- not on the set -- taking at least one day before shooting for that.

What’s one of the best ways to save time while shooting?

ROGER CORMAN: What I do, and what I tell my directors working with me, is that you waste a lot of time after you get a shot, where you're congratulating everybody, discussing the shot, and so forth. And that shot is already yesterday's news. You've got it. 

So what I do is I say, 'Cut, print, thank you.' Then maybe one sentence saying how good it was to the actors. And then, 'The next shot is over here.' And we're on to the next shot.

Why do you think Little Shop of Horrors is still so popular today?

ROGER CORMAN: It's partially the idea. It's such a wild idea: A plant that eats people and the little guy who, for reasons not necessarily important, has to murder to feed the plant. It's just a wild, original idea. 

And then I think it was the spirit in which the film was made. The fact that nobody took the work that seriously; we took it with humor, and even the crew were laughing and joking. I think that spirit permeated the film.

What key lesson did you take away from that experience?

ROGER CORMAN: The main lesson: I sacrificed too much by shooting that fast. For instance, I was using two cameras, simultaneously, photographing from two different angles. If two people were talking, I'd have a close-up on one person and a close-up on the other. Because it was a comedy-horror film, you could use flat lighting, but the lighting clearly suffered. In any other type of film, the bad lighting would have hurt the film. 

It was done partially as an experiment, partially as a joke. It succeeded, and then I went back to a normal style of shooting, because you really can do better work with a little more time.

You gave Peter Bogdanovich his first directing assignment with Targets. How did that come about?

ROGER CORMAN: As a result of various complications in a contract, Boris Karloff owed me several days' work. So, I wanted to do a horror film, starring Boris Karloff, in which he would only work for those days.

Peter Bogdanovich had been my assistant. (My assistant before that was Francis Coppola and after Francis had worked for me on a few films, I gave him a chance to direct.) I did the same thing with Peter. I said, 'Here's the problem: The picture must star Boris Karloff, but he can only work for these days.' 

And Peter came up with the idea of Boris as an actor doing a traditional horror film, and in that way,  we could take some footage out of some of the horror films that Boris had done for me before, and also cut away to the boy and tell a parallel story.

Bogdanovich has a couple sequences in the film that are long, continuous takes, with—apparently—no coverage. That would appear to go against your preferred style of shooting.

ROGER CORMAN: It goes a little bit against my rules, but on the other hand, all rules are made to be broken. I do like to get coverage, to get as much coverage as possible. Yet, at the same time, when you're on a very tight schedule, sometimes you have to sacrifice coverage. And when you do that, sometimes you can make a virtue out of necessity.

Peter is highly intelligent, and he had a great knowledge of film. He had written some added scenes for me on previous pictures, and had directed some second unit, so I was aware of his ability as a second unit director and his ability as a writer. I had the feeling that he had the talent.

You mentioned giving Francis Coppola his first chance at directing, with Dementia 13. How did that come about?

ROGER CORMAN: I hired Francis out of the UCLA film school as an editor. I had bought the American rights to two Russian science fiction films, which had wonderful special effects, but they were filled with outrageous anti-American propaganda. And so I hired Francis to re-edit those films, and delete the anti-American propaganda. 

And then he went along and worked with me on several films as my assistant, and particularly on a Grand Prix Formula One race car picture, called The Young Racers, in which we traveled from track to track. 

Francis and our key grip built racks and various compartments into a Volkswagen microbus, so that the microbus was actually a traveling small studio. We used that, with a crew of six or seven professionals, and then we would hire local people. 

When the picture was finished, I had to go back to do a picture in the United States, but it occurred to me we had efficiently functioning crew and everything in microbus, so we could stay and do another picture.

We were finishing at the British Grand Prix, which that year was at Liverpool, but the problem was that British labor laws were very difficult. We only had permits to work in and around the track. But I knew that the Irish labor laws were looser. So I said to Francis, 'If you can come up with an idea for a horror script, you can take the microbus and several of the crew and just put it on a ferry and go across the Irish sea and shoot there.'

He came up with a very interesting idea for Dementia 13, and he contacted some people he'd been with at the UCLA film school and they flew over to Dublin and everybody lived in a big house there while he shot the picture.

It was a very interesting psychological suspense story. We took one idea from Hitchcock, which was that the leading lady would die early in the film, just as she did in Psycho. I always thought that was great, because nobody ever expects the leading lady to die halfway through the film!

You also gave Jonathan Demme his first directing credit, with Caged Heat.

ROGER CORMAN: Jonathan was working out of England, writing publicity for United Artists. I did a film in Ireland for United Artists, and he came over on behalf of UA. It was clear he was a very intelligent young man. He said he was writing publicity but was interested in writing screenplays.

I told him a couple ideas I had and I said, 'If you're ever write anything on this, let me know.' He and his partner, Joe Viola, wrote the script and Jonathan produced and directed. They did one more for me, and then they did Caged Heat, on which Jonathan made his debut as a director.

He had been doing some second unit directing when Joe was the director. I've always liked the idea of a new director shooting some second unit. He gets a feel for what's going on, and I get a chance to judge what he can do.

If you can give a filmmaker only one piece of advice, what would it be?

ROGER CORMAN: Be flexible. Even though you've done all your preparation, don't stick absolutely to the preparation if it doesn't seem to be working. Know that you've got the preparation, but situations change, so be prepared to change with the situations.

Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!

"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control." 
Roger Corman, Producer

★★★★★

It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!

• Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos

• John Sayles: Writing to your resources

• Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes

• John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots

• Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals

• George Romero: Casting

• Kevin Smith: Skipping film school

• Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection

• Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity

• David Lynch: Kill your darlings

• Ron Howard: Pre-production planning

• John Carpenter: Going low-tech

• Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking

Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!

It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!

Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.

"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond

John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.

The book covers (among other topics):

• Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories

• Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature

• Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period

• George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget

• Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories

• Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations

• Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive

• Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous

• Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget

• Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget

• Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror

• Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget

• Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting

• L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting

• Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing

• Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres

This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced! 

Dylan Kidd on writing & directing "Roger Dodger"

Roger Dodger is an example of how – sometimes – all the pieces just fall into place. Writer-Director Dylan Kidd recognized that he’d created a great character when he came up with Roger Swanson. 

Actor Campbell Scott obviously agreed and stepped up to the challenge, bringing an amazing cast – Isabella Rossellini, Jennifer Beals, Ben Shenkman, and Elizabeth Berkley – along with him. Roger Dodger proves that it’s always a good idea to carry your best script with you wherever you go, because you just never know who you’re going to run into.

Where were you in your career before Roger Dodger happened?

Nowhere, really. I had gone to NYU film school and graduated in 1991 and then most of the 90s was spent struggling to get any kind of entry into the industry. I loaded cameras for a couple of years; I worked in real estate for a couple of years. I made a short film in 1996, which was the first directing I had done since school, and that was a nice little thing to get my confidence up a little bit. I spent a couple years doing training videos for hair salons, industrial films, you name it. So really Roger Dodger was a very dramatic beginning to my career.

What the value of all those jobs when it came time to do your first feature?

At the time I was absolutely thrilled to have the work, and I still feel that any time you are -- and this is more from a directing standpoint than from a screenwriting standpoint -- any time I was on a set, calling "action" and "cut," it was an opportunity to learn. And it's always good to shoot and go into the editing room and slap your forehead and think, "I should have gotten that!" It's all part of the training.

And in terms of screenwriting, it's all just fuel for the fire. In the case of helping the script for Roger Dodger, I was just getting more angry and frustrated at not being able to break in, so I ended up putting all that anger into the mouth of the main character. 

In my case, it was a long struggle, but absolutely worth it. I don't know how to do anything else, so for me there was no option. 

How many scripts had you written before Roger Dodger?

I had written two other feature scripts and then one that had been sort of abandoned. So I guess, two and a half. 

One screenplay was based on my experiences in real estate. Although it was nice to get it out of my system, I think I was aware when it was done that the script really wasn't good enough to show anybody. 

The other one was a horror movie, an attempt to do something in a genre. It was fine, but wasn't anything that I was that excited about. Roger Dodger was the first time that when I finished a script, I was like, "Okay, I want to make this movie." 

What was it about the script that made you feel that this was the one?

Probably the quality of the writing, but also the fact that this was the first time that I felt like I had a character that an actor would want to play. For me, a big thing about writing something that could be done for no money was trying to write a role that was so good that we could attract a name actor to work for what turned out to be peanuts. 

That was a big part of my strategy: write something that somebody would walk through broken glass to play. Most of your expense in a movie is the above-the-line costs. It's difficult but possible to make a movie for a low-budget. What's really hard is getting someone that anyone's ever heard of into that movie.

Every time an actor wins an award for stepping outside of their comfort zone, like Halle Berry for Monster's Ball or Charlize Theron for Monster, I think it sends a message to other actors that sometimes you need to take a chance. If you're making $12 million a picture, you don't need the money. So why not take two weeks, go shoot a little indie, and maybe you'll get a statue? That was my theory, anyway.

Where did the idea for the story come from?

The real estate script I had written was big in scope and so, apart from the fact that I didn't think it was that strong, even if someone did fall in love with it, it was still a big movie. So the idea of Roger Dodger was to give myself the assignment of writing something that could be done for no money. That lent itself to a series of conversations and monologues. 

It started with the idea of a guy who feels like he can tell everyone else what they're thinking. It was based on a friend of mine, who in college had this strange ability to go up to strangers and take their psychology apart in minute detail. It struck me as disturbing but also very compelling.

I started with Roger. It ended up being a buddy movie, but his nephew didn't come in until later drafts. You go through a certain amount of time thinking, "Well, maybe this guy is compelling enough, maybe people will sit and watch a train wreck for an hour and a half." 

And then there was a point where I realized there has to be some foil, a character who we want to protect has to enter the movie. There has to be a reason for people to hang on and keep watching.

Did you have a theme in mind when you started?

I was interested in how somebody's work could bleed into their personal life. I feel that New York is very much a place where you can be so ambitious in your career that you end up translating those techniques into your personal life. 

I liked the idea of a guy who works in advertising and actually ends up bringing that kind of rhetoric into the singles arena. The idea that he's literally trying to sell himself as a product, by creating insecurity in other people.

But the nephew didn't show up in early drafts?

I think I had one breakthrough draft, which was the first time when the nephew, Nick, came in, where it felt like this was the structure of the movie. After that there were endless tweakings.

Campbell Scott was very helpful, too. We were lucky enough to be able to rehearse quite a bit before we shot and Campbell helped me cut a lot of dialog. Because as wordy as the film is, the script was even more so. 

Usually actors are begging for more lines, so if an actor is saying, "I think we can cut the scene here," their instincts are usually pretty right on. They're not going to tell you to cut a line unless there's a real reason for it. And Campbell is also a writer and a director, so he had a really strong sense.

Probably the most important draft of the script was created two weeks before shooting, going into rehearsal and realizing that a ten-page monologue was finished at page seven; that we didn't need to keep ranting for another three pages. We probably would have figured that out in editing, but it was great to not actually have to go shoot all that.

How did you come up with the title?

I honestly can't remember. I think I remembered hearing that as a nickname for Roger Staubach and I like titles that have an alliterative quality and stick in your head a little bit. 

I also thought of this character as somebody who is dodging a bit. This is a guy that the audience is sort of chasing through the movie. And so our visual approach was that this was a guy who always had a cloud of cigarette smoke or something obscuring him. You could never really get this guy to sit still. 

What is your writing process?

I used to hate writing, because I didn't feel I was any good at it. It was so hard, and it takes you a while to realize that it's hard for everybody. If you spend the first two weeks of a project staring at a page, you learn to forgive yourself a little bit and realize that that's part of the process. 

I seem to work best in the morning. Roger Dodger was written while I had a job, so I was mainly writing at night. But now, I feel like my best hours are probably 8:30 to noon. I have a really hard time being at the keyboard for more than three hours, at least in the beginning. 

To me, the hardest part by far is the beginning. That's the easiest time to get discouraged and give up. But I have an almost religious faith, based on the scripts I've written, where there is some point where you break through. 

So for me, the first couple of months is a lot of not writing: thinking, obsessing, thinking this is a disaster that is never going to happen. Then something clicks and you start to write and you realize that all that worrying was really part of the process.

But I've never been somebody who can get up and put in a nine-to-five day writing. I just can't do it. At the very end, when you're racing to the finish line, then I probably could. But up until that point, if I put in three to four hours, I consider that a good day.

You're the first person I've talked to who has used the words "faith" and "forgive" to describe the process of writing.

And I'm an atheist! 

I remember reading a great quote that Stephen Gaghan said about writing Syriana. He was describing what he goes through when he writes a script and at the end he talked about self-loathing and not being able to get out of bed. 

The beginning is hard. You're trying to make order out of chaos, and chaos doesn't want to be ordered. If you can just get through that hard part, the first draft, then I think you'll be rewarded for your perseverance.

Do you follow a three-act structure in your scripts?

I guess so, but without really thinking about it. I read the Syd Field book when I was at NYU, but I think, for me, things work internally. I can't even remember thinking about the act breaks when I wrote Roger Dodger. I just had the sense that we were at this stage of the story and this is what should happen. 

If you go to 5,000 movies in your life, then without even knowing it that structure is going to be in there when you're writing. I don't think it's a front brain thing; it just ends up being in there.

I feel like the last thing you want to do in a first draft is to be thinking about what page is the act break. I'm the exact opposite of someone who knows the ending before they begin. For me, the first draft is the “spill it” draft. And after that you can look at it and think, "Well, I have a 70-page first act, that probably can't work. 

But your first time through is when your unconscious is really trying to tell you what the movie wants to be. For me it's important to follow your bliss in that first draft, even if it ends up at 180 pages or you hate everything but ten percent of it. At least you've got that ten percent, which is ten more than a lot of people have.

So you don't subscribe to the "the first act needs to end on page 30" philosophy?

The first draft, because there was no Nick character, I think there was a point where I read a draft and I literally started to get fatigued around page 25.

Once I realized that we needed Nick, the original plan was to introduce him very early in the movie so you had some sense that it wasn't just going to be about Roger. Campbell's performance was so great that we decided to roll the dice and I said "I think we can hang with this guy for about 20 minutes." Then we have the kid show up in the office, and a few minutes to get to know the kid and see how they relate, and then the movie can kick in.

There's something to be said for trying to fit it into a structure that people who read scripts for a living recognize. But for me it's always been a little more organic than having file cards and saying, "By page 40 I need to be here." But everyone's different.

Although it's a buddy movie, it is all from Roger's point of view. Do you think that's a function of the character of Nick essentially being a late addition in the scripting process?

Part of what we discovered was that Roger is controlling the tempo of the movie and the subject matter of what's being talked about, but in some weird way, Nick comes in at a moment when we're really starting to figure out something about Roger. 

Even if the movie isn't told through Nick's point of view, there's some way that we're linked to Nick, in that we're sitting there listening to this guy go on and on, and there's an interesting split that happens. We're aware that, as responsible people watching the movie, we feel that this kid should get away from this guy, but he doesn't. 

So the more that Nick buys into everything that's being told to him and the more we realize that, "Wait, this is the last guy you want to be asking for advice," there's something interesting that happens. 

It's the classic Hitchcock situation, where you've told the audience that there's a bomb under the table -- you told the audience, "here's who Roger is." And then you introduce someone who doesn't know what we know. It creates suspense, because you want him to get away but you also want him to somehow redeem Roger.

That's absolutely right. And somehow we thought that would work better if you were introduced to Nick early, because we thought if you set up that collision course, people are really going to be on the edge of their seats. And then we discovered that it was actually better to have the first 20 minutes be all about Roger and then you have the kid show up. 

Under the guise of a talky, chamber piece, we're actually using every trick in the book to keep people in their seats -- it's a buddy movie, it's a Hitchcock movie, it's a sex movie. We were shameless in what we were doing. It's hard to have people just sitting and talking without there being serious subtext.

Were you writing to a particular budget?

No, but having a background in production was definitely a help. I had the understanding that if you could tell the movie in one night there would be only one wardrobe change. 

There are basic rules that are pretty commonsensical, like don't have a car chase, don't make it a period piece, keep your locations to a minimum. 

Also, a big thing for us was that we knew we were going to shoot with two cameras and that allows you to really burn through scenes more quickly. Basically, the whole second act of the movie is four people sitting at a banquette, having this extended conversation. We were able to shoot that entire thing in a day and a half because we were rolling two cameras.

There's a scene where Roger takes the kid out into the street; it's the first time where he's instructing the kid. It's a long, extended scene and even when it was written it was intended to be shot in one take. That was a 12-page scene that we shot in half a day. If you have two sequences like that, that's twenty percent of your movie that's shot in three days. 

Did knowing that you were writing for a small budget cramp your creativity in any way?

Not really. This was one of those movies that felt like it wanted to be tighter. There were earlier drafts that took place over a longer span of time and it just felt like it wanted to be as tight as possible. 

So there's nothing in the movie that I feel we would have done differently if we'd had more money, except for the luxury of being able to shoot more. But if somebody had said, "We love it, here's 2 million dollars," I wouldn't have written in some dream sequence of Roger when he was young. It just felt like it is what it is, that we were dropped into the middle of this guy's meltdown, and we hang on just to make sure that the kid's going to get out of there okay.

Did you write with specific actors in mind?

I didn't and I still don't. I have a hard time doing that, because I don't want to get too attached. I didn't have anybody in mind, so when we stumbled upon Campbell in this really crazy way, it was nice not to have some presupposed notion of it has to be this guy or that guy.

How did you get Campbell Scott?

My producer partner and I got to a stage where we realized, "we're not going to get this movie made in the standard fashion." It's like that New York thing, where nobody ever finds an apartment by actually going through the real estate listings. It's always somebody you know; there's always some backdoor.

So, really in a fit of insanity, thinking if I don't make this movie I'm going to go crazy, I started carrying the script with me every day. I thought, "Well, I live in New York, maybe I'll run into somebody." And that's how it happened -- two weeks after starting that routine of not leaving the house without the script, I walked into a café and there was Campbell.

I didn't realize that most people will not accept an unsolicited screenplay, because it opens you up to all kinds of potential litigation. But I was so clueless at that point.

Any advice to someone who wants to try the same thing when they spot the perfect actor or actress for their script?

The only advice that I have is to be really polite and make sure that you really do have a killer part to offer.

I'm not necessarily somebody who stalks people or is really aggressive or goes up to people, but I was so sure that this was a great role for somebody, I really believed. I might not have believed that the movie was going to work, but I knew this was a lot of meaty dialog for someone to perform. So I really believed that I wasn't wasting his time. If I wasn't sure, I would not have gone up to him. 

If you get to the stage where you feel like you have this great gift that you can give somebody, then it allows you to feel like you're not just disturbing this guy's lunch.

Did you do any re-writing to fit the cast?

Nothing to fit the cast. We were lucky. Basically every actor in the movie was our first choice, so there wasn't a whole lot of "Oh, this person can't handle this type of thing," or "This person is really good at this – we should add more." 

Fairly late in the game we added the epilogue where Roger goes back and sees Nick in Ohio. That was something that came from doing a reading. We did a reading where we found Jesse Eisenberg, who played Nick, and he was so good at the reading that we got really excited because we thought, okay, we actually have someone who can play this role. 

That reading was a huge epiphany, because we realized there was an actor who exists on planet Earth who could play this role. It really lit a fire under us, because we thought Jesse would grow a beard in a year and his voice is going to drop, or whatever, so we've got to move. 

It was sort of our "That's our Hitler!" moment from The Producers.

The other thing we learned from the reading was this huge sense of when the movie ended. The original ending had Roger putting Nick into a cab to the airport and you could just feel the air go out of the room, because the audience cared so much about Nick, because Jesse was so good. They wanted to know if he was going to be okay.

So it was combining that sense of wanting the narrative pleasure of following through and also, just for me, I really wanted to stick Roger in a cafeteria full of kids. I don't know why, it's such a guilty pleasure for me. The movie starts with Roger having lunch in this restaurant with all these adults and then by the end of the movie he's actually found his peer group.

So I think it was a combination of sensing that the audience would feel ripped off if the movie cut to black at that point and also having this visual of Campbell Scott bopping above all these other heads in the cafeteria.

Do you show drafts to friends or use readings to gauge how you're progressing?

I like readings. I'm not a fan of too much feedback. I'm stubborn that way. I like feedback, but for me the whole point of a reading is to sit in the room and you just know -- you just know if something's dead or if something's working. 

I do have people that I turn to and that I care about what they think. But my feeling is that, unless the comments match something I already felt in my gut anyway, or if every person has the same comment, then I know I have an issue. I generally have found that putting too much stock in feedback can get confusing, because people are going to have a hundred different opinions.

Is there anything in the movie that people tried to talk you out of that you're glad you stuck to your guns on?

I tend to be the opposite. I tend to be the guy that cuts too quickly. I loved when the Coen brothers released their Director's Cut of Blood Simple, and it was like eight minutes shorter or whatever. That would be me.

My experience has been that if I have a gut feeling, if I know something isn't working, I don't need to be told to take it out. And someone says it isn't working for them, but some gut things says I want to keep it in, I guess the reward I get for writing the script and putting myself through this is that I get to say, "No, I don't want to lose that." 

There has to be something in the script that gets you juiced, otherwise it's dead on arrival. I think you have to fight for that, even if you're not going to be the one directing it.

Did knowing that you were going to direct it change the way you wrote the script?

I don't think so. But I think that's probably why I say I don't enjoy writing. It's mainly because I love directing and I think of myself as a director. 

So the writing is this very necessary part, but it's not the fun part. For me it's less about hating writing and more about getting impatient, because I want to get to the point where I can go and start collaborating with others.

What is the most fun part?

I really like editing, which is very much like writing. It's just more fun, because you get very tangible results very quickly. 

For me, I enjoy the entire process, but I probably add the most value in the editing room. I think I'm fine as a director on the set, but I'm not some Ridley Scott genius who always knows where to put the camera, and I'm not John Cassavetes, where I would say the right thing to the actors. 

But the editing room is a place where my tenacity pays off, because I just keep working the footage and refuse to stop tweaking. I just find it really enjoyable, not walking away until a scene is as absolutely good as it can be.

There's a shot right near the end of the movie where Roger is sitting alone on his couch, smoking and thinking, and the smoke disappears in front of him, like a cloud of fog lifting. Was that in the script or a happy accident?

That's the one effect that was completely scripted. 

There was a deliberate structure, where the first image of Roger was of him expelling a plume of smoke. Then, we really labored over that last shot of him smoking. It's the only dolly shot in the film. Our poor cinematographer had to light it in a certain way, so that the smoke would read. 

I don't know if anybody even gets it, but I still get a kick out of it when I see it. "Oh, look, he's coming out of the fog." It was even written in the script that way, something like, "Roger exhales and then the smoke lifts … 

Although you created Roger, I'm sure there was a point where Campbell took him over and knew him better than you did. Do you remember when that point was?

Probably by lunch on the first day. 

I had a really interesting thing happen with Campbell. I think good film actors work really small. There's a great interview with John Travolta where he says he always has to remind directors that they might not see what he's doing on the set, but they'll see it on the screen. These guys are working at a level where the camera can almost read their minds.

My initial concept for Roger had been much more manic. But Campbell brought this total James Bond sophistication to it, where he's saying these horrible things but it's going down so smoothly. That was a total surprise to me and I had a panicked reaction. We talked and he said it's going to be fine. And I thought, I've cast this guy and he's great. Maybe this is not what I had in mind, but maybe that's the whole point. 

Since then I've learned that that moment of surprise is the very best feeling you can experience on the set. If you don't feel surprised, you're in trouble. The whole point is that you write a script and then the actors turn it into something so much better and richer and different than you ever thought. 

It wasn't until the end of the shoot that I realized how right Campbell's choice had been. The only way people would stand this guy was if he was kind of suave about it. If he had done what I had pictured in my head, the movie would have been a disaster. So that was a great lesson. 

I think I imagined the character as constantly pushing people away and what Campbell was doing was more of a push/pull thing, where he reels you in and then pushes you away. That's so much more interesting than what I had in mind. 

I don't think I'll ever make a movie that turned out so much better than I imagined. I thought the script was good, but the actors added so much. 

You were quoted once as saying you wanted every character in this movie, even if they only had one line, to be so well-drawn that they were worthy of their own movie. How do you go about doing that?

I think that's something that's easy to say, but in the end it comes down to the actors. It's very easy to say that you want people to feel that you could go off with any character, but unless it's Jennifer Beals who's riding off in that cab, maybe you're not really going to give a shit and you'll say, "I'll let her ride away."

I think it was more about just wanting to instill in the actors some sense that everyone is important, that there are no supporting characters. But I do believe that it's the responsibility of the writer to love every character equally. Once you start writing a character who is only there in order to fulfill some piece of plot machinery, then nobody is going to care about that person. 

I have this clear memory of being about twelve years old and going to a James Bond movie. There was a scene in the movie where the main henchman gets in a fight with an extra character in the movie -- some Secret Service guy we'd never seen. And it ends up being a really long fight. I remembered being so thrilled that this guy, who you'd think would be dispatched immediately, gets a nice scene. 

I always enjoy it when characters come in and you make a snap judgment about them and then they surprise you, either by claiming more of your attention than you thought or just being richer than you thought. 

It's our job to remind audiences that every character has something going on and everyone has a story to tell. It sound pretentious, but that's where our heads were at when we made the movie.

What did you learn writing Roger Dodger that you still use today on higher-budget projects?

The main thing that I learned from that script was that it was the first time ever when I was writing something that I thought, "This is good, this is working." 

My other scripts had been okay, competent, but the hair on the back of my neck didn't stand up. For me, the most important thing now is trying to make sure that I get as close as I can to that feeling. I never want to settle for, "Oh, this is okay." You want people to read it and get genuinely excited about it and want to shoot it.

You’ve got to get to a place where you are genuinely pumped with what you're doing. As hard as it is, you can't give up on a script until you've gotten to that place.

What's the best advice you've ever gotten about writing?

I have to say it was that Stephen Gaghan quote I mentioned earlier. That was the first time that it really hit home for me that it's hard for everybody and that 90 percent of writing might just be staring into space or reading a book and feeling like you're procrastinating.

Writing is so hard that I only want to do it if I'm absolutely dying to tell that story. My advice would be, particularly in the beginning, the only thing that is going to make your script jump off the page for a reader who's read a hundred scripts that day – the only thing that's going to make a difference – is that there's something about it that's getting you up each morning. Even if it's the least commercial idea in the world, I have to believe that somehow that passion translates to the page.

My experience with Roger Dodger was that I had written two other scripts that I thought were good, and then it wasn't until I wrote Roger Dodger that I realized that there's a difference between just "good" and "holy shit this is good." The industry is tough enough and competitive enough that if you're going to go out to somebody, whether it's an agent or an actor or you're going to submit it to a studio, it has to have that holy shit feeling.

Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!

"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control." 
Roger Corman, Producer

★★★★★

It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!

• Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos

• John Sayles: Writing to your resources

• Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes

• John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots

• Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals

• George Romero: Casting

• Kevin Smith: Skipping film school

• Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection

• Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity

• David Lynch: Kill your darlings

• Ron Howard: Pre-production planning

• John Carpenter: Going low-tech

• Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking

And more!

Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!

It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!

Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.

"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond

John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.

The book covers (among other topics):

• Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories

• Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature

• Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period

• George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget

• Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories

• Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations

• Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive

• Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous

• Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget

• Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget

• Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror

• Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget

• Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting

• L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting

• Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing

• Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres

This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced! 

Will Slocombe on “Cold Turkey”

What was your filmmaking background before making "Cold Turkey"?

Will: Well, I didn’t go to film school. I went to the University of Chicago, where we spend 4 months reading Ulysses, then 6 more months talking about it. I think film school is so expensive – just spend that money on your first movie; you’ll learn so much more.

I’d made a bunch of short films and commercials, and written a few scripts. And this is actually the third feature I’ve directed (although the first one both I’ve written and directed). My big thing has always been to just MAKE stuff. I don’t care how cheap it is (which can sometimes work against me!); I just think the actual process of creating stuff is the most important thing.

Where did the idea come from and what was the writing process like?

Will: The short answer is the idea came from my own family. The long answer is that I was deeply inspired by two things: the honesty of Lena Dunham’s Tiny Furniture, and the explosive dinner scene midway through Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County (which I saw at the Kennedy Center about 3 years ago [actually on Thanksgiving – with my parents]. I thought if I could inject the honesty of Tiny Furniture into a family saga like August: Osage County, that might wok well for an indie movie, all in one location, with no money.

The writing process was terrible! Like it always is. Directing is SO much more fun. You actually get to talk to people. Be social. You’re the leader of your own little gang of misfits. Which is fantastic. But writing’s the WORST. Just so much self-loathing and terror. For Cold Turkey – I wrote the first draft in like 2 weeks (which is obviously fast – I must have had to get something off my chest!), but then spent like a year actually making it good, and not just Dear Diary.

Can you talk about how you raised your budget and your financial plan for recouping your costs?

Will: We raised some initial seed money from friends and family, a buddy from Birthright here, a supportive uncle-in-law there; but about 2 weeks out from production, after we had already attached Peter Bogdanovich and Cheryl Hines, we were in SERIOUS financial trouble. 

That’s when a company called Cinetic Media got us in touch with a company called Burn Later Production, and saved the movie from a horrible, premature death. Our company, Midway Films, will always be grateful to them.

Well, from what my distributor FilmBuff tells me, you make about 80% to 85% of your revenue from iTunes. So, tons of stuff is contingent on good iTunes placement. Other than that, we’re definitely looking into media buys with cable and other digital platforms.  DirectTV has actually been super supportive of the film already, so we hope that works out.  And obviously, we’re looking into foreign distribution. I’m sure your readers know this, but for indie movies (and movies in general), you don’t make ANY money in theaters. Theatrical releases (on the whole) are advertisements for digital releases, just because the advertising costs are so astronomical. Movie theaters are in the $7 popcorn business, not the movie business. 

Having said that, I am EXTREMELY grateful that we got a theatrical release in LA, New York, and other cities. It helped build the profile of the movie (again, an ad for digital). But I’m under no illusions about the financial viability of said theatrical release.

What was your casting process and where did you get the great idea to cast Peter Bogdanovich?

Will: Casting was far and away the most successful part of the movie, taken objectively. And we owe it all to a genius Casting Director named Paul Ruddy. Paul read the script, loved it, and had the savvy and connections to get me into meetings with agents, who similarly loved the script.

In terms of Peter, I had seen him on a bunch of talk shows (notably Charlie Rose), and he just had this…presence. A real command of the room. The three things I wanted for the Poppy character were: (1) an authority (because the movie is basically about that authority crumbling) (2) an intellectual heft (we had to believe he was a Stanford professor) (3) a complicated history with women (haha). Peter fit the bill! I will also give full credit to my producer Graham Ballou, who was always very supportive of the Peter idea and thought it would be really interesting. We were just never sure if Peter Bogdanovich was the sort of man who cried (as he had to late in the film). But thank god he secretly is. (With a little help from an old Frank Sinatra record he put on right before we shot his breakdown scene.)

What kind of camera did you use to shoot the movie -- and what did you love about it and hate about it?

Will: My DP Lucas Lee Graham shot the movie on a Canon 5D Mark III. Lucas claims the movie was the very first feature shot on that camera (we shot in May 2012). And I won’t disagree with him.

A few things I love about the camera (which I’ve also shot a bunch of short-form stuff on myself): (1) the cost. DSLR cameras in general have lowered the barrier to entry in really exciting ways. (2) the size.  It’s tiny (it’s really a still camera) which makes it very quick on its feet, very nimble. (3) the look. I legitimately think it creates beautiful, rich images.  DSLRs are famous for their shallow depth of field, which gives you an intimate, “cinematic” look, but, beyond that, I just love the color temperature on them. I actually learned to make movies on a Canon XL1, so maybe I’m just partial to Canons in general.

What was the smartest thing you did during production? The dumbest?

Will: Hm. Good question! First time anyone’s ever asked that.

Smartest: casting Peter Bogdanovich.

Dumbest: well, it’s not production, but if I had to re-write the script again, I would DEFINITELY start it with more of a bang. A visual, explosive hook. I re-watched PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE last night. One forgets this, but that movie begins with a crazy car crash. I think there’s a reason for that: PTA wants to get your attention IMMEDIATELY. And also maybe threaten that you better stay on your toes, cause that sort of thing could happen again, at any time, without warning.

And, finally, what did you learn from making the film that you have taken to other projects?

Will: That the script and the casting are the absolute number one most important things. Would I make another feature film with actors who weren’t folks like Peter Bogdanovich and Cheryl Hines? Sure. I love movies, I’ll make anything. But it probably wouldn’t be the smartest thing in the world. Having actors like them on board has just meant so much for the movie, and for me personally. I would be crazy not to learn from that.

Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!

"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control." 
Roger Corman, Producer

★★★★★

It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!

• Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos

• John Sayles: Writing to your resources

• Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes

• John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots

• Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals

• George Romero: Casting

• Kevin Smith: Skipping film school

• Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection

• Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity

• David Lynch: Kill your darlings

• Ron Howard: Pre-production planning

• John Carpenter: Going low-tech

• Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking

And more!

Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!

It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!

Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.

"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond

John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.

The book covers (among other topics):

• Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories

• Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature

• Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period

• George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget

• Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories

• Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations

• Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive

• Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous

• Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget

• Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget

• Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror

• Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget

• Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting

• L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting

• Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing

• Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres

This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced! 

Terry Linehan on "Don't Know Yet"

What was your filmmaking background before making "Don't Know Yet"?
Terry: I began as a screenwriter in 1991, after a career sailing tall ships all over the globe. Time at sea inspired me and gave me time to write - like every day. I developed the discipline of writing, and I discovered how much I liked writing for the screen.  Over the next ten years I took every screenwriting and filmmaking seminar in the country: Robert McKee, Michael Hauge, Maine Photographic Workshop, Dov Simens, Linda Seger, Judith Weston, and the Action/Cut seminar among others.  

During this time I banged out a screenplay a year, went through a few agents, placed in some big screenwriting contests, talked to a lot of Hollywood agents, and never sold a thing.  It was in the late 90's that I decided to make films myself. Being a sort of independent guy anyway, this seemed like the way to go.  

Since then, I have written, produced, or directed 7 short films, plus our feature film "Don't Know Yet" in 2013. DKY is the fourth feature I have developed with my company, A Bunch of Us.  Every feature I put into development was nearly made. All had money and actors attached, and one, "Sugarfoot," had a distributor and Gregory Hines - the world's greatest tap dancer - contracted at one point. Hines tragically passed away, the distributor was sold, and the investor's came knocking. I gave their money back.  

The experience of putting that project together around the millennium taught me how fragile the whole filmmaking process is. It helped me realize how many elements had to be synchronized in order to make any film possible.  

So, the short answer is, I began as a writer, and developed skills as an entrepreneur-producer-director.
Where did the idea come from and what was the writing process like?
Terry: I was channel surfing around Thanksgiving of 2011, when I happened upon The Addiction starring Lilli Taylor and Christopher Walken. Taylor spoke a line that would keep me busy for the next two years: “He picks up hitchhikers and takes them wherever they want to go.” I stopped in my tracks and turned off the TV. Who would become a taxi driver for hitchhikers?  My head began to spin with the possibilities, and, for the next few weeks, I jotted down ideas about characters and story.  

When New Year 2012 arrived, I blasted through the first draft of the screenplay, about 75 pages, in five days. Then I sent drafts to my trusted allies - people I knew in the industry who would be totally honest with criticism: professors, actors, a cinematographer, and an editor. I took what I needed from each - and then went with my heart until the writing ended, at 89 pages, in early June.  

I think there were only 4 or 5 drafts of the script. It sort of came out all at once, and was only modified and polished over the development period.  In the end, for better or worse, I listened to my heart whenever making story decisions. So, honestly, I rejected a lot of what I heard about character and conflict. I wanted to make the film that I wanted to make.  I also knew this would be a film that could be produced with a small budget and a local crew.  I was confident that it could also attract a talented cast and financing.
You broke a lot of low-budget rules -- large cast, multiple locations. What was your plan for overcoming those challenges?
Terry: I used a talented crew of young professionals - all of whom were former students of mine. They had a ton of energy and moved mountains on enthusiasm alone. We had a meticulous shooting schedule and were all determined not to let any delays get in our way.  We had a twelve-hour day max, which we rarely went over.  

With minimal takes and a lot of hustling, we were able to stick to our schedule.  Having great actors also helps, because there were few flubs. The weather also had to cooperate, which it did, and didn't. It was blistering hot on our 2 longest exterior shoot days at the junk yard.  We had to cut a couple of scenes short and one we just didn't shoot. That was the only scene we didn't get to.  We had to re-write that scene on the fly.  

I hoped that our editor, Nate Daniel, could make some scenes out of this.  He did. We also planned for a bunch of improv on set. Having a lot of extra improv footage made the story bigger, without much prep. We shot 89 pages in 17 days, which is just over 5 pages per day. Twelve days were within 20 miles of our home base of Wilmington, NC, and 5 days in the mountains of NC.  

Since this is a road movie, we shot a lot from the car on the road, which we knew would make it seem as if we had dozens of locations. Exterior shoots had no lighting set-ups, except for a couple fire scenes. Our longest days were interiors, because of the lighting set-ups with minimal crew. Most cast members had 1-2 days at most, which helped create the large cast feel.  James Kyson had 17 days. Lisa Goldstein Kirsch, only 9 days, although it seems like she appears in most of the film.
What camera did you use and what did you love and hate about it??
Terry: Our DP, Joe Ensley, used his Panasonic AF-100 with several excellent prime lenses. Joe had a very simple steadicam counterweight that allowed for smooth moving camera shots. We never used a dolly. We had access to several additional AF-100's due to my position at the University of NC Wilmington in the Film Studies Department. We used three of these for the balloon scene.  

One in the picture balloon, one in a following balloon, and one on the ground. I can't say I hate a camera. There was really nothing to hate about it. I loved it because it was so portable, easy to operate, and made an exquisite image in a variety of conditions. We shot a beach scene that went into deep dusk. I worried we were running out of light, and when Joe showed me the exposure, I was stunned. We could have shot even longer.  

Joe and I bought an affordable car mount for the camera, which was easy to set up and use. On the first day we experimented with the mount, we happened to be outside of Screen Gems Studios in Wilmington, NC where "Iron Man 3" was shooting. As we assembled the tiny rig, the gates of the studio opened and 4 huge semi-trucks rolled out with IM3 gear aboard, including several Cadillac SUV's picture cars.  Joe and I laughed as we waved at the union drivers passing by. The most expensive film ever made in North Carolina juxtaposed with one of the cheapest!
What is your plan for distribution and recouping your costs?
Terry: During principle photography, late June into mid-July of 2012, we were also editing. In August we had a rough cut.  Our plan was to get the film into the festival circuit asap, so I started submitting to more than 50 film festivals and film markets for 2013-14. We also knew that the AFM was a must attend event in November of 2012.  

Joe Ensley and I went to Santa Monica and presented clips from our almost completed film to nearly 60 companies in 3 days of marathon pitching. We had a lot of interest and made some helpful connections for the future, but no sales. At AFM we were testing the waters and finding out what kind of film we had made and what market it could find. I also wanted to get the film in front of producer's reps in LA and NY as soon as we had a finished film.  

In the spring of 2013, I began an email and phone campaign to several hundred producers reps, following up over the summer. In September 2013 it finally paid off when I went to LA for a meeting with Circus Road Films, who I signed with to rep us for domestic distribution.
How did you achieve the last shot in the movie -- the fly-away?
Terry: I have a friend who is a union driver for the film industry in Wilmington, NC. He was starting a side business with his home-built hexicopter camera rig - a portable six-bladed helicopter. We were his first shooting effort.  We used a small, lightweight HD camera - I can't tell you which one because I don't remember, but it was the size of a pack of cigarettes. It was a windy day, and we had to do a lot of post-production stabilizing to smooth out that image. Kudos to Nate Daniel, our amazing editor.
What was the smartest thing you did during production? The dumbest?
Terry: Smartest thing was to choose "go" over "no go" when we were faced with inclement weather. We shot at high altitude for two days in the mountains, clouds, and rain of NC.  We always showed up and were ready to shoot when the weather broke. Had we called a day because rain was imminent, we would have missed some great opportunities to let the weather contribute to the film rather than detract.  

Dumbest was having me as the driver of our RV. I ran into an overhanging tree limb that tore into the A/C unit atop the van, and I also smashed the rear-end when I hit a road sign while making a tight turn. These were the only two incidents that went wrong with the shoot.  If those were our only mishaps, then we got off easy!

Things could have been worse!  I did spend my whole contingency on those accidents.
And, finally, what did you learn from making the film that you have taken to other projects?
Terry: That young crew members who are well trained and eager will do the job and surprise you at every turn.  The average age of our 12-core crew was 21. We had some seasoned pros in key positions, all graduates of the same UNC Wilmington Film Studies program, but the undergraduates carried the load. Our production was a test case for a model of filmmaking that I have always wanted to undertake. This model uses several key professionals who guide less experienced film students with support from a university film program and some moderate financing. I learned that the model works great!  

I will continue with the same model in the future, but I hope this time, with a bigger budget.

Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!

"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control." 
Roger Corman, Producer

★★★★★

It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!

• Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos

• John Sayles: Writing to your resources

• Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes

• John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots

• Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals

• George Romero: Casting

• Kevin Smith: Skipping film school

• Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection

• Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity

• David Lynch: Kill your darlings

• Ron Howard: Pre-production planning

• John Carpenter: Going low-tech

• Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking

And more!

Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!

It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!

Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.

"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond

John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.

The book covers (among other topics):

• Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories

• Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature

• Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period

• George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget

• Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories

• Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations

• Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive

• Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous

• Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget

• Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget

• Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror

• Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget

• Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting

• L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting

• Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing

• Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres

This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced! 

Sarah Knight on "Vino Veritas"

What was your filmmaking background before making "Vino Veritas"?

Sarah: “Vino” is my narrative feature debut.  My last two films were documentaries - “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend,” a portrait of Nicole Sherry, Head Groundskeeper for the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards and one of only two women in that position in Major League Baseball. And “Hot Flash” about Saffire-The Uppity Blues Women.  I have also directed theatre and narrative shorts. Prior to that, I assisted directors Taylor Hackford & Mikael Salomon and producers Robert Shapiro & Peter MacGregor-Scott.

How did you work with writer David MacGregor on the adaptation of his play?

Sarah: David wrote the screenplay and much of his original stage play was kept intact. The changes mostly involved cutting dialogue which would seem excessive on film (including one long monologue). We also worked to tweak some of the more wildly divergent theatrical tones of comedy and drama to make them subtle enough to be plausible on screen.

How did you go about casting the movie? 

Sarah: I knew I only wanted actors with theatre backgrounds as this film was going to live and die on the performances. And I would require the cast to memorize the entire script prior to shooting. I had seen Heather Raffo in her extremely successful one woman show, “Nine Parts of Desire,” about nine Iraqi women, which she also penned. Bernard White first caught my eye as the charismatic lead in an off-Broadway play in 2004. Carrie Preston had just wowed me in “Duplicity” and “That Evening Sun.” A casting director helped me to find Brian Hutchison.

What was your visual plan for the movie (particularly with the very limited number of locations you were working on) and how did you and your DP achieve it?

Sarah: One of my main goals was to move the actors around the house so there were several different backgrounds. This helps to provide the illusion our story isn’t really unfolding in just in one space (where the stage play takes place entirely in the living room).

I wanted the beginning of the film - the pre-wine drinking section - to have a slightly muted, de-saturated look and we dressed the actors accordingly. I also wanted the camera to hang back and only frame the characters from behind, in profile or in ‘dirty’ close-ups (where the subject is partially eclipsed by something in the foreground).

Once the truth serum is imbibed, there is about an eight-minute color bump where the full saturation comes in which reflects the true colors and excitement that is about to come that night. Nothing as overt as say, “Pleasantville,” more of a slow seeping but hopefully it affects the audience subconsciously.  The camera also starts to move in closer and closer and head on to each actor.

What was your rehearsal process like and how did that impact the moviemaking process?

Sarah: The two couples needed to be believable as longtime best friends and neighbors, which would be difficult to achieve on a typical film shoot, where the cast often meets for the first time moments before shooting. To give the actors a chance to bond, I held a cast dinner (Peruvian, of course) and we had two days of table reads, by the end of which they had started to seem very comfortable with one another. A great deal of rehearsal would also be required and I pushed hard for that, ultimately getting six days with the entire cast, four of which were at the actual shooting location. The actors were so prepared by the final rehearsal day we just ran the show in its entirety like a play!

Since our story at its heart is about revelations and reactions, I told the actors during rehearsal I would shoot coverage of each them at all times, so to be aware that non-verbal moments would make up a great deal of their final performances. And while I required the cast to say the dialogue exactly as written, I gave them the freedom to ad lib and improvise in between lines. A great deal of that material made the final cut and really complements David’s original work.

What was the smartest thing you did during production?

Sarah: Shooting in Lincoln, NE. It is my hometown and there is a beautiful house which I had driven by almost every day of my childhood. It turned out to be the perfect location which almost serves as a fifth character in the film. In addition, the homeowner led us to the man, Mike Murman, who provided roughly three quarters of the funding.  My folks catered and did craft service so we were fed better than I have been on any big budget studio film which helped to make up for the cast and crew’s low pay. And there was a church right across the street which generously provided a space for our holding and crew meals.  Finally, graduate students from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln served as our production design team and did a spectacular job on the set dressing.

The dumbest?

Sarah: Shooting in Lincoln, NE, in July. It is always extremely hot in Lincoln at that time but that year there was a freak heat wave which lasted exactly as long as we rehearsed and shot.  It was about 110 degrees in the main location which had no air conditioning. So, the poor actors huddled around one single silver snake coming from a portable AC unit in between takes. To top that off, Carrie was wearing a 30-pound Queen Elizabeth costume and Brian was in a flannel shirt and chaps.  And we had a gas fireplace going much of the time. I was so focused on making our days I honestly didn’t really notice but the actors and the crew suffered quite a bit but thankfully remained troopers.

And, finally, what did you learn from making the film that you have taken to other projects?

Sarah: Simply by default of time, we shot very long takes, occasionally filming entire fifteen-minute scenes at a clip. While this is quite an unusual way to film, it is something I will certainly use in my future work as it created a wonderfully dynamic and real energy for the actors which you see reflected in their terrific performances.

Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!

"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control." 
Roger Corman, Producer

★★★★★

It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!

• Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos

• John Sayles: Writing to your resources

• Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes

• John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots

• Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals

• George Romero: Casting

• Kevin Smith: Skipping film school

• Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection

• Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity

• David Lynch: Kill your darlings

• Ron Howard: Pre-production planning

• John Carpenter: Going low-tech

• Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking

And more!

Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!

It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!

Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.

"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond

John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.

The book covers (among other topics):

• Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories

• Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature

• Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period

• George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget

• Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories

• Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations

• Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive

• Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous

• Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget

• Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget

• Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror

• Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget

• Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting

• L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting

• Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing

• Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres

This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced! 

Lauralee Farrer on “Not That Funny”

What was your filmmaking background before setting out to make "Not That Funny"?

Lauralee: I started producing other peoples' films, and made my first personal, handmade documentaries Laundry and Tosca and The Fair Trade (www.thefairtrademovie.com) less than a decade ago. With them I began to develop a style of storytelling that investigates the internal life of true stories. It intrigued me to go from there to making fiction by inserting narrative into documentary circumstances. I did that to a small degree with Not That Funny, and much more so now with my latest project Praying the Hours—with which I have much more creative license. 
Not That Funny was a sort of commission I was hired to make, even though I did write, direct and in some ways help to produce it. It was a departure in some ways, but it was invaluable experience. I am influenced by Errol Morris, Terrence Malick, Kristof Kieslowski, Paul Thomas Anderson. Those will seem strange influences for a movie like Not That Funny, but it's all part of a long process of learning the craft and finding one's voice. I came to the process of directing later in my life, so I bring a lot of eclectic experiences with me.

Where did the idea come from and what was your process for working with your co-writer on the script? 

Lauralee: The movie stars Tony Hale as a romantic lead, and this unique project started as a desire to show Tony's considerable range as a charismatic actor. We are friends and had been wanting to do a film for some time together. Then the executive producer of what became Not That Funny came to me with a low budget and a script that I didn't resonate with. I woke up soon after remembering a story idea that a friend of mine (cowriter Jonathan B. Foster) had—a story about a guy who tries to become funny to interest a woman he's taken with.

The idea of casting the funniest man I know as a serious romantic lead who tries to become funny and fails—that seemed like a great idea, and producer Jack Hafer went for it. I will always be grateful to him for letting us make the film we wanted to make instead of the script he had put a considerable amount of development time and money into finding. That was a bold risk. We brought in hands-on producer Terence Berry, and we were off.
As for the collaboration process, Jonathan lives in Seattle, and we flew him down to Los Angeles a couple of times, but mostly we wrote together through email and over the phone. I'd write at night after work, and he would write in the morning before work. We'd pass the drafts off to each other like relay runners. We have a very long and dear friendship, so we knew we would work well together, even though, as the saying goes, I hate writing—I like having written. But our collaboration could not have been more ideal. He's a gifted writer and a dear friend. Plus we did not kill each other.

Can you talk about how you raised your budget and your financial plan for recouping your costs? 

Lauralee: This is the first film I have made that I am not financially responsible for, so I can't really answer that. As I say, the exec prod came to me with a set figure and the hopes that I could pull off a feature with it. We employed all the basic tenets of no-budget filmmaking, even though (in order to use Tony and most of our cast) we had to be a SAG signatory.

What camera did you use and what did you love and hate about it?

Lauralee: We bought two Canon 5Ds and borrowed a 7D as well. It was when the 5D was newly out and I think we were one of the first features shot with it. It was a risk back then because very few people were using the 5D for a product that was intended to hold up on a theater-sized screen. We ended up with an amazing look given the cost-point of the camera—I've seen it on large theater complex screens, and it looks amazing.

I started with the intention to have more than one camera and wanted the freedom of shooting in such a way that allowed everyone to keep their full-time jobs, so that meant having full access to the equipment. So, we purchased. Also, we scheduled over half the film with "micro-crews" in order to get authentic moments with a lot of ready-made production value by having a crew of 3-4 people (sometimes with a sound guy in a nearby van). In this case, the camera's low-profile SLR appearance allowed us to keep a relatively small footprint. We were very happy with how the film looked in the end.

Of course, there were challenges--it's a challenging camera to focus, it's not that mobile for hand-held, and it doesn't do very well with contrast, so we ended up with some blown out whites that we were unable to fix in post because there simply was no information there. We owe a great debt of gratitude to our DP Brandon Lippard, our editor Matt Barber, and our colorist Greg King for what they did with the limited resources we had. They made an amazing looking film.

Did the movie change much in the editing process, and if so, how?

Lauralee: As I say, our editor Matt Barber and our colorist Greg King were able to do wonders managing the great amount of footage we had and articulately cutting the film together, and then matching and enhancing that imagery. We all spent a lot of hours together, which was great because I came to love those guys very dearly. I was very lucky to work with this gifted team, and became very attached to them all, including Michelle Garuik who did miracles with the sound. 
We shot and cut basically the film that we wrote, but I ought to acknowledge that we wrote the first draft alongside doing pre-production and wrote throughout shooting to accommodate shifting locations, cast hiccups, etc. I remember losing a location at the last minute and calling Jonathan at work in the middle of a company move to ask, "what will shift if we make Kevork an auto-repair guy instead of a shoe repair guy?" And he rewrote while we were driving to the new location.

And it should be said that the film matured in the editing process because of the music, as always. Our composer David Hlebo's soundtrack was augmented by some very talented local bands who are also friends—Evan Way, the Parson Red Heads, Lauren and Matt Meares, Jeana and Mikey Master, to name a few. The music has been a big hit with festival audiences, and we were privileged to have that kind of talent so generously loaned to us.

What was the smartest thing you did during production? The dumbest?

Lauralee: The smartest thing we did during production was to make the loving treatment of people our first priority. We have a code of honor that we call the Kinema Commonwealth, articulated by our First AD Matt Webb and editor Matt Barber, which calls for three things: the respectful treatment of the story, the creative artists involved (and by that I mean all the filmmaking community) and the community within which the film is shot. We had a reputation for creating a supportive environment, and Tony was a hero as the leading man setting the tone, he was always encouraging and in a great mood.

Conversely, he claims it is the best shooting environment he's ever been in. One of my favorite memories is from after we wrapped: one of the grips texted to say "I started a new show today and the director did not hug ANY OF US!"

We had great food hand-prepared by our Associate Producer Ron Allchin and his team (including his wife Dolores). The night that we wrapped one of the featured actors, he put his head on my shoulder and cried, saying he'd never in his life been treated so well by a film crew. I know the film industry has a reputation for eating its young, but from my perspective that's intolerable. Life is too short to treat people unkindly.

The dumbest thing we did was anything that failed at keeping that respect for people our first priority. I am not saying we always succeeded. But when we didn't, it was our biggest mistake.

And, finally, what did you learn from making the film that you have taken to other projects?

Lauralee: Not That Funny was a terrific experience for me, even though it was a departure from the style of film that I normally make. My creative partner at Burning Heart Productions Tamara Johnston McMahon and I made two sober, thoughtful documentaries before it and now we are working on a very ambitious project called Praying the Hours (www.prayingthehours.com) which is also much less light-hearted than Not That Funny.

But this film taught us a lot about the challenges of making a film that is sweet, humorous, charming. We wanted very much for it not to be a film that was broad humor, but one that left people feeling good and also thinking about what it means to truly love. We have had a great reception from audiences—we've won the audience award several times in festivals.

I am very proud of this little film, and what we were able to do with the resources we had available to us.

Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!

"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control." 
Roger Corman, Producer

★★★★★

It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!

• Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos

• John Sayles: Writing to your resources

• Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes

• John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots

• Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals

• George Romero: Casting

• Kevin Smith: Skipping film school

• Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection

• Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity

• David Lynch: Kill your darlings

• Ron Howard: Pre-production planning

• John Carpenter: Going low-tech

• Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking

And more!

Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!

It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!

Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.

"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond

John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.

The book covers (among other topics):

• Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories

• Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature

• Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period

• George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget

• Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories

• Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations

• Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive

• Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous

• Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget

• Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget

• Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror

• Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget

• Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting

• L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting

• Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing

• Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres

This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced! 

Joe Gold on "Desperate Acts of Magic"

What was your filmmaking background before making "Desperate Acts of Magic"?

JOE: Desperate Acts of Magic is the first feature film that Tammy Caplan (my producing partner and girlfriend) and I directed. But back in 2005, we produced our first feature film, Never Say Macbeth. We asked our friend Chris Prouty to direct that one. Never Say Macbeth went on to do festivals and came out on DVD in 2008 through Vanguard Cinema. We've also made a few shorts. We both have acting backgrounds and degrees in theater.

Where did the idea come from and what was the writing process like?

JOE: I have a background as a magician, and have performed over 500 kids’ birthday parties, and used to compete in magic contests quite a bit. Many of the events in the movie actually happened to me.

Tammy and I were banging our heads against the walls trying to find money for two higher projects that we had written. I was struggling to come up with a new idea, and she suggested I try an acting exercise that we learned from the Pacific Resident Theatre called "A Perfect Scene" where you identify a moment from your life (real or imagined) that you can act out better than anyone else on the planet because it had such a huge impact on you. And I remembered this time that I competed at a magic convention, and the events that transpired there had a huge impact on my future in magic. So, I decided to tell that story. That was February of 2010 when I started writing it.

Meanwhile, I saw that the International Brotherhood of Magicians convention was going to be held that July in San Diego, and I thought If I could write the movie fast enough, we can shoot a lot of it at the convention and we can get locations, extras, and production values for free. I actually thought I might compete in the convention contest for real, and we would just capture it for the movie. I had been inspired by a film called "The New Year Parade" which was a sweet drama about divorce but is shot against the backdrop of the Mummers Parade in Philadelphia. I thought it was a brilliant way to have high production values without paying for them.

Unfortunately, the convention said no, and told me I couldn't shoot any convention activities. But we went anyway, just for one day with a crew of one, and shot tons of b-roll, and some small scenes, especially the scenes in the large dealer's room.

Can you talk about how you raised your budget and your financial plan for recouping your costs?

JOE: We shot a day or two per month for eighteen months, and Tammy and I both kept full time jobs the whole time. So, most of the money came out of our day job money. We would shoot a day, and then save up for the next day. We also kept our living expenses very low and didn't go out much. Meanwhile, we also set up a website with donation buttons, similar to Kickstarter. We did get donations from friends, family, fans of magic, and other supporters of the film. Since it was through our own website (as opposed to Kickstarter), we could keep those donation buttons up during the entire eighteen months of shooting.

As we shot the film, we would meet new people who would become interested and involved with the production, and they might donate or encourage others to donate. Kickstarter is great, but everyone who succeeds tells you it is a full-time job, and we already had full time jobs in addition to making the movie. Ultimately, we raised about $18K from donations.

Right before we released the film, TV producer, Lee Aronsohn, discovered the trailer, saw the donation buttons, and made a deal with us to come on board as an executive producer. He invested some money into our distribution costs. He also gave us some great feedback and guidance to tighten and improve the film. The entire budget was around $77K, plus an additional $60K for marketing and distribution and all of that was spread over three and a half years.

As for recouping our costs, well, we never expected to fully recoup our costs. It's very rare for a film made under $100K to do so. But our revenue is coming from theatrical box office (we released in NYC and L.A., both 4-wall rentals), screening fees from magic clubs, Tugg screenings (we had one successful Tugg screening in Dallas), DVD sales at magic conventions, DVD and poster sales off our website, DVD sales to magic shops, and V.O.D revenue. Gravitas Ventures released our movie on iTunes (in 6 countries) and cable V.O.D. on November 1st. 

How did you and Tammy Caplan share directing duties?

JOE: We both did everything. I was on-camera for most of the scenes ,so Tammy was watching the monitor most of the time. But we both gave notes to the actors, and guidance to the crew. The two of us also handled props, costumes, and production design. And we edited the film as we went. Sometimes, I would start editing a scene, and she would finish it, and vice-versa. Since we were shooting a day or two per month, we were able to edit scenes in between shoots, and see where things weren't working. And then if we needed a pickup, we could grab it at another shoot.

Did Valerie Dillman have magic training before you cast her? If not, what was your process for training her?

JOE: No. Valerie had no magic background. But she's an excellent actress and was excited to learn magic. I had acted in plays with Valerie at the Pacific Resident Theatre. Casting this role, the lead role of Stacy Dietz, the female street magician, was very challenging. There are so few female magicians in the world and even fewer who have an acting background. Due to budget constraints and the long drawn-out schedule, it was challenging to cast a magician outside of the Los Angeles area. So, we took a chance on Valerie, and it worked out very well.

Each month, Tammy and I would brainstorm methods for the magic with our magic consultants, Tony Clark and David Regal. Then we would teach Valerie the magic, and she would practice diligently for each shoot. It helped that we were only shooting a day or two per month. She only had to prepare magic for a few scenes at a time.

What kind of camera did you use to shoot the movie -- and what did you love about it and hate about it? 

JOE: We used the Canon 7D. We loved how small and unobtrusive the camera was. We didn't always have permission for our shoots. So the Canon 7D helped us with our under-the-radar guerilla shooting. We shot at the magic convention, at a hardware store, at a gas station, and in a hotel lobby, all without permission. We could never have done that with a big camera. The negatives are it goes out of focus pretty easily, and it can have a moiré effect, especially with busy patterns on clothing. We also had a dead pixel through almost our entire movie, which we had to painstakingly remove during post.

You wore a lot of hats on this project -- director, writer, producer, actor, editor. What's the upside and the downside of working that way?

JOE: The upside is you have more control over the process. When you hire someone, for props, or costume, or make-up, etc., it's their job to make that aspect the best it can possibly be. And the pay is so low, so the pride in their work is one of the biggest rewards. But sometimes their desire to do a great job can slow down the production and increase costs. They don't always see the big picture, and realize that their perfect prop, costume, or makeup is less important than getting the day in the can. But it's very hard to tell that to the crew member, and you end up having to choose your battles, and lose some of them. So, we didn't have a make-up person, a costume designer, or a props person. We did it ourselves so that we could focus on it when it was important and ignore it when it wasn't.

The downside to that is of course, things get missed. A shirt gets forgotten. Faces get sweaty. (We joked that this movie could be called Sweaty Acts of Magic.) And because I was acting in most scenes, I had to try very hard to stay focused on what I was doing as an actor. I had to struggle to not to think about the stresses that came with my producer hat - like when the owner of the bar we were renting told us in the middle of shooting that we'd have to pay triple if went over-time.

What was the smartest thing you did during production? The dumbest?

JOE: Probably the smartest thing was how we dealt with my car, which got rear-ended and totaled in the middle of production, with one more scene to go. It was an important location. We needed to find a matching titanium-colored 2000 Honda Civic with black stripes on the side. Although this may sound like a common car, it proved to be extremely difficult to find. We tried rental car places, picture car providers, used car lots, and Craigslist, but the car could not be found. Then one day, walking in my neighborhood, I saw an exact match. I ran up to the driver's window at a red light, and banged on his window, freaking out the driver who thought he was being car-jacked. Finally Tammy and I came up with an idea. We had a scene to shoot where we needed six audience members. So we put out a casting notice looking for actors who owned a titanium-colored 2000 Honda Civic with black stripes. Hundreds of actors submitted for the role offering various cars, including a blue Jaguar. Ultimately only one actor had an exact match and she was cast. But as backup, the other five audience members were all cast based on their similar colored cars.

A dumb thing we did was to shoot our three-shell game scene near an A.T.M. machine. Customers kept using the A.T.M. machine and there was a constant BEEPing that we couldn't shoot around. When we scouted the location, we should have listened more carefully. The beeping was a real challenge in editing. We didn't get a permit for that scene (or any scene for that matter). And we probably should have gotten a permit or shot in a more populated area. We only had a couple extras. That scene looks like the three-shell game hustler picked a rather secluded location to run his game, which doesn't make a lot of sense.

And, finally, what did you learn from making the film that you have taken to other projects?

JOE: We were really happy that we made a movie that a core group of people (magicians and magic fans) really want to see. And I always kept that audience in mind while making the movie. That's why we didn't use any special effects. That's why we avoided cutting in the middle of a magic effect. And that's why we cast a lot of well-known magicians (at least they are well known in the magic community).

By doing that, we had a real target audience that we could market the movie to, and because they have magazines, websites, stores, conventions, and organizations devoted to magic, it was cost effective to market to them. In other words, they were easy to find. So, on my next project, I will hopefully be able to identify the target audience for the film before we start shooting.

And if I cannot find that target audience, then I better keep my budget ridiculously low.

Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!

"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control." 
Roger Corman, Producer

★★★★★

It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!

• Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos

• John Sayles: Writing to your resources

• Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes

• John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots

• Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals

• George Romero: Casting

• Kevin Smith: Skipping film school

• Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection

• Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity

• David Lynch: Kill your darlings

• Ron Howard: Pre-production planning

• John Carpenter: Going low-tech

• Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking

And more!

Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!

It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!

Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.

"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond

John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.

The book covers (among other topics):

• Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories

• Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature

• Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period

• George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget

• Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories

• Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations

• Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive

• Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous

• Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget

• Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget

• Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror

• Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget

• Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting

• L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting

• Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing

• Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres

This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced! 

Jenny Abel on "Abel Raises Cain"

What was your filmmaking background before setting out to make "Abel Raises Cain"?

JENNY: This was my first feature film project, so I literally learned filmmaking on the job. Thankfully, I was able to gain some digital experience while I was at Emerson College as a video major, since the digital age was just taking off then. After I graduated, I decided to move to Los Angeles and look for work in the film and commercial industry.

Moving up the ladder from P.A. to Production Coordinator on various shows, the cumulative experience of working in the field became so valuable to the process of making my own film. Production is all about problem solving, organization and efficiency. DIY filmmaking comes naturally to those non-delegator types who enjoy micro-managing to an insane degree. That pretty much describes me! It takes an embarrassingly long time to get a film made working this way, on your own, especially when you don't have much previous experience. But it is possible to do it.

I can't take all of the credit, however. My boyfriend came onto the project toward the end, and we finished the film together. With his extensive TV news and editing background, he brought with him a way higher production value and without his creative sense, the quality of our movie would have undoubtedly suffered.

What's the upside and downside about making a movie about a family member?

JENNY: Where do I begin? My proximity to the subjects allowed for an intimacy that no one outside of our family could have captured. The funny thing was that even though I was my parents' only audience behind the lens, they still hammed it up. It took a long time for them to finally relax that tendency to 'perform' for the camera.

I can't imagine a crew of strangers attempting to capture the daily lives of Alan and Jeanne Abel. I was really the only one qualified for the job, although my father compared my following him around incessantly with a camera to getting a colonoscopy. And as a retaliatory measure, he mooned me one unsuspecting afternoon on the road somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania. It was an eyeful that I would rather not remember. I don't think he would have done that to a director whom he wasn't related to. But then again, this is Alan Abel we're talking about here. So maybe he would have.

The documentary brought my family closer together in the end, but it was challenging at times. I have a very proactive father who wanted to be involved in every aspect of the film, from resurrecting cutting room floor material to soliciting distributors. Sometimes there were too many cooks in the kitchen, as they say! Some of the decisions I made, my parents did not agree with. But they were excited for us - and so were we - when things started to take off with the movie.

The roller coaster ride began with our winning the grand jury prize at Slamdance. It was pretty thrilling for us to go up on stage and receive the award alongside of my father. The documentary was the ultimate way to preserve his legacy. My parents experienced a rebirth as a whole new generation of fans were now discovering their work. This culmination point, which was a catharsis for me, also marked the beginning of a new chapter in their lives. That sense of fulfillment for all of us is indescribable.

Can you talk about how you raised your budget and your financial plan for distribution and recouping your costs?

JENNY: I initially applied for grants and I solicited funding from friends and fans of my father. I cut together a promo reel and sent out copies of it along with a publicity packet via snail mail. The targeted mail campaign was more successful than the blind application grant-seeking process. Grant-writing is a specialty unto itself and not exactly my forte. I kind of gave up on it, realizing that fundraising was taking time away from actual production. I only wish that Kickstarter or Indiegogo were around when I started this project!

Sadly, I went broke making the movie because I poured my own savings into it. The long and the short of it... there was no plan! I winged it the whole way though, financially speaking. I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. Between equipment purchases, deliverables, legal costs, festival submission fees, etc. we are talking tens of thousands of dollars right out the window. Even with sales to overseas TV channels and multi-platform digital distribution in the U.S. earning decent returns, we still have not recouped our total costs. Making a documentary guarantees you're pretty much already operating at a loss even before you've shot one frame. 

What camera(s) did you use and what did you love and hate about it?

JENNY: We shot the documentary on the now-defunct former 'high-end' prosumer camera, the Canon XL1. What I liked about it was that it had the option of creating a more filmlike look when shooting in 'frame' mode - only one field per frame as opposed to two. The effect was a softer warmer quality as opposed to the cold crispness of standard definition video.

In terms of audio recording, there were not a lot of options. I was too cheap to invest in or rent real XLR microphones. We ended up plugging in a mini jack external mic and using a crappy mic stand that always seemed to sneak into our shots. This was guerilla filmmaking at its best - no resources and no budget! But, all in all, the XL1 got us through the project and for that, I'm grateful. It's sitting in my closet now, in fact, and I don't know what to do with it. 

How long did shooting take and did your vision for the movie change much during the shooting and editing process?

JENNY: It seemed like an epic adventure. The downfall of shooting video is never knowing when to quit. It was five years of actual production, with two of those years in post. Editing in our own living room was a dream come true. FCP really opened up a whole new world of possibilities. A decade previously, we would have had to have rented an Avid suite and it would have been incredibly cost-prohibitive.

The vision definitely morphed as Jeff and I worked on the film together. Major pieces of the puzzle had to be taken apart and put back together again multiple times before it seemed right. We wanted to avoid too many talking heads as well as staying chronological with content. The 'a-ha' moment came when we realized the story should be told through my POV, giving the documentary a personal touch and providing a true insider view into the madness of my father.

On the flip side, we knew that this could not just be a film about Alan Abel's pranks. There needed to be more depth. So we interjected elements of the love story between my parents and their financial struggles along the way. We debated whether or not to include the latter depressing stuff, but realized that the pathos was necessary to counter-balance the friviolity of the pranks.

What was the smartest thing you did during production? The dumbest?

JENNY: Taking classes at Moviola in Hollywood to learn Final Cut Pro was the smartest thing I could have ever done. It permitted us to edit the movie without too many technical glitches because I learned the idiosyncrasies of the program and how to avoid disasters with media management.

There really are no dumb mistakes when you make your first movie, because the mistakes are necessary to learn from. That's why it's a process that cannot be rushed. We compromised the quality to meet several deadlines along the way, which is easy to do with festival submissions. You want so badly for your movie to get into a top level fest, but then you hand over the latest version with sloppy mistakes. In retrospect, I may have wasted money on some festival fees that were a long shot but, like they say about the lottery, "you have to play to win." And sometimes my scattershot approach paid off.

And, finally, what did you learn from making the film that you have taken to other projects?

JENNY: I have become hyper-aware of the fact that filmmaking is a process comparable to raising a child. It requires a tremendous amount of patience and nurturing. I don't think that I had realistic expectations going into the project in terms of just how much time would be involved not only in the completion of the film itself, but in the distribution end.

But having said that, I learned that passion goes a long way. I just have to find another film subject now that I'm equally as passionate about.

Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!

"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control." 
Roger Corman, Producer

★★★★★

It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!

• Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos

• John Sayles: Writing to your resources

• Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes

• John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots

• Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals

• George Romero: Casting

• Kevin Smith: Skipping film school

• Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection

• Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity

• David Lynch: Kill your darlings

• Ron Howard: Pre-production planning

• John Carpenter: Going low-tech

• Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking

And more!

Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!

It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!

Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.

"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond

John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.

The book covers (among other topics):

• Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories

• Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature

• Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period

• George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget

• Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories

• Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations

• Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive

• Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous

• Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget

• Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget

• Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror

• Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget

• Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting

• L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting

• Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing

• Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres

This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced! 

Phoef Sutton on Writing "Cheers" (and more!)

I understand that you wrote and acted in plays in high school and in college. Was that always the goal to be a writer or was acting a goal?

Phoef Sutton: Well, yeah, acting was a goal. When I came out here, I sort of thought I wanted to be a writer or an actor. And I decided I could only take getting rejected in one field at a time. 

And I thought getting rejected as a writer was more pleasant, because they don't do it to your face. I just didn't get any traction as an actor. I'm really glad that I did it when I did it, because it's very helpful for a screenwriter or television writer to have acted—to have known what it's like to be on the stage and to have to say the words. I can communicate with actors, I think, a little bit better than a lot of other showrunners who've just been writers. Because I know what it's like. I can understand that.  

And also, I think I learned—maybe from being an actor or being around actors—I learned how to write for particular people. I mean, when I know a person and I know their voice and I know what they feel. I could write for Treat Williams. I could write for Bob Newhart. I could write for Brian Dennehy. They have different cadences, different ways of speaking. Ted Danson, Kelsey Grammer, Woody Harrelson. And I was able to do that. So that stood me in good stead.  

And also, being a playwright, I mean, there aren't very many writers who start as playwrights nowadays. I think, just because there isn't really much theater in this country, or at least not in this city anyway. And I was in plays I wrote, too, so, I mean, there you have nobody to blame but yourself. You can't say, “Who wrote this shit,” or, “That actor screwed it up.”  

And the first thing that I did professionally—aside from some plays in regional theaters, where I got paid a stipend—was Cheers. And that was basically a play: the entrances, exits, one set, all that. And all the actors were theater actors. It was a play.  

They do stage plays of various sitcoms over the years. They've done The Golden Girls and all that. And I'm surprised they haven't done one of Cheers, because it's a play. 

And that set, that beautiful set, which was designed by Richard Sylbert, who did Chinatown and all sorts of other movies. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. It was a beautiful set. It was a beautiful set. So many episodes of Cheers were just on the set. I mean, we're just on the bar, never left the bar. Never even changed days, because we found that when we filmed in front of an audience on Tuesday nights—and we filmed pretty much the whole thing in front of an audience—we found that (this was later on in the run), we found that when we would have them change their costumes to be a day later, you could never get them (the actors) back. They would go to the dressing rooms, they would start playing foosball, smoking pot, and you could never get them back.  

So, there are plenty of episodes of Cheers that take place in one day that couldn't possibly have taken place in one day. But we just figured, we don't want to do the costume changes.

I remember hearing an interview with (director) Jim Burrows where he talked about Norm's entrance in the pilot. And he said he felt bad for the writers, because in the blocking, he put Norm at the far end of the bar. Which meant every time Norm came in, you guys needed to write a joke to get him across the room.

Phoef Sutton: Well, it was one of the trademarks of the show. And so, it was good in that sense. But yes, and everyone had to top the one before. At first, there were very simple jokes. But then they had to be, you know, very complex jokes or philosophical jokes.

We would go to great lengths not to have Norm enter; we would have Norm there at the beginning of the show. We didn't want to deal with it.  

I wanted to do an episode where they put in a new parking meter in front of the place. So, he had to constantly go and feed the meter. So, there would be like ten Norm entrances in it. And people wanted to kill me for doing that.

Let's just back up real quick here. I want to talk about your playwriting, because I know you had sort of a learning experience, you got an understanding of how the business works with your play Burial Customs. About how things look like they're going to happen. And then they don't happen.

Phoef Sutton: I was just out of graduate school at the University of Florida, and I moved to New York for a brief period of time. I couldn't really get in, couldn't get an apartment, couldn't get a job. But there was a brief period of time when Ulu Grossbard, who was a big director, wanted to direct that play. And it was very exciting. 

If I'd known more about the business, I would have been more excited [LAUGHS] because he just done Crimes of the Heart on Broadway. And he was really, really big and he was really into the play. I went to his office on—I don't know, on Times Square or something like that, I don't know where it was—but I felt like I was a part of the Broadway scene. 

And then he just sort of lost interest and it went away.

And that sort of thing happens over and over and over again with people in the business. Even if you're very successful, there are millions of times when things look like they're going to be great and then they fall apart.  

And my initial reaction to that was to say, “I'm not going to get excited about anything until it's real. Until it's really happening.” So that if I sold a script, a pilot script, I wouldn't get excited until they agreed to make the pilot. And then when they did the pilot, I wouldn't get excited until it was on the air. And then when it was on the air, I wouldn't get excited until it lasted. And then I realized that I was putting myself in a position where I never got excited about anything. 

So, then I changed my attitude to get excited about every little victory of what comes on. I was right to be excited about Ulu Grossbard doing the play. It was a wonderful opportunity. It didn't pan out. There was nothing wrong with being excited.  

You know, you aren't punished for being excited about something that doesn't come to the ultimate conclusion. I mean, even when we won our Emmys for Cheers, I basically wouldn't be excited, because I would think, “Well, I’ve got to go back there tomorrow and do it again.” 

So now I allow myself to be excited about things.

That's a very good lesson to learn. To find that balance.

Phoef Sutton: It’s a hard lesson to learn.

So, what happened with playwriting that got you into TV writing? What was that connection?

Phoef Sutton: I wanted to write for movies. I wanted to write for movies and I wanted to write for television. I wanted to write for theater and I wanted to write books. I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a writer, in one form or another.  

So, as I said, I couldn't get into New York. I couldn't get a job, couldn't get an apartment. And in LA, I had a relative that I could stay with. And my brother was with the Crown Books chain. So, I knew I could get a clerk job at a Crown Bookstore. I knew I could get a job.  

So, I moved to LA with my then fiancé. And I just wrote plays, wrote screenplays. I had a friend from college, Barbara Hall, who was on Newhart at the time. She's since gone on to do everything. She did Madam Secretary and I'll Fly Away and all that.  

And so I wrote a spec Newhart (script), because she was on Newhart. And that was what got me the freelance Cheers job. 

I didn't know anything about writing for television. I didn't know anything about writing with a group, writing with a room. I was a very private writer, wrote by myself, didn't talk to anybody about what I was writing until it was done. So, I had to learn all that stuff. 

I had to learn how to pitch. I had to learn how to pitch in the room during the rewrites. It was really my graduate school, Cheers. And it was a good graduate school, because obviously there were the best writers in the business on that show.

So, you're learning from some really, really good people.

Phoef Sutton: Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. And it was very tense. It was very stressful. It was a hard room.

Why was it hard?

Phoef Sutton: Well, because you had to be funny. You had to be good. You had to say the right thing. You had to do it. I mean, there were long silences in the room, where people were thinking and crafting and doing stuff, and trying to do it. 

I didn't speak for the first six months in the room, I think. And I think that was probably a good choice. Because the year I joined the staff, two other writers joined the staff too. And I was the only one who made it all the way through the year. They were both let go. And I think part of the reason was that I knew my place. [LAUGHS] 

I didn't talk first. And then I would try a few jokes and they got laughs. I would try a few more jokes and they would get laughs. And then before you know it, you're doing it and you're just in the zone. It's a difficult thing to describe.

Were you breaking stories as a group?

Phoef Sutton: Yeah. Oh yeah. Every story on that show was broken as a group. We never came in with a story.  

At the beginning of each season, Glen and Les (Charles) would come in and we would talk about what to do. And it was very clear that they hadn't thought about it for an instant over the break. And everything was, you know, what do we do? What do we do? What do we do?  

And nobody—no freelancer, no staff writer, no producer—nobody ever came in and said, “I've got a story,” and pitched it. Everything was pitched in the room. And when a story is being pitched and formed and all that sort of thing, at some point—in the early stages—you would get assigned it or another writer would get assigned it. That was the way it worked.

What did you learn about story in that process?

Phoef Sutton: Well, I mean, you learned everything.  

I mean, obviously the stories for a sitcom, particularly a sitcom like Cheers, are fairly simple: There's a problem that's presented. Halfway through, it takes a turn and then it's resolved. [LAUGHS] And usually—for the first five years of the show—it’s getting resolved involved something to do with Diane, because she was pivotal.  

But I think more what I learned was that when you're first a writer and you write something—and it's good, it's bad, whatever—you generally think, “Well, that's it, that's what it is, and I can't come up with anything else. That’s what it is.” 

And when people give you notes or object to it, you resist the notes. And the main reason you resist the notes, I think, is that you can't think how to change it. You can't figure out anything different. And I just learned very early on that there's always a different way to do something. Anything, anything. Nothing is perfect. Everything—always—has a different way to go. There's always a different way to look at it. Always a different approach to take to it.  

And maybe that approach won't be better. Maybe it'll be a linear move. Maybe it'll be worse. On Cheers, it was almost always better. It almost always got better. I'd say it always got better in the room.

Cheers is well known for—unlike other series where major cast members left—you guys handled it better than anyone ever. Do you have any idea what was the magic powder that made it work where you guys did it?

Phoef Sutton: Well, there were a couple of things. First of all, the cast always changed. The cast was always changing. It was never the same. I mean, there were the people who were replaced, left and were replaced. But there were also the people who came in. Frasier, Lilith.  

One of the reasons the show lasted as long as it did was that when you were writing, if you were writing year eight, it was a way different show from when we were writing year three. A very different cast.  

I'd say the biggest thing that I learned—and I got to do this, because on Chesapeake Shores, we lost the star of the show too, and I had to replace him—was just to make the character as different as possible from the one you're replacing. So that nobody thinks, “Oh, this guy isn't as good as that guy,” or, “This girl is not the same thing as that.” 

When Coach died and they brought in Woody, there was still the dumb aspect of him. But in general, he was a very different character. He was a young character. He was a naive character. He was from the Midwest. Whereas Coach had been from Sam's life, and he was a ball player, and he was kind of old and kind of brain damaged from getting hit in the head with balls. And they were very different. 

When Rebecca came in, they made her a completely different character. And one of the reasons they were able to do that was, I think, just luck. Because they had the character of Frasier. And so much of the show was the intellectual versus the blue-collar type people. And Frasier was able to take that on. He had already taken it on from Diane, but he was able to take that on entirely.  

So, the new character didn't have to be an intellectual type, snobby type. What was originally intended was a hard-nosed businessman who clashed with Sam. It didn't actually turn out that way. She turned out to be more of a basket case, but that was because of the actress and playing to the actress's strengths.  

And that, I think, is the main thing I learned from that. Because really, when Diane left the show, the show had been on for five years, which is the run of most shows. No show had really survived the loss of its star and she really was the star. I mean, she was the pivotal point of every episode. She was the one, the audience was coming into the bar and seeing it through her eyes. Ted was certainly the costar, but she was really the focal point of the show. So, when she left, we were really scared. We did not know whether it was going to work. 

And the show shifted then, because it became much more of an ensemble show, because Kirstie—although she was a wonderful actress—she wasn't quite the dominant force that Shelley Long had been. The show really became about Sam and the bar. It had been moving that way already, but it became that way. 

If you were to describe the show when it first started, it would surely have been: it's a love story between Sam and Diane and will they get together or not? And then it became a show about a bar, about the patrons of a bar and their lives.

I think there's a really good lesson in your story about your first year on Cheers, where you didn't say much, and you just absorbed.

Phoef Sutton: I think the world would be greatly improved if people didn't say so much. People talk way too much. You know, there's that old saying, I don't know who said it, Mark Twain or whoever: “Better to be silent and thought a fool than to speak up and prove it.” Just don't talk. [LAUGHS] Just take it in. Be the strong, silent type. [LAUGHS]

Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!

"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control." 
Roger Corman, Producer

★★★★★

It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!

• Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos

• John Sayles: Writing to your resources

• Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes

• John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots

• Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals

• George Romero: Casting

• Kevin Smith: Skipping film school

• Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection

• Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity

• David Lynch: Kill your darlings

• Ron Howard: Pre-production planning

• John Carpenter: Going low-tech

• Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking

And more!

Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!

It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!

Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.

"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond

John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.

The book covers (among other topics):

• Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories

• Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature

• Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period

• George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget

• Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories

• Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations

• Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive

• Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous

• Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget

• Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget

• Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror

• Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget

• Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting

• L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting

• Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing

• Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres

This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced! 

Jared Moshe on "Dead Man's Burden"

What was your filmmaking background before setting out to make "Dead Man's Burden"?

I'd produced a number of independent films and documentaries including "Corman's World," "Silver Tongues," "Beautiful Losers" and "Kurt Cobain About a Son." "Dead Man's Burden" is my first time behind the camera as a writer/director though. I had never really directed shorts or plays or anything else.

Where did the idea come from and what was the writing process like?

The idea for "Dead Man's Burden" came from the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.  After the War, America manufactured the Western as a myth to reunite the North and the South by looking west for a fresh start. The result was we whitewashed over a lot of wounds and left them festering beneath the surface. I wanted to tell a story that explores those wounds.

The writing process was fast - the first draft was finished in a month. The reason it was fast was I sat down to write knowing  I wanted to make the film by the end of the year come hell or high-water. So I seized on my experiences as a producer to create certain rules that would allow me to do period drama for a budget. Limited locations, cast, extras, etc. But as much as you can make rules a script will take on a life of its own. As I wrote I came to realize that the choices I wanted the characters to make were not necessarily the choices they would make. In the end, what was supposed to be a story of reunification became a tragedy of ideology.

Why did you decide to tackle a western and what do you think were the pros and cons of that decision?

I love Westerns, and in stepping behind the camera for the first time there was no question in my mind on the genre. In this industry you better make what you love because you never know if you're going to get another chance. What I didn't realize was that making a western was living a western. We shot on location at the end of a two-mile dirt road that became a mud pit every time it rained. There was no cell phone reception, a limited amount of film, and I had to figure out how to be timely and efficient in directing actors in period costumes, who were riding horses, shooting guns and doing some of their own stunts. Thankfully I had an incredibly talented and dedicated cast and crew, and together we overcame everything that was thrown at us.

Can you talk about how you raised your budget and your financial plan for distribution and recouping your costs? 

When we set out to raise our budget my producer Veronica Nickel and I agreed on a strategy to keep the costs low as the market for independent films is soft, and we wanted to give our investors the best chance of recoupment. At the same time we understood that there is a large market for westerns in the US, and it's an underserved market, so we knew we had a core audience we could reach. We did as much research as we could to get numbers on recently released westerns (both in theaters and on DVD) and used that to come up with what we thought was a reasonable budget level. With my background as a producer I had investors I worked with before, and Veronica and my other producers were able to put together the rest of the budget using private equity and the New Mexico tax incentives. Once the film was in the can we had a team working hard on outreach to the Western loving audiences so that when our sales agent Josh Braun brought the film to market at Los Angeles Film Festival we had information we could present about who would see this film and how to reach them.

What camera(s) did you use and what did you love and hate about it?

We used a single Panavision Platinum 2-perf 35mm camera with a Panaflex G2 as a backup. I loved that we were shooting film. In fact that was one of the most important decisions I made early on in the process. We were going to shoot 35mm no matter what. As much as I think HD can create beautiful images, it lacks the ability to capture the depth and scope of landscapes, and in any good western the landscape is a character. In our case the endless the landscape offered a sense of hope, a blank canvas where our characters could re-create their lives, but it was also a mote that kept Martha and Heck isolated away from the world. To have not captured it on film would have been to shoot ourselves in the foot from day one. Of course the downside of shooting on film is that you have to be incredibly frugal in your set ups, number of takes and how long you let the camera roll. I can't tell you how many times I wished I had extra film to get one more angle or additional b-roll. 

How did you and your DP, Robert Hauer, decide on (and execute) the look of the movie?

We really wanted a look that respects the rich history of the Western. First and foremost that meant shooting on 35mm film. We chose 2 perf 35mm because that created a natural widescreen look. Second it meant seizing on the tropes of the genre. Rob and I both indulged in watching numerous westerns: "High Noon," "Unforgiven," "Once Upon a Time in the West," and most importantly "The Searchers" as I wanted "Dead Man's Burden" to be a film that evoked John Ford. At the same time we needed to make the look work for the modern eye, and to that end Rob and I decided to embrace everything that was natural about our location; capturing the harshness of the light and the landscape which contrasted with the warm tones that were natural to the environment. 

How did the movie change in the editing and why did you feel the changes were important?

The biggest change in the edit involved the structure of the first act. In the script I really established Martha and her world before introducing Wade. In the finished film although we see Martha in the opening, Wade is the first character we really get to know. What this accomplished was to establish Martha and Wade as equally important to the story and not favor one over the other. The reason why this change was important is that I want my audience to come away identifying two very different points of view. The tragedy of "Dead Man's Burden" is that both Wade and Martha are very right and very wrong in their beliefs and the question that drives the film is: will they be able to see past their differences.

What was the smartest thing you did during production? The dumbest?

The smartest thing I did during production was to put together a talented team of collaborators who I trusted to help me learn what I didn't know and enhance my vision for the film. Given that we were such a low budget production I knew we had limited time on set so it was incredibly important to get my key cast and crew on board as early as possible. This allowed for everyone to discuss and share ideas before we got into the hurried and stressful on-set environment, and it allowed for my collaborators to take a sense of ownership in the film.

The dumbest thing I did was probably choose to step behind the camera for the first time ever -  I hadn't made shorts or directed plays or actors before this - and go make a period piece shot on location and on film, with horses, guns and stunts, and do it all in 18 days on a shoestring budget.

And, finally, what did you learn from making the film that you have taken to other projects?

What didn't I learn from making this film? I tend to believe you're always learning if you're willing to listen and after "Dead Man's Burden" I have a better understanding of how to embrace the realism of production design from Ruth De Jong; how light can enhance character thanks to Rob Hauer; how fabrics make a costume thanks to Courtney Hoffman; how a cut can twist a point of view thanks to Jeff Israel; and, well, the list goes on and on. Everything I've learned I hope will make me a better collaborator on the next film.

Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!

"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control." 
Roger Corman, Producer

★★★★★

It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!

• Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos

• John Sayles: Writing to your resources

• Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes

• John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots

• Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals

• George Romero: Casting

• Kevin Smith: Skipping film school

• Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection

• Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity

• David Lynch: Kill your darlings

• Ron Howard: Pre-production planning

• John Carpenter: Going low-tech

• Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking

And more!

Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!

It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!

Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.

"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond

John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.

The book covers (among other topics):

• Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories

• Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature

• Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period

• George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget

• Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories

• Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations

• Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive

• Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous

• Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget

• Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget

• Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror

• Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget

• Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting

• L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting

• Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing

• Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres

This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced! 

Jason Christopher on “Nobody Gets Out Alive”

What was your filmmaking background before setting out to make "Nobody Gets Out Alive"?

I always filmed stuff when I was a kid. I don't have those Super 8 Spielberg stories but I got those Handy Cam stories, ha. My producer Deven Lobascio and I did this movie that was called BarRats when I was like 10 and he was like 8 haha. I was obsessed with Mallrats. My parents were cool and let me watch whatever I wanted pretty much besides the nudity...had to close the eyes for that. I filmed a few movie stuff with friends and my brother around the neighborhood. I did my first serious thing when I was 17. My film study teacher asked me to submit a video for a film festival, cause I took the class seriously. Turned it in and I got sent to the guidance counselor and expelled from school for making things too ahead of my time and too violent. (My brother who plays the main in it shoots himself at the end and blood sprays everywhere) it was awesome. When I was like 20, I think, I made this pretty cool short that I did all seriously. Then reunited with Deven and we made this no budget flick called The Pendant, people really dug it. We sold out the local theater 187 seats and turned away 200 people. It was a great feeling so after that Deven asked if I had any scripts. That script was called Down The Road. (original title of Nobody Gets Out Alive) Now that flick has like 3 names people know it by, so annoying. Originally Down The Road, other territories Punishment, and in the US Nobody Gets Out Alive. 

Where did the idea come from and what was your process for working on  the script? 

I always wanted to write a script, a throwback, to those 70's and 80's genre horror flicks. They're the only kind I watched when I was a kid. Unfortunately, I was born in '87 so I didn't get to see them first hand. They're the only ones that stuck with me until Scream came out. It wasn't until my father died from a freak accident when I was 17 that I was like all right...I'm going to personally kill someone myself (from anger) or I'm going to write a script. I wrote the first draft when I was 17 years old (2005) and it went through drafts all the way up to filming in 2010.

Can you talk about how you raised your budget and your financial plan for recouping your costs? 

My producer found a majority of the money. I found a some of the budget. We had investor meetings and stuff and a lot of them fell out. Only one came through and gave a nice bit. We were stuck for a bit then we did the unexpected...we asked our family. It was so crazy how easy it was to get the rest of the budget from our family members. I thought it was going to be really hard because I don't come from a rich family or anything like that but the people we asked they were so for it and more. It was amazing. I definitely recommend other people to try that for their first flick. My family understood this is the only thing I was good at though, haha.

What camera did you use and what did you love and hate about it?

We used the Red Camera for camera a and camera b was the Canon 7D. Unfortunately, I'll probably never get to make a movie shooting on film. I love the look of film. Digital cameras leave this milky look. There's only a couple flicks I know that were shot on a Red and don't look milky. I didn't want that with ours. I threw a ton of grain on the flick, really set you back more to that 70's and 80's vibe I was going for. It's really cool though in post. There'd be some moments on set where the DP was like, just punch in closer in editing if you want a tighter shot. I was like get the hell out of here. But in post I tried it and with the resolution those cameras have, you could never even tell.

Did the movie change much in the editing process, and if so, how?

The original cut of the movie was like 87 minutes long and we shrunk it down to 78 minutes for the final cut. Some scenes just dragged on or didn't really fit with the tone of the flick. I edit my own stuff too and I used to be a control freak about nobody else helping me edit. I'm an idiot and my color corrector who is also a great editor did another cut, making things sharper, switching some things, and I couldn't be happier. He'll definitely be my editing partner from here on out. We share the same taste of a lot of things and it's just really great to have another eye.

How did you find distribution for the movie and what was that process like?

We knew we had to get the money back to the investors, family or not, not paying someone back is the absolutely worst. I wanted to tour the movie first. Nowadays YOU yourself have to build an audience. The system isn't how it used to be. I didn't want to just start looking for a distributor right away. We toured the flick to I think, close to 20 film festivals. Nothing big but they're film festivals with a small audience...even if two people watched it, that's two more people who know about the flick. Deven and I won two best feature awards, I won a best director award, and actor Brian Gallagher (who plays the villain Hunter Isth) got a best actor award. Those things would've never happened if we went straight to a distributor. We wanted to build buzz first. We sent it to a few distributors and just never heard back. We got a sales rep and that was another smart move. They sold the movie to 12 territories...like Germany? If we didn't have a sales rep that would've never happened. It was funny though, our US distributor we have now was one company that never got back to us but when our sales reps sent it they got right back to them. Companies seem to take you more seriously if you have one. So far they have me smiling. 

What was the smartest thing you did during production? The dumbest?

The smartest thing was getting as much as I could've with the access I had. I couldn't get into college so I went to movies. I went with my gut instinct. I went with my eye. I learned so much though. The dumbest thing I did was not be too demanding. I'm such a down to earth dude and like to make everything fun in the long run but when filming this flick, it was the first legit thing I ever did, so I was too nice. I got screwed for some shots I wanted and stuff. On the next flick, that's not happening. I always felt that the no budget flick I did with Deven was our high school movie, Nobody Gets Out Alive is our college movie, and the next one is going to be the first movie. Does that make sense?

And, finally, what did you learn from making the film that you have taken to other projects?

I learned about being responsible, being organized, and being planned. If you don't have those things, you're going to fail a ton. Those are crucial. This job is also perfect for people who can do more than 12 things at once, haha. My mind is always spinning and happy I have that body skill to get done a ton of things at once. 

Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!

"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control." 
Roger Corman, Producer

★★★★★

It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!

• Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos

• John Sayles: Writing to your resources

• Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes

• John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots

• Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals

• George Romero: Casting

• Kevin Smith: Skipping film school

• Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection

• Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity

• David Lynch: Kill your darlings

• Ron Howard: Pre-production planning

• John Carpenter: Going low-tech

• Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking

And more!

Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!

It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!

Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.

"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond

John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.

The book covers (among other topics):

• Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories

• Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature

• Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period

• George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget

• Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories

• Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations

• Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive

• Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous

• Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget

• Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget

• Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror

• Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget

• Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting

• L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting

• Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing

• Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres

This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced!