Write Your Screenplay Podcast

COCO (Part 2) - The Power of Vignettes

As we discussed in Part 1 of this podcast, sometimes it only takes one moment to find the structure of your script— the moment where everything comes into clarity and you understand where your movie is really going to live.

For the writers of Coco, that place was the real meaning of Dia de Muertos. The real theme of the story. It was that theme that drove every creative decision they made, every structural turn in their character’s journey.

But that structure didn’t grow from a big idea about Dia de Muertos, even though that big idea helped to guide the writers.

The structure of Coco grew out of a single moment, and a single song: Remember Me.

In fact, it’s from the execution of the very first performance of that song that the whole structure of Coco, and the whole structure, not only of Miguel’s journey, but also of Ernesto’s and Imelda’s and Abuelita’s and Hector’s and every other character’s is formed.

You can think of writing as a process of excavation. It begins by searching for the right place to dig, (which often requires, as we discussed in last week’s podcast, digging in many wrong or seemingly unrelated places).

And once we find that right place to dig, the place where the story really lives, it’s about digging as deeply as possible, right in that same place, so we can fully excavate every bit of beauty that lives there.

 

There’s a great anxiety that often overcomes us as we seek the place where the story really lives— a fear that the script isn’t good enough or the idea isn’t good enough or that our craft isn’t good enough, or our structure isn’t good enough or that we aren’t good enough.

And that anxiety causes us to look outside of ourselves for the answers— trying to find the right plot or the right characters or the right trick ending or the right idea for what the heck is supposed to happen!

And as a result, rather than finding inspiration, we end up finding cliches.

Rather than finding the story that only we could tell, we end up finding the story that everybody else is already telling, rather than finding the characters that already live inside of us, we end up finding the ones we’ve already met in other movies.

Because ultimately, the real answers don’t lie outside of our scripts. They don’t lie in formulas or outlines or plans or plots.

The real answers reside inside. Inside the scenes you’ve already written. Inside the scenes that resonate most truthfully for you.

If you ever feel like you don’t know what needs to happen in your script, the problem is not “out there” it’s “in here.”

If you don’t know where to go, it means you don’t know where you are. It means something is not fully executed, fully true, fully resonant, fully excavated in the pages you’ve already written.

Because once you’ve got that one element of truth, that one thing that you know is right, it will not only show you everything else you need to do, it will also show you exactly how you need to do it.

Which is why it’s so important to be fully present with your characters and yourself as you write each scene of your movie.

Not to be serious with it or forceful with it, or heavens forbid to manipulate it toward the plot point you’ve planned for the future.

Not to get it right in the first draft, but rather to look at the first draft as research— a place to find that crazy little detail (like the fact that a Xolo dog’s tongue tends to loll out the side of his mouth) that eventually is going to bring your scene totally to life.

The goal is not to control the scene, but rather to explore it.

To hold it lightly in your hand and simply observe it. To see, feel and hear everything, searching not for the things you planned but the things that surprise you, the things you didn’t expect to happen, or that cause an unexpected, strong emotional reaction in you— a laugh, a tear, or even a feeling of shame or failure.

It’s in those moments that your script really lives. Those are the areas you truly need to excavate. Those are the areas from which all the answers will eventually spring, if only you give yourself the time and space to truly look at them, to see hear and feel everything. To explore them. To get curious about them.

And most importantly to capture them in the most specific, unique way possible, by seeing, feeling, and hearing everything, and then capturing it exactly the way you see it on the page.

This is a technique that Francis Ford Coppola calls a Vignette. And for you as a writer, a Vignette is the most powerful building block of structure.

Your first, and most important Vignette is the one you use to introduce each character.

Rather than using descriptions (Joe has brown hair, a great smile, and a glimmer in his eye) or costume design (Joe wears a brown jacket, cashmere sweater and ferragamo shoes) or character traits (Joe’s a no nonsense businessman with a heart of gold), a Vignette introduces the character with action.

More specifically, a Vignette introduces a character with a specific, visually compelling action that they are doing in a way that only they could do it. An action that reveals character.

It could be a specific line of dialogue, that only they can say. A specific action that only they could do. A specific image, that only they could experience. Or even, as in the case of Coco, a specific lyric, that only they could sing.

What’s great about Vignettes for readers and audiences and producers and directors and actors is that Vignettes take them out of the position of “thinking about” the character “hmm… what does that cashmere sweater look like on Joe” and into the position of experiencing them.

“Joe picks a piece of lint from his cashmere sweater”

“Joe sticks his finger through a hole in his cashmere sweater”

“Joe shovels spaghetti into his mouth, splattering sauce on his giant belly which peeks out from his cashmere sweater”

Notice how each Vignette gave you a completely different Joe-- how much of a story about Joe you started to tell yourself without even thinking about it.

Notice how much work the Vignette did for you.

 

That’s why audiences and actors and coverage readers and directors and producers love Vignettes.

Because Vignettes allow them to get your characters in an instant, without any need for creativity. To play your story on the little movie screen in their minds. To director-proof and actor-proof and production-proof your script-- to guarantee you’re going to get the shots you need to tell your story and not end up trying to piece something together in the editing room.

But for writers, the Vignettes serves an even more important purpose.

Vignettes show you where to dig for your character’s journey.

Vignettes are a magical place where the creative power of the subconscious mind, and the process of the conscious mind meet.

Because once you have that first Vignette, all you have to do is keep digging in the same place, and you will effortlessly discover not only who your character is, but where your character has to go. You will discover the metaphors and the theme from which your movie will grow.

Even if you haven’t done a single bit of planning or outlining or thinking about your script. Even if you have no idea what happens in your plot, Vignettes will show you the way.

Let’s take Joe the lint picker for example.

If the first time we meet Joe, he’s picking lint off his Cashmere sweater, we can already tell ourselves a certain story about who he is. We can tell he’s a bit fastidious, maybe even a bit obsessive compulsive. Maybe he’s a man of a certain income bracket, who can afford a Cashmere sweater. Or maybe this is the only piece of clothing of any value in his closet.

We don’t know yet. We don’t have to know. All we have to do is start digging around that first image, until we discover the truth about Joe.

And the way we start digging is to ask ourselves a simple question:

If this is true, what else is true?

What’s another Vignette we can create, inspired by that first Vignette, that would help us feel the trajectory of Joe’s journey?

If it’s true that the first time we see Joe, he’s picking lint off his Cashmere sweater, maybe there’s another scene where Joe carefully mends a hole in that sweater, sewing it by hand.

And just in those two images, you told yourself a story about Joe. A story about what that sweater means to Joe. A story about how Joe might change.

And if it’s true that there’s a scene in which Joe picks that lint off that sweater, and a scene in which Joe carefully mends that sweater, maybe there’s also a scene where a lover tears that sweater off of Joe.

And now you’re starting to see a journey.

Arrange those scenes in this order.

Joe picks lint off his cashmere sweater

Joe carefully mends a hole in that sweater, sewing it by hand.

A lover tears the sweater off of Joe.

And it’s a story of a pent up man surrendering to passion.

Arrange those scenes in another order.

Joe picks lint off his cashmere sweater

A lover tears the sweater off of Joe

Joe carefully mends a hole in that sweater, sewing it by hand.

And it’s a story of a man who can’t let himself surrender to passion. A man trying to hold an old life in the face of a new one. Or a man repeating the same pattern again and again.

Those three images tell a story. And depending on how you arrange them, you get an entirely different structure. Enough to build a film around.

 

And we could keep on going.

Maybe there’s also a scene where Joe gives that sweater to his lover.

Maybe there’s a scene where his lover throws that sweater into the fire.

And now we’ve got a tumultuous love story-- all from that one little Vignette. All from that one little sweater.

Maybe there’s also a scene where Joe runs butt naked through the office.

And you know why-- don’t you?

...

COCO (Part 1): The Script & The Research

By Jacob Krueger

This week, we’re going to be discussing Coco, the new Pixar movie by Adrian Molina & Matthew Aldrich.

If you haven’t seen this beautiful film yet, then you should run to the theatre immediately, because not only is it perhaps the most visually stunning Pixar film yet, but also one of the most structurally interesting for us to learn from as screenwriters and as filmmakers.

Often, when you see a film that’s as perfect as Coco, you imagine that these writers must know something that you don’t. That maybe they worked backwards from their perfect ending, or started with the perfect idea.

But the truth is, Molina and Aldrich’s approach to this film was a journey in itself-- a journey they took with director Lee Unkrich of 7 years into research of Mexican culture, and the traditions of Dia De Muertos, into wrong ways and missteps. In other words, it was a process of rewriting.

In fact, the first draft of the story was about an American kid with a Mexican mother, traveling to Mexico for Dia de Muertos and learning to let go of someone he loved and lost.

As an early draft, the idea made perfect sense. They wanted to teach an American audience about Dia de Muertos, so what better technique to do so than to bring us in through the eyes of the main character who didn’t know his own culture.

Because it was built around Dia de Muertos, they knew it had to wrestle with the theme of death, so what better idea than to tell a story about letting go of someone you’ve lost.

They wrote the whole script, and even got as far as developing art for the project, before they finally realized they were telling a story that, as Unkich put it, “thematically was antithetical to what Dia de Muertos is all about. We were telling a story about letting go. And Dia de Muertos is about never letting go. It’s about this obligation to remember our loved ones and pass their stories along.”

Writing is a search for the truth. A mining of our subconscious to find the real characters that live there, the real themes we’re wrestling with, the real structure that can take us where we need to go, the real meaning that makes our movies matter.

In this way, it’s a process by which we find out who we are-- just like the main character of Coco, Miguel, finds out who he is and what he believes in, by exploring his art and his voice as a musician.

And sometimes that means realizing, just like Miguel does, that we are staring at half a picture, that our assumptions about our story or our character or our plot don’t match the truth, that we’re not telling the story we think that we’re telling.

Sometimes we find the truth through researching the world of our screenplay-- and sometimes that means digging in lots of places to find where the truth lies.

It might seem obvious by the final draft that the theme of the movie and the structure of the character’s journey needed to tie together with the meaning of Dia De Muertos.

But sometimes it takes writing that early draft, or even several drafts that go totally in the wrong direction, before you uncover the source of the feeling that “something is off” and start to discover what the story really needs to be.

It may seem obvious by the final draft that an adorable animal character could generate some laughs for the audience. But who could have imagined that the fabulous dog in Coco, Dante, would spring from research about the Aztec traditions from which Dia de Muertos grew?

The Aztecs believed that a Xoloitzcuintli hairless dog was necessary to bring a spirit from the land of the living to the land of the dead. And this research led the writers into even more esoteric research about that breed of dog, and the discovery that Xolo dogs teeth tend to fall out, causing their tongues to loll out the side.

And who could have predicted that it was from that research, barely even connected to the idea of Dia de Muertos, from which a laugh out loud visual gag in almost every scene would be born?

 

A non-writer might assume that researching dog breeds for a Day of the Dead movie was a waste of time-- or even worse, a willful act of procrastination. A non-writer might assume that writing a whole draft, or many drafts, of a structure that you may not even end up using would be a total failure.

But an artist follows the instinct, not even knowing where it’s going to take them. An artist allows themselves the freedom to follow the feeling that “this feels right” until the real truth starts to emerge.

That doesn’t mean that we should confuse historical research with the writing process. That doesn’t mean that we should try to squeeze in every detail of our research into the script. And that certainly doesn’t mean that we should confuse what we want our audience to learn with the real product we are delivering-- the structure of our character’s journey.

But it does mean that we can use our research to find that point of entry. To find that one true thing, that helps us understand the character, or the world, or the entire structure of the film.

From our research we’ll start to find our theme, our characters, the look of our film, the world, our style, our rhythm, our tone.

 

Many writers think that research is something you have to do before you can start writing-- something you have to get perfect, so that you can know everything and find your perfect plan, and not waste any time.

But research is actually something you do as you write.

In fact, the writing itself is research. Every word you write is research. A quest, guided partly by intellect, and partly by instinct, for the seeds out of which your real story will grow.

It’s a quest by which you’ll connect to that real voice in yourself, and transform your movie from something that “makes sense” to something that moves-- that takes both you and your characters and your audience on a life changing emotional journey.

At the beginning often that means digging in many places, and playing and practicing and exploring and sketching.

And as you do so, some words you write will start to resonate with you. A single line of dialogue on the page. An image you can’t get out of your head. A moment that you don’t quite understand. A structural beat that makes you laugh or cry.

And other moments that should resonate, that intellectually make a ton of sense-- ideas that seemed great in your head, or in an outline or in a pitch-- will often surprise you by falling flat on the page. Plot points that should make you cry will instead ring hollow or false.

Until one day, something clicks. Sometimes it’s a moment, or a line, or a movement of your story, or something you learn in your research. Sometimes it’s something as minor as a single moment. And sometimes it’s as profound as a whole structure for your character’s journey.

And sometimes it’s as simple as a song. Like the Remember Me song in Coco. Which ends up being not only the song we’re all going to leave singing, but also the thematic link between Dia de Muertos and the journey of the character. The structure from which everything else will arise.

 

But what it really is, is your theme. The song inside you that’s been trying to get out. That little bit of truth trying to find its way onto the page.

And suddenly you’re not digging in many places any more. You’re digging in one place. And you’re digging as deeply as you can, because you’ve found that vein of gold, and you want to get as much of it out of the ground and onto the page as you possibly can.

That’s the place that we’re all searching for as writers. And sometimes our desire to find that place cuts us off from the process by which we can actually arrive there.

Sometimes we imagine we can get to there more quickly by thinking really hard or planning really hard or making sure we know everything before we start.

Sometimes we imagine we can get there more quickly by rushing through those early scenes, trying to get the “bones” on the page, rather than doing the real work-- the real research-- of writing.

Sometimes we imagine we can get there more quickly by getting “serious” about our scripts, rather than playing around and exploring. Or following some pre-programmed formula that some other writer made, or some coverage reader jotted down in their “notes” about your script.

But the truth is, none of these techniques will get you there faster. Rather they will cut you off from the real opportunity of arriving. Keep you digging on the surface, chasing the fool’s gold, when there’s acres and acres of real gold under your feet, gold that you, and only you, have the capacity to access.

To do that, like Miguel, you have to cross over into a land where you don’t normally go.

To do that, like Miguel, you have to remember what is really important to you.

To do that, like Miguel, you have to look the truth in the face, and take it back with you to the other side.

That means taking the time to do the research into your own truth, seeing, feeling and hearing every word you write. Applying both art and craft to every page as if it was the only page that mattered.

That means refusing to rush to the end, and instead keeping focused on where you are right now, so you can connect to each moment and each character and those little details in which the real theme lies.

That means allowing yourself to take wrong turns, so you can find the true path of your intuition.

That means surrounding yourself with great artists who push you past your own blind spots, just like Lee Unkrich pushed his writers. That don’t allow you to accept half truths when there’s still a whole truth underneath. That don’t allow you to stop digging until the full power of your voice is excavated.

And the only way to do that is to commit fully to keep on digging with everything you’ve got, until you find that place where everything suddenly

Jacob Krueger reveals the hidden keys to a successful TV pilot with a deep structural analysis comparing the Stranger Things 1 pilot and the first episode of Stranger Things 2.

Stranger Things 2

Part 2: The Structure of Two Seasons

By Jacob Krueger

In last week’s Stranger Things 2 Podcast, we talked about the way a TV pilot starts up the engine of a series, and the challenges, especially in a TV Drama series like Stranger Things where everything changes at the end of the first season, of getting that engine started again in Season 2.

Because the main structural elements that drive the engine of the show have mostly been resolved by the end of Season 1, the first episode of Stranger Things, Season 2 ends up functioning like a new pilot, trying to get the engine started again to launch us into the second season.

But while the pilot of Stranger Things, Season 1 dropped us right into the heart of the action, and rocketed the characters into the story from the very first page, the first episode of Season 2 gets that engine started in a far less effective way.

And that’s because the pilot of Stranger Things, Season 1 is built around a rock solid Primary Structure-- the way the things the characters want and the choices that they make and the obstacles they must navigate, shape characters’ journeys and push them out of their normal world from the very first page.

While the first episode of Stranger Things, Season 2 is focused mainly on the Secondary Structure-- the way the audience experiences the episode.

As a result, Stranger Things, Season 1 launches us into the engine of the series from the very first page, just as you must if you want to sell a pilot for your own series, or use your pilot to get staffed on an existing show.

Whereas the first episode of Stranger Things, Season 2, for its many good qualities, starts us off with more of a whimper than a bang.

 

It’s a problem that the Duffer Brothers manage to correct in a big way by Season 2, Episode 2, when they finally get that engine started.

But it’s one which you, as an emerging writer, are unlikely to survive at this point of your career.

Because until you’ve got a hit series on the air that everyone loves, the chances are that if your first episode doesn’t launch us into your series with the force of a rocket, no one’s ever going to read Episode 2.

For that matter, if your first few pages don’t launch us into your series with the force of a rocket, no one is going to even finish the pilot.

So what’s the structural difference between the Stranger Things, Season 1 pilot and the first episode of Stranger Things, Season 2?

At every moment of Stranger Things, Season 1 the characters are facing obstacles and making choices that change their lives forever.

And at most moments of the first episode of Stranger Things, Season 2, they quite simply are not.

In the pilot of Season 1, the characters are living their lives for themselves. And in the first episode of Season 2, they are establishing their lives for the audience.

So let’s break it down together.

The pilot of Stranger Things, Season 1 starts with a bad ass chase sequence.

We start by panning down from the stars, and find ourselves at the lab, a location that is going to end up mattering a lot for us. We’ve got the flashing lights, we’ve got the scientist running in the wrong direction, we’ve got that horrifying scene where the scientist finally makes his way to the elevator, only to be be snatched up and out of sight just as the doors close.

And even though we’re dropped from there into the quiet, mundane world of the kids playing Dungeons & Dragons, even in that scene, The Duffer Brothers are not simply “establishing” that the kids play Dungeons & Dragons. Already the characters are facing huge obstacles and making huge choices that affect their lives and their relationships forever.

And for that reason, in Stranger Things, Season 1, we can feel the story start right away.

We meet Mike, the Dungeon Master, who wants all his friends to work as a team in the game, and introduces the obstacle of the Demogorgon to test them.

We meet Dustin, the cautious one of the group, who wants to cast a spell of protection.

We meet Lucas, the impulsive one, who wants to cast a fireball.

And we meet Will, who’s afraid to make a choice, but who ultimately risks his own life to protect his friends.

The scene isn’t about a Dungeons & Dragons game. It’s about a bunch of kids making big choices that affect each other, in relation to something they care about deeply.

And because these are great writers, they keep raising the stakes, by making sure nothing turns out the way the characters are hoping, so they have to keep making big choices that change their lives forever.

Instead of rolling a high roll that would allow him to defeat the Demorgorgon, Will rolls a measly seven... and Mike, the Dungeon Master, doesn’t see it.

Wanting their friend to survive the adventure, the other boys tell Will it doesn’t count if Mike doesn’t see it. But at the end of the scene, Will makes a different choice.

Will admits to Mike it was a seven, “The Demogorgon, it got me,” he says.

 

And no sooner has Will left the Dungeons & Dragons game than the real Demogorgon indeed does get him-- in a terrifying sequence that we can only see in glimpses of Will’s horror.

We aren't even at the credits yet! And we not only locked into these huge choices and changes and never-before experience for the characters, we are also locked in to the hook, the engine of the piece—the engine of a creature that you can barely see; and the disappearance of a young boy that is going to drive the entire season.

It’s not that the Duffer Brothers aren’t setting things up. In fact if you’ve listened to my two part Podcast on Stranger Things, Season 1, you know that this first Dungeon’s & Dragons sequence actually thematically sets up every aspect of these character’s journeys.

But it’s not the Secondary Structure that’s driving the story. It’s the Primary Structure. It’s Will’s choice to tell the truth, and the terrible consequences he suffers for that choice.

I want to contrast that with the opening of the first episode of Season 2, to show you how, even though they’re using many of the same elements that worked so well in Season 1, even though they’re trying to replicate the engine, the Duffer Brothers are missing the Primary Structure that started that engine so brilliantly.

In Season 2, once again, we start with the stars, and this time we pull down to a city, an unexpected Secondary Structure surprise for the audience. And this is fun. It is nice to find ourselves in a new place, and wondering how this new piece of the puzzle is going to fit.

The Duffer Brothers have a real challenge as they start this episode, which is the creature is particularly scary when it is in the shadows through the beginning of Season 1. But, once it is out of the shadows, the creature becomes a lot less scary; it becomes a lot more typical, a lot more like something we’ve seen before in other “Monster in the House” movies.

So, it is important in Season 2 to re-open the door to the danger and the mystery. And while the season could certainly have started equally brilliantly with what ends up being the first image of Episode 2, it’s nevertheless a smart and reasonable move to open to a place that we aren't expecting, and a character that we aren't expecting; the character of Eight, Kali, who is in her own chase sequence-- mimicking the structure of the first episode.

But despite the cool chase sequence and Kali’s display of a magical power that reminds us of Eleven’s powers in Season 1-- what is missing is the impact on the main characters, and what’s missing is the horror for the characters that we actually care about.

 

As the audience, we know that there is another “Eleven” on the loose, and that she may not be playing for the right team. But unlike in Season 1, the story of Kali isn’t going to weave through the first episode of Season 2. Instead, it is going to be left to drop there, hopefully to make us wonder what is coming next. But it’s not going to affect the characters at all.

This cool sequence really has only existed at this point for the audience. It hasn’t existed yet for the characters.

Whereas in the Season 1 pilot, we very quickly catch up to that lab again, to Eleven again, and the journey of Eleven and the baddies from the lab very quickly get woven into the lives of our story, the lives of our main characters.

And so, this is what we really want if our pilot’s Primary Structure is to come into focus:

Every element that possibly can needs to affect not just the general world of the story, but the specific world of our main characters.

Our characters have to make choices around those elements, and suffer consequences by them. Otherwise the story isn’t really started. It’s just setting up stuff for later.

From there, the Duffer Brothers once again attempt to replicate the engine of Season One by catching us up to the boys again-- this time not in a game of Dungeons & Dragons, but an arcade game of Dig Dug.

And just like in the pilot, there’s an obstacle that must be navigated in relationship to something the boys care about: Dustin’s high score has just been beaten by someone named Madmax.

But the difference is-- unlike in Season 1, where the boys can make structural decisions that matter to their relationships, based on the challenge of the Demogorgon, in this scene, there’s nothing they can do-- not until Madmax actually appears several scenes later.

Once again, the Duffer Brothers are setting up the Secondary Structure for the future, rather than launching the Primary Structure of the now. And that’s why the stakes feel super low.

And even when Will finds himself magically transported back to The Upside Down from the middle of the arcade, the stakes still never feel like they used to feel.

Last season, we got to watch Will make a moral decision to tell the truth and then get snatched away by a terrifying

Jacob Krueger analyzes the first episode of Stranger Things 2, to show you the difference between Primary and Secondary Structure in a TV pilot.

Stranger Things 2 Podcast:

Part 1: Primary & Secondary Structure

By Jacob Krueger

This week we are going to be looking at Stranger Things, Season 2. And don’t worry if you haven’t seen the whole season, because for this podcast to be valuable, all you need to watch is the first episode. And I’ll save the big spoilers for the end and give you a little warning before we get there.

We’re going to be looking at that first episode of Stranger Things, Season 2 in an interesting way-- by comparing it structurally to that unforgettable pilot episode of Season 1, which launched the whole franchise.

As I discussed in my two part podcast about Stranger Things, Season 1 the pilot episode of any series does more than just introduce great characters or tell a great story. It creates an engine powerful enough to launch every character in the series into a huge journey-- and a replicable structure for the series powerful enough to last many seasons.

But Stranger Things 1 has a particularly challenging structure to replicate in Stranger Things 2.

That’s because the whole structure of the first season is built around a simple problem that’s completely resolved by the time we get to the second season!

In Stranger Things 1, a little boy named Will is missing, and his merry band of friends friends need to come together in a real-world Dungeons & Dragons quest to find him.

Wrapped around this very simple structure are a bunch of wonderfully horrifying elements-- a creature that can only be seen in the shadows, a magical world called The Upside Down that’s only gradually revealing itself, a bunch of creepy-creepy operatives that are ready to kill to protect a secret that even they don’t understand, a mother communicating with her lost son through Christmas lights, and of course, Eleven, a little girl with magical powers who everyone seems to be hunting.

But by the time we get to Episode 1 of Season 2, Will is back (at least mostly) in the real world, so there’s no missing boy to build a structure around.

By the time we get to Season 2, the terrifying Demogorgon, which once was scary like the shark in Jaws, not for what we could see, but for what we couldn’t-- has not only been flushed from the shadows, but vanquished from them (at least mostly). So we need a new fin in the water to build the terror around.

 

By the time we get to Season 2, the world of The Upside Down, which we only barely understood, has now been entered and explored. So we need a new mystery in The Upside Down to build the world around.

By the time we get to Season 2, the mother, Joyce, can communicate with Will while driving carpool, so we need a new spiritual component that no one else understands to build the relationship around.

And by the time we get to Season 2, (at least as far as we know), Eleven is gone. So we need a new magical little girl to build the threat around.

In fact, by the time we get to Season 2, the only major structural element we still have going for us from the engine of Season 1 is the creepy operatives. But even they are a whole lot less interesting, now that we have some sense of who they are and what they do…

Which means the first episode of Season 2 has to do a lot more than replicate the engine of Season 1. It actually has to re-launch it.

In this way, the first episode of Stranger Things, Season 2 becomes a whole new pilot for the series. Which is a big challenge for the writers. But is fortunate for us.

Because it gives us the chance to compare a great pilot episode to a good one.

It gives us a chance to compare the kind of pilot that can launch us into a new series to one that only works if we’re already in love with that series.

And that’s a valuable lesson for any TV writer-- or any film writer for that matter.

Because the difference between the Stranger Things, Season 1 pilot and the first episode of Season 2 is the same difference between the original pilot script that’s likely to sell your series, and the one that’s certain to get lost in the shuffle.

And that difference is not any of the technical things we usually worry about. It’s not bad dialogue or lousy characters or weak ideas or meandering plotlines.

Because the Stranger Things, Season 2 opener doesn’t suffer from any of those issues. It’s a beautifully written episode and quite enjoyable, and I think we can all rest assured, when it comes to the plot of Season 2, the Duffer Brothers have plenty up their sleeves.

But the episode does suffer from a huge problem, that so many of my students wrestle with in their own TV writing. And that you are likely wrestling with in yours.

 

And that problem is setting stuff up for later. When you could be getting it started right now.

As screenwriters, and TV Writers, we all have a tendency to save the best for last.

We come up with a great idea, and we hold it tightly in our pocket, saving it for later, setting it up, so we can pay it off.

But the best pilots, and the best scripts, don’t save the best for last.

They save the best for first.

That’s the difference between a pilot that’s going to sell your new series. And one that’s going to sit on the shelf.

And that’s the difference between the pilot episode of Stranger Things, Season 1, and the first episode of Stranger Things, Season 2.

The truth is, if you are like me, you probably enjoyed the first episode of Stranger Things, Season 2 very much. After all, you are getting reacquainted with some characters you love.  You’ve got some fabulous genre elements that can connect to, more 80’s throwback nostalgia than you can shake a stick at, and a kind of door to reentry into a world that you really enjoyed the first time around.

But at the same time, you can’t help but feel like everything’s a little slower, a little more static, a little less high stakes than what you remembered from Season 1. The volume seems turned to an 11 on the 80’s nostalgia, but about a 3 for the actual story.

We can feel the Duffer Brothers pulling on the cord as hard as they can, trying to get the engine started on that old trusty lawn mower, but not quite getting it to actually turn over.

In fact, if you’ve seen Season 2, Episode 2, when suddenly that trusty engine finally starts to run again, you probably felt, like I did, that with a few tweaks, the whole season could have just started there-- and launched us into everything in a far more dramatic way.

If you’re the Duffer Brothers, and it takes a few pulls on the old cord to get the engine started, you’re probably going to get away with it. Because we already trust that old lawnmower you’ve created. We’ve known it and loved it, and we know the great work it’s going to do. That it always starts up eventually.

But if you’re a normal human being who walks the earth, who wants to sell a new series pilot, get hired for a staff writing gig, get signed by an agent or manager, you’ve gotta get your series engine started from the very first page. Just like the Duffer Brothers did in the pilot of Stranger Things, Season 1.

And as anyone who has ever sold a TV pilot knows, sometimes that means writing not only the pilot, but the 2nd Episode, the 20th Episode, and even the Show Bible-- so that we can truly know what we’re building, before we return the the pilot and make sure it’s doing everything we need it to do. Not only launching the characters from page 1 into a story that will change their lives forever, but also creating a blueprint for every episode to come.

 

A lot of people think that the purpose of your pilot, (or for you feature writers, the first act of your screenplay), is to set things up for the audience, to lay in the foundations of all the stuff that is going to pay off later and establish the world.

But the truth is, you don’t have any time to set up at all.

You can’t waste pages establishing the world or establishing the character. You’ve got to jump right into the heart of the action.  Otherwise your reader is never going to make it to that great stuff you’re paying off later, because they’ll have already set down the script, or changed the channel on the TV, or switched to a new show on Netflix.

At the same time, if you’ve seen the first episode of Stranger Things, Season 2, you might be wondering what’s keeping it from feeling like we’re jumping right into the heart of the action.

What’s actually making it feel different from the experience we had watching the pilot of Stranger Things, Season 1? What’s getting in the way of getting the engine started? After all, isn’t it all building to a huge reveal at the end-- where we discover something we might never have imagined?

It’s important to understand that jumping right into the heart of the action isn’t something you do to get the story started for the audience. It is something you do to get the story started for the characters.

Every screenplay, and every teleplay, has two different levels of structure.

The first, I call Primary Structure, the story of the character’s journey, as experienced by the characters. The huge choices the characters make at each moment in relation to the things they want and the obstacles in their path. The choices that open the door to change and ultimately that change their lives forever.

Secondary Structure is the way you serve that Primary Structure to the audience-- the way the audience experiences the story of the movie at each moment-- the story they are telling themselves... now, and now, and now…

The Secondary Structure is the delivery mechanism for the Primary Structure within it. The bun around the delicious meat of your character’s journey.

If your Primary Structure is working, you can serve it up to your audience in pretty much any way you want to enhance their experience of the show. You can slice and dice it, flash it back, flash it forward, hide it away, chop it up, or toss it like a salad....

"...I got lucky. I got to work with David Fincher. He is willing to give anything to the creative process. He was willing to play with "what if". For me, it was about being of service to somebody else's story. I had to accept that the "nos" were part of the process of finding the "yes" and not taking any of it personally..." Pamela Cederquist.

MINDHUNTER: Writing For David Fincher

Interview With Staff Writer & JK Studio Student Pamela Cederquist

Live from ITVFEST

By Jacob Krueger

Jake:  Hello everybody thanks for joining us. This is an exciting event for me for a couple of different reasons. As a lot of you know, we are up here at  ITVfest in Vermont, hosting a retreat for our students, so we are doing a live version of my podcast.

This is a special episode, because I am so incredibly proud of the woman sitting to my left. Pamela Cederquist is a student of mine, she is taking pretty much every class at the studio, she is part of our ProTrack Mentorship Program. And, she just finished her first stint in a real writer’s room on one of the most exciting shows of the year, Mindhunter, the new David Fincher series for Netflix.

So first, I just think she deserves a round of applause.

These are the kind of success stories that you want to see and that you want to remember. Because, so many people wonder, “Is this really possible?”

Pamela doesn’t live in Los Angeles; she lives in Upstate New York. Pamela isn't 22 years old. Pamela is a writer who worked her ass off and made it.

And, so, I want to talk to you about what the process was for you. How did you become a part of Mindhunter?

Pamela:  Hi everybody. First of all, it is a pleasure to be here thank you for listening. I got the job by word of mouth, by knowing somebody and having worked with that person, and also having had a feature script that I had developed and that took 400 years to finish. I was able to show that script to one of David’s producers, and they read it, and I got notes back from that producer.

They liked that writing well enough that, when David was looking for another writer, they were able to say to David, “Hey check this out.”

I got a phone call and they said, “Hi, say yes to this phone call and would like you in Pittsburgh on Friday.” And I was like, “Okay, I don’t know what I am saying yes to, but I can be in Pittsburgh on Friday.”

Then they said, “Good, you are writing for David Fincher,” and I went, “Okay, yes.”

Jake:  I think one of the things that is exciting about this is that often writers get hung up on the question of selling it-- Is it this script? Do I have the right idea? Is the idea marketable?

The title of Pamela’s spec script is Pyro, and I think Pyro is a good movie for David Fincher and it is a really extraordinary script. When you sent that script out, the real hope of course was that they were going to buy it, they were going to option it, you were going to make a lot of money, it was going to get made.

And this is an example of a script that didn’t get bought, where you get a bunch of notes back, “Do this, change that,” and you don’t even know that months later you are going to get a phone call.

Can you talk to me a little bit about the process of developing that script?

Pamela:  It started with an idea about an artist whose medium is fire. I actually saw a video on YouTube that was a light piece, where somebody had a dragon that was flowing across a wall, a building. And, I went from there to fire, which I think is an amazing thing, and started writing this script.

And I had kindof come up with characters and kindof come up with the story, and I knew what the beginning was, and, I sort of knew what the end was. And I got completely lost in the middle of it, which is you know, where writers end up in hell.

And, at that point, I went to a writers’ conference in LA, my first one, and I was thinking “Okay I will go to a writers’ conference because I have never been, so I will go to writers’ conference and see what it is.” And walked into a room, and Jake was doing a pitching session, and it was one of those moments where when you meet somebody and you are like, “Oh, right person for me.”

And, that just, that happens to all of us, and sometimes it happens often, sometimes it happens rarely, but in my world, what I have learned is when that happens, you grab hold and you stay there.

It took me two years to finally be able to get in a position in my life where I could play with Jake. And, in working with you on Pyro, what we found, and what I have learned from you that was invaluable in working with Fincher, and what I learned on Pyro was theme; was taking theme and using it as your guide, like that was my roadmap.

I knew what I was writing suddenly, and we threw out characters, we created new characters, we threw out entire sequences, we added more sequences, and now all of a sudden I have car chases and foot chases and roof running and blowing shit up, all that other stuff.

And it works, it isn't gratuitous, it works and it is the right thing.

Jake:  So, talk to me a little bit about your process as a writer, because you have a very intuitive process. And you know, I think a lot of writers get hung up on the idea of where they are going.

And, one of the cool things that I saw as your writing developed was that we had all these chunks, and all these different chunks, and you would sort of discover them like, “I don’t actually know where all these chunks go,” or, “I am not exactly sure who this character is.” We had characters who switched gender, right?

Talk a little bit about that process and how you discovered that stuff.

Pamela:  Okay, so one of the things I have found is that the way I work is I have to think a lot. And, Jake at one point finally said to me, “Look, don’t go so deep, please, don’t go so deep, just write on the surface,” because otherwise I am like, “Wow maybe this person is like going to turn their hair orange, it is going to be great.”

So, it needs to be integral to me. And the biggest discipline I think I had to learn was getting out of my own way, was, stop trying to write, that for me was the most important thing.

I have done some acting, and it is the same thing in my experience as acting where if I walk onto a stage or in front of a camera and I try to act, it is going to suck.

And, if I just arrive on stage and let it flow, and trust whatever it is that is talking through me, it works and it works well. And, I have had that same experience with writing, and that is what I brought to the table with Fincher as well.

 

Jake:  So, I think this story is awesome. Sometimes we manifest things that we don’t even realize we are manifesting.

So, we got to the end of this two year process, to tell you that Pamela rewrote that script like 400 times, probably doesn’t even describe what that was. And then, she got all these notes from the producer and she rewrote the script again, which has been another good six months.

It is an incredibly long process and it is one of the things that a lot of writers don’t understand. They are wondering, “Do I have what it takes to make it? Or, is this idea good enough? Or, is this script good enough?”

And I think one of the reasons that Pamela succeeded is because of her tremendous work ethic.

And, I can tell you in my experience working with writers that I will take a writer who has got the work ethic over the writer who it flows easily for any day.

I will take the writer who maybe struggles a little bit more.

Some people just start typing words and it flows out like magic and gold. But sometimes, those people don’t actually have the experience with struggle to say, “Okay I want to do this again. It didn’t work; I am going to do it again.”

And so Pamela-- I was almost done the first draft with Pamela-- and Pamela says, “You know Jake, I have decided as my next project, I want to learn to write something on a deadline because this thing took me two years, and I grew so much as a writer, and I feel like I got enough and I need to learn to write fast.”

And, the next thing I knew, she was writing on insane deadlines on Mindhunter. She just manifested it and got out.

What was it for you, what was the difference when you are writing alone, or writing a feature versus coming into an existing show and having to write those characters?

Pamela:  Listening. I mean, I got lucky. I got to work with David Fincher, and my experience in working with David Fincher is that he is willing to give anything to the creative process.

He was available 24/7, his schedule was insane and I never took him up on it, but in my conversations with him, he was like, “Call any time, if you have any question, call.”

And he was willing to play with, “what if?” “Yes, here is my outline, yes here is what I have been told, but I would like to play with this a little bit, I am not sure with the character, I think we could do more with the character, I think the character---what do you think?”

“Yeah, yeah go ahead, write it, write it long, if you give me 200 pages for 60 pages, I am fine with that, let me see it, and let me participate in playing with it.” So, I got the best-- I mean you can’t get better.

I got lucky, I got to work with somebody who was interested in participating-- or maybe I didn’t get lucky, maybe that is true about a lot of people, we just don’t get a chance to help them get there.

But, it was about being of service to somebody else’s story. That is what I was there for. I was there to support him in telling the story he wanted. Which meant not only doing what he asked for, but listening and trying to find those pieces that he was maybe implying or wasn’t quite 100% clear about yet. And giving him the stuff to look at so that he could go, “Yes, no, no this doesn’t work, yes this works.”

And that-- accepting that the no’s were going to be part of the process of finding what was yes, and not taking it personally. Because it is his project.

Jake:  How do you step into a character that you didn’t create?

Pamela:  Oh yeah, yeah. Finding what is true for me. So, Mindhunter, came out today, so I can talk about it--and there are some things I won’t be able to talk about or answer b

Mother!: Intellect vs. Intution as Screenwriting Tools

By Jacob Krueger

Before we get started with this week’s podcast, I want to take a moment to remind you that you still have a few days left to register for our Annual TV Writing Retreat, October 11-15 in Manchester Vermont. This is our biggest event of the year. We bring our entire faculty-- including Jerry Perzigian, former showrunner of Married With Children, The Golden Girls and The Jeffersons, our award-winning TV Drama teacher Steve Molton, me, and of course the rest of our award-winning teachers--and we all head up to ITVfest, the second largest TV festival in the world. You get world-class TV writing workshops all morning, a VIP Content Creator pass that gets you into all the screenings, parties and events in the afternoon and evening, and a special one-on-one pitch consultation with one of our incredible teachers, so you can develop your show, get out there and pitch your heart out to everyone you meet. Plus, we team with the festival to get you hours of exclusive access to the producers, managers, and agents in attendance at our exclusive Secret Producer Pitch Party! It’s the best event of the year for TV writers, so I hope you can join us. You can find out more at our website: writeyourscreenplay.com/vermont. Hope to see you there!

 

This week we are going to be talking about Darren Aronofsky’s new film, mother!

mother! is probably one of the most frustrating movies of the year.

It is frustrating because of its ambition. It is a movie that shoots so big, and attempts to do so much-- filmically, thematically, visually, structurally, societally, politically, psychologically-- that you desperately want to love it.

It’s a movie with a first half that’s nearly perfect (at least for those of us open to magical realism in films)-- an ending that should move you to tears…

But it suffers from a sequence about ⅔ of the way through that makes you want to scream. And not for the right reasons.

It’s a movie that, despite its profound message, is having a hard time connecting with the emotions of its audience-- that often elicits unwanted groans and laughs at what should be it’s most haunting and disturbing moments-- rather than the emotional and political response it’s shooting for.

 

I would like to suggest that what’s brilliant and what’s problematic in mother! both come from the same source, and can actually be boiled down to three really simple concepts.

So, I would like to walk you through mother! today.

I would like to walk you through what is brilliant about the film, and I would like to walk you through where the film stumbles.

That way, if you are ever working on a screenplay whether it is an experimental movie that is breaking the mold like mother! or something much more traditional-- if these really common problems were to happen to you, then you can anticipate them and be aware of them and address them in an early draft, rather than try to explain them in interviews after the film is out.

Now, I want to say that none of the issues I am going to raise with mother! have anything to do with the surrealism of the film. There are a lot of people who don’t like mother! because of what it is trying to do; there are a lot of people who don’t like mother! because it isn't living in the world of naturalism. They don’t like mother! because it isn't telling a traditional story.

And if that is you, then it is important to understand that this is a taste issue, rather than an execution issue. And pretty much any film that gets made--if your film is good enough to deserve to get made--the truth is you are going to piss some people off. There are going to be some people who hate your film.

And there are some people who hate mother! And then there are some people who love mother! despite its pretty obvious flaws.

So what I want to do first is to separate the taste issue out. Separate the genre issue out.

And I am going to encourage you to do that with your own scripts as well.

When you get feedback that is about taste, that is about genre-- when you get feedback that isn't in keeping with the intention of your script-- you have to recognize that that feedback isn't really for you-- that isn't your audience that you are speaking to.

mother! is a $30 million dollar movie with huge star power in it, so this isn't a $200 million dollar epic that has to appeal to everybody.

Rather, mother! is a movie that has to deliver for its very specific audience-- the people who connect to the world in the way that Darren Aronofsky sees it.

In some ways, it succeeds in that tremendously. And in other ways it falls short.  And the same is true with your writing.

In order to find that producer, that director, that executive-- in order to get a star like Jennifer Lawrence (at first, Aronofsky actually thought was a mistake to even go down and meet with her because he thought there was no way she was going to get attached to this tiny little movie)-- in order to attract those kinds of stars, you have to write the movie that only you could write.

And sometimes that means that you are going to alienate some people.

In order to write the movie that is going to get somebody passionate about your work, get a producer passionate enough to back a new writer, get your dentist friend passionate enough to write a check to you for ten grand for your independent film, you are going to have to write a movie that pisses some people off.

And the fact that it pisses some people off means that there is enough to it that the person who is moved by it is going to be deeply moved, passionately moved.

They aren't going to say, “Oh this is a perfectly decent, good movie,” they are going to say, “Yes, this is a movie that I need to see on the screen.”

At the same time, you’ve got to make it work. And the truth is Darren Aronofsky comes very close to making it work in mother! But he doesn’t totally make it work.

And he doesn’t totally make it work for reasons that were actually very avoidable.

So, first I want to walk you through the concept of what Aronofsky is trying to build. And then I want to talk you through my experience of what he’s actually built.

If you haven't seen the film yet I am going to warn you that there is no way to do this for real-- there is no way to do this in a helpful way-- without spoilers. So, if you haven't seen the movie and you don’t want anything spoiled for you, you may want to watch the movie and then come back to this podcast.

Here’s what mother! is really about.

Darren Aronofsky is a huge environmentalist. That is a really big deal for him. And he feels a lot of rage about Climate Change; he feels a lot of rage about the way that people don’t care for the earth.

He feels a lot of rage that we are basically destroying our own planet through our narcissism and our self-involvement.

And he is very aware of the myriad causes and hypocrisies that make this possible-- the bizarre scenario by which deeply spiritual and religious people whose beliefs are based in the idea of caring for the earth and for one another, have somehow become allied with a political party of climate change deniers that seem bent on their own destruction.  

The rare confluence of our media and our art and our religion-- our desires and our egos-- separating us from our home, and destroying the very home and the very peace that we want to live in.

And that is a really emotional place to start a film.

So this is a lesson you can start with for yourself, even if you aren't doing experimental films-- start your movie with something that matters to you.

If you start your movie with something that matters to you, you are going to end up writing something that also matters to your audience.

So, here is the conception of the film according to Darren Aronofsky.

Darren Aronofsky gets pissed off about Climate Change, so he decides to write a movie about it.

He comes up with this idea that the Jennifer Lawrence character is going to be Gaia. She is going to be Mother Earth. And the Javier Bardem character is going to be God.

And he’s going to do a relationship piece about God and Mother Earth trying to live with each other.

All Mother Earth wants to do is rebuild and renew God’s broken home, and help him to be the creator he was meant to be.

Except that God’s got this really self destructive streak in him.

He’s a blocked artist. And when he finally does create, instead of building a beautiful life with Mother Earth, he keeps on populating the earth with assholes, inviting them into the beautiful home Mother Earth has worked so hard to build and rebuild, because of his desperate need to be worshipped and adored.

So this is an intellectual conception, but you can see that already it is growing out of something that is real for Aronofsky, his rage about the earth.

And the central question that Aronofsky is asking is this: What does it feel like to be Mother Nature?

What does it feel like to be powerless?  To defend yourself against human greed and narcissism and self-involvement and violence against you? To give and give and give to people (and to a God) who only seem to take.

He was inspired by the mythology of Gaia, he was inspired by the Bible, he was also inspired by a book called The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, which was about a tree that gives and gives and gives and gives and gives to a little boy. And if you’ve seen the film you can see how Jennifer Lawrence is The Giving Tree.

So that’s the conception. Mother Earth and God are living together in this beautiful octagonal house.

He became obsessed with the octagonal house not only because it looks really beautiful when you shoot it, but also because the number eight is a number that in the Bible is associated with resurrection.

So, here is Mother Earth, the symbol of life and renewal,...

Anything I am working on, that is really the first question I ask myself: “What is the point of the story? What is this about?”

If I don’t have the answer to that, I almost am incapable of writing it...for me, I always have to really justify-- What is the point of the story? What are you going to get out of watching the story? I need it to be emotionally true, and then I will believe anything. As long as I believe that what the characters are feeling in the scenes feels right, then actually anything can happen!