Write Your Screenplay Podcast

Transparent: The Series and the Craft by Jacob Krueger Studio

Doctor Strange - Feeding The Genre Monster by Jacob Krueger Studio

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Dr. Strange: Feeding the Genre Monster

By Jacob Krueger

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This week we're going to be looking at Doctor Strange. And one thing that is inarguable, whether you loved Doctor Strange or hated Doctor Strange, is that this film is succeeding in a huge way not just at the box office but also critically.

This is pretty amazing when you consider all the incredibly silly things about Doctor Strange!

After all, this is a movie in which the country of Nepal seems to be populated almost entirely with American action heroes, and as far as we can tell only one Tibetan of consequence.

This is a movie whose primary imagery is really just regurgitated Inception.

This is a movie whose main character is essentially just a recycled version of Tony Stark.

This is a movie whose antagonist’s spiritual fall was torn right out of the Obi-Wan Kenobe / Darth Vadar playbook, and whose Dark Dimension is just the dark side of the force all over again.

This is a movie with an extraordinary amount of exposition, which, despite the the sheer volume of the information, still often fails to play by its own rules, or to clearly establish the rules of its universe.

And, despite the film’s extensive very trippy sequences and spiritual components, this is a movie that seems to have very little actual spirituality woven into its structure.

And this is also a movie that’s a hell of a lot of fun to watch.

Which could make you wonder: What is making this movie so successful? What is making this movie so enjoyable for critics and audiences alike?

There’s a thing that happens to us as screenwriters; oftentimes we feel like we have to do everything right.

Whether we’re working on a big Hollywood action movie blockbuster like Doctor Strange, or the tiniest character driven film, we often feel like we have to do all these different things right. And every time we try to fix one thread of the very complex tapestry we’re working on, it’s like another thread changes. It feels like every time we make a choice, we screw up another choice. We make something more exciting and it becomes less believable. We make something more clear and it becomes less exciting.

These are the constant choices we’re making as screenwriters, and although we all strive for that perfect place, the truth is that very few of us ever reach it. And even when we do reach it, there are many brilliant versions that we end up losing along the way.

So the real question is: how you know when your movie is working?

As writers, when you get really deep into the development of your screenplay-- as these writers certainly did; Doctor Strange was was in development for decades-- when you get really deep into the development of your screenplay, you often reach a point where you're only seeing the things that don't work and you stop seeing the things that do.

 

So learning how to write a successful screenplay is not actually just about learning how to write a good screenplay, it's learning how to know what compromises you can make and what compromises you cannot. Which imperfections your audience will accept, which imperfections are going to pull them out of the story.

In many ways, the success or failure of your movie all boils down to one really simple concept: Feeding The Genre Monster.

There’s a little monster that exists in your audience. And that monster is hungry. It comes to the movies, to the television, or to digital media because it craves a certain feeling.

If you deliver that feeling, and deliver it consistently,

This week, Jake breaks down the latest seasonal thriller movie, Don't Breathe

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Hell or High Water: More Than Just a Heist Movie

By Jacob Krueger

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This week we're going to be talking about Hell or High Water.

One of the things that's really cool about Hell or High Water, and one of the things that's really cool about this script by Taylor Sheridan is the way it uses a twist on an old genre to deliver a movie that far exceeds our expectations of the genre.

Hell or High Water isn't just a cops-and-robbers-heist-movie, even though it falls into that genre. Hell or High Water is actually a pretty powerful political film.

I want to take a moment to talk about how you write a political film. Because, oftentimes, when we sit down to write a political film, we end up standing up on a soap box and screaming our opinions. We end up making the movie about the opinions, rather than about the story.

When we do this, although we will get a lot of approbation from people who feel the way we do, it's very hard to move the needle on people who feel differently.

It's just like the experience you have on Facebook when your friends de-friend you and you de-friend your friends once you find out their horrific political beliefs. Although this feels good at first, what it really ends up doing is limiting our discourse; it ends up taking away the discussion that actually allows people to change their opinions.

Of course, this is part of why we write movies, right? We write movies because we want to help people change. We want to help people see the world in a different way. Part of doing that means bringing them along for the ride, structuring our films in a way that our political message isn't on the surface, but underneath.

If you've listened to my podcast on Captain America or many of these other action movies, you know how I feel about those movies. The potential that they have (which they all too often shy away from) to change the way people see things.

It’s funny, because when I was a young writer, I was way too snobby to write action movies. I wanted to do the “important” socio-political stuff. And I think now, if I were to return to Hollywood, I would probably be very interested in writing action movies. As I've gotten older, I've realized that action movies may actually be the most powerful political weapon we have, because everybody sees them. When you hide your message inside those two spoonfuls of sugar, you end up with a really powerful product that can sway the beliefs of millions or even hundreds of millions of people.

What we're seeing today in Hell or High Water is really cool, because we're seeing an example of a political film, made on a small budget, that uses the genre engine of a traditional cops and robbers structure, to bury that political message inside the product that they already know they want. I like to think of this as "feeding the genre monster” of the audience-- understanding the need that is driving them to buy the ticket, and then delivering even more than they expected.

You can think of the political part, what the movie’s really about, as the ingredients. And the experience of the movie, the part the audience is shopping for, as the container.

Just like you don’t need to understand every ingredient that goes into making your favorite product, your audience doesn’t need to understand every ingredient that went into creating your film. They just need to understand what the container is promising, and feel, after sampling the product, that you delivered what you promised.

Do that, and you can get away with anything.

So, this is the first question to ask yourself if you're writing a politic...

This week, Jake analyzes how Hell or High Water breaks the typical cops-and-robbers movie mold.

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A TRIP TO CAMBODIA, 7 ACT STRUCTURE & THE ART OF THE OUTLINE

By Jacob Krueger

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This week, we’re going to take a break from analyzing other people’s movies, to talk about 7 Act Structure and Screenplay outlining in a different way, by adapting a trip I took to Cambodia many years ago into the structure of a not yet written film, in order to demonstrate an organic approach to structure.

What we're trying to do, when we’re thinking about structure, is not trying to "solve the script." Because whatever we come up with anytime we start thinking about structure is always wrong.

Every path that we think we’re going to take through the forest is always wrong.

If we were planning a trip to Cambodia, Probably we've never been to Cambodia before. And that means we are probably going to do some planning.

There are different people who are going to travel in different ways.

If it's me, I might just show up, because I love just showing up, and that’s the way I move through the world. I am going to show up in Cambodia; I am going to book my first night in a hotel; I'm going to go to a bar. I am going to talk to somebody at the bar. I am going to find out what's cool to do in whatever city I happen to be in, and the next day that's what I'm going to do, and if I like the people from the bar, I'm going to hang out with them, and if I don't, I'm going to do it alone and then I'm going to go to a bus stop, because that's where you meet people, and I'm going to meet somebody at the bus stop.

You want to meet people in a foreign country? Go to the bus stop, look for someone with a map; that person's a tourist.

 

Structure begins with our goal. Without a goal you can't have structure. Your goal might be wrong. But that’s okay. I still need that goal. I might think I am going to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat. It turns out I am going to meet the love of my life. Had no idea, right?

So now I think I am going to Cambodia to meet the love of my life. We spend one day together, hate each other; it turns out I am going to Cambodia to escape.

So oftentimes our goal is wrong, but if we don't know what our goal is, it's impossible to know if we are on the right trip. It's impossible to know if we're making a decision about our trip. And without those decisions, it's impossible to track our structure.

So what we're really looking for is simply goals and decisions. The first goal that we care about is what is our goal for the script?

What are we trying to do? What are we trying to say? What do we want it to be?

We're probably wrong. It doesn't matter. We're probably wrong but it's nice to know where we are and what we think we want, so that if we deviate from it, we're deviating consciously and we're finding structure in our own lives.

We're saying “you know what, I thought I wanted to write a movie about this; instead I want to write a movie about that.”

At the same time, without a goal for ourselves, it is impossible to know how to focus our writing. So we need a goal, even if it’s wrong, for both ourselves and for our characters.

When I'm working with beginners, or when I am working with struggling professionals, I always set the goal the same way to help them find their voice and connect to their character. Because the only reason the professionals are struggling is because their writing is disconnected, and the only reason that the beginners are struggling is because their writing is disconnected

If you're not connected to your voice, nothing else matters.

That's why I always set the goal for beginners: to connect to your voice.

This week, Jake takes a break from film analysis in order to share a lecture from his Screenwriting Masterclass.

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SULLY - Does Your Movie Need An Antagonist?

By Jacob Krueger

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PLEASE NOTE:

I recently had a very interesting conversation with Todd Komarnicki, who turns out to be as lovely a person as he is a writer. We talked about the true story behind Sully, and I want to take a moment to clarify that more was at work behind the scenes than the public knows, and that pressure was brought to bear by forces more interested in corporate financial interests than in human heroics. So in the spirit of running toward the truth, I wanted to make it clear that many of the events depicted in the movie may be more true than has been reported in articles used to research this podcast. Please take both sides into account as you listen, and as you learn from Sully. And thanks to Todd for reaching out to me so graciously and clarifying.

This week we are going to be talking about Sully, the new Tom Hanks movie with a script by Todd Komarnicki.

An interesting story about Todd Komarnicki: he doesn’t know this, but, it was actually Todd Komarnicki who introduced me to screenwriting, because it was Todd Komarnicki’s script, My Achilles Heart, that was the very first script that I ever read.

I read the script when I was an intern at a pretty major production company, back when I was still in college. It was the first script I ever read, and it was never made, but I was so deeply moved by the script that I did the one thing that no coverage reader should ever do. I wrote “recommend” on my coverage for the very first script that I ever read.

And I will never forget, because I was called into the office of the Executive, and mind you, it was my first day of my internship. I had never read a screenplay. I didn’t know what I was doing. Somebody had given me a piece of coverage and said, “Hey, read the script and do this.” And I read the script, and was deeply moved by it, and wrote “Recommend”.

So this guy calls me into his office, this Executive, and he says, “This is your name. You are Jacob Krueger.” I said, “Yes.” He said, “You read the script. You wrote the coverage.”  I said, “Yes.” Then he said, “And you wrote ‘Recommend’ on this.” I said, “Yes. Wasn’t it great?” He said, “Yeah... I just read this script. Because when you write “Recommend” it means I have to read it. If you ever do this again, you are fired.”

And I remember my shock, because I thought that I had discovered the diamond in the rough and apparently this Executive did not agree. But I actually still have a copy of My Achilles Heart. When I left my internship, I actually took the script with me. Even when I moved to New York, I carried that script with me.

I don’t know if Todd Komarnicki will ever hear this Podcast, but I want you to know that your script deeply moved me, and in a way introduced me to screenwriting.

I also want to tell the story because I want to talk a little bit about the experience that we, as screenwriters, have with coverage readers. Now it turns out that I actually do have pretty good taste in scripts, and I actually did have pretty good instincts with scripts, and probably somebody should make My Achilles Heart. If you are a producer and you are listening to this podcast, call Todd Komarnicki’s agent and try to get a copy of My Achilles Heart.

Or maybe you shouldn’t. Because last time I read that script, I was a 19 year old wide-eyed intern! I had no business writing coverage on script at that point in my career! I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t even understand the needs of the producer I was reading for. I was working for a big budget production company,

This week, Jake analyzes the title character (Sully) in the new film starring Tom Hanks and directed by Clint Eastwood.