Write Your Screenplay Podcast

How do you write a script? You don't write a script by applying a bunch of principles. You write a script by looking inside and finding the piece of you that you're not inviting to the table.

Find out more about Jacob Krueger Studio:

WRITER RESOURCES: www.writeyourscreenplay.com/blog

WORKSHOPS & SEMINARS: writeyourscreenplay.com/classes

[spb_text_block pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"]

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD & The Engine of Structure

By Jacob Krueger

[/spb_text_block] [divider type="thin" text="Go to top" full_width="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [blank_spacer height="30px" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [spb_text_block title="TRANSCRIPTION" pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"]

Hello! I'm Jacob Krueger and welcome to the Write Your Screenplay podcast. As you know, in this podcast, rather than looking at movies in terms of two thumbs, up two thumbs down, loved it, hated it, we try to look at movies in terms of what we can learn from them, as screenwriters. We look at good movies and we look at bad movies and everything in between.

This week, we're going to be looking at one of the most critically acclaimed action movies in recent history: Mad Max: Fury Road.

Now, forget for a minute whether you love action movies or you hate action movies. Forget whether ultra-violent movies make you happy or they make you want to run for the hills because I want to talk about Mad Max: Fury Road in terms of the things that we can all learn from it, as screenwriters, regardless of the genre that we are writing in and regardless of the challenges that we’re having in our writing.

So, the first thing that you should notice when you're watching Mad Max: Fury Road is that it ain't about the plot. The actual plot of Mad Max: Fury Road is ridiculously simple: they drive out into the desert in search of the green place and then they drive back in the other direction. Literally. The only thing that really happens in this movie is that Mad Max and Furiosa head in one direction and then head back home.

Along the way, as they are trying to get to their own personal Valhalla - that green place that they dream of; that place in the desert that they're navigating toward - they are attacked by the most horrific figments of director George Miller's imagination. Every path has a road block or an obstacle worse than the one that they imagined before. And this simple trick of structure is a trick that you can use, regardless of what kind of movie you're building.

Oftentimes, as writers, we get obsessed with plot. We start to think that our movies are about the things that happen, but the truth is that plot is interchangeable. Who really cares if you're in a desert or driving through the mountains or navigating a salt flat or a bog? Structure is not about plot. Plot is just the things that happen to happen to your character. Structure is about choices. And it's not just about any choice. It's about choices driven by the primal needs of your characters. It's about choices that matter. It's about choices that your characters pursue against tremendous obstacles - obstacles that seem too big to be navigated. Obstacles, in fact, that are so big that they force your characters to change who they are in relation to them. They force your character to change their relationship to the world in relation to them.

The reason that Mad Max: Fury Road works is not because of it's plot. It works because of its structure. And that structure begins with the primal needs driving its main characters. Interestingly, Furiosa really is the main character in Mad Max. She is the character who drives the story. At the center of Furiosa's drive or struggle in this movie is a desperate need to hope. A desperate need to believe in a better place. And desperate need to build that better place, not only for herself, but for the five concubines/wives of the evil, tyrannical, cultish dictator by whom she was taken captive. She is driven by a primal need to find that green place that was taken away from her when she was a child. That green place in the desert - that personal symbol of hope.

Forget whether ultra-violent action movies make you happy or make you want to run for the hills because we're going to talk about Mad Max: Fury Road in terms of the things that we can all learn from it, as screenwriters, regardless of the genre that we are writing in and regardless of the challenges that we're having in our writing.

Find out more about Jacob Krueger Studio:

WRITER RESOURCES: www.writeyourscreenplay.com/blog

WORKSHOPS & SEMINARS: writeyourscreenplay.com/classes

[spb_text_block pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"]

The LEGO Movie & The Dance of Creativity 

By Jacob Krueger

[/spb_text_block] [divider type="thin" text="Go to top" full_width="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [blank_spacer height="30px" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [spb_text_block title="PODCAST EXCERPT" pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"]

There are two right ways to build with Legos and there are also two right ways to build a film. There's the purely organic way, where you just follow all of your instincts. And then there's also the other way, where you sit down with a producer, manager, agent, writing partner, or director and you ask them, "what do you need?" And you find a way to deliver what they need.

There are many different ways to build a movie. But we all eventually end up at the second way simply because all of us are eventually going to find ourselves in a notes meeting with a producer who needs something from us. And we're going to need to take their notes and integrate them without destroying our script.

In order to do all this, there's a dance that we need to learn, as screenwriters. It's a dance between our wild creativity and the part of ourselves that wants to glue the darn Lego pieces together and make sure they don't come apart. But, in order to create the movies and stories that we really want to tell, we have to be willing to break them.

 

 

[/spb_text_block]

There are two right ways to build with Legos and there are also two right ways to build a film. There's the purely organic way, where you just follow all of your instincts. And then there's also the other way, where you sit down with a producer, manager, agent, writing partner, or director and you ask them, "what do you need?" And you find a way to deliver what they need.

In this podcast, Jacob Krueger talks about The LEGO Movie as a metaphor for what it really means to be a writer.

[spb_text_block pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"]

Furious 7: Feeding The Genre Monster

By Jacob Krueger

[/spb_text_block] [divider type="thin" text="Go to top" full_width="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [blank_spacer height="30px" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [spb_text_block title=" TRANSCRIPT" pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"]

Hello I’m Jacob Krueger and this is the Write Your Screenplay Podcast. As you know, on this podcast, rather than looking at movies in terms of two thumbs up or two thumbs down, we look at movies and we look at screenplays in terms of what we can learn from them as screenwriters. We look at good movies and we look at bad movies, we look at movies that we loved and movies that we hated.

Today we are going to be talking about the genre of movies that I affectionately like to call “The Big Dumb Action Movie,” with the latest installment of The Fast and the Furious franchise, Furious 7.

And, hopefully, we’re going to be looking at Furious 7 in a way that's valuable not only if you’re a big action movie writer, but also if you are a writer in any other genre: if you are writing a thriller, if you are writing a comedy, if you are writing a drama, if you are writing an independent film or even if you are writing an art film.

In an odd way, “big dumb action movies” and super experimental art films actually have a lot in common. That’s because they both exist in a world of expressionism.

Oftentimes, when young writers sit down to write a movie, they think that most movies take place in the world of realism. But this is simply not true.

There are very, very few movies that take place in the world of realism.

Most movies actually don’t take place in the world of realism. They take place in a world of naturalism, which is a slightly heightened version of reality.

In naturalism, we never order our meal, the waiter just knows what we want. We never pay for our order. The cashier always seem to have the exact change.

In realism, your friend says something really funny, and three hours later, on the ride home, you think of the perfect response. In naturalism, your friend says the funniest thing ever, and you immediately respond with the funniest possible answer and then your friend responds with an answer that tops that.

In realism, we make the same mistake again and again and again until finally one day we turn around and say, “you know what? I think I want to do this differently.” In naturalism, we go to the worst possible version of that mistake in the very first scene, and start changing immediately in profound ways.

Naturalism is a lot like realism but it’s slightly heightened so that your movie can happen faster, your character can change faster and, most importantly, so that your movie can be more compelling or interesting for your audience.

You know those conversations that you have with your girlfriend, boyfriend, husband or wife that take place in realism? When you go around in the same repetitive circle for 6 hours, until neither of you can even remember what you were arguing about. Imagine if you captured that in a movie exactly the way it happened, how boring and redundant it would be to watch. You don’t even want to be in that scene when you’re living it!

So, one of the reasons why we move to naturalism is because naturalism helps us distill those real emotions (those real moments, those real journeys that we really go through in our real life) down to their essence, down to that one line that made you cry or made you smile, rather than the ten lines that surrounded it. Naturalism helps us distill it all down to that one action, which can really reveal who you are as a characte...

Today we are going to be talking about the genre of movies that I affectionately like to call “The Big Dumb Action Movie,” with the latest installment of THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS franchise, FURIOUS 7.

Find out more about Jacob Krueger Studio:

WRITER RESOURCES: www.writeyourscreenplay.com/blog

WORKSHOPS & SEMINARS: writeyourscreenplay.com/classes

[spb_text_block pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"]

Birdman: Writing A Screenplay Is Like Writing a Poem

By Jacob Krueger

[/spb_text_block] [divider type="thin" text="Go to top" full_width="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [blank_spacer height="30px" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [spb_text_block title=" TRANSCRIPT" pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"]

There is a saying in poetry that form should equal function. Meaning that the form your poem takes should reflect the effect that that poem is intended to create in the audience. And writing a screenplay is a lot like writing a poem.

In writing a screenplay, every line matters in the same way that every line matters when you are writing a poem. Every single word can not only affect the experience of reading or watching a movie, but every single word can also affect your budget when it comes time to shoot your movie. So, as screenwriters we need to be as exacting with our words as a poet.

Screenwriting is also like poetry in that we are working within a form - an existing form. And we are finding our creativity inside of a form, or inside of a structure, just like a poet finds the form inside of a sonnet or a villanelle.

Screenwriting is like poetry because screenwriting is a field in which form equals function.

It’s a field in which the ways that we follow the rules or the ways that we break the rules need to grow organically out of the thing that the screenplay is intending to accomplish, the feeling it is intending to create, the story it is intending to tell.

This is the big difference between the approach of Birdman and that of other movies that attempted to break the rules with less success. For example, the last movie that tried to tell a whole story in one continuous shot was a film called Russian Ark. And the result, though technically extraordinary, was about as exciting as watching paint dry. The screenwriter of that script began with a gimmick and then figured out a story that they could tell within that gimmick, just like many aspiring screenwriters begin with a gimmick or a formulaic structure - something that they read in a book or stole from another movie - and then try to force the story that they are telling into that form.

And what I’d like to suggest to you is that whether you are following the rules or breaking them (later I’ll discuss how Birdman does a little bit of both), the places that you follow and the places that you break from the rules should, in fact, grow organically out of the function of your storytelling or out of the intention of your storytelling. In other words, instead of allowing the rules to define you or the rules to define your story, you can allow your story to define the rules it needs to tell itself.

Just like a poet, you can allow your story to reveal itself to you. And in the process of revealing itself to you, you can allow your story to teach you the rules you’re going to need in order to bring that story to the page and to the screen in the most powerful way possible.

Birdman did not begin with some fancy pants director saying, “let’s figure out a cool gimmick that nobody has ever done before.” Birdman began with an observation by writer-director Alejandro González Iñárritu. His observation was that life doesn’t happen in cuts. Life doesn’t feel like cuts.

Instead, he wanted to make a movie that felt more like life. He wanted to make a movie that felt more like one thing flowing into the next, flowing into the next, flowing into the next.... He wanted to make a movie that felt cyclical, that felt like it didn’t have clear borders because our lives and our memories don’t have clear borders.

The rule-breaking of Birdman did not originate with an artist’s desire t...

BIRDMAN did not begin with a high-profile director saying, “let’s figure out a cool gimmick that nobody has ever done before.” BIRDMAN began with an observation by writer-director Alejandro González Iñárritu. His observation was that life doesn’t happen in cuts. Life doesn’t feel like cuts.

Instead, he wanted to make a movie that felt more like life. He wanted to make a movie that felt cyclical, that felt like it didn’t have clear borders because our lives and our memories don’t have clear borders.

In this podcast, Jacob Krueger will discuss how Iñárritu's choice to simultaneously break and follow cinematic "rules" epitomized the poetic potential of filmmaking.

Find out more about Jacob Krueger Studio:

WRITER RESOURCES: www.writeyourscreenplay.com/blog

WORKSHOPS & SEMINARS: writeyourscreenplay.com/classes

[spb_text_block pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"]

50 Shades of Grey: Could It Have Been a Great Script?

By Jacob Krueger

[/spb_text_block] [divider type="thin" text="Go to top" full_width="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [blank_spacer height="30px" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [spb_text_block title=" TRANSCRIPT" pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"]

Sometimes, even a flawed script can give you tremendous insights as a writer, not only as to what makes a screenplay succeed or fail, but also about the strengths and weaknesses of your own writing.

So, as we talk about 50 Shades of Grey, we're going to be setting aside the question of whether or not it is a good movie, whether or not you enjoyed 50 Shades of Grey or found it sexy, or even if you thought it was a reliable adaptation.

Instead, I want to look at 50 Shades of Grey and think about what could have made it a great script. And how those lessons can apply to your own writing.

Let's start off by talking about the things that work in 50 Shades of Grey.

From my perspective, one of the things that works is Christian Grey's very clear and strong desire. You probably noticed when watching 50 Shades of Grey (or when reading the script) that Christian, from the very beginning, pushes things a little too far. "If you were mine you wouldn't sit down for a week," is one of the early things he says to Anastasia. He has these combative and shocking lines that act as strong statements of who he is from the moment he appears.

Whether or not you consider these lines to be good or bad or a little overwrought or a little cheesy – I know when I was in the theater, there were certainly a couple of laughs during times when the movie wasn't consciously trying to be funny - the concept of allowing a character to introduce themselves to the audience from their purest point of view is a powerful one that can often transcend even the most problematic elements of your script.

Allow your character to come out and make a statement about their view of the world from the very beginning.  And you'll see how much easier everything else becomes.

One of the first things Christian says to Anastasia is "people have said that I have no heart." She asks him why, and he says "because they know me well."

These may not be the best executed lines of dialogue, but these are concepts that we can take with us. This is a man with a very clear, strong desire. His desire is to get Anastasia Steele into his BDSM room. That is his dream, that is his desire, and every single thing he does is an attempt to get it.

And to the degree that 50 Shades of Grey works, it works because of Christian Grey's very clear desire.

But with a little more craft, 50 Shades of Grey could have been a script that did more than just survive its weaknesses. It could have been a great script.

Want to learn how?  Listen to the podcast.

Want to learn how to strengthen the craft in your own script? Check out our Craft Intensive!

[/spb_text_block]