The World Needs You

I had been out of film school for five years, was juggling a day job and a handful of side projects when I came across Charlie Kaufman's BAFTA lecture on screenwriting. It was like I'd been punched in the gut. At that moment, all the stress and agony about hustling up money and fame and a career completely fell away. And what was left was the humble reminder of what writing, creativity, and art should all be about. I made this video as a way to capture and share that feeling, that insight. The section of the lecture included in this video was my favorite passage. But Charlie Kaufman's lecture was full of wisdom. Please check it out.  ~Warren Berkey

Making use of story fragments

If you're like me, you have a bunch of partial scripts lying around, things that started out as a good idea, but eventually went nowhere. I started thinking about some of mine after I read the following quote from the 2011 BAFTA Screenwriters' Lecture by Charlie Kaufman.

I wrote Being John Malkovich while I was waiting for [the next sitcom] hiring season. My idea was that I would write a script and use it to get work. I had this idea that someone finds a portal into someone's head, and I had another idea that somebody has a story about someone having an affair with a co-worker. And neither one was going anywhere, so I just decided to combine them.           — Charlie Kaufman

And that reminded me of a quote by Shane Black from Tales from the Script, a collection of interviews with fifty Hollywood screenwriters, about how he approaches writing a screenplay.

I play Tetris obsessively with scripts, and realise that I still have nothing resembling a finished draft, because I’m still stuffing ideas in and hoping that these three things will come together to form one hybrid. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang started as a romantic comedy. Then it was a straight comedy. Then I added the detective character, and it became this dark thriller. Then I went back in time to the forties and tried to get some of these old-time detective pulp novels involved, and say everything I had to say about that. By the end it’s sort of this mishmash. It’s a pulp-style, homage, fairy-tale, retro, film-noir, comedy, “kids in the big city,” Capra-esque murder tragedy. You know, it’s everything stuffed together. For some reason, that one worked—but you can play that game forever and never get anything done.  — Shane Black

If your script isn't going well, maybe think about mashing it up with another idea.  

First posted:  15 October 2011

You're not interesting enough...

On September 30, Charlie Kaufman – Being John Malkovich,  Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Synecdoche, New York – was one of the speakers at the 2011 BAFTA Screenwriters' Lecture Series. His comments have been reported in a number of places, including The Guardian.

One of the many quotable lines from the session addresses a fear which afflicts some aspiring screenwriters: You're not interesting enough to be writing movies.

My first writing job was on a TV show called Get a Life. The show was mostly in the voice of its creators, Chris Elliott and Adam Resnick, who'd worked on the David Letterman Show. Adam's scripts were the best thing about Get a Life – and we all tried to write in Adam's voice. That was the job. 

I was frustrated with the results, but it occurred to me that there was no solution as long as my job was trying to imitate someone else's voice. The obvious solution was to find a situation where I was doing me, not someone else. The major obstacle to this is your deeply seated belief that "you" is not interesting.      –– Charlie Kaufman

If Charlie Kaufman wrestled with the fear of being uninteresting, there's hope for the rest of us. 

First posted:  8 October 2011

Making use of story fragments

If you're like me, you have a bunch of partial scripts lying around, things that started out as a good idea, but eventually went nowhere. I started thinking about some of mine after I read the following quote from the 2011 BAFTA Screenwriters' Lecture by Charlie Kaufman.

I wrote Being John Malkovich while I was waiting for [the next sitcom] hiring season. My idea was that I would write a script and use it to get work. I had this idea that someone finds a portal into someone's head, and I had another idea that somebody has a story about someone having an affair with a co-worker. And neither one was going anywhere, so I just decided to combine them.           — Charlie Kaufman

And that reminded me of a quote by Shane Black from Tales from the Script, a collection of interviews with fifty Hollywood screenwriters, about how he approaches writing a screenplay.

I play Tetris obsessively with scripts, and realise that I still have nothing resembling a finished draft, because I’m still stuffing ideas in and hoping that these three things will come together to form one hybrid. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang started as a romantic comedy. Then it was a straight comedy. Then I added the detective character, and it became this dark thriller. Then I went back in time to the forties and tried to get some of these old-time detective pulp novels involved, and say everything I had to say about that. By the end it’s sort of this mishmash. It’s a pulp-style, homage, fairy-tale, retro, film-noir, comedy, “kids in the big city,” Capra-esque murder tragedy. You know, it’s everything stuffed together. For some reason, that one worked—but you can play that game forever and never get anything done.  — Shane Black

If your script isn't going well, maybe think about mashing it up with another idea.  

You're not interesting enough...

On September 30, Charlie Kaufman – Being John Malkovich,  Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Synecdoche, New York – was one of the speakers at the 2011 BAFTA Screenwriters' Lecture Series. His comments have been reported in a number of places, including The Guardian.

One of the many quotable lines from the session addresses a fear which afflicts some aspiring screenwriters: You're not interesting enough to be writing movies.

My first writing job was on a TV show called Get a Life. The show was mostly in the voice of its creators, Chris Elliott and Adam Resnick, who'd worked on the David Letterman Show. Adam's scripts were the best thing about Get a Life – and we all tried to write in Adam's voice. That was the job. 

I was frustrated with the results, but it occurred to me that there was no solution as long as my job was trying to imitate someone else's voice. The obvious solution was to find a situation where I was doing me, not someone else. The major obstacle to this is your deeply seated belief that "you" is not interesting.                                                                                                 –– Charlie Kaufman

If Charlie Kaufman wrestled with the fear of being uninteresting, there's hope for the rest of us.