Su-City Pictures East, LLC

Screenplay & Film Consulting By Susan Kouguell

Category: SCRIPT MAGAZINE ARTICLES (page 4 of 13)

SUSAN’S ‘SCRIPT MAGAZINE’ INTERVIEW: Isabel Sandoval Discusses Her New Film “Lingua Franca”

September 6, 2020 / / Comments Off on SUSAN’S ‘SCRIPT MAGAZINE’ INTERVIEW: Isabel Sandoval Discusses Her New Film “Lingua Franca”

Susan Kouguell interviews writer/director Isabel Sandoval about her film, “Lingua Franca,” the themes that are important to her, and advice to emerging writers and filmmakers.

SUSAN KOUGUELL

SEP 1, 2020

Click to tweet this interview with your friends and followers!

Still 7: Isabel Sandoval as “Olivia” in LINGUA FRANCA – photo courtesy of ARRAY
Isabel Sandoval as “Olivia” in LINGUA FRANCA – photo courtesy of ARRAY

“Every image or sound is a vessel for emotion: rapture, despair, sensuousness, fury, a combination of these. That makes cinema a kind of legerdemain: the art of sculpting such seemingly artificial elements to create a singular, genuine emotional experience.”

~ Isabel Sandoval

Isabel Sandoval’s Lingua Franca made history at the 2019 Venice International Film Festival Venice Days program as the first film directed and starring an openly trans woman of color to screen in competition. In July 2020, Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY Releasing acquired the film, which debuts on Netflix and opens theatrically in select cities on August 26th.

I recently spoke with Sandoval before the release of her film. Lingua Franca follows an undocumented Filipina trans woman, Olivia (Isabel Sandoval), after she has secured a job as a live-in caregiver for Olga (Lynn Cohen), an elderly Russian woman in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach neighborhood. Olivia’s main priority is to secure a green card to stay in America. But when she unexpectedly becomes romantically involved with Olga’s adult grandson, Alex (Eamon Farren), issues around identity, civil rights and immigration threaten her very existence.

ABOUT ISABEL SANDOVAL (Director, Writer, Producer, Editor, Actress) An emerging auteur recognized by the Museum of Modern Art as a “rarity among the young generation of Filipino filmmakers for her muted, serene aesthetic”, Isabel Sandoval is a US-based filmmaker who has written and directed three features. Her debut, SEÑORITA (2011), competed in the Concorso Cineasti del presente at the 2011 Locarno FF. Her follow-up, APPARITION (2012), competed in the New Currents section at the 2012 Busan IFF. Considered a modern Philippine classic, APPARITION, is regularly programmed in retrospectives of Filpino cinema. Isabel is currently developing her fourth and most ambitious feature, TROPICAL GOTHIC, a 16th century surrealist drama about the haunting of a Spanish conquistador in the Philippine islands. The project is a 2020 Locarno Open Doors Hub selection.

Kouguell: You came up with the premise for Lingua Franca, which addresses both immigration and the transgender experience, while undergoing gender transition, but the film is not autobiographical. Let’s talk about the process of writing the script.

Sandoval: My theme of choice has been women with secrets, and also women who are disadvantaged, disempowered and forced to confront broader issues. This is true in all my features.

About halfway through writing the script, there were a lot of minorities living in the U.S. who were experiencing these same immigration issues, and I channeled that emotional state in the temperament of the film. It’s kind of an amorphous film; it has elements of drama and shades of a paranoid thriller so that’s how the premise and idea for the film came together. I was channeling that time.

Kouguell: Was it always your intention to also star in the film?

Sandoval: The idea came to me naturally. I like to think of myself as an auteur—when the writer directs, when the protagonist is kind of like an alter ego or double, so to speak. Olivia is a character I’ve known quite well and fondly for almost two years, so that decision to play her came quite organically.

Still 9: Isabel Sandoval as “Olivia” and Lynn Cohen as “Olga “ in LINGUA FRANCA – photo courtesy of ARRAY
Isabel Sandoval as “Olivia” and Lynn Cohen as “Olga “ in LINGUA FRANCA – photo courtesy of ARRAY

Kouguell: In many of the interviews I have done for this publication, filmmakers tell me that either the script has remained the same from idea stage to the screen, and others say their work makes a complete departure from the script stage to the screen. Did you find that the story changed in any way or is this the film you always intended to make?

Sandoval: I took on the key creative roles—writing, directing, editing and being a producer because I feel like it helped me take my vision of the film from the page to the screen more faithfully as I originally conceived.

As an indie filmmaker, it’s very intuitive to me to be flexible and adaptable. With limited resources you don’t always get the location you want, etc., and there’s a lot of thinking on my feet, and my relationship to a script is a blueprint for a story.

Kouguell: Advice to aspiring writers and filmmakers?

Sandoval: I didn’t go to film school, but I exposed myself to many different kinds of cinema, especially risk-taking cinema that tackles unconventional styles, themes and narratives. My advice is to try to establish your own distinct and singular voice and be willing to take risks—that’s how we grow and evolve as filmmakers and artists. 

More articles by Susan Kouguell

Susan’s “Script Magazine” Interview: “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” Writer, Creator and Executive Producer Austin Winsberg

July 9, 2020 / / Comments Off on Susan’s “Script Magazine” Interview: “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” Writer, Creator and Executive Producer Austin Winsberg

No two paths to a writing career are the same. Susan Kouguell interviews Austin Winsberg, writer, creator and executive producer of “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” on breaking in, working in the writers’ room, and growing a tough skin.

SUSAN KOUGUELL

JUL 2, 2020

Click to tweet this interview to your friends and followers!

It was an absolute delight to chat with Austin Winsberg about his extraordinary career and his show “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist.” If only I could sing on key, I would have broken out into song.

Austin Winsberg
Austin Winsberg

Austin Winsbergis not only the creator and an executive producer of “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist,” but also, as a film writer, Winsberg penned the upcoming “Baby Nurse” (starring Leslie Jones), which is currently in development. On the TV side, Winsberg adapted NBC’s hugely successful live “The Sound of Music” event starring Carrie Underwood. His other credits include “9JKL,” “Gossip Girl,” “Jake in Progress,” “Wedding Album,” “Still Standing” and “Glory Days.” He has written numerous pilots for ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, Showtime, Amazon, Apple and Freeform, as well as movies for New Line, Dreamworks Animation and Warner Bros.

Winsberg is the book writer of the Broadway musical “First Date,” which enjoyed a sold-out run at Seattle’s 5th Ave/ACT Theatres prior to opening at the Longacre Theatre on Broadway in 2013. That show was licensed by Rodgers and Hammerstein and is currently playing around the U.S. and throughout the world. Winsberg graduated with a theater arts degree from Brown University. He is a five-time winner of the Blank Theater Company’s Annual Young Playwright’s Festival in Los Angeles. He continues to work actively with the Blank, directing and mentoring plays by teenage playwrights from all around the country.

About “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist”

Created by Austin Winsberg, the show follows Zoey Clarke (Jane Levy), a whip-smart computer coder forging her way in San Francisco. After an unusual event, Zoey suddenly starts to hear the innermost wants, thoughts and desires of the people around her – her family, co-workers and complete strangers – through popular songs. Based on Austin’s personal experience with his own father who passed away from a rare neurological disease (Progressive Supranuclear Palsy), he created a world in”Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist”where song could be used in lieu of speaking.

Susan Kouguell: Let’s start with your interesting career trajectory.

Austin Winsberg: My career started when I was 23. I’m from Los Angeles and after college I worked at New Line. I spent a year in development where I made a lot of connections with agents and managers because my boss had lots of scripts coming in. Then, I convinced Adam Goldberg to partner up. I met Adam (“The Goldbergs” creator) at Stagedoor Manor – who is a child prodigy playwright; he had written 70 or 80 different plays and I started reading them and then I started writing plays, which won five awards.

After a year working at New Line, Adam and I became writing partners, and we got staffed on “Glory Days”; Kevin Williamson created the show. We then wrote on “Still Standing,” and between that first and second year I created the concept of “Jake in Progress” which ran for two seasons. I went from being story editor to co-showrunner on that series at age 26-27. It was trial by fire.

After that my career had been writing pilots and on occasion writing for “Gossip Girl,” “9JKL,” and also “Sound of Music Live.” I sold a lot of movies, a good portion of that time had been spent selling a lot that hadn’t been made. I would sell big network pilots and they would never make it to the one-yard mark. It was the definition of insanity. Miraculously “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” came along.

Kouguell: How did you make the transition from theater to television?

Winsberg: I was a theater major in college. I made it from theater to television and back to theater again. The transition back to theater came out of pilots I had written that hadn’t been made. So much of what I like to do is collaborating with actors. I have two friends who are songwriters and we thought we should write a musical with the intent of putting it on Theatre Row. It was a seven-person musical, “First Date.” We did one 29-hour workshop, we got producers who wanted to do it and then it was produced in Seattle and then Broadway.

Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist - Photo courtesy of NBC
Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist – Photo courtesy of NBC

“Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” Writers’ Room

Kouguell: How do you collaborate in the writers’ room?

Winsberg: In season one, when we were in the actual room itself, we would break up all the stories in the room together. We had big white boards with character arcs, songs we wanted to use and different song ideas, and another board with each character, and included if they were singing one or more songs.

The musical element is a whole other narrative piece of each episode. As we are coming up with a song to include, we also talk about how choreography and dance numbers will work in the episode.

Now that we started writing season two, we are doing it on Zoom and still using white boards. It’s changing the way things get done; not everyone is in the same space.

The show features big, bold musical numbers from a catalog of hit songs. Every musical moment serves a purpose to reveal characters’ inner thoughts and feelings.

Kouguell: Do you and the writers ever create a show around a song?

Winsberg: It’s chicken and the egg. We write on the big white board the character and story arc discussions. For example: in Episode 5, when Simon comes over to Zoey’s apartment, we thought the song “Should I Stay or Should I Go” would be a great song for this character. It touched on certain points that we knew we wanted to build upon.

Usually it comes more organically from building the story first, and then finding the song that goes with it. I have strict rules about it: The songs need to advance the plot, the character, or be funny. We stay true to that.

Kouguell: How does it work with getting the rights to the music? Do you come up with a list and then choose what you’re able to use?

Winsberg: Ourmusic supervisor, Jennifer Ross, who worked on “Empire” and “Smash” – is my partner in crime. The second we think of a song, she’ll reach out and quickly see if we can get it, sometimes by contacting the artist directly. There wasn’t a song we didn’t get. We have a music budget, and because we’re creating our own version of the song, there are two types of song rights, which affects the price of the song.

Adapting from True Stories

Kouguell: This show is inspired by your personal experience with your father’s illness. How do you find objectivity when writing and creating episodes?

Winsberg: Coming from a writer’s perspective – every season is based on something in my own family. Some examples: My dad really asked for lemonade, there was a period of time where he didn’t stop crying, and there were several caregivers.

I would take the essence of the story and what happened to him and apply it. I would ask myself, what are the ways to tell that story that are inspired by the memories and experience we had, and what is right for the story. There is a separation there; taking the essence of what happened with my family and how to dramatize it that feels right for the show.

I draw from my own experiences, as well as consider what makes a good story. Certain things I felt strongly about, and it felt authentic. It was also about being able to understand what happened, incorporate what was appropriate, and use creative license.

My most favorite things in the show have not been true to my own life. There are aspects of Maggie that are based on my mother that I created that felt true to her. It’s important to understand the creative separation and not being shut off to ideas in the writers’ room and use these ideas to enhance and enrich the show.

In the process of building the show, I try to compartmentalize. On set with Peter Gallagher, who plays the father, sometimes I couldn’t always compartmentalize. I felt we were being authentic to my father and there were moments where it would be therapeutic and moments it was really hard.

zoeys extraordinary playlist interview

Developing a Tough Skin While Surviving the Whims of the Industry

Winsberg: I spent many years waiting for my first pilot to air. It is a journey; there is something about the whims of the industry.

For me, the ideas of perseverance and to keep writing were important because you never know which project is going to connect. Some of it is timing and luck. And hours of work. And a tough skin. I remember many times when I would read pilots that were bad and wonder why did they get picked up?! I would get depressed about it. I got better over the years to not personalize it so much. For me, it was important to work on several things at once.

Kouguell: Your closing thoughts about your journey thus far with “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist”?

Winsberg: What I could not anticipate was the emotional impact and the huge outpouring of texts and emails from people reaching out to me during and after the show who had the disease, or people who had lost loved ones (due to COVID), and shared their grief.

I didn’t expect this connectivity. Their stories are so emotional and personal. When I created “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist,” I just wanted to write something personal, and I found the more specific, the more universal it becomes.

Season 1 of “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” is currently streaming on NBCUniversal’s new streaming service Peacock, the NBC App and HULU. The show has recently been renewed for a second season.

Susan’s Interview for ‘Script Magazine’: “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” Editor Anne McCabe

July 1, 2020 / / Comments Off on Susan’s Interview for ‘Script Magazine’: “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” Editor Anne McCabe

Susan’s Interview for ‘Script Magazine’: “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” Editor Anne McCabe

Susan Kouguell speaks with Anne McCabe ACE, editor of “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” who started as an Apprentice Editor in the cutting rooms of Woody Allen, Brian de Palma and Sidney Lumet.

NOV 28, 2019

About A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Tom Hanks portrays Mister Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, a timely story of kindness triumphing over cynicism, based on the true story of a real-life friendship between Fred Rogers and journalist Tom Junod. After a jaded magazine writer (Emmy-winner Matthew Rhys) is assigned a profile of Fred Rogers, he overcomes his skepticism, learning about kindness, love and forgiveness from America’s most beloved neighbor.

Interview with Editor Anne McCabe

anne McCabe

It was wonderful to chat again with Anne McCabe ACE, editor, for this publication. Our first interview centered on her editing work on the award-winning and Oscar-nominated Can You Ever Forgive Me.

McCabe started as an Apprentice Editor in the cutting rooms of Woody Allen, Brian de Palma and Sidney Lumet. She collaborated with Director Greg Mottola on several projects, including The Daytrippers, Adventureland and the award-winning pilot for HBO’s Newsroom. She also worked closely with Kenneth Lonergan on the Academy Award-nominated film You Can Count On Me, and Margaret. Her television credits include Nurse Jackie, Damages, Younger and Succession. Navigating both drama and comedy, she cut Chris Rock’s acclaimed movie Top Five.

We began this interview talking about a Facebook post I read about A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood that stated: Check your cynicism at the door.

McCabe: We all felt the same way. I watched Mr Rogers Neighborhood as a kid, and I was drawn to it but I thought it was so hokey, and when I was older I thought, I really don’t need this kind of show anymore. But then you realize you don’t really understand what Mister Rogers is doing; he’s introducing all these different types of people. Lloyd is that type of character who’s cynical.

When cutting the movie, I put myself in Lloyd’s shoes, but he does get won over. Lloyd’s trying to get dirt on Mister Rogers, but he starts getting under Lloyd’s skin, and you also realize that Mister Rogers was a complicated human being. But there is no dirt, He’s a person with his own struggles. It’s hard to talk about these difficult subjects and feelings and emotions, and what it’s like to be a parent. Working on the movie, we were all going through things. I’m a parent, Marielle (Heller) is also a parent and while we were cutting, we were asking ourselves, how does this make us feel, and looking through that lens while we were editing.

Tom Hanks and Matthew Rhys - Photo by Sony Pictures
Tom Hanks and Matthew Rhys – Photo by Sony Pictures

Kouguell: This is the second feature you worked on with director Marielle Heller, The first film,Can You Ever Forgive Me? (centering on the writer Lee Israel) was also based on, or inspired by, actual events.

McCabe: Both films are about an odd friendship about one person who is comfortable in their skin and one who is not, but besides that, Lee and Jack (in Can You Ever Forgive Me?) and Mister Rogers and Lloyd could not be more different characters.

With A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood we felt a huge responsibility to the original television show, so there was a whole other level involved. We did tons of research, we looked at all the old shows, and books. The two films have a different tone.

Kouguell: These two projects happened so close together, which is quite an achievement.

McCabe: As Can You Ever Forgive Me? was finishing up, Marielle told me about this script she was working on, and I was thrilled at the chance to work with her again. The funny thing is that in between the two movies I worked on Succession, which couldn’t be more different than A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood so there was a huge contrast between the two projects. Often I work on comedies and things like that so this movie was very special for me to work on.

Kouguell: How has your collaboration with Heller evolved over this time?

McCabe; Working with her a second time was great because we have a shorthand, You achieve a trust especially when you’ve worked together prior on a movie you’re proud of. You trust each other more and you can be more open. We are very comfortable with each other, and we have a very creative cutting room, bouncing ideas off each other.

Kouguell: The film was shot on the same stage with the same camera that filmed the original Mister Rogers Neighborhood series. Were there specific editing choices you made to capture the original series?

McCabe: Yes, one was the rhythm. Mister Rogers Neighborhood is so not slick. Like when Mr. Rogers opens the doors to reveal the pictures behind them, it’s made of cardboard and paste; he didn’t do things in a kind of slick way, everything was very homemade, The production designer did an amazing job of recreating the original show. And it was the same with the editing style, we knew it shouldn’t be super slick or flashy or smooth. Sometimes we intentionally had types of bumpy cuts and the way that it was shot wasn’t high tech. We imitated that style of editing.

Kouguell: Mister Rogers had a distinct speaking rhythm, which is captured in the editing with the slow speaking style yet the film never felt slow.

McCabe: Tom Hanks and Matthew Rhys did an incredible job. There was tons of fantastic material, and a lot of sifting through and making sure we were keeping true to the right cadence in the way Mister Rogers spoke. It’s not a quick film in the way it’s edited, but you needed to feel that focus at all times. As usual, the first cut was a good hour longer than the movie ended up being, so of course we had to shape the story and the performances and craft the rhythms of the movie.

Kouguell: It never felt slow, and I’m a very impatient person.

McCabe: (laughing) So am I. I worked a lot in comedy, and I had to shift my perspective. The film is sincere. It’s about emotion and it’s about feelings. There’s humor in the film but it’s not the cynical humor and it’s not a quick joke. It’s more about the building up of the tension between the characters.

Kouguell: What’s next for you?

McCabe: I’m currently working on Land with Robin Wright who’s directing a feature; it’s about a woman who has PTSD who takes herself off the grid and goes into the wilderness. It’s a beautiful film shot in Canada.

Kouguell: Advice for aspiring editors and filmmakers?

McCabe: It’s incredibly difficult to do, but you need to show your movie to groups of people and not necessarily your friends and family. Be imaginative and open to reinvent what your intention was. You can’t have a good movie without a good script. You can’t have a good movie without good actors. And the edit is another opportunity to get things right and to rethink. Sometimes you have to reimagine the project or start the show or the movie with a completely different scene than what was written originally, or reorder the scenes, or leave the joke out even if you think it’s totally hilarious. In A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood we had to lose things that we really loved because you can’t keep it long — you know that expression: kill your darlings.

Visit A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood official site. 

Susan’s “Script Magazine” article: Top 10 Tips on Writing Dynamic Dialogue

June 30, 2020 / / Comments Off on Susan’s “Script Magazine” article: Top 10 Tips on Writing Dynamic Dialogue

Film executives, agents, directors, producers, and all those reading your script demand that your characters “speak” to them. Susan Kouguell shares her top 10 tips for writing dynamic dialogue.

Click to tweet this article to your friends and followers!

Top 10 Tips on Writing Dynamic Dialogue

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Film industry folks actually do give a damn about your dialogue and so should you. (And you thought I was going to say: Who else but Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind could have said this memorable line?!)

Characters’ voices must be distinct and not interchangeable with other characters. Readers must be able to identify who is speaking without needing to look at character headings. Always make every word count; sometimes less is more and the less said can prove more poignant.

Film executives, agents, directors, producers, and all those reading your script demand that your characters “speak” to them. (Meaning, the dialogue must ring true and be distinct to your characters.)

Remember, as Jake La Motta (Raging Bull) said: “I’m da boss, I’m da boss, I’m da boss, I’m da boss, I’m da boss…” (Film industry folks are the boss because they have the power to greenlight or reject your script.)

Subtext

I’m sure many of you have read about the importance of subtext in scripts, but what does that really mean to you? Using subtext serves as a way to convey characters’ intentions without hitting the audience over the head. In dialogue, for example, a character says one thing, but there’s an underlying meaning in what she’s saying.

In writer and director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s All About Eve, Dewitt says to Margo, “Dear Margo. You were an unforgettable Peter Pan. You must play it again soon.” The subtext addresses Margo’s blatant obsession and fear of aging. (Ageism is also one theme of this film.)

In Lady Bird (written and directed by Greta Gerwig), when Kyle picks Lady Bird up for prom by honking, Lady Bird’s father calmly and without judgment asks his daughter: “You aren’t gonna get in a car with a guy who honks, are you?”

Ten Top Tips to Writing Good Dialogue

1. Dialogue must clearly convey emotions, attitudes, strengths, vulnerabilities, goals, and so on, while revealing the details of your plot and advancing your narrative.

2. Every word of dialogue must be true to your character. Always consider your characters’ behaviors and motivations when they speak.

3. Consider silences and pauses your characters might use, or another character’s interruptions, to further convey tensions, actions, moods, and emotions.

4. In real life, most people do not always speak with flawless grammar in complete, formal sentences. Dialogue must not sound wooden or stilted.

5. To make your characters’ dialogue more identifiable consider using contractions, colloquialisms, slang, and so on, when true to your characters.

6. Characters can speak in verbal shorthand, such as family members and best friends.

7. Keep in mind how your characters listen or don’t listen to each other and respond or don’t respond to each other.

8. Always research your topics thoroughly so if your character is speaking about legal issues for example, you are accurate. The same is true when writing a period film; do your research so your characters’ dialogue is historically accurate.

9. Watch out for on-the-nose dialogue. People don’t always say exactly what’s on their mind or say what they mean and neither should your characters.

10. Writing character biographies in the first person (in their voices) for all of your characters will help to hone in on their specific word choices and language usages, such as slang, speech patterns, and rhythms.

Now, imagine yourself standing in a trench coat in a black-and-white film, talking to film industry folks and hearing Rick’s voice (from Casablanca) in your head saying: “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” But this time, it will be the beginning of a beautiful work relationship when you write a script with sparkling dialogue that film executives will champion to get onto the silver screen.

Susan’s “Script Magazine” article: Why and How to Write a Screenplay Treatment

June 30, 2020 / / Comments Off on Susan’s “Script Magazine” article: Why and How to Write a Screenplay Treatment

Susan Kouguell explains what a screenplay treatment is, why you might need it to pitch your screenplay, and the do’s and don’ts of creating a treatment.

FEB 12, 2020

Click to tweet this article to your friends and followers!

How to Write a Screenplay Treatment

As chairperson of my motion picture company Su-City Pictures East, LLC, since 1990, I have worked as a script consultant and screenplay doctor for the major studios, as well as independent film companies. The film industry has changed since the burgeoning of independent films, garnering well-deserved attention, and the growth of streaming platforms, offering screenwriters more opportunities to get their movies made.

What hasn’t changed?

You still need to write a brilliant script.

What does this all have to do with writing a treatment?

It means that you must be prepared in the event that a treatment is requested of you by a film executive, producer or director.

Fine. But what does that really mean for you?

Let’s start with defining what exactly is a treatment.

What is a treatment?

Like so many elements in the screenwriting and filmmaking process, there are no hard and fast rules, but here we go:

A treatment is a detailed overview of a screenplay or script idea written in prose form that is used as a marketing tool for both spec and for-hire screenwriters to sell their project. It is sometimes referred to as a written pitch.

Producers, studios, and/or production companies usually request treatments after you pitch a project idea to them. They will then tell you how many pages to make your treatment. The average length of a treatment is usually between ten and thirty pages, but a treatment can also be as short as one page.

I know what you’re thinking. The treatment sounds like a synopsis. Is it?

Although a treatment and a synopsis are both considered marketing tools to sell your script or script idea, they are not the same. A treatment is a more comprehensive and detailed overview, while a synopsis is generally one page and includes only the very broad strokes of the main plot of your script.

There are varying opinions as to why you should write a treatment or not write one, but having one ready to submit can increase your chances of getting noticed.

Executives, producers, and companies have enormous amounts of material to plow through, so reading a treatment as opposed to a screenplay takes less time. Keep in mind that if you write a treatment for the purpose of pitching it to a company without writing the script, it may lessen your chances of being hired.

It’s not really necessary to write a treatment unless it assists you in fleshing out your ideas and developing your screenplay. Many writers write treatments solely for their own purposes and, like an executive, use their treatments to determine what’s working and what’s not in their scripts.

Studios, production companies and/or industry folks might request you submit a treatment to them after you pitch an idea and they are interested in your project. They will tell you approximately how many pages to write for the treatment.

A treatment that is written for submission to a company must clearly reflect your talent as a writer. Executives are looking for unique and marketable subject matter that an audience can relate to so they can sell it!

Treatments are evaluated on several levels: Is this a good, marketable story? Does the writer have the talent and ability to translate this into a great screenplay?

Executives and producers use treatments as both a selling tool to get your movie made and as a way to identify story, characters, and structural strengths and weaknesses.

Whether you write a treatment based on your original idea, an adaptation of a novel, or true story, the reader will evaluate your ability to dramatize the project into a riveting story complete with captivating characters and a solid structure.

Like a screenplay, your treatment must immediately grab the reader’s attention. It must have energy and follow the conventions of the genre. The reader must get a vivid sense of your story: What the world looks like and how it feels. Use visual imagery to describe your settings and time periods. Distinguish your characters so the reader has a clear understanding of who they are (such as profession or personality) and what motivates their actions.

Readers’ standard questions are: “What sets your story apart from others about the same subject? What makes both your story and your approach unique?”

Your plot must continue to build momentum from page one line one right through to the very last sentence. Your treatment must feel immediate to the reader; each event about to unfold must create interest and excitement.

Follow your protagonist’s journey. Clearly describe your characters and their arcs, their motivations for their actions, and the obstacles they must overcome. The story’s point of view must be clear so the reader knows whose story you’re telling. Your treatment must highlight the main plot points, your major characters, and your turning points.

Formatting Your Treatment

As opposed to a screenplay, there is no specific industry format for a treatment. However, there are some basic guidelines to follow:

● Write your treatment in block paragraph form, that is, without using indentations. Skipping a space between paragraphs.

● Suggested fonts are: Courier New 12 or Times New Roman 12.

● Using separate Act 1, Act 2, and Act 3 headings to delineate each act is recommended.

Your Treatment Must:

● Excite the reader to want to read your screenplay;

● Be a clear and accurate reflection of your screenplay (if you’ve already written it);

● Illustrate your hook—what makes this different from other stories about the same subject matter;

● Be easy, interesting, and enjoyable to read;

● Contain short rather than long paragraphs;

● Be written in visual prose;

● Be written in the present tense;

● Have precise and simple sentences, since each word counts;

● Have a strong opening to hook the reader;

● Have a compelling and satisfying climax;

● Have a clear structure;

● Establish what’s at stake in your story;

● Have an intriguing and empathetic protagonist the reader will root for;

● Follow your protagonist’s journey and arc;

● Include the central conflict and obstacles your protagonist must overcome;

● Establish your antagonist and his or her goals;

● Include the main and supporting characters;

● Include the major plot points and turning points;

● Illustrate action and description;

● Include minimal or no back story;

● Include snippets of dialogue, using quotation marks, but only to illustrate a poignant or critical moment that further defines the character and/or story.

Your Treatment Must Not:

● Use screenplay format;

● Use flowery language;

● Include unnecessary details;

● Include author’s editorial comments;

● Include characters’ inner thoughts;

● Include phrases like “It’s a story about….” or “What happens next is…” Just tell the story.

Have a trusted friend, colleague, or consultant read your treatment prior to submitting it film industry folks, to make sure that it’s an attention-grabbing and interesting read—with no typos or grammatical errors. Register your treatment with the Writers Guild of America (WGA) prior to submitting it to companies for consideration.

Susan’s “Script Magazine” article: Why Your Script is Getting Rejected

June 29, 2020 / / Comments Off on Susan’s “Script Magazine” article: Why Your Script is Getting Rejected

Why Your Screenplay is Getting Rejected – Top Ten Screenwriting Pet Peeves

Tired of getting rejected? Susan Kouguell shares the top screenwriting pet peeves that, if avoided, will help get you from the “pass” to the “consider” pile.

MAR 11, 2020

Click to tweet this article to your friends and followers! 

Why Your Screenplay is Getting Rejected

Let’s face it. Rejection is tough. Especially when you’ve poured your heart and soul into writing and rewriting. Maybe you’ve written your script in weeks. Or months. Or years.

The time you’ve spent writing is no measure of your talent or commitment to your craft.

There are many possible scenarios as to why your script is getting rejected by film industry folks. Your script might not be a match for a company. They’re not looking for your type of story right now. What was IN last year is OUT this year. Or, the genre is no longer what they’re seeking. Or now they’re only producing low-budget and not medium-budget projects. Or your script is not a fit for what the producer or director is seeking at that very moment.

It’s enough to give screenwriters whiplash!

We all know that sometimes it’s just a matter of luck and your script lands in the right hands at the right time. But sometimes, well, very often, if not most of the time, it’s because screenwriters are rushing to submit their scripts and they make some careless mistakes.

Here are ten universal pet peeves from film industry executives and story analysts, with whom I have interviewed for various screenwriting publications, including this one, and for my book The Savvy Screenwriter: How to Sell Your Screenplay (and Yourself) Without Selling Out! This list is in no particular order – however I do admit, as a screenplay consultant and professor, I do share all these pet peeves with my colleagues.

1. Incorrect industry formatting demonstrates that the screenwriter is an amateur, and is not respecting the reader’s time.

2. Inclusion of camera angles. Directors do not want to be told how to shoot their movie.

3. Too many genres in one script, or the screenwriter doesn’t know what the genre really is, or doesn’t understand the conventions of the genre.

4. Action paragraphs that read like a novel and/or telegraph what’s about to be revealed in dialogue.

5. Dialogue that contains heavy-handed exposition and/or over-explains information about the back-story.

6. Characters who don’t have distinct personalities and are (unintentionally) interchangeable or don’t serve a purpose in the plot.

7. Lack of a solid structure; this includes rambling, unnecessary scenes and uneven pacing.

8. The inclusion of so many plots and/or subplots that it’s not only impossible to figure out what the story is really about, but it’s obvious the screenwriter doesn’t know or trust the actual plot.

9. Overuse and/or unnecessary usage of voiceovers, dream sequences, and flashbacks. This is a red flag for story analysts.

10. Sloppiness! Typos, grammatical errors, and missing pages. Proofread! Better yet, have someone else proofread your script.

Final words of advice: Follow these tips so it’s not just a matter of luck, but a matter of taking your time and submitting your best work.

Susan’s Interview with “Never Have I Ever” Director Kabir Akhtar for “Script Magazine”

June 26, 2020 / / Comments Off on Susan’s Interview with “Never Have I Ever” Director Kabir Akhtar for “Script Magazine”

For Script Magazine: Susan Kouguell interviews Kabir Akhtar, director of “Never Have I Ever,” sharing his experiences working with Mindy Kaling and helping to tell the story of a first generation Indian American teenager, a story he relates to personally.

Click to tweet this interview to your friends and followers!

From our respective homes, on opposite coasts of the country, Kabir Akhtar and I social-distanced, to chat by phone to discuss his work as an Emmy award-winning director-editor and his current project on the hit Netflix series Never Have I Ever.

Kabir Akhtar
Kabir Akhtar

Kabir Akhtar’s Career Trajectory – From Editor to Producer and Director

Kabir Akhtar, ACE is an Emmy-winning director-editor whose work includes The Academy Awards, Arrested Development, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, BH 90210, and Unsolved Mysteries. A three-time Emmy nominee, Kabir won the award in 2016 for editing the pilot of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, becoming the first person of color to win in the category.

He earned additional Emmy nominations for his work on Billy Crystal’s most recent opening film for the Oscars, and on Arrested Development; he was the first person to be nominated for comedy editing on any streaming platform. Kabir has also been nominated twice at the ACE Eddie Awards. He has edited ten pilots which were greenlit to series, and has directed the pilot episodes of two series: 8th & Ocean for MTV, and the relaunched edition of Unsolved Mysteries. Kabir has served as Co-Chair of the Asian-American Committee at the DGA, and as a Peer Group Executive Committee member at the Television Academy. He has been a featured speaker at many industry events and festivals, including SXSW.

Kabir worked on all 62 episodes of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, rising from editor to director/producer by the time the series ended. Kabir directed 12 episodes of TV last year, including the season finales of the critically acclaimed series Grown-ish and High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. His work in 2020 includes episodes of the Unicorn for CBS in addition to Never Have I Ever.

With a special passion for musical projects, Kabir has directed 30 music videos with a combined 13 million YouTube views, as well as comedy segments of the Academy Awards and the Primetime Emmy Awards.

Kabir Akhtar shares his experiences working with Mindy Kaling and helping to tell the story of a first generation Indian American teenager, a story he relates to personally.

Kouguell: How did you get involved with “Never Have I Ever”?

Akhtar: Knowing this story so well as a first generation kid, I knew I would love to be involved with it. I think a lot of times when you’re trying to get connected to a project it’s so difficult, but this was a case where I told my reps and they waved their magic wand, and the next thing I knew… it happened. Having the opportunity to be part of the team is extremely rewarding.

Kouguell: What was most exciting for you about this project?

Akhtar Working with Mindy Kaling. And telling a story about a first generation brown teenager—I know that story very well. I had never seen that on television anywhere, certainly not when I was growing up. I can definitely relate to that story.

Kouguell: Did you work with Mindy Kaling before?

Akhtar: I didn’t know Mindy before Never Have I Ever but I had seen her work.

Mindy Kaling was great to work with. Very supportive, very cool, and genuine. We worked together mostly in prep, and had discussions with Lang Fisher, co-creator of the show. It was awesome to work with them.

Kouguell: Let’s talk about Indian-American representation, on and behind the camera.

Akhtar: Growing up in the 1980s there were never brown people on TV except the people with heavy accents or the nutty next door neighbor, which eventually gave way to brown people playing terrorists. The opportunity of telling the story of a fully realized high schooler, searching for her own identity and to do so in a fun way, was very important to me.

There are very few South Asian American directors in town. Most of us know each other. I thought it would be fun to start an award show for brown people, (laughs) but the same four people would be nominated every year. Seriously, the pool is expanding now, which is great.

Kouguell: Being a first generation American myself, who is now decades away from living the horrors of being in high school, I found there was a universality that I could relate to in this series.

Akhtar: I’m blown away by the response to the show and the ability of making a show about these themes. Ultimately we were all in high school, and it is very relatable.

Credit: LARA SOLANKI/NETFLIX
Credit: LARA SOLANKI/NETFLIX

“Never Have I Ever” Episodes 5 and 6

Akhtar: The two episodes I directed are numbers 5 and 6. They’re a little unusual for the series since they cover basically the same period of time, Normal episodes focus on Devi, the main character, but Episode 6 revisits the same time period as Episode 5 from a different character’s point of view, with a different visual style and different narrator, and so on. It was very fun to design those episodes to fit together.

About Episodes 5 and 6

…started a nuclear war (Season 1, Episode 5)

Devi allows rumors about her and Paxton to swirl during an overnight school trip. Fabiola opens up to Eleanor, who gets upsetting news about her mother.

…been the loneliest boy in the world (Season 1, Episode 6)

With absentee parents, a shallow girlfriend and no one to hang out with, Ben Gross is lonelier than ever, until an unlikely invitation offers some hope.

(This is the one from Ben’s perspective, narrated by Andy Samberg.)

Kouguell: Although these two episodes take place at the same time but from two different character’s points of view, you incorporated a unique visual style for these episodes to fit together, yet stand apart.

Akhtar: That type of parallel storytelling I love and I got lucky to work on that structure again. When I edited season 4 of Arrested Development, there was something similar with each episode following a character through the same time period; I was the supervising editor of that season, and it was my job to make sure the pieces fit together in a way that felt real.

In Never Have I Ever it was fun to construct that world, and have nods from one episode to the other. In Episode 6, the Ben episode, the moment Ben sees Davi talking to Paxton down the hall, it was a connection they had in Episode 5. When we were discussing shooting it, it was important to see physical action that was easily understood as happening at the same time, like when Ben sees them far away, the same jacket, and how he looked at the same moment in time. 

Seeing the same moments from different POVs. at the end of Episode 5 with the kids coming back from the Model UN field trip, we’re following Davi, and the bus pulls over and she has a flashback and she gets a text on her phone. And in Episode 6, we see that same moment and there’s no flashback ambulance, we just see Ben watching her. The moment is so important to her story, but Ben doesn’t have context to know what’s she’s going through. It was fun to play with all that on set. 

Kouguell: Did you collaborate with the writers of these episodes?

Akhtar: I worked very closely with the writers of the episodes. They understand where every detail fits in very well, and I make sure we communicate. The whole process is very collaborative.

The Film School Question

Kouguell: Did you go to film school?

Akhtar: I went to Penn undergrad and University of Miami Film School.

Kouguell: I’m a professor at two different film programs, and many students ask me—without being ironic and fully sincere—if I think film school is worth it. I believe there’s no one-size-fits-all answer; I think it depends on the type of projects you want to make, your creative sensibilities, finances, and so much more. Your thoughts?

Akhtar: Agreed. It depends on what you get out of film school. The first job I had in L.A. came through a connection with my then roommate from film school. We were business partners for a long time and as freelancers we were able to hire each other and that was a big part of my career success.

Final Words

Kouguell: Your advice to aspiring filmmakers?

Akhtar: You have to be persistent. Over ten years ago, I was editing cable reality shows, bad cable reality shows—and fast forward X number of years, and I am an Emmy-winning TV director. That doesn’t happen overnight. You have to remember that careers take a long time to develop and nurture. I talk to a lot of film school classes, and I see who is really passionate about their work and career, and I tell them, it is hard. Be persistent and don’t give up. 

Susan’s “Script Magazine” article: What Do I Need to Know About Writing Spec Scripts? Your Questions are Answered!

June 25, 2020 / / Comments Off on Susan’s “Script Magazine” article: What Do I Need to Know About Writing Spec Scripts? Your Questions are Answered!

Susan Kouguell dives deep into questions about writing spec scripts, including steps for selling your screenplay, rewrite advice, and more!

Click to tweet this article to your friends and followers!

writing spec scripts

With over 25 years of teaching screenwriting at universities and script consulting, I often believe that I’ve probably heard and read it all.

I’ve heard (and lived it myself)—“My script almost got made, but…” Fill in the heartbreaking blanks.

Over the last decades I’ve read the most brilliant scripts that were in development hell and never made it to the silver screen. I labored over just about the worst scripts (you can define that for yourself—whether it’s lack of story, stilted dialogue, endless action paragraphs that offer equally endless back-story, cringe-worthy characters, and so on) and yes, I have seen these scripts end up on that silver screen. I’ve sat there in the dark movie theater, appalled, if not crying out of frustration, that these movies got made. Don’t get me wrong, I’m always sincerely happy for the writers who get their movies produced yet honestly dismayed by the fact that somehow they did get produced.

But I digress. Let’s stay positive here.

The following are the most common questions posed by my Su-City Pictures East, LLC clients, my students, and seminar attendees about spec scripts.

What exactly is a spec script?

A spec script is a screenplay that is written on speculation—meaning without payment or before a deal has been negotiated.

How likely is it that I will sell my spec script?

Selling a script is like winning the lottery. Someone has to win the lottery… and some writers do sell their spec scripts!

I know, you didn’t want to read that this all sounds like a huge gamble.

To keep sane and not discouraged against the staggering odds, it’s important to keep in mind three potential goals:

You want:

  1. to get your script sold;
  2. to get your script produced; and
  3. to have it serve as a writing sample for future work.

How many rewrites do I need to do before I finish my spec script?

This question has been posed to me probably on a daily basis by my clients and students, and it’s usually prefaced with, “I know you don’t know the answer but…”

Right. There is no definitive answer.

My response is always the same: It depends on your own gut instincts, along with the feedback you are getting from a script consultant, film industry executive, trusted friend or family member who will tell you the absolute truth.

You may be able to nail your script in a couple of drafts or it may take 30 drafts or more. The number of rewrites is not a reflection of your talent.

How much money can a beginning screenwriter expect to make by selling a spec script?

It depends on the market, the type of project it is, and who’s buying: a Hollywood studio, which could offer thousands of dollars or more, or an independent production company, which could pay you significantly less.

Read the WGA schedule of minimums to get an overall idea of how this works.

What are the steps to getting my spec script sold?

  1. Write a great script. (Yep! That one’s obvious (and I see your collective eye rolls) but take your time and don’t submit your script until it’s the best it can be.)
  2. Write a strong query letter that will entice an executive to request to read your script.
  3. Compose a strong synopsis that demonstrates why your script needs to be made and how it is unique.
  4. Prepare a powerful pitch that will inspire an executive to buy your idea and/or script.
  5. Target the production companies, studios, and talent (actors, directors, producers) that are a solid fit for your script.
  6. You’ve heard the joke: “What’s the best way to Carnegie Hall? … Practice. Practice. Practice.” What’s the best way to break into the film business? “Network. Network. Network.” Writing is solitary, but the film industry is all about connections. No matter where you live, find a way to make personal contacts with industry professionals. Attending script conferences, pitch festivals, and film festivals are ways to make connections.
  7. Find representation. Query agents, managers, and entertainment attorneys. Notable script competitions often offer opportunities to connect with representation.

Final advice

Patience is a virtue. It’s not just an old adage, it’s the mantra to chant daily.

Don’t submit your spec script to film industry folks unless it’s absolutely ready and not because you’re tired of it. It’s tough enough to get film industry folks to read your work, but once they reject it, it’s nearly impossible for them to reconsider. Your script is your calling card so put your best screenplay forward! 

Susan’s Interview with “Sorry We Missed You” Screenwriter Paul Laverty

March 31, 2020 / / Comments Off on Susan’s Interview with “Sorry We Missed You” Screenwriter Paul Laverty

Susan Kouguell speaks with Paul Laverty about his new film “Sorry We Missed You,” a wrenching, intimate family drama that exposes the dark side of the so-called “gig economy.”

Click to tweet this interview to your friends and followers!

I sat down with Paul Laverty in Manhattan to talk about screenwriting and his longtime partnership with director Ken Loach. Mr. Laverty is passionate about social injustice, which is not only reflected in his films with Loach but evident when he recalled researching various subjects for their projects and the people behind the actual stories.

About Screenwriter Paul Laverty

Paul Laverty
Paul Laverty

Born in Calcutta in 1957 to an Irish mother and Scottish father, he studied philosophy in Rome, then law in Glasgow. In the 1980s he worked for three years as a lawyer in Nicaragua, recording human rights abuses; he also travelled to Guatemala and El Salvador.

In 2002, Laverty won Cannes’ Best Screenplay award for Sweet Sixteen, about a young Scottish delinquent battling for a better life. In the same year, Laverty, Loach and their producer, Rebecca O’Brien, formed Sixteen Films, the company which has been behind most of their work since, as well as several films by other directors.

We spoke at length about his new film Sorry We Missed You a wrenching, intimate family drama that exposes the dark side of the so-called “gig economy.”

Sorry We Missed You

Ricky, a former laborer, and his home-attendant wife Abby—who lost their home in the 2008 financial crash—are desperate to get out of their financial distress. When an opportunity comes up for Ricky to work as his own boss as a delivery driver, they sell their only asset, Abby’s car, to trade it in for a shiny new white van and the dream that Ricky can work his way up to someday owning his own delivery franchise. But the couple find their lives are quickly pushed further to the edge by an unrelenting work schedule, a ruthless supervisor, and the needs of their two teenage children. Capturing the sacred moments that make a family, as well as the acts of desperation they need to undertake to make it through each day.

The Interview

Kouguell: Your first venture into screenwriting and subsequent meeting with Ken Loach was something that many aspiring screenwriters can only dream about.

Laverty: Yes, it was the one and only treatment I had ever done. I was working as a human rights lawyer in Nicaragua for three years and was an eyewitness to war in El Salvador and Guatemala, writing human rights reports. In my naivety I thought, I could write a screenplay (with no experience or training) about what I witnessed.

I had no idea what to do, so I bought a bunch of books and learned what a treatment was and wrote what I thought was a treatment and sent it to Ken. I sent it to everyone in the whole world and of course only a few people responded and those who did respond said, it’s a war zone, it’s in Spanish, and I hadn’t written a screenplay before and they said, thanks but no thanks. But Ken was very curious and said, ‘Come on, let’s meet for a cup of tea.’ He said, write a few drafts of scenes and that was a total collaboration.

The film was made a few years later, Carla’s Song (1996), in which Robert Carlyle’s Scottish bus-driver accompanies a Nicaraguan refugee back to her homeland at the height of the Sandinista/Contra conflict. The pair’s next films, My Name is Joe (1998) about a recovering alcoholic, and Bread and Roses (2000) spotlighted Latina workers in Los Angeles struggling to unionize.

The first time working with Ken, he insisted to come to Glasgow and said, ‘I always follow the writer.’ He’s a man who’s been making films for decades and I was green and had no idea what was going on. Writing was like a drug; I’ve never lost that sense of excitement when writing. I was very lucky to meet Ken. We’ve been working together for over 20 years.

Director Ken Loach
Director Ken Loach

Kouguell: How does your collaboration work? Does he come up with an idea or do you?

Laverty: It’s much more organic than that. Now we’re close friends and we’re always exchanging ideas and notions and conversations. Every project has had a different kind of beginning.

We do very different jobs. He directs and I write, but we meet in the middle as filmmakers. Every film is a different genesis. You find things that you have in common.

Ken is the most respectful man you’ll ever meet. He’s very respectful towards writers. He never calls it “A Ken Loach film”—he always demands that the writer has equal billing. I haven’t got an agent, that was all him from the beginning.

Ken always says the most creative thing in a film is the screenplay.

Kouguell: Sorry We Missed You and I, Daniel Blake share similar sensibilities.

Laverty: We imagined Sorry We Missed You as a companion piece to I, Daniel Blake. One was a cruel welfare piece and this one we decided to look at work. They grew out of each other. We were visiting the food banks in Scotland and England. In the past, food banks were usually for the unemployed, but now it was the working poor; they had jobs. There were families where two people were working, but still not getting through the month. We were asking ourselves, why is that?

Our last two films have grown out of a fascination with what’s underneath the surface. With I, Daniel Blake, something cruel was going on in the welfare system, the recipients were stereotyped, and the propaganda campaign was so successful; it was a grand lie. It was the right-wing press demonizing the poor. That whole cruelty of the welfare system was a way to support the gig-economy and the zero-contract culture that we have.

The gig-economy of bogus self-employment. You don’t get paid a wage; all the language is designed by lawyers about opening a franchise but it’s a deception. Instead of technology liberating people, it ties them even more. All that was fascinating.

Kouguell: InSorry We Missed You, there isn’t that stereotypical antagonist often found in many films. Here, they’re all trying to survive.

Laverty: Maloney, the boss, is in a place that if he doesn’t keep ‘the box’ happy everyone loses their jobs. The drivers are all cogs in a wheel.

2 - SORRY WE MISSED YOU image

Kouguell: Tell me about the research you did.

Laverty: It was harder to do the research for this one than in I, Daniel Blake—we usually find people through grassroots organizations, personal contacts or journalists.I started to give up. Then I went to car parks and spoke to drivers at the start or end of their shifts and persuaded them to come with them. It was actually by being with them and seeing them do the work, seeing how they are at the end of the day. No time to eat. Pissing in a bottle. No toilet breaks. Not seeing their kids. Then you get the sense of how relentless it is.

Kouguell: While the film is specific to its setting, this issue is universal.

Laverty: Yes. How can you maintain this work pressure six days a week? It crushes families.

Kouguell: Your writing poignantly portrayed the downward spiral of a well-intentioned family without pulling at the heartstrings speeches or preaching.

Laverty: That’s the challenge of writing, isn’t it, to get to the heart. The hardest thing is to be on story.

1 - SORRY WE MISSED YOU image

Kouguell: The script is very lean. No scene is extraneous.

Laverty: Ken wanted to make sure we weren’t wasting any energy, and that everything was really tight. My favorite films are the leanest ones like Bicycle Thieves.

The great secret in screenwriting is to find a premise which resonates and echoes.

Ricky’s a van driver and delivers boxes. His wife, Abby, a mother who can’t look after her own children, a mother whose work is deemed to be second. She even gives up her car. Women are diminished once again. You talk to these caregivers, it’s such a complex job. It requires real intelligence and working with patients with complicated needs. I was amazed by the skill and communication skills they had to deal with all that. They have just a short time to spend with each patient. They don’t get paid for their travel time. How unjust is that? Women are bearing the brunt, and in that family her job is secondary. Just by that little premise you’re actually tapping into honest questions and you can get that premise.

Kouguell: Advice for screenwriters?

Laverty: It depends on what story you want to tell, but if you’re writing the types of stories that we do that are about life and power, you have to dig underneath the surface. Listening is greatly underestimated. The more information you get and the more you understand someone else’s point-of-view, and if you spend time with them and listen, it will give you golden nuggets that open up stories for you.

Ask questions with respect, which I think is greatly underestimated. If you spend time with people and they’re telling stories about their experiences, listen to them; they’ll spark your imagination and take you to places that you’ve probably never been.

More articles by Susan Kouguell

Susan’s Interview with “BOMBSHELL” Oscar-winning Screenwriter Charles Randolph

January 2, 2020 / / Comments Off on Susan’s Interview with “BOMBSHELL” Oscar-winning Screenwriter Charles Randolph

Susan Kouguell speaks with Oscar-winning screenwriter Charles Randolph about his writing process when adapting a true story for the screen and the challenges of bringing “Bombshell” to life.

SUSAN KOUGUELL DEC 20, 2019

Click to tweet to your friends and followers!

bombshell charles Randolph

I had the pleasure to speak with Oscar-winning screenwriter Charles Randolph in a very insightful discussion about the craft of screenwriting, the adaptation process, and his new film, Bombshell. Randolph’s credits include Love & Other Drugs, The Life of David Gale, and The Big Short, for which he won the Academy Award®.

About Bombshell: Starring Academy Award®-winner Charlize Theron, Academy Award®-winner Nicole Kidman, Academy Award®-nominee John Lithgow and Academy Award®-nominee Margot Robbie, and based on the real scandal, Bombshell is a revealing look inside the most powerful and controversial media empire of all time, Fox News, and the explosive story of the women who brought down the infamous man who created it. The film is directed by Emmy® Award-winner Jay Roach and written by Academy Award®-winner Charles Randolph.T

Kouguell: Let’s start with talking about your adaptation process for this film.

Randolph: It was really trying to cobble together as many sources as you can get. Part of that was that there was a great deal of journalism available. Usually what happens is when you do a canvas of stories you can generally feel who has access and who doesn’t. If you were to read 50 articles on Roger Ailes and Fox at that time, it became pretty clear that Sarah Ellison at Vanity Fair and Gabriel Sheman at New York Magazine had access to the Murdochs, and if not the Murdochs, to their label in a pretty intimate way. So, what happens is that you start to figure out pretty quickly whose perspective is framing the story and that helps a lot, and you can start to hierarchize and know what you can trust.

Charles Randolph
Charles Randolph

Over the course of writing the film, various people produced books, including Megyn Kelly and Gretchen Carlson, and these can be helpful for color and background. Then once I’m done with that process, I will meet people. It varies from project to project. I usually meet people later in the process. There are a couple of reasons for this, one is that I don’t want anyone’s NDA (non- disclosure agreement) to be put into question. There’s also a journalist thing when you sit down with someone who tells you a heartbreaking story of their lives and then you’re not be able to use it, because it feels very ugly to do so.

I wait and see whose story I’m going to need and then reach out to their representatives, contact them, and go meet them. I tend to do less than Jay Roach, the director, who likes to meet everyone. We made a concerted effort to sit down with just about everyone who has more than say, two lines in the movie.

For me, it’s a combination of primary sources in terms of books, articles, people writing about other people, and then the interviews, and from those three, using the most potent narratives you can. I love doing the primary research myself because you never know what jewels you will find that another writer might leave out, so if you have the time to do it, that’s great.

Kouguell: Was there any resistance about getting permission from Megyn Kelly and Gretchen Carlson and the others? How did that work?

Randolph: It makes a difference, and I won’t lie to you, if you have an Oscar. It gives you a little bit of credibility, so the big, important people know that this is going to be real. It’s much easier to do that now than it was previously. Then more than that, once the project is going into production and actors become attached and those names are associated with the project, then generally people want to talk. Leveraging a bit of that can help a lot.

It’s also about being as gracious and honest as possible. I always tell people, I’m not a journalist, so we can have conversations that are background that not only will no one associate with you, but also, even if everything is on the record, I don’t know if I’m going to be using those details, so people won’t know it’s you. 

It’s really a matter of everyone getting to know the world and recognize that some things, even though there are only two people in the room when it happened, one of them had to have talked. Volunteering information for a film is a much safer prospect than speaking to a journalist. And generally speaking, people like to talk.

Kouguell: Let’s talk about your choice to have the Megyn Kelly character break the fourth wall in the opening scenes.

Randolph: We employed some of this in The Big Short to explain technical concepts. In Bombshell, the idea here was that you needed to very quickly get the logic of the Fox News architectural space, how it exists in that building, how the power was represented in that building, but also what it means to the culture, the flavor of that culture, what the culture was, and the role of Roger Ailes in that culture. We thought we’d do a presentation moment because Megyn is a journalist, and occasionally on her show talked to the camera, as she did famously in the election of 2012.

With all these meta devices, I always say the same thing: Only use them when they’re the only solution available to you to communicate something that you cannot communicate otherwise.

And even in doing that, realize they’re not always going to work.

Kouguell: You created empathy for your characters who many might feel are not empathetic in ‘real life.’

Randolph: Some of these characters we think we know but really don’t. The film is inherently humanizing and one of the things that’s fascinating to me, is a lot of people struggle with the fact that they are identifying with Megyn. We don’t ask you to like the characters, although some people say we do, but that’s not true—we just want you to see them as human. So, much of our understanding of these humans is based on the news, and news is a different function than entertainment. News is about imposing order on chaos. It’s like giving us a story about what’s going on in the world. It’s like giving things labels. Because Megyn and Gretchen don’t live up to that label you have in your head, it gives me an opportunity as a screenwriter to play with your expectations.

I have a friend who asked, ‘Why didn’t you show Megyn as complicit in that culture at Fox?’ and I said, the whole point of her character is that she comes to understand that her silence makes her complicit in the harassment of other women.

I say this to actors all the time, great performances come from characters we are ambivalent about. Do you like Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane? Well, no, you don’t like him, but you understand him. Or Tracy Flick in Election? She’s so interesting and so indicative of a cartoon but also of a type that is sort of real. But do I like Tracy Flick in terms of like? No, I don’t like her—she’s just mean. There’s that thing—great movie characters occupy that space that transcends our judgments, our easy judgments, and so that’s what you’re always striving for as a writer—to get people into a world where they see that character in the terms of that world, and that’s often very uncomfortable in terms of life itself.

« Older posts Newer posts »

Recent Posts

Search

Categories

© 2024 Su-City Pictures East, LLC

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑