Film Courage: Shawn do you write every day do I write every day? Shawn Christensen, Co-writer/director THE VANISHING OF SIDNEY HALL: I do now.
I don't always. I'm working on a screenplay that I'm trying to finalize
so yeah I write every every day but I'll definitely go through phases where I
can't write you know or where I can't write or I don't feel like I have the
ability to write you know. Film Courage: And when you go through that or did you used to be
hard on yourself and now you just accept it as part of the process or how does
that work. Shawn: No, I don't accept. I'm always hard on myself and I don't
accept that as part of the process I just I I just am I'm sort of always
rewriting as I write and never happy with anything out of the gate I guess
what I'll say to you is that I don't write very quickly in that respect I
sort of inch by inch word by word go through this the the pages and I think
I'm a little bit of a slower writer in that respect and the people because if I
give him a first draft to somebody the chances are it's it's more like a fifth
or sixth draft you know I've kind of like I'll go the next day and just
rewrite what I did the day before then get into new stuff you know okay so
you'll go back and sort of revise you won't put it in a drawer for three weeks
and no I never I don't I don't know if I ever blast through pages you know which
is from rare for me like if I were just like without five pages you can be sure
that the next day I will rewrite those pages and then I'll rewrite them again
the next Friday and then I'll rewrite I'll probably write them around 11 times
before they ever see the light of day to a person reading them you know I mean
this is not gonna say it takes seven years or anything but I I'm always sort
of just kind of getting caught up in the polishing and the making sure of the
the aesthetic of the script is as important as these the characters and
the story and narrative you know making sure the pages read like butter is very
important to to me and to the reader too whether that be a producer or an actor
or actress or a financier it's it's part of it and I have some reason I go down
those rabbit holes a lot do you think that comes from being a musician as well
or just oh I don't know I don't know where it comes from I think it comes
from I don't know I just I I just if a word is off or wrong or if something
doesn't feel like you know it if there's a rhythm off of the dialogue I think
this actually more comes from improv classes you know because when I was in
college I really just wanted to be an actor and when you do improv and I was
in a few different groups and a few different acting coaches one of them
actually passed away a few months ago but when you improvise it's a very
empowering enlightening thing and I think it it's great if you are a writer
to have that experience because essentially what you can do then is you
can take two characters and really not know where anything is going and let
them improvise on the page and that's how I write really is I bound I
improvise between two characters on me well what would I like the next person
to say what would be nice and and what's the good rhythm and then I hate it the
next day you know that's basically how it works as I said before we began
rolling we have a lot of screenwriters who watch our channel I'm wondering if
you can talk about how you and your writing partner Jason ended up getting
signed with an agency oh good question so we were bashing each other's
screenplays we were roommates in New York we were slumming in Queens we were
23 years old 24 and we were critiquing each other's scripts and then we decided
along we just write one together and we wrote this movie was called Sydney Hall
not the vanishing in Sydney hall at the time and we were interested in this idea
of how how different we were when we were 18 and now we're 24 and we felt
like you know we had changed a lot and not necessarily matured not necessarily
a better person and we wanted to write something that I could reflect that so
we wrote to Sydney Hall we wrote it in I don't know a half year or so and we
emailed it back and forth to each other and then a friend of mine Paul Wesley
had a manager and he gave it to manager and she gave it to at that time yeah WME
and w and me an agent over there read it and really loved didn't signed us and
that's really how it was so I had an actor friend essentially who had a
manager and really it's Paul Wesley's fault that I'm in this industry because
he did that and he also is good with notes and to help me with other getting
me notes on some my other screenplays but uh I think for an aspiring
screenwriter unsolicited scripts is the problem right you know you you know
finding out who to give it to or or anything like that I think you know
people in in the film industry the film industry is completely and wholly based
on relationships and knowing people and you don't have to know that the big
stars of the big man Jews or anything like that but I think
any aspiring screenwriter if they know someone who plays bit parts on a show or
something like that and that person is a manager or an agent
I'd say that's the good route to go the way we did it which is you know see if
they like your script and maybe give it to them and see and get it so that you
know a screenplay coming from if the screenplay goes to someone of
importance who can pay pay you rewrite it or pay for it to be made or or making
it to movie and you know someone who knows someone that is friends with them
they'll read it if it comes from a friend as opposed to if it's submitted
just you know out of the blue from nowhere you know how did you know this
story was special or or maybe I didn't you didn't yeah we felt we felt was
special because we we felt special I guess yes because we I don't know
because when you write a screenplay I think you think it's special you know
whether or not it is special is sort of up to the you know the gods of the
future but we thought it was special I guess we thought it was special because
we enjoyed writing with each other and we enjoyed the story that we had built
and we had some good plot twists and we liked the nonlinear structure and we had
written you know hee hee Jason had written four or five or six screenplays
at that point and I had written two and so when you get to your third script
your third feature script you've learned you trust me you've learned a lot and
and and I think uh steaming up his weaknesses and strengths and my
weaknesses the strengths really were were were worked well together he's very
good at things that I'm not and vice versa and so we liked it and we gave it
to ten of our friends
here's something that I would advise any screenwriter to do he's starting out you
have a screenplay don't send the PDF to a person and ask him to read it it's
just you're never gonna get anything like that you have to do is you have to
make it a special thing you have to say what we did was we took ten friends some
in the industry some not in the industry wouldn't know many people in the
industry but you know friends who we trusted him thought they were smart and
we said we have a hard copy of the screenplay we'd like you to come over to
we had an office that he wouldn't let my co-writers working for someone in office
in Manhattan we would like you come over the office if you wouldn't mind we're
not gonna stand over you like you know a funny farm and like you know watch you
read the pages or whatever but we'd like you to read it and we'll walk away we'll
be gone for a couple hours you can write notes whatever you can bash it we don't
care we just want like ten different people's point of view so that's what we
did we we had ten people read it like they couldn't leave with it they
couldn't take it we didn't you know that way that we know they're gonna read it
you know and and we're not gonna stand over their shoulder we like left the
office came back and then we sit down with them and we just talk it out with
them we took all their notes we decided what we what we were feeling and and
we're the sort of the consensus notes were and then we went right back into it
and and two weeks later we had like a script that we were able to we felt
could perhaps be given to people to of note so you felt in giving a PDF that it
would just sit in someone's inbox and they would maybe find a reason to say
I'm you know what I'm so sorry I'm really busy but by having them there
sitting them down you know with uninterrupted time it was just a better
way it's I mean it's listen that's a fact
I mean think about it in terms of being on the other side of the coin if your
friend send a PDF a hundred page PDF of you of
something and maybe by the way you're not a screenwriter you're like their
friend and you don't really read screenplays a lot it's a seam it's it's
a daunting task it's a task that you know I don't explain it you could be
excited about reading a screenplay that comes in to your inbox but generally
speaking in the age we live in with emails and social media and all these
things going on for people to get distracted by to read your friend or
your cousin's your second cousin your friends brothers uncles screenplay or
whatever you know we felt that no one's gonna read our script if we just send
them a PDF of it we felt let's just set a time from the read it not like be huh
not be in the room when they read it but that way they'll read it and then right
after they read it we get their fresh unfiltered you know like feelings about
the screenplay and then if we see things from like that if six out of the ten of
them are saying this is no good well then you know we know that's something
we got to work on what do you love about being a screenwriter well I actually
like the format of a screenplay know it's odd to say that because you know
it's it's written for cinema it's a cinematic format but there's something
about a screenplay that I guess cuts to the chase you know you just kind of get
right to it where is it a novel you know you could spend two pages talking about
the decor of the room you know in a screenplay you don't have that kind of
time you have to kind of get right straight to the to the the essence of
the scene and I like with screenplay format also because you can start in the
middle of a scene and end in the middle of the scene in other words you don't
need to say hi and bye and a low and then sit in the couch you can just boom
you're in there in the scene you know it's I just watched recently When Harry
Met Sally if you look at that movie it's really just a bunch of vignettes of
scenes you know they're always sort of mid jogging talking about life and each
other or whatever or their mids he's mid eating a sandwich and they're
talking about orgasms you know everything starts in the middle
ends in the middle and you're on to the next scene that happens a lot in
screenplays whereas in the novel or the book you know you're walking through a
lot of times and depends on the writer of course but I just like the the the
sort of the way and screenplays you can kind of just I guess for lack of a
better word riff from one thing to another and just kind of roll onto an
adventure why did it take ten years for this film
to be made we had the film optioned and then bought out by a really great
independent producer and a great director and then they couldn't get the
money together or something and we were just you know kind of poor
you know kids just sitting around waiting for them to do something and
then it just kind of got they bought it out because they thought they were gonna
make it and they didn't and then it got stuck at Fox after a while they all left
Fox and Fox the studio itself didn't realize they even had this screenplay
so it was a little loophole with the WGA Writers Guild about getting your
screenplay back most people I should say don't get their screenplays back but
this particular screenplay it's a small script or it's a small premise and we
felt we had a shot at finding it back for the price we sold it for which was
not very much and we asked Fox if they would give back
to us and you know they did you know they gave it back to us for the price
that uh we basically for the price that we they bought it for and we went and
made it but we had to wait with that clause that the WGA clause you have to
wait five years you have to wait five years after the last rewrite or the last
active it's called active development and a studio will find any way they can
to not give you back your script though you know active development can be
misconstrued as anything I mean you know that could be a lunch I mean they could
say anything that's not really illegal it's so loose you know but Fox they
simply simply put they just didn't really know that the screenplay was in
their vault because uh the people who had brought it in and left and we got it
back did you lay awake at night thinking I want this screenplay back or it was
more of a process where it came at the right time the five years was up
um uh it was more in the back of my head when I had heard about this this this
WGA clause the five year thing which was like a couple months after we had been
we had done like a quick rewrite on it I kind of just set my internal back of my
head timer and Jason Dolan the screenwriter the screenwriter uh we just
kind of set it in our heads that you know whenever it was 2016 I think it was
we are able to reacquire the screenplay and by that time I think I had just made
my first feature and and I was able to attract more interest to make a second
feature and so the timing was right on him but but really to be truthful I
actually didn't necessarily want to make the movie I just wanted the script back
but you know we made it how did you spend your first few years as a
screenwriter I know you said you initially wanted to be an actor and I
know you've had you know a career as a musician but how did you spend your
first few years as an actual screenwriter and then how is it for you
now is it the same just more years behind you in terms of what you don't
like what you do like oh it's much different it's so have when I first
wrote screenplays you know you're right you're writing it for the the fun of the
medium or you want to write movies or be in the film business or you have a great
story to tell whatever your reasons are combination of all those things but when
you what happened for me is we had an agent as I said from this little script
and once you have an agent especially you're at a big agency like WME you have
access and when you have access it charges you to
and make you know now you can really write because you know you can get the
screenplay to people it's you know it's a different thing
and so I wrote a couple bigger movies bigger in action movies I guess we'll
call them and these movies went into the big studios and they got they went
through the engine the factory and the writer can get really destroyed in that
factory and I got destroyed in that factory doesn't happen all the time but
I wrote a couple popcorn movies and they got rewritten head to toe one of them
didn't get made one did but it was an excruciating experience and it really
quite frankly made me not want to write anymore that's really when I got into
directing because my feeling was I don't know if I'm a good director but I really
don't know if I'm a good writer was the thing so maybe if I I mean if I shoot my
words myself like a short film I'll know if I really belong here or not you know
and I did this short film called the brink we shouldn't have a lot of
dialogue in it and people it was very short film kind of sci-fi romance real
quiet film beautiful music by my composer darin morresy actually made the
film based on his music and it was for freshing because as I said it didn't
have a lot of dialogue so I really didn't have a script I didn't write a
script for this film and it was fun to just direct something not write it
because I was so I really didn't think I was a good writer at that point and it's
nice to just work with friends I had a camera we shot this short film and I
mean we just sort of write and doing short films and myself and my producing
partner Damon Russell and then I got into
acting and that was that kind of rounded me back to liking to write again because
I realized that I can I can have confidence in some of what I do I don't
have confidence and most of what I do but I can have confidence in writing
again once I've started directing is there a specific structure you use or
prefer when writing screenplays well it depends on the script for example right
now I am writing a screenplay I've just started writing screenplays based on
true true life stories this is my second one I'm in right now and it's a whole
different experience than the other stuff I did which is just original
material I prefer writing the true story or the stuff based on real life stuff
because quite frankly the people's stories are better than my imagination a
lot you know some of their own stories of what has happened is better you know
than what I would make up and and in those cases you know I have to do a lot
of research and adapt so adapting a script and an original screenplay are
two different things for an original screenplay I usually start with the
characters and let them talk to each other and kind of have and I have an
idea of the plot I don't outline I I just let the characters infer the plot
like I know the concept or I know the overall beginning middle and end and I
let the characters decide how we get from the middle in the end I let them
you know just bounce off each other again like improvising and then I build
around that but for adapting you can't really do that so you kind of have to
gather all the facts and do all the research and then it's honestly
something I'm learning to be to be to be honest I I'm I'm really just kind of
writing out all the things the great moments that I think in in this
particular script on writing and and then I knowing that I'm going to cut
half of them out but just really I write them out because
they're fun they're great they're interesting to me and then when I find
out they're not interesting to anyone else when I do a little again I'll give
it to ten key people and I'll see the consensus of what is working and what is
not where is the screenplay slow which character is not needed can I take two
characters and combine them I'll do that stuff after I kind of give it to my
inner circle of people who I think are smart and Trust bouncing a screenplay is
very important off of people if you have the ability to do that what's the most
important part of the screenwriting process that if it was taken away it
would just totally make the whole thing you know not fun would negate the whole
process way for me for me the most important part of the process I guess is
all I mean the most important part of any process of a writing whether it's a
scream tornados are the dreaming you know the dreaming of making another
world or telling a new fresh story I don't know if that's particularly
screenwriting but again I do like the cinematic format of a screenplay I'm not
gonna say that I prefer it to a novel or a book but there is a media see to it
and I guess if screenplays didn't have that immediacy maybe I wouldn't be it's
attracted to writing but I like that kind of you know that sort of I guess
Hunter s Thompson sort of like really rapid-fire way that you can write a
script not everyone writes screenplays like
that you know some people like Manchester by the sea I'm sure isn't
written that way you know this it's a you know it's a slow slow drive and it's
suggested that the characters are subtly and beautifully you know and and there's
there there's different gears you can you can use to write a screenplay
and and sometimes you want to write a slow one and sometimes you want to write
a fast one and that's that's I think part of the fun is there a specific book
that you've enjoyed reading that's touch about the writing process or maybe
indirectly talk to you about it that's not really intended for screenwriters
well I didn't I read a Syd field book when I started out and I had read it and
I liked some of what he had to say and I read how to be a whatever some book you
know for dummies or something had to be that that didn't do anything for me once
in a while these books work when they tell you things to avoid I think those
when you when you get asked when you go to the store you're gonna see 75 books
that say how to be a screenwriter I'd say the most valuable aspect of those
books are are often the parts where they tell you to avoid things they say stay
away from you know because there are cliches there are a lot of them and when
people in the film industry read those cliches over and over again you know
they it has an effect on them my I got my experience from reading my favorite
movies or my favorite screenplays so I and I remember when I opened up food
fields book I think his first one he was talking about Chinatown and he's talking
about how he thinks it might be one of the that's or the best screenplay of the
1970s he said and I had just at that time gotten into Chinatown I'd watched
it like eight times in a row I was you know whatever I was eighteen years old I
had just really discovered it and I loved it it's what made me want to be a
screenwriter and then to see him say that in his prologue I was like oh okay
okay now I want to be on this guy's and I read Chinatown I read I remember I
read a Shawshank Redemption and American Beauty and well I wanted to read
American Beauty because a lot of people don't know this but it has a whole
different ending and you know I wanted to read the shooting
screenplays and see how different they were from the the the actual movie I
read I got a lot of information I felt from him from a script from the
screenplay for the People vs Larry Flynt reason being that was based on a true
story obviously Larry Flynt I think had eight wives and in the movie there's
just Courtney Love and that was just revelation to me you know that you can
in order to make a movie work in a certain time period here's how you can
cheat the numbers and still be mostly true that was obviously a big cheat but
the People vs Larry Flynt a member of and Shawshank were big ones for me for
learning a lot about the the formatting of the script and you know how much
action and how little action you need when you when you're out you're heading
and things like that the formatting is very important you know the aesthetic is
very important and I basically learned by reading screenplays when you write a
first draft how detailed is that first draft how detailed what do you mean how
detailed and yeah you know I know you talked about previously off-camera that
you will go back over something fairly soon but when you're first writing this
when you're creating this world when you're sitting down how how you know
much are you getting into the details of the characters are you really thinking
about their backstory or are you just kind of like putting out a structure and
you don't outline but of sort of the story how much are you actually paying
attention to certain things you're just getting just boards out first well it
depends on which script it depends on the story the story is coming from it
generally speaking I don't have a backstory beyond a sentence or two okay
you know I don't know what they you know what they were like in sixth grade or
anything like that I just kind of take from people in real life or combine
people in real life or think of people I know when I again I just bounced
characters off each other knowing that this one is you know sort of feisty and
this one is sort of mellow and this one is sort of this and then you can add on
the second and the third adjective sort of as you as you go but I think in the
beginning if I'm to introduce a character that I've never in my life you
know I say you know Joe 25 persistent you know I don't know I'll say two
adjectives and then I'll just move forward that's it it's real real quick
and then I don't necessarily have to deliver on those adjectives if I feel
like it's going in another direction maybe he's not persistent mhm maybe he's
maybe he's lackluster maybe he's lazy I don't know I have to like write him out
a little bit I have to let him talk in order to talk to no but the dynamic
between characters is important in the chemistry so I always start there that's
where I start and the story and the concept I have as like you know a
sentence it's just it's not an outline it's not an it that's not detailed or in
depth the first draft will be detailed to the absolute X to the extent it needs
to be in order to be concise to the point and not dragging anywhere where we
don't need to be in in particularly in the action so we enter this room am I
gonna tell you that it's got blue walls and a couch
no because the characters are what are important and the room is for the
director that's not my job on the screenwriter the room is for the
director to decide and if you're the director and the screenwriter a great or
whatever but you know people respond to characters first and foremost and so
that's just really the most detailed part of my screenplays the action I
would say is the briefest the part of my scripts did you audition Logan Lerman
for the role of City Hall I did audition Logan and Logan doesn't have to
for roles but yeah he's a class act so yes he came in and read great with the
character Sydney Hall is it based on a real person I mean I felt a huge
connection I felt that there was someone or a composite of someone that was very
real there but maybe it was just a meshing of different feelings you've had
her yeah that's a I guess that's accurate it's a meshing of different
feelings I've had particularly the unfortunate by-product I think of when
you're in your into your art or your writing or whatever which is to be
self-indulgent and to ignore people who are around you and to not pay attention
and not be present was something that I don't like about myself something that I
wanted to implement into Sydney Hall of course
Logan also being someone who has an immense amount of talent and can jump
into characters and he's very young for the ability that he that he has he
understands what that is - it's it's a you know I just saw phantom thread and
you know that character he's so into his thing it's like he doesn't even know
someone sitting at a table with him I wanted to get into that I don't know why
that is or why I've done that I regret having done that and my you know younger
years and so I wanted to get to the bottom of that for sure but yeah it's a
mess a bunch of people a bunch of a bunch of artists and writers and how
they deal and the things that so fall apart around them as their as their get
yourself involved in their whatever their little thing is you know at the
end of the day you could just say well it's just a movie
but most often when you're writing a screenplay
you want to write Citizen Kane and you want to write the great movie and it can
never be just a movie when you're writing a screenplay you know you you're
aiming for the heavens right and so when you're in it you're in it like that
and and you can kind of get so in it that you're not paying attention to life
around you do you think it's okay to give artists a pass for that as we hear
that from so many people whether it's even entrepreneurs they're so focused I
mean if you if you read about you know the beginnings of Apple I think those
are some complaints that the families around them at they were spending so
much time working on this thing mm-hmm so is it just part of if you're going to
turn your life over to creating something whatever it is well I mean is
it I don't know if you're talking about the people who know these artists if
they're supposed to give it a pass then the past that's up to them yeah the
people who enjoy the work I don't know if those people necessarily need to make
judgments or not it's up to you if you want to make a judgement about a person
if you know about their private life I think they're an awful person real life
you know that that you're allowed to not watch their stuff you're allowed to rant
about their work or whatever obviously we know there are some beautiful artists
people like Picasso who were very damaging psychologically to the people
around them do we still love his work we do you know but it's not to say that
he's a great guy necessarily I don't know I don't think the people around
artists really understand that they're being put to the side as much as they
are is actually the real problem or that they're being abused or ignored or
whatever and then there's artists who are just amazing and they don't do that
and they know and they understand particularly actors by the way
especially a lot of actors in this movie who are able to go in front of a camera
and turn into this whole other thing you've never seen before and then when
the camera is off you talk to them and they're just a normal person a lot of
the people on this movie are really just again you know their
class acts and they just kind of they don't have those issues it's not all
artists have not everyone's an artist you know they say they're an artist but
they're not I think that some people are just professional and they know how to
separate and compartmentalize and some people don't
yeah what's interesting was that Sydney was so he was like three different
people in the films I have the beginning where you know he's bullied and he
doesn't sort of fit in and that's sort of what makes his writing beautiful is
because of that so if he had been the jock character he might not have turned
into that but then as a result of that kind of what happens when someone gets
their comeuppance oh yeah and it might just be a natural part of that yeah
having been the misfit for so long so yeah I think a lot of people have been
in high school in that situation you can probably relate to that it's nice I also
think you know today in this day and age it's more often than it used to be in
other words in this day and age it feels like if you were made fun of in school
in high school or you were like bullied or you were like nobody you know you
were misfit or whatever then later on you become editor of The New Yorker or
something I don't mean and you're like how to power and you're allowed to have
an ego and all that kind of stuff and it's it's sort of you know you you know
you you you can over overstep boundaries when that happens because you're
compensating for something you never had popularity that's a good point I think
it's is embraced more you know that's a rite of passage
oh they were bullied okay that that explains it yeah yeah
creatively what is something that you're struggling with now oh that's easy I
have a film writing that's really two movies quite simply I have enough for a
limited series and I'm writing it in one feature and that is that's that's a big
struggle for me right now I have enough material to go on for 200 pages as you
know you just can't write it two hundred page screenplay so again I'm just gonna
write it all out and then kind of see where it's not working for people and
pare it down and then kind of decide if maybe it's one feature or if it's some
other format because we live in an age now where there's all kinds different
ways to different platforms to release things but today my big problem is a
problem I've never had before which is too much material too many good stories
for this particular person and I'm writing a movie about
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