Interview (Part 4): John Gary

There are several reasons I have wanted to interview John Gary for some time. First and foremost, he’s a talented screenwriter. Second, he has a unique vantage point about the craft as it exists in today’s Hollywood. John has been outside the system, worked inside it, achieved some success, then hit a rough patch, made some key personal decisions and acted on them, which has led to his current situation in which he’s writing two studio projects, one for Lionsgate, one for Paramount. He’s also smart and has a keen understanding of the business side of screenwriting. Finally, John is the person who coined the phrase The Hope Machine as it relates to the whole cottage industry of screenwriting ‘gurus’ and consultants. So I was pleased to be able to grab an hour or so of John’s time recently for what turned out to be an insightful conversation.

Today in Part 4, John talks about what he means when he talks about Hollywood and The Hope Machine:

Scott: I’d like to jump to something. You’re on Twitter as is much of the online screenwriting community. I think you coined this phrase, “The Hope Machine.” Is that right?

John: Yes, that was my beast. Not my beast, but I was the who initially coined the Hope Machine.

Scott: Okay, so we can go to the source on this. What do you mean by the Hope Machine?

John: The Hope Machine is that monolith in Hollywood that makes you think that your dreams are right around the corner. Some of it, some of the Hope Machine is purposeful and premeditated, people who actually want you think that. Some of it is just kind of accidental. I think you and I are part of the Hope Machine.

Through no fault of our own, we’re doing the thing that we do, which is a valid thing to do. Being on Twitter, talking about successes at screenwriting is almost part of the Hope Machine, too.

When I first was thinking about it, I thought about it in a very negative way. I have come to the conclusion that it’s value neutral.

All of these things that tell amateur and aspiring screenwriters, “You can do it. You can have a career as a screenwriter. Your career is just around the corner,” what’s important is for people to know that that is not necessarily true and that being a professional screenwriter and making it into having a career as a screenwriter is a long, long, long slough that almost always never pays off.

It’s achievable, but it’s like making it in the NFL. It is actually like making it in the NFL. It’s like actually being Peyton Manning. There are just as many paid feature screenwriters as there are paid NFL football players every year.

Scott: Let me play devil’s advocate because I see this come up sometimes.

John: Yeah. Absolutely.

Scott: People will say, “The only reason you pro writers shit on the chances of outsiders succeeding is to keep us from trying to make it and increase the competition.” How would you respond to that?

John: A couple dozen people make the jump to professional feature screenwriter every year, and most of those wash out after not too long. There is not some torrent of new writers threatening to take jobs. This job is so weird and so hard and so self-defeating that really the only person I’m competing with is myself.

In the end, all I want is for people to know and understand the realities of the business when they start out, because I have watched too many people “break through” as screenwriters and then fall apart and end up three years later back in their day jobs. And they look around and wonder where it all went wrong, but the answer is, “That’s the business.” That’s the norm. So even if you get the brass ring, you have to keep getting the ring over and over again.

I compare it to the NFL, but at least with the NFL, if you don’t have some specific physical attributes, if you aren’t tall and muscular and, obviously, a man, if you’re older than 18 or 19, you know you’ll never make it. You know you won’t play football professionally, so that isn’t something you spend your whole life trying to make happen.

Screenwriting is different. Everyone thinks they can write. Everyone loves movies. Everyone thinks they know what makes a good movie. There are no physical restrictions, no age restrictions, no external boundaries to being a screenwriter — which is a blessing and a curse. Anyone can do it, but also, everyone thinks they can do it. So a lot of people put a lot of time and energy and money into trying to make something happen that is just very very very unlikely.

But it’s the hope and corresponding disappointment that kills people. I think if you understand the odds better, you can better manage your disappointment — and in the end that’ll make you more likely to enter your career knowing what to expect and able to make better decisions.

Scott: What about the cottage industry, the script consultants and the screenwriters podcasts, and the books and all that?

John: Yeah. That’s the most nefarious part because those are people that want to actively perpetuate the idea that screenwriting is an achievable goal for everyone. If they don’t, then their money dries up. It’s not, especially as the purchasing of specs have gone.

Specs are the way that new writers break in, and as that has declined, it’s become more difficult for new writers to really get a toehold and become successful.

The cottage industry, they’re interested in making money off people with dreams. That’s pretty much it. They’re not interested in helping you build a career.

They want you to think that Hollywood is against you, and that they have the clues and the secrets. Yes, Hollywood is against you because Hollywood is a giant monolith. But nobody has any clues and secrets. The only clue and secret is, “Write a good script in a genre Hollywood makes.”

The only people who could really help you are friends who you meet when you move out here. You can throw away a shitload of money trying to chase some idea.

Scott: But, John, it’s so much easier, to say, “There’s a proven formula or a paradigm or a process.”

John: It is. It’s super‑seductive, isn’t it? It sounds so easy, but it’s not. Great writing is about what is personal and human and relatable. That’s different for everyone. The trick is to keep your nose down and keep writing. Keep meeting people who want to help you and who you can help, and you all work together into finding some way into building some kind of career, hopefully.

Scott: That’s a natural segue into some craft questions, if you’ve got time for that.

John: Totally.

Scott: How do you come up with story ideas?

John: I think a lot about setting and tone and mood, I’ll find a thing I’m interested in, a world I like, a world we haven’t seen before, something I’ve read about, a magazine article or a book or even a movie that has some element in it that maybe they don’t explore a lot but really interests me, and then I’ll think about building off of that thing.

Like when I was first thinking about “The Eye,” which is a sci-fi noir, I’d been watching Chinatown a lot and I’d been reading about Elon Musk and SpaceX. I hit on the idea that Elon Musk is basically today’s Mulholland. Then, I look for the human way into it. What’s the piece of that that’s relatable?

With “Sarah,” I had robots, college, parents — but those are all the things in the movie, but that’s not what the movie is really about. It’s really all about how, when you go to college, you are leaving your parents behind and growing into your own person. So then I built the whole script around parents and children, and everything started to make a lot more sense to me.

Scott: I would figure that one of the tests that you put, when you come up with a story idea, is, “What’s the human thing? What’s the relatable dynamic that’s there?”

John: Always. That’s always the thing that I keep coming back to. Then, that will always give me the theme and the central dramatic question. Once I find that, then it’s not easy, but then everything becomes clear.

Scott: Let’s jump to theme, here. Are you one of those people that needs to know that up front, before you’re writing? Or is that something that emerges along the way?

John: I don’t need to know it up front. I often have a general idea. I like to know what I’m dealing with, thematically, but I don’t need to know the exact central dramatic question. I will find that through working the script, writing the first draft and then revising that.

Especially the second draft, I can write directly towards the central dramatic question, make sure that every single scene addresses it and is relevant and hopefully that the character is always grappling with it and by the end of the movie has resolved that question.

Tomorrow in Part 5, John provides his take on some key aspects of the screenwriting craft.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

John is repped by ICM Partners and The Gotham Group.

Twitter: @johngary.

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