Interview (Video): J.J. Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy

Via YouTube:

J.J. Abrams, Kathleen Kennedy, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Gwendoline Christie participated in a panel and Q&A at YouTube Space LA on December 4th. The panel was moderated by YouTube executive Danielle Tiedt and topic focused on the power storytelling and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

The video:

Two things:

* When Kathleen Kennedy was asked why Star Wars has been a story world which has continued to be a powerful legacy for 38 years, she zeroes in on how “aspirational” the stories are, particularly — nowadays in contrast to the more “nihilistic” many big movie franchises are nowadays.

* In responding to the same question, J.J. Abrams said one of the main reasons he decided to get on board to direct The Force Awakens is because he “wanted to feel those feelings again,” referring to his initial experiences of watching the original Star Wars movies. But to him, it’s not just nostalgia. He was excited to see how he could revivify the spirit of the original movies, yet tell something new, what he calls “going backward to go forward.”

There’s a huge object lesson in these comments summed up by this anecdote from Kennedy. She said when everyone gathered together for the first time to start the entire process of taking the Star Wars franchise and moving forward, Abrams had some white boards put up and said, “Why don’t we start by everybody just writing down what do you want to feel when we create this story, whatever it’s going to be.”

I’m not surprised to hear that because I wrote a lengthy post back in 2011 about Abrams’ movie Super 8 about how as a filmmaker and storyteller, Abrams is more concerned with what I call ‘emotional logic’ than rational logic.

And we can also see why Abrams is so connected to Steven Spielberg as a mentor. As smart, talented, and prolific as both filmmakers are, they are hard-wired to find the emotional core of their stories and keep that as a touchstone to guide them throughout the story-crafting process.

What do you want to feel? That is a great question for us, as writers, to ask ourselves as we write our stories. For stories written from a place of strong emotional resonance are much more likely to have a vitality which lifts the words off the page and come to life in the imagination of a script’s reader.

Via YouTube.