2014 Screenwriters Roundtable (Part 7): Chris Borrelli, Brian Duffield, F. Scott Frazier, Chris McCoy, Justin Rhodes, Greg Russo

A special treat this week and next as I will be posting excerpts from an extensive screenwriter’s roundtable I did in December 2014 with a group of talented Hollywood screenwriters: Chris Borrelli, Brian Duffield, F. Scott Frazier, Chris McCoy, Justin Rhodes, and Greg Russo. How good are they? Between them, they have sold more than a dozen spec scripts and have multiple original screenplays on the Black List.

This is the fourth GITS screenwriters roundtable with this group of writers, the first three of which you can read here, here and here. This has become something of an annual event as it’s a great way to take the pulse of what’s happening in the screenwriting universe, track the careers of these talented writers, and benefit from the many insights into the craft they share.

Here is Part 7:

Scott Myers: Does anybody do it a little differently, where they are working on multiple, literally, writing pages of two different projects at the same time?

Justin: I did that most of the year, not by choice. Rewrites, different things would come up, and they are production pressures you couldn’t put it off, or say, “Let me finish this first, and get to that later.” It’s like both fires were burning equally hot and there was no way around it.

Scott Myers: How’d you manage that?

Justin: I am a night owl. I stay up really late, and a lot of what I ended up doing is, I would have an early lunch and work on one project until about dinner, and then take a break. We eat early like five, because we have a toddler, and I would eat with the family, put them to bed, and be done with that, at about eight. I’d write the next thing from eight to two in the morning.

Having that break in between helps, you get 90 minutes where you are not thinking about work at all, and you come back, it’s a new version of yourself. Sometimes, weirdly, I’ll take a shower between projects, I go shower after dinner, and it helps you to feel like you woke up again. It’s a weird mental thing.

Scott Myers: Sounds like you are almost metaphorically trying to move from one world to the other.

Justin: Yeah, it was hard. It was not a process that I enjoyed, or would necessarily recommend, it was a seven day a week thing for about six months, it’s just kind of all blurred together, to be honest.

But you get into a weird rhythm where the fact that one thing is paying off the other one, you can have a good day on one project and a bad day on the other one. So, you can sort of fail, but still have succeeded. I don’t know. It was interesting.

Scott Myers: Greg, you’re moving between projects with your TV thing. That’s something they have to do because they’re in pre‑production or production or post‑production. They got like four or five different stories when they’re in that supervising producer role they’re working on.

So, is that attractive to you or does that kind of make you feel a little nervous, possibly about your TV series if it goes forward?

Greg: One of the alluring things about television to me, is that it’s a collaborative process. You’re constantly working with other writers and producers breaking story and building the arc of the show. I love working with other people, so the idea of more work divided amongst a unified team, seems like the perfect scenario.

As a screenwriter on the feature side, it can be a lonely process. Occasionally you’ll have a notes meeting, and then off you’ll go for another three weeks alone, until you get studio notes and the cycle repeats.

The nice thing about TV is that because it’s happening so fast you’re constantly in communication. There’s always somebody to talk to about things. I find that the writing just gets better because of it.

I’ve tried to apply this formula to my film work. People know I’m a collaborative writer. I welcome thoughts and notes. My goal is to deliver the script that everyone wants. This is only capable through open dialogue and communication.

Scott Myers: Wendy Cohen’s joining us and she’s been tracking the conversation. Wendy, you’ve got a couple of questions. I know you had one for Scott about Berliner.

Wendy: Yeah, of course. I’m really interested in your research process. I was curious if you actually went out and interviewed people or if it was just a lot of reading. How did you go about researching a project like that?

Scott Frazier: It’s hard. It’s going to sound like such a cop-out. A lot of the stuff that I write is research-heavy roles. I write a lot of spy stuff and a lot of things that require that.

I don’t really do much research beforehand, outside of what I already know about the worlds. Specifically for Berliner, I did very little research of The Wall and how it went up and why it went up, and that sort of thing.

After that, I put it all aside. I just wrote the story that I wanted to write. What I do is, after I have that draft that I really feel good about, that I’m like, “Okay, this is close to being a movie.” I go back and do the research, and make sure that everything that’s in there adds up to reality, and how everything worked.

I do it backwards. I write the story, and then I go back and do the research. If the research proves things wrong in the story, then I’ll adjust it on a fly. There have been times when I’ve researched things beforehand. I almost trapped inside of reality and the history of everything. I never want to have to make the concession for the story, based off of reality, I guess.

Wendy: Yeah. Research is a great way to procrastinate.

Scott Frazier: That, too. It’s definitely a trap. I just go about it backwards. It’s half my own process, and also half that I’m just a little bit lazy. I don’t want to sit and spend two weeks looking through books when I’d rather be writing script pages.

Scott Myers: We’re going to add to shame and embarrassment, laziness, as a key to being a screenwriter.

Scott Frazier: Yes.

[laughter]

Scott Myers: Wendy, you’ve also got a question about spec scripts sales.

Wendy: There was a really sharp drop in spec sales this year. They went down by about a third. For all of you, did you notice any trends either at agencies or production companies this year creatively or on the business side? Are people being a lot more cautious?

Scott Frazier: I’ll just jump in, because I keep track of this thing. A good friend of mine is very obsessed with this thing. What we’ve seen in the last year is that, people are no longer referring to options as sales, whereas, for the last four or five years, everything was a sale, whether it was a one dollar option or a million dollar spec sale. They moved away from that. What we saw is actually the reality of this situation, as opposed to a couple of years before that, where the numbers were seemingly inflated by things that weren’t actually sales.

Scott Myers: You’re talking about John Gary, right?

Scott Frazier: Yeah.

Scott Myers: I’ve started to adjust that on the blog. If I can find out if it’s an option, I’ll put it on there. I refer to them as deals as opposed to sales now.

Scott Frazier: It’s tough, especially for me when I first came into the business and that reality adjustment of the majority of things that you sell are going to be options. And it’s going to be for an amount of money that you’re not ready for.

It’s sobering, and it’s one of those things that, as the screenwriter, the first five or six years of doing it and actually having a career, it’s something that you have to be ready to deal with. And that you’re not going to be making a million dollars on your first script sale, and your first sale is not going to be a sale, it’s actually going to be an option.

That reality adjustment, I guess, is important.

Scott Myers: As opposed to the fabled million‑dollar spec script sale that’s promulgated by the cult of screenwriting gurus.

Chris McCoy: I don’t think that’s the reality anymore, and I always look at it like your first spec is your introduction to town. Normally your first scripts are there to establish what your voice is, what you actually want to write and what you want to bring to the town.

Then, off of a spec that people enjoy and pass around, you might get an OWA or you might sell a pitch or something like that. So often, I think with their first spec, writers are trying to write for the market. But when it comes to your first thing, the town is looking more for a voice, and when you get in the room for that first round of meetings, everybody is going to say, “Okay, what’s the next thing?” And maybe the next thing will be the one that sells. But trying to cater to the market, to me, is a big error that I think a lot of younger screenwriters make.

For Part 1 of the Roundtable conversation, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Part 4, here.

Part 5, here.

Part 6, here.

On Twitter:

Brian Duffield: @BrianDuffield

F. Scott Frazier: @ScreenWritten

Chris McCoy: @thatthere

Justin Rhodes: @twopointfour

Many thanks to Wendy Cohen for logistical help with the roundtable.

Tomorrow: Part 8 of this exclusive screenwriter’s roundtable.