Dispatch From The Quest: Paul Wie
Over the course of the 24 weeks I am working with the writers in The Quest, each will write a weekly dispatch to share with the GITS community. There are several reasons for doing this, the main one educational: Hopefully you will learn something of value for your own understanding of the craft from the experiences of the Questers. I should also add they are a great group of people, so I expect you will enjoy getting to know them.
Today: Paul shares his thoughts about brainstorming which was both exhausting and energizing:
The goal of this week’s brainstorming exercise was to leave no stone unturned, to get to know our characters inside out, to let our instincts guide us into unexplored terrains. Ironically, for me, this brainstorming session became less a rambling forth of new ideas and more a refining process of honing in on the exact story I wanted to write. How do I portray my characters in the most honest and interesting way? How do make these people feel real and compelling to watch? After wrangling with these questions and others, I submitted my 18 pages of notes and called it a week. I went into our teleconference exhausted, but after a three hour meeting, I emerged energized and inspired. The notes from Scott and my fellow Questers were incredibly helpful. Everyone’s feedback enhanced and deepened my characters. And while discussing a love story in my script, Sandra enlightened me with a most essential reminder, “don’t forget to make it fun.” Of course, I must never forget one of the key reasons why we go to the movies: to experience the joy and excitement of a new relationship forming before our eyes. So armed with these refreshing insights, I end the week hopeful about my script and grateful for my fellow writers for pushing me to write my story as well as I can. Thank you all. I look forward to fourteen more weeks of this amazing journey.
Faithful readers of these Dispatches will have picked up a theme this week: How challenging a week’s worth of brainstorming was for the group. And yet in the end, my sense is that all of the Questers feel it was worth the time and energy.
My attitude toward brainstorming, whether one takes a completely random approach or uses a set of prompts to guide the process, even if what gets generated ends up translating into 5% of the final script, it’s still worth it. If just one idea turns out to be a significant narrative element, something you likely would not have hit on unless you brainstormed, that in and of itself makes the journey worthwhile.
In my experience of brainstorming, however, I discover tons of content which ends up in the script.
So again, make sure you give yourself enough time to live with and explore multiple narrative possibilities.
Tomorrow: Another Dispatch From The Quest.
About Paul: Director + Writer. Loves Spielberg, Truffaut, Abrams, Kurosawa, Attack the Block, cinematic stories beautifully told. @paulhwie.