Exclusive GITS Q&A: Jeremiah Friedman & Nick Palmer (Part 4)
Back in September 2010, I posted this announcement about newcomers Jeremiah Friedman and Nick Palmer who sold their spec script “Family Getaway” to Warner Bros.. Turns out the guys are fans of the blog and have been reading it for some time. Seeing as they are living out the dream of millions of aspiring screenwriters, I asked if they’d be up for a Q&A and they graciously agreed. It turned out to be an excellent dialogue back and forth, so much so I’ve broken up the interview into four parts. The first two provided some background on the guys as well as the sale of “Family Getaway.” Yesterday we explored how they approach the prep-writing part of the screenwriting process. Today we see how the duo handles writing actual script pages.
Okay, you’re ready to type FADE IN. Do you divvy up scenes for each of you to write or do you work out each scene together? If the latter, could you describe that process?
NP: By the time we actually go to script, we’ve usually outlined all the beats so extensively that we find it easiest to just split the script in half so maybe Jeremiah starts at the beginning and then I start at the mid-point. We each write our half and then trade and rewrite each other. Then we trade again, each takes another pass and then we combine the two halves into one, single document.
JF: One of the things that really works for us about this approach is that by the time we hand the script to anyone else we’ve already rewritten it at least three or four times. Also, by rewriting each other, it really forces each of us to elevate our game and we wind up with a draft we have a lot of confidence in.
NP: Generally when we have smaller revisions and page notes to incorporate, we do that together, moving through the script line by line.
Let’s say you’re plugging along in your writing when you suddenly realize something you wrote 15 pages previous doesn’t work. Do you go back and fix it, or do you keep writing because it’s more important to you to finish that first draft?
JF: We usually just keep moving forward. The exception would be major logic holes we discover. Those we’ll stop, discuss and figure out a way to fix. But in general, we like to write really long, kind of all-inclusive first drafts and then whittle away in the rewrite process. We’ve found that a lot of times you don’t really know what you have and what’s working and what’s not until you take a step back and read everything from start to finish.
Other than getting terrific creative advice from your managers, have you discovered other keys to the rewrite process?
NP: Probably the biggest thing I learned is to give the people who are giving you notes the benefit of the doubt. It’s tough not to be defensive because that’s just your natural instinct, especially if you’ve spent months or maybe even years working on a script and you feel like you’ve got a lot on the line, which is definitely the case with your first script. There have definitely been a lot of times on Family Getaway, for instance, when an executive presented an idea that we’d never considered and because it was so different our initial instinct was to dismiss it or fight against it. But in almost every case, once we sat down and discussed the note we discovered that some version of the new idea actually made the script stronger.
JF: I think maybe the toughest lesson for us to learn with rewrites is that the script can almost always get better. Especially for us, just starting out, I think we both, initially, were really resistant to changing something we felt was already working. It’s a strange mix of confidence and insecurity. Because the truth of the matter is, at least for us, a lot of it came from a fear that we wouldn’t be able to make the script any better, whether that meant coming up with funnier dialogue or more exciting set-pieces, whatever the case may be. What you learn is that when rewrites are working, they’re almost like a purification process, stripping away all the excess and getting to the heart of the story.
NP: Whether you’re repped or not, it’s really important to have a couple of readers whose opinions you trust, people who you know will give you smart, honest critical feedback and not just tell you what you want to hear. That’s the only way the script will get better.
JF: I couldn’t agree more. And just as importantly, you’ve got to get yourself to a place where you can be absolutely ruthless with your own writing. I garauntee that whatever draft you have that you’re convinced is ready to go out wide could use at least one more pass. And you owe it to yourself to be as hard on your writing as everyone else will eventually be.
If there’s one principle about screenwriting to which either or both of you absolutely subscribe, what would that be?
JF: Well goes without saying that pretty much any rule or principle can be broken if need be. It all just depends on what makes the story work best. And I guess that’s one principle I, at least believe, in. Either something works or it doesn’t. Where knowing the “rules” helps is that as a screenwriter your job often is to figure out why something isn’t working, articularte the problem and find a way to fix it. So as far as those bigger principles go, the two I come back to most frequently are that movies are about emotions not ideas and that good writing and good drama comes from character.
NP: Yeah, I completely agree. We read a lot of scripts and the majority of them don’t work. Usually that’s because the conflict isn’t coming from the characters, but instead, from some kind of external, contrived situation, which makes the drama broad and hard to connect with. Another principle I really believe in, even though it sounds like a cliché (because it’s the first thing you learn in pretty much every writing or acting class out there) is that drama comes from objectives and obstacles. The stronger those two elements are, the more engaging the story. Clever writing and smart dialogue are great, but they can’t make up for a weak, central conflict.
Finally as two young, talented writers who are living out the fantasy of literally millions of people, what advice can you offer to aspiring screenwriters about the craft?
NP: Don’t be prescious and don’t settle. When I was writing alone, I’d find myself getting really attached to scenes, whether they were working or not. Having a writing partner has put me in a different head space. Now I know that any scene, any line, any moment can get thrown out and rewritten and so that forces me to make the priority the script as a whole and not my writing. And when I say don’t settle, I just mean always look for the better joke, the stronger action sequence, the less expected moment. Always be pushing and always be open to trading up for a better idea.
JF: I guess my advice would be that hardwork pays off. But you’ve got to put in that work. Nick and I always talk about that we have friends in med school, you know people putting in 80 hour weekes and really pushing themselves to the limit to master their profession and that’s something we both admire and really strive for ourselves. If you’re going to set-out to write professionally, you need to educate yourself about the realities of the business and always be working toward mastering the craft. Bottom line is writing is like sex or push-ups. You get better the more you do it.
Jeremiah and Nick have kindly agreed to look at some follow-up questions, so if you have a good one, please post in comments.
And while you’re at it, how about a big GITS community thank you to the guys for taking the time to give us such a close-up look at their creative process as well as their experience with the business of screenwriting.
For the rest of the Q&A: