Go Into The Story Interview: Chris Borrelli

My conversation with the writer of the 2009 Black List script The Vatican Tapes.

Chris Borrelli’s screenplay The Vatican Tapes landed on the 2009 Black List. In addition, he has sold multiple spec scripts and his movie credits include Whisper, Dangerous, Eloise, Run & Gun, and The Vatican Tapes.

Here is my interview with Chris.

Scott: Have you always been a movie fan?

Chris: Yes, when I was ten years old I saw a film on TV with Mark Hamill that changed my life. That was called Corvette Summer, where Mark Hamill goes across the country chasing after his awesome 70s tricked out Corvette. I didn’t know until I saw the movie that you could just pick up and go places. I thought there were all these rules in life. I didn’t think you could just chase after your awesome Corvette.

It got me thinking about California. It got me thinking about movies and I just got to love them more and more as I got older.

Scott: Where were you living at the time?

Chris: I’m from Massachusetts. I’m from a suburb south of Boston and I get back there three times a year. It kind of helps. There’s something great about Boston that it’s kind of a blue collar, white collar mix of a city. You really have people of different financial strata or whatever, they intermix more. There’s something about Boston that is conducive to writing, and Massachusetts in general. There’s also a heavy, heavy dose of sarcasm there. When I’m home, I pick up all these little gems. It helps me. Frankly, it helps me write dialogue, funny as that sounds.

Scott: When did you become aware of the fact that there were these people known as screenwriters who actually write movies?

Chris: I always did a little research and I was always interested in how it all came together. The first things I wanted to do were either produce or direct. Then I realized I could actually make a living as a screenwriter when I was much older. But it’s all storytelling to me. I’m not naive, and I’ve done different aspects of that, and I want to continue to. I want to move into directing soon here, but it’s always storytelling to me. It always starts with the script. Everyone always is interpreting the script, which comes from the screenwriter. I’ll never not be a screenwriter. I believe I’ll do this from now on…that’s where it starts, and that’s what I’ve grown to love so much.

Scott: Foraging through your IMDB Pro page, there are some intriguing clues about your career in Hollywood.

Chris: I did whatever it took to learn this business. I worked on low‑budget features, then I worked in visual effects for almost five years, which I loved. I started as an assistant, but I was soon promoted to being a photographer and videographer for all the big movies. The company I worked for was bought by Disney, so we did all the Disney movies for that period of time. It was just a wonderful learning experience. You sometimes want to have 200 people on the set, and sometimes you want to have 3 people shooting plates or shooting miniatures in the background, and I did everything from editing to being a full‑time staff member, and it was a really great education. It still helps me now, when I can talk visually, and I have an idea how things are shot, that I have edited a lot of EPK, stuff like that. It was a really well rounded education. I’d already been to film school, but it was kind of like a second film school.

Scott: And that’s including movies like Con Air and Armageddon?

Chris: Yeah, and a whole bunch of other movies, as well. It was a really good time and I met a lot of great people. It’s very different from screenwriting, but I got to really live in the physical production world, and it was a great benefit.

Scott: You had a stint where you were working on the development side of things?

Chris: That came later. For nearly five years I was a DOD [Director of Development] at a small company, and we had a fund and I read whole lot of scripts, and bought scripts, and optioned books. We had a couple of movies made, but it was another great education. When I was finally laid off from that, things seemed kind of dark. I had this one script I had written, and I had met a manager, who is still my manager. He sent it out for me, and six months later we’re filming a Universal/Gold Circle film. That was a thrill. At that point I felt I knew what I really wanted to do.

Scott: What are some of the key things you learned from those variety of experiences in the business that you brought to screenwriting?

Chris: Especially when I would read several scripts a day in development, I could sometimes spot when I writer didn’t understand how a film actually is put together. That doesn’t mean once in a while I don’t break a coupe of those so‑called rules, where I’ll write down an emotion a character might be feeling, so on and so forth. But in general it’s really trained me to think visually. Starting with photography, starting with editing, and video, and then moving on there to sitting on the other side of the desk, what comes in, gets communicated, how short people’s attention spans are. All these things really add up to really help me understand.

And to think of the customer. You know, we finish a script, our first customer is a small audience of 100 or 200 people, really. People are going to read our scripts. And then from there it grows and grows bigger.

I’m always trying to think about, am I communicating, am I doing the job of communicating the emotions on the page that the person is gong to be reading it? Trying to almost look in the future, imagine that person opening my script. They’re seeing it all for the first time.

During the writing, we write draft, after draft, after draft, and we can really forget things we assume that are easy for the audience to understand or they already know were lost drafts ago, or were never there to begin with, but unfortunately stayed in our heads

I’m always thinking about the way I can communicate that emotion, what I’m trying to get out of that scene, or sequence, or the entire script. How can I communicate it to the first customer, which is the reader?

Of course, as we know in this business, it’s not like you learn it and it’s done, it’s a process and you’re always growing, but it definitely helped me cement the foundation of what it’s like to get to read several or more scripts a day, or read ten scripts on a weekend. And then to think how we can stand out, how to get across that emotion. That’s really what we’re doing. I think, to me, film is really about an unspoken contact between the person going to the movie or watching television. They’re looking for some kind of emotion, they’re searching for it. Comedy, it can be, it can be reflected in horror, to feel something in drama, no matter what it is. And then we are supposed to fulfill that part of the contract. It doesn’t mean there won’t be surprises, or that a film has to be just one of those emotions, hopefully it has several or more of those emotions.

I’m always thinking about that person reading, and then, I’m trying to think about how it translates into the actual film.

I don’t go down to the micro of exactly how it’s going to be filmed. I do think a shot list should be on it sometimes, to be honest…for action scenes, and the like. We write these things in our rooms, in the dark. They’re, hopefully, going to reach millions and millions of people. You’ve got to think of that process, of the first group of customers, second group of customers, and how it goes from there. I’m always trying to think beyond me sitting in that little dark room.

Scott: You have a lot of pragmatic, hands‑on experience, working in various aspects of filmmaking. Was there anything else you did to augment your understanding of the craft?

Chris: I really couldn’t write, for a long time. I’d even made short films, myself, and I’d worked…but I really couldn’t write. I think I had the knowledge, but I hadn’t tied it all together. I read, Linda Seger, I believe, “Making a Good Script Great.” I read that book. I remember everything, kind of, connecting in my head, of how I’d been so close, for so many years. It really did help, and now I’ve read quite a few screenwriting books.

My belief is that you should learn the rules, and then you learn them well enough where you can break them. It was a big help when I finally started to research into different aspects of the list that comes together. I think there’s a wonderful art in it.

I’m not beholden to the rules, I’m just glad to know them. That idea that you should have as much knowledge as possible…I think you should learn as much as possible anyway, and then you can feel free to work your own system into them.

Scott: Let’s turn to the project “Sad Jack.” It’s a spec script you wrote that sold in December of 2011 to Code Entertainment. Here’s a logline from Variety:

“‘Sad Jack’ tells the story of a hired assassin who’s challenged by his paranoid schizophrenia to distinguish real threats from those conceived in his imagination.”

First off, would you call this an action thriller, or an action movie?

Chris: Very much, I’d call it an action thriller, and there are hints of romance in there. It’s essentially what I’ve been wanting to do for several years or longer, was an action version of Beauty and the Beast. As funny as that sounds, and I realize how that sounds. In it, essentially you have a person living on the fringe of society. Essentially he’s looking at an ugly soul. He’s dark, he’s broody, he’s all these things. This woman comes into his life, and for once he’s going to try to protect somebody, so you’ve got a little bit of irony at the beginning. From there it’s a movement of a woman essentially making a man a better person. I think men, we get better as we get older, and in this film the woman changes the man.

The problem with this is him being a paranoid schizophrenic he’s able to keep her alive for the first half of the movie from the people who want to kill her. His paranoia actually works to do some good. But as she changes him he relaxes. He’s becoming a more normal person and his paranoia is slipping away.

That’s where there is that sad yin and yang of it and what’s going to happen. It’s a gothic to me, a romance, and I don’t care that it has a big shootout action sequence. It still to me is something as ‑‑ I think it’s an action thriller, but there are obviously romantic elements to it.

Scott: How did you come up with the story concept for “Sad Jack?”

Chris: I honestly don’t know. I was looking at fairy tales, and I did think about Beauty and the Beast. That was at the beginning. From there, I honestly don’t know. It didn’t take that long to write, and it was an intense period when I put it together, but I just let it talk to me. I know what that must sound like, but I just listened. I sat and I generated pages, and went back. I didn’t even do an extraordinary amount of rewriting in it. It was something that just somewhat think and flow.

I’m always looking for the next idea and sometimes they come in a way you’re not expecting. Sometimes it’s when you’re not searching for them that they knock on the door, and you listen. I would probably say the jumping off point was “Beauty and the Beast,” and then I went from there. How could I do that as an action movie or hit man movie, something like that? That was essentially the genesis.

Scott: In a way, you were doing a bit of genre‑bending, taking a fantasy story and turning it into an action story.

Chris: Very much, but to me it’s more that when they write those fairy tales, or a little Shakespeare, or when you go back to the Roman myths, that he based some of his stories on…to me, and the Romans stole their myths from other cultures, to me it’s those basic stories we all love. They didn’t necessarily have action movies back then, but we can take some of these classic stories, and classic themes, and we can do anything with them. For me it was this kind of idea of…and I also have a theme about most of my work, which is that no one is irredeemable.

I truly believe that. Usually my main characters are…it can be a bit dark, it can be a bit hard to love at first, but over the course of the film they grow in that way. I’m a big believer in that, that no one should be written off necessarily. Except my bad guys, they always get it.

Scott: What intrigued you most about delving into a protagonist character who has to deal with paranoid schizophrenia?

Chris: There’s a lot of freedom in it. I was concerned at first that I would be limited by what paranoid schizophrenia is, and I talked to a friend of mine, a psychologist, and he works with people like that every single day, every single work day. He said the thing about the human mind, he told me, is you can do almost anything. The people he deals with, they don’t follow one set of rules, it’s the human mind. It’s just like imagination, I guess in a sense the darker side of it. I enjoyed that freedom going into it. I enjoyed the irony of someone who is paranoid, of it actually being a good thing in an extreme situation. And from there it really wasn’t a hard write. You know, it took several months, and so on and so forth, like all this stuff can take, or longer. But it wasn’t torturous because it was fun. It was fun to write, it was fun to create, and it was fun to put this character, who’s very, very smart, but who doesn’t seem to be on the surface, into situations.

A second part, and I don’t really do a whole lot of research, but when I did a little bit, I came across a story of a man, who when he turned 18, 19, or so…this was onset, he had a condition, and his family, essentially, disowned him.

He wrote, if I had gotten cancer, or another disease, my family would have rallied around me. But what I have is so strange, and I can’t control it, that they all turned their back on me…essentially what he put.

That called out to me too, I really felt for that. That affected me too, and I wanted to tell the story of someone who might be dealing with a similar condition.

Scott: It seems to me one of the big challenges for you in writing “Sad Jack” was how to convey visually the internal experience of Jack’s psychological state. How did you go about developing ways to express that on the page?

Chris: Well, to me the movie should…there’s a blue collar aspect to the movie, and a big crime element, so the movie isn’t supposed to be overly trippy, so to speak, or psychedelic…anything like that. There were times where I put in a couple of visions, and even those I scaled back. There’s a scene in the middle of the movie where he goes on a date with the girl, and it’s potentially a confessional date scene.

As they talk, he tells her that he believes people are watching him. We realize, hopefully as an audience, without us breaking that extra wall, we realize that he’s talking about us.

He believes he’s in a movie, he thinks there could be cameras on him right now, and in a fun way he’s right. So there are ways I could do it visually. I did experiment with some more over the top ways, where he was going to see characters in mirrors. Where he would see a car crash, and he would, in his mind, imagine a stunt performer getting out of it.

But it went a little too far for me, and I scaled it back. I erred on the more realistic side, and I knew that I could eventually put that in when the director came on board, if he wanted it. But I erred on the side of caution because it was a spec.

Scott: It’s important when we write characters to come up with those specific bits of business that make them feel real. And one of the ways you convey Jack’s psychological state I thought was effective wasn’t visual, it was an audio thing. That buzzing of lights, a kind of a recurring theme.

Chris: Right.

Scott: So that was one thing. Another thing I thought was interesting…he has this uncanny ability when he’s shooting a gun to catch the casings in mid-air. Do you remember how you came up with that idea?

Chris: That just came out of nowhere to be honest with you. I sold another script the year before, and we’re about to announce the new director on that, that I’m excited about. That’s a script called “Wake,” that’s meant a lot to me too…I love that character. That character could kind of be Jack’s cousin. I knew that they were sort of similar, and I didn’t want to get stuck with the same sort of idea. Oh, that character doesn’t have the schizophrenia…he’s a much happier person, even though he’s in the same sort of world.

That character I wrote, I wanted to write an action movie with a main character who couldn’t shoot. They’re always such great shots, I wanted to do a guy who couldn’t shoot…he can’t hit anything.

Jack, I went the other way with him. He’s very clear sighted, he’s very good at what he does. Part of the manuscript about the schizophrenia, is he’s happiest when he’s either in danger, or he’s got to be firing on all cylinders. It’s part of his condition.

Restless and boredom is a detriment to his life. He’s very unhappy when there’s not much going on. But he’s happiest, and calmest, Jack is, when he has things that would frighten the hell out of you or me, or too many things going on…he loves it.

Throughout the script, our main character Jack is, in many ways, referred to as an animal…different kinds of animals. This is some more subtle stuff I put in scripts that not everybody has to get to, hopefully, enjoy the script.

But I keep coming back to the imagery of different animals. There was a scorpion and an octopus…all these different animals that represent different parts of Jack’s personality. Along those lines, not everybody’s going to understand everything in a script.

Just putting it in there and having them feel the world is rich. If you even may not pick up on this. It’s very subtle, but the first time we meet Jack he’s in shorts, second time he’s in jeans, third … you know.

As the script goes on he’s in a polo shirt. At the end, when he winds up in prison for a stint, he’s got his pants pulled up very high. It’s like he’s aging. As if he’s becoming a man as the film goes on.

Again, this is an action movie with some genre moments. I like to layer in different kinds of imagery and different kinds of symbolism just to build it out and make it feel rich and it makes me happy.

Scott: Now that you mention it, I remember the description and that evolution in terms of his attire and stuff.

Chris: Yeah.

Scott: It’s great you thought that through. In a way it’s like that image of like the iceberg. 90 percent of the ice is below the water. For writers, maybe 10 percent of what we learn about our characters ends up in the script, but we need to know that 90 percent to understand them.

Chris: That’s so true, and the other part of it is, it’s why screenwriting is…You have to…There’s a certain technical side to screen writing. There are many, many great authors. They can’t necessarily write a screenplay. It’s not lack of talent. It’s just that screenplays are so much about what is said, and what is visual. They’re supposed to be clean, and sometimes you have trouble keeping a script under 120 pages. I sold a script that was only 79 pages, but it depends. At the same time, with the screenplay it’s supposed to be very, very clinical. Everything there, in my opinion, should mean something. Every sentence in a spec I send out, or a job I do, I check for every sentence to have a real reason for being there.

If not, I relish cutting it. It kind of trains your mind when you’re a screenwriter. I just finished writing a fiction book, that people have been a little bit excited about. That’s a whole other subject I realize, but it felt fun to have a little more freedom to be able to say what a character was thinking for a [laughs] change, without having to fake it, or write it, or tell it in a look.

It’s been fun to write in a flashback or two, where a character thinks back to a distant event, without realizing it’s a film, and being expounded in that way.

Scott: Back to “Sad Jack,” the protagonist Jack, he intersects with a next door neighbor, Caroline. She leads kind of a sheltered life. I think she works, basically, like a tax accountant.

Chris: Yeah.

Scott: In many ways you’ve got these two characters that are from completely different worlds. How did Caroline’s character emerge in your creative process?

Chris: I would say that’s simple. Of course, I wanted to have a romance. Someone who really understands film philosophy better than me might do it different. I sometimes feel that a character like that is your main character. So in the Hurt Locker, I feel Anthony Mackie’s character is actually probably the main character. That’s just my two cents because we relate to him much, much more than the more over the top characters.

Caroline’s essentially us. She hasn’t dealt with someone trying to kill her before. She’s honest, she’s decent and in a way she has to go into this netherworld and there is just one guy who is going to help take her through it, and that’s Jack.

He’s doing it because he can’t express it, but he’s in love with her and he has been for a long time and he has one chance to actually do something right in his life.

The short answer, one sense I’d give you is it’s just the opposite of the main character. Obviously it wouldn’t be any fun if she was too close to him, too similar, anyway, to him in this kind of story.

If this was a two anger buddy action kind of film that would be different, but for something like this you wanted a contrast and that wasn’t hard to do because she’s a very relatable, regular person like most of us.

Scott: When working with a dynamic whereby the protagonist develops a relationship with an Attractor character, how important is it to identify an authentic point of connection between the two? In this case, what is the point of connection between Jack and Caroline?

Chris: I went very primal and basic with it, but it asks a bigger question as the film goes on. In the primal way, Jack just has…he has watched her from afar…she’s his neighbor…without being a stalking, too creepy…creepier than he already is. He just has feelings for her. The more interesting way is what she feels about him. That is that we’re wondering throughout the film, when she doesn’t need him anymore, will she still need him anymore…will she want anything to do with him?

We seem to go back and forth with that. She’s not a manipulative person, she’s just fighting for her life here. But the question is, can someone like Jack move with Caroline to the suburbs, and have a regular life?

I think most of us just realize in reading, it would feel inauthentic if that would happen. We know that he’s in a different world, we know that this is his chance to do something right, and that just layers sadness to the script, that’s in the background.

It also makes Caroline a little more complicated. I always think of the sitcom mom…Caroline’s not sitcom mom where she just always plays off interesting people. There’s something in her that she’s…how far is she willing to go to stay alive, and when she doesn’t need him anymore, will she want anything to do with him?

So that’s one of the questions that’s asked throughout the script.

Scott: The story’s Nemesis is a man named Marcos, and he’s got an interesting criminal enterprise. How would you describe this character?

Chris: Well, I really went simple. There’s that character, and there’s his son. We’ve seen that dynamic before…the old school, older mob type, and the younger, more flashier guy…up and coming. But to me, there are different versions of antagonist, and often antagonist drive the story. I honestly just feel that this is a character that is someone you can…I just wanted to make him as frightening as possible, to sound very basic about it. Because really, the story’s about Jack, and really these other characters are there to be a challenge to him, and they certainly are.

I got one little idea from him, from a conflict as a kid, where there was a set of killers, so dangerous, that if they had your number, there was no one you could go to. So that always stayed in the back of my head as a very frightening idea, and I went with that with our antagonist.

And that, again, is why someone like Caroline can’t go to the police, can’t go into hiding for the rest of her life. I just wanted to set up a high mountain for the…heroes to have to climb. If that’s not a term, I’m sorry, I just made it up [laughs].

Scott: In some ways, he’s like the perfect type of Nemesis to the story. He’s in prison, yet a runs a substantial criminal empire, orchestrating things while he’s behind bars. He’s like the man, behind the man, behind the man.

Chris: That’s part of the fun: What do you do if your villain is already in prison? You know, obviously your legal system is going to fail you, so it was a nice shortcut. Throughout film they realize they have no way of getting to him until the end when Jack devises a different kind of plan. But essentially that is an idea. There’s something extra frightening and intimidating that your villain is locked up because it’s kind of like the world’s already done everything it’s going to do to him and there’s obviously no legal recourse to someone like that. So it was a simple, and I thought pretty clean way to have a sort of overlord. To have a kingpin type character.

Scott: It’s almost like he’s a mythical figure in a way if you were describing him to a regular person, and so that fell right in to the delusion of a paranoid schizophrenic.

Chris: Well, you know, there’s a saying and I heard it a few times too many, but it’s that even paranoids have real enemies. And that’s a nice one‑sentence thing for what’s happening to Jack and Caroline. So that’s kind of the idea, and, you know, I also like horror and of course in horror the first thing you do is isolate your main character. It makes horror movies, but it works very well in action thrillers also. These characters that don’t have anyone else they can turn to. Jack was there by his will. He could at any time get out of this situation, at least to a point. Then around the middle of the film, of course, he’s in all the way.

Scott: The story takes place over the course of a few days. Do you like working with stories that have a compressed time frame?

Chris: Yes, very much. So many of my scripts really do take place over two or three days or one or two or three days. I do like to do that. Of course, I’ve written a couple the other way, but it fits well into action genre tension and it keeps things simple and clean. Again, in a book or another art form, you really have more time to play with, and of course even films can take place for years and years as well, but I tend to gravitate towards isolating the characters in some way, even if they’re in a crowd. Even if they’re in a city. Then from there having an aggressive time frame. I’m just drawn to it.

Scott: You just don’t have to deal with all those time ellipses. You set the pace and it just goes.

Chris: It’s really, largely a pacing issue. Pace is something that I find comes pretty naturally. I don’t really think about it, it just kind of comes. One of the reasons is that I’m not doing something where the story takes place over weeks or months. Pace is one of those issues I don’t give much thought. I just follow the lead of the story and the action and it tends to just work out which in my opinion sounds a little lucky. I don’t know. So far, I tend not to think too much about pacing. It just kind of happens if all the other elements of story are all there.

Scott: I’m not going to give away the ending, although it certainly works and it’s emotionally compelling. Picking up on this sadness underlying the relationship between the two lead characters, the ending is not the happiest resolution in the world. How conscious were you about Hollywood’s obsession with happy endings, and why did you choose to pursue this particular resolve to this story?

Chris: I had worked really hard…12 scripts, and I’ve had a pretty good track record. I’m very fortunate. But I really don’t trace trends or ideas, and if someone wants to change the ending, they own it at that point. I understand that. But for me it felt the most natural way for the film to go. At the same time, there’s something about it that is a victory. It didn’t make me too sad, because there’s something about it that the resolution is right. I guess I would say, it seemed the only proper way to end the film. I didn’t over‑think in that sense, what someone will think about the one ending. In fact, if someone closes a script and they’re emotionally affected in some way, or if the movie ends and they’re emotionally affected, then we’ve done our job.

Scott: That’s why I said it felt very compelling and it felt appropriate for the characters. Within that story universe, it felt like the ending that had to happen.

Chris: I felt it was honest. I felt it was the most honest way to end the script. Still, I felt it was enjoyable and satisfying. I didn’t feel it would have been perhaps a more common ending.

Scott: How long did it take you go from story concept to final draft?

Chris: The actual write time for this script, and for most scripts I really hunker down, which is three to four months. But the ideas have been germinating for a year or more, in some cases. This was something I have been searching for the idea for several years. I had different scribblings and notes in my idea file and so on and so forth, but when I actually saw the light with this and I started to write, it only took between three and four months. I enjoyed it. My favorite part of screenwriting is that time where I’m generating five, seven, eight pages a day. That feels pretty good, and at the end of the day my screenplay has gone up in page count. It doesn’t mean it’s not going to be rewritten several times.

I’m going to go back, and I might cut one of the two scenes I wrote, but it feels very good. There’s a sense of momentum as that happens. And also, that’s also when the ideas just keep coming.

I just know in the back of my head, there’s a character in my head, I’m on page 40, and I think of something I should have put on page 20, and then I also think of something later in the day. I’m in the shower, I’m out…wherever I am, and I think of all these other parts that can go into that particular script.

It’s a great feeling. So it’s, I guess you can call it being in the zone. I would say it took me about 10 weeks to write.

Scott: How involved in feedback and the script development process were your reps at WME and H2F Entertainment?

Chris: I do more development with my managers. Also, I have a core group of friends who are either writers or people who really understand screenplays, not just great friends, but they’re talented in that way. I get a little feedback from them and I gel it all together. Then I do it for spec, because I’m not working for someone directly as I write it. I do what I want in the end. I’m a little, when I’m working for somebody, I mean, I’m their employee, I see myself and I’m going to try to give you the best script possible. But they insist upon something, I would try to give it to them.

But I definitely use them on that. I use whatever resources are there, and I take it all in, and then I’ll make the best decision from the information in front of me.

I think when we’re younger, when writers starting out, they are a little too precious, it’s just natural. Or they think of feedback as, they can feel very insulted. It gets to a certain point and I don’t feel that way at all. I really want to know what someone thinks because I don’t care, you can’t really hurt my feelings. I just want to know.

Hopefully people like it, I’m hoping they’ll like it, but f they don’t I’m extremely curious what isn’t working or what wasn’t working for them, and then I try to address it. Especially if I hear it from more than one person.

Scott: So “Sad Jack” ended up selling with interest from multiple bidders. How did that deal go down?

Chris: It was really fun to have more than one company after it, even though I’m a big believer you really only need one company. Of course you want many, but you really only need one. When I wrote the students in my alumni association I always tell them that. I really just try and do that. I was flattered to have several companies after the script, and we just went with one of the offers. All great people though. I actually know people in all those companies and they’ve all been really supportive.

Scott: What’s the status of “Sad Jack?”

Chris: We just re-optioned it. We have our director, and we’re making offers to actors right now, now that the year’s essentially started up again.

Scott: Another one of your projects, “The Vatican Tapes,” that made in the blacklist in 2009 right?

Chris: Yeah, yeah that was a thrill.

Scott: Describe that experience for me.

Chris: Well, we sent that script out two weeks before “Paranormal Activity” came out. We had a buyer, but the moment “Paranormal Activity” came out, we had everybody else want it. We’d already made a verbal deal. It was just a thrill at the end of the process, at the end of the year, to get that kind of accolade from the business itself. The business saying that they enjoyed this little horror movie that was not easy to write, because so little has to happen as a point of view movie.

Point of view’s are getting a little tired, people say, but I truly believe that there must be some market for them, because we’re living like a found footage right now. More people are using their iPhone’s to film what’s going on around them.

I don’t think it’ll ever go away. I think it’ll always be some point to them, around. But it was just a real thrill for me and it was a kind of difficult script to write because I had to trust that it was all going to hold together from some very small little movements. You really had to get that structure perfect, where in a regular film I could have little asides that the character would say that are kind of funny I could cut in. But in this film it had to feel like you were actually watching a real movie.

Scott: That actually dovetails into another question. Are you going to sit in this area: action, action thrillers? Or do you have any plans to try to expand out into other genres?

Chris: I really love all kinds of genres. Usually I start with the characters. Even my horror films are very character central in most cases. I don’t see them as very different genres. I know they are, but to me they’re either character driven action or thriller or sci‑fi or horror. Those are the movies I also go and see so right now those are the formats I really enjoy working in. I really do start with the character first and I try to give him or her something interesting about them, then I try to challenge them with the actual story. That should be the challenge for the main character. That should be what the film is about. And of course, the journey as well.

Scott: I’d like to ask some craft questions. You start your process with characters. How do you go about developing your characters? Any specific tips or tools you find yourself using regularly?

Chris: Well, do you know the quote it’s always that either the times make the man or the man makes the times? To me it’s your character and it should be something you don’t have to think it thorough. You don’t have to be thinking this every moment you’re writing. In the beginning, your character should be the perfect character for the story you want to tell. By perfect, I mean he or she is challenged, he or she may have a skill that’s necessary so that they can succeed where others would fail.

Scott: What about story concept? How do you develop story ideas.

Chris: This is a challenge, because to me it’s really so much about the story. There’s a fair amount of really good screenwriters out there…there’s always a shortage of really good stories. But the more you train your brain to look for stories…to put two things together, that haven’t been put together before…to read up on articles…to do research in what’s coming out in science, or art, or looking back to stories from 1,000 years ago…myths, fairy‑tales.

The more knowledge you have, the more the stories will come. They’re still elusive. There’s not an easy answer for it, but you just get better and better at it. Right now I have a few stories I want to tell, and I’ve had times, even when I started to have success as a screenwriter, where I felt like I had no story to tell, and I had to search.

It’s frustrating, because you don’t feel you’re necessarily making process when you’re reading and searching for it.

It’s something you should always be doing, in my opinion. You should always be open to ideas and stories. I have an idea file. I look back over it and it’s 400 pages long of different ideas. I’ll try to put them together.

There are a lot of tricks to it. The number one thing I say to a writer is being open to different ideas. When something interests you, you write it down and maybe you go and look at it three months later, six months later.

Maybe there’s an angle on it you haven’t seen. Thinking about your favorite films, is there a way that you could take some of your favorite films and match them up with another kind of film?

I’m open to films that aren’t my favorite films. I’m interested in creature movies from the ’50s, if it has something there. I read a lot of short stories from the 1930s, some of them. It doesn’t matter to me.

I’m always searching for that idea and it’s a way of training your mind to be open to it. It’s not easy, but they will come.

Scott: How important do you think the story concept is to the overall viability and commercial prospects of a spec script?

Chris: I think it’s number one because it doesn’t mean it has to necessarily always be the most high concept idea ever. To me, it is about the story because otherwise, you have, no offense to anyone, but you have a writing sample. If you take it and move into it, it isn’t much of a story, but you put love into it, you put your character, you put great dialogue into it, that might get you a re‑write job, that’ll get you some meetings.

To me, to really sell something, I’m always thinking, what is the story, because the person behind the desk is thinking, what’s it about? The person who’s two years later going to see the movie, who’s not in our business, they’re asking their wife or their boyfriend, whatever, they’re saying, “What’s it about?”

That to me is the number one thing, and that’s what some of your time as a writer has to go to, is being open and searching, and sometimes it’s hard to search for something…it’s always hard to search for something where you don’t know what it is. But you’ve got to be open to it, and in some ways the ideas can find you.

Scott: How about prep writing ‑ brainstorming, character development, plotting? How much time do you spend doing that, and which of the aspects to prep do you tend to devote the most time to?

Chris: Well, that depends. Some of the actual writing actually happens when I actually write. I can be a little trigger‑happy to just start writing, but sometimes it works for me too. It kind of goes hand in hand. I won’t set out unless I have a general idea of the three‑act structure. If I’m working with somebody, they’ll have at least a three‑page, two‑, three‑page outline. At the same time, I’m taking a pitch out soon here, in the next week or two. It’s more than 20 minutes long. That’s what it has to be. I know it sounds very long. But with where we’re going, what we’re doing with it, people really want to hear essentially every detail of it. That’s not my favorite way to write, but sometimes it’s fine for a pitch.

I always think what the theme is, and I’m always thinking, what’s the emotion I’m trying to convey and get across, and what’s the fun of the movie? Even if it’s a dark horror movie, or sometimes in a drama, what’s the fun, what are the moments?

I have my own little system, and it’s a little goofy, but I have my $12 test, which is, whatever the price of a movie ticket is, is what my test is. I’m really trying to think about people spending money to go see this movie, that they get their money’s worth. It’s a funny, very basic way to do it, I realize, but that there are enough moments that either shock them, excite them, make them laugh, whatever the emotion you’re trying to get across, at the end of the movie, they’ll feel they get their money’s worth. As base as that sounds, it does help me and it is something I use.

Scott: That’s so funny. I have my own test. I call it the Barcalounger test. Is this moment, this scene, this sequence or whatever, is this enough to motivate someone to get their ass off the Barcalounger, drive down to the theater, and actually see it?

Chris: That’s great, I love that too…I love that too…absolutely. You know, a lot of writers think trailer, which I do too. I think of what the trailer’s going to be, but I don’t let any of that stuff cripple me, I don’t let any of that stuff stop me from wanting to write, and wanting to write what the basic story is. If my log line, for myself, is too sentences and not one, I don’t mind. I don’t really like execs that think that somehow it’s got to be exactly one, or two is too long. People fall for these hard and fast rules, and it can hinder you creatively.

I’m just open to what the story is, what the emotion is, how much fun is it, and the customer…are they going to get what they paid for, and is it going to be worth it to them?

Scott: You mentioned theme…what do you mean by theme?

Chris: I know there’s a very basic definition for it. For me, I would almost say, what am I trying to say? What am I trying to…and there is something I’m trying to say, in whatever I…and sometimes there’s multiple themes…one will stand out for me. But I keep it in mind as I write, and again, I love to work in genre, but I still will have that thing in the back of my head, of kind of say something about the characters, human condition, something we can relate to, and so I use it.

At the same time, I would agree in a lot of cases, if you don’t have a theme as you write, then you are writing blind. I think that is a fair statement. Sometimes the theme presents itself. Usually other themes present themselves as I write, and I’ve had a theme or two change as I write, but still become something I care about…I want to say.

That’s the jumping off point for me…something I care about…something I want to say.

Scott: What about dialogue? What do you think are some of the keys for a writer to develop their ability writing dialogue?

Chris: There are a couple of easy, quick ways, which is that basic idea that most of your characters have to have their own unique voice. So when you have that funny line you want to put in somewhere, and it doesn’t fit with one character, you shouldn’t be able to just change it to another character…they should sound different enough. But really, to me, dialogue, a little of it is an emotional, inherent thing. I like listening to people talk. I have a very funny family, and there are some gems I get out of them. I almost collect it sometimes and then I change it to fit my writing.

But for me, it’s just like an ear you have to have for dialogue, you should be listening and open. But the really, really quirky cool dialogue, you don’t need to do on your first pass. You really, again, you’re a screenwriter, so you’re really trying to get that story across. It’s OK to put in temp dialogue and then try to make it sound as cool as possible.

Except for like, for instance, Mamet might do, except for that, really, I’d say story is first and the dialogue serves the story. Not the other way around. I’ll see that, too, in younger writers, where they really wanted to put in some lines and they really want to have these scenes and they think this is funny or interesting or quirky or cool. But if it doesn’t serve the story, it’s just noise.

Scott: That’s good advice. What do you think about when you’re writing a scene? Are there some questions you ask or goals you have in mind when you’re writing a scene?

Chris: It’s not so, I’m not so clinical as that. I have an idea of where the scene has to end up and what I need to get out of it. I try to have the back and forth, I try to have some kind of conflict within the scene. But, and I’m not saying this is the best way to work. I don’t really, I don’t have a checklist. I just kind of feel my way through it, and then when I read it the next day or really even, a month later, when I’m done with the script, and I reread it, I’m honest with myself. I know what might work, what might not work. Often times, I’m pleasantly surprised. When I’m not, it’s going to get cut or changed.

I don’t have a checklist, but I’m just open to trying to have interesting things happen in that scene. I know that sounds very basic, but it tends to work. I’m not so clinical with scene by scene.

Scott: How about scene description? What are some keys to writing entertaining, good scene descriptions?

Chris: Yeah, it should be entertaining. I don’t like it when it’s something a director ‑‑ this is just my personal preference ‑‑ a director can’t direct. I like to keep it basic. I want to set a mood, and that can happen very easily with a couple of sentences. If it’s a horror script, you do something with the lighting. Maybe you have water dripping somewhere. I’ve gone back to that old one quite a few times. You essentially want to set the scene up, and then you want it to happen. Again, we’re thinking visual.

I want that reader to be put there, but I want to make it as easy as possible for him or her. I don’t want them reading blocks of description in most cases unless it’s absolutely necessary. I’ll just say, keep it short. Imagine your setting. Keep it short. You can always go back and build it out later.

Scott: When you finish a first draft and you’re faced with rewriting, what are some of the keys you have about the rewriting process, rewriting your own script?

Chris: I would say to be brutal with it, to know that stuff you cut, even if you loved it, that you’ll use it in another script. You’ll use it again. It’s not dead. It’s just gone from this script for now. I would say take some time away from the script. It doesn’t have to be too long, but take a week or two away, or perhaps you want longer. Really imagine you’re reading this for the first time. Don’t imagine you as yourself. You read it for the first time.

Then, I also have a character in my head who’s seeing the movie for the first time. It’s a bit strange again, but this character, if he’s enjoying the action scenes, if he’s into the dialogue, if he trusts the main character, then it’s working. The very base pass in my head, too.

I just want the basic emotions to come across. Then, again, I can build onto those and add scenes onto those and work it through. To me, it’s about not being prescient and not feeling when you cut something that it’s gone forever. It’s just maybe gone from this script. It didn’t belong.

Scott: What about your actual writing process?

Chris: I write five or six days a week. I try to take the weekend off or just Saturday off. That’s when other ideas come, because I’m not just writing. To me, that’s good and I’m much better. Everyone’s different. I’m good in the morning. I have friends who I call “binge writers,” who won’t write for days. Then they’ll do 10 hours of work and get an awful lot done. That doesn’t work for me. I like a schedule to it. I know we’re in a business where things are very speculative and can be difficult. There are the ups and downs, but to me, I like the consistency of writing in the morning. Throughout the day, I’ll go back and look at different things, and I’ll work and play with it and work on another idea. My mornings are very important to me, and that’s when I get most of my work done.

Scott: OK, here’s a good one. What’s your single best excuse not to write?

Chris: My single best excuse not to write?

Scott: Yeah.

Chris: It’s Saturday, it’s Saturday. [laughs] You know, I enjoy what we do. At the same time, I think part of writing is we can dread it. I think all those emotions are normal, but I’m happiest when I feel I’m accomplishing something, when I’m actually writing. There are times when you wake up and you’re not getting anything done, and you should go for a walk. You should put it aside for a little bit. If you trust yourself enough, and if you know you’re someone who loves this and wants to do this, then you can trust yourself that you’re going to come back to it.

Scott: How about the other side…what do you love most about writing?

Chris: I love when you feel that you’ve created life on that page, and when people are enjoying your work. Those couple of times I had a movie made, and the first day of shooting, and you almost fool people, you feel. You’ve created something, and now the actors are talking about roles as if they’re real people, and the director’s talking about them, and wardrobe is talking about the way your characters named Bill, or Mary, would dress.

That, to me, is a great, great pleasure. It’s why we do it, I feel.

Scott: In an ideal world, Chris, what do you see yourself doing in ten years?

Chris: Still this, and also directing. Just making films, and doing films that I care about, and I like. I’d still love to be working with different genres. They still have a bit of a popcorn feel to them, but also have something to say, and have characters you won’t forget, and you care about. But this is what I wanted to do, and I’m always thrilled at any bit of good news when you’re on that path to something you care about, and really work towards, then that good day, when you get a little bit of news, and when you feel you’re a little bit closer to that goal.

So ten years from now, just creating films. But I’ll always write. I never want to stop writing, because I believe it’s where it starts. It is where it starts.

Scott: Finally, what advice can you offer to aspiring screenwriters about learning a craft, and breaking into Hollywood?

Chris: I don’t like the saying, and it has a hair of truth to it, but I don’t like the saying that it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. I really believe that people who do well in this are good at what they do. You work hard, and you will meet those people. You probably should come to LA, or if not LA, then at least New York. But to me, you just should get really good at screen writing. Same thing I told students when I worked with them…my alumni organization at Chapman University.

Get really good at screenwriting. It’s so simple, and so basic, and it’s not an easy thing to accomplish. But if you have a talent for this, if you have a gift for this, and a love for this, then work really hard to be as good as possible at it, and that break will come, and you will have something to show for it, you will have the talent and the skill.

It’s not luck. My friends father, a very successful man, has a great quote, and it’s, the harder you work, the better your luck gets. So that’s my very basic, simple, no bells and whistles advice. Get really good, and work really hard at screenwriting…Rome wasn’t built in a day…and you’ll get a little better all the time.

I’d like to think I’m getting better everyday I worked at this. Then when it comes, you be ready for it, or as ready as you’re ever going to be.

For my interviews with dozens of other Black List writers, go here.