Interview: Brad Ingelsby (2008, 2012 Black List)

One of the best ways to learn the craft is read what professional screenwriters have to say about it. To that end for the next few weeks, I will be featuring interviews I have conducted with Black List screenwriters.

Today: Brad Ingelsby is a busy writer with several projects in various states of development including the 2012 Black List script Hold on to Me. Another Black List script — Run All Night — was produced and released in 2015. Plus Brad sold a high-profile pitch “Merry Men” to DreamWorks.

Here are links to the six installments of my March 2013 interview with Brad:

Part 1: “You need people like that in your life, I think. People who say ‘yes’. People who to tell you to jump. Luckily I’ve had a few over the years.”

Part 2: “That’s what you really want in a central character, I think. When you review the character’s arc at the end of the movie it feels like he’s traveled a long distance to get there.”

Part 3: “With “Run All Night” I knew where it started, I knew where it ended, and I knew I wanted it to take place essentially over a 24‑hour period of time. What’s nice about that constraint is knowing you can’t go outside that time frame.”

Part 4: “That’s just the way it goes with characters. They have to be unpredictable. And you have to be open to them pushing back, to them telling you that the direction you thought they would go isn’t really the direction they want to go.”

Part 5: “What does this character want and more importantly why do they want it? Those are the things that I tend to look at as I’m writing my dialogue. If I’m not hitting one of those at the moment — moving a story forward or revealing character — then I’ll try to get rid of it.”

Part 6: “If you’re passionate about the material and the story, and you believe in yourself then it can absolutely happen to you. I’m the perfect example of someone who got extremely lucky, so I always tell aspiring writers, ‘If you work hard enough and believe in the story, then there’s a place for you.’”

Brad is repped by WME and Energy Entertainment.