Interview: Destin Daniel Cretton (2010 Nicholl Winner)

The Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting competition is the most prestigious of its kind and holds a primary place of importance in Hollywood movie development circles. With the announcement on Friday of the 2014 Nicholl Fellowship winners, I thought it would be a good idea to reprint all of the interviews I have done with previous Nicholl winners since there’s a lot to be learned from these talented writers. Today: Destin Daniel Cretton, interview originally posted October 2013.

This interview is with Destin Daniel Cretton, writer-director of the critically acclaimed independent movies I Am Not a Hipster and Short Term 12.

Here are links to the six installments of the entire interview:

Part 1: “The first time I caught the bug was when my grandma loaned us her VHS camcorder when I was about ten. That was when we first started, my family and I, my brothers and sisters, we got addicted just making silly movies as kids and things when we were young.”

Part 2: “Some of these emotional connections just naturally came out further on as the characters had developed and as that relationship between the two of them developed in the writing process.”

Part 3: “Exposition is always something that I’m terrified at, terrified about, because I typically spot it very easily when I watch movies, and it usually pulls me out.”

Part 4: “There’s always a point in the writing process where, to me, it feels very mathematical or it feels very like I’m creating a grid of emotional cues.”

Part 5: “When I watch the film it just brings back so many memories of all the people that worked on it. I see the costumes that my sister worked on, I see the music that my friend Paul worked on, every camera move is Brett’s instinct. It’s almost like looking through a photo album for me.”

Part 6: “I spend a lot of time in my head before I sit down to write. I like to have a good idea of the structure of the story before I put fingers to the keys and see what else spills out. If I start writing too early, I find it hard to stay focused and can venture off on tangents.”

Destin is repped by WME.

Twitter: @destindaniel.

I am reaching out to the five writers who won the 2014 Nicholl Fellowships and have another interview lined up with a 2013 winner.

Tomorrow: James DiLapo.