Interview (Part 1): Sam Baron (2014 Nicholl Winner)
Sam Baron wrote the original screenplay “The Science of Love and Laughter” which won a 2014 Nicholl Fellowship in screenwriting. Sam and I had a great conversation which I will be sharing with you this week in 6 parts.
Today in Part 1, Sam discusses how we found his way toward an interest in writing and filmmaking:
Scott Myers: You grew up in Cambridge, England. Is that right?
Sam: Yes.
Scott: When and how did you develop an interest in movies?
Sam: I went to a drama class when I was 12, and me and another kid had this crazy idea to make a feature film. It took a year to write it, then another year to convince a bunch of friends to help us make it, then a year to edit it. But by the time we were 15, it was finished. We had a premiere at the Cambridge Arts Picture House, which is an arts cinema in Cambridge. It was the most fun thing I’d ever done. The movie was fairly awful, but the experience was great.
Scott: Let’s jump back. What was the name of the movie?
Sam: It was called “Can You Survive a Week in Paradise?” and it was about a reality TV producer who invites a bunch of teenagers to spend a week on a haunted island, then starts killing them off to boost the ratings.
Scott: Was it a satire?
Sam: It was as much of a satire as a 12‑year‑old can muster. It probably wasn’t very biting.
Scott: Let’s go back even further. So you’re 12 years old, you have this original inspiration. You must have been a movie fan before then to even have the idea.
Sam: I loved movies, and I loved comedy. I’ve always liked coming up with silly ideas and turning them into things. Me and my siblings used to do little shows in the living room for our family when we were young, just larking around. I guess once cameras entered the equation, it seemed like a fun way to move that interest to the next level. I loved the technical side of it, but also the creative side of it. I liked the fact that it was so collaborative. It felt like a social thing. I wasn’t really sporty, so that was my equivalent of team sports. It was team movie‑making.
Scott: Do you remember some of the most memorable films from your youth?
Sam: I was obsessed with the Life of Brian, and the Naked Gun films. Just very silly, smart-dumb comedy.
Scott: That brings to mind the YouTube video you directed, “Lazy Sunday UK: We Drink Tea”, which has gotten 614,000 views. Did you know that it had that many views?
Sam: I didn’t know it was exactly that many, but I was aware when it crossed half a million.
Scott: It’s a rap video. Basically, two white guys dropping MF-bombs while extolling the virtues of drinking tea. What was the inspiration for that?
Sam: There are two of us who made that video, me and Raphael von Blumenthal. He’s actually the same guy who I made that feature film with, aged 12. We thought, “Well, that was a lot of fun. But maybe we should try and make short things next time.”
That was one of the first short things we made. We were about 16 or 17, and YouTube had just come out. I saw the original “Lazy Sunday” and thought it was great, and was really into that whole New York comedy scene, so I thought, “Why don’t we do our own response?”
It was really fun to do, and seemed to capture something that people were interested in. The transatlantic nature of the back and forth, if that doesn’t sound, which it does, far too high and mighty. God, I can’t believe I just said that.
Scott: Screenwriting. Let’s jump to that. Part of this, obviously, just seems like you learned it intuitively. Were there any specific programs, classes, books, or whatnot that you studied?
Sam: I read all the books, and websites like yours. There was a certain point where I had been doing the YouTube stuff for a couple of years and got a kick out of it, but started feeling like I was interested in telling slightly longer and more character‑driven stories, and maybe moving away from pure comedy, towards comedy-drama and drama. So I thought I’d better teach myself this whole screenwriting thing. I read “Save the Cat”. I also read “On Film‑Making” by Alexander Mackendrick and “Making Movies” by Sidney Lumet. David Mamet has a great book, “On Directing Film”, which is actually almost more about screenwriting than directing. I just devoured all those books, and made lots of notes. Then I would listen to every podcast and interview I could find.
Scott: It’s amazing, isn’t it, the resources available nowadays online?
Sam: Totally. I was just coming home on the train just now, and I was listening to a great podcast with the writers of “The Colbert Report”. I was listening to one with Robin Williams earlier today too. It’s a great way to get the practical lessons handed down to you from people who have figured out how to do it really well. Sometimes what they’re saying might not even by directly relevant to you, but it can trigger a thought, or allow you to put two ideas together in an interesting new way.
Scott: Were you reading movie scripts along the way, too?
Sam: Yes, yes, absolutely. I would download scripts from the internet, particularly for my favorite movies. One script that I looked at a lot was The Squid and the Whale, which is just a brilliantly concise script, with so much character in every line. I like to study different genres as well. One script that I’ve studied a lot is The Talented Mr. Ripley, which is an amazing adaptation.
I also started working in the film industry over here in London too, as a script reader for the BBC, then I worked in‑house in development for a production company, and there’s nothing better when you’re writing the first feature than just having a stack of a thousand scripts that you have to read for your job. Some of them are awful and some of them are great, but you learn from all of them, you know?
Tomorrow in Part 2, Sam provides background on his award-winning screenplay “The Science of Love and Laughter”.
Sam is repped in the U.K. by the Curtis Brown Agency and in the United States by 3 Arts and UTA.
Twitter: @baronifish.