Interview (Part 4): 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 4, we wrap up our discussion about “The Science of Love and Laughter” and learn how Sam discovered he had won a 2014 Nicholl Fellowship:

Scott: It seems to me that Daniel rose to a certain amount of acclaim with this book, the title of which is, “The Disembodied Octopus: Exploring the Science of Love and Laughter.” The title of the script, “The Science of Love and Laughter,” comes from that. But this idea of a disembodied octopus, Daniel explains it’s a metaphor to try and capture the essence of his scientific theories or his studies. But couldn’t we also look at it a metaphor for these two characters? This idea of disunity, that they’re disconnected from their inner truths, disembodied from who they are supposed to be?

Sam: It sounds like a pretty clever theory, so I’m going to say yes. The truth is: that had not occurred to me before. But you sound like a much smarter man than me, so I’m going to go with a “yes” on that one.

Scott: Maybe it’s just synchronicity. Because, why “disembodied octopus?” It’s such a crazy thought.

Sam: I’ve read a lot of science research, and people’s careers can get associated with the strange constructs they’ve used in experiments. For example, there’s a study in psychology about an invisible gorilla. They show people a video of two basketball teams passing balls around. One team is dressed in red and the other team in blue. They say, “Count how many passes the team in red make.” It’s a 15 second video, and at the end they say, “OK, how many passes?” People say, “13 passes,” and they say, “Correct. But did you notice the invisible gorilla?” People say, “No. What invisible gorilla?” Then, they showed them the video again. Sure enough, a man in a gorilla suit walks right through the middle of the video and waves at the camera. But people have been so focused on counting the passes that they don’t notice the invisible gorilla. The researchers who did this study became knows as “the invisible gorilla guys”. I thought that would be so funny, to become known as the something like that, so I wanted something similar that Daniel could be associated with, that would plague him — “Oh, you’re the disembodied octopus guy.” That was the extent of it for me. But I like your explanation. It’s very clever.

Scott: When the movie gets made and you have the onslaught of people interviewing you, I’m sure somebody’s going to say, “Disembodied Octopus, what’s the symbolic meaning of that?”

Sam: Right. I’ll invoke The Scott Myers Theorem.

Scott: You can claim it as your own, that’s fine by me. You know that trope? Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. You invert that in the script. It’s boy has lost girl, boy finds girl again, boy loses girl. Is that an accurate appraisal of the narrative structure?

Sam: Roughly, yeah.

Scott: That ending, boy loses girl. There’s more a sense of freedom, in some respects, for both of the characters. They come to realize that that’s what they need to do. That ending, were you at all concerned that it doesn’t align with the so‑called Hollywood conventional wisdom of a happy ending?

Sam: That was the whole reason I was interested to do it. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if you could have a ‘happy ending’ to a relationship drama in which the characters divorce?” It’s an anti‑rom‑com in that way, and I thought that would be so interesting if I could get that to work. As I said, it took a lot of drafts to get it right. But I was much more interested in doing the subversive ending than in having these two people decide that they were actually meant to be together all along.

Scott: You subvert the expectations, I think, that some readers would have about the stand‑up comedy dynamic. Once you set that into motion, a script reader would likely think, “OK, at some point, this guy’s going to do stand‑up comedy.” I suppose that the less nuanced type reader would think, “He’s going to get up and do a good job.” You actually have Daniel get on stage twice. Both times, he basically fails. The first time he fails, he’s trying to be funny. He’s got all these notes of comic bits he’s collected through the years, observations that he brings onstage. The bits don’t connect with the audience. He does just enough that the club manager invites him back to do his thing onstage. That really sets the stage for the big, culminating performance where he gets on stage a second time. Emma, through some plot circumstances, happens to be there. He does this “stand up routine”, which is not that at all. Could you talk a bit about how you came to that? Was that always part of the ending, that he was going to be doing this monologue from onstage, and she was going to hear it?

Sam: Yeah, that was always in there. It’s what I said earlier, that the movie is about him finally being able to be honest. I thought, “Can you combine this terrifying idea of intimate honesty in a relationship, and also the terrifying idea of going out in front of an audience of 100 people and baring your soul as a stand‑up comedian, into the most terrifying experience this guy could ever have?” If you could, then I thought that would be an interesting ending. That was one of those instinctual things where it was in it right from the first outline of the script, and I just knew that was the way it had to end. There were five or six things like that, and everything else was just about making those things work.

Scott: You had the instinct for that as the ending, but I’m imagining it was pretty hard to write that monologue.

Sam: That speech changed every draft up until the last draft.

Scott: Even though he, again, fails ‑‑ small F ‑‑ at stand‑up comedy, he succeeds, Daniel, in putting himself also, I guess, Emma, in a way, where they have a chance to climb up another ladder, another wall. Hopefully ‑‑ post‑script ‑‑ having happier lives. That’s a pretty accurate take on the ending, you think?

Sam: Sure.

Scott: You mentioned you worked on this for two years. Is it possible to approximate how many drafts you think you wrote?

Sam: I have 26 different drafts of the movie in a folder on my computer. Some of those were massive overhaul drafts, and some of them were just minor revisions. The drafts were quite fluid, I guess. Bu there were 26 instances where I clicked “Make a PDF”, “Include Title Page”, and sent it out to a couple of friends.

Scott: I was going to ask what type of feedback you were getting and from whom. You had a writers’ group or something?

Sam: Not formally, but I know lots of talented people from making short films in the past, and I have friends who are writers, and friends who work in the film industry. I was working as a runner and a script‑reader and an assistant while I was writing, so there were always other junior people to swap scripts with. I’m a real feedback junkie. I like showing stuff to anyone, I think everyone’s opinion is valid. I think there are three types of notes that you can get. There’s the notes where, even before the person’s finished saying the sentence, it’s like someone’s stabbed you in the heart because you know what they’re saying is true and you know you’re going to have to fix it. Then there’s the notes where you completely disagree, and before they finish the sentence, you know that you’re never going to change a word on that point. Then there’s the notes where everyone else is saying one thing, and you disagree. But then, you have to listen. What they’re all suggesting as a solution might not be right, but you have to really think carefully about those notes.

Scott: I think that’s the greatest articulation of notes I’ve ever heard. Seriously. I’ve never thought about it like that, but I think you’re absolutely right. Three types of notes. That’s great. Let’s get to the fun stuff, here. You write the script, finish it, and now the Nicholl. How did you become aware of that?

Sam: When I finished the script, which was a year and a bit ago, I knew it was the finished draft, but at that point, I didn’t have an agent. I didn’t have any way of really getting it into the right people’s hands. So I thought, “Hey, screenwriting competitions.” You always see them advertised, and I just entered every single one. The most interesting thing to me about that process was that the day after I won the Nicholl, I also got rejection emails from two other screenwriting contests for the exact same draft of the script. It just goes to show, it’s so subjective.

Scott: Wow. On the same day?

Sam: Yeah, the day after I got the Nicholl. I was really buzzing and excited. Then I opened my emails and was like, “Oh, OK.”

Scott: That’s too much.

Sam: I laughed really, really hard.

Scott: I laugh thinking about it. Then what happened? Where were you when you got the word that you’d been a winner?

Sam: I was writing in my bedroom when Greg Beal called me to tell me I was a finalist. That was amazing. Then you have to go through various hoops over the next couple of weeks. Then, a month later, I was watching a movie and my phone rang. It said Beverly Hills, so I answered it. It was the Fellowship Committee telling me that I’d actually won.

Scott: That’s wonderful. The first call, you were writing. The second call, you were watching a movie. You weren’t just futzing around. You were on point. You got, I’m assuming, some calls from managers and agents and whatnot?

Sam: Yeah, that was overwhelming. The day after they announced the finalists, the tidal wave pours in. It was a very weird experience and very hard to know what to make of, but absolutely amazing.

Scott: You ended up signing with someone?

Sam: I signed with an agent and a manager over in the US. I already had an agent in London, who I’d just signed with a couple of months earlier.

Tomorrow in Part 5, Sam reflects on some key aspects of the screenwriting craft.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Sam is repped in the U.K. by the Curtis Brown Agency and in the United States by 3 Arts and UTA.

Twitter: @baronifish.

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