Interview (Part 5): Chris Sparling

Variety recently named Chris Sparling as one of their 10 Screenwriters to Watch. With good reason. Chris made his first splash in the business with his script for the movie Buried, starring Ryan Reynolds and followed that up with another contained thriller ATM. He has multiple projects in development and two movies slated for release: The Sea of Trees, starring Matthew McConaughey, Naomi Watts and Ken Wattanabe, directed by Gus Van Sant, and The Atticus Institute, written and directed by Chris. It comes out on iTunes on January 9, then on VOD and Blu-Ray/DVD on January 20.

Chris and I had an in-depth interview about how he broke into the business, analyzing some of his movies, and his thoughts on the craft of screenwriting. I will be featuring the interview throughout the week.

Today in Part 5, Chris reveals details about a TV project he’s working on and shares some thoughts about the craft of writing:

Scott: You’re also involved in a number of TV projects. I was wondering if you could give us a rundown on what you’re doing there?

Chris: Sure. The past couple of years, I’ve gotten involved with TV. It’s a totally different animal. It took some time to understand how it worked. I sold a show about a year and a half ago to FX that unfortunately didn’t get a pilot order, and then something similar happened with a Stephen King adaptation I did for NBC that unfortunately didn’t go to pilot, either.

It’s weird to know that, unlike features, where things can have a life elsewhere, generally, with TV, that’s not the case. When it’s dead it’s dead, so you move on. To that end, I’m currently writing “Mayflower” for FX.

Scott: That’s going to be a whole different thing for you. If you’re a screenwriter living in Providence, Rhode Island, it’s all pretty electronic, but, assuming that a TV series, even if it’s a limited series, that would require perhaps a bit more location type of a thing for you. Are you still locked into living in Providence? Have you given any thoughts, if a TV series goes, that you might have to move to LA for a while?

Chris: I’ve never been opposed to moving back to LA. My wife’s okay with it, too. But it would be a little tricky now because our daughter starts school this September. I don’t know how that would factor in, but we’ve always known that if I had to go, we would go.

I’ve been lucky in that there’s been nothing that’s truly necessitated that move. Now, with “Mayflower” — which hopefully continues forward ‑‑ we’ll see. I’ll be the executive producer on the show, so I’ll have some say about things I normally wouldn’t have much say in. Part of that might very well be, “Well, look, this is the Mayflower story. Let’s shoot it on the East Coast. Hell, let’s shoot it in my back yard!”

[laughter]

Scott: You live in Providence, and I’ve heard you interviewed where you say, “Well, I go to Starbucks, and people don’t even know what I do,” and you like that.

Chris: I do, which is the truth. That’s exactly what I did today, in fact. I suppose it’s a different world than 10 or 15 years ago, when you didn’t have things like Skype. You didn’t have things like .PDFs, and conference calls weren’t as easily coordinated. You couldn’t do this remotely, I imagine. Technology’s made the world a much smaller place.

Plus, it isn’t terribly expensive to jump on a plane if I need to. I mean, you can usually find a flight to L.A. for around 300 bucks. I do that about five or six times throughout the year, and that’s usually enough. Unless there’s something, like I said, that necessitates me being there, I kind of don’t have to be.

The way I see it, it all depends on where you are in your life, what you have going on, and what you’re willing to leave behind — and to what end. It’s up to the individual. It’s one of the more complicated decisions you’ll ever have to make about your career as a writer, because it most likely impacts more than just you.

Scott: Let’s jump into some craft questions here. How important do you think story concept is to the overall strength and commercial viability, particularly a spec script?

Chris: I think it’s incredibly important. You need to be able to sum up your movies succinctly, and with that log line or that short pitch alone, people should know there’s a movie there. Especially early in your career, when you usually aren’t given the opportunity to pitch something in full or get someone to read your script.

The tough, tough, tough thing about trying to get your break is the lack of access. Access to execs, access to agents, access to producers. The Black List — what you guys are doing there — is phenomenal. You’re giving writers that access. I have to say, in a way I’m bitter, because I wish you guys had been around 10 years ago!

Scott: How much time do you spend on prep writing? What do you focus on? Brainstorming? Character development? Plotting? Research? Outlining?

Chris: I do a decent amount of research. For example, “Mayflower,” that’s a research‑heavy project. It’s adapted from a book, a historical non‑fiction book. There’s that reading, and then ancillary material I’ve hunted down. I’ll probably go up to Plymouth Plantation soon to do the tour and everything. Mess with some fake Pilgrims.

I always found that physically visiting a location, especially when I was doing a lot of the single location thrillers, helps quite a bit. With ATM, I visited a lot of ATMs. I would go these vestibule type ATMs and I would just look around to see what’s in and around theme that I could use as something in the story that the characters can use as a weapon, or whatever the case may be.

Then, when I wrote a script called INCIDENT ON 459, which takes place on an airplane, I found myself paying attention much more closely when I was on airplanes to see, like, “What does that do? There’s that overhead bin that’s reserved for emergency equipment. Oh, they opened it and I see that there’s a first aid kit and a megaphone. Hmmm, a megaphone. I didn’t know planes had megaphones on them. Maybe someone can use that in my story, somehow.”

The one potential downside of research, though, is that there’s always the risk of going down a rabbit hole. You’ll all of a sudden realize you’ve been researching for months and haven’t actually written a word yet. Or worse, you can start to use “doing research” as an excuse to avoid actually writing.

Scott: Are you one of those writers that likes to do an outline?

Chris: Yeah, I have to. I can’t not do one.

Scott: Do you use three by five inch index cards? Are you that analog?

Chris: No. Usually I’ll just open up a Word doc and I’ll write the movie in two to three pages, just a synopsis of it, the three acts. From there I’ll do the beat sheet to flesh it out more. Then, maybe, I’ll flesh out the beat sheet even more.

Then I write a step outline — a scene breakdown, scene by scene, every scene in the movie. That’s pretty thorough. Usually that’s more or less a scriptment. After that, I finally open Final Draft and start on the first draft of the actual script.

Tomorrow in Part 6, Chris provides some key writing advice.

To read Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, go here.

Part 3, go here.

Part 4, go here.

Chris is repped by UTA and Kaplan / Perrone Entertainment.

Twitter: @chrissparling.