Interview: Scott Frank
Here’s a nice written interview with screenwriter Scott Frank. One of the top screenwriters in Hwood today, Frank’s credits include Little Man Tate (1991), Malice (1993), Get Shorty (1995), Out of Sight (1998), Minority Report (2002), The Interpreter (2005), and Marley & Me (2008). The list is impressive not only because so many of the movies have been successful, but also because Frank has written in so many different types of genres. I mean who could have tracked Get Shorty to Minority Report to Marley & Me?
Frank’s relationship with this particular interviewer Tom Lazarus is an interesting one. Lazarus’ father was in the movie business (like his father) and worked at Columbia Pictures and Warner Bros. He also taught at UCSB (Santa Barbara) where one of his students was — Scott Frank. So this interview represents a reunion of sorts, enabling Lazarus to get a bit deeper with the subject matter than the typical Q&A session. An additional fun element: Lazarus wrote the interview in screenplay format. Here are a few choice excerpts:
SCOTT
I want them to know...it took me a
long time to get where I am right
now, that I've been doing it for
twenty years, I've had seven or
eight films made in that time. Four
or five of which I really like.
That I love, love writing and I
couldn't live without writing.
TOM
That was my last question for you
...do you love writing?
SCOTT
Do you want me to hold that?
TOM
No, no, it's great, because that's
what it's about.
SCOTT
(continuing)
I want them to know I take it very
seriously and treat it like an art.
And I think unlike most writers
today unfortunately, who treat it
like a means to an end... as a way
to become a director, or simply a
way to make money. I really
believe screenwriting is an art
unto itself. A script can actually
be a finished piece of art. It is
something that is obviously then
interpreted.
----
TOM
Then, since writing is rewriting,
let's talk about your writing
process. How many drafts does it
take to get to a first draft?
SCOTT
Dozens.
TOM
All rewrites?
SCOTT
All rewrites.
TOM
Over how much time?
SCOTT
I don't know, it's usually, off and
on, working on something for about
a year before I have a first draft.
TOM
How about "official" drafts, five
or fifteen?
SCOTT
Closer to fifteen.
----
TOM
(interrupting)
Let's start at the beginning...you
open up page one, FADE IN:, you
write the first day, what's your
process after that?
SCOTT
I rewrite as I go. I always
rewrite what I did yesterday to get
me into my work today. I'll start
at the beginning sometimes and I'll
go through the script up to where
I'm at right now and then I work
for a while and add another brick.
Then, I'll go back and work on all
the other bricks, then I add
another brick.
— —
SCOTT
I work with from anywhere between
twenty and fifty pages of notes
I've written.
TOM
Chronological notes?
SCOTT
No. They're notes about each
character. They're notes about the
place where the story takes place.
They're research thoughts. They're
snippets of dialog that I've
collected in my head, that I know
have to be included but I don't
know where. And then, what I may
do is organize the movie very
generally, rather than a beat sheet
I'll do a very general organization
- just telling the story in my head
- I might do that in a beat sheet
format, I don't get that specific,
because I've learned over the
years, that when I'm specific, I
end up straying from that outline.
Because I so work from character,
the more I learn and get into my
character, I tend to stray from the
beat sheet and if I adhere to it,
it feels mechanical, whereas if I
follow the character, I tend to get
a better story.
— —
TOM
(continuing)
Do you see any life lessons in the
process of rewriting?
SCOTT
I actually do. In every aspect of
our lives, we hit walls...not just
in writing, and many people,
unfortunately I would argue most
people, when they hit a wall turn
and walk the other way.
They're in a relationship, they hit
the wall and they get into a new
relationship until they hit,
interestingly enough, the same damn
wall. Writing and rewriting are
the same way, people will get into
a rewrite and they'll hit a wall
and they won't want to do the work
and ask the hard questions to solve
that problem so they let it go by.
They write another script...which
suffers from the same problem. And
they may write a dozen scripts
which all suffer from the same
problem. Because they haven't
learned the most invaluable lesson
which is, that if you break through
the wall, if you sit there and
throw yourself at it, and it may
take months, you may feel horrible,
you may be utterly, completely
disenfranchised by the process, but
you end up getting through that
wall as weak as you are in front of
the wall, you're so much stronger
on the other side. You've become a
new person because you realize
you've gotten through and you're
reinspired by the material and it
gives you new energy and it makes
the whole script jump a level.
Lazarus is himself a writer and director with numerous TV and movie credits. He’s also author of two books on screenwriting: “Secrets of Film Writing” and “Rewriting Secrets for Screenwriters”.
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