Q&A: Screenwriter F. Scott Frazier (“The Numbers Station,” “Line of Sight,” “Autobahn”) — Part 1
Since 2010, screenwriter F. Scott Frazier has sold four spec scripts.
That’s right four.
I asked Scott to do an interview and he kindly agreed. Here is a brief bio Scott sent to provide some idea of his background:
I was born and raised in Los Angeles, and have spent my entire life here. Right out of high school, I got a job working at a video game company, where I spent nine years climbing the corporate ladder. I’d always wanted to be a writer, it was a dream since as far back as I could remember, but only ever considered it a hobby at best. I got engaged in 2009, and realized I was running out of time to make my dream a reality. So in March, just as the economy was taking a nose dive, I up and quit my day job, to take on writing full time. I didn’t really have a parachute, or a plan of what to do if screenwriting didn’t work out. In January 2010 I was introduced to my manager, and he signed me based off the two scripts I had written the previous year. He in turn introduced me to my agent, and the ball was pretty much rolling at that point. In April 2010 we sold NUMBERS STATION, in August 2010 we sold an as-yet-unannounced spec script, and in February of 2011 we sold LINE OF SIGHT to Warner Bros.
In Part 1 of our interview, we focus on how Scott transitioned into screenwriting and the saga of his story The Numbers Station.
How did you become interested in screenwriting?
I was born and raised in Los Angeles, and my dad was a television writer during my childhood. So I’ve always been around the industry. I knew at a young age I wanted to be a writer but I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to write. I don’t really have the patience for writing books. And from that I became interested in writing movies. And for the better part of my adolescence and my young adulthood I poked at it as a hobby but never really took it seriously.
You spent 9 years working in the video game industry, then quit to pursue screenwriting. Before you achieved success as a screenwriter, did this thought ever cross your mind: “What the hell was I thinking?”
Absolutely. I had that thought at least three or four times a week. I was living on reserves from my day job and a charitable grant from my fiancee. (At the time; now my wife!)
But that fear I think pushed me forward and forced me to work at an extreme pace. That first year when I didn’t have anything finished, didn’t have a job, didn’t have any contacts in the industry, I was writing almost nine hours a day. Forcing myself to finish as much as possible before I had to go back and get a day job.
Fear and the threat of absolute failure are really great motivators.
How did you learn the craft? Did you have any formal education or did you cobble together what you know? If the latter, are there any books or screenwriting ‘gurus’ who have been a particular influence on you?
I got my job right out of high school, so I never spent any time in college or in any screenwriting program. There’s definitely a collection of screenwriting books on my shelf. But early on, I realized that while they had a lot to offer in terms of storytelling, they didn’t do a good job of teaching me how to write an actual screenplay.
I would look at pages I had written and compare it next to a professional screenplay and I wouldn’t be able to figure out why mine looked and read differently than theirs.
So I took the screenplays I admired and copied them. Not in content, but in the way they described scenes, the way they structured dialogue, the way they made the movie come alive on the page. And in doing that, I started to figure out my own style and my own voice, which I don’t think I would have found just sticking to the advice of the screenplay books.
I love reading books on screenwriting. But I make sure when I read the advice they have to offer, that what I internalize is only the stuff that ends up being true to me. Everything else I just dismiss.
You have written and sold four spec scripts which if there was a Spec Script Hall of Fame, you would certainly be in it. Let’s go through the projects one by one. First THE NUMBERS STATION. Here is a plot summary from the trades:
A black ops agent is assigned to protect a female operator who works out of a “numbers station” deep in the Arizona desert. The two eventually have to fight to survive after they come under attack.
What was the genesis of that idea?
I had heard a NPR news program about this husband and wife who go out to the desert on the weekends and listen for secret shortwave radio signals. I thought it was a really interesting piece and went and did some research on numbers stations. I found out there was a really cool “conspiracy” about what these broadcasts are for.
The more I dug, the more I thought it would make a really compelling backdrop for a movie and went from there.
What was the general time frame for writing THE NUMBERS STATION (i.e., how many weeks/months did you spend in prep, first draft, rewrites)?
THE NUMBERS STATION was one of the first scripts I ever finished, back when I still had my day job and was writing as a hobby. When I quit my job, I knew I needed to have a finished project as quickly as possible, and THE NUMBERS STATION, being the closest to completion, I decided the thing t do was to rewrite it and get it to a place where I was happy with it.
Which is a long way of saying the first draft took me 5 years, and the rewrite took me 4 months.
Was THE NUMBERS STATION one of the two scripts you had written that landed you representation with the management company H2F Entertainment?
Yes. TNS was actually the second script I sent my manager after I got the immortal question, “What else do you got?” Based off of the first script I sent them, and TNS, I signed on as their client.
So May 5, 2010, THE NUMBERS STATION sells to Furst Films and ContentFilm. How did that happen?
Because TNS was such a small movie, my managers and agent weren’t planning on taking it out wide. While we were in the middle of taking out my first script, they received a call from a producer that was looking for a low budget thriller. They sent it along and the producer became interested, and during negotiations, they sent it out wide to drum up more interest. This is when the Furst brothers and ContentFilm got involved.
Where were you when you found out the good news and what was your choice of celebratory libation?
I was actually driving down the 405 to meet with the Furst brothers when I got a phone call the meeting wasn’t necessary because Ethan Hawke had attached himself to the script and that ContentFilm was interested in buying it.
I remember turning off the 405 in the middle of rush hour and driving back home up Sepulveda. It was the most surreal drive of my life. And if I remember correctly, i think we celebrated with a bottle of wine.
And more good news: This month THE NUMBERS STATION goes into production. Can you tell us about the movie’s cast? How was it working with the film’s director Kasper Barfoed?
John Cusack and Malin Akerman are playing the leads. Kasper and the Furst brothers have been wonderful collaborators. Through the entire process from preproduction to greenlight to production, it’s been the perfect experience. I’ve been waiting for all of those Hollywood horror stories to come true, but it’s been nothing but clear sailing.
There’s some great takeaway from Scott’s answers which we can discuss in comments.
Tomorrow in Part 2, we discuss Line of Sight, a mysterious third spec script Scott wrote and sold that has yet to be announced, and how Scott approaches the craft of screenwriting.
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