Screenwriting 101: Lisa Cholodenko (“Laurel Canyon”)

“I think the most important thing I learned [from editing] is that you start with this huge bear of a film which really has no pacing or no point in a way, because you’re just pacing all the footage together. And that, I discovered later, is almost identical to screenwriting in that you have to keep whittling it down until it has its perfect amount of information to communicate what you need and retain tension. So I think the editing of the film is really the same as the editing of the script… So it’s really important to know not to panic, it’s all going to come together; you’ve just got to keep pushing forward.”

 — screenwriter Lisa Cholodenko from the book “Screenwriters’ Masterclass: Screenwriters Talk About Their Greatest Movies”