The Toughest Scene I Wrote: “Whiplash”

Once again, Vulture does screenwriters a solid:

Over the next few weeks, Vulture will speak to the screenwriters behind 2014’s most acclaimed movies about the scenes they found most difficult to crack. Which pivotal sequences underwent the biggest transformations on their way from script to screen?

For many of the writers in this series, the scene they have focused on appears late in the story. That figures as the final struggle and resolution is critical to a script’s success. However in this article, screenwriter-director Damien Chazelle talks about the opening of the script.

I knew I wanted to begin the movie with my main character drumming. I wanted it to be almost reductive: stick all the movie’s main ingredients into the first few minutes. Drummer, music school, mean teacher. No beating around the bush. Cram the entire movie in miniature into the opening scene.

The upside was that, hopefully, I’d grab the audience’s attention right away. (Always a worry given the pitch for this movie began with the words jazz drummer.) On the other hand, if the opening moments didn’t land, I was in trouble. I had nothing else up my sleeve: The movie was this scene. It was the scary teacher going after the scared student. The subsequent 100 minutes of the movie are just a replay of this same scene, in different guises.

For the rest of the article, go here. Kudos to Vulture for this annual series which puts the spotlight on screenwriters.