Update: Your questions answered by Jeremiah Friedman & Nick Palmer

Last week I featured an exclusive Q&A with screenwriters Jeremiah Friedman & Nick Palmer who last September sold their spec script “Family Adventure” to Warner Bros. They kindly offered to answer follow-up questions. You responded with some excellent inquiries. Here are those questions and their responses:

What happened to the highbrow epic, Olympic sex comedy?
 — Sean Z P Harris

JF: Before we were repped, we developed it a little with a producer contact we knew from AFI but ultimately it stalled. He wasn’t quite sure what he wanted out of the next draft and we started to feel like we were losing momentum. So we back-burnered it and started writing Family Getaway instead. The Olympic script still comes up in meetings sometimes so you never know, but we’d want to do another pass before letting people read it. Right now it’s just a matter of finding the time. 

Any tips to mixing action and comedy (and getting tone just right)?
 — Atlanta

NP: It depends on what kind of action-comedy you want to write. For us, the action needs to feel real with real stakes. It can’t just be gratuitous spectacle. Then the comedy’s got to come from the characters and not from some kind of contrived hijinks. 

JF: Tone’s really tough regardless of what genre you’re working in and I think it’s one of the most crucial elements of a script. Of course, if the movie gets made, the tone could be very different than what was on the page. But when we’re writing action-comedy, we really do strive to keep everything grounded and human. The characters can exist in a heightened reality, but they have to talk and behave like flesh and blood human beings, whether they’re saying something funny or doing something physically impressive. The joke or the stunt can’t justify the beat. It’s got to come from character and story. 

Did you generate a treatment for Family Getaway during the whole process? How important a tool do you think a treatment is for a first time writer?
 — Deano

NP: We really rely on pretty detailed outlines, which are especially important for us since we work as a team. That’s where a lot of the story work takes place — hammering out the beats and the structure, which usually takes at least as much time as writing the script itself. I know people do it, but I myself can’t imagine heading into a script without a detailed outline.

JF: Yeah, I agree. As for treatments in particular, if they work for you that’s great. We really only use them as sales tool in that they help give other people a clear idea of what you’re going for. 

You mentioned streamlining the plot, sharpening the characters, and getting the pacing and logic right. Were there other crucial areas that you worked on to get it studio-ready? Areas that you may not have considered crucial until Mosaic pointed them out?
 — Mike Sheriff

NP: I think Jeremiah talked about Mosaic helping us turn it from a script into a movie and a big part of that was writing for actors. That doesn’t necessarily mean writing a character in the voice of anyone in particular, but just creating a role that can attract a star. So you start thinking about what actors want to play. You focus on making sure your lead is just as funny and entertaining as the colorful supporting characters. That kind of stuff. 

When approaching dialogue, how much time did you spend on making sure it wasn’t cliche, moved the story forward, revealed character, provided information and contained subtext? And how did you approach this aspect of your script?
 — question.authority

JF: At this point, we don’t really spend a lot of time consciously thinking about that stuff while we write. We just focus on writing in the voice of the particular characters and making the scenes work dramatically. We’re lucky because part of our process is that we’re constantly rewriting each other and so the dialogue’s always being edited and hopefully improved. So I might take a first pass at a scene and it’s too long and filled with cliches but then Nick comes in and cleans it up and then I go back to it and rewrite Nick and so on and so on. 

I was wondering what made you guys want to write a more family based comedy instead of an R rated “hangover” style that everyone seems to be doing?
 — Chris Drzewiecki

NP: The movie’s about a family but it’s actually not a family-comedy. The draft we sold was R-rated, mostly for language and while the studio asked us to tone down the language get to a PG-13, the tone of the movie is pretty much the same. 

JF: Let the studio worry about the rating. And don’t think too much about trying to outsmart the market. Just focus on writing the best story you can with a tone that suits it. 

Do you write with specific actors in mind for roles or does that not factor until later? I read Family Getaway with in my head Seth Rogen as Ben and Aziz Ansari as Stew, was I close?
 — Paul

NP: Well done, sir. Yeah, sometimes we write for specific actors, other times we have actors in mind just between ourselves. Especially when getting started, writing to an actor can help a lot with creating a really distinct voice for the character. 

JF: But you gotta be careful that you’re not just mimicking style, that you’re writing a fictional, three-dimensional character with a strong, clear voice. Because the truth is the chances of you getting whatever actor you wrote for are pretty slim and when he passes, the character needs to be strong enough to attract other talent.

Once again, thanks to Jeremiah and Nick. I’m sure all GITS readers will join me in wishing them the best of luck with “Family Getaway” and all their future creative endeavors.