Notes from Underdog.

Curse of El Cucuy Comic Book: Q&A with Consulting Writer Patricia Santos Marcantonio

Reposted from our Kickstarter.

Keeping in theme with our previous update, trying to spread the love around and avoid more Craig self-interviews. So here's a chat with Patricia Santos Marcantonio, an award-winning journalist, novelist, children's book writer (Red Ridin’ in the Hood and Other Cuentos), screenwriter and producer who will help consult on the Curse of El Cucuy project. We couldn't think of anyone more appropriate for that. She currently is hard at work at a new volume of her mystery series set in Victorian England, but as you'll see in this Q&A has dabbled in a lot of similar themes to Curse of El Cucuy, including... Cucuy! Enjoy this illuminating little chat with Patricia. We have another BIG update coming very soon, separately. --cp

What stories scared you as a kid? 

Patricia: The Llorona [Weeping Woman] scared the hell out of me. We lived by a cemetery so me, my sister and cousins would pretend that Llorona was coming after us. The tale of this mythical monster has stayed with me over the years. I've written a novel, short story, play and short script all inspired by her.

Also my dad would tell us stories about Mexican witches. Those were really creepy.

You have written indeed a lot of stories exploring myths and folklore -- like the Weeping Woman and Red Riding Hood. How do you approach what are for some iconic characters, adapting those with your own twists?  

I go back to the basics. What are these stories really about. For example in Red Riding Hood, to me that story was about what happens if you stray from the path, most likely you're going to get into trouble.

What do you find most compelling about traditional Latino folkloric stories?

They deal with very human flaws in people taken to the extreme. Like life, bad things can happen to good people, and bad people only get worse.

And what about Cucuy is most interesting to you? What is something people may not know about this character?

The cucuy is fascinating because at heart it's about what really scares you and why it remains hidden in all of us. What's in the closet? What's under the bed?  Like the Llorona, the myth started with bad parenting where the parent became the monster. People don't usually know the origin story, they just remember the monster.

What makes a good story, in your mind?

Good characters, characters you care about. That doesn't mean they have to be good. Hannibal Lecter is a monster, but a very interesting one. I also loved flawed characters that overcome their flaws.

Do you have any favorite horror stories, books or films that stick with you or were an influence on you?

Lots. I loved those old horror anthology comics. I'm a big fan of HP Lovecraft. When I was a kid I read I Am Legend by Richard Matheson and was terrified. I couldn't sleep for a week. And I loved all those old horror films I'd watch on TV. I still consider Christopher Lee's Dracula in the Hammer British films as one of the best. Those and the scary Latino stories I heard all influenced me.

What made you want to segue into doing stories set in Victorian England? 

As I said, I love good characters and I love steampunk and strong women. The result was Felicity Carrol, who's been described as Sherlock Holmes meets Indiana Jones. She's brilliant and determined but still young and learning about life.

How did you approach researching for those murder mysteries?

I used to cover crime and courts for a newspaper and TV station so that gave me a good start on forensics.  I also like to interview people. You learn so much more than just researching via books and on the internet.

Is researching your favorite part?

Sometimes. I do like learning new things. After writing Felicity Carrol and the Perilous Pursuit I know a lot about Victorian England. I especially loved to learn about Scotland Yard. My second book, Felicity Carrol and the Murderous Menace will be out early next year. That involves Felicity heading to a mining town, so I had to learn a lot about mining in the 1880s. Cool stuff.

What are you working on now?

A horror novel set in a small border town!

Raiders of the Lost Ark story meeting transcript

Via Cinephila and Beyond, every scribe (and film buff and Raiders of the Lost Ark fan) needs to read this: 

Upon the first story meeting with Steven Spielberg and Lawrence Kasdan, George Lucas hand wrote this treatment for Raiders of the Lost Ark, courtesy of Will McCrabb.

Dear every screenwriter/storyteller, read this: 125-page transcript of the original 1978 story conference between Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Lawrence Kasdan for a little film called Raiders of the Lost Ark, courtesy of Mystery Man on Film. Needless to say, it’s a brilliant read.

Some background first…

Read transcript.

WGA's 101 Greatest Screenplays

Not a lot of surprises on the WGA's new list of their picks for the 101 (emphatic about getting Notorious on there it appears) Greatest Screenplays. 

I am proud to say that I've actually read all of the top 10 scripts over the years (my copy of Chinatown is replete with coffee stains, other unidentified stains and lots of dog-eared pages), and if you haven't, consider this a nudge to do so--or to read any of the ones on this list. 

While there are of course many other outstanding scripts over the years that may deserve a spot here, too, it's hard for me to argue against any of these. Perhaps a bit more representation of Japan's cinema might have been nice? But overall, pretty outstanding group from top to bottom. 

Is it ten years or ten scripts?

Worth reading this piece looking at how long it may take to "break in" to screenwriting--along with some other general rules.

http://thestorydepartment.com/writing-the-high-roi-screenplay-part-2/

whenever I’m asked, my own `general advice’ to any – and all – screenwriters/filmmakers, always includes, as 3 general `rules’:

1) Write 10 feature screenplays. It takes about that long to master feature screenwriting.

2) Always be writing 2 different screenplays. An expensive one and a cheap one.

3) Try writing the same film story: as an `expensive’ one – and, as a `cheap’ one.

--

Frank Darabont [A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, The Blob, The Fly 2, The Shawshank Redemption, Frankenstein, The Walking Dead]: “There are potentially more talented writers and directors than I, working in shoe stores and Burger Kings across the nation. The difference is I was willing to put in the nine years of effort and they weren’t.” 

SBIFF: Screenwriters Panel, Part II

I attended a most engaging Screenwriter's Panel at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, in the historic Lobero Theater, and made a somewhat clumsy if ultimately successful attempt at recording it using my iPhone. Herewith is the second part of the transcription of this panel. Part One, which is much longer than this one, can be found here. Again the panel consisted of Oscar-nominated scribes: David Magee (Life of Pi), Rian Johnson(Looper), John Gatins (Flight),  Roman Coppola (Moonrise Kingdom), and Stephen Chbosky (Perks of Being a Wallflower), and was moderated by Anne Thompson of IndieWire. [The last part I'll post here will consist of highlights from the Q&A period at the end, some good answers, a few good questions and a few wobbly bits I'll cut out.] -- CP

---

 

Rian, explain the way that the sci-fi genre influenced and played a role in Looper, and also talk about the two halves of the film, how you got from hard-boiled action part one to mother-son part two. 

RJ:  In terms of sci-fi, most of the sci-fi I grew up really loving, Ray Bradbury and Philip K Dick, it's always stuff that uses these otherworldly concepts in order to get at something immediate and recognizable and human at the heart of it. So when I think of sci-fi that's what that means to me. Not something very big and crazy, but uses something that feels mythic to get at something personal. That's what I tried to do with this. 

With the structure, the whole movie is set up as this conflict between these two guys, between the older and younger version of himself--I actually wrote the film originally as a short script, a 4 page script, back before I made my first film "Brick" 10 years ago. I wrote it as something I was just gonna make with my friends on the weekend. I never made it, It just sat in the drawer, until I took it back out more. But the short that I wrote, you can take a look at it online, it was just the two guys and didn't have the second half of the movie with the mother and son. But for me when I was expanding it out, I realized I needed to show what was different about these two, show their conflict, how they kind of work to their different ends. I figured that either meant them chasing each other more and shoot at each other more, or team up, or you can give them both the same problem to deal with in the second half and see how each deals with it, show how they're different in that way.   

So that's how I went at it, introducing the element of the kid and the mother, and giving them both the same dilemma and seeing where they came down on it at the end.  Getting much deeper into the heart of both main guys. 

John, like Roman you've done a lot of things, you've been an actor, director, producing--there seems to be a new hybrid not just one role, move around. Maybe you, Roman, Stephen, too, could speak to this.  

JG: I came to LA in 1990 to be an actor, right out of college. Those years of starring in Leprechaun 3 [laughter] … Rian, would you like to answer this for me?  

RJ: "Leprechaun 3 was a unique challenge…" [laughter]

John: I remember I had this meeting with Diane Lane who had decided to do this movie that I'd written ["Hard Ball"], the director had said come along, and she was talking to him and then she looked at me and said, "You're an actor…" I said, "well…"  and she said she liked people who'd suffered from both sides. I think when I'm on a movie set I have an easy way of talking with actors, I understand. Even someone like Denzel where it's unbelievable to watch him do what he does and how he does it, and I was always looking over his shoulder marveling at how he'd calibrate how drunk he was, like he had a number scale. I never knew what it was but knew he was working off a metric. I thought that's amazing. As an actor I'd never come up with that.  I guess I'm saying it was very helpful, playing a different role in production, it's very helpful. Showing up on the set as a writer for the first time is a different experience than being an actor. Business has changed, it's kind of asked you to be a bit more of a shape shifting person.

Roman:  I'm just a curious person, so the things that I've pursued have just been the things that have caught my eye. Like Wes saying, hey want to come to India and write this film… I don't really think about it but reflecting on it now as a question. I do think it's been useful having been behind the camera, too,  or working on effects, but I've just kind of gone where I've been called. 

Did you write the script for the film you just made yourself? What was that like?

RC: Yeah. Well I work much differently than Wes. When we're together he's very meticulous, there's a notebook, or a series of notebooks-- for me I have tons of papers, computers, files, it's a lot more chaotic. This Charles Swann film took me about 8 years to write, putting it down, picking it back up, that process over time. I think that actually informs the movie which is very kaleidoscopic. In simple terms, you have this little nugget of inspiration or compass., so you keep asking, does this belong with that, if it does, you move forward, and when you're in a  groove and inspired anything around you you can grab and add to that little compass that guides you. 

Stephen:  As a writer, I come at it from a writing POV, writing different types of things has helped my career. Screenwriting is a tough, tough job and most of the stuff you do unfortunately doesn't get made which is frustrating. With TV the chances are a little better [he did TV's Jericho], and with novel the chances are a little better… With Wallflower, I wrote the novel, and the screenplay took 10 years, and in that time I wrote several pilots, and I think if I hadn't done that I couldn't have adapted Perks. Pilots, the very nature of what they are is you have 42 minutes to introduce 12-15 characters, and this world and arena, make us understand everybody and want more. So there are tricks to that and those tricks helped me enormously in introducing ]the three main characters] in Perks instantaneously.  And as a director, directing is actually close to being a novelist, where you're creating an entire world a whole vision, know so much about every character, all the backstories, and that's what a director does. 

Roman, I understand that on Moonrise Kingdom you guys used Google a lot to research locations?

That was actually after the writing, Wes search a lot on Google Maps for an island that was appropriate or a certain house that would fit, but that didn't happen til later. 

Did you get involved in the creation of the children's books? 

I wasn't as involved in the shooting as I was on Darjeeling... it was wonderful to see the film screen with an audience at Cannes.  But yeah the text that appears in the movie, the excerpts from the children's books, Wes and I wrote together. 

SBIFF: Screenwriters Panel, Part I

I attended a most engaging Screenwriter's Panel at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, in the historic Lobero Theater, and made a somewhat clumsy if ultimately successful attempt at recording it using my iPhone. Herewith is the transcription of this panel, brought to you in several parts in a somewhat clumsy if ultimately successful attempt to drive up site traffic. (Well, also because it's taking a long while to transcribe this sucker. And because we all prefer reading things in more manageable chunks.) The entirely affable panel brought together several of this year's Oscar-nominated scribes: David Magee (Life of Pi), Rian Johnson (Looper), John Gatins (Flight),  Roman Coppola (Moonrise Kingdom), and Stephen Chbosky (Perks of Being a Wallflower), and was moderated by Anne Thompson of IndieWire.  I have edited this only marginally, cut it down in a few places but  otherwise it's pretty much direct and raw. Enjoy. --Craig P

Anne Thompson: David, you're one of the people here who've done an adapted screenplay. Talk about why it took 10 years to do Life of Pi. 

David Magee: I wasn't the initial screenwriter and didn't look at previous drafts. The challenge with this book is it's very episodic, it's written in 100 chapters, fragments, snapshots of the life of Pi. So much of it is a philosophical reflection of what he went through, static images of his suffering on the boat. The challenge was to find an arc to try to carry that story of what character goes though. In addition it's hard to convince the studio to make a movie about an Indian boy [actor] no one's heard of on a boat with a tiger develop CGI tiger or to try to spend 100s of hours to convince a real tiger to do what you need it to do. [laughter] The cost of the film was going to be prohibitive to make so the advantage we got was to have Ang Lee come aboard the film to direct it. At that point there was enough faith that something amazing was  going to happen. 

Rian Johnson, Looper, an original sci-fi script of great complexity, explain the degree of difficulty in making a time travel film where things are clear and concise enough.

RJ: Yeah trying to make things as simple as possible, which may sound weird looking at the actual film, but especially when you have time travel enter the story there's a lot of work to go into making it work, though it's the same as with any story, it's about trying to tell the most with the least. But it's doing it with concept of time travel,and lashing yourself to the mast of the story, make sure you never stopping at a moment where the audience cares about what is happening to have to explain something. 

John Gatins, you've been writing for a long time, what was the degree of difficulty on Flight, something you were resisting, challenges…?

[long pause] RJ: Come on answer. 

[ laughter] I'm gonna let Rian Johnson answer that. 

RJ: Well I've done a lot of drinking in my own life...[laughter]

Anne: That's sort of where I wanted you to go actually.

JG: Oh okay. Rian will be my interpreter.  Yeah I got sober when I was 25, and I started writing this movie when I was 31, and I'm like 45, 4… In Hollywood years I'm 31 still. In writing the story, I had this weird fear and fascination--I had a fear of flying, off and on--and had this fascination with all these elements in my life. It was kind of a marriage of my two greatest fears, which is drinking myself to death and dying in a plane crash. And to go back in time too. [looks at Rian Johnson; laughter]

Roman, you and Wes Anderson worked together on Moonrise Kingdom, a rather unusual collaboration.  Explain how you got involved in helping realize this movie.

RC: Well Wes had been working on this notion for some time, on what he called, or I knew as, "the Island Movie." And it had to do with a scout running away, and an island, but he had this imagery, this notion. And we'd hang out at times and I'd asked him "how's that island movie coming along?"  Ultimately he was working on it but could only get a couple of pages down, he was a bit blocked. He had it in his mind but couldn't get it in shape yet. So we hung out and he played this Benjamin Britton record and read the first few pages and ah, I got it, what he was trying to do, this world.  And then I asked the right questions, I suggested a little something, got that dialogue going. And from that point there was kind of that rush like when you're doing a crossword puzzle and you get over that hump and know you're gonna finish it. That was pretty much the process.  

Stephen, you were adapting your own book and you had the challenge of taking something that was incredibly successful as a book and turning it into a movie, was that more difficult and challenging than you expected?

Yeah, what was challenging about it was that when I wrote the book I was 26 and when I started writing the script I was 37, and--I'm uh 31 now. [laughter]  It was because I was writing about young people and was more of an adult by then it was more of going back and doing the emotional work  to actually respect and validate  what young people go through on their own level and at same time not treating  the grown ups like kids. Plus the fact that my novel is first person, very intimate, very emotional, to tell the same story in a medium that was more literal was tricky. 

David, you and Ang Lee met at a certain point--how did he decide to use you to write the screenplay and how did you proceed to work together?

DM: I didn't actually  ask him why he chose me because I didn't want him to rethink it. [laughter]  But Ang and I had talked about working on a different project at one point that never came about, that I forgot about. Then I got a call from my agent one day who asked me if I'd ever read Life of Pi, and I said, yeah, that's a hard one.  I don't know how you can do that one. And he said, Well, Ang wants to direct it. And I said "All right, let's do it!" [laughter] So we met the next night at a Japanese restaurant, had sushi and talked about the book. We had a lot of the same opinions a lot of the same things we connected with, and by end of meal we said, all right, let's do it.  Compared to so many projects where you have to jump through many hoops and do a lot to get studio's attention, on this we just said all right and started. I would write pages and then he has a place in Manhattan, I'd come in from New Jersey and  bring in some pages, and we'd sit around and have Chinese food and talk all day.

There's a scene in the movie where Richard Parker vanishes into the jungle that I find incredibly emotional.  It's the center of the movie for me. What is the reason there's so much emotion attached to that? 

DM:  Whether you see the film as a literal story or as a kind of allegory, Pi's connection to Richard Parker brings out something in Pi that he didn't know he had in himself. He's this skinny vegetarian boy who doesn't know how to survive outside the zoo when the story begins, as he has to confront this tiger he finds this other side of himself, within himself, and so when the tiger leaves and doesn't come back he's letting go of something that he found within himself.  I think that's why it's so poignant. And I  thnk also if you have a cat that you love, and it leaves, it's also emotional. [laughter] 

Rian, there's a scene in Looper, it's written in the screenplay as "JOE" and "OLD JOE," and was wondering about that scene where they meet and confront each other in the diner, did Bruce Willis like being called "Old Joe"? And was that the most difficult scene to write?

RJ: I think I started saying "older Joe"… But yeah, It's probably the thing that I worked on the longest. We spent weekends together, Joe and Bruce and I, going over and over it, it's the one the changed the most in the course of writing it and shooting it, probably changed the most right up to post-production, too. It had to do a lot of things, while also being a scene where it was two characters just sitting across from each other in a sci-fi action movie feel and that doesn't ground the whole movie to a halt. Yeah a lot of going over it and over it. 

John, talk about your process on Flight, how long did it take you, and what do you do--do you sit down with a notepad, how do you work?

Wasn't long, just 12 years [laughter]  Yeah it was 12 years, I did other things in between to feed the family, while this was this strange sort of Rubik's cube to try to fix and then put away. It was kind of this strange R rated drama--I'm an animal that grew up in the studio system so I was savvy enough to know this was going to be a challenge for a studio to embrace an R-rated drama that didn't have guns in it and those sorts of things, so it was gonna take the passion of one actor to make the movie go. So --

And you wanted to direct it yourself.

I did, for ten years I tried, not that successfully ultimately.  But in that it had many lives.

You directed another movie and something changed after you directed that film?

Yeah, what was funny about that movie, it was "Dreamer," it was a family film, Dakota Fanning, Kurt Russell.  Studio said, we really had a nice time making this movie with you, what else would you like to do? And I showed them the first 40 pages of Flight [chuckles]  and they were like, "Um…. so uh, what else would you like to do?"

You'd been doing pretty much studio fare, sports movies, cheerleading, and so forth, you ended up deciding to change--

So yeah what changed is I wrote the greatest robot boxing movie ever made, Real Steel…[laughter] No, I think again the personal nature of the movie also kind of scary, and between the content of the movie, unclimbable mountain of trying to get this movie made in studio system, because a lot of great movies get made outside studios but I do not think about that so that was another thing that kind of terrified me. Directing movie it seemed like it would have to be outside the system so that was a big unknowable thing. 

So eventually you did get a director aboard...

Yeah, a Santa Barbara resident in fact (Robert Zemeckis).  And Denzel, it was the passion of those two guys that made it happen. 

It was an incredible thing, they've been respectful the whole way along. I got a call one day, the voice said "John, it's Denzel."  I was like, yeah….?  This is either Denzel Washington or Jay Pharaoh from SNL impersonating him. Either way I'll go with it.  But I ended up having dinner with him and he said when I get back from making "Safe House" I want to make this movie.  And then I get a phone call saying Robert Zemeckis wants to have lunch with you, so I headed up to Carpinteria and had lunch that turned into 6 hours in a room together and at about hour 3 he asked me a serious question: "Are you ok with me making this movie, because I know you tried to make it for many years…? " I said, I can't make it without you. So he said, good, come with me, so--for everything that went wrong for 12 years it was this one moment in time where everything went right. 

There was a moment where you were on an airplane sitting next to a pilot…tell us about that.

Yeah, I was working on a movie and flying back from Europe, and there was this pilot sitting next to me, he was wearing his pilot blues but was "deadheading" as they call it, off duty, he was chatting with me and chatting with me, and I'm a very friendly guy but I just wanted this guy to shut up, just be quiet, and I was like, why do I want this guy to shut up? And I realize, he's a pilot, I don't want to know anything about him personally, I want to think the guy or gal flying my plane has their life perfectly in order. [laughter]  I don't want to hear about how he's getting a shitty divorce or is an alcoholic and then I was like, wait a second… Ah hah, a writers moment.  What if there WAS a guy who was circling the drain in his personal life… and was like "Say more."  That was the genesis of the character but I wanted to put him a really extreme situation , and as a nervous flyer I started researching every plane crash--which I don't recommend. [laughter]  But those reports are public record. 

Roman, you worked with Wes on Darjeeling Limited, explain the differences in the collaborative process on that film and on this film. 

RC: Darjeeling, which we wrote with my cousin Jason Schwartzman, Wes came and said he wanted to do a story about three brothers who go away together and fall apart and have this crazy adventure, and he assembled our team and we started to cook up the story, in the process improvising and having late dinners and walking in strange neighborhoods. And ultimately we went to India, took a train, went to a bunch of temples and many of the people that are in the movie  are people we met on the road and in these temples. So we kind of grew the movie through improve and shared experiences. And we each wrote more for one guy--I was Peter, the Adrien Brody character.  So that was a very distinctive experience. For Moonrise Kingdom, we were in a rented house together. It had much more to do with imagination, fantasy--people will ask oh what about the movie is real, what happened to you, and the answer is really that nothing about it is real, it's more what we wish would've happened. You meet a girl in 4th grade and you would've loved to have run off with her. So it's not based on any real experience it's based on these fantasy notions recalling a time, being a child, So it was more that kind of experience, daydreaming, and in this house was my girlfriend, Wes's girlfriend and sister, and they'd be our audience. We'd go away for the day and then get back together for the evening and tell the next installment. It was kind of like a radio drama. We knew they'd be there for the next installment. So that was a pleasure.

So who's in charge of the computer during this process, the device in actually writing it…?

RC: Wes is in charge of that--he's the director of the film, and so he and I would write in service of the director. So we'd banter and come up with all this stuff and dialogue, and when it sort of felt right, Wes would ultimately be in charge of inputting the actual words. 

Stephen, In the course of figuring out your work what's your process, how do you write?

I get up, my mind's clear in the morning, I just go--it's not terribly sexy, I just go to the computer around 10 am and write till about 2 or 3.  I mean, there's lunch in there, too. [laughter]  I'm human, I'n not one of the boxers from Real Steel.  But yeah I'll do that. I've done a lot of things in my career, I've done TV, movies, musicals, and each one makes for a different process but generally the morning is the best time, by the afternoon my head's crowded.  

How did doing the "Four Corners of Nowhere" (which played at Sundance) help you on this one?

I was so young when I did that movie, I wrote it when I was 21, directed when I was 23. I don't know what I got out of it--half the movie is really good and half is realy bad.  When you start a movie you have grand thoughts about shots and this and that,  but by the end of the shooting, you're thinking that stuff will take care of itself, you're thinking about minutes and hours and how do I get it done.  How do I get enough takes, I know Emma is nervous this scene, or Ezra wants to try some improv, how can I carve up some more time, By the end of the day how do you get your job done. 

Did you write the music into the screenplay? There's a lot of music in Wallflower.

I wrote a lot of the music into the screenplay. Rocky Horror was a big part of this story, I knew Dexy's Midnight Runners Come on Eileen would be at the homecoming dance, choreographed to that song. and of course you have to have Air Supply. [laughter] And other than that it was just me and my music supervisor working on which songs fit best. 

What would say is the major difference between the movie and the book?

The biggest change I think was that the book--because screenplays are so unforgiving structurally you have to find the center.  If you veer off too much or don't make things clear you're going to lose the audience quickly.  So a big difference was in the book I could talk about Charlie's etended family, talk about his grandfather, the history of the family, and his thoughts about the world, and there was room to do it--but in a movie you can't.  So in the film I just focused on Charlie, his past, his friends and his immediate family. 

Back to David, one of the more controversial--if you will--things about Life of Pi is the use of the bookended narrator. Some people like it and some people don't. Explain why that was the only way to tell the story of the movie. 

DM: I don't know if it was the only way, it was something that Ang felt strongly about at that first dinner we had. At the very beginning Ang and I both agreed that the story was not just about religion, it was about the power of storytelling to get us through the chaos of our lives.  And so we were very attached to the idea that the older Pi was a storyteller, not just someone recounting what had happened in his life, he was someone who was able to bring something to life in a more imaginative way, which we wouldn't have had if we were telling the story from the boy's point of view. If he were just recounting this to the Japanese investigators and that was the bookend device, it would be him just recounting what happened to him in the aftermath of great turmoil. And it's a very different story when something is told right after the fact than it is if something that's evolved over time, for us that was very important--and also the idea that there was one storyteller passing the story on to another storyteller. Ultimately that was what determined that. And we tried different variations along the way.

Assuming everyone here has read Life of Pi… it is revealed that there are two versions of this one story.  Was there ever consideration given in abandoning story number 2, as it were? 

DM: We never would've abandoned story number 2. The point of the film was--however we were going to tell it--the very point is no one knows what happened on that boat except for Pi, and what story you believe says a lot about you…. If you are someone who believes there is a God watching over us, helping us as we go through our lives, as Pi does, that's how you're gonna read that story, that's how you'll interpret what happened on that journey, and if you favor more in the scientific "this happened and then that happened" this was a result of meteorological conditions and an accident of nature, failure of a ship's hull in a storm and that drives the rest, that's how you'll read that story. We were not trying to tell you this is the right version.  I was surprised at some of the reviews that said, well obviously it comes down on one side or the other. What we were trying to say was, everyone has a way they've come to lead their lives, whether you're Hindu, a Christian, an atheist, a scientist or whatever, you've built a safety net in the things you've concluded about why the world works the way it does, those are what get you through your ordeals.

How did the guy, the sailor that you found, help you tell this story that is mostly set at sea?

Right after we started working on it my nephew told me he'd read a book by this guy [Steven Callahan] who'd been lost at sea for 76 days in a five foot rubber raft.  So we tracked him down-- he was a professional sailor, he'd been in a sailing race in France and on his way back, he thinks a whale hit the side of his boat and it sank. And he threw his supplies in his raft, and all he had on was his t-shirt, and he spent the next couple of months at sea.  We talked to him, I can't tell you how much insight he gave us into the mechanics of what something like that is like, but also he gave us some of the imagery he encountered. I said it must have been was horrible what he went through but he said there were also times when there were no clouds, middle of the night, clear skies, and the water so calm that he felt like he was in a giant globe at the center of the universe. And I was like… I was like, whoa, that's great, that's going in the movie. [laughter] I mean that kind of stuff you cannot find or come up with on your own. Those kinds of moments and images… we knew some of the "facts," like the flying fish, and the way the stars look, but he was our main consultant on the film, figuring out where he was on this journey.

Steve because he was a sailor, he was writing in tiny lettering in a little notebook about wind speed and direction of the waves, and where he must be according to the stars, he was trying to calculate these things--Pi didn't have any of that knowledge but when we were looking for ways to show Pi reflecting on what he was going through we thought the the survival manual could be used as a journal, so that was a device we borrowed from Steve the sailor.

 

More coming!

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, the screenplay

Via Screenplay Explorer:

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (.pdf)

Really likable script for a mostly pleasing "little" (in the best sense) coming of age film. Some thought it might have had a shot at Oscar nomination for adapted script but it was not to be...

WGA Nominations Announced

WGA nominations announced [via Variety:] 

Opting for a mix of mainstream and speacialty titles, members of the Writers Guild of America have nominated John Gatins for "Flight," Rian Johnson for "Looper," Paul Thomas Anderson for "The Master,"Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola for "Moonrise Kingdom" and Mark Boal for "Zero Dark Thirty" for the guild's original screenplay award.

Noms for adapted screenplay went to "Argo," "Life of Pi," "Lincoln,""Silver Linings Playbook" and "Perks of Being a Wallflower."

Noms for adaptations include Chris Terrio's "Argo," David Magee's "Life of Pi," Tony Kushner's "Lincoln," David O. Russell's "Silver Linings Playbook" and Stephen Chbosky for "Perks of Being a Wallflower."

 

I've seen Pi, SLP, Lincoln, Looper, Master and Moonrise--6 out of 10--and hope to see all the rest within the next couple of weeks. 

Pleased to see Moonrise get a nod here, even if it's still mystifying it didn't get an Art Directors' Guild nomination (given its gorgeous and incredibly intricate designs, that were crucial to the film). Of the ones I'd seen, I'd give Silver Linings a nod in the Adapted category, and I'm still undecided about the Originals--Leaning toward Moonrise or Looper (as with The Master, its main debit is a flawed third act) so far.

 

Fade Out, Frank Pierson. Dog Day Afternoon screenplay.

One of the screenwriting field's living legends passed away today, and it instantly brought me back to a year ago when I had the fortune of attending the San Francisco International Film Festival's Master Class that Pierson gave on his classic film script for Dog Day Afternon.  He also co-wrote Cool Hand Luke, and several other important screenplays, and directed some very intelligent theatrical and television films. More recently he consulted on Mad Men. In his honor, I found a draft of his Dog Day script online, and consider this your opportunity to read it (assuming you've seen the film; if not, get on that, immediately). 

Dog Day Afternoon screenplay >>

 

 FADE IN:

               EXT. ELECTRIC SIGN

               It FILLS THE SCREEN (designed to exactly FILL THE FRAME size 
               of whatever ratio we're shooting in).  It says:

                                           2:51

               This message will be a little cryptic to the movie audience 
               on an essentially BLACK SCREEN.  HOLD for a beat, then it 
               changes: the lights flash this sign, which should explain it 
               to everyone:

                                           94°

               And a slow distant ROLL OF THUNDER in the far distance; now 
               the SOUND of media begin to come up loud, under:

               EXT. FLATBUSH AVENUE - DAY

               LONG SHOT down the Avenue, 400 mm lens, heat waves shimmering, 
               thousands of old people, and people with children in strollers 
               moving restlessly about in the heat on those endless miles 
               of benches.

               The SHOT is ON SCREEN only for a beat or two, then gone...

               SOUND TRACK COMES FROM A THOUSAND TRANSISTOR RADIOS, TV SETS, 
               AUTO RADIOS, BLENDED IN THE OPEN AIR...

                                     RADIO ANNOUNCER 1 (V.O.)
                         ...the situation continued tense in 
                         the Middle East today, as...

               EXT. SHEA STADIUM (TV CLIP) - DAY

               An unnamed player swings and hits a high pop up...

                                     ANNOUNCER 2 (V.O.)
                         ...hits a high inside pitch foul 
                         into the upper stands...

               ANGLE ON CROWD

               as the ball comes down they scramble and fight for it...

               A touch of viciousness...

                                     ANNOUNCER 3 (V.O.)
                         ...B-52's meanwhile, unleashed the 
                         heaviest bombing of the war...

 

Sage advice to scribes from PAGE Awards.

From PAGE Awards' Zoe Simmons, in their newsletter to contest entrants:

But if you do not advance to the Quarter-Final Round, please don’t be discouraged or feel that it’s a “death knell” for your script.Screenwriting is a lifelong endeavor, and one contest season does not mean the end of your career or that you “failed” in any sense of the word.  It simply means there are improvements that can still be made to your script.   Every year some really great scripts come sooooo close to advancing, but miss by just a few points.  Every year the results are different.

So, whatever happens in these next few weeks, my advice?  Take a Zen approach to your career.  It will keep you sane amidst all the ups and downs of this business. Stay firmly focused on developing your scripts and honing your craft.

Here are some suggestions for you to consider:

If you've had your script sitting in an unopened file on your desktop, open it up and read it again as if for the first time, with fresh eyes.

See the story unfold on the movie screen in your mind’s eye.  Feel where the story flows and where it doesn’t.  Take notes.

Really be honest with yourself –not to beat yourself up, but rather with an eye toward taking your work to the next level and pushing yourself to excel.Because that is what this is all about.

Above all, don’t let negative mind chatter take over.  This isn't about telling yourself “I’ll never make it” or “why did I ever think I could do this in the first place?” or stewing about how “awful” everything is.

If, when you review your script, you feel it can be improved upon, you’re in excellent company!  Top screenwriters are always rewriting and polishing their work, and they always remain curious and open to being a “student” of the art form.