(Originally appeared on London Screenwriters' Festival website on 31st January, 2016)
For £23 off your ticket to LSF 2016, use discount code KTPARKER-16X
The story of how an English playwright with only a couple of screenwriting credits to his name found himself standing in line in a waffle shop chatting to a DreamWorks exec about his idea for the then unwritten and even untitled “Bridge Of Spies” is the stuff of legend. Now he’s BAFTA and Oscar-nominated, alongside the Coen Brothers, whom Steven Spielberg brought in to polish Tom Hanks’ dialogue.
Wow! Let the names in that last sentence just sink in a moment…
When I found out Matt was doing a chat session on Quora a couple of days ago, I had to sign up for it. Here, just for you, are the highlights.
On working with Steven Spielberg…
Sitting opposite Steven Spielberg, while he turns the pages of your script and talks about each scene as he goes, is about the best film school you can get. I learnt so much that it's hard to boil it down, but here's one thing: he wanted me to embrace complexity and the grey areas in characters.
That is a gift of a note to a writer, because it means that you can create roles that actors will truly want to inhabit, roles that have both good and bad qualities to them. And audiences love to be compelled by watching those kind of characters too. Steven pushed me to do that, the total opposite of streamlining and dumbing down.
On his screenwriting heroes…
It's hard for this not to turn into a list but I love Paddy Chayefsky in a completely different way to how I love the remarkable Melissa Matheson. The films NETWORK and E.T. show the complete range of what cinema can be. I would love to write a movie that stood the test of time like those two screenplays have and surely always will.
The screenwriters who inspire me now? The Coens, working with them was a dream come true. Aaron Sorkin, Lena Dunham, Tina Fey, damn you see...? It's become a list!
On his writing routine…
I write on two projects at a time. I don't know why, I just like to grow two things at once and that way ideas can sometimes cross-fertilise each other.
After I give my kids breakfast, I walk to my office and work for four hours on a project. I have lunch and then switch projects and work for another four hours. I do some emailing and then make sure I'm back home for the kids' bath time.
A routine is a great way of giving you the discipline you need when times are tough and you feel like you can't string a sentence of dialogue together to save your life!
On how he learned screenwriting…
I'm a self-taught screenwriter and so I know it can be a long, tough road and a solitary one too, but seeing something you've written being fully realized on screen makes the dark times worth it.
I used to sneak into the second acts of West End plays while I was at university in London. I couldn't afford to buy tickets so after the interval, I would slip in behind people who had been outside having a cigarette, wait for the lights to go down and find an empty seat.
That's really bad of me (and I should probably advise you not to do it!) but it was an amazing education because only seeing the second acts made me spend the whole night making up what the first act might have been in my head. I didn't know it at the time, but I was learning the art of structuring stories and what you do and don't need to know.
On advice for aspiring screenwriters…
There's no way to get better at it other than doing it. Ask any screen writer and they will have a hard drive or a stack of notebooks filled with first drafts of plays, movies or pilots that they wrote years ago and will never get made. You need to accrue those flying hours before someone lets you get behind the wheel of a jumbo jet. (I'm aware they don't have steering wheels but you know what I mean…)
If you hear a good line of dialogue on the bus or tube, write it down. If you have a good character name in your head, write it down. A good opening image? Write it down. Most writers are like hoarders who find little pieces of 'treasure' and hide them away in a safe place to use later.
In your scenes, be where the hottest point of the drama is and make sure the scene you're writing is where the audience wants to be. Don't be in the room next to the action, but with the action itself. That doesn't mean the most dramatic place isn't quiet and still, it just means what we're hearing and seeing is the most thrilling part of the story at that exact moment.
If you’re having trouble working out exactly what your story is, tell it to a friend. Then forget about it and a week later, tell another friend. Then wait a week and tell another friend. The tale you're telling will start to find a rhythm the more you tell it, and the bits that don't fit will naturally drop out. You'd be amazed how much you can hone a story this way.
I personally found that theatre provided a fantastic foundation in learning how to build character. There is nowhere to hide on stage, you can't cut away or use editing or sound to help you. Stage hones your ability to write for an audience and hear, night after night, which moments land and which don't. That was a great experience for me starting out and taught me to recognise the good bits of writing from the not-so-good.
The moral of the story?
Have your elevator speech ready. You never know whom you’re going to be standing next to in line for coffee… Dream big!
For £23 off your ticket to LSF 2016, use discount code KTPARKER-16X
For £23 off your ticket to LSF 2016, use discount code KTPARKER-16X
The story of how an English playwright with only a couple of screenwriting credits to his name found himself standing in line in a waffle shop chatting to a DreamWorks exec about his idea for the then unwritten and even untitled “Bridge Of Spies” is the stuff of legend. Now he’s BAFTA and Oscar-nominated, alongside the Coen Brothers, whom Steven Spielberg brought in to polish Tom Hanks’ dialogue.
Wow! Let the names in that last sentence just sink in a moment…
When I found out Matt was doing a chat session on Quora a couple of days ago, I had to sign up for it. Here, just for you, are the highlights.
On working with Steven Spielberg…
Sitting opposite Steven Spielberg, while he turns the pages of your script and talks about each scene as he goes, is about the best film school you can get. I learnt so much that it's hard to boil it down, but here's one thing: he wanted me to embrace complexity and the grey areas in characters.
That is a gift of a note to a writer, because it means that you can create roles that actors will truly want to inhabit, roles that have both good and bad qualities to them. And audiences love to be compelled by watching those kind of characters too. Steven pushed me to do that, the total opposite of streamlining and dumbing down.
On his screenwriting heroes…
It's hard for this not to turn into a list but I love Paddy Chayefsky in a completely different way to how I love the remarkable Melissa Matheson. The films NETWORK and E.T. show the complete range of what cinema can be. I would love to write a movie that stood the test of time like those two screenplays have and surely always will.
The screenwriters who inspire me now? The Coens, working with them was a dream come true. Aaron Sorkin, Lena Dunham, Tina Fey, damn you see...? It's become a list!
On his writing routine…
I write on two projects at a time. I don't know why, I just like to grow two things at once and that way ideas can sometimes cross-fertilise each other.
After I give my kids breakfast, I walk to my office and work for four hours on a project. I have lunch and then switch projects and work for another four hours. I do some emailing and then make sure I'm back home for the kids' bath time.
A routine is a great way of giving you the discipline you need when times are tough and you feel like you can't string a sentence of dialogue together to save your life!
On how he learned screenwriting…
I'm a self-taught screenwriter and so I know it can be a long, tough road and a solitary one too, but seeing something you've written being fully realized on screen makes the dark times worth it.
I used to sneak into the second acts of West End plays while I was at university in London. I couldn't afford to buy tickets so after the interval, I would slip in behind people who had been outside having a cigarette, wait for the lights to go down and find an empty seat.
That's really bad of me (and I should probably advise you not to do it!) but it was an amazing education because only seeing the second acts made me spend the whole night making up what the first act might have been in my head. I didn't know it at the time, but I was learning the art of structuring stories and what you do and don't need to know.
On advice for aspiring screenwriters…
There's no way to get better at it other than doing it. Ask any screen writer and they will have a hard drive or a stack of notebooks filled with first drafts of plays, movies or pilots that they wrote years ago and will never get made. You need to accrue those flying hours before someone lets you get behind the wheel of a jumbo jet. (I'm aware they don't have steering wheels but you know what I mean…)
If you hear a good line of dialogue on the bus or tube, write it down. If you have a good character name in your head, write it down. A good opening image? Write it down. Most writers are like hoarders who find little pieces of 'treasure' and hide them away in a safe place to use later.
In your scenes, be where the hottest point of the drama is and make sure the scene you're writing is where the audience wants to be. Don't be in the room next to the action, but with the action itself. That doesn't mean the most dramatic place isn't quiet and still, it just means what we're hearing and seeing is the most thrilling part of the story at that exact moment.
If you’re having trouble working out exactly what your story is, tell it to a friend. Then forget about it and a week later, tell another friend. Then wait a week and tell another friend. The tale you're telling will start to find a rhythm the more you tell it, and the bits that don't fit will naturally drop out. You'd be amazed how much you can hone a story this way.
I personally found that theatre provided a fantastic foundation in learning how to build character. There is nowhere to hide on stage, you can't cut away or use editing or sound to help you. Stage hones your ability to write for an audience and hear, night after night, which moments land and which don't. That was a great experience for me starting out and taught me to recognise the good bits of writing from the not-so-good.
The moral of the story?
Have your elevator speech ready. You never know whom you’re going to be standing next to in line for coffee… Dream big!
For £23 off your ticket to LSF 2016, use discount code KTPARKER-16X
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