Spirit of 94
Plus a couple of things I'm experimenting with and a sad goodbye.
For the past couple of years I was chasing a feeling in my new projects that I felt as an audience member in 2019. The two examples I always give (including here, many times) are PARASITE and UNCUT GEMS. In both of those movies there was a moment midway through where it was beyond my ability to guess what happened next. I found those moments so exhilarating that I kept them as a barometer for new ideas. If I was working on something that was “on rails,” as my former showrunner Liz Kruger used to say, I looked for ways to surprise and subvert expectations.
Recently, I realized I’ve been chasing a different feeling, the feeling I had watching movies like PULP FICTION and THE CROW, movies that had supercharged currents of electricity running through them, with iconic characters, and style for days. I had forgotten until recently that they both came out in 1994. That was the second half of my junior year in college through the first half of my senior year. Back then I was shuttling between the Esquire and the multiplexes in Cincinnati, soaking up anything and everything, regularly running up late charges for the massive stacks of VHS tapes I had rented from Blockbuster.
That year also coincided with audition techniques class in college, when I wrote my first monologues. It’s no wonder I ended up where I am now. The moment I decided I was a writer coincided with an extraordinary year for movies. I was inspired and fired up to write all the goddamn time.
Here’s a small sampling of what came out that year: FORREST GUMP, SPEED, CLERKS, THE LAST SEDUCTION, NATURAL BORN KILLERS, NOBODY’S FOOL, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, TRUE LIES, WYATT EARP, THE MASK. There are so many more.
I was consuming these movies like they were the breath of life. Now I find myself going back to watch some of them and I’m reminded of the adrenaline shot they gave to my creative spirit.
Speaking of PULP FICTION and adrenaline shots…
I’ve been thinking about that scene where Vincent has to give Mia an adrenaline shot to save her from an overdose. The stakes are clearly set up in an earlier scene with Jules. Mia’s boyfriend, Marcellus Wallace, threw a man off of a four story balcony because the man gave Mia a foot massage. Allegedly. If Mia dies from overdosing on Vincent’s heroin, Marcellus is going to do a lot worse to Vincent. Vincent’s drug dealer Lance brings out the shot, after which they argue about who’s going to do it and how. Finally Vincent marks the spot with a red marker and counts down to the moment where he’s going to stab this giant needle into her chest.
The whole sequence is fast-paced, funny, and totally absurd. But my favorite moment is a cutaway to Lance’s wife, Jody, played by Rosanna Arquette. Everybody else is on edge but when the camera finds Jody she’s watching with a half-grin on her face, like she’s genuinely excited to find out what happens next. I remember that moment in the audience so clearly. The tension in the theater was thick. I hate needles, most of us do. I was cringing so hard in my seat. That cutaway to Jody made us all laugh, like the crack of a whip. A split second later, Vincent slams the shot into Mia’s chest, Mia bolts upright with a gasp before screaming and scrambling to sit up against the couch. After Mia recovers and everybody settles, Jody says: “That was fucking trippy.”
What I loved about this scene is how that cutaway made us drop our defenses so that Vincent giving the shot still caught us by surprise. I saw PULP FICTION twice opening day, the very first showing and the very last midnight show. When I saw it the second time I knew that cutaway was coming so I was able to watch the mechanics worked on the audience.
As I’m working on this new feature spec I’m mindful of how important those little beats are when building a long sequence. He didn’t find that moment while doing his coverage on the day. It’s in the script. “Jody’s face is alive with anticipation.” It’s clear that he was watching the movie in his head while writing the scene. Granted, he knew he’d be directing it too, but thinking that way as a writer, giving it those little bits of specificity, helps the reader see the movie in their head as well.
Like Bob Schneider says in “Flowerparts,” “It’s the little things that separate the good from the great.”
The other thing I’m taking from that sequence (and so many of favorite movies, period) is using humor as a tool. It’s an easy thing to forget, especially when you’re dealing with heavy subject matter, or life and death stakes. But using humor to cope is a totally relatable and human thing to do. If you do it right it can lower your audience’s defenses so that emotional or heightened dramatic moments hit harder.
Julie and I watched WOMEN TALKING recently and it’s extraordinary on every level. The writing, directing, the performances, the score, all of it is masterful. I knew it was going to be heavy going into it because of the subject matter but there were moments that made me laugh out loud because the characters were using humor to cope with their circumstances. Those laughs were much needed respites, for them and for the audience. (By the way, I can’t recommend this movie enough. Sarah Polley is a gift.)
A Couple New Things I’m Trying
When I’m left to my own devices I don’t outline, at least not the same way I do when I’m working with producers, studios, and networks. Those outlines have to function as sales documents so there’s a lot more detail. When I’m on my own I tend to do more bullet pointing, with basically a logline for each scene and its job in the script.
With this new feature spec I’m trying something that’s equal parts “seat of the pants” and outline. I finish a handful of scenes then I stop and look at the bullet points for what’s ahead. I spend a couple of days writing in my journal about those upcoming scenes. Some of it is brainstorming, some of it is really digging into POV, exploring how the characters feel about what just happened and what they might do next, exploring alternate paths. I like being in discovery mode, as opposed to painting by numbers. The more scene work I finish the better I know the characters, the more I can let them lead me instead of driving them toward something I came up with two months ago. I’m reminded of a quote my sister Traci told me, from Miyamoto Musashi: “A fixed hand is a dead hand. A hand that does not become fixed is alive.”
Or, as Rick Rubin puts it in his new book:
“Beware of the assumption
that the way you work
is the best way
simply because
it’s the way you’ve done it before.”
The other thing I’m trying out right now is a change to my note taking system. I used Evernote for much of last year but gradually slacked off and reverted back to the Notes app on my computer and phone. It was just more convenient, it was always available, easy to use and search.
I use a journal/commonplace every day, which means there’s still some transferring to do from analog to digital for important ideas or things relevant to works-in-progress. I recently discovered that I could take a picture of my journal pages and save them to the Quicknotes folder on my Notes app. So now I can take notes during a general meeting or jot down ideas at the park then snap a pic and have them handy to reference on my phone or laptop in case I don’t have my journal handy.
Passing both of these along in case it’s something you may want to try. YMMV.
Annie Wersching
A member of our EXTANT family passed away this week. Annie Wersching played the character of Femi Dodd in season one. Shortly after we hired her I started getting messages from mutual friends I didn’t realize we had, with all of them singing her praises. She went to Millikin University, a couple of years behind Julie.
When I met her for the first time it felt like I’d known her forever. She was a special human being, the kind of person who has so much light emanating from them that she can’t help but warm everybody around her. She had a rare presence that could feel totally down to earth in one role then timeless and ethereal the next. No wonder her career spans so many great shows in so many genres.
I gave her such a hard time when I saw this picture because I never managed to get one with Steven when he was on set, let alone one with Steven and Halle together. I’m it exists. I wish I had her guts. We were so lucky to have her on the show.
Annie leaves behind a husband and three beautiful young boys. Here’s a link to a GoFundMe that was set up to help them navigate this next chapter of their lives:
A Cool Resource
I discovered these Very Short Introduction books a few years ago.
From the Wikipedia:
“Very Short Introductions (VSI) is a book series published by the Oxford University Press (OUP). The books are concise introductions to particular subjects, intended for a general audience but written by experts. Most are under 200 pages long. While authors may present personal viewpoints, the books are meant to be "balanced and complete" as well as thought provoking.”
They’re a great way to do a quick dive into a subject, whether its for research for an existing project or to spark new ideas. I underline and makes notes on blank pages or margins as I read. This is the kind of thing I would snap a picture of now and save to my Quicknotes folder for easy reference later:
You can find a list of the hundreds of subjects here!
A reminder, if you set an automatic monthly payment for Ko-Fi, please feel free to discontinue it. I’m rethinking this newsletter now that I’m on Substack, I imagine it will go through a little evolution over the next few months. I’m going to stop putting the ko-fi link at the bottom until I figure out exactly what it is and if that thing still brings some added value to your own creative practice.
Thanks, have a great week!
Love the Very Short Introductions!