“For me, it was a matter of years of trying to develop my writing in the same way that some people spend years learning to play the violin.”
Oscar-nominated screenwriter Frank Darabont
(The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile)
“I wrote maybe 10 screenplays before I was able to sell one.”
Oscar nominated screenwriter Nicolas Kazan, (Reversal of Fortune)
Part 7 of an interview with Richard Walter, screenwriting professor at UCLA.
SS: While I was in college I went to a UCLA extension class on screenwriting and during a panel discussion one of the people said they wouldn’t even read a script unless you had already written three. Screenwriter Dale Launer (My Cousin Vinny) recently told me that he wrote nine screenplays without letting anyone read one. Oscar-nominated Sheldon Turner (Up in the Air) said he wrote 13 before he sold one. Years ago, one of your former cohorts, William Froug, wrote. “My average UCLA student who’s been successful wrote at least six complete, polished screenplays before finally selling one.” Is that still true today?
Richard Walter: Absolutely! That’s what our program is all about at UCLA. And I’m very pleased to brag that our rival institute across town USC —where I have great affection and loyalty—they have just revamped their whole program to model it after our own. Instead of working on a first draft of a screenplay the first year and then in the second year polishing it— You know a UCLA student will have five or six scripts in that time. We’re on the quarter system, we have that advantage. We have three ten week quarters instead of two 15 week semesters. And every quarter our students crank out a screenplay and increasingly they’ll be doing that at USC. The idea is to find your voice. You need a few scripts to just throw away. Lew Hunter tells a wonderful story about one of our writers who achieved tremendous success and he said to him, “You know what I’d love to see happen is that fabulous script you wrote in my class—” and he named the script, and the writer looked down at his feet and looked a little uncomfortable and said, “Well, I kinda consider those scripts my training wheels.”
Of course, writing the script and selling it are just the first hurdles, getting it made and then into theaters are a couple more obstacles your writing must endure. In the three or so years of writing this blog there have been writers who’ve talked about writing 15-20 scripts before one actually makes its way into theaters. Then add that you’d like to like the end results—that it resembles what you wrote, and didn’t have too many rewriters— and the movie finds an audience and makes money… now you’re really into a fantasyland few get to experience.
And since this is the last of a seven part interview with Walter I’ve added this bonus—which may not be totally original— it’s what Walter in his book Essentials of Screenwriting calls, “Screenwriting’s one unbreakable rule: Don’t be boring.” (And perhaps the best way, maybe the only way, to do that is through conflict. So while you’re searching for your voice, keep looking for the conflcit in every scene.)
Related Posts: Screenwriter’s Work Ethic (Tip #2)
[…] “For me, it was a matter of years of trying to develop my writing in the same way that some people spend years learning to play the violin.” Oscar-nominated screenwriter Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile) “I wrote maybe 10 screenplays before I was able to sell one.” Oscar nominated screenwriter Nicolas Kazan, […] Original Source… […]
Scott, you are to be commended for obtaining the privilege of interviewing Richard Walter. To have secured enough commentary from him to create seven posts is impressive. I appreciate that you conclude today with his advice, “Don’t be boring,” with a tie-in to your feeling about conflict. Your related post about a workshop with Alfred Uhry when you asked him, “What about conflict?” which got things off and running, tells me you have had a long-held belief about its importance.
Thanks Barbara. I hope to do more interviews like that this year.
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