IFH 772: Screenwriting the 80’ Classic Cocoon with Tom Benedek
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Welcome to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, episode number 772. When given an opportunity, deliver excellence and never quit. Robert Rodriguez. Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood, it's the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of the film biz. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.

Welcome, welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. I am your humble host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of the Filmtrepreneur, how to turn your independent film into a profitable business. It's harder today than ever before for independent filmmakers to make money with their films. From predatory film distributors ripping them off to huckster film aggregators who prey upon them, the odds are stacked against the indie filmmaker. The old distribution model of making money with your film is broken and there needs to be a change.

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Enjoy today's episode with guest host, Dave Bullis. Hey, Tom, thanks a lot for coming on the show. I'm really happy to be here, Dave. Thanks for having me.

Oh, you know, my pleasure, Tom. You're a person I've been I've been meaning to have on the podcast for a while. You know, I really admire your work and the work that you and Scott do for screenwriting masterclass. And, you know, it's good that we can actually, you know, have this conversation now. Oh, it's great. I'm glad I'm glad you've been enjoying classes. And it's been good to have you in with us in our in our classes.

Oh, yeah, I've been joining the classes a lot. And, you know, there's a question I usually ask most people, you know, when we start off is I want to ask Tom, you know, how did you get started, you know, in the film industry?

Um, how did I get started? Well, I, I fell in love with movies when I was a kid and we had a neighbor who was a filmmaker, Bert Balaban, and we were on the set of his movies a couple of times. And I just love to go to the movies. I have this weird, you know, there were these movie theaters in our town and I would go and see the West. We'd go to see the, you know, when I was a little kid, the, you know,

20 cartoons, matinee in the afternoon, and then an Abbott and Costello movie. And my parents really liked movies. My mom really liked movies. So the first movie I saw in a theater was...

Bridge Over the River Kwai and she took us to New York and saw that in a theater when I was a little kid so I was just I really I just always really loved movies and I would just go I wouldn't go by myself when I was a kid but I have this one memory of I really wanted to go see this

this Western that was playing and my friend Larry didn't want to go. So I actually said, okay, I'll buy your ticket. So I like paid for him to go just so we would do that in that afternoon. I think the movie was...

She wore a yellow ribbon, you know, and I have no idea what, you know, how that whatever promotion for that movie made me want to see it. But, yeah, so I just really like movies. And then when I was in college, I started making films and I just, you know, decided that's what I wanted to do. And at that time, there was sort of the the.

The 70s and the 80s was a great time for movies. There's a lot of excitement and there were a lot of film students who were breaking into film. And I did my junior year abroad in Paris and went to film school and made a film. It was actually in French as my student film. And I then came out to California when I finished school with my French student film under my arm and a spec script that I'd written.

and tried to make my way and sell the script and get work. And that was a process. But then I worked at...

I did like different kinds of jobs. And this guy hired me to write and direct an educational film, which was like, it was a story film. It was sort of a red balloon kind of film. And I made that film and it won an award in a festival, which kind of gave me a little bit of hope. And I kept writing scripts along the way. And then I got an agent and had some jobs and, you know, nothing too,

nothing that really panned out into anything. They were fun and interesting jobs that I had. I optioned a script to a guy, actually Rick Rosenthal, who became a director and TV director and still very active out here as a company called Whitewater. So I optioned a script to him and then I wrote a script that got some interest from

from Bob Zemeckis, who my brother was a lawyer and he was working with Larry Kasdan and Zemeckis was a friend of his. And I wrote the script, my brother liked the script and he gave it to those guys. He gave it to Kasdan and Kasdan gave it to Zemeckis and Zemeckis really loved the script and he wanted to make the movie. So that was my first taste of anything which really

was going to be you know breaking into the you know so scaling the walls of the studios so to speak and that project ended up nothing ended up happening with it you know we because bob zemeckis i thought it was like this he had done um used cars and i want to hold your hand he was still he and bob gale were spielberg sort of protégés of the time and uh then

Spielberg directed their script, 1941, which was a huge flop at the time. You know, it was just like a big, you know, it was like Spielberg's first movie that he'd made that hadn't worked. So when Zemeckis got interested in my script, it was like the tail end of his, that first wave of,

of what he, you know, had going in the business. So it wasn't the greatest of times for him, but, you know, he loved my script and he wanted to do it. And he, you know, we took it to all these places and nothing happened with it. So I, you know, I was kind of charged by that. You know, I felt like, wow, you know, it was like more than it ever happened to me. And I was exciting and it was, it was a fun thing. And I, you know, we were still, I was still kicking that script around and trying to do things with it and working on another script. And then,

But six months later, the phone rang, and it was Zemeckis. And he said, hey, Tom, I have this project at Fox, and I need a writer to develop it with me. Would you be interested? And yeah, of course I was interested. So that was Cocoon. It was this unpublished novel.

The producers were these mega producers, Richard Zanuck and David Brown. They'd done Jaws and Sting and all these things. They had this big deal at Fox. He had that deal developing that project with him. A writer had done an adaptation. It was an unpublished novel, and this guy had done an adaptation of it. No one was very happy with it.

And so they gave me the material and said, well, can you do something with it? So I figured out a pitch and had to go in. And I pitched it to Bob, tried to figure out something that would sort of work with his sensibility in terms of what the material was. And I kind of reinvented what they had before and reinvented the novel in a lot of ways and used the story and just changed a lot of elements

characters and things to it um and kept some you know the basic sci-fi story that was there i i stuck with that and uh you know it's about the the you know the story is exactly what the movie is but you know many adjustments later i think and uh so yeah pitched that at um

to Zanuck and Brown and Lily Zanuck, Richard Zanuck's wife. And, uh, yeah, they, they bought, you know, they, they hired me to write that script. And, uh,

So that was my first. And that, you know, amazingly, there was all this drama. You know, the studio, Zemeckis then went off to do Romancing the Stone. And they ended up having a lot of problems with the studio with Romancing the Stone. And our movie, Cocoon, I wrote the script and it got...

green lit. It was like they wanted to make that movie with Zemeckis, but then he was off making this other movie for Fox and they were having all this, he was really tangling with some people, with Michael Douglas and other people in the studio about that project in some ways. So it ended up, they ended up not wanting him to direct Cocoon. So we had this movie that was green lit and we didn't have a director. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.

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And then I then suggested Ron Howard because of Splash. And miraculously, Ron Howard had read the script before and was interested in the project. And the producers convinced him to do it. And that was my big wave. That was my way in. That was my first Writers Guild job. And that was my first movie that got made.

So, so after that, Tom, did, did you get a lot of like people wanting to work with you and like a lot of directors wanting to, wanting to sit down with you to talk about their projects? Yeah. I mean, that was like, yeah, it was pretty, you know, it was like such, yeah, I, I was, you know, because, well,

Once the movie got going, I started getting, you know, some work started coming my way, you know, with other producers wanted to work with me because the movie was, you know, in development. I was sort of like, you know, in the game a little bit, so to speak. And then when the movie came out and it turned out to be a hit and, you know, and it was well liked by people in the business. It was just, you know, people really, really, really were very kind about the movie and

And so, yeah, I just started getting, you know, and the business was so different than the studio system. You know, the studio, like, Cocoon would not get made now. I mean, it might get made somehow. Someone would struggle and fight and get it made. But, you know, it was like a $20 million, at that time, a $20 million movie, which is a very low budget studio movie, about as low as you could do at a studio at that time, I think, and with no stars.

Steve Guttenberg, he was a star, but he wasn't a movie star. He wasn't a guy who was known to just

put to get movies any movie couldn't be put together with with him and at that time so um yeah so that was you know then you know yeah people just started throwing me every kind of job you could imagine you know it's just like yeah things change so i got i just got a lot of work after that definitely definitely a lot of you know things going on that way

You touched on something too, Tom, that I wanted to talk about, which was you mentioned that movie wouldn't get made today. And I think you're right because everything now is either like a low budget, $1 million to $5 million movie, or it's a huge superhero movie. And that's something now where I wonder where is that middle ground that used to be? You know what I mean? And so where I wanted to ask you is, excuse me,

I wanted to ask you is, is, you know, what would you do if you were a screenwriter starting off right now? You know, what would you do, you know, to sort of, you know, get your foot in the door again, knowing the the marketplace is where it is right now?

I would write a great script in whatever you are interested that writers feel they have in their heart that they can embrace 100% and really feel committed to emotionally and spiritually and physically and just on every level and just write a great script. And if you write a great script, then you have a writing sample. And in terms of the practicalities involved,

of what can get made, yeah, you know, it's better to write something that can be made for a price. And even if the marketplace doesn't allow for that kind of thing as much, if you want to be in the feature game, you have to write a feature film. And, you know, and it may be that...

writing an enclosed, something low, mixing it up, writing something that's an enclosed thriller or something that's extremely low budget that you know can be really made cheaply and yet is a genre film, I think that's something that the studios are interested in. I think that if you embrace a genre, if you want to work for the studios, if you want to work in that context,

You kind of have to look at the movies that they're making and embrace that kind of movie and do something which demonstrates that you can do that better than anybody else that they're going to have. So, you know, my agent has all these writers working for Marvel. You know, I mean, so, you know, so there are people who are specialists in that and they've dedicated themselves to that.

They love that and that's what they do. And that's the kind of work that they're getting. And they may have come at it from somewhere else. They may have written something that was a more specific sci-fi or very heightened kind of action film that got them there, but something that really corresponds to what that realm is and to the kind of

kind of scenes and the kind of character development kind of stories that are in that genre and you know they're like there are other kinds of genres that you know there's the horror genre and uh you know there's there's a few you know there's action thrillers that you know one character action thrillers which is probably you know the the most you know

a simpler version of uh you know a less expensive kind of movie that the studios can make where they can make it with one star and if it's you know if it's a compelling story original it can be you know i think it's going to be the next taken or something like that so that's that's the way in and it's much more limited you know i mean the icon when i you know there used to be

development executives, there used to be a point of pride that a development executive would have two projects that were, that they loved, but were very difficult to get off the ground or sort of impossible, but they loved them. So they had, you know, those people aren't, that's not something that is part of the mix right now. And the people who are left as the development executives are, you know, it's business, you know, it's just very, you know, it's pared down to the

being specific to what the necessities of international distribution are. And that's, you know, that's the studios. And then there's television. You know, I think that television is kind of that picked up the slack and,

all these people are moving into television. And the television is just taking a lot of different forms. And six episode series or 10 episodes, cable shows are 10 episodes per season and that's it. And then Netflix does these small films now. There's Tallulah just came out on Netflix. It was a good little film with Ellen Page and Allison Janney.

which is like Juno, but it's straight up there on Netflix. And Baz Luhrmann's doing The Get Down on Netflix, which is a really interesting show. So television is really... And what I was saying about... In television...

There's, you know, limited series are, are significant and series that have few episodes are significant. So something that could be a feature film could also be put into one of those contexts, but, you know, and also making an, making your own film, making an independent film, or just trying to do something that's really small that goes to the independent market. And there's not a lot of money in that, but, uh,

If your heart is in an idea, in a project, you kind of have to do it and try and find a way. And people find a way. Things rise up. You know, everybody's hoping that this year at the festivals and wherever that some great stuff is going to rise up. So if people keep making movies and keep writing scripts, then good things will happen.

You know, you made another good point, Tom, which is about TV. You know, that's where a lot of good writers now that even, you know, that I even know personally are all aiming for TV now rather than feature films.

And I think part of the reason is, is because of the budget issue where, you know, you want to make a feature film, you know, and they look at it and they go, well, you know, maybe this would be better as episodic because that's, you know, everyone has been, you know, conditioned to binge watch it or, you know what I mean? And we're in the golden age of TV. There's so many good TV shows on, you know, out there. And, you know, I think, you know, even some of the producers that maybe would have made those movies, those feature films even a few years ago.

have maybe too much on their plate, or they just aren't making those types of movies anymore. Yeah, I think you have a lot. I mean, it's hard for the producers. The producers are reluctant to...

to develop a lot of things because it's really hard to set them up. It's just, they don't, you know, the studios aren't giving the producers budgets for development and they're just not buying. It's not a, it's a, it's, it's, they only buy, they buy scripts when they're going to go into production a lot of the time now, apparently. So yeah, it's TV is really picking up the slack and, you know, and I think that it's, it's this breakdown which is occurring in the, but I think that, you know, once things,

the theatrical film is not going to go away. It

It's that form is important and people don't just want to watch series. People don't always want to just get hooked into something that's going to take them 10 hours to watch. They want to sit down with a group of people or by themselves and watch something that's two hours. And that's that form is primal to film entertainment. So it's not going anywhere. It's just right now we're in kind of a it's in kind of a downswing in terms of the certain sectors of the kinds of films that are getting made.

And it's probably going to change. And it may not be that the movie theaters are going to be as important as they were. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. This season, give the gift of the Virginia Lottery's Holiday Scratchers to all the adults in your life. But don't forget to play the holiday online games and New Year's Millionaire Raffle for even more excitement this season. Play in-store, in-app, or online. ♪

I give scratchers to my boss and I give scratchers to my wife. I give Virginia Lottery holiday games to every adult in my life. I give scratchers to my yoga instructor, my mailman, and my friends. With the lottery's New Year's millionaire raffle, the possibilities never end. And when I need some time alone to keep from going insane, I open up the lottery app and play the holiday online games. The best way to bring joy all season long and be a gifting MVP is giving holiday games from the Virginia Lottery.

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That's N O O M.com. And now back to the show. But I think that there's still, there's always going to be room for, for a good movie, for a good script and a good movie. It's just, but I think that in practical terms,

having a TV script is something where people feel like they can do something with it. There's all these channels, there's all these outlets that are all looking for stuff. So, you know, if you take the difference between the way that

Warner Brothers is trying to find material for movies, Warner Brothers films versus the way that AMC, the AMC channel is looking for projects. I would guess that AMC is a lot more, you know, fun place to go to if you really want to sell something these days.

Yeah, because AMC with The Walking Dead and they also had Breaking Bad. And like you said, a lot of people are taking more chances because I heard a rumor that Voodoo, which is owned by Walmart, is going to start making their own original content because everyone wants to get into that game of creating their own original movies and TV shows. Yeah, I mean, this idea of the content bubble,

is, you know, they said two years ago, somebody said that there was a content bubble and it was going to go, you know, there are too many shows and all this. Well, the bubble hasn't gone away. And, you know, I was, the truth is that a show that, a cable show that is doing really well, the number of people who are actually watching it, it would be canceled, it would have been canceled 15 years ago if it were a network show.

So it doesn't have to do that much business. It's like this, it's kind of this large scale version of the long tail where people, you know, where there are, there are so many niches now. And if you, if you fit into a niche and you write something of quality, create a show of quality that really the people who are passionate about that niche,

and beyond, you know, respond to, then, you know, it's going to work. So you have all these channels and they're all looking for stuff. They're all looking for ways to survive or make themselves more prominent than they are. And so, you know, all these channels you never heard of are all sort of have one eye on doing some, you know, some kind of TV series or some kind of filmed entertainment show that's not just what their standard mix might be.

So, yeah, so there's a lot going on. There's also things that are just on the web, just web series. And there are these verticals, which are grouped together vertically.

web shows that are you know just a bunch of web channels that are that are that are part of one organization and There's just going to be more that's just starting and now it's and you know people you know treat it like oh You know some people love YouTube and some people feel like they don't relate to it They feel like it's not for them and they then they generalize that that realm is never going to be something that they would ever want to work in well

it's gonna evolve. I mean, all these things are gonna evolve. Maybe it won't be YouTube specific. Maybe YouTube will stay the realm of what it is now, which is, you know, I enjoy some of the things that are on there, but it may be that it will really, you know, there'll be more diversification. There'll be more different kinds of shows even within YouTube. So there's plenty of, there's a lot of opportunity and there's a lot of, you know, a lot of ways to go and you can, you know,

So having a good script is, is a beginning and then being industrious about figuring out where it can fit in. You know, we just were talking about web series too. Cause you know, I took that class with you about creating a web series and,

And, you know, that is something, too, I've noticed was that there's more web series competitions springing up more and more, you know, and they're very open because there's no, you know, set page count. You know what I mean? Like, so some, you know, they're like, hey, if your entry is five pages or whether it's 25 pages, as long as you're, you know, you have this concept for, you know, the channel or for the project in general, you know, you will accept these entries. Right.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, it can be whatever you want it to be. I mean, if something's really compelling and it's 30 minutes, people are going to watch it. I mean, it's just a matter of doing something that's of quality, doing something that really works.

is, you know, outstanding for people and satisfies and, you know, is resonant. And I think, you know, you can bring the same skill sets of, and the same, same emotional tools that you'd bring, put in a, in a screenplay to this, these short forms. And you can also use the short form to boost a, you know, boost a script or a movie. There's a lot more of,

people putting together reels to try and sell projects, you know, they sort of like to really investing in whatever their ideas and, and having a way to present it that really injects it into people's heads in a creative way. So it may not just be reading the script. It's, you know, there's, there's more to it. And that's, you know, it'd be,

As a writer, I would prefer if it was just this level playing field and it was this orderly situation where people were reading the scripts and then making rational decisions about them after having a good experience reading the script. But people are doing more and more to try and enhance the possibilities of something, get people's attention to the material that they have.

Yeah, one common tactic that I've seen is to make something into like a transmedia project, you know, where it's, you know, a web series and or it starts off as a novel. And then you make the movie or then you write the script and say, hey, it's based off the novel by the same writer. You know, I've seen people, you know, more people trying to package things, you know, like we were talking about setting setting up projects.

And, you know, what they would try to do is also get Facebook page fan pages or Facebook fans for their page, you know, Twitter followers. And that way, when you're pitching to people, they can say, hey, look, we already have, you know, 10,000 people on this on this fan page. Yeah.

And that, you know, that speaks to the idea that you can so much that you can do yourself and that you can't, you know, that, that whole, the other going back to the feature realm, you know, there's this, you know, people who are doing a Kickstarter, you know, you, you can get a movie done that way. You can, you know, if you have a script and if you, you know, you, you have to, it's, it, there's a whole, there's an art and a science to doing Kickstarter or seed and spark.

And that's a way to build the following for your script and kind of figure out, well, is there, you know, find the audience for it. And then if you do a Kickstarter and you start a Facebook page and you do all these things and you're able to communicate what your film is and people resonate with it,

then that's, you know, that's the kind of a test of, you know, if you do that, then your project, it bodes well for your project. So, you know, so it's a good thing to do. But again, that's, it's really like,

It's just not just having the script, but then doing all these other things. And sometimes rather than going around and trying to get sort of go around to the agents and managers and producers and try and get permission to do something or get them to approve what you've done so that they can then go out and market it, if you really just...

go into the trenches with it and just, you know, try and try and figure out a way to get it done yourself, which that, that may be more productive ultimately. So. Yeah. Very, very true, Tom. You know, Tom, I wanted to, you know, ask, cause you know, we can turn our conversation about, you know, making projects, you know, what sort of advice, you know, would you give to somebody who was, uh, who, you know, who was thinking about writing a screenplay, uh, for, for, you know, I, I usually say beginners, uh,

But if you don't mind, Tom, what would you say to somebody who maybe even is beyond the beginner and maybe like intermediate to advanced? You know, what would you give any advice to them about about, you know, sort of right for writing for the next screenplay, whether it be about structure or whether it be about concept? Is there any anything, you know, that you could comment about? I would say, you know, great character driving plot, great characters.

and really making sure that your movie is really about something and working to the heart of what it is. And that's probably just giving your project, I've been saying this a lot, giving your project love, giving it all the love you can and really make it great. And be able to,

enunciate what it is, really say what it is, and not to oversimplify it, but to really sort of have an, you know, be able to be clear. You know, you might not know it when you start out, what it was really about, or you might not know what sort of the mirror, you know, what the important things that your characters go through that they really discover about themselves or what they, you know, what they finally conquer, just like, you know, what that could mean to people.

We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show. Who would be hearing about the project? So they hear about, you know, they might hear about a high concept, some sort of hook of what the plot is or where it takes place, which sounds really, oh, that's interesting. I haven't heard that. You know, that's, I haven't heard, that sounds, I'd like to see that. But then if the closer is,

And this person, this guy or this woman, what happened to them, the main character's experience in their own life, in their own terms of what happened to them

through the story, which is going to translate to, you know, it's going to be the people who hear the story, watch the film, or read the script, they're going to grow from whatever that growth is that takes place in the character. And, you know, sometimes that's not it. Sometimes characters don't change, they don't grow, and it's not every movie, and not to be formulaic, it has to be that way, but I think that even if that's not the case, the character will have

There's a certain kind of heart story that will take place at the center of most films, which is what people remember. That's why people remember movies, is because of that story within the story. And, you know, I'm always chasing it down in my own stuff. And, you know, sometimes I don't know. Sometimes I start with a story that's very external. And you have to start somewhere. And you may not know what it's really about until you've written it.

And you can outline and outline and outline, but I think in writing is where if you really let yourself go when you're writing, if you really take the ride with it, you'll discover what you'll learn. It's in you and you're sort of the instrument that's going to get it out. But you want it to have a life of its own on the page.

Yeah, you know, even in talking with Scott, you know, Scott Myers, the other half of Screenwriting Masterclass, for those listening, you know, we were talking about character and how character is everything. Because character suggests plot, you know, everything comes from character, you know, and those moments where they change in the film, that all comes from, you know, their character and either wanting or needing to change. And, you know, this whole idea where...

where you can, you know, sort of take a, you know, an outline, formulaic outline and just plug whatever in there, I think is the downfall to a lot of screenwriters because I've seen them, you know, try to say, oh man, you know, on page 17, I got to have this. And on page 30, I got to have this. And, and, and, you know, you just go, you know, you wonder why, why movies become formulaic. Well, it's because of stuff like that. Yeah, I think that's true. And I think that, you know, I mean the, the, the four, you know, the formulas or the dramatic structure, uh,

wasn't invented before the first stories were told. The stories were told naturally, people just told stories, and then after a while, people sat down, well, why is everybody listening to him or her?

And then they realized, oh, well, you know, this is where, you know, they set it up here and they, you know, they worked it. And then they, oh, there was this point where everything went downhill completely to the bottom, the main character, they all bottomed out. And then there was this lift, you know. So yeah, they figured, maybe they saw that in what those, but the stories came first. And so there was no theory. So, and the theory is a way to sort of,

Sometimes you may write just, okay, I know I'm going to need these things, and it's a way to start writing. It's a way to get going. But you want to just kind of find the story in its rawest form.

And then it may be misshapen in some way, or it may be missing some elements. And then you can go to the formula or go to those models of how scripts are structured and the lessons about dramatic structure and just sort of measure what you have against that.

those ideas about structure. And it might say, wow, you know, I never really, I didn't really explore my characters enough before the point, you know, before the, you know, when everything got really bad, the all's lost moment, so to speak. You know, so you can use it to kind of diagnose, but you may not want to necessarily start

You may want to write instinctively at first and then see how it fits into those structural models as kind of a remedy. It's like in acting, you know, the method, method acting, you know, is this way of, of this, this way of sort of imagining all over simplify it. But it's, if a character, if an actor has a part that they're doing, they may dig deep in their own experience to find moments that will be

make them feel the moments in their real life that made them feel in a similar way to the characters, the way the character might be feeling because of what's going on in the story.

So they'll plug that in and they'll realize, okay, at that point, I'm going to think about when my, you know, when, when I saw the elephant get euthanized or whatever it is, you know, so that'll make me cry. So they'll, and maybe in the movie, there's watching, you know, something completely, you know, they're observing a soldier dying in a bed or something, you know, whatever it is, but they use that emotional moment from their real life to, you

sort of make themselves feel and appear the way that they're supposed to appear. And that's method acting. But

Some actors may need to do that every second of a, you know, how complicated would that be? Every moment you're trying to scotch tape together something that happened from when your life, I think most of the time, most actors, even method actors are just imagining it. They're just, they jump into the character and then they imagine it. And then they reach a bump in the road at a certain point where, you know, they're facing that soldier dying in the bed and they just,

They're just not feeling it or they just don't feel like they really have a clear understanding of what it would really... They can't bring... They're just looking for more from what they want to be from their performance. So in that piece of their performance, they may...

use that idea from that that experience from their real life and bring it in and then just use that there so that and then it on film people you know it will work really well because they're they seem to be how the emotion is really you know appropriate for what there's they would for what's going on at that point that could be a great performance but that's that's a technique

And that may not be a technique that is used every second of, you know, it's just like you don't do that all the time. An actor doesn't do that all the time, just the same way a writer may not use the formulas all the time as they write. They may just write and when they hit that bump in the road or they just want something more, they feel like there's something missing, then they'll go to the technique, then they'll go to the formulas and use it as a helper.

Yeah.

And that's what I've learned too, is, you know, as we're making this outline to really get in there and it's, you're able to sort of now say, okay, now this scene has to come out of this scene and now we can do this. And, you know, within this scene, this is how this reversal happens in this scene, because, you know, it started off with guy A has all the power and then it ends with guy B having all the power, you know, stuff like that.

Yeah, I think I completely agree. I think that, you know, I feel sometimes I feel like I outline too much and then I'd be better off just writing pages. And then I sort of want to be I want to be writing pages just to let myself be writing pages. And then there's this fear that, oh, no, if I write if I write pages, you know, it's just I'm going to write myself into a hole with stuff that doesn't make sense. And I, you know.

But I think that there is a point where you really want to, you know, you want to write. And I think in some ways you can, I also like to, and I advise people,

get start writing go forward see what see what's going to happen and then go back to your outline play with your outline based on what you write you know restructure based on the inspiration that comes from the writing because it it will change it should change you know if you're writing for you know if you have a deadline and you have a producer you know a company or something and they're they've approved an outline well that's different you know you can you can diverge a little bit but

You may have to stick with it, but, you know, if you're just writing your own script, you just like, you know, free yourself up, you know? Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. And, you know, I actually, you know, I started off writing feature films, and now I actually just wrote two TV pilots, one half hour, one drama. And now, you know, I sort of, I see, you know,

As it talking with like Jennifer Grisani, she was on the podcast a few episodes ago. You know, we're talking about creating that Bible, you know, and just creating a pitch and making sure that all this stuff is set so that, you know, they know that you have a vision of where this is going to go. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show. And, you know, the whole thing sort of sort of.

Folds back and you have the vision of where it's going to go in the series arc. What's going to happen in season one, which is, you know, which is a season one arc. And then you have the entire, you know, episodic arc about that season. You know what I mean? So it's, you know, putting all this stuff together and you realize, you know, making a TV pilot is actually really, really difficult. And,

And I actually might venture off, Tom, in saying, you know, pound for pound, it might be the most difficult of doing all this stuff. You know, whether we're talking about writing web series or feature films or TV, you know, I think writing a TV pilot, because you have to get everything in motion and you have to, you know, make sure that, you know, it's intriguing and all that stuff. And you have to introduce all these characters together.

within, you know, 31 hours, you know what I mean? Yeah, I agree. It's really hard. And, you know, I think the idea of having to

present this, they want more, you know, they want an episode and, you know, the pilot and then outlines for a couple episodes and then the whole, you know, a season, some, you know, a season Bible of some sort or just, you know, descriptions of many, many things. It's really, it's like you're pre-writing a novel. It's, it's pretty, it's tough, you know, and, and you can get away, I think you can get away with less if you have really strong pilot, but,

You do have to give them a lot of... I was speaking with a writer who's done a lot of stuff, and he was saying that the speculation of the season of the Bible is just like BS, that most of the time it's not going to end up that way, that you can't really predetermine the season

from just writing the pilot. And maybe some people can, I don't know. I don't know if that's the case. But there are buyers who are buying the entire, you know, they're just buying the entire season. So that's really what you're, you know, you're going in and you want to sell them, you know, the production of an entire season of the show. So you better have something planned. Yeah.

Yeah, and you're right. It is like setting up a novel. It's, you know, because you have to make sure they know, they have to make sure that you know where this is going. You know, it's not just sort of like the pilot. And then you're like, well, I got to kind of figure out where everything goes from here. And speaking of writing for TV, you actually have an upcoming TV writing class, correct, Tom? I do. I have one. It's this week.

When is this airing? I have a one-week class this week, and then in September, I have a pilot workshop that's going to be going on. This will be airing about two weeks, so maybe beginning of September? Yeah. Oh, let me tell you. Here, let me get the dates here for you. Two weeks. Okay. September 5th, right after Labor Day, I have a Pages 1, Writing the First Draft. That's a feature.

And then on September 12th, I have pages two. It's a rewrite class for features. And I, we also do TV pilots in there as well. So it's, you know, that one both, both can be in there. And then on the 26th of September, I have a pages TV, original TV pilot script workshop. So that's a, a 10 week pilot workshop where we, you know, we work out a whole series concept and pilot script in that class. So,

So I have those things upcoming at Screenwriting Masterclass online. Very cool, Tom. And I'll make sure to link to those in the show notes, everyone. And in closing, Tom, because I know we're just about out of time, is there anything that we didn't discuss or anything you sort of want to say to put a period at the end of this conversation?

Well, it was great speaking with you. And I just encourage people to write, to tell their stories. I think that the writing itself and doing creative writing and concentrating in a form like screenwriting or pilot writing, I think that it's its own reward.

And simultaneously, there's a great world out there. And as much as we're, you know, we still have one foot in the way things were in feature films.

And we've actually moved forward into this new realm in film entertainment. And it's really, because of the changes in technology and the changes in lifestyle that have been going on, it's an incredible time for film entertainment. And it's an incredible visual time. Visual elements are so important. And film video and filmed elements on the web in all ways are

are so important. So imagining out these stories in script form is just a great thing to do. And it's important to have fun with it and to, you know, love, find out what the shows are and the, and the movies are that you really love and keep watching and keep reading. And, you know, that's, that's about all that's, that's, that's it. No.

Very cool, Tom. And where can people find you at online? Screenwritingmasterclass.com. If anybody has any questions, I'm Tom, D-O-M, at screenwritingmasterclass.com. And I also have a podcast, which I started very recently, which we have the first three episodes are up. It's called The Process.ink, and we're on iTunes.

And we're talking about the, just like right here, we're talking about the creative process. And I've had some amazing, you know, I had today, I spoke with Billy Finkelstein, who's, you know, he's on the writing staff of the spinoff to The Good Wife. And he did the feature, he wrote the...

this bad lieutenant city of New Orleans that Werner Herzog directed with

with Nicholas Cage, which was a very good film. He just, he did that, so we were talking about that, and he worked on L.A. Law, and he worked on Cop Rock, and he's a good friend of David Milch, and they're real interesting guys. Worked on all these different shows, worked on Law & Order, and now he's on this show at CBS, so talked about, you know, running shows and creating shows, and I've had, I'm going to be talking with Beck Smith, who's an indie producer

a specialist at, you know, a talent agency next week. And I'm going to speaking to someone who works at upright citizens brigade and standup comic. And, uh, I'm going to be, and I've had other interesting guests. So the process that I, and K please check it out. And, uh, any requests for kinds of guests, I'm open to feedback about what I'm doing on the show. Excellent. And I will also link to that in the show notes, everyone, Tom,

I want to say thank you very much for coming on the show, sir. Thank you very much. This is a pleasure. And I hope we'll talk soon. I'll see you in the Werner Herzog class. Yeah, right. Exactly. It's a small world. But yeah, I know, Tom, I know our paths will cross again very soon. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Dave. Take care, Tom. Take care. Bye.

I want to thank Dave so much for doing such a great job on this episode. If you want to get links to anything we spoke about in this episode, head over to the show notes at indiefilmmuscle.com forward slash 772. And if you haven't already, please head over to filmmakingpodcast.com. Subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It really helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you again so much for listening, guys. As always, keep that hustle going. Keep that dream alive. Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon.

Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at IndieFilmHustle.com. That's I-N-D-I-E-F-I-L-M-H-U-S-T-L-E.com.