• PAUL HAGGIS was a GREAT,
  INSPIRING guest at Screenwriters Online.

  We've been rooting for him and his films for the last two years.Since Million Dollar Baby!
  Paul has slaved and dedicated himself to his craft
  and to his ideals. It's great when great people are acknolwedged in this way!
  Here's something interesting from his ONLINE MASTERCLASS Session with us.

  QUESTION:
  Sometimes I go to sleep at night and say to myself that this isn't working and I don't know what I'm doing and I'm not going to write anymore. The next morning I get up and my characters are yapping again. At this point in your career, do you ever have such insecure thoughts?
  ANSWER:
  Every single day. You deal with it by writing. You just sit your ass in the chair and write through it. It's the only way to solve your problems. When you come upon a problem, write directly into it. Embracing the problem is often the way to find a really interesting scene. My other trick is to say, 'What awful thing could happen to them right now?' Because sometimes, things are going too well for your characters and you have to give them the worst possible thing that could happen to them.
  Paul Haggis at Screenwriters Online

  QUESTION:
  What type of scripts are hot in Hollywood right now?
  ANSWER:
  Never ever ever ever ever ever think that way. That is the road to failure and hackdom. I just met with Linda Obst this afternoon, and she bemoaned the fact that all young writers are looking for a payday and therefore are writing what they think she wants to see rather than writing what is in their gut, something they have to say. I cannot stress this enough.

  I wrote two spec scripts that I was absolutely sure no one would ever buy: Million Dollar Baby and Crash. They both sold within a couple of years of me writing them, which is very fast.

  If you try and second guess what people want and then provide it, YOU WILL FAIL.
  Guaranteed.
  And never listen to any agent who tells you any different.
  You want to write something unique, something only you know.
  Paul Haggis at Screenwriters Online

  QUESTION:
  How does an unknown make it to Hollywood?
  ANSWER:
  You have to understand that for all intents and purposes, I was "unknown" to the film business four years ago. I had no more advantage or disadvantage than you have. You may not think that truth, but it absolutely is because I had no "heat" coming off any great television show. It was all about the script. If you write a great script and put it in your drawer at your cottage in Muskoka Lake, someone will track it down and find it. If you write a bad script and send 100,000 copies out, it still ain't gonna sell. The trick is really simple: write a great script. And I don't mean to be flip. That's just the truth. Write something that's in your heart, and if you have your craft down and if you're really honest with the characters, it will sell. It just may take some time. I guess that's what you should ask yourself. Not how to sell or market something, but have I written enough and experienced enough to write a good screenplay? You write, you research, you write, you research... What makes a good writer is thousands of pages written.
  Paul Haggis at Screenwriters Online

  ---

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• JJ ABRAMS is one of our favorite guests at Screenwriters Online
  Here's a few quotes from his ONLINE MASTERCLASS Session with us

  "I always wanted to direct movies. I didn't know that I wanted to write them or produce them, and I never thought about doing television So, this whole thing has been sort of a surprising ride. I decided I would try to get an opportunity to direct through writing and was lucky ...."
  JJ Abrams at Screenwriters Online

  "I think it's important to - forgive me for stating the obvious - write ONLY WHAT'S NEEDED. What do you see? What do you hear? However, it's also important to give the reader a fun ride. That means that you want to pepper the action with some fun stuff. I actually hate it when the writer talks TO the reader. EXAMPLE: "This chase scene is so great, TRUST ME. You'd rather be watching it than reading it."
  JJ Abrams at Screenwriters Online

  That's funny, I guess, but it takes me the hell out of the moment. I want to GO TO THE MOVIES when I read a script. Keep it simple, but that doesn't mean don't give it a spirit."
  JJ Abrams at Screenwriters Online

  "The best compliment I get is when people say, "When I read that script, I SAW it."

  That's why I love talking to my mother.
  JJ Abrams at Screenwriters Online

  Keep up the great work JJ. You've only just begun!

• BLAKE SNYDER was a sweet man who loved screenwriters, writing and was genuinley turned on by the creative process.
  He inspired a generation of Screenwriting students who will miss him sorely. He unexepctedly died of cardiac arrest August 4, 2009. Some of our students were planning to take Blake's class later this week in Los Angeles. Everyone is in shock...and very sad.
  He wrote a dozen films and wrote what many consider a BIBLE for screenwriters called: SAVE THE CAT
  It is a book beyond forumlas. It addresses the heart and mind of the screenwriter and from that place leads them to their movie.

  We were thrilled to have him as a Screenwriters Online MasterClass Special Guest in February of 2009
  
  We had a great night. It was fun and a great lift to all the screenwriters who joined online that night

  Here, from his night with us, are a few snippets of his wit and wisdom

  Blake will continue to inspire us through his books and his words and his work.

  
  BLAKE SNYDER
  Here's some good stuff
  from his ONLINE MASTERCLASS Session with us.

  QUESTION:
  Thank you for coming to Screenwriters Online
  How are you?

  BLAKE SNYDER: This phase of my career is the best so far. I still love screenwriting, but working with other writers, answering questions, I love it and I do it all day long.
  I get emails from writers all the time. Sometimes I talk to people on the phone who are having problems with their scripts.
  I've been there.
  To me, it's clear what's wrong, the answer so simple sometimes, I'd rather tell them now than have them waste time.
  QUESTION:
  Will you talk about IDENTIFYING YOUR HERO?

  BLAKE SNYDER: This is one of the first questions a screenwriter has for a troubled screenplay.
  Identifying who the hero is, is tricky and not always based on a specific storytelling problem.
  Sometimes it's a marketing problem.
  I recently sold a script called GRANNY.
  Here's the pitch: a senior serial killer who kills teenagers who violate the rules of etiquette. Here's the poster line: "Granny. She's off her rocker."
  I got this idea at the Beverly Center.
  But my problem as a screenwriter is I had the wrong hero.
  I had 10 drafts that didn't sell because of it.
  Story is a crazy old lady who escapes from St. Vitas for the Criminally Insane shows up on the doorstep of a family.
  They just lost the wife, and the woman claims to be the wife's long lost grandmother.
  The person answering the door who lets the serial killer in in my first 10 drafts that did not sell was the dad.
  Wife recently dead.
  Two kids.
  AMBER, a precocious 16 year old girl.
  BEN, the 10 year old little brother.
  But 40 year old men don't see these movies; teenagers do.
  In the draft that sold, the person who answered the door is Amber.
  Now it's her story.
  All the beats are the same in the script, but it's from a different point of view.
  Again, more cold water: it was the rejection of having the script not sell that
  made me examine it and try to figure out a better hero for it.
  I had a blind spot.
  I was a 40-year-old man. I figured I'd be the most interesting man in the room.
  I had a blind spot and a prejudice about my story.
  And even me, who'd been in the business 20 years, should've known better.

  QUESTION:
  Can screenwriter be commercial and still be meaningful and care about one's work?

  BLAKE SNYDER: This gets to a good point: can you write commercially and still find passion?
  I always do.
  I think I can find passion in any story, and it's from theme.
  I think this is a great thing to know for rewrites, assignments,
  and even things you might not be drawn to at first but know are good for your career.
  GRANNY started from the fact that the horror genre was hot.
  I wanted to get in on it.
  I wanted to write a horror movie.
  But it wasn't until literally I was at the Beverly Center
  and saw a group of teenagers waiting at the elevator with me.
  When the doors opened, they all pushed past the people trying to get off the elevator.
  I said to myself, Tsk tsk. Kids today. Where are the manners?
  And standing next to me was a sweet little old lady with the same expression on her face.
  And I thought, What if you gave her a knife?
  But as smart as that is, it's just a new Freddy, a new Chucky.
  It's a good poster, but where was my passion for the project?
  I found it in the fact that I really am an etiquette bug. I really do get mad at rude drivers. And I found a voice in Granny.
  I think that's true in any story you tell.
  That's the best thing about writing genre.
  You can bury messages in the B Story that mean a lot to you and still deliver on a script that can sell.
  I work with writers on the phone a lot now.
  They tell me their story.
  We play around with elements, but what I'm really trying to get from them is why they're writing it.
  And when we pick out a theme, that's when it really gets great.
  Even the silliest comedy, even the most "commercial" movie must have a theme and a passion for you that means something.
  And we'll find it if we just keep looking.

  QUESTION:
  *Bradford* Blake I love the GRANNY story idea. Is Robin Williams gonna play the old lady?

  BLAKE SNYDER: MRS. HELLFIRE

  QUESTION:
  *Bradford* By the way, I had no idea you'd sold GRANNY when I sent you my short, GRANNY VERSUS ZOMBIE.

  BLAKE SNYDER: Hey Bradford! Bradford is a great guy and a great writer.
  COMMENT:
  *McVee* So says Bradford all the time!

  COMMENT:
  *Bradford* Yikes! Thanks! Five bucks is in the mail.

  BLAKE SNYDER: :)
  

  ---

  
  QUESTION:
  *daisyandmarl* What is the theme of Plane, trains? Love?

  BLAKE SNYDER: It's, "Like your work, love your wife."

  Here's a guy who was working too hard and neglecting his family.
  That's what he learns, ironically from a guy who doesn't have a family.
  Theme is not an abstract noun.
  It's the lesson.
  "Love" is not a theme.
  "Forgiveness" is not a theme.
  That's why I say Theme Stated.
  It's a proclamation, and what this movie will debate is whether or not it's true.
  And by the way, that's what the movie will debate in every scene.
  We'll see this theme debated from a million different perspectives and really wring it out in the course of this story.
  So pick a theme that you can state in a declarative sentence.
  And have somebody say it to the hero early on, and have him be blind to it.
  If he wasn't blind, we'd have nowhere to go in the course of the story.

  LOG LINES

  
  QUESTION:
  *Mich* In CAT, Blake talks a lot about the importance of being a slave to your logline
  and not straying from it as a way of keeping your story on track.
  BLAKE, At what point in your writing career did you realize the importance of being a slave to your logline?
  Was it an ah-hah moment or something that you knew all along?

  BLAKE SNYDER: Mich, great question.

  Thanks for reading my book and learning I think its most powerful lesson.
  Chapter One is called What Is It?
  Log line is premise.
  It's the poster of your movie.
  It's your pitch.
  And a good one is the coin of the realm.
  When I come up with a great log line, I can tell my agent,
  he can get right away and tell a producer, who can get on the phone and tell a studio executive,
  and when the movie comes out, they can tell you, the audience.
  Encapsulating your idea into something everyone can understand is a great skill.
  Figuring that out, for me, was indeed an A-Ha! moment
  and the change in my career from in the wilderness to the promised land, to quote a little Old Testament.
  I love a great log line.
  COMMENT:
  *Bradford* Blake, tonight ROCKS and is a great supliment to my dog-eared SAVE THE CAT BLAKE SNYDER: That's nice. COMMENT:
  *daisyandmarl* Good stuff!
  *debbiebb* I second that emotion!
  BLAKE SNYDER: These are great questions. You're a smart group.
  BLAKE SNYDER: Someone is mentoring you very well.
  SCREENWRITERS ONLINE: Thank you. ;)

• We congratulate ANDREW STANTON
  Producer, Screenwriter and former Screenwriters Online Special Guest!
  on winning OSCAR for BEST ANIMATED FEATURE for WALL-E

  as well as on winning The GOLDEN GLOBE for WALL-E!

  We thank him for continuing to inspire his peers and all of us at Screenwriters Online.

  
  CONGRATULATIONS ANDREW!
  Here's some good stuff from his ONLINE MASTERCLASS Session with us.

  QUESTION:
  When you write your screenplays, is the audience you
  are aiming for, children, or their parents or both?

  Andrew Stanton: This is the biggest no-no of all when it comes to family
  films. If you are writing for anybody else but yourself, your screenplay will fail.
  The minute you start to second guess who your audience is,
  you start making limited choices and closing doors to possible solutions to your story.
  The minute you underestimate children, you're going to
  make something that is just pandering and annoying.
  The reason the Harry Potter books are so good is because
  they don't try to talk to anybody lower than your average adult.
  It's proven that if you make the story good enough, kids
  that can't read well will force themselves to learn to read better in order to
  enjoy the story.
  I feel the same way about film. There's no reason I should
  have to dumb-down my filmic grammar.
  If the story is told well enough, the kids will get it or work
  harder at getting it and everybody wins.
  Whenever I bring my kids to school, I often get a parent
  saying my kids love your movies and you know we love them too.
  I always respond, "Good. I wrote them for you, not for the kids."
  The only consideration I give children is that I try not to
  put anything in the movies that have questionable morals or might be
  offensive -- anything that might exclude them, but that's it.
  I usually think about that very late in the game like usually
  on the last year of working on the picture is when I think about those things.

  QUESTION:
  I know people say "write what you know" but isn't it sometimes a
  good idea to write what you WANT to know? To learn the truth in something?

  Andrew Stanton: Exactly. I always say either write what you know or know
  what you write.

  Nemo is a perfect example. I knew nothing about fish,
  dentistry, Australia, and spent 2 years researching all of it.
  That's part of the fun.
  But hopefully whatever is the emotional point of your
  movie is something you can relate to and that you do know.
  If you've never experienced a death in the family, how on
  earth can you write about it?

  QUESTION:
  Which comes first, the screenplay or the storyboard for animation?

  Andrew Stanton: The script comes first and then the storyboards usually
  come into play once we feel about 70% confident with the script.
  In other words, all of the bones are there and the scenes
  feel like they're working right overall.
  Then, both script rewriting and storyboarding are on
  parallel tracks until the completion of the movie.
  There are some ideas you just can't come up with or
  wouldn't like unless you see them visually.
  The same goes with the written word, so I'm a believer in both.

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