Screenwriter Dave Hunsaker (Q&A)

I'm very excited to bring you this interview with working Alaskan screenwriter and playwright, Dave Hunsaker.

Hunsaker found his beginnings with his own play, "Yup'ik Antigone," based on Sophocles' "Antigone." The play was developed one winter in Toksook Bay on Nelson Island, and toured Alaska before being invited to the Theatre des Nations Festival in Nancy, France. It then found further success with a sold-out run at New York City's famous La MaMa ETC, as well as performances on ancient Greek stages in Athens and Delphi.

The play's success opened doors for Hunsaker as both a playwright and screenwriter. He was asked to help develop the Juneau-based Naa Kahidi Theater, an international touring company based primarily in Tlingit culture, and became their Artistic Director. This relationship eventually led to his being adopted by the Luxaax.ádi Clan of the Tlingit Nation.

Hunsaker was also accepted into the Sundance Screenwriting Lab, which helped begin a career writing for such directors as Robert Redford, Norman Jewison, Carroll Ballard, Roger Donaldson, Mel Gibson, Arthur Hiller, and Guillermo del Toro.

Hunsaker resides in Juneau, Alaska, with regular trips to his home in Santa Monica, California, to touch base with producers and colleagues - as well as soak up the sun and get in some warm-water kayaking. He is about to begin work on his third script for Leonardo DiCaprio.

Q&A

Matt Shields: My original intent was to focus on screenwriting; yet, as I've learned, theater runs deeply in your history. Are you a playwright first and foremost? Is that where your heart lies?

Dave Hunsaker: I love the theater, and still try to write at least one play a year. I prefer small productions that I can direct myself, because then I can indulge in all sorts of things that I don’t get to when I’m writing a screenplay. [Screenplay] writing is almost always at the behest of someone else, where I am more or less under the thumb of those who are paying me to write a script for them...

I like theater because what I write will probably get produced somewhere in one form or another, and the vast majority of movie scripts I am hired to write do not. Still, screenwriting is my bread and butter, and I have worked hard to make it my craft for the past twenty-plus years, so I’d have to say my heart lies there mostly.

MS: How did "Yup'ik Antigone" come to be?

Hunsaker: "Yup’ik Antigone" came about because of some striking similarities I noticed between ancient Greek theater and traditional Yup’ik ceremonial performance styles. Storytelling combined with dancers in masks, mostly. I also found a few cultural values that were similar, such as respect for the dead and abhorrence of tyranny, which suggested to me Sophocles’ Antigone'. I approached Molly Smith, artistic director of Perseverance Theatre in Juneau, and she went for the idea. Nikki Barthen, Perseverance’s producer at the time, went after grants, and ended up getting a very generous one from the Atlantic Richfield Foundation. I then had the wonderful opportunity of traveling all over Western Alaska to find a suitable village with whom to work to make the play happen. We finally hit on the village of Toksook Bay, a quite magical place on Nelson Island. I wrote my own version of the play, substituting Yup’ik or Inuit mythological references for the Greek ones, and Yup’ik story dances for the choral odes, but otherwise stayed pretty faithful to Sophocles. Designer and Art Director Jim Simard and I took up residence in Toksook for the better part of a winter, 1983-84 I think it was, and created the play there with all the cast members from the village. We ended up doing it in the Yup’ik language, which was hard for me as a writer, letting go of all that prose I’d labored over, but obvious and necessary to me as a director, since the actors all spoke Yup’ik as their first language and were simply much more believable and moving in their roles in that language.

MS: With the Naa Kahidi Theater, did you write for them as well as being Artistic Director?

Hunsaker: I wrote most of the material, adapting it pretty straight from original oral sources, working with Elders and tradition bearers. Nora Marks Dauenhauer also did some writing for us, and created some wonderful material... I was very proud of a lot of our work. Some really important artists came out of Naa Kahidi, people who have gone on to be great performers or leaders, like Gene Tagaban, Bob Sam, Diane Benson, Valerie Davidson. These experiences with Naa Kahidi Theatre and the contacts within the Native community I made led to my being adopted by the Luxaax.ádi Clan, which remains a very big and important part of my personal life.

MS: What do you find to be a fundamental difference between playwriting and screenwriting?

Hunsaker: To me, playwriting is usually more of an aural experience for audiences, unless it’s some zillion dollar Broadway extravaganza, whereas film is much more visual. Playwrights are accorded a kind of respect that screenwriters usually are not, and have, generally speaking, a lot more freedom of invention. Of course they are usually a whole lot more impoverished, too...

Writing movies, at least for the mainstream Hollywood market, which is what I do, is highly restrictive and much, much more technical than writing for the stage. Not that it has to be formulaic, but the executives who read your script have typically taken Robert McKee’s course, and they tend to look at material with that in mind. [Robert McKee teaches the popular "Story seminar," a four-day course on screenwriting]

MS: How did you first get noticed by Hollywood?

Hunsaker: It was an indirect result of "Yup’ik Antigone". While I was living in Toksook Bay a lot of the people told me wonderful stories about a mythical ancient warrior called Apanuugpak, suggesting that we could make him the subject of the next play. They were such incredibly visual, action-oriented stories I thought they would make a better film than stage play. I’d never studied film - still haven’t - or attempted to write a screenplay, but Jim Simard, who had worked as an Art Director in film, gave me a book that showed things like formatting, and I boldly set off in my ignorance and wrote a script based on the stories I’d been told. Jim helped me get it to the Sundance screenwriting lab, which was just a few years old at that point, and by odds too long for me to calculate it was one of five projects that got accepted for development that year. Jim, who was going to produce, my friend Joel Bennett - a renowned wildlife filmmaker from Juneau - who was going to shoot it, and I went to Utah and spent a month at the Sundance ski resort working on the project with some of the best writers, directors, and actors in the business, who were there as technical advisors. The idea was I was going to direct the script, too.

MS: What happened with that project?

Hunsaker: We actually were given a crew and experienced actors and got to shoot some scenes from the script, trying to make the mountains of Utah in June look like the YK Delta [Yukon Kuskokwim] in the winter. That was pretty funny, but also very valuable. In the end it was kind of a doomed project. My original idea had been to get a small, tough crew and shoot it all in 16mm up in Toksook, all in Yup’ik with subtitles and unknown actors - it would have very much resembled the Canadian Inuit film "Atanarjuat: the Fast Runner," which was made many years later. Columbia Pictures, which still existed then, optioned the script, but they wanted it to become a more 'accessible' mainstream story and they wanted me to cast actors like Lou Diamond Phillips and Toshiro Mifune because they vaguely resembled Eskimos. I couldn’t imagine doing that and going back to face the elders of Toksook Bay. At the same time, ironically, I was catching hell from Alaskan ‘experts’ on Yup’ik culture because I wasn’t true enough to it from an anthropological standpoint. One of them even managed to sabotage some support we’d been promised from the NEA [National Endowment for Arts]... So in the end it would have been a compromise either way, and probably both ways. I was sad it didn’t happen, but I learned to swim by getting thrown into the deep end for sure. With sharks.

MS: What was the experience like at Sundance?

Hunsaker: It was incredible to hang out with legendary writers like Frank Pierson - who actually came to visit us in Juneau - Waldo Salt, Ring Lardner, Jr., and directors like the late Sydney Pollack and George Roy Hill and Redford himself. I got a lot of invaluable advice on that script and a crash course in screenwriting in general...

It really is kind of like a wonderful family, and I’ve stayed in touch all these years. As a matter of fact, I was asked to be a resource person last year and mentor five young Native American screenwriters. I got a call from my friend Bird Runningwater, who runs the Native Voices program of the Sundance Institute, asking if I could come to New Mexico the following week. It’s the kind of thing you can’t say no to, and I was very glad to have the opportunity to give something back. I can’t imagine that I would have been launched on this career as a screenwriter if it hadn’t been for Sundance in general and Robert Redford personally, who gave me a small job on his film "The Milagro Beanfield War" right after I’d gone through the summer Lab.

MS: I've come across a growing number of Alaskan screenwriter hopefuls recently, and with our wired world they seem savvier than writers of yesteryear. They know the language, the blogs to visit, the books to read, the screenwriting software to own, the competitions to enter... Still, with all this at their fingertips, what would you tell a new writer in Alaska if he/she asked you how to proceed?

Hunsaker: If the writer wants to be a director too, I’d say make a really good short film that is festival worthy. Of course the competition is fierce, since anyone can get a relatively good camera and editing system now, but that still seems like the best way to get noticed. As far as being strictly a writer goes, the thing to do is just keep writing scripts in as many genres as you possibly can. That will become the key to getting a writing assignment. Romantic comedy? Sure, I’ve got one right here. Horror? Check this one out, etcetera. The worst thing you can do is write just one script and try to launch yourself based on that one alone and keep flogging it and keep reworking it and never letting go of it. A screenplay is a relatively short document, compared to, say, a novel or a non-fiction book of any sort. Crank ‘em out! Easy come, easy go!

You have to be prepared not to make much, or any money at first, probably. Once you get something on screen or sell it to a signatory company you can get into the Writers Guild, and then you’ll get paid good money, but until you do... the competition, as I say, is ferocious, but then it always has been almost from the beginning of the industry. That aspect of this business is definitely not for the faint of heart or the non-competitive.

MS: I imagine most writers' goals are to sell their own screenplays and see them produced. What other avenues of income exist for a screenwriter? Can an unsold/unknown writer be considered for "open writing assignments?"

Hunsaker: The only way to get an assignment is to have an agent, the only way to get an agent, that is, one of the 100 or so legitimate agents who represent working writers and not one of the shyster types who sometimes show up, is to write a stand-out script of some sort. Either one that’s just an incredibly good read or has gotten made. But as I said earlier, it’s demonstrating a wide range and command of genres that gets you assignment work.

Like most WGA [Writers Guild of America] screenwriters in the business, I’ve written waaaay more scripts than have gotten produced. I’ve either sold, optioned, or been hired to write somewhere around forty scripts by now, and only a handful have ended up on the screen. That’s beyond common, I’m afraid, it’s universal... but what it means is, you sell yourself based on what you’ve written, not necessarily on what has appeared on screen. And even if something has been on screen, people in the business will still accord you the respect to read a sample of your work, perhaps even that very film, but the way you wrote it, to use in consideration of hiring you...

If you have the fire in the belly and want to do it, I think you just have to write and write and write, and at the same time keep a sharp eye out for any opportunity that may present itself.

Playing cittern in Dau Strom's band

MS: How do you view the writing community in Alaska? Is there a support system in place here for screenwriting in particular?

Hunsaker: I honor and admire the way groups of writers and filmmakers get together and support each other, but to be honest I have mostly been something of a lone wolf here. I’ve had a great theater community with Perseverance and with my colleagues from Naa Kahidi Theatre, but I have not been much involved with other Alaskan screenwriters...

Pat Race and the guys at Lucid Reverie [Juneau, Alaska. Q&A with them upcoming] have a great salon of filmmakers around them here in Juneau, and I know there are dynamic groups in Anchorage and Fairbanks, too. There seems to be an amazing and exciting film movement coming out of Barrow, so all that is fantastic. I know the 49 Writers group in Anchorage a little bit, and they seem to offer wonderful solidarity and support, so, yes, I think the systems are in place here, I’m just not up on the specifics.

MS: You keep residences in Juneau and Santa Monica. Have you faced difficulties getting film work by not living in Hollywood 24/7? Isn't the movie business still a "meet and greet" game?

Hunsaker: A lot of the work I’ve had over the years has been for people I’ve met in Hollywood one way or another, written for them, and then worked for again. I’ve done a couple films for Fox Searchlight. I’ve done three films with ShadowCatcher [production company], I’m just getting ready to start my third script for Leonardo DiCaprio. I’ve done numerous scripts and some script doctoring for Ed Pressman. I’ve also become pretty good friends with some of the directors I’ve worked with, like Carroll Ballard and Roger Donaldson. So all these connections and friendships are an important means of getting and doing the work.

I don’t think it’s necessary to live in L.A. to be a screenwriter, but I think it’s very, very important to understand something of that world and be conversant with the way things work. I can tell you I get a lot more writing accomplished in Alaska than L.A., just because I have everything the way I want it at my home in Juneau and I have far fewer distractions. After living in Alaska my whole adult life, I’ve gotten kind of hardwired to wanting to be outdoors doing things if the weather is good... And it’s almost always good in L.A., so it’s hard to keep my butt in the chair. And my agent tends to book a lot of meetings while I’m there. I simply get more words on the page when I’m in Alaska working.

But I really don’t like the Hollywood scene very much, and don’t spend much time schmoozing. One time my wife Annie and I were having such a rotten time at a movie star’s celebrity studded party in her home that we sneaked out and had to climb over her high gate in Beverly Hills to get away.

MS: Being from Alaska used to create all sorts of interest and was a great conversation starter whenever my family traveled south. Has that worked for you with Hollywood?

Hunsaker: I used to have a certain mystique being a writer from Alaska, I think, and I used to play that card pretty hard - the shaggy hair, the whiskers, the jeans. Now they’re more used to me and I don’t think Alaska has quite the allure it once did down there. I now have to endure a conversation about Sarah Palin before any meeting can get underway, it seems like.

MS: When I first started writing I often heard the saying "writing is a lonely job," but never understood it until I began to seriously write and re-write. Would you characterize writing as "lonely?"

Hunsaker: Writing is a lonely job, but screenwriting - or playwriting, for that matter - is less lonely than other forms. Every five years or so I get bummed out by some insult or lousy business deal in the screen trade, so in a fit of pique I set off to write a novel. The first few weeks I love it - just freedom, no worry about page counts or action beats, nobody looking over my shoulder, a work that will be mine, all mine. But then, after awhile, I start to feel lonely and miss “taking meetings”, miss having the feedback, albeit at times unwelcome, from producers, directors, and executives. Not to mention, I miss the paycheck. Other than musician gigs, working as a longshoreman and a janitor, and working three years for the Aleutian Region School District back in the 70s-80s, I’ve only ever been a writer, so I’m quite positive that I’m not suited for anything else now, and probably never was anyway.

MS: Of your own written work, stage or screen, do you have a favorite?

Hunsaker: I tend to like the recent things I’ve written, and cringe at the older ones. The last play I did for Perseverance was one I’m quite proud of, called “Battles of Fire and Water”. It was about the Sitka Russian-Tlingit wars told in a "Rashomon" like way from the point of views of the divergent cultures involved.

And "Yup'ik Antigone" will always hold a special place in my heart because I think it's what launched this whole thing.

History Of Film In Alaska

Swan Lake canoe trail system

Everyone has a different approach to their field of work...

Some show up, punch in/out, and go home to enjoy their real life. Others are workaholics and bring their work home with them -- not always for healthy reasons. Still others, their work is their passion and joy.

Firefighting, screenwriting, and filmmaking have been that for me. My big thing is always wanting to know who and what came before me. The history that created the current state of things.

Every time I thought I'd re-invented the wheel I would stumble across proof that it really has all been done (or thought of) before.

Each generation has its own learning curve and voices of those who came before usually fall on deaf ears.

For all you Alaskan filmmakers here are some of those voices: Films shot in Alaska

The link also resides on my personal blog, but thought it's home should be here.

Enjoy!

Morning view with coffee near Slana

Dark Before Dawn

Turnagain Arm rain break

So Alaska's Senate Bill 23 (film tax incentive) has been shelved until next year's legislative session.

I think a lot of people saw this coming, but didn't want speak out on it too much for fear of it having a negative connotation. The old "don't crap where you eat" effect. Especially (say it with me) in such a small town.

Watching the House Labor & Commerce sessions on Gavel to Gavel -- you're getting old when you start choosing these TV shows over say, Jersey Shore -- I knew it was ham-stringed this year. There was concern mentioned over how film tax incentives really fare in other states.

I see both sides of this coin.

In a nutshell there are real concerns [discussion for future post] that can't simply be pushed past the legislative body by showering them with letters of support and appealing to people's Hollywood titillation factor through star-power elbow nudging.

That is needed, and Alaska's film booster club has done an amazing job with it, but unless there is a back room deal to be made trading votes for votes (I have no idea if this ever happens) the concerns have to be addressed.

Not just shoved aside with "win-win" comments.

Let the devil's advocates have their voice so that you can strengthen your case and shut them up... Myself included.

Yes, I care. Both filmmaking and Alaska are my own history. I want Alaska to have a strong film community and have wanted it for many years, though my neophyte efforts [mid-90s] fell on deaf ears and consisted of little more than a simple desire to see "something" happen.

I'd like to see both our local independent filmmaking community and those striving to bring film jobs to the state continue to grow, similar to my experiences working other outlying film hubs such as Santa Fe and Seattle.

The current tax incentive is still very much alive, and Alaska's new film office is on the ball.

There's a year now to pick through anything that might even remotely cause concern with passage of the bill, face it honestly through the eyes of its toughest critics, and make it work.

Ron Holmstrom (Q&A)

A Dapper Ron

Alaskan actor and director Ron Holmstrom started as a folk singer/ ski-bum in Southern California. Spotted performing at Mammoth Mountain ski resort, he was hired to work with a Los Angeles-based musical theater company, and eventually found himself working in film and television. His first film role was over-dubbing trucker voices in the Chuck Norris' film Breaker! Breaker!

Holmstrom came to Alaska in 1992 to care for his ailing father and discovered both a thriving theater community and fledgling film industry. He decided to stay and get involved and hasn't looked back.

Since its inception, Holmstrom has been involved with the Last Frontier Theater Conference in Valdez, Alaska. In 2009 he was awarded the Jerry Harper Service Award, created to honor people who have been "instrumental in the development and success of the conference".

I first became aware of Ron through my membership with the Screen Actors Guild. At one point I began to wonder how many SAG members were actually in Alaska and every online search seemed to bring up Holmstrom's name. Turned out he is an elected member of SAG's Seattle branch (which includes Alaska) and has an active role in helping working Alaskan actors. A quick stop by the office turned into a pleasant hour-long discussion.

When I recently needed to put together a table-read for a screenplay I mentioned it to Ron and with one email blast he put me in touch with a core group of Alaskan actors.

Alaska might be a small town, but juice is juice.

Holmstrom will soon be directing his first feature film, The Doppelganger Principle, written by local writer Jim McLain and starring Edward Asner. Here he discusses both theater and the newly rejuvenated film industry in Alaska.

Q&A

Matt Shields: You have been quite involved with theater in Alaska. What did it mean for you to receive the Jerry Harper Service Award?

Ron Holmstrom: My first acting job in Alaska was at the fairly new Cyrano's Playhouse owned by Jerry and Sandy Harper. If it wasn't for me meeting them I would almost certainly still be in Hollywood. Jerry became like a big brother to me, sharing his wisdom, his love of our craft and so much laughter. I was deeply affected by his untimely death. Receiving the award named for him is my most treasured moment. No other honor could ever come close to that evening at the theater conference. I have been blessed by the Harpers' friendship. We often referred to ourselves as the "Three Musketeers."

MS: How do you view the current state of live theater in Alaska?

Holmstrom: Alaska has a theater community that rivals any in the country. I'm forever amazed at the quality of work done here. A great debt is owed Dr. Jody McDowell and the great Edward Albee for their vision in creating the Last Frontier Theater Conference in Valdez. Within a couple of seasons the event was attracting the best and brightest of our country's theater luminaries. Suddenly we were all spending time with Arthur Miller, Patricia Neal, August Wilson and so many others.

MS: I remember auditioning once for the Anchorage Repertory Theater, I think back in the mid-eighties. Were you involved with them? Why do you think they didn't last?

Holmstrom: I too auditioned for the Festival Theater, just before they went out of business. I think they came to depend too much on the largess of the petroleum industry for their funding. When the oil biz slowed down in the eighties there was no way to keep the boat afloat.

MS: Do you have a preference of theater versus film?

Holmstrom: No. Performing in a play there is a never-ending process of discovery and growth. At any point during the run of a play there can be a moment of realization that can deepen one's understanding of the character. In film acting the performance is normally much more subtle. The camera reveals the inner emotion reflected in the actor's eyes, mouth, and in the odd, glorious moment, a glimpse of the character's soul. On the other hand, in the theater one can really blow a scene and fix it the next night. In film you are stuck with the silly choice you made for the rest of your life. Or longer.

MS: You will be directing a feature film, The Doppelganger Principle, this fall. Have you directed film before?

Holmstrom: Yes, but never a feature. Some shorts, industrials, commercials and such.

MS: Do you plan on shooting entirely in Alaska with an Alaskan cast and crew?

Holmstrom: With the exception of Mr. Asner, every single person on this project is one of the many talented Alaskans we are fortunate to have here.

MS: How did Asner become involved?

Holmstrom: A mutual acquaintance got the script to Ed who called me as soon as he finished reading it and told me he wanted to play the lead. When I came to, I realized I now had a major project on my hands.

MS: Any nerves over working with such an established actor?

Holmstrom: Nerves? Directing a legend? Yeah, but when you get right down to it, what a joy! A guy in L.A. once loaned me his Dino Ferrari, a car that will go an honest 160 mph. On a closed section of the 110 Freeway I discovered after the speedometer passes 120 you kind of relax. A little.

MS: Film production is not new to Alaska, but our recently reinstated film office and the tax incentives now being offered to productions that shoot here have caused a flurry of new local activity. Almost like a new gold rush or oil boom. Do you see support for both Hollywood productions as well as local film artists?

Holmstrom: As far as support of local film artists the Alaska Film Office has been really helpful in putting the incentive program to work for us. I think Dave Worrell [manager, Alaska Film Office] is jazzed about this all-Alaskan production.

MS: How about effects of the recent growth spurt on the local film community?

Holmstrom: Concerning our film community, at large... it is a bit factional. In our theater community there is, of course, competition for the limited audience we have, but there is still a feeling of camaraderie. A kind of "we're all in this together." The fledgling film industry here, perhaps in part due to its newness and the looming specter of possible big money, seems to have created what I would think is a temporary atmosphere in some camps of possessiveness, or maybe a sense of entitlement. It reminds me of the Coke bottle in The Gods Must be Crazy. The bottle was this new thing that no one had ever seen before and suddenly everybody in the village needed it. Desperately.

MS: Besides the tax incentive what do you see needing the most attention in order for Alaska to build upon its ability to support a viable film community and industry?

Holmstrom: A sound stage. Training. Ancillary stuff like dollies, cranes, honey-wagons... A whole lot more lighting and grip equipment. Did I mention a sound stage? The incentive, though, is paramount. Having that in place will inspire some people here to buy, build, or import the necessary tools for making movies. Some of our legislators are already trying to monkey with the best tool [Senate Bill 23 film production tax credit. Its extension has been shelved until next year's legislative session] we have ever had to kick-start this industry in Alaska.

MS: Any other projects you are working on?

Holmstrom: We are leading up to producing another script by Jim McLain, who wrote 'Doppelganger'. I'm also involved with a Polaris School mentor-ship program with one of their students, and am consulting with the Alaska Youth Film Project, which consists of young people aged nine to thirteen who share a passion for film. These kids are our future and need to be nurtured.

Of course I will always have my hand in local theater. I am simply the eternal fan. To be able to live in Alaska and still stay busy in this business of "making folks laugh and cry" is just too good to be true.

Receiving Jerry Harper Service Award

Large State, Small Town

Ice on Twenty-Mile river

Last week's post on our table-read has been linked to by screenwriting site 'Go Into The Story' (Saturday hot links). A good kick-start for this blog, considering it's brand spanking new.

Go Into The Story is one of the sites I've included in my own links. When you get a moment peruse these -- especially if you're a neophyte to screenwriting.

There are obviously many good screenwriting blogs, websites, articles out there, but I chose these to link to because they are:

• Consistent with posting
  
• Each cover a different aspect of screenwriting, including: script analysis, current successful screenwriter, notes from a pro and instructor, point of view from a pro-reader, where to buy Acco #5 brads (can't find 'em in Anchorage!), and even where to register your bled-upon reams of paper (though if you actually write a 500 page script you might be the only one reading it).
• They are popular sites, so you have a chance to pick-up additional info and make new friends from amongst the comment sections.

Glenn Studios

Yesterday I drove out to Palmer to visit Alaska's newest film studio, Glenn Studios.

George Sikat III graciously gave me a tour of the facilities, after which a group of us did the Alaskan thing on a sunny day and stood around bs-ing.

A great space.

Decent ceiling height with multiple load-in doors big enough for your standard truck. Plenty of parking as well as extra space for Star Waggons/trucks/honey-wagons, etc, or to construct additional buildings and even land a helicopter. Nice entryway with offices. Restrooms, actor holding area, welding area (or fabrication room), paint room, costume storage, in fact - plenty of storage and/or work-spaces. Less than an hour from Anchorage by road.

Should work well for many productions. The really large set needs (Abyss, Pirates, Poseidon type stuff) would most likely require more ceiling height, but the word I got yesterday was:

You want to add twenty-five feet. No problem.

Of course this requires a financial commitment, but the studio is willing to talk.

Local Artists

While visiting Glenn Studios I also met Anchorage based screenwriter Jim McLain, who penned the up-coming Edward Asner picture The Doppelganger Principle.

McLain is now a 'pro' with his sale of Doppelganger, and I am happy to see other Alaskan scribes crawling out of their moss-chinked cabins and getting a taste of Tinseltown. Doppelganger is slated to begin shooting in Alaska next Fall.

It turns out McLain also spent some time in Ketchikan (my old hometown) and I will try to pin him down for a Q&A in the near future.

Speaking of Q&A's, Alaska-based professional actor and director Ron Holmstrom will be featured in the first one later this week.

Holmstrom will also be directing The Doppelganger Principle, proving that - for such a large state, Alaska really is a small town.

Another Draft (Or Twelve)

Bridge over Twenty-Mile river

We held a reading last night of my Nicholl semi-finalist screenplay 'War During Lifetime'. It took place in Anchorage with a good mix of local actors

Reading was private so the screenwriter (in this case, me) could hear his work read aloud. It was also cold (no rehearsal). To my relief, it accomplished what I hoped it would and did not send me running for the hills.

Below are a few points about this reading and readings in general.

Script History

War During Lifetime placed as a semi-finalist during the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences' Nicholl screenwriting competition. That's a mouthful, I know, but I mention the entire title for the benefit of other screenwriters.

As far as screenwriting competitions go, the Nicholl (pronounced 'nickle') is one of the best, if not the best.

The winners (up to ten each year) not only field multiple meetings with agents, managers, and production companies, they are also given $30,000 to complete another screenplay over the course of a year. But what I think is one of the best perks of entering this competition is that it is taken seriously by the film industry. Finalists, semi-finalists, and even quarter-finalists receive inquiries by established industry folks.

War During Lifetime was the first submission I've had reach the semi-finals (I've submitted eight times). It made the top 110 scripts out of over 6,000 entries, and I received a decent number of inquiries to read it based on its placement.

Did I sell it, or gain representation...?

No. Like I told the actors at the reading last night:

It might have made the semi-finals of one of the world's most esteemed screenwriting competitions, but it still didn't make the finals.

A diamond in the rough. Hence, more work, another draft (or twelve), and the reading...

Reading Notes

Best part of the night were the other participants. A solid group of local Alaskan actors showed up to participate and brought very good energy to the reading.

Because of their efforts I was able to close my eyes and listen to the script for everything from plot points to dialogue.

In our discussion afterward, the actors also all seemed to be in agreement over a few character moments and plot points, which meant something was working well enough that when something felt out of character it was obvious.

The re-writes were beginning to yield results.

How Many Drafts Does It Take?

Who knows... Forty?

That's the number a script reader once mentioned. I've heard of it done in as few as one draft with a polish, and as many as 'It never ends. This is the millionth draft and they want more!'

For myself I've had to learn patience. My first three or four drafts may yield a story and some characters, but in the mountainous slush-pile of scripts submitted to producers every year it needs to be perfect.

War During Lifetime has been written, passed to friends for notes, re-written, passed among different friends, re-written, forgotten about for a year, re-written, passed to new friends, re-written, and read aloud.

The first few readings by friends are usually disastrous. The notes are either so politely generic as to be useless, or so brutally honest (you asked for them to be honest, remember) that you wonder why the hell you ever tried to write in the first place.

But here's a secret -- You knew what the results were going to be all along.

How? Because if you spend enough time writing you will begin to develop a voice inside that tells you whether your work is ready to show or not. You just didn't pay the voice any heed because you need to get past the first rough hurdle of realizing (again) how difficult it is to write.

Both Good And Suck

Now is decision time: Do I move forward and really dive in, or do I let this one go? Do I love it enough to stick with it through both good and suck?

Ok, your heart is in the story and you've jumped back in.

Now you need to pay close attention to that voice inside. If it says 'Come on man, you know deep down it ain't ready' - listen to it.

Exercise some patience and settle in for the long haul, knowing that there will be light at the end of the tunnel.

Another draft has gone by and you're ready to send it out... Wait. Are you sure?

Just because you've locked yourself in a motel room for twenty straight days without sunlight, writing your ass off, doesn't mean it's ready. It just means you put a lot of work into it.

And so have the other 50,000 writers who have registered scripts with the Writer's Guild this year.

Walk away from it awhile. Quit. Start something new. Get a job in Antarctica (the route I took).

Then, if that story still needs to be told, sit down with it again and again until you can't hear that voice saying 'It ain't ready' anymore.

Show it to someone (not your mother). Hire a professional script-analyst to give you notes. Gather a bunch of actors, feed them pizza, and have a reading.

It won't be perfect, but it might be good enough to see the light at the end of the tunnel and realize you're on to something.

And having your work validated won't always fill the fridge, but it does feed the soul.

And the soul feeds the work.

Until maybe one day both soul and labor meet in a culmination of awesome perfection that no script-reader can ignore and your screenplay is stamped:

CONSIDER

The Dilemma

Turnagain Arm sunset

I had some Q&A's compiled from a couple of Alaska based filmmakers and artists, but decided to open this new blog with a personal dilemma on screenwriting as a form of story-telling.

Like many of you I'm sure, I made multitudes of Super-8 shorts growing up. One a week to be exact.

I'd take my savings to the local drug-store on a Friday afternoon or early Saturday morning, purchase one fifty-foot roll of Kodachrome or Ektachrome film, and with whatever friends I could round up, we'd shoot an approximately three-minute story edited in camera.

Our writing was usually the discussions we'd have before we clicked the shutter on the first shot.

As I grew older and more interested in trying to develop my craft I began putting pen to paper and writing out a story before we began shooting.

But I wasn't thinking about the 'rules' of story-telling via screenwriting at that time. I was just writing what interested me. In fact my first (and so far only) indie-feature was written in this vein.

Then one day I decided I wanted to sell my works to the motion-picture industry. So I diligently began to attend courses and expos. Read books, articles, other screenplays. Dissected films...

And the rules began to take shape for me.

As did my dilemma.

The Rules & The Dilemma

If you have seven extra minutes please begin with this David Mamet interview. [link currently down, but you can get the gist of it by reading on...]

In regards to Mamet's comment -- 'Drama is about three things: Who wants what, What happens if they don't get it, Why now' -- they echo fairly consistently with every other screen-writing course, article, website etc, but I always wonder where some other elements fall.

For example: The Thin Red Line adapted and directed by Terrence Malick.

I love this movie, but would have to think hard to find those three questions answered on anything but an esoteric level. Still, this remains one of my all-time favorites because:

1) I enjoy films that help me feel not so alone in the world.
2) There is a sense of uplifting, and hope for humanity in the story-telling.
3) There is a sense of wonder and mystery.

When I started out writing this was how I wrote. I actually had a clear goal of 'touching our humanity' 'inspiring hope', and the story would just progress naturally. I even made an indie feature with a story like this.

But then I started taking courses, attending writing expos, reading screenwriting articles, and with my last 5 scripts the process always began with some version of the three points Mamet made -- Because I think that is how I am supposed to write if I want to sell a screenplay.

My question is:

Does only the filmmaker/director really have the opportunity to tell a story in a less-traditional way, because he/she has the benefit of images, music, performances to keep us riveted to the screen with or without the 'who wants what and what happens if he doesn't get it'?

Is the screenwriter who only wants to sell his work (versus a writer-director) condemned to mimicking this long existing model?

Readers

The gate-keepers to the Hollywood script-buying industry.

As a newcomer or amateur, if you present readers with anything less than an industry standard formatted script that follows the basic rules of story-telling as mentioned above, your screenplay will more than likely never be passed up the chain.

If you, so inspired, create as a screenplay a template of imagery, which when you envision coupled with the proper soundtrack is designed to elicit empathetic emotions from an audience, your script will more than likely never be passed up the chain.

But You Are So Inspired

This doesn't mean not to write what and how you want to write. But it doesn't hurt to learn the rules of a long-established industry before you break or question them.

And there is always the option of figuring out how to produce your own work. I think the dual-hatted writer-filmmakers are more often successful with creating unique works... Even if they don't bring in as much at the box-office.

Which brings us back to the original dilemma.