Hope you have (are having, did have) a wonderful Friday…
…and by “Friday” I mean “entire week”…
and by “entire week” I mean “entire life”...
…and by “entire life” I mean “entire lives, should reincarnation be a thing, unless you’re a total jerkface in another life”
Anyhoo, I’ve been sick all week. Hooraaaaaaaaay! Ahem. Cough. Cough cough. Sigh. Getting better, though.
During my sickly time, I watched the entire last season of The Crown. Prince William meets a girl named Kate at University. You’ll just have to watch to see if those crazy kids get together… and if Prince Charles eats muesli!
(The way I’ve constructed this issue thus far is throwing my grammar-correcting software into a cataclysm. That’s how I know I’m doing it right.)
Netflix told me to watch a new movie, Bank of Dave, and so I complied. It’s one of the most friendly movies you can watch. I enjoyed it very much. Watch if you want to feel good, but it requires you to have a heart.
It’s about a kind rich man in northern England who wants to open a small bank to give loans to locals. The problem is that hasn’t happened in 150 years and the big banks really don’t want it to happen. Just watch. It’s good, but maybe cloyingly sentimental for some.
I ALSO took in non-British content.
For instance, I re-watched writer/director Shane Black’s hilarious and underrated The Nice Guys, a Ryan Gosling, Russell Crowe buddy comedy/action film.
Crude & Violent: YES
Ridiculous: YES
Everything I wanted in that moment: YES (well except a foot massage while watching)
In fact, I think I just talked myself into watching it again later today.
But the reason I bring it up is because after watching the movie it led me down a Shane Black rabbit hole. He’s been a screenwriter in Hollywood for decades. Basically, the inventor of the modern buddy movie with Lethal Weapon.
(btw, I also re-watched that and parts of it hold up but it gets really stupid in the third act. Especially the staged fistfight with Gary Busey instead of arresting him. I don’t blame Mr. Black for this, though, because he didn’t direct it.)
In the past few decades, he also directed movies he wrote. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Nice Guys, IRON MAN FRIGGIN 3!
And since I’m still in the planning stages of writing my movie I also want to direct (making progress, btw, and I’m excited about it) I started looking up interviews with Shane Black to learn how he does it.
I came across this LONG interview that I’m still only a third of the way through but this interview and other articles I’ve read gave me some insights:
He makes the script itself fun and funny and self-referential. Like completely unnecessary stuff for the final film, but great for the reader.
Don’t overdo it with description. Keep it flowing for the reader so you read down the page not across.
He spends a lot of time filling a shoe box with note cards of ideas and then dumps it out and tries to connect them before writing.
He has severe imposter syndrome. Even him!
The easiest way to write action scenes is to think in terms of POV. Write from the perspective of one character. It’ll help you through.
Turn fear into problem-solving.
Hey! That last one is the title of this issue!
He talks about this in the interview but it’s basically a good way of saying “stop thinking and just do the work”. But I like thinking of it this way.
I sit around and think about possibilities all the time. Not just for my screenplay, but for every project. I stress myself out or become negative or fearful about stuff that I don’t think will work.
It sounds like Shane Black has the same problem. But he finds the best way to solve that is not to try to fix it in your head. Sit down. Write some stuff. See that it doesn’t work. Change things. Fix things. Bit by bit. And while doing that you’ll find that the problem-solving replaces the fear in your brain because it can’t handle both.
And I find this to be true all the time. I have plot ideas. Big picture stuff. And I can’t reconcile certain things in my mind and it stresses me out. But if I start writing out the outlines of stories I automatically go into problem-solving mode.
“This can’t work because of this. What if I change this?”
“This doesn’t make any sense at all. How do I MAKE it make sense?”
”This is boring. How do I make it less boring?”
Then I get into a flow state of fixing things and forget what was worrying me. But I can’t get out of that “worry” in my brain. I can’t edit the worry in there. It’s gotta be in print.
Anyway, I just like thinking of it that way. When you’re sitting on a worry, you’re not doing anything. And you may just have to micromanage your way out of it with a lot of small fixes, rather than look for ONE magic solution like your brain wants to.
Thanks, Shane.
And thanks for reading.
Craig
Get well soon Craig! Daily 1000 mg of Vitamin C and 2000 IU of Vitamin D3 will help you get back on your feet soon hopefully. That's what we use.
I just wanted to say thank you for writing these. I, too, can’t get out of, nor edit the “worry” in my brain. I often forget this however. Time to get busy!