Film Courage: I know you said in another video that when you were teaching at UCLA (and forgive
me if UCLA is on the quarter system or the semester system…but…) okay each quarter
or semester you would see maybe two people in the class that you felt were like gems
[i.e., especially talented writers) and the others ones (although with time and proper
training they could become that)…I’m wondering…those two people…those hypothetical students…would
they really know [that they were ultra-talented]?
Could they see that they were different from other writers?
Corey Mandell, Screenwriter/Teacher: Usually.
Film Courage: Really?
How did they know?
How could you see it and they also see it in themselves?
Corey: So…I was talking about this with a manager the other day and I’m afraid I’m
going to over-answer your question so I apologize ahead of time.
So one of the key skill sets in addition to creative integration is to build and write
compelling conflict.
Compelling conflict is what takes great characters and great dialogue and just makes it pop off
the page.
It’s hard to explain but you have a visceral experience when you read…look you read some
stuff and it’s just bad and then you read some stuff and it’s got some great moments
and some great characters and dialogue but nothing is really happening.
Then you read some stuff and it’s good, things are happening and it’s interesting.
But then you read some stuff and it pops off the page!
It just pops.
You can tell.
I was a studio reader and I could tell with one page if someone knew what they were doing
if it popped off the page or not.
Now if that one page was great, I don’t know if they could write out a whole script
(I’d have to keep reading) but if that one page didn’t pop I knew they couldn’t.
And if I had a class of about 20 people there are usually about 2 people and their writing
just sort of popped off the page more than others.
They didn’t know why necessarily but everyone could tell and I think they could tell.
They would often not say anything.
It’s like in a writing group there is usually just one person whose writing is just better
than everyone else’s or in an MFA problem.
It’s just maybe people don’t know why but it does.
And what I’ve learned is it’s because they’re writing compelling conflict and
I find that about 5% of the writers that come to work with me naturally do that.
I don’t have to teach them.
It has that popping off the page.
About 5% sort of do that and the other 90% are anywhere from they need some work to they
are just bad at it.
But you can teach people how to do it.
So a great example is Neil Simon the playwright, he has a book called ReWrites which is his
autobiography.
And he talks about like year after year when he was a younger man he’d write these plays
and he loved the characters and everyone thought they were hysterically funny but there was
just something missing.
They didn’t hold together.
It just wasn’t interesting enough.
And over time he’s like “I know something is missing but I don’t know what it is.”
And I know a lot of writers who feel that way.
It’s a really terrible feeling.
He eventually did the one thing he never wanted to do, he went to his older brother who was
a really successful writer and his older brother read his stuff and said you are not writing
compelling conflict and Neil Simon is like “What are you talking about?
What is this?”
And his older brother taught him what it was and then the light bulb went off.
So then he said I would just structure my compelling conflicts and then pour in all
of the character in comedy and that’s how he did his career.
David Mamet (and this is on my website or you can look online) he did a memo about a
decade ago or so to the writers of THE UNIT (his TV show) and he basically said “You
will learn writing compelling conflict or you will be in the blanking unemployment line
or the bread line.
And there were a lot of expletives in this memo but he was basically saying this is not
a natural skill set for most people.
You will learn to do this or you will not survive.
And so I did not know it at the time and to go back to your question actually (the truth
of my experience was) the 18 people whose stuff wasn’t popping off the page, I wasn’t
able to get them there.
And so I like a lot of teachers (and I talk to teachers at UCLA) and they will say this
privately.
I don’t know if they’ll say this publicly it’s like when you teach a class you are
teaching for that one or two person or people who have what it takes, the rest don’t.
But look they have a dream, support them and be encouraging.
Don’t tell them they don’t have what it takes, they’ll figure it out.
And then when they figure it out they will give up this dream and they will find the
dream that they have the talent for because not everyone can be a world-class chef.
Not everyone can be a professional athlete.
And so we teach for that one or two that have what it takes and for the rest we don’t
tell them that they don’t have what it takes.
We could be wrong but they will figure it out.
And that’s a real fixed-mindset way of approaching this and one of the books that changed my
life as a teacher is Mindset by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D. I make all of my students read this.
It’s the only thing I make them read.
And she talks about the “Fixed Mindset” and the “Growth Mindset.”
And the Growth Mindset is okay these two people who their stuff is popping off the page, why?
What skills, what talent do they have that other people don’t have?
The Growth Mindset says talent is repeatable skillsets.
And maybe you are born with them, maybe you develop them through nurture and childhood
or maybe you learn them as an adult.
It doesn’t matter how you acquire them, it’s just a skills set that is repeatable
as opposed to luck.
So repeatable skill set is you learn how to drive a car and now you can always drive a
car or ride a bike.
And so they have of the people that pop off the page they have certain skill sets, certain
tools that other people don’t.
You can figure out what those are (compelling conflict) and then you can figure out how
to teach compelling conflict.
Then you can teach those skill sets to other people and they can learn that talent.
So I had a writer who came to me (his name is Gary) and he had a manager, he was always
taking meetings but he could never sell anything, he could never get hired.
He felt like he was that close to a career for five years and at some point you’re
like “Okay, something is not here.
Something is not working.”
So he came to me, a deeply intuitive writer, he wrote the most amazing characters and dialogue.
I didn’t…all I taught him on that front was don’t change what you’re doing.
You’re amazing, just keep doing that and don’t let anyone interfere with that.
But on the conceptual side you’ve got some real weaknesses and him specifically was escalations,
how to keep making things get stronger…like keep making things worse and worse in an organic
way.
That was his…so he was an easy case in that he had everything but one skill set.
He was really missing one skill set.
So I have him those training exercises and then unbeknownst to me when I was done with
that class he spent the next three months doing those training exercises everyday every
day for four hours.
I didn’t know that.
That’s a Growth Mindset guy.
That’s a guy who is like I want to become an expert at this skillset that I’m naturally
am terrible at.
And at the end of those three months, he was as good at that as a natural conceptual writer
is good at that.
He was just as good at that as anyone.
He now has a movie coming out…I think it’s released in the fall [this video was filmed
in 2017] starring…what is her name?
Anyway…not Reese Witherspoon but anyway he has a movie that is coming out.
He sold two agents, he’s sold two TV pilots and he had everything but that one skillset.
Now at the same time I’ve worked with writers who are great at escalation and great at big
concepts but their characters and dialogue is like…these are just puppets.
And through the intuitive training they could come out the other end where their characters
and dialogue are just as good as these people who are naturally great.
So the key is you have natural talents and then there are talents that you don’t have
and you’re not that strong yet.
If you train the right way you can (if you’re willing to put the time and effort in the
right way), you can end up being just as talented as someone who is naturally that way and that’s
the growth mindset.
So for years I honestly and I’m embarrassed so say this but for years I would teach a
class and I’d come home and my wife would go “How did it go?”
And I’d say “These two people would have careers.
The rest of them, not so much.”
And over time usually those two people would go on to have careers and none of the others.
And I’m like “Well, I teach for those two people.”
I encourage everyone else because you never know but probably they are going to find out
they don’t have what it takes.
When I changed this approach and it took a long time and all effort I remember I had
a class where there was only ten people, there was one person who you could tell they had
what it takes.
The other 9, no.
And within 4 years, 1 of those 9 people dropped out because of a long story so that left 8
and of that 8, 6 of them went on and got careers.
And I wasn’t a smarter or more dynamic or I wasn’t a better teacher than prior, I
just had a different teaching approach and it was the approach that was radically different
(the whole creative integration skillset same approach).
So it took me years and a lot of help from other people.
I didn’t just invent this all myself.
But that is the really cool thing about talent is that it’s repeatable skill sets and you
can learn these skill sets and you can develop them if you know how to train yourself and
if you want to put in the time and energy.