Jack Grapes, Artist, Writer, Author, Instructor: I bought this in an airport oh wow they had one
that said playwright which I have here they had another one that said author and I bought that
one I don't know where it is and there was another one that said dog catcher and if I
could find it I'd wear it but I can't find that one either so play writer yeah play right yeah
Film Courage: I think playwright's way better than a dog catcher?
Jack: Well I don't know you know we we actually had a very stressful day yesterday because
in the middle of the night someone deposited a dog in our front yard and we have a little wall about
that high that the puppy wasn't a little puppy it was you know but a puppy it'll be a bigger dog
they just dumped and at six o'clock in the morning my wife went to get the paper and she said I need
your help we got this puppy he's been moaning and groaning and he's scared and the whole thing
and so we took it in and we fed it and we were debating do we keep it because we have a
german shepherd and the two of them weren't the german shepherd
didn't wasn't crazy about it the German Shepherd's name is Penelope and so we named the dog homer
and by the end of the day we were exhausted we realized the the dog's not house broken we don't
have time to walk it along with the other dog it was not so we finally decided we're going to have
to find someone who will adopt the dog but we love the dog so much within that one day we both bonded
that where are we going to find someone who's going to take good care of it that's tough yep
and she went to the pet store where we bring our dog and the trainer there he saw a picture we took
a picture of the dog he looked at me went that's an Australian cattle dog they're very expensive
and my wife said would you like it would you like to take it because we can't handle it
he said I've been looking for an Australian cattle dog that you know I've been looking
for it he was so thrilled and he's a trainer and he and his wife came over last night and
they bonded and the dog is okay but at the end of the day I said to my I'm wiped out
yeah we've had that's how we had a cat for like 16 -17 years just showed up at the door
stressed crying right and probably someone dumped it and I know yeah our first cat was
like that yeah she was under a house scared to death you know and that cat Cleo. When
she died she had been attacked by a dog and we brought her to the vet and her wounds
were pretty bad and the vet said I'm afraid she's probably not going to live very long
and he said you want to leave her here with us and I said no no we're going to take her
home and she will if she passes away it'll be here in our house so we took her home and he said but
you know if she is going to survive you have to give this eye dropper in her mouth every hour
so I laid on the floor next to her and every hour I didn't sleep that night every hour I gave her a
little bit of this medicine and at some point and then I would fall asleep and then I’d wake
up and give her some more and at one point about four in the morning I think it was when I went to
feel her I could feel the body had rigor mortis had said it's that stiffness she's dead and I
just stayed with her and then about 6 30 my wife walked in and she said how's Cleo? I said she died
and I started crying I've never I don't think I've cried that hard since I broke up with
somebody when I was a senior in high school I started crying so heavy and then I realized
what it was I was crying for my father because I never grieved for my father because it's a
long story but I kind of skipped over the grief part and I reel and this is like 30 years later
here I am crying and I went I'm crying for my father and just man it just came out and and
you know we put her in a box and we we buried her and so forth or had her buried that kind of thing
but boy animals they can really rip your heart out yeah they can and I've rescued a lot of cats or we
have and yeah you know they they appreciate it I don't think I've ever I've only purchased them
from rescues I've never purchased a purebred or anything yeah yeah we've always rescued our pets
Chucky who we had to put up had cancer we had to put her down she used to come up on my he
used to come up on my desk when I was working and she would plop right down on my checkbook
and rather than move her I would you know try to write the checks and put them in the envelopes
without disturbing him oh yeah we know all about it yeah that's our daily right right animals
man they're yeah they're wonderful though okay anyway you have yeah let me okay
you have a concept you teach called image moment oh it's very complicated okay and it's a cinematic
it's a cinematic construct in writing that most people don't do because it's not intuitive
something you have to learn to do but it takes a moment in a dramatic scene and how to
create psychological time so that the reader is in that dramatic moment as if it was a movie
like when you're in a movie and someone says something and then there's a pause
and then say something else and it's like wow one of those great moments you know
oh rhett what will I do where will I go pause frankly my dear I don't give a damn
you know so when you're writing it you're not making the movie you're writing it
how do you create that pause and that moment of drama so that the reader feels they're watching
the movie and that they're in the movie you know they're watching it you and you create
psychological time the psychological time is the pause the pause might only last a second
in the movie but psychologically it could last forever so the husband comes home and she says
I listen to your messages today you went oh she said are you having an affair pause pause pause no
so the drama in that pause how do you make that psychological that real time
which is only two seconds psychological so that it feels forever well there's a
way to I have a lot of techniques that you do and what you do it's a long it's a long
mechanical construct but image moment because you're creating a moment using images
and creating psychological time it takes people a while to learn how to master it because
most people want to just tell their story and stopping and doing an image moment
feels like they're not going with the flow of their story so you have to train people to do that
do you think that's what's missing in a lot of let's say first time screenplays or films
is that psychological time that pacing it's too fast a screenplay can't create psychological time
the filmmaker can create it all you can create in a screenplay is dialogue you can't tell the actors
to pause you can write it in the screenplay but it doesn't mean they're going to listen
to you you can say cinematic pause here well the director may go no we're going to do it my way so
you're not you're not in control all you can control is the dialogue and even then you'll
have an actor who will rewrite your line but you can create a cinematic moment in prose where you
create what appears to be like a movie and you can learn how to do it and once you learn how to do it
and get over all your impulses to not do it because it's a technique you really it's a
tech just like in movie making you have to know which lens to use and you know when to
go in for a close-up and then it goes to the editor's room and then they have to edit it
that that's technical that's very technical and the job of the editor who's editing it
is to make the scene on the screen not look technical he's got to make it work so you go
wow major stross has been shot pause round up the usual suspects the end of Casablanca so the editor
cuts it in such a way that you as a moviegoer feel the psychological time
so the image moment technique I teach is technical it's very technical and when people learn to do it
and they finally get it they're always amazed at how it works and then happens without fail
they'll say I was reading a book the other day and there were like five image moments on every page
because good writers know how to do it
but it's not intuitive it's not something you intuitively will know how to do
oh I'm sorry I was just trying to put this but it's so hard one of the flaws in the
design that I never got that's really cool made perfect that's really cool um
writing that'll live forever versus writing that's a dead end you've made that comparison with poetry
I believe why didn't you say that again sure writing that'll live forever versus writing that's
a dead end versus writing that's a dead end is it is that what is your question that's the question
let me try it again so so in other words some writing lives forever and some writing doesn't
I think you said that about poetry and you said sometimes writers attempt to go for
writing that'll live forever but really what they're doing is it's a dead end how does a
writer know that it doesn't have to be poetry or prose screenwriting I don't know if I have a wise
answer to that some some sometimes you you don't know you know some some of the things you do you
might think aren't going to be especially relevant or memorable and for some reason
it lives for a long time and other things that you think are the best thing you ever did
ends up being forgotten so it's kind of hard to know it's kind of like a crapshoot
you do the best work you can and you hope for the best.
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