Guido Segal, Screenwriter, Journalist, Film Critic, Instructor: I didn't just sit down
and write, I had to figure out okay how do I dig deeper? What do I want to say
and no one can tell me that. You’ve got to figure it out yourself.
Film Courage: You've said that good writing demands
honesty and a large degree of emotional involvement?
Guido: Yeah certainly, I believe it.
I think it's the most difficult part of the equation there's certain concepts like
honesty or freedom that know what it is but can't define like what is honesty
feel like when you're being honest and that's why intuition is such an important part of it
you only you can know that you can and you you got to be honest first of all with yourself and
that's why questioned the notion of idea so much which is had a great idea is it honest
does it resonate does it tingle no then let it go mean of course if you can have a lot
of ideas that's great we all do but it's just is this the story want to tell is this
what want to talk about right now and I'm talking strictly from if you have a choice right mean
again if you're if you're hired you got to find your honesty within that material
because it's first and foremost a job right you're an artist but you're getting paid to do something
so if you have a writer and have got to write a procedural well find your honesty
and make it work without within that frame but if you're writing your own story we're we're
all constantly changing right and we're not the same person we were two or five years ago
so what you're going to be interested in now or what resonates is not going to be the same thing
and that's the problem sometimes with rewrites which is you wrote the script at a certain point
in your life and then maybe you have to rewrite to rewrite it two years later and you're in a
different point in your life so it's really hard because you have to reconnect with that emotional
state and maybe maybe you wrote that script when you were getting a divorce and you were
heartbroken and it was so raw and so real and now two years later you've gotten over your divorce
and you're perfectly content by yourself you're like oh my god have got to go through that again
and and it is part of the challenge mean you get through it through craft guess or you go
to the memory bank of emotions but because it's not like mean it's not like you have
to be in a constant state of emotional turmoil right actually that's the worst thing to write
but you you must have gone through the experience to know that it's real and that what it feels like
so if you ask me to just describe what honesty is don't really know but know when I'm being honest
and it it takes courage and it takes and it's exhausting you have got to tell yourself
this is not truthful when I'm writing it's good writing yeah sure I'm a good writer
but this is not the story have got to tell or can do better than this or have got to dig deeper
right now this morning was working I'm rewriting something and i wrote a pretty decent first
draft i'd say and sent it to the right people the people trust and they gave me great feedback great
very very profound and they said you have got to be careful because you did a good job but
this is a bit superficial you have got to dig deeper if you don't want this to be
a bit lame you have got to dig deeper and this is not what the story is about
like your story is not what you what you're saying it's about it's not really about that
so my honesty there is to say they're absolutely right
and had a vague feeling about it and they're telling me that and have got to listen to it so
the challenging thing is so this morning didn't just sit down and write had to figure out okay
how do dig deeper why do want what do want to say and no one can tell me that you got to figure out
yourself right you can ask friends but they're not going to have the answer because only your
material so I've been trying meditating and I'm new at it so don't really know how to do it but
just like closing your eyes taking deep breaths and trying to go deeper within and
see if something comes out of that like what do actually want to say through this
and it's that process of being patient with yourself but also don't get don't get distracted
be patient but don't do like 10 minutes and move on to something else because it's very
easy oh have to answer some emails no no no no don't get distracted take the time figure it out
so don't yeah it's it's don't know what the answer is know that
you you get a first and foremost be honest with yourself
and you went to people for feedback who didn't totally just gush over it they but then they
didn't rip you apart so they gave you this is great but need you to go deeper there's more
to this this is just skimming the surface their feedback confirmed that they were the right people
to give it to and they identified the problems that suspected myself without me having to say it
and they gave me the right amount of validation and said it's not that
far away you're not it's closer than you think but this is one of the best feedback got actually was
you're missing a part of the equation so this this this guy and wanted wanted to be the producer
he said well don't know how to explain it without well I'm not going to reveal the
whole story it doesn't matter what I'm saying is there's an object that produces an emotion
in someone right and she's trying to understand why she's reacting the way she is to the object
and this guy said it's not about the object you're making it about the object
and the answer is that there's something happening in her life before the object comes into it
and she's not aware of it she thinks her marriage is perfect she thinks her professional life
is perfect and what the object does is reveal that it's actually not as great as you thought
so the object itself doesn't mean that much yeah sure you can explore what it is but it put
it it causes if if her life is like a pawn it's the stone that causes the ripple effect
so I'm like mind blown yes yes good point it's missing emotional impact because haven't done that
part of the work so it's an object that reveals an unraveling was making it about the object itself
and that's too cerebral like no you can then figure out why the object has that effect on her
but it's not about that it's about herself and how little she actually knows herself
and how that the whole thing unravels and she realizes wait a second do actually love my
husband thought did does he actually know me do know myself my job thought it was so stable and
and this woman who is this woman my mentor which is an interesting script to write but
mean it's it's it's hard it's not as easy as yeah they want to win the tournament
can they make it can they get to the finals that's another story that's a progression
here the progression is not as clear mean you have got to figure out okay it starts off with
the object it ends with her discovering herself have got to fill out the rest what's the journey
and there is no clear-cut answer mean only each person has their own way to answer that
see but that's talking about challenges that's a challenge this script is driving me crazy mean
why did put myself in this position well guess because don't know it's what have to write
right now and that's what you were talking about maybe earlier is just getting lost
in the story and all great writers will go through that maybe just because it's not going to
be clear-cut well this is the thing sometimes you come up with an idea and don't know how commercial
what I'm writing this thing is but this is one of those scripts I'm writing for myself because
it's almost the end of the year and can mean I've while I'm waiting for a contract to come through
I'm like I'm going to write this now if you want to be more commercial of course you can't be
that you got to be more grounded guess so you can find references and always tell my students
steel still not in terms of content still in terms of structure right find comps find movies that are
similar to yours and break down the structure not that not what we're actually seeing I'm not saying
steal characters steal dialogue no that's awful what I'm saying is if is your movie similar to Wes
Anderson's style then go check out the royal tennis balance and see okay scene one character
a says this thing to character b scene two so the structure how how does it evolve and then you can
fill out that structure with your own ideas and this is this is the history of art right because
you're not really stealing because it will never resemble that work because by stealing it it's
becoming yours and mean the whole history of filmmaking and and storytelling works
that way right Shakespeare was stealing from the greeks it's fine because you're not stealing the
essence you're stealing the structure so do that all the time look for comps study the structure
especially if they're great i'll see what they do even the subplots I'm like look they
have this subplot interesting was it necessary don't know but it's great it adds flavor to it
yeah what do need what why don't what don't need what can get rid of
what was the structure of night crawler
nightcrawler for example it's a very it doesn't innovate in terms of structure
it's it's a very clear progression it's about a guy living in the margins of society he's not even
a part of society and he's there's something off about him so it's how he takes advantage
of a crooked system to escalate in it until the flaws in it it's interesting because he has no arc
so in terms of structure it's actually it's if you if you check this it's very easy to recognize the
inciting incident of the first act break the midpoint the low point it's it's it's almost
it's external almost it's obvious because the movie's not about that the movie's obviously about
escalation what's interesting is that this guy the hero is an anti-hero and he doesn't have an arc
so usually it's desirable for characters to have an arc to learn something so to say to change
to evolve this guy since he is a sociopath and it's really hard to identify with him
but he's also a victim of the system he doesn't change and it's how he ends up winning so it's
a very pessimistic story it's a moment about how this awful guy finds his niche and exploits
it and his people around him and yeah makes a lot of money and doesn't pay the price for it
but the structure it's very easy to copy or learn or borrow from because it's just the beats keep
escalating what about the Rene Russo character does she have an arc she has a little bit more of
an arc think it's a descending arc in the sense that she doesn't get any better she actually
succumbs to this guy's ambition like never-ending ambition she's a bit more human in that sense
it's it's a weird movie because it's of it kind of feels like a movie with a message
and movies with a very strong message it's not very dramatic to have a very strong message
like movies shouldn't be a vehicle for ex exposing an idea no no mean
again don't mean to say how things should be it's just that you don't want to be didactic you don't
i don't like movies that tell me what how to feel or think like movies to contradict me or make me
question my own beliefs and nightcrawler in a in a weird way gets away with that don't feel
like they're lecturing me but it's about like look how awful the society is right like look
how obsessed and addicted we are to the news cycle that even this guy producing news is well received
don't know look I'm might be wrong about this because I'm thinking about network
speaking of that back and and and back in the day 1976 think and network has a very
strong message and love it so guess it's all a matter of how you do it.