Film Courage: What's your typical writing day? Zach Zerries, Screenwriter/Author: Usually I
tend to get up anywhere between maybe quarter to six, 6:30. Again I try not to wake my wife.
I get that cup of coffee to get my fix my caffeine fix and then I'm usually
writing in our...we have a small guest house. I'm usually in the back there.
I enjoy reading the newspaper in the morning for about 30 minutes just to get my brain
sort of (drinking coffee) getting my brain going. I'm an avid reader. I always have been
and I feel like reading really starts stimulating the mind along with the caffeine. But it gets me
going so I usually try to be working by about 7:30 or 8 o'clock and I'll work to the late morning,
take a break just to get my head right and then come back and probably in the early afternoon and
I can go 'till late afternoon sometimes. um so that's usually my that's usually my routine as you
said be you know asked before is that it's there's definitely there's a rhythm to the rhythm uh
i feel es especially when i'm when i'm writing and creating and when you say you're reading the paper
is this an actual newspaper yes i i know i have um i have friends and my wife still joke me i i do
have some traditions that i have now parted ways with and yes it's a it's a it is a actual paper
i try to i really try to avoid the screen as much as i can um because i'm on it all day
um so yeah when i can usually get you know you know anything in print uh it makes just
to start my day you know to get again get those juices flowing get my brain working
um i find that writing really or reading excuse me really helps the writing for sure and again doing
it not on a screen are you reading the first pages of this yeah it's usually i may i'm a long time uh
wall street journal fan and i i happen to read you know pretty much you know everything throughout um
i you know i'm a fan of their reportage i think it's pretty much down the middle i know
not to get into you know we're a very divided country right now but i i happen to really
appreciate the fact that they're fairly down the middle and not too biased one way or the other
um and for me that's you know that's important so yeah i mean knowing what's going on in the world
and in our country uh again um as has really really helps me and i think helps my writing
because you know you never know where that next idea is coming from i think a lot of my ideas
over the years have come from you know magazines or or articles in the paper uh
not necessarily a wall street journal i read all kinds of i used to read news magazines
i wrote a script about a militia group that was
derived from a i believe it was a newsweek article you know in my a chiropractor at the time her
office she had this newsweek article on the rise of militias uh probably this was around 2010 or
so so i wrote another i wrote another script about a um a pirate hunter in the southeast asia which
was based on a um smithsonian article so i always find and i've i've had um i had another idea for
a script that was based on a story recently in the wall street journal so that's where i derive
a lot of my my ideas from um when i'm writing uh when i'm from my film ideas anyway and and
then of course you know take back was hearing something in the sermon but you know it was um
uh it was a i guess it i it's a news related type story um so i always found that
finding stories in the news you know um you know again it it i've i've known people that have just
been able to conjure up great stories in their mind um and i've done that a couple times but i
feel like for me just reading about someone and again this is not you know you know stealing the
article or anything it's just coming up like oh that's an interesting topic and then you know sort
of making it my own it wasn't never necessarily articles about a particular person it was about
a particular subject and and you know that definitely helped um definitely helped me
you know develop my own stories and give me that sort of that germ of the idea to then
take it in the direction i wanted to and make it my own who do you model your screenwriting after
um i don't model it after anyone per se i i've been i definitely have some people of
influence who i think are phenomenal writers and obviously their track record speaks for themselves
themselves but i've always been you know obviously william goldman who you know he's the godfather
of screenwriting um tony gilroy brian helgeland um david capp
those guys you know when you read one of their scripts i mean they're just on a whole other level
and um you know i was i was always especially um you know i would say
tony gilroy especially because i feel like he writes uh some just brilliant action and
um yeah those those uh those screenwriters i think for me were you know set he definitely
left a an impression and you know how to write just an entertaining script because
i think sometimes you know the way i try to write is that i want people to keep turning pages i
know this might be you know the process for many writers or what they set out to do but i really do
think it's important is after all you know you want your you want your audience to keep going
and i've always believed in just being as sparse and concise as possible in my descriptions and
you know letting the dialogue move the story along and not getting so so wrapped up in you know smart
ass dialogue but just letting the characters again take the story in the direction and drive drive
the story especially if you're writing action or or adventure or thriller type you know genre films
do you ever subscribe to the idea i know some people said don't don't delve
too much into one artist's work because then you might end up emulating them
too much and you wouldn't even realize it or or no there is definitely some truth to that you know um
reading reading a whole a whole array of of scripts and writers definitely helps
inform you better i i feel like for some of the scripts that i wrote i always you know again um
you know if i'm if i'm if somebody's to write an action script and they want somebody to just sort
of to again to be a a guy to somebody a reference for them i would i would always say look at a
gilroy a helga land or a david kept script because again i feel like they're you know i should say
that for me pacing's really important i want to keep the story moving along at a fluid pace and i
feel like those guys like um another steve's alien steve's alien i remember said something that that
left has has left a lasting impression i read this years ago where he said
i will cut and cut and cut until if i cut one again i'm paraphrasing here i cut one word
the whole scene falls apart so just being able to really make your scenes as lean as possible
and in your writing and and to keep it paced and to keep it moving forward and keep the
story moving forward the character moving forward um and i and i do think yes i i
it's good i mean you know read read all tony gilroy scripts but obviously i would suggest
reading a whole lot of other scripts and and getting a sense of that and again just just try to
stay true to your voice because it is easy if you read one particular author or one
particular screenwriter you definitely could fall in the trap of you know subconsciously
you're writing like them and i think again they're good reference points but you just have to again
find your own voice and find your own rhythm and pattern um and uh you know stay true to that
do you remember the first script that you read it was probably in the late 90s
and i want to say it may have been chinatown it may have been chinatown it's been a while so
yeah it may have been chinatown or even um saving private ryan which was a amazing script uh
and chinatown was obviously robert town just one of the masters as well um
but i think it may have very well been chinatown where did you get it in 1998 it would have been
it would have been it would have been uh through nyu we they had a fairly they had a library that
you could go and take scripts out and read and um so that's probably where i got it and i haven't
having been had been a fan of that film growing up and being a k you know when i was a kid um
you know my mom and dad again were very liberated they let us get away with watching you know what
now i think parents you know maybe over protect but again the 80s were you know the 80s were a
different time but um you know we were my mom and dad you know exposed us to you know many of the
great movies like i i might i first watched french connection which is my favorite film
uh of all time bar none um when i was i think nine it was uh running on the um
on the local fox affiliate in new york and you know my dad had loved that movie
and he said it's a great film and we watched it commercials and all and it's funny because
i think that summer it may have been the summer of 87 or 86 it was on like probably every other week
it was maybe this is the 80s and they you know it was a summer film they just kept running
over time uh over the the course of the summer or that period of time um but it was uh yeah i i
really loved it and not long after that you know we saw the godfather and and so i think i had
probably seen chinatown and the godfather both godfather films and in chinatown are in french
connection before i was 10. so i was exposed to film you know from a really young age um and
yeah that was so um yeah so that was and and your your question about uh
chinatown was yeah i i probably got that script at the at the nyu library
you