Guido Segal, Screenwriter: She said I always have to try to have three different conflicts happening
to the character at the same time and they're all not of the same magnitude so for example…
Film Courage: Can you explain how you outline a screenplay?
Guido: Outlines I'd say so first you have the idea or you have the concept
so to speak and some people have high concepts like which are easier to explain in a few words
I usually have low concepts in the sense that they're character driven and that's in a way
it's more challenging because you gotta find out what makes them distinctive from other ideas the
maybe the juice the beauty of it is not in the concept but in the world and the character
so I do a beat sheet first and I use an exercise that Hal Ackerman talks about who I had class with
at ucla called snow plowing and snow plowing is basically you set out a certain amount of
time it could be 20 minutes could be 40 or an hour usually you don't do more than an hour at a time
and you write down possible scenes without judging them and not not stopping so it doesn't matter if
they contradict one another you just keep going so because they're just possibilities they're
not the whole final thing and ideally you write I don't use a computer then I just write it down
manually and let's say you do 20 minutes and you just go nonstop don't because if you stop
you're gonna judge it and the point is not to judge yourself the point is to discover
so you do this exercise a few times over and over again and then you go back to it and then you pick
and discard like okay this is good this one not doesn't work or I'm gonna just pick this option
and I'd say after a few times you're doing that you start having a sense of what the structure
is of course you can also guide yourself with with books now save the cat has an
option of what a structure is I mean I feel like intuitively that your structure needs
ups and downs and beats of all kinds and you kind of have a midpoint
so by doing by snow plowing and then by going back to the idea of structure you come up with
the beats and once you have the beats which are the bones the outline is like giving that
connective tissue so once I'm confident about my beachy then I just start filling out those
bones with yeah with flesh which is not too much detail but enough detail to connect the scenes
and make sure that there's a cause and effect relationship between them and you just expand
so I would say there's I mean I don't skip any of the steps from idea I go to beat sheet from
bc I go to outline I don't need my outlines to be too detailed I just need them to have the
necessary information especially if I want to have like setups and payoffs
I want to make sure those are in the outline
and then you just start writing
when you're writing these scenes that you don't want to judge and they might be random scenes
are they ones you've already had in your mind or are you almost manufacturing them so that the most
ridiculous idea like this would never really happen and then once you go back and look at it
you think well actually we could lead to that no the point is to to surprise yourself actually um
so I it's a very different the creative mind that you apply is very different you have like your
side of the brain and your left side of the brain and I feel like most of the time in the
real world we're we're being very rational so if you start writing from that perspective you're
going to come up with probably conventional ideas and there's nothing wrong with cliches by the way
I think they're a great starting point when you don't know what to do just write down the cliche
so you can get it out of the way that's better than nothing
and sometimes I feel we get blocked because you try to write the most original thing ever
and you don't do that away it's really hard so maybe it's easier to write a cliche and then
maybe change a few things and maybe let it evolve and turn or for example I always want
to set a scene in the most original location so instead of setting it at the character's
house which would be the obvious thing because they're going to discuss something intimate
what if they're in church and that of course makes the conversation more awkward and maybe funny and
they can't really talk great but is that does it serve the story you don't want to be eccentric
just for the sake of being eccentric but maybe maybe you plan the scene in the character's house
and then once you have it okay what if I change the location and maybe and maybe it works
but you don't you don't go all the way at once you want to take it gradually and once you have it
okay if I change location would she say this in public if she said this in public would
maybe it's funny maybe it's ridiculous I don't know sorry I got lost in my own logic there oh
yeah so originality I feel like it's desirable to be original and you don't want to be lazy
but sometimes some scenes can only take place in one location I mean if the character is in prison
they're not infinite options if someone's visiting they can only meet in the visiting space there's
no other option but if you have time and then and and you want to make it better maybe explore
with certain scenes unexpected locations can you give me examples of these cliches
what's a cliche well I mean with characters it's easy because
stereotypes and archetypes and we see this all all the time so the cop the preacher the prostitute
the bossy wife we don't want to play those characters exactly the way
as they sound because we've seen that and it's boring and if the audience is smart
let's not underestimate the audience the audience has seen a lot of movies read a lot of books
whatever they know so if you're going to play with stereotypes or archetypes you better find a way
to make them slightly different or maybe start with Tony Soprano. Tony Soprano is a gangster
that goes to therapy if he was just a gangster they'll be like okay I've seen good fellas why
am I even watching this but Tony Soprano has an issue again I'm going on very classic example but
he has an emotional issue he's a gangster and now it doesn't surprise us but back in the day with
the Sopranos what 95 96 I don't know when it came out it was it was an amazing concept and sometimes
it happened to me I have to wear gangsters so what do I do with gangsters what haven't
I seen with gangsters I don't know gangsters singing gangsters crying what can I do with him
gangster that doesn't want to be a gangster but it has to it's forced by his family yeah or her
family yeah that could lead somewhere as long as you can find to me the most difficult thing is
finding the yeah the emotional connection and by emotional I don't mean I have to laugh or
cry all the time it's just that it resonates that it makes them three-dimensional human
and that that your intuition says this is something that a lot of humans could relate to
that I it's just that's it's since writers are usually very smart
as as as a teacher as an instructor used to tell me in grad school the smartest people in the room
we have a lot of ideas and I don't mean that in a good way ideas are are a problem because
you might get away with them and there's nothing in you there it's just we have we have stored all
these ideas and I'm like well what if what if the cops don't suddenly decides to rob the bank
sure it sounds fun but what's what's in there that you care about
why do you relate to that because he's having a crisis about his identity and
his profession well now we're on to something then it's not about robbing the bank it's about
what if a cop no longer believes in the law because he thinks the system is crooked
I don't know I'm making this up okay that's actually interesting tell me more so I feel like
yeah it's about finding your personal connection okay so we we know some some cliche character
archetypes what about scenes what are some things you see students do or maybe you did
in the beginning that they were too cliche whether it's showing up at the best friend's wedding and
you know does anyone here object and then just what the typical romantic comedy
I would say scenes about couples arguing tend to lead to a lot of cliches
especially if you just play them out very dramatically and I'm
not saying couples don't have very dramatic arguments because they do
but what if you introduce certain elements in there that makes suddenly the scene different
and I'm going to quote on this Phoebe Waller Bridge she said something that I loved and I
blew my she's such an amazing everything but she said I always have to try to have three different
conflicts happening to the character at the same time and they're all not of the same magnitude so
for example she needs to get a it's very hot in the room and she doesn't like how her hair looks
so she's trying to figure out or tell her significant other that she needs to get
while checking herself in the mirror while also noticing that she has sweaty armpits
so she writes comedy mostly so that I can see how that can be a dramedy it's very dramatic but it's
also very funny because she's distracted so if the scene were just her saying we need to talk I'm
pregnant and I need to get rid of the baby okay sure that can be a compelling scene but it's also
I don't know if you play that way it's a bit conventional
but if she's concerned about her hair then that sounds very human and she's seeing that she's
sweating yes and she's wondering did the baristas see me this sweaty and disgusting exactly there's
so many options and she feels like oh my god I'm pregnant I don't want to be pregnant I'm gross
like ugh I've never felt so ugly I wish my hair was like straight so sure I think that's that's
great advice and it's your brothers well I just took it to a whole different way
no no I'm not judging you I'm just saying okay just that that would take the cliche that would
also spin it you know what's interesting though that opens up because I have this conversation
this morning about tone and I feel like tone is such an important element in a story and
it's something I do think about away even though I can't I don't think I can avoid it
tone it's really hard to define what it is but you recognize it and most of the creators or
filmmakers we love have a very specific tone like the coen brothers have a very specific
kind of ironic sarcastic almost sometimes almost depressing tone it's about plot it's
about character you don't really know where it's at but it's you can sense it
and I was I was breaking down a story today actually and I followed the story through
where it led me and at some point it led to a very dark area that I got scared off and by the way I
would say getting scared of something is a good sign because it says it means there's something
very personal to explore but at the same time I felt it was so dark that it destroyed my tone and
I got worried I would lose my audience that's one of those moments where you feel like if I cringe
in not in an interesting way maybe it's worth considering that direction
and I think it's a valid point sure so that you kind of took it too far and it wouldn't work for
the story well I don't mind telling you what what it is because I'm not going to use it I mean I had
a character with a situation and she's trying to figure out how she feels and why she feels
so uncomfortable about what's happening to her and she doesn't know which is I mean it's odd it's not
a story where she's trying to get money and no the goal of the character is to figure out why
she feels the way she feels a situation triggered a feeling and she doesn't understand it and it's a
very odd thing I mean I don't know why I do this to myself because it's not something tangible
first of all you've got to be really careful do I want to talk about this subject am I qualified
to talk about it does it actually resonate with me or does it just sound like it would have an impact
and my gut feeling was like don't go there don't go there because once you introduce certain
topics the story is done unless you want to discuss the consequences of that and I don't want
to be the person doing that and because I haven't been through it and I hope it doesn't happen to me
and I gotta be respectful but if my tone is kind of playful you gotta be really careful where you
go some things are just not gonna be funny that's a good point no matter how you approach it sure
it's not funny sure like the vibe is dead yeah yeah because then you can't from that point on
it can't be around comedy it can't be another element in your story yeah you either make your
story about that because you actually will have something to say or refrain from it
but that that's I mean I want to be really careful not everything is material for storytelling unless
like michaela cole who did I may destroy you and the show is about that but she went through it
yeah the only thing I could think of is that if you showed the character's life up until that
point that was light and fun and then if something horrible happens and then how their life changes
drastically after that but yeah you can't continue but the story then is about that and by the way
I'm not against horrible things happening to your character I mean I'm just saying they're they're
boundaries to me and they're things that I haven't experienced that I'd rather not talk about.
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