Film Courage: What's your outlining process
Logan Burdick, Screenwriter: I will outline to like
90 of the way there I will outline as much as I feel I can before I actually start writing
I find it personally very difficult to to do it any other way I do think there is a lot of value
in sort of again exploring and having that sort of creativity but to me
a lot of that is the outlining and I think also the reality is even if you outline something
99 of the way done when you actually write it that won't be what it'll be anyway
it's a it's a road map that that will change it just is what it is at least the way I do it
I think that also in addition to that it's really important to know as much as you can about
the characters and the themes and the ideas that you want to explore before again before I
start writing writing I do a lot of exploring of these things in a much more sort of nebulous way
trying to think of what else I don't it doesn't really matter to me if the outline's in order
I'll just outline the chunks of it that I understand I personally and again
this is this is the hard thing about this because I do think everyone is different
to me to me a lot of the sort of outlining is very sort of mathematical and it's knowing okay
there has to be there will be this many scenes and and these are where the big the very large
beats happen the midpoint and the act ii climax and the inciting incident those sort of things
and then if you can start filling in literally even I guess this is where
note cards come from for some people I don't use note cards but I'll have an equivalent on
the computer where I just start filling in I know I these scenes and I know this should happen about
here because I'm trying to get to this big moment here and now I feel okay but this is kind of empty
in the sort of whatever the the 30 to 50 minute mark so I need to start filling that in I guess
it it is organic but it starts with understanding that it's a skeleton and knowing what the major
organs are usually I would find it hard if I didn't have a good sense of okay in general
if it's this type of story if it's a I'm trying to think of something very simple if it's a rom-com
right the act two climaxes they're gonna fall out of whatever there's gonna be the conflict between
the two main leads right and they're gonna split up if I know that and now I know these
characters and I have a good sense because I have a sort of general sense of the story
that they need to be here at that moment I can then start filling out the rest of it
if I know these sort of big moments I can start figuring out how we got there and and where we
needed to start and then at that point it is kind of organic and it just sort of goes where
where you go where the sort of inspiration is not exactly right but where the material is taking you
if that makes sense again I think this is probably what most people do actually writing pages
it's just for me I don't do that on the page I do all that work or as much of that work as possible
before I actually sit down and start doing pages because that to me is too confusing to keep track
of you said you had in your house or apartment old outlines that were in a drawer or something
why did you abandon some of those I think there's all sorts I mean there's probably all sorts of
reasons that sometimes you sometimes you're you're doing the outline and you realize that there that
this is not going to be a movie you might love the idea and it might be an amazing log line or
amazing high concept and maybe even someone else would know what to do with it but you don't right
that to me is also why I feel outlining is really important and helpful for me because
it allows me to because again when you start getting into it really from a from a business
perspective you go well I can't spend forever on this to then find out that this is not going to
come to fruition that it's that it's missing some fundamental piece that I can't solve
right if it's literally I don't want to make it too mathematical but if it's an equation
but it cannot be solved I would much rather know that spending
a couple weeks outlining it than spending the more traditional way if you're actually writing
everything out spending months writing something and going oh this I'm not going to get there right
so I think that there's a very utilitarian aspect to doing it that way
I think sometimes you're doing something that you really love but then something else
comes up that you oh I this even better and i'd rather spend my time doing that
me as a person I feel time is incredibly valuable I mean it's not just it's just something I'm very
aware of every everyone should know the time is incredibly valuable and so to me it's it's a lot
of well what do I want to be spending my time doing and is this time well spent and if there's
ways to expedite expedite certain aspects of the creative process because the creative process
it does not fit into a box right the reality is is that even when it is a profession or a career
it still is a little unwieldy but again outside of outside of Wes Anderson and fall top pt anderson
most people don't have as much latitude to follow wherever the creativity takes them in that moment
I really hope everybody gets there but I feel and but I feel for everyone else
I do think it's important to go how do I try to contain this how do I try to put this
into a manageable sort of situation so that I can keep going and I can
yeah so I can basically so I can keep going with it how long are your outlines and do you do the 24
plot points how do you flush this out so outlines to me can be as long or as short as
as needed as long as they're as long as they're an effective guide to keep me on track I feel
when I say an effective guide to keep me on track I do feel I want to know going in
if I know what every scene is or close right again it's very hard to get exactly
but I forget I kind of calculate scenes by script length so and I forget exactly
what that is I want to say it's around it's normally around 40 scenes for for a hundred
pages 110 pages again it these they're all starting off points right if I get if I know
if I get to ah 30 something I go okay I know I have enough of the basic building blocks
of material here that I can now start actually writing and then again as you're doing it new
scenes scenes go away scenes change completely all of that to me it's it's how do I create an
effective roadmap for myself to ensure that when this is done there will be a movie and that movie
will be telling the story that I set out to tell or something close and so again to me that's
you can then at that point if you if what all the scenes are or a good chunk of that material is
you can communicate that to yourself with bullet points with sentences with whole pages
and then I guess usually for me it's just kind of all over the place if you're doing
it again because you're trying to communicate to somebody else I think that that is different
right when I'm pitching something and it's okay I need to this outline needs to communicate to
somebody else so it needs to be fairly in depth right but for me it it just is again it's just
knowing what material interests me and they'll keep me on track so it'll be some scenes are just
bullet points about what happens in the scene some scenes are there's huge chunks of dialogue
that I think are happening in it sometimes it's the sentence sometimes it's a paragraph
because to me in that situation all I need to do is communicate to myself
what is important for me to remember which again I just think that that
is then different if it needs to be communicated to somebody else
and then at that point I would say probably the more thorough you are
the better I will say in other professional situations you will save learning and being okay
with outlining will save yourself a lot of grief I think because often times when you're going into a
situation with other people and you do need to communicate it to them you need to be able to
show them what you're going to do right before you do it and this is something that'll happen
a lot they'll they'll ask for this because everybody's working on developing it together
so I think that regardless it's a good habit to get into
to be okay outlining and seeing that as a valuable process because I think it is for many reasons.