Film Courage: So knowing that you’d rather critique or analyze story rather than sit
down and write it out…
Peter Russell, screenwriter/script doctor: Okay…stop…I don’t anymore because I
get paid so much more for actually writing.
Film Courage: Well how did this happen?
Peter: I guess because the things that I’ve been analyzing and thinking about and teaching
for twenty years, a lot of them have turned out to actually work.
So it’s kind of nice.
I’ve been talking about the BMOC [Beginning, middle, obstacle and climax], the structural
tool and the core wound and everything else.
But what it turns out is that these things actually do help and even though it helped
other writers and I’ve been told that for a long time, it’s great and a relief that
they actually work.
So what I find as a writer as opposed to a teacher is that these tools work so it’s
a relief to have them.
So when I’m stymied or I can’t move forward, I go back to my own work, I go back to my
own book, I go back to my own lectures and I go “Where am I?”
I’m working on a miniseries now about Jack Johnson, the first African American Heavy
Weight champion in the U.S.
And it’s been sold to production companies but they want changes and I’m co-writing
with a brilliant guy that I met actually at a talk I gave and I often meet people that
I collaborate with and he had this project and it was marvelous.
But one of the things I talk about is the superhero model because superheroes are big
now whether they are serious like some of the serious stories or if they are a comic
like in DEADPOOL 2 (we can talk about that too).
But the superhero is huge now and so the superhero model involves a very particular tool we can
talk about at some point.
I don’t know if you want to talk about it now?
But what I decided was because several people had taken a pass at Jack Johnson and I think
someone is actually making a movie but not very big and I don’t think I am giving away
anything secrets wise.
The reason a superhero is fun too watch is not for the same reason most heroes are fun
to watch.
Most heroes are fun to watch because they are wounded and they’ve got some big bleeding
wound and we’re going to watch them heal it.
We’re going to watch them (that’s the story).
Superheroes, no.
Superheroes are not wounded, they are superheroes (the old-fashioned superhero).
In 300 Zack Snyder’s he doesn’t have a wound, it’s not like “My mommy hurt me
and I’ve got to figure out how to do that.”
It’s like no.
In 300 he’s an old-fashioned superhero because all the reason we want to watch old-fashioned
superheroes is to see if he can lift the bigger weight that the villain is putting on him.
The four crucial points of the story, the villain just gets bigger and says “Hey,
you can lift that 300 pounds, huh?”
Think as the villain and the superhero as a deranged trainer at Gold’s Gym and he’s
like “Alright, so you’re going to lift 300 pounds…Arrggh!
Okay.”
So at the 30-page point you lifted the 300 pounds.
Okay so at the 60-page point we’re going to put 900 pounds on there.
Can you lift that?”
So the secret of the superhero story, that kind of superhero story (there are several
kinds) is that can he lift the bigger weight the villain has put on that rack.
So that was our job with Jack Johnson, how can the villain get bigger at the end of each
episode?
What’s the bigger weight they can put on Jack Johnson?
Now instead of figuring out weeks and months figuring out how is he wounded?
How are we going to give him mentors on one side, wounders on the other.
No!
It’s all about, how big is that villain?
Is that villain getting bigger?
Because if the villain is getting bigger, the audience is going to watch.
Shakespeare did the same thing by the way.
And I used to direct Shakespeare in New York after school.
And Shakespeare had wrestling matches in which the villain just got bigger and bigger and
so in other words long story short (not any more but) I really can use my tool to solve
story problems that I’m getting paid to solve.
So when they work, I’m so excited, I’m so ecstatic.
It means all the 20 years I’ve spent doing this is actually paying off for me and also
now I have a little more credibility in when I teach, right?
Because the wrap on teachers is “Ahh…well you can teach but you can’t do.”
Right?
“You’re teaching, you’re not doing, okay I get it.”
Well now I’m doing.
So I can say “Okay these tools actually do work, so shut up.
Shut up!
I did it!
Nah…nah…nah.”