Film Courage: Any advice on screenwriting books? Like what’s the best screenwriting
book you’ve read?
Zeke Zelker, Writer/Director/Producer of the transmedia project BILLBOARD: I think Syd
Field is still probably the “Bible,” as the first one I’ve ever read.
I write everyday still to this day. I find writing very enjoyable although it’s hellacious
at the same time. Because I know that’s the only part of the process that is solely
me. Everything else is pretty much collaborative and it’s give and take.
When you are writing you don’t have to give or take generally. I also take a long time.
It’s funny, I will think about a script for at least a year or two before I ever commit
anything to paper because what I do first is I know the story I want to tell and then
I build out the characters and I have to build out the characters so well that they can end
up just talking to each other and then I can literally vomit out a script in days is generally
how it works for me and then I do rewrites from there.
But also I only create characters that I will want to play as an actor. Like my next project
is going to be a challenge for by two leads in a big way. But that’s kind of why I love
writing and the thing is with writing it’s all in the rewrite and I like to share what
I’m writing with people and get their honest feedback. I don’t do it to people who are
going to be yes people and say “Oh this is great!” I literally want real criticism
and also getting back to the whole entrepreneur spirit of this stuff is that I’m so bold
that I will hold live script readings of my scripts for audience feedback. The audience
literally pays to go, I pay the actors, I generally make money on my script readings.
At the same time it’s very valuable because I then hear what’s working, what is not
working and I also can get the audience’s feedback.
Again, all part of this story R & D [Research and Development] that I’ve been very much
involved in and how I create.
I actually have four stages that I find you need to create to be successful and this doesn’t
just go for film but goes for if you’re a musician or an artist, you have a dance
company or whatever.
It’s a matter of something that I’ve been perfecting over the course of BILLBOARD [Zeke’s
transmedia cine experience project] and it’s funny because you mentioned the whole NoFilmSchool
article and it’s literally the whole thing I wrote in NoFilmSchool [referencing his post
of March 2019 ‘Transmedia Pioneer: How I Paved My Own Road as a Filmmaker’] of what
I call the four stages of success for a creative career and I’ve blogged about it as well.
Writing is the most crucial part of this whole thing. And if something is not working on
set that’s also important that you sit down and rewrite and make sure it will work.
As I said before with BILLBOARD is that when we got into post-production some elements
just didn’t work and so I had to rewrite. And BILLBOARD is a very complex script to
write because not only did I have to worry about the feature film I also had to worry
about how it would fit into the web series. If I were to change one thing in the film,
I had to make sure it worked for the web series. It was very, very complex. And also our plan
with media some shots we shot we actually had to do three different iterations of that
scene to get the entire scene.
For instance we would have a newscaster speaking on TV but on the screen and the newscast was
part of the billboard contest and then that screen ended up being in another shot. So
just what you had to go through to make this while thing happen. And that was a big challenge
with the script. Literally having to realize that one scene sometimes took three different
layers the scene cohesive.
Film Courage: You said you think about an idea for a film for maybe one or two years
and then basically you vomit out the first draft because you feel like you know the story
and the characters so well. Do you give this [first] draft some time before you go in for
the rewrite?
Zeke: Actually I do. I generally give it a week or two and then I’ll reread it and
then from right there is when I start to make notes.
It’s funny because when people ask me to read scripts I break out a pen and I don’t
know why but literally if it’s a formatting issue or anything like that, if things are
not right in the first 10 pages I won’t carry on.
Film Courage: You won’t? Will you tell them?
Zeke: I’m like “I’m not engaged, rewrite it. Your formatting is off, this…X…Y…and
Z and everything else.” Too many spelling mistakes, I mean it’s crazy. I know it’s
sounds horrible but if you’re going to ask me to take my time to read something make
sure it’s readable. It’s important, just respectfully it’s important I think.
I’ve had people who are like “I’ve got this great script.” And then I read it and
it’s not even in script format. It’s like what the heck are you doing? I can’t even
read this. And people don’t understand either that there is a formula for screenwriting
because as a producer now I know a page is basically going to be a minute of screen time.
If it’s a very black page it’s going to be more than a minute (black meaning a lot
of action that is spelled out in a script). And so I started thinking about budgets, I
started thinking about all of these kind of things if I’m reading a script whether I
could produce it or what I would need to do to make it happen. I’m always reading something
as a producer first before I read it (I guess that’s why I read so many script because
I might want to produce it). My own scripts though I’m very tough on myself. I just
write and rewrite and write and rewrite.
Film Courage: How do you know when it’s done?
Zeke: It’s not done until I’m editing the picture. Because you still edit things
so you are constantly editing. On location you are editing generally because you might
use a certain line or something like that so it’s funny or somebody says something
wrong and all of the sudden you have to adapt something to change. Yes you have to lock
in the script to be able to schedule everything to have your production plans and so forth
but at the same time the script is not really locked until post-production.