Film Courage: What mistakes have you made during the screenwriting process and how have you
corrected them? Jason Satterlund, Writer/Director: I'd say the biggest mistake for me is poorly taking
criticism. I think one of hardest things to do is especially when
you're writing a story that's close to you is fighting back against someone
who's trying to give you a critique or getting angry about it or whatever. Like
it's really hard to step back professionally. I mean professionals who
do this get used to that but early on especially I really had a
hard time with that um I think we all just assume that we're all geniuses when
we start yeah you know pretty much most of us aren't that was that's a big one
and and it still sometimes it's hard sometimes it might take me a minute to
like okay but I had a friend of mine tell me one time that if I ever am in a
position where I have to explain to you what my story's about after you've read
the script then I failed you should get it from the script it's they're not
getting it then that's problem you need to fix it I don't understand why she
says this if you have to explain it then you need to rewrite the scene because
you're not gonna what do you mean you sit there when the movies going in a
theater and go so she's doing you know that's you know that doesn't you've got
to fix it man and things like I would write things that are say comedy and
people read it and think that it's super serious and like missing tone that that
took me a long time where I would have in my head this story I did but it's
just not translating so and that comes down to like crafting words sentence
choice word I had a screenplay actually called fluke that was supposed to be
kind of a thriller and everyone every time they'd read it they think it was a
comedy and it was so frustrating to me like why do you think there's a comedy
and then I realized one day someone says well it's probably because it's called
fluke that sounds like a comedy oh really I would have realized
that so that has taken me a lifetime to figure out it's just exactly how to
structure a sentence to get the tone that you want and it would happen to me
this is where I am thankful for corporate commercial work because you
because what that is is your 10,000 hours of training you're working and
working and working you're writing scripts for commercial corporate clients
who aren't screenwriters right and they're having to interpret what you're
saying and I would do a project and they'd look at it and go I had no idea
this is what you were trying to say or I didn't totally did not get that this is
the tone it is vital for people to get that while you're writing it so yeah I
don't know if that would be qualified as a mistake it was just a muscle that I
had to keep working out until I figured out how to to get it right the only way
to do that is by writing and writing and writing and writing writing other things
that I've learned is like how consistency is key when writing what I
know a lot of people who don't write consistently who want to be writers or
are directors who want to get that screenplay done and they'll say things
like I'm gonna write it this weekend not that there's anything wrong with that
but for me I made a commitment years and years ago to make a step every day
towards my goal my career goal now for me as a director that doesn't always
mean writing but I found that if I try to write every day even if it's putting
a period on the end of a sentence you know it's the end of a long day I'm
super tired I just sit down open that screenplay up I'll just finish out that
sentence and go to bed the stories in my head now while I'm working it's it's in
there rolling around because there I feel like there's nothing worse than
sitting down with a screenplay that you haven't looked at in a week or two and
you're like oh yeah that's right that's where I was I hate that it's like
dusting off the cobwebs and you got to clean your house first before you can
even start it just slows down your writing process so for me doing it
consistently daily because that speeds and just it's like keeping the it's like
oiling the joints you know keeping things working that took me a long time
to figure out as well for sure what about that lovely person that stands up
at a QA and says um I noticed the scene was such-and-such why did you do that
yeah does that is that good for you to hear that it's funny those those are
funny things so there's there's a couple of categories those fall into you would
say if it's critiques which those are often they're like oh I didn't like this
usually there's when I've finished film there is usually nothing you can say
about it that I don't already know yeah the man that's opening scene is
just way too long yeah I know I realized that like you know you know sometimes
you don't know until it's done that you rely on boy that's seeming to work and
then people call you out on it so that yours usually no surprise with that part
on a side note it's always funny to me that for film film I feel in the arts is
one of the unique things where people just seem compelled to tell you when
they don't like it and specifically what they didn't like I don't know if that
happens with music or with art painting or like yeah I didn't like your song
didn't really speak to me but they do know a film like it just seemed like you
didn't ask my opinion but here it is it is suck for some reason that's a thing I
don't know why anything or the startup world like yeah I tried your app yeah
I'd like that
so it's funny with films so you know that develops the skin but sometimes
with QA days you you you try to plan to hit audiences in a certain way to get
them to think or to get them to laugh hopefully that works but sometimes it
doesn't and sometimes people will ask questions about yeah why did you make
that a comedy like I never for that line to be funny so those are
usually those that actually be kind of fun because sometimes when a point a
thing can hit like this you know in the original Star Wars the stormtroopers are
out there in the desert well a lot of times those guys like the blue glove
broke in the middle of filming so they just had to fix it somehow and now it
branched out a whole new group of stormtroopers because all his uniform is
slightly different well they didn't plan that it was an accident and that's great
when those kinds those think that stuff happens in filmmaking all the time and
it's really a wonderful surprise when it does fan theories I think it's what they
call those um if you can get your film to a point where if they're theorizing
about certain things that's awesome because now they're thinking about it
yeah but you know usually q and A's are very simple kinds of questions what you
shoot on that's usually the number one question what's your budget yeah what's
your budget what you shoot on those are yeah those are usually but yeah but then
there's some there's some ones that are like writing savants that'll stand up
and just I know you felt like no like wow you've really yeah and sometimes it
can be you know they can go off on tangents but I find it an honor if
someone has taken that taking upon themselves to take that much time to
invest their lives in your story wow that's that's pretty cool like that's a
great even if they didn't like it like wow they really thought a lot about this
that's that's really something else like I I think it's big on earth is not part
of why we did it because I saw film and I was a kid that influenced me so
powerfully and carried with me my whole life to do that to someone else you know
that's great well that's an honor it's a privilege
you