Film Courage: Would you say screenwriting is hard?
Because I’m sure people can look at your story, they could look at your credits, you
make it look easy in terms of “Wow, that’s a really cool story.
Here you were age 14 and you send this script idea off and it’s rejected and you don’t
know what the notes are but you still have this relationship that really shaped you in
a lot of ways and a lot of people probably had that opportunity [but didn’t follow
up on it].
But is it hard?
It looks easy from an outsider's view.
Jeffrey Reddick, Horror Writer: It’s hard.
It’s always interesting because sometimes if I have a story that I love and I’ve outlined
it, then it’s just fun.
But again when you’re definitely trying to do a lot of things and get a lot of things
done because you know I’m at a point in my career where I want to branch out and still
tell horror stories but do something like the Lionsgate project which I think is a really
important kind of thing where you had to fight for it.
It is hard because you want to write something that is going to strike a chord with people
but you want to write something that is successful.
You want to write something that is going to spawn a franchise.
For better or for worse some of my films have done really well.
And other ones that were supposed to turn out well that didn’t turn out the way they
were supposed to and went direct-to-video or didn’t get a good release.
So you definitely have to stay in gratitude a lot of times and you have to find the joy
in it all, the joy in writing.
And I still love writing specially if I’m writing something else and something inspires
me…I hate to say like a kill scene but you know I just thought of a great scene for a
movie that I was so excited and I called the producer about it and he was in love with
it.
So that’s the fun stuff, trying to come up with new things.
It is hard to sit down in front of a computer everyday and writing a 100-page script it
is work and it’s not easy because you’re trying to write something that is going to
be creatively satisfying, you’re trying to write something that you think will sell
because this is your livelihood.
So you’re trying to juggle both of those things but not get too far down the road that
you’re not focused on finishing the actual script so you’ve got to try to keep all
those other things out of your head about is this going to sell, is this going to make
money, are people going to like this?
Try not to focus too much on that and just get the script done.
But that can be hard in and of itself, not future-tripping about what’s going to happen
with the script once you’re done with it.
It’s fun but it’s not easy.
And there are harder…you know it’s like with actors because acting is not easy, to
be a good actor is not easy.
But it’s not like we’re putting our fires and putting our lives in danger and doing
psychically hard labor, it’s just mental exhaustion (a lot of mental work).
Film Courage: Did the screenwriting career that you envisioned look the same in terms
of the day-to-day?
Because you know how people have a romantic notion about what something is?
Jeffrey: No, not at all because you don’t really envision with the writing…you don’t
realize how long it takes to write a script first of all.
And then I had a friend once who was like “Oh yeah I just took a weekend trip to Hawaii
and wrote my script on the beach with some Mai Tais.”
And I’m like “Oh that’s what writing is like.
You just go out for a weekend and you write a script.”
Yeah, no the day-to-day grind of getting two or three or four or five pages a day done,
it’s a grind and then you’ve also got life that you’re living and you’ve also
got to try and get out to have a life.
I’m kind of joking because writers are very solitary but I do go out to the movies and
I do go out to dinner and I do go out and do stuff with my friends because otherwise
if you sit at home all the time you’re not experiencing life, you can’t bring anything
else to your script than what you’ve experienced so you’re just kind of regurgitating the
same experiences that you’ve already had.
You’ve got to make sure that your cup is flowing over with other things besides just
work, you have to take time out to do that too.
Film Courage: In terms of what most people would envision like you’re at the keyboard
and got a…well not a drink…but some people they think that is what is part of [the writing
process] with the cigarette and just like this tortured existence and you’re pounding
out your beautiful story.
But it sounds like there is more of a science with it?
Jeffrey: There’s a science but for some people (again everybody has a different method),
it’s like with acting you have your method actors, they have to become the character.
You have your other actors that when the director says “Rolling” then they go and then “Cut!”
And they drop back into who they are.
And I think there are writers who are the same way too.
There’s that stereotype, that’s why I quit drinking I was becoming that stereotype,
sitting here drinking at home and thinking I’m writing some brilliant stuff.
And yeah, the first couple pages were great and then the rest of it is “What the hell
a I writing?”
I do have some friends that do torture themselves without the drinking or anything.
They obsess about every single line of dialogue and it’s like you’re never going to finish
your script if you are like that but again that’s how they are.
So everybody got a whole different process.
That’s why I always tell people don’t judge yourself harshly if your process isn’t
the same as somebody else’s because it really is your end result that matters.
It’s getting a script finished.
You do obviously have to follow certain structural rules and your dialogue needs to be good,
it has to be an engaging story but sometimes it takes people a lot longer.
I’ve know friends where it’s taken then 10 years to write a script and it’s not
like they are working every day, 8 hours a day on it.
Film Courage: 10 years, wow.
Jeffrey: Yeah I have a couple of friends who are “ I’ve been working on this for 10
years.”
And some of their stuff is great and I’ve read some scripts where people have written
a script in a week and it’s great, not consistently but everybody has got a different thing and
I think that’s always interesting too is we always have our ideas in our head of what
everybody’s life is like and even what you think an actor’s life is like their lives,
the celebrities lives are trudging into Starbucks with their dog and their kid is crying and
they have to go change their kids diaper, they are just like everybody else’s.
You definitely have the glamour of Hollywood that used to project and was so important
back in the days, the olden days with the Hollywood stars where the stars ran everything
and they have to give them these perfect images.
We’ve lost all of that with the Internet and access to everybody’s private lives
and we see people now on the street and people are taking pictures of people “And oh wait
a minute, they are just like us.”
I think People had a headline “Celebrities Are Just Like Us.”
And it shows pictures of them walking a dog before that you thought they were these magical
creatures and you thought these writers were like tortured sitting in a dark room just
pounding away at the keyboard and sipping from their bottle of Whiskey and cursing the
heavens.
It’s different for everybody, it’s different for everybody.
But they are all at Starbucks.
Coffee shops are full of writers in California.
That’s definitely one cliche that’s true.
Every coffee shop there are five people working on a screenplay at any coffee shop that you
walk into, so it’s pretty funny.