In Part One of "Surviving the Rewrite," Diane offered advice on how to tackle the rewrite. Here are a few more things to consider when rewriting your script.

Even if you never intend to submit your script to anyone, you need to pretend that you’re going to, for the eventual sale is the closing move of the screenplay game, and no script that ignores it can be well written. Nobody in this business gets to wave their hands in the air as regards to production issues and say, “We’ll worry about that after the script sells.” A realistic attitude toward the nuts and bolts of production is what sets the old pros, or the promising new intake, apart from the rank newbies. And one word in your ear here: while it’s fun to fantasize about impressing some world-famous director, what’s true in the screen world is that most of the time it’s producers who commission films (and hire/pay the directors).

So think about it. What’s your script’s budget going to be–big, small, in between? And if you don’t know what big, small and in-between budget numbers look like–at least as ballpark figures–get busy finding out. Online or in printed form, dip into the trades like Variety and Hollywood Reporter for this info. Online, get friendly with IMDb, an invaluable tool. Use it and other online resources to examine the shooting histories of favorite movies and find out how much they cost, and what that translates into in “now money” if they were made a while back.

So you’ve finished your screenplay. You’ve spent days or weeks or maybe even months hammering out a story arc strong enough to bear the weight of the story it supports. You’ve built your characters’ backstories in sufficient depth that when they start to move through the story you’ve constructed, their actions will make sense not just to you but to everyone else. You’ve pushed your way past the endlessly repeating terror of the empty page or screen. You’ve erected locations and sets of the mind and nailed drama to them. You’ve written dialogue until sometimes you may have had trouble hearing anything inside your own head but your characters’ voices. And now, at long last, you’ve got a script. 

The satisfaction that goes with those words! “I just finished a screenplay.” It’s as big as the sky. And for all but the very newest screenwriters, it lasts about thirty seconds… because if you’re serious about this kind of creation, you know that now comes the rewrite.

As a creative producer, I work with a lot of writers and one of the most common hurdles I see them face is putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). Let’s be honest, starting the writing process can be excruciating. Beginning is the hardest part of any journey, but that’s where a good producer and a bit of collaboration can help set the wheels in motion.

I know, I know. You might be thinking of all the horror stories (or first-hand experiences) of producers giving terrible, irrelevant notes or even (yikes!) trying to write the screenplay for you. But this doesn’t have to be the norm. A good producer knows that their role is to help a writer dig deep, get clear, define their creative vision, and then inspire them to action.

A good producer needs your creative genius—just like eventually you need a producer to get your script made into a film. The relationship is mutually beneficial, but it doesn’t come without a healthy dose of creative tension. Creative tension is not a bad thing! It exists in writer/producer meetings, on set and in the editing room and this tension shouldn’t stall or suffocate creativity, if anything it should make the project better.

Here is a list of my own best practices that I’ve found helpful when working with a writer to get from page zero to page one:

Oliver Stone said “writing = ass + chair.” It was a cold San Francisco night in a hot, stuffy, and overly bright auditorium. Oliver had already answered at least twenty-five questions from an eager and script-hungry audience. Maybe that’s why he gave such a short answer when asked, “What’s the key to writing, Mr. Stone?” Like the crowd that night, and judging by some of the deflated shoulders, you might want a little more than that formula too. (Though I believe he’s right).

What follows is a complete rip-off from my good friends, writers, and filmmakers Logan & Noah Miller. In their book Either You’re In Or You’re In the Way, the Miller brothers write the story of making their personal film “Touching Home.” I thought I would highlight a few thoughts they share and hopefully, in doing so, give you a little more than Mr. Stone during that particular Q&A.

Again, this is straight from the Miller brothers. If there’s any part of you that thinks I came up with this (and have any original thoughts of my own), I encourage you to read the book in full. You’ll soon know I had nothing to do with it, though you’ll thank me for introducing you to their work, and your writing will soon be on the upswing.

Here are Logan & Noah’s “Seven thoughts on our first hell-ride through filmmaking..." (this applies perfectly to writing a screenplay—okay that is my only original idea in this article—please quote me).

Fred Ritzenberg shares his thoughts on developing characters during the re-write.

I was sitting in my office at BDFI one evening, when I glanced out the window and saw a kid, with a bent coat hanger, making his way into a car. I didn’t know what to do. Should I bang on the window and get his attention? Should I call the cops? Should I run down the street and chase him away?

As I was gathering my thoughts, a student came into my office and saw me looking out the window. “Oh, that poor guy locked his keys in his car. I did that last week,” she said.

Okay then, we were both watching the same thing, yet seeing something very different. Then, I remembered a similar experience that I had about 25 years ago, when some kid broke into my wife’s car, and took it on a joy ride.

My reality was being filtered through that experience, just as my student’s was by her recent experience, where she locked her keys in her car. Yet, we were both watching the same thing. Who’s to say who was right? In other words, everything we see is distorted. Think about Kurosawa’s, Rashomon. Our perception of reality is filtered through the distortion of our experiences in life.

Okay, so where’s this going? Here’s the answer. In order to write a character, you need to see the world through their eyes… their DISTORTED eyes. So, my best advice is to write a “character bio” about each of your characters. Write it in the first person. That way you become the character and see the world the way they see the world. Try to find a “defining moment” in their lives that made them who they are today.

In Part One of "Revisions the Pixar Way," Max offered advice on how to gather constructive notes for revising your script. So how do you put them to good use? Max offers his expertise on next steps.

Culling through the notes

After you’ve gathered all of this useful information, it’s time to sift through it all, looking for trends and consensus. If a reader’s note jives with your taste and fits into your story, by all means use it, but also look at where most of the notes are coming from. For example, if you’re writing a thriller, and everyone is enamored with the love story, maybe you should change genres….or not. It’s all up to you. If twenty people hate what happens on page thirty-five, maybe you should take a hard look at what’s happening there, or maybe it’s a moment that needs to be set up earlier in your story.

So Script Frenzy is over. The long hours sweating over your plot, toiling over the characters, agonizing over the dialogue, and praying to reach the page count have paid off. You’ve completed your first draft. Now what?

The Pixar Way

Having worked many years at Pixar Animation Studios in the story department, I have had the opportunity to get intimate with the revision process for the films there. At Pixar, the films are not just written, but also storyboarded and edited to create a storyreel. Once the first draft of the script is done, a team of story artists along with the director, writer, and editorial department spend three months creating the reel, which is somewhat like a rough blueprint of the film with pictures, music, and dialogue. The reel then gets screened to the rest of the studio, including the executives and other directors. At the end the of screening everyone is asked to send in notes and comment about what they saw, and immediately after the screening, the director and writer get together with a group called the Brain Trust (comprised of the creative leads of the studio) and spend the next two hours getting notes from this group about the film.

The director and writer then go back to the film armed with these notes from the Brain Trust and the rest of the studio, and they now must revise the film, re-writing scenes and re-storyboarding and then show the reels again in three months, where the process starts over again.

Straight from our Cameo archive, here are some tips on how to overcome writer’s block by Lydia Cornell.

In March, during the storms after my divorce, faced with looming book deadlines, I had been avoiding work, sitting in a catatonic state, staring at the TV, watching episodes of Agatha Christie’s Poirot. I must have watched forty episodes in a row of the brilliant David Suchet and his mustache. Now I have to enter a 12-step program for addiction to this detective mystery that plants clues backwards and rarely has a linear plot. Poirot of all things!

“For the love of all that is holy,” my son said in his best imitation of Family Guy, “stop watching that boring show Mom. Aren’t you supposed to be writing your book?”

Teenagers are not nice people.

After a horrifying week of watching the Japanese nuclear reactor meltdown, our TV finally stopped working. The rainstorms had knocked out both internet and cable, and now I had no excuse not to write. It would have been a good thing if I had only used the storm properly. The day started out gray and cloudy and perfect! A wonderful, dark, rainy writing day. I was so excited, I kept repeating to myself: “I’m going to start writing in a minute… any minute now I’m going to start writing.”

Truly great screenwriting lets us see the movie on its pages. When the craft of screenwriting is taught, scene and action description is probably given the least consideration, and yet it can make the biggest difference in whether or not your story comes alive for the reader. Here are four tips for more dynamic scene and action description:

1.  Lose the adjectives and adverbs

Adjectives and adverbs often water-down your screenwriting and make it less effective, not more. Instead, try to find more precise nouns and verbs to describe your action. 

Oh, hi. How’s it going? Are you bored of yourself yet? Stuck in a rut? Unable to connect with why you thought this was such a good idea in the first place? It’s so easy to go down the insecurity sinkhole when you’re trying to write. I do it often enough and the one thing that can catapult me out of that toxic pit and back into inspirationland is other people’s art. Books, movies, paintings, photographs, music, buildings, theater, even food and podcasts and blogs and TED talks.

Remember: it’s only procrastinating if you never end up getting back to work. So if you’re feeling unexcited and uninspired, here are a few ways to get it back in a matter of minutes.

1. Open up a favorite book, read a short passage, then close your eyes for a solid minute and think about it. I just picked Mary Gaitskill’s Veronica and found the following sentence: The air smells of gasoline, dirt, and trees; cars farting out of hot iron stomachs; and the fresh BO of nature. Strive to make one of your descriptions more powerful and evocative.

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