Write On: A Screenwriting Podcast

• Write On: 'Countdown' Creator/Writer Derek Haas

  “One thing I’ve found in the crime genre is that homicides are always interesting. When somebody’s killed, whatever that case may be, it’s usually compelling drama. So then it’s up to you as the writer to surprise the audience and do things that they didn’t think were coming. I’ve described it like this before: If you can hit the sweet spot of, ‘I didn’t see that coming! I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t see it coming,’ That, to me, is the best writing. It’s like, when you got to the end of The Sixth Sense, and you were like, ‘Oh my god, I should have seen that coming!’ That was great writing,” says Derek Haas, creator and writer for the show Countdown on Prime.  You may know Derek Haas from the popular NBC procedural dramas like Chicago Med, Chicago Fire and Chicago PD. Now, he’s got a new crime drama on Prime called Countdown that tells one twisty crime story over 13 episodes – all written by Haas. Set in Los Angeles, Countdown follows a secret task force who discover a sinister international plot that threatens millions of lives. The show stars Eric Dane, Jensen Ackles and Jessica Camacho as undercover agents all harboring dark secrets of their own.  On this episode of the podcast, we chat with Haas about starting his career as a crime novelist, writing movies like 2 Fast 2 Furious, 3:10 to Yuma and Wanted before making the switch to TV. Haas talks about working with director John Singleton, prolific TV producer Dick Wolf and writing characters that hook audiences. He also shares his advice for writing action sequences that both stun visually and surprise the audience.  “When I think about action sequences, I always go back to Raiders of the Lost Ark. My favorite action sequence of any movie ever is when Indiana Jones has to fight this gigantic Nazi guy, and – in any other movie – that would have been the only thing that’s happening. But they put Marion in a plane where she gets trapped because the cover of the plane closes. Then the plane’s propellers start spinning. The plane starts spinning, gas is leaking out of the plane, there’s other people running by with machine guns. So it’s not just, ‘Oh, here’s a fight,’ it’s ‘Here’s a fight, but there’s eight other things happening at once.’ I really try to do that in these chase sequences, because you have seen a million of them. What’s the other factors I can bring to it? How can I show you something you haven’t seen before? Sometimes it’s character, and sometimes, it’s the stunt itself,” says Haas.  To hear more screenwriting advice from Haas, listen to the podcast.    

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• Write On: 'Apple Cider Vinegar' Creator and Showrunner Samantha Strauss

  “In my mind, Belle is going through life, at least our version of Belle – I've never met the real Belle – she’s going through life with this hole inside, this overwhelming need for approval, that social media absolutely capitalizes on and she just keeps trying to feed the beast. She hasn't grown up with the healthiest of role models herself. She has learnt that being sick is a shortcut to being loved and to getting attention,” says Samantha Strauss, creator and showrunner for the Netflix limited series Apple Cider Vinegar, about understanding her main character’s disgraceful motivation to lie about having brain cancer.  Adapted from the book, The Woman Who Fooled the World, by Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano, Apple Cider Vinegar chronicles the incredible and heartbreaking rise and fall of the real Belle Gibson (Kaitlin Dever), a notorious health and wellness “scamfluencer.” Strauss talks about starting her young life in Australia as a ballet dancer before a terrible injury led her to discover TV writing. She also talks about how her previous TV show, The End, got the attention of Nicole Kidman, who championed her writing career. Strauss gushes about how she was inspired by Kidman’s, “Fierce intelligence, just exactly what you'd expect, and rigor. You know, she would be giving notes at the end of a really long day of filming. She wasn’t resting on her laurels at all. There's just such a generosity of spirit there and to think she’s helped other emerging Australian creatives is pretty special,” she says.  Strauss discusses the challenges of adapting a true story while the subject is still alive, tips and tricks for making the show feel immediate and seductive while mimicking the addictive nature of social media, and getting the primal relationship of mothers and daughters authentic on screen.  To hear more about Apple Cider Vinegar and Strauss’s advice for writers adapting true stories, listen to the podcast.     

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• Write On: 'Matlock' Creator & Showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman

  “The most important thing that I've learned as a storyteller is that I have to treat every character in the show as though they're the lead in the show, and they are never doing anything so that I can prompt a move from another character. They are doing things that are true to what they want and their motivation. So that's what makes that architecture hard, because you know you want things to happen, but they have to happen coming out of character, not coming out of what the room wants to see happen. So it's like the merging of those two. We know what architecture we want, but if it doesn't feel true to the character, the character wouldn't do it. Every time, you’ve got to say no, even though it's tempting, because that is who you have to protect – your characters,” says Jennie Snyder Urman, creator and showrunner of Matlock, about creating story architecture in a series.  On today’s episode, we talk with Jennie Snyder Urman, who created the reboot of Matlock starring Kathy Bates as Madeline Matlock. We chat about reinventing the beloved character once played by Andy Griffith, the joy of building a show around an older female lawyer and the generational changes in social attitudes women experience, and the sacrifices women often make when it comes to sexual harassment, including Matty herself.   “[Matty] realizes now, coming back [to the legal profession], what it cost her. And it's not like every day she was thinking about it. It was just, ‘Oh my gosh, I made these changes to avoid this. And why do I have to make these changes? Why didn't that person make the changes so I could be in the space where I was comfortable?’ And I think what's so exciting about Maddie is that she's still learning new things at 75. I think there’s also a little bit of a wish fulfillment, that you can still evolve, and you still learn, and you still feel new things,” says Urman.  To hear more about Matlock, what we can expect from season 2, and Urman’s advice for writers, listen to the podcast. 

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• Write On: 'Running Point' Showrunner David Stassen

  “It’s not ripped from the headlines. We’re not using any of [the Buss family’s] real-life stories and putting them into our show. Because Mindy [Kaling], Ike [Barinholtz], and I have so many influences like Arrested Development, 30 Rock, The Office and Succession, we’re coming up with our own fun stories and fun situations to put this dysfunctional, very wealthy, successful family into a blender and then have them going back and forth and arguing and solving problems together and against each other,” says David Stassen, showrunner of Running Point, about taking inspiration from Los Angeles Lakers’ President, Jeannie Buss’s family and turning it into a hit TV show.   In this episode, we chat with David Stassen, showrunner and co-creator of the Netflix show, Running Point, that’s just been given the greenlight for Season 2. The show centers on Isla Gordon (Kate Hudson), the daughter of a powerful basketball magnate. She’s now taken the helm of the legendary team with the help – or hindrance – of her four well-meaning but unpredictable brothers.    While firmly set in the brawny world of basketball, Stassen talks about the true core of Running Point, which revolves around the siblings trying to earn the love of their deceased father. To get this particular narrative right, Stassen says the writers room spent a lot of time focusing on the family dynamics and differentiating each character’s struggles and traits. Much of the comedy in the show comes from the clashes between the siblings and their attempts to live up to their father’s fierce expectations. Stassen also talks about how the character Isla, a woman at the center of a very male-dominated universe, relies on speeches from gangster films to communicate with her basketball team.  “Movies transcend our society. So, I think it’s a great way to connect and even if you haven’t seen Casino, most people know that Joe Pesci is viewed as a very scary person on film. We were lucky enough to get the rights to show a scene. So even if you didn’t know anything about it, you got to see the moment. It’s just a fun thing to have this beautiful, airy Kate Hudson taking on these roles of the tough Italian mobster or the contract killer getting revenge for his dead dog, like John Wick. And I guess it probably speaks to something bigger about this show – about a woman in a man’s world. But at the same time, Isla is powerful in her own way, right? She’s powerful 95% of the time just being herself and standing up for herself. And then the fun flourishes are maybe using a movie reference to illustrate a point,” says Stassen.    To hear more about Running Point and Stassen’s advice to TV writers, listen to the podcast. 

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• Write On: 'Hurry Up Tomorrow' Director/Co-Writer Trey Edward Shults

  “It was a lot of empathizing. I would do long phone calls with Abel (Tesfaye, aka the Weeknd) after we had met, just basically talking to him and finding out more of his history, where he was at in different phases of his life, where he’s at today, and using those to create a character. And part of creating that character is I’ll find my own personal stuff to attach to it… Portions of his life I can relate to very much. And past all of that, I think this is the deepest I’ve gone with my therapy background and my mom and stepdad being therapists. I tried to make the movie work to where if you just want to watch the movie at surface value and go on a ride with it and experience it and not think about it again, hopefully it works on that level. But also if you want to look at it and interpret it on a whole deeper, hopefully richer level, there’s a lot going on,” says Trey Edward Shults, director and co-writer of the new film Hurry Up Tomorrow on how he took Able “the Weeknd” Tesfaye’s story and made it personal to him.  On today’s episode, we sit down with writer/director Trey Edward Shults to discuss his new film Hurry Up Tomorrow that stars the Weeknd, Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan, about a rock star who goes on an existential odyssey after losing his voice on stage.  Shults shares his journey to becoming a filmmaker, working with visionary director Terrence Malick, making the highly biographical film Krisha (2014), and the shockingly ominous horror film It Comes at Night (2017).  He also shares this advice for writing your first film: “It has to be something you are so hungry to tell. And it has to be something you would die to make. You know what I mean? At least to me, my approach was I like to make stuff personal and they always say like, write what you know, write the personal thing. But I just think it needs to be something you’re crazy hungry to do no matter what,” says Shults.   To hear more, listen to the podcast.  

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