Interview with Barry
Pearson
Interview by Jenna Glatzer
Barry
Pearson is a credited writer on eight feature films, the co-author of the book
THE BOYD GANG, and writer/producer of the two-hour MOW special made from the
book.
He's also the writer of over 40 hours of television
drama, for CBC, CTV, Global, TVO, Family Channel, YTV, Viacom, PBS, Sci Fi
Channel, USA Network, and many more, and he's a producer of over 50 hours of
television prime time drama and 100 hours of daytime drama.
His work has garnered awards for Best Screenplay, Best
Picture at the International Film & Television Festival of New York, Best
Screenplay, Feature Film, at the12th International Film Festival in Sitges,
Spain, and a Special Jury Award, Feature Film, at the San Francisco
International Film Festival.
How did you get your start as a screenwriter?
After far too many years at the drama department of the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon (yes, you read that right) I abandoned the idea of a career in live theater, and moved to Toronto.
Because I had a family to support, I wrote on nights and weekends, my goal being to break into television, where there was "real money" to be made {:>).
After a few pitch meetings with the major network, my writing partner and I got commissions for two one-hour dramas.
While we were writing those, we also developed a spec treatment about hockey life in a small prairie town (talk about writing what you know) which sold to a producer, who commissioned us to write the feature, which was produced the following year.
I noticed you worked with director/writer Les Rose a number of times; how did you hook up with him?
We were in university together and had worked on productions together, so when we both arrived in Toronto, we teamed up.
There's an issue being debated on screenwriting boards right now: most working screenwriters make their living rewriting other people's work. Now, if those writers are so good that producers will bank on their abilities, why won't those same producers buy those writers' spec scripts?
Producers, and I'm one from time to time, are odd birds. They often commission writers to develop a screenplay from their idea, and then become dissatisfied with the result, so because it was THEIR IDEA, they try again with another writer, and another until they stumble their way into something they think they can sell.
Also, as any racetrack tout will tell you, there are "horses for courses." One writer may have a greater affinity for an idea than another, equally talented, writer, and, as many producers will be eager to tell you, they have to kiss a lot of frogs to find the prince or princess.
In the old days of Hollywood, writing stables at the studios often divided writers into "story men" and "dialogue men" (sorry, women, it was, sadly, mostly men in those days). Even in that nascent era of the screenwriting craft, it was recognized that some writers were temperamentally attuned to, and talented in, one skill above another. Today, in the freelance world, writers need to have a full array of skills to survive. Ergo, the spec script.
It would seem that producers ought to leap at the chance of buying a ready-made product from a trusted source. But producer psychology doesn't work that way. The catch is that, in order to attract a buyer, a "spec" has to fulfill the producer's ideal of what's commercial and what's marketable.
Typically, a producer has had no input into the development of the spec, so it doesn't have the sizzle for him or her that an option of rights to a story, or play, or novel, or director's pitch idea can have when he or she builds it up in anticipation as the perfect script that someone is about to write.
Also, optioning treatments, and having rewrites done can be cheaper, initially, than buying a finished screenplay, which under Guild
rates, is an "investment" with considerable risk attached to it.
Assuming I'm a very good writer, how likely is it that I can make a living selling my screenplays?
By the statistics, not very likely. Approximately 35,000 scripts are registered each year with the WGA. 1,000 are bought (400 for the big bucks) while 250 films are actually made. Chances of winning the Lotto 49, over a three year period, are BETTER than having your film picked up and made.
The real answer is, it depends.
If you're also a producer who is skilled at raising money and packaging movies, the odds rise dramatically.
Being a workaholic helps. Surf to a biography of Ron Bass on the Internet, and you'll get a picture of what it takes to be REALLY successful in Hollywood. He gets up at five a.m. Who DOES THAT?
Living in L.A. raises the odds in your favor.
Being a successful "networker" as you live in L.A. doubles your favorable odds.
Writing an indie film that returns three times its negative cost DRAMATICALLY boosts your earning potential.
If you're a serious writer, who writes every day, and not a wannabe, here's a ray of hope in those statistics.
Of the 35,000 scripts registered, close to 90 percent, perhaps more, are unproduceable, not because of their topics, but because of their abominable craft deficiencies.
Another 5% will die on topic. That leaves 1,750 REAL contenders, so 57% of viable screenplays are bought. But only 14% get made. So to get your screenplay produced, you have to top 86 pretty good contenders.
BUT--if you can write three VIABLE screenplays per year, your odds triple!
If you have accumulated 10 VIABLE screenplays and keep them in circulation, your odds are ten times better.
You suggest that writers shouldn't begin writing a new script until they've let it bounce around in their brains for a while-- maybe three months or more. Why is this?
A good question. Answer in a metaphor-- would you start building a brick house before you had assembled any bricks?
It isn't as simple as just letting an idea roll around in your mind. You need to be gathering the raw materials. That means lots of research. It means making notes as idea details swim by. It means thinking a lot about the material you've gathered, people you've interviewed, places you've
traveled to (if that's necessary).
Another good reason not to start writing the draft immediately after getting a germ of an idea is that there is a 99 44/100ths percent chance your story will be
derivative-- a mere paste-up of other movies and television shows, without an underpinning of YOUR reality.
In my book IT'S ALL ABOUT THE STORY, I tell writers not to ask themselves, "Where is the idea in me?" but to ask, "Where am I in the idea?" In other words, "Where are my obsessions, my passions, my loves, my hates, my joys, my sorrows, stamped on the story I'm
telling?"
Without your personal heartbeat, your screenplay will be bloodless.
I've heard about the index card idea for capturing screenplay ideas, but never really understood its appeal. Can you tell me why so many writers swear by using index cards?
First, it carries its own discipline with it. Because of its size, you need to focus your notes in succinct form without too much detail.
Secondly, you stay flexible in your story structure, because each card represents the nugget of an idea, usually in sequence or scene form. The writer can easily discover all the potential ways of structuring the story simply by shuffling the cards.
Third, you remove the temptation to write too much useless or irrelevant dialogue that ends up being escapist, or seducing you into thinking your story is better than it is. You should, however, write down every fragment of dialogue that pops into your
mind-- who knows? Maybe it'll turn into a brick you can use.
Fourth, cards have ultimate portability and usability. I used to put an elastic band around my cards and carry them with me. This way I could write anywhere. On the subway, the bus, in my car (at the side of the road, guys), in all those office reception rooms a person gets stuck in, etc. etc. By the way, I always kept a duplicate copy of the card stack at home.
You suggest that the main character and the bonding character should be as different as possible. Why?
Now you caught me. I have to boil this idea down. Can I do it? Yes, partly because I was the one who "discovered" this principle, and partly because the Hero/Bonding Character relationship has a simple structure-- and this relationship is the backbone of 95% of Hollywood
movies.
When audiences watch movies, their EMOTIONAL attention stays focused on the developing relationship between the two main characters. Why? Because their natural human desire is to see these characters "come together" at the end of the movie.
Sometimes the characters come together so they can agree to part, as with Rick and Ilsa in Casablanca. Much of the time the two characters end up in a romantic liaison. But in specific genres like "person-in-peril" they get together at the end so that one of them can destroy the other, as for example in Sleeping With the Enemy or The Net.
So why do the Hero and Bonding Character need to be as UNLIKE each other as possible? Answer-- so that the greatest tension, conflict, and drama can arise as these two unlike personalities are forced closer together through the course of the movie.
Think Chon Wang and Ray O'Bannon in Shanghai Knights, Rose DeWitt Bukater and Jack Dawson in Titanic, Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, Marisa Ventura and Christopher Marshall in Maid in Manhattan, Paul Vitti and Dr. Ben Sobel in Analyze This (and That).
Tell me about the process once a screenplay is sold. How many people get their two cents in during the rewriting process?
In rare cases, the screenplay sold is the one shot. The biggest agents for change are the
producer(s), the director, and the star(s). Very often compromises will need to be made to accommodate a
studio, network, or distributor. Sometimes the changes mandated by any or all of these elements will necessitate a change in screenwriter.
Is it ever okay to refuse to make changes that you think will hurt the script?
Because of the low power-position of the writer, refusing almost always leads to a
Pyrrhic victory. In other words, you win by showing everybody that the changes suggested are stupid and damaging to the integrity of the picture,
but-- you lose. You're off the picture.
The best strategy is to propose alternate changes that will accomplish the objective, but not hurt the script. When producers, directors, financiers, networks, etc. have an objection or discomfort with some aspect of the screenplay, they will often suggest changes to address their objections or discomforts. Almost always their changes will be the wrong remedy.
Why? Not because they're stupid or crazy (although that CAN be the case on rare occasions) but because they're not writers. That's your job. So just gently ignore the changes they suggest, but be sympathetic to the fact that the problems are real ones and need to be addressed. Your task is to suggest palatable changes that will remedy the problems. Very often, if you ask for it, you will be given time to come up with a solution, and that's your best scenario.
As a screenwriting consultant, what are some of the most common mistakes you see screenwriters make?
A. Lack of a properly structured Bonding Character/Hero relationship, or the entire absence of a Bonding Character.
B. Bringing the Bonding Character into the story too early or too late (i.e. before page 10 or after page 30 approximately).
C. Failing to create a Bonding Event that is the outcome of the Antagonist's (Villain's) evil machinations.
D. Failing to create TWO major dramatic events to follow the Bonding Event, the first, an event that LOCKS the Hero/and Bonding Character together, so they can't disengage from each other, and the second, an event that ESCALATES the stakes to life-and-death (or equivalent) jeopardy.
E. Delivering exposition (necessary information) in dialogue rather than in visuals.
F. Failing to create a satisfactory "Black Moment" (all-is-lost-moment) before the Hero's final battle with the Antagonist.
G. Failing to create a rich enough "setup and payoff" rhythm of small events throughout the script.
How much should writers be concerned with what's "hot" when they sit down to write? If we hear that a genre-- like western or teen horror-- is dead, should we avoid it?
No, because your screenplay, if it gets made into a movie, will see the light of day anywhere from 2 to 10 years after you write it. By that time, all the news about what's "hot" today is being filled with lattes at Starbucks.
Let's say I've just written a brilliant screenplay. Tomorrow, I catch a preview for a movie that sounds unbelievably like my script. Does that mean my shot is over and it's time to toss that script?
Not necessarily.
First, see the answer to 11. above. By the time your movie could get to the screen, the previewed movie you just saw will be gone to DVD heaven.
Secondly, if the movie is a hit, buyers who don't have that style of movie in their slate of production may want to "coattail" on a hot genre, and may buy your script, especially if you have a different twist.
Anything else you'd like to add?
Yes, (here's the plug - wait for it {:>) for those who want to explore the Hero/Bonding Character relationship in greater detail, my new e-book IT'S ALL ABOUT THE STORY is available at the following URL:
http://www.createyourscreenplay.com/iaatspaypalorder.htm
And your readers can read chapters 6 and 9 FREE at
http://www.createyourscreenplay.com/itschaptersixsamplem1216.htm
and
http://www.createyourscreenplay.com/itschapterninesamplem1216.htm.
