I graduated from the USC School of Film and Television, with a
degree in screenwriting. After graduation, I took this horrible
job of reading contracts all day for a small movie studio here
in Los Angeles.
I'd spend much of my time writing screenplays, whenever no one
was looking. On my computer monitor I would switch back and forth
between the contract I was supposed to be reading and the script
I was writing, depending on who walked by my office. Eventually,
I sold a couple of scripts and then starting doing rewrites on
films that never got made.
I didn't have a mentor per se, but during my first screenwriting
job at United Artists, in the late eighties, they had Billy Wilder
there as a creative consultant. He was about eighty years old,
sharp as a tack. Paula Abdul's mom was his secretary, which was
kind of interesting. He was there to help everyone out, wherever
it was needed, which for me seemed like being a spray paint artist
and going to Michelangelo for advice.
A sci-fi thriller called DNA, about a female microbiologist who
can't have kids, so she clones herself. Horror and mayhem ensue.
This was over ten years ago; I should probably dust it off.
My first produced spec script was called Arctic Blue, which became
an HBO World Premiere Movie starring Rutger Hauer. To be honest,
it was a pretty awful experience.
I was thrilled to get a movie made, but it was a sloppy production
to say the least. I'll give you a for-instance: The producers
forgot they were calculating some Canadian money into the budget,
throwing that part of it off by 30%. The director was up against
all sorts of challenges -- weather, a painfully short schedule,
a couple actors who changed lines with each take for no particular
reason. Rather than continuing to dish, let's just call it a learning
experience.
Banker's hours. I usually work from nine to six, but if I'm on
a roll, I'll got back to work after putting the kids to bed. I'm
pretty much a night person, and that's when my best work gets
done.
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Most of the time, I'm at home, writing another film. When I do,
on occasion, visit the set, it's usually as a glorified tourist.
The director will offer me a chair, craft services will give me
some food, and maybe they'll have a balloon or something for the
kids. I'll hang out for a little bit, check out the set, and go
home. In feature writing, that's pretty much how it is, unless
you're producing the film as well. (Which I highly recommend,
if you can gain the leverage to make that happen.)
Ponder a lot of concepts. Throw them out. Finally come with one
that will sustain the film, sustain my interest, be easy to understand
but fresh and exciting, and has not already been taken. I've just
described the hardest part of the process.
The Internet. I have a high speed connection, in order to do the
research for my projects. It's amazing what you can find out there.
For example, I can tell you the exact mega-tonnage yield of an
SS-25 Mobile Nuclear Missile or teach you how to pick a lock,
all courtesy of the world wide web.
The act of writing itself is time-consuming, arduous and painful,
but it is occasionally highlighted by moments where it's lots
of fun because you've nailed a good scene. Those are the moments
that make it worthwhile, but they can sometimes be few and far
between.
Also, the rejection rate, which goes for everyone in the business,
is pretty tough. Most meetings with producers or execs or what-have-you
don't amount to anything, but you have to go to them anyway, just
to be in the room for the two or three meetings per year that
do eventually lead to something.
That moment when the finished product finally comes out, whether
it's a good movie or a good book. My editor sent me a nice note
about how great it is the first time you actually hold the published,
hardcover book in your hands, and it's quite true. Robert Lewis
Stevenson said "writers don't like to write, but they like
to have written something." That pretty much nails it.
For scripts, it's an un-produced screenplay called Noble Blood,
kind of a Braveheart meets Romeo and Juliet, based very loosely
on the novel Lorna Doone. It has action and romance, but it was
a period piece, so no one bought it. I don't know what I was thinking
when I wrote it, because I usually don't bother writing anything
with that kind of automatic reason to reject built into it, but
it was fun to write and turned out quite well.
If you're talking favorite piece of writing, period, it's my novel,
Acid Test, by a wide margin. It was the most challenging bit of
writing I ever did and I'm really proud of it. There isn't a word
in there that isn't mine. It has the greatest length, depth and
breadth, a great bad guy, a great good guy, a cool plot, and had
both action and real character development. Amazing what you can
do when you have 400 pages and a year and a half in which to write
them.
Don't send your script out until it's in the best shape it can
possibly be in. Have your friends read it, and rewrite it over
and over, because you only get one first shot.
Another piece of advice: don't waste your time writing a script
unless the basic central premise is really solid, the kind of
idea that -- if the movie were opening this weekend -- would get
you into the theater on Friday night.
Finally, make sure the main characters you've created are playable
by stars. For example, don't write a script where the hero is
an eighty year old midget. You can have the best script in the
world, but if you can't cast it, it ain't gonna get made.
You're only as good as your next project; don't think just because
you have your foot in the door you're going to be able to coast.
Be adaptable. Originate projects, don't wait for assignments or
rewrites to come to you.
Also, don't try to anticipate the marketplace. Write what interests
you; if it becomes very evident that what interests you doesn't
interest the public, quit show business. That last line, by the
way, was Noel Coward's advice to a very young David Lean.
It may sound lame, but get a good education, preferably at a top-rated
school. When you get out, immediately be prepared to take a crappy
job -- any job -- as long as it's in the industry. As I mentioned
earlier, my first job was as a temp in the legal department of
a small studio, working for minimum wage, but I was on the inside
and became friends with people who matriculated as I did. Then,
if you're a writer, write at night.
Everything's changed and nothing's changed. Hollywood is still
a hit-driven and star-driven business, but when I first started
writing, 10 years ago, the stars were all muscle-bound and monosyllabic.
As opposed to change, I actually see cycles: action movies are
in, then they're out; teen comedies are in, then they're out.
There are many independent sources of financing one year, there
are none the next. One month studios are going for specs, the
next they're snatching up books, after that they're gunning for
pitches, then they sit back and buy nothing, and finally they're
picking up specs again. Everything eventually comes full circle.
Trust your own taste, but be prepared to constantly reinvent yourself.
That's why I wrote a novel, why I'm getting into the TV business,
and why I'm creating a comic book.
Thirty-five millimeter film, I'm sorry to say, will probably go
the way of Vitaphone. Film will probably always look better than
video, but it's just too much more expensive than video to distribute.
Well, in almost two years of writing and researching Acid Test,
I never set foot in a library; I could do it all from home. I
used the Internet to do an amazing amount of research, and that
saved me an incredible amount of time.
Writers accept being treated as second-class citizens in Hollywood,
both individually and collectively. When that attitude finally
changes and we demand more respect, we will be treated differently.
But don't hold your breath.
I learn as much about the subject as possible beforehand. Then
l open Quicken, ponder my yearly expenses for a moment, switch
to Word, and type the words, "Fade in:" Also, as mentioned
earlier, I make sure I'm really thrilled with the subject matter
of the story.
I try to indicate to them that I will be collaborative and easy
to get along with right up until they try to take advantage of
my attempt to meet them halfway. After that, I will still endeavor
to avoid a conflict, but I'll certainly never walk away from one
if the quality of the project is at stake.
If you mean as an inspiration, it'd have to be Billy Wilder. He's
defined a number of genres, and some of my favorite movies are
Billy movies. Just being around him at UA was both educational
and awe-inspiring. And he was always so cool -- even if you were
working on some lame-ass idea, he would sit there and help you
out with it as if you were talking to him about the greatest film
ever made.
It's almost as great as the feeling I described about holding
the finished book. It's that key moment when you realize that
what you had set out to do has finally been accomplished, and
you can sit back and watch the audience react.
Somebody once said that art is never finished, it's just abandoned,
and I think that's true. That's why getting a book published or
a movie produced is a good thing, because it forces you to stop
working on it. Then again, look at how many "Director's Cuts"
and "Extended Versions" are coming out on Video and
DVD; obviously, those projects weren't finished in the minds of
those guys.
Actually, a little of both. I mean, they were always encouraging;
my family had no problems with me attending film school, probably
because they realized that I had no other skills. However, they
did presume that I didn't have a real job when I was first writing
-- even though I was making money -- because I was doing a bunch
of rewrites on stuff that never got made. When a few things finally
did get made, that's when they realized that I really had been
doing something all that time.
I'd like to do an animated film at some point, and continue writing
books that feature the hero from Acid Test, Matt Wilder, who is
a Special Agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
After considering several great pearls of wisdom, I've opted instead
for a shameless plug of my novel, Acid Test. It was enormous fun
to take all of the action-writing and story-telling skills that
I learned from screenwriting and apply them to prose. Several
reviewers have commented that they could see the action in their
heads as they read the book. Which, of course, was exactly the
point. You can read an excerpt at www.acidtestnovel.com
and judge for yourself.
My pleasure. Thanks for inviting me to contribute to your great
site.
* Ross signing books at the 2001
Comic-Con in San Diego (Photo by Kathleen O'Shea)
