Last night, I accompanied a number of my Writers Studio class members to the Beyond Words event at the WGA Theater in Beverly Hills. Moderated by writer-director Judd Apatow, the five panelists are all nominated for screenwriting awards this year: Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire), Dustin Lance Black (Milk), Tom McCarthy (The Visitor), Jonah Nolan (The Dark Knight), and Eric Roth (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button).
I took copious notes on behalf of all the GITS readers and will provide a post with my complete ‘coverage’ of the event once I’ve got time (after the Writers Studio), but I did want to post one interesting anecdote (paraphrased) from Jonah Nolan. An audience member posed this question: “If there was one movie you saw this year that you wished you could have written other than your own, what is it?” Jonah replied, “Slumdog Millionaire. There’s that adage, ‘Write what you you know.’ That sucks. I say write what you want. With Slumdog Millionaire, you had these filmmakers saying we can make any movie we want anywhere, no restrictions. That’s why I wish I had done Slumdog Millionaire.“
There you have it. A professional screenwriter completely contradicting the advice of every college creative writing instructor.
There are a lot more surprises and some ribald humor to report from the Beyond Words event. I hope to post my complete review early next week.
Thanks for the updates, I’ve been following your excellent blog for a while.
I try to follow this rule of thumb: write what you know in your heart as a human being, not what you have experienced that week in your life (unless it was mind-blowing blockbuster material).
I write what I want the audience to see.
I was a little disappointed with Dark Knight, but I don’t necessarily think it was Jonah’s script, more to do with the story he had to work with. There was too much to deal with — relegate Two-Face to a third film and you have more play for other characters. I think the original plan was to have Two-Face in the third film.
What do you think?
Thanks in advance!