Go Into The Story Interview: Daniel Kunka

My conversation with the screenwriter of 2021 Black List script Lift and now in production as a Netflix movie.

Daniel Kunka is one of the most successful screenwriters in Hollywood when it comes to setting up spec scripts. He has also made the annual Black List multiple times including 2021 with his original screenplay Lift. Netflix acquired the project which stars Kevin Hart, Paul Anderson, and Sam Worthington.

For background, read my 2013 interview with Kunka.

Here is the entire interview I conducted earlier this year about the screenplay Lift and Kunka’s creative process in writing the project.

Scott Myers: I normally begin these interviews where I’m learning about the writer’s background, but we pretty much covered that in that interview we did in 2013, so I’ll send people over there. I do want to start with this, with your script, “Lift.” You’ve now made the annual Black List multiple times.

This is three times, I think.

Daniel Kunka: I think that’s three.

Scott: Three. Let me start by asking you, does making the Black List ever get old?

Daniel: No, it never gets old. There are so few times you get recognition as a screenwriter. I will say the older you get, the less you expect it, especially since Lift was a script that went around in March. It also wasn’t the type of script that usually gets honored on the List.

I was definitely surprised. It’s great. You get up on Monday morning, you see you name, and then everybody says congratulations. It’s always nice to be recognized.

Scott: I would imagine you didn’t blow off the day, you went back to work.

Daniel: Right back to work. Last year when the List came out, I was at the end of the first act on Lift. This year I’m working on something else. You can’t be on the list unless you write your script. So I celebrated for about 5 minutes, sent out some Tweets and was right back to it.

Scott: You lived in Chicago, you went to LA and attended USC, the screenwriting program there. That seems to have worked out pretty well for you. It’s fair to say that when you see this conversation come up, the subject come up online or in chatter with professional screenwriters, it’s a very mixed bag. Some people say, “Yeah, film school’s great.” A lot of people say, “No, don’t go to film school.” That it’s a waste of time, money, or so on.

Two questions for you. I wanted to start with this one. What are the pluses of a film school? What advantages did you have in going to USC?

Daniel: I was very fortunate to go to USC and to film school. I didn’t grow up as a film school person. I wasn’t the kid who grew up loving movies and wanting to be in the movie business and making short films from when I was in elementary school.

I really loved writing in high school. I found screenwriting literally through the USC brochure that I got sent to come to college. After reading about it and learning about the program, I applied and surprisingly got in so I went for it.

I loved film school but not necessarily for the film school part. There’s a lot of personal growth you go through when you’re between the ages of 18 and 21, or whenever you go to school. I had to live on my own, I got to meet new people and have a lot of new experiences. My college experience really broadened my horizons to a lot of things not relating to film school. To me that’s not just a “film school” advantage, that’s a “going to college” advantage. If you’re lucky enough to be able to do that, it helps you become a writer later.

In terms of the actual film school, it’s great because you learn a lot of the basic stuff right away. It’s an intensive course. You learn about story and structure. You learn about what people do on movie sets. You learn how to critique a movie or why a movie works, which is all great.

That said, I don’t think that any of the education I got from USC could not be replicated in other ways. I definitely do not think that film school is a requirement for success. It’s rare nowadays that you see someone who immediately becomes successful in this business coming right out of film school, where the film school was the launching pad to this person being super successful.

I would say I had a great experience with it. There is a lot of benefit to film school, but I also think you can find success not doing it. In fact I would say I got much more out of working in the film industry right after college than I did from film school itself. That was experience was much more helpful in the long term.

Scott: You were over at Universal working with Kevin Misher, right?

Daniel: I was. I got an internship through a friend. Again, there are benefits of film school because you meet people who are doing things. A lot of my friends had internships. I had a friend named Kyle Buchanan, who now writes for The New York Times, who had an internship with the Universal story department and he got me an interview there.

I loved that internship. From there I segued into working for Kevin Misher when he was President of Production and a producer then back to the Story Department in an actual job. I got four or five years of actual industry experience and that was critical to my development as a writer.

I learned how executives talk about scripts and saw how scripts got passed around and became well-read. There’s a whole other layer of the business you don’t get from film school. In film school, you learn about scripts that get made. But most of the scripts in Hollywood never get made! You can still get paid to write them. I think it’s critical as a screenwriter to know how the entire development system works so you can better position yourself in the market place. You need to see how people get hired and why they get hired.

Having a career in this business isn’t about selling scripts that get made into movies. That’s always the goal. But that’s the cherry on top. You have a career in this business by writing scripts that sell, which leads to jobs and other opportunities. That’s how you build a career. And you know, earn health coverage.

Scott: I want to talk to you a bit about that later on, too. Let’s say, OK. Someone doesn’t go to film. This came up online today. Franklin Leonard, someone asked him, “What should I do?” He quoted that thing that I always said years ago, which was, “Well, read scripts, watch movies and write pages. You do those three things.” I’m wondering for you because now you’re established, writer. First of all, do you continue to read scripts?

Daniel: Oh, yeah, all the time. I read “Being the Ricardos” this morning. I would say that I don’t read as much as I used to, but any time there’s a spec sale that sounds interesting to me or a script people are flipping for I always try to get my hands on it. I also read a lot of the For Your Consideration scripts, especially after I watch the movie.

There’s great benefit to reading. Not only do you see what sells, but you constantly pick up little tricks. You see what’s described or what’s not described. When I was young I read everything Steve Zaillian wrote. And Steve loved to use ING words to describe action. So then I started using ING words to describe action. Then I did it too much! So then I started reading Scott Frank and using “And…” to start my action lines. “And this, and that”. To this day I still do it too much. But you pick up things from other writers that you can use to make your scripts better.

Scott: It’s absurd how easy it is now to get access to scripts. Back in the day, God it was like, drug dealers on street corners passing physical three hole punch copies to each other. Now, when you talk about the Black List scripts or spec scripts, you ought to read it that screenwriting thing within 24 hours or 48 hours you can get access to.

In fact, your script “Lift.” My MFA students are going to be reading that in a week. I have them reading Black List scripts every week, and we talk about why. Why did this make the Black List? We talk about style, we talk about story.

Okay, so reading scripts, huge, but what about watching movies. How important is that to you? When you watch a movie, do you kick back, the popcorn thing, just enjoy the movie. Or do you analyze the movie, maybe even doing a scene-by-scene breakdown?

Daniel: It’s changed. I will say like when I was younger, I would watch movies, and I would be very critical. I think that it lessened my enjoyment of watching movies because I was looking for the mistakes, “Oh, you should have done this instead of that.”

But now, for the most part, I watch movies because I love to watch movies. I admit I’m fully less critical now than when I was younger. I like almost everything now. There are some things I don’t favor or I might point out some missed opportunities but I don’t hate movies anymore. At most I won’t like something and I’ll move on.

I do watch movies “for work”. For Lift I watched “Ocean’s Eleven” like 110 times. When that’s the case, I tend to be a little more critical and look for specific things. How is the story being told? How are they moving through the second act exposition? Is there anything I can take from this and use in a different way to make my story better?

Scott: The last thing, write pages. I get tired of hammering this with my students, because every time I talk to professional writers, almost all of them say the same thing every day. Get into a habit of writing every day. Do you subscribe to that theory and if so why?

Daniel: Absolutely. In film school, the head of the USC filmic writing department was a man named John Furia. There wasn’t a day that went by where he didn’t tell us to write every day.

Are there days when I don’t actually put pen to paper or type actual words? Sure. But I’m always thinking about writing. I’m always breaking story or trying to get a handle on my next rewrite.

And when I’m actually writing writing I know exactly what page I’m on and what scenes are coming next. I go on vacation for a week, I come back and drop right back in. “Write everyday” is a great adage for young writers because it makes writing a habit. And once it’s a habit, it’s a pretty tough one to break.

Scott: Let’s jump into your script “Lift” which is I noted May the 2021 Black List. Here’s a plot summary as described in the Black List:

“Female master thief and her ex‑boyfriend who works for the FBI teamed up to steal $100 million of gold bullion being transported on a 777 passenger flight from London to Zurich.”

What do you think is the appeal of heist movies? What was it that attracted to you?

Daniel: People love stories of overcoming obstacles. And I love to write them. I think almost every script I’ve ever written has some sort of underdog, overcoming obstacle problem at the center of it. Intrinsically, in a heist movie, your protagonist is trying to steal something that’s worth something, and if it’s worth something, usually it’s very hard to obtain. That challenge is what excites me.

There’s a bit of wish fulfillment to a heist movie. I would never rob a bank, but planning to rob a bank sounds fun. Lift was an idea that I thought would be a lot of fun not only to write, but to actually watch as an audience member. I had the idea on my computer for almost 10 years before I decided I wanted to take a crack at in script form. It just felt like it was time.

Scott: I’m not an action writer, but I have this image of people who do that sort of thing. They get these whiteboards in their office and there’s a question on the board. What’s the fresh‑action backdrop? What’s the setting that hasn’t been done before? I’m envisioning in your office: “airplane heist.” How did the idea come about?

Daniel: There was an article about the Golden Triangle. That’s what they call these three cities in Europe that are at the center of the gold trade — London to Zurich to Frankfurt and back again. When banks make these high‑level transfers of gold, they put the gold in wooden crates that say VAL — short for valuable — on the side and load them on to your passenger plane to transfer. Not a shipping plane, not UPS, but a regular Lufthansa flight from one city to the next.

I pretty much knew from the get go that I had an idea for a movie. Somebody needs to steal that. And that’s when I started asking myself all the questions that I needed to build out my story. “Well, how do you steal gold when it’s mid-flight on a plane?” The whiteboard I usually do, I use pads of legal paper and just start sketching out questions and answers. I think I probably drew a few different planes on there as well trying to build the heist in my head.

Scott: In terms of your research, you mentioned Ocean’s Eleven and Italian Job. Did you watch things like The Thomas Crown Affair, To Catch a Thief, or Inception?

Daniel: Yeah. Again, I’ve been a fan of Ocean’s forever. I’ve watched Ocean’s Eleven at least 100 times. I’ll watch it right now. I don’t care.

And from there it was about figuring out a reason why someone would need to steal gold off a plane. I always approach these things from a place of logic. We got to figure out why someone’s doing this. It’s got to be logical and relatable. Then we just go from there. People often ask how I go about plotting something so intricate and it really does start with something simple. You make a decision about one thing, then you go from there until you make all the decisions and you have a full story.

Scott: Maybe you use scraps of paper, but let’s say hypothetically in a parallel universe in your office, you’ve got the whiteboard. On the far left, you’ve got “Here’s the goal.” On the far right, you’ve got “Mission accomplished.” There’s a straight line between them.

What I imagine is, you’ve got to basically muck up that line and create these obstacles along the way because you’re right. Audiences really enjoy seeing characters have to overcome obstacles and challenges. But there’s this problem. As the writer, you’ve got to figure that stuff out.

At any point, do you just go, “Oh, man, I can’t do it.”

Daniel: It’s the hardest but absolute best part of the job. You want to come up with something that will outsmart your audience, but audiences are super smart now! They’ve seen Oceans Eleven almost as much as I have. But that’s the best part about the challenge.

For me, I don’t even need everything outlined before I start writing. I always need to know where we start and where we finish. For a script like Lift, that meant working out a few of the twists beforehand. But once I know where it starts and where we end, I do trust my brain a little bit to figure out the details as we go. Like I know what needs to happen, and after doing this for so long, your brain just knows what needs to come next, or what subplot we need to check in on.

Expectations play a big part in figuring out the story as a whole. For each storyline in Lift I had to start with a character and give them a goal, then figure out a way to play against expectation of where I though the audience thought I was going. It’s a bit of a magic trick. You need to be clever in your obstacles and solutions. You can say to yourself, “For the end of the heist, I know I need X. What I’m going to do is, I’m going to start with my character thinking he needs Y.” Then X becomes the solution that fixes the problem they had with Y that they didn’t even know they were going for.

To the audience, it makes it seem like, “Oh, they’re clever because they were going for Y and they wound up with X,” but really the whole time I knew they were going to X. Then I mucked up that journey so that it feels like X is surprising.

It’s complicated. And like I said, sometimes not fun. But I love doing it.

Scott: When I see someone such as yourself who can pull off this plotting, I say, “That’s why they pay you the big bucks.” [laughs]

Daniel: It’s weird. With Lift, the draft we sold was far from a perfect script. Trust me, we got a lot of passes! And there will be changes as we get into production. But in the end, people were satisfied with the ending I gave to them. It felt clever. A lot of people can forgive things they might not have liked in the middle of the script if the end works. It was satisfying, it was character-driven, and there’s a twist that I don’t think people saw coming. For a movie like this, that’s a big leap that people have — “Is this a movie that will feel satisfying when it’s done?” And I think most people, when they read the spec, felt like it would be.

Scott: Remember that quote from McKee that conversation he had with Charlie Kaufman in Adaptation?

Daniel: Oh, yeah.

Scott: You got to have that third act. Okay, now one thing I want to talk to you about: your scene description. For all these people who say, you can’t have so-called unfilmables.

A couple of quotes from your script:

“From there, we’re going to have a quick cut. The side of each crate is marked with a simple stamp VAL parentheses, short for valuable. Not really, that’s how they do it.” Or how about this one:

“Exterior establishing, it’s fucking Russia. The sun rises over the city.” Or my favorite:

“It’s montage time, baby.” [laughs] Was that a conscious decision, or were you writing and like, “This is the spirit of the thing.”

Daniel: Screenwriting is all about using the least amount of words for the most amount of bang. I tell this to young writers all the time. “We don’t need to paint a picture, we need to get the idea.” With the description of “It’s fucking Russia”, I think I had written two or three sentences about how drab and dreary it was and finally I was like “It’s fucking Russia, they get it.” So that’s what I wrote and lo and behold — people got it! And something like that does two things.

First, it’s scene description in three words. Which is great! Less words equals less pages equals quicker reads. And two, it helps the tone. This is a fun script. That’s a fun description. It works.

I will say stuff like this has developed with my writing over time. There’s a tendency when you’re a newer writer to find something that works once and use it ten times. I think writing that trends too much into that space feels gimmicky. And again the tone has to match the script. But in small doses, I love to play with those unfilmmables and see what you get.

Also it’s another reason to read scripts — you can see what everyone else is doing and steal that!

Scott: I remember when Shane Black sold The Last Boy Scout, everybody was breaking fourth wall right and left. You’re right. You just do this sort thing judiciously.

Daniel: It has to be. I also do it to help clarify things. I’m writing a script right now that has a very high concept and I don’t want people to be confused so I literally drop out of my regular action description to speak directly to the reader. “Hey, in case you were confused, yes this is what’s happening…” You can’t confuse the reader, and if you’ve got something that’s not working with regular description, find something that does.

Scott: This is a perfect segue off the script into some crafts questions. I know you and I are in sync about how important a story concept is to the viability of a spec script. I remember in our original interview, you talked about the six‑word test, which was ironic, because I have the same thing. We use it a little differently. Could you talk a bit about that? Then I’d like to ask you, in terms of “Lift,” did you have use the six-word test with that concept?

Daniel: For “Lift,” it’s “gold plane.” There’s literally two words. “Gold plane heist” is three words.

Scott: Boom, three‑word test. [laughs]

Daniel: It doesn’t work for everything, but for the types of scripts I like to write — and also to try and sell in this marketplace — being able to market your script’s idea in as few words as possible is critical.

I had the gold plane heist idea for over 10 years before I started to write. One reason it stuck around so long was because I could write the words “gold plane” and I knew what it was and that it was still good!

Scott: High concepts ruled the roost in the ’80s and ’90s, maybe faded away a little bit. It seems like it’s almost as important nowadays because it’s so hard to get original material made. Would you agree with that?

Daniel: Definitely. Contrary to what a lot of people are saying, I think features are in a great place right now. For 10 years everybody has been at the beck and call of TV. “Oh, you have an idea? Make it a TV show!” And people did! But the reverse of that is nobody is making their ideas movies, and these streamers and studios need original movies.

I can write a script like Lift and it feels new because we haven’t had a heist movie in four years. And the streamers, they’re showing movies from the 90s and the 2000s. They release an old “classic” and suddenly in cracks the Top 10 for two weeks. I think there is definitely a market for well-told, high concept movie scripts.

And as for the writing — so many new writers are writing for TV right now it just feels like features are underrepresented. Back when I broke in, nobody wrote TV pilots. Now everybody is. There are 600 shows or something on the air, with 600 writing staffs, which equals that many more writers with experience, all of whom are now developing cause people don’t write spec episodes anymore. That is a lot of pilot scripts out there waiting to be read.

But if you write a movie, you’re doing something different nowadays. People read Lift and said “Oh my God, this is a movie! I remember watching things like this!” I think we’re going to see a resurgence not just in these movies selling, but also hopefully getting made.

Scott: Let’s talk about spec scripts. Do you even know at this point how many you’ve sold?

Daniel: I feel like an asshole if I don’t know how many I’ve sold. A few of them have been options. If I’m counting a true spec script that I wrote for myself with no one attached to it that I then went out and got paid for I would have to say 8. Or 9.

Scott: You’re right up there in terms of the whole spec script thing in the last 10, 15 years or so. It used to be back in the day, you’d write a spec, you’d break‑in, you go for OWAs and pitches and you’d never spec again. This is something you continue to do even though you’re working already, you continue to spec, right?

Daniel: I spec today. I will spec until I die. Open writing assignments are tough. The competition is incredible now because there are so many writers. Studios are much more specific about what they’re looking for. It’s a frustrating business and there’s a huge potential of you wasting time.

It’s a different story when a studio calls you directly and is like, “Hey, we’ve got this script…” If they want to hire you? Great, there’s a lot less risk.

But even in that scenario I’m still working on a spec. The thing that happens with a spec is it reintroduces you to the marketplace every year. You write a spec, it goes out, everyone calls you. You can go all these generals if you want. But it gets your name out there again.

When you book an assignment, you’re writing in a hole. Nobody except the company is going to read that script. You book one or two jobs and suddenly two years go by and nobody has read you in forever. A spec script is a way to tell people, “Hey, I’m still here!”

I’ve used this analogy for years when it comes to spec scripts. When Apple made an iPhone, they didn’t just make one iPhone and sell that for 15 years. They made new iPhones every year to keep people talking about the new model. That should be your goal as a writer. “Hey, you thought my last script was great, how about this one?” The more scripts you write, the more success you’re going to have.

Also — spec scripts travel. A pitch or an open writing assignment doesn’t. Even if your spec doesn’t sell, it’s a thing that can live on without you. I’ve had scripts live for years before they picked up momentum again.

It’s the best feeling in the world, that week you try to sell a spec script. Even if it doesn’t sell, which happens all the time, I just love that feeling of possibility. You’re gambling on yourself. Some writers, they can book OWA after OWAs, but -

Scott: Those writers may not be good in coming up with original ideas.

Daniel: For me, there’s nothing I love more than coming up with an idea and selling it. You’re basically showing the town who the fuck you are. I love it.

Scott: I’d like to end with something you do, which is terrific. January 1, every year, you do this thing. Explain what you do.

Daniel: I send a goals email to my reps on the first day of business every January. It literally says in the subject line, “Kunka Goals 2022.”

I think reps get a bad reputation with writers sometimes. I hear a lot of writers say “Oh, my career would be better if my reps were better.” I find that’s rarely the case. Yes, reps screw things up. They don’t give you their best attention. But I like to take more responsibility over my career.

So every year I tell them what I’m shooting for that year. And I like to keep it away from the basic “I need to book a job.” These goals emails are where I start to lay out my year — I have this idea and that idea. I also like to look at where maybe I’ve been deficient — “I need to meet some new executives, I’d like to find more partners to develop.” 
 
 In some ways, the goals aren’t even that important. Yes, you want your reps to read them and work for you. But also, you just want to be a writer that has goals. And you want your reps to think of you as a writer that has goals. Sometimes that’s the most important thing that comes out of it. Your reps will respect you more if you show to them that you’re taking this job seriously.

It’s funny. My first goal this year was “I’m going to write the shit out of this new spec and then we’re going to sell it.” Obviously it’s a goal for them. Sell the spec. But the first part of that goal is on me. I need to deliver that spec so we can sell it. You want to stay away from the pie in the sky stuff. I used to write “Let’s get a movie made!” Well, great. I’m sure my reps never thought of that before!

You want to have a good mix of things that they can actually do like “I need more TV meetings” or “I want to sell this spec” and long term things that they can be thinking about like “I want to get into producing.” It all just keeps the conversation open.

But if they see you treating yourself like a professional writer, chances are they’ll treat you like one.

As I understand it, Lift was primarily shot in Northern Ireland which makes this tweet all the more meaningful.

Congratulations, Mr. Kunka! Can’t wait to see the movie on Netflix!

Twitter: @unikunka.

For my interviews with dozens of other Black List writers, go here.