Interview (Part 1): Leigh Cesiro and Erica Matlin
My interview with 2021 Black List writers for their script Cruel Summer.
My interview with 2021 Black List writers for their script Cruel Summer.
Leigh Cesiro and Erica Matlin wrote the original screenplay “Cruel Summer” which landed on the 2021 Black List. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Erica and Leigh about their creative background, their script, the craft of screenwriting, and what making the annual Black List has meant to them.
Today in Part 1 of a 6-part series to run each day through Sunday, Leigh and Erica talk about their backgrounds and how their real life experience in a summer camp inspired them to write “ Cruel Summer.”
Scott Myers: Congratulations on making the 2021 Black List. Let’s dig into each of your creative background. Let’s just start with Leigh because you’ve been a bold and intrepid adventurer, evidently the first person to move from New York City to LA…
[Laughter]
So I think we need to start there. Where did this adventuresome spirit emerge in your life, and how did you become interested in writing?
Leigh Cesiro: I really am a trailblazer in that way. [laughs] I started out in advertising, as a writer. That’s kind of soulless writing but then through that, met a lot of people that did UCB, Upright Citizens Brigade in New York, and started taking improv classes and performing.
Then I was on a bunch of sketch teams. It became less of a hobby and more of a passion and something I really wanted to do. And from there wasIwriting pilots and sketches. That’s my background.
Scott: You write for Vulture?
Leigh: Yeah. They do a weekly podcast round-up. Way before podcasts really became what they are now, I was obsessively listening to them. Splitsider was a comedy website that was really one of the only places writing about comedy podcasts.
Then, Splitsider became part of Vulture. Then, I’ve gotten to write about some other cool things through that .
Scott: Erica, how did you all meet?
Erica Matlin: Leigh and I met at sleepaway camp, where Leigh was my counselor, and then years later we became friends. So when Leigh was doing UCB and discovering sketch and improv in NYC , I was in college at Wisconsin in Madison. Part of my education, to Leigh’s credit, has been following whatever she does [laughs] not to embarrass us both completely.
I started writing in college and it was at that time where I learned there is a real actual Hollywood that you could actually work in. After school I worked in production, had a very brief stint at WME and have been working with Anthony Bregman and Stefanie Azpiazu at Likely Story as a producer and development exec while also doing improv at UCB, writing for music blogs. I guess I found my way into screenwriting by working in the business and, of course, following Leigh.
Scott: You studied acting, as well.
Erica: Yeah! at HB Studio and Terry Knickerbocker Studio.
Scott: How did you both grasp the basics of screenwriting?
Leigh: I had taken a pilot writing class and then from there, just learning how to break it down. It really was just reading every script, not just good ones, but reading bad ones really helped. Every pilot that ever came out, I read the script for, whether I thought the show was good or not, because it had gotten made so someone must have thought it was good.
I took a few workshops and stuff, but nothing formal. It really was just reading them and listening to podcasts about writing, reading a script and breaking it down,, watching the movie, and figuring out how things came together.
Scott: Erica, how about you?
Erica: I took a seminar in college on screenwriting and by the nature of my job, read scripts daily and surrounded by producers and filmmakers constantly breaking down story. Also I have to mention, I have a folder in my Gmail that’s called “Go into the Story.”
Scott: Seriously?
Erica: I’ve been receiving your emails and screen-shotting different tweets of yours or articles from the blog since 2014 or 2015. There were various points where I considered film school. I worked on a movie with Nicole Holofcener who said, “If you have someone to pay for film school, go. If you don’t, figure it out on your own.” So I’ve been trying to figure it out on my own.
Scott: Well, apparently it took, with your script “Cruel Summer” making the Black List. It’s such an enjoyable read. Here’s a plot summary:
“During the summer of 1998, five camp counselors accidentally kill a stranger in the woods.”
You’ve already tipped this off that you both were counselors at a summer camp. So the script is based on some life experiences that you all had, although I’m hoping not the “kill a stranger in the woods” part. What’s the name of the camp you went to?
Erica: Westmont. Shout out.
Scott: Westmont, where is it?
Erica: Poyntelle, Pennsylvania.
Scott: There been a lot of summer camp movies, Wet Hot American Summer, Heavyweights, Meatballs. What made you think, “Hey, this would make a good fodder for something to do right now. Time for another summer camp movie?”
Leigh: Wet Hot American Summer is the gold standard of a camp movie, but that is its own thing. It’s untouchable. You can’t make anything like it. To say that we wrote a movie about camp, that’s always the reference that comes up. It’s like, “Oh, is it Wet Hot American Summer?” Which is yes, only in that it’s about camp.
But there’s no movie that we can point to that’s our experience because yes, there are movies about camp, but our specific kind of camp and that world seemed fresh.
Erica: I didn’t cross our minds to write a camp story until we visited camp together. Once we there we were like, “Oh, of course. Why are we not writing about this place where we met and is something that comes up in our lives an embarrassing number of times?” [laughs]
That whole “write what you know” thing We were like, “This is what we know. Let’s set a friendship story in camp.” From there it just took off.
Tomorrow in Part 2, Erica and Leigh discuss some of the summer camp movies which influenced their approach to writing “Cruel Summer” and how they hit on the story’s central plot element: a dead body.
Twitter: @leighcesiro, @eribmatlin.
For my interviews with dozens of other Black List writers, go here.