Interview (Part 6): Callie Bloem and Christopher Ewing

My interview with the 2022 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winners.

Callie Bloem and Christopher Ewing wrote the original screenplay “Tape 22” which won a 2022 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with the couple about their creative backgrounds, their award-winning script, the craft of screenwriting, and what winning the Nicholl Award has meant to them.

Today in the final installment in this 6-part series, Callie and Chris share some screenwriting advice.

Scott: Okay, let’s talk about your prep process. I thought I heard Callie mention the word scriptment.

Callie: Yes.

Scott: I’m curious, what do you do to break story?

Callie: Usually, we start by making the scriptment that’s ‑‑ I don’t know ‑‑ 20, 30 pages where we…I wouldn’t quite call it an outline. It’s like an outline, but some is very in‑depth and some is not. It gives us a general flow of what we want the story to be.

Then, also, sometimes, we’ll have ideas of a specific conversation. Like the Sam and Clementine moment that we wanted to work towards, or some more information about the characters. That’s usually where we start. We feel like if we have a really solid scriptment, then getting an actual outline and getting into a draft is an easier step.

Christopher: That scriptment is basically an organized version of our brainstorm notes. The very first version of it is out of order, like, “Oh, there will be a scene in the desert,” or, “Oh, we need a scene where he realizes this, or she does that.” It could be in service of plot, or in service of character.

Then, we sculpt that scriptment into a readable document that you get the full idea of the script. You dip into certain scenes that are written in prose.

Scott: You have some dialogue that you’re including in there?

Callie: Yeah.

Christopher: There’s probably more dialogue in it than there should be.

Scott: That’s another thing I want to talk to you about. It seems like you’re pretty character‑oriented.

Callie: Yes.

Scott: How do you go about developing the characters? How do you find them? How do you get them talking to you, and appearing to you?

Callie: A lot of that is in the scriptment process. We try to get on the same page about exactly who the characters are before we dive in, especially, since there are two of us. We need to make sure that our idea is the same of who these people are.

Definitely, very early on, that’s probably the first thing we focus on. Chris physically cannot start anything unless he knows exactly what the character’s name is.

Christopher: Yeah.

Callie: There are little things. I need to know how they talk, or other little characteristics. I feel like that’s always the first thing that comes is who the characters are.

Christopher: Then, that’s a process of refining and making sure that not everyone sounds exactly alike. I’m sure we always write a shitty first draft. Everybody sounds a little similar in that draft. Then, that’s where we dive into differentiating their voices.

Scott: The dialogue is so great in the script. It’s very entertaining. Obviously, the characters are different. They’re distinguishable. You say you have the shitty first draft, and they all sound the same. How do you then find those distinguishing elements?

Christopher: A big part of it is our second draft is always a page‑one rewrite off of a PDF. We don’t allow ourselves to ever copy and paste going to the second draft. That way we’re re‑reading every single line. If it’s good enough, we have to rewrite it. We also usually have a terrible third act in our first draft that doesn’t make any sense.

Callie: We’re still refining our process. The whole outlining the third act, we’re getting there.

Christopher: We’ll only half‑outline that act. We’re like, “Let’s get it on paper.”

Then, by that time, we usually have a better idea of where the characters need to end up. Then we go back and refine each character’s voice based on where they need to end up.

It’s certain things like knowing that Jenny Three is around a toddler all day. How does that change her voice? Lainey doesn’t have to worry about anything because she’s the super famous superstar. She doesn’t even have to have any kind of filter. Those are all fine‑tuning.

Then, with Joette, who has a much bigger personality, and can literally say anything, that was probably more in the first draft. She exploded, fully realized on our first draft. Whereas everybody else needs a little more fine‑tuning to make sure they don’t sound like anybody else.

Callie: I feel like for Jenny Three, as soon as we gave her a fanny pack, we knew who she was. I say this as a lover of fanny packs.

Christopher: She’s very snack‑oriented, and we knew also…

Callie: She’s in peak‑mom mode.

Christopher: By having that fanny pack, we also knew that she is a preparer. She’s a planner. She likes to take good care of people. She likes to know everything that’s going on. She’s the one that’s least accepting of the unknown. Then, of course, the most in need of getting dosed with mescaline.

Scott: That’s specificity. Immersing yourself in the lives of the characters so they become specific. That informs not only their dialogue, but who they are and how they act.

Callie: Yeah.

Scott: One last question. Imagine an aspiring screenwriter walks up to you, and says, “What advice do you have for me to develop my craft, and try and break into the business?”

Callie: We probably have different advice.

Christopher: Do you want to go first?

Callie: Sure. I would say, as someone who didn’t study this and didn’t go to film school, just start writing something. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the right format, or if you don’t know screenwriting rules. Start writing something, go from there, and then read as much as you can.

Then, in terms of breaking into the industry, I’d say network as much as you can, which is annoying advice. Beyond networking, find a great community. If you’re in LA, the Women in Film community is great. I’m a mentee this year in that program, and it’s been hugely beneficial to me. Find your community.

Christopher: I’ll say a couple of things. When we first talk about what we want to write ‑‑ and partly why we landed on Tape 22 ‑‑ was we looked around, and we said, “What is the movie we most want to see that we don’t see out there right now? That we can’t find on Apple TV. That’s not on Netflix. What is missing that we would be such huge fans of?”

That made it easy to say, “Tape 22, this is exactly what we would want to watch.” Instead of spending 23 minutes talking about what we’re going to watch on Netflix, if Tape 22 was there, we would know that’s number one. Writing the thing that you’re not seeing out there in the world that you want to watch.

Then watching and reading as much as possible. Film school has varying degrees of success for different people. One thing that I did when I went to film school, I made it a priority to watch a movie every single day for the entire time I was in film school.

It expanded my knowledge. It also made it easier to talk to anybody about film no matter what kind of film they were into. If they were into Godard, we can talk about Godard. If they were into just Francis Ford Coppola, we can talk about that.

In terms of Callie’s thing about networking, I also think it’s reaching out to people person‑to‑person, and not with a form email. In grad school, I did this thing called the mentor challenge. That was probably one of the best things I had ever done where I just called, emailed 10 writers and asked them for three conversations across my next semester.

I said, “I will never ask you to read or watch anything I’ve made, I just want to ask you questions about yourself.” That fit my personality for what I had been doing as a music journalist. When you show interest in other people and asking about them, you can learn so much more than when you’re asking for help.

People should definitely talk to other people before they’re in that position of needing help or needing to break through or needing rent money.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

For Part 2, go here.

For Part 3, go here.

For Part 4, go here.

For Part 5, go here.

Callie and Chris are repped by Grandview.

For my interviews with every Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner since 2012, go here.

For my interviews with Black List writers, go here.