Interview (Part 6): Elad Ziv

My interview with 2022 Black List writer for his script Court 17.

Elad Ziv wrote the screenplay Court 17 which landed on the 2022 Black List. I had the opportunity to chat with Elad about his creative background, writing a Black List script, and the craft of screenwriting.

Today in Part 6 of a 6-part series to run each day through Sunday, Elad gives some advice for aspiring screenwriters.

Scott: How do you break story, your story prep process?

Elad: I’ve got to tell you, it’s different for everything. It’s really different for everything. I used to just jump right in. That was more, not because what I wanted to do was best for the story, but because I was impatient. I wanted to get to the writing, and I wanted to finish a script every three months.

Now, I really, really like to focus on character first, and get my characters down. Once I have the characters down…Well, first, you have to come up with the concept or the setting. That sometimes comes with doing a lot of research, reading a lot of newspaper articles, listening to a lot of different podcasts, scouring social media. Sometimes there’s interesting stories on there.

Once you have your concept, then I go into the characters and I find out who is the most interesting person that this story can happen to.

Then once you get the characters down, then you can start going into story threads and different plots that are happening throughout your script, then I would go into the outlining. Then finally after the outlining, you take care of the first act, you make sure that’s good, then you move onto the…maybe in quarters. If you do the first act, first half of the second act, on and on and on.

Scott: I know Bellevue’s got that thing where sometimes they have other writers they read material. Have you had that experience?

Elad: Are you talking about the Circle of Trust?

Scott: I don’t know what they call it, but…

Elad: Is it when other writers read your script, and they get you notes on?

Scott: Yeah.

Elad: Yeah, I have. We did that with COURT 17, which was really, really helpful, which was again, one of the…I would look up all the writers that were giving us notes and I was like, “Oh, my God, they were on the Black List two years ago.” That’s an unbelievable thing that John does. It’s brilliant.

Then I’ve been on the other end of it. I’ve given him Circle of Trust notes for a few different clients of his. It’s great. It’s beautiful because it’s like, “I’m a huge…”

Oh, that’s another thing actually that I think is important for screenwriters. Reading scripts is one of the biggest things that changed my writing. I’ve been told to read scripts for so long, and I’ve been so against it.

When I sat down and I started reading two to three Black List scripts a week, two to three a week. I would actually read as much as I would write ‑‑ maybe write a little bit more, but two to three a week ‑‑ it changed everything.

It honestly changed everything for me because the great scripts, you’re obviously inspired by, you know what you love. The bad scripts, you’re learning so much about. If you see a script ‑‑ it’s obviously subjective ‑‑ that you don’t think is good that’s on the Black List, because I think Black List is a great resource of reading scripts, because it’s like, that’s what the town wants.

Reading those scripts, even the bad ones that are getting there, you’re like, “Oh, I don’t like this. Why don’t I like it? Why did all these producers and film executives like it? What can I do better than this to also do that?” That made such a huge difference for me.

I would be remiss not to mention that that was a huge growing point for me was reading scripts.

Scott: I always love to hear that, because I have this little mantra I came up with years ago: Watch movies. Read scripts. Write pages. You do those three things, eventually, you can get there, but you’ve must read scripts.

Elad: You have to. You know what I hate to say, I used to be like, “I’d rather watch the movie. I don’t want to read the script because I don’t want it to ruin the movie.” It’s like reading the script. If you want to be a writer, if you want to be a professional paid writer, you have to read the scripts because that craft is different than the movie.

Scott: Absolutely. You mentioned something interesting earlier about people can grow, and they can develop, and they can learn the craft specifically like dialogue. Because there’s a lot of people who say, “Yeah, you either have the skill to write dialogue or you don’t.”

You’re an actor, so you would have maybe a natural instinct for it, but has your ability to write dialogue evolved? If so, are there any techniques or tactics or things you’ve done to do that?

Elad: Jeez. For your first question, I hope it’s evolved, but it’s hard. It’s hard for me because I’m in the cornfields, I’m not in the helicopter above, so I don’t know if it’s gotten better. If I’m reading scripts from years ago compared to today, the dialogue is way better today. I guess in that sense, it has evolved from where it used to be.

Being an actor has helped me a ton with that because I can naturally…When you’re studying lines, there’s so many ways to study lines, but I would study lines with the subtext of what the actor is saying. I would say what is the actor actually saying. Then with that, that’s how I study the line, if that makes sense.

I’m not studying the actual words, I’m studying the subtext. That trains a certain thing that when I’m writing the dialogue, I can kind of imagine the scene. If you’re telling someone you’re like, “I love you.” I see them saying it like that.

I can write I love you, and when you’re reading it, you’re like, “Oh, that’s a weird place to say I love you to someone.” For a bad example. The acting thing has helped a lot. Again, as you get more comfortable with writing, this is why I say you can always get better at it. I believe that when you relax into the writing, and you can see the scene as you’re writing, that’s when the dialogue pops.

When people are manually trying to hammer something home, or trying to be interesting, or trying to do something, that’s when dialogue falters a little bit. Great writing and great acting and great…everything is effortless, or looks effortless anyway. That’s what I learned to do.

It’s bad advice because it’s hard to replicate that. Everyone has to find it within themselves what that means. For me, it’s leaning back a little bit, looking at the scene, and seeing the actors as they say it. One thing I love to do, is I love giving actual actors the roles in the movies. That helps me see them say the roles.

That also helps me write the dialogue for them. Then you find out as I’m finding out with COURT 17, you get different actors in that role maybe, but then it actually becomes even more interesting. You don’t have to be precious about, I don’t know, “What if Jon Bernthal is not going to be the lead in this movie?”

It doesn’t matter because Tobey Maguire is going to do a really interesting job saying those lines anyway, or whatever it is.

Scott: Star casting. That’s what they call it.

Elad: Exactly. That’s a nice trick as well. Acting for me was always very visual, I always visualize things. That’s a helpful tool with writing.

Scott: You mentioned scenes. When you sit down to write a scene, do you have specific goals in mind?

Elad: Yeah, I always try. Sometimes I feel like I don’t succeed but I always try to have a beginning, middle and end for a scene, it’s tough. I always try to start the scene as late as possible and leave the scene as early as possible, which is also tough to do sometimes, and I don’t know if I succeed in it.

I think it was my acting teacher who said this, “A scene is like, there’s one person at the end of the room, and there’s another person at the end of the room, and they both want to go across, but they’re both in each other’s way. How can they figure out to get to the other side with the other person being…?”

I always find that an interesting way because you always want conflict in your scene. I feel like those, if you do those, and you execute them without someone seeing that you’re executing them, then you have your scene.

Scott: It’s funny, I hadn’t thought about this, but sometimes I like to use metaphors with my students. I say, “Yeah, a scene is like tennis. It’s back and forth.” You’ve got to get that conflict, that tension going.

Elad: It is, but sometimes it’s nice also when you mess up the…Tennis is so methodical, so when you hit a drop shot, or when you do something to mess up the rhythm of something, that’s so good for a scene as well when you put pauses or whatever.

Scott: A lob. [laughs]

Elad: A lob. Exactly.

Scott: That’s right. Establish the pattern, then break the pattern.

Elad: 100 percent, that’s sports.

Scott: All right. One last question. What advice do you have in terms of how can learn the craft, and try and break into the business?

Elad: It’s cheesy, and I hate it because it’s something that I heard, and I hated hearing people say it, but it’s like, stick with it no matter what. I’ve come up with friends in different walks of life who have quit on stuff because they listen too much to other people. If you feel it inside there, then do it, but if you’re going to do it, then really do it.

Sit down and do it, be vulnerable, put hours into it, write shitty scripts. I see on Twitter all the time people saying you need three good samples to be…You need this, you need that. I had one script. I had one script, and my life has completely changed with the people who are around me right now.

I am by no means an award‑winning, rich, millionaire screenwriter. I’m not trying to pretend like I am, but where I’m at right now in life, I was dreaming of this a year and a half ago. Yet for the previous 13 years, I was struggling and being told no constantly. For whatever reason I had a delusion to continue to go, to continue to push hard, to continue to work.

I would say don’t listen to other people and keep doing it, but do the work, and don’t be afraid to do the work. Don’t be afraid to write a bad script, and then keep working on it. If it’s bad after two, three years or however long, you have to listen to yourself as well, then move on and do another script.

Keep writing and if you keep writing, my honest belief is that you will be great. I think that there’s no shortcuts to it. I think you have to put the hours in. I don’t buy all these people writing a script in an hour and all that kind of stuff, these prolific writers. I don’t buy it. I don’t believe it. I think it’s PR.

Writing, like any craft, like acting, like tennis, anything that’s a craft, it takes hours and hours and hours of dedication. If you love it, just do it. If you have another job, then you do it at nighttime or whatever it is, you know what I mean? If you love it, stick with it. Don’t listen to anyone else, whatever you think about yourself is valid.

Again, I used to hear that all the time years ago, I used to hear people saying it, and I didn’t like it, but I’m seeing it come into fruition. One thing I wanted to say too, it’s interesting is that, before I once…I don’t know if it’s before I won Script Pipeline, or before I signed with John, which happened in about a five‑month period.

I was shocked because I had realized that I had gotten to the point where I bartend at nighttime, and I would write during the day. I got to the point where I didn’t even think of an end goal.

I was in this constant loop, if you will, that maybe for the rest of my life, I’m going to be hustling it out, and I’m going to have a side job, and I’m going to write every day, and I’m never going to make money off of it. I found out that I became at peace with it.

I believe that that has something to do with all this amazing things that have happened to me over the past year is that, I settled into this. I settled into this beautiful rhythm of loving the writing and not worrying about what came of that. If I can read this for you, because it made me think of it.

This is on my iPhone screen, and I keep this in front of me, and it’s been there for years. It says, “You simply cannot worry about whether it’s going to sell or get made or whether the actor reading it is going to attach, or why your agent hasn’t called you in a week because the only thing you need to focus on, the only thing that matters, are today’s pages.”

That’s a quote from William Goldman who obviously…I love that because I had that before I had an agent, before I had actors reading anything, but I love that a guy who wrote “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance…” that kind of guy was saying, “Writing pages is the only thing that matters. Don’t worry about all the other stuff.”

That was a game‑changing thing for me that I think changed everything.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

For Part 2, here.

For Part 3, here.

For Part 4, here.

For Part 5, here.

Elad is repped by Bellevue Productions.

Twitter and Instagram: @eladziv

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