Interview (Video): Guillermo del Toro, Joel Coen, and Ethan Coen

An awesome conversation between brilliant filmmakers.

I happily stumbled upon this video: A 40+ minute conversation between some brilliant filmmakers — Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labryinth, Pacific Rim, The Shape of Water) and Joel and Ethan Coen (Blood Simple, Fargo, No Country for Old Men, Inside Llewyn Davis).

Given how the Coens are famously known for working every single shot of the movie before production (see the storyboarding video below), it’s interesting to hear how typically they do not work out the plots of their story before writing them.

As I say, every writer is different, every story is different. My advice: Learn how to break story down to a scene-by-scene outline. Even if you decide not to do that at all or only for some writing projects, at least you’ve got the experience of knowing how to efficiently wrangle a story in prep.

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