Interview (Video): Michael Arndt

In conversation with the late Syd Field.

Syd Field wrote the book “Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting” which was published in 1979 making him arguably the dean of screenwriting ‘gurus’. Before he died in 2013, he authored several more books on the craft.

In 2010, Field interviewed a number of Hollywood screenwriters as part of his ScreenPlay series. One of them was Michael Arndt whose screenwriting credits include Toy Story 3, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Little Miss Sunshine for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Here is that interview.

Of all the screenwriting guru set, I’ve always had a fondness for Syd Field as his book “Screenplay” was the first and pretty much only ‘how to’ book on the craft I’ve read. Indeed, it was going through that book and three screenplays — Back to the Future, Breaking Away, and Witness — which served as my introduction to screenwriting.

In addition, I met Mike Arndt at the Austin Film Festival. As I’m a longtime admirer of not only his writing, but also his take on the craft in general and story structure specifically, it was great to chat with him. Indeed, I had the chance to screen a movie Arndt debuted at the Festival called “Endings: The Good, the Bad, and the Insanely Great”. In the movie, he breaks down three films: Star Wars: Chapter IV — A New Hope, The Graduate, and his own Little Miss Sunshine. As I understand it, he plans on making the movie available to the public via the Internet.

I’ve featured Arndt’s theories in several blog posts including this five part series which hopefully will tide us over until his “Endings” movie goes through a final edit and debuts online.

For more videos in Syd Field’s ‘ScreenPlay’ series, go here.

UPDATE: You can watch five different instructional videos Michael Arndt has produced at his website: LINK. They include his “Endings” video.