Interview (Video): Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski

From Season 11 of the PBS series “On Story”.

In association with the Austin Film Festival and KLRU-TV, the PBS series “On Story” is a must for anybody interested in screenwriting, movies, and/or TV. This week in the 11th season of the series, a conversation with screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, whose movie credits include Ed Wood, The People vs. Larry Flint, Man on the Moon, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, and Dolemite Is My Name.

Quote: “Scott and I are meticulous in terms of writing outlines and figuring out where everything’s going to be, but every once in a while on the biopics, there are things that we can’t fit into other scenes. So we have a sheet called “fun facts” and we come to a scene that’s not necessarily a problem, but a thing that we don’t really quite know what to do. It’s like we look at the “fun facts”… is this a place we could put that?”

I like this idea, not only for biopics, but for any story. If you do due diligence with your main characters, you’re likely to have all sorts of fun facts which arise in the character development process. Have a flat scene? Go to your fun facts for the characters and see if there’s something you can use to spice up things.

There are dozens of videos in the “On Story” archives which you can access here.

Twitter: @austinfilmfest, @AFFOnStory, @klru, @Karaszewski.

For hundreds of links to audio, video, and written interviews with screenwriters and filmmakers hosted at Go Into The Story, go here.