Screenwriting 101: Brian Arnold

“I like to take my time, feeling scenes out. I don’t like to really dive into a scene until I know why it needs to exist. I remember an improv class I had. We were doing a scene and the teacher stopped us. He said something like, ‘Why are we watching this right now? Is this the first time this has ever happened? Or is this the last time this will happen?’

He said those were the only two scenes we should be performing, ‘Oh, shit, this has never happened before,’ or ‘This is the last freaking time this thing is going to happen.’

I go into every scene with, ‘Why is this here? Why am I watching this?’ If I don’t have a good answer, then I either need to change the scene or just lose it.”

— Brian Arnold

From Go Into The Story interview, March 2022

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