Screenwriting 101: Damien Chazelle

“I know my strengths, and I know my weaknesses. I’m very good at sitting around and brainstorming, thinking up ideas and mapping them out in my head. What I’m not good at is getting them onto a piece of paper or a computer screen.

Everything is a little more perfect in your head. Once you have to start making concrete choices — one word over another or one name over another or one color over another — then suddenly everything gets worse.

The process of actually putting stuff onto paper is almost always a really, really tough one. There are moments of exhilaration when you’re shooting on set, and while editing. Editing is maybe my favorite part of the entire process. Writing is the worst. I do that in order to be able to get on set.

I also come at it from the point of view of someone who’s going to direct, so it’s a little bit different. The end goal is always in my mind. I think truly great writers–whether they’re screenwriters or novelists or poets, it doesn’t matter — are able to make something that stands alone. You can read a William Goldman script and have as full an experience as you would watching the movie that results. I aspire to that level of craft as a writer, but I don’t think I quite achieve it.”

— Damien Chazelle

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