Video: 5 Screenwriting Questions with Adam McKay

The writer-director of The Big Short, Vice, and Don’t Look Up talks about how he beats procrastination, balancing comedy and drama, and more.

Courtesy of the Black List, we get some screenwriting wisdom from Adam McKay. Before he shifted to writing and directing more serious, albeit still comedic projects like The Big Short, Vice, and Don’t Look Up, McKay is probably best known for broad comedies including Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and Step Brothers. Here are the questions McKay answers:

• Where do you find ideas? How do you decide which ideas to actually develop?
• How do you balance walking the line between comedy, satire, and tragedy?
• How do you approach telling a story that relies on the audience having information that they might not necessarily have?
• What is your advice for overcoming procrastination?
• When do you know when you’re done with a draft?

Here is the video:

Takeaway: “I’m looking for an idea that I feel like I could talk about or write about or direct for a hundred hours. You’re looking for the thick protein rich idea where someone has to tell you to shut up.”

That is a question I require my students to answer when they consider what story to write: What is your emotional connection to the story? If you don’t have passion for the project … if it doesn’t get your creative juices flowing so that your friends need to tell you to shut up about it … then it’s probably not a story you should write.

Here is a satirical commercial McKay recently directed:

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