Videos: Academy Originals Screenwriter Interviews

Featuring John August, Ava DuVernay, Eric Roth, Aline Brosh McKenna, David Seidler, Dustin Lance Black, and more.

A few years ago, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences began a terrific series of video interviews called Creative Spark. I have featured each of the ones involving screenwriters and thought it would be nice to aggregate them all here.

John August: “A lot of screenwriting is disciplined daydreaming. It’s like you’re trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle, but you’re not quite sure what the pieces are.”

Dustin Lance Black: “That’s where I start, taking an idea, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, and figuring out why — not just what you’re going to tell, not that it’s entertaining or interesting, but why are you telling that story.”

Tina Gordon Chism: “I think creativity is everywhere. I see creativity with my grandmother cooking. I see it at the winery, making wine. I see creativity with a mother and her child. For writing, it’s bringing that creativity into structure. That’s where the tricky part begins.”

Ava DuVernay: “For me, the writing process is very much about when I have a really, really good idea of what I’m writing, I need to have notes, a good outline, thought it through, have some dialogue, like really be clear about what I’m doing. And all that comes from being out in the world.”

Paul Haggis: “Creativity to me is the freedom to think ridiculous things, to ask ridiculous questions.”

David Magee: “I have a routine I call ‘yelling at the paper,’ where if I can’t figure out what I’m doing, I just start kind of stream of conscious complaining about that.”

Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith: “You can’t write a movie without watching tons of movies and deconstruct them and figure out what makes them tick.”

Aline Brosh McKenna: “I think more about whether something’s authentic than whether it’s new.”

Eric Roth: “I always start at page one every day, ‘coz I think it’s a series, I call, ‘erosion.’ You always have to keep refilling, I think you’re always improving it that way.”

David Seidler: “Creativity is tapping into a hidden source. That’s what fascinates me. To be in touch with the unconscious or subconscious pool of creativity. Can I dip into that well and lift a bucketful of it?”

Mike White: “It should be fun. You should be excited to get back to the computer. If you’re not excited, maybe there’s something fundamentally wrong with your ideas.”

In terms of learning the craft, consider professional screenwriters to be primary source material. Learn from people who have worked in the trenches. That’s why interviews such as these are pure gold.

For all of the Academy Originals series, go here.

For 100s more interviews with screenwriters and filmmakers hosted on this site, go here.