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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four thirty one.
Speaker 1: Your dream doesn't have an expiration date, Take a deep
Speaker 1: breath and try again. KT Whitten broadcasting from a dark,
Speaker 1: windowless room in Hollywood.
Speaker 2: When we really should be working on that next draft.
Speaker 2: It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and
Speaker 2: business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your
Speaker 2: screenplay bulletproof.
Speaker 1: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
Speaker 1: episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
Speaker 3: I am your.
Speaker 4: Humble host Alex Ferrari.
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Speaker 1: Dave Bulliss.
Speaker 3: My guest on today's episode has one of the most
Speaker 3: successful horror franchises of all time, whether you've seen the
Speaker 3: first Tremors or whether you've seen any of the other Tremors,
Speaker 3: or even the TV series or even the new TV
Speaker 3: series that's coming out. He doesn't have anything to do
Speaker 3: with the new TV series coming out, but still it's
Speaker 3: based off of his of his concepts. You know, there's
Speaker 3: a lot to be glean this episode because when they
Speaker 3: made Tremors one, you know, they had to watch their
Speaker 3: budget because so what do they do well? They put
Speaker 3: their monster offscreen and underground. Then at the right moment
Speaker 3: of the reveal, you know, it's revealing in stages and
Speaker 3: stuff like that. It kind of reminds me of Reservoir docs.
Speaker 3: You know, I was watching that again, Reservoir adults. You
Speaker 3: never see the bank robbery. And I think the main
Speaker 3: reason for that is it's not only a really nice
Speaker 3: creative choice, but also because it saves money. You know,
Speaker 3: when when you're making these first movies, you know, the
Speaker 3: creative choices have to rule the day. So again, this
Speaker 3: is what this was all about, you know, is making
Speaker 3: a monster movie where they can control the rights and
Speaker 3: you know, keep everything on the budget.
Speaker 4: So how do you do that?
Speaker 3: Well, we're gonna find out today with guests s S. Wilson. Hey, Steve,
Speaker 3: thanks off for coming on the show.
Speaker 4: Sir, You're welcome. You're welcome.
Speaker 3: So, you know, Steve, just to get started, I wanted
Speaker 3: to ask what got you into the film industry. Was it,
Speaker 3: you know, did you like films as you know, growing
Speaker 3: up or is it just sort of one of those
Speaker 3: things where one day you found yourself, you know, sort
Speaker 3: of writing screenplays or on set somewhere well as a
Speaker 3: tense to happen.
Speaker 4: Right, My story is a little different. I did love films.
Speaker 4: I was a huge film buff as a kid, and
Speaker 4: my dad supported that and early on when I was
Speaker 4: I don't know, ten or eleven, he bought a eight
Speaker 4: millimeter camera and I was one of those kids who
Speaker 4: made movies in the backyard and tried to do special
Speaker 4: effects with gunpowder and gasoline, which he also supported, interestingly,
Speaker 4: you know. And then my dad, then when I went
Speaker 4: off to college, actually changed my life. I went off
Speaker 4: to college and I don't know what I should do.
Speaker 4: I guess I'll be a psychologist like my dad. That's
Speaker 4: what he was. And he came up after I'd been
Speaker 4: there a week or so, he said, you know, what
Speaker 4: are your courses? And I said, that is what I
Speaker 4: signed up for. And he said, well, this makes no
Speaker 4: sense even making movies in the backyard for ten years.
Speaker 4: What's going on? And he went to my advisors and
Speaker 4: he said, do you have anything like film or movies
Speaker 4: of television? And he changed my whole course schedule. This
Speaker 4: is absolutely true. And I had never thought about actually
Speaker 4: trying to do it for a living, even though I'd
Speaker 4: been making movies for years and years and doing stop
Speaker 4: motion animation. And then I, you know, I never looked back.
Speaker 4: I went, oh, well yeah, because then you know, then
Speaker 4: there were people in the in the departments. You know,
Speaker 4: we didn't have much of a film program at Penn
Speaker 4: State all those years ago, like one television course and
Speaker 4: like two film courses and had to borrow cameras from
Speaker 4: the local PBS station whatnot. But uh, yeah, but that's
Speaker 4: what happened. And then I, uh, then I got drafted
Speaker 4: that I went to USC Film graduate School and uh
Speaker 4: and there met a lot of the people that I
Speaker 4: still work with. And even though it took almost ten
Speaker 4: years from graduating USC to actually break in and make
Speaker 4: short Circuit, we were working in the film business making
Speaker 4: short films and little short animated things and films for
Speaker 4: schools and libraries, TV commercials and whatnot.
Speaker 3: You know, it's funny, Steve, that your your dad was
Speaker 3: able to change your whole curriculum because uh, you know,
Speaker 3: I actually used to work at a college and grades
Speaker 3: and all that stuff were so secretive.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: They actually fired a professor one time because he told
Speaker 3: a student's father what he got in the class as
Speaker 3: a final grade before the kid with the kid did
Speaker 3: and they actually just fired the professor on the spot
Speaker 3: because of it. Wow. Yeah, it's just but no, that
Speaker 3: just it's funny, though, you know, it's funny how college
Speaker 3: has changed so much. But but you know, you went
Speaker 3: to Penn State, and you know I've actually, you know,
Speaker 3: been up there. I actually attended a Penn State football game.
Speaker 3: I didn't go there for college, but you know i've
Speaker 3: been there once. Small world, right, because you're out in
Speaker 3: LA now.
Speaker 4: Right, I'm actually I live in Arizona.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, you know, I actually have a few friends
Speaker 3: out there.
Speaker 4: To go to LA went as needed.
Speaker 3: I see. So, you know, just to ask this penns
Speaker 3: they'd ever asked you to come back to talk about
Speaker 3: screenwriting or directing or anything.
Speaker 4: I've been bad. It's funny, ironic timing.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: They occasionally send me alumni stuff. I've never let them
Speaker 4: even know what I do. I should do that, but no,
Speaker 4: they haven't. They haven't tracked me. Now, they have no
Speaker 4: idea you know who I am. I was kind of
Speaker 4: an invisible student, geeky guy, and I just went through
Speaker 4: and left.
Speaker 3: Well, I thought me they'd have some kind of alumni
Speaker 3: you know, sort of headhunter trying to kept tracking all
Speaker 3: this stuff.
Speaker 4: You know, but I've never responded to any of it.
Speaker 4: So I really actually have it on my desk as
Speaker 4: we speak. I said I should let them know. They
Speaker 4: probably would like to.
Speaker 3: Know well, then you know, you could just send on
Speaker 3: this podcast instead to go back. Just listen to this podcast.
Speaker 3: I'm talking to Dave. So you know you brought up
Speaker 3: Short Circuit, by the way. I watched that movie religiously
Speaker 3: as a kid, by the way, So I want to
Speaker 3: ask you know about your whole writing style. I'm actually
Speaker 3: always fascinated by people's writing styles and their approach to
Speaker 3: their own art. So I wanted to ask you, Steve,
Speaker 3: how do you approach writing? You know, do you subscribe
Speaker 3: to any sort of methods. Do you do very long
Speaker 3: treatments first, or do you just sort of jump right
Speaker 3: into writing.
Speaker 4: Brent and I, who have written practically everything together at
Speaker 4: least certainly everything has been made, and we've been working
Speaker 4: since the days at USC, both in the short films
Speaker 4: and then we wrote Short Circuit, which was our big break.
Speaker 4: We have a very Our approach is outline, outline, outline.
Speaker 4: We don't normally write a treatment for tremors. We did
Speaker 4: only because we were trying to sell it and we
Speaker 4: couldn't sell it as a pitch for because well we couldn't,
Speaker 4: and that didn't The treatment didn't sell either, by the way.
Speaker 4: But let me go back so we outline in great detail.
Speaker 4: We are not comfortable until we know where the story
Speaker 4: is going. And we're very story oriented. Some people can start,
Speaker 4: you know, sort of with a character. Don't just say, oh,
Speaker 4: there's this character and he's a drug addict and he's
Speaker 4: got these problems and I'm just gonna think about what
Speaker 4: he does because he's a drug addict. We can't do that.
Speaker 4: We got to know where we're going. So and we
Speaker 4: can't really get excited about something until we know where
Speaker 4: we're going, even if it's a rewrite, which you know,
Speaker 4: you get offered quite a bit in Hollywood's pretty much
Speaker 4: all Hollywood doesn't anymore, even if it's a rewrite. We
Speaker 4: will sit down before we even say yes to a job.
Speaker 4: We'll say, okay, we got to go through this movie
Speaker 4: figure out what we would change, or maybe they're telling
Speaker 4: us what they want change. We got to be sure
Speaker 4: that we can make that work, and we got to
Speaker 4: know where it's going because your ending is is so
Speaker 4: important in a movie in our opinion. In fact, somebody
Speaker 4: well known, maybe one of the Zucker brothers, said your
Speaker 4: ending is fifty percent of a movie. Somebody said that,
Speaker 4: and we kind of believe that, so we gotta know
Speaker 4: where we're going, what the surprises are, where the twists
Speaker 4: and turns are. So long answer to that question is
Speaker 4: we outline like crazy. In fact, we used to drive
Speaker 4: studios crazy. And back in the day, early on when
Speaker 4: we were getting started, you used to get twelve weeks
Speaker 4: was a normal time to write a script, and we
Speaker 4: would outline for eight and they'd be calling us him
Speaker 4: so you're writing, are you writing well now? Or so
Speaker 4: outlining They're like, are you out of your mind? But
Speaker 4: then we would write it and you know, four weeks
Speaker 4: because it was done.
Speaker 3: So you know, you mentioned tremors when you finally started outlining.
Speaker 3: You know, did was there ever a sort of an
Speaker 3: impetus for that movie where you said, you know what
Speaker 3: this is where we want to take it? So you know,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean? So we already know, you
Speaker 3: know what the monster is going to be, and we
Speaker 3: sort of know where the location is going to be.
Speaker 3: It's going to be a perfection. Did was that a
Speaker 3: part of it or did that sort of come in
Speaker 3: during the outlining phase.
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Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
Speaker 4: Well, there again, we outlined it in great detail, worked
Speaker 4: on it with Ron Underwood, because the goal with Tremors
Speaker 4: was to become producers. We were frustrated that everything we
Speaker 4: had written up till then we discovered naive that we
Speaker 4: writers that we were, that writers aren't really welcome on
Speaker 4: this slin. Once you're done with this script, they don't
Speaker 4: want to hear from you again. And we would go
Speaker 4: to movies and that we had written and go, boy,
Speaker 4: that's that's not what I would have done. And our
Speaker 4: agent told us, well, look, you guys want to produce,
Speaker 4: then you want control, and to get that, you're going
Speaker 4: to have to control the material from the get go.
Speaker 4: You can't be rewriting the studio's material. Blah blah blah.
Speaker 4: So she said, what do you have in your portfolio
Speaker 4: and your piles of notes? And we came up with
Speaker 4: We came out of our piles of notes with we
Speaker 4: got this underground monster idea. And she said, that's kind
Speaker 4: of cool. I've never heard of that before. And so
Speaker 4: first we sat down Bronto, we outlined the whole story,
Speaker 4: figured out who the characters were, where it was going
Speaker 4: to go, and then we pitched it all over town.
Speaker 4: Couldn't sell it and then she said, well, let's uh,
Speaker 4: maybe she should write a treatment, very detailed, like twenty five
Speaker 4: page treatment. Did not sell send it to everybody. So
Speaker 4: she said, well, I guess you're going to have to
Speaker 4: write it on spec. So in between, you know, the
Speaker 4: regular Hollywood movies we were writing, we were writing Tremors
Speaker 4: on spec. And uh then took that all over town
Speaker 4: and there was it was a huge Our agent was
Speaker 4: a huge part of getting this done. She was central.
Speaker 4: We call her the mother of Tremors. This is Nancy
Speaker 4: Roberts later our partner in Stampede Entertainment. Uh Uh. She
Speaker 4: handpicked you know who this script was going to. She
Speaker 4: did what an agent really is supposed to do. She
Speaker 4: handpicked who the script, and she knew the studio people.
Speaker 4: She told us in advance what they were going to say.
Speaker 4: You know, there were there were situations where because of
Speaker 4: her relationships, there were certain times if she had a
Speaker 4: spec script, she couldn't not show it to certain people
Speaker 4: because then they would be mad that they were shut
Speaker 4: out of the process. So she said, Okay, this is
Speaker 4: gonna be weird. I have to send this to Disney.
Speaker 4: They are going to stay we we hate this because
Speaker 4: it's got so much dust in it. They had dusts
Speaker 4: and we're like what, Sure enough, that's exactly what came back.
Speaker 4: And all of this was of course off the record,
Speaker 4: you know, under the wire. But she got off the phone.
Speaker 4: I think I was there at some point. No, No,
Speaker 4: she was on the phone to somebody Disney, and they
Speaker 4: were passing in a very polite way. Well, it's not
Speaker 4: right for us at this time, and she said, come on,
Speaker 4: Heiser doesn't like dust on the other end. But that's
Speaker 4: all were really true. And then she had picked Jim Jacks, wonderful,
Speaker 4: wonderful executive, classic old school executive who who at Universal,
Speaker 4: who loved movies, loved all kinds of movies, knew exactly
Speaker 4: what Tremor's was. He saw exactly it's B movie, monster
Speaker 4: movie roots and she knew that Jim would get it
Speaker 4: and he would fight for it at universally, which is
Speaker 4: exactly what happened. And then she enlisted Gail and Hurt.
Speaker 4: She was going to brought Gale and Hurd in because
Speaker 4: Gail Anne looked at our buddy Ron's short movies, which
Speaker 4: is all he had at the time. He had not
Speaker 4: done a feature. When we did Tremors, and the studio
Speaker 4: was like, Wow, we're gonna hand off this movie to
Speaker 4: a guy who's only directed films for schools and libraries.
Speaker 4: And Gail looked at the movies, fun guys, a filmmaker,
Speaker 4: don't worry about it, and uh. And then she shepherded us,
Speaker 4: especially at the beginning, you know, made sure we weren't
Speaker 4: going off the rails some way to get her in trouble.
Speaker 4: As she was executive producer. She saw the dailies and said, good,
Speaker 4: it is gonna work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I really like Tremors. I'm gonna tell
Speaker 3: you why, Steve, because you know, first, it's it just
Speaker 3: seems everything happens naturally, you know what I mean. It's
Speaker 3: you know, again when you said you were you started
Speaker 3: with characters that you know, when you were working with
Speaker 3: the idea, it's because you know, all those characters seemed
Speaker 3: like the real people who live in that world and
Speaker 3: they all see you know, and when they you know,
Speaker 3: when some of them finally die. For anyone listening, I'm
Speaker 3: not who hasn't seen it yet, I'm not gonna spoil it,
Speaker 3: but for anyone, when they finally die, you know, you
Speaker 3: actually say, oh my gosh. You know, there isn't a
Speaker 3: ton of guys you know, that are just getting mald
Speaker 3: These are all the characters right here. So when they
Speaker 3: finally die, when not when some of them die, they go,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh. You know that actually is impactful in
Speaker 3: the story. It's those escalating circumstances, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: And oh, well, you know, you're very welcome, and you know,
Speaker 3: and because when when when you see the worm for
Speaker 3: the first time, you think that's the monster and then
Speaker 3: it becomes bigger, and you're always escalating that further and
Speaker 3: further and further, and it's always, you know, they they
Speaker 3: find a solution, the problem escalates, They find a solution
Speaker 3: of the problem escalates. I mean that that's just it's phenomenal.
Speaker 3: And I don't know if you know who Red Letter
Speaker 3: Media is, uh, but they actually are a popular online
Speaker 3: review group and they actually gave it a you know,
Speaker 3: they actually have this one segment where they talk about
Speaker 3: movies they like, and they actually few Tremors and they
Speaker 3: said it's one of their favorite movies.
Speaker 4: So it's always to hear all of the things you're saying,
Speaker 4: we worked very hard on. They were all very important
Speaker 4: to us. My partner is not a B movie monster fan.
Speaker 4: I saw them all up until the mid seventies or so.
Speaker 4: I saw everything, and I knew all the cliches we
Speaker 4: were playing with. My partner is just all about character.
Speaker 4: And again, and both of us, it was very important that, yes,
Speaker 4: the characters matter, that they seemed that the plot, things
Speaker 4: that happened seemed to come naturally out of the situation.
Speaker 4: And and even even the monsters are consistent in what
Speaker 4: they do. You know, they don't change the rules, they
Speaker 4: don't suddenly become indestructible or anything like that.
Speaker 3: And one other compliment I want to give you too,
Speaker 3: is the way that you constructed this with sound, because
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Like in the beginning, when
Speaker 3: Earle and I forget Kevin Bacon's character, Oh yeah, fall yeah,
Speaker 3: vu uh Earl and Vowen they're looking for you know, uh,
Speaker 3: the the the doctor. They're you know, they're not yelling
Speaker 3: his name, they're just sort of walking around and you
Speaker 3: could really you know, they're hearing the planks walk, you
Speaker 3: hear the bucket kick, and you're you know, and then
Speaker 3: you know, valsas we know, where's that music coming from?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean, and you know, and and
Speaker 3: it just it always escus with that sound. And then
Speaker 3: when when you have Chang's joke store, you have that
Speaker 3: that that refrigerator that always makes that noise, and then
Speaker 3: that causes you know, further conflict. I mean, that's really
Speaker 3: really good writing and using that audio for filmmaking.
Speaker 4: Oh yes, sound was well. We knew sound was gonna
Speaker 4: be critical. We were a low budget movie and we
Speaker 4: and that's why we that's part of the reason we
Speaker 4: picked Underground Monster as one of the ideas that we
Speaker 4: decided to develop. We thought, oh well, in an underground
Speaker 4: most of the time, we'll never see them. Heaven knows.
Speaker 4: We had endless problems, even even though we in theory
Speaker 4: weren't seeing them. But we knew that sound was going
Speaker 4: to be critical. We had great sound people, you know,
Speaker 4: and it was you know, years ago people have asked me,
Speaker 4: you know, what, what is this sound of a grab
Speaker 4: boyd badly? I don't know, and I you know, I
Speaker 4: have lost track of the people who invented that sound.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I because for everyone that's seen the movie,
Speaker 3: you know, that's that sound that they make, you know,
Speaker 3: and it's you know, it just all ties them very
Speaker 3: well together. And everyone I'm gonna link to Tremors in
Speaker 3: the show notes to pile off Amazon or Best Buy. Uh,
Speaker 3: because it's right, it's totally recommended watching. I remember seeing
Speaker 3: Tremors years ago, Steve, and it just blew me away.
Speaker 3: But but see, and I didn't know what I was
Speaker 3: watching because I know now you know, I've I've studied filmmakers.
Speaker 3: I've tell you this. When I go back, now I
Speaker 3: can I can sort of go through with a surgeon scalpel,
Speaker 3: and I can pick out all this stuff. Oh, this
Speaker 3: is why I found this so fascinating, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean? And this is why I found it so entertaining.
Speaker 3: So and then I and then I get to talk
Speaker 3: to the guy who wrote it, and uh, you know
Speaker 3: what said made it so uh So now you can
Speaker 3: tell me how wrong I am. No, I'm just kidding,
Speaker 3: but no, no, it's just uh you know, it's it's
Speaker 3: just it's a phenomenal film. And that's why I'm so
Speaker 3: glad you know that that the you know, I got
Speaker 3: to see the franchise, you know what they mean, like
Speaker 3: Tremor's two, Tremors three. Uh you know, I know you guys,
Speaker 3: you did four as well, and you also did the
Speaker 3: TV series, and it was always great to see you know,
Speaker 3: this sort of franchise expand. And you know, you know,
Speaker 3: I always talk to you know, my friends and always say,
Speaker 3: you know, some franchises, you know, they they sort of
Speaker 3: go this way, some go that way, you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: Friday thirteenth Night right now, im Street. But Tremor's always
Speaker 3: sort of kept it in perfection one way or another
Speaker 3: because there was always you know what I mean, there
Speaker 3: was always a sort of reason why uh that you know, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, like like Tremors three when it's called back
Speaker 3: to Perfection, right, and that's where Melvin's creating that whole town, right,
Speaker 3: and that leads into the whole TV series. But it's
Speaker 3: just stuff like that, you know what I mean, that's
Speaker 3: it's all comes organically.
Speaker 4: Well. We yeah, it was very important to us to
Speaker 4: make the world consistent, and it wasn't easy. You know,
Speaker 4: we never expected even to do Tremors too. That came
Speaker 4: along years later only because of the success of the HS.
Speaker 4: You know, Tremor's one was not a huge hip. I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, Kevin Bigan reviewed viewed it as a flop,
Speaker 4: and he absolutely disowned it for many, many years and uh,
Speaker 4: it wasn't a flop per se, but it but it
Speaker 4: did not do nearly what the studio hoped it would do,
Speaker 4: and they were disappointed. And so we were floored. And
Speaker 4: we got this call from video department and said, hey,
Speaker 4: what about tremors too? He said, what about it? They said,
Speaker 4: we want it? What? So we all had to sit
Speaker 4: down because we were busy doing all kinds of other
Speaker 4: stuff at that point in our careers, and said, God,
Speaker 4: can we come up with the tremors too? And then
Speaker 4: you know, then we said, well, all right, the big
Speaker 4: cliche is there's a queen grab boid and we all went, Okay,
Speaker 4: no way we're doing a queen grab. We're not going
Speaker 4: to do it. And what do we do instead of that?
Speaker 4: Then finally I got I'm going to say it was me.
Speaker 4: I think it was me. I was driving along in
Speaker 4: the desert as I often am, and I said, I
Speaker 4: wonder if they just turned into something small, how weird
Speaker 4: would that be? And then we ran with that idea.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our spawn, sir,
Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I remember seeing that too, because that's when
Speaker 3: they were actually walking on land. I forget the name
Speaker 3: that that in the movie, that that the characters give
Speaker 3: them shookers, but the shriekers, that's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then because it's the third that they're called ass Blasters.
Speaker 4: Right, well, that's their third incarnation that gave us that
Speaker 4: told us where to go with the third one. We thought, okay,
Speaker 4: well they change into a third form. And at the time,
Speaker 4: again it was really important just to keep the characters consistent,
Speaker 4: the rules consistent, other than but still come up with surprises.
Speaker 4: You still can't you can't just do the same thing
Speaker 4: over and over. So that's how we came up with
Speaker 4: the ass Blasters. Uh and I. In fact, the effects
Speaker 4: guys Tom Woodrofinella Gillis of Amalgamated Dynamics were the ones
Speaker 4: who came up with ass Blasters because they were just
Speaker 4: as invested in we were in protecting their monsters and
Speaker 4: making them consistent. And they have a wonderful design approach.
Speaker 4: It's a very real world base. The volumes and volumes
Speaker 4: of books about animals and creatures and skin textures, and
Speaker 4: they literally came in one day say hey, or you
Speaker 4: are you aware of the Bombardier beetle and we're like, no,
Speaker 4: we're not. They said, that's a beetle that mixes chemicals
Speaker 4: in its butt and makes us sound like a firecracker.
Speaker 4: We're like, that's a real thing, absolutely, and we we
Speaker 4: think that's what asked blasters should do. And we're like,
Speaker 4: we are totally on board with that. Uh, there was
Speaker 4: something else I was gonna say, oh, oh yes, and
Speaker 4: then we got thrown a curve by Universal because they said, Okay,
Speaker 4: Tremor's three will definitely be the last one. There will
Speaker 4: definitely not be anymore. We understand our market perfectly, and uh,
Speaker 4: we know exactly how the DVD world works and this
Speaker 4: is it. So we said, okay, we'll wrap it up.
Speaker 4: That will be that's cool. We will say that this
Speaker 4: is the last form that creatures take. Boom the end,
Speaker 4: Goodbye perfection. And almost immediately was well, no, we we
Speaker 4: did really much better than we thought. We must have
Speaker 4: Tremors for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I you know, I actually saw Tremors four
Speaker 3: and I actually was kind of shocked because I thought,
Speaker 3: you know, because I was like, oh wow, I didn't
Speaker 3: know they made another one, and you know what, this
Speaker 3: is funny. Steve here, you know, as you can kind
Speaker 3: of tell him the movie buff. I didn't even know
Speaker 3: you did a TV series. I actually didn't know you
Speaker 3: did a TV series until last year.
Speaker 4: Well it's easy to do. I mean, there's so much
Speaker 4: material now, there's a lot of stuff that I don't know.
Speaker 4: I mean, this stuff that's being you know, I'm probably
Speaker 4: not even up on half of Netflix's shows and all
Speaker 4: this stuff. But anyway, I don't blame you.
Speaker 3: Well you, I mean, because you know, I'm such a
Speaker 3: movie head and I'm always like, you know, you looking
Speaker 3: for different stuff. And I said they did a Tremor's
Speaker 3: TV series before I said, wow, I didn't notice that.
Speaker 3: So I actually I actually bought it offline and I
Speaker 3: actually went through and I was like, oh, okay, so
Speaker 3: it sets up it's you know, it's it's three into
Speaker 3: the TV series and then four is a prequel.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Uh, you know, I have to ask, you know, when
Speaker 3: you make these Tremor movies. Michael Gross seems like the
Speaker 3: coolest guy in the world. Is he is he coolest
Speaker 3: guy in the world, because I mean he just seems
Speaker 3: like he would just be an awesome guy to hang
Speaker 3: out with.
Speaker 4: Yes, he's just a wonderful, funny, intellectual, not full of
Speaker 4: himself actor. He's very he's great on the set, you know,
Speaker 4: at understanding you know who has the scene. You know,
Speaker 4: he's not trying to steal other people's lines or anything.
Speaker 4: He's he's an actor's actor and uh and he's so
Speaker 4: he's become you know, he became Burt. He took over Burt,
Speaker 4: you know, from us and uh. And he would always
Speaker 4: on Trimmer's two and three and four, even though he
Speaker 4: wasn't playing Burt.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: He would. He would always come to this set with
Speaker 4: little penciled, delicately penciled lines in the script, and then
Speaker 4: he would to sit down with me, and we sit
Speaker 4: down with this before we've met, he said, Okay, I
Speaker 4: got this idea for a change here and change here,
Speaker 4: and then we could go back and forth. And well,
Speaker 4: if you say that, then we won't know this. So
Speaker 4: oh yeah, yeah, you're right. Never mind ever mind. But
Speaker 4: a lot of times, you know, especially with a bird character,
Speaker 4: he's he defends the character and he loves it. I
Speaker 4: thought at some point I thought he was going to
Speaker 4: get tired of it. But I always have to tell
Speaker 4: this quick story. You know. He was a huge television star.
Speaker 4: When he did Tremors one, he had just finished Years
Speaker 4: and Years on Family Ties, playing a guy who could
Speaker 4: not be more different from Bert, and they asked us
Speaker 4: to read him because he was a big television star
Speaker 4: and they thought like that would help the movie. And
Speaker 4: we went read the Father on Family Ties and we go, well, okay,
Speaker 4: we'll do it because they want us to do it. Well,
Speaker 4: he blew us the way you know, he came in
Speaker 4: because he's an actor, and he completely just Ron tells
Speaker 4: us Worth that he was actually jumping up on his
Speaker 4: desk at one point, being showing how far fraid he
Speaker 4: was of the monster underground. Anyway, Then some years later,
Speaker 4: Michael told me the story of walking down the street
Speaker 4: in New York and getting that look that fans get
Speaker 4: when they start to recognize you, and the guy was
Speaker 4: walking toward him and he he sees the looking knows
Speaker 4: the fans going to say it, and then the fan says,
Speaker 4: you're that crazy gun guy, and Michael said, yes, I
Speaker 4: finally escaped Family Ties.
Speaker 3: I thought you were going to say, oh, yeah, it
Speaker 3: was the Downe Family Ties, a crazy gun guy. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, it's funny because I introduced a friend of
Speaker 3: mine to tremors, and he actually goes, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: that's the dad from Family Ties and I said, yes,
Speaker 3: he's withar the Heaton family, and I'm start Keaton and
Speaker 3: Heaton and I said yeah, you know, and he goes, wow.
Speaker 3: He goes, this is a different role for him, and
Speaker 3: I said yeah, and I said, he fits it like
Speaker 3: a glove. Because one of my favorite shots of the
Speaker 3: whole movie is where Reba McIntyre and Michael Gross are
Speaker 3: in their underground bunker and the wall starts to shake
Speaker 3: and they see the grab boy come through and they
Speaker 3: start to fire at his rifles, those bold action rifles,
Speaker 3: and they're out of AMMO very quickly, and the camera
Speaker 3: just pans over to the all of guns and they
Speaker 3: literally just are pulling guns off the wall. And I mean,
Speaker 3: it's it's so if again, organic characters, and that fits
Speaker 3: so well because I would actually be disappointed Steve if
Speaker 3: they did not have a wall of guns.
Speaker 4: Yes, he knew that was a key moment in the movie,
Speaker 4: and it was great at the premieres, and that the
Speaker 4: test screenings, you know, the audience would they would laugh
Speaker 4: through the next all the way through the next scene.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, And you know, it was you know, a phenomenal.
Speaker 3: Tremor's is definitely one of my favorite movies. And I think,
Speaker 3: you know, when I when I go back to you know,
Speaker 3: writing and writing my own stuff, you know, I always
Speaker 3: like to dissect movies that I've I've watched, you know,
Speaker 3: and I've I like to dissect movies that I've really liked.
Speaker 3: And uh, you know, and now because this podcast, I
Speaker 3: get to talk to people who've who've written great stuff
Speaker 3: that I like. So, you know, it's just it's you know,
Speaker 3: it's just great being able to talk to you, Steve,
Speaker 3: and you know finding out these little interest in criticities.
Speaker 3: I think I just butchered that word, by the way,
Speaker 3: But but uh, but you know, and I want to ask,
Speaker 3: you know, Steve, you know, you have such a great career.
Speaker 3: You know, you did short circuit batteries not included short
Speaker 3: circuit too, Tremors, as we all just talked about, I
Speaker 3: did ghostat you know, is there any sort of writing
Speaker 3: advice you could give to anyone listening who's writing the
Speaker 3: screenplay right now?
Speaker 4: Well, if you like our style, and that's step number one,
Speaker 4: if you like the movies we've done, then do what
Speaker 4: you're doing, first of all, analyze the stuff you like.
Speaker 4: That's a lot of you know, pros it will call
Speaker 4: ourselves that would say that, because you won't be copying
Speaker 4: the stuff that you like, you'll be learning from it.
Speaker 4: You know, you obviously understand setups and payoffs. For example,
Speaker 4: it's a big thing for me and brit bedding something
Speaker 4: up early in the movie having it payoff later in
Speaker 4: a surprising way. Those are hard to do. It's hard
Speaker 4: to do those correctly and without cheating, and a lot
Speaker 4: of times to see movies cheat. I feel a little
Speaker 4: at odds with kind of the current movie making steam
Speaker 4: giving anybody advice because film after that has no plot
Speaker 4: and makes no sense is wildly successful. And I've begun
Speaker 4: to wonder, you know, I rail at this and I go, oh,
Speaker 4: my day, and blah blah blah uh. And yet you know,
Speaker 4: this is for years now I've been seeing this. I've
Speaker 4: started to think, well, the audience has really changed. I
Speaker 4: think the younger audience maybe does not care as much
Speaker 4: about what I think is important in storytelling, and they
Speaker 4: truly do enjoy these movies. You know, part of me says, well,
Speaker 4: they don't really enjoy them. It's just that's only that's
Speaker 4: the only thing they you know, that's the only thing
Speaker 4: on this weekend. So they go, I'm less and less
Speaker 4: sure of that. But anyway, I would say, analyze the
Speaker 4: stuff you like, whatever it is, you know, if it's
Speaker 4: ordinary people, analyze that.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: Uh, And and write a lot. By the way, you'll
Speaker 4: hear this too from other people. Don't get hung up
Speaker 4: on your one script. I did this, you know, early
Speaker 4: on we would write a script and go over and
Speaker 4: over and over and over, and then we've looked at
Speaker 4: one of those earliest scripts. This is like four or
Speaker 4: five scripts before a short circuit. You know, go, well,
Speaker 4: it wasn't very good, and none of the versions that
Speaker 4: we did for it just wasn't very good. You got
Speaker 4: to you gotta move on. Write something, get it done,
Speaker 4: say goodbye to it, write something else. If you're if
Speaker 4: you're a writer, you have plenty of ideas, and the
Speaker 4: worst worst cases you find out, well maybe I don't
Speaker 4: like it. You know, you do four or five scripts
Speaker 4: and you go, I don't like this. That's fine too,
Speaker 4: but write a lot. Don't get hung up on one thing,
Speaker 4: and you know, and beat it to death, you know,
Speaker 4: push yourself to to a degree, look outside your comfort zone.
Speaker 4: Although I do think that, you know, if you like
Speaker 4: emotional Uh, what's the Julianne Moore picture she just did
Speaker 4: where she was a lady with Alzheimer's I can't think of.
Speaker 4: I'm I can't remember the name of it. That's a
Speaker 4: verytional picture that I would never try to write.
Speaker 1: Right, We'll be right back after a word from our
Speaker 1: sponsor and now back to the show.
Speaker 4: But maybe you know, other people would, they would take
Speaker 4: that's exactly the kind of movie I want to do,
Speaker 4: study those and write a lot. I already said what
Speaker 4: I'm going to say.
Speaker 3: You know, you know, that's great advice, you know, Steve,
Speaker 3: you know, just going through and analyzing the movies that
Speaker 3: you like and why you like those and uh like,
Speaker 3: For instance, I had Victor Miller on here, and Victor
Speaker 3: Miller wrote Friday the Thirteenth Part one, uh, by the way,
Speaker 3: which also start Kevin Bacon by the way. Wow, yes, yes,
Speaker 3: small world right, so uh you know, and uh we
Speaker 3: were talking about you know, how do you you know,
Speaker 3: how do you break it down? And Victor said, listen,
Speaker 3: he goes, I've been doing this for thirty years now whatever,
Speaker 3: he said, I'm still always looking for different ways of
Speaker 3: writing and telling a story. He goes so and he
Speaker 3: said to me that, you know, he's always looking for
Speaker 3: a different method, something to sort of crack the story,
Speaker 3: or another way to write. And you know, it's just
Speaker 3: it's just very reassuring and unassuring the same time to
Speaker 3: hear veterans like you and him, you know, just talk
Speaker 3: about screenwriting and always say, you know, they they even
Speaker 3: with hits, because tremor, you mean, because again you have
Speaker 3: you've had tremors, You've had you know, short Circuit, and
Speaker 3: you know even and he's you know, had Friday Thirteenth
Speaker 3: Part one, he's had a few Emmy Award winning pieces,
Speaker 3: and it's still it's again, it's reassuring, and it's it's
Speaker 3: a little worrisome to hear that, you know, there's always
Speaker 3: they still don't have it all figured out.
Speaker 4: Oh you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Oh, even if these hits.
Speaker 4: Every script, yes, every script has its own life that
Speaker 4: it takes on and its own problems that it throws
Speaker 4: at you. And you suddenly find yourself going, why did
Speaker 4: I even like this idea? I feel so trapped now,
Speaker 4: And you know, sometimes you're beating your head against the wall.
Speaker 4: But but you know that's that's the great thing. It
Speaker 4: is a creative process. They yeah, they do, they do.
Speaker 4: Each one is different. Brett and I are doing one
Speaker 4: right now as a matter of fact, that is that
Speaker 4: is very different from anything we've ever done. Ron challenged us.
Speaker 4: He said, you know what, I would really like to
Speaker 4: do another little Budge movie. Don's big in television right now.
Speaker 4: He's directed every TV show you've ever heard of, and
Speaker 4: he goes from show to show to show, and he said,
Speaker 4: you know, it'd be fun to do another low budget
Speaker 4: movie like we did Tremblers. Why don't you guys write
Speaker 4: a sci fi movie with no special effects? And we
Speaker 4: went really wrong and then we thought about it. We
Speaker 4: sat down, so we actually have come up with an idea.
Speaker 4: We're about, I don't know, halfway through the process now,
Speaker 4: our anguishing process. It was really hard. I mean we
Speaker 4: just you know, because we just we just had to
Speaker 4: throw out idea after idea after an idea until we
Speaker 4: came up with this idea. And I don't want to
Speaker 4: talk about but anyway, yes, good, good note. Yes, good
Speaker 4: writers are always questioning what they're doing and always a
Speaker 4: lot of times, I think boundering quietly in their dark corners.
Speaker 3: I And you know, I'm not even a professional writer yet, Steve,
Speaker 3: but I you know, I often feel that way, A feel.
Speaker 3: I always feel like, what the hell did I start?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: But uh, you know it's funny. I actually pitched an
Speaker 3: idea one time and the producer hated it, right, And
Speaker 3: he came back to me later on and he goes,
Speaker 3: you know what, you go back. This is late months later,
Speaker 3: and he was already working on something else, but he goes,
Speaker 3: you know what, I was driving down the Doubt, down
Speaker 3: this uh this interstate, and he goes, you know, and
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, they couldn't stop thinking about your
Speaker 3: script idea. And I started laughing at myself, and he goes,
Speaker 3: you know, it's a lot better than I thought it was.
Speaker 3: And I said, see, it's always a rose colored glass.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Uh but but you know, uh, Steve, you know, we've
Speaker 3: been talking for about thirty minutes now, and I just
Speaker 3: want to ask you in closing, is there anything that
Speaker 3: you know we we didn't get a chance to discuss
Speaker 3: that you wanted to or is there any sort of
Speaker 3: thing you want to say sort of put a period
Speaker 3: the end of this whole conversation.
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm writing novels now. I'd like to mention that
Speaker 4: to plug them among the other things I'm trying to do.
Speaker 4: But as far as aloeems, was there anything else advice wise?
Speaker 4: I would say nothing springs to mind. I'm much better the.
Speaker 3: Questions, Uh, where you will find you out online?
Speaker 4: Oh? Well, the Stampede Entertainment maintains a website, knowing we
Speaker 4: always have hopes that we will sell something of our
Speaker 4: own and rambub into production stampedethan Entertainment dot com. And
Speaker 4: then I'm on Facebook of course, as S. S. Wilson
Speaker 4: and and the books are available at Amazon, Tucker's Monster
Speaker 4: and phrase.
Speaker 3: Free Cats, and I will link to all that in
Speaker 3: the show to everyone.
Speaker 4: You have an impressive list of podcasts. By the way,
Speaker 4: there's like one hundred and fifty of them.
Speaker 3: Or something, yeah, like one twenty seven or eight nons.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, I overstated it a little bit, but I
Speaker 4: was quite impressed. And then I went to your site
Speaker 4: and I listened to a few things, of course before
Speaker 4: I agreed to do this, and so I was impressed
Speaker 4: with your with your polished approach.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you, I've actually been proud of that because
Speaker 3: I had somebody I won't say who, but they came
Speaker 3: on and they said, Dave, thank you for not being
Speaker 3: that guy. And I said, what do you mean? They said,
Speaker 3: you know, they said, like, there's so many people have
Speaker 3: podcasts now, and they said, you know, they're sort of
Speaker 3: like in their mom's basement and they get people on
Speaker 3: the podcast and they could just like sort of like
Speaker 3: be malicious, you know what I mean, And it's just like, oh,
Speaker 3: so you made a movie, huh what do you And
Speaker 3: I'm like, no, I would never be that guy. I
Speaker 3: hate people like cause I actually steve you know, real quick.
Speaker 3: I was on a podcast with a friend of mine
Speaker 3: and he asked me to be on his podcast. So
Speaker 3: I went to his house, which, by the way, we
Speaker 3: went to his mom's basement.
Speaker 1: To go with this.
Speaker 3: And then he started going like, oh, so you made
Speaker 3: a TV pilot and pitched it to MBC, you know,
Speaker 3: And I said, yeah, well is that and is that bad?
Speaker 3: And he's like, well, I didn't you know, and he said,
Speaker 3: this is the podcast by the way, and he's like, oh,
Speaker 3: he couldn't reminds me of too much of Clerks. I said, oh,
Speaker 3: I said.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was like and and and and. Honestly, Steve, I'm
Speaker 3: I'm pretty good at thinking on my feet. So what
Speaker 3: I did was I started, you know, I was like,
Speaker 3: if I started insulting you right now, dude, I said,
Speaker 3: believe me, I said, you would cut this all out.
Speaker 3: And then finally he started to like ease up a
Speaker 3: little bit after we exchange a little words. But uh,
Speaker 3: but yeah, I I never would would it would bring
Speaker 3: somebody on just to insult them. And I thank god
Speaker 3: that I've never had one bad podcast. I've never had
Speaker 3: anybody had bad feelings. Everything's always been great.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: So I'm proud of that.
Speaker 4: Well you should be. That's that's good. That's good to hear.
Speaker 4: And I'm for warrened. I haven't had that experience.
Speaker 3: Yet, so I can put you. Yeah, I give you
Speaker 3: that warning. I'll be like the harbinger of hair of horror.
Speaker 3: Uh you know what I mean, like always warning you
Speaker 3: about things that are coming. Uh, kind of like old
Speaker 3: friend and tremors. But he was he didn't tell them,
Speaker 3: he just he but his dead body showed them if
Speaker 3: something right. Uh, Steve, I want to say thank you
Speaker 3: very much for coming on the podcast sir, and please
Speaker 3: stay in touch with me anything let me my pleasure.
Speaker 4: Thank you, take care about you. Bye bye.
Speaker 1: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
Speaker 1: a great job on this episode. If you want to
Speaker 1: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
Speaker 1: head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.
Speaker 1: Forward slash for thirty one. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: listening to guys as always, keep on writing no matter what.
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting
Speaker 2: dot tv.