Mark Duplass Says...

Swing the Sword in Your Hand

Swing the Sword

Just last week I co-hosted the first week of SCREENWRITER SESSIONS. Our first guest was MARK DUPLASS who could not have been more generous and honest with his stories and advice to writers and filmmakers and creatives of all kinds. I’ll include the curriculum and prompt for that Duplass experience for Paid Subscribers in an upcoming post. I put an excerpt below so you can get a sense of it.

Here’s a CLIP from our talk and a special THANK YOU to Nantucket Film Festival, Almanack Screenwriters and Mark himself for allowing this share to my subscribers!

Mark has a RARE career, working in indie and studio spaces as actor, writer, producer, director over the years. He also has a big heart and has been a major voice in helping communities during and after the LA fires. He seemed to approach that tragedy with the same indie spirit with which he approached the beginning of his filmmaking career. Something like: I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’ve got to do something. That spirit resulted in his starting a nonprofit called The Soul Poins Fund to help the city of LA and the victims of the fires. Please share and support the effort.

Finish Things

It’s important for creatives to be active and to finish things regardless of the participation of other people. One way to ensure that happens is to work with whatcha got. Should you shoot a film on your iphone? Sean Baker shot Tangerine on one. Danny Boyle and Soderbergh did it too.

You don’t have to wait for a budget so you can afford a camera package. Your laptop has all the editing software you need, and the interweb holds all the tutorials on how to use it. Your friends and family aren’t ugly; they can be your actors. It’ll look like a foreign film then. These are Swords that you already have. Nobody - nobody - is going to give you a sword.

Coming Soon: Indie TV?

Hugely successful TV shows came from creatives swinging the sword that they had: Broad City, Awkward Black Girl, Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I tell my film school students this: all of these shows were born from creators who took a leap with a camera and some friends. The results were not perfect but they sure as hell were a step in the right direction. I doubt Mark’s 3 Dollar Kitchen Movie was winning any awards either. This work is a process and a leap of faith and it tends to take the entirety of your life.

People are talking about a the potential of indie TV right now so perhaps you’ll take this advice and your sword and create something new. Rumor has it the streamers will be going through a new phase in which they buy seasons of independently produced episodic content instead of indie films. I dunno. I can see it for what it’s worth.

Am I Practicing or Just Preaching?

Yeah, among other things, I shot a web series on my couch (Couples) and a sizzle reel for an unscripted show by interviewing friends in my apartment (First Kiss), I directed and self produced a musical for the stage (You Again, a Musical about Cloning).

I’ll share more about those projects another time, but the biggest way I Swing the Sword that I have is by writing.

Note: if my brothers are reading this - yes, Swing your Sword is a potential penis joke, but I’m trying to be serious here. Call me and we’ll workshop it.

One of my favorite things about writing is that I don’t need anyone but myself to do it. I do not ask permission to write. Sure, once it’s done, I need an awful lot of money and people—since I’m not currently writing screenplays for DIY films—but there’s a powerful, timeless independence in the act itself.

And listen, if you’re not actually writing, do yourself a favor: stop torturing yourself by saying you want to. Do something else. There are plenty of ways to spend your time that will feel a whole lot better than beating yourself up over not prancing around in your imagination. You could throw out old shoes you never wear or maybe start a protest movement against the dismantling of the federal government.

Am I discouraging people from writing? Quite the opposite: I’m encouraging you to do the thing rather than talk about the thing. I’m encouraging you to Swing the Sword because it’s right there with you all the time. Please write — the more stories the better.

So tell Me…

Are you doing this in your life? Share examples of when you’ve swung the sword that’s in your hand instead of waiting for someone to give you permission to act.

Curriculum Excerpt

Beginnings

Mark Duplass & I Knew You Weren't Dead (Room 104)

Since this is the beginning of Screenwriter Sessions, let’s talk about Beginnings. Ideally your Opening Image and Opening Scene should set the Tone, Theme and World of the story (while engaging the audience of course). I find it helpful to Raise a Question as soon as possible as well.

Before we go any further with rigid Absolutes about Beginnings, let me say this: please don’t start here. This advice is about the beginning of your story, but it isn’t about the beginning of your process. Most writers don’t find their opening image or scene until they’re deep in their creative process. To delay writing until you find that ‘perfect’ opening is to disguise hesitation and procrastination as a creative process.

That said, Opening Images and Opening Scenes are invaluable opportunities to…

That’s all folks…

Please leave comments and share and restack and all the things that show support to Screenwriting is Writing (with me, Bill Gullo).

And as always, Paid Subscribers result in angels getting wings and paying their rent.

bg|xo

An homage to the great Harpo Marx which inevitably disturbs my wife