261 | Clarity, Subtext, and Want vs. Need: Kaz Firpo on Crafting Great Screenplays

In this episode, Meg and Lorien sit down with Kaz Firpo (Marvel’s ETERNALS, RUIN) to talk about the timeless craft lessons that make a great screenplay. From writing scenes that still land without sound, to creating emotional clarity on the page, Kaz shares why subtext is the secret engine of great dialogue, and why every character’s want and need should always be at odds.

Whether you’re on draft one or draft fifteen, this conversation will help you sharpen your scenes, clarify your characters, and trust your instincts as a writer.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Meg: Hey everyone. Welcome back to The Screenwriting Life. I'm Meg LeFauve. 

Lorien: And I'm Lorien McKenna. And today we're excited to be chatting with Kaz Firpo. 

Meg: Kaz is a director, screenwriter and photographer, born and raised in the forest of Northern California, and a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. His work has landed him on the Forbes 30 Under 30, and at the top of The Blacklist. 

Lorien: As a filmmaker, Kaz documented the front lines of the Syrian refugee crisis, creating The Refugee Project, which premiered at South by Southwest. He also collaborated with UNICEF and the World Wildlife Fund to tell stories of hope and conflict zones around the world. 

Meg: Represented by CAA, Kaz stormed into Hollywood with his cousin and writing partner Ryan Firpo with their Blacklist topping World War II thriller Ruin, starring Gal Gadot, before kicking off phase four of the Marvel Cinematic universe with Eternals, directed by Academy Award winner, Chloe Zhao.

Lorien: Right now, Kaz and Ryan are creating Butch and Sundance for Amazon, starring Glen Powell and Regé-Jean Page with the Russo Brothers producing, and their original sports drama Big Wave for MakeReady and Apple is on the way. 

Meg: Welcome Kaz to the show. 

Kaz: It is an honor, Meg and Lorien. I'm a huge fan of you as artists and of the show. I listen to it all the time, so thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. 

Meg: And from your bio, we know how busy you are. Holy smoke. So we really appreciate you being here. Kaz has agreed to do our first segment, which is Adventures in Screenwriting or how was your week. Lorien? How was your week?

Lorien: Earlier in the week, I had an amazing chat with Meg about a feature idea I have. And it's that fun thing where, okay, I have this kind of idea and I think it has legs and works, and then the person that you're talking to comes back with, oh, it's this and this and this. And you think, wow. How did you get that?

And it's hard to say, like, is that my idea? Or did she come up with that? Or was she inspired by my idea? Like what? There's that self-doubt piece that creeps into it, but then I'm like, I'm just gonna go with it. Right. 

Kaz: Because that's collaboration. Yes. That's the joy of collaboration. I have so much to talk about that.

Lorien: Yes. So I was like, great. And then I, we spent like 45 minutes or an hour together. It was really great. I went into another office and I put it all together and in a couple hours I was, I said to Meg before I left, um, I got it. I figured it out and I felt really good about it. 

Meg: I'm getting quite nervous right now.

Lorien: So my plan, oh, you should be, it's my cycle. It's the pattern of all patterns. So then I, the next day I'm like, okay, great. I'm just gonna like figure all this out. And then I change the premise, change the setup, change the characters, change the relationship, change the this, change that, change that, change that.

And then at the end of the day, because yes, I spent a day. Fucking around with what we'd already come up with. I was like, this idea is terrible. This premise sucks. It's too weak. The whole thing is trash. And then I stopped and I was like, wait, this feels oddly familiar and is my chaotic way of not actually doing the thing.

So I had to pause and go do something else. And so I then I just, uh, did a little writing exercise for myself to remember that I do come up with good ideas. It's supposed to be fun. And I, and then I went back and I, I re-put it back together as best I could from what Meg and I talked about. I didn't admit this to Meg during this week because it just felt like putting my burden on her again about, or maybe I did, did I text you?

Meg: No, you didn't. And I'm glad that you didn't. I have enough on my shoulders that, so that's good. 

Lorien: Right. And it also, I think, dishonors the time you spent with me, if I were then to come back and say, well, like, here I am right now. But it, what it is for me is. Uh, I do this where I write something or I come up with something and it's solid and I just have to make it more solid, like dig the posts into the ground and really pour the foundation.

Instead, I just rip it up and throw the tent poles around. And, uh, my metaphors are amazing. So I am working very hard right now to stick in it, and it is so hard for me. And I, we'll talk to my therapist about this later this week anyway, um, and other than that, I delivered a project I was working, um, on and uh, I got feedback today that it was excellent.

So I was very excited. Fantastic. So I got a gold star first thing Friday morning. Gold stars. Hmm. Love it. Anyway. Kaz 

Kaz: Well, artists thrive on, uh, gold stars. That's the secret of the entire industry. Yes. Passing back. Yes. Tha Thank you for sharing, Lorien. That's so, uh, honest. So, so honest. The writing life really, like the life of the artist is.

Mostly just pain in the room by yourself. And then there are these moments of incredible joy. Um, where to begin? What's, yeah, how was your week? How, how was my week? Um, I, I am very blessed right now. I feel like I'm in a lot of abundance. I, I have been collaborating with just very, very talented people for the last few months, years.

This, all this time when I write, I'm working with people that are smarter than me that I admire. Um, I just delivered a document, a format for a television show, minutes before getting on this phone call. Uh, that was a saga, truly like a saga. I don't think I've ever spent more time on the least amount of pages.

Mm-hmm. It's a very, like, it's an interesting document, you know, it's like 15 pages, 16 pages long, and you have to have. 10 hours of storytelling. But it can't be a, you can't like a feature, you can't spend a hundred pages telling the story. So every word matters, which I think that's a great lesson in there, just in general for writing.

Every word does actually matter, but I think in a feature, in a format document, which is such a specific and unique – 

Meg: Oh, they're so hard and they have to be emotional. 

Kaz: – that well, they gotta have arcs and turns and structure. I honestly, they're an incredible learning exercise even for an experienced writer.

I, I learned so much writing it and having a, a, collaborating with my incredible co-showrunner, Alex Metcalf and my life writing partner and cousin Ryan Firpo. Um, and we spent a lot of time and a lot of thought talking about this thing. So it's a real joy to be delivering that. Um, everyone knows, all writers know, and, you know, I'm a writer who got, I'm a director who got tricked into screenwriting is often what I talk about.

That'll be a part of the conversation today. But any writer knows that when you hit send, you're like, very briefly. A golden God, right? Like you finally did something, you sent something, it's done. It's complete. And like you are gonna ride off that high for like exactly 72 hours before you get that email on Monday that they need more.

Lorien: Wait, who was it that we had on the show that said you have exactly as many, uh, Ed Solomon said you have exactly as many minutes to be happy that you sent it as pages that you sent. So that means you had 15 minutes to feel like. Yeah. 

Kaz: And then riding the lightning. I was absolutely riding the lightning.

That's why I'm still riding that high here, guys. So I'm ready to, I'm ready to talk. So that's just, oh, I was still in the 15 minutes. That was five minutes ago. Yeah, that was literally five minutes ago. Um, so it's a, it's a week of completion. I'm actually in addition, um. I am taking a long pause because I, I'm like, it sounds like a lot, but I'm just, I just commit, I'm on a podcast now.

So I'm also, we finished a draft of my debut feature as a director also last night. And so Meg is gonna get to read that in about T minus two hours once I get off this call. Um, I'm blessed to be a part of something very special with other writers and we can share our work and critique each other's work.

Um, and so that has been a real labor of love to be working on something. In that case, I was actually collaborating with my fiance and partner in life and crime, Anu Valia. We wrote that film together. It's our first collaboration, and so that's why I wanna talk about collaboration today. because I spend so much of my, uh, creative life working with other artists.

Meg: My week. I actually have a question for you, Kaz, um, pick your brain. So, back in the day, okay, back in the day, uh, eighties, nineties, there was whole development departments at studios and they wanted you to send in your drafts. So they could be part of it, they could get in there, they could help you shape it to be the product that they want, which isn't really, in my experience, what they want anymore.

Those departments and all those executives are mostly gone. Um, and they really want you to hand them a movie. This is the movie, and they'll kind of noodle around on it. Right? Unless it's a rewrite job and they already like the concept. I think there's lo a longer bridge there because they already like the concept.

They've bought it, so they're working with you to get the movie they want. But if it's an original, you know, and my rep's opinion is, you know, your project when it goes in, even it's a quote unquote first draft can get labeled, get a stink on it, opinions can be formed, and then it's very hard to get it off.

But so that you should take all the time, you need to get it to that place, even if you're way late that it's, they'll all forget you're late. If they love it. But my question is that puts so much pressure on your draft because it has to be great because now it's late because you could get a double strike, you're late and it's not what they want.

But how do you know what they want if you haven't turned it in? If anyways, are you finding this, I'm just kind of slightly stressed out about it now because now we are quote unquote, I feel like we're, we should have turned this in already, but because we're taking this bet that it needs to be the ultimate, best version that you could possibly do.

Every supporting character, every B story, every C story, every line of dialogue. Right? Which honestly, in the past that you didn't have to do that because they wanted to get in early. So why would you do that? because they could possibly blow it up. So what did, I don't know. I'm just stressed. 

Kaz: I love that you're asking this and I feel like we just rolled our sleeves up and we went like right into the sausage factory, like right from the beginning.

Like just, we're just showing them how it's made. Uh, no preamble. The, the short answer is I, I think, if I may say so, I think it's always been the case that's, you wanna read something that is just in the, in the modern language of the times, like absolute straight fire. Like you just wanna read something that's really good.

I think that because of the state of things, the, the job of the agent has sort of been pushed to the job of the manager, the job of the producer and the develop, the development executive has sort of been pushed to the jobs of the producer. And now, yeah, you just want to get a script that's like ready to rock.

Uh, I've seen that more and more. We've obviously seen the rise of like one step deals, even though the, obviously the guild was supposed to be fighting against that. In my personal lived experience, I'm like very lucky to work with great producers that I love and admire, who grind me to dust to make sure that that first draft is just absolutely.

Ready to shoot, you know, like that's, it's, I'm of two minds on it. Obviously. I would love to like figure it out and tinker and collaborate. And I, I fundamentally believe that the executive role is so important. It's so essential that they're deeply unsung heroes of Hollywood in the sense that great executives helped make great movies.

And without that, I do think we're starting to see looser projects. And so I think the answer to your question is yes. We're, we're seeing a lot of projects where it's, you have one step and then when they get that step, it has to blow their socks physically off of their feet 

Meg: It's really like the movie, here's the movie kind of thing.

Kaz: Correct. And, and then the, the joy of that process is if you're working with a collaborator and a producer who's also your collaborator, you're able to incubate the process and incubate the project to get it to a place where at least it feels like it is a movie, like it's ready to shoot. Like there aren't these like big things that need to be figured out structurally or spiritually or on a character perspective.

Um. I also think it's an ebb and flow. I think obviously we're not in a boom anymore and we were in a boom. There were a lot of jobs, there were a lot of people working in that, uh, venture capital bubble burst. It went from movies to video games. It went from video games into ai, and now you're experiencing a narrative winter in the movie world and also in the video game world.

And it's a gold rush in ai. And I guarantee you that that bubble will burst in just a few years too, when they start being able to prove marketable growth year over year. So, you know, we, we live in the real world. I think you always wanna deliver your best work, but the pressure that we put on ourselves as artists and as creators, oh yeah.

It gets in there, it gets in your head. So, uh, I, I have found that I have found the most success when we are, I don't even want to, I don't wanna out myself here, but I found the most success when we deliver something that's. What is it is in. Most people say it's perfect, is the enemy of good. But or, or done.

I don't know what the exact metaphor is here, but what I'm really trying to say is if it's a little bit late, but it's amazing. I've always had a lot better success in delivering something a little early and having it be a little bit maybe un not fully baked. And the last thing I'll just say, which is a universal rule for artists, lovers, and filmmakers, is communication is everything.

Right? Communicating to your producers, to your development executives, to your partners and being like, Hey, we're figuring out this part of the movie. It's really coming together. We're gonna need another couple weeks. Hope that's okay. Trust us. It's gonna be good. Like it's worth it. Rather than just sort of leaving people in the dark because we feel like they're not gonna understand what we're struggling with.

Which I speak from experience where like so often I would talk myself into a, a position where I go. I can't tell them because they're expecting it on Friday, and if I email 'em on a Thursday, they're gonna think I was this. And then I tell myself a story. And the truth is, we're all just people trying to make good movies. And communication almost always makes every situation better in love and life. 

Meg: Great advice. I'm doing it. 

Lorien: And Meg, I wanna point out in terms of patterns, right, you have always delivered. Excellent. In my working with you as a writer. And it is this part of the pattern though, for you, right? Of the panic and the sense of dread and the fear of all the things happening going wrong, right? 

Meg: Because I worked in a system that you would love what you had and it would be blown literally sky high. And you have a desk. And it doesn't matter because they like the churn. They wanna get in early. They churn it, churn it.

Give it to me, give it to me, give it to me. I'm gonna give it back to you. Like it was a much. Different rhythm and process than what I'm in now. So my brain is slightly frying, like, but don't you like, shouldn't we get their opinion? Shouldn't we get, do they like this, do they not? Mm-hmm. Is this the movie that they had in their head?

Like, all of that is like, maybe, so I think I'm bumping up against two different processes, both of which are totally legit, but my brain is kind of like, ah. And listen, it puts a lot of pressure on that draft because you're a little bit late and it doesn't work for them. Double strike. So again, and I like to please people.

Yes. I'll take it to therapy as, as Lorien says,

Okay, let's talk about you. Let's talk about you Kaz, because that's why we're here. Okay. So the primordial purpose of story. Explain. 

Kaz: Begin your seminar now. Begin your seminar. Um, just starting over again, just to say, it's an honor to be on the show and talk about story. Like, I really, really admire you both.

So, uh, it's an honor. This is just something I, I feel very deeply as like an artist, as a human, uh, as a human being on this very strange planet that we're on. Human beings parse information in narrative. It's how we understand the world, right? So story is a way of understanding inexplicable phenomena. You know, in the ancestral environment.

That's how we explain tragedy and love and loss. There's, oh, there's a thunderstorm today. Zeus must be angry. This was a foundational way to explain the unexplained, like, it's when you lose someone, why do we feel this? Why is it that happening? Why is it happening to me? And I think that in an ancient context.

Stories were, anyway, I think they remain a foundational way to understand these really big things about being human. And I bring all this up specifically because in college I minored in classics and ancient civilizations. I spent a lot of time reading Greek mythology and Latin literature over these metamorphosis, all the Greek classics and the plays.

I had amazing professors, professor Peter Meineck at NYU. I was really, um, lucky to have all that stuff come to life. It was something for me that was like my gateway drug to telling stories when I was very young. You know, I remember reading the Children's Illustrated Odyssey. I think I was very, very young.

I was reading, I had that, I was reading a lot. It's so life changing. I had that, it's such an incredible book and, and it's, it's the basis for like, you know, all our best stories. I'm sorry, I'm sorry to tell anyone in Hollywood. Like they figured out how to tell a good story 2000 years ago. Like Ovid's Metamorphosis is a political satire of his time.

It's making fun of the emperor. Like at that moment, you know, they were doing the same kind of irony in satire and rise winking at the audience that we're doing now 2000 years later. And I just think we have a lot to learn from how those stories went, what they mean, how they have meaning. I honestly the, the studio animation studio that starts with a p for which you are both, uh, expats, whatever you want to say, they owe a lot to those like classical, that classical storytelling, you know, stories with meaning, stories with purpose, with morality.

Um, it's something that personally invests in my work just like as a. Someone who, who loves to read, watch, and take in stories in all forms. I, I'm always looking for those mythic archetypes and what it can mean on a grander scale, but then also just sort knowing. 

Meg: Do you, you as a writer, like do that, think, okay, I've got an idea.

I kind of patched it out. Now what's the mythic thing I'm doing? Do you actually ask that question of every project or no? 

Kaz: I'm not Joseph Campbell-ing my stories on a daily basis. What I really think of it is I often go like, what is that like core root emotion? You know? And I think it's the same kind of joke of saying, can you tell me in Hollywood, can you pitch me the story in one sentence?

Like, is it, can it be complete in one sentence? And I think the same thing is true when you're telling a story of going like, what is the central familial relationship? What is that? Is this a story about a bro, two brothers? Is this a story about a mother reconnecting with her daughter, like in some ways.

I think all stories are ultimately stories about familial bonds. And, and if you look back at the myths, they're all stories about familial bonds. I mean, Zeus was the dad, the very, very gnarly, uh, incestuous father of many children. And the Greek myths are really like Succession, you know, it's like power and control and grief and tragedy.

And these are like really timeless, primal things. And, and it's not that you can't have nuance. I like to think, I, I certainly like to think my stories are nuanced, but like if you start with these like big powerful colors that are like two brothers who experience loss and they hate each other, and now they're trying to build a relationship again, like that's both universal.

It's also very specific. It's a story that's, you know, true of, of my life, my parents' generation and, and then, so it's not that I think it's conscious. This is okay. This is a really good segue to really specifically answer your question. I don't do it consciously in the Joseph Campbell sense. But I think by internalizing these stories and this information, it finds its way into your work in a way that's just more immediate than if you're trying to come at it.

I guess from the like modern, immediate, primary context, if you can just sort of say, how can I boil this down to its most essential elements and like most great stories, biblical mythical, you know, take your pick of the cannons. Even superheroes, honestly, um, they're dealing with these big feelings, uh, and I think when you start there, it's much easier to get more specific.

Lorien: Do you find a reoccurring archetypical or mythical sort of. Stories in there, like I'm, I'm very aware of mine is Persephone, right? Mother daughter. Love being split in half, half here, half there where the priorities are finding purpose in a world where choices were made for you and you have to figure like all of it is very Persephone for me.

Kaz: That is one of the great sentences of all time, all of it's very Persephone for me. 

Lorien: I can't assign, if that's the name of my memoir or what to expect when you didn't, don't expect anything. We'll work it out. But are you do find, what's your appetite? 

Kaz: That is a extremely excellent question that I would only expect to get asked on The Screenwriting Life with Lorien and Meg.

Um, there isn't one story that you keep coming back to, but if I had to be honest and, and it's very in the culture right now because the great Christopher Nolan is making it into a film as we speak. Uh, it is Odysseus' journey home. I think there's something that like I am really drawn to about. The wiley wanderer, like the, the, the man I'm a man, like, you know, is the stories I'm drawn to, like the, the, the lone warrior returning home or like on a quest or on a journey, like against all odds, the people they meet along the way.

I think that I keep coming back to those stories because I, I think that they're a strong metaphor for life. It's like taking a memoir, um, making it fantastical. My, my debut feature in Hollywood, not my first movie that I ever wrote, but the one that sort of changed my life. I wrote with my cousin Ryan, and we wrote it in a cabin in the woods up in Northern California.

Uh, no agents, no managers, no connection to Hollywood, and it was really a story that was very, that had been sort of in our family. Our, my, my dad's side of the family is French, and we came. They fled France during the war and came to America. That's why I'm an American now. And so World War II is a sort of central, mythic part of my family identity, and I bring all this up to say that Ruin, that story, which we ended up winning The Black List..

There's an incredible story about how that came to Hollywood, including my incredible managers, Sam Warren and Harry Langfield, who I have to shout out because they're my best friends and they changed my life. But, but I bring all this up to say, like, that story is mythically the Odyssey. You know, it's about a a, it just set it obviously in the context of a post-war Germany, uh, road film.

But it is about a, a wanderer, a lost soul who is experiencing all these sort of, almost. In interactions with the afterlife in a way to try to atone for his crimes during the war, but also for the life that he's lived. And then, you know, at the end of the film, he basically has to make that judgment. And I think there is something really mythical about that story, although I hadn't even thought about that till now.

because normally I, I connect all this directly to Marvel's Eternals, which is obviously a directly mythical story. 

Meg: Is there a book you'd recommend for people to get started on this journey of learning more of the ancient myths?

Kaz: Yeah, so I have two books that I always recommend to talented, thoughtful, young storytellers.

They're wildly different, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna shout them both out in this way. One is a little bit hard to find, so maybe we'll like post a link to it because it, it used to be an Amazon ebook, it's called Screenwriting 101 by the anonymous author Film Crit Hulk.

It's like a workbook that, oh, Lorien's got it. Lorien has a copy it. It is, um, I read them all. You know, this is what, this is what I tell people about screenwriting books. Like there is no right one, there's no right one for you. I have read them all. I read Story by Robert McKee. I've read, you know, Sid Fields's screenplay.

I, I read all the Hollywood memoirs. I've read Adventures in the Screen Trade by the great William Goldman. It's like I've read them all, they all, even even Save the Cat by Blake Snyder. Gotta shout him out. I've read them all because I went to film school, I was a student. I'm an eternal student.

I'm always trying to learn. But this book, it talks a lot about five act structure. It talks a lot about modern references that you can really equate to. A lot of them are mythic in their structure, like Star Wars, Avatar, Cameron movies. Um, and it was the best. Workbook I ever read that made me feel like I, I was coming out of it a better writer because I read it.

It's also very brief. It's also, I think maybe free on the internet. Um, so that's one of them. One that's once more. It's Screenwriting 101 by Film Crit Hulk. Super quick read. Um, and the other one, I highly recommend this to people and it seems really dense and maybe a little bit highfalutin, but it's, it is Ovid's Metamorphosis.

It is a classic book. And, and this is, this is my pitch for it, so forgive me. Ovid set out to write a book where he said, I'm going to tell the entire history of the world up until the minute that I was born. And in that he's basically collecting and collating all the myths of our time into one book.

It's very right. Self-aware. It's a very easy read. You're gonna read it and go, I know that story. I know that story. It has a very famous opening line, which is sing to me muse of how things change into other things. It's about transformation. It's about change, which ultimately I think is what it means to be human for characters and people alike.

And, uh, it is, this, this might get me into the hot water, so I'm just gonna say it anyway, but it, it is effectively Genesis in the Bible when you read it, it is the first chapter of the Bible. And you're like, oh, they, I know where they got these stories from. They got it from Ovid fucking a thousand years, but a hundred years before he wrote the damn thing.

So you start to realize like these stories have been echoing in the human experience, you know, in a lot of different ways for hundreds, thousands now years. And you read the first chapter and you're like, this is very familiar, but it's in a, it is a different author when you read it, uh, in the modern context.

So I think when you start to understand that we're like, all stories are built on the shoulders of the ones before. It's very inspiring because it means that you can add to that human tapestry. It means that like the stories that you have to offer, they matter. And frankly, you steal from the past, uh, because they're dead. They can't sue you. 

Meg: I love it. And it's, and that's what great art is. Yes. Mm-hmm. 

Kaz: Mm-hmm. 

Meg: Um, okay, so question please said to me in the past, uh, maybe it was at a round table, I don't remember making someone feel something is more powerful than telling them something, which I think goes down to the a little bit show, don't tell, but I think you have a more interesting kind of, uh, insight into that.

Kaz: Uh, that is a really, first of all, I'm like, just inspired that you wrote that down, or however that made its way into this podcast. Makes me feel good. So, just a little, no one can see me on camera, but I'm going, oh, um, absolutely. I, I kind of call what you described, like the art of curiosity and subtext. My partner has this amazing metaphor that I often, I often use, which is that in a way, ultimately I believe, you know, look, I'll just also say this really quickly.

Nothing I say is a rule. I don't know anything, but this is all just wisdom that I found helpful or inspiring in my journey as an artist. So ultimately, I believe that there are kind of only three kinds of dramatic scenes, right? There are scenes where it's two people who are not listening to each other, and what they mean by that is they're talking, but they're not hearing what the other person has to say.

They're just kind of talking at each other. And frankly, that's most scenes in a movie. It's people talking, uh, but they're not completely open. They're not being honest. You know, they might, one might say they're kind of lying in the way that they're just, they're not yet hearing what the other person has to say.

Then the second kind of scene is one person. Who's speaking, and one person who's listening, one person is really like listening. They're considering, they're hearing what the other person has to say, but the other person isn't ready to receive. They're not, they're not open, they're not yet listening. And the third and rarest of all scenes is when you have two people who are in a scene and they're actually completely listening to one another.

And that is reserved traditionally for the climax of a movie. It's like the third act of a film, you know? And, and I often point to, uh, the great Good Will Hunting as a perfect example of that, of this sort of dynamic where you have, you know, Matt Damon and you have the incredible Robin Williams, and they're, they're not listening when they first meet, like Will's not ready to hear.

He can't, he's not open enough to do that. But then you look at that park bench scene, which is just a masterpiece, and you have two people who are communicating and they're listening. And that's what we strive for in cinema and in stories. And that what I really am talking about, you know, beneath all this is really it's subtext.

You know, like subtext is what people are really thinking or really feeling, but they're not saying what they're really thinking or really feeling. Because go out in the real world and you'll find like the majority of your experiences and your interactions because of the modern world are in fact surface.

They're, you know, they're not, there's, they're rich with subtext. They're not, you're not expressing all the things that are going on in your head. Although I will say you two beautiful, soulful artists have been like very open and very open about your anxieties and stresses, and I think that's not most normal.

I quote unquote normal people in the western world. So it's a gift to be vulnerable and, and share your anxieties. This is all a long way of saying, I'm sorry, 

Lorien: I'm totally normal. How dare you. 

Kaz: Exactly. Hey, what is normal Lorien? You know, not especially, it's 2025 guys, it's August 2025. Nothing's normal. 

Meg: So Kaz I, one question that I get and that I give myself too, quite honestly, as you're going, as I'm moving through drafts, you know, sometimes my thing is, so my subtext is so subtextual that people aren't getting it in the read and they're asking questions and I'm like, oh my God, it's right there in the subtext.

She said this, but she meant that. So there's this, there's this balance I find between clarity for the read that people are, whether they intellectually get it, they emotionally are still staying with it and they're in versus, I don't know what's going on, or he was doing that. So when, how do you balance that and what you're talking about?

Kaz: That is another great question. Um, I have two sort of like tests for this that are, I, I'm talking like I have like some sort of school of screenwriting. I do not, but this is a sort of test that I sometimes like to use, which I really would just call like the silent movie to, I actually call it the airplane test to be honest, which is that.

I think that cinema is scenes that work even without sound, right? Like if you're sitting on an airplane and you're looking over someone's shoulder and their movie's playing on a screen and you're like hooked in and you're like, okay, and you're feeling what the people are feeling like that's cinema, right?

It's the ultimate expression of show not tell because the scene works without dialogue. Um, I do think it is either Alvin Sargent or William Goldman who kind of said, great scripts do not need any action description because everything including the blocking and the subtext is clear from the dialogue.

And that's kind of what they're getting at. It's like, I'm coming at this from two sides, but it's sort of like in a great scene, you're watching everything unfold and you, because the performances are working, because the blocking is clear, because the, like construction of the scene, like, let's call it the scaffolding, like the bones of the scene are clear.

Then you can watch it without sound and you still know he's sad and she's lying. Right? Just from the way that the people are behaving. And I think if the scene is like, people are saying, oh, I, I don't understand the subtext. First of all, I don't believe that anyone's ever read a Meg LeFauve screenplay and been like, I don't like this.

I don't think that's happened before. 

Meg: Well, you're wrong, but okay, we'll just let that myth go out into the world. 

Kaz: But that would be, that's sort of what I try to think, right? Obviously cinema is behavior driven. Um, and in that way it, the way that people are behaving should help make people understand it.

And this is the last thing I'll say. We also have a joke, Ryan and I, my writing partner. Uh, it's what would Top Gun Maverick do? And whoever wrote all the, all the amazing talented men who wrote that movie, they're like seven of them. Um, they're all geniuses. But that movie, what it has, and the reason I think it's so effective, this is a magic word for me in 2025, is clarity.

It has immense. Emotional clarity. You're never confused where anyone stands in the movie at any given time. And I think we underestimate that a little bit as artists, maybe I, commercial has become a dirty word, but I actually think it's a really important word in filmmaking because commercial just means a story that people are willing to pay to see, which I hope would be any story that I, I create, frankly.

And so when you look at a really commercial film that also is, I'd say resonant and does well, I think the uniform, the universal aspect of those screenplays, certainly just the stories in general, is they're really clear. They have a great emotional clarity. So you know where the characters stand when they're in a scene and when they're coming out of a scene.

So like in the next, you're like, where's Maverick in this scene? And then the next one, if you know he's upset and then he's acting happy, you're like, I don't believe that. I don't believe. So now you're creating the subtext for the audience that they're going, you know what? I know he just got fired, but he's, he's laughing in this scene that that can't be real.

He's masking his true emotions. So I think we. Sometimes, maybe I'll just point to a specific, a semi specific example, um, with our incredible film at Apple right now is we did a few drafts of this internally. Uh, Ryan and I, you know, we are our own harshest critics. And what we were really always striving for was that emotional clarity.

And I feel like when we started to unlock it in the first act, the whole film really came alive because you knew where you stood and you knew where the character stood. And then that allows for you to take some sort of, give, give the readers a little bit of a longer leash. Um, so don't be afraid of clarity.

I'm not saying this to Meg LeFauve, I'm saying this to the listeners. 

Meg: Well, you know, the truth is though, you have to get clarity with yourself. I, because I believe stories come to you and you're not even sure. Is this scene now me moving away from clarity because I'm scared of the clarity and it's not clear in my mind yet, or I thought it was this, but now it's changing to this.

I mean, to me, that's all the drafts are, are trying to get to that clarity. You're doing draft after draft after draft. 

Kaz: Yep. Yep. 

Meg: Trying to get to that clarity of that first act that you're like, oh, it's this. So on one hand you're looking at something on an airplane. To me that's about behavior. Right? I know you're a director too, but I'm asking the writer right now in terms of on the page, because that's about behavior and watching characters behave and make choices without dialogue because it's, you can't hear the dialogue.

And yet the William Goldman quote is about, you should know it all just from dialogue without, uh, action lines, but behavior is an action line. So that is confusing to me. Can you line that up for me? 

Kaz: It's, it's this, this is, this is the twin thoughts that I kind of am combining there. It's that I believe.

That when you watch something without sound, you're understanding, as you said, their behavior, but what you're, what you're really able to follow. Like that's the thing that you are connecting to, I think without sound is, is the emotion, is like, what is this person feeling and what is that person feeling?

And what did this person think about that? And, and like, like a cartoon or a silent movie, you sh you are able to follow it even without the dialogue. And to connect it to the Goldman quote, it's that like the blocking, this is what I, I again, I know you're talking to the writer, not the director, but you know, aren't all writers actually just directors?

Aren't you just directing the scene on the page that said you are creating that behavior on the page? You know, like the, the timing, the rhythm and the performance and the dialogue is what's creating that behavior and that emotion. So when you're constructing a scene, it is a little bit like story math.

Like you're trying to like have the transitions. Tell you something deeper about the character. You're trying to have each line of dialogue work on two, maybe three levels, right? Where it's what the person is saying in that moment, what the person is actually thinking and choosing to filter in the way that they say this.

I'm, I'm currently writing a spy film, which is a really, really, really fun exercise and I recommend it to all writers in general. Not least because I love spy movies, but because it is an absolute, uh, exercise and subtext because you have people constantly projecting one thing and feeling something else.

Uh, and it really like forces you to consider behavior and subtext and information and information flow, which is something I sometimes talk about very specifically. So to put it hopefully in a little bow, what I believe is. By creating scenes that are inherently clear in their function. It allows for the reader and the audience to understand the subtext.

Uh, inherently, I'm just gonna go back to that Top Gun metaphor, that if, if you understand that a character is sad, and when they present as happy in the next scene, you're, that dichotomy that you've created is already apparent to, uh, an audience. And in that way, I hope you're able to allow them on their own to lean in and to start to like read behavior, which this is maybe a segue, but it, it's something that I'm fascinated by is like, if you can write a screenplay, I mean, that's, that's the difference, right?

If like, there's the passive experience of reading something and then there's the, the active experience of going, what does that person really mean? And what is that person really saying? And, and it's about understanding enough. You feel like you're in good hands so that when the person is leaning forward, because they're trying to connect the dots, they're not doing it because they're confused, they're doing it because you are leaving a nice little trail of breadcrumbs.

I hope that was an intelligent answer. 

Meg: I have to go, I have to go rewrite my script, but, okay. Um, so I have so many things and Lorien that we wanna pick your brain about in terms of craft. because you know, we have a lot of emerging writers listen to the show and you're so, so smart. I thought maybe we would do a lightning round, uh, just a topic and then, you know, just tell us what's your view on that.

So like, for example, if I say, um, character introductions? 

Kaz: I'm always trying to think with character introductions of moments that reflect somebody's inner life. Um, even better, maybe their moralities or their belief systems in, uh, one condensed. Complicated interaction. You know, the basis, basis version of this is the save the cat, right?

It's like when somebody sees somebody that needs saving and they save them, then you, it tells you a lot about that person. Like, this is where we really, really get to the show, not tell, which is a universal rule. That took me, frankly, I'm still learning how to do that. That's the hardest thing about screenwriting, frankly.

Um, how to take behavior and turn it into dramatic action. And so with character introductions, half of it is like, just first out figuring out the, like, alchemy and the equation of like, who is your character and what are you trying to reveal about them? And once you've done that, frankly, difficult math, you know, I could come up with an example of like, uh, an angry young man who's a surfer, right?

Well then in that version of events, if he gets into a fight the first time you see him, you're gonna, it's gonna create, uh, an understanding of who that person is because of their behavior. Like. I'm accidentally launching into a whole speech about, uh, reading people because it's supposed to be a lightning round, but please bear with me all the time.

As people we are reading other people, artists certainly are fascinated by human behavior. And so if you're listening to this and you're thinking about your introductions, like go into the world and just like watch how people behave. You know, like if you have an interaction at a coffee shop and they don't have what you want, there's a micro expression on somebody's face when they experience the disappointment of not getting their mocha frappuccino, and then they have to come up with something else and they're, are they flustered by having to come up with a new order.

Like this is a micro expression of what we do in cinema, which is put it on a grand scale. So what behavior, what physical action would tell me the dramatic action, how a person feels, believes or thinks about themself in the world. Um, and obviously the more fun and brief way that you can do this, the better, you know, and, and frankly, you're gonna keep working those moments over and over.

I just think it's important that a, you have fun writing it because people will have fun reading it. Um, and that you're trying to think of a way that put them in a situation that reveals some inherent truth about them and all the better if it's flawed, because we're all flawed. 

Lorien: I think. I love that. I think the coffee order is a great writing exercise to do. I do. The one I do, at Trader Joe's – someone's crashed their cart into them and the one thing they went there to get isn't there. And the store is closing in five minutes. How do they interact with the person who crashed into their cart that is gonna, do they run away? Do they fight? Do they burn the place down?

Do they cry like that? But it has to be a reaction and then a response. It can't just be, I'm crying. Are you kind? Yeah, it's, it's right. Are you kind, apologize, help them find their thing. So that what you're talking about, and then you take that and then you make it bigger and apply to your, if you don't know, it's a way to explore that for your character.

Kaz: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And that's like the, obviously the coffee and the Trader Joe's are like microcosms. because hopefully your movie's about space aliens or, you know, velociraptors fighting each other. 

Meg: Okay. Character want, or the character drive. Because a lot of what you're talking about, I think of, uh, it, it is actually gonna end in terms of behavior and is actually gotta be coming from a want.

Kaz: Character want. And character drive is something that I, I think I think about a lot, but like, maybe later in the process or in in the reverse. Like, it, it's, the story feeds it, but it is fundamentally essential. This is a little bit of like a trope or maybe like a, a truism that's been said before, but it was, it's fundamentally important to the way that I tell stories, which is what, on every story I'm asking myself.

This question is, what does your character want and what do they need? Uh, and they should almost always be different things, right? Like, you, you think you want to win to be the richest man in the world, but actually you just wanna be loved by your dad, which I think is true of probably all the richest men in the world.

Um, it, it's usually that simple, you know? And, and through the course of the journey, that is the traditional hero's journey that they seek, what they believe they want, and along that. That path, that journey, they actually sacrifice what they want because they discover what they truly need to actualize themselves or to complete themselves.

Meg: But Lorien and I have been finding, as we, on our workshop site as we listen to pitches, is that people have gotten very clear on the need. And when you ask them in terms of a plot Yeah. What do they want in the plot? They just tell you the need that, and it's funny because back in the nineties it was completely the opposite.

Everybody was all plot. And if you ask them about the need, they kind of would fuzz out. And now it's completely reversed. Yeah. 

Lorien: What's happening is their characters are too self-aware upfront, because the writers are asking their characters, what do you want? What do you need? And it's so it's broadcasting in the writing right up front in Act one.

This is actually what this character is going through. They have to fig, they have to, they're missing their dad's love. That's why they're acting this way. So it's too in the script, and like Meg said, they'll pitch that as the want. Um. So, yeah. 

Kaz: So yeah, so take that as you will. I, I think, I think that there's something really interesting about that because maybe I, I might get, maybe I shouldn't say this, but it's like, it's, it's a byproduct of like the culture.

I, you know, like the way that we have become more in touch, I think. I think that like in the nineties, people didn't know what they needed. They actually were like, I need a fast car and a yacht, or I need a, you know, a trophy husband. Like, people were just, they, we were living in a less self-aware society and self-aware world, for better or worse, frankly, probably for worse.

But, hey, here we are. And, and I think that when you think about your characters, obviously, like what, what makes a story interesting is discovery. What makes life interesting is discovery, right? And I think that we, by going on a journey to discover these things by like, starting off in one way, I can't even think of a specific example in a, in a story.

I mean, okay, I'll, I'll come up with a specific example for one of my stories that I'm working on. Which is, I have two selfish outlaws. You know, they're in it for themselves. They are best friends. They don't care about society, they don't care about the world. They just wanna fill their pockets because they believe fatalistically that America is cooked, that society, people, they're bad, you know, they're inherently bad people.

And when they go on this journey, when they, when they basically are forced by circumstances, I'm not trying to spoil any pot points here. You gotta see it on Amazon. Um, but when they're forced by the circumstances of the story to, to confront that belief system, which is cynical, you know, it's cynical, it's selfish, it's, uh, cold.

It's, it's sort of anti humanist. When they're, when they're really put to the test, what they really discover is that they, they do care about people. They are selfless when it counts. They love each other and their love for each other and their love for their family and their community. They start to realize, well, if we just all took better care of each other, maybe we actually could fix the machine.

The machine that is, you know, grinding us all into dust and they become heroes. And I think that that journey is not something, if you ask them for seven episodes, of the eight episodes of this story, they would say, I want the money. And it's not until the culmination of their journey that they actually go, I don't, I don't want the money.

I want my family. I want a family. Right? And they're willing to sacrifice all the money, the biggest score in the world to protect the people they love, because they finally have learned this lesson. You cannot take it with you. Family's the only thing that matters. And so that, that emotional journey is eight hours of storytelling.

We, we've managed to build eight hours of storytelling on that journey. And, and that is very much, I think, a direct case of want. Need. You really have people who would say, I want this thing. It's so easy. It's so easy to tell people you want love or you want money. Um, but deep down beneath that, obviously you're gonna find a whole interesting, uh, stew, human stew.

Lorien: So in terms of stakes, right? You're at Trader Joe's, I want snap peas. They don't have 'em. Big deal. But if I don't get them, the vampire apocalypse is gonna sh show up in, right. So what you're talking about, um, how do you, you know, stakes, it's the thing I always, somehow, always forget right up front, my first draft.

Like, oh, right. Something has to be a stake. Right. Um, in order to drive you forward in terms of plot and want and need. How does that play in for you, um, in terms of your writing process when you're coming up with the ideas, but also like how you're, how you're making that, it has to be so important, right?

Because at the very end, episode eight, the stakes have to be so fucking high. That it really is money or family. Right? And so you're building that, and so building that pressure throughout a series or throughout a movie, how are you doing that? 

Kaz: That is a great question. Um, and it, it's something that I think a lot about because I write a lot of, I naturally am drawn to history, you know, and so a lot of my stories for myself are either period, they're about turning points, inflection points, moments where history is made and decided.

And so I sort of have the, the benefit of being able to look forwards and back through history and time to create a lot of sets of global negative stakes, global positive stakes. You know, I think people often underestimate the power of positive stakes, um, because I think negative stakes has become such a, like, catch all word.

You hear it all the time, like everyone's beating that drum. Like, what's the bad thing that's gonna happen? Don't forget, you know, so often what's the good thing that's gonna happen? You know? And I think that the character want can really be tied to those positive stakes. You looked at your world. You know, I, I don't think that there's a universal rule for me to tell every writer how to create effective stakes in their story, but I do think there are like some shortcuts, which is ultimately it, global stakes.

Even though they're global, it can still just be as big as losing your car, right? Like if I'm trying to deliver a kidney to a sick child and my car gets impounded, there's your story. Like that's a story. Now you have a delivery driver who has 30 hours to get across the country and his car has been stolen, so he has to get this car back, right?

Lorien: Or the kidney is in the car. 

Kaz: There you go. Let's keep going. Meg, jump in pitch. We're taking this thing to Fox. Um, I'm kidding. Fox doesn't exist anymore. RIP. Almost all the stories I write are thrillers and that's just the genre that I happen to understand and I'm interested in. And I do think genre conventions are interesting.

That's another conversation for another podcast session, but I really think. Tension is the inherent like joy of a lot of stories, right? Like we like tension, horror movies are simply just tension and release Comedies are just tension and release. So when I build a thriller, really it's just it. It inherently has stakes and I think the inherent structure of a story will tell you what those stakes should be.

Even if it is a family drama. You know, I've written family dramas and had a great time doing it. And those family dramas are very simple because it's usually the love of a family member, you know, and reconnecting with a family member. We've all experienced that. It's very universal, but like to lose a relationship with this person you love forever, that's stakes.

That's a rom-com. That's every rom-com. You know, it doesn't need to be like, if I don't fall in love, the world will end. Although that's an interesting rom-com and you can, I'll have that one for free. That's a good idea. But global stakes doesn't mean the world's gonna end. I think that's a really important thing.

It's doesn't matter found fundamentally to the character that you love that stakes. 

Lorien: So. In every scene, right? You have to have a clear want. The need belief, the belief system around all that has to be simmering somewhere there, right? Mm-hmm. Like where I, where am I in the tension of getting what I want?

Big picture, what is this scene about? And that stakes have to be in that scene too. Otherwise, you're not gonna be able to pressure your character to move to the next scene. And it's also the thing that makes them active rather than passive, rather than telling, rather than just exposition. I, for me, saying this is so obvious, but it's something sometimes I have to remember.

because I write long, I'll write like a really long, long scene and then be like, okay, no wait, where, where is the part? It's usually like the last seven eighths of it, right? And I'm like, okay, here's where the want, the need, the tension, the stakes are really coming out, all the rest is set up and conversation.

And I'm sneaking up on it in some ways. Um, so just, I like to say things like that out loud. I'm not wrong. Right. 

Kaz: Not at all. No, not at all. There's no, first of all, I think, I hope every writer is a little bit long, and then, and then you, I, I use the word distill far too often, but it is the best way to describe, I think the writing process, even what Meg was talking about, where like, you're iterating, you're iterating, you're iterating.

Um, and, and yeah, all those, all, like, there is, if you zoomed all the way out and you had a beautiful mind, maybe you could see the way that, like, stories are actually just a series of like mathematical, structural bits, you know? And like, if you get a little bit of want here and this scene needs a little bit more clarity, and it was just buzzwords.

But I, in my experience working with, uh, talented writers who are far more, you know, my, my collaborators who are far more talented than I am at writing, what I, I so often see is it's this little mixture. Like it's a little dance of magic. It's a little bit of math, it's a little bit of structure. It's a little bit of like who you are as a person.

Um, your interests, perversions and predilections that like, find their way into the scenes and in their work. That's what kind of makes it spicy, you know? Um. This is a sort of off topic yeah, tell me – 

Meg: Interests, perversions, predilections. 

Lorien: Make it spicy.

Kaz: Yeah, make it spicy. 

Lorien: Interests, predilections, and perversions. I mean, that is genre. I don't know if that's a genre. 

Meg: Oh, but I'm literally gonna go look at my characters and I'm gonna take them through those three things and I'm gonna, I love it. That's my, one of my big takeaways today that I, I always write something down, especially when I talk to Kaz.

Kaz: That's, thank you. 

Meg: So, I, I know I don't wanna, we, we only have so much time, so I wanna make sure to get to two more topics. One is collaboration. And I would also like to talk about directing, because we have a lot of directors who are young, um, or coming up who also listen to this. So I don't wanna, uh, ignore that topic.

So, but first, collaboration in terms of writing. Um, you said that you had a thought about that, so I wanna make sure to get that in. 

Kaz: Positive collaboration is, is. Fundamental to, to making things for me, especially. And what I'll say is it allows you to have structure into a process that is incredibly internal.

It's really, you know, I, I've never met a professional writer of anything who hasn't looked me dead in the eyes and said, writing sucks. Uh, it is the hardest job in the world. I have immense respect for anyone who's ever written anything. Uh, I have so much love for my collaborators and writing partners, and so much of that is because I am a verbal processor.

Maybe you figured that out. Maybe I've been hanging out with me. I don't have anything written down. I'm not reading any notes. You know it. It's when I start talking, then the thoughts take shape. And I think that is. My particular gift that I feel blessed to have. But it is really how I think, I think out loud.

I think there are other people out there who think out loud. Um, I don't really like writing, but like I said, I don't think I've ever met a professional writer who's like, I love doing this every day. Um, and so what collaboration allows is you can get up on your feet, you can walk around, you can say your ideas to each other, and you can talk about stuff that isn't related.

You can talk about your favorite movie, but really it allows you to like, perform the scenes and bring them to life. Um, writing is so solitary, it's so lonely. Um, the best nights of my life have been spent, you know, writing with a writing partner late at night, trying to get a draft done in time, and then that feeling of sending it better to share your wins and your losses.

So I look, this sounds like a pre, like a, a sales pitch for like Yeah, go out there and find yourself a life and writing partner. It'll be super easy, like no big deal. Uh, it's very difficult, but it's also, it's incredible. Incredibly intimate relationship that will make you grow as a person. It'll make you grow as a, uh, artist and as a human being.

Because you have to be truly vulnerable. You have to be wrong and be okay with being wrong. Um, and it takes something that's very lonely and makes it like a little bit more fun. So that's, that's my, my partner. 

Meg: I, I love collaboration and I hate the, I love and hate that it does force you into clarity.

because if somebody's standing across you going, I don't get it. Like, did that, so why would he do that? Like, and then you have to explain yourself and then you're like, oh, that's clarity. Or actually, I don't know why. I just like it and actually makes no sense. And I also love the moment and hate the moment where they're starting to peel the character apart.

Or you realize we actually have a different character in our head. Or just the depth that you have to get to with the other person to really understand. I love that moment where it just opens up like a flower and you're kinda like, oh, I thought it was already complex. And it wasn't even started. Like we hadn't even started with him.

So I, I love that about collaboration that you, how, how those, that back and forth can start creating all of that. I mean, it's also really hard and because everything is, 

Lorien: I think this is so interesting for me as a feature writer and a TV writer that it's why I love being in the room so much is because you have all these people breaking characters and stories all at once in this really collective, fiery, passionate thing.

And that is the process. And then as a feature writer, it's so hard then for me to. Uh, without those validation checks of the other people in the room. Like that's why I went and pitched my story to Meg and I was, yes, it's great and in the room and I love it. And then left my own devices. I fell apart, you know?

And so it's just sort of understanding then creating a system for myself so that I can write this feature and not fall apart instead of just, I'm not gonna write it right. But knowing myself well enough as a writer, as a collaborator, that it is really in that TV room where I, it is the, I do need to be witnessed, I do need to be validated, and I do need to be.

It needs to be in the now. because like you, I process as I talk and that is why I'm so fucking happy in a writer's room, right? It's why Pixar was such a wonderful place in that regard. Okay. In all regards. Fine. But um, but it was the cereal bar. Yes, the cereal bar. Um, but it is like, as you're thinking about who you are as a writer and how, if you are a feature writer who likes to collaborate, if you're a feature writer who wants to write a loan but needs these other checks, if you wanna be in the writer's room, sort of really understanding who you are and what you need and creating it, rather than, I'm bad at this thing, it's, you know, I need validation.

I need to be witnessed, I need to be checked on, I need to ask for checks in order to be successful in my writing process. So, I dunno if you're supposed to be that. I think there's this idea that a feature writer sits in their bathtub and smokes and comes up with a whole feature by themselves, you know?

And it's not true. 

Kaz: No, I think the, that's so beautifully said, Lorien. And what it speaks to for me, when I, when I like take all that I go. What's magical and so painful about like real collaboration is that it forces you to confront your own defensiveness as an artist. And defensiveness is like the most useful thing because it allows you to protect and preserve great ideas, but it's also the most destructive thing.

because it allows you to, it, it doesn't allow you to accept ch changes or, or it doesn't allow you to accept things that make your story better. Um, because we sometimes can be so protective. I certainly know I, I'm an incredibly defensive writer, so that has been a, a huge, uh, growth point for me to finally go, like, my idea is great, but your idea is better and the best idea must always win.

Meg: And I at least have to think about it. That's what I always keep telling myself is, you just have to think about it right now. because I, I get immediately defensive because I'm afraid, oh my God, you're taking it all apart and I don't have much time. Fuck. And then I just have to be like, just, just breathe. This is actually possibly a good idea.

So directing… 

Kaz: Directing. 

Meg: So many things we could talk about. So I just wanna zero down into, for you as a writer, but, and you write with another person. But as a writer, how is it different directing in terms of the artistic creative process?

Kaz: Um, I always say that I'm a director that got tricked into Hollywood screenwriting. I was a DGA commercial director for many years. I went as an RSA, I did Super Bowl spots for Chase Bank, um, in my twenties. And, uh, I spent at one point, I think 220 days on set in 2017. So I, I spent a lot of days directing.

It was a really great job. It was really ironically the ultimate education for having a professional screenwriting career because you really are managing the agency and the client, which is the network, the studio, the producers. It's managing expectations, having a strong vision, um, and holding true to what you think is really important.

And, and I'll just say this about the majority of our screenplays, I think the thing that makes 'em really pop is that we are writing to direct them. Everything I've ever written, I write it like a director, and when you read it, especially Ruin, our Black List screenplay. Um, I wrote that to make, you know, I, I literally, I'm a French citizen.

I had an EU grant. We had an independent producer who was gonna get us, you know, what, a quarter of a million euros or something. And we were gonna go try to make this thing for under a million dollars in the Czech Republic, where in October, where the fog was gonna be, our production design. And if you read that screenplay, the majority of the movie is two actors in the woods.

Even though it's a period story, even though it's a thriller, it's actually a pretty small movie in its scale. And I think those things, the executability of a film and then reading it where it really comes alive on the page, like you're seeing shots without having to say camera zooms, you know, like camera tracks.

We don't put camera direction in our screenplays very often, but, um, when you read a movie that's written for and by a director, I think it reads differently. You know, I think there's an eternal Akira Kurosawa quote, the great master who said, if you want to direct. Write. And obviously what he really meant by that, and I'm paraphrasing there, but what he meant by that is like writing your movie, getting it onto the page, you're making a large majority of the choices there.

And then directing as a, as a writer/director, directing, is interpreting those beautiful choices. I think that's such an important a reminder that it is a collaboration and that you can make something stronger together with a great producer, with a great executive, with a great writer, and that having a great writer is not a threat to a, to a director.

It's an asset. It's a gift. You know, like I want every one of my writing partners I've ever had to be on set of my first feature because I want their genius brains. Like, the more brains you have serving a vision, the better. It's not a threat to have a, a better intellect on your set. It's a gift. Um, I really think about directing specifically.

I go, okay, this is a school of thought. This is, this is just my own, uh, Kaz Firpo thoughts on directing. They're not necessarily true. They're just what I believe. I really find that directing is really just two foundational skills. It is vision. When you close your eyes, do you see the movie in your head? And the second equally important skill is charisma.

Can you convince a large group of disparate strangers how good that vision you have is? Uh, and I've met many directors who have one and not the other, or the other and not one. And frankly, I think you need both. But people get really far with just charisma in this town is sometimes it's all you need. Um, and I think cultivating those skills to anyone listening, like that's what it comes down to.

I, I think you can cultivate charisma. By the way, I actually used to shoot wedding videos in college. That's how I put myself through NYU. I shot a wedding and a bar mitzvah every Friday and Saturday night for about four years. Probably did about 200 weddings in New York. And it was an unbelievable education to have to put on a suit every weekend, make friends with large groups of strangers, make them laugh and smile, shoot the videos, capture their moments, be under pressure.

Um, and then obviously commercial directing is all charisma. It's all about projecting, convincing people of your ideas, communicating effectively. And those are really useful skills that I believe you can cultivate. Um, and when you meet a great director who has those two things, you're like, I'll follow you into Mordor.

Like, let's go throw in the ring baby. Like, let's do it. And I, and I think that that leadership is something that is sometimes lacking. Understanding that like, this is a people business because we spend a lot of time alone. But like Hollywood is a business of people. And the way you speak to people, the way you make them feel, that really, really matters.

Um, that's what I believe about directing. 

Meg: I love it. I, we have a lot of students who listen at all the different universities. 

Kaz: Let's go students! 

Meg: I know. 

Kaz: Go Violets. 

Meg: I know there's, um, a lot of directors and including my son who are entering their senior year. They're looking down the barrel of okay, graduation. Um, so what, you know, you said you started in commercials, but even to get into commercials, you have to get in, you have to be somebody they would choose and believe in. So for the people who are graduating, what would you, and I know everybody's got their own ladder. There is no ladder. Do you have any insights for them in terms of, you know, what to do? Or should they just be making their shorts? Should they be networking? I don't know. Just what would be your advice? 

Kaz: Well, that's a beautiful question and I'm, I'm always inspired to see anyone trying to pursue their dreams and make art and be a professional artist. It's a gift, uh, curse, but also a gift.

And, um, I sometimes speak to my, uh, old professors, NYU classes. I, I have a gift, a privilege of doing that every couple months. And what I usually tell people is, is you said there's no ladder, but two things are important, which is one, um, you don't need permission to make a difference. And what I really mean by that is don't wait for someone to tell you to make your art.

You are allowed to make a documentary. I know you can go make a meaningful documentary in your neighborhood with your iPhone. Like you don't need a budget to do that. You know, it, it, it seems terrifying, but as all things that are craft, you will not get better unless you do it. Um, my journey was beautiful and, and I took many paths.

I, I graduated college. I was shooting wedding videos. I started shooting, I gripped a bowling alley commercial for 50 bucks a day. That was my day rate, which I'm almost certain is illegal. Uh, and, and I've done so many odd jobs, but all that time I was writing, uh, all that time I was making things, you know, as things.

I still go back and watch and go, you know, I really liked that short film. I really liked that documentary. And I think a lot of us spent a lot of time, uh, maybe waiting for validation or permission to make things. Um, and you're not gonna make your perfect thing the first time. This is a joke that I have about the creative process, which is that like.

Movies are a unique thing because we all have grown up watching them. So many, so many people have seen so many movies, but just because you used a toilet your entire life doesn't mean you could plumb an entire house your first try. It's a craft, like you have to learn how to do it. Plumbing is challenging.

It's difficult. You join a union to become a plumber just like screenwriting. You know? Just because you've watched a thousand movies doesn't mean the first movie you write is gonna be awesome. Uh, and it can be very discouraging when the first movie you write is in fact not awesome. It is terrible. Uh, I wrote many movies.

I wrote at least two or three features by myself. They're all terrible. Then I started writing with my, um, college roommate, David Shapiro. Shout out, great guy. Let me sleep on his couch after graduation for five months. And we wrote three features together and those are actually kind of good. And those movies were the first time I was like, oh, I'm actually like.

Not bad at this. Um, we submitted those to the Nicholl Screenwriting fellowship, and that was the first time I made it to the semi-finals. And I was like, oh, I'm, I'm not a total piece of shit. And I think that validation, those nudges along the journey, they fill up your well, as an artist and I, I sort of have this metaphor that all artists have this well of, um, validation and success and, you know, every little victory you have, like pours a little bit into that.

Well, like when you get into the college you wanted or someone tells you, Hey, that movie made me cry, you know, and you're like, Ooh, that's gonna be a big one. Fill the well all the way up. Yeah. And if your well is full, then you have a lot of power. You have a lot of like, creative power to take risks and make choices and do things that are really scary because being an artist is inherently scary because, Hmm.

It's, it's the natural state of the world is entropy. So creating is against the natural laws of the universe. It's, it's an incredibly difficult thing. It's not natural. Uh, and that's what makes it so beautiful. And so when you – 

Lorien: What you're saying is writing isn't natural.

Kaz: It's ungodly Lorien and it's an ungodly thing for witches and warlocks.

Lorien: I have a, this is, go ahead. I have a follow up question about the practicality of directing your own thing. Oh, yes, I have go. So I, you know, I'm just using myself as an example because I'm the expert in my own life sort of. Um, I, uh, have a feature I wanna direct that I wrote, I have directed animation, I've directed, uh, voice, but I have yet to really, like, okay, I wanna, I wanna direct this feature.

I write. So I'm like, okay, here I am right now. And then I am imagining I'll have camera crew and I'll have a producer and I'll have a budget. So it's like. But right now I wanna make something with my iPhone. Yeah. So what do I need? Right? I'm gonna go shoot a short with my daughter and her friend, and they're arguing about making macaroons and selling them.

I don't know. Right? Yeah, of course. So I have my script, I have my shot list. I've done all the prep I can imagine doing, having had, you know, the experience I've had, or let's assume I have no experience. Um, then what do I do? Should I shoot the scenes on my iPhone? And then what editing software do I need or, or how do I then do the dialogue sync?

And like, what kind of tools would a beginning person who hasn't gone to film school say, like shoot your own stuff. Okay. Some of us need like the primer, right? 

Kaz: Um, you really don't need anything. You, you truly like the iPhone. Even the basis level iPhone now is better than the camera I was shooting with when I was in.

Middle school, I used to have to shoot on mini DB tapes live, capture the tapes in real time. So if I shot for an hour, it would take an hour to digitize it, and then I would edit them on pirated software, which I had to figure out before YouTube. Um, not that I'm that old, but you had to figure out how to do all this stuff.

And that's a joyful thing. We now live in an era where the iPhone itself is a great tool. I mean, this is like, this is a little bit trite. Everything I'm saying is trite, but I promise it's gonna get, uh, deep. And so you have everything you need. You could get, you know, uh, what's it called? What do they call it now?

Final Cut X. Really, it's iMovie. You could, you could be editing on your iPhone with iMovie in minutes for pennies like that. That's a true story that could happen, and you start to get familiar with these things. My joke about NYU as a proud graduate of Tisch is that. Everything you need to learn about movies, you could learn from YouTube, like the technical aspects.

I, I happen to be a very technically minded person. Like I can sound mix, I can edit in Premiere, I can do all these things at a really rudimentary level. I'm not trying to edit my own movie or sound, mix my own film. There are gifted talented craftspeople who are gonna do a better job than me, but familiarizing yourself with every step.

It gives you confidence. It gives you confidence to talk to your department heads. It gives you confidence to talk in all these scenarios where you're going to have to talk. So, on a pure basic level, I, the reason that I often strongly recommend documentary as a starting place, which was my gateway drug as well.

Um, I made many documentaries. I traveled the world for many years making documentaries. And it was really a reaction to commercials and even to short films, which I, I had a great short film that changed my life. It starred the incredible David Alvarez who had, uh, started as in Steven Spielberg's West Side story.

He's so talented. It was his debut film. I was 18 when I made it. Um, and so I've made shorts. But the thing about documentaries is they have inherent emotional power, and that's like really what you're sculpting with as a filmmaker and as an artist, is you're using emotions. And if you make something like a short film and it, it doesn't make you laugh or feel tension or feel scared, then you kind of feel like you failed.

And it, it's really demoralizing to like just make a movie about like a. To use your metaphor, like a person baking a cookie and then someone watches it and they go like, cool. And then they, they don't feel anything. And then you kind of go, that didn't feel good. Why did I spend all that time on it? And then you're kind of demoralized and, and I think documentaries are both fundamentally important to our culture, and it's a tragedy.

I think they're, we're making fewer of them. Um, but they're also useful to the world. And, and you don't need to go to Ukraine or Syria or Lebanon or, you know, um, the edges of the earth to make a meaningful documentary. You really could go down the street. You know, tell a human interest story about a baker that's baking, you know, cookies for sick children.

Go to your hospital, volunteer, tell a story about a nurse and how difficult it is to be a nurse. Like these stories, 

Meg: I think that's such, that is such great advice, especially for these directors graduating who think they have to be in commercials. They have to do a music video.

They have to, they have to, and they're sitting and waiting for someone to call them. So, and again, it just shows you who has the chutzpah to also do it can also then withstand the bigger chutzpah that you're gonna get into with giant companies. And, you know, I feel like that's all training ground, so that's amazing.

So we could talk all day Kaz, and we might have to have part one and two because we are mm-hmm. We're definitely coming back. But, um, we're gonna end with our three questions that we always ask. Um, the first is, what brings you the most joy about writing and or directing? 

Kaz: Wow. A great, great question.

Um. What brings me joy about writing and directing, about creating, I, I really believe that creating is an essential part of the human spirit, you know, to express the things you love and believe in. It makes you a more complete and thoughtful and curious person. And I think that it's really important as people that we don't stop learning because the, the gift to be able to learn and engage with the world, like physically, emotionally, is our reason for being here.

So I feel very, very lucky to be able to create for a living, but also for myself. 

Lorien: Fantastic. Okay. So what pisses you off about creating? 

Kaz: Hey, get Lorien coming in hot. Um, what pisses me off Hollywood is a club. Uh, it is ultimately at the end of the day, right? It doesn't have clear boundaries, doesn't have clear rules, but like you're trying to like, get into the club, be cool enough, make the art that's good enough, quote, unquote, unquote, to get into the club.

So all the things that got you here, like you were super talented, you wrote a great screenplay. You, you made a short film, entrepreneurially on your own, like all those skills that got you into the club, quote unquote. Then you get in the club and you're like, all right, I'm here. Like, let's do it. Then you get picked up, put in a little corner, and then they're like, just do what we're supposed to do.

Take your time. They put you in your little corner, and you no longer are now allowed to use your complete skillset. You're just trying to convince. A small number of people let you be who you used to be, which was this creative, entrepreneurial person who made stuff all the time. And what I, maybe I'm speaking too codedly, but what I'm really talking about is the professional screenwriting system.

Like you used to write all this shit all the time on your own. You're going off making documentaries, making all this cool stuff. And then you get to Hollywood and you have agents, and you have managers, and you have lawyers, and you have a team, and you're really lucky and you're pitching, but then now you're not actually making things, you're actually making like PDF documents.

You're just making like a bunch of PDF documents on a bunch of different people's computers for like seven years. You know? And I was very blessed to make a movie that I really love that changed my life. But I think that you, you put a lot of, we take a lot of brilliant people and they put a lot of their energy into making PDF documents instead of making real art that can change the world like they used to before they got into the club.

Meg: All right. If you could have a coffee with your younger self, what advice would you give? 

Kaz: Trust your instincts, be kind, uh, and remember to enjoy the ride. 

Meg: Beautiful. We could also make that a t-shirt.

Lorien: That would be on the back. Although, yeah, exactly. Again, the genre twist. Enjoy the ride. I don't know.

Kaz: We all just get a little shirt, has pervert on it. Just like David Fincher always wanted. 

Lorien: How about we just walk around with shirts that just say “Kaz” and if you get it, you do. And if you don't, sorry. 

Kaz: You're out. You're outta the club. 

Meg: Kaz, Thank you so much for being on the show today. Thank you. You are very special. I knew you would give us such great insights and information and you did. And um, we will have you back. 

Kaz: No, Jeff, Jonathan, also incredible. Lauren was hanging out in the background briefly. 

Lorien: And Alex, our intern. 

Kaz: And Alex, the whole gang. No, honestly, I've been listening to this podcast for a while, so thank you guys for, uh, listening to me talk about stories.

Meg: Thanks so much to Kaz for joining us today. For more support, check out our Facebook group and our workshop site, the Screenwriting Life Workshop site. 

Lorien: And remember, you are not alone and keep writing.