Host George Edelman welcomes Ed Solomon to share how lessons from both success and failure—along with one wild night at an Alaskan Strip Club—have had a hand in shaping the writer he is today.

In this episode, we talk about…

How Ed’s high school experience inspired him to be a writer and why he tells himself he’s an imposter daily
How shifting from big budget films to smaller specs expanded Ed’s creative path
How a trip to an Alaskan strip club led Ed to write the play “Strip Club” and how it got him hired for Laverne & Shirley
The fallacy about gateways that lead to your career—you make your own path
Why Ed considers Men in Black as a series of failures that culminated in success
Developing a skill set to learn how to write while you write and learning from every script
How Ed approaches storytelling:
Remember you’re always dealing with point of view even if you don’t realize it
Know what it means to have a healthy relationship with the audience and always keep in mind what they know
Examples of objective vs. subjective points of view
Consider your audience as a friendly ally
Advice for new writers:
Get other people to say your words out loud and listen to it
Take your words and mount it, direct it, film it, edit it
Take acting, editing, and cinematography classes
Watch your very favorite movies and transcribe them—internalize what those writers did
What you can learn from transcribing films:
How little dialogue you actually need
How little stage direction you need
How short scenes are and how they do not have a beginning, middle and end but just a middle (usually)
The importance of sequences and how things are a juxtaposition of little pieces to form a sequence
You really only learn about writing screenplays by writing a bunch of screenplays
Why Ed is choosing to keep a beginner’s mind until the end

Links to Resources:

No Sudden Move on HBO max

Subscribe to our newsletter for news, contests, deals, and a FREE ebook at https://nofilmschool.com/screenwritingbook.

Check out our new video on lighting night shoots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J66WWsCp7XE

You can read about all this and more at https://nofilmschool.com/. You can also check out our Gear Guides and Entertainment News on the right hand side.

Please like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and check us out on Instagram!

Ask us questions at editor@nofilmschool.com!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brand Building auf Etsy: Vom Start auf Etsy zur eigenen Boutique - Belinda Prehm von SMILLA Boutique