You Want Excitement In Your Art and Boredom In Your Life by UCLA Professor Richard Walter Video Lecture | Screenwriting: From Beginner to a Pro - Career Development

biggest mistakes starting out how did
you correct
that's a great question biggest mistakes
starting out I suppose you know I was
very lucky I got worked quite
consistently for a number of years I
thought it's all that's the way it is
you know and I realized that in
Hollywood every every success is just
just moves you up to the next level of
the possibility of frustration and
disappointment and heartache you know
you're writing a script you don't sell
it you sell the script they don't make
the movie they make the movie but it
doesn't get released or it gets released
poorly or it's not well-received if it's
well received they'll talk about what a
great director it was if it's if it
bombs they'll say well you know how
could he work with that script and and
so on that's right as a fort to to blame
but I must say I don't I I can't think
of any really profound mistakes that I
can identify that I made I think the
smartest thing that I did the anti
mistake I made was to come to Hollywood
you know I only I thought I was going to
come here for I came here for about
three weeks I had time to kill between
two between my master's degree which you
got it Syracuse Newhouse school and I
was going to continue there for PhD and
came out here drove out in three days
with a buddy in a VW Beetle in 1966 and
sort of got shamed into staying I
realized my God when I you know the
opportunities to study film a much
better and here at UCLA in at USC where
I was then at Syracuse and the mistake I
would have made would have been to play
it safe and because I had everything all
set up there and it was comfortable and
you know as real as I'm too young to go
go for comfort so I'm not aware of I
can't really identified mistakes things
I really wished I had done differently
based on what I knew at least at the
time I mean I could like with American
Graffiti I never really you know it's
not unusual that there's a credit
arbitration it's automatic in a case
like graffiti where you have a
production executive in this case the
director George Lucas the guild
automatically has an arbitration and
regarding the credit and I you know I
never made my case I never took it took
it seriously the fact is I did very well
off of graffiti even without my name on
it I got I became the go-to guy for
adolescent coming-of-age stories I mean
I wrote such stories commissioned
assignments you know good good pay the
equivalent today of like adjusted for
inflation be like half a million dollars
a script you know not the kind of money
to be used to be but you know I was
really a twenty-something years old and
I mean a school teacher in law and the
LAUSD Los Angeles Unified School
District doctor made about seven
thousand dollars a year and you could
live kind of comfortably on that in LA
in those days you know talk about the
early seventies eight sixties so I made
it you know I I was able to I was well
paid for the work that I did on written
graffiti and got a lot of work as a
result of that it also inspired me to do
my own coming-of-age story when the
George approached me on graffiti first
thing I did was say who cares about your
Gentile white bread modesto cornflake
upbringing you know let's do my story
Jews New York do up because I had a
project that I wanted to do and of
course he wanted to do his own story you
can't fault him for that but after that
all came out I decided I really
or to do the I never seriously expected
he was gonna you know do anything within
his own story that's all he should have
done of course but after that I I was
inspired and I should try my own and I
wrote my first novel I had it as a film
treatment but I instead I used it as a
net one for a novel I think there was a
strike and you couldn't market to the
studios and that was very naive because
the fiction market is impossible
especially the first fiction market but
this thing sold immediately so naivete
is your friend sometimes you can have
smart yourself it's a real problem
sometimes in film schools the students
are too aware of the grosses from last
week and the trends I'm only something
it's too late to get in on a terrific
well there aren't any trends but if
there was a trend it's too late to get
in on the trend because it's the trend
that had to have been in the works a
couple of years earlier three years
earlier so as I say the the novel the
novel sold right away to a major
publisher in New York publisher then
suddenly it was viable as a movie deal
and there was a film rights sale and the
adaptation assignment so you know I made
good money and had good experiences
would you know that I'm believing I'm
still even as we sit here I'm in
business on that same project forty
years later it's now after I saw Jersey
Boys I decided to turn it into a jukebox
musical a musicals a musical that uses
not original tunes but new music of the
era hits of the era like Jersey Boys
does and lo and behold we we had a
staged reading of it here in the musical
theater department our system in the
theater department that was a very
humble experience but for me the most
exciting
creative experience I've ever had and
now there's an agent who has it and
who's taking around and trying to make a
deal for it very unlikely than anything
will come of it but the nice
for me is I'm still in business with it
I have enough money I'm not rolling in
dough but I have more money than I made
I don't worry about money to me that's
what being rich means it means not
worrying about money so I'm liberated
from needing to make the rent or
anything like that and again it's it's a
wonderful example of how you you know
Socrates says I'm a college professor so
I'm required once a day that quote
Socrates so please make a note that this
is for today the real wisdom is knowing
that you don't know like Goldman says
you nobody knows nothing you just don't
know what if somebody told you they
wanted to do a movie and they didn't
know much about it but they thought it
should be about a guy who stutters and
he asked to give his speech and so he
hires a speech therapist and they
prepare for his speech and then he gives
the speech I mean that sounds like the
stupidest movie I ever heard of and yet
it's a great movie I love The King's
Speech and it won the Oscar for best
movie and Best Screenplay what if
somebody told you what if had my class
somebody says I want to go with silent
movie in black and white yeah this guy's
crazy and yet that's the Oscar winning
movie this year so you just never know
you never know one thing I've learned in
businesses is you just don't know that I
think is the most important thing of all
and again it can't become a handicap in
a institution of learning because here
we're supposed to be able to figure
everything out and see how it works and
some of the pundits and people you're
talking to really believe they have the
funny does it explain this and that and
why this so and what about it's just an
accident what about it can't be
explained there's a lot of stuff I think
it just can't be explained why do you
need to explain everything you know all
right it's not about explaining is a
intellectual a head a brain thing and
that's very important part of our lives
but art is not about that
at the heart and the belly and the groin
and and not about thoughts but about
feelings and again if you can make an
audience feel something intensely you
can frighten them if you can make them
deeply deeply sad caused them to grieve
boy they will line up around the block
to see that movie because so much of our
lives are boring thank God we you know
we want sweet boredom in our lives
somebody said my wife and I flew we were
in we went in Portland for a wedding we
got back somebody said how was the
flight
and we said boring meaning terrific you
know I mean would you like oh it was a
great flight you know there was a near
miss when we left the airport in
Portland and we hit bad weather over
Yosemite Park and then there was an
accident on the runway a couple of
vehicles that we just about we had a
scooter I mean you know like the the
oxygen masks came down there was a lot
of turbulence I mean you know that's not
what you want in your life you want that
in in your art what you want in your
life on the flight is it took off right
on time
you know they serve tomato juice with no
ice my beverage of choice on these
flights and then it landed without event
in you know at LAX of Burbank wherever
we came into you want boredom in your
life you want excitement and and other
kinds of stuff in your art because
that's a safe place to experience that
and I think that's what it it's really
for the theater is really kind of a
gymnasium for the senses it's a place
where you go to try out really you know
experiences and and emotions then in the
real world might destroy you you know
you can actually plan it so it's not
just a digression another version it's
really an important part of learning how
to engage the the world
you