Seth Rogen Explains How to Write a Movie
Summary
TLDRThe speaker reflects on their experiences working with Judd Apatow as a mentor, highlighting the valuable lessons learned about writing. They discuss exercises like coming up with 100 ideas, which helped overcome the fear of writing and reduced the preciousness often associated with creative work. The speaker emphasizes the importance of persistence in developing ideas, noting that the best concepts are the ones that stick around for years. They also touch on the creative process behind 'This Is the End,' illustrating how ideas evolve through brainstorming, emotional storytelling, and natural selection over time.
Takeaways
- 🤝 Judd Apatow's mentorship taught valuable lessons about writing, including embracing challenges like coming up with 101-page ideas.
- ✍️ It's important for writers to not overly revere or place too much pressure on every piece of writing.
- 📄 Writing for others is sometimes necessary, but it’s still important to bring your own voice into the work.
- 🎬 While writing *Superbad*, Judd Apatow gave notes, but it was still the writer’s choice whether to implement them since it was their project.
- 📺 The dynamic changed when writing for Apatow’s TV show *Undeclared*, where the writer had to follow all the notes because it was Judd's show.
- 🧠 The exercise of generating a hundred ideas helps overcome the fear of writing and stops writers from being overly precious with their work.
- 💡 Good ideas are those that stick around in your mind over time, as Seth and Evan discovered while working on multiple concepts.
- 😂 The initial concept for *This is the End* started as a joke about celebrities stuck in an apocalyptic situation, with iterations refining the idea over time.
- 🎭 Emotional and personal conflicts, such as the tension between old and new friends, played a significant role in shaping the narrative of *This is the End*.
- ⏳ Over years of refining, the team would narrow down hundreds of ideas, focusing on the ones that resonated most, eventually leading to the creation of a movie.
Q & A
Who is Judd and what role did he play as a mentor?
-Judd Apatow is a mentor who provided valuable guidance to the speaker, especially in terms of writing and overcoming creative challenges. He gave exercises like coming up with 100 page ideas, which helped the speaker avoid being too precious with their work.
What was the significance of the exercise to write 100 page ideas?
-The exercise aimed to reduce the fear and reverence around writing, encouraging writers to focus on creating rather than overly valuing or overthinking every idea. It helped remove the pressure and allowed the writer to generate ideas more freely.
How did Judd's role change when the speaker was writing for his TV show?
-When writing for Judd’s TV show, the dynamic shifted, and the speaker had to follow all of Judd’s notes and direction. This was a contrast to working on personal projects where they had the final say. It emphasized adapting to the vision of others when working on collaborative or assigned projects.
How did the speaker describe the difference between personal and collaborative writing?
-In personal writing, the speaker felt more freedom to reject notes or feedback, whereas in collaborative writing, especially when working for someone else like Judd, they had to follow directions more strictly, adapting to another person’s vision.
Why do some writers avoid writing and prefer talking about their ideas?
-Many writers fear the act of committing ideas to paper and prefer to talk about ideas to avoid the pressure of writing. This leads to overanalyzing and delaying the writing process. The speaker mentions that writing for Judd helped break this habit by taking the reverence out of writing.
What process does the speaker use to determine if an idea is good?
-The speaker and their writing partner Evan determine if an idea is good by how long it sticks with them. Ideas that they continue to think about over time, even years later, often turn into fully developed projects or films.
How did the movie 'This Is the End' originate as an idea?
-The idea for 'This Is the End' started as a joke about famous people, like Seth Rogen and Busta Rhymes, being stuck in a supernatural or apocalyptic situation. Over time, the concept evolved into a full movie, beginning with humorous observations and growing into a more structured story.
How did the speaker and their partner organize their ideas for 'This Is the End'?
-They made lists of various elements like types of apocalypses (zombies, Christian apocalypse, monsters) and built the story from there. Over time, their brains naturally gravitated toward specific ideas from the lists, which they organized into a coherent outline.
What emotional elements influenced the story of 'This Is the End'?
-An emotional story underlying the movie was the conflict between old friends and new friends in the speaker’s life. This real-life tension was mirrored in the film, exploring themes of loyalty, friendship, and identity.
How did the brainstorming process help develop the final movie?
-The brainstorming process was gradual and took place over years, during which ideas were tested, discarded, or refined. The best ideas stuck with the creators, and as they built emotional layers and external challenges, these ideas organically formed the basis of the movie's storyline.
Outlines
🧠 The Value of Writing Without Attachment
The speaker reflects on the experience of having Judd Apatow as a mentor. They discuss how Apatow's challenges, such as coming up with 101 page ideas, helped writers detach from the idea that everything they write needs to be valuable. The speaker recalls how this process broke down the 'preciousness' many writers feel toward their work. By not fearing the act of writing, and by being forced to create many ideas without attachment, the speaker suggests this practice teaches writers to remove fear and approach the craft with freedom.
🎬 Evolving Ideas into Movies: A Process of Elimination
The speaker elaborates on how the process of coming up with movie ideas works for them and their writing partner, Evan. They describe the importance of ideas that stick with them over time, using the movie *This is the End* as an example. Initially just a joke about famous people in apocalyptic situations, the idea evolved over years. They highlight the importance of brainstorming, narrowing down ideas through natural selection, and adding emotional depth to the story. Conflicts between groups of friends and personal growth are identified as key themes that enriched the final narrative of the movie.
📺 Thanks for Watching! More Content on Off Camera
The speaker wraps up the video, thanking the viewers for watching and encouraging them to subscribe for more content. They also direct the audience to visit offcamera.com to access the full-length versions of the conversations. The closing remarks include a light, friendly tone and a music cue to conclude the episode.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Mentorship
💡Writing Exercises
💡Screenplay
💡Collaboration
💡Idea Generation
💡Emotional Story
💡Creative Process
💡Fear of Writing
💡Assignment Writing
💡Long-term Thinking
Highlights
Judd's mentoring method included writing 100 ideas to help writers avoid overvaluing their work.
Writing for others versus personal projects shifted the dynamic, as following notes became mandatory for Judd’s TV show.
Removing the reverence and fear from writing is key to being productive.
Many writers spend more time talking about their ideas than actually writing them.
Judd's exercise of writing multiple ideas helped take the pressure off the act of writing.
The practice of coming up with 100 ideas taught the importance of persistence in determining good ideas.
Good ideas are often those that writers keep thinking about over time, becoming clearer and more refined.
Superbad started as a personal screenplay with Evan, with Judd helping but the final decisions remained with the writers.
For 'This is the End,' the initial idea was a comedy involving people playing themselves in a supernatural world.
The concept for 'This is the End' evolved over years, starting as lists of ideas like 'Seth and Busta Rhymes versus the Ant Men.'
The idea for a Christian apocalypse in 'This is the End' came from brainstorming various apocalyptic scenarios.
Story development included creating an emotional story, reflecting personal experiences of friendships and conflicts.
Over time, 200 ideas were whittled down to around 60, which then started forming an organized outline.
The emotional theme of balancing new and old friendships became central to the movie's story.
Combining emotional depth with external events created the final narrative structure of 'This is the End.'
Transcripts
tell me about like having Judd as a
mentor in terms of like those challenges
he would do it like I read he said
something like right 101 page ideas I
mean I thinking that sign that's
valuable for writers to do at some point
in their careers is just like to not
have to put a lot of value on everything
you write and to also understand that
like sometimes you are writing for other
people that was another thing that like
I would do for Judd like I've been
writing super bad and he had been
helping me with it but he would give me
notes and I didn't have to listen to
them because it was my screenplay you
know what I mean and mine in Evans movie
so like if he was like this seem like
you're doing too much of this we could
be like no it's our movie you know but
then I remember I started writing on
undeclared ahead he gave me a bunch of
notes a script that I had written and I
was like do I have to do all these he
was like yes because now you're ready to
go my TV show what does it go that
changes this whole dynamic and so I but
that was very valuable like it actually
I think is good to just be to kind of
break try to bring as much as yourself
into something but know that you are not
who whose con you are not the ultimate
conduit you know like it's Judds vision
on that and then with these assignments
again it was just something that would
kind of like get you out of this like
preciousness I think I think a lot of
writers are very like precious with
their work and don't want to actually
write things like they'd rather taught
like that's something like just as a
producer I know it with a lot of writers
is like they'd rather talk about
something for way more time that it
would take them to just write it and and
they put so much on the actual writing
of the thing that it's it's like it's to
elevate it's like to revere do you know
and what's good about having to come
with a hundred ideas is like it takes a
lot of the reverence out of actually
putting words on a page which is helpful
I think because you shouldn't be afraid
to write you know and and it takes away
that fear and a lot of people do have
that fear of like committing they want
to talk for five hours so they can write
for 10 minutes so that was probably
hoped what he was trying to impart
Laurie just 100 movie
I wonder if that exercise helped you to
be able to recognize what a good idea is
no a hundred percent what - I think with
me and Evan especially like the only
thing that lets us know if an idea is
good is if we keep thinking about it for
a long time like we come up with you
know five times a week one of us will
turn in the other and be like you know
make a funny movie this like oh this
would make a funny movie idea oh maybe
we should make a movie about this the
ones that become movies are the ones
where three years later we're still
being like oh and then you know what I
was gonna like they start out as lists
of just ideas finally we're something
like this is the end like it was just
first it was like we like this idea of
like people playing themselves in a I in
a world that was supernatural that was
funny to us so that was that was the
initial probably one of the initial
ideas it was like what if we would
always joke about like Seth and Busta
Rhymes versus the ant men that was like
the joking that was like the first
incarnation of the idea of like it was
like probably around when we start
working on the Sony lot so like see all
these random famous people around and
like we would be like oh I could be
funny if like we were stuck in one of
these little situations with these
people you know you know then we just
make lists of like ideas like okay like
what kind of apocalypse zombies this
this Christian apocalypse then in that
we start to like that and then it's like
okay Christian apocalypse and then
horror movies in general monsters just
trap somewhere you're barricading
yourself you don't know you've limited
resources you start arguing with each
other and then just things set pieces
fire exorcism and we do that for years
and then Darwinistic lee your brain of
the 200 ideas your brain starts to
gravitate towards like 60 of them and
those are the ones that you kind of
start to organize a little bit in an
order and at the same time you're trying
to think of like an emotional story so
that was a thing that was happening to
us at the time is like we had had this
kind
whole group of friends and our new
famous friends and there was some times
conflict between those groups of friends
and that was something that you know we
would found itself on a list one day as
we were writing emotional stories or
dislike oh this conflict between like
your friends from home and your new
friends in your new life and who's the
better influence and who are you are you
the new friends or the old friends you
know and then again slowly after years
and years and years it that creates like
an outline basically and then it's just
adding what other external things can
make it worse and bring more of that
emotional stuff to the surface all these
things just turn themselves into a movie
basically yeah hey folks thanks for
watching if you like what you just saw
then why not subscribe click right here
for lots more off camera and if you want
to see the hour-long version of these
conversations I'm gonna give you the
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off camera comm check it out
[Music]
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