Seth Rogen Explains How to Write a Movie

theoffcamerashow

23 Mar 202005:27

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

00:00

🧠 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.

05:01

🎬 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

Mentorship refers to the guidance and support provided by an experienced person to help someone grow in their field. In the video, Judd is portrayed as a mentor, offering notes and advice, but also allowing the writer autonomy over their screenplay. This balance of guidance and independence is key to the speaker’s growth as a writer.

💡Writing Exercises

Writing exercises are tasks or challenges aimed at improving a writer's skills. The speaker describes Judd’s suggestion of writing 100 page ideas as an exercise to remove the preciousness from writing and help writers overcome the fear of putting words on a page. This method pushes writers to generate ideas freely without overvaluing each one.

💡Screenplay

A screenplay is the script of a movie, detailing dialogue, character actions, and scene directions. In the video, the speaker talks about writing 'Superbad' with their co-writer Evan, where they had the freedom to accept or reject Judd’s suggestions because it was their own screenplay, showing the personal ownership that comes with this type of writing.

💡Collaboration

Collaboration involves working together with others to create something. The speaker highlights the collaborative process of writing a movie with Evan, noting how they would bounce ideas off each other, refine them over time, and incorporate feedback. Collaboration is essential in the creative process, especially in film and television writing.

💡Idea Generation

Idea generation is the process of creating new concepts or stories. The speaker mentions how they would constantly generate movie ideas and how the ones that stick over time are the ones that eventually turn into films. This highlights the importance of ongoing brainstorming and revisiting ideas to see which ones have lasting potential.

💡Emotional Story

An emotional story refers to a narrative that resonates on a deep, personal level with its characters and audience. The speaker discusses the importance of finding an emotional core in their stories, such as the conflict between old friends and new friends in 'This is the End.' This emotional foundation gives the story depth and relatability.

💡Creative Process

The creative process refers to the journey from initial idea to finished product. The speaker outlines how ideas begin as simple concepts, get refined over time, and evolve into fully fleshed-out stories. This process involves brainstorming, organizing, and adding emotional depth to create something meaningful.

💡Fear of Writing

Fear of writing is the anxiety or hesitation writers feel when starting or committing to a piece of writing. The speaker describes how many writers prefer to discuss ideas rather than write because they fear committing to the page. Judd’s exercises, like coming up with 100 ideas, help diminish this fear by encouraging writers to focus on quantity over perfection.

💡Assignment Writing

Assignment writing refers to writing work done for someone else’s project or vision, where the writer has less creative control. The speaker contrasts their personal screenwriting experience with the experience of writing for Judd’s TV show, where they had to follow his notes strictly, teaching them the discipline of writing for someone else's vision.

💡Long-term Thinking

Long-term thinking in creativity refers to the ability to recognize the longevity and value of an idea over time. The speaker mentions how the best ideas are the ones they keep coming back to years later, indicating that good ideas withstand the test of time. This reflects a Darwinian approach, where only the strongest concepts evolve into full stories.

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.'