San Diego Comic-Con has just wrapped, but that doesn't mean we have to leave the buzz of the convention behind. Maybe you hit up Southern California in your best cosplay and waited in those monstrous lines for Hall H. (Or you watched the livestreams. That's cool, too.) If you were just skimming headlines, you were probably inundated with release dates and cast reveals. Marvel dropped news about a Ghost Rider movie with Ryan Gosling and a third Black Panther, while Apple offered a first look at its Neuromancer adaptation.
This is all great for a nice trailer binge, but maybe less useful if you're the one staring at a blank page on Monday morning.
Push past that, though, and you'll see several filmmakers said things you can take into your work as inspiration this week. Brad Bird talked feedback. Mike Flanagan laid out how to crack open a story that's been told to death. And the announced projects told us where the industry currently stands, and what screenwriters can take away from it.
Bird and Taking Notes
Brad Bird, writer of The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Tomorrowland, walked through his career in a "My Cinematic Journey" panel. But one quip highlighted a skill every working writer should develop: taking notes.
By his account, he accepts most of the notes he's handed, and only digs in when one is flat wrong. "I don't mind notes if they're not stupid," he said (via Comics Beat).
We all know the feeling. Sometimes a reader just doesn't "get" what you're trying to do. So you can let those notes slide. Respectfully, of course. Always thank a person for the read, either way. If your first instinct is to fight, Bird said, you'll get slapped with a "difficult" label.
Get good at triaging a stack of script notes. Sort what matters from the noise, then let the rest go.
Flanagan Takes the Story Apart
Mike Flanagan's Carrie panel about his upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's first novel was about taking something apart, finding its essential pieces, and putting it back together even better. Stephen King's novel has been adapted several times. Flanagan's pitch for doing it again was to stop treating the source as something that had to be one-to-one.
"It's a thrilling way to adapt something, to take it apart into its essential pieces and use that to build something new. That is how we were approaching Carrie," Flanagan said (via Gizmodo). "That's what got Stephen King very excited about this adaptation. I think a lot of people think they know what the show is. And the biggest thing I'm excited about today is just knowing what a big surprise our Carrie is going to be."
To update the story's bullying for a generation raised online, Flanagan brought teenagers into the process for their perspective.
"I think bullying has changed a lot in the 50 years since this novel was written ... And we were very careful," Flanagan said. "We brought several high school students into the writer's room to ask if they could share their experiences and the things that they dealt with, either in these shocking one-off situations or just the constant kind of treatment and the microaggressions and the things that don't necessarily immediately present themselves as the kind of targeted harassment that they really are."
That's the job of a good adaptation. If you're retelling a familiar story, find what's most important in the original, then rebuild everything else for modern audiences so it feels fresh.
Don't Neglect the Craft Track
Sure, Hall H is all fun and noisy and grabs the most headlines, but SDCC also offers programming made for working writers and filmmakers. And it shouldn't be overlooked if you have the chance to go.
This year's schedule included Comic-Con Film School 101: Preproduction and Screenwriting, the Writers Coffeehouse, and a Pro Writers AMA, plus a Build Your Own World and Intellectual Property session for creators trying to own what they make.
And there are some big names in these rooms. The Writers Coffeehouse was hosted by novelists and comics writers including Jonathan Maberry, Dennis Crosby, and Elle Jauffret.
This is a good reminder not only for conventions like SDCC. If it's a fan-first con like this, or a film festival like SXSW or AFF, don't neglect these opportunities if you're trying to make movies or be a working writer. These are the rooms where you can network and meet others at similar stages of the journey, or simply get inspired.
The State of the Industry
It's always helpful to see where the market is. Nearly every project the studios chose to platform at SDCC was an adaptation, a sequel, or a franchise extension. So that's where the big dogs are playing.
Being knowledgeable about the industry and what's selling can be helpful when you get into rooms or when you're networking. Understand how IP works (who owns it, why studios lean on it so hard, and how to write a version only you could), even if you're not at that level yet.
And the skills Flanagan talked about, like doing the work and finding the one true thing inside an old story, are the ones that make you the writer a studio wants to pass a property to.