Our latest interview is with screenwriter Phyllis Heltay, who’s currently got scripts in pre-production -  one with Cult Classic Films and one with the producers of Battlestar Galactica. Cool. Somehow, she’s still found the time to sit and talk with us about movies, the craft of writing, and what it’s like being a woman In The Industry.

Kwanzoo: First, thanks for taking the time to talk with us. Can you tell me a little about yourself and how you got into the business of screenwriting?

Heltay: I loved writing stories from the time I could put a sentence together, but didn’t know what form it would take. I majored in Journalism in college, but only because it was the only place that I thought concentrated on writing. Boy, was I wrong!

Kwanzoo: I think a lot of writers assume that journalism is the only way to “make money” writing or something. I was certainly told that.

Heltay: Well, a lot of my journalism buddies were just as broke as I was as a writer for years. But that leads me to the whole question of money and writing. The old cliche of “a writer writes” is so true. If you want to get into screenwriting because you think you’ll be hauling cash to the bank by truckloads….don’t write screenplays. It’s the form itself that dictates if you’re suitable to write for the screen.

Kwanzoo: I have yet to find that magic branch of writing that brings in cash by the truckload, but I think lots of people believe that the more “commercial,” the better. And that naturally lends itself to screenplays.

Heltay: Like novels, if you manage to write a best seller or a studio buys your project, then you might get the big paycheque. I deal with independent producers - low budget. Which is how most screenwriters start their careers. I’ve had numerous screenplays optioned, only to have the companies go bankrupt or the partnership they have with other producers break down.

Kwanzoo: So you were always interested in writing stories - were you a fan of movies your whole life, did you ever “make movies in your head” or things like that? Or was it only something that developed later? What led you to it?

Heltay: Yes, I’m a huge fan of movies. And every story I ever wrote was always very visual.

Kwanzoo: Was it easy to sort of transition that kind of storytelling into screenplays? They tend to be a very specific format and I know lots of writers have trouble adjusting.

Heltay: My brother is a film director and writer, and one day he asked me to co-write a comedy with him and another writer. I said “I don’t even know what a screenplay looks like!” So I sat down with an armload of scripts I downloaded from the internet. Drew’s Script-o-rama.com is a great place!

Kwanzoo: Oh, definitely.

Heltay: Then I fumbled through the form, learning what “sounded” right by “feel.” If you watch movies you have an instinct of what constitutes a scene.

Kwanzoo: And you will see a fair amount of variation, I mean, some writers will describe scenes using pages and pages, while others just focus on dialogue. There’s definitely more than one way to do it. Do you find yourself gravitating more towards one or the other?

Heltay: There are certain things that will kill your script. One of them is over-describing things. A screenplay is a blueprint for a movie - it’s not the movie. Dialogue should be there for a reason, and I admit I love writing it more than the action lines. A perfect movie would have NO dialogue. So it’s a fine line describing the action, without boring the reader (and readers have NO patience). You have to catch them in the first 10 pages.

Kwanzoo: I believe Hitchcock said at one point that the addition of sound to the movies had made a lot of people lazy, because dialogue is such a quick and easy way to “tell” instead of “show.”

Heltay: That’s so true. Bad movies will usually have characters that explain themselves or the plot through dialogue.

Kwanzoo: It’s something you see more on T.V. than anything, but it always grates on my nerves. “As you know, Mr. President…” That kind of thing. Nobody talks like that!

Heltay: It’s called the “Nester The Explainer” character. He or she is put there to explain what’s happening because someone thinks the audience is stupid or they haven’t done their job.

Kwanzoo: Yeah, it’s a bit insulting to the audience, isn’t it.

Heltay: Sure is. The one thing I’ve learned is that the audience is always three steps ahead of the story.

Kwanzoo: I’ve heard that one of your screenplays is in pre-production right now - can you tell me more about the story and how it got picked up?

Heltay: I have a short film “Hitman” being shot in L.A. this weekend by Cult Classic Films - a new independent company. I also have a sci-fi feature “Nightshade” with the producers of Battlestar Galactica. This is how they happened. Nightshade had been optioned twice before with two different producers who for various reasons couldn’t get the funding together (a very familiar story). Then one of the producers of Battlestar got a copy of the script through a writer friend of mine who is now a producer himself. They gave the script to Michael Rymer, the director and sometime producer of episodes of Battlestar, and he decided he’d love to do it as a feature. Since Battlestar was in its last season, they were looking for a feature project to jump on. It’s now in casting and meetings with networks. Hopefully we’ll be shooting by next summer. My short film was one I put up on Inktip - a great site for screenwriters to put up their work for producers to see and request.

Kwanzoo: So do you maintain any creative control in any of this?

Heltay: I’m the sole writer, which means any changes that the producers or director wants will be done by me. But the writer has to “let go” in many ways and let it become a collaborative process.

Kwanzoo: Have you ever found it difficult to do that?

Heltay: I’d be lying if I said no. That’s the toughest thing about screenwriting. It’s totally about the film, not the script. In other words, the king is the director and his or her vision for the film. Our job is to serve that, and sometimes we might not agree with certain choices, but once you sell your work it’s no longer yours to hang onto. The best way to describe the it is to ask people on the street who wrote their favorite movie. Most can’t. But directors are well known.

Kwanzoo: Speaking of directors - it might seem to those outside the industry that there aren’t many women working behind the scenes. There certainly aren’t many famous ones, and if you asked someone to name ten famous directors I doubt one of them would be a woman. (And I doubt many people could even name ten screenwriters.) Have you found this to be a “man’s world” in any sense?

Heltay: Yes, it is. Though over the last decade more and more young women are taking over the directors chairs. And that’s a great thing. Directing was always a job with incredibly long hours and classically looked upon as the “boss” job. So just like in a lot of areas, women were passed over or didn’t go for that position. That’s changing rapidly. Also, most of the executives were men. So it’s no wonder how they chose their directors.

Kwanzoo: I think people kind of assume that all their favorite movies were directed by men. It’s like how people used to assume that “doctor = man,” but that’s changing, and I guess the role of “director” might be changing too. I had no idea that woman directed American Psycho until I looked it up. And for female screenwriters I imagine it’s even more compounded, because it’s such an overlooked position to begin with.

Heltay: Yes, that’s true! The image of the director is some guy in a baseball cap and beard.

Kwanzoo: A lot of people see “director” and think that the guy in the baseball cap did everything behind the scenes, including writing, producing, etc. Which is true in some cases, but very untrue in others.

Heltay: I was told “gee, this script didn’t read like it was written by a woman!”

Kwanzoo: Oh, man, I love those kinds of comments. No one would ever comment on a script written by a man and say “this reads very masculine/feminine.” But they will definitely say it to women.

Heltay: You bet! Action flicks are assumed to be male domains.

Kwanzoo: Sci-fi, too, I’d imagine.

Heltay: And “chick flicks” are of course supposed to be written by females - both are wrong assumptions, of course.

Kwanzoo: That’s why American Psycho really blew my mind, because it’s a movie that a lot of women say is degrading to the gender, yet it was directed by a woman. Who’d have thought? It’s interesting how people’s perceptions of a story can change based on what they know about who was behind it.

Heltay: Yes, my sci-fi features opens on page one with a naked female character - I remember thinking that would catch that male reader and drag him to page two. [Laughing]

Kwanzoo: Ha! Men are so easy.

Heltay: Yup! I have a supernatural thriller in development that I put a generic name on - could be male or female - because I want it to be read with no preconceptions.

Kwanzoo: It’s kind of sad that you still have to do that kind of thing, but maybe it’s just human nature. We kind of want to find the voice behind the writing, and part of identifying that is figuring out the gender of the person who wrote it. At the same time, when someone once told me that my writing was “feminine” it made me very angry. I didn’t want to be in that box. I don’t think anyone does.

Heltay: Yes, it dictates what foot you’ll start off on when dealing with producers and directors. If they think you can’t do something because they think it’s outside your gender “skills” then it’s a problem. But our job is to prove that nothing is outside our wheelhouse.

Kwanzoo: As long as we have to chance to do it, then I guess the preconceptions can’t really hurt too much.

Heltay: I think barriers are what makes us better writers. We can’t be lazy and ignore the business side of things. Screenwriting is always about budgets and production.

Kwanzoo: When it comes to stories, where have your ideas come from, generally? I know this is a generic “writer question,” but there’s almost always an interesting response in it, which is why people insist on asking!

Heltay: I’m interested in that too when I read about other writers. I seem to always start with a character and an emotion. The character is doing something or feeling something and I ask “how did he or she get to that point?” Then it’s sort of like that simple game of rolling the little metal balls in the holes. One thought joins another and a core of a story is formed. Sometimes it’s a comedy, sometimes it feels like a another genre that will tell the story in the best way. I’ve been inspired by a small headline in a newspaper too. Or the look of someone sitting in a park, crying by themselves. But always it’s about character.

Kwanzoo: I always like to ask people in the industry if their work has affected how they look at films and T.V. Have you experienced this sort of thing? Is there anything you just can’t enjoy anymore?

Heltay: Lately I find myself getting real tired of the “Arrested Development adult male” comedies. Those films that have guys in their 30’s and 40’s acting like 12 year olds. Films that are directed toward the biggest audience (apparently) - 14 year old boys.

Kwanzoo: Yet the ones that are most strongly directed that way always seem to fail. Audiences are smarter than they think, lots of the time. When movies like “College” get ignored at the box office it renews my faith in humanity a bit.

Heltay: Yes, Hollywood wants to make the same movie over and over again to repeat the box office success of something that came before it. But that’s where the independent films come in to make it possible to believe that good stories are still appreciated. And the Oscars have started to go to smaller films over the last decade. Hurrah!

Kwanzoo: Yeah, it’s definitely much more possible to get noticed nowadays.

Heltay: It’s such a tricky business and the old adage “Nobody knows nothing” coined by William Goldman, a great screenwriter, still holds true. If Hollywood knew what works, there wouldn’t be so many big budget flops. Which is another reason screenwriters shouldn’t try to follow any trends. Because once there’s a trend out there it’s already over. Trouble is that making movies is a huge financial risk with little assurances of profit. The profit is in the popcorn and pop, not the film.

Kwanzoo: With the big-budget ones, some smaller studios essentially put everything they have on the line.

Heltay: That’s true. And there’s a lot of corporate fingers in the pot, so the bottom line is always important. Which is also why executives say “No” to more projects than they approve, because no one wants to make the mistake. And jobs are on the line.

Kwanzoo: It’s such a risky business!

Heltay: It sure is. For the writer it’s risky to put months and years of writing out there for a tiny chance of getting made.

Kwanzoo: Seems like everyone’s got a book or a screenplay they’re trying to sell. The market is oversaturated.

Heltay: From the outside it seems like a glamorous way to make a million bucks and live in a mansion, sipping martinis by a pool. But the pool boy has a script he wrote in his back pocket. I always tell everyone to keep your day job, but keep writing because you love to do it.

Kwanzoo: I’ve found that it can be hard to maintain the energy to do both.

Heltay: That’s true. All writing takes emotional and physical energy, and everyone has a different way and time of fitting it in.

Kwanzoo: Which leads me to this: what do you do besides write, if anything? How do you fit it all in?

Heltay: I write in the mornings - my mind is mush by noon! My husband is a realtor and I’m his partner. I use my writing to spiff up his descriptions of houses! But his income has always supported my writing, and his belief in my writing has always supported me. I did a million part time jobs while raising my daughters, but always wrote something - short stories, a couple of dismal attempts at novels…

Kwanzoo: Do you think it’s easier or harder to write when you’ve got other jobs and things going on? One could argue that you don’t have time or energy, but one could also argue that stress and experiences lead to more writing.

Heltay: I firmly believe it’s easier to write when you’ve got other things going on in your life. First thing is to get those bills paid, otherwise you’re writing in a world of stress. I guess there are writers who enjoy that feeling, but I’m not one of them. It’s not hard to bring up stress as a memory - one doesn’t have to live like a criminal to write about one. I just wrote about living on a dwarf planet - go figure.

Kwanzoo: That brings me to the whole “write what you know” thing. People say that a lot, and everyone has different interpretations of it. What do you think it means? Is it relevant?

Heltay: For me it means to write what you know as a human being. It’s about digging into your own emotions. We all have stories - real or imagined - that we’ll use. But it doesn’t mean you can’t write about being a stripper in Kansas because you ain’t one.

Kwanzoo: Yeah, I think some people take it to mean “only write about the mafia if you are in the mafia,” which obviously isn’t how the industry works.

Heltay: Lordy no! As a matter of fact a person is too close to their “real” life to be able to write it with much arms length observance. I’m not 16, but I was 16 once in my life so I can still reach in and pull out those emotions … I think writers are always curious - all writing is about answering some question, looking for solutions, making sense of life. We want to know why people do things. What is the motivation? Ultimately the question is “What is it we want?” and that question makes the story. We want love, or money, or sex, or power.

Kwanzoo: Or all of the above!

Heltay: Yes, and that’s what all movies are about. What a person wants. And at the core it’ll be about love of all or some of those things.

Kwanzoo: And since we all know those things, “write what you know” becomes very easy indeed.

Heltay: Yes. … A bank heist movie might be about the love of money, but it is also about someone wanting or thinking that this will get them the love of another person. Or get them the security they never had. A story has to always be human - even when it’s about robots like Wall-E - it’s about love.

Kwanzoo: In light of this, what are some movies that you really like and/or admire? Those don’t HAVE to be the same thing, of course, but they could overlap!

Heltay: I love anything the Coen brothers do. And it’s because they love their characters and tell great unique stories. So Oh Brother Where Art Thou and No Country for Old Men, and the movie for and about a writer - Barton Fink. I also love anything Charlie Kaufman does - Being John Malkovich. I tend to enjoy the quirky and insane and therefore adore indie movies for that.

Kwanzoo: Do you think indies have a shot at eclipsing “regular” cinema anytime soon? Some people are saying that the climate is right, and people are looking for something different.

Heltay: It’s already happening. Miramax was looked upon as an independent house until they financed “Shakespeare in Love” and hit it big. Now it’s not so much low budget as it might be a company that will find things from the indie world and market them big. People will always look for something different. Directors and writers will get their start in low budget independent films - get noticed, then get job offers for the studios. Everyone has to start somewhere. Of course connections and kismet plays a part. Instead of connections I should say “relationships”. The writer you know today might become a director tomorrow and remember she read your script and would love to do it.

Kwanzoo: The rise of indie film is definitely good news for those of us who enjoy the unique stories that it provides. Well, I think I’ve kept you for long enough, but do you have anything else you’d like to say before I let you go?

Heltay: Yes, I’d like to tell anyone thinking of writing screenplays to not let the mountain of “NO”s stop you. You can find everything you need on the internet - screenplays, screenwriting formatting software, sites with marketing info etc. Now is a great time to be a screenwriter because of the diversity of mediums out there, but do it because you love it - not because you have to make a million bucks by next year!

Kwanzoo: Well, that’s certainly good advice! Thanks so much for sharing your experiences; I’m sure lots of budding screenwriters will benefit.

Heltay: Thank you, it’s been a pleasure. Good luck on all YOUR writing. See you at the movies!

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