geisha egocentricity: Great Screenplay = 10 Man Years ? Screenwriting from Iowa

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Great Screenplay = 10 Man Years ? Screenwriting from Iowa

January 4, 2013 by Scott W. Smith

Though it?s now 2013, this blog continues to get many hits on posts I?ve written about Toy Story 3 which was released in 2010. I?m not one to stop that momentum, so here?s my first Toy Story 3 post of the year:

?Andrew Stanton?s rule of thumb is that it takes 10 man-years of labor to make a good screenplay. Either two writers working five years or 10 guys working one year. For Toy Story 3, it was even more than that?probably the equivalent of 10 people each working two or three years. To me, this is what separates Pixar from everyone else. They realize how hard it is to come up with a great screenplay.?
Michael Arndt
Inside Pixar by Danny Munso
Creative Screenwriting, May/June 2010
Page 179

Heck, I may be writing about Toy Story 3 ten years from now. (Just for the record Andrew Stanton?has won two Oscars; Finding Nemo and Wall-E.) ?And speaking of ten years, here is another quote from that same article which may encourage/discourage you:

?You have to remember, I spent ten years sitting alone in Brooklyn working on my scripts and getting dribs and drabs of feedback every couple of weeks. and suddenly, it?s like your crawling through the desert and one day you drill down and hit a geyser. Sitting on those [Pixar] Brain Trust meetings have been some of the most exhilarating moments of my creative life. I remember the first time I sat in on a Brain Trust meeting. As soon as people started talking it was like the Harlem Globetrotters in your living room.?
Michael Arndt

So keep that in mind as you wander through your own writing desert. Before Pixar?brought?him on board to help write Toy Story 3, and before he won and Academy Award (Little Miss Sunshine) Arndt was ?sitting alone in Brooklyn working on scripts.? ?He worked as an assistant in the film business and as a freelance script reader to pay the bills. (one of his employers said he didn?t even know Arndt was a ?closet screenwriter.?) I believe it was about 15 years after graduating from NYU film school when he finally saw a feature he wrote get produced.

P.S. Next Christmas I?m going to ask for a one-day pass to sit in on a Pixar Brain Trust meeting.

Related Posts:
Screenwriting the Pixar Way (Part 2)
Toy Story 3?s Ohio Connection
Screenwriting Quote #135 (Michael Arndt)
Writing ?Finding Nemo?
The Dark Side of Pixar & Disney
Beatles, King, Cody & 10,000 Hours?(Diablo Cody proves they can be woman-years as well.)

Scott W. Smith