[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: Can you actually take us through your writing process from start to finish?
Mike Thompson, Screenwriter/Script Consultant: Well, it’s pretty tried and true at this point. I have to make my creative mind fertile for the ideas to come. There is a certain degree like you can:
-Chase the market
-You can read the trades
-Talk to your agent/ your manager
-Get the feedback
Well, Paramount’s looking for thrillers and Warner Brothers wants R-rated comedy.
You can do that work but I have always found that whenever I chase the market, the material suffers because it’s not coming from an organic, authentic place to begin with. It’s coming from a somewhat craven pursuit of a sale as opposed to the creation of art that happens to sell.
What I try to do in my best self is always go back to the place of creating a fertile, creative mind by:
-Going out to nature
-Taking a long drive
-Listening to music
-Unplugging from (no) phones (none of that stuff)
And just literally getting into that almost hypnotic state where when you’re driving you could literally just forget that 5 minutes passed because you were just completely zoned out. That is when I believe the best idea, some people say it’s in the shower the same dynamic of just being almost in a meditative state whether you…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).
About:
Mike Thompson is a veteran Hollywood writer/producer, perhaps best known for his feature films, Dragonfly, starring Academy Award-winner, Kevin Costner, and Love Happens, featuring Emmy-winner Jennifer Aniston. He also co-created and was a showrunner of the FOX television series, John Doe, starring Dominic Purcell, and co-wrote and produced the indie horror film, Choose, starring Academy Award-nominee, Bruce Dern. In the documentary realm, he executive produced the multi-award-winning feature, A Lawyer Walks Into a Bar, and appears as himself in the cult classic award-winner, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. In addition to his produced credits, he is uniquely distinguished for having written and sold dozens of high-profile spec scripts, pitches and teleplays to nearly every major Hollywood studio, including multiple seven-figure deals and at one point, the “highest-paying scripter deal ever” ~ Variety. He has collaborated on projects involving the likes of Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington, Johnny Depp, George Clooney, Will Smith, Edie Falco, Chris Pine, Michael Keaton, Richard Gere, Academy Award-winning director Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump), and presently, blockbuster producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Top Gun: Maverick). Upon graduation from film school at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Mike began his career at Paramount Pictures, where he worked as an assistant to Academy Award-winning producer, Scott Rudin (No Country for Old Men), and subsequently for legendary producer, Larry Gordon (Field of Dreams), who set up Mike’s very first spec script sale at Walt Disney Studios. Mike lives and works in the mountains outside of his hometown of Seattle, near the U.S. military’s decommissioned Nike “missile site” where, as a kid, he cut his teeth on his first camcorder short films, thus inspiring The Missile Site Blog.
CONNECT WITH MIKE THOMPSON
Advertisement – contains affiliate links
(As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases)
More affiliates:
Camera we use for interviews – https://buff.ly/3rWqrra
Sound we use for interviews – https://amzn.to/2tbFlM9
Other books on Amazon that Film Courage recommends – https://buff.ly/3o0oE5o
