Here's what I didn't know when I was starting out that I now knowโฆI thought when you were starting out it was really hard to write because you hadn't broken in yet, you hadn't really hit your stride yet. What I found out paradoxically is that the next script you write doesn't get easier because you wrote one beforeโฆeach one gets harder by a factor of 10.
Shane BlackI have a shoebox: for ideas, fragments, snatches of conversation I hear. I scrawl it down, throw the scraps in the box. Every time I start a new script I start picking through the pieces. Suddenly you get five pieces together and think: this is almost the first Act of a movie, if I flesh it out a bit.
Shane BlackI have these guilty pleasures, these failed films that don't work at all, but I'll watch them if they're on. Like 'The Game'.
Shane BlackI think the most important thing is to, without belligerence, stand up for what want. Argue compellingly if someone tries to change your script.
Shane BlackPeople would say, "Well yeah, if I wrote action films, if I wrote the trash that you write, I could make millions too. But I want to write my real movie about these Guatemalan immigrants, and how they hid under a truck for 300 miles." And that's fine. I'd love to make that film too, but to dismiss everything I did just because it's action seems wrong.
Shane Black