6 Questions with Beck & Woods

Join the Heretic filmmakers live on 2/5

As soon as I finished watching Heretic back in December I emailed writers/directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods to ask them to join us for a live Zoom Q&A. I need to know everything about how this movie got written and produced. It’s that wild.

And we’re doing it! A rare weekday Q&A on Wednesday, Feb 5, 3pm PT/ 6pm ET. As always, open only to paid subscribers who will ask their questions while Beck & Woods provide answers.

Like most, I became aware of Beck & Woods after seeing A Quiet Place, for which they wrote the original screenplay. And how original it was! Incredibly smart and well-realized with a human story at its center and world-building at the edges. You can find a version of the script here.

They are also the writers/directors of Haunt and 65, and the writers of the Stephen King adaptation The Boogeyman.

Beck & Woods joined me in 2018 at the Austin Film Festival for a “State of the Scare” panel along with C. Robert Cargill (Sinister; The Black Phone), Yasemin Yilmaz (The Exorcist TV show), and Alvaro Rodriguez (From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series; Seis Manos). It was a terrific conversation about writing and selling horror, what scares them, how their material got made, and lots more. Worth a listen here.

Use headphones.

6 Questions with Beck & Woods

1. What you working on right now?

We are currently noodling on five different projects. All specs. Different genres. One is a true story, one is a big scale sci-fi, one is a philosophical thriller.

2. What challenges are you facing specific to your current writing project?

At this early stage of the process, our biggest challenge is always focusing on one or two projects to prioritize. Over the years we have adopted a kind of Darwinian approach where each project battles it out with the others death-match style, and then whatever we're most passionate about eventually wins out. Some of these discarded projects can be thirty pages deep or even outlined.

It's usually a frustrating time for us, because many of the projects have thematic overlap, so you're kind of robbing Peter to pay Paul - since everything we're writing should be tapping into our current thoughts, feelings, emotions about the world. Stealing one great idea from one project and repurposing it for another can feel like spinning wheels and lost work. But what sometimes emerges in the end is a really strong character, or engine that you can't deny. And the work is never really lost because at the very least it was an exercise in becoming a stronger writer.

The strong survive.

3. What advice about the business of TV/film writing can you give to someone starting out now?

Read screenplays. Watch movies & TV. Read books. It helps to see how the masters achieve great storytelling. And to also explore where certain stories fall short for you as an audience is important too. There's a lot to learn as you develop your taste, and it can be really inspiring.

Make whatever you're writing as personal as possible. Don't be afraid to hide your secrets or authentic feelings in your work; it will anchor your characters and themes to something poignant that will undoubtedly resonate with others around the world.

The kind of emotional storytelling I can get behind.

4. What advice about the craft of writing can you give to someone starting out?

Stephen King writes every day. Most of the successful writers we know do as well. So it wouldn't hurt to write as much as possible. Don't be too hard on yourself though if you miss a couple days or you're not feeling it. But know that each subsequent script you write will almost always be better than the last, because you learn so much each time.

We wrote about forty scripts before we ever sold anything. Looking back on those old scripts, there's only one of forty we'd consider good enough to get made. But at the time, each script we wrote, we thought was going to be the next big thing. Which is good motivation to get through it! But it also helps to have a critical eye on the previous work as you embark on something new. Push yourself to grow and learn with each piece you attack.

5. What do you respond to most in a piece of writing?

The older we get and the longer we've been working in the business, the more obvious it has become that there's really only one thing that matters in a piece of writing. The thing we always ask ourselves as writers and readers is: do the pages turn?

Meaning, are we excited to keep reading or are we a little bored and ready to set the piece down? Strong characters, a compelling premise, a powerful writing voice - these are all things that lead to keeping your reader engaged. But they have to stay engaged or else the script is set down and once it's put down - even for a second - you're dead.

We have this theory that whenever you send a script out for someone to read, as soon as the reader receives the email (whether it's a friend, family member, agent, or producer) they briefly open the attachment and peruse the first five pages. We don't think they do this cynically. We think they do this with genuine excitement and curiosity about what they're going to read. We always know if we've written something compelling because we'll hear back right away. Why? Because when the reader glanced at those first five pages, they had to read a few more, and then a few more after that. And then instead of pushing the read off to next weekend, or the next month. They decided they couldn't wait any longer and cracked it open again over their lunch break. When it takes several weeks to hear anything back about one of our scripts, we don't even need to hear the reader's notes. We're already working on making the script better.

6. What are you watching/reading/listening to lately that’s getting you excited or inspired?

It has been a really strong year for movies. Recently we have enjoyed The Brutalist, A Real Pain, Challengers, Civil War, Anora, The Substance. But everyone loved those and you've been hearing about them all year.

We thought the Robert Zemeckis/Eric Roth collab Here was wayyy cooler than anyone gave it credit for. Check it out, it's like a profound art installation.

And the indie film Hundreds of Beavers blew us away!

As far as reading, the stack of scripts on our office desk currently includes: Fargo, Oppenheimer, No Country for Old Men, Gone Girl, Magnolia — all of which are there for both research and inspiration.

And the stack of books currently holds: The Genetic Book of the Dead (Dawkins), Symposium (Plato), The Path to Paradise (Wasson), The Corrections (Franzen), Cari Mora (Harris). Two of those are for research and the rest are just for fun. All fascinating reads.

You don’t want to miss this one! Join us this next Wednesday, February 5, 3pm PT for the Q&A with Beck & Woods! Info below. If you’re not already a paid subscriber…