Killer Green Director Stephen David Brooks Interviewed

Mini Bio: Upon graduating from U.C.L.A film school, Stephen began his career as a Visual Effects Supervisor under the tutelage of Academy Award winner John Dykstra. Stephen added the title of screenwriter to his resume when he adapted the Stephen King short story THE MANGLER(1995) for New Line Cinema. Stephen not only wrote the film but also directed the 2nd unit and supervised the film’s visual effects. After writing and directing 2nd unit on several movies Stephen decided it was time to move into the director’s chair. Stephen’s writing/directing debut, HEADS N TAILZ (2005) proved to be the vehicle that launched his directing career. HEADS N TAILZ won the Fusion Audience Award at the 2005 Dances With Films Festival in Los Angeles as well as the Jury Prize at The 2006 Festival du Film de Strasbourg before screening at numerous festivals around the world.

You can find more about Stephen at the following links:

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DNW: You’ve written, directed, done visual effects, and been involved in just about every aspect of film. Where did it start for you? Did you always want to direct, or did you start out wanting to be a writer? What motivated you to get into the business, and does that same muse still drive you?

SDB: I’ve always been writing and making short films. It just took me awhile to finally get paid to do it! I write mainly to give myself stories to direct. I think of myself more as a director who writes. The Visual Effects came about as a way to pay the bills, however I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. It taught me how to think on my feet, how to face sudden adversity. (All qualities necessary to get a film made). The prime motivator is still a deep seated desire to tell stories. To explore themes and ideas in a visual sense and through the actions of characters. That will never go away.

DNW: As a writer, you’ve done adaptations and original work. How do the two compare? Is it more difficult to take someone else’s vision and shift it to the screen, or is it harder to start from scratch and provide the entire package? When adapting, do you have a “method” or is it always different. (I’ll mention that I loved the movie “Adaptation” with Nicholas Cage here). I’m always interested in method.

SDB: Adaptation is much harder, especially if the original writer is involved (The way Stephen King was on THE MANGLER.) What works in a short story or in a novel often doesn’t work in film. So changes have to be made that retain the spirit and original intent of the source material while making it cinematic. My adaptation method is pretty simple: The first draft is a literal translation of the source material into a screenplay. I even keep much of the original dialog. I have to do that to see what works cinematically and what doesn’t. Then the hard work begins of reshaping the story so that it can be turned into a film. Oftentimes the first draft will be radically longer than a standard screenplay, so part of what the second draft entails is finding ways to cut down the story to what is essential so that it fits into the 100 or so pages of a standard screenplay.

An original screenplay is much easier for me in that once the idea comes to me the story seems to fill itself in. Of course the following drafts are harder in that I have to distance myself from what I intended to be on the page and see what is really on the page.

DNW: What screenplay that you’ve written, rewritten, adapted, whatever do you like the best? Why? Do you have a lot of scripts completed that haven’t been produced? In the works? Do you write all the time, or are you more focused project to project, and more intrigued at this point by the directing? I guess what I’m after is, what is your body of work, and is it constantly growing, being rewritten.expound on your creative side as a writer.

SDB: By far my favorite script is THE DIRECTOR. It’s a modern IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE kind of fantasy. No violence. No swearing. Totally mainstream, but with my oddly tuned edge. The script is in front of some pretty big name actors at the moment. Fingers crossed.

I wrote another script that I just love but it will never get made. It’s called THE WINNER IS and it is basically DIE HARD at The Oscars. Terrorists take over the Oscar telecast in front of the horrified billions watching on TV. A fading action star has to become an action hero for real and save all of Hollywood. The script made the studio rounds and, needless to say, it ain’t getting made! (and I don’t blame them, actually)

I used to write all the time. Now I have several scripts I’m pursuing. I am constantly jotting down ideas but none of them are compelling enough to get me to start writing again. I hate writing. It’s really, really hard!

DNW: Sometimes an idea seems like it would make a great movie, and then.it doesn’t. You mentioned to me that some stories have immediately recognizable flaws that are not necessarily flaws in the story, but flaws in the ability of that story to transition to film. What are some warning signs that a story just won’t cut it, and what are some GOOD signs that other stories will?

SDB: That’s a tough question. Writing for film is more restrictive than other forms of writing. Novels, short stories, poetry can be more experimental.
There are no length limits. Those forms can also be targeted at fairly small audiences. Films need to appeal to a lot of people in order to make money (or just get distributed.) Also, genre is key. Films need to be in recognizable genres. The language of film is known worldwide and you can see the same story types being told again and again with slight changes. When done properly a film can fit the criteria of its genre and be original at the same time. The key is knowing the rules of your genre so that you can break those rules and surprise the audience.

As for part two…I go with my gut instincts. First of all most stories fail at the premise. If the premise isn’t simple and compelling then the rest doesn’t matter. I can just tell when it works and when it doesn’t. I can throw out some guidelines, like the audience has to track through the story with the hero (sometimes called the person we can root for), reveals and reversals are critical, don’t give away too much information until you have to. Revealing information is what keeps a story moving, especially in the middle section of a film. The other key is conflict. Everybody needs to be in conflict with everybody else in the story to varying degrees. Even the ally of the hero needs to disagree from time to time. Other than a weak premise this is where most scripts fail. They have no conflict! There are a million more…

DNW: Obviously I’m excited that you’re going to be directing Killer Green. As a lover of film, I have found over the years that the directors I have loved most have also been writers. Kubrik, Tarantino, Hitchcock. Do you think a director who is also a writer has an advantage, a disadvantage, a difference in perspective? I’m curious because when I list my favorite directors, it seems the majority are writers as well as directors, and when I list my least favorite films, the opposite is true.

SDB: I don’t think it matters. Some directors are great at working with writers, guiding them through the various drafts of the script. Some directors don’t write original material but simply re-write existing scripts. That’s as valuable as a director who can write. It really doesn’t matter how the story develops and evolves as long as it does. Writing and directing, though linked, are completely separate endeavors.

David Lean never wrote a word and he was one of the best directors ever.

DNW: My standard interview question. You have 24 hours to create something brand new. You can spend that time in a studio with all the world’s music available to you, in a library with all the world’s written words, or you can be magically transported to a place of your choice for 24 hours. Which do you choose for inspiration, and why?

SDB: Transported to a place of my choice. I couldn’t possibly absorb enough music or literature in 24 hours to do anything with it. But, inspired by my surroundings, I could come up with something on my own. I think…

DNW: I’m going to throw in a question that isn’t really a question, because this is a special occasion. You’ve obviously read Killer Green and not hated it. I’m just going to “open the floor,” so to speak, and see if you could tell us what caught your interest in the script, what you like about it, and any thoughts at all on what you’d like to do or see in the making of it. Many of my readers are long-time fans of the script, so I’m sure they’re almost as intrigued as I am.

SDB: The characters live on the fringes of polite society. Nobody would want to be friends with any of them, or have them as neighbors, but I want to watch what they do, how they interact, see how they think. I want them to get away with their crimes, as awful as that sounds. I’m always fascinated by those characters, how they live, what motivates them, why and how they make the choices they do. I was hooked when Delilah fired her first shot.

More to come as we progress towards shooting…

(And you can be sure that when there is more, I will share it…)

Meanwhile, here’s Stephen’s short-reel – clips from his work, including some hilarious stuff from the feature film Heads N TailZ:

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