[lounge music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - The best response you can have to a payoff in a thriller is someone goes, "Oh, right, I forgot, of course..." [multiple voices chattering] [Narrator] On Story offers a look inside the creative process from today's leading writers, creators, and filmmakers.

All of our content is recorded live at Austin Film Festival and at our year-round events.

To view previous episodes, visit OnStory.tv.

On Story is brought to you in part by the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation, a Texas family providing innovative funding since 1979.

Support for On Story comes from Bogle Family Vineyards, six generation farmers and third generation winemakers creating sustainably grown wines that are a reflection of the Bogle family values since 1968.

[waves] [kids screaming] [wind] [witch cackling] [sirens wail] [gunshots] [dripping] [suspenseful music] [telegraph beeping, typing] [piano gliss] From Austin Film Festival, this is On Story.

A look inside the creative process from today's leading writers, creators, and filmmakers.

This week's On Story, "Bill and Ted Face the Music" and "Men In Black" screenwriter Ed Solomon.

- Occasionally, there's a great idea but an idea is not a story.

An idea is just a window into a story.

If you keep pursuing it and pursuing it, it's led to something much richer and deeper and more surprising.

[paper crinkles] [typing] [typewriter ding] [Narrator] In this episode Ed Solomon, co-writer of the Bill and Ted films discusses his writing and the process behind deciding which ideas to pursue for a story.

[typewriter ding] - I'm gonna start out with the idea for Bill and Ted.

So maybe I'll let you tell the story about how it came about and, and your experience with that.

And I'd love to hear what that kind of taught you about you know, listening to your ideas.

Where your ideas come from.

You know.

- It's funny because with Bill and Ted, Chris Matheson and me and three of our really good friends, we put together an improv group and rented a little theater.

And we didn't do it in front of an audience.

We just did it to work out, make each other laugh.

We were, I don't know, six or seven months into it.

And we were just in a random night, you know we never recorded anything and we weren't trying to create characters or anything like that.

We were really just trying to push ourselves.

And on one random night, we just did two guys who don't know anything about history studying about history.

I think I called him Bill or he called me Ted or I don't remember which was which but we just did these characters and enjoyed playing them.

And it's funny when I look back because we knew we wanted to be writers.

Or we were, I was working as a writer and yet it never crossed our minds to like strip mine them and put them in a movie.

Instead, we just enjoyed playing them.

And so we would mess around at night.

And that night we went to a coffee shop and just did Bill and just as Bill and Ted.

And we would do it back and forth over the course of the year.

And I remember when I was on "Laverne and Shirley" and Chris was at grad school in San Diego, we wrote some letters back and forth as Bill and Ted.

And then at one point we said hey, what if we wrote a movie together?

Hey, that would be fun.

What should we write?

And we started thinking well maybe we'll do like a sketch movie.

And one of the sketches was going to be a Bill and Ted sketch.

And then Chris' dad who was this guy, Richard Matheson who was a very famous science fiction writer.

He said, why don't you expand that out into a whole story?

That sounds like it could be its own story.

And we said, oh, I wonder if it could.

So we started talking about what made us what would make us laugh most about the characters?

And, for some reason, having them talk to the greatest people who ever lived seemed really funny to us.

- I'm Bill.

This is Ted.

We're from the future.

- Socrates, ummm.

- Now what?

- I don't know.

Philosophize with him.

- All we are is dust in the wind, dude.

- Dust, wind.

- Dude.

- Oh ahhh.

Ha!

[laughing] - Let's get out of here, dude.

- In particular, we thought what if they're responsible for everything bad throughout history that has ever happened?

- Hmmm.

- Somehow that led to-- well, then we went well it can't exactly be that.

But that led to the idea of the history test and you know, all that.

- It seems to me the only thing you have learned is that Caesar is a salad dressing dude.

Bill, Ted, this is really quite simple.

You have flunked every section of this class.

Now unless you get an A plus on your final or report tomorrow guys, I have no choice but to flunk the both of you.

Now, you know your topics.

So I would suggest you at least cover those areas if you want to pass the course.

Understand?

- Yes, sir.

- Okay.

Guys, your report had better be something very special.

- Amazingly, as a screenplay it's got a simplicity to it and an elegance to the structure that we stumbled upon without knowing any rules.

It got set up.

We got $5,000 for it as an option and 15,000 to rewrite it.

Set it up at Warner Brothers.

Had a hellish year but suddenly it had a career in the film.

And the script actually weirdly took off positively for us.

And I can say honestly, I probably wouldn't, I know I wouldn't have written it had I not failed out of television.

So in a weird way, had I succeeded, I probably wouldn't-- Bill and Ted wouldn't have happened.

And I'd probably be unemployed now.

- Yeah.

As opposed to having just made the third Bill and Ted.

- Third Bill and Ted.

- Right.

Third Bill and Ted.

So what kind of challenges did you have going back to revisit Bill and Ted after you've, you know, just time and you've grown as a writer?

- We didn't want to rehash the first two movies.

And we also knew that these guys are going to be in their 50s now as opposed to being in their teens when we started it.

So one thing I did not do and I think I'm glad I didn't do it was watch the first two movies before.

Cause I think I would have tried to replicate them more rather than just, you know, what Chris and I did was just sort of, you know, feel where the characters were and go let's just write from that.

Where would they be now?

- Ted, is there something you feel that your wife needs to hear from you?

- Yeah, totally.

We love you guys.

- Ah, that is good, dude.

- In a way, yes.

I mean, it is great to feel loved but, do you understand how that might sound strange to your wives?

I'll shoot this at Bill.

- No, I mean, we love them.

[Therapist] We love them.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, we do.

- Okay, it's the we part.

Ted, can you say the same thing but instead of we, say I in the sentence?

- Oh yeah.

[Therapist] Okay.

- Of course.

[laughing] - Elizabeth?

- Yes.

- I and Bill love you and Joanna.

- Okay.

- Dude, with all due respect, I don't think you're quite getting this.

- I mean, there were a lot of challenges that were unusual ones because Bill and Ted is not it's not like it has a wide fan base.

It's got a narrow fan base but it's deep.

And the fans of the movie are like they feel like family to me in a way.

And I, and a lot of them really were looking forward to having a third movie.

And I just did not want to let any of them down.

But the problem is that a lot of people have their own expectations of what the movie would be.

So, at the end of the day, what are you trying to do?

Make a movie that me and my three main partners which then became six main partners meaning me, Chris Matheson and Alex and Keanu.

Which then and then Scott Kroopf and Dean Parisot.

So Scott, the original producer who came back.

And Dean, the director.

And then some of the other people that came on the movie.

But making a movie that we're happy with.

And then for me, the next level was, if we can be happy with it, I'll be fine.

But if we can be happy with it and the fans can be happy with it, I'll think I did my job regardless of how successful the movie is.

So it was a different onus on Bill and Ted cause it is unusual.

It's like revisiting a character.

It went from like this weird lark that we wrote when we were basically post-adolescent becoming because I I'm 60 now, but you know like, I was 23.

So I mean, it became kind of like a life work as opposed to just this weird lark that represented the beginning of my life.

[typewriter ding] - Let's talk a little bit about that psychological process of setting yourself up for writing and, and what state of mind you need to be in?

Or or you, you know, the expectations of writers?

- Philip Pullman who wrote "The Golden Compass" and a bunch of other books has my favorite quote which I'm going to botch.

I'm paraphrasing a great quote.

I'm saying it badly.

But it was something like my job as a writer is to write write well even when I'm not, quote, inspired.

I personally think inspiration and the need to be inspired is one of many things that people believe they they need that screws them up more than it helps them.

Because the truth is I've found at least in my own experience, I think we call something inspiration when it's really maybe just a breakthrough.

That's the process of a lot of mulling.

Or occasionally there's a great idea but an idea is not a story.

An idea is just a window into a story.

And in fact, I can't tell you how many times I've had what I think is a great idea or even an okay idea but it's led if you keep pursuing it and pursuing it it's led to something much richer and deeper and more surprising.

And that original, great idea isn't even what the idea is anymore.

When we feel we need to be inspired, it sets this expectation up for what we think a good idea is.

Inspiration.

It's got a symphony, you know.

It's got lightning bolts.

It's got these buzzes and flashes and oh my God I know what this is.

And it's such a false expectation.

The best ideas don't come out of that state of mind.

They come out of this kind of gradual process of pursuing something that interests you and that you think hey, you know what?

If I keep down this path I think there's something there, you know.

And asking-- you know, to me the two big traps we fall into especially as early writers I need to be inspired and I need to feel passion about this.

Which again, I think screws you up more than it helps you because it makes you think that you have to have this intense love for your idea at all times.

Which is utterly impossible to maintain.

But also it, it absolutely makes you unavailable for the true good ideas which are very subtle and which kind of, you know which you have to be really alert for, I think.

And they come in quieter ways.

If you follow something that you're curious about, what gradually happens is you get something much deeper than passion.

You actually get intimacy with something, you know.

You develop a deeper attachment to it.

And then of course your your job becomes figuring out how to remain intimate with it while also being objective.

And, you know, it's like that dance between being deeply inside something and then stepping way outside.

Should I shut up now, Barbara, and let you ask your question?

- No, no, that was, I mean that you're totally going down the track of the question.

And actually leading, leading into the sort of next piece of it is like how, how long do you give that?

You know, like, do you do find those ideas and you're interested and that gets you to the end of the script?

- Right.

- Or it gets you to start writing the script?

- Well, there's always this big question, I think, about like do I have the confidence to keep going?

And confidence is another word that I think we hear a lot about and people, I think people feel they need to have.

And I think that's another unrealistic expectation.

Because who has confidence?

I don't have confidence.

In fact, the more confidence I have, the more dangerous a position I feel I'm in.

Confidence is good when you're trying to sell something.

And I remember you and I Barbara once talking about this a few years ago but to, to repeat was like when you're trying to sell an idea, that's when confidence is really good.

But not cockiness and not like bravado.

But confidence which manifests itself and it's sort of quiet.

I know I got this.

I know what this is.

But confidence doesn't help me when I'm writing.

Faith helps me.

And it's not like I have, it's not religious faith but I mean, faith that I know I don't have it.

I know this thing isn't working but I know there's something here that's interesting.

Or I know this idea is worthwhile.

And then of course your question which is, well how do you know when to keep going and when to stop?

Well, the first thing is, there's no rule saying you only have to have one project going in your brain.

You know, you can try something until you hit a wall and you can put it aside.

You can focus on something else.

I mean, and then there were all sorts of tricks to try to figure out, you know how do I break through this wall and all that stuff?

But to me, the entire job is about learning how to have a relationship with the thing you're writing so that you can see it as it's evolving.

And you can, you can be honest with yourself about what it's-- how it's changing and, and how it may or may not be reflecting what you originally were wanting it to be.

And then you can sort of watch it grow into what you determine is its best manifestation of it itself.

And then the hard part is letting it go, you know.

Because it's like just sitting in you and letting it.

And I find that it's always hard for me to finish projects.

Like for that reason.

That to me is the psychological block is like letting go of this.

There're several elements to it.

Letting go of this world I'm so enjoying inhabiting.

Letting go of this closeness I feel to this world and these characters that are keeping me company but also letting go of the dream.

You know?

Cause when you finish it, it's the death of the dream.

It's the death of what you thought it could be.

And suddenly it's only what it is.

And then it becomes, what do other people think of it?

Or what do you plus time think of it?

You know, when you read it three weeks later.

The longevity in this career is about managing yourself and your own ego and your own emotional state so that they can work for you instead of against you.

Because every emotion, even your negative ones you can actually recycle.

You can kind of harvest or recycle or whatever you want to call it and create it into something that will help you get to the next step in your work.

Anxiety, fear, depression, disappointment, anger, whatever those things are, you can actually cause you feel them all the time when you're working.

It's inevitable.

And so how do you instead of letting those things get you down how do you utilize them?

I don't mean deny them.

Denying them is just as unhealthy.

But utilize them, you know.

[typewriter ding] - Do you ever get to a point where you've done all that and then you just can't write it.

Like, it's not.

- It's not working.

There are moments when I know something is writeable and it's not an intellectual one it's an emotional one.

That can come soon.

It can come quite late.

And it's always a question, especially on the spec how do I know it's worth it?

The answer to me especially early in the career is, are you able to write something that feels like it is singularly you with this idea?

Are you interested in it?

Is it, is it a world you're curious enough about to explore?

And are you enjoying being in this world and being with these characters?

Are the characters-- do you feel them deeply?

And then are they surprising you?

That's when I know my characters are rich.

Which is when I have a gut feeling about where they would be at any moment or what they would do in any moment based on what they want.

But then they start to surprise me with things.

Then I know that, that I've, I've created something fertile enough for other things to spring up.

And that's always exciting.

Cause when I'm in that world with the characters and they're, they're like, I'm right at the edge with them where, where I'm not controlling them, it's like I've given them life and they're, and we're interacting in a weird way.

Then I'm, that's exciting for me.

- So how do you, how do you go through the process of letting one go though?

So say you, you, you don't see it, you finish it.

Say you finish it.

Or you have an idea that you'd take to a certain level and then you don't ever really get down to writing it.

How do you let that go?

This is a bigger emotional life lesson too, right?

How do you let something go like that?

- The key is not objective, it's subjective but it's being able to get to a place where you know yourself well enough where you're not lying to yourself and you're not making your decisions based on neuroses or needs for approval.

Or needs to not see yourself as a failure or any kind of ego needs but can actually understand yourself well enough to go, this actually isn't working.

Not, I can't handle it anymore.

Or not, I just can't figure it out.

I can't figure it out.

But rather, I thought this was going to work but it's not working.

It's an internal standard of how do I get out of my own way so that I trust my thoughts here?

That's the way, the way to do it.

And there's nothing to say that you won't figure it out later.

You know?

- So sometimes it's the time and place, really.

- Look, if you're a writer you're going to be a writer forever.

And any one idea, or scene or script or sequence, you know it's just part of the long flow.

It doesn't mean don't take it seriously.

I think you, you focus really hard on everything you're working.

Try to make it as best as you possibly can.

But each one each individual one in and of itself isn't that important in the long run.

And it's really just about making this the best I can make it so that it becomes the shoulders upon which I step to get to my next script.

And then the next one after that and then the next one after that.

It frustrates a lot of people to hear that.

Cause they, they wanna write that script and sell it and make it in.

And I'm here to say it's a lot harder than you think it is.

You know?

[typewriter ding] - So how much does your actual life intervene in your writing?

- Always.

I mean, even, I mean, it's porous, right?

I mean, you, you have to figure out how to get inside what you're writing.

And invariably on everything I write I'm going to it.

Right now in my romantic comedy I'm thinking, oh gosh, you know, where am I personally in this?

You know.

The movie I just I'm doing with Steven.

Fifties.

It takes place in the mid-fifties in Detroit.

And crime story.

Noir crime story.

Don Cheto's the-- and Benicio Del Toro are the two leads.

And what do I have in common with those guys?

And they're low-level crooks.

Where am I in this story?

- You said the man want to see me?

- Alley out back.

- Ain't coming in?

What, is he white?

Ahh boy.

- It's a combination of empathy for who these characters are and then, and then it's putting yourself in their shoes.

And I've written-- I don't even know how many things including episodes and episodes of seasons of shows and different stories and plays.

And, and I haven't run out of being able to find myself in them and they can be incredibly different.

So your life always intrudes.

In fact, the hard thing is to have it not, you know.

The hard thing is to try to find separation.

- Do you have suggestions for how to reignite your interest in a script that you're struggling with in order to kind of regain some kind of intimacy with it?

- You know I'm struggling with that myself a lot sometimes.

Sometimes it's telling the story to someone and just getting their I know it sounds shallow getting their, oh, that's really great.

Sometimes it's going back to what was I originally interested in in this and how can I reignite that?

It's a tricky one.

And sometimes it's putting it down for a little bit and thinking about something else and then coming back and saying and re-looking at it, you know.

That's a really good question.

I actually don't know the answer because if I did know I would apply that.

I do know this.

There is always a time in everything I'm ever writing where I feel like I don't love this.

I don't like it.

I don't know how to write it, in particular.

I have chosen the wrong thing to write.

But I know myself well enough to know that that's a phase I go through.

And so it doesn't freak me out anymore.

And it took me like two decades for it not to freak me out.

Now, I just find it unpleasant.

You know, it's feels real.

And I'm like, what is it, what is it, what is it?

And then there'll be-- and often what I do is I will just not try to use my intellectual brain but use my less conscious brain to just mull and let myself feel and like and just sort of stew around in it until what invariably happens is I'll find an emotional angle and it'll re-excite me.

And then all the other things come back.

But that is a tricky one.

[typewriter ding] [Narrator] You've been watching a conversation with Ed Solomon on On Story.

On Story is part of a growing number of programs in Austin Film Festival's On Story project.

That also includes the On Story radio program, podcast, book series, and the On Story archive, accessible through the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University.

To find out more about On Story and Austin Film Festival, visit onstory.tv or austinfilmfestival.com.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - The best response you can have to a payoff in a thriller is someone goes, "Oh, right, I forgot, of course..." [multiple voices chattering] [Narrator] On Story offers a look inside the creative process from today's leading writers, creators, and filmmakers.

All of our content is recorded live at Austin Film Festival and at our year-round events.

To view previous episodes, visit OnStory.tv.

[projector clicking] [typing] [typewriter ding] [projector dies]