[lounge music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [Narrator] "On Story" is brought to you in part by the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation, a Texas family providing innovative funding since 1979.

"On Story" is also brought to you in part by the Bogle Family Vineyards, six generation farmers and third generation winemakers based in Clarksburg, California.

Makers of sustainably grown wines that are a reflection of the their 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 on "On Story," we're joined by celebrated writer, producer, and director, Rian Johnson, for a deep dive into his genre- bending filmmaking career.

Johnson discusses his creative process behind the "Knives Out" franchise and the art of molding a great mystery.

- Once you actually start writing-writing, everything goes out the window and it's the difference between looking at the map spread out on the big table with the generals and actually you get in the trenches and it's just you're trying to survive the day.

That's been another thing that I've been trying to learn and get better at, is really trusting instincts.

once you get to the on the page writing part of it.

[paper crumples] [typing] [carriage returns, ding] [typewriter ding] - I am gonna start with still one of my favorites, which we played back when I was young and you were younger, which was, "Brick."

I'm just curious, you know, when you were starting off your career and clearly always a film lover, how did that come to you?

What was your thought of I'll tackle this as my first big feature project?

- When I wrote, "Brick," I was right out of college, so I was 22.

And your mind is always on very much thinking of the last phase of life you just got out of.

And so what I was really mythologizing in my head at that point was high school and my experience there and how high school felt very, very dangerous not 'cause I was actually doing anything cool or dangerous, but just in the way that it's such an insular world and when I went, it felt very socially stratified and it felt like there were very strict rules and it felt in many ways, like when I connected with the author, Dashiell Hammett had started reading his books and expressed kind of an emotional truth of my memories of high school.

So those two things weirdly made a lot of sense to me.

For me, when I started making shorts and writing things, you know, in high school and in college.

I think when you begin out of necessity, there's a lot of seeing stuff that you love and imitating that.

And I think that's a really important thing to do because that then turns into-- becomes your voice.

- I feel like the capturing the noir, I was watching it thinking, you know, how many old movies were you watching as a kid because you captured a certain time of Hollywood in that even though they were high school kids.

- Okay, we know you're clean.

And despite your motives, you've always been an asset to this office and you're a good kid.

I wanna run some names past you.

Hold it, we're not done here.

- I was done here three months ago, I told you then I'd give you JR, and that was that, not your inside line and I'm not your boy.

- That's not very-- - You know what I'm in if the wrong Yeg saw me pulled in here?

- What are you in?

- No, and no more of these informal chats either.

You got a discipline issue with me, write me up or suspend me and I'll see you at the parent conference.

- I was very aware that if the movie felt like a just a pastiche of old movies, it would kind of be really boring.

And so for me, what really got me excited about it was using those, using kind of film noir and using them to try and get to some kind of weird expression of my experience of being a teenager and of high school, I guess.

And trying to keep the focus really on that to make sure that it didn't become just sort of a, you know, an empty sort of, you know, parody of these other movies, I guess.

I think especially when you're starting out, the notion of voice and of a clear voice can kind of get mythologized in a way that makes it seem intimidating and makes it seem like artists you admire kind of had this crystalline thing from the beginning.

- That was a big hit at Sundance and that was probably a first time that a lot, you know, you were getting a lot of notice from folks.

- Any notice.

[Barbara and audience laugh] So I wrote, "Brick," when I was 22.

I didn't get it made when I was 22 though.

I basically spent my 20s trying and failing to get it made.

I made it when I was turning 30.

So I think I was lucky in that, "Brick" came out in 2005, I think 2006, and it was kind of right before the whole wave of Sundance filmmakers getting co-opted by franchise filmmaking kind of had come in.

And I say that because the next movie I made was this really personal kind of like self-generated movie.

And that's not because I had the vision or focus or discipline to say no to big offers.

If at the time Gopher Man Eight had been offered me, I would've taken it in a heartbeat.

I'm sure I would've.

So, I'm actually kind of thankful that ecosystem wasn't in place.

So I just kind of sat down and wrote almost kind of, what's a very second movie, second movie?

It was called, "The Brothers Bloom."

And it didn't really get much of a release.

Nobody really saw it.

- But it had a huge cast, you know, and I-- - Yeah, we had a great cast.

Yeah, it was.

And we had a time of our lives making it and it was an amazing experience.

- Bloom and I will secure lodging.

[jazzy music] Ms. Ying-Ling will scout out the museum.

[camera clicks] You'll go to the bank.

That wire should have cleared if you put it in at Athens.

- Cash?

- No, only movie thugs and Russians deal in suitcases of cash.

You're gonna get a certified check.

[jazzy music continues] [door buzzes] [Max] Who the hell is that?

Who is it?

- A candygram.

Max, it's us for Christ's sake.

[shotgun blast] Whoa.

- So in looking back like what was the positive and the negative of that is it, as far as your career?

- It should have caused a much bigger stop than it did actually.

And this again, is where the element of luck comes into it because the whole reason it didn't is 'cause my, I have a very good producer.

And my producer Ron Bergman, who I've been working with since "Brick."

After, "Brothers Bloom," I should have been probably done, I think.

That movie, like it wasn't a, but it was a lot of money.

It was like, at the time especially, I think our budget was like 17 million or something and I think it made zero.

And so it was this wonderful personal experience I had that just kind of, and I felt terrible about that.

Even if I was proud of the movie and the work we did.

I felt like I had let a lot of people down on that side of things.

I think maybe the upside of that is that when I wrote my next script, which was, "Looper," I really kind of put the screws to myself in the writing process and had done this kind of big loose expression of all these things I loved.

And I was like, okay, I'm gonna focus in, I'm going to really focus in on this genre piece and still make it personal, but I'm gonna really work on the craft of it and get as tight and entertaining as I possibly can, 'cause if I get one more shot at this, this might be my last shot.

[typewriter ding] - I really love "Looper."

And it was one of those movies that kind of caught me by surprise.

That was a little bit of a risky thing too.

- The answer is to how we were able to get this, yeah, this movie made is that Bruce Willis signed up for it.

And once you can put Bruce Willis with a gun on the poster of a sci-fi movie, it's like, [audience laughing] okay, at least we'll be able to take it to a marketplace and can at least get a home video out of it.

- Back when there was a home video.

- Back when home video existed.

So that's really the answer is 'cause Joe, who was a dear friend of mine and who was at in a moment where he was kind of a rising star, he was a very cool get for the lead and Emily Blunt of course.

But really it was with a genre piece, it was the fact that Bruce signed up.

In that way it kind of gave me another shot.

- It's a tight script.

What was your process in working through that script after that?

You know, like how did you approach that idea?

- We could do like a whole panel just with people who have written time travel movies, 'cause it is a really interesting thing to narratively in terms of writing, yeah.

That's a good idea.

It's a good idea.

That's free.

That idea.

[audience laughing] It's for you.

[chuckles] I feel like, "Looper" in the way I approach is almost on the other end of it, which is, I started out just kind of thinking, "Okay, I'm going to approach time travel more as a fantasy element than as a kind of science fiction element," and use it basically just to facilitate this situation of a heightened version of a son telling a father, I'm not gonna turn into you and use it to that end and see how much I can skirt the audience having to do math in order to get there basically.

And see what other elements I can use to actually drive the narrative forward beyond the intricacies of who's traveling where and what are the implications of it.

So a lot of the work in the script went into seeing how, with as little explanation as possible, I could make this basic thing in it work that had time travel kind of as at the heart of it.

- Then I saw it.

[gun fires] [somber music] I saw a mom who would die for her son, a man who would kill for his wife, a boy angry and alone, laid out in front of him, the bad path, I saw it.

And the path was a circle... [somber music] round and round.

[somber music] [wind howling] So I changed it.

[shotgun fires] - And I am curious though, looking at the construction of something like that and then, you know, the whole screenwriting conversations about flashbacks, et cetera, et cetera.

In the construction of that, it gets messy I'm sure even for the writer, right?

- Yeah, and well, and it was, I do have like a couple of really good writer friends who, to this day, I still run stuff by.

And with, "Looper," I did like an entire draft of it and showed it to a few people and then threw the entire second half out.

But I think, I mean, to answer your question, I think the thing that just kept coming back to was this kind of horse sense that as opposed to kind of setting rules for using flashbacks or not using flash forwards or even as opposed to thinking of it in terms of the complexity of what's going on, thinking of it in terms of is the story being the story that we actually care about being driven forward in each scene and is the task of the character that we're following clear?

Because I think if that's, if you just keep that thread, the audience will go through quite a lot with you and the only real danger of complexity is of you as the writer kind of losing that basic spine.

And that's, you know, even in here writes, I mean, you know, that's where all the work goes to is just your own little obsessions can spin these little spiderwebs that seem beautiful, but end up, you take a step back and realize they're detours from what the main drive of the character is actually about.

And that's just the work is kind of figuring out and clearing those away.

- A lot of your scripts are very complicated.

I mean there's, "Glass Onion," "Knives Out."

Yeah.

[chuckles] [audience laughing] There has to be some process that you have of analyzing that complication as you're doing it.

- Every film I sit down to these days, I feel like I'm trying to make it less complicated and I keep failing.

For me, I mean there's a million ways to do it.

Me personally, I'm a big story structure person, is that's where I start.

And I work in these little moleskin notebooks and I basically will spend the first 80% of the whole writing process outlining and I draw these little arcs and after eight months of work, if I can get to the point where I have the whole movie laid out on one little mini moleskin page, then I can kind of hold the whole thing in my brain and see it.

But the thing that ends up leading to intricacy, to use a nice word for it, is the fact that it's you're zoomed back in Google maps and then obviously you start telling the story and start zooming in.

And that little blue line on the page is a raging river that you have to figure out how to cross [typewriter ding] - What I loved about the, "Last Jedi."

And I am not a, "Star Wars," junkie, I did see the original one in a movie theater as a kid.

Yours was as fun as the original fun movie, okay?

[Audience Member] Woo.

[audience applauding and cheering] - And I come to this with no, I have no social media, never have, so I have no idea what happened on- - Well, I can tell you, everyone on social media agrees with you, [Barbara laughs] so you're in good company.

[audience laughing] - Excellent.

- Don't need to check it.

Just believe me on that.

- Why I bring that up is that that movie sort of took me back to the, you know, why you love movies, why you originally love movies.

'80s movies were great.

They were fun, they weren't important.

I'd like to hear like the, you know, how when that some huge opportunity gets handed to you that way and how your mind thought of it because I do think all your movies are fun.

"Looper's" a fun sci-fi.

So, you know, what were you thinking about in your approach to the canon and what were you thinking about in your approach as your own storyteller?

- It had to be personal in the sense that I had to just kind of tap into what I love about "Star Wars" and what makes it fun for me and what brings me joy about it and all of those different things growing up and all those childhood memories and kind of tap into them in a really pure way and just try and channel them.

And then also it was also an interesting situation in terms of the baton handoff of it 'cause it was taking this story that Larry and JJ had had started and then fig-- trying to figure out as honestly and organically as possible how to draw that forward and then leave it at a place where it can be handed off next.

So in that way it was a really, it was an interesting writing challenge, but the basis of it was really just trying to, it makes me happy that you described it as fun.

To me, it was just trying to figure out what brings me the most joy from my memories of my childhood memories of those movies and how to get that on the page.

- What was the process then working with a team, trying to break a story like that that fits into the world that has an IP attached to it?

- If didn't feel very different than doing an original.

I felt like I was able to kind of find my own way into it and what I cared about and kind of write it.

I think from the outside it can appear to be a big kind of machine.

My experience specifically on, "The Last Jedi," was, it was a really just personal, wonderful kind of little creative bubble that we worked in to the point where, and I think once you actually get your hands in the dirt and start working on anything, the outside world kind of goes away to some extent.

So it's not like there was all this external pressure on us all, we were just kind of in the sandbox playing with our toys and kind of figuring out what we'd love to see in the, "Star Wars," movie.

- Is there something in particular in that film, like a, you know, particular segment or scene that you are particularly proud of as far as keeping to the voice of those, "Star Wars?"

- I think, "Empire" is probably my favorite of the three tied with the first one, but I love, "Return of the Jedi."

And the final inner cutting sequence of, "Return of the Jedi," that final build with the throne room.

- She's running away.

[dramatic music] - No, she isn't.

[Rian] I worked really, really hard to try and build kind of a big inner cutting climactic thing.

[dramatic music] [computer beeping] - No.

- Fire on that cruiser.

[dramatic music] [Rian] Then, in the case of "The Last Jedi," leads up to Laura Dern's character running the spaceship at light speed.

- Execute.

[weapon buzzes] [dramatic music] [explosion booms] - I watched that run of it and I'm just like, oh, that feels good.

That feels kind of like the momentum of that.

But that was something that I remember as a kid was like such a, you know, I don't know, it's just so well done in, "Return of the Jedi," and the way all the different threads kind of lead up to this big climax and the different levels of how something has to end in order to be satisfying.

And I dunno, I feel like this does, yeah, "The Return of the Jedi," did.

And so trying to kind of get to that in that sequence was a fun challenge.

[typewriter ding] - So we're gonna move onto, "Knives Out."

[Audience Member] Woo.

- Again, I just think that when that came out, it was one of those movies that you kind of have to see it in a movie theater first.

It felt really great to see it in a movie theater.

And came out of it like people skipping.

Where did that come from?

[audience laughing] Like I mean, you know, you could feel the seeds of Agatha Christie in there.

- I mean, the way that you described that, I mean that makes me really, really, really happy because I did grow up reading Agatha Christie.

I grew up as a murder mystery nut.

But the real place of that movie came from is remembering when I was a kid in the early '80s, and watching with my whole family, usually off a VHS tape, everyone kind of sitting on the floor gathered around and watching the Agatha Christie adaptations, watching the original "Death on the Nile" with Peter Ustinov, watching "Murder in the Orient Express" with Albert Finney, watching "Evil Under the Sun."

And you get a big all star cast, all kind of like, you know, playing off of each other and just having the best time and just feeling like both these movies both feel very adult and it's something the whole family can watch together and it's something that just feels like the most fun thing a movie can possibly be.

- Oh, that's where you were all night.

[Richard] What the hell were you doing in the bathroom all night?

- Nothing.

- Swatting Syrian refugees.

- No, I was not.

- Alt-right troll.

- Liberal snowflake.

- I don't know what any of that means.

- Means your son's a little creep.

- Oh, my son's a creep?

- Guys.

Walt, he was in the bathroom.

- Yeah, he was in the bathroom.

- Joylessly [bleep] to pictures of dead deer.

- Oh, you know what, Richard, you wanna go?

- You bet, Skippy, let's go.

- You wanna go?

Come on.

Hey, watch out now.

- Stop.

- Mister.

- Stop.

- Come on.

I've been waiting for this my whole life.

- Stop it.

- I can handle myself.

- Stop it.

- I can handle it.

- Oh my God.

[Walt] Very old man.

- We gotta do this more often.

- That was kind of like the target on the wall for me a little bit is to kind of capture something that could feel like that.

We just shot the third movie this summer.

Actually I'm editing it right now.

I'm playing hooky from.

[chuckles] [audience applauding] I'm excited about it.

It's called, "Wake Up Dead Man," and it's so different from, "Glass Onion," and it's a little closer and toned than, "Knives Out."

It's even different from that.

It, for me, the fun part of this is kind of the murder mystery genre is so expansive and using these movies to really take different swings every time is part of what's fun about it.

- Just the set alone is so complicated in there.

And just looking at how some of those pieces in that set work into your story.

But you know going down to whatever that [bleep] that knife display was, yeah, that, you know, gives you your climax in the film is so awesome.

It's so built out.

[dramatic music] [breathing sharply] [blade slides] [blade slides] How are you managing to put that to your team?

- I gave them the reference of another one of my favorite movies, "Sleuth" the original with Lawrence Olivier and Michael Kane.

And the mansion in, "Sleuth," is filled with all of, it's just this rich kind of tapestry of all these things.

And that kind of thing, you can just kind of fill up the background with.

The real important work, especially in a movie that has a very complicated script is to absolute clarity both in terms of communicating to your creative team, but that means first and foremost knowing it yourself on the page scene to scene.

And that's a lesson that I think, I mean for me, Hitchcock is a kind of the ultimate example of absolute storytelling clarity at every single beat.

I think that's kind of the essence to how is, you know, why you're looking at what you're looking at every single moment of a Hitchcock movie.

- Watching it a second or third time made, I'd saw, I didn't even notice that happen the first time it happened.

I guess, you know, as you would in those kind of Agatha Christie kind of stories, the little clues you don't know are clues until later.

- There's a little bit of kind of, that way lies madness to that.

I mean, you have to, the reality is, at least for me, especially, and that's one lesson I feel I've slowly gotten better at with the learning, making these movies is really all that you need to focus on is the main spine of any scene.

Once you get real human beings on set and once you get the art department filling it up with, you know, stuff that has a mandate in terms of the characters and everything, all of the little misdirects and details, all of that stuff is going to be there and it's gonna fill itself up.

I think that it's enough work.

I think your job is really to define the main thread of every single scene dramatically.

And if you've done that and if you've built out characters that sustain and have their own arcs over the course of it, and if you've done all of this, all that other stuff is going to be there in the background.

But really if you just keep your eye on the ball, I feel like the world itself ends up filling itself out.

- "Glass Onion," was it an easier write than?

- No, it's not.

[chuckles] "Glass Onion," was a different challenge.

It was a whole different kind of tone.

And you know, that was kind of like a big kind of broad kind of, you know, vacation movie, vacation mystery, which is another subset of the genre that I really like.

But that's also what's fun a bit.

Also, I just feel like it, yeah, writing, man, you guys, writing is hard.

[chuckles] [audience laughing] It just keeps getting harder I feel.

Like it should get easier, but it feels like it gets harder and harder.

I think anyone who's got too much confidence and says, "This is the way to do it, kid.

Never do this, never do that."

Beware of those words, I think.

And the reality is everyone does it a different way.

You gotta find your own method to doing it.

And the essential thing is to build your own voice.

And that comes from, not from studying screenwriting, but from having experiences in life and reading great books and meeting interesting people and putting yourself outside your comfort zone in life and kind of building your soul up.

And that's really the well that you end up drawing from for each story.

[typewriter ding] [Narrator] You've been watching, "A Conversation With Rian Johnson" 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 Wittcliff Collections at Texas State University.

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

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