Scott Derrickson

Scott graduated from Biola University in 1990 with a degree in humanities, a second degree in communications, and a minor in theological studies. In 1996, he graduated from the University of Southern California with a Masters Degree in Film Production. Scott wrote Wim Wender’s “The Land of Plenty,” and with his writing partner Paul Harris Boardman has written the screenplays “The Church of the Holy Ghost” for Trimark Pictures, “Darkness Falling” for Byran Singer, “Urban Legends: Final Cut” for Phoenix Pictures, directiing and writing “Hellraiser: Inferno” for Dimension, “Mindbender” for Dimension, “Future Tense” for APG, “The Mystic” for Disney, and “Beware of the Night” for Jerry Bruckheimer. Scott went on to write and direct “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” for Sony Screen Gems in 2005, continuing to write with his partner on “Scarecrow” for Sony Pictures, “Kingdom Come” for Sony Screen Gems, and “Devils’s Knot” for Dimension. He is in development for “Paradise Lost,” and is currently slated to direct the re-make of the “The Day the Earth Stood Still” for Fox.

KC: Tell us about yourself – where you grew up and your background, projects your most proud of so far that you have done.

SD: I grew up in Denver, Colorado and came out to California to go to school and was an undergraduate in college for five years. I took a year and a half between undergraduate and graduate school to work as a teacher and then I went to graduate school at USC and went through their graduate film program and came out of school and started working professionally as a screenwriter. As far as things that I have done I am most proud of would be The Exorcism of Emily Rose. I was fortunate to have been involved in a project like that, where I filmed it along with my writing partner, wrote the script the way I wanted to, quickly got it sold and set off, and got it made the way I wanted to make it and it came out and did very well. That just rarely happens.. Any project, no matter how good it is can very easily get derailed at any one of those stages. That project didn’t, so that was great.

KC: Did you know as a young boy that you wanted to be a filmmaker?

SD: I did. I made films on my dad’s 8mm camera when I was really young. I remember thinking about filmmaking as early as elementary school, how movies were made, so I was always very interested in the experience of doing that. But, I was also just a big film fan. I grew up in a family that saw a lot of movies and so movies were an enormous part of my life from as early as I can remember. And when I was old enough to really start to appreciate more mature films, that was right at the time that home video was starting to become available. I was really part of the first generation of people who saw movies on video. It was all a big part of why I became a filmmaker.

KC: So let’s talk about Emily Rose for a minute. How did you come up with the story of Emily Rose?

SD: Well, it’s based on a real case. I was writing another movie for a different producer and came across this story while doing research for another screenplay. I thought it was rather amazing and was really quite struck by the movie potential of it being the potential hybrid of both the legal film and the horror film. So I optioned that material and I wrote the screenplay outside the studio system. I think that’s one of the reasons why it turned out well, because the script wasn’t developed in the normal fashion. It was written that way until my writing partner and I felt like it was good…and then we took it around and basically said, “we’re going to make it and I’m going to direct it and it has to be done this way.” The studio that made it would make it the way I wanted to make it.

KC: How do you determine what you think is going to be a really great film?

SD: It has to have two things. First of all, it has to speak to you personally, you have to be really struck by it and in most cases you have to be overwhelmed by it because it is going to demand a lot of you if you’re going to take it on. I think that my success in the business has a lot to do with that fact that I’ve worked very hard to understand what it is that both Hollywood executives and film audiences are looking for and what they respond to at the box office. If you don’t pay attention to that and you don’t care much about that, then your most likely not going to be employed. If you’re lucky you might be able to scrounge up enough money or even a single opportunity to make something you are passionate about. Then that will be that. It will be made and it won’t make much money. Even if it’s good, it most likely won’t do much for you. Of course, there are exceptions, but not many.

I want people to see the films that I make. I like the idea of having a lot of people see what I do. But I think, more importantly, I like the idea of returning the investment to the people who are trusting me to do that, to my employers. I really love the fact the Emily Rose made as much money as it did for the company I worked for. That matters to me tremendously. It makes me feel like I was a good employee, that I was worth the risk they took on me. When you do that, then it’s like any other job. If you do your job really well and you really service your employer by what it is they hired you to do, then you’ll continue to get hired. And for me, I want to keep making movies. It’s not easy, it’s very difficult to find a meeting point between your own artistic taste and your own desire for quality and commercial success, finding material that will please mass audiences, that will please executives. But you can do it, if that’s what you’re committed to doing. You can absolutely do it. You can find that balance.

In short, I’ve really come to understand how audiences respond to certain genres. They’ll respond to dramas only their with big stars, so that’s a different game altogether. If you want to write a straight drama, it’s probably never going to get made, unless it’s going to be made in a very small, independent way. And again, that’s unlikely it will ever get distribution or it’s possible that you will make that movie and never work again. Or, you’ll have to get a big star attached to your material and that’s harder than getting a genre film made. For me, I just really respect the fact that audiences want to see horror films and they want to see comedies and thrillers. They want to see these films that are very specific to what audiences react to emotionally, and they tend to be the things that I react to emotionally.

Most of my favorite films are genre films. So, I’ve become very in tune to understanding what those things are and what it is the audiences respond to and I try to find material that I both think is interesting and has artistic merit and audiences will respond to it. As I continue to sort of build my career, I’ll try more and more to take risks and push the boundaries of that, which, I think a lot of great filmmakers and even a lot of great actors are doing. Leonardo DiCaprio is doing this with his career and is one of the biggest box office stars in the world, certainly one of the highest paid, and he’s consistently choosing to work with a very artful director, Martin Scorsesee, and just choosing to do really interesting material. You can do that, but you have to earn the right to have that kind of creative control by respecting the box office first. Those guys who do that have earned billions at the box office before they start turning their gifts towards things that are more risky, and then audiences will go there with them because they trust them.

KC: For a young filmmaker, is there a certain genre film that would be easier for them to make?

SD: It’s probably no question that the horror genre is the easiest genre to break into for a young director simply because it’s probably the most secure genre commercially, plus horror films rarely cost much to make. They almost have a certain guaranteed return. It’s also a very cinematic genre, and it allows you to demonstrate directorial skill. I’ve been offered more things outside of the horror genre than within the horror genre, since doing Emily Rose, because that film demonstrated what I could do as a director. The next film that I’m going to do is probably going to be a science fiction film.Comedy is the other one. If you can make a really good comedy that’s generally funny, particularly if you want to go the route with getting involved with stars, there’s a lot of actors where that’s primarily what they do. There’s always going to be a big marketplace for that.

KC: Talk to me about writing. Is it important to have a writing partner?

SD: Most people do write by themselves. I write with a partner because there are certain weaknesses in my writing that need to be compensated for. I don’t know if my writing partner would say that about himself, but it’s true. We both have tremendous strengths and we both have some weaknesses and they complement each other. Combined, I think we make one really great writer. Either one of us could earn a living as a writer by ourselves, but there is something truly potent about what we do together. We come from such different places, we have such different views of the world, and it creates a mix that is really interesting. It’s like a third thing that comes out of most of the things we try to write. Something that’s not all me or all him, but it not even just half me half him, it’s like a third thing. I like it, so, it’s right for me. There’s some people that work that way, but a lot of people could never do that. A lot of people must write by themselves. I may try it again, but I haven’t done it in a while, maybe I will it again someday. I certainly have a writing relationship that’s really rich.

What a lot of people don’t understand about professional screenwriting is that even the top screenwriters in the world, even for them, the majority of films never get made. Hollywood must employ 20 or 25 writers of screenplays for every screenplay that they make. Possibly more. I think I’ve written 12 or 13 screenplays, maybe 3 or 4 which have been made into movies and that’s a pretty high percentage. I have friends who have done as many screenplays and have never gotten anything made.

KC: How many screenplays should a writer write before they submit one?

SD: It depends. The trouble with writers is often their lack of humility about something that is just not good enough. A lot of times they want to keep on walking that horse and try to get it to run and it’s never going to run. I think that writers really need to seek feedback and have the humility to understand when something is just worth letting go of and moving to the next one. I don’t think there is any set number of scripts that you should write before you submit one. I think you should wait until you’ve got something that really is great. It’s hard to truly write a good screenplay that works and there aren’t very many of them. Even when you read a script, even in the scripts that I’ve written, I have a feeling when I read them whether they’re going to get made or not. I know when they’re professional level and when they really stink, you just know. When you read other people’s screen plays, you can just tell which ones will get made and which ones won’t. Sometimes, that screenplay gets made anyway. It’s really a matter of having the humility to wait until professionals acknowledge the quality of what you’re doing and that’s probably the time to be submitting it. When somebody who really knows what they’re talking about tells you that it’s good.

KC: Is there a single big mistake you think screenwriters make today?

SD: The single biggest mistake is that they don’t deliver the requisites of genre. I think the biggest problem is that a lot of them want to write dramas. Selling dramas is very very hard. It’s not what Hollywood wants. It’s not their bread and butter. If you choose a horror film or a science fiction film or a thriller or western or a comedy, then it’s about understanding how that genre works. Another problem is writers just not realizing they don’t have the gift of writing screenplays. There’s not a lot of people who can do it. You can tell when you’re reading someone’s work very quickly that they really have the knack for what they’re doing or they don’t. They will probably have to write some bad scripts before they write something great. You can tell if they have the skills necessary to do it or the instincts to do it. I think most people haven’t been honest with themselves about their skill level.

I looked at the work I was doing as a director in film school and I felt very confident that I had the talent and the skill to compete as a director in the Hollywood marketplace. I could become a top tier director, but I have to admit that as a writer, there was something lacking. That’s why I ended up partnering up with somebody because I knew that I was going to need to be a writer to become a director and that I was probably going to need to be paired with somebody to complement what I was good at as a writer. That’s what I did.

Have confidence and believe in yourself, and have an honest assessment of your own skill level and deal with that. If you can compensate for it, compensate for it. If you can’t, then pick a more realistic goal. For some people who want to be directors, they should realize they don’t have the skill necessary for it, so maybe they should become an editor or a sound designer or something that’s more specialized to their strengths.

KC: Let’s talk about your education. Is it important to have a college degree today, or should you just go to film school?

SD: It’s different for everybody, but I do think in my experience, most of people who are out there are pretty well educated. Most of them are intelligent and conversant. You talk to most people, writers, directors or studio executives, and most of them can talk about literature or politics, they have gone to good schools and earned a decent education, which has prepared them for the challenging demanding career. I’m a big believer in education. I just think that without it you’re not going to fully develop a point of view. It’s developing that point of view, that perspective of the world, personal belief system, and developing a rich reservoir of ideas that motivate you personally. I would never have been able to do that, were it not for my education. So, I certainly challenge people to do that.

I didn’t focus on filmmaking much as an undergrad. I focused on literature and philosophy and theology. I was trying to figure out what I believed about reality and the nature of the world and who God was and what my responsibilities as a person were and things that were so much more fundamental to life than cinema. But my love for cinema was always there and once I really spent a good number of years fully invested in these former things that I started to apply them to filmmaking. That’s my process. Then you’ve got people like Quentin Tarantino whose education was cinema and clearly his view of the world and what motivates him is almost all movies and pulp literature and music and things like that. As a result, he has become certainly one of the most influential directors of the last ten or fifteen years. So it depends, it’s different for everybody. A classroom education would be good for some, and some people that are coming from other places will bring that to the table.

To be a professional director, you have to have a certain base of knowledge to know what you’re doing. But the truth is most technical issues that may come up in directing a Hollywood film can be dealt with by professional crew members. They can help you with that. What no one can help you with is directing actors and knowing the meaning of the story. What’s the emotional context of the scene and the larger purpose of the scene and the context of the story. Those are the kinds of things that no one can help you with. You have to have a place of understanding of those things. That’s the part of you that you must develop as an individual.

I also think that life is short and you need to live meaningful and valuable lives. You can’t do that if all you’re focused on is success or getting into the business or becoming a director. Those are all status symbols, titles or achievements. What you want to have is a rich and meaningful life that comes from a developed mind and a developed spirit. Different people can find that in different ways. For me, education was a big part of it. I would tell anybody to take their internal world seriously if they want to become good at writing and directing.

KC: Filmmaking is a consuming thing, how do you keep your life in balance?

SD: Yeah, it is a consuming thing and I think there’s a lot I cut out of my life. I say no to way more than I say yes to, and I’m sure that there are people who don’t like that, but I don’t do a lot outside of the primary areas of interest for me. I try to keep a pretty disciplined schedule and I try to make good use of my time. If it’s not something that I really want to do, I won’t do it. I don’t go to very many parties. I don’t know how many Hollywood parties I’ve been invited to this year, and I’ve gone to probably one, and even that one I could have done without. It’s just the way it is. You have to choose what is going to matter to you. I know what matters to me and as long as that’s where my attention goes and doesn’t get divided up between more than that, it’s enough. I think it’s a challenge for anybody. I certainly don’t think being a director and a family man is any harder than being a doctor. I think it’s the same kind of thing, long hours. It’s kind of all consuming, and there’s tremendous responsibility, and there’s stress, but people do it. I think they do it just by being disciplined and by not adding to those things. I’ve chosen those things I’m going to invest my life in, that’s my life. I love it, I’m very fortunate.

There’s a typical day schedule. Obviously, there’s the writing life and there’s the directing life and those two things could not be more different. Typically, when I’m in the throws of the writing life, I’m very frustrated, wishing that I was just directing. When I’m in the directing life I’m exhausted and wish I was just writing. They’re both so extreme that one always leaves me kind of pineing for the other, and that’s probably not a bad thing. But I do also try to take Sundays off completely, no matter what. I just don’t work. That’s not so much out of religious devotion as it is understanding the practical need for that. The sabbath idea for me is just about realizing how valuable it is to have a day where from the time you get up ‘till the time you go to bed you’re just going to check out of work and let both your mind and your body take a rest from it. I find that to be very valuable.

KC: What drives you? What gets you out of the bed in the morning?

SD: The need to create, to express. It’s very difficult to describe what it is, but there’s something about the need to create and express. That is probably the deepest drive that I have. Once I’ve locked into a story or I’m pursuing a particular thing, it just doesn’t let go of me. It’s going to be with me 24/7 and sometimes I’ve gone even on Sundays trying to get away from it. It’s always turning in my life. But I like that actually. I like that an idea of something getting a hold of me. I think everyone is designed in some way to give themselves over to something, to give themselves over to a task or to a job or to a service. Even if you’re a house painter, you should give yourself over to making that house look great. You give yourself over, and lose yourself in that. You transcend yourself by being good at your job. When you’re an artist, I think there’s a really high intensity level. It’s the greatest thing in the world for artists. It’s why they do what they do. You get an idea, you get involved in the story, and then you become heroic. Your feelings, your tiredness, or your ego, or whatever credit you’ll get for doing it becomes invisible. You never think about those things or the money you’re getting paid. None of that matters. All that matters is that this story, this film is beckoning you to help it, make it good, and you become it’s slave in a way. You become a servant of that idea. You’re constantly looking for how it can be the best that it can be. Every time you chip away at it, every time you figure out something great or figure out something right, it’s so…it’s exhilarating.

I’ve certainly never been involved with something like a masterpiece. I’ve never really come up with anything that would come close, as a writer or a director, but I’m sure for the people who do, they’re probably experiencing the ultimate transcendence because they have completely given themselves over to something and created something so much greater than themselves. I can’t think of anything I would rather be a part of during my lifetime than that. It’s very God-like to me, to be creating like that. That’s what it is. That’s why the choosing of material matters so much because you have to choose things that are going to inspire you to do that.

KC: What would you recommend for the young directors who want to get that first break?

SD: I think almost inevitably they have to work on their writing skills. Screenplays are the currency of Hollywood. They always have been, but they are now more than ever. It’s very difficult for anyone to get into the business without having some writing skills, without having a screenplay of some kind. The other one is to get into commercial directing. That’s a pool that Hollywood is drawing more and more from because they can get commercial directors cheaper, and commercial directors tend to work fast. I’ve never directed a commercial, but I’m thinking about doing it. The music video world is pretty much dead, that’s really not a pool that Hollywood’s drawing from like it did in the ‘90’s. I’d say, find a way to get into directing commercials and work on your writing skills.

Networking is very important, but I’ve also known a lot of people who networked like crazy and had relationships with everyone, and it’s never done them any good because their work isn’t good enough. I had a screenwriting teacher at USC that said if you write a truly brilliant screenplay, like, The Silence of the Lambs or Traffic or a script like that, and you drove down the freeway at 70 mph and threw it out the window, it would get made because that’s how rare and precious they are. It will find it’s way to the top. Screenplays that are good, that’s all it takes because one assistant will read it somewhere and it will end up going up the chain. There have been some Hollywood success stories that have happened that way. It’s important to have some relationships with people who can get it looked at.

I’m going to sound like I’m contradicting myself, because on the one hand I’m saying work on your writing skills. On the other hand, I’m saying you either can write or you can’t. Both are true. I think that on the one hand, you either have the gift of writing or you don’t have it. Walter Persies used the word, “knack” for writing, and I like the word, “knack.” Either you have a knack for it or you don’t. And I think you either have a knack particularly for screenwriting or you don’t. If you don’t have it, all the classes in the world aren’t going to turn you into a professional screenwriter.

I can’t say I’ve gotten a lot out of books and seminars and those sort of things. I liked Linda Seger’s book, Making a Good Script Great. I think that’s a really good fundamental book for story structure. If you don’t understand what she says in that book, then you’ll never become a pro screenwriter. You need to at least have that basic understanding, but, I think for the most part, it’s really about doing it. Writing things that writers write. The biggest reason why people don’t succeed in their screenwriting is because they don’t succeed in writing screenplays. They talk about them, they think about them, they start them, and they don’t finish them. Actually doing them is the hardest part.

A lot of people out there who have dreams of being a writer or director, even if they got their big breaks, would just never be able to deliver. You really have to understand what you truly are capable of doing and then pursue that whole-heartedly. For some people, their dream is just to be working in production in any respect. I definitely saw this happen when I was in film school. There were students who came in and wanted to be writers or directors and they were working on films and they just realize I don’t think I’m as good at this as some of these other students. So, they focused on sound design or something else. One friend of mine became a sound designer and now is one of the top sound designers in Hollywood, and makes a tremendous living. I wouldn’t say that he was falling back on it. I think once you see what you really are capable of doing, I don’t think it becomes an adjustment from doing what you really wanted. Otherwise, everyone would just dream of being an astronaut or a rock star. We all want to be a rock star, but there aren’t many people with the talent to do that.

Be realistic. Get a lot of input. Once you determine what you are capable of doing, you can’t doubt yourself. At that point, you have to hold fast to what you are capable of doing. Persevere, because you have to be thick-skinned when you get discouraged. You have to know whether that criticism is accurate or not. It takes that real genuine humility that is not self effacing or modest, and that is an accurate assessment of self. Sometimes, you have to hear criticism, even from professionals and know they’re wrong. It’s like the guy who won the Academy Award for best screenplay for Dead Poet’s Society. He accepted his Academy Award and one of the first people he thanked was his agent who let him go as a client after reading the script. You have to persevere in the midst of criticism. Who do you listen to and who do you not listen to? I don’t know. All I know is what I do with myself. I have to try to figure out what I’m good at and what I’m not good at and build on that one and trust in my skill.

KC: Whose opinion do you listen to?

SD: Everyone’s going to be different. My wife is always the first person reading through my scripts and her opinion matters tremendously to me. But, she’s also really honest and she will tell me what she really genuinely thinks of something and that’s a big gauge for me. I can get a good sense on how good something is based on her reaction. As far as people in my life, her response is probably the only non-professional response that really matters to me. I don’t really give out things that I do to friends or family or anything like that.

KC: Other than the Bible, what books would you recommend that young film directors and writers have in their library?

SD: I studied literature as an undergrad, I’m an avid reader, I love books and books have been as influential if not more influential than movies have been in my life. But, it’s also personal. I think the greatest book of the twentieth century was a book called Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton. It’s far and away my favorite book. I think it’s the greatest book of the twentieth century. He’s a turn of the century Catholic writer. I’ve recommended it to people before who didn’t get it. It will become the greatest book you’ve ever read or you won’t get it. And I know smart people who haven’t gotten it, so it’s got nothing to do with your intelligence level. I think it just has to do with whether or not it speaks to you and to your interests and to your mental problems. It’s my favorite book by far. I’ve often said that if I could give every Christian in the world a book to read it would probably be a toss up between J. I. Packer’s Knowing God because it’s just so fundamental in it’s information, and A. W. Tozer’s Pursuit of God. They’re two very different books, but together they would make for a strong understanding of the Christian faith. Linda Seger’s Making a Good Script Great is really the only book that I would recommend to screenwriters, but I’m sure there are other good ones out there, I just don’t read them. And John Milton’s Paradise Lost. (Scott is currently developing this book for the screen).