Writer / Director

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 Bryan Singer, "Urban Legends: Final Cut" for Phoenix Pictures, directing 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 "Devil's Knot" for Dimension. He is in development for "Paradise Lost" , and is currently slated to direct the re-make of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" for Fox this summer.

Scott Derrickson is an artist, intelligent, sensitive, and spiritual. When you think of the great film directors of our time, Scott is making his way with the best of them. He doesn't give many interviews, but trusted me and also wanted to give you the reader some insight into his heart and mind about the business he loves.

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

Scott Derrikson: I grew up in Denver, Colorado and came out to California to go to school – I 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 where I went through their graduate film program. Once out of USC, I started working professionally as a screenwriter. The thing I am most proud doing in my career would be The Exorcism of Emily Rose. I was fortunate to have been involved in a project like that -- I wrote the script the way I wanted to, quickly got it sold and set up quickly, then made it 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, which 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, how they work from shot-to-shot -- so I was always very interested in the experience of directing. But, I was also just a big film fan. I grew up in a family that saw a lot of movies, so they were an enormous part of my life from as early as I can remember. And when I was old enough to really appreciate more mature films, that was right at the time that home video was starting to become available. I was part of the first generation of people who saw lots of 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 I came across this story while doing research for that screenplay. I thought it was rather amazing, and I was really struck by the potential of it to be a hybrid of both the legal film and the horror film. I optioned that material with my writing partner, and we wrote the screenplay outside the studio system. I think that’s one of the reasons it turned out well, because the script wasn’t developed in the normal studio fashion -- it was written the way we wanted it written. We then took it around town 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 had to make it the way I wanted it made. Fortunately, Screen Gems and Lakeshore Entertainment saw the film the same way, so it was a great partnership.

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 me personally. I have to be really struck by it, and in most cases, need to be overwhelmed by it, because it is going to demand a lot of me if I take it on. The second thing is marketability. I think that my success in the business has a lot to do with that fact that I’ve worked hard to understand what 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, then your most likely not going to remain employed. If you’re lucky, you might be able to scrounge up enough money for a single opportunity to make something you are passionate about. But 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 and paying me to do that – namely, my employers. I really love the fact the Emily Rose was the top money-making film Sony Screen Gems has ever made. 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 service your employer by doing for them what they hired you to do, then you’ll continue to work. 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 desire for quality and commercial success. But you can do it, if that’s what you’re committed to doing. You can absolutely do it. You can find that balance.

I’ve also really come to understand how audiences respond to certain genres. For the most part, they’ll only respond to dramas 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, even then it’s unlikely that it will ever make it’s money back. It’s likely 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, action films, 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.

Many of my favorite films are genre films, so I’ve become very tuned in them, and to what it is the audiences responds to. I try to find material that I think is both interesting and has artistic merit, and that audiences will respond to it. As I continue to 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. Look at what Leonardo DiCaprio is doing this with his career – he’s 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 consistently choosing 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: There’s no question that the horror genre is the easiest genre to break into for a young director, simply because it’s the most secure genre commercially, and because horror films rarely cost much to make. Many of them 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 genre that’s good for young directors. If you can make a really good comedy that’s actually funny. 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 write by themselves. I write with a partner because there are certain weaknesses in my writing that need to be compensated for, and I think the same it true for him. I don’t know if my writing partner would say that about himself, but I think 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's not even just half me and half him -- it’s like a third thing. I like working with him too – he’s a great guy -- so for me, it’s right to have a partner. There are some people that can work this way, but a lot of people could never do that. A lot of people must write by themselves. I’m very fortunate to have a writing relationship that’s really rich.

What a lot of people don’t understand about professional screenwriting is that even for top screenwriters in the world, the majority of films they write 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 that they often lack the humility or self-confidence to see that something they’ve written is just not good enough. A lot of times they want to keep on beating that horse, and trying to get it to run, and it’s just never going to run. I think that writers really need to seek honest feedback, and have the humility to understand when something should just be let go so they can move on 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 write a truly good screenplay that works, and there aren’t very many of them. Even with 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. 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 a comedy, then the trick is to understand how that genre works. Another problem is that struggling writers so often just don’t realize that they don’t have the gift of writing screenplays. There are not a lot of people who can do it. You can tell very quickly when you’re reading someone’s work, whether or not they have the knack for it. And even if they do, they will probably have to write some bad scripts before they write something great. But 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 remember looking 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 felt that I could become a top tier director. But I had 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. So that’s what I did.

You must have confidence and believe in yourself, yet have an honest assessment of your own skill level. If you can compensate for weaknesses, then compensate for them. 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 toward 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 most people who are out there in Hollywood 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 challenge of a demanding career. I’m a big believer in education. I think that without it, you’re not going to fully develop a point of view, and filmmakers need a perspective of the world -- a personal belief system and a rich reservoir of ideas that motivate them personally. I wouldn’t be a director or screenwriter were it not for my education. So, I certainly encourage prospective filmmakers to pursue it – but not everyone needs it.

However, 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 . About 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 spent a good number of years fully invested in these former things, then I started to apply them to filmmaking. That’s my process. Then you’ve got people like Quentin Tarantino whose education was cinema itself, and clearly his view of the world and what motivates him is primarly 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 their own unique experience to the table.

To be a professional director, you do have to have a certain base of knowledge about the craft. You have 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 mind that can deeply understand 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 a meaningful and valuable life. 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 and 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. But I would certainly 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’ve cut out of my life because of it. 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, unless I think I should do it. I don’t go to very many parties. I been invited to a lot of Hollywood parties this year, and I’ve gone to 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 that’s where my attention goes. I certainly don’t think being a director and a family man is any harder than being a doctor and a family man. I think it’s the same kind of thing, long hours, lots of responsibilty and demand.. It’s all-consuming if you let it be, and there’s tremendous responsibility involved, and there’s stress, but people do it. I think they do it by being disciplined and by not adding to much to those things. I’ve chosen the things I’m going to invest in during my life, and that’s my life. And 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 behind the sabbath law. The practical implication of the sabbath idea, I think, is about realizing how valuable it is to have a day where from the time you get up, until 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 and wise.

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 it’s something about that need to create and express. That is probably the deepest drive that I have. Once I’ve locked into a story, or am pursuing a particular thing, it just doesn’t let go of me. It’s going to be with me 24/7. It’s always turning in my life. But I like that actually. I like it when something gets a hold of me and won’t let go. 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 should give yourself over, and lose yourself in that. You transcend yourself by being good at your job, whatever it may be. When you’re an artist, I think there’s a really high intensity level, and the giving over of one’s self is dramatic. It’s the greatest thing in the world for artists – the transcendence of the self. 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, your ego, or whatever credit you’ll get for doing it becomes totally 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 you want to tell, and this film that’s beckoning you to help it exist, to make it good, and you become it’s slave in a way. You become a servant of an idea. You’re constantly looking for how the film or script 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 just exhilarating.

I’ve certainly never been involved with a real masterpiece. I’ve never come up with anything that would come close, as a writer or a director, to what Martin Scorsese and Akira Kurosawa and Wim Wenders have done. But I’m sure for the people who do create those masterpieces, 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 hopefully 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 way in is to go through the world of commercial directing. That’s a pool that Hollywood is drawing from more and more, 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 is 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 people who networked like crazy, and had relationships with everyone, and it’s never did them any good because their work wasn’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. For screenplays that are good, that’s all it takes because one assistant will read it somewhere and it will end up at the top of the chain. There have been a lot of Hollywood success stories that have happened that way. It’s important, however, to have at least 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. Walker Percy uses the word, “knack” for writing talent, and I like that word. You can grow at it, regardless, but you have to have the knack if you’re going to succeed. Either you have a knack for it or you don’t. And I think you either have a knack for screenwriting in particular, 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. I like John Truby’s story structure work. If you don’t understand what they say in those books, then you’ll never become a pro screenwriter. You need to at least have that basic understanding of it, but, I think for the most part, it’s really all about doing it. Writing write. The biggest reason why people don’t succeed in their screenwriting is because they don’t put in the time to actually write very much. They talk about writing, they think about it, they start scripts, and they often don’t finish them. Actually doing them is the hard part.

A lot of people out there who have dreams of being a writer or director, even if they got their big break, would just never be able to deliver. You really must understand what you are capable of doing, and then you must 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 while they were working on films, they just realized they weren’t as good at it as some of the other students. So, they focused on sound design or editing or something else. One friend of mine from USC became a sound designer, and now is one of the top sound designers in Hollywood, and makes a great living and loves his job. I wouldn’t say that he was just falling back on it – he found his calling because it matched his talents. 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 also have to know whether criticism is accurate or not. It takes genuine humility that is not too self-effacing or modest, but is an accurate assessment of yourself. Sometimes, you have to hear criticism, even from professionals and you’ll 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 dropped him 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, that’s the trick. 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, and trust in my skill.

KC: Whose opinion do you listen to?

SD: 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. And my writing partner and I are each others best critics. By far. We have made each other better artists than either of us ever would have become on our own.

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, so I’m an avid reader. I love books and they have been as influential if not more influential than movies have been in my life. But, it’s all so personal. I think the greatest book of the twentieth century is Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton. It’s far and away my favorite book. If you read it, it will probably either become the greatest book you’ve ever read, or you really won’t get it at all. 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. For Christians specifically, it would probably be a toss up between J. I. Packer’s Knowing God 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 – one is doctrinal and the other is devotional. For writers and directors, it would be Aristotle’s Poetics and Linda Seger’s Making a Good Script Great. And John Milton’s Paradise Lost. (Scott is currently developing this book for the screen).