Five Lessons From Talking To Michael Arndt
Insights from an Oscar winner on character, structure, and the magic of storytelling.
We were thrilled and honoured that Michael Arndt joined us on Script Club to talk about his Oscar-winning screenplay for Little Miss Sunshine.
Michael was incredibly generous with his time, providing thoughtful, insightful and honest answers to our questions. He even surprised everybody by revealing that he was actually fired from the film at one point, before being brought back to fix the screenplay.
Here are five key lessons we learned from talking to Michael.
Introduce Characters Doing What They Love
Michael stressed the critical importance of character introductions in a screenplay. When we first meet characters, he likes to show them performing a simple action related to their goal, or the thing they love the most.
So at the start of Little Miss Sunshine we see Olive watching a beauty pageant and practising celebrating, Richard delivering a speech at the end of his nine-step program and Dwayne working out as he trains to be a fighter pilot. This immediately gives the audience a sense of what the character wants or loves.
Strengthen Your Tentpoles
Michael also emphasised the importance of tentpole moments in your script. For him, these are the inciting incident, act one turning point, midpoint, act two turning point and finale.
He spoke about his experience of being a script reader, before his screenwriting career took off, and how he repeatedly read scripts with weak act one turning points. He stressed the need to make these tentpole moments as strong as possible, pointing out that this gives you the freedom to then meander from the main plot, if you need to.
For example in the Little Miss Sunshine screenplay, the strong act one turning point of the family deciding to travel to Florida for the beauty pageant (California in the film) gave him the opportunity to subsequently veer from the main storyline a little, and spend time further establishing the characters and their dynamics.
Make The Audience Thirsty
We also delved into the tricky art of delivering exposition to the audience in a way that doesn’t stand out. Michael revealed that his technique is to withhold information about the characters and relationships for as long as possible, until the audience are hungry for it.
If the audience are thirsty for the exposition, they’ll absorb it and be grateful for it when you deliver it to them, so it won’t feel obtrusive or on the nose.
Mine Your Script
When you encounter a problem with a script you are working on, Michael recommended looking at what you already have in your screenplay, as that’s where you’ll find the solution.
He gave an example from when he was working at Pixar on the screenplay for Toy Story 3. In the film’s finale, the toys are about to be incinerated in a giant furnace and Michael and the Pixar team couldn’t figure out a way for the characters to escape.
The problem vexed them for months, until Michael suggested making an inventory of everything that was already in the screenplay. In doing so, they realised the landfill, where the toys are trapped, would have a crane with a giant mechanical claw, which the aliens could use to rescue the other toys, providing a neat call-back to the first Toy Story film in the process.
Take Inspiration From Real Life
I couldn’t let the opportunity to talk to Michael pass without asking him about the iconic scenes in Little Miss Sunshine where the family have to push-start the VW van.
Michael revealed this was based on a real-life experience. He was with his family in Maine on a Sunday when the clutch broke on their VW bus. They drove 600 miles, push-starting the van, so his father could be at work in Washington D.C. on the Monday morning.
He included it in the script as he remembered how much fun it was, showing that the best ideas can sometimes come from what’s happening to us, and around us, in real life.
You can watch the full discussion about Little Miss Sunshine with Michael Arndt, and see all our upcoming Script Club events, and register for free, by going to the Script Club Web Page.