All language subtitles for Masterclass Steve Martin Teaches Comedy - 18. Screenwriting Case Study Roxanne

I had an idea to do Roxan which was a

update of Siero de Berserk and I went to

Neil Simon I said can you write this can

you write this and I couldn't get

anybody to write it and I thought well

Britain I've collaborated with maybe

maybe I could write it so I sat that

down. I wrote it

and you know on a typewriter with yellow

paper and doing the cut and paste you

know moving things around and the first

draft was very

faithful

to the play. But I went through hundreds

of drafts as I moved away from uh the

structure of the play or the actual

lines from the play into becoming its

own thing. And I realized the process of

adaptation

is the same process as a failed marriage

which is first fidelity

then transgression and then divorce.

So, at first you're faithful to the

original source material. Then you say,

"hm maybe uh maybe if he didn't go there

and went here and didn't say that. What

if it was this?" And you have a new

scene and now suddenly you have a fresh

scene and then you finally divorce

yourself from the source material. You

know, in the opening of Sirino de Burk,

there's a sword fight where he wounds

somebody. I thought, well, can't have

him wound anybody. What can this be? But

I really like the scene where someone

insults him and he fights back. So, uh,

we changed it to tennis rackets and we

were like sword fighting with tennis

whackets rackets and I was able to thack

the villains. Kevin Neland, by the way,

and Rich Shidener played those parts.

Here it comes.

3D coming at you.

I really admire your shoes.

I love your shoes.

What do you mean? And I was just

thinking that as much as I really admire

your shoes and as much as I'd love to

have a pair just like them, I really

wouldn't want to be in your shoes at

this particular time and place.

I don't really know karate.

I didn't think so.

Oh, damn. Get up. Son of a Get pissed,

Rich. I am pissed.

Okay, get

15 love.

There's an opening scene where uh

somebody insults Sirino's extra large

nose and then he gives u a bunch of well

you could have said this, you could have

said this, you could have said this and

he's beautiful and eloquent and and I

wanted to recreate that scene in in a

modern way in a bar. So, I came up with

the idea. I'd say, "Well,

uh, I'll I'll the guy will insult me and

then I'll say I'll tell you what." Uh,

he said, he said, "You can come up with

something better." I said, "I think I

could." I said, "Tell you what, take the

dart, throw it at the dart board, and

whatever number it lands on, that's the

number of responss, responses, I'll do."

And so I thought, well, okay, uh, maybe

if it lands on six, that would be good.

Six. I could probably get six good

jokes. And I thought, "No, it's got to

land on 20. That's the highest number on

the dart board. That's what it's got to

land on." And uh so I kind of I made the

problem worse for myself. But in making

it worse, I made it better.

How many is that?

14, Chief.

All right. All right. Religious.

The Lord giveth. And he just kept on

giving, didn't he?

Disgusting. Say, who mows your nose

hair?

16.

Paranoid. Keep that guy away from my

cocaine.

17.

Aromatic.

It must be wonderful to wake up in the

morning and smell the coffee in Brazil.

18.

Appreciative. Oo, how original. Most

people just have their teeth capped.

All right. Uh, one more.

You can do it, CD. One more. You can do

it.

Come on, CD.

All right. Dirty.

Your name wouldn't be dick, would it?

You smartass son of a [ __ ] You

flatfaced, flatnosed, flathead.

Hey,

Has he fallen yet?

You know, Carl Riner told me once, uh,

he, you know, he worked with Mel Brooks

and he's a 2,000-y old man, and he said,

"I always found that Mel was funnier if

I cornered him. If I kept saying, what

do you mean, you blah blah blah?" and he

would keep pushing him into a corner

which would lead Mel to an even more

extravagant uh solution. So think about

that too. It's like what's the problem?

How can I make it worse? Because that's

what really gets the audience involved.

I remember when I was uh writing Roxan

and I'd you know gone through the

limitless number of drafts to get it

where it was and now we're like three

days from shooting

and I remember panicking and I thinking

you I wrote this character I have no

idea how to play it. I I haven't even

said one line aloud as CD bales.

And I think I just prior to to shooting

I thought I I'll make them physical,

make him elegant. And I inserted a scene

Dr. Frank where I uh

I get frustrated at the town and then I

just turned my back on the screen and

walked down the street talking to myself

kind of physically. Oh. So, and all of

the shot is on my back and I think there

was some dog poop there that I stepped

aside elegantly and there I I I felt Oh,

I found the character.

Uh, somehow

it came to me last night in a flash.

What is that?

The thing, the gimmicks, the Nelson

promotional cow.

Whoa. We're talking to the chief. You

give her a name. Susie Esmeralda. Fossy.

You put her picture in the corner of our

posters drinking a beer. Teach her to

drink a beer. these things work.

I think it's a fantastic idea. Do you

like it?

I do. I love it.

I think it's great. Great idea.

I think it's brilliant. What an idea.

And I was there. I saw it happen. He

took the idea. He saw it ripe from the

tree. He plucked it and he put it in his

pocket. It's It's dare I say genius. No.

No. But maybe

it is. Maybe I'm in the presence of

greatness. Maybe I just don't know it,

but I saw it.

I try to have Now, by the way, uh I'm

going to contradict myself in a minute,

but I do try to have every line matter.

Every line count. I've talked about that

before. Everything means something. But

that doesn't mean you can't take

excursions, you know, delightful

excursions. And you know, you always get

a long a lengthy cut at first that you

screen for an audience and it's always a

disaster because it's too long and

whatever.

And uh

there was one scene in the movie where I

fall out of a tree and I stop some women

who are going to visit the lovers and

interrupt interrupt their trrist. So,

uh, it's right out of the play Senota

Berserk where I give them all the

reasons about how I'm going to go to the

moon, how I'm going to get to the moon,

something like that.

And um, and it was playing really well.

And so, but after the screening, I went

to the director, Fred Skepsy, was a

fantastic director, and I said, I think

we should do an experiment and just cut

it for story. Cut everything out that is

not story. And he said, well, that means

we have to cut the falling out of the

tree bit. I said, "No, you can't cut

that."

So, there's always compromises to be

made and there are delicious excursions.

Hey, it's two minutes here.

Are you all right?

Are you all right? Did you hurt

yourself?

Where am I?

You're in Nelson.

Nelson?

Why? I'm home. They brought me home by

What day is it?

Friday. Dallas is on

Friday. Then it took no time. It didn't

exist in time.

What?

Spacecraft. I was walking along. A

spacecraft landed right in front of me.

Tell us. I read about this in the

Inquirer. Did it have lights on it?

Lights? You never saw so many lights. It

was like Broadway. Then this door

opened. A creature came out, had big

suckers on his palms. He walked like

this.

Then he took his palms, put them right

on my face, took me over to Roxan's

house. They said they wanted to observe

me

at Rob Sand's house.

That's where they are right now.

Ah, this is [ __ ] Well, Miss Dallas,

come on, girls. Let's go.

Oh, okay.

You think I'm

They wanted to ask me about older women.

Why?

Because they wanted to have sex with

them.

Where?

Here. Here. Right here in Nelson. They

wanted to start a colony of supermen who

would have sex with older women because

they said, and I quote, "They really

know what they're doing."

We do. It's been so long.

Girls, girls, do you actually believe

that there are creatures from outer

space who want to have sex with older

women?

Let's go and check it out.