How to Write Like Taika Waititi | Screenwriter's Lecture

Taika Waititi shares some of his methods on writing a script, which includes writing beginning and the end first, breaking up the work load into 20 minute segments, and more!
subscribe to Guru ⏩ / baftaguru
Taika Waititi explains his unusual writing process.
⏬ stay up to date ⏬
Twitter:
@BAFTAGuru: / baftaguru
@BAFTA: / bafta
@BAFTAGames: / baftagames
Facebook: / bafta
Instagram: / bafta
sign up for our newsletter: guru.bafta.org/newsletter
subscribe to our podcasts:
iTunes: bit.ly/Vz84HI
Soundcloud: / bafta
visit our websites to find out more:
www.bafta.org/guru
www.bafta.org
#BAFTAGuru #TaikaWaititi #TaikaWaititiOnWriting

[@baftaguru]

Do you have any writing tips? Let us know!

[@vikyshinde9609]

Yaah, OUTLINING scene by scene.

[@MrUndersolo]

“Be a tank!”
- that was a quote from Rodney Dangerfield on dealing with a hostile crowd, but it can also be for that hostile blank page (just plow through).
You have to get something down, so just keep writing (notes, points, lines, jokes, etc.).

[@zackketz]

I develop my scripts on paper and in Word. It's like tackling a painting. You make sketches on something you don't really care about so you feel free and not constrained by format and scene length - not on the canvas (Final Draft). After I've done a lot of planning, I go to FD and crank it out. Another tip: make a list of main emotions you need your characters to experience. Then think of the best ways to show those visually and dramatically. Build around those moments. Lead up to those BIG moments with the opposite emotion for more dramatic effect.

[@happehpills5945]

@@zackketz "Another tip: make a list of main emotions you need your characters to experience. Then think of the best ways to show those visually and dramatically. Build around those moments. Lead up to those BIG moments with the opposite emotion for more dramatic effect.
" Thank you so much for this!!!!!! This is incredibly helpful!

[@4mIlr]

Your videos are our filmschool,I will thank you later on oscar stage pal

[@lossay613]

This is the most serious I've seen him and he can still add a perfect amount of humor

[@thingshappen4062]

If you have a character who is employed, hash out the interview on paper. If your character writes in a journal, record a few entries maybe a year before the actual story, a few days before. This exercise just will surprise you. Has helped me quite a bit.

[@kyhxx]

*

[@vandathevampire]

I like the idea of putting away a draft then rereading it and rewriting it from memory. Useful if you want to cut your own bullshit. :D

[@alexispapageorgiou72]

Depends what you're going for I guess. I think some bullshit is necessary, at least for the tone I'm going for, which is abstract realism. ps. really hope the last one makes sense...

[@DXCary10]

This sounds so painful tho. Well to me personally. Rewriting entirely from scratch all over again. I may give it a try but wow I’d definitely need the time to do so.

[@human91319]

The 20 min things are brilliant. Sounds like a great way to not get bored with your own work.

[@Nazaba09]

What he talked about, going back and writing the bare bone script, that is my first draft. All my scripts are 80-90 pages. I cannot BS to save my life.

[@lazycunt4902]

we should collab then cus all I do is bullshit

[@OKRELAXERS]

Good vibes Taika. So refreshing.

[@UDAMZ]

One of the coolest guys in the world.

[@abel8735]

met taika once, great guy!

[@drsapnis]

great questions! Amazing moderator

[@panchish]

love his pen

[@priyanshiupv]

I had a physics teacher in my school who speaks the same way as he's speaking.

[@pjoazure]

The 20 minute blocks are interesting

[@SYKNstudio]

5:56 the interviewer rubbed her eye and looked at her fingers WHILE asking the question 🙄

[@user-gu8de3gt4t]

yea wth

[@pablocronin4229]

Taika is really into what he's saying but I felt the interviewer is kinda lazy (do I need to ask now? I'm drowsy(kinda)). I thought of ignoring it first but at the end video, I felt annoyed with her gestures and way of asking. Not to point out stuff I just felt like that.

[@dhruvaprasaddevara1967]

I prefer this to the interviewers who keep interrupting or the ones that don't listen to the answer and are just eager to ask their next question.

[@lara3540]

To be fair if you watch the whole unedited interview Taika is really jumping between topics so I feel like it’s good that the interviewer takes a bit of a lead and guides him through it. Creative, active minds sometimes need someone to outline a structure for them to not get lost (coming from my own personal experience as a head-in-the-clouds type of thinker)

[@kyhxx]

4:42 etc same- fl brdln ocd hauntd at times when get in such a headspace bt w - lol gr8 ted talk taiki ^

[@jag5798]

Amazing, he writes like me. I call my method “bookending.”

[@samcheese34]

You mean you write like him

[@shutup9505]

@@samcheese34 you mean your writing style is similar to him/exactly like him

[@astromusicnz7659]

Man those chairs are ugly

[@kubolor1234]

You have OCD

[@trapezoidspangle934]

T'Challa probably just good taste.

[@Septiviumexe]

I'll pass this on to the chair picker, they will send their most sincere apologies your highness

[@funguy29]

So he forgot all this while writing love and thunder ?

[@SunGod-887]

why taikia is dressed up like an Indian!!

[@ma_talena]

Nah mate, Taika dresses like a kiwi

[@benedictcumberbatchsdeform8371]

Kiwi's and Indians dress very alike then!!!

[@ma_talena]

@@benedictcumberbatchsdeform8371 subjectively

[@jeringatai3156]

@@benedictcumberbatchsdeform8371 hes wearing pants and a shirt. Wtf are you on

[@supercruiser4925]

Jo Jo rabbit is so corny.

[@TomEyeTheSFMguy]

Yes, you are.

[@nukliozz]

Jo Jo mamma too