By Jim Cirile
Stephany Folsom
is on a roll. First came the incredible 2013 Black List success of her script
1969 A SPACE ODYSSEY or: HOW KUBRICK LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LAND ON THE
MOON, a brilliantly oddball buddy dramedy (in which one of the buddies was a
wonderfully difficult Stanley Kubrick.) That script propelled her into orbit;
recently it was announced that Folsom has been hired by Warner Bros. to adapt the Harlan Coben crime novel “Missing You.” Scott Sheckman from Kubrickian.org
and I chatted with Ms. Folsom about what is was like trying to channel Kubrick,
duping the American people en masse, and how it feels to be in the “Black.”
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Jim and Scott:
When did the screenwriting bug bite you, Stephany?
Stephany
Folsom: I grew up in Colorado Springs.
From a young age, I knew I wanted to be a writer, and I started writing as soon
as I could learn how. As there wasn’t much to do in my hometown, I’d frequently
visit the local movie theaters or DVD rental store, watching new and old movies
as much as possible, studying the various crafts, genres and history. It’s my
natural tendency to write movies, and I ended up going to film school because
of that. My (high school) guidance counselor didn’t know what (screenwriting)
was and suggested I go into the radio industry. I didn’t think that was very
practical, so I came (to Los Angeles) and went to Loyola Marymount University.
In their film school you got the opportunity to produce, direct and write
screenplays and learned how to make a film from the inception, all of it. I
considered that an invaluable education.
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| Stephany Folsom |
J + S: Well,
never underestimate an exciting potential future in terrestrial radio. What did
you do after film school?
SF: After
graduating Loyola, I found work in Hollywood’s development trenches, writing
script coverage and notes. It was beneficial industry experience, but I felt
like I could not write for myself while working full-time in development. So I
left LA to assist a friend shooting a film in India, and then found myself
working for a foundation that required a lot of travel shooting documentaries
on important topics such as human trafficking and AIDS. In my opinion,
traveling is the best thing a young screenwriter can do for their career –
meeting and talking with diverse individuals with fascinating stories. That
experience really shaped me as a screenwriter and helped me to approach the
industry when I returned. I wound up writing some TV as well as writing on the
YouTube series “Ds2dio 360,” while still writing feature specs.
J + S: One
would guess that you found a certain legendary director influential as well?
SF: I saw all of
Kubrick’s films from “Paths of Glory” all the way up, everything he’d done. He
was my favorite filmmaker. But “Dr. Strangelove” was my gateway drug. I saw it
in high school, and I was like, oh, my God! Who is the man who made this crazy
film? That led me down the rabbit hole of discovering all of Kubrick’s cinema.
I have to say, I wasn’t a big “2001” fan until I saw it on the big screen. Once
you have that imagery before you, and you’re surrounded by that soundtrack, it
just has a completely different impact. It made me realize how ingenious that
movie is, because it was created for that specific venue perfectly.
J + S: “1969: A
Space Odyssey” presents a crazy-cool scenario – that the US government enlisted
Stanley Kubrick to fake the moon landing as a back-up plan in case NASA
couldn’t pull it off. The scenario seems outlandish and yet possible at the
same time, given all the conspiracy theories that turned out to be true (like
the Gulf of Tonkin incident, MK Ultra and Operation Northwoods, etc.) Kubrick
himself fanned the flames of his involvement in oblique ways, such as the boy
wearing an Apollo 11 sweater in “The Shining.” Do you think there’s any truth
to any of it?
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| Was Kubrick just messing with us? |
SF: The rumors
that he faked the moon landing started right after it happened, but it’s gotten
recent attention with that cool documentary “Room 237.” There’s a French
mockumentary titled “Dark Side of the Moon” featuring some very important
people including Rumsfeld, Kissinger, and Kubrick’s wife Christiane who
suggests in a tongue-and-cheek way that Kubrick played a role in staging the
landing footage and “Room 237” explores the possible hidden messages in
Kubrick’s adaptation of “The Shining,” which some feel was Kubrick’s way of
confessing his involvement with the landing via numerous cinematic clues. I kind of got the impression from all that
that it was a running joke with Kubrick, “Oh yeah, I faked the moon landing.”
He had kind of a messed-up sense of humor, from what I can gather. I wouldn’t
be surprised if he layered stuff into his later films as a wink and a nod. I
just thought that it would be a fun thing to write, something I cared about,
and then (I’d write) something else to pay the bills.
J + S: Another interesting coinky-dink, Peter Hyams, the director of
"2010", was also the director of the hit 1977 government-conspiracy
thriller "Capricorn One", about the faking of a manned Mars landing sometime in
near future. Hyams and Kubrick were reportedly friends, and Kubrick blessed
Hyam's helming "2010" as a highly anticipated sequel to his iconic "2001"
Another interesting thing I stumbled across was a recent account from a sound
man who worked closely with Kubirck for almost 30 years. As the story goes,
shortly before Apollo 14 was to take off from the Moon, Kubrick suggested they
go watch TV together, adding a strange remark: “Let’s see if they got it
right".
SF: There’s
actually a line like that in the script, where Kubrick is watching the actual
moon landing at the end and says something to the effect of, “It’s not going to
look as good as mine.”
J + S: Was it a
daunting task, trying to capture a legendary director so fresh in our minds?
SF: Kubrick was
such an exceptional talent; I wanted to enhance that, and I also wanted to make
him human. I immersed myself in everything I could find out about him, every
piece of film footage I could find and read and watched all the interviews, not
just what Kubrick said about himself but others who had their own personal
stories about him. This helped me understand him as a fleshed-out being, honoring
him but making him relatable. I listened to his audio interviews non-stop so I
could get a cadence of his voice and how he phrased things; I tried to be
truthful of that and honor who he was, nail down his mannerisms… I was kind of
stalking him (laughs).
J + S: And well done. You found that delicate balance that made Kubrick work. It
would be easy to just caricature him. Pairing him with a sharp foil in Barbara,
the operative sent to keep him on the rails, was also a smart move, as she becomes
the voice of reason/audience surrogate.
SF: Thank you so
much. I created the character of Barbara because I felt like it was too big of
a risk to put the whole story on Kubrick’s shoulders, and also it would kind of
take away some of his mystique as well. I needed a character for him to play
off. And I also thought it would dishonor the moon landing, which I think is
one of the greatest accomplishments we’ve done as a country if I put a real
character against Kubrick. So I created Barbara as a composite of several women
who were in the Nixon task force on women’s rights. It’s kind of sad – they
were actually in high-powered positions in other jobs, but they wanted to
become the first women with White House jobs. So they took positions as
assistants and things like that, even though they were overqualified. To create
the most conflict and obstacles in the story, I wanted to put him against a
character who was the polar opposite of who he was. And the greatest opposition
for Kubrick and the hardest for him to understand would be a woman, and not
only a woman, but a woman who is really perky, outspoken and happy.
J + S: So tell
us about whole Black List experience.
SF: Because it’s
a quirky script, my reps (Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment) went to a very select group of notable Hollywood
tastemakers first. After that, it seemed to spread like wildfire and take on a
life of its own. People I met for the first time at a cocktail party said they
read my script, which was a bit new and bizarre to me! I was superstitious and
don’t believe all the rumors and talk about it, but didn’t believe it until the
day of the actual announcement that it was going to (make the Black List.).
Once it hit The
Black List, I felt like I was suddenly on a list for high-profile assignments.
It does give you a stamp of approval. There’s so much material out there, and
people are so strapped for time. So anything to move you to the top of the
stack is a great thing. I’m very thankful. It gives you a sense of approval,
and anything that can put you at the top of the stack of material, like winning
contests or making the Black List, really helps.
J + S: Another
thing the script does well: pacing. It’s lean and mean. What’s your process?
SF: I’m a big
believer of free-form visual medium, but I also feel you have to be structured
and organized with an outline. It’s a bit of a math equation, in that if
something on a page feels wrong, you have to be obsessed with the structure and
the timing and then you can play with the characters and dialogue. If it isn’t plotted
out, then it doesn’t work as a movie, something that at the end of the day you
can watch on the screen, which is of course the point. I feel like sometimes
people forget that equation.
J + S: The
Coben book has a strong female protagonist, so “1969” must have been the
perfect writing sample. So congrats on that.
J + S: Besides
all the wonderful and wacky stuff we’re talking about in regards to the premise
of your script, what do you think are Kubrick’s significant and signature
contributions to the art of cinema and the industry?
SF: Kubrick was
one of the first artists to work independent of the studio system and inspired
many to follow in his vanguard footsteps. On the artistic side, he was one of
the few filmmakers to advance the visual language and vocabulary of cinema.
Like Orson Welles and Hitchcock before him, Kubrick provided other filmmakers
new ways to tell stories without spoken or written words. What he could
visually tell you with one frame of film was astounding. Similarly, with an
actor’s look and the music. We take it for granted that what we see today is
the language of cinema, but Kubrick had a strong hand in creating the
contemporary language. He should be honored as one of the forefathers of
cinema.
J + S: You
wrote a great script that honors Kubrick and delivers a great read, too.
Obviously your story will motivate writers – any advice?
SF: Thank you! “I
hope it brings people together who love Kubrick so we can talk about and
celebrate his films – that’s the place I was coming from in writing the script
- as a Kubrick fan. As for the Black List, I would never delve into writing a
script with the specific goal of making it on the Black List. It’s a
superficial goal. It may take three months, six months, a year. To invest that
kind of time in it. You’ve got to care what you’re writing about and what
you’re saying. The whole point of story is to make sense of our world and so
that we can communicate with each other. So what’s the best, most exciting
story that you care about, that has something to say, that is important?
Because you’re going to have to fight for it, put time into it, sacrifice for
it – so it better be something that you care about and that you think is
important. Lists are wonderful. Contests are wonderful. But that is out of your
control. What you can control is what you’re saying and what your story is
about and how invested you are in it.
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