Mystery Man on Film has posted a 125-page transcript of the five day meeting Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Lawrence Kasdan had when mapping out the story for Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Did you fall out of your chair? I did!
Most who know me are aware of my little obsession for Indiana Jones. When I was young, he was pretty much my hero. Still is, really. He’s essentially the ultimate geek icon. An archaeology professor and badass artifact bounty hunter who swings from a bullwhip? An action hero who uses his brains to get out of situations? It doesn’t come much better than that.
Mystery Man details 10 Screenwriting Lessons he pulled from the transcript, and it’s a great read. I’m only about a quarter the way through the PDF, but it’s really interesting to see the process they went through to come up with everything in the story.
I love brainstorming with a group of people, tossing ideas out and building on each other’s thoughts. We do this at work quite often when troubleshooting an issue or designing new functionality, and I find I work really well in a group setting like this. It’s all about asking the right questions to bring those ideas out of the other people and allowing their ideas to spark your own.
That’s something that holds me back when I try to write. I find when I’m brainstorming solo, I often don’t ask myself those needed questions and end up running out of steam. Eventually learning how to best conceptualize and flesh out ideas without that group sounding board is really going to help me in the long run, I think. That’s probably something I should start thinking more about.
George Lucas had amazing vision in this transcript. I really wonder what happened to that.
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“George Lucas had amazing vision in this transcript”
I don’t know what happened to that. Maybe it was getting old, losing his edge, or simply too much money.
Still, if I was ever involved in the creation of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and LucasFilms, I would consider that a pretty good life! :)
That’s a very good point. He can spend the rest of his life making terrible movies, and he’ll still be an icon for that.