The Screenwriting Process (w/ Chasah & Charliese West)

Eli Price (00:01.914)
Hello and welcome to the establishing shot a podcast where we do deep dives into directors and their filmography We are taking a break from that endeavor this week To talk more with our guests from last week Chassa and Charlize West they are a Pair of sisters that I have had the privilege of

getting to know better, probably what in the last like half a year or so, six months. And yeah, they have day jobs, as you would say. We kind of talked about that last week, but their passion is screenwriting and directing and producing. And so yeah, I'm bringing them back on after last week to...

The West Sisters (00:34.852)
Year? Yeah. Happy New Year. Yeah.

Eli Price (00:59.134)
to have a discussion about screenwriting because I think it's interesting and I wanted to ask them some questions about it. But if you want to hear more about some of the projects they've worked on, go back and listen to that intro from last week and check that out. But yeah, we'll jump right into this. Welcome back, Chasa and Charlize. I know.

The West Sisters (01:06.014)
Yeah.

The West Sisters (01:27.134)
Thank you. Thank you.

Eli Price (01:28.638)
We technically just finished recording the last one and recording another one now. Always fun to, yeah, awkwardly act like you haven't spoken in a while. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, let's, let's jump right into it. I wanted to ask first off when you first became interested in screenwriting.

The West Sisters (01:39.774)
It was a week ago. Yeah, we debated doing a costume change, but you know, more authenticity.

The West Sisters (01:56.926)
Yeah, and if anyone doesn't hear that first episode, I'm Chasa. I'm the older sister and I'm Charlize, the younger sister. Yeah. And so that kind of fits in with how we started. I seven years ago had a small break between jobs. Then I was transitioning into a new job, but had kind of a two week hiatus in between. And in that two weeks, I saw a competition for a

Google sponsored basically contest to try to get scripts in for sci -fi concepts that had female leads. And I just thought to myself, well, I mean, I have the time, I watch TV, I've seen movies, how hard can it really be? And I was a pretty avid reader as a kid. So just making up stories was kind of...

Eli Price (02:47.486)
Yeah.

The West Sisters (02:55.688)
I just had never really taken to putting it down on paper in a super cohesive way before. So in that two weeks, I thought I will figure out how do you write a pilot episode, which is what they call the first episode of any TV show. And I made up a concept and it had to do with time travel and a corporate job that like the whole building and the whole just.

environment of where those people worked had to do with time travel and a woman who worked there was the main character. So did that thought of course when I submitted it that it would blow their minds and that would be the next TV show on the lineup on Fox, ABC or NBC of course, most likely CBS. And of course nothing happened because it was a very beginner script but I had at that point learned what it kind of takes or what the format looked like.

and the hot key topics that people talk about in creating a story, especially for screen. And so again, nothing happened with it, but with that knowledge, I kind of kept going. And then I started winning a few contests, very local and very small. And Charlisse, from her perspective, she can share a little, but she was more so I'd say an avid TV watcher. And so I would always kind of ask her,

advice or get her feedback on things. And at some point, I just formally asked her if she would want to write with me from the beginning so I wouldn't have to keep making these stories that I thought were awesome and then showing her and getting her really, really insightful feedback, but having to maybe start from scratch, that was really painful. So, um, so then yeah, that's basically where my origin story begins. So with that invitation to write with her, we had actually worked on a script that she had.

Eli Price (04:40.958)
Yeah.

The West Sisters (04:53.862)
completed by herself. And then when she invited me to write on it, I really enjoyed digging into the characters and the structure that she already had there and sort of just working with that to expand a bit of the characters or of the storyline. Because Chasa has always been very, very good at world building. I mean, to the point where I believe the worlds are...

Sometimes the things that can crush the rest of the elements of the story, but sometimes in a good way. I mean, you know, if we ever did do those big epics, Chassa's world building would come in handy very, very much. She's just saying I have a big imagination and I need a big budget to make those things come true. That is true. Which we don't have right now. But on the...

Eli Price (05:27.774)
Gotcha.

Eli Price (05:38.334)
Yeah.

Eli Price (05:46.078)
Yeah. Yeah. So if you're listening out there and you have a connection, you know, reach out, you can probably DM on Instagram. The link will be in the episode page, you know, get, get them their first big budget.

The West Sisters (05:50.012)
I -

Yep.

The West Sisters (05:59.216)
But yeah, in terms of the learning curve of screenwriting, I actually did a little more reading of existing scripts rather than delving into the same things that Chassa did. I'm not as much of an avid reader as she said. She said it in a nice way. I was really a couch potato who watched a lot of TV shows and movies, but I did really, really enjoy.

Eli Price (06:13.086)
Mmm, yeah.

Eli Price (06:24.35)
Yeah.

The West Sisters (06:28.958)
reading the scripts of movies that I had already seen to see how it was on the page. But then I also got into reading scripts of movies I had never seen before. And that was also an education.

Eli Price (06:41.566)
Yeah, I, I, I bet so. Um, it is funny. So, you know, as y 'all are talking, I was thinking, you know what, like there, most of the time, I guess, maybe not most of the time, but like a good bit of the time when you like, look at the like writing credits for movies, it's like not just one person. A lot of times you have multiple writers and it's probably for that reason of like,

The West Sisters (07:05.98)
Yeah.

Eli Price (07:08.766)
This person is strong in this aspect. This person is stronger in this aspect. And they kind of need each other to kind of build a full story with a full world with full characters. Yeah, so that's really.

The West Sisters (07:13.118)
Yeah. Yeah.

The West Sisters (07:19.518)
Yeah. If it were just up to me, characters would be go, go, go, go. Literally, she'll have to tell me every once in a while they need to sleep or they need to rest. A moment of rest. Yeah.

Eli Price (07:24.414)
Hahaha.

Eli Price (07:29.712)
Ha ha ha ha.

That's great. Yeah. So on that note, what are the first things you do when you sit down to write a script?

The West Sisters (07:42.298)
Outline so we we're outliners. We know that there are definitely some screenwriters out there that skip the outlining process But we have to outline and honestly, I would say by the time we're sitting down to write it We've actually probably had a couple of conversations about what is the story like who are the characters and what are they learning because we're very theme driven and so we we may have an idea of like a cool setting or

Eli Price (07:51.74)
Yeah.

The West Sisters (08:11.486)
cool scene, but we don't just sit down and write that scene. If we're really going to write a story, we keep notes, either like physical notes or a Google Doc of notes that kind of bring a cohesive story to the surface thematically. And then I might be thinking of like the if it's a big budget action idea, you know, what is the mid.

middle of the movie's like big, you know, exciting thing. And then when we're sitting down to write, we're actually just copying our notes that are like following what people would call like story structure. What's the first act look like? What does the second act look like? What is the third act look like? We've already kind of figured that out through conversation. And then we pull that into the screenwriting, the screenwriting.

software that we use and then we're turning those chunks and bullet points into like scene format. Yeah.

Eli Price (09:17.118)
Very cool. Yeah. Well, I mean, that makes sense to me. I, whenever I write papers, it does help. Like in the past, when I've written like essays or whatever, or longer research papers, like it just like makes sense for me to outline first so that I know where it, cause like a lot of, I feel like unless you're just, I'm sure those kinds of writers are out there that can just sit down and start writing and like, just know where they're going in their mind. But for.

The West Sisters (09:27.9)
Mm -hmm.

The West Sisters (09:33.63)
Yeah.

The West Sisters (09:42.014)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm. That's not us.

Eli Price (09:46.334)
For most of us folk, you kind of need to know an outline of where you're heading so that you can kind of keep your compass pointed in the right direction. Yeah, for sure. So skipping ahead to the end, how do you know when you're like done with a script? Or are you ever really done with a script?

The West Sisters (09:54.622)
Yes.

The West Sisters (10:10.246)
In some cases we're done because for at least our short films, they're filmed, you know, so we can't really go back and mess with that. So those scripts we're not going to go back into.

Eli Price (10:15.07)
Uh huh. Right. Yeah.

Eli Price (10:22.622)
unless it gets optioned for a feature.

The West Sisters (10:25.118)
And then that is almost like its own thing. Yeah, that's true. Unless it gets optioned for a feature. But for others, you know, some of those concepts that we have that we're like, we want to write a story like Indiana Jones or like Tomb Raider, but with a character who looks like us. Those haven't been made yet. So we might watch something and get another idea or we might watch and say, oh, we could have done that better. And since it's not.

Eli Price (10:27.39)
Yeah.

Eli Price (10:31.55)
I don't know.

Eli Price (10:42.14)
Okay.

Sure, yeah.

The West Sisters (10:54.846)
made. Let's you know, we might have submitted it to a contest, but that doesn't prevent us from making tweaks to it. So in some of those cases, we'll go back in and make adjustments. So especially for the stories that sort of stay with us and you know, we will bring them up pretty often. There's some ideas where they kind of just get shot out in a situation that we may be in. But most of the time, if we go back and revisit them,

Eli Price (11:05.918)
Yeah.

The West Sisters (11:24.296)
There's only a few that will really stick with us over and over and get, you know, brought back to memory very often.

Eli Price (11:29.534)
Yeah. Yeah. Do y 'all like?

I guess like what?

You kind of talked about seeing other things and being like, oh, we can do some of that, or we can maybe do something like that, or do it better than that. What are some, like, when you think about these are screenwriting inspirations, what are some of your biggest, like, maybe it's a specific screenwriter or a specific type of story, what are y 'all's biggest inspirations for screenwriting?

The West Sisters (12:04.016)
Yeah. So I'd say right now, and it has been for a while, Terry Rossio, I think is how you pronounce his name, or Rossio, Terry Rossio, and Christopher McCorry. And so what those writers have in common, Terry Rossio and his writing partner, Ted something, they wrote the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, like they came up with those concepts.

Eli Price (12:14.462)
OK.

Eli Price (12:30.11)
Okay.

The West Sisters (12:31.934)
Also Aladdin, and so that's a movie that we grew up really loving. Again, just that mixture of like really epic, but also romantic and cool and like has twists and Pirates of the Caribbean does pretty much that to a T. And so I would love to write stuff that just has all of those ingredients, like a really good story you can sink your teeth into, but also has like surprising stuff and a bit of comedy.

Eli Price (12:34.652)
Yeah.

Eli Price (12:41.214)
Yeah.

The West Sisters (13:00.574)
And Christopher McCrory, who's also known as a director, he has done some of the latest Mission Impossible movies and the latest Top Gun Maverick film. And we really enjoy those, who doesn't love a spy movie. But he's just really good, again, at creating these big epic stories that also have characters who you can understand, but...

Eli Price (13:29.534)
Mm -hmm and that and that grow

The West Sisters (13:30.27)
Again, I think something that I just, and that grow, but something I just really love is like a story that takes you by surprise. So like good twists and spy stories, I feel like always have a good twist. So those are, I feel like writers who are operating at like really, really high level. Of course they get the big budgets, but that's what I would aspire to be able to do in my own writing, even if it doesn't get made.

Eli Price (13:41.918)
Oh yeah, for sure.

Eli Price (13:48.862)
Yeah.

Eli Price (13:54.654)
Yeah.

The West Sisters (13:55.678)
And one that I just want to insert in there, even though he's usually never credited for the writing side, but I could almost bet that he's very involved in the process because he's a producer and a director is Sean Levy. He's done everything from Cheaper by the Dozen, the one with Steve Martin to Free Guy to the Adam Project, the Netflix film, a sci -fi film. He's amazing. And you really love comedy. Yes. Yes. And he does a great job at that. Comedy with heart.

Eli Price (14:10.844)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (14:19.518)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's always fun. Um, yeah, that's, that's really cool. It's interesting. Cause like Christopher McCrory is also like pretty notoriously, especially with like the mission and possible films, like working with Tom Cruise, like kind of at making up stuff as they go and like, Oh, this would be a cool stunt. Let's write, um, let's write something around this stunt and added in.

The West Sisters (14:25.278)
Yeah.

The West Sisters (14:49.37)
around that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how he does that. That's also, I think, a special type of genius because I don't improv in that way. But yeah, I'd love his talent.

Eli Price (14:52.702)
Um, so yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. But hey, maybe one day you'll be able to, um, when you get to Christopher McCrory status, you know, you'll, you'll have matured into someone that can improv stunts with. Yeah. With the next Tom Cruise, you know? Um, yeah, I'm just dreaming for you right now, I guess.

The West Sisters (15:08.19)
Yeah. Chuck actors off of cliffs. Yeah.

The West Sisters (15:21.342)
I love it. Please do.

Eli Price (15:24.99)
Um, but, uh, yeah, our, our time's about up. Um, I have one last question. What do you want to write about next?

The West Sisters (15:35.07)
That's a good question. We would really love to do a short film that, you know, somebody locally here in the Acadiana area would like to buy off of us. You know, we're the type of writers that we have so many different ideas. We write them down in a Google doc and, you know, some of them we go back to as we said, some of them we don't. But.

Eli Price (15:36.414)
Hahaha.

The West Sisters (16:01.64)
We would love to write a short script that somebody here would just, you know, take and run with that. We think that would be really great. Any genre we do grounded sci -fi action. Except for horror. We don't really do horror. That's true. That is true. We don't do horror. And it would be within a reasonable budget. I know how to control myself when it's a short film, independent. But yeah, and then I kind of simultaneous to that we have been working on a

the music side of a story that we wrote that has to do with a young girl who lives here in like a fictional Louisiana town. And it's a town that is on the verge of flooding due to like coastal erosion and that heavy rain that comes. And that's called Swell. So that's a project that we're kind of working on and are excited to see the music come to life soon.

Eli Price (17:00.734)
Cool. Yeah, that's exciting. I'm excited to hear that. I'm also excited to see, remind me again, so you have Heritage, which we talked about in the last one that I have seen, was able to catch for that French Film Festival in New Orleans online. Remind me what the other film y 'all are trying to get into some festivals. What is that one called?

The West Sisters (17:18.108)
Yeah.

The West Sisters (17:25.694)
That one is called Never Even. It's a palindrome. Yes, Never Even. It's the same letters backwards and forwards. And that's because that film is about two women who meet at a high school reunion and get into... Former classmates. Former classmates. And they get into an altercation, a physical altercation, because with the local ArtSpark grant that I was given to do it...

Eli Price (17:28.638)
Never even, yeah. Yeah.

Uh huh.

The West Sisters (17:55.102)
I wanted to kind of step into directing something that was, you know, touching upon those action lines that we kind of spoken about. And essentially their interaction, how do I say it without like really spoiling it? You learn as the film goes along, what is the actual cause of their fight because...

the whole story is told in reverse. So we're seeing them fight first and then we get to the point where the fight began. So that's never even. And then just to touch upon heritage, in case someone doesn't hear the first episode, that's about a young girl who lives in South Louisiana and is not in touch with her Creole language heritage. But when she has a visitor come and stay with her who basically only speaks what she sees.

or here's us French, that kind of sparks this desire to get in touch with that Creole language after her interaction with this other girl.

Eli Price (18:58.558)
Yeah, yeah, and I did see that one. And yeah, I recommend trying to find a way to see it again. Follow them on Instagram so that you can maybe see an eventual post of how you can catch these films. But yeah, Heritage, I thought it was a very sweet short film. It made me smile, you know, which probably was part of your goal. And and yeah, I'm looking forward to.

The West Sisters (19:18.302)
Yeah, thank you.

Eli Price (19:25.992)
eventually seeing Never Even 2. It sounds really interesting. I'm intrigued.

The West Sisters (19:29.246)
Yeah, we're glad that you smiled. We love things that are family friendly and have good heartwarming element to them. So even never even, which is kind of these two girls having at it, it still has kind of a positive ending, a good lesson at the end.

Eli Price (19:35.262)
Yeah.

Eli Price (19:51.23)
Yeah, very cool. Well, again, I'll put in the episode show notes where you can follow Chasa and Charlisse and keep an eye on their work. And yeah, I just really appreciate you guys coming on and giving some insight into what, at least what your screenwriting process looks like. I know there's many different personalities and processes, but it's fun to get some kind of...

In the head of a screenwriter Insight so thank you guys so much for coming on again and and talking with us about Yeah Yeah, absolutely, and maybe I'll be able to get you on again for an episode in a future series Yeah, yeah for sure, but um, yeah, that's that's all we have for for this week's episode

The West Sisters (20:28.958)
Thank you for having us, Eli. Yes, thank you so much. We've enjoyed it.

The West Sisters (20:39.454)
Yeah, let us know.

Eli Price (20:48.766)
Next week we are going to be diving into ET, the extraterrestrial. So be looking forward to that. But that is all for this week. For Eli Price and Chasa and Charlize West, you've been listening to The Establishing Shot. We will see you next time.

The West Sisters (21:09.214)
Thank you.