DZ-76: Spotlight on Sofia Coppola

Listen to discover how Sofia Coppola crafts character performance on the page and uses whitespace to create her distinctive cinematic voice Following the success of the Tips from Tarantino episode, we have again decided to look at three different scripts from over the course of a long screenwriting career from a single writer to see what we can learn. Our beloved patreons not only selected Sofia Coppola as said writer, but also selected the scripts to analyse: LOST IN TRANSLATION, THE BLING RING and THE BEGUILED. Stu and Chas are joined by repeat Draft Zero offender Melanie Killingsworth and are surprised to find that Coppola does not often write the tone or experience of her films into her scripts (given how specific her tone is and how unique the experiences of her films are). Instead, we are treated to a masterclass in writing character performance on the page - actor catnip, if you will - as well as Coppola’s insightful use of whitespace. Thanks to Chris Walker for editing this episode, and to Carissa Lee for reading the script excerpts. As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes. LIKE THIS EPISODE? Watch and comment on YouTube. Send us feedback. Thanks to our Patrons, especially Khrob, Theis, Sandra, Jesse, Randy, Paulo, Thomas, Jennifer, Malay, Alexandre and Lily. ——— CHAPTERS 00:00:00 – Intro 00:02:12 – Sofia Coppola & Writing to Direct 00:13:49 – Lost in Translation 00:54:07 – The Bling Ring 01:18:24 – The Beguiled 01:34:53 – Wrap Up & Key Learnings 01:45:28 – Backmatter: Cultural Portray in Lost in Translation FILMS LOST IN TRANSLATION (2003) — (w) Sofia Coppola THE BLING RING (2013) — (w) Sofia Coppola THE BEGUILED (2017) — (w) Thomas Cullinan, Sofia Coppola (d) Sofia Coppola SCRIPTS Study the script: LOST IN TRANSLATION (2003) — Sofia Coppola Study the script: THE BLING RING (2013) — Sofia Coppola Study the script: THE BEGUILED (2017) — Thomas Cullinan, Sofia Coppola LINKS Scriopts: DZ-76 Sofia Coppola Collated Scripts Read: The Guardian - Hit film gets lost in racism row Read: Latent racism in 'Lost in Translation' EPISODES IN THE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT SERIES DZ-18: Michael Bay - F*ing the Frame and P*ing the Page DZ-76: Spotlight on Sofia Coppola DZ-13: True That - Tips from Tarantino RELATED EPISODES DZ-13: True That - Tips from Tarantino DZ-16: Masters of Time and Whitespace DZ-60: Unfilmables 1 - Engaging imagination ——— More Draft Zero is brought to you by our awesome Patreons. If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, a rating on Spotify, or a review on Podchaser. We are @stuwillis, @mehlsbells and @chasffisher on Twitter. You can find @draft_zero and @_shotzero on Instagram and Twitter. Full show notes at: https://draft-zero.com/2021/dz-76/