Why does a filmmaker reflect upon the processes that went into creating the story for a film that he has made? Because people ask him certain questions about it.
I’ve gotten a lot of questions about The Devil’s Instrument since it’s been out.
Why was this your first movie?
Why this movie?
Why The Devil’s Instrument?
I’ll do my best to answer those questions and also to give you some background information on some of the things that led to the creation of The Devil’s Instrument.
How Things Went
To begin, it didn’t start out as The Devil’s Instrument. I’m not convinced that any idea ever shows up whole and complete. It has to be constructed. It has to have time to grow. It has to have purpose.
I believe that ideas are thought of consciously but I’m not sure if I will ever be able to explain where they actually come from.
The Devil’s Instrument was not the first screenplay I ever wrote. A long, long time ago I began writing spec screenplays with the intention of shopping them around and hopefully selling them so that someone else could go off and make them into feature films.
The “spec” in spec screenplay stands for “speculation”. It is a script that you write without any prior deal involved and the idea is that, after you are finished, you send it out with the speculative hope of now being able to make some kind of a deal with it.
When I was first starting out, I read as many screenplays as I could get my hands on. I probably read about twenty or thirty books on screenwriting before I said, “I’ve had enough.”
I believe that there are more books written about screenwriting than have ever been written about any other singular subject. They are that numerous. I also learned all about the different software out there along with proper formatting and then I went to work.
The first screenplay I ever wrote was terrible.
The second one wasn’t any better, so I’m not even going to include those.
I ended up writing about four or five screenplays, two of which I would consider to be good today. I sent a lot of things to production companies, agents, and managers but nothing ever happened.
Long story short, I realized that if I ever wanted to see a movie that I had written, I was just going to have to make that movie myself.
That also meant that I was going to have to teach myself directing, cinematography, location sound, editing, color correction and grading, sound design, sound engineering and mixing just to name a few. But I will just focus on the story aspect here.
So, Now I Have to Start All Over
I knew right away that I wouldn’t be able to make any of the screenplays that I had written. I couldn’t afford to. So, I knew I was going to have to start from scratch and write a new screenplay. One that I could afford to make.
I knew I wanted it to be high concept. I knew I wanted it to have as much commercial appeal as it could possibly have. I also knew that I would have very little money. So, I started thinking.
I asked myself, “What would the cheapest movie in the history of cinema consist of, you know, what would be the easiest thing to shoot?”
And what I came up with was two people sitting at a table in a room having a conversation.
Wow, that’s not exactly high concept, but that’s where creativity comes into play. I decided rather quickly to make one of those characters the devil and things got a whole lot more interesting after that.
I also decided that the other character should be trying to get out of a deal he had made with the devil and things really started to fall into place.
The story really required a savior, a friend, and a complete mystery, and thus those characters were born out of necessity and served the story immensely.
Why Was This My First Movie?
Because it was the only one that I could afford.
Why This Movie?
I settled on this concept for a couple of different reasons.
One, I actually understood the kind of desperation that a person could feel that would enable them to follow through with making a deal with the devil. Obviously, I’ve had my own struggles and thankfully that tends to aide a person in their ability to write dark characters.
And two, I grew up with a Christian background and so I really felt I knew enough about the devil to be able to write him as a character.
And boy did I have a lot of fun writing every word of his dialogue.
I mean, he could do or say whatever he wanted. I didn’t really have any limitations with him. He didn’t care if he hurt somebody’s feelings. He didn’t care who he insulted.
I, more often than not, imagined him as a child, or, should I say, as a child who has unlimited power and is fully aware of that fact. I found that he was civil for the most part, until things didn’t go his way, and then he would just fly into a vicious rage almost immediately.
It was quite an experience, to say the least.
Why The Devil’s Instrument
I’ll give you a little more information about the screenplay before I go.
As I’ve said, The Devil’s Instrument was not the first screenplay I ever wrote, but it was the first screenplay I ever wrote that I intended to make myself.
And this subtle change made a strange thing happen.
It actually changed the way that I wrote. It changed the way that I viewed every scene. It changed my entire perspective.
When I was writing spec screenplays intended for big studios with big budgets, I wasn’t thinking about the same kinds of things I was now.
I always thought visually when I was writing. I could see the entire movie, that is, how it would look on the screen.
But now, I was not only visualizing it as a movie on the screen, but also as a movie on the set.
I was now thinking about where the camera or cameras would have to be for this scene. I was thinking about where the lights and the microphones would have to be. If I didn’t know how I would be able to practically shoot a scene, I took it out and replaced it with something I knew I could shoot.
I knew I wasn’t going to have any money for this picture, so if I thought of something I knew I wouldn’t be able to afford I simply changed it to something that I would be able to afford.
When I was writing spec scripts that I had no intention of making, I didn’t have to think about practicality, time, or budget. But now that I had to think about those things, I realized what a tremendous gift it truly is.
It forced me to be more creative in my storytelling because I knew I didn’t have the budget to be able to afford some big set piece or massive explosion. I knew what I had and what I didn’t have. And I didn’t have a lot. The story had to be stellar.
This also allowed me to focus more on the characters and their development because the characters were all that I had. Each character is unique and they all have their part to play.
If I took any one of those characters out, the story would fall apart. That’s how you know if a character is vital or not. And, needless to say, you should only have vital characters.
I did several rewrites of the script. The first draft was very dark and horrific. There is nothing wrong with dark and horrific, but I felt that the first draft really took things too far.
It was also completely devoid of any humor or relief. You should always give the audience some room to breathe and to relax, otherwise, you run the risk of suffocating them. Remember, I wanted this movie to have as much commercial appeal as it could possibly have.
So, with each rewrite I introduced more and more humor and relief so that the audience could take a breath. I also raised the stakes whenever possible and I added several new twists as the characters began to reveal themselves to me more completely.
Leading up to production, I didn’t change any major story elements, but I did do some polishing on some of the dialogue and away we went.
What started out as something dark and horrific ended up transforming into a really fun ride.
I’m proud of this story. I’m proud of the characters. I’m certainly proud of the actors who portrayed them. And that’s why The Devil’s Instrument.
