Tripper Clancy: Writing Process And Roots

I got the opportunity to briefly sit down with Tripper Clancy (Writer, Just One of the Gynos; 2010 Script Pipeline Screenwriting Contest Winner) last week to see how things were going with some of the new, and impressive, projects he had coming down the pike. For now, though, he had to be pretty tight-lipped about everything coming up. So in shifting from his current projects to himself, it was great to hear a rising screenwriter's writing process, mindset and overall make-up. 

Me: You’ve been writing for a while now, when did you first start writing? And not just screenwriting, but any type of writing (yes, this can include scribbles on your hand)? 

TC: The first type of writing I started doing was musical writing when I was around six or seven years old – I played classical and learned how to write at a very young age and did that pretty much all through college. And my senior year in high school I wrote a one-act play with a couple buddies and that was really it. And then my senior year of college was when I wrote an actual movie script. Being able to sit down with a blank page and a keyboard you feel like you are suddenly Billy Wilder or Cameron Crowe or something. And anyone with a computer and a blank page can, theoretically, write the best screenplay in the world. 

Me: From that first moment of writing, take me through your process and how that has changed over the years. Are there things you still do that you did from day one? Or has that process completely changed? 

TC: One thing I do is I write very fast; that's just something I have always done. My method of that has probably changed – I don't mind rewriting and rewriting. I've seen some people who have spent three days on one scene because they have to get it perfect and you're not going to get it perfect anyways. All this said, I put together an outline first and a beat sheet and then I write fast. I think this is the one thing that has been a constant. I put a lot of thought and time into everything before and then I open up Final Draft. 

Me: Shifting from process, I know you have a lot of stuff coming up, but one of the first things you wrote was a short called Just One of the Gynos. What were some of the differences from writing a 15 minute short to writing a 120 page feature? 

TC: We had some great actors in that short – Creed from The Office and Kyle Gass from Tenacious D. And when you submit that script you can't help but think of it as an actor. I think after I did that short and these people came onboard and I got to see the entire process it really changed my entire perspective of screenwriting because I really started thinking about "who are the actors reading this that are going to play this role? What kind of director is out there that's going to want to direct this movie?" 

Me: Originally, there were some big wins with Script Pipeline. How did you find them and first get connected with them? And what kind of success followed you winning their 2010 Screenwriting Contest? 

TC: Up until then I had always viewed screenplay competitions as a waste of time because it doesn't really affect anything, or at least that's what I thought. I had been out here a few years (Los Angeles) and I had gone through a couple agents and a couple managers and I was trying to write that big summer blockbuster spec and I wrote this one script that was this small budget, indie script that was called Henry the Second and it's still one of the most favorite things I've ever written. I showed it to my manager and he didn't see any commercial appeal and it really bummed me out. I then went online and submitted it to Script Pipeline and then six months later got an e-mail saying I was a finalist and I was like "whoa!" It was the spark I needed because it made me think "well, maybe I am right and my manager was wrong." Then my new manager came from that; my new agent came from that. Everything kind of took off. 

Me: What are a few of your favorite scripted films? 

TC: You know this is funny because I probably wouldn't consider this one of my top ten favorite movies, but a script that I came across in college and ended up rereading probably a dozen times was Raising Arizona. I love that movie, but the script really opened up my eyes with the amount of detail the Coen Bros. put into not just the dialogue, but the descriptions. That was eye-opening because the movie really came to life on the page. They were being very specific and it was a very creative and unique story that was a little piece of Americana that we don't see that often. 

Tripper has some big things coming including Winter Break for QED International, The Ambassadors for FOX and Shedd for Paramount. Stay tuned for round two as Tripper and I will be sitting down to talk more about these projects and some of the best writing advice he's gotten over the years.