"Eagle Eye" creators draw inspiration from iconic Christmas movies-The Hollywood Reporter

2021-11-24 05:02:15 By : Mr. Lucas He

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Jonathan Igla served as an assistant screenwriter in this groundbreaking commercial drama and delved into his Marvel journey.

Ten years ago, Hawkeye's lead screenwriter Jonathan Igla (Jonathan Igla) spent a long time working on "Mad Men" (Mad Men), where he started as a screenwriter assistant. After get off work, you might find him alone in the writer's room, waiting for his car to go home while reading the influential run of the writer Matt Fraction on Hawkeye.

When Igla read (and re-read) the manga, he found that Hawkeye running was a way to escape the stress of the day and gain comfort in a familiar page.

Now Igla is waiting for the premiere of "Eagle Eye" on November 24, a Disney six-episode series played by Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Eagle Eye and Hailee Steinfeld. Aspiring superhero Kate Bishop. The play tells the story of Hawkeye learning to become a family man again five years after losing his wife and children at Thanos. It also happened a few days before Christmas, which made Marvel Studios the first Christmas-themed story since Iron Man 3 (2013).

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Although Igla learned many lessons from "Mad Men", in the context of Christmas, he drew inspiration from a surprising source: the Hallmark Christmas movie.

"I can't say that they didn't inform this show of Christmas, a little bit," said Higuera, who watched many feel-good movies with his partner (and Hawkeye 2), Elisa Climent. "Just like those movies are comforting, I watched these comics many times. There are some things that are comforting and relaxing. Shut off the stress of the day and try to disconnect from work."

After emerging in "Mad Men", Higuera participated in six shows, including Netflix's "Bridgeton" and Facebook Watch's "Sorry for your loss." Hawkeye is the room where he leads the writer for the first time. In the conversation with THR, he talked about his story philosophy, wrote fake audition scenes and what he learned from the creator of "Mad Men", Matthew Weiner thing.

You started out as an assistant to the screenwriter of "Mad Men", responsible for all the notes in the room and taking notes for creator Matthew Weiner. What did you learn from that experience?

I did this in the fourth and fifth seasons. In addition to working with an excellent team of screenwriters, there is an additional advantage for me, because I can hear in my mind not only the voices of actors performing, but I can also hear them in my mind as Performed by Matt. This gave me a deeper understanding of his ideas. I tried to do this in [Hawkeye]'s room. I tried to highlight the role. I tried to use the voice of the character for dialogue so that other writers could hear what I heard in my mind.

I was inspired by your image of working hard in "Mad Men" and then reading Matt Fraction's Hawkeye comics to get rid of stress. Why are you attracted to them?

The premise of the comic book is about the superhero on his day off, which is exactly the superhero story I want to tell as a writer. I was deeply attracted by it. I am attracted by these tiny moments, the tiny moments of human beings, and art. I spent a lot of time complimenting Matt Fraction for granted, but [artist] David Aja's style in this comic, and [from] Matt Hollingsworth's colors, are very unique and graphical.

Many years ago, Marvel envisioned Hawkeye as a movie. Do you see their general idea of ​​a feature? Or is it a clean slate?

This is a very clean slate. I think the only starting point I have to stick to is Clint as we see in the movie. This will be the introduction of Kate Bishop. Compared with all the promotion I have done before, the promotion process of this show is more interesting, more real and more conversational. I really want to bring it to the promotion. I was able to go in and honestly, "This is what I'm excited about. This is what I want to see most as a fan. As a writer, this is what I am interested in." Many times, when you are involved in a project , You try to guess what they want. Because it's so hidden, I thought, "I don't even guess what they want. I just want to talk about what I want to do."

Next you assembled a writer's room. Did you learn any lessons from the madman when you told this story?

I learned a lot of specific lessons from lunatics. The way we broke the news in "Mad Men"-we didn't think clearly in our behavior. When I was working at Pitch, we knew how many commercial breaks there were, and we roughly knew when they appeared. This is a good online TV show, I am very proud, but it is an online TV show, so we know that we must have a show to attract people's attention and keep them watching. In "Mad Men", the task is to completely ignore the possibility of commercial disruption. Matt put them in the post. We have never used them as a crutch for storytelling. We know that Disney will not have ads. The attitude of not using things like interruptions in performances or commercials or traditionally structured works as a kind of crutch. This of course is what I try to instill in all our storytelling decisions.

The script for the first episode is credited to you, but I think you and your team broke all the episodes?

Before we started writing the script, Marvel wanted an outline of everything. We have outlined them in order, and generally summarized them as a group. This is also what we do in Mad Men, and I like it because I like everyone to participate in every episode as much as possible. When I was a guest writer, of course I enjoyed the feeling and made me feel like I was involved in the details of each episode. Then we all started writing at the same time, writing the first draft of the script.

For Marvel movies, writing is basically never completed. There is a writer who is engaged in production and writing. How does this compare to the TV shows or Hawkeye you have watched? Have you been writing during the production process?

For a while, yes. They say that the editing is the final rewrite, which is not my job, but in some ways, the program will be rewritten until the editing is locked. Writing continues to exceed the author's room. It didn't take long before it was basically settled. The details have changed, and there are always production requirements, restrictions and adjustments. In "Mad Men", I know that Jon Hamm improvised a famous line in the first season of "The Wheel" (before Igla joined the staff). The only time I saw an impromptu performance was John Slattery. It was during the rehearsal that Matt was guiding, so it gave a thumbs up. Otherwise, "Mad Men" is more like a locked drama.

Did you participate in the casting? Alaqua Cox playing Maya Lopez is a discovery of the show and is now getting her own derivative product Echo.

She performed well on the show. I always say that TV writing is a team sport. In Marvel, because they are a specialty company, it is more like a relay race. I wrote the audition scenes because they are very confidential. They don't want anyone to read any actual scenes of Maya (Cox) or Kazi (Fra Fee). I made a bunch of additional, new fake scenes, and it was an interesting challenge, trying to capture in a few pages everything I knew they needed to see from the actors.

I am always curious about who wrote those masks.

In "Mad Men", we usually disguise existing scenes. Of course, every unnamed male character in the scene is opposed by anyone, and everyone thinks it is Don (Jon Hamm), but it is not always the case.

Speaking of structure, do you have any key lessons learned from "Mad Men" that can be applied to Hawkeye?

Sometimes on TV, I think, "This moment will be the perfect moment between episode 5", but when we get into the middle of episode 3, I realize that this is where it needs to go. In "Mad Men", Matt is very flexible. If the story is ready to get somewhere sooner than we hoped, he never wants to tread water. He never wanted the show to make people feel like we were hiding something. In TV, before you really break the fourth episode, there are many people who can't predict how the story will feel when it flows.

"Treading on the water" is an interesting way of expression.

When the show repeats, that's when you get bored. When they repeat the bet. When they repeat the dynamic. When you don’t think this is the evolution of conflicts between roles. I know this about Hawkeye because I never want this show to be boring, and because we only have six episodes to fill. I think we have no reason to repeat certain things.

You work in Bridgetown, and Netflix says this is the second most watched original series in its history, in terms of watch time. Would you like to see any internal viewing figures on Disney’s Hawkeye?

Honestly, I don't want to see it. I would say that I can't be more marketing machines than Disney and Marvel marketing machines. I think they did a great job. I like the trailer of the show. I like all the posters of this show. I think they did a great job, not only making people excited about it, but also representing the show.

Hawkeye opens with the dream of a child who wants to be a hero. What kind of kid are you? Do you wander around with your notebook, dreaming of becoming a TV writer?

If I could pretend that I have a laptop, it would be much more romantic, but it is a laptop. I was writing a script when I was 15 years old. I have loved comic books since I was a child, and I am not an artist. So at nine or ten o'clock I said, "Wait a minute. Most of them have more than one name.'Written.' Art by. This is a different person's work! I can do it." I have a few Very young people, "Maybe I can write a novel" and lose motivation for a page, thinking it is too intense for me at any age. Then I saw the script for the first time. "Maybe I can do it."

For the sake of space and clarity, this interview has been edited. Hawkeye premiered on Disney on November 24th.

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