Dear friend,
For 20 years, I dreamt of making a short film, but I could never figure out how to write one.
Until one day, I accidentally did.
And now, I’ve got no choice but to turn it into a movie.
Why I Walked Away from my Hollywood Dreams
When I was a kid, I had this dream of making movies full of queer, fat, women like me.
And then I got to film school, and that dream died. It felt like the boys were being encouraged to go into directing and producing, and I was encouraged to become a critic of the boys’ films.
Sometimes I think this was all in my head. But then I talk to other people who went to school with me, and I realize that all of us women were discouraged from going to Hollywood.
And to be fair, at that time, it was really bad for women in Hollywood. It was really bad for openly gay people like me. And it was really bad for fat people.
A professor pulled me aside and told me that if I went into publishing and made a great book — one that got enough success — I could use that as a way to get into film.
So I went into publishing.
I wrote multiple books. I worked for national magazines. I had a couple of side quests: one into getting a law degree, and one into working for a motivational speaker — a big name you would probably know.
Then I started my company, School for Writers, so I could help other writers understand the process of writing a book.
Throughout all of that, I dreamt of making movies.
In fact, my hit rom-com Because Fat Girl is about a director who never gave up on that dream. It was my way of reimagining my life if I hadn’t given up on moviemaking.
And then when that book was out and a success — in airports across the nation, with lines of people waiting for me to sign it — I had to think: what’s next?
Filmmaking.
I kind of had no choice.
The Cancelled Class That Changed Everything
Still, I felt stuck on what to make. Did I write a feature? Did I try a short film? Did I apply to be in a writer’s room for a TV show?
So I did what most nerds do: I took a class.
Actually, I took a whole TV Comedy Writing certification program from UCLA. Because I’ve always been an overachiever.
I was bracing myself to move to L.A. – where I’d been told I’d have to live if I wanted a chance at making movies – until one day, a class got canceled, and another student said: “Hey, a bunch of us are transferring to a sketch comedy class. Do you want to come along?”
Honestly, I was hesitant because I hate improv and I’ve always thought of sketch comedy as a version of improv. But then he told me the kind of shows this professor had worked on, and I was like: oh, I loved those shows.
So I joined the class.
Suddenly I was studying the greats and loving it. Kate McKinnon. Leslie Jones. Amy Poehler. And even back in the day, the unnamed women in sketch comedy who hadn’t yet gotten an opportunity because they were behind the scenes while all the men took the credit.
A few of them came and talked to our class. And man, it was just as bad as everybody said it was back then. It made me kind of glad I went into lesbian publishing instead.
As an exercise in the class, I started coming up with ridiculous ideas for sketches. Some of them were horrible, but some were really great. One day, I came up with the most ridiculous idea of them all, and had to run with it.
The idea actually came from my novel Because Fat Girl. While I was editing it, a couple of people told me it was offensive to both lesbians and vegans — which, if you’ve read the book, it’s not. It’s actually quite nuanced and lovely and caring.
It does have a moment where it makes fun of one particular lesbian vegan, though. She’s based on an ex, so I’m okay with that.
I took the idea of what made everybody mad — this idea that people could be easily offended just by the concept, without ever having read the book itself — and I thought:
What can I do to make this absolutely hilarious?
A Lesson in Sketch Comedy
As I worked on my script, I learned the Four Beats of Sketch Comedy. And I’m sharing them here with you in case they help you follow comedic dreams of your own.
The Four Beats of Sketch Comedy
You have the initiation — the concept, the idea, the setup.
Then you have an unusual thing that comes in and amps the game up or switches it up. T
hen you escalate that switch-up.
And then sometimes you do another twist at the end — and then you end it right there, as soon as possible. Studying sketch after sketch after sketch, I realized that the good ones end before you think they need to.
In the film industry, each page of a script is roughly one minute on screen. For a sketch, you need about three minutes max. My idea was seven to ten pages — way over.
So I brought it to class to workshop it. I asked: how can I make this shorter?
It turns out — if I may be so braggy — they loved it. The class said: please don’t cut it. This is comedic genius.
So I said: okay, but I want to make sketches, and this is a sketch comedy class. If I have this idea, how do I cut it down?
And my teacher said: there’s one really simple fix.
Turn it into a short film.
And that’s where my script came from.
My Film in the Four Beats:
Concept: I took the clichés of veganism. I took the clichés of lesbians. And then I took the clichés of the opposite of all of that — the twist — which is a straight white guy trying so hard to be woke.
I escalated the cliches and twists.
I put another twist on the end.
And then ended it way before I thought I should — but right at the exact button, the hilarious ending.
Suddenly, I had a polished script.
And with a polished script, I had no choice but to turn it into a film.
Your Four-Minute Mile
I think about Roger Bannister a lot.
In 1954, he ran a four-minute mile — something everyone thought was physically impossible before then. Since Roger Bannister did it, over 2,000 people have ran that “impossible” four-minute mile.
By seeing other people make sketch comedies, write short film scripts, and actually make them, I felt like I finally saw the path forward. I knew you could run a four-minute mile. I knew you could make a short film independently.
And by sharing publicly every part of this process, I’m hoping to inspire you to go out there and do whatever your four-minute mile is.
What is the thing that feels impossible? The thing you’ve maybe put off forever, or only half-assed for years, and it’s finally time to put yourself fully in?
Let me know in the comments so I can cheer you on.
I hope that by sharing every single part of making this movie, I’m encouraging you to go out there and use your voice in whatever way feels the most powerful to you.
Because the world needs our stories now more than ever.
With love,
Lauren
P.S. Did you find this helpful? Share it with a friend who has a dream they’ve been putting off.
And be sure to follow along here on Substack, and on YouTube, Instagram, and Spotify or Apple Podcasts as well.
