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6 Filmmaking Tips From the Creators of Game of Thrones

As the sixth season of Game of Thrones is about to begin, we look at the careers of David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and share six bits of advice they’ve imparted over the years.
By  · Published on April 20th, 2016


Read, Read, Read (and Be Read, Read, Read)

“My advice to screenwriters is to read more screenplays,” Benioff told the Writers on Writing show. “Good screenplays. Carnal Knowledge and Chinatown, to name a couple. We’re told as novelists to read, read, read. But I don’t think scriptwriters are given the same advice, and it’s a shame.”

Years earlier, in the BBC Q&A, he also discouraged writers from reading instruction manuals about the craft: “Instead of reading the various books on writing,” he says, “read real books. I don’t know if you’re a screenwriter or a novelist or what, but it’s far more helpful (and entertaining) to read six good scripts than one lame and dogmatic how-to manual on screenwriting.”

And in that same bit he acknowledged the importance of having trusted readers, similar to the trusted viewers that watched that original Game of Thrones pilot. “My advice is to find yourself a good first reader,” he says, “someone willing to wade through your various drafts, give you the bad news when necessary, and duck when you throw bricks at their head.”

Don’t Smell Your Own Farts

You’d think that a success story like theirs would give the duo big heads, but they don’t consider themselves out of the woods just yet. Game of Thrones is a big success, but it’s still going and could end terribly for them, or so they fear.

“Unless you’re a lunatic, you never go into something like this actually expecting that this level of fan engagement is ever going to happen,” Weiss says in the latest issue of Famous Monsters. “You just go into it hoping to God that you get a first season, and then hoping to God that the first season doesn’t completely tank so you can get a second season. … It took maybe three years to really feel any sense of security in the whole thing, and even then, you never, ever, ever do; you’re always terrified of slipping and falling off the tightrope.”

And last year, they told Variety they still aren’t able to sit back and appreciate what they’ve made:

Benioff: I think it’s hard to be too appreciative, because there is just the terror of f—ing it up still. It’s just so easy with a show like this to jump the shark at any moment. We’re getting close to the ending, and there is that huge desire to get it right. A few years down the line, if we are ever masochistic enough to put in the DVDs and watch 70 straight hours of the show, we hope it will hold together. I think it’s hard to take that step back and be like, “We did it.” Because we haven’t done it yet.

Weiss: I think that everything starts to go to hell when you start smelling your own farts and complimenting yourself on how great they smell. We’re not going to turn into fart-smellers.

What We’ve Learned

Reading and writing are the basics if you want to get to where Benioff and Weiss are in their careers. It’s as easy as that, really. Read novels and scripts, and write novels then scripts. And if you want to adapt something enormous and popular that you’re really passionate about, be able to pitch properly from a place of authority, especially to the original creator. And when you get to a point of apparent success, don’t get a big head about it. There can still be hiccups at whatever place you are, as they know from their failed pilot trouble. And once again, most importantly, as Benioff tells prospective writers, “Don’t quit and be lucky.”

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Christopher Campbell began writing film criticism and covering film festivals for a zine called Read, back when a zine could actually get you Sundance press credentials. He's now a Senior Editor at FSR and the founding editor of our sister site Nonfics. He also regularly contributes to Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes and is the President of the Critics Choice Association's Documentary Branch.