230 | Sing Sing Writer Clint Bentley: Creating Character Arcs Based On Real Lives

The Screenwriting Life with Meg LeFauve and Lorien McKenna

Meg LeFauve & Lorien McKenna

Tv & Film

4.8 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 January 2025

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

JOIN TSL WORKSHOPS: https://tslworkshops.circle.so Clint Bentley, our guest on today's show, and his filmmaking partner Greg Kwedar, co-write and co-produce every feature film project they tackle, with one of them taking on the role of director. This wildly unique and successful partnership has led to one of the year's most beloved movies, "Sing Sing." Today, Clint unpacks how he and Greg decided to tackle the project, how they involved the real life creators behind the program that inspired the movie, and - yes, this is true - how they managed to pay everyone on set the exact same day rate.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone. Welcome back to the screenwriting life. I'm Meg Lofov. Lurion cannot join us today,
0:09.6	but I am thrilled to be welcoming Clint Bentley, co-writer of Sing Sing to the show.
0:15.3	Sing Sing follows a group of formerly incarcerated men staging a play while their creative leader, played by Coleman Domingo in the
0:22.9	movie, faces a life-altering clemency hearing. It's based on the actual program Rehabilitation
0:29.2	Through the Arts developed in New York Sing Sing Correctional Facility, with many of the program's
0:34.6	formerly incarcerated alumni making up the cast of the film.
0:39.0	Sing Sing is one of 2024's most celebrated films and also one of my personal favorites of the year,
0:45.2	with Clint and his filmmaking partner Greg Kweidar, having already been nominated for and won a number of industry awards for their screenplay.
0:52.6	In addition to their work as creatives,
0:55.0	Clint and Greg are passionate about equitable producing, with Sing Sing financed in a revolutionary
1:01.5	way, paying everyone on the set the same day rate for their work from Coleman Domingo to the set
1:07.9	PAs. They're using this model and their recently launched production
1:11.9	company Ethos, which plans to produce features in this same way. Welcome to the show.
1:18.1	Thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure to be here. I'm a huge fan of your movie. One of my
1:23.9	favorites of the year. Thank you. So profound and well done and so many things, which I can't wait.
1:33.8	So I just can't wait to get in and talk to you about it.
1:35.5	I have so many questions as a writer to writer.
1:38.2	Hopefully I have answers, yeah.
1:39.6	No, you do.
1:40.2	Come on, come on.
1:41.5	But let's first start with what we do, which is Adventures in Screenwriting,
1:47.6	or How Was Your Week? I know that you're a listener, so I don't even have to go first.
	...

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