In the first part of the interview, John August discussed the reasoning behind his blog, what screenwriters can do to break into the industry and the industry itself.

You have been quite prolific. How are you able to maintain the pace?

I'm not sure I'm more prolific than other screenwriters, in terms of pages-per-day. But I have a pretty good ratio of produced-to-unproduced scripts, which helps. People ask me what genre I prefer, and I always say, "Movies that get made."

You went to school for journalism, do you do a lot of research for your screenplays? Does the journalism background help you with research?

I'm big on research when I'm trying to figure out a movie, but I don't really use that much of it when I write. That is, the process of researching helps me a lot more than the actual facts do. I don't know that my journalism degree helped that much with research, but it did enforce some discipline in my writing.

Some of your recent work have been adaptations, do you prefer that genre?

Well, adaptations fall into my favorite genre (things that get made). I've written some originals and done some pitches since Go, but it's been frustrating. Last week I read a graphic novel that was very similar to an (unsold) spec of mine. Studios like to buy books, movies, things. Ideas scare them.

Do you wish Hollywood would take more risks? Television seems to be taking more risks currently with shows like Lost and Six Feet Under.

If you count independent film, then the aggregate film industry is probably taking more risks than ever. But for movies that cost more than $10 million, there's definitely a "smooth the rough edges" mentality. Yes, it can be frustrating. That's why you find more filmmakers looking for ways to do it without studio financing.

GO was an incredible screenplay, clearly ahead of its time. Do you have scripts like GO that never got made?

I don't have GO 2 sitting on my shelf, though some people wish I did. The stuff that I wrote hasn't gotten made falls into two categories: (1) stuff that's actually pretty bad, and (2) stuff that probably can get made with the right circumstances. But it's hard to go back and try to resurrect old projects, because I'm always writing new stuff.

You mentioned Tim Burton earlier. It is clear that you have a good working relationship with him because you keep working together. Can you describe the process especially in terms of what makes a good writing/directing team?

I wouldn't say we're a team in the classic sense, because it's not like we sit down and say, "Hey, what movie should we make?" I feel lucky to have written three movies that Tim's directed, because he's really talented and really delightful to work with.

A long meeting with Tim is 30 minutes. Honestly, the sum total of all the time I've spent with Tim is probably less than 40 hours. I'm pretty good at figuring out what he wants, and how to deliver it.

Can you describe some good habits Directors can follow to get the best out of their writers?

Directors often seem to forget that writers are artists, just like them, and don't cotton to criticism. So rather than talking about what is wrong in a script, the director can talk about what he needs. "In this scene, I really need to know why Sarah is..." or "I don't think I'll need this montage."

What tools do you use to help you with writing?

I write with both Final Draft and Screenwriter. I don't think either program is anywhere near good enough. I know that the Screenwriter folks are working on a new version, and hope the Final Draft people are as well, because it's embarrassing to use both a program as good as Final Cut Pro and not have a world-class screenwriting program.

What do you think of Celtx?

I think Celtx is a very good effort.  It's not finished to the degree that I feel comfortable using it for my day-to-day work, but it was a clever way to leverage the Mozilla engine for cross-platform compatibility.  I'm really surprised that other developers who make word processors and/or text editors haven't tried to build screenwriting tools.  Apple's Pages and Nisus Writer Express both feel like they could do the job with some extra plug-ins.

At various times, I've considered being entrepreneurial and developing my own screenwriting software, but it's just not realistic time-wise.

You have a fascination with Camera's, does that come from your directing past?

I'm a big believer in learning as much as I can about all elements of filmmaking, not because I want to be an expert on, say, lenses, but because I want to know what the options are, and how to talk with the real experts.

And there's things you learn that you don't expect.  For instance, I'm teaching myself Shake, though I'll likely never use it. But I had a sense that I needed to know how compositing works. I've already seen the results in my writing.  A lot of the stories I work on have multiple elements playing simultaneously -- genres, tones, characters that don't normally go together -- and that's pretty analogous to Shake.

Do you plan to direct again?

Sure.  But I think I'd only direct something that I couldn't envision another director doing.  So it would probably be something small and weird.  I'm a big fan of Shane Carruth's Primer, for example.  No one else would have made that film but him.

I've had a stronger hand in some of my films than other writers; I directed second unit on Go, for example.  So I'm not intimidated by it.  But I would never stop my writing career to become a full-time director.  As a writer, I get to work on six movies a year.  A director is lucky to work on one.

What do you think of the HVX200?

I think there's probably too big of a spotlight being put on this one camera, rather than the bigger issue, which is digitalness.  Even though DV ultimately becomes ones and zeros, video cameras have always been pretty similar to film cameras: you put media in, capture your image on it, then process it.  The HVX-200, and all the cameras that come after it, get rid of the media.  There's no master anymore.  That's hard for professionals to accept, but the younger generations, who grew up on the internet and digital cameras, will quickly embrace it.

People need to stop comparing video to film.  Film can do things video can't. But now, for less than $10,000 you can own a camera that will create big screen images that look really solid.  That's what's exciting.  It drops a huge barrier keeping a lot of people out of filmmaking.

The problem, of course, is that now that more people can make movies, more shitty movies will get made.  It's the same thing that happened with desktop publishing: Macintoshes and LaserWriters made everyone think they were a graphic designer.  But on the whole, it's a huge positive to put these tools in more people's hands.

Thanks to John August for his time and energy in doing this interview. You can follow his blog at JohnAugust.com.