Orci is a Mexican who migrated to the U.S., and he’s known Kurtzman since high school. Their shared love of movies led them to attempt a career as screenwriters. They are truly complementary: Orci is the guy with the grasp of structure and the big ideas; Kurtzman is more inclined to go to specific scenes and visual details. This is brought home very clearly by the “Object” exercise, where Orci immediately comes up with a high-conceptish plot seed, while Kurtzman is already mentally directing the first scene.

The DVD offers an interesting look at a (very) successful screenwriting partnership, and the nuts-and-bolts of writing for the big leagues.

Kurtzman and Orci have mastered the art of playing the system. While they come across as very serious about their work, they know how to take notes, how to “play along” with executives, and how to take other ideas and concepts on board. Since they’ve been working with some very high-powered people, it’s obvious that their open-minded approach pays off.  They take notes very well, also due to the fact that they came up through TV. The writers’ room is the perfect training environment for this.

Kurtzman and Orci advise writers not to be married to their words, but to the idea behind them. There are thousands of ways to achieve the same effect, and the trick is to be open to all of them.

The discussion focuses on the writing of THE LEGEND OF ZORRO, which was far more historically accurate than most people give it credit for, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III, with the prerequisite Tom Cruise stories, and TRANSFORMERS. For TRANSFORMERS, the challenge was to find a story element (apart from the giant city-smashing robots) which could emotionally grab the audience. That is how they came up with the concept of the human main character getting his first car as the “hook” of the plot. Whether it’s a completely successful idea is up for debate, of course.

The DVD offers an interesting look at a (very) successful screenwriting partnership, and the nuts-and-bolts of writing for the big leagues.