“Initially, I never thought film was a career option. I grew up in Wisconsin,” says Michael Sarnoski. “And I didn’t have a lot of artistic, creative people around me or outlets to share in. I think storytelling, doodling, writing, and drawing comics — that was my hobby, my secret.”

Over time, Sarnoski met other kindred spirits who shared his same passions for storytelling. “I was never going to write and direct feature films.’” That seemed very far away from a possibility. Instead, it “snowballed” over a long timeline. 

Rather than go to film school, the writer/ director made a series of shorts, such as Love of the Dead, Mirrors, Fight Night Legacy (later a series), and That. “A lot of it was just building confidence,” he adds. His debut feature film Pig put Sarnoski on the map as a unique creative voice. 

“I wrote a feature screenplay with the hope of directing it,” he says of Pig. “Originally, I wrote it as something that could be done with very little money. If no one would pay for it, I was going to find a way to do it, run-and-gun.”

The basic idea was “an old man in the woods with his truffle pig.” Sarnoski states, “But I was thinking, ‘I shouldn’t write a movie about that — that would be silly.’ But it didn’t leave my head, and this happens with me. I need to write it just to get it out of my system, even if it’s going to be silly or [I assume] no one is going to buy it.”

The script poured out of him. “It magically happened. In writing it, I thought ‘Who would get the chance to make a movie like this?’ I think the specificity of Pig was what helped people come behind it and make it. It also allowed me to direct it.” Producers basically told him, “You know what it’s about, so maybe you should direct it.”

“It’s always a messy process for your first film and it doesn’t feel like it’s going to work, but it worked and just enough people got behind it that we were able to make it.” Producer Vanessa Block also helped with the script and to push it into production. 

“Usually the way I write is, I do a vomit pass first. I don’t really outline what I’m doing. I figure out the gist of it and what the characters are doing. I don’t have a ton of breaking the story down into acts. I do a vomit pass, then sort of outline and form it into a certain shape and figure out what I’m trying to do with it.”

A Quiet Place: Day One

“Can you bring the Pig touch to the Quiet Place world?” Krasinski asked Sarnoski. The first film, written by Beck and Woods, essentially launched a new genre of horror, which has since been shepherded by Krasinski, who starred in the first film opposite Emily Blunt. 

Krasinski and the studio gave Sarnoski a weekend to think of a potential plot for the film. “For the longest time, I didn’t think there was anything new to do with that. I feel like we’ve seen Day One invasion movies, especially in New York — that’s a genre in and of itself,” notes Sarnoski.

Michael Sarnoski

Sunday night came around, however, and an idea started to form. “I knew all of the things I wanted to avoid, and through these things, this character emerged that kind of ended up being Sam (Lupita Nyong’o). She bucks a lot of the stuff that would be a focus for a movie like this. Everything else sort of fell into place.”

For the Monday meeting, he delivered Sam in a 30-second pitch. “The studio was behind it. They gave me lots of space. I never even wrote a treatment. They were just like, ‘Have at it.’ I write pretty fast, so I went off and spent a month in New York absorbing the city and writing a vomit pass. Then I honed it.”

The Quiet Place Franchise

If this were a television series, there would likely be a bible that unravels the rules of the universe. Since it’s a relatively new franchise, and the origin is being told as the third film, Sarnoski was able to create the origin based off clues from the previous two films. 

“I studied the first two films and took notes of how things would exist within the timeline. I asked John [Krasinski] a couple times on things and he would clarify them. I think there’s more information in those films than people give them credit for. You can kind of tell based on watching them, but there wasn’t a hard document of lore.”

Once he had these notes, he was off to New York to write the vomit draft. “I do a lot of thinking about the characters. I’ll write about the characters and start shaping some general stuff without a clear A to B of what happens. Once I have some scenes and how the movie is going to start, I just start going.”

Eric (Joseph Quinn) Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

For moments where there’s obviously something missing, he simply moves on to the next logical or linear step. “I know it’s going to be bad. It’ll be messy, but thematically it’ll show me what it wants to be. I try to leave it as freeform as possible so the piece can tell me what it wants to be.”

The next phase of writing, rather than picturing it as editing, he thinks of it as “studying.” He adds, “What is it desiring to become?” This might mean the filmmaker only keeps ten percent of the original, but it’s this process that leads to the real story – the important themes, and eventually, what becomes the finished movie. “Rather than laying it out, I’m discovering the process, hopefully in the same way the audience is discovering it.”

Writing in Location

For Pig, he spent time in Portland for inspiration. For A Quiet Place: Day One, he spent time in New York to write. “New York City was such an important character. New York as a setting and the relationship people have with New York.”

He adds, “We have such a strong cultural relationship with the city. I knew that needed to be a part of it. This is different people watching the city die and what that loss means to people. I knew I needed to steep myself in the city. I needed to feel that loss in a way.”

Once the theme presents itself, Sarnoski gets more granular with the story. “That’s when I really break it down. Character arcs. Charts. Diagrams. There’s not one specific type I do. I’ll diagram based on what I think it needs — theme, various progressions, any kind of progression that seems to matter to me.”

Step One after the vomit pass is to slug out the story scene by scene. He also tapes scene headings together to have a long vertical list of the story. Then, he may highlight aspects to find the collective tissue. “By the end, I may have a lot of arrows pointing and scenes circling back to scenes. It’s a map of scene progression until I know I’m ready to dive in.”

Then, he makes individual edits or passes based on certain goals, such as fulfilling a character’s want or making sure a progression of action is paced out correctly. “It gets more specific as I go along. As you get closer to what you’re aiming for, the passes get more surgical.”

The vomit pass process, which is essentially the outlining process in reverse, feels more real to the writer/ director. “I highly recommend cranking out a draft, even if you think it’s garbage. There’s going to be something you care about and if you think it’s mostly garbage those things you care about will shine more. Discovery and problem solving is the fun of writing. That braving the jungle feeling is half the battle, but also half the fun.”

This interview has been condensed. Listen to the full audio version here.