Husband and wife writing and directing team Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly met while working in local television news. Despite being at competitive stations, they both hated local news and wanted to find a more creative path to “visual storytelling” where they weren’t “forced to tell a story in 30 seconds” or use “the easy soundbite.”

Together, the couple has credits for documentaries like The Elephant Bath, The Gambling Man, Lifecasters, and features such as Beneath the Harvest Sky, Queenpins, and an upcoming film called Crook County.

Their current project, Queenpins, follows a pair of housewives who create a $40 million coupon scam. The surprisingly true story stars Kristen Bell, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Vince Vaughn, and Paul Walter Hauser.

“Our niche is basically based on true story narrative films,” said Gita. “We always look for something rooted in the truth and I think that comes from our journalism and documentary background.”

Since leaving the world of soundbites, the creators now have more time to search for true narratives that intrigue them. “The first [criterion] is: do we both agree. Then we sort of test-drive it with other people and talk to friends.”

Gita Pullapilly & Aron Gaudet

The coupon story generally got a laugh when they mentioned two women counterfeiting coupons, but once they tossed in the $40 million, the cars, and the guns, curiosity led to genuine interest.

Mutual Interests

“Aron and I come from different perspectives,” said Gita. “I’m Indian-American. My family and culture are different. Aron was born and raised in rural Maine, but if we both gravitate towards it, there’s a large audience that will gravitate towards it, too, because we’re opposite of each other.”

Ironically, this is the first commercial comedy from the duo, who generally focuses on more dramatic pieces. Their agent even said, “I didn’t know you were funny” when they delivered the script.

“We definitely looked to movies like Burn After Reading or Catch Me If You Can and Thelma & Louise,” said the duo about inspirations of the film, both looking at heist movies and powerful female two-handers.

This led to the tone of the film, which is comedic, despite a somewhat heart-breaking set of backstories. Connie (Kristen Bell) was unable to have children and essentially turned a nursery into her couponing sanctuary. JoJo (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) was the subject of identity fraud and couldn’t land a decent job despite her killer sales instincts.

“On set, we were constantly telling them, ‘You’re not in a comedy. You’re in a drama,’” said Aron. “Your lives are dramatic, so in writing it, we tend to move towards drama. We don’t respond to broad comedies. It’s much more authentic and absurd.”

“Life is absurd in many ways,” added Gita. “The most ridiculous things that actually happen in life usually end up being true. For us, we play into the truth and honesty to find the humor within.”

Despite being based on a true story, the characters were essentially all made up. “It was more about the crime and telling our version of what these women could be like on this journey,” said Gita. “So many of my friends have had miscarriages and struggled through that process. We wanted to give heart and honesty to that process. The same with identity theft. We wanted those obstacles to be as real and honest as possible.”

“These two women feel undervalued, kind of like a coupon. They feel discounted,” said Aron.

Finding Value

For this story, which involves a true story, difficult characters, and various hidden metaphors, it all began with framework. “First, we had the framework. We went to Phoenix and talked to the detective who had the real case so we had the framework of the scam.”

To summarize the scam, the coupon counterfeiters didn’t just print out counterfeit coupons. They actually discovered which company printed the coupons and essentially stole the excess “free” coupons from the distributor (meaning the “free” product coupons big businesses send out to those who complain about faulty products like diapers).

“Then, we were creating the characters to live within the framework.” For this particular project, since the characters were essentially made up to fill-in-the-blanks of the article, no IP had to be purchased to tell the story.

“What we realized recently, while trying to get another script financed, we [personally] were told things like, ‘You don’t have any value. We like the people attached to this. We like the script. But you – in the industry – don’t have any value.’ Just recently, we realized we wrote a story about two women who felt they had no value.”

Ken Miller (Paul Walter Hauser) and Simon Kilmurry (Vince Vaughn) Photo Courtesy STX Films

“It was channeling our feelings in a lot of ways. Vince and Paul’s characters feel the same way. Paul is a loss prevention officer. Vince, even though he’s put together, is undervalued within the world of law enforcement,” said Aron.

“I think what was inspiring for us is that these two women find a loophole to succeed,” said Gita. “Finally for us, in Hollywood…who knew it was Queenpins that was going to help us break out in a meaningful way and make the studios a profit and make everybody happy? As of five weeks ago, our value in this industry changed.”

Industry Standards

Despite the eventual win, the writers said this was equally hard to get off the ground. “We lost financing three times. Everything we felt like we were about to go, the financing would fall apart. We were supposed to have a $10 million budget, but then we were told comedies like this need a $5 million budget.”

To pull this off, they would be forced to slash 30 pages of the script. “We weren’t willing to compromise that. We’ve always said, we wouldn’t feel pressured into making a less-than movie that should be out there. We don’t want to live in regret knowing we had to compromise so much that a lesser version of the movie exists.”

“Everyone is different. Our first feature, Beneath the Harvest Sky, is not based on a true story, but it’s sort of based on one hundred true stories. It takes place in Northern Maine. Two high school boys trying to get out of their town and end up smuggling prescription drugs across the Canadian border.”

For this project, which took two years, they started by interviewing real life individuals involved in similar rackets. For Queenpins, they found the article on a couponing blog. Here, they contacted the detective, but also spent some time researching “coupon psychology.”

“Coupons are really the foundation that keep our economy running,” said Gita. “Coupons define needs or wants. It has a ticking time on it that says even if it’s a want, I need it now. That was a very interesting idea and concept to us.” In one example, the new JC Penny CEO wanted to outlaw coupons and nearly bankrupted the company, causing them to lose $4 billion dollars.

“A lot of our projects are complicated investigations. We don’t have legal backgrounds, but if we’re interested in a story, we prepare ourselves to live and know what that world is like,” said Gita.

Breaking In

“Access is key with any documentary,” said Aron. “You’re going on a journey with an unknown ending,” added Gita, who said Queenpins stood out more as a feature than a documentary due to subject access and their internal instincts. “All along the way, we were told we were making mistakes or this isn’t commercial. You have to get used to rejection and doubt. You have to bet on yourself over and over,” said Aron. 

As they moved from documentary to features, dialogue was somewhat of a transition. They also encourage improv, even in their dramatic films. “We were just searching for honesty,” said the duo with their director hats on. “We wanted our actors to explore. We wanted honesty. We want to give each person a voice and hide exposition.”

One way they practice dialogue is eavesdropping at coffee shops or overhearing others on hikes. “There’s nothing better than a blurb you hear as someone passes you by. What came before it? What will come after it? That’s just real and honest dialogue.”

Beyond the listening, they also read their scripts out loud and make sure each piece is as authentic as possible within their process. “We never will put any word in the script unless we both agree on it. We may have deep arguments over the word ‘and’ so it says what we want to convey, but, when we become the directors, we’re no longer precious.”

In one example, the team said Vince Vaughn originally had the idea for his character carrying around a World War I letter because he was a postal carrier, which was a crucial scene later in the film. “It had all these layers and we thought it was brilliant.”

Beyond logistics, one of the strongest markers of success for the duo happens when they finish a new script. “The most important thing in writing a script is finishing it. We look at every script we finish as an asset for us. Every spec script, even though no one is paying us to do it, we know we get done and it’s another asset we now own. An unfashioned script can do nothing for you, but a finished script, you never know where it might lead.”

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