Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 747: The Art of Creating Memorable Characters with John Winston Rainey

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IFH 747: The Art of Creating Memorable Characters with John Winston Rainey · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

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You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com. Welcome to the Indie Film Hussle
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Podcast, Episode number seven forty seven Nobody Knows Anything. William Goldman broadcasting from
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the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, where we
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show you how to survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
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the film biz. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome
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to another episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. I am your humble host,
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Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of the Film Entrepreneur How
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to turn your independent film into a profitable business. It's harder today than ever
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ebook, and of course audiobook. If you want to order it, just
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head over to www. Dot filmbiz book dot com. That's film bizbook dot
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com. Now, guys, today on the show, we have screenwriter and
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script doctor John Winston Rainey. John is the co author, along with legendary
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script consultant Linda Seeger, of the book You Talking To Me How to Write
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Great Dialogue. And John has written over twenty five scripts, which three of
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them have been produced, and has had ten of them optioned. He's been
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a script consultant since nineteen eighty nine, and he's also the author of Screenwriting
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Style That Sizzles, a primer for polishing. Now I wanted to have John
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on the show to talk all about character and creating memorable characters, as well
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as every other part of the screenwriting process. So, without any further ado,
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please enjoy my conversation with John Winston Rainey. I like to welcome to
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the show, John Winston Rainey. How you doing, John doing well?
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How are you doing? Alex? As good as we can be in this
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crazy upside down world that we live in today, upside down, very upside
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down. I feel like we are in the upside down like stranger things like
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I keep telling people that I feel like we honestly are in back to the
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future too, in the alternative timeline where a biffronts it diffruns the world.
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Yes, it's just it's insane world. I mean there's a meteor coming now
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and night before the election. Yes, obviously, because the universe has a
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sense of irony. We are going through a massive transition from the third dimension
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through the time fourth dimension to the fifth dimension. Obviously, so hey,
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everything is becoming energy, less matter and more energy. We have to become
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acclimated to that. That's why we are quarantining ourselves so that we can become
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self sufficient mentally and emotionally without having to go out and grab and push and
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shop. Well, well, man, there's definitely something happening. There's no
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question about it. I've never seen anything like this in my lifetime. It's
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very quantum. It's very quantum, very very quantum. So so let's talk
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a little bit about screenwriting and that process. But before we do, how
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did you get into the business. Well, okay, So it was in
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the late eighties sometime, and this young lady told me she didn't want to
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see me again. And instead of this was over a Thanksgiving weekend and I
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thought, instead of crying in my beer, I'm going to sit down this
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weekend and write a screenplay. I did, and I wrote. I wrote
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it longhand on legal pads because I didn't I mean, they didn't have I
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didn't have a computer back then. And of course I have a huge background
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in acting and directing, and so you know, like I kind of knew
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what dramatic art was all about. And a friend of a friend of mine
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knew ken Rod cop and we got the script to him. He read it.
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He said, yeah, John, come on down. And so I
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was in his workshop for four years. I wasn't in there six weeks when
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he asked me to be his associate, which means the gopher, you know,
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but he's he's but I mean he loved my writing and did all the
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way up to the day he died, actually passed away this past year unfortunately,
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but anyway, Yeah, so I wrote that screenplay. That first screenplay
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got option actually and by Bill Duke. Oh yeah, I know Bill.
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Bill's a good guy. Yeah, very good guy and really really super intelligent,
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very smart guy, very smart guy. Yeah. Yeah, And so
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I went through a development process with him on that very first screenplay and boy
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went to school there, to school there, and yeah, but before then
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i'd done, I'd done a big fan of well the dramatic artist, but
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also Joseph Campbell. I read he wrote a thousand paces back in God,
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I don't want to tell you been because you know exactly how old I am,
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But but it was it was a long time ago, and it was
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extracurricular reading, you know. I didn't. I just read it because it
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was there. It sounded interesting. Well, a professor that I knew recommended
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it, and and so he wanted me to read it so we could discuss
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it. And so I knew about here a thousand paces before George Lucas started
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touting it. Well, now you're giving me a little bit of your age
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there just by saying that. Now I wanted to I wanted to ask you
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in regards to the hero's journey because the hero's journey has been i mean abused
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in Hollywood now for very very very very abused for for decades now, and
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it has been kind of set up as like that is the only way to
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tell a story, and that is the only story and everything falls into that
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story. Where I know, by my own experiences and working and speaking to
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other people on the show, that the hero's journey isn't the end all be
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all. It is one and it has a lot of elements to it.
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But can you talk a little bit about that because I always use the example
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of like, if you throw the hero's journey on the detective story, it
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generally does not work. It doesn't because the detective unless the detective has some
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inner issue that needs to be resolved before you can solve the case. Because
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your theme really comes from well, I mean, okay, theme has two
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aspects to it, and I'm getting a little off the subject because you have
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your conceptual thematic things like racism. People call that a theme. Well it's
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not really a theme as much as it's subject matter. You know. The
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theme would be how does a racist you know, like take The Defiant Ones
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for instance, you know of black men white man chained together trying to escape
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the law, and they hate each other primarily because they're conditioned to hate by
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virtue of skin color, and that's it. Period. And over the course
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of the of the movie, the story, they realize they have to depend
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on each other and they come to respect each other. So that inner journey
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is really the theme coming to respect you know, all things, all life,
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or what is considered the other the subject matter is racism, So it's
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really two different aspects. But back to the hero's journey. You know,
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Aristotle said, you know, he said, you know this, every story
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has the beginning, middle of an end. And then Jean Lookadard comes along
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and says, well, yeah, every story has a beginning, middle,
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and end, but not necessarily in that order. And so you take a
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look at momentum and you say, okay, so how is that structured?
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Whereas the beginning, middle, and the end of it's there, it's there,
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but you or you take a look at traffic. You know, there
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are five different stories to traffic. Each one has their own structure. Pulp
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fiction, pulp fiction, same thing. Pulp fiction has three different structures,
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but the stories are just intertwined. And as Janald Goaddar says, you know,
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the end is sometimes the beginning. But there's another great movie that I
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like even more than pulp fiction is called Before the Rain. It's a Macedonian
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film written and directed by a photographer and I can't pronounce his name, Milt
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show something or other. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
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and now back to the show. But it's a brilliant, brilliant movie
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that came out a year before culp fiction, and it does the same thing.
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The theme to that is the circle is not round. I mean,
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it's just so beautiful because and he does that structurally. He shows that structurally
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as well as thematically, I mean, as well as the character art.
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So anyway, I don't know, So yeah, I don't think I'm answering
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your so, I mean, so like, I just I just wanted to
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kind of, you know, bring it to the audience. The question is
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because a lot of a lot of specially young filmmaker, young screenwriters when they're
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starting out, you know, they read The Hero's Journey or Chris Vogler's book
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The Writer's Journey, which are amazing books, but not every story needs to
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fit in that. So if you take a standard Sir Authorn, Coran Doyle,
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Sherlock Holmes story, which Charlock generally doesn't, it's he's not about changes.
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He never changes. He's a James Bond type character. James Bond doesn't
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change. Ethan Hawk and Mission Impossible, they don't change. Uh. The
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only James Bond movie that actually worked for me in that way was, uh,
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Casino Royale. Yeah, but he changed, he changes in that movie.
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Well, that's what I'm saying. He's got an art. He has
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a character art. The rest of them, you know, they get boring
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after a while. Yeah, it's just a guy, you know, Will
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And here's the thing, you know, I think for me, actually,
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and this is going to shock a lot of people, one of the most
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boring films that I've ever watched was The Hangover because you know, a lot
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happens and nothing changes, you know that in that movie. But now that
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no, they don't. They they have a really nice Mercedes going to Las
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Vegas. They come back with the beats of ship Mercedes and uh, you
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know, and they find the guy, you know, so they succeed in
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they're but what do they learn now? I've had to come to terms of
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this, Alex, you know, because for me, there's no real point
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in telling a story unless you have something to say in that story. And
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that's what I'm saying is really not about the plot. The plot is the
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vehicle or the change that the character has to make in order to achieve whatever
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goal that they set out to achieve. And that goal that they set out
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to achieve is something that they originally were afraid to go after. But some
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compelling new information comes to them. And this is basic Joseph Campbell stuff.
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You know that the mentor the boom whatever, you know, I call it
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new information. And they say, oh, as fraid as I am,
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I do have to make this emotionally challenging decision to go after it anyway,
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you know. And so then they do, and they get into the river
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of the unknown and in act too and know and shit happens and they have
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to make adjustment, inner adjustments, internal adjustments, until they finally reached some
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paradigm shift and they go into act three, and you know that's the basic
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structure. Now, let me just say, you're talking about new writers.
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I think that a new writer needs to learn that basic Campbellian structure before they
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try to do something really fancy, whether they do pulp fiction or on the
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Sisto or anything or or, And I think they should stick. This is
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for new writers. Now, I think they should stick with a single protagonist.
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I generally separate protagonists, which is an archetypal story function story driver from
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main character. Main character is the one that from whose perspective we see the
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story. The main character is the one that actually carries the emotional theme,
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thematic art. They are often in Hollywood, the same character, but there
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are times like A Million Dollar Baby, where they are different. Right,
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I'm saying, Maggie drove that story in a Million Dollar Baby, but the
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Frankie character was the change character. He's the one that carried the emotional arc.
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He's the one that had to make me emotionally challenging decisions. Maggie,
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there was no emotionally challenging decision. I wanted to be a boxer, and
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by god, I'm going to be the best and that was it throughout the
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story until she was hurt. But Frankie all the way through. Yeah,
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and there are many reasons. We won't get into analyzing that story, but
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there are many reasons why he was afraid to take her on as a boxer,
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why he was afraid to take her on again at the midpoint, et
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cetera, et cetera. Am I talking too much? Oh? No,
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keep going, keep going. It's fantastic. But generally, I think a
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new writer needs to combine those two aspects of character. Protagonist which is the
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story driver, main character, which carries the emotional art makes him a singular
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character like Danny, Kathy and a few good men. He's both protagonists.
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He drives the story. He also has the emotional arc. He has to
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resolve his situation with his fear of being being compared to his very famous father
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litigating father, and he has to resolve that and uh and so he has
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an ally in what's his name? Yeah? I think is it Kevin Pollack?
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Ye is? Oh? No Demi Moore. The Demi Moore and Kevin
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Poulack character. No, no, no, no, Demi Moore is a
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conscious character. He's the one yes, forces him, compels him to make
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the right choice. But the Kevin Pollack character, he's the one that corrects
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his his mindset about his father, right exactly. So anyway, what I'm
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saying there is the protagonist and the main character are the same. You can't
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have them different. A new writer or someone who's you know, on their
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first, second, third script, they need to like make sure they have
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the basic craft down, the fundamentals down, then they can start, you
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know, playing games with it. Yeah. It's the equivalent of building a
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shack in your backyard before you go after a mansion an office building. Well.
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Yeah, and also if you get it from Ikea, you want to
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follow the directions. Yeah, before you get before you start getting fancy,
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you should probably follow the directions. And then once you follow the directions a
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lot and you understand the basics. Yeah, yeah, you know, you
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see it, Robin. You see all these bookshelves, Rob Well, I
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actually ordered twelve of those building Bob bookshelves or whatever you're following building bookcases from
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Ikia, and so I built one. I followed the directions assiduously. Then
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I did the same thing with the second one. By the time I got
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to the third one. I knew what it was by the time I got
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to the twelfth one. I can build those things in twenty minutes, right,
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because you have experienced already. And that's exactly it. It's a craft.
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It's a craft, and you cannot become the artist until you, first
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of all have got the craft in hand. That's true of anything. You
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know, you go to play the piano, you start, you know,
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you learn your basic chords and scales and how to sight read, and later
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on, you know, you start getting fancy. Yes, you gets fancy.
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So I wanted to ask you in regards to a specific genre film,
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the Revenge film. I was going to use that as an example. In
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the Revenge film, generally speaking, there is no refusal of journey. Generally
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speaking, like as you look at the Count of Monte Cristo and I'm and
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please correct me if I'm wrong, But if you look at Count of Monte
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Cristo, he it's not that he doesn't want to go, is that he's
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afraid to go or doesn't believe he could go. But the want it's not
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by going by talking, by going going breakout of the revenge, just generally
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revenge and going after that that mission, and because once he gets into jail,
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it's about not about it's revenge sits in the background, but it's about
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survival. It's about trying to get and then when the moment, then when
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the moment appears that he can actually break out, even if as miniscule of
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an idea as that might be great, and then that he sees that the
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the old man can actually teach him all these things. And then revenge starts
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getting a little bit, a little bit more coherent, but it's still a
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dream until he gets out, and then he finally goes there's no refusal there.
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I don't think, well, I understand your point, and uh,
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hey, you could argue that he's a he's a he's a victim of that
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circumstance. Uh And he could be giving up, you know, like there's
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no hope, there's no right that could be that could be considered as a
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refusal. But I'm glad you brought this point up though, because for me,
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generally, the refusal of the call is the beginning of the thematic journey.
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The refusal of the call. For instance, you get a call to
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adventure. We're talking uh uh camp Campbellian structure here, for anyone who's not
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aware of that. I mean, because a lot of people that have talked
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about inciting incident this and that. Inciting incident. Call to adventure can be
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the same, but they can also be different. Right, we'll be right
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back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
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And the re fusal of the call for me is the beginning of the thematic
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journey, because why would we refuse to go after something we want except for
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some underlying perhaps unconscious like and if you could been unconscious fear or emotional armor
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that we're protecting ourselves from. And then some new information comes along and then
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we say, oh damn, I've got to go after that, you know,
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I've got to take that decision. And there are there are places,
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Yeah, I agree with you that there are successful movies that have no refusal
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of the call. And I think that's a missing beat that would have enhanced
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the story even more had they had that. So what is the theme of
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Monte Cristo. Then obviously revenge is the theme, but that's not a melee.
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Yeah, it's the subject matter. But the thing that how does Dante's
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change from I mean, he obviously changes a lot from before he gets you
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know, you know, thrown into jail and all that stuff to the end,
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but the thirst of revenge is like towards the end he realizes, you
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know, it's not worth it until it's he's drawn into the final battle.
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Well, and that would be the thing. I mean. Hamlet's the same
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way, yeah, Hamlet. You know he has that speech in Act class
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scene one with Horatio, you know where you know, just let it be.
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You know, whatever will be will be the case for us. Ruh.
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You know he's watching, uh, you know, they take up your
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skull and then they bury Ophelia and and and he's shocked and he you know,
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he comes to you know, there's a providence in all of the sparrow
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and then you know, and so in a sense, it's the same thing.
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There's another movie too, oh yeah, uh The Graduate. Yeah you
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have you have Dustin Hoffman going after Catherine Ross and you know he's banging on
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the windows, gather gathering, you know, he's finding you, and they
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run out of the church together. They now this is this is actually uh
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a Mike, what's Mike Nichols touched? Because they rehearsed that last bit where
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they're in the back of the bus and there remember that scene. Of course,
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of course it's an iconic scene. And the actors were so tired,
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you know, they they completed the beat. It was supposed to be a
22:45
happy ending, but the actors were so tired they thought the shot was over
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and they just kind of like go and they start looking at each other.
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Mike Nichols left that in because it's like, what now, right, Oh,
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what now? Yeah, what's the point of all of this? What
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now? And uh? And I think it's the same thing in count of
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Monte Cristo. Uh. And what's the other one that I mentioned? Uh?
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Yeah, yeah, well I forgot the other one, but kill Bill.
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Let's use it because that's a very famous revenge film. Yeah, you
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know, how does how does Kiddo change from the moment when she starts to
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where she is the bride? Yeah? I think they called her. Her
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name was Kiddo, I think arguably, but the bride, Yes, the
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bride, the bride, let's just call her. Um, let's call it
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Uma, Uma oprah oprah. No, oh my god. He never did
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that again. He never did that again. So so Uma basically at the
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end, I mean, that's just such a straight revenge film. There's no
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Yeah, I don't even remember towards the end if she actually I think she
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regretted it a little bit at the end, like she was crying and this
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and that that she had to grow. I can't, I can't, I
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can't remember. Yeah, she you know, I mean, she loved this
24:11
guy, right, and she had to kill him because of sorry spoiler alert
24:15
everybody, it's called kill Bill. So I mean sorry, but but she
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did love him, but yet still had to to do it, and she
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didn't. I think towards the end she didn't want what she got to that
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moment. I think she didn't want to do it anymore. But if I
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don't even remember if she is, but she had to. Well, again,
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this brings up Hamlets again. You know, he's not really interested in
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killing anymore, but he's forced into this, into this sword bite. H
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called it the short right fising thing pamiliarities and so you know, and everyone
24:49
winds up dying and uh and you know, and it's not his fault because
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he's already resolved his issue, you know, with with Claudius. So yeah,
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and you know, like I said, I bring up Hangover again.
25:03
There are if you are adept as a storyteller as Tarantino is. Uh,
25:11
some movies aside. I never got through The Hateful a Uh you know what,
25:19
I'll go on record stating that's my least favorite of his films. It
25:25
was, it was I think it was just a lot of talkie talkie,
25:26
but like once upon a time in Hollywood I thought, was well, brilliant,
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that was brilliant. Yeah, well, there are a lot of you
25:33
know, pulp fiction. I mean, he's he's generally has a really good
25:37
bad vantage in his career. In Glorious Bastards, I loved English. Matter
25:41
of fact, in our book God but the book that we wrote, the
25:48
dialogue wrote, Yeah, the dialogue book they wrote with use that. I
25:52
use that open thank you. I used that opening scene of uh, the
25:59
the Nazi. Oh, that's a brilliant, brilliant scene. It's a master
26:04
It's a master work. That that those seven or ten minutes is a master
26:08
work of cinema. It's it is so good on so many levels. It's
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astounded how good it is. And he has those throughout his career. I
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mean, he is just such a unique voice in in cinema. There has
26:22
never been someone like him, nor I think will ever be anyone like him.
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Well, he does pay homage to a lot of people that he was,
26:29
that were in that he that influenced him, or that he was influenced
26:33
by, which which is a good which is really interesting because which kind of
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brings me to another point paying homage. So if you watch the movie Point
26:42
Break, which is a classic nineties eighties nineties I think I watched once,
26:49
but I I don't I remember it because it was during my generation's time.
26:55
Like when I woke, I was, I was teenager, there was a
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there was a fight in a bar set. There was no bar fight.
27:02
There was no bar fight in that movie. There was fights with alcohol around,
27:06
but there was no bar fight. But that movie essentially was taken and
27:12
completely paid homage to in Fast and Furious. So Fast and Furious is literally
27:18
a blueprint from Point Break. Yeah, I feel that's a little heavy handed
27:25
as far as like if you look at like it's the same other than you
27:27
just switched out surfing for fast cars, car for car racing, and then
27:33
Fast and Furious turned into James Bond with cars. I mean, it's ridiculous
27:36
now but fun so, But paying homage how careful do you have to be
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because I think as a screenwriter, as storytellers, we're all taking from everything
27:45
and everybody ever written it's you know, and Tarantino, as much as he
27:48
might be criticized for it, everything he does is original. He might take
27:52
from other people, but he just mixes it. He's like a giant mixtape,
27:59
you know. He samples from everything and creates something completely new. And
28:04
all artists do that. There there's some famous quote that I don't that I've
28:08
forgotten, but paraphrase, it's like, we're we're all thieves. You're good
28:14
artists, good artist, copy, great artist. Deal there you go,
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yeah yeah there and uh uh yeah. And you know, I've watched tons
28:23
and tons and tons of movies in my time, and uh, you know,
28:29
you don't know, Like, for instance, I don't think George Harrison
28:33
was consciously copying. Uh he's so fine was with this song My Sweet Lord,
28:41
but they won the copyright thing because I think there was like four notes
28:45
that were the same. But I don't think he was consciously. But you
28:49
know, he was such a sponge for music that something's gonna pop out,
28:55
something's gonna pop out exactly it will, you know, Dylan used to take
29:02
old folk songs and just rewrite them. Yeah, it's just rewrite the lyrics,
29:07
you know, keep the melody is you know, that's been done since
29:10
time immemorial. I mean should so as screenwriters, especially young screenwriters starting out.
29:15
I mean, obviously read as many screenplays as you can, watch as
29:18
many movies as you can as a as a young screenwriter, could you take
29:23
structures from older films and kind of start using them as a starting point to
29:30
and start Yeah, I mean start using them as as a starting point to
29:33
get because it's not even if you start with like I'm going to take do
29:38
the right thing, and I'm going to take its structure and I'm going to
29:41
translate it to another language or another set of circumstances or another thing like that.
29:47
But at the end, by the time you're done with it, it's
29:49
changed. It just naturally changes, unless you're literally ripping off dialogue. We'll
29:56
be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the
30:03
show. I see you can't. You can't do that structurally, Yeah,
30:08
I mean songs to this all the time. You have have a basic you
30:11
have a basic chord structure, and uh, you know, you've got your
30:17
basic uh uh one six two five chord structure, which in the fifties and
30:22
sixties was used ubiquitously. You know. As a matter of fact, I
30:26
was just doing a song. Oh, I was playing the theme to the
30:30
Apartment just yesterday, I think, and uh, it is in a key
30:36
of F and it goes F D minor. What was it? I was
30:42
saying, Oh, yeah, f D minor and then what what's the what's
30:48
the fourth chord? And C you know, C seven and back top.
30:52
So it's a basic it's a basic structure, but it's got this elaborate harmonies
30:59
to it and melowd to it. That. Yeah, and you can do
31:03
the same thing with screenplays. I did it with north By Northwest. I
31:07
took north By Northwest beat by beat, and I just totally rewrote the whole
31:11
thing. Different characters, different situations, different locations, certainly different dialogue because
31:18
my dialogue is funnier than whoever wrote that. M Yeah, and yeah,
31:30
that's a good place to start. Another place that started to sit down and
31:32
start writing and then structure it after the fact. Do you outline first or
31:37
do you just go mostly? I just go I just started like I have
31:45
a something some impulse hits me. I can. I can tell you two
31:49
quick stories about screenplays I've written. John Denver, you know, bought the
31:56
Farm back in nineteen ninety seven. And my wife and I a few weeks
32:01
later, we drove up to Iowa saying she was a choreographer and she was
32:07
looking for music for her next gig. And so I was tooling around in
32:12
the store and I looked up at the Billboard's top ten, top one hundred,
32:16
whatever, and John Denver's three greatest hits albums were in the top ten,
32:23
and his Christmas album was number twelve. I turned to my wife,
32:28
I said, well, this guy had to die because he couldn't have he
32:30
couldn't give his songs away the last ten years of his life, primarily because
32:35
of marital issues. You know, he married it after Annie, he married
32:38
somebody that was not supported anyway. So I said, this guy had to
32:45
die in order to make his you know, become famous again. And she
32:49
looked at me. She said, that's a screenplay. So I mean,
32:52
she just said that. I said what. And so on the way home
32:58
we were talking about all kinds of Elvis sightings and things like that, and
33:04
I wound up writing a story about it. Over the Hill country western star
33:08
who was uber famous living in bel Air, and they repossess his house and
33:15
he goes up in the mountains talk to his manager, and everyone thinks he's
33:19
dead and he can't get back to La for I'm going to get into and
33:24
winds up on a dude ranch shoveling horseship for a living, you know,
33:29
because no one recognizes him. I'm not going to get into why. He
33:34
has a major car accident. He's out for six weeks and they have to
33:37
shave his head, and then his music starts blowing up again, but his
33:43
movie starts blowing up and yeah, and so he has to get back to
33:45
La and cash in. But in the meantime, he's finding out who he
33:49
really is instead of this facade. Another one was we own some land in
33:55
Iowa and I was walking about two hundred and thirty acres, all fur and
34:00
feels and lots of briar patches, lots of berry bushes, and so I'm
34:07
out there one day and there's this huge briar patch. Instead of going around
34:12
it, I said, I'm just going to go through it, And so
34:14
I got in the middle of it, and I started getting hung up on
34:16
the briers. You know, I was well dressed, and all of a
34:21
sudden I couldn't move, and this little bit of panic went through my body,
34:25
and in an instant I had this whole story about a briar patch of
34:28
each people. And so I wrote that, and that's you know, become
34:35
really popular, you know, in the option world. So yeah, and
34:39
I want to also touch on that because this is something that a lot of
34:43
screenwritters don't understand about professional screenwriters in Hollywood, is that I know guys who
34:51
have, you know, have made one or two massive movies, like they
34:54
were big, you know, giant films, and yet when you go to
35:00
their IMDb, they might have not had anything else produced for the next ten
35:02
or fifteen years of their life. But they've been non stop working for all
35:07
of those times, and their scripts are being optioned left and right, and
35:12
it gets optioned once, and then it gets optioned again, and it gets
35:14
moved over to another studio, and they make a living off of things that
35:17
never get produced. And can you talk a little bit about that kind of
35:22
like underground world that nobody really talks about it. I actually I actually make
35:28
most of my money or a lot of my money doing what I call a
35:31
vanity projects. You know, people come to me and they want their life
35:35
story on film and all that, and you know it is so unique and
35:38
everything. No one lives a unique life. I mean you talk about structure.
35:45
All of our lives are structured similarly, right But anyway, Yeah,
35:50
people come to me they want a screenplay written, or you know, a
35:52
producer will come to me and want a screenplay written, and I spec scripts.
35:57
I've had numerous options on I've got about fifteen specscripts fifteen, I don't
36:02
know how many, and I've had numerous options on them because my writing is
36:07
very contagious, you know. You know, you start reading my script and
36:12
you can't. There was a story I was in Morocco, uh doing a
36:20
script for a producer actually, and he was good friends with Ridley Scott,
36:24
and he read one of my samples. Oh actually the one that I just
36:30
talked to you about about the over the Hill Country Western Start, which is
36:35
basically a rom com. And so he was sitting there on the on the
36:40
on the table. Ridley Scott was hanging with this guy over in Morocco and
36:49
not Bangladesh. Was a Marrakesh, Yeah, and he was going to go
36:54
to bed and really says, can I take this to bed with me?
36:58
You know, he just needed some reading material, something to put him to
37:00
sleep. That's always That's all. What you want to hear is like,
37:05
really, Scott took my script just to go to sleep. Well, interestingly,
37:09
he comes down the next morning, he slams my script down on the
37:12
table and he says, this damn thing kept me awake till one o'clock in
37:15
the morning. And he says, is he fast? And my producer said,
37:21
yeah, well I'm still waiting for that phone call. But nevertheless,
37:23
the point is that your writing style has to be contagious. It has to
37:30
be You've got don't get in the way of your story with your writing style,
37:37
and I mean that has to do with structure, character development, and
37:40
also how you put the words on the page period, So all those things
37:45
have to come together. What was the question, Oh, do I do
37:50
I just sit down and write or do it? No? No, the
37:52
question was just to talk a little bit about the the the whole optioning and
37:57
making Oh yeah, yeah, well yeah, so you can make a whole
38:00
living without ever being on IMDb, which which I've met. I've met so
38:06
many of those screens. Some some of them literally have no IMDb credits or
38:08
like one or two little ones. And then there's other guys or guys who
38:13
actually have one big credit, one monster credit and then silence nothing. Yeah,
38:22
but there, but in town they're known as they're doing script doctoring there,
38:28
and that's a whole other script doctoring and in that kind of world that
38:31
you make a living doing that. John Sales, John Sales, he makes
38:37
a living doctoring scripts, rewriting scripts. He makes, you know, a
38:43
ton of money from the studio is doing that or used to, I don't
38:45
know where he is now. And then he'll take that money and he'll go
38:49
and make his own indie films, you know, and on you know,
38:52
you know he basically well now he doesn't have to finance his own films.
38:57
But uh yeah, and Millius used to do that as well. Back when
39:01
he was he was he was an amazing script mean, he's amazing script doctor.
39:06
Yeah, he wrote I don't know if you knew this, he wrote
39:07
the scene, the scene and Jaws when they're they're drunk right before that whole
39:15
scene on the boat in the boat, that's Milius Spielberg. Spielberg called him,
39:22
It's like, can you do me a favor? And he's like sure,
39:23
all right, that scenefore, he wrote that scene like the night before.
39:27
He's got his fingerprints all over that Millius has his fingerprints all over all
39:32
the movie brats stuff he touched one point or another. Well, And and
39:37
the thing is is guys like that, you know, if you give him
39:42
a thank you, you know they're they're fine with that. Just pay me,
39:44
basically, That's what it really is. You know, just I've got
39:49
the skilled, I've got the craft, and you know I got it down.
39:52
Just you know, pay me. We'll be right back after a word
39:55
from our sponsor, and now back to the show. It's like gun slingers
40:06
basically, you're you're like you know, you're you're you're a gun slinger,
40:10
like you do you need me to do you need to clear out this?
40:13
Do you need me to clear out this outlaw for you? And this down
40:15
for you? Just I'm I'm a mercenary. Yeah yeah, yeah, five
40:20
easy pieces or a few dollars more exactly? Have gun travel? Yes?
40:25
Yes, no, I remember those. I remember those? Do you remember
40:30
Paladin? The rich Boone character. No, I did not remember that one.
40:35
I've I've seen so many stuff, and especially I worked in a video
40:37
store, so I saw a lot of stuff when I was Tino. It
40:43
was five years in a in a video store for when all through like before
40:46
high school and all through after high school, and then maybe a little bit
40:50
after high school before I went to college. I worked at a video store,
40:52
So I watched, I watched. I was watching films at a time
40:57
where I could literally watch everything released that week. You remember, can you
41:00
remember that? There was because they would release five movies, six movies a
41:05
week. I would watch all of that. That was a moment in time
41:07
where you could actually do that. Now, that's absolutely I need multiple lifetimes
41:12
just to the catch up with what's existing right now now. I mean,
41:16
you've worked with a lot of screenwriters in your time. What is the biggest
41:20
mistake you see screenwriter, especially young screenwriters make, other than writing style?
41:25
Yes, other than using too many adverbs, too many passive verbs, and
41:30
that sort of thing. Would you guys be crazy or overdoing your dialogue?
41:36
It's another one. I'm listening a bunch of go for it. First of
41:45
all, a screenplay is a lot like a short story, and people have
41:49
to absorb that it's not a novel. It's a short story. Yes,
41:52
you know, you have to get in under two hours, because that's about
41:58
as long as the bladder lasts for your audience member. Seriously, you know.
42:02
And and they need to sell more salt and sugar back well back when
42:08
when we used to be able to go to the movie theaters. Not so
42:10
much anymore. So we'll see where we're at. I mean, there there.
42:16
There are a bunch of them. And I actually I talk about writing
42:22
style because I used to say the same things over and over and over again,
42:27
and I finally just wrote a book. And when somebody wants me to
42:30
consult with them, I just send them the book, you know. But
42:34
the other thing is not setting up the emotionally challenging decision that drives the story.
42:45
I don't know if this is proprietary or not, but I talk about
42:52
emotionally challenging decisions or dilemmas and decisions and decisions of the main character are what
43:01
drive the story basically. And then you have a reaction from the antagonist and
43:08
so they have to reconsider and revise and so the intention changes. But the
43:15
object, the objective remains the same, and those decisions are not well set
43:22
up, and often people will put those major emotionally challenging decisions off screen somewhere
43:30
and you can't do that. You got to put it on the page.
43:34
And also over writing scene. That's another one. You know, that's that's
43:37
a technical So you mean to tell me there should be as little white space
43:40
on this on the page as possible. It's a little white as much.
43:47
Yeah, this is a case in screenwriting. This is a case where less
43:52
is definitely more, but you have to have the you have to have the
43:55
correct less where choose every single word. I mean, I'll tell you when
44:04
I wrote. I mean, I've written screenplays in my career, but i've
44:07
but I've written read. I read a both. I read two nonfiction books.
44:13
One was based on a story of my life because my life was very
44:15
interesting, sir, thank you very much. But I found it so freeing
44:22
writing a book because I did not have to be so. I found it
44:29
so much easier writing sixty thousand words than it is writing whatever the amount of
44:35
words is in a ninety minute screenplay. Because in the screenplay you have to
44:38
be so surgical, so surgical with your words. But in a novel,
44:44
you could just and then he floated across the screen and he did this and
44:47
that, and you could just you could just like paint the pic. You
44:51
could take a paragraph just to discuss how the wall looked, if the wall
44:55
is really important. But in a screenplay, you've got three words to explain
45:00
the wall. Yeah, no, that's the designer's job, right, But
45:07
how can we make this all important? Right? There's a character in the
45:12
story, So how can we know? Yeah? Yeah, so uh yeah.
45:17
And the way to do that, Alex is, you know, I'm
45:22
a I'm a big one for avoiding ad verbs at all costs. And if
45:27
you choose the correct action verb, you will not need an adverb, you
45:32
will not need the modifier. Also, never ever, I've written entire screenplays,
45:37
but now a single adverb passive verb helping burb or passive present tense.
45:43
And I challenge myself all the time. There are times, there are times
45:46
when, uh, you know, I'll spend an hour on a sentence,
45:50
on a single sentence, you know, And I believe me, I'm I'm
45:54
not shy about going to the souruss and dictionaries and and I'll look at all
45:59
around. So yeah, next to songwriting and writing poetry within a particular form,
46:07
screenwriting is right up there with those guys. It's like the hikup of
46:09
writing. It is if you approach it like it's haiku. Yes, you
46:15
will get you will get better. Absolutely. You know you cannot. You
46:19
cannot just sit there and splash ink on the page. You have to you
46:24
know, maybe that's good to get your story out, then go back and
46:30
rework that damn thing work. Yeah, like if you I remember reading Shane
46:36
Black's early screenplays and the way he describes the scene. His descriptions were so
46:42
vivid and so beautifully written and so concise. It was wonderful. Then I
46:49
read other scripts like that that literally it's three or four paragraphs just to talk
46:52
about like the alley. I'm like, dude, like you need to move
46:54
along here, Guys like the alley's not that, but in the writers,
46:59
I like the alley is, so I want to The audi is for the
47:02
location manager, a little patient scalty, And that's That's something else I feel
47:07
that a lot of young screen writers make a mistaken is that they feel that
47:10
they're almost proxy directing when they're writing. I mean, the worst thing you
47:15
could do is put a camera move in. Don't ever put a camera move
47:17
in. I just took that note this morning. Actually, I was working,
47:22
I was consulting on a script, and I said, leave the directing
47:27
to the director. I said, you've got you. You must acknowledge you've
47:31
got co creators here, and you must lend them the space to do their
47:37
work. Just all you do with the words is be as specific as possible,
47:42
and then you let them expand upon it. I mean, it's very
47:45
similar like to an architect. The architect lays out the blueprint, but and
47:52
the blueprint is it's the foundation of everything. As they're building the building,
47:55
there's going to be a couple of shifts here and there, and there's going
47:59
to be in the and the guy who's paying for it isn't Isn't this the
48:01
way it is in Hollywood? The guy who's putting up the money that the
48:05
finance this building is going to go. You know what, I want to
48:07
move that wall over there. I want to paint the pink because my girlfriend
48:12
wants it. Or what you'll probably do is say, can we instead of
48:16
making these sixteen inches work, can we make them nineteen inches apart? Right?
48:22
Exactly. It's it's all the time, and then I'm just building code
48:25
but nevertheless, right, and they'll start doing that and then that's when the
48:30
building just doesn't. It all comes crashing down. But exactly want. And
48:34
that's what happens in Hollywood all the time, a movie where the structure just
48:38
absolutely sucks. Now, I'm not a big one to talk about structure up
48:43
front because I want because everything for me comes from character. Even structure comes
48:47
from character because you have the symbiotic relationship between quat and theme. But if
48:52
all of these elements together don't cohere because a producer wants to throw in because
48:58
his grow up and is acting, Oh, she can't do that? Can
49:00
she do it this way? No? No, you can't, no,
49:05
because it screws up your story. And I'm I'm actually amending my words here,
49:09
but it, yeah, it messages with the story. You can't do
49:14
that, you know, write another screenplay, don't use this one. Yeah,
49:22
it happens. That's what happens in Hollywood is they'll buy a property and
49:27
then they'll totally jack it around and rewrite. They bring in their their oh
49:31
well, kitchen sink full of writers and no one's communicating with anybody else.
49:37
It's like, you know, well, I mean it depends on I think
49:40
the smart I mean, look what Marvel did it the best as far as
49:45
like they understand their properties. We'll be right back after a word from our
49:50
sponsor. And now back to the show. And they have complete control and
49:59
this and when they went away from their model early on, and you can
50:04
see that. And I'm not sure how verse you are in the MCU,
50:07
but the first film I remember when Hulk came out Angry did a Hulk years
50:13
ago with Eric Banna And remember that one, yeah, yeah, a while
50:17
ago when when the VI visual effects really not no, it didn't work out.
50:22
Hulk looktorribal, but they let the director and the creatives force rewrite the
50:30
mythology of the Hulk, and it was this hodgepodge of craziness. He really
50:37
was angry because of what his dad did to him and all this like super
50:42
psychle. It was like, it's not the Hulk. We want to see
50:45
Hulk smash. That's what we wanted to say. We want to see Hulk
50:49
smash. I don't understand Hulk smash. It's not complicated. But because all
50:53
these other people came in but then from that point on they took control of
50:58
their properties and and kept going. But it happens. Yeah, well this
51:02
goes back to our original topic of is there are there other stories other than
51:09
the hero's journey? And in this case, yeah, you know, and
51:14
you know, and I mentioned the Hangover and other things like that, where
51:16
you tell a story purely for entertainment, you know. And I I had
51:25
trouble getting on board with that, but apparently not a lot of other people
51:30
didn't because it did very very well in sponsored sequels. No, no,
51:34
no, I mean there's a lot of a lot of movies, a lot
51:37
of people just want Like my brothers. I asked my brother, I said,
51:39
why do you go to the movie? She says, to escape?
51:43
And Okay, that's you know, and that's what I think. That's with
51:46
a large a large demographic. Is I just wanted to go and let go
51:51
of my life. Well, I mean, yeah, absolutely, But if
51:53
you look at Hangover, Hangover, I agree with you. They don't really
52:00
change at all. I mean there's not a change in the characters. They
52:02
just gone They're going on an adventure essentially. Not only that, a lot
52:07
of it wasn't funny to me, I mean the whole Well, it's relative.
52:10
I could tear that thing apart, you know. But the funniest part
52:15
to me actually was when the naked Vietnamese guys the truck. That guy was
52:22
funny. He's a great child. Oh child was great. There looks So
52:27
I mean, comedy is always relative. Some people will look at an airplane
52:30
and go and Blazing Saddles and get offended like, well, no, okay,
52:34
now you just mentioned two of my favorite which they're amazing. Well the
52:37
two to the famous, right, I mean, the airplane is an absolute
52:42
classic, and so is Blazing Saddles. But there's a lot of people who
52:45
like, like my wife will watch Airplane. She's like, this is ridiculous.
52:46
Why would I watch She's she does not get it. And there's so
52:51
so comedy is always relative. But on a structural standpoint, I'm still looking.
52:54
I'm still looking for the whacking material. I found that section or the
53:00
the the chanting or non chanting section, which is which is great with the
53:06
Harry Christians. But if you look at Hangover, Hangover one, Hangover Too,
53:10
and Hanging More three essentially the same movie. But when I went to
53:15
see Hangover two, which was basically Hangover One, but in Thailand it was
53:20
all it was. It was just the exact same story, but just well
53:24
Alex, just because the audience loved Hangover One. They loved that structure,
53:29
so let's give it to them again. Absolutely. But that same director then
53:34
wrote and directed Joker, which was arguably one of the better films in the
53:40
comic book genre in my opinion, I don't know what you felt about Joker.
53:44
I haven't. I haven't seen it. So Joker is basically Taxi Driver.
53:47
It's Taxi Driver but with a comic book villain, and he's he's Travis
53:55
Prickle, to the point where they hired Travis Brickle to be in the movie.
54:00
Robert de Niro's in the movie, and Scorsese was gonna originally produce it.
54:02
He had to walk away from other products because he had other projects.
54:06
But I mean, there was it was so involved. So if if you
54:07
haven't seen Joker yet, you should watch Joker purely because it's it's Taxi Driver.
54:14
That's why people were losing their mind. People were like, this is
54:17
because if you if you released Taxi Driver today, people who wasn't that disguised?
54:22
Oh, I mean to anybody who's ever seen Taxi Driver could go oh,
54:28
this takes place in the seventies. It's I mean, he's not literally
54:31
a taxi driver, but the themes everything, the aesthetics like the psychotic,
54:39
yeah, the break the psycholic, the psychotic breakdown, the the aesthetics of
54:46
how it shot. It is so clearly taxi driver. And they make no
54:52
bones about it. They're like, oh, yeah, we were completely inspired
54:53
by it was it was a combination of King of King of Comedy and taxi
54:58
Driver. It's a mesh of those two. I'll go watch it. You've
55:00
got a lot of way speaking of taxi driver. You know the title of
55:04
our books. You're talking to me, and the thing is is that it's
55:08
a book about dialogue, how to write dialogue? Yes, and I'm big
55:13
revealed here that line was improvised. Yeah, I know, yeah, it
55:16
wasn't written. The funny thing is one of my friends who passed away.
55:22
He was the first date I think it was the first a d or the
55:28
upm on taxi driver, and he was in the room when they shot did
55:31
that. Okay, so you know the story he told me. The soular
55:35
He's like, yeah, that was just like the kind of Marty just kind
55:37
of had written No. No, of course he asked the near He says,
55:40
we need something with the mirror, can you can you improvise something?
55:45
So yeah, and in fact they did it once and the gun mechanism didn't
55:50
work right and so they had to do it again. Yeah, it was
55:52
nuts, But those are the things like people. Also a lot of screenwriters
55:57
also think that, like, oh, that was a genius writing. Like
56:00
a lot of times they do come up with it on the set. Now
56:02
here's here's the thing. If I were directing something that I had written,
56:07
we would first of all have a lot of table reads, and I would
56:10
make sure that the script is ironed out because I'm from the theater now,
56:15
yeah, and I've done Shakespeare and I've done Sam Shepard and I've done all
56:19
these you know, things in between, and I would want them to nail
56:24
down the dialogue before we go in front of the camera. I don't want
56:30
people, you know, let's make sure that we have it and we know
56:34
what our beats are, we know what our our modes and intentions are,
56:38
and let's let's do it right. If you're good actors, I've worked with
56:45
those actors and saying, Oh, I don't want to mess up my creative
56:46
thing. I would just say go back to acting school. Agreed, actors
56:52
need, but like like structure and understanding the craft, you need to understand
56:54
the basics first, but have have some leeway to play. Okay, I'll
57:00
tell you that I watched interestingly enough. I don't know how well talked Jennifer
57:06
Aniston is, but I saw some outtakes of her doing the same scene over
57:10
and over and over again. She's stuck to the script exactly, but every
57:15
single take was different. Yeah, she just presented it down. That's that's
57:21
great skill. No, I think that she's in the moment. I think
57:24
she's right there in that moment. And that's what was it? It Sandred
57:31
Meiser or somebody she says that a great actor. No, it's Antonina and
57:38
Oar Toad, the French crazy guy who wrote a theater in his double he
57:44
said, a great actor is one who is able to repeat a moment as
57:52
it for the first time. And that's what I'm giving at If if the
57:57
line doesn't work, let's fix the line. But then when you're in front
58:00
of the camera, by God, delivered right exactly. But but with that
58:06
said, there's also those magical moments that you can't write, like like a
58:09
midnight cowboy and midnight cowboy acrossing the street I'm walking down. Yeah, you
58:15
can't write that. You can't write. And then and there was a taxi
58:17
and he's like waving his hand. It looks so brilliant. We actually had
58:22
the same bible on that. Absolutely absolutely that that was absolutely and a lot
58:29
of people don't know that that wasn't that. That taxi driver was really real.
58:32
Almost he almost ran over Tousant Hoffman, John Boyd. It was just
58:37
writing character though. I mean, it was brilliant. It was absolutely brilliant.
58:42
Yeah, I know we could keep talking for at least another two three
58:45
hours. So but I'm going to I'm gonna ask you a few questions.
58:49
I ask all of my guests, what are three screenplays every screenwriter should read?
58:54
Oh god, I had no idea. I I I don't pick three
59:02
of your favorite scriefl it's any of them. Boy, Chinatown is a good
59:13
one for me, hangover. Obviously you got that one. Yeah, uh,
59:22
Chinatown. If you can't come up with any other ones, that's fine.
59:32
I mean, I've got so many of them that I don't want to,
59:37
like, I mean, it's not gonna be on your gravestone. You
59:39
could just spread out three names. It's fine, which you know, Uh
59:46
no, Butch Cassidy and back in the day, you know, William Goldman
59:52
was a go to guy. We'll be right back after a word from our
59:57
sponsor and now back to the show. And uh And I constantly quote one
1:00:07
of his or or explained one of his scenes about you know, Sundance not
1:00:14
wanting to jump off that cliff. But he has to make the emotionally challenging
1:00:16
decision, not because he's afraid of dying, because he's afraid of humiliating himself,
1:00:22
which I think is just a brilliant, brilliant choice. Uh you know,
1:00:27
you know for an actor to make you know that was emotionally That's what
1:00:31
when I talk about emotionally challenging decisions, that's one of the things I talk
1:00:36
about. It's fear of death is less than the fear of public speaking or
1:00:43
or humiliation humiliating yourself. Yeah. So ah, god what I think a
1:00:52
few good men is a good It's such a crazy I wouldn't recommend Godfather only
1:01:00
because uh, Copla did his own thing. And I think for a new
1:01:07
writer would be you know, it would take them off in a track they
1:01:09
can't quite well. It's kind of like it's kind of like studying you know,
1:01:14
Beethoven and Mozart at the start, at the start, yeah, before,
1:01:20
yeah, let's let's let's start with the baby stuff before you before Let's
1:01:24
yeah exactly, let's start really Hangover first, and then we'll go into the
1:01:29
Godfather. Hangover would be uh, would would be a distraction? No,
1:01:37
No, we got him, We got it, we got it. Well,
1:01:38
no, I give it to uh. You know, I I did
1:01:45
copy north By Northwest, but I totally changed it contemper rize. Well,
1:01:51
my agent at the time he said, take an old classic and then contemporize
1:01:55
it and disguise it. And then so I had another very close friend say,
1:02:00
oh, do north By Northwest, and so I did. And so
1:02:06
I think that's a Those are those are three great those are three great starting
1:02:08
points. All right, Okay, so I'll leave it with that. Now,
1:02:12
what advice would you give a screenwriter wanting to break into the business today?
1:02:16
What advice would I give them? Yes, Well, what you just
1:02:20
said, read lots of screenplays, watch lots of movies. But read all
1:02:23
the beginning books you know and read. Uh. I would suggest other than
1:02:30
for the first two books I suggest for new writers is Bogler's book and David
1:02:36
Trentier's book, and read Linda's book to read Linda is Making a good script
1:02:39
Great. Read those three. You can read the Sidfield book, in the
1:02:44
in the Michael Hag book, but also in conjunction with those books, also
1:02:51
study Darren Mark's book Inside Story, because it's all about character, character,
1:02:57
character, character. Darrah and I feel the same that everything in a story
1:03:04
comes from character. You name me something and I will take it. I
1:03:07
will track it all the way back to carry. The only thing that doesn't
1:03:10
is outside the story is genre. That's the mood, that tone, the
1:03:15
pace. And a good example of that is you know who, well,
1:03:20
you know who doctor Anton Chekhov was, and he wrote four great plays,
1:03:25
you know, a Seagull, cherry Orchard, three Sisters and Uncle Vanya and
1:03:30
a bunch of one acts. And he wrote them as social satires. They
1:03:36
were social satires. And Stanislawsky read them and constantin Sansvovsky them he says,
1:03:43
no, no, no, these are not satires. These are tragedies and
1:03:46
so and the rest is history. He produced them as tragedies instead of as
1:03:51
social But what I would love to do is take those plays and direct them
1:03:55
as social satires. Okay, but anyway, the point I'm making is that
1:04:00
everything comes from character, except that accept possibly genre. Now, what lesson
1:04:06
took you the longest to learn, whether in the film business or in life.
1:04:13
Letting go, yes, just realizing that you cannot. And I actually
1:04:25
my father said this when I was eleven or twelve years old, but I
1:04:29
didn't get it until many years of actually teaching piano and also consulting on screenplays.
1:04:39
That you cannot teach anything. You can facilitate another person's learning when they
1:04:46
are ready to learn it, that's good, And even then you have to
1:04:53
be able to I think the true gift of a teacher is understanding what doors
1:05:00
are open that you can enter and what knowledge can be dispensed as a result
1:05:06
that will build upon what's already known. But you cannot teach, and you
1:05:13
cannot impose knowledge on anyone. That's the biggest thing I had to learn.
1:05:17
That's in my obsessive, compulsive manner. I had to learn to let go
1:05:24
of needing to get other people to get something fair enough. And where can
1:05:30
people find you and your work and your new book with that you wrote with
1:05:34
Linda, Well, the book is on Amazon. And in the name of
1:05:39
the book again you're talking to me how to write great dialogue. And they
1:05:45
can find me at John Winston Rainey dot com and what else. That's pretty
1:05:54
much covers. And you do script consulting and I do, I do.
1:05:59
I yeah, consulting analysis, But those are not the real fun things.
1:06:04
The fun thing is just writing a good screenplay and I do that on you
1:06:11
know, people hire me all the time to write a screenplay. And I'm
1:06:15
pretty fast, all right. And I actually I'm still not in the union
1:06:19
by design, by choice, because I can charge whatever I want to charge
1:06:25
fair enough. John, thank you so much for being on the show and
1:06:29
dropping the knowledge bombs on the Tribe today. I appreciate it, my friend.
1:06:33
Well, it was it was a joy. It was absolutely joy.
1:06:35
I hope it works for you. I want to thank John for coming on
1:06:40
the show and dropping those knowledge bombs on the Tribe. Thank you so much.
1:06:44
John. If you want to get links to anything we spoke about in
1:06:45
this episode, including links to his books, you talking to me how to
1:06:50
write great dialogue and screenwriting style that sizzles. Head over to the show notes
1:06:55
at any film also dot com forward slash seven forty seven. If you haven't
1:06:59
already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com, subscribe and leave a
1:07:04
good review for the show. It really helps us out a lot, guys.
1:07:08
Thank you again so much for listening. Guys, As always, keep
1:07:11
that hustle going, keep that dream alive, Stay safe out there, and
1:07:14
I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast
1:07:17
at indiefilm Hustle dot com. That's I N D I E F I L
1:07:21
M h U S T l E dot com.