Film Courage: Tony, we have a quote from you and it is “Writing is about putting life on the page.
It's about finding the amazing in the mediocrity and the beautiful and the sewers.
It's important to get it on the page and be a writer.” Can we talk about that quote?
Tony DuShane, Writer/Podcaster/Teacher: Sure, that sounds great. I don't know when I said that?
It sounds good. I guess probably at the time when I was probably thinking of just
getting life's messiness and the beauty on the page or on the screen if we can because
that's where I try to go for when I’m writing is What's the heartache? What devastates me?
Now what's the levity? Where can where can I find the emotional breath in it? Because
just as I continue to write and live I just find out Oh wait, everything is kind
of suffering and struggle but there's a lot of joy in it. If I'm struggling then there's joy
I guess for putting it on the page. We condense it into a tincture of
our struggles and our joys because when it's you know whether we're writing a novel or a screenplay
the it's so much more boring than our real life our real life is very boring and the screenplay
is a condensed version of it so if we can just condense those the beauty and the awfulness of
just being a human and then just kind of move it around in a lovely tragedy sad comedy way I think
that's maybe that's what I was trying to get at I'm not sure when you work with your students do
you notice they tend to lean one side or the other in terms of some or more about the mediocrity
and the messiness and the others are more about the beauty and you have to find a middle ground
they most students have a hard time just getting into conflict always more more
so it's it's especially beginning students or students in the second quarter where it's like and
I'm like this is cool but where's this conflict and open and and it's about finding you know when
the writing dialogue and I and I you know I see what they're doing with their characters I'm like
oh this is sexy you know I'm noticing something about this character's relationship to the mother
what do you know the three-dimensional character of the mother that she's referring to because
if you know that then you'll know more about that character and you don't need to say all of it but
you need to know it and that will inform your your dialogue it'll inform how your character
presents themselves in the room it'll inform how the character interacts with other characters
so so a lot of it is yeah push more conflict and at the same time
just write when you just write and and get and you get the first you get the first layer down
then then it's funny to start noticing things where you're just like oh wait a second that
character might have a a step brother who does blank and you don't even need to add that to the
screenplay or to the story but having that little bit of backstory brings in another dimension of
the character and it's sometimes when it gets to a director when it gets to an actor they're feeling
something deeper because you put something deeper in there so they can dig into something deeper
and I feel like that's when the beauty happens and we don't tell each other what the deeper
was we let everyone do their own deeper and then then they then yeah that's that's where
so my student yeah as students as students grow I think a lot of it is just putting
the time into writing and the rewriting and put and just and then they kind of start seeing the
character laid out and then when the characters laid out oh wait a second it's funny how I put
that dialogue in I didn't even notice at the time but they may have a problem with blank and
explore that blank and then come back and go does this work in here no but I know that this person
has a problem with that and kind of layer it in later in the story interesting so let's suppose
I'm going to write something about a Ceo and this Ceo is very sort of he has almost like
a dictatorship relationship with his employees but what we don't know is his father used to to
run the company but we don't know that as as the viewer as the reader and his father was even more
of sort of a he had like a general that you know ruled with an iron fist so if we knew that as a
writer but we don't have to tell people it's kind of in our back pocket then then it might help with
how our main character interacts we know that he has this history with his father
yeah and we can we can put subtle breadcrumbs in there to write it that way and when it gets to a
director they may see it the use I've noticed that they'll add their relationships and their past
to the stories so it might not even be a father it could be an old boss they used to work with and
then so they put a dynamic to that and then when it gets to the actor the actor is like okay how am
I interpreting this on my own what what does this mean to me and so they'll see how this character
is acting if they're acting like like they're a dictator they'll also know that in their mind
that that that character believes that they're doing the best they can for humanity
it's like they're the hero of their own story even if they're awful people but so it's like finding
that balance of where is the humanity because that humanity's coming from somewhere so it could come
from abuse of a father it could come from so many different other things it could come from where
they grew up how they grew up and they feel like what they're doing is right to bring in the whole
to bring in whatever group they're trying to bring in and that's when that's when the beauty happens
and that's when we don't see we we know it as screenwriters but then we don't say it and then
it's fun to see a director go oh and then they just kind of see them start to bring their own
stuff in they see the actor bring their own stuff in and just don't ask any questions just let them
do their thing that's that's when the great directors and the great actors are just like
they pull it together so we got to do our part on the page and then that it makes it it's
it gives them a huge opening to explore in themselves whatever part of the camera they're on
interesting right so so having so knowing when to get out of the way of your own work
and allow the the actor and the directors to kind of bring their own pieces to it oh totally yeah
and and when especially for [Tony’s book, Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk] Jesus Jerk
I was a part of the whole process so when I was on set every day and and I just I was fortunate
I've taken acting classes and I took classes on directing you know like 20 years ago and
then when and then when all when all that came together it's like everything came together of
oh okay I kind of knew what to do and what not to do when I got on set and it was just like
let it breathe and then when when I felt like there needed to be an adjustment I would never
talk to an actor I would talk to the I would just pull the director aside really quick and go hey
and it had to be a it had to be a major thing and I would just like go this this and this and
he'd be like okay he turned around he goes you know what let's try something else and
he would be taking my note but it wouldn't be it's it's there's a beauty and finesse I guess
to to letting people do their jobs and you want to let people do their jobs because they are good at
their jobs you know so with your students when it's a new writer and and you you want to bring
out more in them maybe maybe they're afraid of putting in conflict maybe they've been told oh
let's only say nice things we don't want to we don't want to be you know a bad person or whatever
how do you how do you coax them to not not do something overly salacious where anyone's harmed
but let's bring some realism to it I think that I think the conflict's already there
sometimes I call it the agreeables so if there's a if they send me two pages of a scene and it's
agreeable then those characters can't agree with the outcome but they can't agree to what
the outcome is how to get to the outcome so they they their point of view needs to be very
needs to be almost like what would you say maniacal because their point of view is right
on the page to get to that outcome and they both want to get to the same outcome but to get there
there's got to be friction amongst themselves so if if they're agreeable then I then that's
when I'm just like what's your character's point of view on this exactly why do they want to get
there what's behind there's okay what's behind them what if you know if they're sisters what
conflict do they have with being siblings if you know if they're just best friends
what conflict do they have if they're cops in a buddy movie great they're buddies but these
buddies are going to be at odds with each other on how to get to where they both want to go.
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