Joston Ramon Theney, Screenwriter, Author, Director, Producer: When you sit down to
write something you understand that it's a journey
and for some people it's not about the destination, it's just the journey.
Film Courage: How do you create a powerful and meaningful story?
Joston: I think it first has to be powerful and meaningful to you.
I try to now as I write, if I’m writing something that I just have to tell, it has to a lot of the
time speak to something maybe that I’m dealing with myself and I can work through a lot of it
in the script and I think that's why it wakes me up because it's something that
I’m figuring out that I’m working through and I’m working through it with characters.
I think it starts there. It has to be important and impactful for you and from there you can
begin to shape it so that it's something that is easily digestible for somebody who's maybe not
experiencing the same things as you or they're not going on that same journey with you so you want to
make it more relatable so that they can certainly see that journey and take that journey with you
what if someone asked you to write a screenplay and for hire and it's not a story that necessarily
you tap into but you're being paid well and you say all right i'll do it
but you just can't relate to the character to the story to the theme to the tone
funny enough that just happened and ultimately we long story short we just couldn't work together
that's just what it was oh wow okay the the story was just something I can't relate to
and the way I would have to be able to tell the story that other person who was the financier
they didn't they didn't want the story to go that direction so we were at an impasse and
we both had to say I don't think this is going to work for either of us because what you want
won't wake me up in the middle of the night that message is not a message that speaks to me it's
not a it's a throwaway message and I wouldn't want to create something that and spend months
working on something that I don't believe in I just I wouldn't want to do that to myself
and I wouldn't want to do that to someone who's paying me the money to do it I just I think it's
it's a bad idea so yeah that actually happened to me recently and did fairly soon into your
working with the person that this wasn't going to work this was going to happen I didn't know
it early enough I allowed us to go down the road too far and waste a lot of each other's time and
I normally don't consider something to be a waste of time if I learn a lesson but I think I learned
I think I understood things far sooner and I just let it drag on because I believed at some point
he would see what I was saying and as he began to speak with his partners they would see what
I was saying but unfortunately much like me he didn't have he did have partners but
they were out of the way they didn't have any influence on the project
so their opinions didn't matter so we're both people who don't report to anybody
so we both we had to just shake hands and say it's not going to work
that's fair yeah it's better that you cut your ties then than actually had it made
and it wasn't exactly what you felt well I wouldn't have been able to write it I just
I think that when you when you sit down to write something you understand that it's a journey right
and for some people it's not about the it's not about the destination it's just the journey but
I’m constantly keeping both in in mind the journey and the destination journey and the destination
so I know if this is the destination we agreed to to get to this is the best path to tell the story
and if that doesn't work and I see the alternative is a inferior version to that
then I have to say I don't think it's gonna click I don't think it's really gonna click because
that journey won't tell it won't be honest it won't be honest it's forcing something you know.
I don't want to say that but it's just it becomes it becomes like you're just pushing constantly
and trying to force something trying to force a circle in a square hole and you shouldn't do that
when you're writing especially in the beginning you shouldn't do that when you're developing the
screenplay that's when it's fun and that's when it's breezy and if you can't see the journey in
a fun and breezy way then it's time to kind of cut bait don't don't spend so much time working on it
for something that's it's not going to be fruitful for you in the soul nor from an experience
what are your thoughts on creating a meaningful story versus one that's commercial I think it all
depends on your goals if your goal is to create something commercial go for it I think that
there's no shortage of opportunities to create something commercial
there's no shortage of it because as you can see that's what's being thrown at most of us all the
time something commercial that has mass appeal and I think it's superficial I think it's easy
you can take the money and run it's it's what they call it legal bank robbery
it's if that's your thing I think that for a lot of people who are not
for people who are driven by quelling that voice inside
that won't really work I think you're always going to have to be making something meaningful whether
it's meaningful to you or meaningful to audiences in general because that's how you that's how you
you feed that thing inside of you right that need to get that that creativity out you're creating
creating something that means something to you in that moment if you're constantly if you are
a person who desires to make meaningful material and you're constantly having
to stuff that down while you make something commercial you're not living your best life
you're not living your best life and ultimately that's all we want to do that's all we want to do
as artists is live our best life create stuff and get it out there and then create something again
and get it out there and for for a great number of people creating something commercial is great
you you go out there it takes you maybe a couple weeks of work and it's off because
when it a lot of the times for especially for the stuff now that's like your marvels and
anything that's Disney related and it's high concept those guys have a paint by number formula
you can stack all those movies one on top of the other and they'll hit the same beats all the way
through and that's good that's awesome they know what their audiences want and those writers have
an easy job they know by this moment this needs to happen by this moment this needs to happen
if that feeds their soul or their bank account I say power to them hopefully
it does both hopefully does both but if you desire to make meaningful content you really
have to get that out even if you're a writer it's just writing the script
just purging it getting it out of your system and then you turn around and you
write something commercial but you have to get out of your system you have to feed that beast.
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