Joston Ramon Theney, Screenwriter, Author, Director, Producer: The people who I've found
that I worked with repeatedly are people who they only want to see everyone around them succeed.
Film Courage: “The only person you should try to beat is the person you were yesterday.”
Joston: Yes.
Film Courage: Is that something you believe?
Joston: Yeah I believe that wholeheartedly I think that there's this I don't know I mean I
don't know where it comes from but there's a sense of competition in in the arts and
everybody is looking at their peers the person next to them and they're trying to
make sure they're one-upping that person and trying to be better than that person
and then they start following these weird trends and you find everybody doing the same thing and
their only sense of growth is that their sense of gross growth is measured by how far they've
distanced themselves from the next person and for me that's just that's not the case it's it's a it
makes it very tough to grow and I'm always trying to learn and grow in everything I do
and the only way you can really measure that growth is if you look at the work
that you've done before and how much more you've improved how much closer are you to achieving
whatever it is you see in your head because when I sit down and I write I've seen the movie in my
head and when I step on the set I'm ready to bring whatever's in my head to the screen and
how the way I gauge my own success and the way I gauge my own growth is by how much closer have I
gotten to that with each project I feel like in the beginning I was at maybe I think one of the
first films I did I said I was probably got like five percent of what was in my head on the screen
because it's all about learning how to communicate and and work effectively with everyone on the set
it's about the team where the teamwork makes a dream work right and it's about learning
how to work with your team how do you deliver the information that they need in a way that they can
understand and execute effectively and with each project I think you're supposed to grow and get
better at that communication and you can view the work to see your growth but if you're constantly
measuring yourself by what everybody else is doing where is your real growth
true let me just play the devil's advocate for a second though because sometimes
you can have a strong mindset like that but then you get individuals from the side and they want
to rope you into their competition and it's up to you to say oh I don't think I'm playing today
but we're human and we get I mean look the movie eighth grade for those of us who remember being
a female in eighth grade it reminds me a lot of that and there's still
an aspect of that to adult life and especially in entertainment
and so how do you handle when you can tell you're being challenged and roped into some kind of weird
competitive thing and you're saying no this is my path my lane is here your lane is there
and I think fortunately I haven't been wrote in that I do know a filmmaker who
I think they're in competition with me but I think that that's all in their head because in
order for it to be a competition two people have to be playing but I don't bother to participate
because I know what it is that I'm trying to accomplish I know what my lane is and
and the the kind of projects that I'm looking to create and how I'm looking to create them
and realistically the only person in that lane is is me and even if there was another person
who was doing this the same or something similar I would give them whatever knowledge I have to
help them succeed at whatever they're trying to accomplish because that's the way we all win is if
we're all helping each other I think that if you look at let's just say the the top one percent in
Hollywood right they all really know each other in some form of fashion this guy knew that guy
who worked with this guy and they came up and then this guy reached back and helped this guy and then
this lady helped this guy and this guy help this lady that's how it all went everybody helped
everybody get to where they are by not considering themselves competition by only wanting to see
their peers succeed I think that's the way it works so even if I did realize that someone was
trying to to rope me into this this competition I would just say what do you need for me to help you
that that's the conversation I I'd rather have how can I help you how can I help you I want to help
you grow and help you succeed I want to help you be the best you possible so let's start working
on that let's have that conversation you would he would really do that if you even if you saw
like their sort of underhanded tactics you would really want to help well I because I
guess their underhanded tactics what would they be for me I don't know what they would be for
me because I don't report to anyone I finance my own projects so who how can they be underhanded
what I mean I guess if they were trying to maybe influence an actor to not take the role
or something like that and I would just tell them ah that's not cool that you did that but I guess
it serves some sort of purpose for you you get some kind of satisfaction out of it but whatever
because ultimately it's not going to change the fact that I'm still going to create this project
it's it's not going to really change that fact and did you notice that more when you
came here to southern California or or it was the same in Georgia people are people
everywhere yeah I think people are people everywhere I think that here it's it's it's
there's a bit more fuel pushed into the fire because the stakes are so high and the
opportunities are so small I think that that puts a little bit more fuel in the fire but in saying
that the people who I found that I worked with repeatedly are people who they only want to see
everyone around them succeed they're constantly trying to find opportunities to to bring in more
people that would find some sort of benefit from whatever they're doing and that's what's made
me keep working with them and I see them being successful as well I see them being successful now
and it's it's all because they'd much rather focus on reaching back and being of use
than trying to compete just be of use I told you that was one of the things I learned from
john singleton be of use be helpful never ruin a good day by thinking about a bad yesterday yeah
that's a good one yeah leave leave that stuff in the past whatever it is leave it in the past
it's not it's not helpful it's not helpful I found a lot of people who sit back and still
talk about that film they made that one time that many years ago and this person
ticked them off and it was this person's fault and it was that and it was this and it was
leave that stuff alone leave it in the past learn your lessons and take those
lessons moving forward and apply them to whatever you're trying to create today
if you keep focusing on what happened yesterday you have no appreciation for what's happening to
you right now in the present and you definitely can't really plan for the future because you're
too busy thinking about what happened yesterday yesterday is gone it's gone
so just just leave the problems of yesterday back there and take the lessons you learned with you
like that one story of the guy that drives around with no rear view mirror they say how
come you don't have a rear view mirror and he says I don't need to see where I've been
that's a great one that's a great one I'm not sure if it's a real story but
I've heard other people say it so yeah do you think we can really live
without pain and regret do I think it's possible to live without pain and regret
I definitely think so I definitely think so I think that the pain is
just your way of well in in some instances I can't speak to all kinds of pain because some
pain comes from the grief of losing someone or so so I can't speak to that type of pain but
I can take to talk to the pain of any regret of making poor decisions and I think that ultimately
that kind that type of pain and that type of regret is you understanding you've done something
you've done something wrong whether it be just incorrect or something actually wrong
and you need to actually fix that and learn your lesson from that move forward and take that lesson
with you if you are constantly growing from the things that are happening to you in life if you're
constantly taking those lessons and moving forward to make sure they don't happen again I do think
you can live without that pain and that regret that type of pain and that type of regret yeah
certainly Joston can you explain to us why having a plan b I believe used to be very important to
you and then it changed oh yeah that's easy if you have a plan b you'll most often use a plan b
you'll never go as hard after plan a if you think you have something to fall back on
throughout my entire life everything I've done has been somewhat involved in the arts I told you
before I drew comics I wrote stories short stories I was in the band I did I was in the in the chorus
as well I'm not a good singer though I was but the thing about it is it's always been in the arts and
the arts have always been something I pursued but I've always been told always have a plan
b always have a plan b always have a plan b so even going to college I had a plan b
I knew that I wanted to be in the arts I knew that I wanted to write but I all I felt back on
ROTC because I'd always been in ROTC even in high school so I fell back on that and I had something
to work with if nothing else worked I could take up something in the military but ultimately as I
moved further and further throughout this career and I grew more and more inside of the career
in this industry I started to realize I never went as hard after my plan a because I was
always focusing on keeping my plan b healthy and all that energy that I was putting into plan b
and constantly thinking of if if this doesn't work I can escape here and if this doesn't work I
can escape here because I spent so much time doing that I was taking away a lot of energy from plan a
where if I had invested all of that and went full bore into that you I would have been
much more successful quicker I think that I do believe opportunity means preparation and maybe
it was the opportunities were coming along much later but I think I would have created
all new opportunities had I focused really hard or and just more on plan a I think that Warren
Buffett said you only have to be right 51 of the time that's it you only have to be right 51
of the time to be successful and if you were throwing everything you had at plan a
the chances of your success improve greatly they just do I don't know too much about rotc but
how much of that training or being around like minds helped you sort of be resilient and maybe
take things less personal than others might take well I think that more than anything it
teaches you accountability and responsibility and when you hold yourself accountable for something
it doesn't really matter other people's critique of whatever you do is it's either constructive or
not and if it's not you just toss it away because you yourself are holding yourself accountable to
a higher standard than than most other people would hold you to anyway so I that's more than
anything else is what I took away from ROTC just that accountability and and the responsibility
sure so showing up not only showing up but but showing up and being prepared more prepared
than everybody else is know know as much as you possibly can about everything that's going on
and try to make try to apply that to whatever your specific task is you know.
What do you like about this video?