Film Courage: Ben can you share some tips that Joe gave you not just about screenwriting
in general but about really pouring your heart into the script (pouring your whole life into
it)?
Ben Hernandez Bray, Writer/Director of EL CHICANO: One of the main ones I think Joe
taught me is trust your instincts.
That’s one of the biggest things as a writer and be true to the story, be true to yourself
and put everything on paper or now these days on a laptop.
Film Courage: What was that process like for you [writing EL CHICANO]?
Ben: It was hard.
It was tough because the story is so personal.
It took a long time.
This has been over 10 years so when you have something that is related to your family about
losing a brother and for me also losing a daughter, every single one of these characters
is someone that I grew up with was related to my family and also the neighborhood so
it’s tough.
It’s a process.
I found myself at times even when I was writing the memoir after a few pages you get emotional.
It’s really hard but you’ve got to work through it.
And Joe was always there for me.
Film Courage: Do you two almost have like a shorthand [version of communication] with
each other?
Where you already know what he’s going to say and you’ve already answered it?
Joe Carnahan, Filmmaker: Yes.
I think with any great friendship you develop a way of speaking to one another, a way of
interacting and it’s like my brother and I it’s the same thing.
We have these kind of inside jokes that we’re laughing at that other people find obnoxious
because they don’t know, you know what I mean?
Because that shorthand doesn’t exist, they don’t understand.
But there’s almost 20 years of knowing somebody and spending time with them so there is that.
And I think there is a likemindedness in Ben and I as artists.
I think we enjoy…we’re striving for the same things.
We don’t want these kind of artificial experiences.
We wanted to make EL CHICANO not only something that was not only singular in its kind of
vision but also in its unique sense of family, unique kind of emotional journey that the
character goes on that we both thought was very necessary and that’s kind of what we
strove for.
Film Courage: How usual or unusual is it for someone to spend 20 years behind the camera,
then getting their chance to direct.
Is this something that most people don’t realize about Hollywood?
Ben: It’s not unusual because we are storytelling.
Even as early as being a stuntman to then becoming a stunt coordinator and a second
unit director for Joe, I was very fortunate.
I had some people who really took me under their wing, Ron Stein being one of them who
was like a father figure when I first started in the business and it was like you can only
do this for so long as a young stunt guy you know?
It’s like being an athlete.
If you really want to have longevity I think you better learn lenses and learn story.
Of course I fell in love with the fact of being a storyteller.
In same way you are always directing, you are always coming up with ideas and with the
relationship I had with Joe it’s like this collaboration of when he was doing whether
it be the A-TEAM or THE GREY some of these films, sitting down and talking about storyboards
and what needs to be shot it was like you were in school.
Film Courage: We have a lot of screenwriters that watch our channel.
What do you think is the number one thing screenwriters do to ruin a screenplay that
they need to work on?
Joe: I think my thought on that Karen is they spend too much time over analyzing it.
I think that hopeful this new generation of writers is moving further away from the kind
of the…let’s call it the Robert McKee story and you know what I would find arguably
the dearth of good writing is to try to plug it into this formula this must happen at this
page.
That must happen at that page because I’ll find you an example throughout the history
of screenplays where you can confound whatever it is it’s put out there and I find that
very almost dangerously homogenizing a process which is by its very nature spontaneous and
creative and should be…I think when a writer stops being spontaneous or stops allowing
things to happen to the story, it’s when it’s dangerous.
Because in doing it also siphons off the individual nature of whomever that writer is and when
you see it done someone like Charlie Kaufman who writes masterful, very unusual, very specific
screenplays that’s why he’s regarded in the way that he is.
I think you’ve got to keep that in mind and never lose sight of the fact that you
are an individual and that screenplay should live and breathe in you.
Film Courage: Excellent, thank you!