Film Courage: What makes a story boring?
David Willis, writer/producer: What makes a story boring?
Uggh….anything with superheroes.
Sorry!
I don’t like superhero movies.
Film Courage: Why?
David Willis: I sat down and watched like a dozen of them once.
I might as well look at these.
I’m not giving these a fair shot.
A guy running around in tights…if you’re running around in tights you should either
be sword fighting in the 16th century or in a ballet (ballet is great).
But I just never buy into it.
They’re fun, I get why people like them.
I figured out why they are popular even though I’m not the audience because it’s replacing
belief.
The single largest believing demographic in the United States under the age of 30 are
the non-believers and so faith is having less importance in life in America today and I
think it’s being replaced with the mythology of the superheroes because you get to see
the ancient Roman Gods, the ancient Greek Gods, they had a whole pantheon…and now
this has taken its place…and you can dress up like them and you can go to Comic Con and
you can engage in your “faith.”
I don’t know…that’s my theory.
That’s my crazy writer theory.
Film Courage: Interesting.
So then a non-superhero movie.
What makes a non-superhero movie boring?
Take that out of the equation?
David Willis: What makes it boring?
Film Courage: Or a story in general?
I know you talked earlier about it before before, not enough conflict or passive characters?
David Willis: I think a story is boring if it doesn’t matter.
If there are no stakes.
If the people in the movie, if they don’t care a lot about what is happening (what they
are doing), then the audience won’t care.
That’s to me what makes a story boring.
If you are watching a character and they need $10,000.00, why do they need $10,000.00?
Are they paying for their child’s operation to save their life, that’s important.
I’d be like “Oh, that matters.”
Are they just trying to buy a car so they can go to work?
Okay, that’s a real thing I guess but so what, you know?
James Bond, does he have to harm this guy because the guy took his parking space or
is he doing it to save the world.
The French can make movies about being boring and make those work.
There are certain indie films where you can actually delve into that in a deeper way.
But for me that’s it, if the stakes aren’t there, if the story…if the hero succeeds
or doesn’t succeeds or whatever, why does it matter.
If it doesn’t matter, I don’t care.
Film Courage: So for you when you go to see a film and I know you said lately you’ve
been so busy with all this [his success crowdsourcing campaign] you don’t even have time to watch
television but before all of that could you tell in the first few minutes if something
is going to be boring?
David Willis: My girlfriend (bless her heart) has to listen to me after the first few minutes
say “This is what this movie is about” because I just can’t help it.
But like we recently saw THEIR FINEST.
THERE FINEST is a British film about a woman who is hired to make propaganda films in WWII
in England and in the first few minutes of that movie they bring you to London (WWII)
under the blitz.
There are things coming down and there is this young woman who needs a job because her
husband is having a hard time getting hired.
And so she needs a job and she goes into the office (the propaganda film office of the
British government) they call her in and the stakes are there for two reasons: if she doesn’t
get a job she and her husband are in trouble and if she doesn’t make good propaganda
films, the public that is being bombed may feel more bleak.
Whereas if she does a good job with these films, they will feel better.
Now we know how WWII ends so…who wins here?
But we don’t know how individual people felt in London at the time being bombed (so
that’s a mystery, we’re going to find that out).
So immediately the first 5-6 minutes of the film you care if she gets this job and if
she’s good at it.
Film Courage: What was it about those stakes?
Because I mean the storyline sounds great but if someone else did it and the stakes
weren’t there…there must have been little nuance about how they drew you in that made
you sit up on the edge of your seat a little bit?
David Willis: Well, they had several kinds of stakes.
First of all: The War, the big stakes, the broad stakes, the moral of London.
The morale of England, those were the big stakes.
Then they had the personal stakes: she was a woman who brought her in…this film office
was run by all men, okay.
And they were very dismissive of her.
They were told by a higher up that the propaganda films that they were making that the female
dialogue was terrible and so they said “Well, let’s bring in this girl and she’ll write
the female bits.”
And they bring her in and they’re very dismissive and “We’ll do all the rest of the work
my dear.
You do all of the female bits.”
And they were very dismissive of her.
So right away there is this chauvinism appropriate for the time and you’re like “Hey, that’s
not right…2017.”
So there are these immediate personal stakes, as well.
So they added a layer to it that was threaded throughout the movie.
But it wasn’t just all about girl power.
They moved beyond that later in the movie and made it even deeper.
Film Courage: Sure.
But those different layers (it sounds like) drew you in.
There were the higher stakes, then her stakes at home and then you add this combative environment
that she has to go into.
So there were many things?
David Willis: Right.
Film Courage: When you see a movie that within the first 5 minutes it falls flat, are we
only seeing one layer?
Is that sometimes why?
David Willis: [Shakes his head].
Film Courage: It sounds like we really can’t break it down to a science?
David Willis: Yeah, it if was a science you’d have computers do it.
Nobody knows what’s going to be a hit and what isn’t.
And there are so many factors in making a movie.
So many factors from the script to what the directors doing with the, and the cast.
One actor may make a character sympathetic.
Another different actor may make them annoying.
There are just so many factors.
By the way, I like the name of your website (Film Courage).
I’m curious how you came up with that because it takes courage to make a movie.
Even if you make a bad movie…even if you make a bad movie…it still takes courage.
I’m not talking about the fake kind of courage that Apple has when they take away your headphone
jack on the iPhone but it does take courage and to make a good movie takes even more courage.
You have to take a chance, you have to go out on a limb.
You have to do something that hasn’t been tried before because if we’ve seen it all
before, why do we want to see it again?
Film Courage: Why does it take courage?
Because it seems like if it’s in you and it [The Story] just pours out, wouldn’t
nothing stop you?
Or is it putting it out in the public space and holding it up to the light for scrutiny,
that’s where the courage comes into play?
David Willis: Well, that definitely but to do it in the first place…but to go into
show business in the first place, on the face of it is a stupid idea.
300 people move to Los Angeles every day to become actors, okay.
That is a million people over 10 years who’ve come here just to be actors.
Now the odds…if you just look at the numbers…the odds of you becoming successful as an actor
are terrible.
As a writer, they are terrible.
So if you look at it logically you say “Well, I’m not going to do that.
I’m going to become a doctor.
I’m going to do something else.”
Because there is a very clear path.
I get my degree, I go to medical school, I become a doctor.
It’s clear, it’s logical, it’s reasonable.
So to even go into show business take courage because the odds are you’re going to fail
so the people who make it are the ones who can’t do anything else.
And by that I mean, they won’t get out of bed for anything else, they just can’t.
They have to do it.
They are driven to do it.
Those are the ones who don’t give up and keep going because they can’t do anything
else.
They just keep doing it.