Speaker 1: 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 in the sewers. It's important to get it on the page and be a writer. Can we talk about that quote?

Speaker 2: Tony Davis Sure, that sounds great. I don't know when I said that. Film Courage Okay.

Speaker 1: It sounds good. All right.

Speaker 2: Tony Davis Yeah, sure. I guess probably at the time when I was when I said that 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 what I try to go for when I'm writing is what's the heartache and then what devastates me? And then I'm like, okay, now what's the levity? What's the, 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. And if I'm struggling, then there's joy. So 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, 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.

Speaker 1: I'm not sure. Film Courage When you work with your students, do you notice they tend to lean one side or the other in terms of some are more about the mediocrity and the messiness and the others are more about the beauty and you have to find a middle ground?

Speaker 2: They, most students have a hard time just getting into conflict. Always more, more. So it's especially beginning students or students in the second quarter where it's like, this is cool, but where's this conflict? And it's about finding, you know, when they're writing dialogue and 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. 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 dialogue. It'll inform how your character presents themselves in the room. It'll inform how the character interacts with other characters. So a lot of it is, yeah, push more conflict and at the same time, just write. When you just write and you get the first layer down, then it's funny to start noticing things where you're just like, oh, wait a second, that character might have a stepbrother 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 to the character. 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, yeah, that's where... So yeah, as students grow, I think a lot of it is just putting the time into writing and the rewriting and then they kind of start seeing the character laid out and then when the character is 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.

Speaker 1: Film Courage, 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 run the company, but we don't know that 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 the 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.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And, 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, I've noticed that they'll add their relationships in 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's like, okay, how am I interpreting this on my own? 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 is 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. That's when we don't see, 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 him 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 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 it gives them a huge opening to explore it in themselves, whatever part of the camera they're on.

Speaker 1: Film Courage, interesting. Right. So knowing when to get out of the way of your own work and allow the actor and the directors to kind of bring their own pieces to it.

Speaker 2: Oh, totally. Yeah. And especially for Jesus Jerk, I was a part of the whole process when I was on set every day 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 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 I felt like there needed to be an adjustment, I would never talk to an actor. I would just pull the director aside really quick and go, Hey, I knew it had to be a, it had to be a major thing. And I would just like, oh, this, this, and this, and he'd be like, okay, you turn around and 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 in 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.

Speaker 1: 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.

Speaker 2: I think the, 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 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. 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 their, 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.