Interview [Part 5]: Frank DeJohn and David Hedges [2013 Nicholl Winners]
Frank DeJohn and David Hedges are one of five recipients of the 2013 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting for their historical drama screenplay “Legion”. It’s a terrific story set in the latter days of the Roman Empire and garnered a lot of attention for the duo including being hired by A&E to write “The One”, described as a “coming-of-age story of exploring Jesus’ early life and formative years as he comes to learn he is the Son of God and is destined for greatness.”
Frank and David have had an unusual path to Hollywood success, so I was pleased to be able to interview them at length about their respective backgrounds, their script “Legion,” and their approach to the craft of screenwriting.
Today in Part 5, Frank and David share some tips on the craft of screenwriting:
Scott: You’ve been doing this for many years, so I’d be curious to ask you some craft questions, okay?
Frank: Sure.
Scott: First, how do you come up with story ideas?
Frank: I am always on the search for some incident; some event that has a human interest angle that has slipped under the radar. A good example is the story of Louis Zamperini the subject of the upcoming movie UNBROKEN. That fabulous story was out there waiting to be discovered for decades until the author found it.
I like to look is through newspaper archives. Pick a period of history you like and check out the stories.
David: I’ve tried scouring the headlines, and I’ve never gotten a good story that way. It just may not be the way I write.
I think we’re more aware now than probably we ever were before that if you don’t have a good idea to begin with, you’re wasting your time to try to chase it down.
Scott: That speaks to the next question, which is this idea of the story concept. You have this character for “Legion”, the Caelius character, but the underlying concept is survival against odds, three days in a fort, like a contained action story. How important do you think the story concept is to the overall strength and viability of a spec script?
David: It’s critical. You have to step back and ask if the overall concept is something that is going to be entertaining. Is it going to be a good story to tell?
Scott: I know you said you are the kind of writers who work up an outline. What is your prep process like?
David: I think we’re going to continue to do that. Frank likes to write scenes without an idea of where it’s going. That’s how he gets his creative juices flowing. We have an idea. We talk about it. He sits down and writes scenes.
I have a hard time doing that. Maybe it’s my other job, but I need to know where we are going. What time do we arrive? What does it look like? Who is going to be there? I have to have all these questions answered before I depart on this mission.
I wouldn’t say it’s a struggle between us, because it’s probably a good thing that we go back and forth on that.
Frank: The bottom line is before we really start to write the script, we make sure that the outline is complete. While we’re writing if we get stuck and it’s not working, we go back to the outline before we continue on with the script.
David: Scott, don’t you agree that you are always running into this issue where you have the structure and you have characters but it isn’t always necessarily your character making the decision to do what needs to be done? Because honestly, if you always allow the character to decide what he’s going to do, he will probably make the boring decision and not do anything, and you wouldn’t have a good movie.
Sometimes, there’s a fine line between allowing your characters to speak to you, and also making sure that they make decisions that are worthy of being in a movie.
Scott: [laughs] That’s said. That kind of little dance with you, where sometimes we are in the story universe with them, just observing them, and then there are other times when we are outside that story universe, and we are kind of poking the elephant.
David: That’s one of the difficult things about screenwriting. You don’t know when you are supposed to do one or the other. Recently, I was re-writing a scene in Legion, and it wasn’t working. I couldn’t figure out why. Then I realized the reason it wasn’t working was because one of the characters was looking at me like, “What are you writing? This is not something I would do.” That’s the moment when the character saves you from writing something that’s dull and uninteresting. The character remind me: “Here is how I would make this scene wonderful.”
Scott: That speaks to the next question which is, how do you go about developing your characters? Are there any recurring techniques you use, or tips you have on how you get to know them?
Frank: That’s a great question. That’s something I think we have the most fun with developing the character profiles and their arcs. I like to work up biographies for each major character the same way an actor would prepare for a role. Get to know them inside and out.
David: Frank is good about doing that; he wants to know where the guy came from. I never do that. I’m terrible at it…
Frank: When you start talking about a character, you want to know where they have been. What has happened in their lives before your story takes over.
I want to know what Marcus Caelius’ wife is like, how close is he to his daughter. How does he view his years of service in the Roman legions? The answers you dream up will influence your writing of the character.
David: I’m bad at it. I try to do it, I just can’t.
[laughter]
David: It’s like reading a resume. Now I don’t want to even talk about the character anymore, because he just seems really boring.
Scott: Clearly, you two need each other!
[laughter]
Frank: Thank you!
Scott: I’ve written with two partners. You come to understand your strengths and weaknesses, and rely on each other’s strengths. It sounds like you all have managed to identify those things and play to that.
Frank: Yes, that’s right. The important thing is that it works and we have a good time doing it. It’s work sure, but it’s also a lot of fun.
Tomorrow in Part 6, David and Frank offer some advice for aspiring writers.
For Part 1 of the interview, go here.
Part 2, here.
Part 3, here.
Part 4, here.
David and Frank are repped by UTA and BenderSpink.
Comment Archive