Interview (Part 5): Jon Boyer

A conversation with writer whose script made the 2013 Black List.

From professional snowboarder to commercial director to Hollywood screenwriter, Jon Boyer has had an interesting journey taking him from Canada to Los Angeles. Recently I had the opportunity to talk with Jon about his background, his script “Free Byrd” which landed on the 2013 Black List, and his approach to the craft of screenwriting.

Today in Part 5, Jon shares his thoughts about some key aspects of the screenwriting craft:

Scott: What’s the status on the project now?

Jon: Without getting into details, because I can’t, they’re just basically penning all the deal right now. It’s being optioned with a very big star attached, and they’re just doing all the business side of it. I can’t say who, [laughs] but hopefully he’ll stay on the project, you know how these things go. But I think sometime in the new year, we’re going to have something to say.

Scott: OK, great. It’s definitely a story worth getting made into a movie, and I sure hope that happens for you, Jon.

Jon: Thank you. I really appreciate that.

Scott: Let’s jump into some craft questions. I always like to start with this and it’s funny because, when I do, oftentimes the writers will say, “God, I’ve never even thought about that.” How do you come up with story ideas?

Jon: From many different places. Like I said, this has been my third career. [laughs] I was a snowboarder, then a filmmaker/photographer, and now a writer. I have this deep love for photography and images. I get a lot of magazines and books. I used to have a bad magazine fetish, all these different photography books or magazines.

I have tons of photography coffee table books. I honestly flip through them all the time, still. A lot of times that just inspires something. Just an image. It can come from that. That’s where Free Byrd came from. I have another one that I’m writing right now that was inspired by a winter picture of a lone cabin with a single light on.

From that, I looked at it and went, “Ah, there’s a movie there.” I had to reverse engineer and come up with this entire story, character, everything, but that’s a big part of it. The imagery, like a photograph. A really great photograph is very inspiring to me. I also love history. I really love history and conflict, world global conflicts of whatever kind, something that is of note.

For instance, I was very interested in war photojournalists at one point because I was fascinated by a character, this person who would choose to run toward something that most people are running away from. And with absolutely no personal gain. All they want to do is find the truth. Something like that is really interesting to me.

Also I try to draw from just being an observer of human nature. I think the best thing you can do as a screenwriter is understand human nature. Everything of why we do or don’t do something all comes down to human nature.

Scott: You mentioned this one sheet, this one page that you’ve got with 12 sequence statements. That’s interesting, so basically every 10 pages or so, something significant happens?

Jon: Yeah. That’s something that I learned from Writers Bootcamp. I was kind of working on that before that, but once I saw how he laid it out with his tool set, I was like, “Oh, my God.” It just gets rid of all the crap, all the things that I’m over thinking. Once I land on an idea that I want to explore, I start with a premise statement, and it’s always a when, then, until track.

When this happens, then this happens, until this happens. The until is usually a low point. I guess you could call it a logline, but I prefer to call it more of a premise line. You look at, say a script is 120 pages, and there’s roughly 10page increments. The first act is in this set of tools. The first act is the first three. The second act is the next six. Then the third act is the final three.

I would just make every statement, the first one when this happens with the character, then this happens, until this happens. When I do that for every single sequence statement, it helps keep momentum going for the character, and it helps you find the dead spots in your story pretty quickly. It also helps you stay focused on your character’s intention where they want to go.

Throughout those, each sequence, to me, means something. There’s the inciting incidence sequence. There’s the introduction to the character in the world sequence. The inciting incidence sequence. The dynamic character introduction Who’s that character or that thing that’s going to push or pull your character through the story?

These 12 sequences, I just find that in trying to keep it down to very simple, pithy statements, it really helps you trim the fat off of your story, and find all of your holes, and find the true intention for your character, and be able to plot it out in a much cleaner way without it being too confusing.

Scott: Talking about it, you just mentioned character. How do you go about developing your characters?

Jon: I steal from everything. No writer is original. We’re all a bunch of thieves. If I find one person or a group of people that I meet and just take little bits from each one, and I do sometimes write a bit of a biography. I just ask questions.

I think the best way to find the truth to anything is ask yourself questions like, “Why does she do this? What does she want to do? Why does she wear leather pants?” You find your character that way.

I also do this thing where I write 50 windows into my character. 50 things my character might do that illustrates who they are. And then 50 moments that my character might find themselves in. I keep it simple and rough.

You might not get 50 but, in doing that, you will learn pretty quick what and who he or she is, I think. A lot of it is, if your character needs to be a misogynist, what does a misogynist do? Let’s try to write 50 things that they might do, or 50 instances that your character would get into that could define who they are. That’s one thing I do.

Tomorrow in Part 6, Jon gives advice to aspiring screenwriters.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Part 4, here.

Jon is repped by WME and Zero Gravity Management.

Twitter: @jonboyer.