Indiewood

Writing Secrets From Actor-Turned-Writer JJ Hawkins

• Cinematography for Actors • Season 8 • Episode 3

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On this episode of the Indiewood Podcast, we return with JJ Hawkins, a multifaceted actor, producer, and writer, where we talk about all things screenwriting. From writing short films to feature-length movies, we unpack the intricacies of balancing narratives, writing with imperfection, the transformative power of deadlines, and the significance of embracing collaboration.

JJ and Yaro will also discuss the importance of understanding character motivations, the impact of unexpected performances, and the essential role of actors in bringing a script to life.

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A Podcast for Indie Filmmakers

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In the world of social media, and fast-paced journalism, knowledge is abound. But with all the noise, finding the right information is near impossible. Especially if you’re a creative working in independent film.

Produced by Cinematography For Actors, the Indiewood podcast aims to fix that. This is a podcast about indie filmmakers and the many hats we wear in order to solve problems before, during, and after production.

Every month, award-winning Writer/Director Yaroslav Altunin is joined by a different guest co-host to swap hats, learn about the different aspects of the film industry, and how to implement all you learn into your work.

"We learn from indie filmmakers so we can become better filmmakers. Because we all want to be Hollywood, but first we have to be Indiewood."

Speaker 1

welcome back to the anywood podcast, a podcast about independent film and the many hats filmmakers wear in order to get those films made. This month, I've been talking to a wonderful creative actor, producer, writer, jj Hawkins, who has told me about a journey from theater to television to writing and now producing, and we've talked about the short film you did and all your obstacles and moments of growth and your beats, your pivotal plot points in your life and your career. Yes, we have. I think that's a good segue to talk about writing and specifically, the things you've been writing for yourself and for others recently. So after Golden Boys, which was the first script you wrote, that was produced, that was made, did you write anything before?

Speaker 3

that. So before that I had written some pilots. So nothing that ever got made, but things that I was inspired to write. I I have always Gravitated towards been drawn to grandmas, so grandmas grandmas, so grandmas, grandmothers, ladies of a certain age, ladies of a certain age, but specifically grandmas because, it was me for my you know, my relationship with my grandmas is where it stemmed from but, of course.

Speaker 3

So I do really love the golden girls, hence the golden boys. It was. It was all connected and the the stuff I had worked on before then were were things like um, it was all kind of themed that way. It was very much about like a trans boy and his grandma and that's that alone.

Speaker 1

I would love your version of grandma's boy. Yeah, yeah, wouldn't you, can you just sequel. It's like me like you and three, three like old ladies in the house.

Speaker 2

Oh, you're talking about my dream. That's what you just said.

Speaker 3

Oh my god, but yeah so again pilots, but nothing that had ever been produced, just just ideas written down and not even really ever seen my pitches through either.

Speaker 1

So just to just to give clarity, I had written but, nothing that had gotten and then, uh, we went from golden boys to now you've written, uh, a feature. Anything else besides that?

Speaker 3

no, so I am currently writing this currently so so we're on draft three things are going.

Speaker 1

Well, you know it's done it. There's a version of it that's done. There is a version of it that's done.

Speaker 3

Yes, I I'm definitely at a place where I'm like, I've written it, it's there.

Speaker 3

It's complete Now we're just rewriting Now. We're rewriting, we're editing, we're getting it into that perfect, producible script. But yeah, frankly, after the Golden Boys I did write it we are going to turn it into a series with actually four trans boys okay, a la the golden girls and I had that pitch, had started pitching it, and then strikes, so that that is still in my pocket, but it definitely was like oh, we're on a writer's strike yeah, we are not writing, so I am like setting that to the side, and that's when I started producing like indie features.

Speaker 3

That that was what came up then. So now, and only in this project that I'm writing right now, did writing really come back in full force. So there was kind of a lapse of time there where I wasn't writing.

Speaker 1

So now, as a full-fledged screenwriter whose work has been produced. Yeah you're right? Yeah, you're. You're writing a feature which I think is um a behemoth task. You know, sometimes you can, it can fall out of you in a couple weeks and sometimes it'll take years to craft yeah, that's so real, what it needs to be what challenges are you facing as an actor when you're trying to craft something that's a bit more bigger than a short film, bigger than a series, where it's this narratively robust film?

Speaker 3

you know, it is really hard not to get lost in the robustness of it. It's it's so big that I mean it's like you kind of start and you see where you're going, you've got an outline, you, you're, you're headed somewhere, but then how do you not get caught in those weeds? How do you especially you know, my partner said it best it's like there's just something intimidating about a 120-page document. I mean, that's just so many pages. It's just kind of like where are we? What's going on? What have we said?

Speaker 3

It's like, once it's all written, it is hard to like keep track of Every single arc, of every single character and every single scene throughout the whole time and how it all builds it. It's it just requires so much like combing through, but then, in a weird way, combing through is also getting you kind of lost in the weeds and you have to kind of go back between the macro and the micro and it's like it's very intimidating. This is definitely by far the longest thing I've written, because even before it's all been pilots. I've always been like tv and film has been really like new relatively in my career. So, and then the only other thing I've written was a short film in the film world.

Speaker 3

So having like a feature and being like this is just so many fucking pages there's just so much happening and it's like, even though, as the writer, especially you like, know it, you know it in a way that that others really don't, it's like in you it's still, it's, it's getting through again the robustness for sure I do you feel your brain works better in tv space or in feature space?

Speaker 3

that's a really good question. I feel like, as a writer, probably, probably, probably feature okay, I mean, which is funny, that I I've written more pilots, because even as I think of sorry, even as I think of the pilots that I do want to get produced, I don't want to be in the writer's room, yeah.

Speaker 2

So I'm like I want to pitch it, I want to get you a good pilot, but then so I'm like I want to pitch it, I want to get you a good pilot, but then I want, like TV writers, to take it from there.

Speaker 1

Yeah, so I'm like.

Speaker 3

So actually, when it comes to just me writing, I mean, I do really like the film, but that makes me think of maybe a miniseries might be where those two worlds combine. Where it's like this is one story. It does kind of require a couple episodes, but it's like one story. It's not the things that I've pitched thus far have been like sitcoms, that I want to just like build such characters that you can just kind of like use a formula and keep going for seasons, but like a specific narrative.

Speaker 3

Miniseries might be something I haven't tried. Maybe that, maybe that'll be a sweet spot for my brain can't do tv.

Speaker 1

I I'm like I need the beginning and the end and then, yeah, tv it's just. Oh, then what? I'm like, what do you mean? The story ends right, then we're done, we go home, yeah, we take a nap or whatever.

Speaker 3

The audience is gone, no one's here to watch this a lot in the pitches to be like. And then here are the season arcs and here's the multi-season arcs that we foresee. It's like you gotta really like zoom out as a tv writer.

Crafting Scenes With Imperfection

Speaker 1

That makes sense yeah, well, for this feature specifically that you're writing with all these kind of obstacles that you're facing, specifically the the endless possibility of options you have for this feature, what are the tricks that you've learned to really hone in on the story and the plot and the characters, and and how do you sit with the script every single time and and find the momentum to keep moving forward?

Speaker 3

I. I think that's, you know, a multi-facet question that requires a multi-facet answer. So I think the thing that helps me be a better writer is reading better scripts. I feel like the best thing for my writing was reading scripts. That I was like. This is stunning, and because which is different than watching good movies? Like reading good scripts is a totally different art, and because you're seeing it at that point in the process you're not seeing the.

Speaker 3

I mean they say you make a movie three times, right, you write it, and then what you film, and then what you edit, it's like it becomes something else by the time it's produced. And so, like, reading good scripts really taught me like, oh, this is how you can write a good script. And then to like, keep myself going to sit down and do it. Man, this script, I have a co-writer, we're writing it together. I'm the lead writer, writer, but still having someone else keeping you there, giving you like, because of course, we're making our own um deadlines, but still there's someone else who's holding you to it, it's not just you being like I'll have this in on friday.

Speaker 3

And then it's like, well, thursday night I was kind of sleepy, so you know, like pages, yeah, and this is actually something that that we did and that we're doing with this as well, speaking of deadlines, is submitting it to programs or festivals, because that gives you, like a really external deadline. And even if you end up not like going or winning, of course, and in these programs or festivals or whatever, it really helps to be like we got to have this done by this date, so you like make it happen.

Speaker 3

I think that is like the thing I see more than I see anything else in this industry is absolutely incredible ideas that just don't see the light of day, that there's a difference between, like the perfect film in your head and the film that gets made and people cannot let go of the perfect film in their head to get something made yeah and and it's like that's the number one thing I see, you know, is like let it be imperfect, but people like really really can't, and I think a deadline really helps people, pushes them through, that you know uh, funny, you mentioned imperfection, because I doing the artist's way, um talking about or kind of exploring this idea of perfection, because that's always been my crux is like, yeah, perfect yeah, and I'm like well, perfection doesn't exist and through this exploration of my craft and and my art.

Speaker 1

I realized and I keep kind of repeating this mantra to myself that there is greatness within imperfection, because every piece of art that we see, every story that's great, there's this imperfectness in it that we can find and through that imperfectness we find greatness within that story. Now they become epics. Gilgamesh isn't finished, it's an epic. People go back to it and you know like but, yeah, there's, there's, there's imperfection uh in greatness or greatness in imperfection I, I think that is.

Speaker 3

Oh yeah, have you cross-stitched that into something yet?

Speaker 1

because I need to make like a like a t-shirt out of it or yeah, yeah, you do, or or ugly christmas sweater or all the bow oh yeah, all the I'll make a. Oh, that's gonna be the merch for that's gonna be the merch for indywood is is mantras and quotes that I've dug up out of my creative, because that is the summary of it.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

And I feel like you can use I mean most of the time. Perfectionism is just a tool for harming yourself anyway. Yeah, so it's like if you can embody that, there's greatness in imperfection. If that's a hack for you, do it like just make the imperfect thing, make even give yourself more allowance.

Speaker 1

Make the shitty thing yeah, you might be, that's actually a, really, because this is a good segue to talk about craft. That's what people actually do, uh, when they get stuck on something like, what's the bad version of this? You?

Speaker 1

know yeah like I, I'd love to talk to you about scene work and kind of explore your, your techniques for really developing a scene. But some folks, they'll get to a point where, uh, they'll have a moment in a script and and they don't know where to go Right, they don't know what to do. So they'll go what's the bad version of this? And then, as you read the bad version, your brain clicks into this thing better version of this. And then you have, you have it, yeah, so yeah. For you specifically, I'd love to hear, like when you are in a scene, when you are in a certain point that you're, uh, referencing the outline, you're like, okay, this is a scene, whatever, where something happens it's not important.

Speaker 1

But what are your techniques for really building that scene out and making it shine but then also setting it up for success down the road where you can rewrite it? Yeah, I hate cutting things out of a script oh it's so hard if I have to rewrite babies yeah, if I have to rewrite plot points, uh, it hurts, it's hard, yeah, it's hard yeah, this is.

Crafting Characters and Dialogue Techniques

Speaker 3

This is a great question and I think a lot of it comes from everything we've talked about, which is I come from an acting background and even when I started writing, it was all in the like sitcom comedy realm, and I think having fully formed characters is essential yeah like step number one type of essential, and it's like as an actor I'm like, no, I want.

Speaker 3

So. I'm like I know these characters need to be full, because I've been given so many scripts that I'm like I'm sorry, who is this Like? And then in comedy that's like what it's based off of a sitcom that you want to continue is all character based. So if you kind of apply those things to any other form, to me I'm like the characters. Tell me, if you know the characters well enough, you know what they would do next and you know why they would do it.

Speaker 3

And that has always been what gets me through the door of those like tough moments. I'm like, okay, this just happened to him. What would he do now? And it's like, well, he'd probably be feeling this way and go to his friend's house who. And then it's like, oh wait, his friend's house, I didn't even think of that. They friend's house who. And then it's like, oh wait, his friend's house, I didn't even think of that, they could have a scene there. And that's where he gets this next bit of information. You know, and that that has always been an in for me, and it's like if the characters are fully formed, they tell you what's gonna happen.

Speaker 1

Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, really good hack for me. I'm a big plot person, like I, like, I like good chunks of plot. That that's what really grounds me, like I. There are certain scenes that I find, uh, that are anchors that then become the things I wrap that build a script around, right, so like I'll have a song that pops into my head or you know I'll find in the wild, and then, um, I'll like. A scene will just like be created in my head from this song.

Speaker 1

Like that's the movie and around that movie. I build everything and there's been a couple of scripts that I've written that the scene that I first thought of, that made this script possible, has remained unchanged. And maybe there's like a little bit of a, you know, like a something, something, a little extra sauce added on top, but it's unchanged. Uh, but through that navigation of plot points, it's character. You know, your character tells you what to do and what they won't do yeah, yeah, I really resonate with that.

Speaker 3

I mean, it's just kind of like here here are the plot points that are our little, our little islands, yeah, and our characters are the ones driving the boats to get there. Right, so it's like what? What is filling up this space?

Speaker 1

and I think that's an actor's approach to, to writing, because sometimes people will write a character and they'll be like, no, no, I'm gonna force you to do these things and then see how you react. Um, but as an actor, beyond that, beyond bringing character, what other techniques do you see crossing this boundary from an actor to a writer, and maybe even vice versa? There's something you've learned as a writer where you're like oh, I can bring this to the set, to, to, to a scene. As an actor, yeah, definitely.

Speaker 3

I think I think the biggest thing that writing has brought back to my acting is how, how limited the page really is. Yeah, like, I feel like I'll have an idea of how a performance will be or how a scene would look. That's why I'm writing these lines, because I'm seeing the characters talk this way and say these words. And then I see them on the page and I'm like how how can I communicate to the actor who's going to receive this script that this is how I see them? And then, of course, as an actor, I'm like well, that's not the point. The actor is going to bring their own. Yeah, cool, and and it is really fun in that respect too, when you have a line in a certain way and you see an actor perform in a completely different way, that you're like whoa, because as an actor, that was all I was used to, was just like this is how I say it. I didn't have the of, like, I saw this in a different way.

Speaker 3

And now here it is, and that's a really cool thing to bring back to acting, to be like what are three different ways I could do this? What are 10 different ways I could do this? And I feel like actors often get in this kind of like. It's about the lines. Actors are really, especially if you have theater training. Theater is all about the lines and film is all about what's not being said, you know, and so what is that, what? What are these lines like actually pointing to or what are they pointing away from in a really cool way that you can play with? That is like that. It's just like fun.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah it's cool to bring that fact. It's interesting that we're having this conversation now about craft, because things that I've written you've said in front of a camera, and it's interesting that we're having this conversation now about craft because things that I've written you've said in front of a camera and it's interesting to have this conversation now as the writer and then the actor and there.

Speaker 1

I forget what line it was, a bit of the of, of, of, uh, of stupid cupid it was. But I wrote a line. I was like, oh, it's gonna be this way, this is the joke. And you said it differently or you did something and I was like that is just pure gold and I've never would have been able to write, oh, and it was such a good representation of the collaboration. Yeah, Uh cause sometimes you know, the collaboration doesn't work, which is a bummer or you.

Speaker 1

It happens in a way that you maybe didn't want it to happen, and that sucks, um. But yeah, I, I like this idea of having the actor say it differently or bringing their own thing to it, but then also, how do you communicate that? I think, as a writer, a lot of folks should really focus on that clarity yeah of how am I clearly communicating something that isn't going to be to the page? Yeah, you know. Yeah, that's a big, that's a really important tool to have in your toolkit. Yeah.

Speaker 3

And to simplify. To simplify I think if you can distill any line down to its essence at any point, you're better off. I think simplifying is a really difficult and cool way to edit, to take kind of your first couple drafts and really distill down, because I think when you have something really simplified, there are more ways to say it. I think you have more room to play, but it's also so clear what you're saying that that part won't be lost in the different types of performance choices. Right, and to me that's. To me that's really fun.

Speaker 3

I feel I feel like I'm we're like nerding out on writing and I'm like, oh my god, like I can learn out on writing with you and that's a really cool experience.

Speaker 1

You know what I mean. Another thing that I do that I've discovered or been more comfortable with recently was I'll write out the first draft of like what everyone's saying and feeling, and they'll have their moments of monologuing, whatnot, and then I'll edit for a while and then it'll be condensed a little bit, and then there's this weird pass that I do where I'll go through the dialogue and I'll just take big chunks of dialogue.

Speaker 1

You delete them, yes, and it yes I do that too because there's so much subtext there where I don't say the thing yeah, you know, just have it be a moment and then it, ah, it works so well. So I encourage everybody listening to if you have a dialogue heavy scene, do a version where you just delete half of it, literally, literally, randomly I am so behind this.

Speaker 3

I am so behind this. It's crazy and I think, because scenes often end up there, that that kind of stops people from like writing too much at the beginning. You know, this is how I see it. I see first draft as like creating the marble, yeah, and then you start to pick away at the statue. You know what I mean? Yeah, but put too much in the first one, throw it all down everything in your brain, because then once you start actually chipping away and sculpting, that's what comes of it and that is a really fun part. It feels like you literally dug out the arm of that scene.

Speaker 1

Do you feel like you're a writer that is more at home in writing those moments within a scene? Or do you like those big, like what do you call them? Act arcs where like, ooh, this is where I thrive. I'm doing broad strokes.

Speaker 3

I think I'm definitely naturally suited to the broad strokes. Okay, I learned this in in, actually, when my partner wrote, uh, her first feature that I produced, um, I like we worked on that script a lot together. It's definitely hers. I I just helped producing wise and I realized, especially in kind of in a foil, with someone being a foil to me, that I was like oh, oh you, you are looking at detail that I'm not even seeing and I'm very much like, okay, but like what's happening overall and that that is something really, I guess, like I said, it's more naturally where I go, and so it's been really fun to kind of learn again through reading other scripts and whatnot, the like detail oriented stuff, cause combining them hey, that's.

Speaker 3

Hey, that's where the money's at.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, I think on that note, we'll just remind people to write a lot, delete a lot after you're done and try to be as clear and simple as possible. Don't overcomplicate things, and if you are something's going on you have to rethink in your story, if you have to overly explain something. Something's going wrong and you'll have to kind of go back to basics. Which is what am I writing? Yes, who, what, when, where, why?

Speaker 3

Yes, I think the most complicated stuff is when you're writing for other people. I think, if you strip that away and you're like, what do I want to write? Yeah what's a, what's a scene that excites me? What are characters that excite me? I think it'll flow. Hey, back to authenticity because, honestly, I feel like as soon as you're like, will someone else like this? What will someone else think? Even a made-up person in your brain, whoever this person is, it will always stop you yeah don't think about anyone else.

Speaker 3

Write what you want to write, see what. See what you want to see. You know.

Speaker 1

This series is turning into very thematic. It is very thematic. Yeah, yeah, it is a very thematic couple of episodes, and we have one more left next week. Wow, yeah.

Speaker 1

So we'll talk a little bit about producing, I think, because I really want to know where JJ is now and where JJ is going. Hell yeah, and we'll unpack that next week. So thank you everyone for listening JJ. Thank you for coming on the pod. Absolutely, yaro, and we'll see you next week, see ya. Thank you for listening to the Anywood Podcast. You can find the podcast anywhere you find your podcasts or on the CFA YouTube channel.

Speaker 2

From the CFA Network. Cinematography for Actors is bridging the gap through education and community building. Find out about us and listen to our other podcast at cinematographyforactorscom. Cinematography for Actors Institute is a 501c3 non-profit. For more information on fiscal sponsorship donations because we're tax exempt now, so it's a tax write-off and upcoming education, you can email us at contact at cinematographyforactorscom. Thanks.