[Watch the video interview on Youtube here]
Film Courage: What are your rules for telling a good story?
Anthony DiBlasi, Filmmaker: I think a lot of writers, we write to entertain ourselves first. I think I watch movies, I watched movies my entire life and you create this encyclopedia in your head of what speaks to you as an artist and what you go back to time and time again. I think for me writing a good story always comes down to concept first. What is that 10,000 foot view of an idea and what makes it stand out? That’s for me as a creator.
I’m very much about structure. When I’m writing with Natalie [Natalie Victoria, Actor/Producer/Writer] because she’s coming from an actress point of view, she’s very much about character, which is completely true that I think you can have a bad movie but if you have good characters, people are still going to love it in some ways.
On the flip side, you can have some great characters but you can have very bad structure and story and people will tune out. I think you have to know you’re beginning, middle and end very early on and that they thematically line up, that you’re saying some kind of message with the story you’re telling, you’re entertaining but I think as a creator you also have to have that backbone of Why am I telling the story? I think it is important.
Film Courage: When you’re working on a story, how do you know it’s developed enough or not developed enough?
Anthony: That’s tricky. I think it’s different for everybody. I’m not the fastest writer…sometimes I am. I have this conversation with myself all the time, I wish I was faster but I am fast sometimes. Over the years, I think when you’re a young writer, a lot of people just dive into writing a script. I’ve always been a militant note taker. I will write things down on a napkin, now we have phones, it’s a constant notes in my phone about when an idea strikes me and eventually you get enough of these…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
About:
Anthony DiBlasi graduated film school at Emerson College in Boston MA. Upon moving to Los Angeles he became a protégé of filmmaker/novelist Clive Barker. DiBlasi partnered in Barker’s production company Midnight Picture Show for nearly ten years, serving as a key executive & producer on films such as “Midnight Meat Train” (2008) and “Book of Blood” (2009). DiBlasi made his directorial debut with the psychological thriller “Dread” (2009), a feature film he wrote based on the Clive Barker short story of the same name. “Dread” was released theatrically in January of 2010 and went on to win Best Independent Feature at the 2010 Spike Scream Awards. He directed and co-wrote “Last Shift” a critically acclaimed supernatural horror film released by Magnolia Pictures in 2015. And directed “Extremity” a psychological thriller based on Extreme Haunts, released in 2018 by Epic Pictures.
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