John, 316 was the first feature-length screenplay I sold and I thought I’d share the story of how it all came together. Perhaps aspiring screenwriters will find it inspiring!
The time frame from story concept to the film's release was
about four years. Back in 2015 I decided to start taking screenwriting
seriously. I’d been writing scripts since I was a teenager and I’d made a few (quite
awful) short films. It was all for fun. I never took it seriously as a
career and I’d never shown my scripts to anyone outside my immediate circle of friends.
However, after getting laid off from my day job, I made a life-changing
decision. Instead of looking for another job, I chose to dive in and make
screenwriting my career. And I’ve been doing it ever since.
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| I look serious when I write. |
I wrote like crazy,
turning out short scripts one after the other, improving my skills along the
way. Then I moved on to writing features. For the first time, I began pitching
my short scripts to producers and filmmakers. It was reassuring when the responses
I received were overwhelmingly positive.
Before long I was selling short scripts and being
hired to write others. It wasn’t a huge amount of money but between that and
the money I was making writing comic books, I was making ends meet.
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| Me reading one of the comic books I wrote. |
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| Hometown newspaper did a story on me! |
This brings us to John,
316. I’d written a few other features (horror and thrillers) but one day I
remembered a conversation I had with Knighten Richman. Knighten is also a
filmmaker and we lived together for a year or so back in the late 2000s.
Knighten worked at the Alberta Hospital, a mental institution in our city. One
day somebody asked him something along the lines of, “Do you ever get people
there that think they’re Napoleon and stuff like that?” Knighten said it did
happen and the most common instances were people who thought they were either
Jesus or Darth Vader.
I didn’t really think much
of this until years later when I was brainstorming ideas for my next script. I
thought back to Knighten’s comment and an idea hit me. What if a strange man
who thought he was Jesus showed up at a mental institution and the patients
began to think he was the real deal? I thought that could make a great movie,
so I began working on an outline.
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| Colin Matty as "John Doe" from room 316. |
I hadn’t seen or spoken to
Knighten since I moved out back in 2008 which was seven years ago at the time.
And I kid you not, the day after I came up with the John, 316 concept, I ran into Knighten downtown! Completely out of the blue. I told him about the new project I was writing based on what he’d told us
about the hospital.
I wanted to get more
information from him, so we agreed to meet later that week. We met up and he
told me a bunch of stories about the hospital and the stuff he’d seen. Some of
these stories made it into my first draft of the script and a couple made it
into the movie.
As a “thank you” for his input,
I asked if I could name one of the characters after him. He
agreed. So it was cool to see a guy named Knighten up on the screen!
I began writing the script
but ran into trouble. Usually when I have a strong outline, the script itself
comes quickly and I’m happy with my writing. But this time, it just
wasn’t working. I had great characters and some great scenes, but the story just
went off the rails and wasn’t working. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I
rewrote and rewrote but it just became a convoluted mess. I got frustrated and
abandoned the script. I figured I’d move on to something else and maybe one day
I’d go back to it. But in the back of my mind, I fully expected to never touch it again.
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| Happier times writing. |
I started receiving
interest in my other scripts and people began hiring me to write screenplays
for them, but I still hadn’t sold a spec script or had a feature produced. One
day, I saw a post from someone named Jarvis Greiner on a Facebook filmmaking group. Jarvis
was also from Edmonton and was looking for scripts to direct. I reached out to
him and we met for coffee. I gave him a few of my scripts (the horror and
thriller ones). He said he liked my writing but wasn’t into those genres. He asked
if I had anything that was more drama and inspirational. With much hesitation,
I told him I had one called John, 316. It was unfinished and frankly, not
that good. (At that point I considered it the worst thing I’d ever written).
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| Jarvis Greiner |
When I told Jarvis the
premise of the story, he was interested. He wanted to read it. Honestly, I didn’t
want him to read it. I figured he’d get half-way through and be like, “This
sucks.” So after making it absolutely crystal clear that it wasn’t finished and
needed a lot of work, I sent him the script. He loved it. He liked the story
and the characters but agreed it needed work.
Over the coming months we
met up frequently to work on the script. Another filmmaker we knew, Michael Schaar-ney, joined us for some of the meetings to offer his input. (Michael ended up playing
Dr. Lucas in the film).
Eventually, we had a
finished script! At this point, I stepped back from involvement in the project
and let Jarvis do his thing. I moved on to other writing projects and Jarvis
went out and raised the money to produce the movie. He directed it himself.
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| Skylar Radzion as Misty. |
Even though I wasn’t on
set day-to-day, it was great to hear all the buzz about the shoot around town. I
liked seeing all the social media posts about it.
Many of the people I’d met since
starting this crazy movie-making journey were involved in the production as
either cast or crew. It was so cool to see it all come together.
The film was in post-production
for quite a while and was just finished recently. It is now screening at film
festivals and is doing well. It has won or been nominated for awards, including Best Indie Feature and Best Actor. Everyone worked so hard and did such a great job!
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| Griffin Cork as Knighten Richman |
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| Afton Rentz as Abby and Neil Chase as Bill. |
This goes to show that you
never know where an opportunity will come from. I never would have imagined
that what I considered my worst script would be the first one to sell. But
through a series of coincidences, that’s exactly what happened.
I’ve sold more scripts
since then but I always think back to my John, 316 experience and how
things can come together if you keep putting in the work and follow up with opportunities
that come your way.
I hope anyone reading this
is inspired by my story. If I can do it, so can you!
If you want to know more
about me and what I’m working on, you can check out my Facebook page. Just
search for “Brandon Rhiness.” I'm also on Twitter: @brandonrhiness
And keep an eye out for Hot Box, a stoner comedy I wrote and directed. We're aiming to have it out on Amazon Prime and other services in March or April 2020.
Good luck, everyone!
Brandon Rhiness
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| Brandon Rhiness - Picture by Kristin Zabos Photography. |
