Todd Ryan Jones Muscles His Way to the Top with The Strongman

Todd Ryan Jones is professional stuntman, actor, and strongman (see his Guinness World Record for bending horseshoes). He's also a very talented writer, whose edgy thriller, aptly titled "The Strongman", took best in side-show in Filmmatic's Pitch Now competition.

Todd was nice enough to give us a quick peek behind the carnival facades, enjoy...

1)  How long have you been writing?

I started dabbling in writing roughly ten years ago, but started taking it seriously in 2020 during the pandemic.

2)  What screenwriting training have you received?

Books! I often commute from Pennsylvania to New York which is a very, very long commute. It dawned on me that I could be using that time much more efficiently, so I bought every reputable audiobook on the craft of screenwriting that I could find. Some of them I even listened to several times over so I could really absorb what was being said. That was how I started to wrap my head around how to format a script.

Beyond that, I would get feedback, tips and pointers from other writers. I happen to be friends with no less than two other writers that I respect so that was a great resource for me. Just their feedback alone really helped to elevate the professionalism in my writing.

3)  What writing habits work for of you?  Do you write in short or long shifts, at scheduled times?

I go into straight up Jack Torrance mode when I write LOL. I pretty much need utter seclusion or I will get distracted. What I usually do is lock myself in my room, sit down at my gothic, antique desk with faces carved all over it (you should see it, it's really, really cool), put on the soft glow of my salt lamp, and do a quick meditation while I inhale rosemary oil to get my brain fired up.

The writing session itself could be very short or it could be an entire day. As long as I get something done, even so much as one sentence, I try not to force it too much. There will be days when I'm in the zone and writing page after page and there are days when my brain is just not into it.

Also, you never know when an idea is going to pop into your head, so whenever one does, I jot it down and save it for later. That has saved me from writer's block more than once!

4)  What is your current day job, and how does it influence your writing & project choices?

I am lucky enough to say that I am actually a professional stuntman and actor, which definitely influences my writing and project choices in numerous ways. Having my job is what really gave me the idea and confidence to take a stab at writing in the first place. I am constantly looking at scripts and sides, and at some point...probably when I was halfway through falling down a flight of stairs...I just got to thinking that maybe I should try my hand at writing something lol.

Simple practicality was another way my job influenced my writing too. At the end of the day, I'm just a contract player. Whether it's a day, week, or a month, once that contract is up I'm looking for work again. In an effort to try to remedy that, I had initially written what was to eventually become The Strongman as a web series for myself to star in called Carney. We actually shot an opening credits sequence for the proposed series which also served as a promotional tool, it's on YouTube if anyone would like to see it. Like everything else at the time, Covid brought the project to a screeching halt. That was when I decided to really do a deep dive on the craft of writing and take it seriously.

While talking to a reputable producer about the project, he told me that to get the project off the ground as a series would be an extremely long shot, but as a feature, he thought I really had something. I didn't need much convincing. I rewrote the project into a feature length script, and changed the vague title of Carney to The Strongman.

As for my job influencing my project choices, that's an easy one. With all the different shows and films that I work on, I have still never seen one on the particular subject matter that I happen to have an intimate knowledge of, and anything that has come close has not put the particular spin on it that I have. So I decided to do it myself. Simple as that!

5)  Our judges loved "The Strongman", how would you describe the project to our readers?

Thank you! I would describe The Strongman as a gritty, action-crime thriller, with some elements of horror thrown in as well. In fact, though it is most definitely not a straight up horror movie, the script has at least placed in every single horror themed competition that I've entered it in thus far, so I guess there's some scary stuff in there!

Though it deals with traditional sideshow themes and characters, there are several factors that make the script stand out amongst others in the genre, like Nightmare Alley for example. First and foremost, it is NOT a period piece. The edgy world of modern sideshow is alive and well, and that is where this story takes place. Also...the fight scenes! As a stuntman, I have to bring this up lol. Seriously though, one of the team members that we are lucky enough to have attached to the project is Mr. Chuck Jeffreys, who choreographed the fights in a long list of iconic movies like Spider Man (2002), Blade: Trinity, Freddy vs Jason, and many others. Chuck is planning a uniquely realistic approach to the action in The Strongman that I am very excited about.

Finally, no other circus or sideshow themed script that I am aware of deals with a strongman as the main character. I will go further into that in the next question!

6)   How did you form the concept for "The Strongman" and its fantastic fictional setting?

The concept for The Strongman came about because it is a subject that is particularly close to my heart. Though you might not think it to look at me, I myself am actually a performing strongman, just like the titular character in the script. I can bend steel bars, snap horseshoes in half, break chains across my chest, and ram a nail through a board with my hand in one shot.

I got into performing feats of strength after reading about the old time strongmen from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These guys could do everything I can do and then some, like seriously nothing short of real life super heroes. Take Alexander Zass for example, known as "The Amazing Samson". During WW1, Zass was a POW no less than four times. Each time, again, FOUR times, Zass escaped by systematically bending the bars of his prison cell, then he would bend them back again so the guards wouldn't notice, and repeat until he could bend the bars far enough apart to fit through!

Then of course there's Joseph Greenstein, "The Mighty Atom", who my own strongman lineage goes directly back to, and who I managed to weave into the script. Greenstein was discovered by none other than Harry Houdini, when Houdini rolled into Greenstein's garage to get a flat tire replaced. Greenstein replaced it alright. With Houdini's entire entourage in the car, Greenstein picked up the back of the car, removed the flat tire with his bare hand, and replaced it in the same manner, no tools. One of my favorite Greenstein stories, though, took place shortly before the outbreak of WW2. Greenstein, a small but proud Jewish man, happened by a Nazi rally being held in one of the stores in his neighborhood. He wasn't having it, and tore down the Nazi sign. When fifteen strapping wannabe Nazi's came running out to teach the little guy a lesson, Greenstein put every single one of them in the hospital by way of a baseball bat. The case went to court but was thrown out because the judge couldn't believe that one little guy took out those fifteen big dudes.

So the concept for The Strongman was: What if you took a guy like that, with those abilities, and put him in a modern, dog-eat-dog world on the outskirts of society, where people handle their own business and don't go to the cops for protection? Is that really someone you would want to cross? I don't think so.

The fictional setting of Summer Island in the script is a thinly veiled version of Coney Island and The Coney Island Circus Sideshow. Today, Coney Island is a far cry from it's heyday as a squeaky clean family destination. The boardwalk is still there, and you can still get a hotdog and ride a few rides, but it is not the kind of neighborhood where you want to walk around by yourself after dark. Despite the danger, Coney Island is a distinct character in and of itself, and I purposely wrote Summer Island to be exactly like it.

7)  What are you working on now?  What do you plan on writing in the near future?

Right now I am working on a horror script because I absolutely love the horror genre and if I never wrote one it just wouldn't be right lol. It's a bit more high concept than The Strongman which has been challenging for me, but to be honest it's pretty interesting to see how much my writing has already matured and I'm looking forward to getting this one done and polished. After that, I plan on revisiting a live action children's show pilot that I wrote a few years back and really get it up to snuff.

8) Where would you like to be writing-wise, and industry career-wise, in 3 years?

I've always thought it would be ideal to have a smallish production company that made enough money to pay the bills and churn out the kinds of genre movies that I want to make. That is also the goal of my friend Anthony Giordano, a high end makeup FX artist who is also attached to The Strongman. It would be great to build up a small, in-house team and turn that fantasy into reality.

9)  Any advice for those about to write their first feature-length screenplay?

Don't let anybody scare you away from or talk you out of writing something if that is what you want to do. Think of it this way, in 100 years, any haters or nay sayers in your life will be dead, and there will be nothing in the history books about their opinion on whether or not you should write something, so don't worry about it! Write!

Congratulations once again to screenwriter Todd Ryan Jones, our Season 7 Pitch Now Winner. All contact and script requests for Mr. Jones will be forwarded to his attention.