Serious Screenwriting: Day 1

So a couple of weeks back I was in London for The Script Factory’s two-day Serious Scriptwriting,  a combination of my two favourite past-times: scriptwriting and seriousness.

I am trying to curb the number of scriptwriting courses that I attend as part of my brain thinks that it’s time that could be better spent writing rather than learning about writing. But with no SWF this year, a focus purely on writing for feature films and a chance to meet lots of other lovely screenwriters I told that part of my brain to “shut-up”.

Arriving in London the day before,  I spent the evening meeting-up with screenwriter, blogger, Emmy Award winner and fellow fan of the fist-bump Jez Freedman. Although me and Jez are regular contributors to each other’s blog, we’d never met before. Thus I told my wife I was meeting-up with a guy I’d met over the internet I think she was a little concerned but I explained that to the best of my knowledge I don’t think for the past two years I’d been groomed.  Fortunately my wife’s fears were groundless and I had a wonderful time swapping war stories with Jez and basically putting the world of scriptwriting to rights.

Friday morning I quickly munched down my continental breakfast (which included a hard-boiled egg which I had to have so I could remove the shell and pretend I was Robert De Niro in Angel Heart)  and jumped on to the tube to BAFTA. This was the second-time I’d ever been to BAFTA, the first time was a couple of years back for a TAPS event, and I remember being disappointed to find that it was located next door to Gala Bingo — fortunately the bingo hall had now gone, I’m guessing it’s probably now next to the Royal Albert Hall.

Once inside I armed myself with coffee and caught up with a few guys I’d met at last year’s SWF but not for too long because I barely had time to put my lanyard on when the screenwriting got serious!

Rob Ritchie – Why Now?

A senior tutor at Script Factory spoke about chasing the zeitgeist and asked why tell a character’s story now?

• The start of a film has to introduce the characters and the world they live in. Was shown the opening of Ong Bak – the flag contest establishes the protagonist, his world and the theme of the film. Although it is a particular example – the contest takes place in a tree in a remote Thai village, it contains a universal theme that an audience can relate to: men physically competing against each other.
• Your story needs something universal, yet is also particular. Many of the scripts Rob reads has one or the other, but your story needs both.
• Timing is important into why tell your story now. He gave the example of having to stop working on a project because Daybreakers covered the same particular idea.
• The effects of the digital age have also effected how a story is told.
  • Mobile phones have destroyed the tension in films – Dial M for Murder wouldn’t work today. Usually the way to remove mobile phone from the story (no phone signal, dead battery) highlight the protagonists incompetence rather than the antagonist’s intelligence (they use to cut the phone-line to the house).
  • Computers are an incredible part of our lives now but are not cinematic because the action is static.
  • The only character to benefit from the Digital Age is the nerd. No longer a supporting character, they’ve been upgraded to the star (Knocked-Up).
• It is difficult to write for a market driven audience because the development time of cinema is so long. So some trends will die out (the idea of “The New Man”). However one that does appear to be valid is the “Grey Market” which the films of Nancy Meyer cater for.
• There are two types of writers – those who have a unique viewpoint (Shane Meadows, Lynne Ramsey) OR those who can take a story and adapt it for the screen (Christopher Hampton). You need to ask – Which one are you?
• Then ask yourself what is your intention? Is it a story that will attract an international audience and get people to head out to the cinema? The Queen is, but The Deal wasn’t, hence the latter being made for TV despite both being written by Peter Morgan and directed by Stephen Frears.
• If the film has mythic dimensions, it needs to be recognisable through a universal story. Be clear about the intention, the audience and why tell it now. Is it absolutely the right time to write this script as will there still be an audience for it in five years.
• The simplest way to form the inciting incident is using the fairy tale model  “Once upon a time there was … (exposition) then one day… (inciting incident)
• The inciting incident (event) also needs a why now?
• A story also needs fear… what happens if they fail. He sees too many scripts when things go right rather than go wrong.
• Most dramas are subjectively dramatic. Most horrors and thrillers are objectively dramatic because the antagonist is the catalyst for the action.
• “Why now?” is often pinned down to a place and time. In horror however if you are attacked in your home, it’s either about the house or about you.
• “Give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth” (Oscar Wilde) – this is the basis for comedy of disguise e.g. The Proposal.
  In all disguise comedies you pretend to be something at the beginning but discover the real you at the end. In The Proposal both characters realise they are not the people they thought they were.
• Inciting incident has to raise a question. Stories are about anticipation. For example in the fairytale Cinderella the question in the first act is – will she get to the ball? In the second act it is – will she be recognised and will she leave in time? The question in the final act is will Cinderella get to try on the slipper?
• In The Proposal the fear/question is — what will happen when their engagement is discovered to be a sham? The “why now” is that Sandra Bullock’s work visa expired.
• Sometimes you need “a boat” (like in The African Queen when Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn are trapped together) to trap characters together in a situation. The “boat” in The Proposal is the grandma’s 90th birthday party.
• Writers fear that setting a story at a birthday party or a wedding is a cliché but they work as a dramatic action.
• Any times you see drama in a genre piece it means there is a character transformation.
• Opening scene of Harry Brown establishes the world but doesn’t have anything to do with the story. The catalyst of the story is the death of Harry’s wife but the inciting incident is when his friend dies but the killers escape justice. There is a scene with the bad guys to give you a sense of what Harry is up against but there is the danger that this takes you away from our protagonist. Harry only kills the first time in self-defence and is sick afterwards thus establishing the reluctance of Harry to take a life.
• Opening of Little Children sets up the world… paedophile is released back into a middle class suburban area but then poses the question how will Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson end up having an affair?
• If you are totally stuck for a beginning to your script, show your ending and pose it as a question, e.g. Sunset Boulevard.
• To finish Rob highlighted again that every film starts as a cliché as it has to have a universal problem. The skill is for the writer to deliver an unexpected ending.

Talent Scouts

Industry decision-makers discus the types of people and projects they see and debate whether British screenwriters are thinking ‘big enough’. Guests were Joe Oppenheimer (BBC Films Development Executive), Laura Hastings Smith (Producer) and Charlotte Knight (The Rod Hall Agency)

• JO – Will ask CK about new clients and ask to read their stuff or may want to work with CK’s client or they may have an open assignment (rights or an idea) and will contact the agent for client recommendations. He gets annoyed with agents who don’t even enter discourse – “They (client) won’t want to do that” – he would like to have the chat.
• JO – Tends to look at people with a track record in TV or theatre – thinks theatre is the best source for finding new writers.
• CK – Always looking for new writers. Has a slush pile but will try to read everything. Has an instinctive response to a script – if its right, its right – like love you just know. It’s when you read the first 60 pages and you don’t even notice.
• LHS – reads plenty of scripts that are correctly formatted, no spelling mistakes and look like scripts. But they lack passion and it is difficult to connect with. She’d rather read a rough script that she can emotionally connect with.
• LHS – everybody should have a shared vision (agent, producer, etc.) so there shouldn’t be a case of the writers getting contradictory notes.
• JO – is getting a lot of vampire scripts. Also some coincidental trends as recently read three scripts set in the 60s. Receives lots of screenplays that are navel gazing or are grim rape aftermath stories. Avatar worked because it was the merging of new visual effects with a traditional narrative.
• LHS – after Hunger, gets lots of stories about Northern Ireland but it is unlikely she would produce another one. She would never say what se was looking for because you don’t about a script until it falls on her desk.
• CK – gets plenty of the genre staples rom-com and horror but would like more thrillers. Current buzz word is “elevated gene” – she’s not sure what it actually means just knows it is a good thing. Think the Channel 4 strand Coming Up is a fantastic initiative and goes to those screenings.
• LHS – You need to know your genre. Especially horror as its fans are incredibly knowledgeable.
• JO – Writers being too ambitious and having too big an imagination is not a problem
• CK – Wants to see the script that most represent your voice, no the one that has the most chance of being made. So that respects she’s different from a producer.
• JO – Think the Writers Room is a great resource but very rare for someone to be put forward. Everybody wants a successful theatrical comedy but is difficult to sustain writing for 90 minutes even if you have an experience background in sitcoms. However playwrights do have a track record for producing script for that length of time.
• CK – Theatre is where you can see writing in its purest form, there’s nothing to hide behind.
• JO – Economic climate means where previously they were making three films that were bankers, one that was borderline and fifth that was just nuts: that fifth one isn’t getting made.
• LHS – so more important that the scripts have emotional connections.
• CK – People are risk averse hence the rise in adaptations. TV has been hurt worse than film.
• CK – UK Agents should do the three roles (agent, manager, lawyer) so unlike America you don’t have to pay 3 separate commissions. A good agent should do all this and make you feel like you’re their only client.
• CK – The BBC is only one of three places to go for script development money so if your agent isn’t contacting them, something is wrong.

The Hired Gun

Screenwriters who have been commissioned to work on projects conceived by producers or on adaptations of existing material, discuss the challenge. Guests: Deborah Moggach, Peter Straughan & Tim Firth.

• PS – was brought into How To Lose Friends & Alienate People because they’d wanted a rom-com with edge and his screenplay about serial killers had been read by producer Stephen Wooley. TF got recommended after writing (an unmade) script about strippers and was asked to develop an idea about the Women’s Institute.
• DM – loves messing with people’s plots because they’re usually dead.
• PS -views the job as taking a mass of story and making it filmic.
• DM -adapting your own work you can draw on a deeper understanding of the characters.
• DM – loves the collaborative approval of screenwriting but if you get bad notes it detracts.
• TF – enjoyed being a “hired gun” but could’t do it again. Had to join WGA to work a script for Jerry Bruckheimer then had to go on strike with them. Surreal moment outside his house during a fireworks party and having a conference call with Bruckhemier but having to hang up at midnight before strike took effect.
• TF & PS – neither comfortable with doing big blockbusters but felt it exercised different creative muscles..
• DM – screenwriting isn’t the first draft, it’s rewriting.
• PS – deliberately didn’t meet Jon Ronson or Toby Young until after doing the first draft of their books so not to cloud his thoughts.
• TF – it’s not about capturing the detail, it’s about capturing the spirit or heart of the story. Large chunks of Calendar Girls never happened but it captured the spirit.
• PS – views them as “selective guns for hire”.
• DM – being a hired gun is about having the right temperament. A lot of successful hired guns who do polishes are unknown therefore you need to be ego free and you need to understand the commitment of the producers who have taken all the risks by sinking their money in.
• None of the three panelists were worried about the producer creating the synopsis as it’s a selling document and that’s a different writing skill.
• DM – thinks treatments are really tough to write and she breaks the rules when producing one – 25 pages long, includes dialogue.
• PS – thinks they’re hard to “jazz-up” because the they’re “dead” documents.
• TF – tends to write beat-sheets
• DM – one of the mistakes with screenplays is the writers don’t make them fun to read.
• TF -has never read any scriptwriting books. He doesn’t put camera shots in but does use parentheses for antithetical effect:

DOUG

Do you want to go to the cinema?

CHLOE

(no)

Yes.

• PS – comes into a scene too early and leaves too late.
• DM – you need to give actors’ hints in how to act but not be descriptive.
• TF – bad writing is when there’s no subtext.
• DM – best way to learn about adaptions is to read the book, with the movie then read the script.
• PS – Most important thing a screenwriter needs to do is read good scripts. It demystifies the process.
• PS  -finds it hard to watch a play or read a book and not think if could be tuned into a film.

Well that’s Day One done and dusted.  Day Two will be unleashed in two days!