Co-Chairman and Co-Founder of Working Title Films, Tim Bevan has made more successful movies than any other producer in British cinema, and created what is effectively Britain's only major studio. Charles Harris interviewed him for Euroscript at the BFI. Article and Illustrations by Ian Long “Be bold,” says Tim Bevan, smiling at the throng of attentive faces in a jam-packed BFI Blue Room. “You have to have a ‘take.’ It’s better to fail triumphantly than be boring. I don’t want to see bland movies.” This was the final takeaway from a conversation during which they’d arrived as regularly as sushi in a well-run Japanese restaurant. It’s easy to see how Tim has enthused so many of our leading directors, writers, actors and financiers with his projects for more than thirty years. Cutting a seemingly languid figure in shades of grey and chocolate-brown desert boots, he nevertheless has the ability to cram volumes into his engaging flood of information – and to make it all interesting. The Blue Room was rapt. Beginnings To kick off proceedings Charles offered a brief question about the early days of Working Title and Tim was away, giving us a whistle-stop tour of its beginnings as a music video company, the (not always successful) decision to get established film directors involved in the making of pop videos, and then the big step into feature production. “Channel Four went round all the theatres in Britain, getting the resident playwrights to write something,” he said. And from this process emerged Hanif Kureishi’s story of middle-class suburban Asian life, homosexuality, and the automated washing of clothes – “a world we knew nothing about.” My Beautiful Laundrette was a big success, and over the next few years the company made a string of well-received features. All seemed set fair. However, there was a big ‘but’ coming with respect to the early days of Working Title. The Development Process “We weren’t spending enough time on scripts,” Tim admitted. “To be in this business properly you need to develop scripts, work on them for a length of time. But you also have to be able to get to the end of the process and say, ‘it’s not good enough to make.’ Even after £800,000-worth of development. Better an £800,000 hit than an £8,000,000 hit. Quality control starts at the beginning and goes all the way through – that’s something we learned from Stephen Frears.” Ah yes, Frears – the multifaceted maverick who directed Laundrette, and the quintessential writer’s director: a man who prizes screenwriters’ contributions so highly that he actively wants them on set, providing tweaks and rewrites, rather than hoping they just go away once they’ve delivered their final draft. Perhaps it was indeed Frears’ influence that led Working Title to place writing at the very centre of its endeavours, and to put so much energy into the development process. But where do the stories come from? Tim said Working Title tends to source its stories from three main areas:
The Story Process If an interesting project arrives with no writer attached, a list of possible screenwriters will be drawn up – “new, mediocre and high-end” - the idea will be circulated to them, and when the right person shows interest, they’ll be asked to prepare a short (two-page) document outlining their ideas for the shape of the story: the overall feel, and how the acts will divide. Meetings will then be held to get a strong sense of the story’s genre and hooks, perhaps ‘carding’ it on a wall with colour coding for different kinds of scenes (action, romance, etc). After this, the first draft is expected to nail down the main journey or arc; the subsequent development process will mainly be concerned with “making the story come alive.” Writers' Rooms Increasingly, Working Title is making use of writers’ rooms to brainstorm story ideas for their films – just like American TV series. “The dividing lines between the various writing disciplines are getting more and more blurred,” Tim said, admitting that if he could change one thing about the way he operated in the past, he'd use TV as a platform for getting films made. Writers’ rooms are also useful for getting “new blood” into the company – something which is evidently important to Tim, as he used the phrase more than once. Interestingly, he feels that British theatre is currently more vibrant than either film or TV; producers routinely visit fringe and other productions in search of talent. He also thinks that a new British comedy genre could be on the verge of arriving, which will eclipse the present vogue for gross-out humour. The Future
Looking ahead, Tim cautioned that due to the ubiquity of digitalisation, “the old model won’t exist in ten years.” He went on to speak about the competition posed to films by flat-screen TVs in homes, and the availability of high quality, low cost stories on streaming services like Netflix. All this means that companies like Working Title must become ever more stringent about quality control. “We have to be so much stricter now,” Tim said. Certain story elements are de rigeur: “As a writer, you need an amazing hook. And there has to be a ‘movie-star’ part.” Tim advised writers to "be hard on their own material," offering the example of Joel and Ethan Coen as film-makers who are so disciplined in their writing, storyboarding and shooting that they rarely need to cut anything. He also spoke approvingly of a director he’s currently working with who, even while outlining a nascent story, is already thinking about ‘trailer moments’; bits of action that will sell the finished film in cinemas. Tim Bevan is clearly passionate about films and stories – he stressed that he’s always been driven by getting good work made, rather than obsessing about ‘The Deal’ - but it was sometimes hard to square his dictum to “be bold” with the ever tighter demands that he sees commercial considerations making on material. No doubt this contradiction is something that he is struggling with, along with everyone else creatively involved with film. However, the good news about the new digital world in which we’re now immersed is its insatiable need for content. And, as Tim put it, “the new model will play far more than ever before to the individual.” One Last Tip - The Cutting-Room Reminding us of the wisdom that films are made not once but numerous times, at the stages of conception, writing, shooting and, finally, editing, Tim advised writers to get deeply acquainted with the last process on the list. “One of the critical things for a writer to do is to get into the cutting-room,” he said, explaining that it’s through witnessing the editor's craft, standing at her elbow, that the “power of the image” is revealed – and we see how whole scenes can be discarded in favour of a single glance or gesture. Tim told us that Richard Curtis is one writer who haunts the cutting–rooms of the films he works on. And it doesn’t seem to have done his career any harm.
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How to plan and write your next script - 3
by Charles Harris In the first two parts of this series on writing and editing your script for cinema or TV, I focused on the seed image that starts it all, and the premise or pitch that provides the dramatic fuel (re-read them here). Now we move to writing the treatment (aka synopsis or outline). 1. Writing a treatment is by far the best way to plan out your script in advance It’s true that some writers dive in and fly by the seat of their pants, but they are rare and almost always writing novels. A screenplay is much tighter and will run away from you if you don't plan. I have only written one successful screenplay without a treatment to start (and even then I spent time sorting out my ideas while I tried and failed to!) 2. Writing a treatment is invaluable for rewriting Once the first draft is done, you need to stand back and get perspective. Otherwise you get lost in the mess. I find that the best way by far is to go back and rewrite the treatment based on what I have now learned. 3. Writing a treatment is essential for selling More and more producers and agents insist on seeing a treatment before they’ll consider reading your script. It doesn't matter how brilliant your writing is - if the treatment doesn't fly, the script will never even get read. However, the good news is that you don’t need to write three kinds of treatment. The effort entailed in ensuring your writing is clearly understood by others will make it all the better for planning and editing too. Starting the treatment If you followed the last article and worked up a strong log line then you have a solid basis to build on for the treatment. You know your genre, the protagonist and his or her main story goal. Treatments can be of any length - from half a page to 30 pages or more - though most range from two pages. (the length you need for the Euroscript Screenwriting Competition) to five. I find it best to start with a very short version, maybe less than a page - to help me focus. I follow with a deliberately overlong version - to allow the writing to expand. I then cut that version short again. Alternating lengths allows me to get the best of both worlds - brevity and flow. Style Write in the third person, present tense (like the script). Focus on the most important beats of the story - and as with the pitch: be ruthless. But at the same time, keep the style flowing. Allow it to reflect the genre - light-hearted for comedy, dark for horror, etc. Character Don’t forget character. A good treatment is just as much about character as plot. I find it useful to alternate sentences between character journey and outer story. This draws the reader in and also avoids the dreaded “and then… and then… and then…” Proportion Your aim is to make the treatment fit the proportions of the planned script - in other words the first quarter of the treatment should equal the first quarter of the script, and so on. This is a tough one - most of the treatments I see spend far too long on the opening, feeling that they have to explain everything. You don’t. It’s not about how much you can squeeze in, but how much you can get away with leaving out! Ending And unlike the pitch, you must include the ending. This is an unbreakable rule. No matter how much of a surprise twist you've got, you have to tell us. Without the ending, we can’t appreciate the point of the story. Or be sure you know how to end it yourself. Start now. Focus clearly on your story, the unfolding of key events, the development of the inner journey and how it all comes together at the end. Create treatments of different lengths - you’ll need them later. And make your writing sizzle. Next: Writing the first draft If you liked this article, Charles Harris runs Exciting Treatments for Euroscript - a one-day workshop on writing treatments for cinema and TV in February and November. He'll take you through basic and advanced techniques for writing the strongest treatments and series proposals - including language skills that you need and which aren't taught in normal screenwriting classes. This is always a popular class and gets rapidly booked up. Check here for the next available date and to see if there are still places available. By KT Parker
Are you undecided about entering Euroscript’s Screenwriting Competition? Don’t overthink it. Just do it. To my mind it is one of the best British screenwriting competitions, and unique in that it focuses on treatments. True, you must submit ten pages of a script – but not necessarily the script of the story you tell in your treatment. The focus of this competition is very much on story, and on you as a storyteller. Here’s why I recommend you enter this competition. 1. Test the viability of a story idea Factoring in several re-writes, a feature film script is going to take at least 6 months of your life to get right – usually much longer. If you’re going to invest all that time, you want to be sure you have a strong premise and enough story to underpin a viable, compelling script. I use this competition to road test ideas. I have entered it four times, and placed twice. “Dowl’s Mill” came third in 2013 and “A Face To Paint” came second in 2015. Both of the scripts that grew out of those top-three treatments then went on to win awards. The other two treatments that didn’t place still need re-thinking to turn them into stories that work as feature films. Fortunately, because of N°2 below, I’ve got an ace up my sleeve that will help me to re-shape and improve them… 2. Receive valuable feedback Writing is about communicating to an audience, but when we are creating our stories, we are sometimes so immersed in them that we are blinded by their minutiae. It’s the proverbial “can’t see the woods for the trees” syndrome. Getting feedback gives us a sense of how well we are doing in conveying our intentions. The beauty of the Euroscript Screenwriting competition is that every entry receives a structured, bullet-point feedback report. This includes an estimation of the budget (high, medium, low); a brief synopsis of the story; a list of positive points; suggestions for improvement and general advice for the writer. I’ve found the synopsis very useful, as it helps me to verify that the reader understood the story as I thought I’d written it. Also, the reader’s synopsis often contains a turn of phrase that helps me improve my logline or one-page synopsis. Outlining the positive points of the treatment is helpful because it tells a writer what doesn’t need changing - what to hold on to and build on. The suggested changes can be taken at face value, or, as happened with one of my stories, can prompt a re-think to help come up with an alternative that is even better. Ultimately, it is your story and so it is up to you to learn to filter out any notes that will harm rather than enhance it. That said, given the high professional standard of Euroscript’s notes, you will probably want to take each and every one on board. 3. Exposure to film executives It is notoriously difficult to break into screenwriting. You not only compete with established writers, but also with the tens of thousands of wannabes who take to their computers each year. Winning a major screenwriting competition is one of the best ways to get noticed. It's a validation: this person can write! Euroscript list the twelve finalists of their competition on their blog and then announce the winners live at a “meet the producers” event held at the BFI in London. Here’s the thing: if you place in the competition you stand out amongst all the other writers clamouring for the producers’ attention on the night. Robyn Slovo (producer of “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”, “Two Faces Of January” and Thomas Alfredson’s new film “The Snowman”) gave me a recommendation of a producer to send my script to, while Judith King, Head of Development at Red Planet Pictures, requested to read my script as a sample. An extraordinary result for an unrepped writer like myself! This year, it could be your turn. So what are you waiting for? The competition is open for entries until March 31st. ABOUT KT Parker KT Parker is a writer and producer, trained through Euroscript’s Summer School (2012) and various ad hoc weekend Euroscript courses, the “Storytelling for the Screen” programme at the Screen Arts Institute (2013), attending London Screenwriters’ Festival every year since 2012 and participating in the BFI/Creative Skillset Talent Campus (2015, run by London Screenwriters’ Festival). She is currently producing her one-act play, “The Chamber Of Beheaded Queens”, which has been selected for Liverpool’s Page To Stage Festival (4th-16th April 2016). Her screenplay, “A Face To Paint”, won the period/historical feature film script category of Final Draft’s Big Break screenwriting competition in December 2015 and she is now crowdfunding her way to L.A. to attend the awards ceremony at Paramount Studios on February 11th. You can check out her campaign here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/send-me-to-hollywood--3/x/9128337#/ You can also connect with KT Parker on social media here: Website: www.ktparker-online.com Linked-In: https://fr.linkedin.com/in/ktparker1 about.me: https://about.me/ktparker Twitter: https://twitter.com/lunaperla and https://twitter.com/BeheadedQueens Every successful screenwriter I know is brilliant at pitching. The ability to pitch well accelerates every aspect of your career in cinema or TV - from coming up with new ideas to developing them, and of course selling them. Last time, we started by looking at your seed image. If you missed the article, read it here). This time, we’re getting stuck into the pitch or log line. Why have a pitch at the start? A good log line is essentially a one or two sentence pitch which has something magical that makes your listener’s eyes light up - this is the spark. Nowadays I never start writing a script unless I have a log line with that spark - after all the first person I have to sell the idea to is myself. As I write, and then as I edit, the pitch helps keep the script focused. And at the end, the pitch is central to selling it to producers. What’s your pitch? There’s a certain magic you need in creating a good idea that you can’t force into existence. But you can create the right conditions for finding it. And you can do that right now. You don’t have to be clever, you have to be imaginative, disciplined and committed to not accepting second-best. And you need three ingredients to make the pitch work: 1. What’s your genre? Ingredient one is the genre - in other words, what kind of story is this going to be? Will it make people laugh, or cry, or scream in horror? Or what? Genre is first and foremost about the emotion you want to create in the viewer. The seed image probably gave you a hint of that emotion. Now is the time to dig deeper into your imagination. Imagine the audience watching your work on screen. What do they feel? 2. Who does what? Ingredient two in a good pitch is the Outer Story. Who is your protagonist and what does he or she want? Focus on the big decision that underpins the whole story. In Hamlet it’s the decision to avenge his father’s murder. In Joy it’s the decision to invent a self-wringing mop. It’s an “outer” story because we have to film it - in other words it’s not just inside their head. 3. What’s their flaw? By contrast, ingredient three is the Inner Story. What is the inner flaw that’s stopping the protagonist from progressing? On its own, the outer story is rather thin and mechanical. This inner struggle gives it depth. Hamlet has to conquer his fear of taking action (he fails to do this in time, which gives us a tragic ending). Joy has to learn to stand up for herself. If, she does that she’ll earn her happy ending. In some stories, you find a mix, part growth, part failure, giving a bittersweet end. Put it together To create your pitch, put them together: GENRE plus OUTER STORY plus FLAW. Hamlet is a revenge tragedy about a young prince who must avenge his father’s murder but must confront his own fears before he can confront the murderer. Joy is a comedy-drama about an insecure but ambitious young woman who sets out to invent the world’s first self-wringing mop and must learn to stand up for herself if she’s to succeed Where’s the rest? Where’s the rest of the play? The brilliant writing? The subtle interrogation of philosophy? The other characters? The subplots? They don’t belong here. Don’t confuse the log line with the script. The job of the pitch is simply to excite - to excite you enough to write the screenplay and then to excite producers enough to read it! That simple sentence can take hard work to write. You need to focus hard on the absolute essentials, and cut away everything else - your 90+ page idea boiled down into a single line. But if you get it right, it will form the foundation of everything you do next - whether that’s writing the outline, editing a draft - or indeed selling it. Next: Writing the treatment. By Charles Harris Are you planning to get stuck into some writing this January? Or getting ready to polish one up for selling? I thought I'd kick off the season with ideas and techniques for using your time in the most useful and productive way. This will the first of a series that will take you through the steps from start to finish, so if you follow them, by the time you've finished you'll have a finished screenplay for film or TV - ready to send out. What kind of writer are you? To start, what kind of writer are you? There are four basic kinds (with variations): - those who plan every detail - those who prefer to jump in and see what happens - those who plan, but like to improvise when they feel like it - and those who plan but continue to change the plan so that it keeps pace with the draft as they progress. Any method is good, if it suits you and your story. However, with film and TV scripts there is much less room for jumping in blind than, say, with novels and plays. Personally, I plan the basic steps but allow myself freedom to discover and improvise as I write. This keeps the freshness, but ensures you don't go so far off piste that the whole story falls apart. Here are the first steps, so you can start on them right now if you want. Then I'll follow up in more detail in future days and weeks. By the way, the process that follows is also a great way to work with a well-developed script. It's only too easy to lose your way in a script edit - this method ensures you never lose sight of the essentials even as you polish. 1. Find your seed A good seed will make you interested, fired up, ready to explore. The problem with writing is it's like getting caught in the storm. As the story builds and you're in the middle of the storm you forget where you were planning to go in the first place. Remembering what started you off will help you keep going to the end. Most writers start with ideas that come as a seed, unformed but with the germ of interest. Usually it's an image - a man walking down a railway track in the night, a body lying stabbed in a swimming pool. Sometimes it's a character they want to explore. Who is it? What does she want? What does she need? For Harold Pinter, his seed was often a line of dialogue. Who's speaking? What will they say next? Start working on this now. Ask yourself what first excited you about this story idea. Whatever it is, locate it, write it down and begin to brainstorm. Jot down any thoughts that grow from your seed - images, places, characters, feelings, events... Write them in whatever form you like - in lists, on separate scraps or in a diagram connecting your thoughts like the branches of a tree. As you do, see what ideas begin to come. 2. Create your pitch or one-sentence log-line For the second step, we'll be focusing that core idea into a pitch that gets me fired up. I never start writing anything unless I have a strong one-sentence pitch that has that crucial spark. After all, the first person I have to sell the idea to is myself. 3. Plan the treatment or outline Later in the series, I'll talk about developing a route-map for the journey you're about to undertake. The better you make this, the more you can relax and trust where you're going. 4. Write the draft First drafts are best written fast. I'll be looking at how best to organise to do this, so that you don't get hung up on distractions and details. 5. Edit the draft Most writers make the mistake of trying to edit everything at once. I believe that the best way to eat a large sausage is one slice at a time. So in the final articles I'll be taking you through the steps from big picture to tiny detail in seven separate edits. Ready, Go, Steady Are you ready for the journey? Or maybe already in the middle of one and can do with some help and reassurance. Most people wait till they have every single detail perfect... and never start! Don't wait till you have everything perfect - the best place to start is now. Step #2 - the premise and pitch CHARLES HARRIS Charles Harris is an experienced award-winning writer-director for cinema and TV. His first professional script was optioned to be developed by major agents CAA in Hollywood and he has since worked with top names in the industry from James Stewart to Alexei Sayle. He created the first Pitching Thursday for London Screenwriters' Festival, has sat on Bafta awards juries, lectured at universities, film schools and international film festivals and teaches selling and pitching to writers, directors and producers across Europe. His new book Teach Yourself: Complete Writing Course is recommended reading on MA courses. by Ian Long The process of putting Thomas Harris's character on the small screen showed how so much of horror is about suggestion. It also demonstrated how the genre can be made more palatable to a female audience. “I think accessibility is what often denies horror its deserved attention. So it all depends on the execution [as to] whether mainstream audiences can accept it.” - Bryan Fuller, Hannibal’s showrunner The TV series Hannibal (which ran from 2013-2015, but which may be due for a revival) went even further than the cinema versions of Thomas Harris’s novels in terms of outré shocks and extreme weirdness - or, at least, it seemed to. At the same time, it was widely praised by critics and established a widespread audience of committed and discerning ‘Fannibals’, with a large female contingent. All of which suggests that this surprisingly engaging show is more than a simple gore-fest. There’s something considered going on here: a clever design scheme has allowed us to feel that we've experienced the most monstrous events imaginable, while shielding us from the worst of them. So ... what sleight-of-hand enabled Hannibal to make such dark and gruesome subject matter into compelling viewing? If we want to devise horror ideas which have the potential to connect with audiences, understanding how Hannibal achieves its effects gives us some useful clues. It shows us some of the strategies that storytellers have used to handle truly taboo topics. 1. Set it in a fantasy world Hannibal doesn’t strive for realism. The show's design distances it from the world we know, immediately tipping us off that it takes place in a fantasy arena: a world that's an analogue of ours, but which runs by slightly different rules. “We are not making television,” Fuller told each new director who came to work on the programme. “We are making a pretentious art film from the Eighties.” Recognisable technology is present, but the cars and computers stay in the background of the underlit, Gothic-looking buildings with their green-tinged interiors and peculiar, retro accoutrements. If it’s established early on that we’re in a dark fairytale, we can enjoy the ride - free of the misgivings we may feel if the story’s world was closer to reality. 2. Make sure there's a strong vein of dark humour Bryan Fuller: “I consider Hannibal a very, very, very dark comedy.” Much of the show’s interest is based on our prior knowledge of Hannibal Lecter. We know he’s a cannibalistic murderer, even if everyone in the story thinks that he's a suave and worldly psychiatrist. And this provides much scope for humour. Hannibal frequently drops outrageous hints about his true nature. And when he does so, Mads Mikkelsen allows the smallest hint of a smile to cross his glacial features. The more this happens, the more deliciously complicit we become with his character, and the further we’re drawn into the story. It’s a big mistake to write horror (and other ‘hard-hitting’ genres) without a vein of well-judged humour - an essential balancing factor which greatly increases the pleasure of the audience. 3. De-emphasise sexual violence Sex is far from the main driving force of the parade of garish psychopaths that weaves its way through Hannibal. Their motives are so strange and convoluted that it’s the sheer commitment of the performances and the loving attention to detail of the filmmaking that renders them credible. Hannibal’s florid maniacs pursue obscure obsessions for months, years, decades; they try to become prehistoric cave-bears, to turn people into trees or fungi, or to construct gigantic eyes to look at God. This is a fairytale world of fantasy crimes. Fuller understands that rape has been overexploited in crime stories, and has specifically banned it from his series. As he says, “That was one of the big challenges. How do we keep our promise [not to tell rape stories] ... and also service the novel.” If we were watching a procession of sex-crimes, the series would quickly become creepy and distasteful - especially for women, who are weary of seeing themselves as victims in any number of genres. 4. Aestheticise your murders for intellectual appeal Following on from this, by the time the audience gets to see the victims they have usually been rendered into perverse – but often quite beautiful – artworks. These drew visual inspiration from the oeuvres of Francis Bacon, Damien Hirst, Marc Quinn, Anselm Kiefer, the Chapman Brothers, and many others; adding to the visual stylishness of a show which also foregrounded the superb tailoring of Mads Mikkelsen's clothing. We rarely see someone being killed, much less tortured or mutilated. And when we do, the details are often obscured. It’s mostly when violence between or involving the leading characters takes place that we witness it at all; just about everything else happens offscreen. The most interesting confrontations are the long, near-philosophical dialogues between Hannibal and various others (particularly Will Graham). Their verbal fencing is so full of subtexts and hidden conflicts that it's as thrilling as a physical struggle. Hannibal places death in a fantasy context and serves up mortality as an abstraction, divorced from its customary context. And it doesn’t make the mistake (often found in novice screenplays) of overplaying the gore-factor. 5. Build from strong emotional undercurrents When Fuller said he saw Hannibal as a dark comedy, he added, “and on another level, it’s an emotional story about male friendships.” I have a friend who can’t watch the US version of House of Cards: she finds the characters too cold and self-motivated. But she enjoys Fargo despite its violence, because its characters retain some emotional depth and sense of connectedness. Both Hannibal and Will Graham are strange, unfathomable men. Each represents the other's sole chance to find the deeper understanding that all human beings crave. For all its grisliness, Hannibal is something of a protracted courtship between Lecter and Will Graham. As Bryan Fuller, says, “If the first season is the bromance, the second season is the break-up; Lecter is the spurned lover.” Like all other genres, Horror is far more powerful, memorable and potentially popular when there's some powerful emotion behind it. 6. Include some strong female characters A number of male characters from the books became female in the show, including the small part of Dr. Alan Bloom, which was transformed into the much bigger role of Dr. Alana Bloom, and Freddie Lounds, a male journalist, who also became a woman.
Bryan Fuller said the show would have been "a sausage-fest” if this hadn't been done. Hannibal also played with gender stereotypes, giving us a vulnerable ex-policeman in Will Graham and a style-conscious foodie serial killer — "prim and proper and baking in an apron" - in the title character. And let's not forget the crucial importance of using a proportionate number of female writers, directors, technical staff and crew! * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * IAN LONG is Euroscript's Head of Consultancy. He is a screenwriter, script editor and screenwriting teacher, and has taught his acclaimed writing workshops on Horror, Neo Noir, Deep Narrative Design and other topics in the UK and elsewhere. By Ian Long In the last ten years, TV series have become central to screen storytelling. So it’s interesting that many of the most striking and successful series use Film Noir/Neo-Noir techniques to make their stories possible, and to create their anti-hero protagonists - techniques which, once understood, can be used for many kinds of narratives. 1. Voiceover: Dexter We’re often told that voiceover is off-limits in screenwriting. But many Noir stories would not only be impoverished without it – they’d become downright meaningless. Imagine Sunset Boulevard if Joe Gillis’s beyond-the-grave testimony were absent, or Memento without the voiceover that reveals Leonard’s inner thoughts and the reasoning behind his actions. Dexter uses extensive voiceover to get us inside the head of its lead character, a psychopath trained by his father to use his proclivities “for good” – i.e., to off other serial killers who’ve been overlooked by the law. Through Dexter’s voiceover, we experience his awkwardness as he tries to fit into an emotional world he can’t understand: mimicking normal human reactions, trying to give signs of affection and even sexual desire which he’s unable to feel. It’s no small feat to make an audience empathise with someone who lacks all empathy himself; Dexter manages it, but it wouldn’t be possible without voiceover. 2. Time Running Out: Breaking Bad Noir typically deals with situations where the main character’s time is running out - or has already come to an end. Some Noir stories even begin with the protagonist’s death, then reel back in time to show us what led to his or her downfall. When Double Indemnity begins, for instance, its protagonist is already on the verge of death from a gunshot wound. In Breaking Bad, it’s Walter White’s diagnosis of terminal cancer that sets a clear boundary to his life. Walter uses the diagnosis to justify his increasingly extreme actions, telling himself that he's ensuring his family's future when he's no longer around. But the truth is that cancer is the excuse he's always needed to unleash the latent, malign sides of his personality. For Walter, the prospect of time running out is a dark liberation. 3. The Damaged Investigator: Hannibal Hannibal is a hybrid Horror-Noir, and the Noir device of the damaged investigator is a crucial element in the series. Will Graham tracks down deranged killers by projecting himself so deeply into their psyches that he’s in constant danger of tipping into breakdown or psychosis himself. Many Noir detectives are struggling with similar issues. Again, think of Leonard, struggling to solve a crime without a functioning memory in Memento; a British example is John Mills in the October Man, another brain-damaged man trying to clear himself of a murder he dimly suspects he may have committed. Or Leonardo DiCaprio in Shutter Island, the deluded inmate of a remote asylum who thinks he is a police detective investigating a case. Damaged investigators give stories extra fascination; because, in true Noir style, they embody elements of both Protagonist and Antagonist. 4. Corrupt Organisations: The Wire In Noir, all human organisations tend towards a similarly corrupt and venal model. Fritz Lang’s 1929 film M (the first Noir?), parallels a tightly-run criminal ‘corporation’ with the Berlin police force: both are united in a desire to rid the city of a child-killer who - police and criminals agree - is very bad for business. In a similar way, The Wire shows us how the illicit drug business works in Baltimore, its hierarchy of operatives governed by the logic of making money and getting ahead in their careers, whatever this may take. And we come to understand that the 'criminals' are very much like the Baltimore police force and the FBI, their supposed moral opposites, who are also primarily focused on careerism and getting rich. We're running a workshop on writing Neo Noir on February 13, where you can find out more about these and other techniques - and come up with your own variations through fun and inspirational exercises.
To find out more, click here. LSF’s Euroscript Script Surgery 2015 Theresa Boden Euroscript’s Script Surgery team of Script Doctors ran another intensive 3 day session at this year’s London Screenwriters’ Festival. Over 150 LSF delegates were warmly welcomed in and offered advice and tips on developing their treatments, formats, initial project ideas, how to polish their pitch and tackle the next draft of their scripts. We were new to some of you and familiar to others who have visited us at previous festivals, as well as attended our regular courses, Development Workshops and use our Script Feedback and Consultancy services. “Invaluable. One of the best hours I’ve spent in the last 3 years of script development.”
With all the how-to books and websites offering their blueprints to a successful script and all the inspiring sessions at the LSF, it can be overwhelming when a writer comes to apply it to their own work. At Euroscript we aim to clarify and illuminate clear, constructive paths for the writers we work with and ensure they have the tools they need to develop the best possible version of their screenplay. And as always at LSF we thoroughly enjoyed meeting all our writers and getting the chance to discover and discuss all the inspiring and wonderful ideas, stories and projects that were brought to the Surgery. Development is of vital importance to making a good idea into a great script and it’s a mission that is very dear to us. It seems it is just as important to all of you from reading all the positive feedback you gave us over our 3-day campaign. Here are just a few comments: “Wonderfully detailed with guidance that will progress my screenplay to a new direction.” “I never knew I could cover so much in terms of both structure and characterisation in an hour.” “The most inspirational hour you will ever spend at LSF” “I would definitely recommend Euroscript.” Makes it all worthwhile to know we’ve been able to help. Watch out for more of our Script Surgeries soon and let us know in the comments what your highlights of the weekend were. In the meantime, make sure you follow us on Twitter and Facebook to get all the latest tips and news. And I’ll leave you with my favourite comment: “It makes you want to write as soon as you leave the session” By Patrick Johns Getting feedback on your script can be a daunting experience, particularly if you are new to writing. Ask any writer and they will tell you about the cold sweats that can come each time those precious pages are read and analysed and commented on. Of course, the benefits of opening up your creative world to constructive criticism far outweighs any nervousness a writer might feel when seeking advice. Feedback is a vital part of developing the craft and understanding of what entertains people. One thing to consider in this day and age is that there is a whole internet full of information on scriptwriting only a few clicks away. Go to any website for writers, and you will find it awash with tips and offers to help make your script better. But is all this commentary useful? Not every pearl of wisdom can be assimilated and not all criticism of your writing will be given with context. Take, for example, the article by Shannon Reed, writing for BuzzFeed, in which she parodies this dilemma with her article If Jane Austen Got Feedback From Some Guy In A Writing Workshop. So where might a writer look for good quality, relevant feedback? Well, one such place (of course) is the Euroscript Development Workshop. Every two months, up to six writers get together with their latest drafts for a discussion with a Euroscript consultant such as Gabriella Apicella, Charles Harris or Paul Bassett-Davis. Attendees work in small groups, which means high quality, focused time for each attendee, with a relaxing, informal atmosphere to banish any nerves. When I took part in a recent workshop, the first thing that impressed me was how much fun it was. These sessions are a treasure-trove of ideas, perspectives and possibilities for your script. Charles Harris began with introductions and an overview of each script to be reviewed. Each writer is then given 20-30 minutes to get into the details of their narrative and its relative strengths and weaknesses.
After each script has been reviewed in detail, Charles utilises the feedback to generate an action plan for each writer. A lot of momentum is created from the workshop and these guides are a great way to keep motivated well into the next draft. The next Euroscript Development Workshop will take place at the BFI on 30th November. One of the students at my recent Writing Science Fiction workshop asked, "what is the definition of Science Fiction?" It’s a good question. A vast range of stories comes under this genre heading. Stories about aliens and robots. Post-apocalyptic stories and pre-apocalyptic stories. Time-travel stories, and ones that take place in alternative histories. Stories about the far future, and stories about the distant past. Epic “space operas” and small chamber pieces. Science Fiction covers a huge amount of ground - and not all of it has that much to do with science. So how do so many diverse themes fit into a single genre? One way to answer the question is to look at two films with similar themes and see what makes one Science Fiction, and the other … something else. In BIGGER THAN LIFE (Nicholas Ray, 1958), schoolteacher Ed Avery is prescribed cortisone for a heart condition. The drug has an unexpected side-effect: he becomes suffused with a sense of personal power, megalomaniacally convinced that he has “a special plan for this world,” which he retails to a mixed response at his school’s PTA evening. Later, feeling displeased with his son, Ed decides that he must deal with him in the manner of the biblical Abraham, who was ordered by God to sacrifice his own son, Isaac. Ed’s terrified wife reminds him that the Bible story was in the nature of a test: on seeing Abraham’s obedience, God relented and sent an angel to tell the faithful father to spare Isaac. Ed answers his wife with the memorable line, “God was wrong.” But the effects of the drug never really transcend Ed’s family and immediate surroundings, and we don’t feel that his estimation of his mental powers and leadership potential is accurate. It seems, instead, that he is horribly deluded. So Bigger Than Life remains a Social or Medical Drama – maybe a Psychodrama – rather than a Science Fiction story. Let’s compare LIMITLESS (Neil Burger, 2011). When struggling writer Eddie Morra begins to take a smart drug, his intelligence actually is elevated. He can write long screeds of quality prose without effort; he has instant, detailed access to all his memories, no matter how fleeting or partial; his perceptions become extremely acute; and he can quickly synthesise all these elements into expert knowledge on virtually any subject, enabling him to earn a fortune as a Wall Street trader - evidently the fastest route he can envisage to complete financial independence. In other words, the changes that the drug has made in Eddie are tested against a wider world – and found to be real.
Later in the film, Eddie must contend with another man who is also taking the smart drug, and is using his increased capacity to the more sinister ends of masterminding a violent criminal empire. This is a strong sign that the drug is indeed effective, and that it can be put to a wide variety of applications. It’s possible to imagine a scenario in which the central conceit of Limitless is taken a step further, and just about everyone in a given society – or the world at large - has their intelligence and effectiveness raised by the drug. What would a planet full of individual geniuses, all pursuing their possibly conflicting ends, look like? That’s a question for another day, but Eddie and Ed’s experience suggests a possible working definition of Science Fiction: “A story with a novel (but plausible) twist on reality at its heart which has the potential to ripple out and affect the entire world in which the story is set.” Maybe you can come up with a much better definition? Feel free to add your thoughts. I’ll be holding the Writing Science Fiction workshop again in the not-too-distant future – do get in touch if you would like to know more. Blog post written by Ian Long. |
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