JET TRASH PREMIERE
Charlie Belleville's tremendous adaptation of JET TRASH was on at the Edinburgh festival so I got to go to a premiere... In truth there is little enough glamour in the film business, so good to grab it when you get the chance.
Seeing your film on the big screen is so much more immersive, and you realise how vital the sound mix is to the whole experience. In the first screening I was very attuned to the audience. Little creaks and shuffles tell you that people are settling in, you hear titters in the funny bits. If something is baffling or dull you can hear the rustle of shifting bums as people come out of the film and back into themselves. And you can feel the collective hold its breath at the tense bits.
My heart sank when I saw someone leave - oh no, a walkout! I braced for more, the nightmare of watching a steady stream of shadowy bodies and bowed heads, each of which I had disappointed and let down. But a minute later, the guy walked back in - he was not, after all, bored or disgusted - he was just going to the loo... My heart soared. To be honest I think I ended up with my eyes closed for most of it. it's just weird and slightly uncomfortable watching your own stuff. Actors feel the same too, in fact it's worse for them cause it's their faces on screen as well.
Anyway judging by this audience the film went down well. The reviews started coming immediately after the screening - there had been a press event followed by an embargo - and they were good too, the best I've ever had for film stuff -
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/jet-trash-edinburgh-review-906389
http://www.theskinny.co.uk/festivals/uk-festivals/film/eiff-2016-jet-trash
and they helped make the after party festive. So did the presence of so many of my co-writer, Dan Brown, and director Charlie's, families - they are both Edinburgh boys. The actors had made a lot of effort to turn up, flying in from India and LA. Overall felt like we were the glitziest glammiest partiest folk at the festival, hehe, and as a bonus we had one of the best films too.
Tuesday, 28 June 2016
Tuesday, 7 July 2015
Writing a Treatment
I have been hired for a new film project, adapting a book for a feature, and that process starts with presenting a treatment.
So I thought I would write how to do that. Cause actually that's a really important skill that no one talks about much.
A treatment is a synopsis of the story. There's no standard length or format, no one tells you what one looks like, but the more screenplays I write the more useful I realise one is.
To producers, they can quickly see what your story is. They can 'get it' from the one line pitch; the treatment shows how the story actually develops.
For you, it means that you have a road map for where you're going before you get bogged down in the nitty gritty of writing. An extra week spent getting a treatment right will save a month later, as you'll spend a lot less time writing things that need to be cut.
Here is how I do a treatment. Like I say, there is nothing 'industry standard' about any of this, but I have been told I'm good at it, and people who have read my treatments have used them as sample documents to show other writers what to do.
Here's an example below - I'm not saying this a great film idea but it is simple, short and forcefully expressed so good to use as an example (it's not something I've sold, please don't rip it off: if you want a script, hire me).
First, write the BLURB - that's basically a selling document. like you'd read on the back of a book. It basically sets up the situation - so it's act one written up in a sexy way with a hint of what is going to happen in act three:
MATCH
That it's 'X meets Y in Z' is important to give people an idea of the tone. Nail the genre. And the phrase 'he has to turn and fight' is clearly a reference to what will happen at the end of act two. So just from that paragraph you get the shape of the whole film.
Then you get into the actual treatment, which will be about three or four pages. It's basically a list of beats that you are going to hit. This is quite a dry document, cause it's all mechanics, making it something of a ballache to read (that's why I always precede it with the sexy 'sell the project' stuff). You should divide it into parts, generally -
ACT ONE
ACT TWO TO MIDPOINT
REST OF ACT TWO
ACT THREE
The reason you do this is because, inevitably, when you write the treatment you will have a good idea of what happens in act one - so that's two pages - then some idea of act two - another two pages - and only a vague idea of what happens in act three - two paragraphs. If you write that down as a stream of text anyone reading it will get a skewed idea of what the film will look like: act one is half your document so they will think that is half of the film. You have to put those markers in so anyone reading it understands the pacing.
Here is how MATCH looks: notice how simple it is. The shorter the better... anything too long just looks bogged down and is dull to read.
I have been hired for a new film project, adapting a book for a feature, and that process starts with presenting a treatment.
So I thought I would write how to do that. Cause actually that's a really important skill that no one talks about much.
A treatment is a synopsis of the story. There's no standard length or format, no one tells you what one looks like, but the more screenplays I write the more useful I realise one is.
To producers, they can quickly see what your story is. They can 'get it' from the one line pitch; the treatment shows how the story actually develops.
For you, it means that you have a road map for where you're going before you get bogged down in the nitty gritty of writing. An extra week spent getting a treatment right will save a month later, as you'll spend a lot less time writing things that need to be cut.
Here is how I do a treatment. Like I say, there is nothing 'industry standard' about any of this, but I have been told I'm good at it, and people who have read my treatments have used them as sample documents to show other writers what to do.
Here's an example below - I'm not saying this a great film idea but it is simple, short and forcefully expressed so good to use as an example (it's not something I've sold, please don't rip it off: if you want a script, hire me).
First, write the BLURB - that's basically a selling document. like you'd read on the back of a book. It basically sets up the situation - so it's act one written up in a sexy way with a hint of what is going to happen in act three:
MATCH
'A petty crook, Owen, is sprung from jail by men he’s never met before. He discovers that he is the illegitimate son of a billionaire - who now urgently needs a liver transplant from a genetic relative. Owen was snatched by the rich guy’s legitimate son - his own half-brother - who wants to steal his liver: an operation which Owen, of course, would not survive.
When Owen escapes, he is pursued by the police as well as this parasitic family. He flees - but has no choice but to turn and fight when his half-brother discovers another genetic match exists: for Owen has a daughter...
MATCH is a high tension thriller with contemporary resonance, TAKEN meets THE FUGITIVE.'
That it's 'X meets Y in Z' is important to give people an idea of the tone. Nail the genre. And the phrase 'he has to turn and fight' is clearly a reference to what will happen at the end of act two. So just from that paragraph you get the shape of the whole film.
Then you get into the actual treatment, which will be about three or four pages. It's basically a list of beats that you are going to hit. This is quite a dry document, cause it's all mechanics, making it something of a ballache to read (that's why I always precede it with the sexy 'sell the project' stuff). You should divide it into parts, generally -
ACT ONE
ACT TWO TO MIDPOINT
REST OF ACT TWO
ACT THREE
The reason you do this is because, inevitably, when you write the treatment you will have a good idea of what happens in act one - so that's two pages - then some idea of act two - another two pages - and only a vague idea of what happens in act three - two paragraphs. If you write that down as a stream of text anyone reading it will get a skewed idea of what the film will look like: act one is half your document so they will think that is half of the film. You have to put those markers in so anyone reading it understands the pacing.
Here is how MATCH looks: notice how simple it is. The shorter the better... anything too long just looks bogged down and is dull to read.
MATCH
OWEN LUCAS is a petty crook. He’s never amounted to much, and now he’s on the slide down: serving a long sentence for burglary. When men break into his jail and spring him, he has no idea why.
He is knocked out, and wakes in a surgery: where he is watched over by LINCOLN OSBOURNE. Lincoln is the pampered son of billionaire financier, SIFITIS - who is now elderly and ill. If Sifitis does not get a liver transplant from a genetic relative within twenty four hours, he will die. Lincoln is so keen on Owen because Owen is a match: he is Sifitis’s illegitimate son; and Lincoln has worked hard to track him down.
But Owen’s captors have underestimated him: if he knows one thing, it’s escaping. Owen breaks free. Now he is really in trouble: his determined and well resourced kidnappers want him back, and so do the police: he’s the target of two manhunts.
ACT TWO
Fugitive Owen doesn’t know where to turn. He finds his way to an old girlfriend, LATITIA. He walked out on the woman and their daughter ten years ago. Now he throws herself on her mercy.
But she’s not impressed: will never forgive him. He meets his daughter - MONICA. Now she’s grown up: she’s sixteen, mixed up, in trouble.
Monica is not impressed with her father. She knows he is just there to ask for help. He tells them that he has connections abroad - if they can just help him with some money, a place to hide for a while... His entreaties fall on deaf ears: Latitia refuses to help.
Owen leaves just before the police arrive. They demand to know if she has seen Owen. Latitia says no; but Monica says yes: she feels she owes her absent father no favours. And once more our hero is forced to flee the police.
Owen goes to see the man he thinks is his father: someone else who he is alienated from - but he has nowhere else to hide. The man reveals why he has never liked Owen: he doesn’t believe that Owen is his. His mother worked as a waitress at a ritzy restaurant, and had a fling with a customer. Owen puts it together, and realises what the bad guys are after.
Following Owen’s trail, Lincoln tracks Letitia down: and finds out about Monica. He realises that it’s quite possible that Owen’s daughter would also be a match. Lincoln kills Letitia and sets a trap for Monica. Owen finds Monica just in time.
MIDPOINT
Now Owen goes on the run with Monica. He has to escape from the police, and from Lincoln; while trying to find some way to relate to the daughter he abandoned. He works on a plan to get them both out of the country. But Monica has her own ideas of justice, and finally gives him up to the police.
Owen is arrested. But he has time to see: Lincoln snatches his daughter.
ACT THREE
The scene is set for a dynamic climax: Owen has learnt that you cannot keep running. He has built a relationship with his daughter only to see it snatched away. Desperation gives him strength.
Owen escapes from the police, and tracks down his enemies. There is a clear ticking bomb: as the complex surgical operation is just beginning. Owen tracks his family down, and in an exciting and explosive climax, he rescues his daughter.
Owen and Monica escape the clutches of the parasitic financiers.
Lincoln admits to his father that he has failed. Sitifis rams a scalpel into his son’s neck, and orders the surgeons to continue the operation: for Lincoln too, of course, is a match.
Then I always put a couple of paragraphs of NOTES at the end where I say what interests me about the subject matter and why this story needs to be a film. Maybe something about milieu and contemporary relevance or how it would be cheap to shoot and so on. In this case -
NOTES
This is the kind of chase thriller that Hitchcock would have loved: a man on the run is hounded by a conspiracy of powerful people; there are high stakes, and an ending that involves saving the girl before a deadline expires - narratively speaking, we are on solid ground. But the emotional heart of the story is the lead character’s arc, specifically, the developing relationship with the daughter he abandoned.
The villains are despicable and powerful, as villains should be, and, pleasingly, the antagonist and protagonist are shadows of one another: they are brothers, and each is doing his best to save a family member.
As to the villain’s plan - financiers needing transplants in order to survive and ordinary people suffering as a consequence - not hard to see how that relates, metaphorically, to contemporary realities: I could see audiences really hating those guys.
Finally, in terms of locale, we have an intriguing contrast been two very different milieus: high finance for glitz and the underworld of petty criminals for grime.
Saturday, 23 May 2015
Quick Film Review, MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
The Dreamtime of Jeremy Clarkson
'In a stark desert landscape where humanity is broken, two rebels just might be able to restore order: Max, a man of action and of few words, and Furiosa, a woman of action who is looking to make it back to her childhood homeland.'
Mad Max is basically an extended demolition derby style car chase in a desert world of competing tribes of unhinged car worshippers. it delivers gothic weirdness and spectacle in spades, and, accordingly, its best bits are the most unhinged - flamethrower guitar guy, engine tattoo guy, war granny etc etc.
It's well paced - they stop driving occasionally, so there's at least some rythmn there, and the world building (always the trickiest part of sci-fi) is awesome. I guess it helps that they can create tribal cultures from scratch in the desert. Though I do wonder if a post apocalyptic world would really be so reliant on petrol. They don't reference our times, there's no Ozymandias moment where they drive through, say, the ruins of the Sydney Opera House - and I think that's a really smart decision.
The characters are suitably larger than life. Max is basically the same as Eastwood's Man with no Name. Actually, I wished Hardy looked a bit more Eastwoody, he looks a bit too like a bouncer IMO. Theron as Furiosa is his equal as action hero, and the story is clunkily feminist, in that it's about nurturing women taking the world back from tyrannical men.
Looking at it in terms of writing - there's very little dialogue, it relies entirely on visual story telling. The two leads start by trying to kill each other and end up as allies, and that is charted entirely in moments - Max letting Furiosa use his shoulder to steady her rifle, her letting him drive her rig, and so on. Action only works when it also develops character and on that point this film is really worth studying.
The Dreamtime of Jeremy Clarkson
'In a stark desert landscape where humanity is broken, two rebels just might be able to restore order: Max, a man of action and of few words, and Furiosa, a woman of action who is looking to make it back to her childhood homeland.'
Mad Max is basically an extended demolition derby style car chase in a desert world of competing tribes of unhinged car worshippers. it delivers gothic weirdness and spectacle in spades, and, accordingly, its best bits are the most unhinged - flamethrower guitar guy, engine tattoo guy, war granny etc etc.
It's well paced - they stop driving occasionally, so there's at least some rythmn there, and the world building (always the trickiest part of sci-fi) is awesome. I guess it helps that they can create tribal cultures from scratch in the desert. Though I do wonder if a post apocalyptic world would really be so reliant on petrol. They don't reference our times, there's no Ozymandias moment where they drive through, say, the ruins of the Sydney Opera House - and I think that's a really smart decision.
The characters are suitably larger than life. Max is basically the same as Eastwood's Man with no Name. Actually, I wished Hardy looked a bit more Eastwoody, he looks a bit too like a bouncer IMO. Theron as Furiosa is his equal as action hero, and the story is clunkily feminist, in that it's about nurturing women taking the world back from tyrannical men.
Looking at it in terms of writing - there's very little dialogue, it relies entirely on visual story telling. The two leads start by trying to kill each other and end up as allies, and that is charted entirely in moments - Max letting Furiosa use his shoulder to steady her rifle, her letting him drive her rig, and so on. Action only works when it also develops character and on that point this film is really worth studying.
Tuesday, 19 May 2015
I just got asked by someone how to get into the film industry as a writer. Thought I would repeat the advice I gave him here. There’s nothing definitive about this, I’m sure there’s lots of ways in, this is just what I know.
First, get a copy of FINAL DRAFT or one of those other script writing programs and get yourself used to script format, it won’t take long. I hate script format, I convert my stuff from word into proper format by copy and pasting when the thing is basically finished - but you can’t not submit your stuff in the proper format, because the people who you hope will read it won't read it unless it’s in the right format. So that’s lesson one.
Go look at shootingpeople.com. You’ll find up-and-coming directors on there who need scripts. Maybe they’re film students, or deluded accountants with a new camera, who cares. They need stuff to shoot. Bang out some short scripts. Keep it simple, two actors in a room or a park or such like, ten pages long. Don’t get involved in the production, let them do the hard work of getting the thing made and then entering it into festivals and all that. There’s probably lots of other similar websites, have a nose around. Basically there are a lot of people out there who want to make a short film but don’t know much about telling a story - go help them.
When you’ve got the knack of short films, have a go at some longer form stories - a feature or a TV pilot. Then enter competitions, lots of competitions, you'll find lists online.
Now, with a couple of short films under your belt and third place in an obscure US script competition, you can try the next stage, approaching agents and production companies. You can get a list of agents out of The Writers and Artists Yearbook. These people are deluged with stuff, but the fact that you’ve had something shot and been placed in a competition gives you a vastly better chance of getting some kind of hearing. Enter the Channel Four Coming Up competition too.
Films need producers, directors and actors. Make connections with people who want to do those jobs. And stay in touch with them. Maybe four years on that deluded accountant has raised a million dollars for a feature...
Friday, 13 March 2015
film review HYENA
'Good policing doesn't necessarily mean doing everything by the book. But as the business of crime in London turns to favour the Albanians and Turks, how does a "good" policeman survive?'
Michael Logan is a corrupt cop on the take who gets caught between his own colleagues, out to shut him down, and a pair of Albanian traffickers. Does a good job of portraying the sleazy side of London, and the casting is great - the Albanians and Turkish gangsters, and the equally thuggish cops, really look the part, and the best scenes are where they relax on big sofas making chit chat and exuding menace. Great soundtrack by THE THE... while I'm generally in favour of this grittily realistic style, some horrible violence and rape make it quite tough to watch in places.
The writer/director has clearly read the same books on police corruption as I have, as I recognised some of his research. Though he could have done a bit more, I wasn't quite convinced.
But - big spoiler - it's got a shit ending. The cop is about to confront the Albanians - they're armed, he's armed, they've got his girlfriend hostage - and then it just stops. Like a novel that's had the last chapter ripped out. The audience in my cinema were tutting in disappointment, as was I. Even a bad ending is better than no ending. So everyone walks out of the cinema saying how disappointing it was. Way to shoot yourself in the foot, filmmakers.
quick petulent aside - so another writer director project that looks good, is written a bit flat but coasts some distance on directorial flair and casting, then falls apart in the second half. Like every other writer/director project ever. I wish directors would stop writing, cause they're crap at it.
Michael Logan is a corrupt cop on the take who gets caught between his own colleagues, out to shut him down, and a pair of Albanian traffickers. Does a good job of portraying the sleazy side of London, and the casting is great - the Albanians and Turkish gangsters, and the equally thuggish cops, really look the part, and the best scenes are where they relax on big sofas making chit chat and exuding menace. Great soundtrack by THE THE... while I'm generally in favour of this grittily realistic style, some horrible violence and rape make it quite tough to watch in places.
The writer/director has clearly read the same books on police corruption as I have, as I recognised some of his research. Though he could have done a bit more, I wasn't quite convinced.
But - big spoiler - it's got a shit ending. The cop is about to confront the Albanians - they're armed, he's armed, they've got his girlfriend hostage - and then it just stops. Like a novel that's had the last chapter ripped out. The audience in my cinema were tutting in disappointment, as was I. Even a bad ending is better than no ending. So everyone walks out of the cinema saying how disappointing it was. Way to shoot yourself in the foot, filmmakers.
quick petulent aside - so another writer director project that looks good, is written a bit flat but coasts some distance on directorial flair and casting, then falls apart in the second half. Like every other writer/director project ever. I wish directors would stop writing, cause they're crap at it.
Tuesday, 10 March 2015
Writing a Book
I am writing a book. I have already sold it. This is much better than writing with your fingers crossed, just hoping that someone will pick it up. I can set myself deadlines, research properly, budget...
First draft I call draft zero, cause it is just looking for a story - writing for the sake of it, taking the characters out for a walk, goading them to a fight. Not worrying too much about where it is going at this stage.
I usually start on paper, and write lots of dialogue between the characters - getting a sense of who they are, and a rough idea of the plot. Just keep them talking.
All the scene setting and the prose can come later.
For me a scene only works when people are talking. Like today I wrote about this cop telling a guy that a relative had died. It was okay. But it came alive when I put them in a situation where they had to wait around, so they had to make chit chat, and the cop starts telling the guy about his holidays, cause he can't think of anything else to talk about. It's really banal dialogue but because the situation is dramatic, it works. I think there will be lots of such chit-chat in this book.
.
Tuesday, 27 January 2015
internet is evil
when I wrote BAD TRAFFIC (my best novel) I didn't have internet at home. I went every morning to the Somali cafe round the corner and paid 50p for half an hour of internet access, and that was long enough to do all my emails and browse the news. Apart from that my life was completely internet-free.
When I was sitting at my computer, all I could do was work. My computer did not double as an infinite library of distractions, so I didn't have to constantly fight the urge to check email or look up random stuff. I wrote loads.
When my circumstances improved, and I got internet at home, I could still remember how productive and simple my life had been when I didn't have it. The internet is a Disneyland of diversions and I have little willpower.
I decided I needed a work computer that could run a word processor, do all the normal computery things, but couldn't go on the net.
But you can't buy one. Impossible. You'd have to get a typewriter.
So I got a Toshiba satellite: an undistinguished cheap laptop, but with one crucial (odd) feature - the wifi is controlled from a physical on/off switch on the side. I set it to 'off' and squirted super glue into the switch to jam it up. Ta-dah, no internet, a work machine.
But that was clunky and heavy and now, some years later, I am back working on an internet-enabled machine. Constantly battling distraction. I have Freedom, which is a simple program that will turn off your internet for a set period of time, but it just isn't the same.
This article - how the internet, merely by being available, destroys your ability to focus your attention - really chided with me.
Now I want to write another book and I'm thinking of finding another way to go back to being internet-less cause I can still just about remember how much more work I got done when it wasn't there.
So... bad internet! Bad for writers. Bad for readers. If I had my way, it would *only* be available in Somali cafes, and people would be slightly less connected and less well informed but actually able to concentrate.
Wednesday, 21 January 2015
QUICK WRITING
One of my favourite Brit films is LONDON TO BRIGHTON. It follows a prostitute and a child running from a horrible pimp who wants to kill the kid. Check it out. It's a chase film, simple and direct, and very affecting.
One thing that interests me about it is Paul Andrew William's statement that he wrote it in a weekend. That idea, that you could do something very good, very quickly, is very alluring. Because a screenplay is not very long, it certainly would be physically possible to write one fast - but that would mean you got everything right first time. Sadly it almost never works out like that. Generally you have to write a vast amount that ends up being cut before you get to something that seems simple and straightforward. Simple is not as easy as it looks, just ask Matisse and Brancusi.
Anyway the characters in L2B were based on people Paul had written about in a short, a couple of years previously. So in a way, a lot of the work had been done earlier. And cause he was also the director he probably got to do a lot of rewriting on the hoof.
I guess if you do want to do something fast, a chase film is the easiest genre to get a handle on in a hurry. Something where you can set an antagonist and a protagonist against each other and just kind of let them tick through it. Know the world well enough so that you don't have to do any research. I don't think MEMENTO was written in a weekend...
One of my favourite Brit films is LONDON TO BRIGHTON. It follows a prostitute and a child running from a horrible pimp who wants to kill the kid. Check it out. It's a chase film, simple and direct, and very affecting.
One thing that interests me about it is Paul Andrew William's statement that he wrote it in a weekend. That idea, that you could do something very good, very quickly, is very alluring. Because a screenplay is not very long, it certainly would be physically possible to write one fast - but that would mean you got everything right first time. Sadly it almost never works out like that. Generally you have to write a vast amount that ends up being cut before you get to something that seems simple and straightforward. Simple is not as easy as it looks, just ask Matisse and Brancusi.
Anyway the characters in L2B were based on people Paul had written about in a short, a couple of years previously. So in a way, a lot of the work had been done earlier. And cause he was also the director he probably got to do a lot of rewriting on the hoof.
I guess if you do want to do something fast, a chase film is the easiest genre to get a handle on in a hurry. Something where you can set an antagonist and a protagonist against each other and just kind of let them tick through it. Know the world well enough so that you don't have to do any research. I don't think MEMENTO was written in a weekend...
Monday, 19 January 2015
quick review, AMERICAN SNIPER
AMERICAN SNIPER
Why are there so many films with the word 'American' in the title? It annoys me, it always sounds bombastic, like the film-makers really believe their country is exceptional, their pyschos and beautys uniquely place specific. In contrast, I don't think I've ever seen a film with 'British' in the title. And I can't imagine anyone ever thinking a title like 'British sniper' could be a good idea.
Anyway Bradley Cooper plays Chris Kyle, a real life sniper and massive liar (look on the internet for debunkings of his cascade of bullshit) and the film tells the story of his Iraq tours, with plenty of juicy fiction - such as a duel with a deadly enemy sniper - added to what was probably quite dull fact - just one damn spurty headshot after another.
He's a big hunk of beardy manliness who wants to keep his buds safe by killin savages. Except when he's at home, when he gets freaked out by cars and dogs. But he has a good woman who keeps him strong. Turns out he can't keep all his buds safe and some of them die then the Horrors of Wah get to him and he can't bring himself to take a shot against a kid who picks up an RPG, the big pussy. But that works out fine and he kills more people from very far away and then lots of orcs, sorry Iraqis, try to overrun his position in a sandstorm and then drama and then he goes home.
There's not enough 'this war is shit' and there's some 'Americah fuck yeah', so guardian readers hate it and right-wing nutjobs love it, but politics aside, I'm a sucker for a good war movie and this does the job. I think it's brave to even attempt to do the Iraq war, and Eastwood is a proper old school director (ie a good one, not like these fancy directors they have nowadays). It doesn't set the target very far away but it hits the bullseye.
Why are there so many films with the word 'American' in the title? It annoys me, it always sounds bombastic, like the film-makers really believe their country is exceptional, their pyschos and beautys uniquely place specific. In contrast, I don't think I've ever seen a film with 'British' in the title. And I can't imagine anyone ever thinking a title like 'British sniper' could be a good idea.
Anyway Bradley Cooper plays Chris Kyle, a real life sniper and massive liar (look on the internet for debunkings of his cascade of bullshit) and the film tells the story of his Iraq tours, with plenty of juicy fiction - such as a duel with a deadly enemy sniper - added to what was probably quite dull fact - just one damn spurty headshot after another.
He's a big hunk of beardy manliness who wants to keep his buds safe by killin savages. Except when he's at home, when he gets freaked out by cars and dogs. But he has a good woman who keeps him strong. Turns out he can't keep all his buds safe and some of them die then the Horrors of Wah get to him and he can't bring himself to take a shot against a kid who picks up an RPG, the big pussy. But that works out fine and he kills more people from very far away and then lots of orcs, sorry Iraqis, try to overrun his position in a sandstorm and then drama and then he goes home.
There's not enough 'this war is shit' and there's some 'Americah fuck yeah', so guardian readers hate it and right-wing nutjobs love it, but politics aside, I'm a sucker for a good war movie and this does the job. I think it's brave to even attempt to do the Iraq war, and Eastwood is a proper old school director (ie a good one, not like these fancy directors they have nowadays). It doesn't set the target very far away but it hits the bullseye.
Monday, 5 January 2015
how DIP got made
DIP was the first thing I had shot. A twenty minute drama that was made for the Channel Four Coming Up series, directed by the lovely Lisa Gornick and starring dishy Robert Sheehan. You can see it here.
Coming Up is a Channel 4 scheme for new writers and new directors. As a writer you enter the competition with a pitch and some kind of writery backstory, you get interviewed, then (if you are lucky) you get shortlisted for a three day training scheme which involves being lectured by industry pros and they team you up and you make a short film.
The brief was to write a film that could be shot easily over a couple of days with a small cast. So I decided I'd come up with a story all set on a night bus. And then I had to think of someone who would have something dramatic to do on a bus - so, 'pickpocket' - then I had to give him someone to talk to - so that would have to be a victim... the story evolved out of those constraints.
The film was shot over four days on a bus driving round London - they shot on the upper deck with the crew downstairs. I spent one night on set. I learned that making a film is mostly boring and involves lots of hard work, that the hours are long and so it is important to wrap up warm. I remember being astonished that so many people were involved. There were people doing jobs I had not imagined - a 'script supervisor' who checks that everything is consistent from shot to shot, for instance, and another lady's job seemed to be running up to the top deck of the bus between every shot and damping down a Sheehan cowlick. Someone had to keep spraying the windows to keep them misted up. so the background wasn't distracting. And so on. I also learned that night shooting is an expensive pain, and if you're going to set something on a moving vehicle, make it easy for all involved and pick a luxury yacht.
Anyway it gets you on telly and you learn stuff. I figured I should mention it as I find myself recommending it a lot, to people trying to get into film.
Coming Up is a Channel 4 scheme for new writers and new directors. As a writer you enter the competition with a pitch and some kind of writery backstory, you get interviewed, then (if you are lucky) you get shortlisted for a three day training scheme which involves being lectured by industry pros and they team you up and you make a short film.
The brief was to write a film that could be shot easily over a couple of days with a small cast. So I decided I'd come up with a story all set on a night bus. And then I had to think of someone who would have something dramatic to do on a bus - so, 'pickpocket' - then I had to give him someone to talk to - so that would have to be a victim... the story evolved out of those constraints.
The film was shot over four days on a bus driving round London - they shot on the upper deck with the crew downstairs. I spent one night on set. I learned that making a film is mostly boring and involves lots of hard work, that the hours are long and so it is important to wrap up warm. I remember being astonished that so many people were involved. There were people doing jobs I had not imagined - a 'script supervisor' who checks that everything is consistent from shot to shot, for instance, and another lady's job seemed to be running up to the top deck of the bus between every shot and damping down a Sheehan cowlick. Someone had to keep spraying the windows to keep them misted up. so the background wasn't distracting. And so on. I also learned that night shooting is an expensive pain, and if you're going to set something on a moving vehicle, make it easy for all involved and pick a luxury yacht.
Anyway it gets you on telly and you learn stuff. I figured I should mention it as I find myself recommending it a lot, to people trying to get into film.
Thursday, 11 December 2014
quick review - WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS
WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS
yawn, vampire film. No, wait, this is a really good one. Cause it does the only thing left to do with the genre, which is take the piss. It's a mockumentary about four vampires living together in New Zealand, kind of Spinal Tap does Twilight.
It's made by the people behind FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS and is quite similar in themes - oddballs living together, deadpan humour, deliberately flat in the face of the absurd, flatshare comedy. It starts with a digital alarm going off at sunset and a hand reaching out of a coffin to slap the snooze button, and carries on in the same vein, mining funnies from the intersections of vampire myth and modern life: cause they can't look in the mirror they have to sketch each other when they try on clothes; when they go out clubbing they have to convince the bouncers to invite them in; when they get the internet they like to watch sunrises on youtube; they bitch about who's turn it is to wash the bloody dishes.
That makes it sound like a SCARY MOVIE sketch fest, but it's much better than that because the characters are really strong, angsty, out of time, frustrated and dealing as best they can with a horrible situation. Best is the 18th century dandy vamp who is in love with a human (now in her 90s) and hates getting blood on his clothes, and the new laddy vampire, who has to start learning the ropes from his undead cohorts, while teaching them about modern world.
There's not much of a plot - a vampire hunter adds a degree of threat, there's some kind of showdown brewing at the Unholy Masquerade annual ball, but it's a pleasure just to hang out with the loveable (blood drinking) misfits.
yawn, vampire film. No, wait, this is a really good one. Cause it does the only thing left to do with the genre, which is take the piss. It's a mockumentary about four vampires living together in New Zealand, kind of Spinal Tap does Twilight.
It's made by the people behind FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS and is quite similar in themes - oddballs living together, deadpan humour, deliberately flat in the face of the absurd, flatshare comedy. It starts with a digital alarm going off at sunset and a hand reaching out of a coffin to slap the snooze button, and carries on in the same vein, mining funnies from the intersections of vampire myth and modern life: cause they can't look in the mirror they have to sketch each other when they try on clothes; when they go out clubbing they have to convince the bouncers to invite them in; when they get the internet they like to watch sunrises on youtube; they bitch about who's turn it is to wash the bloody dishes.
That makes it sound like a SCARY MOVIE sketch fest, but it's much better than that because the characters are really strong, angsty, out of time, frustrated and dealing as best they can with a horrible situation. Best is the 18th century dandy vamp who is in love with a human (now in her 90s) and hates getting blood on his clothes, and the new laddy vampire, who has to start learning the ropes from his undead cohorts, while teaching them about modern world.
There's not much of a plot - a vampire hunter adds a degree of threat, there's some kind of showdown brewing at the Unholy Masquerade annual ball, but it's a pleasure just to hang out with the loveable (blood drinking) misfits.
Wednesday, 3 December 2014
Adapting
on adaptation
Adapting books is how most films get made these days. I think producers like to option a book cause then there is a property they can 'own', and you, as the screenwriter, are hired - and can be fired just as easily if they don't like your 'take'. An an original script, it's more 'your' project, so it's harder for them to dismiss you.
Books are not written like films, so it's generally as tough as writing an original screenplay.
Most of the work is boiling the story down - cut subplots and characters, trim locations and so on. A book is something like a gormenghast castle - ramshackle, with diversions on every corner. You wander through it without worrying too much about the destination. There are dull bits, funny bits, digressions, varieties of tone. A screenplay, in contrast, is like a cathedral, with every detail harmonising (ideally) as part of some grand design.
Plus, only when you start trying to work out how to adapt something do you realise just how much novelists rely on interior voice and flashback. Especially when they're trying to give you a handle on the characters. A novelist often lays down the whole history of a characters, shows you incidents from throughout their life, gets into their head. You can't do any of that so you have to find actions that offer an insight into the character.
Some stories just work better in one medium than another - closed world mysteries go great in books - The Name of the Rose, some of the Harry Potters, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo... but they made pretty dull films. Maybe it's because an investigation involves lots of talking - interviewing witnesses and such like - and dialogue works better in books (and on TV) than on film.
World building is much harder to do as well. That's what makes adapting fantasy and sci-fi tricksy.
Thrillers are probably the easiest. Though not always. Lots of thriller books have surprisingly creaky or odd stories, which you only notice when trying to strip them down. I once got asked to adapt a thriller in which the romantic interest, the girl, gets shot in the head exactly half way through, and goes into a coma, and comes out of it on the last page. Can that work in a film? And the plot didn't make any sense and the revelation at the end was a fifty page chuck of flashback. But it wasn't a bad book cause it took place in a fantastically well realised world. I pretty much had to throw the plot away but try to stay true to the characters. (There is a very odd story to why that never got made which I cannot tell).
Adapting books is how most films get made these days. I think producers like to option a book cause then there is a property they can 'own', and you, as the screenwriter, are hired - and can be fired just as easily if they don't like your 'take'. An an original script, it's more 'your' project, so it's harder for them to dismiss you.
Books are not written like films, so it's generally as tough as writing an original screenplay.
Most of the work is boiling the story down - cut subplots and characters, trim locations and so on. A book is something like a gormenghast castle - ramshackle, with diversions on every corner. You wander through it without worrying too much about the destination. There are dull bits, funny bits, digressions, varieties of tone. A screenplay, in contrast, is like a cathedral, with every detail harmonising (ideally) as part of some grand design.
Plus, only when you start trying to work out how to adapt something do you realise just how much novelists rely on interior voice and flashback. Especially when they're trying to give you a handle on the characters. A novelist often lays down the whole history of a characters, shows you incidents from throughout their life, gets into their head. You can't do any of that so you have to find actions that offer an insight into the character.
Some stories just work better in one medium than another - closed world mysteries go great in books - The Name of the Rose, some of the Harry Potters, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo... but they made pretty dull films. Maybe it's because an investigation involves lots of talking - interviewing witnesses and such like - and dialogue works better in books (and on TV) than on film.
World building is much harder to do as well. That's what makes adapting fantasy and sci-fi tricksy.
Thrillers are probably the easiest. Though not always. Lots of thriller books have surprisingly creaky or odd stories, which you only notice when trying to strip them down. I once got asked to adapt a thriller in which the romantic interest, the girl, gets shot in the head exactly half way through, and goes into a coma, and comes out of it on the last page. Can that work in a film? And the plot didn't make any sense and the revelation at the end was a fifty page chuck of flashback. But it wasn't a bad book cause it took place in a fantastically well realised world. I pretty much had to throw the plot away but try to stay true to the characters. (There is a very odd story to why that never got made which I cannot tell).
Thursday, 27 November 2014
William Gibson on NEUROMANCER
I went, (along with a whole load of other fortyish guys dressed in black), to hear William Gibson talk about NEUROMANCER. Which was published thirty years ago.
For those of you who don't know it, the book is an amazingly prescient work of tech-noir - a great story that invented the concept of an internet, and the term cyberspace; inspired dozens of imitations, including THE MATRIX; kicked off a whole subculture - 'cyberpunk'; and has been seriously called the most influential book of the 20th century.
Go and read it if you haven't, it stands up well. It's about a junkie hacker living in a dystopian urban mess called the 'sprawl' who is hired by an Artificial Intelligence to put a team together for a mysterious heist. It certainly made a big impression on me when I read at seventeen or so, adding fuel to my desire to get out of suburban Wales and find somewhere a bit more cool and sprawlish.
Gibson himself came across as clear-eyed, affable, a cool academic with - suitably enough - an unplaceable, mid-Atlantic accent.
If he is bored of talking about his oldest book he didn't show it. He said he invented cyberspace - in the story a virtual world rather like that of Second Life - after watching teens playing arcade games: craning over their machines, they seemed so eager to enter the screen - what if they could? He said that as well as an original arena for a story it was a handy way to solve the age old writer's problem of how to efficiently get people in and out of rooms.
In similar self-deprecatory fashion, he said that the prose flights of fancy that the book indulges in, particularly in describing its two Artificial Intelligences, was a way to paper over some wayward plotting.
And he was quick to point out that he wasn't the first to write characters who were constructs inside a computer - apparently that was Alfred Bester, in a story called 'I have no mouth but I must scream'. He referenced one of his book's few blind spots by pointing out that any modern kid who read it would think the plot must hinge around how the AIs managed to uninvent the mobile phone.
Other influences and antecedents he acknowledged included Philip K Dick, Meryvn Peake, and William Burroughs - who he described as like a musician sitting with an electric guitar and an arc of pedals, when all the other writers were still acoustic. He wanted some of that wa-wa.
Asked why nothing he had written had been turned into a decent film, he accepted that the Wachowski's had stolen his best ideas, but lived in hope.
One of the things that made his invented world seem so real was its attention to surface detail - giving 'eyeball kicks', he called it - and branding. But as well as inventing cool names for new things (I still want an Ono Sendai) he felt he needed to keep the story anchored by using familiar tropes: So, for example, Case, the hero, is addicted to the rather archaic amphetamines, rather than some ritzy invented designer drug.
Another striking and prescient story point is the power of corporate 'zaibatsus'. The idea for those super-companies came, he said, from a college anthropology course, where a lecturer pointed out that an alien arriving on earth, looking for the most powerful entity to talk to, would conclude that the the dominant social lifeform was not the nation state but the multi-national corporation. Even during wars, he pointed out, they could split in two and sell to both sides.
So he took a lot of things that were happening, or starting to happen, and extrapolated brilliantly to create a future world, parts of which are now coming to pass.
He wrote the book as a commission, in 18 months, and if he hadn't had to do it he wouldn't have done it at all. Overall he gave the impression that he had written it the way first books are often written -frantically collating sets of disparate influences, solving problems by elision, making up the rules as he went along.
And he ended up with something magnificent. Skilful guy.
For those of you who don't know it, the book is an amazingly prescient work of tech-noir - a great story that invented the concept of an internet, and the term cyberspace; inspired dozens of imitations, including THE MATRIX; kicked off a whole subculture - 'cyberpunk'; and has been seriously called the most influential book of the 20th century.
Go and read it if you haven't, it stands up well. It's about a junkie hacker living in a dystopian urban mess called the 'sprawl' who is hired by an Artificial Intelligence to put a team together for a mysterious heist. It certainly made a big impression on me when I read at seventeen or so, adding fuel to my desire to get out of suburban Wales and find somewhere a bit more cool and sprawlish.
Gibson himself came across as clear-eyed, affable, a cool academic with - suitably enough - an unplaceable, mid-Atlantic accent.
If he is bored of talking about his oldest book he didn't show it. He said he invented cyberspace - in the story a virtual world rather like that of Second Life - after watching teens playing arcade games: craning over their machines, they seemed so eager to enter the screen - what if they could? He said that as well as an original arena for a story it was a handy way to solve the age old writer's problem of how to efficiently get people in and out of rooms.
In similar self-deprecatory fashion, he said that the prose flights of fancy that the book indulges in, particularly in describing its two Artificial Intelligences, was a way to paper over some wayward plotting.
And he was quick to point out that he wasn't the first to write characters who were constructs inside a computer - apparently that was Alfred Bester, in a story called 'I have no mouth but I must scream'. He referenced one of his book's few blind spots by pointing out that any modern kid who read it would think the plot must hinge around how the AIs managed to uninvent the mobile phone.
Other influences and antecedents he acknowledged included Philip K Dick, Meryvn Peake, and William Burroughs - who he described as like a musician sitting with an electric guitar and an arc of pedals, when all the other writers were still acoustic. He wanted some of that wa-wa.
Asked why nothing he had written had been turned into a decent film, he accepted that the Wachowski's had stolen his best ideas, but lived in hope.
One of the things that made his invented world seem so real was its attention to surface detail - giving 'eyeball kicks', he called it - and branding. But as well as inventing cool names for new things (I still want an Ono Sendai) he felt he needed to keep the story anchored by using familiar tropes: So, for example, Case, the hero, is addicted to the rather archaic amphetamines, rather than some ritzy invented designer drug.
Another striking and prescient story point is the power of corporate 'zaibatsus'. The idea for those super-companies came, he said, from a college anthropology course, where a lecturer pointed out that an alien arriving on earth, looking for the most powerful entity to talk to, would conclude that the the dominant social lifeform was not the nation state but the multi-national corporation. Even during wars, he pointed out, they could split in two and sell to both sides.
So he took a lot of things that were happening, or starting to happen, and extrapolated brilliantly to create a future world, parts of which are now coming to pass.
He wrote the book as a commission, in 18 months, and if he hadn't had to do it he wouldn't have done it at all. Overall he gave the impression that he had written it the way first books are often written -frantically collating sets of disparate influences, solving problems by elision, making up the rules as he went along.
And he ended up with something magnificent. Skilful guy.
Thursday, 20 November 2014
NIGHTCRAWLER
Quick film review of NIGHTCRAWLER (with spoilers)
'When Lou Bloom, a driven man desperate for work, muscles into the world of L.A. crime journalism, he blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story. Aiding him in his effort is Nina, a TV-news veteran.'
Jake Gyllenhal is great as a sociopath with glassy eyes and a cheesy grin, spouting get-ahead business buzztalk as he films crime scenes and sells the footage to a news channels hungry for gore and sensationalism. He re-arranges corpses to get a better shot, pursues villains and arranging for their arrest so that he can film it, and keeps on getting away with it. Unlike, say, Travis Bickle, he's found an arena where his lack of empathy and morality are advantageous.
He lives in an empty apartment, his only friend is his plant, and he constantly negotiates, pressurises and blackmails all around him - principally, an amoral newscaster hungry for footage and his weak-willed partner. But the best scenes are when he's behind his camera. For instance, when he orchestrates a shoot-out in a diner: we see the shoot-out, but we also watch him watching it, trying to remain hidden... Voyeurism works really well in cinema. Think PEEPING TOM, REAR WINDOW. Maybe it's because, we, the audience, are voyeurs too, sitting anonymously in the dark, and observing, rather creepily, with impunity.
Go see it, it's a genuine noir. Like the great noirs of the 40s it deals with the underside of the American dream and has a protagonist who is willfully evil and escapes justice. I guess it's the kind of film people normally complain about them not making any more - maybe it gets away with it because it gets labelled as satire.
'When Lou Bloom, a driven man desperate for work, muscles into the world of L.A. crime journalism, he blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story. Aiding him in his effort is Nina, a TV-news veteran.'
Jake Gyllenhal is great as a sociopath with glassy eyes and a cheesy grin, spouting get-ahead business buzztalk as he films crime scenes and sells the footage to a news channels hungry for gore and sensationalism. He re-arranges corpses to get a better shot, pursues villains and arranging for their arrest so that he can film it, and keeps on getting away with it. Unlike, say, Travis Bickle, he's found an arena where his lack of empathy and morality are advantageous.
He lives in an empty apartment, his only friend is his plant, and he constantly negotiates, pressurises and blackmails all around him - principally, an amoral newscaster hungry for footage and his weak-willed partner. But the best scenes are when he's behind his camera. For instance, when he orchestrates a shoot-out in a diner: we see the shoot-out, but we also watch him watching it, trying to remain hidden... Voyeurism works really well in cinema. Think PEEPING TOM, REAR WINDOW. Maybe it's because, we, the audience, are voyeurs too, sitting anonymously in the dark, and observing, rather creepily, with impunity.
Go see it, it's a genuine noir. Like the great noirs of the 40s it deals with the underside of the American dream and has a protagonist who is willfully evil and escapes justice. I guess it's the kind of film people normally complain about them not making any more - maybe it gets away with it because it gets labelled as satire.
Sunday, 16 November 2014
How JET TRASH got made.
I wrote a book, GO, years and years ago. You can read about it here.
It did pretty well, I think it sold forty thousand odd copies. That was quite a lot by the standards of the time and loads by a contemporary reckoning. But no one at the time thought to make a film out of it, I guess because it didn't have a main character - it followed three people with interlinked stories - and these people were all travelling - India, Hong Kong, China, which would have made it a tough proposition. And also, maybe, cause I didn't have an agent at the time to push it, it just wasn't landing on anyone's desks.
Anyway, some years after it came out, a writer called Dan Brown got in touch and suggested we collaborate and write a script for it. I was in China at the time, writing guidebooks, and it seemed like a good part time project. We whittled the story down, settled on one locale - India - as being the most representative and having the strongest story, and one character as the lead. That script went through a lot of drafts. And it nearly got made. At least we went to a lot of meetings with people who called themselves film producers, and a lot of noise was generated.
Looking back, I think now we made a mistake in not trying to get an agent as soon as someone was interested. Cause we could have, I think, and an agent would have been in a position to tell us when these producers were taking the piss - like getting us to do loads of free rewrites.
It didn't get made and I never made a penny and it went in my bulging drawer of dead dreams. For about a decade. Until I did have a film agent and was meeting producers again, in reference to other projects.
I met a producer called Andy Brunskill who had read the book first time around. He wanted to work with a director called Charlie Belleville and was a big fan of actor Robert Sheehan. Charlie liked the book - Robert was given it to read, agreed to do it, and suddenly the stars were right. The script was dug out. The smallish budget was raised on the back of Sheehan's involvement, and he was very active in getting funding. The whole thing kicked off very quickly - they raised the money in a few months, and shot it pretty much straight away.
So I guess the lesson of that one is, don't give up on old projects, know when an agent can help you, and don't underestimate how important casting is in getting something off the ground.
It did pretty well, I think it sold forty thousand odd copies. That was quite a lot by the standards of the time and loads by a contemporary reckoning. But no one at the time thought to make a film out of it, I guess because it didn't have a main character - it followed three people with interlinked stories - and these people were all travelling - India, Hong Kong, China, which would have made it a tough proposition. And also, maybe, cause I didn't have an agent at the time to push it, it just wasn't landing on anyone's desks.
Anyway, some years after it came out, a writer called Dan Brown got in touch and suggested we collaborate and write a script for it. I was in China at the time, writing guidebooks, and it seemed like a good part time project. We whittled the story down, settled on one locale - India - as being the most representative and having the strongest story, and one character as the lead. That script went through a lot of drafts. And it nearly got made. At least we went to a lot of meetings with people who called themselves film producers, and a lot of noise was generated.
Looking back, I think now we made a mistake in not trying to get an agent as soon as someone was interested. Cause we could have, I think, and an agent would have been in a position to tell us when these producers were taking the piss - like getting us to do loads of free rewrites.
It didn't get made and I never made a penny and it went in my bulging drawer of dead dreams. For about a decade. Until I did have a film agent and was meeting producers again, in reference to other projects.
I met a producer called Andy Brunskill who had read the book first time around. He wanted to work with a director called Charlie Belleville and was a big fan of actor Robert Sheehan. Charlie liked the book - Robert was given it to read, agreed to do it, and suddenly the stars were right. The script was dug out. The smallish budget was raised on the back of Sheehan's involvement, and he was very active in getting funding. The whole thing kicked off very quickly - they raised the money in a few months, and shot it pretty much straight away.
So I guess the lesson of that one is, don't give up on old projects, know when an agent can help you, and don't underestimate how important casting is in getting something off the ground.
Saturday, 15 November 2014
How THE ANOMALY got made. Pitching.
Er, I don't really know how THE ANOMALY got made. I was living in Japan at the time. Super producer Noel Clarke wanted to buy TIGER HOUSE, but missed out. On a quick trip back to London, I met him, and mentioned that I had written a script that was nearly finished, about mind control. He told me to send it to him when it was done - I did it, he read it, bought it, did his thing, shot it eight months later. I was out of the country for the whole process so didn't have anything to do with it, first time I saw it was at the premier.
That is going to make for a very short entry so I'll beef it up by talking about pitching. Cause I guess that one started with a pitch.
My approach to pitching is to be very low key about it. It should just be part of a conversation. No one wants to have stories thrown at them. You talk in general terms, then move to the specifics of your idea, say just enough to pique their interest then move on.
Say your producer likes horror - 'oh you like horror films? But this torture porn thing has gone too far... wish someone would bring back proper scary ghost stories... like the RING. The Japanese are so good at that kind of thing, I guess it's cause they've got such a dense mythology to draw on... You know, I think British producers are kind of missing a trick, cause we have a dense mythology of ghost stories too, a huge gothic tradition, but we ignore it and always make scary films in American style - zombies and werewolves and so on... A really British ghost story could use our great heritage of spooky mythology - oh, and buildings - we have this amazing untapped resource of spooky old buildings. Okay, here's an example, how about-' - and then pitch your British scary ghost story. And because you've gone from the general to the specific, all is not lost if he or she doesn't like your story - because you can just go back to the general and say you'll work up a different 'spooky British ghost story' and email it later.
That is going to make for a very short entry so I'll beef it up by talking about pitching. Cause I guess that one started with a pitch.
My approach to pitching is to be very low key about it. It should just be part of a conversation. No one wants to have stories thrown at them. You talk in general terms, then move to the specifics of your idea, say just enough to pique their interest then move on.
Say your producer likes horror - 'oh you like horror films? But this torture porn thing has gone too far... wish someone would bring back proper scary ghost stories... like the RING. The Japanese are so good at that kind of thing, I guess it's cause they've got such a dense mythology to draw on... You know, I think British producers are kind of missing a trick, cause we have a dense mythology of ghost stories too, a huge gothic tradition, but we ignore it and always make scary films in American style - zombies and werewolves and so on... A really British ghost story could use our great heritage of spooky mythology - oh, and buildings - we have this amazing untapped resource of spooky old buildings. Okay, here's an example, how about-' - and then pitch your British scary ghost story. And because you've gone from the general to the specific, all is not lost if he or she doesn't like your story - because you can just go back to the general and say you'll work up a different 'spooky British ghost story' and email it later.
Friday, 14 November 2014
going cheap
writing a cheap film
Cheap films are more likely to get made than expensive ones. And they are more likely to get made the way you want them - the more money someone is spending on you, the more they interfere - nobody 'authors' a 100 million dollar film, there were probably a dozen writers on the thing.
There is something aesthetically purer about them too - a big budget film can rely on spectacle to get people to watch it. But if your budget doesn't run to blowing up New York, then you have to rely on the writing to make the story interesting - a great concept, characters, dialogue.
big concept don't necessarily cost anything - you would spend millions making a Nolan dream world, but it's just as striking and weird to have a copy of you and your house appear over the road (COHERENCE) - and that costs nothing.
Aim for fairly few characters, ideally less than ten - with one or two main parts. Write one 'cameo' - the 'Freeman' - three or four scenes, spaced throughout the film, that all take place in one location (let's say, he's the chief of police and always seen in his office). Then you can hire Morgan Freeman for one day, shoot all his scenes back to back, and it looks like he's in the whole damn film. And his name will be huge on the DVD box.
Not too many locations, the fewer the better. Don't set anything at night (that's expensive). And make your locations easy to construct or shoot in - big rooms with high ceilings (for lighting rigs) are best.
But keep one location for late on, it's good to have somewhere else to take the story as you get into act three.
You don't need money to make your scenes visually dramatic, if you're smart. Lots of things look great on screen and cost nothing: an execution, nudity, a foot chase, a game of poker, a hold up, a murder scene, undressing and dressing, someone singing well, something seen on CCTV, a trip scene (allowing you to get arty with the camera), a mexican stand off, complete darkness, wrestling, dancing, a weapon being stripped or loaded, fancy dress, someone escaping from their bonds, games of darts, snooker, and bowling, someone being followed... well, make your own list then stuff them in your script.
Admirable low budget films - RESERVOIR DOGS: basically one location, but with the flashbacks so well integrated you don't even notice. Just about every low budget cool thing you can do with guys, surprised he didn't get a card game in there. SAW - again, mostly one room, that you take regular breaks from. A guy sawing his own leg off is easy to shoot and, er, spectacular. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: two people in a house and some flour. A lot of artistry goes into making found footage look artless. OPEN WATER - simple but nerve wracking: a couple bob, worried about sharks. THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ALICE CREED -A twist hostage drama, and three roles in the whole thing. COHERENCE - a bunch of yuppies in a room; but the universe is changing around them - a great example of big ideas for cheap. BURIED - actually I don't really like this film, it's too cruel, but you have to admire the simplicity, cause it's just a guy in a box.
Cheap films are more likely to get made than expensive ones. And they are more likely to get made the way you want them - the more money someone is spending on you, the more they interfere - nobody 'authors' a 100 million dollar film, there were probably a dozen writers on the thing.
There is something aesthetically purer about them too - a big budget film can rely on spectacle to get people to watch it. But if your budget doesn't run to blowing up New York, then you have to rely on the writing to make the story interesting - a great concept, characters, dialogue.
big concept don't necessarily cost anything - you would spend millions making a Nolan dream world, but it's just as striking and weird to have a copy of you and your house appear over the road (COHERENCE) - and that costs nothing.
Aim for fairly few characters, ideally less than ten - with one or two main parts. Write one 'cameo' - the 'Freeman' - three or four scenes, spaced throughout the film, that all take place in one location (let's say, he's the chief of police and always seen in his office). Then you can hire Morgan Freeman for one day, shoot all his scenes back to back, and it looks like he's in the whole damn film. And his name will be huge on the DVD box.
Not too many locations, the fewer the better. Don't set anything at night (that's expensive). And make your locations easy to construct or shoot in - big rooms with high ceilings (for lighting rigs) are best.
But keep one location for late on, it's good to have somewhere else to take the story as you get into act three.
You don't need money to make your scenes visually dramatic, if you're smart. Lots of things look great on screen and cost nothing: an execution, nudity, a foot chase, a game of poker, a hold up, a murder scene, undressing and dressing, someone singing well, something seen on CCTV, a trip scene (allowing you to get arty with the camera), a mexican stand off, complete darkness, wrestling, dancing, a weapon being stripped or loaded, fancy dress, someone escaping from their bonds, games of darts, snooker, and bowling, someone being followed... well, make your own list then stuff them in your script.
Admirable low budget films - RESERVOIR DOGS: basically one location, but with the flashbacks so well integrated you don't even notice. Just about every low budget cool thing you can do with guys, surprised he didn't get a card game in there. SAW - again, mostly one room, that you take regular breaks from. A guy sawing his own leg off is easy to shoot and, er, spectacular. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: two people in a house and some flour. A lot of artistry goes into making found footage look artless. OPEN WATER - simple but nerve wracking: a couple bob, worried about sharks. THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ALICE CREED -A twist hostage drama, and three roles in the whole thing. COHERENCE - a bunch of yuppies in a room; but the universe is changing around them - a great example of big ideas for cheap. BURIED - actually I don't really like this film, it's too cruel, but you have to admire the simplicity, cause it's just a guy in a box.
Tuesday, 11 November 2014
novel v screen
Dennis Lehane said that screenwriting and novel writing are as different as an apple and a giraffe...
I'm not sure I agree. I've done both, and they can be pretty similar. Driving a bus and driving a sports car are different, but there's a useful set of overlapping skills. Novels and films both boil down to character and story, after all.
Obviously, novel writing is a broad church and you get ways of writing novels that are very far from screenplay form - there's no filmy equivalent to the very subjective or overly fantastical, (Finnegan's Wake, Naked Lunch), or to the distinctive narratorial voice (Catcher in the Rye, Vernon God Little), or something written in third person that spends a lot of time inside the character's heads (Crime and Punishment... all the Russians come to think of it).
But most prose writing is exterior - action and dialogue - and objective rather than subjective; a lot of pulp and crime is written that way, but also Jane Austen and Dickens - and that's where the crossover happens.
Then it's just a matter of what works best: in prose, dialogue; in screenwriting, pictures. So, say you want to describe an unhappy marriage, in prose you write five pages of husband and wife arguing, and in a film, you do that Chandler thing - couple in a lift, pretty girl walks in, guy takes his hat off.
Actually, the main difference between novels and screenplays is a completely artificial one, to do with length. Publishers won't publish a novel that's less than eighty thousand words. And by my reckoning, that's the rough equivalent of about six to ten hours of screen time. Something that long will inevitably end up being less about beginnings and endings, and will become rather episodic - it will look, in fact, like a series. Indeed, to my mind, there is a lot that is 'novelly' about modern series dramas like Breaking Bad and True Detective.
The prose equivalent of the feature screenplay is the novella - the long story that's twenty to forty thousand words (Clockwork Orange, Heart of Darkness, Lord of the Flies). Novellas tend to be about one thing, they rush to conclusions, you take them in in one sitting, they depend on a good ending - just like a film. Unfortunately that's a literary form that is out of fashion, cause publishers can't sell them.
I'm not sure I agree. I've done both, and they can be pretty similar. Driving a bus and driving a sports car are different, but there's a useful set of overlapping skills. Novels and films both boil down to character and story, after all.
Obviously, novel writing is a broad church and you get ways of writing novels that are very far from screenplay form - there's no filmy equivalent to the very subjective or overly fantastical, (Finnegan's Wake, Naked Lunch), or to the distinctive narratorial voice (Catcher in the Rye, Vernon God Little), or something written in third person that spends a lot of time inside the character's heads (Crime and Punishment... all the Russians come to think of it).
But most prose writing is exterior - action and dialogue - and objective rather than subjective; a lot of pulp and crime is written that way, but also Jane Austen and Dickens - and that's where the crossover happens.
Then it's just a matter of what works best: in prose, dialogue; in screenwriting, pictures. So, say you want to describe an unhappy marriage, in prose you write five pages of husband and wife arguing, and in a film, you do that Chandler thing - couple in a lift, pretty girl walks in, guy takes his hat off.
Actually, the main difference between novels and screenplays is a completely artificial one, to do with length. Publishers won't publish a novel that's less than eighty thousand words. And by my reckoning, that's the rough equivalent of about six to ten hours of screen time. Something that long will inevitably end up being less about beginnings and endings, and will become rather episodic - it will look, in fact, like a series. Indeed, to my mind, there is a lot that is 'novelly' about modern series dramas like Breaking Bad and True Detective.
The prose equivalent of the feature screenplay is the novella - the long story that's twenty to forty thousand words (Clockwork Orange, Heart of Darkness, Lord of the Flies). Novellas tend to be about one thing, they rush to conclusions, you take them in in one sitting, they depend on a good ending - just like a film. Unfortunately that's a literary form that is out of fashion, cause publishers can't sell them.
Friday, 7 November 2014
film review: FURY
quick film review -
'April, 1945. As the Allies make their final push in the European Theatre, a battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy commands a Sherman tank and his five-man crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines.'
FURY - the Second World War is a great vehicle for drama and tanks are, well, great vehicles. And David Ayer is great at guys-in-vehicle stories - mostly cops, like in TRAINING DAY and END OF WATCH.
So, this is about guys together - very close together - inside what amounts to a big gun (no sniggering at the back). Brad Pitt is the muscled uber warrior, 'Wardaddy' - a 'Storm Saxon' style Aryan dream who just loves killing nazis. And Logan Lerman is the nebbish lead, the audience identification figure, as he is whipped from the typing pool and fired into the heat of battle as the claustrophobic tank's new assistant gunner.
So far so Spielberg, but this is more cynical and brutal than Saving Private Ryan. The war scenes are as realistic but no punches are pulled on the brutality of the combatants. There's a harrowing sequence where Pitt forces Lerman to shoot an unarmed prisoner dead. That's a good scene; you know Pitt has to do it to make Lerman toughen up; but its politics are horrible, when you think about it, and it is has no consequences apart from helping to forge Lerman into a functioning soldier.
So, inculcated in the necessaries, Lerman starts kicking arse along with the other tankers. The first half is pretty good, and I guess pretty accurate and unflinching, in its depiction of brutalised men and the horrors of combat. But the second half is banal propaganda - juicy war scenes, a heroic last ditch defense, everybody dies a heroes death, the lead gets his arc.
It bugs me that films like this are sold as showing the horrors of war as never before. I think this, and others of its ilk, like Saving Private Ryan, are quite dishonest - while they are great at gore and battle they don't deliver anything of the true nature of war, and they have saccharine, even sentimental centres.
The very story conventions of Hollywood film making prevent any kind of realistic depiction. You see famous actors on screen, and you know that they will die in the end, but only after killing loads of enemy, and making some cool speeches, and going on their 'arc'. That character won't get killed by friendly fire half way through, there will be nothing meaningless or arbritary about his death, his courage will be rewarded.
Surely the nature of modern war is that soldiers die in meaningless and abritary ways, it's pretty much a lottery, and courage and moral rectitude make little difference, in that meat grinder, to your chances of survival. Presenting it otherwise is not truthful.
My favourite Second World War war film is still Peckinpah's CROSS OF IRON. A bunch of doomed German soldiers fight on the eastern front, and at the end they try to get back to their own lines, get mistaken for enemy, and get machine gunned by their own side. The battle scenes might not be convincingly gory the way they are these days but the story feels true and accurate, capturing something of the nihilism and pointlessness of the whole venture, when seen from the individual's point of view. In comparison, modern takes on the second World War look like wishful thinking, macho fantasies.
'April, 1945. As the Allies make their final push in the European Theatre, a battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy commands a Sherman tank and his five-man crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines.'
FURY - the Second World War is a great vehicle for drama and tanks are, well, great vehicles. And David Ayer is great at guys-in-vehicle stories - mostly cops, like in TRAINING DAY and END OF WATCH.
So, this is about guys together - very close together - inside what amounts to a big gun (no sniggering at the back). Brad Pitt is the muscled uber warrior, 'Wardaddy' - a 'Storm Saxon' style Aryan dream who just loves killing nazis. And Logan Lerman is the nebbish lead, the audience identification figure, as he is whipped from the typing pool and fired into the heat of battle as the claustrophobic tank's new assistant gunner.
So far so Spielberg, but this is more cynical and brutal than Saving Private Ryan. The war scenes are as realistic but no punches are pulled on the brutality of the combatants. There's a harrowing sequence where Pitt forces Lerman to shoot an unarmed prisoner dead. That's a good scene; you know Pitt has to do it to make Lerman toughen up; but its politics are horrible, when you think about it, and it is has no consequences apart from helping to forge Lerman into a functioning soldier.
So, inculcated in the necessaries, Lerman starts kicking arse along with the other tankers. The first half is pretty good, and I guess pretty accurate and unflinching, in its depiction of brutalised men and the horrors of combat. But the second half is banal propaganda - juicy war scenes, a heroic last ditch defense, everybody dies a heroes death, the lead gets his arc.
It bugs me that films like this are sold as showing the horrors of war as never before. I think this, and others of its ilk, like Saving Private Ryan, are quite dishonest - while they are great at gore and battle they don't deliver anything of the true nature of war, and they have saccharine, even sentimental centres.
The very story conventions of Hollywood film making prevent any kind of realistic depiction. You see famous actors on screen, and you know that they will die in the end, but only after killing loads of enemy, and making some cool speeches, and going on their 'arc'. That character won't get killed by friendly fire half way through, there will be nothing meaningless or arbritary about his death, his courage will be rewarded.
Surely the nature of modern war is that soldiers die in meaningless and abritary ways, it's pretty much a lottery, and courage and moral rectitude make little difference, in that meat grinder, to your chances of survival. Presenting it otherwise is not truthful.
My favourite Second World War war film is still Peckinpah's CROSS OF IRON. A bunch of doomed German soldiers fight on the eastern front, and at the end they try to get back to their own lines, get mistaken for enemy, and get machine gunned by their own side. The battle scenes might not be convincingly gory the way they are these days but the story feels true and accurate, capturing something of the nihilism and pointlessness of the whole venture, when seen from the individual's point of view. In comparison, modern takes on the second World War look like wishful thinking, macho fantasies.
Thursday, 30 October 2014
Turn an idea into a story
Turning an idea into a story.
Yesterday I showed a simple way to come up with ideas. Now I'll quickly show how to
develop one of those further.
I'll take this one -'a bully locks the hero in a cave, to kill him for kicks.''
For me, a script is split into four acts, each about twenty five minutes long. Each of those acts is a story and should end decisively - so the first thing to do is work out what will happen at the end of those acts, your story points.
So, clearly, the hero gets locked in the cave at the end of act one (25 minutes in). That's the story set up.
Next plot point will be him escaping, so let's put that at the end of act two (fifty minutes in).
This is the most important break point. It corresponds exactly to the interval in a theatre. The audience is about to go off and have a drink for ten minutes. You make sure they come back, and talk about the play while they are gone, by dropping a plot twist just before the interval. (It corresponds to the midpoint in the traditional three act structure.)
Where do you go now? Again, I think this is pretty obvious - in the start of the next act, the hero locks the bully in the cave, for revenge. You don't want the villain escaping too - we've done that - so instead let's have the hero having a change of heart and, eventually, letting him out. So that's your third act.
Why would he let him out? Well let's say the hero discovers more about the bully's difficult life, his abusive stepdad and so on. And understanding leads to sympathy.
And that gives us the platform for the last act - we'll use the abusive stepdad. So the bully and the victim will take him on together, and I guess, end up collaborating to shut him in the cave. And that'll be the story for the ending.
So that was easy. Now I have the main story beats. Now look at it and see how the beats further shape the story - if you're going to spend the whole of act 2 in a cave, better make it a network - so that it can explored - and full of traps and difficulties - going to be down there a long time. Aren't people going to be looking for the missing kid? yes, so let's set it somewhere very rural. Or set it a hundred years ago. We have this abusive stepdad who ends up giving us the ending - can't just have a character popping out of nowhere, so better make sure he's written in at the beginning.
And once you've got the the plot points, start asking yourself a bunch of questions and 'what ifs' - what if it was set in the future? Or the distant past? What is the arena of the story - where is it set? How old are the characters? Change everyone's age and sex, see if it would work better that way.
When you've decided on that, flesh out the characters. Add extra characters (only if you really need them) and (if it's really necessary) a subplot - and make sure that this all relates to the theme; in this case it's 'brutalisation' - so let's maybe add an abused pet dog or a war going on in the background or something.
Easy. You don't have to have everything worked out before you start writing, but you ought to know at least the main plot points.
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