Just Get On With It!

Nathan has the ability to cut through the bullshit. I've always told him he'd be a great movie producer. Upon pitching him Projected, "Let's do that. I love it. What does Justin think?" Me, "He loves it." Nat, "So why aren't we doing that?"

Good question.

The reason we aren't doing it is I keep coming up with new ideas and so, rather than take the plunge, let's wait and see if the next script turns out to be better. Nathan is absolutely right - we're justing making up excuses not to make a movie. Right now.

I can keep on writing for the rest of my life, waiting for that perfect script to come along. But the perfect script never comes along, because they don't exist. See, being "movie-buffs", me and Justin watch a movie and then usually pick the thing apart. We're looking for holes. And we do the same to our scripts. Which is part of the development process. But at some point someone has to say, "OK, enough development. Just get on with it!"

Which is where Nathan comes in.

Women, eh?

Watching BBC2 last night What The Ancients Did For Us was a bit of family "infotainment" about the amazing inventions of the Aztec, Maya and Inca civilisations. One of their most impressive skills, we were told, was building bridges out of grass that could hold the weight of half a dozen men, three horses and a cannon, all at the same time. But women were not allowed to take part in the building as it was (and still is) considered "unlucky", so were banished from the area and consigned to rope making. Once the bridge was built, the Gods instisted they make liquid "sacrifices", which appeared to involve the men gathering in a group and drinking.

The following programme was The Apprentice : "Fourteen blood-thirsty entrepreneurs compete in the ultimate boardroom drama to become Sir Alan Sugar's apprentice. Who will succeed and who will fail?" The series has so far demonstrated why we'd probably all still be living in mud huts if the male part of early civilisation hadn't come up with ruses to keep the female part out of the way while they got on with business. The contestants were equally divided - 7 men and 7 women - and for the first 2 episodes, split into male and female teams. The women have proved to be, on the whole, hopeless. And it was obvious why. Whereas the men have been almost 100% focused on the task in hand, the women have been crippled by constant bickering and backstabbing.

In this episode, Sir Sugar decided to mix the men and women (otherwise it could've got embarrassing). The aggressive and domineering Adele was made leader of one team. She assigned Miranda and Sebastian to be her assistants as they set about trying to purchase various items at the lowest price possible. In one scene, the three of them were waiting in the supermarket checkout queue. While Adele and Miranda bickered about who said what and who should be doing what, both determined to have the last word, poor old Sebastian was reduced to gazing into the distance, half resigned half defeated. Perhaps he was thinking that when women get involved in business, it's very "unlucky".

Computer Generated Blood

Justin came over yesterday to continue work on Callback. He added a nice bit of CG blood to one of the end shots. After a perfectly timed pause from the point of impact, the blood trickles down the side of the guy's face. The way it's done, you wouldn't know it was added on after, so I hope people will think we went to great trouble creating this effect with some kind of ingenious prosthetic and real fake blood.

We had another chat about our plans for Lumineye and decided we would finish the two scripts we are currently working on by the end of this month, giving us a slate of 6 projects with completed scripts: Face 2 Face, A Novel Romance, Projected, sWitch, Bed & Breakfast and Justin's Against The Tide. Then we'll get in amongst a load of film producers and see if one wants to get involved.

Although I'm prepared to make a feature with no money, because I know we can theoretically do it, I don't see why we shouldn't be able to raise some funds. With Callback, the three us, Justin (director), Sarah (composer) and me (screenwriter) have proved we've got the necessary skills and talents which we can bring together to create a cinematic experience.

Development Hell?

Justin came over yesterday to do some more work on the edit of Callback. I spoke to him about the need for us to decide what we want to do with Lumineye. I also suggested we need a producer-type person involved in the company, as the three of us involved so far are film makers, and not film sellers. We don't really think about, or have much contact with, the business side of the movie world. Our only concerns are making a film we are all happy with.

Screenwriting is not something you can do on your own. Yes, the actual process of writing is solitary, but to develop a script you need other peoples' input. I've hammered out the first draft of sWitch, but now what? What should I do to it, and why? And this is where the collective vision for the film is crucial. I've developed four scripts with four different people.

The first was Mortal Child, my first script, a 30 min drama picked for Anglia TV's First Take series back in the mid 90s. I found myself totally unable to progress the script from my first instinctive draft and the script was eventually dropped.

The second was The Razor King, a feature-length gangster flick based on Shakespeare's Macbeth. The script was bought by an novice producer in the UK. We spent several months trying to develop the script. The problem was, I felt it needed loads of work, he didn't. Finally, it got to the point where we were both exhausted by the process and I left him to it. In hindsight, I probably should have let him produce the thing. Because it's not about how good the script is, it's about getting it made.

The third was Not This Day, a feature-length comedy drama. This was optioned by a guy at Talent TV. We spent 2 years slogging away at it (I did most of the slogging), during which time we must have sent hundreds of pages worth of emails, discussing new plot lines, character motivations, our own experiences on the subject, script writing theory, etc... I wrote 9 drafts. Each draft failing to live up to either of our expectations. By the end, by some kind of Chinese whisper effect, I was writing a completely different story to the one I started out with. The script was dropped.

The fourth, A Novel Romance, a romcom, was the one that went to Hollywood. I managed to get an agent there interested. We set about a transatlantic developement process, first re-locating the story to America (to increase his chance of selling it). London became New York. Then I had to "go big". Every scene had to be pumped up to appeal to Hollywood producers. He prefered not to deal in low budget pictures (for obvious reasons - 10% of a seven figure deal is better than 10% of a six figure one). Also, big stars want to act in big, expensive pictures. So the script was designed to make it more expensive to shoot, for no reason other than to make us more money. This reverse logic is the bullshit that fuels Hollywood. Added to this, everything had to be written according to the Sid Field theory of screenplay writing ("He has to kiss her on page 57").

It's one thing selling a script, or doing some kind of development deal. But it's also essential to find the right people to work with. If you struggle with structure (like I do), you need someone who knows how to fix your structural problems.

Development Hell is full of stories about scripts that everyone involved was excited about, but the combination of personalities somehow failed to make work.