Category Archives: Screenwriting

Croissaints on the Croisette….

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I’m in a weird, in-between stage of writing at the moment. Stupidly, I haven’t set up a script to work on but instead have ended up developing two ideas at once. One is an Irish sports comedy, the other is a romcom and will either be a novel or a screenplay (or both).

I like both ideas and believe they both have legs. But while they’re still amorphous ideas floating around in my head, being chipped away bit by bit as I write outlines, it’s like constantly eating tidbits while longing for a bigger portion. I can’t wait to sit down and bang out a first draft. I know, though, that this is a crucial time and that the longer I spend doing prep, the stronger the resulting first draft will be.

The other thing taking up my time is preparing for Cannes. This is kind of hard to do, because it’s impossible know where I’ll end up over there or who I’ll meet. But I’m looking up distributors who are going to be there and trying to figure out who might be interested in licensing Tiger. We’ve pretty much tied up the U.S. rights with Shorts HD, but there’s still the U.K. and European rights, so I’ll be keeping an eye out for someone who deals in those territories.

Other than that, I’m getting a pitch together for my Irish comedy and signing up for as many industry parties as I can. I can’t wait for four days of talking, drinking and, it being France, eating great food. Bring on the moules mariniere and the croissaints! But one thing I’m determined to do this time is actually watch some movies. I have a terrible record of going to festivals and seeing no movies at all. Too much time yakking in bars.

Here are the five films I’m most looking forward to. If I have to fight someone for a ticket to one of these… but hopefully it won’t come to that -

Only God Forgives – I’ll be lucky to snare a ticket to this one, Nicolas Winding Refn’s follow up to Drive, starring – once again – Ryan Gosling. But that doesn’t mean I won’t try, if only to see Kristen Scott Thomas as a scary crime boss…

Behind the Candelabra – Steven Soderbergh’s swan song? About Liberace? With Michael Douglas as the mommy’s boy himself and Matt Damon as his lover? I’m sold!

Young and Beautiful – it would be sacrilege to go to Cannes and not see at least one French movie. And if it has to be a French movie, it might as well be one directed by Francois Ozon, starring his regular leading lady Charlotte Rampling.

The Bling Ring – I’m a big Sofia Coppola fan and read all about this seedy real-life case when I was over in L.A. The film – concerning a bunch of spoilt society burglars who target celebrities – should give me the shot of Hollywood sleaze I’ve been pining after…

Magic Magic – the female Into the Wild stars Juno Temple as a girl unravelling during a trip from California to Chile.

I’ll be blogging from the festival (time permitting, assuming I can find an internet cafe and that my brain still works by Day Two…).

How pitching can save your script – and your sanity…

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A script can often seem like a handful of sand, slipping through your fingers. That’s what it’s like when you’re about halfway through a first draft and you reach a dead end, or even worse, you’ve lost faith. This bundle of pages is the worst thing you’ve ever written. You loathe it. It’s like person you’ve been on three promising dates with, who suddenly makes a racist joke or screams at a waiter.

You thought you knew what it was, thought you had a handle on it, and now it’s gone off a cliff and left you clinging to the edge, staring into the abyss. There was no explosion, it’s never going to hit the bottom in an oily inferno. It’s just gone.

I don’t think there’s any way of absolutely preventing this, but there are tactics. Little safeguards. For example, when you’re still excited about the script, write down exactly what you love about it. What’s the essence of it, the thing that hit you like a brick to the head the first time you thought of it? The “Ah!” thing? Write it down, keep it in a drawer. When you’re wondering what the hell this script was, if it ever was a thing at all, that piece of paper is your pathway back.

Another thing to do is pitch the idea – the one sentence idea – to as many people as possible. Practice it on anyone who’ll listen as early as possible. And pay close attention to what they say. People who know nothing about films or writing and haven’t seen a movie since Die Hard 3 are often the ones with the most insightful comments, weirdly enough.

Once you’ve honed your one sentence pitch until it’s the tightest, most beautiful, perkiest pitch in the world, it’s a lot harder to go off the reservation later on. I’m currently doing Stephanie Palmer’s online pitching course (using an existing script) and fixing the pitch has already made me see what needs to be sorted out in the actual script. And while that’s useful, wouldn’t it be great to do this BEFORE you have fix a whole script? Get the pitch right, then write – that’s my new MO from now on. Oh, and I highly recommend Stephanie’s course. The lady knows her stuff.

In other news, we’ve come to a licensing deal for Tiger with a v. large shorts distributor in the States. Right now it’s just for broadcasting rights on two channels, but there’s the potential to go for different formats and more territories. Plus, going to Cannes with one deal already in the bag will be a big help! Btw, if anyone else is venturing down next month, drop me a message! We’ll do margaritas.

Lastly, the very last ever film screening at the Workmens Den Cinema Club takes place  on 7th May. The Workmens Den is possibly Dublin’s worst pub, but I have a sort of insane affection for its strange drinks range, appalling toilets and unexplained draughts. And the Cinema Club has allowed me to see a lot of great movies on the big screen over the years. So it’s with a heavy heart that I’ll be going to see Strictly Ballroom, the final film. In happier news, Tiger is screening right before it, so if you’re in the neighbourhood and are happy to brave the Den, pop in!

A super, super-low budget gem, and Tiger goes to Cannes…

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I thought I’d do an update on where we are with Tiger, the short film I wrote and produced last year. This film was made during February 2012 and had its first screening (albeit for family and friends) last summer at the Lighthouse cinema in Dublin. Since then it’s been screened in London, at the Underground Film Festival in Dun Laoghaire, at the Waterford Film Festival, and more recently as part of a shorts double bill in a cinema in Navan.

The costs for the film to date are nudging €3.5k, but that isn’t bad for a short (except in comparison to the movie below), and we still have some money left over to get it out to more festivals. It’s a little movie that was relatively non-stressful to make (the fundraising was the most onerous part tbh) and one that audiences really seem to respond to. Or at least, that’s what they tell me!

And there’s some really good news recently – Tiger’s been accepted into the Short Film Corner at Cannes, and as its co-producer, that gives me Cannes festival accreditation! So I’ll be going over next month for four days to take full advantage of the free pass and meet as many industry types as possible. Bring on the free stuff and the lovely people!

I submitted Tiger to a bunch of distributors and I’m also happy to say that one of the biggest distribution/licencing companies is interested. It’s early days, but things are looking promising! So if that works, out, Tiger will be seen by an even bigger audience, and me and the director/co-producer might even make our costs back some day. You never know.

Talking of super-low budget films, I found myself at an IFTA screening last week for Gerard Barrett’s Pilgrim Hill. Barrett is a young Kerry guy who wrote, directed and produced this feature film for less than €6k. You read that right. Actually, it might even be much less than that – he borrowed €4.5k from his local credit union and added “ a bit extra” to make it. If that wasn’t astonishing enough, the film was shot in seven days, with just three members of crew (Barrett, a cinematographer and a focus puller).

So the question you’re probably wondering is, is this frugal epic any good? And the answer would be, yes it is. Barrett’s clearly dealing with a subject close to his heart – the film’s hero, a lonely bachelor farmer in his forties, is based on the director’s own uncle. The performance he gets out of real-life farmer and sometime actor Joe Mullins is incredible – to the point where you feel uncomfortable watching it at times because it doesn’t feel like a performance at all.

Mullins’ character is a slave to the family farm and to his own demanding, disabled father. He’s long given up on escaping the isolated life he seems doomed to follow, but the events of the film force him to confront his past, his present and most definitely his future. There isn’t a huge cast – there’s probably only four main characters, but the quality of the script and the acting means that you barely notice this. The film looks amazing too, beautiful photography by Ian D. Murphy and a final scene that will wrench your heart out.

My only complaint – even bearing in mind the budget constraints – is that I would have liked a little more story. But this is a small problem with a film that’s already put Gerard Barrett on the map. He was there in person for an entertaining interview with Arena presenter Sean Rocks and talked about his next project – a family drama set in Dublin called Glassland. After seeing Pilgrim Hill, I’m really looking forward to it.

Seeing a film made for a budget as tiny as this can’t help but make you think of what can be done – even of what you could do yourself for a similar amount. I have a friend whose script was made last year for €18k, which seemed (and indeed, is) an incredibly small amount to make a feature. That being said, Pilgrim Hill has a lot going for it – the writer’s intense knowledge of the subject matter, a decent script, an excellent DoP and a real find in its lead actor. There are no stunts, no car chases and no explosions. Only a bare-bones cast and crew. This is DIY film-making at its best.

Still, if you have a great idea and don’t need a huge crew involved, maybe you don’t need to approach the Film Board or track down a producer. You could skip the usual fundraising route, raid the piggy bank and make the low-budget feature of your dreams…

Writing for TV – when you’re NOT a telly addict…

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Writing for TV is something I’ve always had in the back of my mind, but it’s stayed there while film writing has taken up the rest of my brain – and time. In a lot of respects, this makes no sense. TV provides much more regular work than film, it can be very lucrative, it’s more sociable and as we all know, some of the best screenwriting out there now is on TV. So why haven’t I had a yen to write a pilot?

It comes partly down to personal taste. I watch a lot more movies than I do TV. I’m not a huge consumer of television in general. In fact I went nearly three months in the last year without having a TV at all and didn’t miss it all that much. Whereas I don’t think I’ve gone more than two weeks since I was 15 without watching a film.

Then there’s the fact that TV writing in Ireland is limited to working on two shows, both soaps, apart from the occasional one-off series. I don’t watch soaps and don’t fancy writing for one. So your options as an Irish writer are extremely limited. If you want to get serious about writing for TV, you have to go abroad. This is true for film scripts too, but with TV it’s crucial.

All that being said, no writer worth his or her salt hasn’t considered TV writing and most of us have probably thought of a show we’d like to write. If I’m going to do a pilot, I’d like to write a half-hour comedy with strong characters – something like The IT Crowd or Fresh Meat, for example. If I do sit down with the remote, that’s the kind of show I go for.

So what’s the best place to start and what sort of stuff are the U.S. studios looking to develop? I talked to a few established TV writers while I was in L.A. and this was what they had to say:

  • If you’re going down the road of writing a spec script based on an existing show, choose a top 5 show and make sure it has legs. Don’t write a Walking Dead script just as it’s about to wind up.
  • Ideally, write an original pilot AND a spec script. Don’t worry about what’s producible – write what you want to see on TV! What show is just not being made, but should be?
  • Do 6-10 sample scripts for follow-on episodes. Have an idea of what happens during the entire series.
  • Break down existing TV episode scripts – what is the outline? What tends to happen during an episode?
  • Having a name actor helps but is not essential – look at Friends, for example.
  • With comic scenes, ask yourself: if you took out all the jokes, would it still work as a drama or would it fall flat? One writer talked about a HBO show that was pitched about two girls who worked in an office. The writers had based the show on themselves and kept talking about how things had happened in real life – but comedy on TV is more absurd than that.
  • When pitching, keep it short and don’t add in every detail about a show – keep some stuff back. Find a way to get the TV execs involved in your pitch. The more they ask, the better it’s going.
  • They’re looking for a unique voice – write something that will get their attention!
  • Try to get into the Warners/Disney Fellowship Program – these programmes nurture new writing talent and can really open doors for you. The downside – you must have a U.S. visa to apply for them.

I hope this helps – now all I have to do is follow my own advice and crank out a spec script that will knock Lena Dunham’s socks off…

Next up: the brave new world of writing content for the (terrifyingly-named) Transmedia.

JDIFF 2013 Part 1 – Story Campus….

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The film festival has come and gone for this year, and as usual it went far too fast! On the first Saturday I attended Story Campus, a whole-day seminar on film-making and screenwriting.

“How many of you are writers?”, moderators David(s) Keating and Pope asked at the start of the day. A large chunk of the audience put up their hands.

“And how many of you have written a produced feature film?”

Two people sheepishly put their hands up. If that. It was going to be one of those days.

It all began so promisingly – a two-hour chat with screenwriting legend Robert Towne. In the city to attend the festival, he sat down for a lengthy talk about his movies, his scripts and the list of amazing people he’s worked with.

Here are some of his best bits…

  • He took an acting class in his early twenties where he met Roger Corman (who hired him) and one of his later stars, Jack Nicholson.
  • He views outlining as a process of discovery and distillation. During the Chinatown shoot, he used to cut his outline into scenes and paste them on a wall so that he and Roman Polanski could stare at them and move them around. He also does fresh outlines of later drafts, distilling and testing scenes to see if they fit in and advance the story.
  • With the famous Godfather scene where Corleone warns Michael that he is about to be assassinated, Francis Ford Coppola came to Towne as a friend (they had worked together previously on a script called Dementia 13). Towne wrote the line, “And at that meeting, you’ll be assassinated”, partly because it advanced the story. And partly because he knew the audience would listen to any amount of other dialogue after that, to find out what happened next! The scene – a crucial one between father and son – was written in a panic between 1am and 6am one night and Towne brought the script directly to the set the next morning. “Read it again”, Brando said when he’d finished reading the scene to him, which was when Towne knew it was working…
  • Towne thinks that screenwriting is more an act of discovery than invention – the perfect scene is waiting to be discovered and once you find it, it seems like it was always meant to be there. This scene, written in a hurry during production, definitely falls into that category.
  • His neighbour Sydney Pollack asked him to write The Firm’s script when they were both taking out the garbage one morning! Towne didn’t like John Grisham’s downbeat ending (where the protagonist is unable to practice law anymore) and changed it, partly with the help of his lawyer brother-in-law.
  • He’s working on a script about the Battle of Britain at the moment, which sounds right up his street. He talked about a scene where one of the characters stands on the cliffs of Dover watching sea birds dive and soar, which then turn into planes… There hasn’t been a blockbuster covering this air battle specifically, so I can’t wait to see his take on it…
  • Towne still gets advice on his work from family and friends, and likes to tell people his ideas and get their feedback. I think this is a great technique as non-writers often pick up on issues with your story or characters that you are unable to see yourself.

They showed a clip from his movie Personal Best, which Towne wrote AND directed (according to Peter Biskind’s book Easy Rider, Raging Bulls, the experience ended his marriage and nearly ruined his career). Unfortunately, no one had bothered to buy a copy of the DVD, which meant the movie had to be streamed – and the sound and picture quality was terrible.

Towne took this well and overall was an intelligent interview subject with loads of great stories and advice.

The afternoon was where things started to go v. badly wrong, technology-wise…

A directors’ panel with Irish directors Phil Harrison, Juanita Wilson and Paddy Breathnach and Danish director Mads Matthiesen was interesting and informative.

Phil Harrison, for example, came from a non-film background to make a short film and a feature. His first day on a film set was his first day on the short. His third day on a set was his first day on the feature film! Directing experienced actors like Aiden Gillen. Partly in South Africa. Oh, and he crowdfunded his feature film The Good Man using what sounds like a very original new technique (everyone involved in the project owns part of it. 40% of any return on the film now goes back to the investors, 30% to the various production companies, 20% to the cast & crew and 10% back into the township where they filmed in South Africa.).

Other snippets – Juanita Wilson’s next project will be an adaptation of (Winter’s Bone writer) Daniel Woodrell’s novel Tomato Red, which sounds amazing. And Paddy Breathnach’s next movie will be Perdido Amore, set in the world of drag artists and scripted by Mark O’Halloran.

It would have been great to have heard more about all of this, but after only about 30 minutes of chat, the moderators cut the panel short in order to do a Skype chat with legendary Polish director Agnieszka Holland.

Now, I’m sure under the right circumstances this would have been a fab interview. But the circumstances involved the worst Skype reception I’ve ever seen and a subject who doesn’t (I think) really understand how to use it properly. We couldn’t hear her half the time and the rest of the time she couldn’t hear poor David Keating’s questions, forcing him to wrap things up after five (incomprehensible) minutes.

So it was on to another Skype interview, this time with Finding Neverland and Life of Pi screenwriter David Magee. David started out taking money at the door at Michael Moore’s film club in Flint, Michigan! Now based in New Jersey, he had no more luck with the Skype reception than Ms Holland, with David Keating having to dial him back five times.

David Magee was unfailingly polite and good-humoured throughout all this, and talked about how he’s become the king of book adaptations and the impossible task of bringing Life of Pi to the big screen.

Here was what he had to say:

  • His first writing job involved abridging novels, and doing this for 85 books taught him how to pick out only the essential dialogue and action. It now helps him to adapt novels. If it’s a 300 page novel, he starts by writing a 3-4 page outline of what the book is about.
  • Then he tries to find the basic thing that drives the hero on to his journey. He also does a logbook with notes about the characters and jokes and ideas he thinks up on the way, as well as a finished 15-30 page outline and a pitch that he would use to explain the film to someone else. These three documents help him to stay on track as he writes the script.
  • He consulted shipwreck survivor Steven Callaghan about his experiences and Callaghan became an advisor on the film. Magee first read Life of Pi about ten years ago while he was working on Finding Neverland and had long been passionate about adapting the project. He took on board Callaghan’s memories of being “in a bowl in the middle of the universe” during his 74 days lost at sea.
  • His biggest advice? If you stay around long enough and are good enough, you will get your screenwriting chance. Do you have the tenacity to stick to your guns? If your stuff is great, it will find its way.

Next up for him is a movie about the late Jim Henson and a Dreamworks film about whales (!).

I really enjoyed the day in general, and I know from organising events myself how hard it can be to ensure that everything runs smoothly.

But it has to be said that the organisers needed a Plan B (i.e. a landline phone that they could have resorted to for interviews). Skype constantly breaking down and a film being streamed badly let them down and made the festival – and the Irish industry – look amateurish, and that’s not good. I’ll be back at Story Campus next year, but hoping that they’ve invested in some DVDs and sorted out their tech problems!

Next up, a look at some of this year’s JDIFF movies…

 

Writing, not writing and how to write your own way….

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I’m really looking forward to the Dublin film festival, which kicks off this Thursday. There’s a whole day of film talks and seminars at the Lighthouse next weekend, including an interview with Chinatown writer Robert Towne (Story Campus) and I’m going to see 5 or 6 movies, including Macdara Vallely’s hotly-tipped Babygirl, a documentary about film title designer Pablo Ferra and The War of the Roses (with Danny DeVito in attendance!).

Now that I’m back living in the city centre (Stoneybatter), the film festival’s easier to become completely immersed in for ten days. Can’t wait!

Also, I’ve been thinking about writing and my approach to it, especially after reading this book. It’s not about writing, let alone screenwriting, but the author Nassim Nicholas Taleb talks about his approach to working and it struck a chord.

Let me be honest – I know you’re not a proper writer (in some people’s eyes) unless you’re writing for two hours, every night. But I can’t work that way. Even if I did have a spare two hours every single day (and who does?), I like to write like a madwoman for a week (or a month) and then do nothing for two or three weeks. This is not just affectation – I do it because when I’m constructing a first draft, losing momentum can kill it. Getting the story down on paper in what feels quite literally like a vomit draft is crucial.

And I’m not alone. I was talking to some other writers about this recently and one of them said something interesting: that he can tell the scenes in a script where he lost focus and let things slide for a day or two. The not-so-funny scene he wrote because he was in a weird mood or the depressing dialogue he put in because he’d had a bad day. I’m paraphrasing, but he said something like, “If I don’t write it in one go, if it goes on for months and months, then I’m not the same person writing the end of the script as I was at the start, and that will show”. You have to get it done before life intervenes, and life does not come in two-hour daily chunks. It’s messier than that.

Taleb even has a section where he talks about procrastination and how he uses it to judge whether a section in his book should be kept or not. If he doesn’t want to write it, keeps putting it off, why should he inflict that piece of writing on his readers? This makes sense – the bits that stay in my head whispering at me, the ones that beg to be written – those are the good scenes in a script. The bits I can’t face writing – they should be cut, cut, cut.

The novelist Georges Simenon wrote over 200 novels, and he never wrote for more than sixty days a year (presumably sixty manic, pedal-to-the-metal workdays). But still over 300 days of doing… nothing.

My point is that you have to work the way that suits you, the writer. There’s no “proper” way to write – as long as you have words on paper, you’re winning…

New year’s resolutions – and what we can learn from Casablanca…

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Nine days into 2013 and I’m deep into plotting and planning mode, which I guess a lot of people are. What are your goals for the year ahead? What do you want to have ticked off on your to-do list by Christmas 2013?

My goals are simple: to write another original feature screenplay and a TV pilot (my first ever). I do have a yearning to make one of my 2013 scripts an Irish-based one. But I don’t know if that will be the feature script or the pilot.

There is, of course, other work to be done – rewriting existing scripts, for one. And if I get an idea for another script, which I tend to do on a regular basis, I’ll write a one-pager or even a treatment for it.  And of course there’s the regular stuff to keep up (watching movies and reading other people’s scripts). But by year end, if I achieve nothing else I want the new feature and the pilot to exist -and ideally be blowing readers’ minds…

So those are my screenwriting resolutions for 2013 – what are yours?

You could do better than sign up for Ashley Scott Meyer’s brilliant blog on screenwriting. He has a guest column this week from writer/director/producer Alan Denman on seven signposts for successful screenwriting, two of which are Visual (making your scripts as visual as possible – show, not tell) and Emotions (as Denman puts it, “for your characters to be real they must perform explicit actions but they must also have non-verbal agendas driven by emotional needs”). Make the audience feel, don’t just dazzle them with wizardry and expect them to respond.

I went to a screening of Casablanca last night as part of the Workmans Den Cinema Club (which I highly recommend by the way – their Facebook page is here. I’m going to be doing the intro to the monthly movie from now on. Oh, and it’s free!).

Casablanca is, of course, a stone-cold classic. It’s got a dream cast – not just Bogart and Bergman but the classic oily pairing of Peter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet, not to mention the great bad-guy actor Claude Rains (who gets all the best lines). But the script is a minor miracle – four credited writers and even more rumoured to have worked on it, and yet it sounds like it was written by one, highly-talented scribe. The last five minutes alone has some of the most famous dialogue in movie history – every line’s a jewel.

And yet, I’d argue that this is not what makes Casablanca such a beloved film. It’s visual, for sure – instead of Captain Renault remarking that he’s sick of being part of the Vichy regime, we have him staring pensively at a bottle of Vichy water and throwing it contemptuously in the trash. Instead of Rick admitting that he’s not as hard as he pretends, we see him nodding at his roulette dealer to turn a losing gambler’s fortunes. We see what a defiant hero Victor Laszlo is, not when he delivers a big speech but when he risks his freedom by getting a whole bar to sing The Marseillaise in front of a group of fuming Nazis.

So the visual impact is part of its attraction. But the emotional undercurrent – what the characters don’t say but get across with their looks and actions – is what sucks you in. What makes the final scene between Rick and Ilsa so touching? It’s not what they say but what they do. Shake hands politely and walk away from each other forever. I’ll take that over a corny speech any day (hello, Pearl Harbor).

So maybe that should be my other big resolution for 2013 – to find a way to maximise the visual appeal of my scripts and to find the emotional core of each story, each set of characters. Show, not tell, in the truest sense of the phrase…

A long-overdue update – and what not to do when pitching…

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Hallo blog. Long time, no see. I can’t believe that it’s been nearly a month since Iast updated. Maybe the longest time I’ve ever left my poor blog hanging.

And I don’t even have any amazing screenwriting news to justify this. I got a new (temp) job, my sister bought a house and has been doing it up and since I’m hoping to rent a room from her, this has formed a major topic of conversation for the last five weeks. Plus there was Christmas, and its attendant parties/shopping seemed to eat up huge amounts of time.

I can make all the excuses I want – the fact remains that apart from reading a lot of other people’s scripts, I’ve done very little screenwriting-related stuff. I got distracted. And the fact that nailing down a manager/agent and getting my O1 seemed more and more like a vague dream as I got on a bus at 8am to go to a day job, like deja-vu, didn’t help.

I need to start believing that this is possible and not a dream, because it is.

Somewhere out there is a rep who really does want me on their books and will find me work, help me develop my career and make a lot of money from me one day. I just need to get off my ass and make it happen.

My next post will talk about goal-setting for 2013, because I do think it’s really important to have writing goals. They keep you honest, help you see what you’re doing all this for. And non-writing career goals are just as vital, if not more so…

In the meantime, my Dublin writing group (which I’ve now re-joined) had a pitching session as part of its last meeting before Christmas. We all sat around a table and had 3 minutes to pitch our existing or upcoming project to everyone else.

I think it would be fair to say that we all made some cock-ups, myself included. And bear in mind, I’ve had a lot more pitching experience than some people in the group, so I really should have known better. Here are some of the mistakes we made, so you can avoid them:

  • Not giving an idea right from the start of the title’s genre, target audience and background. I pitched a family sci-fi project about a boy who accidentally creates a new species, for example, but I never mentioned the genre, so some of the group assumed that this was going to be a horror script.
  • A lot of people left out some really important plot details, which then only came out during the Q&A. Similarly, some of the pitches didn’t mention vital characters or give a proper idea of who the hero was. The problem with this is that during a real pitch to a studio or producer, you might not get an opportunity to give this info during a Q&A. They might not give you the chance.
  • Not identifying your script’s “hook” and making this clear. It’s all very well telling us your plot and describing the characters. But what is it that makes your story different? Why should a producer be interested in buying it and spending years making the movie?
  • Going way over the 3 minute allotted time. I was guilty of this one. Time your pitch, practice it for length and cut it ruthlessly if necessary. You might not get another chance to impress your audience.

I have to say, though, I found that the pitching itself – and the comments and suggestions from the group – really helped. If there are plot holes or character problems in your script, you might as well find out as soon as possible, and with a pitch there’s nowhere to hide.

Merry Christmas and all the best for 2013 to all my fellow writers. May the Screenwriting Force be with you….

Back in lovely old Dublin…

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First of all, I got interviewed by fellow screenwriter Chris Jalufka for his (amazing) blog, and he made me sound so good I’m embarrassed… you can check it out here.

Meanwhile, I’m back in Ireland, back at work and back in one of the world’s maddest climates. It’s been really strange to go from a place where every day is the same (hot and sunny) to Dublin, where no day is the same. And where instead of writing every day and schmoozing, I’m going out to work (:().

BUT – I’m working to raise money for a good cause, to fund my next visit to L.A. Some men spent most of World War Two trying to escape from Colditz. I just need to save a load of money and get a spanking new visa that will defeat the suspicions of Homeland Security. How hard can it be?

Well, it’s not THAT hard. But it’s not a piece of cake, either. Basically, as a writer I can apply for an O1 visa, which will give me at least a year in the States (and can be renewed thereafter). With this visa, I can work as a writer (and that includes web writing, journalism etc. as well as screenwriting). Two visa lawyers have looked at my list of credits and reckon I have enough to apply for an O1. But to apply, I must have a sponsor, and that means securing a manager/agent.

I did PRETTY well with getting reps to read my scripts while I was in the States. One agent and four management companies, to be exact. In a situation so typical it might have been an episode of Entourage, the agent said he liked my script, but had no buyer in mind for it. However, if I found a buyer, he’d be happy to represent me! (And take his 10%). I’m still waiting to hear back from some of the managers. But I have to believe that it’s going to work out. That someone’s going to take a chance on me, a chance that will pay off some day very soon.

On a good note – and there are many good notes, three professional screenwriters helped me out big-time before I left Cali. One got a reader from a top production company to read my script, another gave me some gold-standard advice on writing TV specs, and the third chap – a studio reader himself – spent 45 mins going over my script on Skype. Bear in mind, they got nothing in return apart from a lot of good karma. I made a promise before I left that I, too, would try my best to pay it forward, in whatever way I can.

For now, it’s back to writing, rewriting, and outlining. And schmoozing and networking, even it’s not on the same scale as it was in L.A. Wherever I’m living, whatever the weather’s like, 2013 is going to be the year all my biggest movie dreams come true…

The last week: movies, Stanley Kubrick, a play, and Michael Bolton….

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And so it ends… well, nearly. I’m going back to Ireland on Wednesday as my temporary visa is running out. But I’m already plotting and planning to apply for an O1, which would give me 12 months in the States and also allow me to work on a limited basis (I’m not allowed to work at all on my current visa).

I’ll update on this in the next post, as it’s a subject that I’ve learned a lot about recently.

But in the meantime, last week was my last full week in Hollywood. And it kicked off in style when I got to see Rust and Bone, Marion Cotillard’s new movie – with the lady herself in attendance.

This was an AFI gala screening, so while it was free, I had to queue up for an hour in advance with my friend Sarah and the two ladies we were bringing with us. But this was a pretty small price to pay for excellent seats at a screening at the Chinese Theater and a chance to see an interview with the leading lady.

It has to be said, the interviewer – an L.A. Times journalist – was not a natural at drawing people out. He kept asking Marion Cotillard inane questions and repeating himself. She even looked at him several times as if to say, “Really?!”

The interview was so terrible that I zoned out several times, but I did glean from it that Cotillard considered giving up acting at one point due to the poor roles she was getting. She had one more audition – for Tim Burton’s Big Fish – and decided to throw in the towel if this one fell through. Of course, she got the part and the rest is history.

The director Jacques Audiard and Cotillard’s co-star Matthias Schoenaerts were also there in person and Audiard gave an interview through a French interpreter, which was quite funny. The Americans LOVED it.

Anyway, the movie. Rust and Bone is about Schoenaerts’s character Ali, who’s left in charge of his young son and travels from Belgium to Antibes to live with his sister and her husband. There he meets Stephanie (Cotillard), a killer whale trainer at a water park, and they form a bond after Stephanie suffers a terrible accident.

To say any more would spoil the movie. But what I can say is that while the film is brilliantly acted, looks beautiful and boasts totally amazing performances, I couldn’t help feeling that there was something missing. It nagged at me for days after I’d seen it, what this “missing” thing was, the crack in the diamond.

And finally I worked it out – I didn’t know what Ali’s goal was. What he wanted in the story was never made clear. Stephanie’s goal – while never made explicit – was easier to understand, but Ali’s remained unresolved. And as a result, it was hard to care as much about his journey – and bear in mind, he is at very least a co-protagonist, so understanding his motivation was kind of crucial. I’d love to hear from anyone else who’s seen the movie and has any thoughts on this! Maybe it was just me – I’m willing to be proved wrong.

Tuesday night was, of course, election night, and I ended up watching Obama win in a bar on Melrose with a bunch of ex-pats, a group of American gay guys, two very unhappy Republicans from Tennessee and a guy from Cuba. It was actually really exciting to see it all happen in real time, and amazing how fast the results come in (I’m from a country with PR voting, so getting a concrete election result can take days. In individual constituencies,  even weeks).

LACMA has an incredible retrospective on Stanley Kubrick at the moment – I also went to see it this week and there are some pics of the exhibits here. There are movie posters, clips from his films, scripts, development notes and of course, props and costumes. But the autobiographical stuff is the most fascinating. For example, I didn’t know that he had been a press photographer at one point. There were dozens of pictures that he had taken for Look Magazine, many of which betray a very cinematic eye (especially his pictures of boxers).

Kubrick was also obsessed with chess and was an avid player. And the game features in many of his films. When asked about chess playing once, he said, “If chess has any relationship to filmmaking, it would be in the way it helps you develop patience and discipline in choosing between alternatives at a time when an impulsive decision seems very attractive”.

Saturday morning, I had my last comedy sketch writing class. I’m going to miss it – it was a a fun class apart from anything else – but I’ve learned a ton in six weeks about writing sketches. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a newbie. I’m just a much better-informed newbie.

Here are a few of the things I’ve learned – the basics were covered in this post:

  • Most sketches have an A, B and C. A is the normal situation, for example: a vampire is about to bite a lady. Well, that’s not NORMAL, but we’ve seen it a lot. B is the twist on the normal situation – the vampire’s teeth keep falling out. C is the comedic result – he is unable to “perform” successfully as a vampire because of his teeth problems.
  • Keep your sketches simple, broad, clear and relatable. They must have universal appeal. Don’t over-complicate things or try to have too many premises. There should be one, clear premise.
  • Figure out which sentence should result in a laugh. Then take any extraneous words out of that sentence and make sure the funniest word is at the end. In fact, use as many funny words as possible. Don’t say heroin, make it crack. Don’t say juice, say Snapple. It’s shocking how basic this sounds, but also how effective it is.
  • Record yourself reading the script. Does it sound like you imagined? With the perspective gained from listening to a recording, is it still funny? If not, keep going until it is!

The great thing about doing something funny like this is that you want to do more and more of it. So from here on, I’ll still be writing film scripts but also the odd comedy sketch – even if it’s just to give myself a laugh.

Later on Saturday, I went to a play at The Actors Studio theater, which is off Sunset Boulevard behind The Hart House. This building used to belong to William S. Hart, a silent movie cowboy. Inside, there’s a picture on the wall of Lee Strasberg and a cast of actors from the Fifties, including one strangely glamorous-looking blonde. Marilyn Monroe.

The theater is a tiny 60-seater and all the seats have someone’s name engraved on the side. The one in front of me said Al Pacino. Anyway, the play was one by Ronald Harwood called The Dresser and it was excellent. Obviously a great script, but the performances were just amazing. It’s set in London during the Second World War and I assumed the cast was all British. But my Brit friend who worked on it told me afterwards that the actors are all American. Their accents were top-notch – I’d never have guessed!

On Sunday night, I went to the opening of The Grove’s Christmas tree. It being L.A., instead of having some soap actor flick the switch, they had a lineup of seven performers, including Michael Bolton and The Backstreet Boys. And Mario Lopez unsuccessfully trying to interview small kids about what they want for Christmas….

And that’s it, apart from sorting out some loose ends and going out for one last drink. I’ve had a great 3 months, but I’m not going to miss L.A. too much, because like Arnie, I’ll be back. Soon. In the meantime, I’ll miss my lovely gay neighbourhood, the nice weather, the crazy fit people, the endless optimism and of course, all the great people I’ve met and become friends with. See you in 2013…