to the power of three

regardless of what brought you to writing – a love of telling stories, the ‘lone wolf’ lifestyle or whether it is something you simply have to do – there is no way of getting away from the fact that the film industry is a collaborative industry. even if you are steven soderbergh or robert rodriguez who shoot and edit their own films, they still work with countless others, including writers, on their films.

a great many filmmakers work with the same writers and/or crew on a regular basis, but what i want to talk about here is a triangle of collaborators that form a solid foundation for a successful and extended career:–

writer – producer – director.

making the leap into the world of professional screenwriting on your own is a daunting task! one of the best ways to make this task a little easier is to form alliances as early as possible.

you could hook up with a producer that likes your work and will get to you to do some re-writing work and build things from there. you could go to festivals and meet other filmmakers who share your perspective and taste. you could answer advertisements and work for free on shorts being made in and around your area in the hope of making some good contacts that way. all of these are valid ways of making friends and new potential collaborators, particularly if you’re coming into the industry cold.

alternatively, you could look closer to home. many of you have been involved in the industry in one way or another already. and many of you will have been to, or are still going to, film school or another kind of film/media study programme. i’m sure even at an early stage that you will have made close friends who are also ready to break into the industry? are there potential collaborating partners in your close circle of friends?

when looking at the writer-producer-director triangle, there are three examples of how successful collaborations can be formed:–

the first one that sprang to mind was the triangle of john hodge, andrew macdonald and danny boyle.

hodge was (and still is, i believe!) a doctor by trade, but he met macdonald at the edinburgh film festival in 1991. this meeting obviously inspired hodge to write a screenplay – which became shallow grave (1994). once it was finished the hunt for a director was on. that hunt ended when they saw the tv drama mr. wroe’s virgins, directed by boyle. the triangle was complete! together they made shallow grave, the era-defining trainspotting (1996), a life less ordinary (1997), a short film alien love triangle (1999) and the beach (2000). they have also worked in pairs with macdonald producing the boyle-directed 28 days later (2002) and executive producing films written by hodge, the final curtain (2002) and the sweeney (2012). boyle has recently directed a film, trance, co-written by hodge, which is currently in post production.

the next threesome has created some of the funniest and most engaging comedies of the last decade – simon pegg, nira park and edgar wright.

this collaboration began when pegg and wright worked together on the tv comedy series asylum in 1996. pegg got together with another performer on the series, jessica hynes and they wrote the cult series spaced. having both worked with wright before, they brought him in to direct. the series was produced by channel 4, but a co-producer was big talk productions run by nira park. since spaced, they have worked together on shaun of the dead (2004), hot fuzz (2007) and are due to be making the world’s end (2014). park has also produced the wright-directed scott pilgrim vs. the world (2010), as well as paul (2011) co-written by and starring pegg.

the final triangle i want to mention is relatively new – antonio campos, sean durkin and josh mond.

this is an interesting triangle because they all want to write and direct their own films. what makes the difference here is that the writer-director of a project is backed up by the other two who act as producers. they met at new york university’s film school (although only one graduated), and soon after set up their production company borderline films. after producing 4 shorts together, their first feature was afterschool (2008) directed by campos. their follow-up was the excellent martha marcy may marlene (2011) directed by durkin. their next film, simon killer, also directed by campos, has been picked up for distribution but no release date has been set. to hear their story in their own words, check out the q & a with jeff goldsmith podcast on martha marcy may marlene – where you will also hear why josh mond is yet to step into the director’s chair!

there are important things to consider when forming collaborative partnerships. all parties need to have the same kind of drive and love for filmmaking, everyone needs to pull their weight in whatever role they have taken on and above all there needs to be trust – you need to know that your partners have your back and will go that extra mile for you! i wrote a blogpost about how to assess a working relationship, which you can read here.

making the leap into the industry will always be daunting no matter what, but if you are not making that jump alone and you are with people you trust, then it makes that leap just a little bit easier!

happy writing

phil

scriptguyphil.com

if you have any comments or other examples of writer-producer-director triangles, then feel free to post them here, or you can also find me on twitter and facebook!

mini movie reviews 2012 – part 1

i thought that i’d post my mini movie reviews for the first four months of 2012 in one handy little blog post for those of you who are interested.

do you agree or disagree? what are the best films you’ve seen this year?

(note:- the reviews have been taken from my twitter feed and my facebook page, hence the varying length!)

first up, the films i’ve seen on the big screen:-

50/50 was a real treat. it was lol funny and very touching, never straying into being over-sentimental. the well-written script obviously came from the heart, but it was let down a little in the way the female characters were written – a female co-writer would have been a real advantage! having said that anna kendrick, angelica huston and bryce dallas howard all did great work to give their characters weight. highly recommended!

enjoyed moneyball. a bit long and started to drag at the end, but a solid script and well made all round. brad pitt & jonah hill had great chemistry, and you have to give props to pitt for pushing it thru some tough times to get it made. pitt could well be the robert redford everyone thought he would be. 30 years ago redford would have been a shoo in for this role!

tinker tailor soldier spy was a great adaptation. characters are beautifully realised with raw emotion being more important than ‘spying’!

young adult was refreshing. strong tone and characters with an unlikeable lead that was fascinating to watch. also avoids an ‘easy’ ending

attack the block was all kinds of awesome! i waited nearly a year to see it and it eventually came to denmark. it was funny, exciting and had some great action sequences. the script followed the genre in the proper way, but subverted the standard genre elements enough to keep the audience on their toes. couldn’t recommend it enough!

project x is a bad movie but i’d be lying if i said there weren’t a few laugh out loud moments. best seen with friends and alcohol enhanced!

mission: impossible – ghost protocol was a good entry in the franchise – better than 2 and 3, but still not matching 1 for a proper mission impossible film. it has a nicely complicated plot and better characters than normal. it suffers from a climax that, though good, is overshadowed by earlier action sequences, and although i liked jeremy renner in the film, his character was really poorly written and could have been way more complex than he was. still, it was 2 hours of fun and entertainment!!

shame was a powerful piece of emotional storytelling. minimal dialogue, stunning visuals and great performances combined to make a truly compelling film. i wish more films were made this way!

hugo was visually dynamic and the attention to detail was exquisite. my problem with the film was that the script was so cluttered. subplots, unnecessary characters and flashbacks completely swamp the fragile emotion of a beautifully simple story. the overtly theatrical acting (a bad choice by scorsese, though i saw what he was going for) and a lead actor that just couldn’t carry the film meant that it didn’t hit me emotionally – even though i am a film lover! a disappointment!

the hunger games was mildly entertaining, but definitely lacked the edge it needed to be a great movie. not necessarily in the violence, which i thought they did pretty well for a pg13, but the whole felt very superficial in its political and societal satire. its an interesting enough world, i just hope they use it better in the sequels. jennifer lawrence proved that she has what it takes and that winter’s bone wasn’t just a one off.

the passion of joan of arc is one of my favourite films and i got the chance to see it again, but with an unusual twist – on a big screen in a church, on good friday and with live organ accompaniment! the film itself is magnificent with maria falconetti giving perhaps the greatest acting performance ever seen, and the music was well performed and the organ sound felt very appropriate for the film. a great event set up by søren voigt-jakobsen.

the raid exceeded my high expectations! the action was not just intense – it was really intense! it is about two-thirds solid action and i was worried it would get monotonous, but it was consistently inventive and kept evolving. i anticipated a paper thin story, but it was more complex than you would normally find in an action film. the big surprise was how much depth the major characters had. it is violent fun for action fans, but this had hidden depths that made the experience all the more pleasurable!!

martha marcy may marlene was a strong character study, with exceptional writing and great performances. very tense and full of emotion – highly recommended!

sleep tight is a terrific new film by jaume balagueró one of the rec directors. it is a psychological thriller that truly delivers in all departments. it is creepy, disturbing and, at times, downright hilarious! one sequence in particular is one of the most tense and funniest sequences i have seen for some time. the writing and character work is excellent and it is expertly directed. highly recommended!

killer joe was a surreal and visceral film. it was gratuitous in so many ways, but was all the more enjoyable for it! generally terrific performances and well directed. tracy letts adapted his own stage play for the screen and did a great job (i’m amazed this was ever a stage play!). the script was very strong building some intriguing characters and was unpredictable and tense. not for sensitive souls, but very rewarding!

and now those i’ve seen on a screen a little smaller:-

started the new year with rio with the kids. the story was predictable, but there were plenty of belly laugh gags. surprisingly enjoyable!

rabbit hole was disappointing. i thought john cameron mitchell did a really good job visually expanded it from stage to screen, (it didn’t feel like a filmed stage play) but by doing so, the intensity and emotion of the story and characters seemed to be diluted. it had some strong scenes and performances, but they tended to be the ones that were directly lifted from the play. i’d love to see this on stage!

in a lonely place is one of my favourite movies and hands down bogart’s best role/performance. probably gloria grahame’s best too. top script (very lean and dark), and superb direction from nicholas ray. an absolute must see!

rocket science suffers from too-much-indie-quirk syndrome, but was fairly enjoyable nonetheless. some 3rd act surprises gave it a lift!

127 hours was ok. a brave choice by boyle, but he wasn’t brave enough to let the tense script work its magic. didn’t need to be so flashy!

chaplin’s the kid. its short, sweet, moving and very funny. treat the kids to this and give them a break from colour and noise!

despite some good technical work and a few atmospheric moments, danish horror film kollegiet was sadly done in by a script full of clichés and plotholes. the characters were so one-dimensional it was impossible to get emotionally involved, and the film has nothing new to offer.

be kind rewind has a lot of heart and charm. not the out-and-out laughfest i expected, but more enjoyable because of that!

love and other drugs was pretty good for an hour – some snappy dialogue and great chemistry between the leads – but then descends into being oversentimental. not too bad though.

easy a is a smart, engaging high school comedy. the writing is sharp and clever and the characters are well-defined without too much stereotyping. its well-made and zips along at a cracking pace – the only downside was laying on the pop culture references too thick. a very strong cast and a terrific central performance from emma stone.

agora is a powerful, engrossing and very challenging movie that few people seem to have heard of. it looks at religious and philosophical conflicts in 4th century alexandria, and although that doesn’t seem like a ‘fun’ premise, it really is worth hunting down. the heavy subject matter is lightened by a fresh, economical script and alejandro amenábar’s vision is a joy to behold.

wonder boys is a beautifully written movie. subtle characters, which in lesser hands would have been stereotypes, and a great tone. i hope now that harry potter is done, steve kloves now has the time and money to do more of the great work he does here.

cargo is a swiss science fiction thriller that sadly relies on the standard clichés of the genre and even seems to use moments directly from other movies. some of the acting is good, some pretty bad. the writing is not particularly good, but the directing is very solid. there is some great photography and the production design is probably the best thing about this film. for die hard fans of the genre only i’d say!

its been said before but la confidential is a masterclass in adaptation. read the book, watch the film and see what they did – phenomenal!

if you haven’t seen, or even heard of, stake land, then put it on your radar. yes, its a low-budget indie, vampire apocalypse movie, but it is so much more than that. apart from the occasional clunking line of dialogue and an ending that drags just a touch, it is a terrific tense and atmospheric film. well worth hunting down! (pun intended!)

ok, so the blues brothers wouldn’t be the best choice for a masterclass in screenwriting, but the film is so damned entertaining!

ratatouille is pixar’s most consistently enjoyable film in both laughs and storytelling, but i really wish the stakes had been higher!

the ghost writer is like a holiday novel. i kept wanting to know what happened next, but the day after i saw the plotholes and logic lapses!

disappointed with uncle boonmee. had looked forward to it, but it didn’t engage me emotionally or philosophically. stunning visuals tho’!

blades of glory – the structure was a mess, but there’s enough laughs and inspired lunacy to more than make up for it. iron lotus, anyone?

kung fu panda 2 – less focused and structured than 1, but great action and stronger emotional character development. a worthy follow up! could have used more master shifu though!

the adjustment bureau was solid entertainment, which kept focus on the personal story among its big ideas. i can’t help thinking that there was a better movie buried in here somewhere though. still, they kept it nice and tight, and the chemistry between emily blunt and matt damon was great.

timecrimes is fun and playful for about an hour then loses steam – tho’ it has probably the most logical ending for a time travel movie!

chicken run is a lot of fun with some great characters but seems to be missing the heart that aardman animations has for wallace and gromit. still streets ahead of their competitors!

trick ‘r treat was definitely a treat! a cheeky little movie with a few scares, some good laughs and a couple of neat twists! dylan baker and brian cox own the scenes they’re in, and it packs a lot in to its 78 minutes! don’t wait for halloween! check it out now!

finally saw bridesmaids and it was very funny, but not as laugh out loud funny as i expected. but that was a good thing as it turns out because it gave them a chance to develop rounded characters that made for a more satisfying film. a touch overlong, but that is me nit-picking! it deserved all the success it got!

lemony snicket’s a series of unfortunate events – as its title implies was episodic – too much for its own good. i found the voiceover very irritating and overused, which didn’t give the characters room to breathe. i thought the kids were good and the design was terrific, but just couldn’t get emotionally involved with the kids’ journey.

marie & bruce had julianne moore, whom i love, matthew broderick, whom i like, and was written by the magnificent wallace shawn. the film is a complete misfire. i’m sure the play on which it is based works well on stage, but the director was trying way too hard to make it ‘big’. performances are over the top and the characters very irritating. i’d love to see these two perform it on stage though.

the 11th hour is a eco-doc produced and narrated by leonardo dicaprio. as it discusses the world’s eco problems with a wide variety of experts it is really preaching to the converted in a very bombastic way. where this film works is in the 2nd half where many possible solutions are offered, and i found this part both optimistic and very enlightening. way better than an inconvenient truth.

paul was a treat! not up there with other pegg/frost collaborations, but i laughed the whole way through anyway! the chemistry and wordplay between all the main characters was great and all the sci-fi references were fun to play along with. (my favourite was the country & western version of the music from the cantina scene in mos eisley!). this was a lot of fun!

the tree was a slow burning story about the loss of a family member that didn’t grip me as much as i’d hoped it would. everything about it was fine, but i felt it took too long to set up its main idea – thus making it difficult to completely engage in when the emotional storyline kicks in.

big has always been an enjoyable watch, but the joy here was showing it to our 8 year old olivia – she absolutely loved it!! (although we fast-forwarded through the boob touching scene – she’s not quite ready!!). she enjoyed all the fun stuff, but also got to grips with what it would be like to be in that situation, which was a big eye-opener!

the social network i really like, but it is always a bit disappointing that the final half hour plays out in such a formulaic way. i wish that sorkin/fincher had found a way to make the ‘corruption of success’ part of the story more interesting, but i assume they wanted to be faithful to the true story. the first hour and a half is so good though, i guess i’m just being greedy!

the hole was a fun little film, and although not reaching the heights of his best work, its still joe dante – so what’s not to like!! he uses the clichés of the genre to his benefit and there are equal parts laughs and jump scares. too tame for horror fans i suspect, but for movie fans who love to be teased and toyed with, this was a fun, engaging watch! the standout scene involved bruce dern and some lightbulbs!

the taking of pelham one two three (original 74 version) is exciting, funny and has possibly the highest number of angry characters i’ve seen in a single film! this thriller, which has more than its fair share of laughs, is an incredibly enjoyable film with one of the best written scripts in its genre – and the performances make it sing. there’s not one false move in it, the score is magnificent and the final shot is worth your time alone. if you haven’t seen it, treat yourselves!

i finally got to see avatar and the question i asked myself afterwards is how can someone with as much imagination as james cameron has, write a story that is as derivative and clichéd as this one? the characters had no depth and the story beats were obvious way in advance. there were some amazing elements here (i loved the way species literally connected to each other), but the film bored me as a whole. the sad thing is cameron has proved he can write – ‘the terminator’, ‘aliens’ etc – but its clear that’s not where his heart lies now. wanted to like it, but found it very dull!

super 8 started really well, creating some engaging kids’ characters and great overall tension and atmosphere, but then became repetitive, over-manipulative and bombastic. its a shame, because the groundwork had been laid for a movie as good as those j. j. abrams obviously loved so much. sadly, he came up short by attempting to appeal to the modern audience instead of going for the all-out love letter to 80s kids adventure movies. its still worth a watch though as there are plenty of great scenes.

american splendor is a beautifully conceived film. an intriguing story of a fascinating guy that makes me wish that all biopics were this good! “ordinary life is pretty complex stuff”!

i’ll be posting part 2 of this series at the end of august.

if you have any comments then feel free to post them here, otherwise you can find me on twitter and facebook and hassle me there!

happy writing

phil

scriptguyphil.com