Picture This: The Adventures of An Early Career Screenwriter.

15 April 2009

Marjolein Towler

Screenings - External

Take the Barossa Valley, known for good food, good wine, rolling hills. Take a bunch of screen writers, known for liking good food, good wine and bugger the rolling hills. An excellent match, in other words. This was the National Screenwriters Conference which ran from 25 to 27 February at the Barossa Valley Resort. Its focus was: Picture This: From Idea to Audience.

For me, the biggest ‘star’ to attending was Darren Star, a TV writer from the US, who is best known for Melrose Place and Sex and the City. I managed to get a place in his master class. We got a complete breakdown of the Sex and the City pilot from the horse’s mouth and this, by itself, made attending the conference worthwhile. The major learning point for me was that in TV series in particular you really need to know your characters before you start. Star spoke of the DNA of characters and how – looking at the pilot – you could see their DNA and how that was sustained throughout the entire series. “In TV you kind of keep telling the same story over and over again. Mostly only the characters maintain interest and retain the audience. They can evolve, but not really deviate,” he said. Writing characters you know well has to come from a familiar and often personal place.

And that the personal is important was clear in most of the sessions. In ”Script to Screen”, Jan Sardi _ told how his personal experience informed the writing of Love’s Brother. Andrew Knight _(Sea Change) related how he changed an entire scene in After the Deluge to reflect something this brother did when dealing with their demented father. Even Mac Gudgeon (Last Ride/Captain Cook) incorporated his neighbour’s habit of playing very loud opera into the re-write of the script for Winds. He freely admits it didn’t actually improve it much, but he was the eighth screenwriter to work on the script, so he felt no pain about it.

That the process of writing a script can be very painful, was movingly related by Andrew Bovell _ as he spoke about writing a Hollywood adaptation of _The Edge of Darkness. The original was a 6 part TV series written by Troy Kennedy Martin in the 80’s set in Thatcher’s Britain (And very much worth a watch if you find it on DVD). At its emotional centre is a father’s grief for his dead daughter, but it is also very much a thriller and its strength is that it uncovered an event that actually happened. To recreate that in a contemporary context as well as setting it in the US (which was a stipulation of the contract) proved to be one of the most soul-destroying things Andrew has ever undertaken, and he was ultimately unsuccessful. That script is in front of the American Writer’s Guild to determine a co-credit. He says that he now knows that working with Hollywood can only happen on their terms and a writer has to learn to accept that. I thought he was immensely generous to share this story with a group of complete strangers.

But that was the thing – nobody was a complete stranger since we were all there with the same interest – to share our stories and to learn. And from my experience – mission accomplished.

Marjolein Towler is business analyst, information designer and a member of the FTI Board.

Photo: (Above:) Kelly Lefever and Darren Star