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10 APHORISMS TO WRITE BY: My #LondonSWF 2014

11/3/2014

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(First posted on London Screenwriters’ Festival Website on 31st October, 2014)
Creative Director Chris Jones and his amazing team did it again. They put on a superlative event that inspired, energised and empowered us to be the writers and filmmakers we want to be. This time it was bigger than ever: 800 enthusiastic delegates and 150 exceptional speakers. I’m surprised with so much creative talent concentrated in one place, we didn’t alter the earth’s magnetic field – it was that AWESOME.

An element of London Screenwriters’ Festival I particularly appreciate is the Scriptchat. This is a roundtable discussion held immediately after a session where the speaker sits and chats with those members of the audience hardy enough to resist the lure of the refreshment tent or the imperative of a nature break.

In his scriptchat, Robert Thorogood, creator of the popular TV series “Death In Paradise”, told us he loves aphorisms. As someone who is rather partial to them myself, his comment inspired me to pick out and share my favourites from this year’s London Screenwriters’ Festival.

ROBERT THOROGOOD
“Here’s the good news: you’re as good a writer now as you’ll ever be.”
Robert recently dug out an old script from his bottom drawer (we’ve all got one) and was surprised by how well-written it was. What’s the difference between then and now? Aside from dogged perseverance and doing at least one thing every day to further his writing career, he’s found his voice. That, he says, is the most important thing, as it’s what sets you apart from every other writer out there.

JULIE GRAY
“Think of your writing as something that allows you to give as well as to get.”
If anybody was in any doubt as to the value of storytelling and storytellers to the human race, Julie will have set them right in her uplifting session on writing with purpose. Julie reminded us to live and write purposefully, on purpose. It shouldn’t ever be just about the dosh. Being a writer is a calling, she says, you are a giver of hope, not a taker of money.

NICK POWELL
“A story becomes your story as soon as you start to tell it.”
Nick entertained and regaled us with stories from the filmmaking trenches in his extraordinary A to Z of Storytelling. He’s on first-name terms with just about every screenwriting god you’d care to mention and mixed up his own insights with gems from the likes of Martin Scorsese, Tom Stoppard, Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino.

LINDA ARONSON
“Storytelling is about truth and its different versions.”
Linda wowed us with her mastery of every imaginable permutation of non-linear storytelling. The theory was accompanied by lots of practical advice as to how to apply these tricky techniques to our own stories to energise and lift them. It’s crucial all writers realise that young audiences don’t take as long to “get it” as they used to, so we need to tell our stories faster and include more beats per story.

WILLIAM NICHOLSON
“A lot of story has no spoken words at all.”
This from the man who wrote one of cinema’s immortal lines, “what we do in life echoes in eternity.” (I can’t get over how great that line is. If I ever write one half as good, I’ll die happy.) William was of course referring to the old “show don’t tell” adage and extolling the virtue of visual storytelling.

TED TALLY
“Confusing the audience for three minutes is better than boring them for three seconds.”
Screenwriters invest a lot of time and trouble to learn the rules of screenwriting. Here’s more good news: once you know the rules, you can break them – if it serves your story. But there’s one rule you can never, ever break and that’s this one: don’t bore the audience!

JOEL SCHUMACHER
“We are most destructive when we don’t realise filmmaking is a collaboration.”
Besides being the most dapper man at the Festival, Joel Schumacher impressed us all with his wit, charm and generosity. From his script-to-screen session to the review of his career in film, he had us all wrapt and enchanted. It was touching to see him on stage with the real Philomena Lee, who graciously accepted the inaugural British Screenwriters’ Award for Best British Feature Film Writing on behalf of Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope for “Philomena”.

LEE JESSUP
“Never walk into a meeting unprepared. Approach pitching as networking.”
Lee Jessup’s structured, no-nonsense approach to making it in Hollywood had us all wishing we’d met her a year earlier, if not sooner… If you want to make it in Hollywood, no matter where you live, all you’ve got to do is get noticed. Lee then delighted us by giving us some very doable suggestions as to how to go about it.

AMMA ASANTE
“ ‘No’ is followed by a comma, not a full-stop.”
Amma’s story of being robbed of the credit for her words is heart-breaking, yet the way she overcame this set-back is inspiring. What struck me is how she defines herself first and foremost as a writer. (Yay! She’s one of us!) Had she known what would happen, she says, despite the tremendous benefits directing “Belle” has brought her, she would not have gone ahead with the project. Now that’s artistic integrity for you.

CHRIS JONES & JONATHAN NEWMAN
“The only failure is not doing something; everything else is a learning experience.”
“Free your mind,” says Morpheus to Neo in “The Matrix”. The Manifesting Success session was all about recognising that the person running us is our five-year-old self and that our inner voice, which tends to be negative, is not reality. Here again there is good news: we can choose not to listen. The ultimate reality is doing, so say what you are going to do and have the integrity to do what you say. That way success lies – whatever success means to you.

All that remains to be said after this whistle-stop tour of some of the highlights of my #LondonSWF 2014 is a heartfelt THANK YOU to Chris, the team, the volunteers, the speakers and the delegates. Let’s do it all over again next year!

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5 THINGS I LEARNED IN A 10-MINUTE Q&A WITH LUC BESSON

8/26/2014

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(First posted on the Bang2Write website on 12th August, 2014)

LUCY hit the screens in Paris last week and Luc Besson, who both wrote and directed it, was doing no less than 6 “avant-premières” all over town. Those of you who don’t live in France may be wondering, what on earth is an avant-première? Well, it’s like a première minus the glitz of the red carpet and the flashbulbs of the paparazzi, but with the added bonus that the director often stays to chat with the audience after the screening.

Yours truly was very fortunate in that I got to walk in with Mr. Besson himself . I joked with him that I was LOVING the headlines in American publications saying “Hercules is getting beaten up by a girl!” That made him laugh. He said it was probably because Lucy had a nicer dress than Hercules…


1) LESSON N°1: The Judicious Use of Humour

So right off the bat I learned that Luc Besson is a funny guy. He knows how to use humour. At times the Q&A was like a stand-up-comedy routine. He made us laugh and had us hanging on his every word.

Likewise, in the film, here and there a note of humour is injected when you least expect it. Then, in the very next moment, the tension is ratcheted up, and you gasp all the more because the humour made you drop your guard. As writers, we are responsible for designing the emotional ride the audience will go on. No matter what your genre, use a dab of humour now and then as a counterpoint to the primary emotion you’re eliciting. (Or pathos if you’re writing a comedy.)

MORE: All About Genre & Craft


2) LESSON N°2: Be Open

LUCY is the story of a young woman, played by Scarlett Johansson, who is kidnapped by Korean gangsters and forced to act as a mule for a new super drug. The sachet containing the drug bursts inside her and unlocks her full potential, so that she can control first her own body, then those of others, then all matter and finally time itself.

The genesis of the idea occurred about twenty years ago. Mr. Besson, invited to dinner by the mayor of a small town, was seated next to a young woman. Our favourite French filmmaker was immediately wary. He often finds himself sitting next to the daughter or the niece of the host of a dinner party, and by coincidence she just happens to be an actress who would love a part in his next film… Nevertheless, Mr. Besson was very gallant and engaged his dinner companion in conversation.

“What do you do?” he asked.

 “I work in cancer research,” she replied.

He wasn’t expecting that. There then followed a three-hour conversation about cells and neurones and the brain. She was the one who told him the line that Morgan Freeman delivers in the film: cells select one of two strategies, immortality or reproduction, depending on the harshness of the environment they find themselves in.

The lesson here is openness. Mr. Besson could have closed himself off and avoided an encounter he assumed was going to be banal, even boring. Instead he chose to be open and GENEROUS with himself, and he was rewarded with the gift of a great idea. 


MORE: Connecting With Writers, Filmmakers & Producers Online, plus 10 Ways To Kill Your Writing Career Dead by Linda Aronson


3) LESSON N°3: Do Your Research

After meeting the young scientist, Mr. Besson sought out other scientists and gradually built up his knowledge. He set to writing the screenplay of LUCY NINE YEARS ago. This was a passion project and he wanted to craft the screenplay so that the science and the philosophy it contains would be presented in a way that was fun and entertaining.

Research then, is essential to create a sense of authenticity and emotional truth in a screenplay. But note, this is not necessarily the same as factual truth! 


MORE: The Importance Of Research


4) LESSON N°4: Make Your Story Accessible

Some American critics have beaten up on Luc Besson because one of the central ideas behind the film – that we only use 10% of our brain capacity – simply isn’t true. Mr. Besson KNOWS this. He’s done the research. Two decades of it. He even helped found the ICM, an international research institute focusing on the brain and spine.

What is true is that we only use 15% of our neurones at any given time. Mr. Besson worried audiences might not be familiar with the workings of neurones, whereas just about everybody knows what a brain is. So, to make the story accessible to the widest possible public, he made a CHOICE to use the brain as a metaphor… In the film it works beautifully.

The “truth” in your script can be anything you want it to be, as long as you CLEARLY set up the rules of the world of your story, and you do it in a way that is comprehensible for the audience.

MORE: Sacrificing Facts For Drama


5) LESSON N°5: Challenge Yourself

There is an extraordinary car chase in LUCY. I guarantee there are shots and angles you’ve never seen before, even if you’ve watched every one of the dozens of car chases that have been shot on the streets of Paris over the years.

Mr. Besson asked himself, “what would be the most DIFFICULT circumstances for a car chase in Paris?”

He came up with rue de Rivoli, at noon – equivalent to Oxford Street in London or Fifth Avenue in New York. The scene was shot over the long weekend of August 15, which is when Paris is at its emptiest. It covers the distance of approximately one kilometre and lasts only a few minutes of screen time, but it took four days to film and for safety reasons 25% of the cars are CGI. The result is breath-taking.

In your screenplay, don’t take the easy way out – ever. Challenge yourself to put your protagonist in the most difficult situation possible. That’s where you’ll find the drama or comedy or thrill or chill with the most impact. 

MORE: Writing, Selling & MAKING Thriller Screenplays with @jkamalou

It’s amazing what you can learn in ten minutes, isn’t it?

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    One of my uncles calls me, “Kim the Intrepid”. Adventures include an African revolution, questioning by the KGB/FSB and being guest of honour at a Turkmen wedding.  What else would I want to do but write? 

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