I’ve been meaning to let both my regular readers know how it went on Monday night at BAFTA but it went well so I’ve spent the past days nursing a hangover whilst trying to sort out a proposal for iFeatures. So basically I’ve been just like every other aspiring filmmaker in the UK… (Is there anyone out there not currently researching the history and street layout of Bristol? Show of hands please…)
Anyway, on Monday night excerpts of our feature length version of “Hallo Panda” were featured as part of the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writer’s Forum. I’d heard from my mate Claire that the event was brilliant and something that was worth our time submitting stuff to, but I have to admit I did so with a degree of trepidation. Now I’ve been through the process I understand it and it’s smarter and harder than you think…
Photograph by Mat Ricardo
The basic set-up is quite straightforward. Ten minute extracts from three scripts are given a rehearsed reading in front of an audience and an industry figure who then gets to question the author.
Naturally a great deal of attention goes on the reading. Each script is given a director used to working in the Rocliffe way, each is also given a composer, an expert casting director and an artist to create a mood-setting back drop. Though the actors are not expected to be off the page, the extracts are not merely read but acted out. In our case, director Paul Cavanagh also used a couple of chairs as a very flexible piece of scenery which morphed seamlessly from the back of a bus to a tree branch as the story progressed.
TOM WU as Panda and CHRISTIAN CONTRERAS as Mark
Photographs by Mat Ricardo
But despite all the effort and energy going into the reading I still had my concerns. Could ten pages really give a full insight into the script? Would this semi-theatrical approach obscure the cinematic element of the script? Paul had convinced us to change the extract and though I trusted him, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that in giving the audience the start of the story we were really just repeating what we’d done with the short and not quite showing off the real depth of the story.
However I had overlooked the impact of the Q&A session with the industry chair. In our case this was the magnificent Gillies MacKinnon who, after all three projects had been given their turn, gave a brilliant and concise run down not only of the twists of his career to date but also of his creative philosophy which feels something like “never the mind the bollocks, what’s it about?”
Having read our extract before the evening started, Gillies had, not being a man to mince his words, crossed out large sections of our dialogue which he felt were redundant. He’d even, apparently, toyed with the idea of bringing along his own version of the script to give to the cast instead… however, after watching it performed he was magnanimous enough to admit on stage that he’d happily eat his words. It worked. It was funny. It has a natural rhythm and flow that the cast really got hold of and, thanks to Paul, the piece leapt off the page.
Gillies did have concerns though and asked us (as usual) a series of painfully searching and accurate questions that got to the heart of what will make this film work or fail. And this was when I realised how Rocliffe really works. Of course the extract is not enough. Of course performing it on a stage with a couple of chairs does not paint the fullest picture. Instead it gives you no hiding place. It forces the audience not to enjoy it but to question it.
It’s ordeal by fire, especially as this court marshall is taking place in front of an audience and at BAFTA. However if you have a clear sense of what your story really is, the questions soon stop feeling difficult and just become opportunities to get the film across.
Chris, Me and Gillies
On stage Q&A kept in check by Farah Abushwesha
We submitted to Rocliffe a first draft we finished a few months back and we’ve been working on the second ever since. Already the story has progressed and our thinking about it has clarified. Besides, in one form or another this film has been in our lives for four years or more. We know this story. The rehearsed reading grabbed everyone’s attention, made them laugh, made them engage, but it was the Q&A session that then enabled us to really explain the film. Which just shows we were right to trust Paul, not only was direction smart and sympathetic but most of all, his choice of extract set up the Q&A perfectly.
Paul asks us a helpful question, cheers Paul!
I couldn’t recommend it highly enough. Their next submission deadline is Spring 2010. It’s a great platform… just remember that it’s the Q&A that really counts. The extract should engage but it should also create questions for the audience. What matters is that you can answer those.
Submission information here http://www.rocliffe.com/scriptappl.php
