Ah, good, welcome. (You should scroll down, later, and read all of Cath’s excellent London International Festival bloggings.).

So: Shooting People is media sponsor of Doc/Fest, and I was invited by their suave programmer Hussain Currimbhoy to host a series of Q&As with filmmakers. In between I caught several sessions, grabbed as many films as I could and, occasionally, remembered to eat and breathe.

By Wednesday’s opening day, the Festival was already sold out, with over 1,300 Delegates passes sold. By Thursday evening, more than half had arrived and checked in, a statistic which had Director Heather Croall agog. If it at all strained the Festival’s systems, it didn’t show.

The Gala opening night film was Director / Producer John Dower’s “Thriller in Manila” (which I’d already seen at BRITDOC). http://tinyurl.com/5rqgqf. This bluesy, funny, tense and outright savage film retells, from the point of view of Smokin’ Joe Frazier his brutal and culturally significant third and last fight with Muhammad Ali. The affable Dower gave a frank interview talking, amongst other things, of the pitfalls of making another Muhammad Ali film after the fabulously successful “When We Were Kings”: “ … after all, how many boxing documentaries does the world need?”. John: you can never have enough explorations of this most primeval and nuanced of activities, especially when they cover this much new ground, and so well. More on Iron Mike later.

On Thursday morning, I followed the crowd to a new BBC Storyville production of Elizabeth Stopford’s “I’m Not Dead Yet”. http://tinyurl.com/5frj2f. What starts as a nosy, rather chipper observational about an aging scioness and her two squabbling daughters fast unravels into a deftly handled and broodingly emotional telling of the life-lasting legacies of child abuse. It deftly juxtaposes old family films with recent testimony, and is very poetically shot (why aren’t more docs?). Peering into the never to be healed scars of these three strong, reserved, but somewhat broken women was potently confronting. Further thickening the stew is that Stopford is by turns daughter, niece and grand daughter of the protagonists.

Not too many laughs either at my first Q&A: Lorne Kramer’s “Mee [not a typo] and my Dad” was a very assured medium length short from this UWE student. http://tinyurl.com/62ro7h. Kramer takes a trip to Thailand to videograph the wedding of his father and a local woman (the epnoymous Mee) who was only three years Lorne’s senior. Relations between Kramer and his father had been awkward since the parents divorced, and the film is a frank, sometimes uncomfortable observational about a son who wants a father, and a father who just wants a mate.

An apt emotional lid loosener, then, for Bill Roulston’s “Dream Riders”. http://tinyurl.com/689wko. In a neat flip (a coincidence? I suspect Hussain’s too clever for that), this time son Nico just wants Dad Bill to be a mate, having not trusted him for the last eight years. Bill – a school teacher who’d never made a film before - persuades Nico to accompany him on a cycle trip from the US West Coast to the East. They load up a Winnebago with spares, food and a crew who shoot over 300 hours of footage, and start a long, wary voyage across the continent, and around each other. Initially threatening mawkish therapy rather than film, it ultimately won its audience completely over with a big emotional pay off of reconciliation and retribution. The packed house gave Bill and Nico a warm three minute ovation – the longest I heard in Sheffield. That was too much for them – this was their Festival debut, after all - and arm in arm they dissolved into tears, taking the young lady I had sat next to with them, which then set me off, and the whole audience. Honestly, I’m meant to be a professional.

My, that's a big one

Mid afternoon Saturday, I found myself with 50 minutes to kill, and managed to catch the last half of director Adam Low’s “The Hunt for Moby Dick”, made for Arena, and to accompany Philip Hoare’s eponymous book. http://tinyurl.com/6opnmf. Lingeringly shot, with glutton-satisfying amounts of knuckle-whitening cetacean close ups, sepulchral-toned readings from Herman Mellville’s “Moby Dick”, archive of American whaling operations, and chunks lifted from the classic Holywood take on the story, it is All Things Whale, more than you realised you wanted: a history of the American industry, a socio-cultural analysis of the book, a biography of Melville, a robust economic-historic argument that the industry was the starting block of the American sprint to global capitalist domination, and – less convincingly, but brave – a knitting together of these Leviathans of the deep with human Armageddon and recent geopolitical catastrophes. A moving (again – I am getting soft), and compelling historical document.

Feature debutant New Yorker Astra Taylor’s “Examined Life” is unusual in several senses. http://tinyurl.com/5tqo2t. It’s an exploration of philosophy – uncommon enough – and one which is yet purposefully visual. It’s 80 minutes, in eight chunks. Each is a ten minutes stroll with an actual philosopher, who explicates his/her attitudes. Sounds like film hell, and interest is not just maintained, but actually piqued by Taylor’s Come On In The Water’s Fine gentleness of touch, the often semiotically rich environs in which she has her protagonists walk, and the unpatronising passion those (frighteningly articulate) speakers bring. Taylor also has a simple trick of making the camera occasionally flick off to the side, as if something had caught its / our eye: it worked every time. The ideas contained within the film – and there are dozens upon dozens – take more than a little while to process, and the film has stayed with me for days; it keeps giving. And yes: the Meaning of Life is in there. See it. And even better: I didn’t cry once.

Australian (and newly wed, ahh!) director / producer team Kirsty de Garis and Timothy Jolley in their “Dominic Dunne: After the Party” got terrific and extended access to the author, journalist, sometimes TV personality, and Vanity Fair staple, whilst he followed the last few days of Phil Spector’s first (mis)trial. http://tinyurl.com/5brwny. In a legacy seeking series of interviews, we also get lots of juicy old Hollywood anecdotes, a bottoming out and redemption tale, and many tough nuggets of human tragedy. De Garis shows masterful touch at gaining the trust of this most media savvy of operators, and the whole assured, well organised production is very satisfying.

Prior to the Friday night gala at City Hall, wickedly co-presented by our own Lee Kern, the filmmaker presented his ‘show’ (the quotes are advisable) “Lee Kern’s Jackanories”. http://tinyurl.com/6ptsrw. Not films at all, rather a series of short comic audio documentaries (“I like doing them, because they’re f*cking easy”, Kern explains) with music (Abide With Me, no less!) that essay mental breakdowns. It’s some of the subtlest, leanest wok I’ve seen of Kern’s yet. The second part, in which he interviews with candour and rougish humour, even relish, his diagnosed bi-polar friend was hugely powerful, and very economical.

Come here and say that.

More boxing – good! – later Friday evening, when after the Awards, my companion and I caught the late night screening of James Toback’s “Tyson”. http://tinyurl.com/6p9br5. Iron Mike himself exec produced (paid for?) this filmically innovative and hard hitting in both senses bio-piece of the disgraced, never forgotten ex World Champion. Amazingly frank about his own shortcomings, and proudly vitriolic to those who profited from both his rise and fall, it is thrilling and desperately sad.

For many Doc/Fest delegates, it’s the sessions that are the thing, and I, for one, love going back to school. I caught the third of four of DFG’s Newcomers’ Day sessions, a revealing series of non-traditional broadcasting case studies. Time and time again panelists referred to Lord Lance Weiler’s Workbook Project and Liz Rosenthal’s Power to the Pixel. Whilst I’m plugging: I hope you’ve bookmarked this very bulletin’s editor Ingrid Koop’s Tools Blog - http://shootingpeople.org/tools. - and downloaded our Short Sighted Handbook - http://shootingpeople.org/shortsighted.

But the most satisfying notebooks-out-boys-and-girls two hours was easily our friends at BRITDOC’s Saturday Service. http://tinyurl.com/britdoc. BRITDOC had caused the first big stir of the Festival, with their announcement that they won’t be returning to Keble, and will instead take their slate of live, Festival programming on the road, including a deep strategic partnership with Doc/Fest. Meantime, they’ve relaunched their website - http://britdoc.org. - and this event was a tour of their new raft of services they are offering to broker relationships between filmmakers and the Third Sector (charities, NGOs and the like). Their Real Good matchmaking website for that burgeoning space will be launched in January. Now is a very good time for you to start thinking about the kind of ‘Good’ films you’d like to make, because that industry is going to heat up palpably from now on. Bookmark this: http://britdoc.org/real_good.

So: I seem to have developed a specialty for interviewing the first timer. Elizabeth Marcus was a die hard Manic Street Preachers fan rather than filmmaker, when her husband and editor Yes You Can’d her into approaching the band. http://tinyurl.com/5kxg64. James Bradfield, Nicky Wire and Sean Moore were most forthcoming. Indeed, and not being that much of a Manics fan, I now find myself harbouring a huge affection for them, thanks to Marcus’s film: my favourite scene was Bradfield cooking a fry up for the crew. The film’s mix of kitchen sink star footage, painstakingly juxtaposed heartfelt and quirky fan vox pops, and detailed coverage of the band putting down a new single, tries to do pretty much everything, and succeeds most of the time. There will be plenty of time to redress that which doesn’t work: this was a work in progress, and the Manics fan soaked audience were delighted to offer their insights. Yes, and the elephant in the film, as it were – Richey Edwards’s disappearance – was deftly, persistently and unobtrusively dealt with.

And to last duties: Sunday’s secret film (announced Saturday!) was that consummate British documentary individualist Brian Hill’s (no debutant, touché) newest– the first audience screening, no less – of “Climate of Change”. Participant Media’s (“An Inconvenient Truth”, “Fast Food Nation”)’ commission essays micro climate activism: Indian schoolchildren motivating each other, an Appalachian citizen’s lone stand against coal mountain ‘beheading’, Papua New Guinean subsistence farmers refusing to log without sustainability, and a London Green PR exec. Stitching these disparate stories is some very Hill high art scoring, thanks to Nitin Sawhney, and plenty of long time collaborator Simon Armitage’s direct and moody verse, langorously recited by Tilda Swinton. In the QA&A, Hill said he had no intention of making climate pornography, and, indeed, the film is successful in it Obama-esqe aim: “yes we can! (Recycle)”.

So much went on that I didn’t see. Yet I certainly don’t recall sleeping much.

Another barrage of wonderful films from the LFF… and sadly only three days to go.

And yet more fantastic British suprises. Any new film that comes out by Michael Winterbottom (yes, he has made 15 films in 12 years.. he really has..) will always be of great interest.

And his latest GENOVA is possibly his most intimate yet. I really liked it. The premise sounds pretty straight - following the death of his wife in a car accident, university prof Joe (Colin Firth – not a personal favourite – great in this) decides to move with his two daughters Kelly (Willa Holland) and Mary (Perla Haney-Jardine) to the Italian town of Genova in an attempt to help his family deal with their grief… One of the daughters (Mary) blames herself for the mothers death, then starts to see visions of her mother as a ghost.

Genova (dir: Michael Winterbottom)

It’s Winterbottom’s approach that makes the film feel absorbing and fresh. Rather than go for obvious cinema-esque plot points (terrible troubles moving to a new home? breakdown of the father? hysterics of the kids? dramatic speeches? terrible problems in starting a new life?) Winterbottom instead goes for something much more nuanced and discreet.

He shows his characters dealing with loss in very unfussy, down-to-earth, quietly sad ways. But combines this with ‘Don’t Look Now’ spooky odd angles and undercurrents. The result is very affecting – all adding up to a greater sense of isolation and grief, affecting them each in very different ways.

Colin Firth, Catherine Keener and Michael Winterbottom

Look out for Catherine Keener (a personal favourite) who plays an old flame of Firths, and if you ever want to cast a young girl – both these actresses were tre-mendous.

As can be expected – Winterbottom has already announced plans to shoot ‘Murder in Samarkand’, based on the memoirs of a former British ambassador - AND - has already begun work on a project that will not be released until 2012. Seven Days stars John Simm as a man imprisoned for drug-smuggling and charts his relationship with his wife, played by Shirley Henderson. The film is being shot a few weeks at a time, over the next five years, to reflect the character’s time in prison.

Impressive or what.

Cath
SP

Is it just me or is the LFF this year one of its strongest ever?

I’ve just watched debut film ‘Hunger’ by (Turner prize winnning artist) Steve McQueen about the IRA hunger strike. I’m also an Australian. And despite knowing very little about critical events that took place between the IRA and British government, it is one of the most powerful and daring films I have seen for a very long time.

It also feels like the film has been made by an artist and not necessarily a filmmaker. And for that reason alone, it’s inspirational to see how McQueen choses to tell the story of IRA member Bobby Sands and his 1981 hunger strike. The film basically follows the events in Northern Ireland’s maze prison in the six weeks prior to Sands’ death, including his rapid deterioration.

It is just an extraordinary film. Told with such quiet and unassuming innovation - it’s brutal, it’s chilling and it’s disquieteningly brilliant.

The Hunger, winner Camera D'Or Cannes

The performance by Michael Fassbender - in fact all of the actors - are also worth highlighting. In a press conference in NY, McQueen said his method of working with the actors was “just a case of conversation” and “getting our minds back to the early ’80s.”

I’ve enclosed his thoughts here as a final note, because I think it tells you a lot about McQueen’s approach overall.

“I go back to smell,” he said. “I always associate the early ’80s with a certain kind of smell - like a British Sunday. Where everything was closed and it was miserable. It was awful. And I had that kind of idea of the early ’80s… So going back to that time with the actors, discussing, talking and actually rehearsing - rehearsing, rehearsing… It wasn’t a case of acting. It was a case of ‘being.’ And that is what I wanted. I wanted the actor to almost be like a sphere which you roll ‘this way’ or ‘that way’ and wherever you roll it, it’s perfect… And with actors I get the impression that some directors aren’t necessarily honest with them. For me, it was a case of if you’re honest with them, they go as far as you and try to go further.”

There is not really much more I want to say on this one, other than go see it as soon as it comes out.

Cath

It’s nice having a film-fest take place in your home town. I sat next to Lee in the cinema on Saturday night, caught up with the Brit Doc crew and their fans out in force to support the delightful Larry Charles and ‘Religulous’, then bumped into shooter patron Mike Figgis and friends at Bar Italia in the evening hours following his film and LFF workshop.

First things first. The buzz around Palme D’Or Winner ‘The Class’ is more than justified and treats that mawkish genre of ‘Inspirational Teacher’ with such subtlety, nuance and total class, you wish it was longer.

[The Class]

The Class, winner Palme D

The film is based on a book by Begaudeau – a teacher who recorded his own experiences with high school students in France. With Director Laurent Cantet, he and a bunch of non-actor students, mapped out a fictional story together over months of workshops. The final film (shot on HD with three cameras, observational style) tells the story of a schoolteacher (actually played by Bergaudeau as a fictionalised version of himself) who makes a mistake while working in east Paris as a french teacher.

Damn it’s good.

And it’s good because it really captures the complexity of teacher/student relations in contemporary times without ever preaching, without ever feeling compelled to dictate a ‘truth’, without ever trying to reduce the myriad of questions it raises to any simple answers.

And I think it succeeds in this because it uses both fiction and documentary conventions, but never adheres to either. On one level it feels more like a fly-on-the-wall documentary rather than a fiction film, but as a fictional narrative (woven from many different threads of real life) it feels much more true to life than any strict documentary could.
Definitely a must-see.

Thankyou Jess for spiriting away the wonderful Larry Charles (writer/director of Borat, Seinfield, Curb Your Enthusiasm and very engaging, smart man) for drinks saturday eve after the screening of his latest feature ‘Religulous’. Constructed – in Larry’s words - as a ‘Saturday Night date movie’ the doc follows the exasperated, agnostic comedian Bill Maher around the US, taking the piss about all things faith-based. The sold-out crowd at the LFF belly-laughed and hooted all the way through.

RELIGULOUS, Larry Charles talking to Bill Maher

Religulous Poster

It’s not a probing doc, but that’s not its intention. Neither are Maher and Charles trying to convince people to give up their faiths. They just have a load of devil-may-care, sometimes easy, relentless fun with how ridiculous it can be. And it does solemnly feel good to spend a Saturday night laughing out loud. I did find the ending strangely serious given the spirit of the film overall. But perhaps when you consider the results of 8years of ‘faith-based’ US foreign policy (acknowledged as such by Bush himself in the film), or consider that Roe vs Wade may be overturned by the religious views of a potential 2008 Presedential ticket.. well… hmmm… perhaps its not really just a barrel of laughs afterall. Kudos to Lee for the best audience joke of the night ‘Why didn’t Maher meet with the Buddhists – they’re the real bastards…’

I feel very very bad that I can never remember the names of screenwriters. I personally think writers should share the same size font and glory as directors. Then again probably so should editors, cinematographers, sound designers etc.

Anyway. I feel bad about this. But like most people - I am very aware of Charlie Kauffman - ‘The Writer’. And like most writer/directors, I am in awe of his abilities. And like most in the audience at the LFF, I was pretty chuffed about going in to see SYNEDOCHE NEW YORK - Kauffmans first written/directed project.

'Synecdoche, New York' by Charlie Kauffman

Man - it’s NUTS.

And gosh it starts well.

I can’t begin to tell you what happens in plot terms. I really don’t know. But thematically it’s about death, loneliness and losing your way and in places it’s unwaveringly tragic. Thing is, I genuinely did get completely lost half way through myself and I’m not sure that was part of Kauffmans intention, although I guess it could have been.. Only Kauffman would perhaps have the audacity to make it so.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays a tragic theatre director who’s life is slipping by, but who decides to embark on a massive theatre piece - set in a huge warehouse - that then begins to mirror his own real life. As he becomes consumed by his own work/life/ and the characters ‘playing him’ so too does the film become a mad simulacrum of art imiatating life and life imitating art and life and life and art and sadness and strange things all in between.

It reminded me (a tiny bit) of Tarantino’s From Dust til Dawn - a film that starts so brilliantly (original, character-driven road movie with a family in a campervan who get overun by eccentric fugitives) and then completely flips after 40-50minutes (into a vampire flick?? WHY??).

In Synedoche, it’s not really the same at all. It’s just that you wish he didn’t go quite so far with the simulacrum metaphor and lose you into what feels like another, in fact several other films and stories all in one go. Although it did make me wonder a little about the limits of film again. Perhaps Kauffman could have done better to put this into a novel aka Cloud Atlas.

But I do want to say this:
Go See It!

His audacity and ambition is worth it.
His imagination period is worth it.

There are moments of exquisite tragedy/comedy that are the product of truly brilliant writing. And there are flights of the imagination that just make you fall completely in love with cinema. Sam Morton for eg (who is BRILLIANT in this) buys a house that is literally on fire and it stays that way all the way through. It doesn’t feel gimmicky, it feels true to her character. It’s absurd and unexplained and yet it feels meaningful. That life is absurd and unexplained and all we can do is try to cope with whatever is thrown at us…

'Synecdoche, New York ' with Samantha Morton

Like many of Kauffman’s films - the ongoing development and end of his films feel like they cause him a lot of grief. That it’s unfair that he has to finish. That its impossible to finish. And that all he can do is turn everything inside out and back over again until he’s either back at the beginning or at the end of the start. Unfortunately as an audience, or at least for me, it was just too difficult to stay connected with the characters and therefore connect with the piece overall. But I’ll be lining up in advance to see the next one.

Cath

Last night was the gala opening of Frost/Nixon (screenplay by Peter Morgan, directed by Ron Howard).

I liked it. I did like it. But I didn’t love it. I should also hold up my hands and say I am a bit of a politico. I read the Huffington Post quite regularly, my friends will contest to how much of a West-Wing nut I am, and I’m (somewhat morbidly and obsessively) fascinated by the upcoming US election. This should have rocked my boat.

Frost/Nixon dramatises the David Frost interview with Nixon in 1977 - an interview of all interviews. The key premise centers around whether Frost will get Nixon to apologise for his role in Watergate over several days of talks. And underneath this, the world of the film is structured as a prize fight between two nakedly ambitious men, both experiencing a professional crisis.

But somehow, despite really great performances, solid direction and a thriller-esque screenplay, I found myself restlessly wondering why the film wasn’t holding my attention. And it made me think a lot about cinematic form, particularly when trying to dramatise true events.

I think the film lost it’s way for me because all I had to hold onto (for the entire film) was a ‘will he or won’t he’ (i obviously knew Nixon eventually cracks), which then became a ‘how and how will he’. And the how wasn’t particularly fascinating either. Frost pushes the point and Nixon caves. Dramatically it just wasn’t enough.

The most interesting aspect of the film for me was when it started to explore the awareness Frost had in the 70’s of how the very medium/form of tv, and the power of the closeup, could unravel Nixon’s mastery of spin. And it’s here that I think theatre (and the theatre version) had more to offer.

Presented in theatre as a simple two-hander interview, with a massive screen behind that illuminated Nixon’s face (representing the tv closeup), it just had more power. Nixon on stage looks like a normal guy trying to cleverly spin his way out of trouble, like an every-day talk show. Nixon in closeup on the massive screen behind the stage, looks like a monster. The result is weirdly unnerving and very compelling.

The film version by contrast levelled everything out. As a straight, narrative depiction of events, it definitely works, but it just didn’t seem to do more than what it said on the tin.

Frost/Nixon - the theatre version

Frost/Nixon - the film

As a small aside - Peter Morgan, screenplay maestro, is without a doubt the master of the telepone call. If you ever want to understand how to better use the often bland device of a phone call with real dramatic effect in a script - The Queen and Frost/Nixon are brilliant egs.

COMING UP
Some possible highlights for today THURS, OCT 16 –
http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff/

# Primary Animation Shorts 10:00 NFT2
A programme of short films plus a discussion about colour and music on film.

# Love Live Long 15:30 ODEON WEST END 2
Mike Figgis’ latest digital experiment, a study of desire and moral boundaries set against the backdrop of the Gumball 300 Rally.

# Three Blind Mice 18:30 ODEON WEST END 1
Three Australian sailors spend an eventful night on the town in Sydney.

Congrats to Sandra Hebron and and all the hardworking folk at the LFF as The Times BFI 52nd London Film Festival (really quite a mouthful) kicks off TODAY.

I’m planning to go see as much as I can for SP, but only yesterday did I find out that they are screening.. a whopping.. 189 features and 108 shorts. wow. I feel quite overwhelmed. Already.

If you’ve heard of anything that’s a must see, I’d love to hear from you. Films I’ve been told to definitely break into include –

The Palme d’or winner - The Class. Based on a book written by a teacher and his experiences with his students. The actors are junior high kids from Paris and the film is apparently very doc-inflected (lots of improv and observational style). Post-cannes, the word on the street was that it is nuanced, smart and elusively touching.

Sounds GOOD.

Steve McQueens Maze prison film The Hunger looks gripping, and I’m keen to catch Winterbottom’s Geneva (has he really truly madly made 15 films in 12 years?). Shooter Patrons Mike Figgis and Danny Boyle are playing this year - woop woop - with Mikes “Love Live Long” set between Istanbul and Bratislava on the infamous Gumball 3000 Rally. Typically inventive, Mike started out with just a one-page treatment, shot it all with a crew of 4 and a shoot time of 7days, exploited dv technology to move his cast in and out of the rally ‘backdrop’ undetected, and angled in on a narrative that delivers fast cars, fast sex and slow heartbreak… I’m exhausted just writing that. Danny’s Slumdog Millionaire finishes the festival as the gala show and in addition to a slate of new british work there is also a panel called BRITISH FILM BOOM. I guess it depends where the punctuation is on that. I’ll go and find out.

Cath
SP

“This is not me being pretentious; this is me being menopausal,” said Kay Mellor as she employed the use of a Spanish fan whilst in conversation with TV critic Paul Hoggart. This was a typically candid exchange from one of the most down to earth, honest and generous interviewees that I think I’ve ever come across.

Mellor is the sort of writer that gives you faith in yourself because she just seems so normal (not that I am saying writers aren’t normal as a general rule, but they are often a bit, well, writerly). She is warm, engaging and approachable, hiding a fierce intelligence behind a jovial and bubbly conversational style. She’s so lovely, in fact, that I want to ask her to be my Mum.

Mellor’s story goes something like this; fall pregnant at 16 and leave school with no O’levels, get married and have another baby by 19, return to education in mid twenties and develop a passion for theatre in all its forms, form own theatre company, become TV actress in order to support husband’s (the same one, mind) dreams, send producer a revised script of the show in which you are in and gain script editor’s job, work on shows like Corrie and Brookside, write Band of Gold. Most of us know the Mellor story from that point on. For those of you who don’t, she’s the one who brought us Fat Friends, The Chase and Playing the Field, and is one of the most respected TV writers working in the UK today.

Perhaps it’s her northern roots, but I suspect that Mellor’s work ethic has played as big a part in her career as her talent. This woman can graft. When she was researching Band of Gold, for example, she spent months speaking to working girls in Leeds, often pounding the pavement with them for hours. This is pretty typical of how she does her research.

You also get the sense that you wouldn’t want to mess with her. For all her warmth, charm and ease with people, there is also a certain steeliness when it comes to standing up for what she believes in. “Namby pamby writers who accept any [story changes] aren’t good writers. Good writers will kill to protect their story,” she said at one point. She also advocates for any TV writer to get onto a soap- any, really (the aforementioned one that she script edited was the dire Albion Market). These are the best training ground, according to Mellor. The secret is knowing when to leave.

Her best advice? Perhaps there is too much to choose from, but this certainly stuck in my mind, so I’ll pass it on: “People who write at weekends are writers, but if you want to be a real writer you have to graft. You’ve got to put your mind in places you don’t want to go.”

Writers, take note. The lady means business.

I’d like to say a little more about how this session went, but a few days of little sleep and long hours have meant that my concentration was at an all time low.  Unfortunately Hampton’s soft voice and hesitant speech weren’t the best remedy for this.  He’s an interesting guy, but it would have taken an Anthony Robbins style speaker alone to keep me engaged.

Whether you enjoyed the session or not would depend on whether you were a fan of his work (natch) but it was certainly interesting to hear him speak about his collaboration with David Lean in the 80s on Nostromo, the film that Lean never got to make and the one that, it was rumoured, lead to his death.

Hampton started life writing plays, and assumed when he moved to screenplays that it would be easier due to the lack of constraints.  Over ten or so unsuccessful years he came to see the error of his ways.  When asked about his path to screenwriting, his own method, he gave two stipulations: One, respect the difficulty of the craft and two, set constraints for yourself.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last couple of days, it’s that screenplays take a long, long time to see the light of day.  Hampton confirmed this with a story of his own.  It took him 17 years to make his Lytton Strachey biopic, in the end having to direct it himself.  But there is heartening news here; he learned how to direct from a how-to book and a friend willing to impart knowledge in two days.  Who needs the NFTS??

Ah, notes.  Just when you think your work here is done and that you can sit back and wait for shooting to begin, along comes a producer with a load of suggestions on how the story needs to change.  As the always-entertaining Julian Fellowes explains, the first time a writer receives notes, they can feel as though they have failed as an artist, or at least as though the producer has failed to correctly interpret the script.  But notes are a necessary evil in the life of the screenwriter, and the thrust of this session was about how to both receive them, and-for the producers in the audience- the most effective way to deliver them.

What this basically involves is developing an individual strategy for receiving notes.  For Fellowes, this means getting the notes delivered by email so that he has a week to calm down and begin to think rationally before he will arrange a meeting to discuss them.  For others, a face to face meeting may be preferable from the outset, possibly the same kind of people who smoke on petrol forecourts and use wasps nests as piñatas when they get bored.  Whatever your preferred method, the chances are that this will be something that you develop through trial and error.  Hell- for some screenwriters, to even be in such a situation is a dream come true.

Of course, some producers tend to write blundering, unhelpful notes that are half the length of the script itself, and this is also something that was addressed, with David Pearson and The UKFC’s Tanya Seghatchian providing the production experience in the panel.  Both agreed that notes need to be kept as concise as possible and that there is a ‘time and a place’ to give them.  Fellowes elaborated on this.  He made the point that a story is in a constant state of evolution, and that by the time the film is being wrapped up it can have literally hundreds of people working on it, and hundreds of potential changes that need to be made.  A good producer will be sensitive to what stage the script is in: You can mention holes in the structure from the outset, but leave the props til later.

Relationships between writers and producers are often spoken of in terms of (usually dysfunctional) marriages.  Fellowes pointed out that when you get married, you know that when you introduce your spouse to your friends, their favourites will not necessarily be your favourites.  It’s worth bearing in mind that their suggestions may actually be helpful.  Ultimately, though a script starts with you, it becomes the property of others and that means other ideas.   And if you don’t like it, stick to writing novels.