Construction of a Screenplay, Part 7 - Patience

An underrated aspect of screenwriting is patience. Patience not to rush the development of a good idea. Patience waiting for feedback and notes. Patience in trusting your collaborators. Patience in the next steps that will hopefully turn words on a page into moving images on a screen.

Patience has never been one of my strengths. I used to get angsty waiting - on reader notes, the results of funding submissions and the like. But I'm learning and getting better.

The Truth to Power screenplay has been receiving really good feedback. It's out there being read and all I can do is wait. Positive things are happening behind the scenes and I am immensely buoyed by the number of people who ask me how it's going.

I can't give definitive answers yet other than I'm excited about the possibilities being presented.

And I am calm and happy to wait. Largely because I believe the script is good, it will find a home, and it will get made.

Once a producer (or producers) has been locked in then my waiting will be over.

I've had time away from those words on a page so when the notes come for rewrites I'll be able to attack them with fresh eyes. Plus any other material to assist getting the project up whether that be funding submissions or crowd funding campaigns. Decisions to discuss when a producer joins Tim and I to shepherd this project to the next phase.

I have a feeling 2019 is going to be a big year. It will be challenging, no doubt, but I'm excited about where this will lead us...

#TruthtoPower #screenwriting

Construction of a Screenplay, Part 6 - The Pitch Document

“I think it’s very good and happy for you to continue to develop it.”

After 15 months and ten drafts, with that response from Andrew Wilkie, we were ready to begin the search for a producer. There were several variables at play here. The director Tim Dean had been through a bad experience on a film project and was understandably leery about a repeat. The script had been written with a micro-budget in mind, possibly to be raised through crowdfunding. That would influence the profile of the producers we would initially approach. The tale was a political one therefore not only did we want a person (or persons) we could work with, critically they should also be as passionate about the topic as Tim and I were.

The option of producing it ourselves was never seriously considered. Especially after watching a two part documentary about an Australian filmmaker who made a horror film in, let’s just say, less than ideal circumstances. That thing scared the hell out of me and we wanted no part of that stress.

Tim and I talked it over and the agreed first step was to write a pitch document we could send out to gauge interest. Now, I may be a little cynical but the Australian funding model with its director statements and writer’s notes (don’t get me started) amongst other requirements wasn’t conducive to what I had in mind. Yes, we used a logline, and a short synopsis but I wanted to clearly state why we wanted to make the film and how that fit into a tradition of great movies about people speaking truth to power whether in a political context (All The President’s Men) or corporate malfeasance (The Insider). This was also a uniquely Australian story with an international angle. Our trump card, of course, was that the subject of the film, Andrew Wilkie, was in our corner.

I sat down to write the first draft of the pitch document and it all came tumbling out. How Wilkie was an unlikely whistle-blower given his background; how the act of whistle-blowing has become increasingly high profile as governments seek to control information with greater rigour; how the West always does this – try and impose its will and values on other countries – and keeps making the same mistake; how democracy can only survive when courageous people speak out against the abuse of power and unregulated secrecy. Above all, what fascinates me is how a small number of citizens summon that courage to defy their government – the Wilkies, the Snowdens, the Mannings, and the Ellsbergs of the world.

As is our usual working process, Tim gave feedback and we kicked it around, trimming some elements but it essentially remained the same as that stream of consciousness draft. Tim had mocked up a cover page that I very much liked – the redacted look of the title with a picture of Wilkie at the top.

All that was left to do was to send it out to a select number of producers on the eastern seaboard that Tim knew or had been recommended and wait…

Always with the waiting!

Construction of a Screenplay, Part 5 - Script Development, Phase Two

After almost a year of developing the screenplay for Truth to Power we finally had a draft that Tim Dean (director) and I were happy to send to Andrew Wilkie. This was a major moment in the life of the project.

A quick refresher. Famously, Wilkie was the only western intelligence officer who resigned in protest before the 2003 Iraq War as he believed the governments of Australia, the US, and Britain were prosecuting the war on a lie. That lie being that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and had ties to Al Qaeda. Subsequent events and several inquiries were to prove Wilkie correct.

He paid a steep price for this as most whistle-blowers do when they speak truth to power. Remarkably, however, he is now an independent member of the Australian Federal Parliament. The Truth to Power screenplay is an adaptation of his book Axis of Deceit.

What the book couldn’t tell me, nor the subsequent research, is what the then intelligence analyst’s emotional journey was during this time. All direct communication with Wilkie was conducted through Tim which commenced several years before my involvement. It was an arrangement I was happy to continue though there was talk of trying to organise either a visit to Canberra or a videoconference. Alas, Wilkie’s parliamentary duties made that highly unlikely. I filled in the gaps as best I could and trusted that we weren’t too far off base. There were elements in the script, however, that I wasn’t sure how he would react to. Overall though, I was happy with where we were at.

It was a 7th draft that was dispatched towards the end of October 2017. We wouldn’t get a response until early January 2018. Usually I am not a patient person when it comes to waiting for feedback but I largely put it out of my mind. Tim and I continued to work on the screenplay until Wilkie came back to us.

The results, communicated via Tim, were positive. Wilkie liked the script and the approach we had taken. But there were two areas he disagreed with. One was totally expected – I had used a claim made against Wilkie from his cadet days as the basis of a three beat arc that culminated in a moment of self-reflection during the climax of the script. Wilkie did not recall the alleged incident and therefore it had to go. He understood what we were trying to do by incorporating it though. And that was important to me.

The other issue was far more problematic. While he apparently did not object to the portrayal of the relationship with his then wife Simone, he was adamant he was not in contact with her during the timeframe of the script. Therefore, it too had to go. The emotional spine of that draft! This caused much consternation with Tim mulling the chances of getting Wilkie to change his mind. I suspect that was never a realistic proposition so we set about rewrites and the daunting prospect of reinventing the emotional through line of the screenplay.

My first stab at this was a serviceable scene set well before the events of the story proper… but it didn’t really fit the structure or tone of the screenplay. It was backstory for the purposes of trying to retain a character. It was never going to work. But it was necessary to get that out of our system and discover another way.

Wilkie had given Tim the clue – his concern about what the impact would be on his father if he chose to make a stand. Interestingly, the father had been in the treatment and early drafts. He dropped out as a character as we focussed on Simone. He was about to make a major comeback as these things go in the development of a script.

After three drafts of rewrites that took a couple of months from Wilkie’s initial feedback we sent him the tenth draft on 12 March 2018. His response exactly one month later – “I think it’s very good and happy for you to continue developing it.”

It was now time to start looking for a producer…

Construction of a Screenplay, Part 4 - Script Development, Phase One

By the middle of January 2017 we had a first draft of the Truth to Power screenplay. A good beginning six months into the process. What happens now? The answer is the first phase of an intensive period of rewrites before what would be the seventh draft was sent to Andrew Wilkie at the end of October.

The director Tim Dean and I would bat notes back and forth and have regular video conferencing sessions to discuss the state of the script. Tim is very good at giving notes (apart from the occasional ‘can we just make this better?’ which is always a fun note to get!) and they would become more specific the deeper we went into rewrites. These covered the whole gamut of elements from character, tone, structure, transitions, theme, dissection of scenes, and, eventually, decisions to kill some of my ‘babies’. Those being scenes that I would hang onto from draft to draft but ultimately didn’t fit for whatever reason. Vale a couple of favourites.

As the structure had been developed over the previous six months it was fairly robust which allowed me to try new things without too much ensuing chaos. We focussed on character work, notably for Wilkie, his wife Simone, and his colleague Kate; as well as getting the main structural beats as strong as possible – inciting incident, first act turning point, midpoint, and the ‘death point’-helping hand-turning point at the end of the second act. The opening sequence and climax were already locked in though they were tweaked as well.

The most difficult elements were getting the character of Kate Burton to a place we thought was accurate and servicing the story; and the beats at the end of the second act. This is the sequence I have easily rewritten more times than any other section of the script.

As Tim and I were on other sides of the country we used Wire which is a fully encrypted video application. Indeed, all our communications were encrypted – Signal for messaging, Proton Mail for sending drafts and notes. There was some sensitivity around the project given the subject matter and a history of interference with the real-life subjects in the past. I am breaking cover with these blog posts! Gulp.

The other strategy we employed was kicking material out to readers for feedback. This started with the Treatment and continues to this very day with drafts. My preferred option in receiving feedback from readers is in a face-to-face meeting. I find the interaction stimulates a wide-ranging discussion that allows me to question the reader; them to do the same with me; and basically explore the state of the script in greater detail. To that end I would offer to shout for food & drinks at a meeting place of the reader’s choice. I’m sure I can claim this as expenses against our ultra-low budget production… can’t I Tim? Damn.

A big thank you, therefore, to the following people I met with to discuss the Treatment and/or a Draft:

Scott McArdle, Phil Jeng Kane, Levon Polinelli, Nick Maclaine, Anna Bennetts, and Tyler Jacob Jones. Plus the people Tim sent the script to on his side of the country.

But there was one reader above all that we were keen to get feedback from. So after seven drafts Tim and I finally felt ready to send Andrew Wilkie the script. This was around the end of October 2017.

Then we waited… and waited… and waited some more…

Next in Part 5 – Script Development, Phase Two

Construction of a Screenplay, Part 3 - The First Draft

I won’t lie. I was a little nervous. The treatment for the film adaptation of Andrew Wilkie’s book Axis of Deceit had been sent to the man himself. How would he react? Would he hate it? Dismiss us as nobodies? Would the project sink before it even reached script stage? Injunctions and lawsuits at twelve paces? Okay, I’m a screenwriter so I’m prone to exaggeration for dramatic effect. But I was keen to glean Wilkie’s reaction. Were we in the ballpark? If not, how far off the mark was our approach?

Storm clouds gathered when a writer the director (Tim Dean) collaborates with offered his feedback. It was reasonably early in the morning Perth time. I was at work. Tim rang from Melbourne. The news was not good. That writer did not like the treatment. At all. Gulp.

Unexpectedly, a crisis of confidence loomed as Tim pitched a different way of tackling the material in response. I could feel my heart sinking through the floor into the basement, a fair feat from my fourth-floor seat. To me, this was a completely different story. One I wasn’t in the headspace to comprehend let alone consider.

All I heard was “disaster!”

A few hours later and the crisis was averted. Tim received a message via the publisher that Wilkie liked the treatment and wanted to make a deal. Only two days after it was sent to him.

Now my brain was ringing with relief and joy!

The validation was a real boost. Not only did Wilkie embrace the treatment but I considered it a huge plus that it took him only two days to read it and respond. I thought it might take weeks. After all he is a busy parliamentarian. It was early December 2016 so he was likely heading home to Tasmania for the Christmas break.

From that moment all thought of differing approaches to the adaptation vanished and has never been discussed since. It was an interesting experience though. If anything, it steeled me to the fact that not everybody was going to respond positively to what we were attempting. That other writer’s reaction wasn’t invalid – he simply had a different viewpoint and, as I discovered, a likely ambivalence to political stories.

With the festive season approaching I booked four weeks holidays from work (the non-creative office variety that pays the bills) with the express purpose of writing the first draft. Consulting my diary, I commenced typing on 28 December after the Christmas-Boxing Day food and cider coma. The draft was finished 17 days later on 14 January 2017. Two and a half weeks for a draft. Very fast for me. I also thought it was a decent first up effort, not a ‘vomit’ draft like some writers call their initial iteration.

I put this down to all the work honing the short form documents – the beat sheet and the treatment. Tim and I spent five months from that fateful MCG meeting breaking the story and the structure. I knew where I was going. I knew my third act climax and how I wanted to start. I knew the shape of key scenes and sequences. I had a fair idea how to do the transitions in and out of the imagined scenes that represented Wilkie’s thought process. I gained confidence and belief from Wilkie’s reaction to the treatment.

I also had images in my head of scenes right from the get-go as I mulled over the research, the book, and the proposed structure. This included the opening sequence which has remained constant throughout albeit with some tweaks; and a wordless scene around the midpoint that was visually striking if not more than a little disturbing (couldn’t shake that one out of the old grey matter). There were scenes that I relished writing such as the “what if” of Wilkie and John Howard alone in a room together before the Iraq war commenced.

Sure, there were some warts as you would expect. Scenes were overwritten. Secondary characters weren’t well-formed to where we needed them to be. The thematic strand was somewhat ham fisted in execution; and there were some overly ambitious flourishes for what was to be an ultra-low budget movie. Some scenes would eventually disappear. Characters would change in emphasis and significance.

But it was a good start.

And as any writer will tell you writing is all about rewriting. Without a foundation to build on you have nothing.

Then there’s this – for the first time there was a tangible blueprint for a movie. For me that was only six months into the process. For Tim it was after a few years of tackling the material. It was a significant step.

Next up in Part 4, digging in and developing the screenplay.

Construction of a Screenplay, Part 2 - Beat Sheet & Treatment

What do you do when you have an idea for a screenplay? Or in this instance, adapting a book? First off, there is no correct answer. Different writers will have different strategies. What I’ve learnt after endless rewrites of a third act of a script is that getting the structure in place before you go to draft stage is invaluable. There’s nothing worse than doing rewrites where you are chasing structure.

With the ‘Wilkie project’, as it was initially known, I also had to figure out how I was going to tackle the material. The original idea (pre my involvement) was a series of telephone conversations over one night in a hotel room. I understand there was even the thought that five different writers could contribute, in effect, a monologue for each of those calls. That left me cold as making a film based on a series of phone calls seemed pretty uncinematic. Ultra-low budget, sure. Dramatically interesting? I’m not so sure.

When I look back at my saved documents for the project, I found what was the pitch to my co-creative, the director Tim Dean, called ‘Wilkie Movie – Initial Thoughts’ dated 28 August 2016. This was a page and a half of how I would approach telling the story. I read that now, some two years on, and it lays out everything that has subsequently transpired. Basically, how to dramatise the decision-making process that was going on in Andrew Wilkie’s head as he locked himself away to make the most difficult decision of his life. This allowed us to foreshadow future events without recreating them and to introduce imaginary characters and/or imagined conversations with real people such as John Howard. The emotional through line is there as well as a thematic C story strand.

The only real person who isn’t mentioned would come later in a storytelling video conference with Tim. I’m being a little obtuse but there are some secrets best revealed on watching the completed film.

So the approach was agreed and I started working out how to structure it all. There’s a document called ‘Wilkie Structure’ dated 19 September 2016 and the first version of a Beat Sheet is dated a week later. Now, the Beat Sheet is an invaluable tool in the screenwriter’s arsenal. In effect it is a point by point description of the major story and character beats. It was even more important in this project as I was going to be moving from real to imagined scenes and back again. Getting the balance right and the correct transitions was going to be critical so as not to confuse the audience (and the writer when it came to draft stage!).

Reading this early draft now, so much has been retained in the screenplay even though things have moved around a little and some elements have been dropped then resurrected. The structure is largely identical in the broad phases of the storytelling. We did seven versions of the beat sheet, batting it back and forth, until we were both happy with it.

Then came the tricky part. The Treatment, written with an audience of one in mind – Andrew Wilkie himself. Not that we were asking permission per se, however, it is his story and I feel a responsibility about being truthful to that story and to him as a person. There were also some elements, no matter how much research you do, that aren’t in the book or public sphere. The Treatment itself is a prose version of the entire story. I was fleshing out the beat sheet to incorporate more detail in terms of both character and story elements.

I set to work once more; each draft going to Tim for his notes, being discussed at length, then revisions made. There’s a second draft dated 19 November 2016 with the final version, after seven drafts, stamped as complete on 5 December 2016. Four and a half months after we met at the MCG we had a Treatment we were happy to send to Wilkie via his publisher.

Tim emailed the treatment to the publisher and I tried to put it out of mind even though I was somewhat nervous about what the reaction might be. I was confident we’d done our research and were being truthful to the story but I had no idea how the man himself would respond.

We didn’t have to wait long…

Next in Part 3 – First Draft and Script Development

Construction of a Screenplay, Part 1 - Beginnings

July 2016. I’m sitting in the top tier of the mighty Melbourne Cricket Ground watching a truly terrible game of Australian Rules Football with director Tim Dean. Also in attendance, US Vice President Joe Biden, though not with us I hasten to add. I was in Melbourne for one of my three to four day junkets but that’s not the reason I was at the G. Tim had pitched me a film project he wanted to work on a week or so before. The timing for us to meet in person was perfect.

That project was an adaptation of the Andrew Wilkie book Axis of Deceit about the misuse of intelligence in the lead up to the Iraq War in 2003. Wilkie, famously, was the only Western intelligence officer to resign in protest before the war.

Tim and I had worked together on developing projects while he was in Perth. Rewrites on a thriller though had stalled as I became distracted by reviewing and adjudicating theatre. A fact I was becoming increasingly annoyed at myself over so Tim’s pitch was a perfect opportunity to get back into the screenwriting saddle.  

The reason the offer to work on the adaptation was so attractive was Tim’s conviction that this film would get made. He had been speaking with Australian producer-director Robert Connelly who told Tim to “just make the film, be bold, be creative, get noticed.” This was to be ultra-low budget; to my ears meaning it wouldn’t be a multi-year slog through funding and finance hell. It was also a great story with an intriguing lead character and was an important slice of Australian history. It was material that was dramatically rich, no doubt controversial, and piqued my fascination with those few people courageous enough to defy the powers that be. The final piece to the puzzle was that Tim, through Wilkie’s publisher, had the rights to the book and had spoken to Wilkie previously about wanting to bring his story to the big screen.

On my return to Perth I immediately curtailed my reviewing duties and indicated I would not seek to be a community theatre adjudicator the following year. I then ordered the book and plunged through all the notes that Tim had stashed away in the cloud where he’d worked with writers over the years. Those efforts had led to a pitch document and story breakdowns but not to script stage.

The gist of those notes was that the story would take place over one night in a hotel in Hanoi where Wilkie would make several phone calls as he decided whether to blow the whistle on the Howard government. The prospect of a filmed series of phone conversations (while definitely ultra-low budget) left me a little cold but the immediacy of telling the story over one night did appeal.

After reading Axis of Deceit one thing was abundantly clear – the animus Wilkie had towards Howard. He would later, unsuccessfully, run against Howard in a federal election as a Green and has publicly called for the former PM to be tried for war crimes.

IF we were going to have Wilkie engage in a series of conversations locked away in a hotel room I was adamant early on that one of those must be with Howard. But how was that possible? They never spoke in real life before the invasion in March of 2003 but the dramatic possibilities were enticing. And this is where we come to one of my favourite screenwriters – Peter Morgan.

Morgan is a master of the ‘finite period of time biopic’ (The Queen, Frost/Nixon, Rush) rather than the sprawling attempts to cover a life (the exception being The Crown where he’s working in a television medium rather than a film). He also excels at the pivotal imagined scene – an event that never happened but is thematically true and potent – think Elizabeth and the stag in The Queen; Nixon’s drunken phone call in Frost/Nixon.

That allowed me to indulge in the screenwriter’s most valuable tool – What if? “What if John Howard and Andrew Wilkie were in a room together a week before the Iraq War?” This would be a cornerstone to how I would approach the screenplay.

The first task after all the reading and further research was to come up with a Beat Sheet that would detail the major beats of the movie. For me it was important to get the structure in place before going anywhere near script stage. Plus, I had a crazy idea of how to do this differently to a set of phone conversations and needed to see if that worked…

Next in Part 2 – The Beat Sheet & Treatment