A Tale of Two Projects

It seems it's true that there's always a silver lining in every situation. I discovered this in the middle of 2021 when I was made redundant (along with some 90 other colleagues) with no notice by a telco company that declared itself insolvent and therefore couldn't pay our entitlements. We eventually received what was owing to us via a government scheme but it took over three months to get our money. All this in the middle of a global pandemic. To say people were angry would be an understatement. To say I was furious and devastated would be a polite way of putting it. I said I'd mope around for a few days then decide what I was going to do. Three days turned into three weeks and, to be honest, I was a little lost. 

Then came the silver lining...

A call from a director who asked if he could send me a treatment he'd written for a feature film idea and, if I liked it, would I consider working on it with him. I did like it so I said yes. That was at the end of July 2021. 

Fast forward to March 2023 and there is now a fifth draft of that screenplay titled Bull; it has received Stages 1 & 2 of Scripted Development funding from the local government agency Screenwest; and is now being prepped for a major production funding round with that agency by the producer Michael Facey and director Chris Richards-Scully who form the production company Scullface. 

Stage 2 of the development funding allowed us to engage a script editor and I was delighted to work with Shayne Armstrong who is a genre film writer and Chair of the Queensland committee of the Australian Writers' Guild. Shayne's expertise, perceptive feedback, and encouragement were instrumental in the current draft taking a solid leap forward. 

Meanwhile, the other director I work with, Tim Dean, has been studiously working to get the Truth To Power screenplay into production. I understand a well-known Australian actor is attached to play the lead role and a distribution company is also involved. Tim has subsequently moved back to Western Australia which makes him eligible for, you guessed it, the major production funding round.

So it looks like I will have not one but two of my screenplays competing for the $750,000 fund. The pot has been sweetened even further by Screen Australia announcing they will commit another $500,000 to what is known as West Coast Visions. It will be crazy competitive with many other fine teams and projects entering but as the old adage says, you gotta be in it to win it!

Now, I love both of these projects and I'm proud of my work on each. It's heartening that so many other people have responded to these stories and are working to take them from the page to the screen. As both directors put together their heads of department and crew for the funding submissions, the feedback filtering back to me about the scripts has been very strong. 

Here's the thing, they couldn't be more different. 

Bull  is a horror film set in a country town where our two main characters, Bull and his daughter Lilly, are [redacted]. We'll keep that reveal a secret for the moment. 

Truth To Power is a real life political thriller adapted from a memoir by Andrew Wilkie, an intelligence analyst who resigned in protest over the misrepresentation of intelligence before the 2003 Iraq War. 

It's such a boon that I am able to explore these diverse topics with talented collaborators and have it so clearly defined. With Tim, we talk about thrillers and political tales; with Chris it's science fiction, the supernatural, and now horror. 

Since my enforced redundancy I've been in the fortunate position of not having to find another office job as I live off my savings for the time being. That gives me all the time in the world (in screenwriter speak this means the time when I'm not procrastinating, blocked, napping, doing 'research' or generally finding any reason not to write) to do rewrites and hone these two screenplays. 

There are also two new projects in early stages - a political satire set over the course of a few hours at an Annual General Meeting (with Tim, of course); and a therapeutic tale about an employee who is suddenly made redundant and seeks revenge by infecting the offending company with ransomware. (I have no idea where this idea came from!)

The major takeaway from all this? I'm really enjoying it. The late nights writing. The staring into blank space trying to solve script problems. The joy when you do. The heart pumping dread of receiving script coverage or notes. The relief when it's not as bad as you thought or indeed not bad at all. The meetings and Zoom calls with creative people whose only goal is to help make your script better. The weird distortion of time - agony when you're not writing; miraculously sped up when you're "in the zone".

Hopefully it means I'm getting closer to seeing all these characters in my head come to life one day. As my mother keeps reminding me, she ain't getting any younger!