BAFTA are very well known for their extravagant award ceremonies, but did you also know that they have an entire network committed to helping new film-making enthusiasts break into the industry of their dreams? The website ‘BAFTA Guru’ is full to bursting with information from those in the business giving advice on how to get into the business. To go along with this the company also host several events throughout the year which feature a prominent figure giving an intimate Q and A.
We were lucky enough to attend the third and final lecture in their screenwriters season, with the fantastic Steven Knight. The previous two talks were with James Schamus and Emma Thompson. Knight started his career writing for comedians Frankie Howard and Ken Dodd, before moving into television and helping create Who Wants to be a Millionaire. In his spare time he wrote several novels, seeing television as his day job and novels as his dream career. Around the same time as making ‘Is That Your Final Answer?’ famous, Knight was working on a novel that ended up morphing into his first screenplay, DIRTY PRETTY THINGS.
After DIRTY PRETTY THINGS Knight wrote AMAZING GRACE and EASTERN PROMISES; enjoying his time on set he decided to take the plunge behind the camera, he scripted and directed both HUMMINGBIRD and LOCKE. Given his stellar catalogue Knight was the ideal choice for an evening giving out writing advice. During the ninety minute conversation with moderator Briony Hanson he gave some sage advice about how to get into a script. The most important part of a story is obviously the beginning, here’s what Steven Knight had to say about the opening of his film DIRTY PRETTY THINGS and how he approaches structure:
I, if possible, try to make the opening of the film an event or a decision which causes the rest of the film to happen. So it’s like the pebble that hits the pond, it’s like because of that moment in the opening, even if you don’t realise it at the time when you’re watching it, because of that moment everything else happens and wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for that moment. So like with LOCKE he indicates left and then changes his mind and indicates right, and that’s why the whole film happens. Not so much with DIRTY PRETTY THINGS but it was he, I’d decided he was gonna be a doctor who was here illegally, so what would he do? Probably a minicab driver. So it was trying to get London established in a way that is, not like, you know, Buckingham Palace or something, it was London, the people arriving, and he behaving in a way that isn’t quite London, he’s touting for work. And the opportunity to deliver a line which in its environment is okay, which is, you know, “I’m here to help people let down by the system,” which subsequently hopefully has an extra meaning or a different meaning as the film goes on. But in that case it’s not that moment that starts everything, that’s more establishing him, but I always find it quite neat if the first thing you see is the thing that leads to the rest of the film.
I was a bit more uncertain when I was doing that [DIRTY PRETTY THINGS] because it was the first one. And I started looking at the hotel, so it began with an exterior of the hotel coming down, finding Okwe, and then the phone call. So that was the opening of the film, that would have been the way, the purest way of starting it, but it sort of was a bit weird so it didn’t quite work. So it needed something a bit more daylight-y, for some reason, to get into the character. And what I, thinking back actually, what I wanted to do which didn’t quite happen is to have a crowd scene, and then the last person you expect to be the subject of the film. That’s right, I sort of wanted to, you know those two people who he picks up? The idea being that you think its them, that it’s going to be about them, and then Okwe comes and he’s just the driver, and they’re in the back having this conversation, and then they get out but it’s actually about him, but it was a bit tricky. So that was the original idea was to sort and try and play that trick of you know, my theory of if you’re in London there’s a minicab, the story of the driver will always be more interesting than the passenger, or usually it will be, because the driver’s probably escaped from Somalia and had this incredible experience just to get here, so that was kind of trying to make that point at the beginning.
[EASTERN PROMISES] is an attempt to make the event, the opening event the cause of everything, where the girl loses a baby and you subsequently find out that’s what’s going to undo the family, the villainous family, but you don’t know at the time. So again it was trying to find, obviously at the beginning you want to shock people a bit, you want to get their attention, so you’re looking for something that’s got a bit of colour and drama to it, but where possible try and make it, without that moment none of the rest of this would happen.
The way I’ve tended to do things is I just start writing anything and just keep going and then read it back, and then think what’s… This is for an original, if you’re doing an adaptation of a book or someone else’s idea or a true story then that’s, it’s different, you know what’s going to happen. But if it’s an original idea I find it’s much nicer to just start writing, read it back, and then think about what’s going on. And in the end you write, it’s not very economical because you write a lot of stuff and then afterwards impose some kind of structure on it. But the whole three act thing, I don’t know, it’s, in Hollywood you know you’ve got no choice, you have to do that. You have to do the three acts, you have to do the character arc.
I mean the three acts, it does, it is really there, intrinsically there in a story I think, as it is in a joke. So you’ve got the punchline, the set-up, and then the bit in the middle. But the one I have most problem with is the idea that the character has to change, the lead character must change. And in America the lead character must improve, you know and it’s absolutely an essential rule, you know he’s got to get better, or she. And I’m not sure that that necessarily should be the case and, you know, I don’t know if many people change that radically over the course of an event or a sequence you know, and I prefer the idea that they stay who they are. But the rules of the game are such that in Hollywood people actually look for evidence that the rules have been adhered to. You know, where’s the end of the first act? And you don’t know, so in the end you sort of invent one. But telling, I mean LOCKE is hopefully not like that, and it’s much more just one journey. And LOCKE was an attempt to sort of play around with all of those concepts like the journey, and it is a journey and, you know, the future’s there and the past is there, and that’s the past in the rear-view mirror sort of thing.
Knight later went on to discuss how best to approach dialogue, the pain of exposition, and his take on what makes an interesting character, before moving onto an audience led Q and A. The evening was truly great with Knight giving a lot of interesting insight into his processes. I strongly urge any burgening writers to listen to the whole lecture over at BAFTA Org. Whilst there you should also definitely check out all the other resources for writers.
Photo Credit: BAFTA/Jamie Sidmonds
