I talk about this a lot…making a film is only part of the struggle, the most crucial aspect is getting it SEEN. So this first script writing note is gonna be about THINKING TIME.
Before you put anything down on paper…think about it…think about who you want to watch this film but most importantly think about what you want to talk about. A good way of finding your theme is to look around or within. What core theme are you wrestling with at the moment in your life? Fatherhood? Death? Getting old? Love? If you can latch onto a theme that is personal then it becomes the soul of your story…this should become the furnace that fuels the engine that is film making. And you need a good engine because the road is a long one. As Kanye puts it: you need steam to fuel your dreams.
In HUSH the main theme I injected into the story was the sense of being trapped. Here I was a man who wanted to be a writer going around putting up posters in toilets. What had started as a stop gap job was now in danger of becoming a career. But please understand I do not think the job was beneath me, no it was good honest work which paid well. It was that I felt I wasn’t fulfilling my potential. That I wasn’t trying hard enough.
Themes are massively important but sometimes you discover them after you write the film and then tease them out accordingly. But however you do it…you must have theme. Your film must be about something and that doesn’t mean it has to be profound…you just have to be asking a question about the human condition is all. It can be fun: what if your Dad was the World’s greatest assassin? WANTED. Or it can be deeper. A journey into the heart of the sun is actually a journey into the Heart of Man. SUNSHINE. (What a shame about that film huh?) You don’t have to have the answers just pose the question is all.
I go for runs and resolve a lot of my guilt over thinking time by doing that because as a writer unless you are actually writing you think you’re not working which equals guilt! Of course that is so not true because we’re absorbers and even walking down the street listening to sounds, dialects, looking at how many people have prams in which their babies sit facing away from them…all of that to me is work. So THINK. THINK. THINK. Before you WRITE. WRITE. WRITE. If you don’t like thinking or can’t get used to the idea that is is actually work then READ. READ. READ. Anything…
Hi, good post. I have been wondering about this issue,so thanks for posting.