FEATURE: 2 APRIL 2008
Andrew Bovell, Rob Ritchie and Philippa Campbell
Making the crossover from writing live theatre to scripting for the screen is not without its challenges. Guest MC Philippa Campbell (No.2, Rain, Black Sheep) invited former Royal Court Theatre Literary Manager Rob Ritchie (Who Bombed Birmingham?) and renowned Australian playwright and screenwriter Andrew Bovell (Lantana, Strictly Ballroom) to share their experiences.
Career Highlights
Philippa began the evening by asking the panelists to describe one career highlight each. Andrew recalled seeing queues of people lined up around Lygon Street in Melbourne and assumed they must be lining up to get rugby tickets. Then he noticed the line led to the cinema to see Lantana. Andrew remembers exclaiming, “They’re queuing to see my film!” Lantana’s success exceeded his expectations.
Rob remembered the 1980’s controversy surrounding his award winning drama documentary Who Bombed Birmingham? The film aired in the UK and caused a stir that prompted Maggie Thatcher herself to review the film in Parliament.
Philippa felt both career highlights related to an audience response and asked Andrew why Lantana became so successful. Andrew replied Lantana was one of the first films to represent a contemporary and ordinary suburban Australia. Australians had seen themselves in an exaggerated form with popular films like Strictly Ballroom, Priscilla and Muriel’s Wedding whereas Lantana was more real. People were seeing their own lives reflected on the screen”. They related to the story and were excited about that. Lantana’s success was also due to a combination of classic storytelling and sophisticated content. Audiences had a growing dissatisfaction with movies following a single protagonist and Lantana had a multi-narrative structure based on a multi-story play.
Philippa asked Rob why he wrote the drama documentary Who Bombed Birmingham? Rob said the film dealt with a well known and controversial subject of the time. A bombing outside a local pub in Birmingham was assumed to be by the IRA but the wrong people were convicted. The documentary caused much controversy because it revealed who the real culprits were. “Any story you do has to go to the intention” and Rob wasdetermined to expose the real story to the British public.
The discussion then focused on adaptation from stage to screen. Philippa said some of the first advice she received in the movie business was, “Never adapt a play.” Times have changed and many adaptations have become financially successful films. However, writers must remember that audiences tend to be more forgiving of a bad film, whereas in theatre their involvement is greater and awareness of a ‘bad play’ is much higher.
Spot the difference: Theatre and Film
The panel was asked to highlight more specifically the key differences between play writing and screen writing and if there were elements of theatre that could be carried over to film.
Rob said a good starting point is to look at the difference in acting between theatre and film. He explained that in theatre, the actor rehearses the play right through until the opening night when the performance is ‘given’ to the audience. In film, actors do not rehearse to the point of being ready; they let the camera find them. Film seeks out human realism in a way that theatre cannot.
Andrew noted that the key difference in writing a stage play is transitions – moving actors on and off the stage and establishing natural scene changes. Set changes must seem natural so the play does not lose energy. The opposite occurs with film where people change and move all the time. Andrew said film requires a need for a relationship with the director, which is completely unlike theatre. “It’s an essential symbiotic relationship.”
Both writers agreed that writing for the stage is the harder of the two but Andrew offered his opinion on the two mediums. “Film is rigid and theatre is liberating.” He used the concept of time to further explain this idea. “In theatre there’s a bit of ‘magic’.” Plays can deal with time in a unique fashion; they may feature parallel time lines that exist simultaneously. Andrew’s new play, When the Rain Stops Falling, provides an example.
The play covers an 80 year period and is set in both Britain and Australia. It moves between time frames and there are scenes where two periods of time are seen on stage simultaneously. This could not be achieved in film and Rob agreed that “Film is very literal.”
What about the ‘Magic’ of Film?
Film allows us to examine the human condition in a subtle way. The camera is a powerful tool and can convey the most extraordinary meaning. Andrew explained that “Film offers the most intimate and the most epic” of stories. It has the potential to transport an audience into worlds beyond their imaginations. Rob said that, “(film) communicates emotion – many dreams come out of the cinema because people can see worlds they have never seen before.” He said horror works so well in film because the audience is ‘trapped’ in the cinema and cannot run.
Character and Dialogue
Andrew stressed that screen writers must create “space for the artists to fill.” In film it is all about the moments between the lines of dialogue – the look, the reaction. The director and the actors need creative space and over-explanation in dialogue can limit this.
Precision is important in film and Rob made the point that on average, English screen writers use around 30% more dialogue than Americans. He felt this was due to Britain’s strong theatre tradition and a writer’s tendency to carry habits through mediums. “In cinema, you can tell an emotional story without dialogue.”
A Fetish for Development
Philippa asked if adaptations could lead to an overdevelopment of a script and Rob agreed this was something he had seen many times in the film industry. Films are often made because of external factors, not because the script writer is ready, unlike theatre where writers are renowned for their plays. Rob said that in film, “…there’s an assumption you don’t know what you’re doing” and that five or six other people are needed to ‘doctor’ it. “This can turn development into a fetish.”
Question Time
Philippa opened the forum for the audience to ask questions.
How do you know when you have overdeveloped a script?
Rob said it is “nothing short of a miracle” for a film to get made but that the miracle might not coincide with when the script is ready. “It’s a common occurrence that actors, directors and finance will come together before the script is ready.” But it is also common for the opposite to happen. A script may have been around for a long time and feels overstated and obvious because so many people have worked on it. Writers are caught in the middle of the system.
Andrew remembered an amusing story relating to overdevelopment in Hollywood. He was commissioned to write a script for a film called Chaos. Robert De Niro and Benicio Del Toro were planned to star. After the first stage of development, Andrew was told De Niro would no longer be in the film as he did not pull large audiences. On the next callback Andrew was told Benicio (the lead) had been dropped because he was too old and they now wanted Andrew to re-write the script for an up and coming actor in his late twenties, even though the film was about having a mid life crisis. Andrew pulled out of the film at this point.
How do you adapt a radio play to a screen play?
Andrew said that Lantana originated from a short radio play. “It is important to remember that you are adapting the story – forget the original medium it was written in and work out the story, then write it cinematically.”
What is the writing distinction between television and film?
Rob summarized this by saying that stories seen on television are very different to those of film because audiences watch differently. Film often centres on the fortunes and fate of one central protagonist, unlike television or theatre. Television is driven by dialogue so a viewer listens more. It specializes in dramas with episodic narrative and developing stories to ensure viewers return next week. Rob gave credit to the writers of shows like Shortland Street who churn out daily storylines. “There’s a great art to soap writing, to tell a story that has something for everyone.”
Philippa concluded the talk by noting that the ultimate goal of any writer is to try and explain what it is to be human. “It’s difficult, but fun and that’s what it’s all about.”
