Film Courage: What’s the first step for writing a screenplay?
Phil Hawkins, Writer/Director: The first step is usually
an idea of plot or story. I don’t really start with a character. I admire people that do that.
But I’m very much like Stanislavski, kind of outside-in-kind of thing – find the shoes and then
you’ll find the person as opposed to the other way around kind of thing if that makes sense.
So I have an idea or a concept or a story I want to tell and in writing it I find the characters,
I find the story and then when I know that it’s working whether that’s on an
outline perspective or whether it’s in a draft perspective or whether it’s draft one or draft
ten, when the characters suddenly start doing things I don’t want them to do then I know I’ve
got the characters right and what I mean by that is I can be writing and I can have an
outline and I can know where I’m going and then that character will just start to say something
out of my fingers and it will start to want to go through that door instead of that door.
I’m like well okay let’s go there and see what happens you know and it’s I think it’s partly
enjoying being flexible as you write and partly I think it’s like
my very basic drama acting training in me is that I can become those characters I write them
in a way and I feel that something in my being says well no I wouldn’t do that
as that character so it will be your plot needs something to do but your character might not
then you get into that interesting area of like well okay let’s explore
what’s down that corridor or what’s that way and you know you want those characters to go
so that can be interesting. That can be a really pleasurable side of writing. I love structure.
I always start with - I really like Save The Cat [book by Blake Snyder] - controversial but I feel
that if I am ever stuck or I am overwhelmed by like Gosh, I’ve got to write like 1900 pages here,
how is my idea? My concept which sounds cool as a paragraph how does that actually work as
a feature film? Is it worth enough to be a feature film? I do read that book or pick up that book or
look at Hero’s Journey [Joseph Campbell] and I will find the oh okay, that’s why, that’s how I’m
going to tell the story. I may not adhere to it. Part of knowing the rules is breaking the rules if
rules exist. I don’t think they do but there’s a reason why people like set-up and payoff. There’s
a reason why going back to the days of telling a story around a campfire or at a party you’re
tying a good anecdote like you don’t suddenly come out with the ending it’s just that it’s not
satisfying. This idea of structure or the way we tell stories is kind of some how ingrained in us
so you need to understand that or you almost need to play with the audience with that either to make
them feel comfortable or to completely subvert the thing they think is going to happen. Like
all the big twists that we can reel off all came because the structure or the style of the film was
setting up something we didn’t expect and then it turned on its head and I’m thinking about the M.
Night Shyamalan’s THE SIXTH SENSE and that kind of things is because as an audience we’re very astute
to structure whether that’s subconsciously or consciously that we always want to try and be one
step ahead so when a film pulls the rug it’s very satisfying because it’s like we didn’t see that
coming. I know some people did see that coming. I didn’t, I loved it. That’s how I would start,
from a concept, start to apply it to some sort of structure and then let the characters speak.
Film Courage: When you were writing THE LAST SHOWING did you actually
act out Stuart Lloyd? Did you become Stuart for a little bit and say you know what,
he wouldn’t have said that, he would have done it this way?
Phil: Yes I did. There’s a lot of talking to myself in my office and he’s a quite angry
character. More so maybe now because I’ve got sleeping kids downstairs I will act it in my head
but I do like to read things out especially long dialogue or long monologues or passages if
try and find the flow because if you try and write how I am talking right now in a screenplay
it would not be how you would expect to write it. Firstly
I don’t put enough full stops or commas in the way I talk. I just go on in a stream of consciousness.
But if that’s the character actually talking it out helps you find that
because there is nothing worse than that all the characters sound the same. It’s like why,
how? Why do they sound the same and if you can do things like that like punctuation-wise or
flow-wise and you’ve acted it out then hopefully you can find that in you through the writing.
Film Courage: [Referring to LAST SHOWING movie] So in starting with a screenplay you come up
with an idea - so a projectionist who feels like he’s being replaced, new technology has come in,
younger workers. He’s kind of given this sort of throwaway job just to keep him on
and then you kind of develop who he is, his psychology and then after that, what’s next?
Phil: Well hopefully I’ve got a script by that point.
Sometimes I write very detailed outlines. Sometimes I can’t wait to get started
and I will write a rough outline or I will even just bullet point a rough structure and see
how we go. In writing LAST SHOWING which seems really fundamental now to the film he is trying
to make (kind of the film within the film) but that whole idea of him wanting to be the hero
didn’t really come about I’m making a horror film. I’m going to teach these people a lesson and
record it in some sort of weird bad movie style thing and I can’t remember whether he…I think
he actually got caught. He got hurt - he did go actually in an early draft. He did go but that
felt too cliche. It was talking about that thing structure, that’s what the audience maybe wants
but actually in writing Stuart [played by actor Robert Englund] I felt myself sympathizing
with him more than the other characters. When people see the film I think people
see that and actually one of the film reviews (and I must have paid him a lot of money to say this)
but he said it was akin to ONE HOUR PHOTO and Robin Williams. He’s like a really bad guy
and you don’t agree with what he’s doing but you understand what he’s
doing and it’s a really funny gray area and there’s tension there. Now my film is
naught point one, point one percent of the wonderful movie that is ONE HOUR PHOTO because
that’s one of my favorites so that’s obviously coming through as well in the writing (an
homage to that as well). But I think when Stuart started talking to me I realized that I actually
felt that what he was doing was right and it was important to teach these people a lesson and
he wasn’t the bad guy because bad people don’t think they’re doing bad things. So it’s fun to
explore that and then I thought oh well that’s interesting because if the film is commenting on
protagonist versus antagonist relations in itself