09 May 2013
Posted in Film

Tributes paid to writer and director who was prominent member of the Writers' Guild

 

(A photo taken at Bryan Forbes's home in Virginia Water - complete with blue plaque in his honour - in the summer of 1997. From left: his daughter Emma Forbes, grand-daughter Lily, Bryan Forbes, Alison V Gray (former General Secretary of the Guild), Alan Drury (former co-Chair of the Guild), Rosemary Anne Sisson (former Chair and President of the Guild)

The writer and director Bryan Forbes has died at the age of 86.

As well as being a noted screenwriter of films such as The League Of Gentleman and King Rat, and directing films including The L-Shaped Room, Forbes also wrote books, acted and was a  founder-member of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain (WGGB).

Forbes was Treasurer of Screenwriters' Guild (the forerunner to the WGGB) from 1959-1962 and President of the WGGB from 1988-1991. He won Guild awards in 1962 for Only Two Can Play and in 1964 for Seance on a Wet Afternoon

Paying tribute to Bryan Forbes, Writers' Guild General Secretary, Bernie Corbett, commented:

'Bryan Forbes was one of the pioneers who set up the Writers’ Guild. He may be remembered now mostly as a great director and film executive, but at heart he was a writer and he never forgot the vital role of the writer. He was on the writer’s side. If film and TV writers now enjoy fair contracts, good fees and royalties and residuals, and proper recognition in their industry, that is the legacy of Forbes and his trailblazing colleagues, and that is why we will never forget Bryan.'

23 April 2013
Posted in Film

Richard Bevan on a significant new independent force in British film

With public funding of British movies now mainly in the hands of the BFI, Creative England and regional screen outlets it is encouraging to see a new major independent player on the scene: Cascade Pictures. They are aiming to think big with cinematic features in a broad range of genres. Through its Cascade Media Development arm it intends to make films with medium-to-high-budget British movies for a broad range of different markets.

‘Cascade Writers’ Couch’ recently hosted an event at the 6th BFI Future Film Festival in association with the Met Film School. The event focused on the development process for producers and after a brief presentation, eight producers pitched their projects to a panel that included Cascade’s Sam Cheetham, actress Joanne Froggatt (Emmy-award winner for Downton Abbey), Chris Simon (founder and producer at Embargo Films), and Anthony Alleyne (Writer/director and tutor at the Met Film School).

I spoke with the company’s founders Cora Palfrey, Daniel Campos Pavoncelli and Development Consultant of Cascade’s Writers' Couch initiative Sam Cheetham about the organisation’s ambitions.

How did the organisation come about and what are its aims?

Daniel: Mark Fisher who was the Chief Financier of the Icon UK group set up the Cascade group last year. We manage a fund of £40m which we can invest to financially package films. We also have a money chest around £150,000 through Cascade Development to exclusively develop material, whether that’s to option books, scripts or partner up with producers who already have a script. In that instance we can come on board and help develop new drafts and polish up the project and then hopefully everything we develop will be financed by Cascade Pictures.

19 March 2013
Posted in Film

Gavin Grant explains how he took conflict resolution from the office to the screen, and won a Scottish BAFTA New Talent nomination for The State of Greenock

(Photo: Gavin Grant with actor Rowan King filming on location)

There is an acronym in corporate-lingo-jargon known as the BATNA. The letters stand for the ‘Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement’. The theory goes that whichever side in a negotiation has the better BATNA, is therefore in the stronger negotiating position, as they are less likely to settle for an unsatisfactory (albeit fully negotiated) agreement. When I first heard about the BATNA, I was a solicitor who wanted to be a screenwriter. My goal was to somehow negotiate my way to becoming a full-time, paid, screenwriter – even though I naturally assumed this was a totally unrealistic dream. In trying to maintain a level head about my career, I knew I had to work out the best alternative that would make me happy. What was my BATNA?

Back in 2009, I wrote an article for a Scottish legal magazine as part of a feature called ‘Films in Focus’, in which lawyers were asked to reveal their favourite film about the law. When I heard the magazine was running the feature, I remember being very keen to write something – anything – just to get the chance to talk about films and filmmaking. I wanted to avoid the courtroom drama and the predictable Grisham adaptation, so I plumped for the crime thriller Dirty Harry. And I got completely carried away. I effectively wrote a mini academic essay on the right-wing attitudes and ‘rule of law’ themes underpinning the film. Oops. I have always loved movies.

At that time, I was working as a solicitor with Shepherd and Wedderburn LLP. Outside of work, I had developed a growing interest in screenwriting and was attending evening classes at the University of Edinburgh. I became mildly addicted to books about the art and craft of screenwriting. I was learning about the film and TV industry, but, more importantly, I had started writing scripts.

09 November 2012
Posted in Film

WCOS 2.0 takes place in Barcelona 9-10 November

Building on the success of its 2009 event in Athens, Greece, screenwriters from around the globe will meet in Barcelona, Spain on November 9 and 10, 2012 to discuss changes to their craft and the business of film and television.

Organized by the Federation of Screenwriters in Europe (FSE), in conjunction with the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds (IAWG) and Foro de Asociaciones de Guionistas del Audiovisual (FAGA), the Second World Conference of Screenwriters will feature speakers on the cutting edge of new technologies and some of the most creative minds working in film and television, online and branded content, immersive and transmedia entertainment.

'The new global space holds exciting opportunities for creators and, admittedly, many challenges too,' says FSE president, screenwriter Christina Kallas. 'The second World Conference of Screenwriters will bring leading figures from around the world to discuss all aspects that play a role in defining the way professional writers and their organizations can position themselves in relation to our changing world. WCOS2.0 will formulate a vision.'

'In a market more and more dependent on international co-productions, and a borderless internet, it’s essential for writers to share information on what is happening in each other’s jurisdiction,' says Sylvie Lussier, screenwriter and IAWG policy and research group chair.

Together, the three groups represent approximately 50,000 writers from Europe, North America, Mexico, India, Israel and New Zealand. The organizers also hope to attract delegates from emerging film industries in South America, Asia and Africa.

The conference is sponsored by generous donations from the Spanish collecting societies Derechos
 de
 Autor
 de
 Medios
 Audiovisuales
 (DAMA)
 and
 Sociedad
 General
 de
 Autores
 y
 Editores
 (SGAE).

28 October 2012
Posted in Film

Darren Jones on how his experience as a film editor has informed his scriptwriting

I grew up with TV rather than books. Books became important eventually, but the moving images and the stories that spilled out from that small screen were the ones that first captivated my imagination. I always wondered how it was done and if, maybe, I could do it too. That never left me, but later, as a young teenager on the Isle of Wight, I feared it was only a dream, and probably an impossible one. All that exciting media stuff seemed to happen in Hollywood, or at a pinch, in that semi-mythical place, ‘London W12 8QT’. Even that felt a million miles away at the time. True dreams have a habit of inspiring perseverance however, and eventually I did scrape myself into film school.

I was always wrote (mostly bad) short stories, short scripts, kids’ plays. I was interested in making up and telling stories, but telling them with visual media – after all, I wasn’t taking an English degree. Film school exposed me to other areas: photography, sound, working with actors – and, of course, film/video editing.

26 October 2012
Posted in Film

Second World Conference of Screenwriters takes place on 9 and 10 November

The Guild is gearing up for the biggest-ever international conference of screenwriters next month. The Second World Conference of Screenwriters will be held in Barcelona on 9 and 10 November.

The conference brings together more than 150 screenwriters and their representatives from more than 30 countries around the world to discuss issues of common interest with a focus on the impact of new technologies on the production and distribution of the stories we write.

Read more about the agenda and speaker on the World Conference blog

02 September 2012
Posted in Film

Pat Holden on writing and directing a feature film based on a family haunting

'The Black Monk of Pontefract' is considered the worst case of poltergeist haunting in European history. But to me it is, and always will be, Aunty Jean’s Ghost.

I’d grown up with breathless tales of its activities delivered by my mother Rene, a regular visitor to the house, where she kept Jean and her kids company amidst the unholy chaos the ghost created.

Jean needed the company because her husband was terrified of the ghost and often absented himself to the local working men’s club to calm his nerves with quantities of Tetley’s. He was, on occasion, so calm that he slept in the garden.

It would be hard to blame him for his absenteeism; the ghost’s behaviour was by turns terrifying, chilling and surreal. Very occasionally it was even funny (on one occasion a dotty Spiritualist relative tried to ward it off by singing hymns. The ghost retaliated by conducting her singing using a pair of disembodied hands inside a pair of gloves).

Perhaps this was why the ghost earned a nickname (Fred) among the family and why they tolerated it for so long. Or was it a prime example of Northern stoicism? A coping mechanism? Or some sort of bizarre co-dependent relationship between house-proud Jean and wilfully destructive Fred?

Whatever the reasons, they stuck with it through black-outs, deafening banging, flying furniture, sudden chills, farmyard animal noises on the landing, upside down crucifixes, unexplained puddles, ‘transmigration of matter’ (look it up) and children being dragged unwillingly up staircases by their hair.

Its activities were enough to draw pundits, scientists, journalists, interested onlookers, three priests of various denominations, psychic investigators, students from the University of Leeds, local police and the town mayor to 30 East Drive. Everyone saw it.

Except me. For, despite my earnest protestations otherwise (I don’t mind being dragged up stairs by my hair - honest), I was considered far too young to enter the house. I longed for the day I’d be old enough to see it for myself.

But by then, Fred was long gone. The family reverted back to normal. When Mum and I visited I’d stand in the hallway willing Fred to do something, but there wasn’t even a sniff of supernatural activity. I sensed a jejeune air in my mother also; after the Second World War the ghost had been the most exciting thing in her life.

So why isn’t the haunting known about today? At the time it was a big story and the subject of double-page spreads in local newspapers. But it happened in the late 1960s and early 1970s, before the syndication of regional stories and long, long before the internet and social media.

Thus it became a local story, for local people. And increasingly forgotten by them too — the only remaining evidence some fading memories and a few moth-eaten clippings in the town museum.

But I always thought that the wider public might find the story of a malignant monkish spirit, trapped in a council house with an ordinary family, interesting too.

29 August 2012
Posted in Film

An interview with Maria Walker (pictured), chief executive of Twickenham Studios, by Richard Bevan

With famous film studios such as Bray having fallen into the hands of developers it has been a shot in the arm for the British film industry to see Twickenham Film Studios saved from a fate as an office block or housing estate. As well as investment to bring the 99-year-old site into the 21st Century, plans also include changing the name to Twickenham Studios to show that it’s not just film production facilities the studio will offer.

The revitalisation of the studio – home to such famous films as Tom Jones, Zulu, The Italian Job, several Hammer horrors and more recently My Week With Marilyn and The Iron Lady – will see an updating of facilities to make it one of the most dynamic production centres in London.

Its new owners, led by businessman and ‘film fanatic’ Sunny Vohra, have promised to take the studio (established in 1913) back to its glory days. Sunny himself has become managing director of Twickenham Studios Ltd (TSL).

Maria Walker, the studio’s new chief executive, led the campaign to save the complex. She has a long association with the studio tucked away in St Margaret’s. She first started there 28 years ago as a runner on Wild Geese 2.

What’s so special about Twickenham Studios?

Maria Walker: Having worked at nearly all the major studios I think Twickenham is very special because it’s in the community. Shepperton and Pinewood are large and quite soulless places to work in the middle of nowhere. Twickenham is in the heart of a community.

Shops, pubs and cafes right outside the door, it’s quite buzzy.

Yes. With a train station across the road it’s close to London. I also think because it’s smaller it has a friendlier ‘family’ atmosphere. Also its post-production is a centre of excellence.

This is the unique Sound Centre built in the 1980s that has a ‘Tardis’ feel to it – small on the outside and gigantic on the inside?

The dubbing studios have to be big to replicate the atmosphere of cinemas. It’s got a history of big films been mixed in its huge two dubbing rooms; films like Elizabeth The Golden Age, Sahara, Burke & Hare, Senna and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel – and for that reason has attracted big names, such as Stephen Spielberg.

28 June 2012
Posted in Film

An open letter to screenwriters from Writers' Guild members Richard Curtis and David Seidler

As fellow screenwriters, we are writing on behalf of the InternationalAffiliation of Writers Guilds (IAWG) and the Federation of Screenwriters in Europe (FSE) about important research into the visibility ofscreenwriters at film festivals.

Building on a survey conducted in 2010, we are undertaking a wider investigation into the visibility of screenwriters at film festivals. Togather this information, we are keen to hear of your experiences througha brief online survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ScreenwritersSurvey

It will take just five minutes of your time and your participation willbe greatly appreciated.

Your answers and comments are central to this research. They will helpus all understand how screenwriters could be better supported atfestivals and what is necessary to achieve this goal. The findings willbe published in a report to be released in Autumn 2012. IAWG and FSE represent more than 20,000 writers working in film, radio and television on five continents. This joint initiative arose from the 2009 World Conference of Screenwriters in Athens, where it was resolved that the vital contribution of screenwriters needs to be more fully acknowledged both within the film industry and in the public arena atlarge.

Thank you for your consideration.

Yours faithfully

Richard Curtis and David Seidler

Here's the article by Guild member Guy Hibbert (pdf), published in the Writers' Guild magazine UK Writer, about the origins of the film festivals campaign.

08 June 2012
Posted in Film

Screenwriter Lindsay Shapero talks to Oscar-winning film editor Jim Clark about his remarkable career and the insights he has for writers

You can listen to Lindsay's interview with Jim Clark in our podcast

‘If you’re handed a boring load of old tosh, it’s rather difficult to weave it into a masterpiece, but often a fine film can be carved out of confusing footage.’

On meeting film editor Jim Clark, you can see why he’s always been in such demand – he displays brutal honesty and total dedication, wrapped up in old school charm. He’s very entertaining company and it’s what makes his memoirs such a rewarding read – he doesn’t spare the blushes of the super egos.

A film editor is the ultimate back-room presence. The one with the golden eyes. The one who knows everybody’s secrets, the actors’ and director’s brilliance and flaws. Expected to be magicians and alchemists, film editors lead us into a story through a sleight of hand, turning base metal into gold.

It’s a career for lone wolves, the work commencing once the cast and crew are finished. Jim’s long-time collaboration with the notoriously mercurial but brilliant film director John Schlesinger was one of the lynchpins of his career. ‘John trusted me when he didn’t trust anybody,’ Jim says. ‘Very generously, he said I’d saved his arse a lot of times.’

They made seven films together, including classics such as Midnight Cowboy (screenplay by Waldo Salt) and Marathon Man (screenplay by William Goldman). Jim was the only one Schlesinger felt he could leave with his rushes – rightly so, as Darling, their first film together, won Oscars for its writer Frederic Raphael and star Julie Christie. It helped put both director and editor on the map.

06 May 2012
Posted in Film

Dublin 7-10 June

John Ford Ireland presents a four day event focusing on film and filmmaking, inspired and informed by the work of Irish-American director John Ford and his ongoing influence on contemporary cinema.

Leading filmmakers and creatives including directors Peter Bogdanovich, Jim Sheridan and John Boorman and writers Patrick McCabe, Colin Bateman and Paul Fraser will participate in a varied programme of industry events, masterclasses, lectures and screenings.

For more information or to register for a Season Pass go to www.johnfordireland.org

16 April 2012
Posted in Film

Three important European bodies have come together to demand legislation for equitable rights payments for European film and television directors and screenwriters. They are calling for unwaivable enforceable rights, fair contracts and stronger resistance to arguments put out by the pirate lobby.

The Society of Audiovisual Authors (SAA) which represents authors throughout Europe who are members of collecting societies;  the Federation of European Film Directors (FERA) which represents European film and television directors; and the Federation of Screenwriters Europe (FSE) which represents European screenwriters, are united in their commitment to facilitating production and distribution of our members’ work based on legal clarity and fair remuneration.

The Writers' Guild of Great Britain, which is a member of the FSE, fully supports the statement.

Joint statement from SAA, FERA and FSE: An end to buyouts in Europe

We are committed to internet culture, we are determined to play our part in its development, and we want our work to be seen on as many European screens as possible. It is the creative talent of our members which will appeal to audiences online and across borders and create the demand that will fuel business innovation, employment creation and the many benefits which flow from an active cultural environment. This talent deserves fair reward.

Above all, we are seeking an end to the buyout contracts that deprive our members of so much legitimate income. Buyout contracts force authors to accept payments that take little or no account of subsequent use. They divorce the creator from the success of the work. The recent European Court of Justice ruling1 against ‘Cessio Legis’ is an important step forward, but it is only a start. We are appealing for EU legislation to make buyouts illegal, initially for online use and eventually for all means of distribution. The moral argument is the same in both: authors should be allowed to share in the success of their work. This will allow them to survive and do more work: in effect, it’s a virtuous circle.

Our online ‘Making Available’ right, taken in buyout contracts and exploited for a decade, in many cases without payment, should now be made enforceable, allowing negotiation of rates for online use.

Where this exclusive right is transferred to the producer, we ask for the enactment of an unwaivable Right to Equitable Remuneration payable to authors, for online use at first, and in due course for all means of distribution. This would be collectively negotiated, and depending on territory would function either as a benchmark rate underpinning local contractual negotiations, or as an actual rights payment collected and distributed by collecting societies. Our members have experience of both systems.

Flexibility will be essential, to reflect our differing legal cultures; but not the kind of ‘flexibility’ that merely allows producers and financiers to impose one sided contracts on individual authors with impunity. Most authors’ contracts are currently signed under considerable pressure. It is time to redress the balance of power.

It is also essential that the Commission reverses the current undermining of free negotiation by some competition authorities, for instance in Ireland and the Netherlands. In a free society, the representatives of creators must be permitted to bargain collectively and agree appropriate rates and conditions.

We welcome the imminent publication of an EU Directive on the governance of collecting societies and are determined to remain in the vanguard of efforts for greater transparency, efficiency and democracy in collective management. However, delays on resolving governance issues should not be an excuse for policy makers to shy away from strong, urgent and immediate support for solutions to the problem of fair payment.

Our associations emphatically reject the insinuations of the pirate lobby (and some powerful internet operators) that simply to require payment for use constitutes some kind of attack on free speech. This sophistry needs to be resisted by all, the Commission and Parliament in particular. Bullying is not less immoral for being practised by large movements.

European audiovisual authors will not stand idly by and see their industry destroyed. We speak out for democracy, and for the principle of fair trade. ‘Free access – but not for free!’