Comments on: Making Our Stories More Original.

By: joe velikovsky

joe velikovsky — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 10:38:00 +0000

All great points Stephen… Totally agree,

JT Velikovsky
High ROI Film/Story/Screenplay Consultant
https://storyality.wordpress.com/

By: David

David — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 03:54:27 +0000

Though its true they’re all given a friendly push on their release, I thought that in general Australian features have actually been bagged, stomped on, dragged through the mud and roundly pilloried for the qualities you describe for many years now – and there was a marked shying away from the ‘dumbf— finally gets a clue” template into low-budget-viable genres like schlock or crime or whathaveyou. And more recently things are changing again as producer driven SA funding models are turning up bigger budget cast driven pieces for which we’ve yet to see a conventional style established.

Another thing that troubles me about your article is your example scenario feels uncomfortably like “Back of Beyond”;)

Nevertheless I concur we should continue to flagellate our lazy scriptors – much cheaper than waiting for the box office to do it to them.

By: Steven Fernandez

Steven Fernandez — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 01:14:43 +0000

In reply to Peter.

Thanks for your comment Peter. (Thanks to David Di Muro and Ed Love too, by the way.)

Peter, on your point about local film stories lacking a moral argument, I will actually be addressing this point specifically on my next article (due to be posted in the next few weeks I believe). In particular, I will be arguing that the fact that local screenwriters are too insecure (or too relativistic) to write stories that make a moral stand is another reason why local films are consistently uncompelling. Stay tuned for more on that!

In addition, what you say about defensiveness and denial during film festivals and film premiers is so true in my experience. Though, in my opinion, there is a screaming need to do a radical paradigm shift in the culture of such events. Nothing good is going to come out of making a crummy film ‘untouchable’ from serious criticisim. Unchallenged crummy films only leads to the making of yet more crummy films, as far as I’m concerned.

Again, thanks to all for your comments.

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 23:39:40 +0000

Yes, I would tend to agree with you Steven, there is something that local film makers are failing in their execution. I would go even further in your critical assessment, that local film makers fail (at their own peril) to understand subtext, Fiona Shaw recently expressed this at BBC Radio 3, “It’s not in the words!”, https://ur1.ca/3c6qx.

Locally produced films are still episodic (Animal Kingdom, Lou, My Beautiful Kate, Tomorrow when the war began, etc), they miss all the important beats for that genre and therefore they ignore their audience. They fail to find that which makes the scene dramatic, yelling and swearing is not dramatic, it’s melodrama. And most importantly there is rarely any moral argument at the spine of the story, scratch beneath the surface and you find … nothing.

And yes, don’t say this at film festivals or film nights, people want to like these films and thus will defend them.

@Ed Love, we don’t need to be like Hollywood, but like you mentioned, acknowledge that film is an establish art form, you tinker with the form, advance it, like the Coen brothers, but don’t ignore it.

By: Ed Love

Ed Love — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 09:25:38 +0000

Nice article. As a newbie screenwriter myself, I think we should be MORE like Hollywood, and not try to be so indie all the time. That’s what got us into our current malaise.

People are hard wired to enjoy stories structured in a certain way. We always have been. It doesn’t have to mean all stories look & feel the same, but we neglect this commonality to our own detriment IMHO.

By: David Di Muro

David Di Muro — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 02:23:26 +0000

Very well written article. It is a shame the writers who are getting their films made in Australia will probably turn their noses up in derision and say “what does he know? i’m the one who gets my scripts made!” – well guess what, “Porky’s” also go made, and so did a whole bunch of other trashy films! So to writers out there, who think they know better, I say listen to Steven and apply some of it.

“My writing is good, but it ain’t great yet. I must keep trying to improve.” – keep repeating that to yourself and keep writing. And never say “F*%k! My script is so brilliant. It is the best thing anyone has ever written!” – no script is that good.

oh well a producer can always dream…back to the LA script market then…..