LSWF 2016 PART 3

SATURDAY 3RD SEPTEMBER

The brilliant Hayley McKenzie

I woke up early and made my way to the Ackland Lounge for Hayley McKenzie's Crime/Mystery/Thriller Script Lab. I learned a great deal in those three hours from 9am to midday, not just from discussing my own project, but also from listening to what Hayley had to say about all the others' projects too.

Specific points I learned in this session:

• Set the genre expectation.
• If it's a thriller, is it exciting on the page?
• If it's a mystery, will we want to spend six hours to find out the answer?
• A 60-page thriller - turning points every ten minutes, five in all.
• For a six hour TV serial, you need enough story to last. Most writers try to instinctively stretch their plot rather than put more in.
• Give your characters more problems, more obstacles to overcome and send them to more places to find more clues.
• A thriller has to have a threat to life.
• Thriller - the protagonist is always firefighting the antagonist's plans. What is the antagonist's goal and plan?
• Don't be afraid to force your antagonist into a corner. Let it happen and then worry about how to get them out afterwards.
• You must make the tone of the show obvious and consistent. It can't change from episode to episode.

I came out of the session absolutely buzzing (and not because of the coffee), full of ideas and motivated to the maximum. I really wanted to jump on a train, get home and start writing... but I still had part of the weekend left. For me, this was definitely the best session EVER!

Ashley Pharoah - one of my writing heroes.

Next up came Showrunners: Staffing Up The Room and How You Can Get A Seat At The Table.

Again a brilliant session and very informative. It was great to get two differing points of view of what exactly a showrunners' job is and how Kim Revill and the legend that is Ashley Pharoah approached the job.

Then came the script to screen session of Point Break. I bloody love that film so I had been looking forward to its screening all weekend. It didn't disappoint!

Peter Iliff not only kept us entertained with details of how the screenplay evolved from his original idea, but also with his anecdotes of the people he worked with; James Cameron, Partick Swayze, Lori Petty and Tom Sizemore. He was insightful, funny and honest about his work on the film.

Chris Jones introduces the legend that is Peter Iliff.

Peter was actually a revelation over the weekend. Unlike most speakers who quickly return to the green room after their session, Peter hung about all weekend. He could often be seen mixing with fellow writers in the Final Draft Marquee and even came for networking drinks with us at the Globe on Sunday evening. Best of all he was very approachable and was more than happy to chat and answer questions. Peter, as far as I'm concerned, is an absolute legend.

By the time the evening came around I was brain dead from all the information that had been thrown at me. I had earned my bed by the time I finally crawled into it at 11pm.

Happy writing.