Screenwriter needs your help

[RFLH]

you do indeed, which is why you're having a well deserved week with me and we will not be talking 'shop'.

We will gossip and drink, not necessarily in that order!

[friday]

butterfly-no need to apologise! you have as much right as any one else to speak your mind and your opinion is 100% valid and worthwhile and to be honest it is more valid than mine or the screenwriter's as i haven't been falsely accused or supported someone who has (in real life, obviously on here but no one close to me).

i'm a book reader more than a film watcher but i can think of a fair few books that have used support groups (in real life or online) as the starting point for research. look at how much info about the process etc that rights fighter has given in the last post.

[AMVC]

Yes it is a positive thing - but the films/documentaries outlining certain problems are usually made by already known film-makers/producers who do not tout on sites such as this, or on an unknown "one-man-band" status.

Perhaps you could name a few examples of films/documentaries as I am interested to know what you value as a "positive thing"?

Since I'm writing a screenplay I will touch purely on film in the following comment...

If I were a fully-fledged screenwriter with a number of credits under my belt I would have still gone about my research in the same manor, the only difference being that I would have been able to offer financial reward to any falsely accused men whom would care to meet me face-to-face.

I have stated that the story I have crafted doesn't go to the courtroom, it gets NFA'd before such anguish.
The rebuilding of a broken life in the aftermath of a false allegation is what concerned me.

re: your last post(#90)
A documentary can be made for pittance, so capturing the "true picture" can be accomplished with little interference, therefore, providing someone is willing to distribute the finished article, the true picture has a fair shot at being realised when it hits the screen.
Feature films don't work like that.

You take your "true picture" to a producer and pitch your heart out, bleeding the emotion you live day-after-day.
They tell you it isn't a story anyone is going to have a punt on, its all negative, diminished returns. They tell you to go away, cogitate, and then come back with a story arc that will entertain, because entertainment is of the utmost import.
You do so, but you're finding you're having to add, amend, and cut your true picture every which way, but thats your job so you do it.

You pitch your improved version, it has its problems, but the producer thinks the UK Film Council(or any production company) will want to hear it.

You pitch to the UKFC and they want to throw some money at you to write a treatment/outline. Brilliant, and of you go.

You bash out a treatment, send it away, you go back to the Film Council for a sit-down(they all love meetings ad infinitum), you shake hands and get smiles from new faces you haven't met before... and then you get your notes.
What they want changed. Oh, by the by, they gave your treatment to a director and he's enamoured with it, can you meet him later because he's got some notes and ideas he wants to give you.

Eventually you churn out a first draft. Then its more notes, more opinions, more expected changes. And this happens over and over and over, rewrite after rewrite after rewrite.

Whether you're me, or a seasoned writer, when you're attached to a production company you're on the payroll.
You may get very unlucky and more figures that green lit your project wade in with whim, the trend de jour, the zeitgeist, and kill your baby, so to speak, with their ideas, and you will have to accommodate them because their footing the development.
Moreover, depending on the deal you signed, you could be told that they want another writer for the next rewrite, and thats you out the door. And so forth...
The "true picture" is now a picture based on truth told in the filmic medium.

Point is, you can either do it that way, or you can write a spec script, meaning you are the originator of the idea, you research, you construct, you write and rewrite until you're contented with draft six(seven, eight, whatever), and THEN you call your producer/agent and do everything within your power to see it made.
Professional writers the world over undertake this process and bash out spec scripts all the time. In fact this is what production companies hanker for, scripts that don't need a fat pot of money to develop since so many do, and many, of that many, get discarded.
Obviously, the big risk is that if nobodies interested in your screenplay you get paid nothing for your labours and your story remains on paper.

Andrew

[LS]

Just to echo what Andrew's said, years ago I did a screenwriter course back in the 90s and it is quite formulaic - there must be certain events happening at certain points of the script, this is to make it "entertaining" and to fit with the way the industry feels films should be made.
As Andrew says, the big-name film writers will happily write a script to fit someone else's idea of entertainment, to the point where it bears little relation to the original idea, because at the end of the day the person with the money calls the shots.

However, all big-names have to start somewhere. If I saw Lawrence Kasdan for example coming here for an idea, I wouldn't hold much hope on it ending up as a film with a Falsely Accused as a good guy main character. The industry would want him villain-ised because that's what the industry's perception is of what they think the seat-paying customers will want to see, and Mr Kasdan would comply because that's what his client wants.

The only mainstream film I've seen which treated the main character sympathetically was Kevin Bacon's The Woodsman, but even then the industry's influence could be seen right through it, by the way he was still treated as a villain regardless of the good he tried to do.
And that's the point, the industry would never have a paedophile or a rapist or even a Falsely Accused paedophile or a rapist as the good guy or a character which the public would root for. So big names will write along those lines.
We forget that the big-names will make the films they want made, which will automatically make FAs the bad guy. Writers like Andrew have the advantage of wanting to keep to the ethos and the integrity of the original story. Big names don't.

I think it's great that someone from an area of the media is interested enough to realise that FAs happen and that there is a medium to raise public awareness that it happens.

[Saffron]

"Atonement" was a massive hit recently, and that dealt with a man falsely accused of rape. I haven't seen it yet as I am a bit scared to watch it, but apparently it's really good.

[RFLH]

I've got the book, don't know how true the film is to it. Its worth a read.

[friday]

i saw an american film called "my son is innocent" on five usa a while back. it wasn't exactly the best film. typical made for tv film quality but i suppose any film getting the point across is a bonus. it was good in the sense it showed the immediate effect an allegation has on the accused (at school etc) and how the police just accepted the eye witness identification despite the major discrepancies.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117123/

[friday]

its actually on five usa today at 4pm if anyone wants to watch it...not sure i would if i had been falsely accused but then i tend to avoid anything that is likely to trigger memories. is a pg so not graphic or anything.

[Saffron]

Thanks Friday, I might sky+ it for later viewing...don't want my kids to ask "why are you watching that, mummy?"
OK, recorded it. Cheers!

[Rights Fighter]

I think I have the DVD Atonement......I must watch it again - it was a false allegation but the accuser as I recall, believed what she said and eventually it got sorted out. Not like in the real world!

[RFLH]

you're right - she did!

Still a good read - not seen the dvd.