When you read a new script for the first time, what is the first sign that a project has real potential?
I hear an original voice. The subject is something I had no clue existed. Something that is touching, emotional, and meaningful. Something that feels relevant to our troubled times. The filmmaker has interesting previous work.
After mentoring projects at labs like the Sundance Institute and TorinoFilmLab, what is the most common challenge you see in early screenplay drafts?
The most common challenge in early drafts of a screenplay is that everyone is different. Some people need to write the screenplay to find the voice, the character, the tone, etc. But very rarely is an early draft the one to keep.
No matter the stage, I always advise going back and discussing the core issues of the film. If you have a screenplay in the first couple of drafts (1–10), that probably means doing a full breakdown, asking all the key questions, and then writing a new draft based on those insights.
As for the early stage / treatment stage, it’s usually advisable to discuss the core issues at length before moving into any full draft, and to really dig into character documents and core questions regarding the connection to the material and the theme.
The actual draft is something most people write best after understanding more deeply what it should be about, and then allowing themselves to be surprised by what happens when writing in a more fluid way. With the acquired knowledge in the back of your mind and DNA, you can let go more and enjoy the writing process, which can be very fast once you have a deeper understanding of what you’re looking for.
Dialogue usually comes very late, but of course it’s fine to write dialogue and throw it away once you understand the subtext etc better.
As a mentor in this project, how do you help writers keep their unique voice while improving structure and storytelling?
Urging the filmmakers to always go back to the core questions: What is my intention? What am I looking for? Am I on the right track? Listen to where you stand. Go to the heart of your relationship with the subject and your feelings about it.
Allow emotions to surface, and don’t get trapped by structure. Structure is like composition—it should grow out of the substance and subject you’re delving into.
No story has the same structure as another. Every story is unique; every story finds its own form, and that’s the beauty of it all. The filmmaker should always try to protect what is deep inside them, and share it as best they can, to reach others with all that the audiovisual medium offers.
