An audience with Hugh Janes (29/5/2013)

As Hugh Janes (a writer) came in today to talk to us I took the following notes. 

• "Say Yes" as it builds up your confidence and makes you learn new things. More importantly it makes you more pro-active and adds to your list of skills.
• "Write what you know" is a good way of making your work realistic as you know it from experience and therefore others can relate to it. 
• Don't know something? Then ask an expert! This can save you time and more importantly get you the right information.
• Expect your written dialogue to change in a film as unfortunately some actors refuse to say certain lines.
• A lot of writers are able to write stories just from a single sentence, object and/or character given to them. Therefore I should maybe practice this more as I have done so already in previous creative writing sessions.

He also spoke of screen plays. 

• Three act structure: 
• First act: 25-30 minutes (introduces the setting, style and content).
• Second act: 50 minutes to an hour (Raises the stakes and introduces more conflict).
• Third act: anything from 25-30 minutes to an hour (hows it ends and the movie's revelation).

• One A4 page is about a minute of screen time in a screen play. 

We then watched the first ten-fifteen minutes of Janes's film which he wrote the screen play for called 'Wide Blue Yonder'. During this time he introduced the main protagonist, a smuggler who wants his friend to be buried at sea and not in a graveyard so he stops the funeral from taking place. 

Hugh went on to say that the beginning of the film which showed a boat at night smuggling cargo had to be re-written due to an electrician's strike. Thus because the area they were filming only had 3-5 hours of nighttime and no lights they had to change the scene considerably. 

Later in the movie Hugh explained that the main protagonist gets a new room mate whom he instantly dislikes. This creates tension and leads to conflict in the second act.


We then watched some footage from the movie 'Little Miss Sunshine' which was a good blend of tragic and funny. A movie that I now really want to watch. 

A number of things the movie contains which help to tell its story in different ways are as follows. 

• Conflict in a story doesn't have to come from a battle, it can also come from everyday things like trying to open a door. 
• You can play with expectations e.g. there being a body in the back of the car when a police officer goes to check it out, only to be more interested in porn magazines which are on the backseat. Thus this tricks and pleases the audience as they think one thing is going to happen only for something else to.
• Setting up situations with seemingly unimportant events e.g. in the movie the little girl picks up an eye test in the hospital and later tests her brother only to discover he's colour blind. Thus he finds out he can't be a pilot and freaks out, adding another moment of conflict in the film as the family have to stop to calm him down. 

I was then given the screen play for the movie 'Pulp Fiction' in order to help me with next week's task. This is to write my own screen play from the given piece of text which was the first few pages from the book 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. This will need to be at least four pages long which is a minute per page and also needs to supply information for the director where necessary.

It was recommended that we only use a few descriptions for the characters and the environment as this leaves more room for the director to adapt the piece themselves. This also allows them flexibility when casting actors for the roles.  


After the session I talked to Hugh Janes who gave me the following friendly advice.

• Write your characters first! Give them weaknesses that can add to the conflict and therefore make them more realistic e.g. a pilot that's afraid of heights. This works even better if their weakness is something that must be dealt with throughout their journey e.g. in a platforming video game you have to rescue the princess, but you can not climb due to only having one arm!  
• When writing characters take inspiration from your friends and family as you can write their character types and genders from experience. This will prove to be useful advice as I struggle at the moment with female characters so in the future I will take ideas from women I know. 
• If you struggle to think of environments for your writing then use exisiting places as inspiration. 
• Write, write, write! If you don't start now then you may not get the chance to do so in the future. Try  short stories and if you like them build up from those foundations. 
• He also agreed with my thinking that any story can be written as long as it has great characters. For example, just putting a bunch of amazing characters in the same room writes the story itself. 

He also recomended that I watch the series 'Breaking Bad' as it has some great writing in it.