Story Development with Julian Hoxter
STORY CONSULTATION AND SCRIPT DEVELOPMENT SERVICES:
I am pleased to announce that I am now able to take on limited additional private story consultation and script development work for screenplays and feature films. I regularly consult on independent feature films in development and in post production, and I offer a full range of services from a single script meeting through full story consulting on all stages of your project. If you are interested, please contact me for details and prices:
hoxter@btinternet.com
Recent testimonials:
“Julian was an invaluable story consultant on my more recent film, pushing me to ask essential questions. Always three steps ahead, with elegant solutions to what sometimes felt like insurmountable obstacles, he approached the material with a discerning eye.”
“He has story consulted on two of my films. His focus on story and structure all through a character’s needs really opened my eyes. For the first time I felt confident in my writing.”
“Your notes are right on and giving me a lot of clarity around what needs to be done.”
I have consulted on a wide range of feature projects at all stages of writing and production. I work with writers on story and script development; and I work with directors, polishing their stories in post production. In 2012, movies on which I consulted have been screened internationally at film festivals. I also consulted on a screenplay that was one of five selected for the prestigious Outfest Screenwriting Lab in LA.
What readers are saying
Please excuse the self promotion here, but part of the purpose of this blog is to get word out about my book Write What You Don’t Know: An Accessible Manual For Screenwriters. To that end I will post occasional extracts from reader reviews and comments about my teaching and story consulting – you know, just to lure the unwary into a purchase!
Here are a few to get us going:
“Julian was an invaluable story consultant on my more recent film, pushing me to ask… essential questions. Always 3 steps ahead with elegant solutions to what sometimes felt like insurmountable obstacles, he approached the material with a discerning eye and refreshing wit.”
“He has story consulted on two of my films. His focus on story and structure all through a character’s needs really opened my eyes. For the first time I felt confident in my writing.”
“Write What You Don’t Know is Julian Hoxter’s amazing classes in a book. Witty, informative, and engaging. I love this book because he doesn’t talk at you. He talks to you. You feel like you’re in a conversation with the author. His British witticisms create a fun atmosphere where you enjoy reading and look forward to each page.”
“What I’m happy about is how much content there is, how dense the material; there’s so much rapid-fire delivery of so much to say, and all of it rewarding. On a scale, it makes many other screenwriting manuals feel a bit light.”
“This book is accessible but not dumbed down, with helpful illustrations on how to not only structure a screenplay but also how to create interesting characters and dialogue. Last year I read Save the Cat for my screenwriting class and was utterly annoyed by the writing. Seriously. But I read it, since there were some good tips in there. Write What You Don’t Know does what Save the Cat was trying to do: make a screenwriting book that is fun to read but has instrumental instructions on writing a script. And even though the book is aimed at a younger reader, I could completely relate with Hoxter’s ‘implied you’.”
“This book is a must read for anyone trying to write their own screenplay. I take that back, this book is a must read for anyone wanting to write a GOOD screenplay. I have read my fair share of screenwriting books, all claiming to be the bees knees, but this one put the rest to shame.”
“This is a wonderful, funny, helpful, entertaining book. It is clearly aimed more at the new film student than the middle aged wannabe screenwriter (finally, a book that does this – thank you!). It takes care to create a friendly space for younger readers who, like me, are kind of daunted by the prospect of writing their first scripts. It is honest however and doesn’t pretend you are going to make millions of dollars and be instantly famous and all that rubbish.”
“He takes you through the process of getting ideas and developing your story by focusing on how his students develop their stories. That makes the first few chapters seem at first like a strange, windy road but as you are working through them you realize that he’s right. This is how I struggle through to clarify my thinking. He keeps up a funny, cynical dialogue with a pretend reader which is funny but also clarifies a lot of what he’s writing about. This is a really good device.”
“Finally I appreciated that Hoxter doesn’t force his ‘W’ model of screenplay structure down your throat as the only way of doing things. He often reminds you (too often maybe, we get it!) that it is just one way of thinking about stories but that it can be a helpful reference if you get stuck. I liked the model anyway, it seems logical and I’m sure works for most mainstream movies. He also links it in to some really interesting discussions about why we human beings enjoy stories and how movies are linked through history to the earliest kinds of storytelling, way before the Greeks.”
Script or story in microbudget production?
There’s an interesting piece by Nicole Elmer over at Filmmaker Magazine about whether it is better to approach a microbudget production with a fully realized script or a story to be improvised around during the shoot. It’s a big topic and one I have had recent experience with in my capacity as a story advisor. Last month I was brought in to consult in post production on two very different Bay Area indie features. Both of these movies had gone variations on the story route. They had talented casts and the directors had wanted the feel of ‘authenticity’ that people often think comes with a wholly or partly improvised performance (we can debate this).
As far as I know there were different levels of scripting involved in each feature, but the result was that despite loads of potential, they were both having structural problems in post. So in each case I did what I could to think through the story with the filmmaker. As you would expect, I gave suggestions on reworking and clarifying the structure and figuring out how to bolster it with the minimum of reshoots. In her Filmmaker piece, Elmer describes her version of working with a story rather than a script. I think it is close enough to the situation I was dealing with to serve as a useful illustration:
It was a creative choice as much as a budgeting choice. Because of the specificity involved, a script would have required the costly fabrication I mentioned earlier. Instead, the writer created a very basic outline that was broken down into scenes. Locations were replaceable and everything could be moved as needed, as long as the general symbol of the moment was still expressed. A script would have also forced us to shove dialogue in the actors’ mouths. Instead, we gave the actors their goals, they developed their characters WITH the writer, and we gave them responsibility for their dialogue, a creative choice normally made by a screenwriter.
This is certainly the ideal of semi-improvised movie making. The challenge is that when you go the story route you are effectively ceding control of structure to your actors. There can be an upside to this of course, but you need to find a way of instilling the kind of discipline in the production that a fully developed screenplay gives you if you want to avoid talking to people like me in post! Discipline does not have to mean restrictions all over the place. At its heart it means understanding what a rigorous little guy even the most character led indie story actually is and accepting that its needs are more important than those of anyone else on set – including your actors.
Here are a few quick thoughts about how to keep on track:
Don’t just have an event led outline, work with an objective led outline. In fairness, Elmer makes this point above. Make sure your actors are very clear on their scene goals and make sure those scene goals fit your story outline like a glove. Give them as much freedom as you want in improvising around a situation but never let them deflect a scene from its place in your story. If you are tight on objectives this won’t happen easily, so make that your line in the sand.
Buy as much rehearsal time as you can. You can use your rehearsals to work on actual story elements or on general character and relationship development as you like, but the more familiar your actors are with their characters and each other before shooting starts the better. If you are thinking of coming back at me with a counter argument about immediacy here, remember that most of your characters probably know each other well – or at least sub groups do. Particularly in an ensemble story, that sense of familiarity and ease is vitally important. Where characters don’t know one another – boy meets girl or whatever – then your argument has more weight. Be led in part by your actors in cases like that. Do they want the comfort of having worked with each other or do they want to hit the moment ‘cold’?
Be even more prepared than usual to kill your darlings. The great thing about improv is that gems come out of nowhere. The nightmare of improv is that gems come out of nowhere. Get me? It doesn’t matter how wonderful a moment is, if it is not helping advance your story it probably has no place in your movie. Your story is your god, so worship it like the Aztecs and sacrifice to it early and often. If you come back to me with any variant on the: “hey man, don’t harsh my indie buzz” defense, prepare to see me in post!
Don’t let your actors hang out to dry. This is another perspective on all the above: as a director you have a responsibility to your actors to guide their performances. This applies doubly in improvised situations and as much in post as in the shoot. One of the problems I often see in post production on movies like these is scenes that are allowed to run long because the improv is strong. Remember that your actors give all they can until you call cut. That’s their job. Your job is to protect the heart and truth of their performance by not allowing it to drag the whole movie down with it. Top and tailing scenes is even more important with improv so do your actors a favor and cut to their defense.
There’s much more to say about this, but I read Nicole Elmer‘s piece and felt it needed a little warning flag, so hopefully this will serve as a conversation starter for some of you. Go read what she has to say. There’s lots of good stuff there, just be aware of some of the pitfalls as well.
EDIT: Name corrected.
