Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
TSP Ep 122 Part 1: Interview of Indie Screenwriter and Filmmaker Kat Rollinson
29 Plays6 months ago
In this episode, Tom and Steve get to interview Kat Rollinson, a pukka filmmaker and screenwriter! (We have no idea what pukka means). The three discuss how Kat got into writing films; the future hopes and reality of filmmaking; how to write difficult topics; and they talk about her upcoming short film!
So come along with us as we learn a thing or two!
If you would like to connect with Kat, you can find her LinkedIn here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kat-rollinson-323942231?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_profile_view_base_contact_details%3BlMMWRlr2R%2FuMmWNIL1PUWg%3D%3D
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Welcome
00:00:00
Speaker
Are you about ready? How are you feeling? Yeah, I'm ready. No pressure. Remember, it's good to go. Yeah. Good to go. Yeah. I mean, look at us, you know, you don't, you don't need to feel pressure with us. We're just a couple of film nerds. No, don't be, don't be at all. And we could take our time and everything. So, you know, it's just going at our own pace and having a good conversation. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
00:00:30
Speaker
So I'll do a little intro and then if you're ready, we'll just jump into it. All right, so welcome everyone. Twin Shadows podcast, podcast about film filmmaking and filmmakers joined as always by your two co-hosts, Tom and Steve. It's a little bit of an early morning for us, but we have a reason for that. We have a very special guest. We have Kat Rollinson. Kat, how are you doing? Good morning.
00:00:52
Speaker
Yes. Well, good morning to you. Yeah. Everything over here in Essex in the UK. Yeah, I'm good. Thank you. Really good. Yes. So, yeah.
Time Zones and Initial Thoughts on "All of Us Strangers"
00:01:05
Speaker
Later night for you, it's six, five? Six-ish, yeah.
00:01:10
Speaker
Okay, so if you guys can do math, you can figure out what time it is for us. I won't let you know. That will be for you guys to figure out out there. A quiz for everyone out there, huh? Yeah. And so, yeah, how's everybody's week been going? You guys seen any new movies or? Oh, there you go. Or anything like that this week? Kat, let's start with you.
00:01:29
Speaker
Yeah, well, it wasn't this week, but it was just around a week ago. I watched All of Us Strangers, which I thought was absolutely beautiful. Yeah, I really want to see it back. Beautifully sad, yeah. Have you seen it? That's one of those movies you need to emotionally build up for.
00:01:48
Speaker
Oh yeah, you have to be prepared for it. You have to be emotionally strong going into that film. Yeah, but I thought it was really, really well done. Yeah, that's considered a 2024 release, right? So I feel like hopefully that will get some Oscar.
Recent Movie Discussions
00:02:05
Speaker
Cause I've been seeing a lot about it and I'm really excited to watch it. It's just finding time to catch it. Oh, I haven't heard of it. Yeah. Highly, highly recommend it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I try to see Godzilla vs. King Kong or An King Kong. What's it called? X King Kong. X King Kong. X Kong. I don't know. But I didn't make it out to the theater.
00:02:30
Speaker
I just stayed home depressed instead. How about you, buddy? Well, I was flying. I had a work trip that was very like a quick fly in, fly out type of thing. And I watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood on the plane. I've seen it before, but I had like it was like the perfect it was the exact length of the flight. So I watched it and really kind of like got a new appreciation for that film. And then I watched Galaxy Quest.
00:02:59
Speaker
Well, that's a classic. I made the kids watch it because that's one of my favorites.
Film Nostalgia: "Galaxy Quest" and "Les Samurai"
00:03:03
Speaker
Have you seen Galaxy Quest, Kat? I don't think I have actually. No. Oh, it's a great. It's a great. It's like a it's like a Star Trek kind of like parody satire about like the convention life after they close it. And then then real aliens kidnap the actors because they believe the shows were real.
00:03:24
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just a light hearted comedy that just makes a lot of nerdy Star Trek jokes. Yeah. It's pretty good. Yeah. Was that kind of older, like 20 years ago or something? Oh, yeah. 99, I think. Yeah. Oh, really? 99? Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. It has like Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver.
00:03:45
Speaker
The cast is actually like insane in that movie. Time goes by so fast. But yeah, it's like I haven't watched anything new. They've been doing just a lot of rewatch it. And I watched Les Samurai in the in the hotel. Any guys ever seen that one? That movie, French Melville, I believe, John Pierre Melville. God damn, that movie's so fucking good.
00:04:08
Speaker
It's like one of those movies that you watch and you're just like I I don't want to I don't want to make movies like I can't make it I can never do a movie like this. It's so fucking cool and like it's really good everything like the looks down to the lighting and
00:04:19
Speaker
It also is not fair when people shoot in France. I think you get such rich environments. Compared to where we live. I know. It's like, we just got bedsheets on the wall. We're in trouble.
Screenwriting Influences and Inspirations
00:04:33
Speaker
So then Kat, do you watch a lot of films to help kind of inspire you or drive the creative screenwriting?
00:04:43
Speaker
Yeah, well, I guess a combination of film and TV. I think there's only so much that you can fit in when you're trying to fit in the writing as well and working and everything else, being a parent, all that sort of stuff. But I do, yeah, I do sort of seek things out, you know, like I get this, I follow IndieWire on Instagram, you know, and other things. And, you know, you kind of get tips from there and you think, okay, yeah, we'll check that out. Yeah, that sounds pretty good.
00:05:13
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I tend to like things like, well, I mean, Black Mirror, obviously, was, you know, a standout right from the first series. And, you know, that's something that I really, yeah, really enjoy watching. And I think Charlie Brooker is really spot on and
00:05:31
Speaker
quite scarily spot on with some of the things that that he comes up with which is just so similar to what we actually see in real life that you know it's kind of you know it makes you think and you know it makes you well yeah sometimes a bit scared about what might happen and some of the things that he's even put in Blackberry have have even come
00:05:54
Speaker
you know, pretty much, um, to fruition. So, uh, yeah, quite, quite scary. Um, but yes, a good watch, a good watch, definitely. Okay. Yeah. So you're primarily a screenwriter, right? Dipping your toes into directing pretty soon or currently, depending on where you are in production, but with the screenwriting, um, how do you,
Learning Screenwriting: Structure and Adaptations
00:06:21
Speaker
How do you study for that? Do you just read books like on how to screen write? Do you read a lot of books in general? Are you getting it from YouTube? Are you watching a lot of films like Black Mirror to kind of help inspire you on how to craft a film? How do you go about doing that? I would say a bit of all of the above, really. So I mean, when I got into screenwriting, it was kind of
00:06:50
Speaker
by accident. I had an idea in my head. I had this kind of dialogue popping through my head. And I thought, Oh, yeah, that's quite, that's quite fun. I might write that down. I might come back to that one day. And then one day was the next day and the next day and the next day. And before I knew it, I had my my first pilot script. But in order to actually build it out into a script, I had to actually know
00:07:12
Speaker
how to do that. I did some online training through University of East Anglia and that taught me about structure and things. It didn't tell me so much about the formatting, so then I had to look up other resources on how to format a screenplay and what tools to use and all this stuff. Then you read some screenplays to get an idea. You look at blogs or Instagram feeds to see, well, this is what you should avoid doing and all these things.
00:07:41
Speaker
really a combination of all of those things. And I guess from any kind of reading that I've done in my lifetime or watching shows, watching films, you, I think, naturally get some kind of idea of the structure that something might follow. If you are going to go through the three act structure for a film, for example, you've seen so many films that that's almost instinctive. So yes, I think it has to be a combination of all of those things, really.
00:08:08
Speaker
When you first started looking into the formatting and reading scripts, do you remember any of the screenplays that you read? There was one that sticks in my mind, and I'm trying to think of the name of the actual film. I know that sounds weird. Oh, gosh. Something like Never Sometimes. I don't know. You might have to cut that bit.
00:08:37
Speaker
It was quite a gritty film about a teenager who gets pregnant and has to go and get an abortion. Always sometimes never.
00:08:51
Speaker
Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, that was, uh, that was very well written and, uh, yeah, very, very good. I haven't read the screenplay, but I've seen the movie and that was a, that was a rough one. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Not, not for the faint hearted. Yeah. I'm gonna write screenplays. Let me start with what about abortion.
00:09:17
Speaker
Most people are like I'm gonna do Bambi or you know I want to read like the screenplay for I don't know like Home Alone but no it's like yeah well I did also look up the screenplay for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind because I really liked that film and somebody said to me oh what you could do is
00:09:35
Speaker
watch the film whilst reading the screenplay and see how the two things kind of compare. And I tried doing that but actually the screenplay that I had had got from an online source was not
00:09:50
Speaker
this was not the final, obviously not the final product. So the lines that they were speaking in the films were slightly different. So I found, well, I found that to be an interesting exercise because you do then see that, okay, that may have been the shooting script, but actually the way things play out, things might change and evolve as the shoot progresses and you might have to edit certain bits out and whatever. So I guess what you end up with is the final product isn't necessarily what you start with when you go into production.
00:10:19
Speaker
Absolutely. I mean, the film changes so much. That's why we always like say like, don't get too hung up. Like when you're writing the screenplay, like if you're like, oh, I need the perfect like word. It's like.
00:10:31
Speaker
Man, that whole scene could just be cut on the day. That's something that Steve and I have seen, especially in editing. We were like, okay, this scene actually came later, but we moved it way earlier because it had a better resonance and fit in with the context of the story better to come earlier. And you're like, well, it's hard to plan for stuff like that. And then when you were saying the version might have been different that you were reading, but it could have just been,
00:10:58
Speaker
ad-libbing or they change the lines on the day. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. Charlie Kaufman, did he write the scripts as well? Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, I wonder why it's so good. Yeah, I think I started off with mine was there will be blood. And then I read recently that you shouldn't refer to a PTA script because it's not really formatted like a lot of other scripts. So I didn't really know that.
00:11:25
Speaker
But that was a big one for me that I referenced a lot. That one in Chinatown were like the two scripts I would refer to to just see like formatting and how the writer would go about structuring the scene and describing it and everything. So I think screenplays are pretty useful. I know some people will actually spend their time reading screenplays, but I don't know.
00:11:51
Speaker
I don't know how useful it continues to be once you kind of have the general idea.
Screenwriting Guidelines and Flexibility
00:11:57
Speaker
I mean, maybe if you just enjoy it, that's one thing because you can, you know, churn out a script in like one day, just read the whole thing. Yeah. And as you say, sometimes the way things are written by people who are established writers, who are, you know, already kind of have that reputation set up, you know, that they can
00:12:15
Speaker
maybe have a bit more leeway in how they do something. Maybe they can have longer descriptions or maybe they can put a picture into their screenplay or play around with the fonts. But if you're going to submit that to a competition or you're going to send that to a producer and you're not a professional yet and you're looking to get that traction, they probably just think that you don't know what you're doing. It can be a bit dangerous. I guess you probably need to, I don't know,
00:12:46
Speaker
look at the guidance on the formatting, you may, I don't know, you may tweak the odd thing where you think, actually, I think there is, it's justified to do that in this instance. You know, like put a parent's article, which people say, No, don't do that. Don't do that. Well, there might be the odd one that you could put in there, just don't litter it with them. So you have to kind of, you know, look for the guidance, look at what people are doing, you know, as professional screenwriters, but also know that, you know,
00:13:16
Speaker
I guess professional screenwriters may get a little more leeway to play around with things, I suppose. There's an interesting script that maybe you might be interested in checking out. I sent it to Tom and he went on a long tirade on that one, but it's actually the script for Oppenheimer because the way Christopher Nolan wrote it, he wrote it in first person.
00:13:39
Speaker
So like the action lines are like, I went over and did this. And then he talks and I'm like, ah. Yeah, Tom didn't like it, but I thought it was really interesting and neat to see that. And, you know, like you were talking about, if you're more established and in his case, of course he directed the film. So, you know, who's going to criticize that? He directs his films, he writes. Yeah.
00:14:06
Speaker
So that was really interesting to read that script. I only read like the first page or something like that, but it was interesting to just see that. And also it kind of just kept it more interesting than reading the normal formatting for a screenplay too. Yeah, it felt more like a novelization almost because of the first person aspect.
Kat's Writing Journey and Encouragement
00:14:26
Speaker
Because it wasn't like characters are doing things. It was how the one character was seeing and reacting to things.
00:14:33
Speaker
Which is like, but that's not like, I'm going to shoot that in a movie. Like, is it just going to be like his face? Like, I don't know. I don't know. I wasn't a fan of it, but it's also like no, no one can do whatever the hell he wants. Like he could throw mud at a piece of paper and say, let's figure out how to shoot that. You know, like, and then people, everyone, you could get Robert Downey Jr. to try. Like we're not, I'm not at that level, right? Like I,
00:14:57
Speaker
I'm like begging people to come out and hang out with me with like a can of fruit, a fruit cocktail or something, you know, like, please, I don't got much, but that's a cocktail, you know. But yeah, I wanted to take it back to the beginning and your early life. And like when you started, like when you kind of realized like you had like a creative nature, was it always writing or was were you exploring other medias and mediums?
00:15:26
Speaker
Well, I would probably split it into two pieces. I think, you know, when I was, when I was at school, I enjoyed being in school productions and, you know, I liked being on the stage and I did drama and, you know, I really enjoyed that. Then I, when I went to university and I kind of joined this, you know, drama freshers club and, you know, I felt
00:15:50
Speaker
Hugely out of my depth and I kind of shrank away from it and and then I just didn't go back to it then because you know you kind of get you know on another tangent and you know I was doing my degree then I got a job and working in finance and I kind of went
00:16:09
Speaker
on a completely different trajectory. And then it was a few years ago when I had this idea, and it just kind of had to be written down. And I didn't expect it to immediately develop into anything. It was more of a, okay, yeah, that's quite interesting, write it down. I should probably add that this was during COVID lockdown, so it was probably a little bit of
00:16:32
Speaker
you know, lockdown fatigue hitting as well, like my brain was probably just thinking, okay, I need something else to think about other than, you know, not trying not to track COVID. Can we do something else here? And yeah, so then I kind of got the writing bug and luckily not COVID as well.
00:16:52
Speaker
So yeah, so that was, I guess, a silver lining from a very big cloud was that I kind of got the writing bug. And yeah, so that's how that developed. And then, like I say, I kind of wrote that down. I made that into a pilot episode.
00:17:13
Speaker
And I sent that off for some feedback and I got some really incredibly good feedback. So that was the first script I'd ever written. You know, they talked about masterful storytelling, for example, and I'm like.
00:17:23
Speaker
Really? Okay, right. Maybe I'll do another. So, so then I did, you know, then I started to build a network as well. So I came across, you know, stage 32, for example, which is, you know, kind of a filmmaking networking site. And through that, I met a fellow writer, I met a few fellow writers, some we did like script swaps,
00:17:47
Speaker
reviewing each other's scripts to give feedback. Another person wanted somebody to co-write with, so we co-wrote a pilot. I wrote a feature, so I got really into it. That was my first year where I just started building everything.
From Short Film to Production Preparation
00:18:04
Speaker
Then I, in parallel with that, was continuing to educate myself whether it was through blogs and online guidance or whether it was through webinars and courses and things like that.
00:18:17
Speaker
So the following year I went and did a couple of weeks at London Film Academy which was really really good on their screenwriting course and it was actually there that I wrote my first short film. Now people have been saying to me when I started writing you know all these kind of you know blogs and things like that and people who've done this before they were like write a short film and then make that short film because
00:18:41
Speaker
showing people what you can do as a writer is really hard if you don't make anything because not everyone is going to want to sit down and read your screenplay. You know, that is the brutal truth. So if you want people to actually see what you can write in a digestible format that isn't requiring them to sit down and read something, then make it. And then you can send them a link and then you can build, you know, if you'd enjoy it, you do it again, you know, you start to build the, you know, showreel or whatever.
00:19:10
Speaker
So I thought, okay, that's good advice, but at the moment I don't have a short film. I don't have a short film idea, but I kept that at the back of my mind. So then when I wrote this short, I thought, okay, maybe then that could be the one that I make. I built it out then into a pilot, into a series outline.
00:19:28
Speaker
And I spoke to somebody on a directing course last year and he said, don't start with that. It's a great idea to do that kind of proof of concept short that you can use as both a standalone thing and as a proof of concept for a pilot.
00:19:44
Speaker
But don't start with that one. Start with a different one where you can kind of cut your teeth and then if you want to do that one and you've learned some things from doing your other projects along the way, then you can go into doing that proof of concept and kind of pour your energies and learning and everything into that.
00:20:02
Speaker
So then I had to kind of take a little bit of a step backwards, but I think sometimes you do have to take a step backwards in order to move forward. So I thought, okay, what can I do then? What can I write? And I had this idea that it kind of been germinating a couple of months earlier around, well, I was inspired by the fact that
00:20:25
Speaker
sometimes we are really a lot hotter on ourselves than we would ever be on anybody else. The kind of voice inside our head that tells us that you can't do this and you shouldn't wear that and how could you even expect that you could win that or that you could compete with that person or whatever. That voice that's always, well for some people anyway.
00:20:46
Speaker
but running in the background. It's so much harsher than we would ever speak to anybody else in that voice. So I thought, okay, what if I write something where you extract that voice and that voice becomes an external person? So that's where this short came from. So you've got the person who is weighed down by this voice, then you've got this separate materialization of that voice.
00:21:14
Speaker
And I quite liked that idea and I wanted it to be, but I wanted it to be a positive film even though it's about this kind of, I don't know, self-abusive relationship. And so I thought, okay, well then she has to triumph. The person who's dragging herself down has to triumph against herself effectively. So she successfully kills that voice.
00:21:41
Speaker
Yeah, so it's quite an empowering film, I guess. And so I thought, OK, I'm going to start with that because it's a quite simple setup. There's just a few characters, a couple of settings. It's not going to have any funky special effects or anything like that. So yeah, so that's what I decided to make. So this year is the year of the filmmaker. So nice. Yeah.
00:22:07
Speaker
So how have you felt about starting to develop a project for yourself outside of, sounds like you're directing, producing, acting, maybe? Are you gonna act? No, not acting, directing, co-producing, and I wrote it, so yeah. So how has that experience been, and then are you kind of starting to catch that all-encompassing filmmaker bug? Because I know that was something that happened to me. I was always just the writer, and then I made a few shorts, and then I was like, no, I like doing all of this too.
00:22:38
Speaker
I mean, I'm learning a lot at the moment.
Balancing Filmmaking and Personal Life
00:22:42
Speaker
And I think sometimes the best way to learn is by doing, you know, so I did, you know, some kind of introduction courses, you know, introduction to filmmaking, introduction to directing, you know, courses last year. And I thought, you know, then, okay, I've got the kind of the
00:23:01
Speaker
General idea and now I need to kind of do it and and you know keep on like we're learning as I'm doing it So that's kind of what I'm doing right now And do I think that I've caught the general bug I think I would want to Reserve answering that one I would say I would say so far what I would say is it's it's
00:23:31
Speaker
a lot of work. I think that's because I'm learning and doing at the same time, but I think it would be a lot of work anyway to get all the cast and crew together. That's been my focus to date, and we're going to go into the deeper level of all the preparations. It's a big undertaking, and I think
00:23:52
Speaker
I think I would have to make a judgment call as to whether I would want to use my creative hours on making more of my content or whether I would want to actually write more content because I think trying to do both while struggling everything else is probably a bit optimistic.
00:24:10
Speaker
Yeah, definitely especially like with family and work like that's something I've noticed myself is just like you Literally have to just like cut some stuff because you are only able to do so much I mean unless you can like manage like two hours of sleep a day Like I don't understand how people like it's like you gotta race the kids like I can abandon the kids but like that's a pain
00:24:35
Speaker
Don't know if I want to necessarily do that. It's like I can't really quit my job because like the kids like to eat stuff, you know Yeah, I know those selfish jerks like peanut butter and jelly is not free you guys
00:24:50
Speaker
But yeah, like it's such a struggle because you do want at least I don't know if you get if you get this way, but I know I get this way where I just like there's so much stuff I want to do. Like I want to write and I want to be making stuff. I want to do this. And it's like and then I look and it's like, well, it's Sunday night at six p.m. And if I don't get to bed, I'm only going to get like seven hours of sleep. And then I got to wake up and drive. And yeah.
00:25:14
Speaker
So yeah, Steven, you haven't said anything in a while, buddy. How you doing? How you doing over there? Well, yeah. I did want to get into that, like the juggling of, you know, your life with work, but in regards to your project, where are you at within that? I mean, I'm assuming pre-production, but what stage in pre-production and then how has that been so far?
Casting and Collaboration
00:25:36
Speaker
We're at the point where we've got the majority of the cast and crew lined up and started to do some of the documentation and things like that. But I think the next step is going to be getting into rehearsals and shop planning and just getting everything ready for the big days.
00:26:06
Speaker
How much involvement did you have in the casting? I was the one who reached out both to my network on LinkedIn, for example, and also going to one of these recruitment apps and putting out the opportunity, also setting up the castings, also running the castings. I had my co-producer with me as well for the castings because I think it's
00:26:35
Speaker
it's useful to have somebody else there to then you can talk afterwards. What do you think about this? Have somebody there to help to read some of the lines in between and things like that. It's been me driving it and then the co-producer coming along for part of that. Yeah. What was the most useful resource for finding these potential actors to work with?
00:27:05
Speaker
Well, Star Now was the one that I selected. To be honest, they were very helpful. After I set up my template, they reached out on the email and said, if you need any guidance, we'll help you with that.
00:27:24
Speaker
So yeah, they were really good and yeah, really helped with any kind of technical questions that I had. And yeah, and a few questions about the process. So yeah. Was it pretty exciting to see the actors delivering the sides and all of that and seeing the potential person you might, who might fill that protagonist role?
00:27:48
Speaker
Yeah, definitely, definitely. God, I really enjoy the auditions, really seeing people bring the characters to life and how different people say different lines as well and how they interpret a certain thing. I think that was really, really, really enjoyable.
00:28:05
Speaker
I think that's where you also find how strong your voice is to you as a writer, because sometimes people will say things and you're like, the fuck? Why are they saying it like that? Like, I would like not a thousand years would I ever say a line like that. But like, and then you're like, oh, wait, that's just because that's how I talk.
00:28:22
Speaker
And then I think as a writer, it's hard to dial that back because I don't want people to talk how I talk necessarily because that would be terrible. People don't listen to the show because of how I talk, but maybe not. That's not true. I don't know. That bus episode.
00:28:39
Speaker
But yeah, I know when we were doing auditions, it's so exciting to hear people read your lines and stuff. And then you hear someone read it in a way that's completely different. You're like, what the hell? Am I the worst writer in the world? And then the next audition, the person reads it more in your voice and your style. And you're like, no, I'm the greatest writer in the world. So did you have any issues like that where it was like you could hear your voice coming through very strongly as the actors are reading?
00:29:12
Speaker
I wouldn't say I necessarily heard my voice, but maybe that's because I'm a bit biased. But I definitely heard, in some cases, the character really coming through. When you're writing it, you have this kind of vision, both how it will look and how it will sound.
00:29:37
Speaker
And then when you see and hear someone and they're like that, you're like, yes, that's brilliant. That's yeah, definitely. Um, yeah, so that, that was really cool. Did you run into any difficult choices in the casting, like torn between two different actors?
00:29:53
Speaker
Yes, yes, absolutely. And for this film, we had, well, we've got this, the character, the protagonist is, well, both the protagonist and the antagonist are essentially the same person. But when we see this, you know, materialization of her, you know, critic,
00:30:14
Speaker
it's actually not her now, she's in her 50s, it's her like, you know, 25 years ago or something. So she's not, she's not giving herself a fair comparison, you know, because sometimes I think what we do is we think, like I say, you know, we, we're not as
00:30:35
Speaker
uh you know we're not what we used to be we're not as energetic as we used to be we're not as um skinny as we used to be or when you know we're not as smart maybe we are smarter than we used to be um but kind of think that we uh we yeah i guess we don't give ourselves a fair ride sometimes you know and that's basically the situation that she's in and so in order to then cast it you kind of think well you need somebody for the younger role and the older role who look
00:31:05
Speaker
like they could have been the same person. That was very tricky. I quite like this person for this character and that person for that character, but you couldn't necessarily put them together. So that really was a really, really hard decision as well.
00:31:22
Speaker
Yeah. Did you write around that by just saying it's like the manifestation of like how she thought she looked or how she thought she felt? Yes. And that actually is what it is. That is a money. It is like a rose tinted version. Because I would be cheating that all day, man.
00:31:37
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it is a rose tinted glasses. Yeah, definitely. But it still had to look, you know, in some way, I guess, similar. Yeah, it has to be. You have to try. Yeah, exactly. In reality, unless you find a great mother, daughter, or cousin, or something, good luck, right? There's no one that looks like me anymore. All of us died off in the great COVID plague, you know?
00:32:04
Speaker
People that look like me didn't make it. Sorry, I don't know where I went with that. But what I wanted to ask is, so you had mentioned casting and
00:32:19
Speaker
going into the next steps. Are you kind of developing a crew of friends? Are you trying to hire this professionally? How has that kind of process been? Because away from the casting side and more on the crew side, are you hiring a DP? Do you have a crew setup? How is that working?
Building a Crew and Networking
00:32:37
Speaker
Well, I started out looking for when I was looking for crew. So I was on a film shoot last year as a script supervisor. And part of my reason for for doing that was because I wanted to try and meet.
00:32:52
Speaker
filmmakers, I'd read, I'd met lots of writers and I wanted to, you know, and I've met lots of people online, but I wanted to meet some, you know, filmmakers who were not necessarily writers, you know, so other, you know, you know, crew members. And, and I also wanted to experience a film set and see, you know, learn so much, learn so much on that shoot just from like being there. So that was really great. And, you know, I took the opportunity to kind of mention to people, oh, I'm
00:33:20
Speaker
I might make my own short at some point, you know, if you might be interested, you know, I'll give you a shout. And then, so that was my first port of call was to reach out to those guys and say, look, if anybody's interested, just drop me a line. And yeah, a few of them came back to me, about half a dozen came back to me. So that was great. So yeah, so I've got that kind of starting point.
00:33:46
Speaker
And that was just before Christmas when I reached out to those guys. And when I got so many people coming back saying, yeah, we're interested, we're interested, I thought.
00:33:54
Speaker
Okay, I've got to do it now. I've got to actually go ahead and put it out there. So yeah, that kind of set the clock ticking a little bit because I think you can wait forever until you actually feel fully ready to do it. But I think when you just say to people, yeah, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. You could not do it. But if you say to people, do you want to join me on this journey? Then you haven't just said, I'm going to do it. You said, I am definitely doing it. You know, I'm going to make this happen.
00:34:24
Speaker
Yeah, and it's terrifying because that's like the train left the station the second someone else says yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When it's just you, you can fantasize about it all day, but you've materialized it into reality now. Like this is a thing. People have expectations now and it's go time. And yeah, that's yeah, you cannot. Yeah.
00:34:47
Speaker
But that's a good thing, because I think too many people just live in that fantasy reality, right? Like, if only I had this, I would be able to do that. It's like, no, let's just do that. Exactly. So you're doing everything right so far, Kat. I mean, not that I can say, I have some kind of judgment on this, but everything you're saying is just like, bam, bam, bam. She's got her shit together. You really know what you're doing.
00:35:13
Speaker
Like, it's nice to hear, yeah. And like your story, you can use that excuse of, well, I need this to get that, you can let that yourself doubt.
00:35:25
Speaker
you know, come out in that way and keep you from taking that step. So, you know, I think that's one of the most beautiful things about film is that it is collaborative. And, you know, once you really get people to invest their time, well, then you owe it to them to deliver on that investment they did for you. So- Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And that actually, yeah, I mean, you know, you do have points where you think,
00:35:53
Speaker
Oh my God, can I do this? And then you think, well, I'm kind of invested now and it's not just me who've invested, but other people are invested. People who have spent their time submitting self-tapes and auditioning and preparing various templates and information.
00:36:12
Speaker
Having those chats with you about your vision and all that kind of stuff and it's like okay okay so yeah I just gotta just gotta make it happen now and it's not just me it's other people who are gonna help me make that happen so I think that's the other thing as well you know but that takes me I would say
00:36:28
Speaker
hugely outside my comfort zone. I'm the kind of person who struggles to ask even my best friend to do something for me. Reaching out to people who I've come across a couple of times maybe, or even in the case of going out on star now, I've never met them before. I'm saying, yeah, I'm doing this thing. Do you want to
00:36:52
Speaker
Kind of do it with me. Yeah, massively outside my comfort zone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But that's good to be pushed outside of your comfort zone. You know, I think as a creative, you know, that's a really important thing to motivate you and allow that real growth to happen.
00:37:15
Speaker
Yeah. I think everything that I've done since I started writing has pushed me outside of my comfort zone. The writing was pushing me outside of my comfort zone. Although because it was just me and my laptop, it felt more comfortable than some of the rest of it. It's just for your eyes only, right? Exactly. It gets to be this intimate thing. How difficult was it then to show your work for the first time to someone else?
00:37:47
Speaker
Oh, yeah, it was really, really nerve wracking. And, you know, I sent something to a very good friend, and I know she understands me. And so I thought, you know, that was kind of a nice, gentle start. But then I also kind of sent it off for some professional, professional opinion. And then I also got somebody, you know, kind of reaching out to me through stage 32, where I put my script up there. And, you know, she
00:38:14
Speaker
proactively offered me some feedback, even though I hadn't asked for it. And it was good, by the way. But yeah, and that started a really nice writing relationship as well, you know, somebody who I kind of keep in touch with, we script swap and things like that. So I think, yeah, I think the filmmaking community is highly collaborative, you know, and I think, you know, it's
00:38:43
Speaker
Like you say making a film whether it's you know a short film or you know a big budget you know Christopher Nolan thing is you know it you know they say this about you know raising a family takes a village you know it's kind of a lot it's a lot and you need people and you need everyone to kind of yeah do that do their do their thing. Yeah I can't think of another art form that requires as many people to like create one product.
00:39:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's it's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, like what else like that? I mean, like you need like drivers, like people to just drive people around like, well, you don't have to. But, you know, like on big film sets or transportation crews, there's.
00:39:22
Speaker
every I mean water trucks to like wet the street so you get like that perfect like lighting on the street things like I mean you're in England so you don't probably have to worry about that I'm sure it probably rained the night before but uh out here in California it's it's it's pretty dry um but I wanted to ask about that because you had mentioned you had done some co-writing what was that experience like um Stephen and I co-write a lot and then we also write separately but I always feel like when I co-write it's um
The Benefits of Co-Writing
00:39:50
Speaker
I'm almost like getting a first pass of the edit through just because he's catching stuff and I'm catching stuff that do the collaboration. It's almost like you're getting a version ahead, essentially. So can you talk about your experience on co-writing and what that was like?
00:40:09
Speaker
Yeah, I met another writer. He had this idea that I really liked the sound of, which was this mishmash of parents or grandparents who get thrown together in their neighborhood into this parent club. They have some unusual methods for helping each other. So the parent club is where you
00:40:37
Speaker
offer each other advice or kind of share your parenting woes and try and get some advice on that. But it's just kind of done in a sort of comedic way and that in order to maybe be open with your fellow parents, grandparents, neighbors, etc., that maybe you could have a little something to loosen the tongue, in this case mushrooms.
00:41:03
Speaker
And yeah, so it was Ocelosabin, so it was kind of an interesting kind of take on that format, I suppose. And so it intrigued me. I thought, yeah, yeah, I quite like this idea. I love this idea. And, you know, really had a good vibe with the other writer, a guy called Nathan Hellaire. We have very different voices, myself and Nathan. So I think that
00:41:31
Speaker
what he wanted to do was bring together and there were other people who had an input into the scripts as well. But it was largely Nathan driving and me helping and we had these Zoom calls where we would do some writing live together and other things where we would take something away and go, okay, let's brainstorm something and then you go away and write that scene and then we'll come back and tweak it together and things like that.
00:42:00
Speaker
So yeah, so we did that and I found that what we ended up with as a product, if you'd have just taken the scene that I wrote, the scene that he wrote, the scene that I wrote, the scene that he wrote and put them together,
00:42:17
Speaker
That would not be a coherent script. And it would be very different to what we ended up with when we actually came together to bring all of that together. So I found that actually the final product was
00:42:33
Speaker
greater than some of the parts because of how you kind of then merge your two voices together you know so so yeah it was it was great experience like that i guess i'm that's what i'm trying to kind of say that you know we produce something that was something you know
00:42:53
Speaker
better than either of us could have produced individually, I would say, because you had that. So when you do come to an impasse or a disagreement, how were you guys resolving that or did that happen at all? Because we just yell at each other when we don't agree. Normally, I just give in because we don't talk to each other for like two weeks. Then we have to send texts like, I'm sorry.
00:43:16
Speaker
That's not true. So I'm very anti-confrontation. That's not my style. Me too. I'll just be like, eh. I'll just agree with it and then I'll write what I want in when you start looking. And luckily I forget everything, so I won't remember. Yeah. We actually had a bit of context where we wrote live. Sorry, go ahead. Oh, no. I was just tangent. Jumped on tangent. Sorry. I asked a question and I should have got the answer. My apologies.
00:43:44
Speaker
I mean, I wouldn't say we had any kind of, you know, disagreements during the writing. I would say that there might be points where, you know, I would think a particular line might work and he might think a particular different line might work and, you know, you try to kind of, I don't know.
00:44:00
Speaker
compromise along the way, I suppose. But yeah, I thought it was a very, like I say, very positive, very positive experience. And yeah, it was it was good to to see how other people approach things as well. You know, I think sometimes when you're writing and you've got your way and you've got your voice and, you know, you get into a groove, you know, whereas when you have to write with or you choose to write with other people, then, you know, you kind of
00:44:30
Speaker
Yeah, see how other people approach it. Do you think you're going to continue to co-write or do you want to just do that solitary? I would say I would do it again for...
00:44:45
Speaker
Yeah, it would depend on what it was that somebody wanted to do. So is it an idea that I think appeals to me as a writer? Is it something that might get me some kind of additional networking, some opportunities? Maybe that co-writer has already got some kind of attachments to the project or something like that. So I guess it would depend on what it is really.
00:45:16
Speaker
get a good feeling from the person who you're gonna be, personal people who you're gonna be co-writing with. And I guess, you know, I can say that now because I'm not employed in a writer's room. I know that, you know, if you then did start working in a writer's room or, you know, start taking on, you know, professional projects, you would be in that co-writing position anyway. So I think it's a good thing to have that experience of co-writing before you get to that stage.
00:45:46
Speaker
Yeah. And you had mentioned, you know, a story that you're drawn to. So as a writer, what kind of stories draw you in? What kind of stories hook you? For instance, like you were talking about this story that wouldn't leave you alone during COVID.
Writing Genres and Themes
00:46:00
Speaker
What's the hook there for you?
00:46:03
Speaker
That was kind of a meet-cute, so that was kind of a romance thing. And yeah, I'd say my scripts often do fall into romance categories, often with a little bit of, I wouldn't necessarily call them rom-coms, but with a little bit of, you know, very British humor. And sometimes with a bit of
00:46:32
Speaker
magical realism or grounded sci-fi so something like you know time travel for example but you're not kind of seeing the time travel machines or anything like that it's more kind of implied from you know what
00:46:44
Speaker
It's more about the characters, more about their story. The time travel is just kind of a plot device, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. It's like sci-fi light, right? Like you don't need the technical details of how the time travel works. You just need a character to travel in time to create an interesting hook to the story. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:08
Speaker
It's interesting you say that you mostly write romance and stuff and then you talked about reading the script for, what was it, like sometimes always never. I can't, that's a word title. I can't remember what exactly it is. But I wanted to talk about like tackling difficult subjects and stepping out of your comfort zone as a writer. Like do you have limits that you as a writer think you wouldn't go to?
00:47:30
Speaker
Um, maybe that's asking like five questions, but, um, like, do you have, do you have limits as a writer then? Like, and like, and how do you get past, um, that if the story calls for it? So do I have limits as in, do I.
00:47:44
Speaker
I have limitations where I think I couldn't write something or more like ethically objecting to something. I'm never going to write about Martians because I don't like Martians or something. The big one, I guess, would be sexual assault. I'm not going to write anything like that in any of my stories because it makes me uncomfortable. It's not subject I want to tackle or discuss or things like that. You would just never write that into a script. Something like that. Have you had an
00:48:14
Speaker
Have you written anything that you made you question your level of comfort in telling a story?
Handling Challenging Topics in Writing
00:48:23
Speaker
And then do you have subjects that you don't want to touch essentially?
00:48:31
Speaker
I haven't been in a situation where I've had to write about something that I didn't want to write about, because most of my writing has been self-driven, with the exception of that co-written piece. And I think if I found myself in that situation, I would just have to say, look, I don't feel comfortable with this.
00:48:52
Speaker
But I have written about some sort of heavier stuff as well. I guess, you know, some one of my scripts featured some abusive relationships, for example. And, you know, so, you know, yeah, I think but you have to.
00:49:08
Speaker
If I hadn't wanted to write that, I didn't have to write that. I think if you were in a writer's room and you came across something like that that you didn't feel comfortable with, I guess you would have to just kind of be honest about it.
00:49:22
Speaker
But like stepping out, like the reason I'm asking is because I think as a writer, sometimes the story dictates to you more than you dictate to the story in a sense. And you're like, this is where it's going. It's like, oh, I didn't really anticipate that this is kind of where I like. At least that's how I write. I don't know. I don't necessarily like to outline because I kind of like the universe just like tell me where I'm going. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, same.
00:49:47
Speaker
And then sometimes I'd be like, Oh, geez, I wasn't expecting like this person to like, you know, do this. And then like it approaches into difficult situations because like we have in our film that we that we Stephen and I did, there's a very intense scene, but that we tried to like, do it in a way where it's more suggested what is happening than what you actually see on screen.
00:50:11
Speaker
And it's just this the scene is like, it's, it's pretty like, even when we're editing, and it's like, Jesus Christ, we shot this fuck. Like, are we a sadist or something? But then it's like, and but then it's like, you know, you kind of it's like, this is what's out there. Like, this is, you know, an unfortunate aspect of the human experience.
00:50:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's like, you know, and it's like, you know, it was an uncomfortable day on the set and everything. And it's just like, man, it was just it was it was just a crazy thing. And so like, I feel like I don't know if that was like necessarily out stepping outside of our comfort zone. Like we made sure everyone was safe and comfortable. But just the context is like, Jesus, fuck.
00:50:54
Speaker
Yeah, it was uncomfortable in a good way. Yeah, where we're like, oh, we're actually okay. Even if the audience doesn't feel it, like we feel it like so we like, we're not crazy or something. And it's just like, yeah, sometimes I'm like, I kind of want the audience to be uncomfortable. Like I watch movies that will make me uncomfortable because I like to it's like,
00:51:20
Speaker
I don't want to necessarily hide from even the darkest parts of humanity, I guess, because that's just the reality of our reality, I guess. I may have just said that twice, but I don't know. These beers are hitting me in a weird way, I guess. Sorry about that. It's early in the morning, that's why. I'm tripping through time on your psilocybin thing, like, let's go. We'll get to happy questions, I promise.
00:51:49
Speaker
Yeah, but but on this subject, I think, you know, some of it does depend on what genre you're writing as well. So if you're writing about if you're writing a relationship drama, for example, then
00:52:00
Speaker
the drama has to come from somewhere. The drama might come from some unpleasant source and then you have to deal with that and then maybe you have to make it worse for the character because that's more dramatic. So you're kind of having to write for the genre as well. So yeah, there might be times when you have to go into difficult places. And I think when you're a writer, well,
00:52:27
Speaker
I guess the way I work is I try and kind of put myself into the character's shoes the whole time. So I think when you are writing something quite difficult, you know, it's like, okay, I need a breather now. That's why it's something more lighthearted next time because, yeah, that's pretty intense. But yeah, I guess it is kind of, I guess, a natural part of the journey unless you just write comedies all the time. But, you know, some people, maybe they do.
00:52:54
Speaker
But if I write, you know, kind of a romantic drama, yes, there's going to be some unpleasant parts in that potentially. And if you something, the other thing about writing romance is you can have, you know, people getting to know each other physically, shall we say. And it's more like about the buildup and the aftermath. So how do they
00:53:17
Speaker
get to that point, how do they get to know each other? How do they want to be in that position? And how are they feeling as they approach the bedroom door, but then you close the door and then I don't need to write about what happens between the sheets, but then afterwards when they are reacting to each other, okay, so are they distant with each other or are they giggling? And then you kind of, yeah, I guess I kind of write around it really. But I think, yeah, best left to people's imaginations where possible.
00:53:46
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's true in most aspects.
The Power of Imagination in Storytelling
00:53:49
Speaker
Like, you know, people always say like, Jaws is scary because you don't really see the shark, right? Like, sometimes it's the, what you imagine can always be more powerful than, or forcing the imagination of your audience is more powerful than sometimes just slapping them in the face with it.