What makes effective feature film development? How do we know if a development process is making a project stronger, and what do we do if it’s not? Unique voice is prized, yet are we taking the creative risks necessary to craft work that stands out?

The Script to Screen Writer’s Room brought together an exceptional panel of industry experts last year to share their views formed over a range of projects and development cultures. MC editor Cushla Dillon was joined by development executive (L!bertine P!ctures) Emily Anderton, US writer/director Jake Mahaffy, producer Philippa Campbell and story consultant Brita McVeigh to talk about the development process, and whether or not we are truly fostering creativity.

So what does good development look like? Cushla defined development as ‘from inception of the idea through to the first day of shooting.’ What happens to a script? Who are the people involved? What kind of help can you, as a writer, take and what kind should you avoid?

Cushla began by asking each panellist to outline their process.

“I don’t really have a fixed process, it’s different every time,” said Brita. “It’s largely dependent on what the writer is consciously asking for, my determination of what they need and don’t know that they need. Many will come with funding in place, asking for help to lose ten pages, sharpen dialogue – that’s a conscious thing. Some ask if I will be the script consultant on their funding application to the Film Commission. If I don’t know them, I ask to read their material and determine from that whether I can help. If so, I can usually offer a fixed time frame for their process.”

Emily said one of the main reasons writers come to her is because of the Film Commission requirements. “They want you to have a script editor. When you are writing a script, it’s hard to see it from all the main dimensions a film has and that’s how a script editor can help. When you watch a film, you’re stepping into an alternative reality. Whatever the genre, that world is completely 3-dimensional in every way. Even very experienced writers benefit from someone sitting outside of that interior situation they are in within this world, someone who can see glaringly obvious problems, ask questions that make them interrogate that inner world and look at in from a different perspective. There is value in having someone who can ask the right questions and talk to you in a way that is not insulting and challenges you. Some producers are great at that and others aren’t so that’s a good reason to have a script editor. The Film Commission cannot fulfil this role. Their relationship with you is to give you money, you go away and spend it and there’s no functional development relationship. They fully recognise that and so encourage the attachment of script editors to projects to provide that supportive and intensive relationship.”

Jake spoke about his 2006 experiences at the Sundance Lab, working on his feature film script which he shot in Memphis two months ago and is now editing. “I spent 4/5 weeks at Sundance. They fly in different actors, consultants and film making people to advise you on your project and critique your script. You shoot practice scenes from your screenplay too which is very helpful. The Lab brings together people with different backgrounds and points of view and the goal is not to change or develop your film to fulfil anyone else’s objective but rather for you to clarify your own perspective as the film maker writer/ director. The process challenges you and helps you to articulate to yourself what you are doing and why.”

Philippa agreed with Brita that every process is different, varying from person to person, and said she has learned there are both ‘public’ and ‘private’ aspects to it. “Having a script editor can be the first time the team speaks in public about their work and there is also the private work a writer does. A novelist sits alone to work, and then we sit alone to read the book. It’s intimate. With film, we come into this space and witness something together. We suspend our disbelief, the film seduces us and we go into that imagined world. One of the most important elements of the development process for me is how creative people navigate this world and the boundaries between public and private, and how to best communicate the aspirations of the story. There is alot of practical work to do but there is also the ‘untouchable’, an emotional and communicative job that filmmakers enter into because ultimately, they will be communicating with people all over the world in an intimate, strange and magical way. It’s a great thing when I come away from a meeting with a colleague and there has been a magical exchange. There is also a level of spontaneity involved. That’s good because producers are there for a long time while a film is made.”

There are plenty of ‘good development’ stories … but what about the dark side? For Philippa, most of her ‘darker experiences’ had been around questions of judgement. “I’ve screwed up in the development process when I haven’t listened or been sensitive to subtext or open to possibilities, or I’ve judged something and hurt someone’s feelings. Someone gave me a script the other day and I know that the handing over is a huge deal. If you forget that, or don’t respond or acknowledge it appropriately, there can be a glitch.”

Brita said she became very frustrated with a client recently and wasn’t aware of it until the emotions brimmed over during a two-hour session. “I thought we were moving deeper into the material but the writer was moving sideways. My frustration brewed up in our session when I kept saying ‘What if?’ It’s a lazy and bad script editing technique to ask continually, ‘What if she did that? Or this?’ This is not the job. The job is to listen and apply good craft questions to pull the story out of the heart of the writer. I was trying to hurry things up. I realised it, apologised and that was healthy for our process.”

When asked if she was there to develop the script or the writer, Emily replied ‘the writer’ but there is a caveat. “Levels of experience vary. Some need you just as an editor and others require more guidance and new ways of thinking about things. That’s the intention behind some of those early development funds because everyone hopes a good script will come out of it. At L!bertine, the situation is more pressured because we have to find films to make. If there is someone we really believe in, we can take a longer view to develop the work with them but we do need to make films quickly and can’t look at too many of those options.”

Projects get ‘stuck’ along the development continuum for a multitude of reasons … and eventually get made for only a few. There are multiple stages along the way and a project could stall at any one of them.

“If you are talking about the development process,” said Emily, “you may have a great idea but not really know what the project is when you go into it. You may not know what power it has to sustain a feature film. With some you’ll find it, others you won’t. Then the project goes to the financiers and there’s another round of development. I’ve seen situations where someone breezes in, throws a bomb on the floor and leaves you to deal with it because they are the person with the money. It’s a miracle that films get made at all. There are so many delicate points along the way. It is understandable that writers feel what they are producing is ‘the work’ because they are putting so much effort into creating something that is as perfect and complete as they can make it, but that is just the starting point.”

Bad development stories are everywhere with the blame laid at every doorstep imaginable but the everyday reality is that even well crafted stories by great writers don’t always get made. “Maybe they’re not the kind of stories that can fill a theatre,” said Emily. “There are so many reasons why good stories don’t get made and good writers don’t get the breaks they may or may not deserve.”

Philippa likened a halt in the process to being in the middle of a concrete wall that’s just been poured around you. “It’s a sense of confusion or paralysis and often happens at a point where if you can get through the wall, you’ll go off somewhere else because you still have the energy and the drive. Getting stuck can be healthy. The wall is there to be broken through and you just have to keep the faith, think of yourself as a perpetrator not a victim. I’ve felt this and observed it in my colleagues a number of times. However, sometimes you have to accept that the time for a project has gone, say to yourself, ‘I love this, but it’s going into the bottom drawer for now’.”

As a writer/director, Jake says he manages most obstacles himself. “I give myself external parameters, things I have to do. I never feel ready to go shoot but I make myself do it, get everyone together and we start making the movie. But my films have never required approval so all of this is a bit foreign to me.”

Script editor, script consultant, producer, director, financier … all have distinct voices within the development process and knowing which one to listen to, at what point, can be confusing for any writer.

“This starts at the very beginning for a writer,” said Emily. “You have to be careful about who you’re working with. Make sure the people you are going to work with get your idea and get you, and that everybody wants to make the same movie. You have to talk alot. You can’t sit quietly, knowing you are a genius and expect other people to appreciate what type and what flavour. Ensure people really understand what it is you want to do because that could change along the development process and you’ll have to talk even more to make people understand. Keep checking in to make sure everyone is still making the same film. That’s the best way to avoid a ‘development sinkhole’ which can happen when people have started with a different understanding of what the project should be and what the writer should be doing. Make sure your relationship with the producer and director is really good. Have honest, detailed conversations about everything. Tone is so important. Watch films together, talk about them, have subtle conversations, not just about whether ‘this character should get run over here’ but more about the subtle things you see and want in your film.”

When Philippa comes to a script for the first time, she asks lots of questions of the writer and of herself. “You can only read something for the first time once. That’s an important experience and it can be different if I know the person, or not. There is a ‘getting to know you’ process on both sides. I try to find out what the writer’s vision for the whole thing is, get a feeling for the deep connection that the writer has made but perhaps can’t speak about. We make films to understand those things that we don’t know so there is alot of mystery in the process of film making. It’s necessary, it can be scary, and that’s where the originators of the work take big risks.”

Establishing that all-important understanding of, and relationship with, the writer at the very start is vital for the collaborative work that inevitably follows. The ease with which this happens can vary, often dictated by the writer’s experience level. “When I’m working with an insecure or inexperienced writer, trying to open up collaboration, I ask myself alot of questions,” said Brita. “You can often sense where a writer might have some blind spots just by reading the material and as Philippa said, it’s a different process if you know them, or if you don’t. It is a process of ‘getting to know you’ where you have a hunch about someone and an idea about what you might need to do to open them up and help them move forward. You don’t know until you start asking questions and trying to find the key to that person’s problem – I’m often there because there’s a problem – to assist with opening something up inside the writer and therefore the story. Developing the writer and the script are one in the same for me. Much of the job is trying to empower the writer in subtle ways, transferring responsibility to them in a positive way.”

Is it a script editor’s job to challenge the writer, or is it up to the writer to push themselves?

“It’s my job to push them and challenge the work,” said Emily, “but it is the writer’s job to own it and drive it forward. I find it frustrating when the writer falls into a back seat and becomes too dependent, rather like you’re their school teacher and its homework. They will never get anywhere with that. A writer has to own the vision and fight for it. It’s no good if you’re challenging him or her and they’re not fighting back but just going ‘Yeah, yeah, change that.’ I don’t want to feel as if I am writing the screenplay. It’s not good if I’m coming up with all the ideas because I am not a writer so my ideas are probably pretty bad. If the meeting has got to that corner then there’s something wrong with the process. It is a delicate balance because if you’re an inexperienced writer, you’re in that situation to learn something. You are feeling your way. Inexperienced writers are more vulnerable here and it’s important that they have ownership and not feel that someone else is driving the project.”

An audience question prompted the panel to comment on ‘being honest and fresh’ when approaching someone’s work for the first time. At a time when she read multiple scripts for production companies, Emily said her approach was a standard, ‘read it, figure out the film they are trying to make, then go backwards from there and determine what’s not working’.

As a university lecturer, Jake outlined the process he adheres to when reading his students’ projects.

“When I read a student’s work for the first time, I look at it, think, ‘this is what it does, that’s what exists’ and I understand it through the filter of my own experience and intellect. Then I think about the writer – ‘what do you mean because this is what I understood’ – and is there a difference between what I read and what the intent might be. If what I read and the intent are divergent or not totally together, then I think, ‘we can work with what your intent is or we can go with what this is.’ I try to make it clear that what I am offering are my opinions and you can value that or not. I always preface my opinions with that kind of disclaimer. People want to make films that have something unique about them. There is an impetus and desire to make something that is not like everything else. A writer will feel strongly about something but should also be open, able to accept input and evaluate that input where they think it sits. Take notes and come back to it later when you’re not upset. Figure out why that upset you. Maybe the person who offered the opinion is a jerk or maybe they’re right. Opinions are not right or wrong. You just have to sort it out.”

Should a script editor try to make a script fit a particular genre? Emily said she doesn’t ‘shoehorn’ anything. “You would try to work out what that script was trying to be rather than trying to turn it into, say, a romantic comedy. It has to come out of the story or the writer. If what comes out is not something you want to make or fund, then you don’t. We don’t try to twist it into something that we’d rather make because you can’t force that upon a project that doesn’t want to be that kind of project. Ultimately the writer is going to write the project and you can’t get a writer to do something they are not naturally inclined to do.”

She added that horror is a genre she doesn’t work in. “I don’t watch horror. It has different rules to alot of genres that I do watch, so I don’t work on horror because I might steer writers up the wrong path.”

When asked if they engage with the writer on matters of audience, Brita said she does occasionally but only to ‘dig a bit deeper’ with the writer to determine who they are trying to talk to, not from a market perspective. “It’s about ownership so I don’t talk to the writer much about the director or the audience because I want to give the writer as much ownership as I can while they still have it.”

Emily agreed, saying it’s not useful in the early stages when the writer is trying to figure out the basis for their story. “Issues with audience are going on in the background for me but they aren’t that important to the writer at this time. That is a conversation I would have with the writer during advanced development but it wouldn’t be ‘change this to engage with this audience’. My approach is more to do with intention: ‘What are you hoping will come across with this ending?’ I’d say, ‘Here’s what I got out of it’ and they might go, ‘Oh … ‘ and that’s an audience conversation because I am the audience. Then there are conversations about the feelings you want the audience to go away with. What is the impact you want to leave them with? We may need to make adjustments because the effect you want isn’t quite there yet.”

And if a script comes across the desk that just isn’t going to work, Philippa stressed that it’s important to find something positive and encouraging to say and not be dismissive of work that someone has poured heart and soul into. Receiving a script from someone is always a privilege. “Depending on the relationship you have with the person, if you can clearly and humanely create your response and tease out some questions that the script raised in you, that can be a helpful thing to do.”

• The development process: 'pulling the story from the heart of the writer', Auckland Writer’s Room, April, 2014, written for Script to Screen by Jane Bissell.