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In the first episode of Short Hand, we’re asking ‘what is story’? And how can you tell a brilliant one with your short film script? Our guests are filmmaker and lecturer Lucy Brydon, script editor Jess Jones and screenwriter Edward Cripps. 

Topics covered include: structure, exercising restraint, creating the circumstances for subtext to breathe, how to figure out what you’re trying to say, writing authentic dialogue, receiving and implementing notes and moving on after rejection. 

I think sitting with an idea, allowing it to percolate and inform a story will help bring out a part of you and give the story a sense of you, a sense of voice. When you’re assessing scripts that’s what you’re always looking for.

Jess Jones

SHOW NOTES & RESOURCES

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Short Hand: Hello, you’re listening to Short Hand: A guide to making a short film – a BFI NETWORK and Film Hub South East podcast. Whether you’re actively making a short film or passively thinking about it, this is a podcast designed to help you on the journey from coming up with a compelling short film idea to editing it into a finished product. 

In this first episode, we’re asking ‘what is story?’ How do you write something that surprises yet fulfils the person reading, and hopefully, later watching it? How do you write authentic dialogue and create meaningful characters and leave an impact all within around 10 minutes? And moreover, as storytellers, how do you interrogate your work, yourself and then convince other people to come on board… 

Lucy Brydon: When I’m starting to think of ideas for films, and I have a sort of a kernel of an idea, my main way of developing the story is, well, I rely quite a lot on my subconscious to do the work for me, I always figure that if a story is really good, or if a character or a moment is really good, it will come back to me. So as a creative person, obviously I have ideas all the time, and there has to be an element of filter. So I use the kind of boomerang effect, if the idea keeps coming back to you, then it’s probably a good one.

Short Hand: That’s Lucy Brydon, the writer and director of the 2020 feature film Body of Water, and the screenwriter of short films, So It Goes and Babe. Lucy also leads the screenwriting course on the University of Warwick’s Creative Writing programme. Here, she talks us through what exactly ‘story’ is, how you build a premise into a story. And whether short films should adhere to a certain structure, or can afford to be a bit more playful in terms of going beyond a premise.

Lucy Brydon: It’s useful to sort of sit, once you’ve got an idea, or an image or a person that you’re interested in, and just to sort of push it around, like a sculptor, I guess, with clay, like just sort of play with it. And in terms of developing and sort of leaning into and getting beyond cliches, because that’s where our brains tend to go initially, is usually kind of like the obvious place, which is the cliche place. So just brainstorming and pushing ideas around is how I get to the next stage of thinking, Okay, this could work. Something bigger than just an idea, to me as a storyteller, stories themselves are, are acts of transformation. It’s a kind of process of alchemy, there are elements that combine and then you come out at the end with a different thing, or with a different feeling, identifying those really interesting moments in a character’s life, particularly in short form. If you can identify even a small moment that might have a huge impact on the lives of the characters you’re talking about, regardless of genre, I think that’s a really good place to start. 

Short films, in my experience, do tend to have a structure whether it’s intentional or not, because that tends to be the way that we absorb narratives, there does tend to be a shape that is a sort of, the proposition which sets up of a story, and then a point of crisis or a point of reckoning, and then a conclusion. And those sort of big, you know, big tent poles, or stories do tend to run true, even in short form. However, the difference being to my mind, that is to do with the length of time you spend with each part of this structure. So set-up in a short is usually really short, because the clues in the name, you don’t have time to spend getting to know characters. So your story’s got to be about something else, it’s got to be about a spectacle or a moment or transformation, there is a sort of a loose structure, but it’s a lot more malleable. And the length of those moments, you know, the length of those sections can vary quite substantially. Whereas in longer form, they do tend to be a bit more even, I think short films offer the opportunity to try, you know, different formats, and be quite bold in a way that features can’t, because there’s some ideas that are best sustained in a short form. 

One short film I think is really successful is a film called Cracked. And I think it was directed by Trim Lamba. And I show it to my students because it uses the Snapchat format, and it has a young woman who’s talking to the camera a lot. She’s very confident. And then she has acid thrown in her face, and it sort of like shows her mental disintegration through this style. And then at the end, there’s a sort of shift in the camera from being the sort of subjective to an objective shot of her as she sort of going back out into the world. To me that felt so incredible and interesting and relevant and believable, but it also at the same time felt really innovative and was just a completely different way of playing that story.

Short Hand: Next up, Lucy talks to us about exercising restraint, but allowing the free-flowing, overwriting first draft to be a part of the process, as well as how she writes authentic characters and endings that land. 

Lucy Brydon: My general habit as a writer is to accept the fact that I will usually, in the first draft, massively overwrite everything, especially dialogue. And it was a kind of hard learned lesson when I was making short films that I would watch them back in the edit. And even after they’ve been through this process, like, I’d be like, wow, there’s just way too much dialogue. And I don’t think that’s an uncommon experience. But just acknowledging that and understanding your own process can actually really help with this. Because I think if you just say, right, well, the first draft is going to be very verbal, it’s going to be less original, because you’ve got to mine as I said earlier through the cliches to get the really good stuff. So I think knowing that’s part of my process and knowing that it’s redrafting, redrafting, redrafting is going to get you to the refined, exciting underbelly of the initial idea, which is where you want to be. To me exercising restraint is almost like the editing process, I would say, because there I also feel strongly that there should be a layer of writing that isn’t restrained, that you’re not doing it because that to me ends up in writer’s block. And that’s what I hear from a lot of young writers is when they say, ‘Oh, I’ve got so many ideas, but they’re already overanalyzing their own ideas before they’ve even written them down. I’ve never, touch wood, suffered from writer’s block, because I just feel like, well, it doesn’t matter what I put down as long as I put it down, and then I can play with it, and no one ever has to see it. 

And also just making sure you take steps once you’ve got your initial idea down to kind of think about it in terms of what are the frames of this scene look like? Like, what are the images that are going to put it together, because we are working in a visual medium, if we think about that stuff early on, it will undoubtedly enhance the quality of the finished piece. 

So during the development of Body of Water, I was writing regular pieces for Little White Lies about the process. And one of those talked a bit about how you break down a script and build it up again. I tend to say this to my students that a screenplay is like a manual, right? It’s a manual for a bunch of other creative people, as well as yourself, if you’re a writer, director anyway, to create our collective project. So in that sense, it’s a very, obviously a hugely different form of writing to poetry or prose, or whatever. So the process of writing to me is, you know, I finish the script on my own on my computer, and then I ended up having to, you know, sit in a room with a bunch of actors and producers and sort of explain it and talk it through and read it out at that stage. You know, that’s when you’ll get a lot of questions, particularly from actors about character, intention, and desire and subtext. And that is also going to force you to question you know, ask questions of the work itself, because you don’t necessarily know all the answers. And that’s the other thing that nobody tells you, is, you know, you will sometimes get, like, people aren’t asking you questions about your own work. And you’re like, I don’t really know what I meant by that. No, no, often you do, but sometimes there’ll be like, I actually just liked the way it sounded. Or I like the way it felt for this person to sort of do this thing, but there was no big meeting and in it, so that’s sort of what I meant by the building it back up again, being interrogated, and also by producers asking you well, you know, do you need this extra location? Do you need, you know, this sort of car or whatever, you know, that’s the stuff that you really have to then drill into and be like, do I actually need it? What is it adding to my story, you know, does it really need to be there, you know, if you can make a script lower budget than that always just sort of helps you get things moving. 

And in terms of how writers can interrogate their work and pull it apart, I always say go to other writers, like writers love talking about writing, and a lot of them actually loved performing. So sometimes it’s really useful to get a bunch of writers or even get if you have friends who are performers, like get them together, do read throughs. And hear your script read aloud. It’s something I do with my students somewhat, and they always seem to get a lot out of it and really enjoy it actually, which is, you know, we should be enjoying this stuff. Make sure you get to a stage where you’re able to read it out and preferably record it so that you can play it back. 

Some exercises that writers can do to give their characters authenticity, I find useful are, one, to write a letter from the point of view of the character to another character, about something high stakes like one of your romantic dramatic moments, no holds barred, as intimate as possible. And drawing on you know, as everyone does, when they argue drawing on things that have happened in the past or historical things that have happened between these two people, that will really take you deep into like that relationship or any key relationship. The other thing you can do is just sort of write a monologue from their perspective with a similar sort of slant, like thinking about something high stakes that this person feels really passionate about. And this can build on the other sort of really imperative things that you need to do when you’re you’re building character, which is, you know, like a character questionnaire, bio type thing, like, you know, when did they have their first kiss, or this sort of stuff that can have incredible ripple effects across your life that you didn’t, you might not even be cognizant of yourself, when you spend that much time and look at characters in that way. And from there, look at everything from their perspective. And I think that really helps bed in the authenticity. And we all know that feeling of when you’re sat in the cinema or wherever watching something, and it’s like, oh, so I think what’s always really important to hold on to if you’re a bit lost is, how do I want to leave the audience or vice versa, in our case, sometimes the reader feeling at the end. And that can be a really good steer in terms of what you do practically, or plot wise, like, because we are dealing in emotions and films, you know, filmmaking is about emotional movement in your audience. And that’s what we should be thinking about that that can be a guide. And then it’s not necessarily to do with predictability, but it has to do with okay, I, I know what I’m trying to create.

Short Hand: And finally, Lisa gives her recommendations for books that might help you on your own writing journey. 

Lucy Brydon: My two favourite books on writing are, they’re both called ‘On Writing’ actually, and they are by Margaret Atwood and Stephen King. And they are incredibly useful for writers across different genres and types of writing, they will really help you understand that you’re not crazy for trying to do this, which is part of the thing. So I would start with those if you haven’t already read them. And the other one, I think is wonderful is John Yorke’s ‘Into the Woods, which is a bit more, you know, directly tied to screenwriting. Because of John’s background, it goes into a lot of detail. And a lot of the lessons he gives there can be applied to both feature scripts and short scripts, but also maybe television too. So it’s a really good all rounder, and I think it’s good to sort of build a sense of like storytelling across different lengths from quite an early stage.

Jess Jones: As a script editor, I work with a writer, maybe from idea stage all the way up to a draft that’s ready to shoot. It’s working on the script to get it to the best place possible that it can be made, basically. And that would involve having lots and lots of in-depth chats, and asking lots and lots of questions and interrogating everything in the script, everything conceptually, you know about the the idea itself, to sort of nitty gritty structural questions of, you know, looking at character arc and turning points and reading all the drafts of everything, and giving notes on all of those things, and some emotional hand-holding too. The things that a script editor isn’t there to do is definitely not to write your script for you and definitely not there to take a writing credit. They are, I would say, not there necessarily to find solutions for you, but to help guide you towards your own solutions and to hopefully ask the right questions that will sort of bring about that kind of a-ha moment.

Short Hand: That’s Jess Jones, a freelance script editor working across shorts and features for BFI, BBC and Channel Four, among many other places. She helps storytellers tease out and harness the distinctive ideas in their scripts. And here, she offers her take on common weaknesses with early drafts.

Jess Jones: There are definitely some issues that I see all the time with first drafts. The biggest thing I would say is that they’re trying to say or do too many things. Really, in a short film, you can only do or say kind of one main thing. If you have too many ideas floating around, you’re trying to say too many different things, then, more often than not, what ends up happening is everything gets a little bit muddy, and you end up not really saying anything at all. 

Another one I see a lot is people are very keen on the idea of ambiguity in their writing, and that that seems like kind of like a cool thing to try and strive for that and not wanting to spoon feed the audience the meaning. I mean, ambiguity is not all it’s cracked up to be. And I would try and avoid ambiguity because really, if we think about the stories that affect us, and that have kind of stood the test of time, we know what they’re about and why we should care. There’s a place for ambiguity but it has to be really intentional. You have to kind have be deliberately using ambiguity to achieve a certain effect. 

Another thing I see a lot is not effectively dramatising, particularly where people are telling personal stories, you know, which is a great thing to do, and definitely write what you know. But there’s a funny thing that can happen that even where something has been sort of, quote unquote, dramatic in our life, that it won’t immediately translate onto the page as, as dramatic. And in story terms, there has to be an element of sort of distancing yourself from perhaps the real events that happened to you. And creating a new story, a new character that sort of speaks to those events in a truthful way, but not necessarily in a factual way. 

And then the last one, I think, is writing from the outside in rather, from then from the inside out, by which I mean, looking at something that already exists, like an action film, say and saying, I want to write an action film, and then going about sort of creating it, rather than I think organically allowing a story to exist inside of you, and then sort of be brought forth onto the page. And I think, you know, that might look like staying with stories or characters for a while, and kind of, you know, writing down observations and snippets of conversation and, you know, other references, whether it’s music or something you’ve read, and you know, all of these things, sort of allowing that to sort of like percolate and inform a story. And I think that all of those things help to bring out a part of you and put that into the story and give the story a kind of sense of a sense of you and a sense of voice. When you’re assessing scripts, that’s what you’re always looking for. 

Dialogue is really hard. So I feel like people should know that first off the bat, and that if they’re struggling with dialogue, it’s not because they’re just getting it wrong. Dialogue is really hard to nail, particularly in film, the tendency is always to overwrite dialogue. And that’s going to be a weakness that comes up in early drafts. You know, I always like to say to writers use dialogue as a last resort. If you cannot come up with a single other way to communicate what it is that you’re trying to say, then and only then can you use dialogue. You should be looking for ways to dramatise subtext, meaning, relationships, feelings, rather than speaking them. So I think there are a few things that you can do to sort of help hone that skill. And be aware that writing dialogue and nailing subtext is going to be a skill that you hone over, you know, many scripts. So one thing I think that can be helpful is to listen to conversations, listen to how people speak, listen for what you think might be unsaid, because often that’s where the juicy subtext is. It’s, you know, it’s where there’s like, a tension or an opposition between what someone is saying, versus what you know, their body is doing, or the emotional circumstances in which that conversation is taking place that kind of gives you all sorts of other information. And that often is in opposition to the words that they’re speaking. And that’s where the kind of interesting stuff happens. And then I think when you’ve written things, getting other human beings to read it out loud, and see whether it actually sounds natural and sounds like something that humans would say. I’m being sort of slightly facetious and saying humans there, but literally, I’ll read things sometimes and it’ll be like, humans don’t speak like that. This is not a thing that a human being would say to another human being. And then it’s thinking about visual storytelling, and how you create the circumstances for subtext to breathe in your dialogue.

Short Hand: To illustrate her point Jess spoke about the 2020 feature film Greenland starring Gerard Butler, in which a man must save his family after learning that a comet is heading towards the Earth.

Jess Jones: Gerard Butler walks up to a house and we don’t know anything about the house, we don’t know anything initially about his relationship to the house, as he walks up to the house, there’s a child’s bike in the driveway, which he picks up and moves to one side in a very familiar way. He then walks up some steps, and I think he moved something else, I can’t remember exactly what it is, but like a broom or something. And he sort of puts that to one side. So we know that he’s familiar with this house, he knows it really, really intimately. He knows where each of these things go, he’s kind of moving without even thinking about it. There’s a clear familiarity with whoever the child, you know, the owner of the bike, Then he gets to the door, he goes to his pocket, initially, we assume, he’s reaching for his keys, he stops, and then knocks instead. So all of that has given us that he is familiar with the inhabitants of this house, that he’s probably lived in this house,that there’s a child or children in this house that probably he’s related to, probably the father of, and that he clearly no longer lives there. So then when a woman answers the door, their interaction, even if I can’t remember the exact words that they say to each other, even if they both just went ‘hi’, that ‘hi’ is imbued with all of this information that we’ve been given just in this kind of short, little bit of action. So we’re suddenly like, Oh, maybe they were married, and they have kids together. And you know, they’re divorced or separated. And that’s probably really hard. And this is really awkward. And it must be really difficult for him, like walking up to this house that he no longer lives in, and how does she feel about that? So all of this, like, you know, rich emotional circumstance is suddenly there in that ‘hi’.

Short Hand: Finally, we asked Jess what questions writers can ask themselves to find their own solutions during the rewriting process, how to take notes, and the advice she has for writers currently embarking on a short film script.

Jess Jones: The question that I always start with, whenever I’m working on a new script, and that I think, is a question that I continue to ask all the way through the process, and that filmmakers should be asking themselves right off the bat, and throughout that process, is What am I trying to say? What do I want an audience to understand here? What is the meaning?, You know, if I was going to sit down next to you and be like, well, what are you working on at the moment?, and you say, I’m working on this film about blah blah blah within that, you’d probably be able to articulate what it’s about beyond just the events that are on the on the page. And if you don’t have a clear sense of what it’s about, that will come through in the script. 

So before even looking in detail at the script, if you are not able to articulate what this film is about, then I know for a fact that the script won’t be operating as it should be. Another thing I think is really useful and important to be thinking about is what is your character’s journey? Stories are inherently about change. How has your character changed from the beginning to the end? What have they gained? What have they learnt? How have they changed or transformed in some way? Even if it’s a small change or transformation, which it probably will be in a short film, because the degree of change is not as great as it will be in a feature necessarily. It’s really important to keep the audience in mind when you’re writing, what effect do you want to have on the audience? And does your script achieve that effect? And that’s something that I guess you probably want outside feedback on, it’s kind of important that the people reading it all laugh and find it funny. And if you want them to feel sad, it’s important that they’re actually feeling sad. So if the script isn’t hitting those emotional beats, then you need to kind of go back and look at how you’re setting those beats up.

I think when you’re getting feedback, so there are two versions of this, I guess, and this might be you’re in a formal development process or you’re getting feedback from peers or friends or family. So I would say be really careful about whose opinion you’re asking for and make sure that they have some kind of understanding of what you’re trying to and I would say be really pretty pointed about what you want feedback on and ask them specific questions to answer rather than just like, Is this good or not? So then the other version of getting feedback would be, if you are in a formal development process, and you’re getting notes from your execs. And from a script editor, and if you’re a writer, you might get notes from whoever the director is, etc, etc. So, the first thing to say is that everyone gets notes. Getting notes doesn’t mean your script is bad, and doesn’t mean that you’re a bad writer, all writers and all scripts will go through a notes process, there are always ways to push the script to, you know, be better, more exciting, more impactful, more effective in places. And I say, try not to take it personally, that’s obviously a really difficult thing to do. Because it’s like, an incredibly vulnerable thing, creating and sharing your work with people and sort of putting your heart out on the table for someone to smash up. But it’s not, it’s not personal, it’s not a reflection of your ability, as a writer. Being able to take notes well is a skill that you’ll develop over time. So, you know, it might be really difficult, it might be something that you really, really don’t like, initially and that’s okay. It’s a learning process, you’ll find the way that you like to engage with notes. I think, remember that you don’t always have to take a note. So you know it’s fine if you just disagree with a note, you don’t have to implement a note. But also remember that everyone who’s giving you notes has the same goal in mind, which is to make a great film. And I would say if you have a big response to a note, or to the note process, I would try not to respond in the moment if you can, and to take those things on board, you know, whether that’s in the room, or whether these are these written notes, take a moment, take a couple of days even to sort of process the notes and interrogate within yourself whether Do you genuinely disagree with the notes? And is that where you’re kind of big response has come from, you’ve had something that you’re like, No, I definitely don’t agree with that. That’s fine. And that’s totally valid. It’s just I would wait to get to that place where you’re like, I’m going to dismiss this note, because I would want to reflect on sort of two other points within that, which would be is this note or is this note, note-receiving process triggering my self-doubt and sense of imposter syndrome? And that why I’m having a really big response to it. And that’s why I’m angry, or I’m annoyed or I feel like this person doesn’t understand. Is that genuinely something that’s coming at you externally? Or is this a lot of sort of internal stuff that’s going on for you? And then the other thing I would think about is, has the note been delivered to you in an unhelpful way, in a way that makes it sound like you’ve done a terrible job? And not everyone is really careful about the way that they give notes, it’s possible that something has been getting delivered to you in a really, really unhelpful way. It’s been worded badly, you can’t really see what the note is within that. So yeah, so think about it, has it been given in an unhelpful way? But if you spend some time with it, will you still find something helpful within it? 

You can’t just want to make a film because you want to make a film and like, maybe you’ll be famous and it’s cool to make a film. It’s like, what have you got to say, what value have you got to bring? How do you want your movie to inspire people, you know, what do you want people to learn about the world that they may not already know about? So make sure that you genuinely have got something to say. And if you don’t have something to say, this time around, I would say wait, wait until you know that you have got something to say and you won’t necessarily always have something earth-shattering to say, but there’s got to be a kind of nugget of something that you want to communicate to another person so you’re not creating in a vacuum, make sure that you’re saying something that’s interesting and meaningful.

Ed Cripps: Usually, when I first come up with an idea, it’s a long, protracted process, that if the least for me, it might have very different parts to it. There’s say the idea itself, the story or the character and the emotion I want to get across or like maybe there’s an image that has really struck me or come into my head or a device that I want to use in the way that I’m telling something, and those might all come from different places and it’s more waiting for my brain to finally find a way to fit them all together without realising that’s what I wanted to do.

Short Hand: The voice you’re hearing now belongs to Ed Cripps, a London-based writer by way of Yorkshire and Dorset. He was recently one of 12 writers selected for the Channel4 Screenwriting Course for 2022. He was a BFI Flare x BAFTA crew mentee,  BFI NETWORK@LFF alumni and has written shorts with the support of The Uncertain Kingdom, the Southern Exposure Film Fund and BFI NETWORK. You’re about to hear him discuss where he gets his ideas from, how he assesses if he’s the right person to tell a story, and perhaps come up with a new take on the old adage, write what you know, which is right what you’ve felt.

Ed Cripps: A lot of my ideas come from reading, and I read articles and watch a lot of things. And so they tend to come from things that I’m pretty angry about, or afraid of, or just interested in, and, and eventually something will stick. And I have an archive of all the articles or podcasts and things that I’ve listened to or read that I save, and every once in a while, if I’m stuck, I’ll sort of skim through those and see if something jumps out. And that’s just so that I don’t have to rely on my brain so much. And then usually whatever sticks around is something that at least subconsciously, I think, could work or is interesting. Although sometimes it can be different. If you’re working with a director, especially for a short film, the process has been a lot faster, because you’re bouncing ideas off each other. 

I think it’s important for writers all the time to be asking why you’re telling a particular story, in any case, seperate from ideas around representation in storytelling, because you’ve got to know why you’re telling a story. But I think it’s important to find something that is personally and emotionally meaningful to you, because I think it’s important to have some skin in the game, that you’re being vulnerable in some way. That’s important so that it feels emotionally true. Some of the very first things that I wrote, and they were terrible plays about me being a stroppy teenager in my family, had to do with my experience of being a stroppy gay teenager in the closet, so then you start to learn that you can apply things that you’ve felt or the emotions that you felt or experiences that you’ve had to stories that run in parallel to your own. And I think for any idea, you want to talk it through with a range of people, even if to just get outside of your head about something. And I’m a big fan of research, any script you’re writing, you should enjoy making yourself the expert in what you’re talking about. 

But then also, it’s very important to talk to the people that might be dealing with or experiencing things or writing about. So for previous short film projects the director and I have talked to charities that work in that field. I think it’s important to make sure that you’re not stepping on someone else’s toes in a way that is sort of more about you than it is about the story. So I think it’s important to always approach everything you’re doing with respect and self-awareness, as well, because it’s easy to get excited about some idea and then not consider the human implications of a story you’re telling.

Short Hand: In the next section, you’ll hear Ed give his perspective on how to see if something is watertight, if it’s working, if it’s doing the thing you want it to do. And if not how you change that.

Ed Cripps: It can be really hard to know how effectively something is working objectively because at least for me, I get very in my head and the way and I can only see something from my perspective. So anything that gets me out of my head, and almost pretending that I’m someone totally new coming into the script, or the story, really helps me and obviously, as well, what is very helpful is getting other people’s opinion. Because you will have a very narrow view of what you’re trying to achieve. And not necessarily being able to see what is actually coming across. Something that helps me with with writing or especially with rewriting is at least in the way that my dyslexic brain works is to me there’s a difference to reading something that I’ve written and actually turning on this the projector in my brain and seeing it play out as a short TV episode or a film. And so sometimes there’s just that little step that I’ll try and tell myself which is play this as if it’s really happening and you’re watching it on TV and then just saying that to myself, it gives me aslight bit of distance and reminds me as well, that that’s ideally the medium that’s the part is going to end up as it’s very easy to get caught up in the script that you’ve written. I think always thinking about the end medium that you’re aiming for is helpful.

Short Hand: Something that Ed is familiar with is the application process, and how tricky that can sometimes be. We asked him to offer advice for how to write persuasive applications, and also how to deal with rejection when things don’t go your way.

Ed Cripps: Writing applications for schemes or for funding is really difficult. It’s analogous to writing often is writing pictures or treatments for something that you see as a script, and is an overlapping, but slightly different skill set. And it’s very difficult, especially perhaps, if you’re someone who’s a writer, rather than a writer, director, or producer, it’s a difficult and separate hat to put on. But I think practice is very helpful. I think something that’s helped me is to think about what my personal narrative is. And that sounds really pretentious, and I guess it is. And sometimes filling in application forms can feel excruciating, because you’re having to sell yourself or talk about something traumatic in exchange for money, essentially, I feel like. It’s helpful to know where you’re at with your career, or even with this, just this particular project. And so maybe you can show, how you’ve gotten to the place where you’re at now and the momentum you’ve built off the back of your own initiative, and then the hurdles that you’re facing next, or the elements that are missing, and then how this particular scheme or or funding you’re applying to, can help fill that gap. I think that shows people that are reading applications, how they can help you and what experiences you think you don’t have yet. What experiences do you worry that you can’t see a path to? And if you tell people, what you’re about and where you’re at, what you’ve been up to, where you hope to be, that gives them a clear story for them to insert themselves into, hopefully, with some money. But it’s a lot of self-interrogating. 

And all of that is done for free, and everything is very competitive. So I would also advise everyone to try and have some healthy distance from applications as well, if you can, because they’re not the be all and end all, you can sometimes feel like a bit of a glutton for punishment, applying to various schemes, especially the ones that come around every year. And you think, Oh, is this scheme again. But I think something that has helped me both just in terms of being more organised, but also to get some perspective is to make a spreadsheet. And I’m not good with numbers at all. But I’ve learned to love my spreadsheet because it shows me that one thing is one thing of many, and it shows me that the schemes that I have gotten into and been very fortunate to be selected for are usually things I’ve applied to at least three times before. And that can sometimes mean three, four years consecutively, And that can be depressing. But I think it’s also been helpful, even if I don’t get selected for it to see the progress that I’ve made. Rejection is a massive part of filmmaking. It’s healthy to have an attitude of water off a duck’s back,

just for your own sanity. And also if you can, saving your previous applications. So you can look back and think oh god, I was such an idiot saying that, or I’ve made loads of progress in this aspect or this idea is stuck around. So it’s clearly something that I really want to write about. Keeping all those is really helpful. 

A lot of applications or schemes or opportunities ask for things that are new or bold or challenging. And that’s great, but I think it can also mean there’s a danger of trying to do something shocking for the sake of it, which isn’t helpful. I think it’s good to approach any story, perhaps just in my case, is think about what issue or what theme I want to interrogate and think about why I’ve been circling around that question or character and what my emotional responses are and how I can provoke that response or challenge that response in other people. I think in terms of taking risks or being subversive, I think perhaps the best way to do that is to just figure out how to write something in the most new way possible. But I think through reading a lot, watching a lot, talking to other people, meeting lots of different kinds of people. Anything that puts new creative food in your brain and gives you stuff to digest and to reconfigure in your own way. And by reading a lot, I think and watching a lot and being aware of what’s going on in film or short films can be helpful so that you can double-check that you’re being progressive, that you’re being additive rather than repetitive.

Short Hand: Thank you for listening to Short Hand. Look out for a new episode next week all about directing and writing the director’s statement part of the Short Film Fund application. And thank you also to our guests this week: Lucy Brydon, Jess Jones and Ed Cripps. Short Hand is a BFI NETWORK and Film Hub South East podcast, produced by Nicole Davis with support from the BFI NETWORK and ICO team. Special thanks to our editor Graciela Mae Chico and Epidemic for the music.