Why did established screenwriter Marie Briguglio and director Kenneth Scicluna sign up for a writing course? To learn how to make their words fly, of course. Interviews by Veronica Stivala.

Marie Briguglio has an eclectic bio and is both an academic and a screenwriter/producer. Up to her neck in a PhD, she is reading at the Behavioural Science Centre in Stirling, UK, lecturing an array of courses at the University of Malta, and is involved in a raft of projects. I was curious as what would entice her to sign up to Storyworks.

“Admittedly, great opportunities don’t always come at the best of moments,” she laughs. “But the possibility to workshop a screenplay in a reputable programme, with experienced script reviewers and the best minds from the University of South California was too good to pass up.”

Did it meet her expectations?

“I did find it extremely helpful to workshop actual scenes from my screenplay, and to get feedback from people who had never read my work,” she says. “Storyworks emphasises some aspects of writing that I can really identify with – such as being clear as to what is motivating the character to make certain decisions.”

For a feature film to go from treatment to production usually takes a number of years, but what was the next step for her screenplay, post Storyworks?

“The project – Moo – has just been accepted into a prestigious, and highly competitive, European production forum (European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs), with Katryna Samut Tagliaferro leading the way as producer. This is a great opportunity to get the co-production and financial knowledge needed to make a film.

By setting a few boundaries, Storyworks set the focus on the journey, not on finding the path

“A family film of this nature has never been made in Malta – and it’s not just a matter of writing a story that can travel outside Malta’s shores. It is also that we don’t yet have the set-up to raise finance and to co-produce.”

Briguglio explains that anyone making films in Malta right now is facing a double hurdle: creating the national framework to support film-making and making the film itself. She hopes that by 2018, Malta can get at least a handful of indigenous films capable of distribution that showcase film-making in Malta.

Can creative writing be taught? “Yes, of course. There are many aspects of screen-writing for instance, that can and must be learnt, just like any other discipline.”

How can she combine such diverse disciplines as behavioural science and screen writing?

“I’ve found, with time, that screenwriting and doing behavioural economics have a lot in common. Both start from the premise that people want something and have difficulty getting it. Both require assumptions about the world and the motives of the people studied. Both require rigour to set up. Once a model/world is set up, economics rides it with data. Screenwriting does it with images.”

Kenneth Scicluna is another known name in the local film industry. He started out working in television 16 years ago, has worked as assistant director on some foreign films and commercials, and has directed a student-grade long-feature. He has also directed and co-directed a few short documentaries shown on foreign TV, helmed and co-wrote a narrative short for Zentropa (a Danish film company started by Lars Von Trier), and written and directed another narrative short.

In all, his work has screened at more than 60 festivals abroad. For the last seven years the 38-year-old has worked in advertising and also lectures part-time.

Despite his many years of experience in the business, Scicluna signed up for the writing course because he felt the need for fresh inspiration and interaction with fellow practitioners in an environment of mutual trust and support.

That, and the invaluable mentorship by tutors who are sought out both for their teaching methods and for their experience as writers in their own right.

Scicluna found most helpful the fact that the course set him limits.

“By setting a few boundaries, Storyworks set the focus on the journey, not on finding the path. The core principles – the three act structure, the sequence approach, the idea of a main tension – are not cast in stone, and films have been made that went in a diametrically opposite manner and were aesthetically, and in some cases, financially successful. On the other hand, the structure has also yielded films of seminal artistic importance – Hitchcock’s Vertigo, for one.”

Confiding how he has always looked at film-making from a director’s point of view, with style and standpoint being given more importance than narrative in his case, Scicluna admits Storyworks helped balance that out.

“It was not a case of a sudden epiphany, but more of a letting go, that ambiguity need not be obscurity.”

He is currently working on a script, which he started working on during the course, and which is now nearing its first draft. When asked what will become of the finished product Scicluna is vague.

“Although I have an indication, I will know what is to come of it once it reaches a more advanced stage.”

Speaking about the extent to which the course helped Scicluna, he explains: “A course can teach techniques: treat paint like so if you want the colours to last, throw yourself in the air this way to land safely, use this lens if you want a flat background, and think about structuring a script in this manner if you want the result to be intelligible.”

But, as he says, what you do while you’re in the air, those things have to come from experience, and what to do with them has to come from what you see yourself as.

“While not necessarily advocating director John Huston’s apocryphal advice on going to Tijuana and what to do once there, there’s much to be learnt just by living.”

Applications for Storyworks 2014 open

Valletta 2018 is launching the second edition of Storyworks, a script development programme for experienced and emerging screenwriters, producers, directors and editors. Course tutors Martin Daniel and Mary Kate O Flanagan will be delivering training in screenwriting, through project development.

Their work is based on developing feature films and television drama, in small groups, over the span of several months. In fact, follow-up sessions with the participants of Storyworks will take place in September.

The course is designed to develop skills in narrative for the screen. Participants will be receiving training through project development, which will ideally be ready to go into production in 2016 or 2017. Eight writers and eight creative collaborators will be selected for the programme and writers must apply with a project to be developed.

People may apply individually or as teams. Producers, directors and editors who apply as individuals will be teamed with a writer for the purposes of training. All writers’ applications will be considered on the merit of the idea and the skills in evidence.

The programme will take place between March 18 and 24. The deadline for applications is February 24 at 5pm, and successful applicants will be informed by March 3. The programme fee is €200 for writers who participate with their proposed scripts and €100 for producers who collaborate on a writer’s script.

For more information call on 2124 2018 or send an e-mail to info@valletta2018.org.

www.valletta2018.org

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