What comes first -- the book or the film of the book?

UPDATE: Since posting the message below I have received very useful suggestions about the need to make my book less like a film script. In view of this, I have made several changes (see the link towards the bottom of the page). Feel free to make any other suggestions that you feel might improve the telling of the story. Ian R
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As much as there are any hard and fast rules in the film-making business, it is the received wisdom that a book is written then someone else buys the film rights and turns it into a movie.

That's not the way it is with me, but then perhaps I am just perverse.

To be honest, I had never intended to become a screenwriter -- certainly not one so late in life after more than 40 years in print and broadcast journalism in Australia and the United Kingdom. Nor had it ever occurred to me that I might write a book. Quite the contrary. I always thought a book would require too much damned effort. But here I am, both screenwriter and book author and doing things in what many professionals think is the wrong way around.

But to go back a bit...

My first screenplay, GOD'S TRIANGLE, came about by accident. My wife, Rosemary, and I are keen genealogists and stumbled across the fascinating and sad story of my Australian Great Aunt Florence "Florrie" Cox. Florrie was a Baptist missionary in East Bengal (now Bangladesh) during the First World War, and as the story emerged of why her marriage to the Rev. Frank E. Paice went into meltdown, Rosemary recognised its potential as a feature film.

I sold the idea to an official of  Film Victoria, the Victorian State Government film agency in Melbourne. But pitching an idea to someone who thinks it is a great idea is the easy bit. In my case, I also naively believed that a total of seven years in television news qualified me to write the script for a film lasting between 90 and 120 minutes. Wrong. So wrong. My first attempt at a script was truly terrible, chiefly because it was dialogue driven and gave away too much information too early. Gradually I got the hang of screenwriting, but still no-one came forward with a firm offer.

The turning point came when Rosemary pointed out that I should be drawing up a detailed chronological account of our God's Triangle research for the historical record. This soon morphed into diary that became a paperback and ebook. And that did the trick. Once that was published, the interest grew and the film rights were picked up. The screenplay is now in pre-production development with two producers in Melbourne, financed by Film Victoria.

This got me thinking about my three other screenplays -- in particular The Moral Maze, a fictional thriller about a foreign correspondent corrupted by the intelligence services with disastrous consequences. Why not also write the book version of this story, I wondered? And that's what I am now doing, in the hope that its publication will lead to the screenplay being picked up by someone with access to about $US10m.

The book should be published before next Christmas. I'm just loving writing it because it requires such a difference approach to a film script. If you interested in making the comparisons, I have posted the opening scenes and chapters on my main Richardson Media Limited website. Here are the LINKS to the SCREENPLAY and to the BOOK.

Feel free to send me your comments to me: ian*at*richardsonmedia.co.uk

PS: Sorry that I can't give you a link to any extracts of the God's Triangle screenplay at this stage, but the script is again a work in progress and currently subject to commercial confidentiality.

When does a film become "period" in Australia?

A long-standing mate who runs a TV production company in Australia is passing through London this week and we caught up for lunch today. In addition to selling his programmes, he is looking for small-budget films to make. I gently suggested that he might be interested in Blind Mike, a music-laden screenplay that I had written, inspired by Grantley Dee, the famous Australian pop singer  and the world's first blind DJ. He couldn't remember Grantley and in any case, "we don't have a market for period films". "What do you mean 'period films'?" I responded with some astonishment, "this was in the 1960s!"  "But that was last century, mate!" he said dismissively.

TV: changing social attitudes

My wife and I have just finished watching a re-run on BBC4 of the wonderful comedy series Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads. It was a laugh-out-loud series in which the humour had worn extremely well, despite it being first broadcast 40 years ago. But there were occasions -- particularly in the final episode -- when we were taken aback by comments that would not get past script editors today. Example: would a comedy be produced in this age in which homosexuals were routinely referred to as "poofs"? Most unlikely. And would there be scenes in which it was made to appear normal for young men to drink several pints of beer and a couple of whisky "shorts" -- then go out and drive away from the pub in a car? I doubt it.

Still, with those reservations, I thank the BBC for giving viewers another chance to watch and enjoy this fine series.It was high-class, finely-tuned comedy.

Joan who? The fragility of fame.

My wife went into a bookshop in Ealing, London, the other day. She wanted to buy an easy-read book for a friend who was incapacitated and feeling a bit down after a bad fall. She asked for a copy of Passion for Life, the new book by Joan Collins. "Who's Joan Collins?" asked the young sales assistant.

It reminds me of a similar sort of experience several years ago when I went to a large bookshop in central London seeking a copy of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. When I failed to find it in the Drama section, I sought help from a young woman behind the counter. "Have you checked in Business?" she asked.

Understanding God's Triangle

I very rarely get upset if I get critical comments about my book God's Triangle or any of my other writings. Sometimes the criticism is not to be taken too seriously, such as when a woman in Sydney told me that my book was rubbish without having bought or read it, but often criticism can be very constructive. By that, I mean that it can expose the fact that I have failed to get my story across successfully, either because of a poor choice of words or an unnecessarily complicated sentence.

When I first wrote God's Triangle I arranged to have test readings by people I either didn't know or whom I was convinced would not flinch from telling me the truth. The feedback was immensely useful and resulted in my shortening of some chapters while expanding others. Since the first edition went into print I have been heartened by the number of readers who have taken the trouble to tell me how much they enjoyed the book and the extraordinary story it revealed about Florence "Florrie" Cox, who was a missionary and my great aunt. I was particularly thrilled yesterday to get this message unprompted from Jennifer Chamberlain in Auckland, New Zealand:

      A great read. Very compelling with good build-up to the high drama of Mr Justice Beach’s back down and the author finally getting to open those divorce files after a determined 18-month battle.

      The story has all the elements of a great movie: modern-day journalist sleuth who won’t be thwarted -- not even by Melbourne’s Supreme Court; the love triangle in its exotic setting; the objectionable Olga and her hapless target; the interesting syndrome (which I had never heard of before) and the poignancy of what poor Florrie endured; the missionary/religious/Masonic themes and the details and colour -- which help conjure the settings. It’s a real journey towards enlightenment narrative and all the more fascinating because we live in an age where nothing is secret any more and yet this potent secret was so well kept by generations of very determined people … and it all happened not so very long ago.

      I also liked the way Ian put himself right into the tale and offered his personal thoughts and reflections. That always helps people clarify their own thinking. It’s going to make a great Aussie film. 

Thank you, Jennifer. It has lifted my spirits.

A journalist's life in film

I'm pleased to know that the film Philomena, based on a book written by a former BBC correspondent, Martin Sixsmith, is doing so well. I am also amused that his fascinating investigation makes him a central part of the film, although he is played by someone else, in this case, the unlikely Steve Coogan.

Martin and I were not friends, as such, but rather friendly colleagues. He was employed by BBC domestic radio and television, while I worked for BBC World Service.

When Martin was stationed in Moscow during the Gorbachev era, I spent a few days with him sorting out plans for World Service coverage of one of Gorby's summit meetings with (I think) Ronald Reagan. Also visiting at that time was the BBC's first staff correspondent in Moscow, Erik De Mauny.

Martin invited Erik and me for dinner in the BBC apartment, but the only food he could find in the Gym store on Red Square was pudding rice and something described simply as "meat". Still, with the aid of some imaginative cooking and reasonable red wine, it proved to be a most enjoyable and entertaining meal.

The reason I mention this is that several years ago, an Australian film company briefly showed enthusiasm in doing my book and film God's Triangle until one of the partners discovered that religion was a feature of the story. "I hate religion," he said and used his veto to block his company's involvement in the project.

As a modest consolation prize, the partner took me out to lunch and got talking to me about how I stumbled across the scandal that destroyed my Great Aunt Florence "Florrie" Cox's life. I summarised how I had turned detective to discover the truth behind the scandal. "Well," he exclaimed, "that's the film!" It should really be about you and your determination to expose what happened and how it was covered up.

For a few seconds, I thought he was going to re-open the negotiations, but no such luck. He still didn't like the story I'd uncovered because it was about missionaries.

Since then, there have been a few others who rather fancied the idea of God's Triangle being a detective story, but we always have come back to it being a rather special and visually-dramatic period saga, set mostly in India in the early 1900s.

We shall see.

Meanwhile, God's Triangle is now in the hands of two enthusiastic and experience Melbourne producers, Ros Walker of Walker Films and Julie Marlow of Deep Rock Films, who are getting moral and financial support from Film Victoria.  So things are looking up, whatever the final structure of the film.

Why do "factual" feature films often tell lies?

I'm grateful to Simon Hoggart of the Guardian (see below) for pointing out that many "factual" elements in films are pure fiction. Sometimes, of course, events have to be conflated and simplified in a feature film, but that is no excuse for gratuitously creating myths, some of them dangerous, that run counter to the truth.

Apparently Saving Mr Banks, the Disney film about the making of the Disney film Mary Poppins, is wildly inaccurate. The prickly relationship between Walt Disney and the author, PL Travers, did not end in kisses and hugs. She hated the film, and especially loathed the Dick Van Dyke part.

But Disney has form. In White Wilderness (1958), he perpetuated the old myth that lemmings commit mass suicide and staged the event. While we're at it, even Cinderella's slipper was probably not glass, or "verre", but fur, or "vair", which seems more likely.

And in other studios, the Americans broke the Enigma code, Braveheart was a noble freedom fighter, and in Argo the Brits refused to help refugees from the Tehran embassy siege. All rubbish.

In the film version of my book God's Triangle it is inevitable that many scenes will have to be guess-work. Also, no-one can be exactly sure what the main characters said to each other as the scandal unfolded. But that said, I want God's Triangle, currently at the pre-production script development stage, to be true to the spirit of my book, a true story.

It was for this reason that I strongly objected to a proposal by a young (male) director that Olga Johnston would discover the truth about my great aunt Florrie Cox when the two of them had a bath together.

Why did I object? Because both women were missionaries and the event was to have taken place in 1917 or thereabouts. I told the producers that it was ridiculous to suggest that any women back then -- let alone sexually-inhibited Christian missionaries -- would have seen each other naked and casually shared a bath. To include a scene like that would undermine the credibility of the entire film.

The producers agreed and the director went off to look at other projects.