This is a transcript of SYS 502 – Adapting A Novel For The Screen With Charles Guard and Thomas Guard .
Welcome to Episode 502 of the Selling Your Screenplay Podcast. I’m Ashley Scott Meyers, screenwriter and blogger with sellingyourscreenplay.com. Today I’m interviewing filmmaking brothers – Tom and Charles Guard, they are writer directors from the UK and they’re on this week to talk about their new film Dead Shot. It’s a political thriller that takes place in 1970s in London, we talked about the film as well as their careers and how they got their start in the business. So, stay tuned for that interview. If you find this episode valuable, please help me out by give me a review in iTunes or leave me a comment on YouTube or retweeting the podcast on Twitter or liking or sharing it on Facebook. These social media shares really do help spread word about the podcast, so they’re very much appreciated. Any websites, or links that I mentioned in the podcast can be found on my blog in the show notes. I also publish a transcript with every episode in case you’d rather read the show or look at something later on. Or you can find all the podcast show notes at www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/podcast and then just look for episode number 502. If you want my free guide How to Sell a Screenplay in five weeks can pick that up by going to www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide. It’s completely free, you just put in your email address and I’ll send you a new lesson once per week for five weeks along with a bunch of bonus lessons. I teach the whole process of how to sell your screenplay in that guide. I’ll teach you how to write a professional logline and query letter. And how to find agents, managers and producers who are looking for material really is everything you need to know to sell your screenplay just go to www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide. So, now let’s get into the main segment today I’m interviewing writer directors Tom and Charles Guard, here is the interview.
Ashley
Welcome Charles and Thomas to the Selling Your Screenplay Podcast. I really appreciate you coming on the show with me today.
Charles
Thanks.
Ashley
So, to start out, maybe you can tell us a little bit about your background where you grew up, and how did you get interested in the entertainment business? So, Charles, why don’t you go first? I mean, and I think you’ll I’m sure it’ll be kind of a combined story since you guys are brothers. So just kind of give us like, you know, the one- or two-minute highlights how did you guys get into the business, and then bring us all the way up to Deadshot to the point where you’re getting ready to get involved with this project?
Charles
So, we were involved, both our parents were involved in the industry. They’re retired and not involved in it now. But my dad was a commercial director. And our mum started in animation and then moved into editing. We were kind of on-set from a very, very young age. I mean, that photographs, we have a photograph of Tom and I looking through an Airflex camera in Monument Valley, when I was probably three and Tom was probably five and I’m holding the camera for Tom to kind of like look through. And we’re in the middle of one of those giant roads, you know, kind of like going off into the far distance. So, we kind of we grew up on set we were always in and around the film industry, we trained in the camera department when we were teenagers. So, we were very comfortable with cameras and movie making. We started making you know, we were always doing shorts, you know, we were always doing kind of like little films and stuff when we were growing up. And then we sort of in a very organic way we kind of started working in a more professional capacity, I guess. In university really, we made a film with a group of actors from the footlights because we both went to Cambridge and that was kind of the first time that we worked together in a sort of professional way.
Ashley
Gotcha. So, let’s dig into your latest film Dead Shot. Maybe you can just give us a quick pitch logline for this film. What is this film all about?
Thomas
We’re set during the troubles in begins in Northern Ireland in Safar Mar and border ambush goes wrong. And a character Michael, who’s a paramilitary part of the IRA. It swears revenge for what has happened and is determined to track down and kill the soldier responsible for killing his wife in this tragic accident, and it gets taken to London where temp is the British Sergeant the British officer is now working in a clandestine unit hunting terrorists. So it’s a kind of a heat likes story of two characters who want one is chasing the other, but they seem to switch roles halfway through the film.
Ashley
And how did you guys get involved in this project? I noticed on IMDb, there’s a Ronan Bennett, who has a screenplay credit looks like it was based on a book, Steven Muse. So maybe talk about that a little bit dumb. At what point? Did you guys come onto this project? What was it like what was sort of developed when they brought you guys on?
Charles
Well, they had a script. I mean, Brendan had written a couple of drafts of the script that was close to being made. I mean, I think the last draft he wrote in someone was saying he wrote it back in 2012. But it had been through various different incarnations, and never quite made its way to the screen. And we were sent it by Crisco and the producer in probably late 2018, or early 2019. And the world had, although there were elements of the script that felt very dated, we kind of we loved the world, we love to kind of walk what Rodin was exploring with this idea of cat and mouse, and we felt that he had hit upon a really interesting idea in terms of setting a revenge thriller, within this context, and at that time, you know, in 1975, which was a very, very violent year in London, and in the United Kingdom. So, it had a very authentic background, to the kind of story and then we pitched Chris and Ronan a kind of a take on the story, there was a bit of a departure because it was kind of focusing very much on the two males as not as heroes or villains. But there’s kind of elements of both of those things. And really, we pitch this idea of kind of toxic masculinity, and these kind of these sort of very complicated, older figures, older male figures like Holland and Kenan who were like Arch manipulators who could kind of, you know, manipulate these younger men who perhaps had more innocent desires at their heart, they could manipulate those men into doing into doing their dirty work, and into doing these into enacting these kind of like, atrocious acts of violence that would trap them, and the kind of was just awful. And we thought that that was a really interesting way of looking both at masculinity, but also at the context of, of the time and of kind of the world of the troubles and also how similar that was to the world of today. So, there was a lot of stuff, you know, ideas of identity and ideas of what it means to be part of a country really.
Ashley
So, let’s talk about your actual collaboration. So, then you had a draft, you pitch them, this other take on it. Maybe you can talk a little bit about how you guys work together. And we can talk specifically about this. I wonder if there’s some specific things that you can change, but just some of the logistical things I know would be interesting for screenwriters to hear how do you guys work together? You in the same room? Is one of you at a computer typing? Do you guys have bulletin boards? Do you put stuff out on index cards, you do a lot of outlining maybe you can just sort of describe this process of then, you know, rewriting the screenplay, and even some actual specifics of things you change and then how ultimately they get changed. Just how is that actually function with your unit.
Thomas
We talk a lot about the story, we keep coming back to the story all the time and how that evolves and changes and the characters within it. We do a lot of all the things that you say. I mean, we do a different times. I mean, it’s sometimes you need those things to help you at certain moments, that pinboards and the post it notes and other times that you have to kind of shut your eyes and imagine it more and actually kind of get away from those things. So, you’re constantly trying to listen to the sound of the film or the kind of the heartbeat of it and find out where it’s going to take you.
Ashley
And what does that just as a practical matter, like what does that actually work look like for you guys? You’re in the same room, you’re discussing the story. And then you know, one of you will go, okay, we’re going to go in and you start to break down scenes. Just again, I’m just sort of curious of just like how that actually works?
Charles
We listen to music and music, music can be very, very helpful in terms of jamming the radar and allowing you to do not necessarily see the problems, but to sort of see the bigger picture and kind of what it is that you want to explore. But yeah, I mean, we sort of sometimes I mean, they’ve they’re fantastic tools, I mean, sometimes if we’re not in the same room, then final draft has amazing ability to kind of a collaborative tool that you can be working on the draft simultaneously from wherever you are. So, there were definitely times where we were doing that if one of us was, was abroad, or you know, or if we couldn’t be in the same room. That was a great way of doing it.
Ashley
Are there’s some specific items you can point to in that first, or that draft that you guys got from Ronan and that you want it to change, and then maybe just walk us through that sort of process. Okay, this is how the original script went. And then this is how we changed it, and maybe talk through some of your reasoning for making those changes.
Thomas
But it was important to us that there were no heroes or villains in the story. And that, and we didn’t want to be too bogged down in specifics of the conflict. So, by specifics, I mean, religion or party politics, or kind of partisan sectarianism. And we probably that was our first kind of step was to see the revenge in the film in a more mythic way, was trying to make it we were keen to make it more universal. And that was kind of a big step.
Ashley
I’m curious, just and I mean, obviously an American, we’re not nearly as sort of aware of the conflict that took place, as British people, obviously, you would be, I’m curious how that does play in it. Because one of the things that occurs to me, as you were just talking there is that you know, somebody in Ireland or the UK is going to watch this with a much different take. I mean, they might have had relatives that were personally, you know, injured or involved. And so that is going to put people on different sides, just it’s going to do the opposite of what you guys it sounds like we’re trying to do in the sense, there’s going to be some people that are going to come into this, and they’re going to see one side is good, and one side is bad. And how do you overcome some of that? That’s sort of a cultural prejudice, I guess.
Charles
Yeah, I will prejudice this everywhere. I mean, you can’t escape it. But we tried our hardest to kind of constantly contextualize whatever was happening from the point of view of two sides. So, you know, the, for instance, the scene with Michael’s mother, when Kenan goes to tell her that Michaels dead, that was a very important scene to sort of, to be able to offer the audience, it was an important thing to us to be able to offer the audience an opportunity to see the what’s happening at that time, and in that land from a slightly different point of view, you know, from the point of view of perhaps one of one of these days is all of this is going to be over. And is it really worth, you know, kind of killing everyone is the futility of the violence and the futility, of death and loss, that was something that we were really keen to explore.
Ashley
What did the development process look like for this script? It sounds like you were working with the producer and also working with the original writer. How did that go? You guys would write a draft, you would send it to him, you would get some notes from them. And I’m just curious how you, you know, potentially address some of those notes. Were there some notes that maybe you didn’t agree with? Were you guys on the same page, but maybe talk us through that? How did this development process go for this project?
Charles
We were given a massive amount of freedom. I mean, we beyond the initial kind of like pitch meeting that we had with Chris and Ronan. I think we met with Ronan one more time. But really, he was not available. It wasn’t ever our intention to kind of to climb on board the script in the way that we did, it just sort of evolved. He wasn’t available to do any, any changes. And Chris kind of said; Look, you guys should just run with this and make it your own. And, and that was that sort of, once we started kind of getting involved in that it became it just kind of got bigger and bigger and bigger. And we’ve sort of reworking a lot and characters, like, it was very important to us that you it was very important to us this idea of the heroes and villains, but also the there was a kind of a sense of empathy and a sense of fairness, in how people were portrayed. And also, we were very keen on strengthening the women and making the female characters. Obviously, the story, the thrust of the story was told from the male point of view, but we felt that it was incredibly important to provide to contextualize this world with kind of, with female characters that were that were strong in their own right. And also, as trapped as the men. So, characters like Katherine and the way that the way that she evolved was kind of that was really important to us. I mean, she was a very different character. She was not Keenan’s daughter, and, and none of that sort of stuff existed. So. Yeah,
Ashley
I’m curious. Okay. So that’s the development process. Sounds like you guys got a lot of freedom. And that’s awesome. Obviously, as directors and writers, I’m curious how you guys navigate differences in your own opinions, just between brothers, obviously, you guys have grown up together, I’m sure you guys know each other about as well as two people can know each other. So maybe just talk through that? How do you guys get past? Are there any impasses? Where, you know, Tom thinks one thing and Charles thinks another thing? How do you work through some of those compromises, potential compromises?
Thomas
Inevitably, you come to some moments where you want to have a difference of opinion. But I think that the important thing is that we understand that there’s no right and wrong in the same way that there’s the kind of no heroes and villains in the piece, often with ideas. You kind of have to listen to you just have to listen to the story. And the story actually tells you where it wants to go at a certain point. And so, it’s kind of sounds like a long-winded confusing answer. But it’s a strange thing. I mean, it’s we were reading an interview with Chistopher Macquarie and Tom Cruise, talking about whether they argue and he was saying that they argue on behalf of the audience, which was an interesting point of view. And that makes a lot of sense that you’re kind of arguing for how they’re going to read the film and experience it. And this wasn’t quite so audience led the reaction of the audience, but at the same time, you’re kind of arguing on behalf of the film, rather than possibly, I mean, the narrative and, and that narrative has an energy of its own. So, we respect we respect that and says to you just have to listen and be open and work through things.
Charles
And remember that writing and when you’re kind of exploring these things, there’s a big element of being a detective or being an archaeologist, you’re kind of excavating around something. So, you need to be very, you need to be very kind of methodical and careful about how you sort of reveal it because it’s in there in once you’ve committed to a story and you believe in a story and you have that, like you suddenly have that burning desire to tell that story. Then you have to just keep exploring and kind of uncovering the story and yeah, it’s Tom saying tuning into it because we love this expression water finds a way because you know the kind of the resolution the solution to whatever the problem is will reveal itself when you know when you keep working it.
Ashley
Gotcha. Gotcha. So, I just like to end the interviews by asking the guests if there’s anything you guys have seen recently that you thought was really great that you can recommend to our mostly screenwriting audience anything on Netflix, Hulu, HBO, what have you gotten the watching? Is there anything you think is really good out there?
Charles
Barbie.
Ashley
Guys are down with Barbie. I had mixed reactions to Barbie. I have two young daughters. So it was definitely on our radar, but I was not super enthusiastic about it. But I do recommend it as something people check out. So that will tell us how people can see Deadshot what’s the release schedule going to be like with that?
Thomas
It’s in theaters and on Showtime streaming on the 18th of August.
Ashley
Okay, perfect, perfect. And what’s the best way for people to keep up with what you guys are doing anything you’re comfortable sharing Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, I will round that up, put it in the show notes so people can click over to you.
Charles
We’re not too plugged into.
Ashley
Gotcha. Okay, I’ll link to your IMDb pages. That’ll be, these people can check out what you’re doing so well guys, I really appreciate you coming on and talking with me. Good luck with this film and good luck while your feature films as well. Thank you. We’ll talk to you guys later.
Charles
Thanks. Bye.
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On the next episode of the podcast, I’m going to be interviewing filmmaker Julia Bergeron who did a short film called That Last Girl. A couple of weeks ago I had on Brian McQueary, whose film plea is the opening night feature film. And then That Last Girl will be our opening night short film that’s going to take place October 6th at 6pm. Check out the website for all the details www.sixfigurefilmfestival.com. Julia also wrote the feature film murder van which we’re hoping to show Saturday Night at the festival October 7th at 4pm. But it’s not completely through post production. So, it’s not locked in yet, but hopefully we will be showing that. But I’ll be talking more about murder van in the coming months as it’s a script that was actually discovered on SYS the budget list so hopefully we’ll be showing it at the festival but if not, I’ll definitely try and have Julia back on to talk about it in the coming months. But next week she’s on to talk about her short film That Last Girl. So, keep an eye out for that episode next week. That’s the show. Thank you for listening.