So, it turns out I can’t write about what’s just been happening because I’ve been asked to sign a confidentiality agreement.  Which is a shame, but there it is.  Instead, let’s look at the issues raised by the time I spent with a filmmaker friend, and that strongly resonate with my own experience and beliefs.

L has made several short films, which helped secure her a place on one of Britain’s most prestigious film making courses.  After graduating, she started to develop a feature film, and had support from a notable backer.  It was a long process, and after a year or so, she was assigned a different script editor to work on it.  One who had no sympathy with or interest in a key aspect of the the story, and who instead sidetracked L with suggestions like ‘the story happens in Australia: why not have your protagonist encounter some aboriginal characters?’.

As time went on, L felt less enthusiasm for her story, which by now hardly had any of the spark that had drawn her to it in the first place.  And when the project finally fizzled into limbo, she felt glad that she wouldn’t have to be making a film that by now she felt no connection with.

I have had similar experiences.  Most notably, when asked to develop a film set in the world of mixed martial arts cage fighting, by a team who had significant contacts within that scene in America.  I spent a long time developing a story that I did my best to imbue with some intelligence and credibility, only for the project to end up crashing and burning in a meeting with a third division action star who didn’t like the fact that his mentor character necessarily died at the end of the second act.  Hey ho.  But after the initial frisson of my first contact with the world of American film, I too felt glad that the project had been aborted.

What L learned, and what I learned, from these and similar experiences, is that if you’re going to stick with a film or tv project from the first germ of an idea to its ultimate distribution, you need to be 100% committed to it.  Why faff around with something you’re half-hearted about when that very fact guarantees you won’t be working to the best of your abilities?  Find where your passion for a project is, and apply it so that it sees you through.  That approach has seen me through the development process of a show like Doctors, where multiple drafts of a script are expected in a month, and it ensures that I’ve got what’s needed to keep at in during the long haul of developing my own television series treatment and pilot, or writing and hustling a feature film script.

And in a roundabout way, that allows me to sum up the experience I signed a confidentiality agreement about, too.  It involved very bright and talented and committed people who have exactly that passion for what they’re working on, and look for similar zest in the writers that they work with.  Which makes sense: given a choice between someone who relishes what they’re doing, and someone going for the motions for the cheque, who would you want to hang out with?