People ask me what script doctoring entails, and the best answer is ‘it depends on the script’. Sometimes it’s a matter of ensuring the structure serves the story well. Sometimes it’s about finding ways to bring characters to life. And yes, an understanding of how a script works is of course part of the toolkit. More importantly though, I see my role as developing a relationship with the writer/filmmaker that will help them make the most of their material, to bring out its and their best qualities in ways that will shape the way they approach writing and filmmaking in the future.

Case in point: I had a meeting with a filmmaker who’s done some shorts, and has a knack for editing other peoples’, about what kind if feature he might like to make. He started to tell me about this science fiction epic, and as a fan of science fiction and his style I looked forward to what he was going to say. Only, what came out of his mouth was dry, unexciting. I figured if he had a problem making it fun in an informal pitch, what hope was there of imbuing the project with the life it needed to go through rewriting and pre-production and the rest of it.

Then I asked him what the inspiration for this space yarn was. It was like a switch had been flicked. Suddenly animated, he started telling me about his childhood, spent partly in Africa. And a particular bar, which he’d served at as a 12 year old and where the clientele included former spies and military experts who’d worked across the continent and been involved in its intrigues and battles over the last forty years.

Excuse me? All of a sudden I was seeing on my mental cinema screen a multi-strand narrative where several stories entwined about this fabulous location, where a young boy served beer to mercenaries and assassins, a sweeping epic about post-colonial Africa and the continued influence of the west on countries striving for independence. How come the guy who’d lived through this wanted to put robots and lasers in place of this rich seam of personal material? Who cares? What concerned me was hauling that story out of him and getting it on paper. If it fucked him up in the process, well then he’d better do a good job on the script so as to be able to pay a therapist’s bills later.

In truth, I do have some sensitivity to the personal issues that can come up when someone is developing a screenplay. I spent several highly rewarding sessions meeting a woman who wanted to turn her life story into a film. My job was to be a counsellor as much as a hardnosed film pro, and it was a privilege to see her act out scenes that she’d never been able to capture on paper because of her serious dylsexia, bringing raw memories of a painful childhood to life in the back room of a city centre cafe.

Right now I’m working with someone on a feature that will be shot next year. Again, the process is defined by the person. My role at times is to provide tools for the filmmaker to explore his story from different perspectives and learn from them. That has entailed pretending to be one of his favourite directors before now, and even writing essays from their perspective. We’ve also explored ways to heighten the mythic aspects of the story, and I’ve made specific suggestions about making some scenes more extreme to really exploit their cinematic potential. Sometimes my role is to keep an eye out for the whole story, and see that it functions. At other times, I aim to provoke new concepts and images from the heart of the raw material that makes it tick. And yes, I can do script reports for what they’re worth — more valuable in my experience is the ongoing relationship than the paper trail it produces.