Deluxis Entertainment: The Blog

No one knows more about the art of storytelling than those writing and producing stories for a living. The first in a continuing series, we’ll be picking the minds of talented storymakers around the world to collect some of the best practices and tips associated with creation. If you’d like to be featured in a future post, please send a hello email to keane(at)deluxis.com. And be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more exciting Deluxis news.

Who is Brett Snelgrove?

I’m an Australian living and working in London. I come from a background in factual and comedy television production. I’m now focusing on writing, making contacts and development projects here in London. I’ve written for as long as I can remember and have spent a lot of time developing my craft, which translated means getting all those crap and cliche scripts out of my system. To date I have written sketches for a topical TV comedy programme, written and produced several short films, taught scriptwriting to both adults and young people, worked as a freelance script reader and have been awarded development funding for a multi-platform drama. In 2005 I wrote and produced Domestic, a self-funded HD short film which screened at 20+ festivals and won the 2006 St. Kilda Film Festival’s Editing and Craft awards, plus numerous accolades for best film, best actor and audience choice. Domestic is licensed to Atom Films and has screened theatrically and on television networks in Australia and overseas.

When you conceive an idea, what is your process/methodology for converting it into a script?

Early on I was obsessed with the likes of McKee, Field, Vogler and Snyder, which was a great way to teach myself the process and structure of screenwriting but not very conducive to creativity. Now I tend to spend as much time as possible mulling over an idea and writing notes — trying to find connections or themes or relationship that unifies a whole bunch of ideas into a story. From there it’s all about pumping out a first draft as quickly as possible. This is a traditional spew draft with every idea and plot point and characterisation I can think of crammed in there. It’s big, fat and ugly. Then I start re-writing, where I get to make discoveries about the characters and slowly shape the script into the story I imagined in my head. This is the most fun part of the process for me because I’ve got something to work with and don’t have to face the blank page.

What inspires you and how do you keep your creative juices flowing?

I try to be a keen observer and make notes about people or situations around me but also get inspiration and recharge my batteries with any number of different things. I love a good weekend breakfast with my partner at our local cafe. I read everything from magazines, to factual novels to comics and graphic novels. I go to the cinema and theatre when I can. I have a regular writer’s group here in London called Script Tank that I attend. I commute a hell of a lot around London and so listen to a wide variety of factual and entertainment podcasts. And when I’m home I watch a lot of television. I mean a lot. I love it! The number one thing that keeps me going is having people that I can bounce ideas and drafts off. I have one particular mate who has been my sounding board for as long as I can remember and has read pretty much everything I have written. Without him I would be a mess.

What are you currently working on?

Outside of keeping up contacts as a writer and producer both in London and Australia, I am currently finishing up writing a ten-episode relationship comedy web series, and in the middle of producing a pilot episode for a 2D animated sci-fi web comedy with talented Dutch animated Freek Van Haagen.

Tessa & Adam

Web sitcom Tessa & Adam exposes the awkward, confronting and explicit moments of British lad Adam and his Dutch expat girlfriend, Tessa. Virgins to cohabitation, the series captures their clash of culture, gender, love and sex and reveals just how odd sharing your life with someone can be.

New Eden

New Eden is a sci-fi web comedy for the South Park audience about a juvenile, bickering odd couple marooned on a primordial world populated with creatures determined to have them for dinner!

You can find out more information about both projects here — http://drettworlb.wordpress.com/current-projects/

I’d love to live and work in the states someday and so I’m slowly making contacts and in-roads there as well. Twitter has been a great tool for this. People can find me at @BrettSnelgrove and New Eden at @NewEdenseries.

As we continue our examination on effective storytelling, we cannot overlook the phenomenon that is Harry Potter. First published in 1997, the robust series of young adult books has transcended itself into the hands of old adults and onto the big screen, becoming the highest grossing film franchise of all time. 

Author J.K. Rowling’s manner of writing aids the digestibility of her stories. Like the pop music of literature, she utilizes carefully produced and interwoven plot lines. Sentences are flowing — almost poetic — and thus lend themselves to silver screen transfer. The books, in and of themselves, were already cinematic.

Of course, one could write a complete volume on writing style. Here, we share some of the more outstanding elements.

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