Co-writing The Marionette Unit

Azhur Saleem and James Boyle have asked me to contribute my co-writer perspective of the "The Marionette Unit" filmmaking process to theirs.

When Azhur sent me the first draft of The Marionette Unit, I had already been collaborating with him and James for about 12 months on other film and TV writing projects. We had established a rapport, which is essential in any enterprise, but especially so in creative projects. Our first creative meeting was for another feature-length idea, which we are still developing.  We met in a Starbucks on friday night after work and hashed out the initial plot in a couple of hours over cold coffee. The process was incredibly easy and organic. Ideas flowed and were assessed on one criterion only:

Does it make the story better?

I have had a number of writing collaborations in the past, but they have been ego driven: one party will feel strongly about something they had contributed and would fight for its inclusion in the final draft, to the detriment of the work itself. What I discovered in Starbucks that night was another writer who cared enough about story to check his ego at the door.

Shortly after, Azhur asked me to pitch my ideas to James -- also in the same Starbucks -- and he liked what he heard. Not long after, all three of us began work creating a high-concept TV show, more of which I will write about when appropriate. Again, all three of us worked easily and organically and stuck to the golden rule - "Does it make the story better?"

(Un)fortunately, timing is everything, and at the time I was just in the process of emigrating to Canada, which with other people and times past, would have been the end of out collaborations. Luckily, we are all very technically engaged, so instead of Starbucks, we began using video chat and email.

So it was in January 2009 that Azhur sent me his first draft of The Marionette Unit screenplay, which was based on a story he and James had created (Not in Starbucks this time - but that's another blog posting!) and asked me for comments. I responded and he re-drafted, and this continued for a couple of weeks, with me acting as script editor.

Eventually Azhur invited me to become co-writer on the project, and for the last 11 months we have worked as a tag team: Azhur will write, I will re-write, we video chat and evaluate what works for the story and what doesn't, then we repeat the process.

This finished around the middle of 2009, when we locked-off the script and began work  on the TV series project and a feature-length treatment for The Marionette Unit.

But with the arrival of 2010 and all the viral interest in the inception trailer, we had some industry insiders review our short script. With their input, Azhur and I have once again been writing, reviewing and re-writing the script, and we are especially pleased with the results. The cuts and the new additions really make the characters shine. Each re-write cycle adds more depth and quality, without having to resort to gimmickry or SFX (much to James' relief)!

We hope to have this new version of the The Marionette Unit script locked-off this week, at which point we pass it to James for break-down and budgeting.

That, however, will not be the end of the process for me. Shooting may bring additional, last-minute, script changes. A script is a living, breathing thing. It changes from the moment it leaves my head as I type it out. It evolves through re-writing, and pre-production, as the realities of budget and constraints kick-in. Finally, even on the day of shooting, as the words are channeled by the actors who bring them to life, their insights and performance will shape them even more.

All of which make the finished product, a collaboration of many talented people that transforms the solitary process of writing into a very humbling experience.