BAFTA Screenwriters’ Lecture Series: Sean Baker on THE FLORIDA PROJECT
Now in its eighth year, BAFTA’s Screenwriters’ Lecture Series allows for an intimate conversation between filmmaker and audience. All week, we’ll be highlighting edited conversations from transcripts of this series. First up: Sean Baker talks about THE FLORIDA PROJECT, now in theaters!
On his writing process:
When I co-write my films, I feel as if I write my films three times: the initial screenplay, written in a fairly conventional way — the only thing that may not be standard about that initial screenplay is slightly more screen direction on the page and sections in which I clearly state that I’ll be using a documentary-style approach to capturing a moment. Then there’s a rewrite during production and that happens basically through my direction. I always encourage improvisation on set, so as a writer I take what my actor gives me in that moment and think of a different approach and direct them on how to change it. Sometimes it’s asking questions in the moment, sometimes it’s simply feeding them alternate lines that are thought of in the moment as the camera’s rolling, and it’s really just — it’s almost having a dialogue with my actors, it’s a back and forth. Then there’s the third stage: post-production. And this is where I write the film for the third time. Because I edit my own films, I have the liberty to find the film for the third time in the edit room. And I really consider this part of my writing, very much part of my directing. However, I try not to focus on the forms of structure when writing — I never want structure to be apparent. It’s important for me, it — the minute that I recognize structure it takes me out. I want to feel like I’m living and breathing with the characters and spending time with them, at least in my films. And if there’s a three-act structure, which there are in my films, I want the acts to be difficult to point out, to find — for the act breaks to be blurred as much as possible.
On storytelling structure and character reveals:
I realized there actually is one film out there that really did have a direct influence on my work, structurally speaking, and that applies to the last three films, to be precise — the film is Jake Clennell’s 2006 feature documentary THE GREAT HAPPINESS SPACE: TALE OF AN OSAKA LOVE THIEF. And there is an incredible, fascinating reveal thirty-eight minutes in, which is, for a film that runs seventy- six minutes, the exact halfway mark — it was that twist, that character reveal, that made an indelible impact on me as a screenwriter. And so what I want to talk about is this sort of — I guess I can call it a character reveal, it’s simply a reveal of the character’s circumstance. And while this might, may be quite eye-opening for the audience, it’s quite matter of fact for the characters, you know, for the subjects, because our characters have been living in this circumstance for some time — a reveal of something significant in one of the main characters’ lives, which is conveniently kept from the audience for approximately half the picture to maximize the reveal’s effect. This leaves the audience in a place where they suddenly must question everything they thought they knew about the character, re-evaluate the character’s actions, decisions, and behaviour up to this point and from that point on. This character reveal rarely changes the plot or the course of the plot. However, ideally it forces the audience to question how and why they were judging the character, and how and why their perception of the character has now changed.
I realized that the, some of the fiction narrative films that have been the most emotionally impactful and meaningful to my life and career have a version of this device in their screenplays. One example: HAROLD AND MAUDE; Harold noticing Maude’s concentration camp tattoo. This one shot reveals an integral part of Maude’s past. I believe in THE FLORIDA PROJECT, I also do this at around the fifty-minute, around the half way mark. It’s, it’s — I would say a little more subtle, but it is a character reveal with the Bobby character played by Willem Dafoe. In that scene, through a lot of mumbled words and very little dialogue, we can get the sense that Bobby is estranged from probably what, probably his — Jack’s mother, his wife. And Bobby is in a place where he is so isolated, so lonely, that he is paying his own son for his company. And that’s it. It doesn’t change the course of the plot, it’s literally just giving you a little more insight on who Bobby is, and perhaps you re-evaluate — and that’s my hope — you re-evaluate his relationship with the residents. He is the reluctant parental figure for many of the children there.
On making films about people very different from him:
When Chris Bergoch and I went into TANGERINE, we literally went in there knowing two things: it was going to take place on the corner of Santa Monica and Highland, and that there was going to be a climactic confrontation in a Mike Leigh style at Donut Time. And that was it — we didn’t understand the world yet. We’re two cis-gender white men from outside of that world — we needed to find collaborators. And that came in the form of Mya Taylor: Mya was the one who first showed enthusiasm, who said she wanted to act, she had friends to introduce us to, she sat down with us, gave us her time. So did her friends. And then it was about asking them “what stories do you want told?” and basically after hearing enough where we felt confident that we could then start picking and choosing: “you know that’s a great little idea for maybe a vignette,” or “here’s a subplot” or “there’s a character, yeah. Yeah, we can flesh that out.” So we riffed on that and we said “how would this play out in real life?” You know we asked a lot of questions, and I think that’s the big part of it — ot’s always asking for approval and asking for people in the community to sign off on it, saying: “Do you approve of this? Is this the way it would play out? Is this representation, you know, accurate?” and this has happened basically or every one of my films, to certain degrees. It’s about gaining trust, it’s about befriending and it’s about, again, hearing the voices of the community.
On script format:
I have some screen direction and some stylistic direction in the screenplays, even though Chris hates that — he likes standard screenplay format. And so when I do stuf, I like that it’s not considered professional. But it’s necessary for me because I want the actors to understand when we’ll be playing with them and when, you know, when I’ll be asking them to improvise, and I want my DP and my production designer to understand things. So I sometimes look at the traditional screenplay format as a little bit limiting.
On audiences:
You can’t play for the lowest common denominator because if you do, what sort of film are you making? You have to hope the audience is on your level or higher.
