SBIFF 2011 Writers Panel

Review by Larry Gleeson. The SBIFF 2011 Writer’s Panel was conducted at the Lobero Theater on Saturday January 28 at 11:00 A.M.

Ann Thompson of Indiewire moderated the 2011 panel titled “It All Starts With A Script.” The panel featured Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network), Scott Silver (The Fighter), David Seidler ( The King’s Speech), Charlie Mitchell ( Get Low), Lisa Cholodenko ( The Kids Are All Right), and Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3).

Ms. Thompson kicked off by asking the panel the origins of their individual scripts. Mr. Sorkin replied his emanated from a fourteen page book proposal titled The Social Network via Random House Publishing Company. Scott Silver explained his was a rewrite from after the involvement of director David Aronofsky and a drastically reduced budget from the original 50-60 million. Nevertheless, Mr. Silver understood the strength of the project was the real life relationship between brothers Mickey and Dickey.

Next Ms. Thompson inquisitively prodded Mr. Seidler “What took so long?” as his script to0ok over ten years to “get made.” Mr. Seidler elaborated “Birdie” had been his childhood hero and shared that he had been a stutterer as well. Seidler recounted the times his parents gave encouragement using King George the VI as an example. Seidler not displaying any aversion to speaking went on to enlighten the audience that as he read about King George Lionel Logue appeared onn his radar. While he wasn’t able to find much background information, Seidler was able to discover Logue’s son, an eminent brain surgeon. Logue’s son provided the notes from King George’s treatments. Nevertheless, Seidler  felt he needed the Queen of England’s permission to bridge such a delicate topic involving the Royal lineage. So, Seidler explained “25 years later and ten years after the Queen’s passing” a film was made.

At this point Charlie Mithchell chimed in that he too had little background material to work with. He knew the central character had done “something” in early adulthood that became a mystery and erailed a promising life.In addition, Mithchell shared Robert Duvall really wanted to make this movie and that together they invented the central character of the movie.

Lisa Cholodenko explained her experience in creating the “Kids Are All Right” script. Primarily drawing from personal experience and arising from a meeting at the 101 Hollywood cafe with a sperm donor friend, the process began. Cholodenko researched character studies and then pushed the findings into a commercial view with great comedic chops. Cholodenko respect for “the process” incorporated a gestation period commenting her first draft contained a river rafting excursion eventually simplifying and allowing the actors to tell the story.

Michael Arndt responded next. His task was to do a sequel. He looked at the arc of the story with how he was going to get the toys out of the landfill and to get them home and and realized a driving theme was in Andy’s mom’s words” “I’ll always be there for you. Arndt wound up fine tuning his script holding a two day idea generating retreat with around 25 people  to enhance the script.

The writer’s panel provided a peek into what is often referred to by many film-making insiders as the innovative realm proved enlightening as well as entertaining.