This week, I have written a 40 word premise for a short film and rewritten ten pages of a one-act play. Before the week is over, I aim to have also worked on developing a feature idea, and may possibly be developing a film treatment for a freelance client.
As I work on different projects, I have begun thinking about why I tell stories. When I first began writing and directing short films at university, I wanted to reflect real issues, whether that be personal problems or situations around me. My thesis film, Blood and Water, was about domestic abuse and one man’s revenge against an abuser. It came from a deeply personal place; I was exorcising demons and attempting to come to terms with my own feelings on the subject.
However, over the past two years, my interests as a storyteller has changed. I still enjoy drama, but my own writing interests lay in comedy (or at least, the merging of comedy and drama). Though many of my ideas are rooted in realism and the real world, I prefer to write stories that are more heightened, amusing, or genre-influenced. In 2020, I have written a 45-minute pilot and a 15-minute short, both of which took realistic scenarios (two friends on a campervanning holiday and a woman visiting a yoga class respectively) and pushed them into weird, violent, darkly funny territory.
I think there are two reasons for this. First and foremost, I’m interested in characters and dialogue. Before writing a script, I spend a lot of time getting to know a character: interviewing them, thinking about where they are and how they got there, trying to capture their voice. When undertaking this process, I naturally gravitate towards humour, whether that be intentionally funny characters or people lacking self-awareness and/or social graces.
The second reason is the same lesson learned by the titular character in the Preston Sturges screwball comedy Sullivan‘s Travels. In a world as chaotic and frequently terrifying as ours, sometimes people just need a laugh. Not to dismiss serious drama, which I watch often and write occasionally, but for me personally, I am driven by the need to entertain. If I can make a substantial point at the same time, it’s great, but if not, I’ll settle for a laugh.
– Harry Ford
Harry Ford - Comedian 