Film Courage: What’s the first step for writing a screenplay?
Phil Hawkins, Writer/Director: The first step is usually an idea of plot or story. I don’t really start with a character. I admire people that do that. But I’m very much like Stanislavski, kind of outside-in-kind of thing – find the shoes and then you’ll find the person as opposed to the other way around kind of thing if that makes sense. So I have an idea or a concept or a story I want to tell and in writing it I find the characters, I find the story and then when I know that it’s working whether that’s on an outline perspective or whether it’s in a draft perspective or whether it’s draft one or draft ten, when the characters suddenly start doing things I don’t want them to do then I know I’ve got the characters right…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
Phil Hawkins is an award-winning commercials and features director. He’s directed hundreds of television ads globally and made five feature films released by Sony Pictures, Lionsgate and Netflix. Most recently he’s written and directed Star Wars: Origins, a film shot location in the Sahara Desert that’s taken 3 years to make combining his love of Star Wars and Indiana Jones in a unique re-telling of the beginnings of the saga.
WATCH ‘STAR WARS ORIGINS’
CONNECT WITH PHIL HAWKINS
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