by Gabriella Apicella

Bill Martell

It’s raining outside. Underneath a backstreet record store, a crowd gathers in front of a small stage. As the minutes tick by, expectation mounts. A softly spoken silver haired American, shading his eyes behind dark glasses takes the stage. His introduction reveals his respect and friendship for the man the crowd patiently waits for. Tall, charismatic, and brash, Bill Martell walks solidly to the front of the room, accompanied by polite applause, to begin a seminar on writing scenes of Sex and Violence for the screen. With an expressive voice, infectious confidence and more filmed movie scripts than any other Hollywood screenwriter working today (19 to be precise), the next hour and a half will be compelling…

As part of the Raindance Film Festival, screenwriter Bill Martell recently gave a series of free lunchtime seminars on his craft in the Festival Café, tucked into the basement of Phonica Records on Poland Street. Each attended by around 70 people, they covered all aspects of screenwriting, and I was fortunate to be at two of them – the first on writing scenes of sex and violence, and the second on creating interesting scenes.

With an intimidating amount of movie knowledge and industry experience to draw on, Martell’s seminars were littered with examples of scenes he has written, watched, emulated, improved upon, admired, had rejected, been commissioned on the basis of, and even one that frightened a producer so much they feared meeting him in person, and would only discuss contracts through his representative! Both seminars I attended were invaluable, with practical advice that even those at the beginning of their screenwriting careers can implement. Without using a single clip or handout, Martell succinctly described examples that made his techniques, tricks and advice easy to absorb.

With so many variables to what works in a movie and what doesn’t, or what you can get away with in a screenplay and what you can’t, it seems at times almost impossible to begin to lay down any rules of how to go about writing a film. However, what Martell’s seminars made easily accessible were definite techniques the writer has at their disposal. The key to transforming these from an interesting anecdote or useful tip, however seems to be fearlessness. Although this alchemy is harder to teach, after an hour and a half in Martell’s company his contagious enthusiasm seemed to have affected the eager group.

Emboldened, the crowd disperses into the drizzly street, impatient ideas causing a twitching in their fingertips as they rush home to their incomplete scripts. One among the crowd hangs back, not quite ready to join the soggy passersby. Regretting giving up smoking, remembering the security and sense of film noir cool it could once invoke, the figure instead breathes in the damp polluted air of London, determined this journey will be littered with success. Moments pass, and after a while the darkly clad person can’t put it off any longer, and steps in amongst the anonymous bodies to find out …

Although he has yet to bring out a book on Screenwriting, and didn’t mention any plans to, Bill Martell does have a website through which it’s possible to purchase CDs of his seminars. Having bought one of these myself, I’m pleased to say that I’m already putting his advice to use. www.scriptsecrets.net

It is an amazing thing that the Raindance Film Festival does by making seminars such as these available to the general public free of charge. Donations made throughout the festival will continue to make them possible. Raindance is supported by the registered charity, the Independent Film Trust which is grateful for donations, so that their work promoting and helping to make independent film can continue. www.independentfilmtrust.org