Screenwriter Research - David Farr

Screenwriting Research

So one screenwriter that grabbed my attention was a man called David Farr, the reason for this is there was a recent series named 'The Night Manager' in which he wrote the screenplay for. This series went on to be nominated for 12 Emmy nominations, winning 2 of them which were for - Outstanding directing for a limited series, movie or a dramatic special, won by Susanne Bier. The other being - Outstanding music composition for a limited series, movie or a special (original dramatic score) won by Victor Reyes. 

David Farr was born on October 29th 1969, and lived in surrey, where eventually he went on to study at Cambridge university graduating with a double first in English Literature.

But before he had wrote the screenplay for the fantastic award winning series, he had been involved in many other productions and not only for TV but for films, e.g Hanna - Dir. Joe Wright. The synopsis for this film, to put it briefly, is about a sixteen-year-old girl who was raised by her father to be the perfect assassin, who is then dispatched on a mission across Europe, tracked by a ruthless intelligence agent and her operatives. The film didn't get massive recognition and didn't do too great in the box office but it was a film with great implications i.e empowering women, having female leads with their characters having huge strengths, going against Mulveys theory of the 'male gaze' . It also actually did receive a nomination for best screenplay at the St. Louis Film Critics Association, US.

The Night Manager - 2016

Each episode cost an estimated £3m to make, and one executive producer, the Ink Factory's Simon Cornwell, says the lavish adaptation was "a risk."

"It's a difficult book to adapt," he says, "and there have been quite a few attempts to make it into a film, it just didn't work. It needed six hours to explain the story.

"But to all intents and purposes, it's been written and shot as a film - we just hired one director, Susanne Bier, for all six episodes. I always think of it as a film - just a six-hour one."

Susanne Bier had won an Oscar in 2010 for her film 'In A Better World'. 

Overall this series really did enthral me and have me engaged the whole way through because of the character development and the narrative as a whole. The my main focus was on Tom Hiddlestone's character 'Johnathan Pine' as he is an ex-militant whose days in war have been over for some years now however due to current affairs within the series he puts his working gloves back on, so to speak, and we see such a change within him that I find fascinating. It just makes me think about my script and the development that all scripts need for their characters to work, to have conflict happen, which then brings about change, which results then in even more potential conflict.