Paula Milne is a multi-award?winning British screenwriter, famous for, (amongst others) The Politician?s Wife, The Virgin Queen, Chandler & Co, Die Kinder, Second Sight, Driving Ambition, Small Island and Endgame.
Her new series, White Heat, is being broadcast by BBC 2 beginning Thursday, 8th March, at 9.00pm.
We were honoured when Paula gave an interview to our own Sally Brockway back in the Autumn of last year. Embargoed by the BBC Press office till this week, we can finally bring you the conversation.
This full transcription of the interview contains fascinating information about the way Paula conceived the show, how much of herself is in there, and her writing techniques in general. (Including how she gets through writer?s block!)
Over to Sally:
Sally: Let?s talk about White Heat. It?s a 6 part series and it spans from the 60?s to the present day, telling the lives of seven characters. Why did you want to tell this story in particular?
Paula Milne: I think the time is right to look back at the latter part of the last century and tell an epic story, not only of friendship, but the political and social events of the time that had really influenced people and impacted upon their lives. So in a sense it?s not hugely original as an idea to do that, but of course it all lies in the treatment: how you do it and what happens to them, and the particular social and political events I chose to highlight.
Sally:I know we?ve seen Our Friends in the North and that was done brilliantly through generations, so how did you present White Heat in a way that was different? How did you sell this as something new?
Paula Milne: Well first of all it just shows how fantastically enduring Our Friends in the North is because people of a certain age remember it so well, but that did go out in the mid 90?s and 17 years later, or whatever we are, it allows one to bring the story up to date so that the characters that start in the 60?s we can meet them in their 60?s. And a lot happened after the Millenium. But inevitably as a woman writer I have far more female characters [than Peter Flannery] and it?s as much a story of their sexual politics and dawning sexuality and so on as it is the men?s. So in that way it is really quite different.
Sally: So you?re interested in the political backdrop, what?s happened over the last few decades. How did you find the characters to fit into that? Did you already have characters in mind that you were interested in?
Paula Milne: Lots of writers say this, but I think it is true that all the characters (to a greater or lesser degree) are some aspects of myself. That makes me sound like a bit of a loony, to have seven parts of myself, and the show is definitely based on people I knew slightly, or observed, plus events that I experienced. Looking at it from a feminist viewpoint, various things happened which, for example, were really not touched on at all in Our Friends in the North. Things that happened to women, such as the contraceptive pill, the notion of having sex without the fear of pregnancy, the legalization of abortion, the Equal Pay Act and so on. I thought very much about how those things would impact on the characters and the choices they made and the choices they couldn?t make. And the male characters include a protesting radical left-winger, a journey into gay sex, and into drugs.
Sally: Do you change the language to span the decades? Do your characters speak in a different way in the 60?s than they do in the 90?s ? or have you kept it uniform throughout?
Paula Milne: Well that?s a good question. Bear in mind I was around at those times so I knew how people were speaking. I didn?t do too much of the kind of groovy, peacey dialogue of the period, because a lot of people didn?t even speak it back then. But clearly there were certain expressions that were in use then that aren?t now. But that?s no different than writing The Virgin Queen and trying to understand how they spoke. A writer has to look at the period and see if there are notable differences in the way people express themselves. And as much as anything else those things come down to class. There?s a Jamaican character and he?s obviously going to speak in a completely different way, an Asian character and so on. It?s really just all about characterization and placing them in the right context of the time.
Sally: How do you research different time frames, and the language and different classes and cultures?
Paula Milne: I didn?t have to research the language because I was there and you have an ear for that, and a memory, an experience of it. Certain events I did experience. I was quite involved in the Vietnam demonstrations, particularly Grosvenor Square, which was the first in ?68, the first huge student demonstration that?s ever taken place and it was extremely scary. You want to write things that have some reflection on what is happening now, and clearly the start of student protests and the radicalization of students as we see from then has some kind of relationship with what?s happening now. I selected things that have contemporary relevance and aren?t just going to seem like a side show from the past.
Sally: You?ve got 7 characters, you?ve got 6 parts and you?re spanning four or five decades, now that?s already sounding very -
Paula Milne: 7 different time periods, yes.
Sally: That makes me want to run away and hide in a cave. Where do you start? How do you plan something that huge?
Paula Milne: I started with the characters, and then I started thinking about the years. I started with 65 because I wanted to start at 1965 when they all first move into this flat for two reasons.
One, I wanted to start with Churchill?s death because that represented the end of a previous era, and the first episode is called The Past Is a Different Country. You?ll probably remember that quote, which goes on to say ?they do things differently there.? And I think there?s a seismic change between the generation of the 60?s and of the 50?s. And the death of Churchill symbolized that. So that anchored it in 1965 ? and that?s actually also when I first went to art college. I had some stuff to draw on from that experience because there was a cultural revolution going on in art colleges and art as well.
The second thing is that although student social mobility had been going a bit in the 50?s it really did take off in the 60?s. This series is set in London and they?re at one of the art colleges at London University, or UCL, but there is a boy from Jamaica, there?s an Asian guy, there?s someone from Newcastle, someone from Manchester and so forth. It was a great opportunity to show that kind of social mobility, and how important that is. Again it shows the importance of having a conduit to contemporary situations that we?re facing one a crisis over tuition fees. In those days it was grants, and each time social mobility gets mired, and stopped or halted, or threatened at least. So that was two of the choices that started to govern the first episode at least.
And then I wanted to do Grosvenor Square, so it went from ?65 to ?68, and then ?72 which was the winter of discontent and the notion of social contract and so on. Then to ?79 and ?82, and each of these periods had events that really did affect and impact on people?s lives.
Sally: Do you outline everything before you go to script, the whole series or do you start with one episode? How does that work?
Paula Milne: I write notes, I don?t do treatments, but I wrote notes of what political events had happened. If you say ?1982?, it?s the Falklands. So I would think about what would happen if that were in the background and informing the action. Greenham Common was very relevant then also. So you pull those things together and look at the characters you?ve got, and work out how the characters become involved in some of those issues. But I only had notes. I went in and pitched it verbally to the BBC.
Sally: Because you?re good at pitching, aren?t you? You?ve worked in Hollywood, I think you?ve said that before.
Paula Milne: Yeah. But I learned a lot from writing Coronation Street, where you do a lot of pitching and script conferences to get the commission.
Sally: When you actually go to script do you have a piece of paper that says ?Scene One: this, this. Scene Two: This and that.?
Paula Milne: No.
Sally: That?s interesting because most writers do. Why not?
Paula Milne: I think that?s boring. I think that?s like doing homework. I?ll have the notes I hand write, and I used to be a painter and specifically I get a very large piece of paper and I just write down everything that I want to happen in Episode 1. And then I draw lines around it and balloons and number it. That should happen first. That should happen second. I mean obvious things like they?re all going to move into the flat that?s going to be up front, that?s going to be near the top. But then other things: when is Churchill going to die in the episode? When can you read the most dramatic effect from that? How will the radical respond to that? So I write these notes, draw these kind of bubbles and numbers, and that?s how I get started.
Sally: Do you do lots of pondering and thinking?
Paula Milne: Yes. That?s a really important thing. People confuse the activity of writing with writing. I know someone who wants to become a writer, so they?ve moved house and they?re focusing on getting the study right: the right desk, the right computer. And my response to that is, ?Put your bum on the seat and just get on with it. Start writing.? I have written with a drawing board on my lap and a typewriter on it on a lavatory because there was nowhere else to write when I had kids. There was no room to write in. None of those things matter if you?ve done the thinking.
Sally: How did you do the thinking when you had kids? There?s not much head space then is there?
Paula Milne: I had nannies. I had no guilt. If I had any guilt at all it would lead into a script. But I think that because I?d been a painter I was quite self-disciplined and if you do pay someone to look after your kids it does focus your mind a bit. You can?t just put your feet up and watch a DVD. You feel you?d better get on with it, if nothing else from a moral point of view. So that really helped me become very self-disciplined in that way.
Sally: Do you prefer working on something like this, which is your original piece of work, or an adaption from say, The Night Watch. Which do you prefer? Or are they different kinds of writing?
Paula Milne: I think you have to own everything you do in order to find your way into the story and get a purchase on the characters. But inevitably when you?ve created a character from nowhere your purchase on that character is slightly different from where you are dramatizing someone else?s character. I only do the dramatizations when I really have something to offer. So for example, Small Island was arguably an unusual choice for me, but it was offered to me. I?d had a film made called Endgame which was about the end of apartheid, and I?d learned a lot from writing that, and going to South Africa and seeing what prejudice and segregation and so on meant so when Small Island came my way I had an insight into it. I knew some of the things they were going through, the immigrants under Windrush, because I?d felt it in Endgame. And to some extent you discover your themes through your work. There was unfinished business if you like, things that were not relevant that I couldn?t put into Endgame that I was able to segue and haemorrhage into Small Island, even if it was only my emotional take on it.
And The Night Watch was a fantastic exercise in craftsmanship. It?s a very interesting and challenging book to do and to tell a story backwards. If you can pull that off and tell a story backwards and it really works then you?ve pushed the boundaries of storytelling. If thing are too easy, you kind of feel what?s the point? You?re never going to find out how good you are until you?re extended and slightly scared.
Sally: Do you have those moments where you think ?oh this isn?t working. I can?t do it. Goodness, help!?
Paula Milne: Yes.
Sally: And how do you push through that? Is it just a matter of pushing through?
Paula Milne: Well I?ve learned these tricks, mind tricks if you like, mindset things. If you?re struggling with a scene or sequence the problem probably doesn?t lie in that particular scene or sequence but somewhere before it. You?re pushing the story or the characters into an area which they will not go easily, because you?re trying to force something on them. So rather than just struggle, struggle, struggle, think ?oh I can?t do it!? I think, ?ok I?m going to retrace my footsteps,? and find out where you lost my way. And I look at a scene and think ?I put that scene too early? or ?I gave away too much then? or ?No one would behave that way in that situation.?
Sally: How many drafts to you normally do on a piece?
Paula Milne: You can?t generalize. Every piece is different. I am a writer who tries to leave in structure and I try to send in scripts that you could shoot. They can only really get better with revisions but it does depend on the projects. For instance on White Heat I think Episode 2 needed two days? work and then it was ready. Episode 4 or 5 needed four or five drafts. You can?t really generalize but you do get to know a script by rewriting it.
You?ve got to agree with the notes you?re given. If I don?t agree with them I say so. Very often it?s quite important if someone says, ?I don?t think that man would go and throw that teapot out the window at that moment, I think he should throw the TV out the window.? They?re identifying that there may be a problem you?ve written in that scene. The solution of the TV may not be the right one but they might well have identified that it got a bit Jacobean or something. So sometimes it?s not the solutions that people come up with that you care about, more the fact that they?ve spotted something which they can?t put their finger on.
Sally: Finally, if there was one piece of advice that you could give somebody desperate to become a writer ? other than sit down and write ? what would it be?
Paula Milne: I think to keep watching stuff. If you want to be a screenwriter ? which applies obviously to television as much as cinema ? I think it?s important to watch things that will extend your visual vocabulary. So for me that does come down to watching movies. For instance I saw We Need to Talk about Kevin the other day. Now that is a real filmmaker?s movie; the imagery, how tension is built up through images rather than dialogue and so on. I?m not specifically saying I want you to rush and see that but it inspired me to think it is right to constantly try to put picture before dialogue, to try and write in images as much as with dialogue and so on. So I think really there?s a craftsmanship side of what we do and that has be mastered.
Sally: Thank you Paula.
Paula Milne: My pleasure
Paula?s show, White Heat, is coming very soon to BBC2. It?s a new six-part drama series about the interwoven lives, loves and betrayals of seven characters whose relationships are forged in the white heat of the Sixties through to present day.
The characters? love stories and friendships are passionate, dangerous and compelling, and areset against a backdrop that takes us from Wilson to Thatcher, feminism to the Falklands, hedonism to HIV ? exploring the personal and political journeys which shaped their destinies to make them the people they are today.
More information, and a video trailer, here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/whiteheat/
Source: http://www.screenwritinggoldmine.com/blog/paula-milne-white-heat-interview/2012/03/02/
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