Tim Bevan is co-founder of Working Title Film and is probably the most successful film producer in the country. Starting with My Beautiful Laundrette in 1985, he has produced over forty feature films, including Bridget Jones’s Diary, Notting Hill, Elizabeth, and Four Weddings and a Funeral. With such a record, any serious scriptwriter should be prepared to listen, and we did. And unfortunately, he did have an answer.

Asked what he was looking for in a script, he spelt it out. He wanted fresh ideas. F.R.E.S.H he emphasised the point by spelling out each letter in turn. Even with a fresh idea, tenacity and a passion to fight for that idea is also necessary. So we all listened.

Such advice might make you want to chuck your word processor out the window and watch it and all its half baked content smash on the street below, or present an opportunity to perfect your screenplay, even its not by your own hand. Bevan was clear that new writers should be happy, even overjoyed, if a big name, such as Richard Curtis, re-writes their script. This is the beginning not the end of their career.

Tim Bevan gave us all a rare insight into the creative process within Working Title: an insight that may not be welcome but is definitely useful to anyone serious about screenwriting. After lonely days and nights perfecting your screenplay, expect to fight for script within the production process. As Bevan emphasised, filmmaking is a collaborative process.

During the 1980s, Bevan discovered the trick to survive in the British film industry. You need to be working on your next feature before your former feature is released. In case, it was a flop. This meant that ninety per cent of his time was spent on deals and only ten per cent on the creative process. Films that were made at the time were released even before the script was ready, often this was necessary to avoid bankruptcy. Bevan berated the "got the money, let’s go shoot it" attitude of the 1980s but it was necessary for survival.

This all changed when Working Title linked up with Polygram in 1991. Today Polygram has been absorbed into Universal Pictures. This gives Working Title access to Hollywood money, talent, and worldwide distribution through Universal Pictures and Canal+ Image. Sarah Radcylffe, co-founder of Working Title, left the company at this point to remain an independent filmmaker. She went on to make such as film as Ratcatcher, Cousin Bette and Bent. Eric Fellner joined Working Title at this point. His previous productions have included the Rachel Papers and Sid and Nancy. Hollywood money has enabled Bevan to devote far more time to script development and less to deal making. With Universal’s world distribution network Working Title can guarantee a theatrical release for his film as long as the Americans like the product; a big change from his days as an independent.

Bevan can write off as much as a $1 million on a single feature before a single frame is shot, films such as Bridget Jones’s Diary or Four Weddings and a Funeral have emerged from this process. What does this all this mean for the writer? Ten, twenty or even thirty re-writes later, Bevan is still demanding re-writes at every stage of filmmaking process right up to and including audience tests in the UK and USA. Romantic comedy is a serious business. The key to success is re-writing.

Bevan commutes to the epicentre of the film industry, Los Angeles, every month. He maintains an office in LA to complement his main office in London above the rumble of Oxford Street. Working Title is expanding. One arm, WT2 aims to make low budget films, those costing less than $5 million, using only new writers. Their first feature, Billy Elliott, is not a bad start.

Where does Working Title get its ideas? Bevan answers this in terms of relationship with writers. It has established relationships with writers such as Richard Curtis, Joel and Ethan Coen and Stephen Daldry, who all have formal multi-picture deals. Stephen Frear has a less formal creative relationship as he gave Bevan his first break with My Beautiful Laundrette; he does not need a formal contact to get his films produced. These established relationships equal a third of its output. Another third of their ideas come from reacting to the market place though you need an agent to get Bevan’s attention. Otherwise, Working Title could not cope with the avalanche of scripts that would come their way. A further third "bubble up" from within the company. Having founded the business from the bottom up Bevan is keen that everyone within the Working Title is passionate for filmmaking and ready to champion a film idea whatever its source.

Bevan is keen for his writers to think structurally. He likes to keep his writers on the straight and narrow. He wants to see a beat sheet, which details how a film could be structured, early on. He is not against variations on the classical approach, for example Four Weddings and a Funeral, doesn’t follow a classical structure but before you do anything clever with structure, you need to show Bevan you understand the basics.

He thinks marketing is the most important part of filmmaking. After all what is cinema without an audience? "How are we going to sell this film" is a question Bevan asks himself and his writers as early as possible. Britain, unlike Hollywood, is not sell, sell, sell but a writer, who cannot articulate the tone of his piece, is unlikely to write a film that Bevan can produce. This means that out of every eight scripts that go into development only one is made into a film by Working Title.

Bevan would like to see the writer lying in front of a lorry before he will agree to make the feature. I could be misquoting him. In any case, he thinks the writer needs to believe in his idea and the industry of dreams before Bevan will believe in his script. After all writing is just about putting one word after another. Get writing.

You can contact the Screenwriters Workshop through their website:
http://www.lsw.org.uk
Or by mail:
Th Screenwriters Workshop
Suffolk House
Whitfield Place
London
W1T 5JU