Godzilla Minus One - a lesson in elevated genre film-making

I finally got to watch Takashi Yamazaki’s film Godzilla Minus One recently, and I’m really pleased I got to see it on the big screen. It was by far my favourite film of 2023 and it resonated with me as both an audience member and as a film-maker. I could write pages and pages about the themes that the film explores, but that wasn’t the main takeaway for me. As someone who made their directorial debut this year, I often slip into analytical mode when I’m watching a film or television show. When something is truly transcendental it’s different, I quickly forget about the script writing process, the direction, shot choices and composition, visual effects, and score and find myself washed along with the story instead. What makes this film so powerful, is the strong central characters, exquisitely crafted through both script and performance. You care about all the people you get to meet in this film and are invested in them, as their individual story arcs play out. Godzilla in many ways is a catalyst, a force of nature, an existential threat that prompts change. This isn’t just a throwaway monster movie, far from it. They draw you in via the characters, and you are with them from the very first frame to the very last one, emotionally invested far more than a kaiju movie might suggest.

I strongly believe you can create just as emotionally charged, character-driven stories in genre storytelling, as you can in straight drama. For me, this is where some Hollywood films get it wrong, their focus being on pure spectacle often at the expense of three-dimensional characterisation. If I don’t care about the central characters in a film, and don’t believe their relationships or the motivation behind their actions then no amount of visual bells and whistles is going to make me any more than a passive observer. The best cinema, like the best music, makes you feel.

Another excellent example of an elevated genre film that succeeds similarly is the 2014 film Spring by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (indie darlings who have recently become Marvel Studios creators). Before Godzilla Minus One works as a monster movie or even a disaster film, it has to function as a post-war story about the Japanese people. Before Spring reveals the terror that lies beneath the surface in Italy, this Horror/Sci-Fi/Romance has to work as a romance. You have to believe that a relationship can be established and deeply developed in a very small amount of screen time, just as films like True Romance and Before Sunrise successfully did. If they hadn’t got that central relationship right, the whole film would lose its potency as a result.

Seeing Godzilla Minus One, a film I only knew about thanks to online word of mouth from people I trust, has made me examine my own creative process again. When I look back on Little Brown Bird, the script became most successful when I worked harder on the two central characters and the relationship that binds them. If you don’t buy into Kate and her Father, you won’t be with us for the rest of our short journey. With actors of the calibre of John Rhys-Davies and Eliza Butterworth in our lead roles, we ended up with just the emotionally charged, character-driven elevated genre piece I was hoping for.

As we head into 2024 I’ll be working on another elevated genre project, feature film Bone Dry. I’ll be reminding myself regularly about how powerful Godzilla Minus One was, as I start the scriptwriting process. I might even squeeze in time for a rewatch of Spring. If I want an audience to suspend their disbelief without losing them along the way, then character is everything. If you haven’t seen Godzilla Minus One yet, I highly recommend it. It’s still in cinemas at the time of writing.

Cast and crew screening for Little Brown Bird

On Monday night we invited our cast, crew, Indiegogo crowdfund backers, and guests to see Little Brown Bird on the big screen in Cardiff. Producer Daniel J Harris from Eat Sleep Media introduced the film with me, giving an insight into the development process while trying our hand at being a comedy duo!. After the screening, I was joined on stage by lead actress Eliza Butterworth (The Last Kingdom, A Town Called Malice) for a Q&A.

Introducing Little Brown Bird with Daniel J Harris

Q&A with me and Eliza

I was a nervous wreck all day prior to the screening, I was worried about what to say to introduce it and unsure whether the film would be well received. I put myself through the wringer unnecessarily though by assuming the worst. From the moment I saw the name of the film on the door of Screen 1 in Chapter Arts Centre to the very last question at the Q&A, I felt relaxed and incredibly at ease, As soon as I joined Dan at the front of the auditorium all those nerves disappeared.

The audience reaction was extremely positive, which I was thrilled about and the Q&A was littered with interesting and insightful questions. All in all, I think it was a massive success, and it felt like all the hard work, the self-doubt, and the persistence had paid off. Next week we take the film to Marbella International Film Festival for its Festival Premiere, and I’m excited to see how it goes down on the Costa Del Sol too. It’s been an incredible, life-changing journey and it’s far from over yet. So many people have helped me along the way and I will forever be grateful to them all.

Storyboard artist Mike Collins, production assistant Cerys Hodgson, me, producer Daniel J Harris, Eliza, DoP Mark Nutkins

Do you have to show the Ordinary World?

As I work on my current screenplay I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of the ordinary world in film story structure. The old maxim that I’ve read in countless books and articles, and been told on various courses, is to use the first ten pages to present the protagonist’s ordinary world. 

This could be Kansas, Tatooine or The Shire presented in stark contrast to where the main characters have to go on their hero’s journey. That does feel important in mythical stories that revolve around a quest, as per Christopher Vogler’s Writer’s Journey and its inspiration Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a thousand faces. It can also be used as a way to show the calm before the storm, be that Amity Island or Kingston Falls prior to the status quo changing due to a killer shark or some post-transformation mogwai.

The story I’m working on relies on a character’s arrival with no precursor, which made me wonder if that’s something I can pull off. Two movies I watched recently made me think differently about the need for the ordinary world section of a script.  I rewatched In Bruges for the umpteenth time, it’s a masterwork and one of my all-time favourite movies. Writer/Director Martin McDonagh never shows us the ordinary world of our two hitmen. We start…well In Bruges.  And the film is all the more powerful as a result.

I also saw Hell or High Water for the first time recently and Taylor Sheridan’s Neo Western script doesn’t give us a glimpse of life prior to when the two brothers start to rob banks together. We sare thrown headlong into their first robbery at the start of the movie. In a way both these films treat their protagonists like forces of nature, they themselves are the catalyst for chaotic change.  Perhaps this is where the distinction lies. 

This week’s episode of the screenwriting podcast Scriptnotes talked about another well-trodden piece of advice - enter late, exit early. They mentioned how important this advice is to a screenwriter approaching scenes when they are starting out, but that with more experience you know when to ignore this for dramatic effect. I think the same case can be made regarding the need for an explicit ordinary world being shown on screen too.

It’s interesting to consider that in a story where the hero returns home at the end or where the outside force is removed from a place we never left, you need that reassuring opening to bookend the ending. The opening image and closing image of Blake Synder’s flawed, but interesting Save the Cat® approach.

In Bruges, Hell or High Water and the script I’m currently working on the lead character is more of an anti-hero and their ordinary world needs to be more oblique. Their journey isn’t aligned to the mythical approach to storytelling in the same way, so doesn’t need to rely on the same tropes. Perhaps with that in mind ignoring the instinct to show the ordinary world is the right thing to do after all. Time will tell.

The Package selected for It's my Shout

I found out a few days ago that my short film script, currently titled 'The Package' has been selected as part of this year's It's my Shout scheme. Things have been moving very quickly since I got the nod and it's only now that I've had the breathing space to be able to share the news properly. 

I had a lunchtime meeting today with my director, Lemarl Freckleton, to discuss his vision for the film.  It was a refreshing change to be discussing something I'd written in a meeting, rather than someone else's project that I was involved with the visual effects or titles for.

As hoped it was very productive, we both come at the project from a similar thought process visually and narratively and he's already brought some interesting extra elements into play just from this one initial meeting. My next job will be to work on rewrites to get the shooting script into shape, which will be happening in tandem with the pre-production phase, including casting. The ten-minute film is due to be shot in August and will air later this year on BBC Wales and at the It's my Shout event at the Wales Millennium Centre in October. An exciting few months ahead. 

Talking about other people's scripts at Cross Channel Film Lab 2016

Favourite things in 2015

This year has absolutely flown by, and I find myself compiling my favourites of the year list all over again. Like last year this isn't a definitive 'best of' list, merely a compilation of what I most enjoyed in the last twelve months. You can see the 2014 list here. 

TV Drama – Marvel's Daredevil.

By no means perfect, Daredevil was a bold new step in the right direction for Marvel's broadcast output, bringing the Marvel Knights world to play alongside the more family friendly cinematic universe. After the 2003 film version it looked like the Hell's Kitchen blind lawyer's story was unlikely to be told again, but they managed to pull it off by making a series that really felt like the book it was based on.  This was a show I never imagined existing and I'm pleased that it does. 

Honourable mentions – I was very close to picking Ray Donovan Season Three as my favourite show, it was certainly my favourite returning series this year. After the slightly hit and miss nature of Season Two it was good to see the show returning to the edge of your seat tension that made the first season so compelling. Liev Schreiber, Eddie Marsan and Dash Mihok continue to deliver exceptional performances each week and I can't wait for the next series. Better Call Saul helped me get over my general distrust of prequels, the show featured some brilliant writing and excellent performances too. It both worked as part of the Breaking Bad world and also as its own thing, mixing comedy and tragedy to great effect. On this side of the pond it was River that held my interest the most, a slightly surreal detective series set in London featuring a powerhouse performance from Stellan Skarsgard, who should be showered with plaudits and awards.  It's also the second of my favourite shows this year to feature the ever versatile Eddie Marsan.  Marvel's second Netflix show Jessica Jones rounds off the list, we're only seven episodes in and I don't think we'll get it all watched before the year is out. Another interesting show and proof the Marvel/Netflix deal was a very good thing. And for the second year running, yes I know I need to watch Fargo.

Film – Star Wars - The Force Awakens

This really isn't the film I was expecting to top this list, but I'm pleasantly surprised that it did. I was grinning from start to finish and there were moments where my skin was actually tingling. We live in an age where trying to recapture the feelings of our youth dominates mainstream media, this is often to the detriment of quality. Having felt like a nine year old for a couple of hours again this is one occasion where touching on old themes and bringing back familiar characters worked exceptionally well. Unlike the prequels this completely felt like a Star Wars film and you were immersed in another world. The new characters were brilliant and the torch has very much been passed. Between this and last year's Guardians of the Galaxy it's fun to go into space again. 

Honourable mentions –

Birdman was nothing like I expected and all the better for it. I've always been a fan of Ed Norton and it was good to see him stretching his acting muscles again and for Michael Keaton to get to explore a character that parallels his own Batman experiences. The film made me think a lot about life, creativity and mortality and it is deserving of all the praise it has received.  Southpaw isn't the boxing film I was expecting to put on this list, but with Creed's UK release date being in January, this was the one big screen piece of ringside action for me this year. Like most of these kind of films it was very predictable, but it hit all the right emotional beats for me, coming close to being a modern day Champ. I could watch Forest Whitaker train Jake Gyllenhaal all day and before I saw The Force Awakens this would have been my pick. Ant-Man was far better than expected and the casting of Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas and Evangeline Lilly worked very well. There were still some Edgar Wright touches in there alongside what was added later. It wasn't close to being my favourite film of the year, but was certainly my preferred Marvel movie of the 2015.  Inside Out was exceptional, thoughtful, moving and inspirational in a way that most live actin films aren't and I'm really looking forward to watching it again.  Indie horror romance Spring was a film that would have flown under my radar if I hadn't watched it as part of a workshop I was working on. The main performances are excellent and it has its own unique vibe, if you haven't seen it I'd recommend you do.  John Wick and Big Hero 6 were both late releases in the UK, having been shown elsewhere in 2014. Big Hero 6 was great fun, but like The Good Dinosaur it suffered by comparison from being in the same year as Inside Out.   John Wick was one of the best action movies I've seen in years, I'm someone who's always championed Keanu Reeves and it's great to see him have a film like this and the planned sequel to sink his teeth into.  I didn't get to see Whiplash to see if that film would have made it onto the list.  Mad Max Fury Road looked amazing and I definitely enjoyed it, but I didn't seem to get the same level of enjoyment as others did so it sneaks onto this list for the visual spectacle. 

Album – Hand. Cannot. Erase. by Steven Wilson. 

When Hand. Cannot. Erase. came out in February I knew straight away it was something special. I've been a fan of Mr Wilson since i first heard Porcupine Tree's Stupid Dream album playing in a record shop in 1999. A concept album inspired by the death of a London woman, which went unnoticed for three years, it's a exceptionally emotional 65 minutes of music. Regardless of whether you like progressive rock, I think everyone should listen to it, to feel its impact. Probably the first album to almost bring me to tears. I wish I'd got to see it performed live. 

Honourable mentions –

It took a very impressive set of songs to mean that Sol Invictus by Faith No More wasn't my favourite album of 2015. I'm a huge Mike Patton devotee and a big fan of all the band's work, rather than just the high profile Jim Martin period that the media tends to latch onto. I'd been eagerly waiting this new set of songs and they didn't disappoint, there was just one album that connected with me more this year, otherwise this would have taken the crown as expected.  Meliora by Ghost was another excellent long player and might just be their best album to date, immediate and evocative and overall great fun to listen to. It was great to have Baroness back at the end of the year with Purple, with their first release since the coach crash that caused two of the band to call it quits. And so we watch you from Afar were a band I discovered at the start of the year as the soundtrack to much of my writing, their Heirs album continued their rich vein of form.  +4626-COMFORTZONE by Beardfish and Wolflight by Steve Hackett, both prog albums I discovered via my love of Big Big Train, got a lot of play from me in 2015 too.  Higher Ground by Chris Cornell was another album I played a lot this year and there was a lot to like about it, particularly the folk vibe on some songs. Sadly I will always compare his solo work to his first solitary outing Euphoria Morning which is one of my favourite records, although in some ways that was him fronting Eleven. 

Song -  Superhero by Faith No More

When I first Superhero  I really wasn't sure about it, it felt a bit like FnM by numbers but after a few listens to the true genius of this anthemic track shone through. It's up there with their best songs and I've been singing along to this aural gut punch all year. 

Honourable mentions –

Wassail by Big Big Train was within a hairs breadth of being my pick (it was was certainly robbed at the Prog Awards this year) and it's another singalong anthem albeit with a very different tone. It's brilliant on record and even better live.  Nearly forgot my broken heart by Chris Cornell was the other single that I really liked this year, it's quite poppy but still maintains the immaculate attention to detail and superb vocals you'd expect from the Soundgarden frontman. Spectral Mornings 2015 was a song I played a lot, not a new track but a new charity version complete with vocals (the original as an instrumental). The track featured s who's who of modern prog and Steve Hackett himself. 

Gig– Big Big Train (London)

This was by far the easiest decision to make when looking back on the year. On Sunday 16th August my daughter and I were truly captivated by a phenomenal performance by a world class group of musicians, when we were lucky enough to see Big Big Train play Kings Place in London. We were in the second row and make a few brief cameo appearances in the Victorian Brickwork video from the show. I'm not sure another gig would ever top it in my lifetime, let alone this year, I still think about that show every day. Life affirming, majestic stuff. 

Honourable mentions –

Shawn Smith at Bristol Folk House in April was another intimate seated affair and it isn't often that you get to share the toilet hand dryer with the act you've just seen. It was great to see him solo a few years after enjoying him with Brad. The live album of this show is available here. The Manic Street Preachers playing all of Holy Bible, followed by a greatest hits set would have been a dream gig for me at one time. It was great to hear arguably their best album played live, but the sunny June daytime Cardiff Castle setting and crowd of anthem lovers alongside the more rabid fans made it a real mixed bag.  If only I'd made it to the Tin Spirits gig in Swindon, as I have a strong feeling that would have made this list. 

Comic – Lazarus (Image Comics) 

For the second year running Lazarus is my favourite book and by the end of the year it was the only thing I was reading in single issues, as I'm reading the likes of Nailbiter, Revival, Zero, Saga, Southern Bastards, Deadly Class. It's a top drawer sci-fi, with gorgeous art, well rounded characters and the ability to surprise. If you aren't reading it you should be. 

Podcast – iFanboy

This was the year that I realised how much this podcast has become part of my weekly routine. Monday morning wouldn't be Monday morning without their Pick of the Week show, even though I am reading most books in trade so have to skip forward chunks. With Ron back on the show (although it was sad to see Paul go) I'm reminded how much time I've spent listening to these guys over the years. The first thing I do after seeing a geeky movie or TV show is to listen to the special edition podcast to find out if we agree, we usually do. If you've seen Star Wars The Force Awakens, they articulate what I thought far better than me, listen to that episode here. 

Honourable mentions –

It's the usual suspects for me, Geek Syndicate, Nerdist Writers Panel, Austin Film Festival's On Story podcast, Comics Experience Make Comics, Comic Book Outsiders, Word Balloon and The Hat Decides (which I hear is due back very soon). Plaudits must got to PJ and Doktor Andy for taking over The Sidekickcast and making it their own thing. I will, of course, direct you to Bags of Action the action movie show I present with my friend and writing partner Steve Aryan. 

So, there you have it. Those choices were a lot harder than last  year, with a wealth of things I really enjoyed across all mediums. That's not including some of the older things that I really liked such as the whole run of Battlestar Galactica, classic albums by Peter Gabriel era Genesis, The Dark Tower comics from Marvel and the exceptional Secret Identity Superman book by Busiek and Immonen - all of which were ineligible of course. Anyway, here's to another year filled with things to enjoy.