An Evening With Stephen Potts
Suite 101 Chats to the Screenwriter for The Butterfly Tattoo
Apr 21, 2009
Stephen Potts is an author of children's books and a screenwriter. Stephen Potts shares with Suite 101 readers his advice on securing a literary agent (or not) and a glimpse of his current and upcoming projects in this two part interview.
You have recently seen the US release of an adaptation of Philip Pullman’s book The Butterfly Tattoo for which you wrote the screenplay. How did you first become involved in this project?
Although I've been published in children's fiction since 1999, I was an aspiring screen writer for five years before that. I've been to many courses and workshops, and I subscribe to a variety of screenwriting magazines and websites. One such is the UK-based Shooting People, where I spotted a call for screenwriters from a small Dutch production company, who had acquired the rights to Pullman's book and wanted to make it as a low budget independent feature. I applied, along with about forty others, and through a series of rounds, each requiring more detailed treatments, the numbers were whittled down, until I was the last writer standing.
It seems that we are going to see a lot more of you in the future following the outstanding success of your move into screenplays. What has been the most exciting moment of your screen writer journey so far?
There are so many steps in such a journey: seeing the opportunity; getting the gig; raising the finance; writing draft after draft until producers and director are satisfied; completing a successful shoot; post-production work to edit, grade, sound balance and add the score and soundtrack - and that's before anyone actually sees it. Then there are submissions to festivals, hoping to catch the eyes of a distributor or sales agent; clinching the deal with said distributor; waiting for the distributor to clinch deals with cinema exhibitors and DVD companies; waiting for the reviews and the box office figures...... We're at the last stage right now - the film opened in LA on April 17th - so I don't think I can justify using the term "outstanding success" just yet, until we see how it turns out.
In some of these steps I was centrally involved; in others peripherally, in others still not at all. The most satisfying moment was sending off the last draft of the script, knowing I was happy with it, The most privately exciting was putting an early rough-cut DVD in my computer and pressing "Play." The most publicly exciting was sitting next to Philip Pullman at the cast and crew screening at Bafta in May 2008 - and especially hearing the snuffles in the audience at our tragic ending.
You have also written several children’s books, a lot of which have been inspired by the sea. How did you first gain an interest in seafaring tales?
My father spent many years in the Royal Navy, so my earliest childhood years were spent by the sea near naval bases. When he left the navy we moved inland, and I worked out that the spot in Britain furthest from the sea was my bedroom - though UK geography being what it is, the distance was only 80 miles. I compensated by sailing dinghies, rowing and canoeing on local canals, rivers, and lakes, but when my rowing career came to an end I couldn't resist the pull of salt water, and took up sailing yachts. I now own a Clyde-built wooden yacht, nearly fifty years old, and I sail her whenever I can off Scotland's wild west coast, where I've now logged several thousand sea miles as skipper. My wife and I married at sea, off Skye, and honeymooned in Hebridean waters, with our sea-going labradors.
So can you give us any insider info? What is your next project going to be?
Several. I'm on the third draft of a new screenplay, an adaptation of On the Water by HM van den Brink. It's a Dutch novel of a sporting companionship shattered by war. The script is well advanced but in other respects the project is at a very early stage. We're aiming for release in the run up to the 2012 London Olympics.
Operation Hope, my next book for Barrington Stoke, a UK publisher specialising in short illustrated texts for reluctant readers, is due out in September. It's the story of a young would-be pilot who needs a kidney transplant, and draws on my experience of working in the transplant service. It's my first book which links directly to my day job, though I also have in progress a medical novel for adults, so far untitled, which recounts a year in the life of a intern on a medical ward, narrated by a patient in a coma.
Read on to hear how Stephen got a literary agent, how he felt when he was published for the first time and how he handled and overcame rejection.
You can find out more about the film adaptation of The Butterfly Tattoo from the official website.
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