Actor, novelist, screenwriter, producer and director, Julian Fellowes delivered a rousing masterclass to the new first year NFTS students during Springboard week. Julian is best known for creating, writing and exec producing award-winning series Downton Abbey as well as for winning an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Gosford Park.
The masterclass was hosted by NFTS Head of Screenwriting, Brian Ward, and introduced by NFTS Director, Nik Powell.
Brian opened the session by asking Julian how he balanced the many ‘hats’ he wore: “It’s good to have a clear idea of direction but if there is an opportunity for a change, embrace it!”
Julian wrote a couple of “bodice ripper” novels at drama school and rep as an exercise to see if he could get published but didn’t write again until he was 40. He acted in TV series such as Duchess of Duke Street and Casualty and later in films such as Tomorrow Never Dies but wanted to find a ‘plan B’ so thought he would get into production. His first credit as scriptwriter came from a production of Little Lord Fauntleroy (1995) and he was told at the time that period drama was dead and he would be lucky to get 1 million viewers. “In the end we got over 10 million viewers and were awarded an International Emmy!”
Julian stressed the importance of getting an agent to the students. “You probably need to change agents until you get to where you want to go; remember that you’re in charge and that there’s lots of competition; it’s called show business for a reason!”
Whilst Julian has now diversified into many different areas; for example, he’s just co-written the West-End musical, School of Rock with Andrew Lloyd-Webber, he advises that at the beginning of your career “it’s important to be known for something. From that you can expand and build. You want to be one of those five names they list for a particular genre when a project comes up. It’s useful to be a go-to person for a particular kind of thing. If and when success comes, you may be trusted with another genre.”
Brian asked Julian if he can trace similarities in themes he returns to in his material: “Yes certain themes come up such as self-knowledge. The characters with good self-knowledge get into the least amount of trouble. I like to explore the fact that we’re all dealt certain cards and it’s up to us to make the most of them. I don’t like drama where the audience is told who is good or bad at the beginning. I like to keep it open for the audience to decide.”
After showing a clip of a very emotional and key scene in Separate Lies, the first film directed and written by Julian, Brian brought up structure and how new writers should deal with it. “I do believe in the three act structure. You can break the rules but you need to be conscious that you are breaking them. Gosford Park is a good example of this. During a Q&A with myself and Gosford Park Director, Robert Altman, a woman in the audience said the film doesn’t work because the murder is at the end of the wrong act; you’re breaking the three act structure! The truth is we knew we were breaking the rules but we balanced it out with scenes with a similar weight and that delivered an emotional punch thereby keeping the audience involved in the emotional fate of the characters”.
On whether there is a conflict between being a writer and a director, Julian advised: “Don’t worry when writing a scene that it may be expensive to make. Afterwards, you have to consider the importance of that particular scene versus the expense and whether the plot justifies it. You may be given a choice between one scene or another and have to come up with solutions for the other scenes but you should never begin with a compromise.”
Another great piece of advice from Julian was for writers to “find a producer who thinks in the same way you do and will fight to save the material that’s most important to you. People often ask me if I wish my lucky break had come at 30 rather than 50 and while the answer is probably yes, I think that at 50, I was empowered to fight to make sure my work was right in a way I wouldn’t have when I was younger. Robert Altman fought for me to be the only writer on Gosford Park and I was on set all the time as he wanted to make sure he reflected the British class system correctly; I owe him everything as that is the reason why I was the only writer on the Oscar stage. He was an exceptional filmmaker who really understood structure and visual narrative.”
When asked to do Downton, which is in a similar if warmer vein to Gosford Park, Julian felt he “was going back to the same pie for another slice; I was nervous. It was only when I started imagining the characters that I realised I’d accepted the job.”
Julian also often imagines certain actors when writing characters as that helps produce distinctive voices even if they don’t end up playing them in the end. “Not everyone agrees, but I think it’s important to have sympathetic characters who have opinions you disagree with. You need to accept that there are different points of view otherwise your writing can be monochrome.”
A student asked whether Julian had the whole Downton story worked out from the beginning: “We went series by series. I knew where principle stories would end up but would make up smaller plots as we went along. There was no guarantee there would be a second series of course so I had to write the last episode of the first series as if it could be the final one. By the time we got to series 3, it was very popular and I knew that, by the end, I wanted to complete the circle and finish with the triumph of Edith. I wasn’t influence by the popularity or by what the audience were thinking; it was more the individual skills of the actors that influenced the narrative via their performances.”
On what it felt like to be in the midst of a huge hit with Downton: “I certainly didn’t expect that Downton Abbey would become part of the zeitgeist; it was extraordinary and surreal. People would come up to me in tears about the characters. One woman approached me in Barnes and Noble on 5th Avenue in New York and blurted out – just let Edith be happy! And I wondered, Jesus, what have I started? Being in the middle of the biggest television hit that the United Kingdom has ever produced was an experience and a privilege.”
Brian asked Julian what he felt were the biggest changes taking place in the industry. “Don’t listen when you hear that TV is taking over from film and vice versa. The big change is with the outlet and access. You still get the TV schedulers working hard to find the best slot but televised transmission is being treated like a release date by under 35s. This means that minority shows will have a harder time and that producers have to work out different ways to maximise revenue. But rest assured there will always be a market for filmed drama regardless of the way you consume it. You will be part of an expanding not a shrinking industry. People will always like to be told stories; people liked it when they lived in caves and they will like it when they are on the moon. You are lucky to be working in a business that won’t go out of fashion so I wish you well!”
