Rupert Miles

I worked creatively on iconic feature films and TV series in film editing: Inspector Morse, Van Der Valk, and as a supervising sound editor; Jude, Welcome to Sarajevo and Roddy Doyle’s Family (for which he won a BAFTA for Best Sound). After making a number of short award winning documentaries, my career moved into directing for TV, mainly factual entertainment and documentary.  Writing has always been a challenge for me, I am diagnosed as dyslexic, and despite some support within the TV industry found it difficult to communicate ideas on the written page hence working in more obs doc and factual areas within TV. But, despite my fear of the blank page, it became a creative necessity to write, to communicate my thoughts and ideas as these needs were not being met in the work I was doing.

My writing process involves a lot of thinking and prevaricating, there is always a handy brush to do some sweeping with, a pair of clippers to do some gardening – when I’m ‘thinking’ the house is very clean! I also do a lot of sitting in coffee bars, looking, watching and listening. I like to be outside, observing life and I always carry a note book to scribble down in, a comment overheard, a thought that might have been inspired by something I’d seen. Its surprising where and when inspiration might hit, so I’m always ready. Finding my way into a story is a challenge as I do have so many ideas pinging around at any one time. In many ways it’s like walking on a beach and picking up stones or shells – some you keep in your pocket, others you discard. Eventually, I find my pocket full and empty it onto the table and begin to pick over the contents and start arranging them into a form of structure. I do very little writing to start with, instead focusing on my structure, all be it a loose one. This is where my ‘board’ comes in. I like to plot out the whole script on a large pin board with notes pinned on which represent scenes. I’m quite a visual person, so the advantage to this is being able to see one’s whole script in front of you and being able to move scenes around. When thinking of character and story, I need to find a degree of relatability for me, a personal link, whether that be in the narrative, the characters or in the visualisation. This might be more about confidence in my writing than anything else but keeping it ‘close’, makes the drama and the characters more honest and believable for me. Sense of ‘Place’ also features heavily in my writing process; I would say it’s a key feature.  It’s from ‘place’ that the atmosphere in the screenplay comes and helps root my characters down into a specific environment. Added to this, in the Collector of Sounds, I spent a lot of time in the landscape, listening to and recording sounds and these became the spine of the sonic narrative within the screenplay.

It’s rather grand for me to comment on this having only just written my first screenplay but I do watch a lot of films and TV drama and the one thing that strikes me again and again, is how ‘safe’ a lot of main stream drama is, and repetitive especially here in the UK and also the US. It’s a sweeping generalisation as within mainstream drama, there are some choice productions. But I do feel, if you want to find creative and fresh voices in writing one has to look to the independent sector and European and World cinema. Here, for me, I still find ideas that challenge and/ or inspire. I see and hear a great deal about AI, and although I do think that will come in more, especially in the commercial sector, I still feel there will be a major place for the human, authentic voice to be heard in writing.

I think, for now, I’ve stuck my flag in the drama genre and for more art house/ independent audiences. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy other genres in fact I have a great deal of admiration for writers that explore very human stories but in the guise of a horror/ crime/ western etc etc. I feel in writing, it’s whatever is the appropriate genre to tell the story in the most effective way. For instance, would Mr Babadook (wri/dir Jennifer Kent 2014) have worked as well as a straight drama about loss rather than being within the horror genre, I’m not so sure. I think this comes back to the previous question, its how screenwriters tackle well known story tropes but in a different way or genre. The narrative for my screenplay, Collector of Sounds, is not on the face of it original, surviving sexual abuse, but it’s revealed in a challenging, fresh way.

It is very easy to sit within the safety of your room, it’s a safe space where ideas, structure, characters can be explored unchallenged but I feel one is deluding oneself about ones ability to write if you don’t step outside and receive feedback and criticism. To have another pair of eyes on ones writing is an incredibly important part of the creative process and one should be open to it. Feedback is your first audience, if they don’t get something, then an audience won’t get it. So for me, part of the writing process, is listening to feedback, challenging it yes, but allowing yourself the space to explore it. You could potentially uncover ‘gems’.  Criticism should also be welcomed, especially if it’s constructive. Like receiving feedback, criticism is an opportunity to reconsider aspects on ones writing.

In writing Collector of Sounds I was supported by a small number of people within the industry that I absolutely trusted and who, because of their experience, I knew would be honest with me and could say ‘stuff’ without me taking it personally. I would say it was a 50/50 split on the feedback of what I took and what I discarded but it was an enjoyable and positive part of the writing process and something I valued immensely. I did struggle with some feedback/ criticism from potential producers and/or exec producers who wanted to turn the screenplay into something more accessible or, dare I say, mainstream. I found I had to develop a ‘thick ear’, and ignore these voices and accept some readers/ producers will get what you are about and others will just not and that’s fine.

I have been struggling for sometime now with a very personal story, Still in Saigon, infact it’s an extraordinary tale about my mother and her search for a mysterious girl seen travelling with my younger brother on the day he died in a back packing accident in Vietnam. Because it’s so personal, and the events really happened, I have found it difficult to find my way into it and make it ‘mine’. Whilst struggling with this one, I have a couple of other projects on the go and maybe because my focus is not on them, they excite me more because they offer possibilities – they are also fictional although based around fact. Halen Mon (Sea Salt) is a Welsh set wartime drama, and rooted in place, Gower. It’s more ambitious than anything I’ve written before, with a far broader canvas to write about although like Collector of Sounds and Still in Saigon, the narrative is seen and experienced through a central protagonist. Beyond these two drama’s, I’m jotting notes about a sea swimmer. Lots of ideas, nothing fixed.

As a footnote, the screenplay for Collector of Sounds has been on a bit of a journey too. The present draft was written very much with a micro budget in mind. To that end, £75,000 was raised to make it in 2024 but by then the budget had ballooned to £120,000, and so it got put aside. Meanwhile, feedback for that version of the script suggested elements that could improve the story. Strangely enough in re-drafting the script for a tight budget, I’d actually taken out much of what the narrative feedback was asking for.  So I am looking at putting those pieces back and re- submitting the script to festivals and also producers.

It really depends how influential producers/ financiers/ AI etc become involved in the writing process, especially within the commercial sector.  I do have concerns that rather than grow, the constant understandable push for ‘hits’ will hamper fresh, new and exciting writers coming to the fore, with their voices often becoming immersed and swallowed up in a cacophony of other voices chipping in with their views, needs and requirements. But, hopefully, there will always be those voices on the outside, writing away because they have to, whether they be the new kid on the block, or someone older and with a life time of stories to tell. How these writers then find expression to a wider audience, well that’s potentially exciting as screen writing keeps on evolving. Its not my area but I appreciate there is a whole other world of writing for gaming, VR & AR.

Don’t listen to the noise, believe in what ‘you’ want to write and worry less about what other people think you should write about, advice my younger self would have benefited from. Seek out a few well chosen people within the industry you trust to read and review your material, and don’t over share with too many well meaning friends and family as it can just confuse the picture. And if like me, you are dyslexic find alternative ways of getting things onto a page – I speak it out aloud. Finally, keep observing, keep questioning, keep pushing boundaries.