Pat Higgins reached out to me on Twitter while we were looking for new people to talk to. Can’t say how glad I am that he did, this week’s Scream Writing Questions is a great read since Pat is packed full of advice! Make sure you check out and support his work!
What first got you interested in screenwriting?
When I was three years old, my mum took me to see both Star Wars (1977) AND the re-release of Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954). Between the cantina and the squid fight, I was pretty much destined (or doomed?) to dedicate my life to cinema from that point forwards. I started writing and directing micro-budget horror features in the early to mid 00s, and proved to be better at the writing than the directing (at least in terms of getting offered other gigs!). As with all freelance employment the money is massively variable from year to year, so I lecture in screenwriting as a sideline to make the cashflow more predictable.
Do you have an example of a lesson you learned from reading a script (rather than watching the movie made from it)?
The lecturing side of my career means that I read a LOT of scripts from students and aspiring screenwriters, and every single one of them is still a learning experience. Sometimes there’s a flash of something truly brilliant hidden in an awful lot of stylistic problems. In terms of screenplays which have already been professionally produced, though, I learned a great deal about delivering a strong sense of imagery from William Goldman’s screenplay for Misery (1990). He uses words to pinpoint specific objects and tiny actions, building up a kind of vivid mental storyboard of how the action will be depicted onscreen.
What’s the strongest piece of advice you have for aspiring screenwriters?
Write every day. Use dictation software if sitting in front of a screen isn’t an option. You can dictate your screenplay into the audio recorder on your phone while you’re stuck in traffic, then use transcription software to turn it into words on a page. Either way, never let the day go by without getting words on a page. Don’t worry about making them good straight away, just worry about making them exist. Good can come later.
What is your relationship with genre film (love, hate, indifference)? What led to that?
A few years back, I attended an organized career guidance session with some long-established figures in the industry. After looking through my CV and portfolio, one of them advised me “Career-wise, you are in a little box. Your little box says ‘horror’ on it. Don’t try to escape your little box, but don’t resent it too much because there are a lot of people out there who’d kill to have a little box of their own”. I think about that quite a lot! I try to love my little box. Horror is an incredibly versatile genre.
What was something that surprised you in the process of writing your own screenplay?
In the early stages of my career, I was writing and directing micro-budget movies. I was surprised by quite how much the director side of me deferred to the screenwriter side of me. When I was writing a given scene, I assumed that when it came to filming it, the director side of me would spring into action and make it ‘better’. In fact, if it wasn’t on the page it wouldn’t ultimately be on the screen. There were things I expected to workshop on set in order to improve them, but that NEVER happened. The script ruled all.
What’s your favorite thing about screenwriting that doesn’t apply to other kinds of writing?The journey. With prose, the journey is over once you’ve finished writing. For a screenplay, the written form being shiny, polished and ready to go is only the BEGINNING. All you’ve drawn is the map, and in many cases it won’t even be you who goes looking for the treasure. All you can do is draw the best map you possibly can and hope that the adventure turns out okay.
What are some of the films and stories that inspired you?
It was the DIY filmmakers of the 70s, 80s and 90s who inspired me to just ‘go out and do it’ in terms of filmmaking, which ultimately led to focusing on screenwriting. People like Sam Raimi and Robert Rodriguez set out to do something very, very difficult and made it look easy. If it wasn’t for their influence, I never would have taken the DIY route and got started in the first place.
If you could adapt any story in any medium into a screenplay, what is your dream project?I’d love to successfully resurrect/reinvent one of the low budget or straight-to-VHS franchises of the 80s. C.H.U.D.(1984), House (1986), Critters (1986), Ghoulies (1984), that sort of stuff. I’d also really enjoy working on a Part Four of just about anything, because Part Fours are usually a horrible combination of low expectation and franchise fatigue. It’d be a real challenge to create a screenplay that massively over-delivers on expectations within that kind of framework. So, any producers trying to work out how to reinvigorate a flagging horror franchise as it limps on towards part four, give me a call.
Where can people find you online and support your work (present or upcoming)?My homepage is pathiggins.me.uk, I’m @zcarstheme on Twitter and people can find several of my early movies on Amazon Prime Video by searching ‘Pat Higgins’ – it’s easier to find them that way than by individual titles. My new live show ‘Pat Higgins vs the Scissors Man’ launches at the Horror-on-Sea festival in January and will be touring sporadically throughout 2019. I’ve got a movie going into production next year that I’m not allowed to talk about yet, but keep an eye out!
