• Reading the script
Telling a story is one thing but choosing a story from hundreds that potentially could make it to the big screen is another. At Image Nation that journey is down to three talented women who get to sift through the many tales of hope.
Image Nation women sift through the many tales of hope
It is March and the great work of women past and present is under the spotlight. There is no shortage of women in the UAE, including here in Abu Dhabi, making their mark within the industries of this young and brave country. The UAE has nurtured many of its young industries so much so that today they take their rightful place on the world stage. And shining brightly like a movie star itself, is twofour54’s Image Nation.
The Narrative Department at Image Nation is inundated with scripts of all manner and at its helm is a league of women, and we talk to the Manager of local film and television Hana Kazim, Development Executives Fatima AlDhaheri and Sara AlSayegh whose responsibility it is to sort and read through the submissions, deciding which might make it or which disappear into the ether.
Imagine this. You are a budding writer. You think this is it and your script is the beginnings of the next soap opera, the next sitcom or movie to take the world by storm. You wait for confirmation but the only sound you hear is that of silence. So, how do you make the mark as a scriptwriter? What actually makes a good script?
The answers to such questions are best left to the experts at the Content Division at twofour54 or more precisely, Image Nation where all such content is produced. “Few studios in the world are super open to receiving scripts from anyone and anywhere,” says Hana, who goes on to explain how scripts or submissions are read by the team and “then we see what works for us. What’s going to sell and we develop the script sometimes from scratch and once it’s ready, we go off and shoot it. We’re on set daily.”
According to Fatima, the process of sifting through the hundreds of scripts is as varied as the script content itself. “We don’t actually have one system fits all. It all depends since each project is unique. At times, we come up with an idea and get to hire one of the writers too.”
Sara mostly specialises in Arabic content. She also puts her hand to writing as part of the creative process. “I work with writers, finishing their scripts and getting them ready for production and shooting,” she says. “We have forged many relationships with writers this way, so we have our writers who know us and who submit directly to us. We also commission writers to come up with stories for us.”
The call for submissions is mainly in English, despite the final content being predominately in Arabic. The reason for this is that the net is able to be cast further afield in order to receive submissions from anywhere.
There is a process of translation, rewriting it to fit local culture or in other words, the “Emiratization of the text to ensure it is culturally relevant,” explains Sara. “And that takes months and months of work. We have been hugely busy trying to find stories that cater to a huge Arab audience, so we’re trying to find stories closer to home these days to avoid such a
stringent process of really trying to make something Arabic that isn’t forcing the process and that doesn’t need to be forced.
Back to the original question, so how do you make the mark as a scriptwriter? What is it that actually makes a good script?
“Again we need enough local content that is culturally relevant so we can export through narratives, documentaries, film our culture to the world,” says Hana. One aspect to remember when thinking of submitting a script is the percentage of content that is produced in Arabic.
“We really only do make 95 or 98 per cent of content in Arabic,” adds Sara. “It is going to be an Arabic language film at the end of the day or an Arabic language show. But the stories that we’re looking for are stories that in the Arab Gulf region, we can all relate to.
So therefore, I think in terms of the script the simpler, the better. I think what we’re lacking in the industry here is very simple stories that, as Hana says, tell the world about our culture and our lives. People around the world are always so surprised when they hear about what our day-to-day life is. Both personally and as a writer, the stories I really want to tell are the smaller stories about the way our lives are in any part of the Arab Gulf.
If you look at some of the most successful Western films, they tend to be just about two people, a marriage story, a family unit. So those kinds of stories really resonate in any language,” adds Hana.
Stories, or scripts, are read for their adaptation value – can they be adapted to fit the local culture here in the Arab Gulf? “I feel like we have a lot of untold stories,” says Fatima. “We have a very rich culture and that culture depends on storytelling, which is part of our culture. We just need somebody, a writer from anywhere, who can put together a script that we can adapt to our culture to tell an interesting story.”
To find out how you can submit a script or indeed to find out more about Image Nation, visit imagenationabudhabi.com
“Few studios in the world are super open to receiving scripts from anyone and anywhere