Gavin Strawhan's blog - Part one
We asked Gavin Strawhan the co-creator of This Is Not My Life to take us through the creative process of how they came up with Alec Ross and the world of Waimoana.
In the first part of our concept blog, Gavin looks at how the world came together...
THIS IS NOT MY LIFE - Writer's blog - Gavin Strawhan
Okay, this is not really a blog, so much as a blab. I was asked to write about the concept for TINML and the process.. but the problem is, it's all kind of lost in the murky mists of 'development time'.
You see 'development time' isn't like normal time. It's some weird distorted tear in the space/time continuum that makes slightly less sense than, say, your average episode of Lost. So, where to 'begin'? The advice to Alice to begin at the start and proceed to the end, doesn't really work here. So maybe I'll just jump cut through snap shots and sequences that may or may not be chronological...
Rachel Lang and writer/producer Jason Daniel and I are talking ideas somewhere, some time. I think alcohol is involved. The idea of a guy having a mid-life crisis and thinking his family weren't his own comes up. We talk about iconic shows like The Prisoner and The Fugitive.
[Flashback to about 19 years ago and Jason and I are setting up the writing department of Shortland Street. Bloody hell!]
Then we thought about a teenager - because they have less power and mobility. And the idea of teenage angst and alienation seemed interesting. What if his family weren't his own? Or he thought they weren't... but who were they? Were they aliens?
I think that's as far as we got. Kids drama gets less funding than adult and we just wouldn't be able to afford to make it.
[Side bar: when I was a kid, maybe 10 or 11 I went through this phase where I thought everyone else in the world was a robot, created by aliens, to look and act like humans - except me. They used me to study how humans used to be. Sad, I know...]
Then maybe 3 or 4 years ago, Rachel and I heard that TVNZ were looking for a locally made, big concept action/thriller in the Lost mould. So we laughed. How could we hope to make a local show for the kind of money that's needed to compete with those kind of mega-budget US shows? Simple answer, we couldn't.
[Side bar: New Zealand On Air has a cap on the amount of money they'll give to make a local drama. With a slight top up from the network, it's enough to make an ensemble style comedy drama like Go Girls or Outrageous Fortune. It's enough, but it's tight. But action costs a lot more than talk on telly. So people talking, making jokes, having sex, this is all affordable, but planes falling out of the sky, elaborate car chases etc etc, is not.]
But Rachel and I (by this time Jason was Producer on Shortland Street and so was otherwise occupied) started talking again about our idea that would become This Is Not My Life. We thought that maybe if we made it a domestic mystery thriller we might be able to make it more economically. There still would be relationship drama involved, but with higher stakes - as well as a small amount of running and chasing.
[Some place, some time, we talked about the incredible tension in The Sopranos, even in the domestic scenes, because of the genre and setting and characters. It makes a big difference if someone says, "I'm going down the shop for milk", when they could get capped on the way.]
Somewhere along the line, Rachel and I started to think that maybe we would break with tradition and not do this with South Pacific Pictures. I am a freelancer and well known writing slut, but Rachel has worked pretty consistently for SPP for a long time. And that relationship has been great for all concerned with shows like Outrageous Fortune and Go Girls. But we kind of knew we'd have to approach TINML differently. It wouldn't fit easily into previous production models. And to be honest, we wanted a bit more power and to have an adventure and be megalomaniacal control freaks!
All through this time, we're working on other projects. I had a feature film, Matariki, in development and kids series, Kaitangata Twitch. And then Go Girls was in development. Rachel, of course, had Outrageous Fortune. But we kept talking and developing the concept. It helps that Rachel and I share an office.
Some time, we're pitching the idea for TINML to TVNZ. We're nervous but it's actually quite fun and the idea does sound good when we pitch it. I see Kathleen Anderson, Andrew Shaw and Jane Wilson (The TVNZ bigwigs). They like it enough to want to see a concept document.
I'm having a conversation with Tim White, who is an Oz based film producer. He called me up to discuss film ideas but instead I mention TINML.
Now Rachel and I are talking to Steven O'Meagher from Desert Road (the company who made the film, Out Of The Blue) about using his company as a kind of 'umbrella' for a company we'd set up to make TINML.
We call the company GRST after our initials. Steven introduces us to his Production Manager - eventually our Associate Producer - the wonderful Polly Fryer who really rules the world. At least, the world of TINML.
Rachel and I continue developing the idea. We realise that if we set it in a gated community, some time in the future, it would solve some of our 'containment' issues and explain why Alec Ross couldn't just run away. And it would help focus the drama. But we didn't really want to make it sci-fi, so how far in the future? That was a question we grappled with for a long time.
Originally the community had some anodyne name like Green Hills or something equally bland, but then we realised we wanted to make it a kind of microcosm of New Zealand, with an element of satire. So we called it Waimoana. We had already talked about pure water being a precious commodity in the future and NZ having lots of it. And we wanted to take a poke at global capitalism and the illusion of free choice. Like how when you walk into a dairy to buy a bottle of water and there are ten different varieties - all made by coca cola.
There were lots of ideas swirling around.... but we had a long way to go.
Coming soon - In part two of Gavin's blog, he tells how a trip to the Philippines clarified some of his thoughts....and set the world of Waimoana into motion.
