E225 - The Insider's Guide to Notes, Script Editing & Development with Venetia Hawkes

This is episode 25 in the second season of The Directors Take Podcast.

In this week’s episode your hosts Marcus Anthony Thomas and Oz Arshad discuss the process of giving and receiving notes as a Writer & Director. We were joined in this conversation by Venetia Hawkes, who is the author of the book We Have Some Notes… The Insider’s Guide to Notes, Script Editing and Development. This book is an excellent resource and features chapter interviews from some of the finest Writers & Directors in the UK such as Edgar Wright, Lynne Ramsay, Russell T Davies, Sally Wainwright and many, many more. 

So as ever we get right into it to help demystify the notes process for you all! This conversation covers:

-What inspired her to write this book?

-What did she discover about the notes process that went against her expectations? 

-What are the do’s and don’ts when giving and receiving notes? 

-How should you deliver notes?

-What makes a bad note?

-How specific should notes be? 

-How do you navigate communicating and dealing with notes around tone?

-When are notes not useful? 

-The notes process for women and people from a global majority.

-How did her research inform her own writing process when putting the book together?

Our wonderful sponsor for this episode is THE NATIONAL FILM and TELEVISION SCHOOL.

We’ve also partnered with SCRIPTATION to offer our listeners an EXCLUSIVE DISCOUNT on their software, which you can find on the link below… 

http://scriptation.com/thedirectorstake 

Nugget of the Week

Venetia: Climate spring - Organisation - Climate Spring harnesses the storytelling power of the screen to shift how society perceives and responds to the climate crisis.

Oz: We Have Some Notes… by Venetia Hawkes

Marcus: Ancient Apocalypse: The Americas 

Credits

Music by Oliver Wegmüller

Socials

Venetia Hawkes: Twitter (X) & Instagram 

The Directors' Take: Twitter (X) & Instagram

Marcus: Twitter (X) & Instagram

Oz: Twitter (X) & Instagram

If you have any questions relating to the episode or have topics you would like covering in future releases, reach out to us at TheDirectorsTake@Outlook.com