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Playback: Scriptwriting with Kate Leys + John Maclean
22 Mar 2018
If tickets are sold out, you are encouraged to join the returns queue at the ICA Box Office on the day of the event. For free events there is a high chance you will gain entry, though we cannot guarantee a place. Fifteen minutes after Playback events begin, unclaimed tickets are distributed to waitlist customers and visitors present in the ICA foyer
Following the success of her workshop at last year's festival, experienced script editor Kate Leys is back to share the secrets of writing a great script. Get advice on how to turn ideas into a story, break into the industry as a screenwriter and pitch for a commission.
In the final hour of the session Leys will be joined by writer and director John Maclean to discuss their collaboration on Maclean's debut feature Slow West.
Kate Leys is a script and story editor who works in feature films. Filmmakers she has worked with recently include John Maclean, Alice Lowe, Bart Layton, Clio Barnard, Paul Wright, Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, Deborah Haywood, Alice Birch, Josh Appignanesi, Rungano Nyoni, Lucy Cohen, Nick Payne and others.
She contributed to three of the five films currently nominated for the BAFTA award for Outstanding Debut. She is chair of the Wellcome Screenwriting Fellowship and has been head of development at several companies including Film4. Leys has worked in all sectors of the film industry and began her career as a cinema usherette.
John Maclean studied BA Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh Art collage, and MA Painting at The Royal College of Art. During these years his predominant interest became collage. This lead to his interest in sampling in music and montage in film. He was a founder member of The Beta Band, together from 1997 until their split in 2004, and The Aliens from 2005 to 2010. He made most of music promos, ranging from zero budget to £70,000, which were released on the DVD The Best of The Beta Band (EMI). Having studied painting, he always had a specific interest in the visual side of the band, and has now turned to a complete focus on filmmaking.
Maclean’s first independent short, Man on a Motorcycle, starred Michael Fassbender. This fruitful collaboration lead to Maclean’s second short Pitch Black Heist starring Fassbender and Liam Cunningham, which won the BAFTA 2012 Best Short Film. His first feature, Slow West, funded by Film4, the BFI and the New Zealand Film Commission, premiered at Sundance film festival and won the World Cinema Grand Jury award in 2015, and was released in cinemas worldwide.
