By Becca Whitehead
Covid affected us all in different ways, but some of the near-misses are more interesting than others. For writer and director Samuel Bartlett, it meant watching his 2014 Page Awards winning action thriller, Survive the Night, go through some serious ups and downs. Producer Nate Adams had been shopping it around to some pretty big names, including Pacino, De Niro and Travolta, until finally Morgan Freeman said he was interested.
“I thought it was too good to be true, and in a way it was. About a month after Morgan signed on, Covid hit, and the movie was once again shelved,” says Bartlett.
Fortunately, the story has a good ending.
“Fast forward to now, and the script – now titled The Paradox Effect – is set to begin shooting in Italy in late November 2022 starring Olga Kurylenko and Harvey Keitel,” he says.
Bartlett admits that the onboarding of Keitel was intimidating. It also required significant changes to be made to the script.
“Nate phoned me to say that he had secured Harvey Keitel and that I would have to expand his role a little,” says Bartlett. “Normally, expanding a character’s role would be easy for me, but when you know that the words you write will be spoken by Harvey, it suddenly becomes intimidating.”
Bartlett got it done, however, and is excited about seeing his baby grow.
“I can’t wait to see the script I wrote back in 2014 finally come to fruition and with such a great cast,” he says. He won’t be directing, this time, due to technicalities that require a director shooting in Italy to have an EU passport, he says.
Bartlett got his start in film as an AFTRS grad, with a Masters degree in film from The University of Sydney. He says that it’s what he was meant to do.
“Film has always been a passion for me. Since I was a child. The wonder, the spectacle, the emotions. The unique perspectives and insights that come from film, and more so nowadays from TV, also,” he says. “There is nothing more exciting than being carried away to a new world by a film that really connects with you.”
A writer first, Bartlett has found his niche since those early days, understanding the importance of character development over spectacle.
“I spent the first ten years of my screenwriting journey focused on concept and spectacle, when really I should have been focusing on what makes an emotional human connection,” he says. “I now try to write stories that have a strong emotional core. If you can do that well, it doesn’t really matter what your concept is, you’ll find an audience.”
Bartlett’s passion is now just as strong for directing.
“Directing is a passion for me and the ultimate goal is to direct all the screenplays I write,” he says. “Directing is a lot harder than I thought it would be. The ability to transfer what you have in your head onto the screen is an incredibly technical and nuanced process. While writing is a solitary pursuit, directing a film is extremely collaborative. I’m a great believer in the 10,000 hour rule – that it takes about 10,000 hours of doing something to become proficient at it. Clocking up 10,000 hours of writing is a hell of a lot easier than 10,000 hours of directing. Hence, my writing is much better than my directing, but it’s something I’m working on at every opportunity,” he says.
Bartlett has accumulated enough directing experience now to be confident that it’s in his future. He wrote and directed the tense Australian feature film Intersection, starring Matt Doran.
“Bringing that film together on such a low budget – around $70,000AUD – taught me an immense amount about not only directing, but also the full scope of producing a feature film. I learned an amazing amount from watching the key Producer, James Carr, juggle being the CEO of a successful Sydney-based advertising agency and simultaneously orchestrating the production of a feature film.”
The slick, twisty and intense Intersection secured international distribution and sold to Channel Nine for a domestic release.
Most recently, Bartlett has once again been nominated by the Page International Screen Awards for a new screenplay, Twins from Different Dads, for best screenplay in the Comedy category. Bartlett has moved toward comedy and found the idea for Twins in a surprising place.
“Many years ago, I saw an article about a Swedish woman who had fallen pregnant with twins by two different fathers,” he says. “At first, I thought it was a joke, but I did my research. It’s a real medical condition that occurs in roughly 1 in 10,000 cases of twins. It’s called Heteropaternal Superfecundation.”
Bartlett immediately drafted an outline, thinking it had a unique comedic premise. “The challenge was to create a story that was heartfelt and had a deeper meaning than just cheap laughs. Alas, the original draft that I completed in 2015 received lukewarm reviews from friends and colleagues at the time, so I shelved it,” he says.
In 2020, Bartlett became a father himself.
“All of a sudden, I had this entirely new world of emotions to draw from. I did a major rewrite from the heart, focusing more on the human emotional connection rather than the comedy. I sent it off to Natasha Bassett – the great Australian actress, for a professional woman’s opinion. She loved it,” he says. “I sent it off to the Page Awards to get a professional insiders’ opinion and was recently notified that the script is a finalist in the Page Awards.”
The Page Awards receives 8,900 screenplays each year, and Twins was top ten in its category. The Page Awards, called ‘Hollywood’s favourite screenwriting contest,’ has been a big player in Bartlett’s filmmaking career, and he couldn’t speak more highly of the contest.
“It is run by a team who genuinely want to help writers meet producers, managers and agents. The judges are industry professionals, looking for the next great script,” he says. “If you place highly, it gives your script a certain stamp of approval. It doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to get an agent or sell your script, but it certainly opens doors to getting read by people who get films made,” he says.
This has certainly been the case for Bartlett.
The Page International Screenwriting Awards is based in Los Angeles, but open to filmmakers worldwide. The Page Awards winners will be announced on October 15. For more information visit pageawards.com.
