CS Weekly Archive > From the Trenches > 6/05/09

Dark Side of the Moon:
Moon's Nathan Parker

BY DAVID MICHAEL WHARTON

Moon is a giant leap for screenwriter Nathan Parker's career, as his first produced film takes us to Earth's satellite for a character-driven science-fiction thriller that's more interested in the human psyche than in blowing up aliens.

This article contains some minor spoilers, but doesn't reveal any more than the latest trailer for the film. Proceed with caution.

Nathan Parker was living in London when his agent sent him a copy of the story treatment for Moon, written by director Duncan Jones (the son of space oddity David Bowie). Parker was excited by the chance to explore the psychological elements of the SF thriller about an unstable astronaut (Sam Rockwell) working in a solitary lunar mining station whose world comes unglued when he wakes from an accident and discovers a second, identical version of himself trapped inside the rover he remembers crashing. Jones and the producers were looking for a writer to pen a script based on treatment, which was comprised of a very detailed first act, and a less developed second and third. Parker wowed Jones during their first meeting, and soon found himself writing what would become his first produced film. As Moon prepares to launch into limited release next weekend, Parker chats with CS Weekly about the nature of memory, why he doesn't like outlines, and how his background writing for the stage was both a blessing and a curse when it came time to try his hand at screenwriting.

Moon is your first produced film, but it's not actually the first screenplay you were hired to write—that was Blitz, which is in development and which you adapted from Ken Bruen's novel. What did you learn during the writing of Blitz that you were able to carry over to Moon?
Yeah, I had written a lot of other scripts, to be honest. It wasn't my first screenplay attempt. As Robert Evans says, "Luck is preparation meets opportunity," and that was certainly true of Blitz. I wrote tons and tons of stuff, and finally Blitz came along and that was my moment to step up to the plate and deliver. But it wasn't like I was just learning how to write a script.

The big difference is that I was suddenly writing for money, which is a great thing, but it also improved the writing. There was something about suddenly writing on a professional level that ignited the writing to some degree. When it came to writing Moon, I felt more confident. I trusted myself more because I felt like I did a good job with Blitz. When you're writing for money, there's definitely a pressure. When you're just writing spec stuff all the time, you don't feel that pressure of people calling, saying, "Where is it? We want to see it!" They've paid you money and you feel like you really have to deliver something good.

What was your take that you pitched in that first meeting for Moon? What ideas did you want to explore and play around with?
The main two things that attracted me to the material were the ideas of identity and memory. [With the two versions of Sam], there's the physical resemblance, but I was more interested in the fact that they had the same memories. Your memory is your most private and sacred thing, because no one can get inside your head. The idea that you could meet someone else who thinks that the secret memories you have are also theirs—in fact, they are theirs—and you are stealing their memories. This idea of, "Whose memory is it?" when they're about very specific things, such as meeting your beloved. The story was really cool, it was a mindbender, but there were these other themes that were under the surface. I think that's probably true of the better science-fiction [movies], that there is another layer to what's going on in terms of just the plot.

What sort of preparation did you do before going in to pitch?
My take on the material was nothing like a beat sheet or even a summary of the plot. It was really just paragraphs about memory and my take on the more philosophical aspects of the story. It was a little bit tangential in that sense, but it was something that really resonated with Duncan and somehow convinced him that I was the right writer for the job. He had very specific ideas about the plot, so it didn't feel like I needed to write too much about it. Also, I like to be able to explore the plot as I'm writing, which is not a luxury you always have. I preferred to talk about the themes of what I saw the movie having rather than going into details about the actual plot.

It sounds like you're the type that prefers to just start writing, rather than do a detailed outline?
Yeah, sure. It depends on the project. I always have a vague idea of where I'm going, but if you have the luxury, I prefer to just go in and have a bit of trial and error. I often think you write scenes a certain way and it becomes really clear that that's not the way to do it. It does mean that I throw a lot of stuff out, but I prefer to write a scene and know that it's wrong by simply writing it, rather than deciding ahead of time what are the scenes I'm going to write.

Is that revision an ongoing process during a first draft or do you try to finish a draft before going back to revise?
I do a little bit of both. The biggest thing with a first draft is just get it done. Just getting to the end of that first draft is the main thing. It's clear when something doesn't work, so you don't want to keep it in even if it's a first draft, but ultimately, you want to get something down. It can be a danger in editing yourself too much. Just try and strike a balance.

Once you signed onto the project, what was your collaboration with Duncan like?
Well, I believe he was working on something else at the time, maybe doing some commercial work. That suited me, because I like to be able to go off and write it on my own. He was always available and was really good when I had questions, because it was his story, his world that he created. He was always available for questions, but generally for that very first draft of the script I went off and wrote it on my own. Then I delivered the first draft, and from there I got a list of notes from Duncan and two producers about my draft, and I went off and wrote a second draft.

How many drafts did you go through?
I wrote two drafts, then Duncan did some work on the script as he was moving into pre-production. The script changed when Sam Rockwell came on, too, which is evident from all his ad-libbing [laughs]. Which worked great, I mean, he's fantastic in the role. When we met, that was the first thing he said to me: "We changed a few things." We were all on the same page about the material, so it didn't really matter.

Do you recall any of the changes from the first draft that stand out?
I think I had overwritten the script quite considerably. When the two [versions of Sam] were first meeting, that, for me, was the real challenge of the script. I wanted it to be as realistic as possible, so I wanted to figure out what it would be like to meet yourself. That was going back to my first meeting with Duncan. I had said to him after reading his treatment, "What is it about this material that interests you?" And he said, "I wanted to know what it would be like to meet yourself." He was obviously very interested in the more philosophical aspects of the material, as was I.

I had many different takes on it, and a lot of them just didn't work. Things as ridiculous as, "I'm the real Sam!" "No, I'm the real Sam!" It was difficult. It's an extraordinary situation, and it is comical in some ways, but it's also deeply disturbing. I overwrote the script in those sections, and that was really pared down. Duncan did a great job just getting down to the essence of the scenes and cutting out a lot of the excess stuff. I come from a playwriting background, so I do tend to overwrite, especially dialogue. I like to just throw people in rooms and [let them] start chatting.

How did your background as a playwright help you in screenwriting, and specifically when writing a movie like this one, which is very contained and with only a few characters?
When I first met with Duncan and Stuart, they said the whole script takes place in this moon base. I said something about it being very theatrical, and they really did not respond well to the word "theatrical." [laughs] They were like, "No, no, it's not theatrical. It's just claustrophobic." What I meant is that it's one location, which is often true of plays.

To answer your question a bit more broadly, [my playwriting background] can be a hindrance when it comes to screenwriting, because it's all about economy of language. It's about trying to say it as succinctly as possibly, whereas in playwriting you have so much more time to talk. I definitely had to become an editor of my own language and my own tendency to drift off into tangents.

There are similarities in that they are both driven by dialogue. Structurally, plays can be one act, two acts, three acts, but the three-act structure is obviously very similar to a screenplay. Ending an act on an up note, that principle can apply to scripts. They definitely have an overlap.



David Michael Wharton is the managing editor of CS Weekly and a contributing editor of Creative Screenwriting. He believes the Moon is made of cheese, although Moon is anything but cheesy.



Moon courtesy Sony Pictures Classics

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