{"id":9143,"date":"2021-04-28T02:58:05","date_gmt":"2021-04-28T02:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/?p=9143"},"modified":"2026-02-03T04:05:39","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T04:05:39","slug":"if-you-have-access-to-the-written-screenplay-read-its-scenes-in-between-watching-the-movie-stephen-floyd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/?p=9143","title":{"rendered":"“If you have access to the written screenplay, read its scenes in between watching the movie.”- Stephen Floyd"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Exclusive Interview with Stephen Floyd – Filmmaker<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Stephen\nFloyd is a member of the Dramatists\u2019 Guild of America, Player-Playwrights\nKilburn (London) UK, London Playwrights Workshop, Arizona Playwrights, and the\nModern Language Association. His B.A. in Latin American Studies was earned at\nArizona State University, with graduate work at La Universidad de Deusto in\nBilbao, Spain, and M.A.T. in Spanish at Northern Arizona University in\nFlagstaff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His full-length comedy Hogsquatch<\/em> was produced at The Aside Theatre in Phoenix (2019). His short play The Legacy of Auntie Nona <\/em>was presented at the Now and Then Creative Company in Phoenix (Sept. 2018), City of Casa Grande Arts and Humanities Commission (Mar. 2019), Magnolia Arts Center in Greenville, NC (Aug. 2019), and in Kilburn, London (Feb. 2020). His short sci-fi play Picnic at Dreamy Draw Park<\/em> was produced by the Laughing Pig Theatre at the Mesa Arts Center (Feb. 2020). His full-length Young Adult play Superstition Afternoons<\/em> was recognized at the Moondance Film Festival in Boulder, CO (Sept. 2019) and won the Michael J. Libow Award from the Beverly Hills Theatre Guild (June 2020).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY\nGlam:  What projects are you currently\nworking on?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My\nscreenplay The Llandudno File<\/em> is a Cold War spy story about industrial\nespionage, set in 1970. It covers the development of West Germany\u2019s entry in\nthe Supersonic Transport race and how their design was sabotaged on the drawing\nboard by an East German engineer. France and the UK were building the Concorde<\/em>,\nthe Soviet Union was copying it for their Tupolev<\/em>, a.k.a. the\n\u201cConcordski\u201d and in the U.S., Boeing, Lockheed and McDonnell-Douglas were\nlobbying Congress for a hundred million dollars for ours. It\u2019s an account\nthat\u2019s never been told.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nLlandudno File<\/em>\nhas earned a few laurels at film festivals and I\u2019m hoping that someone is\ninterested in telling this story in a suspenseful movie \u2013 complete with\nmicrofilm, a murdered whistleblower, a defenestration in Dublin, and a motorcycle\nchase around the Great Orme in Wales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My\nother job has been writing the screenplay Eleno<\/em>, about an intersex\nbiracial slave in Spain who was probably Western Europe\u2019s first female surgeon\nin the 1580s. She ran into trouble with the Holy Office of the Inquisition for\ntransvestism, blasphemy, heresy, sodomy, and witchcraft, and beat them at their\nown game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY\nGlam:  What makes a film great for you?\nAre there certain qualities that make a film better for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I look for transcendent messages that engage me. Plotline is regarded as primary, but the plot for Titanic<\/em> is \u201cShip sinks.\u201d \u00a0There\u2019s a love story there and we wonder if it\u2019s going to be tragic. Beckett<\/em> is my all-time favorite \u2013 it\u2019s got Richard Burton and Peter O\u2019Toole \u2013 great actors \u2013 it\u2019s got historicity, making him and Henry the Second into flesh-and-blood persons grappling with issues. Casablanca<\/em> has it all. After you\u2019ve watched a film, what are you left with? I want to be provoked, or filled up. The Crying Game<\/em> and Philadelphia<\/em> provoke. Amistad<\/em>, Loving<\/em>, and Bridge of Spies<\/em> fill me up. I also happen to like humor in there as an element.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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NY\nGlam:  As a screenwriter, what is the\nmost important aspect of building a character?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dialogic.\nHis Girl Friday<\/em> has tension and terrific exchanges between Cary Grant\nand Rosalind Russell, so credible dialogue is a writing factor that carries a\ngreat film plot forward. The Crown<\/em> series is wonderful for depicting the\nrelationship between the sovereign and the government that regulates the\nmonarch. But there\u2019s a \u201cWhat\u2019s up, Maj?\u201d moment on a plane where Capt. Peter\nTownsend sits down with Her Majesty and calls her \u201cLilibet\u201d that just isn\u2019t\nbelievable for a staff member who successfully managed his role serving the\nroyal household.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proof\nof the best dialogic is when the actors\u2019 lines are recognized in the culture\nand move into the language:  \u201cThere\u2019s no\ncrying in baseball.\u201d and \u201cWe don\u2019t need no stinking badges.\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m shocked!\nShocked, I tell you!\u201d come to mind. \u201cPay no attention to that man behind the\ncurtain.\u201d became a classic. Those screenwriters connected with viewers\u2019 daily\nlives to become meaningful and iconic. And if the movie is really<\/em> good,\nyou might hear more than one from it! \u201cI\u2019ll get your little dog, too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY\nGlam:  Top 3 projects that you have been\ninvolved in?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My\nfull-length comedy stage play Hogsquatch<\/em> was produced by The Aside\nTheatre in Phoenix, 2019, and I had the opportunity to play a minor role as the\nTown Barber. It was enlightening for me to serve as a member of the cast, after\nbeing the writer of the story. I probably wrote shorter lines after that!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then\nI got invited by B3 Productions, also in Phoenix, to be the Set Director for\nLady Margaret Cavendish\u2019s closet play Convent of Pleasure<\/em>, which was fun\nto collaborate on for being a feminist work written in 1668, and also for Rosemary\u2019s\nBaby Goes to High School.<\/em> These other roles helped me expand my understanding\nof live theatre, and be a good member of the cast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY\nGlam:  How do you express yourself\ncreatively in any other ways?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides\nwriting stage plays and screenplays, I enjoy reading Spanish, Portuguese and\nItalian because of my academic studies and travel. I taught Spanish at Northern\nArizona and they granted me a scholarship for graduate study in Spain, which\nwas pretty rewarding. My play Eleno<\/em> is the result of that research in\nSpain\u2019s National Historical Archives \u2013 in medieval Castilian, of course. Almost\nall of it derives from handwritten notarial records kept for an  Inquisition trial in 1587.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At\nhome, my garden is like therapy \u2013 I like to grow whatever I have time for, what\nwill grow in each season. From these and even store-bought fruits, I make my\nown liqueurs in small amounts. They\u2019re great for entertaining and mixing in\ndesserts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY\nGlam:  What advice would you give to\nsomeone who wants to have a career in filmmaking?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Read a lot. Watch other people\u2019s work. Keep\nlearning. Collaborate on a work with someone outside your specialty. If you\nhave access to the written screenplay, read its scenes in between watching the\nmovie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nhave taught this to junior high students in my Writing classes. We read several\npages of Harper Lee\u2019s text and followed it comparing, side-by-side, that same\naction in the 1962 movie To Kill a Mockingbird<\/em>. Here\u2019s an example:  In the novel, find the chapter where Jeremy\ntells Scout about their neighbor Mrs. Dubose. Then watch the video segment\nwhere Atticus Finch talks to Mrs. Dubose on her porch, to see how Horton Foote,\nthe writer, and Robert Mulligan, the director, handled the text. Another one is\na scene enabled by Mr. Mulligan\u2019s Best Boy, where Jeremy and Scout walk past a\ntree on their street and discover the chewing gum placed there by Boo Radley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY\nGlam: What can we expect from you in this actual year?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m\nputting finishing touches on my screenplay, Twelve Fridays<\/em>, about small-town\nlife and hypocrisy. The protagonist is the town itself. It\u2019s a story of Justice\nDenied \u2013 how an artist was falsely accused of a sex crime, and how he exacted\nhis revenge on the town by posting graffiti that named their own\ntransgressions. It\u2019s got the Town Bully, the businessman\u2019s pregnant secretary,\nthe neighborhood thief, alcohol abuse, and the Mayor\u2019s corruption. It was fun\nto write because I grew up in a small town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its\nsequel picks up in the same little town, with focus on people\u2019s denial of sex\nhabits and opioid abuse, with the appropriate title of Not In This Town<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY\nGlam:  Where can everyone keep up with\nyou to learn more?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facebook: https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/stephen.floyd.1485<\/a>\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exclusive Interview with Stephen Floyd – Filmmaker Stephen Floyd is a member of the Dramatists\u2019 Guild of America, Player-Playwrights Kilburn (London) UK, London Playwrights Workshop, Arizona Playwrights, and the Modern Language Association. His B.A. in Latin American Studies was earned at Arizona State University, with graduate work at La Universidad de Deusto in Bilbao, Spain, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9146,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","category-literature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9143"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19179,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9143\/revisions\/19179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}