RESEARCH BACKGROUND

This documentary was co-written by Margaret McVeigh with writer/director, Liselle May and writer/producer, Trish Lake. It was written and produced to explore how former opera star, Lisa Gasteen and her friend retired academic, Dr Nancy Underhill, work each year to run the Lisa Gasteen School of Opera at the Conservatorium of Music, Griffith University, Brisbane. The initial focus of the documentary was the later-in-life friendship of two women and their no-holds-barred approach to getting things done to make an opera school function against the odds. To receive funding as the writer of the treatment, I had to invent a story.

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION

Screenwriting practice as research is an emerging field - and this script and screen production contribute to this area. In this work of screenwriting as creative practice research, I investigate, through direct observation, how fiction screenwriters whose writing is impelled by imagination and research to create a story, transition to the documentary where writing is based on fact and imagination to create a story. The research builds on my previous work around the reflective creative practice and the creative process of storytelling for the screen.

RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE

This documentary received research funding from Screen Queensland. This was because an emerging Queensland writer, transitioning from fiction to factual screen writing, wrote the treatment for the documentary. It was selected for screening and had its world premiere at the highly regarded Brisbane International Film Festival on 9th October 2019. In early 2020, the film was selected for the prestigious Cannes Cinephiles section of the Cannes Film Festival and is being translated into French for subtitling.