After continuously communicating with people who participated in the news investigation in person and checking most of the information, Murphy began to write the script outline of "Focus". This time the script is completely different from before, and is even more different from "Dark City". Everything in the script cannot be exaggerated. All the content must be in line with the facts and can withstand investigations by anyone or institution.

Although the film must have appropriate artistic exaggeration and Murphy has directed films based on real stories in the past, those subjects are far less serious than this one.

You should know that the current Catholic Church appears in the movie under the mask of a villain! If there are false situations in future films, it will inevitably become a laughing stock in the Catholic attack!

This is not the result Murphy wants.

Therefore, during the process of writing the script, Murphy always adhered to one principle and was objective enough.

Murphy's script is like giving a close-up report on the activities of the "Focus" special report group that year, leading people to the truth step by step.

The content is completely a reappearance of the situation in that year. For example, during the investigation, the reporters encountered difficulties: the public relations department specifically reminded to be careful to anger the Catholic subscribers who account for 53% of the Boston Globe's newspapers; the church is powerful, and the upper class is unwilling to tear off the veil of hypocrisy, making it too undesirable; the shaken personal beliefs of reporters face the heavy depression of many others' pain and the impact of busy work on marriage; there is even a cruel group of journalists' own incident that caught up with the "9?11" in 2001 at the end of the investigation and evidence collection. The bigger" news forced reporters to withdraw and report more "important" news, while explaining apologies to the victims they contacted, and also beware of being sniffed out by their peers and taking the initiative in reporting...

Sentimentality is definitely not suitable for this film. It is more powerful to reveal the facts that existed in that year from an objective standpoint.

If there is no objective content, it is called slander, not a counterattack!

In the entire script outline, Murphy almost eliminates the drama and is completely straightforward. He does not deliberately vilify the priests who commit crimes, nor does he have any stimulating scenes of sin.

For example, when he was writing a scene of the script, female reporter Sasha visited the priest involved one by one, and was rejected a lot. Suddenly, she met an old priest with a charitable face. She admitted without any warning that she had molested the boy and said calmly, "I have never felt happy in this matter myself."

In reality, all clergymen are very secretive about this matter. Only this priest named Ronald Paquin publicly admitted what he had done. As he told in the script, Paquin was also raped by a Catholic priest when he was a teenager.

None of these is sensational, let alone criticize them, but objectively presented to the audience.

Faced with such a serious situation, there is no need for scripts, directors, or conclusions in the final film. The audience is enough to judge whether good or evil is right or wrong!

Similarly, Murphy did not need heroic preaching, nor did he need conspiracy and dangers in commercial films of the same theme; even if someone asked me why I sent the information to the newspaper a few years ago, why didn't I do it at that time? It was not an imagined possible reversal: Robbie Robinson, the editor of the "Focus" group, finally found that it was because of his negligence that he missed the source of information, which made possible reports seven years late for real presentation, even such excellent journalists would make mistakes.

The biggest conflict he used in the script was that the reporter Mike found the most critical evidence and anxiously asked the team leader for a press release. The latter suppressed his urge to uphold justice: the greater truth is behind, and in-depth reporting cannot just cause a commotion. If the church apologized in individual cases, it would not bring about substantial changes in society, and their news ambition was to "treat the entire system."

After spending a month to finish the script outline, Murphy once again recruited Stanton Studio's screenwriter team into the project and continued to enrich the script with collective strength.

Even such very serious films can't escape the fate of the Hollywood assembly line in the end.

To put it in terms of the concept of assembly line factory, the production process of a film requires multiple "flow" procedures, including screenwriters, directors, actors, photography, recordings, props, clothing and other departments, and each department has a more detailed division.

For example, the screenwriter department has special parts such as "proposing intentions", "structing main plots", "adding secondary plots", "writing dialogues", and "adding gimmicks", and all of which are hosted by enough dedicated people; the director department has "main directors", which are specifically responsible for the "assistant directors" of various types of scenes; the actor department has experts who are specifically responsible for discovering actors, and actors are divided into different types. Other departments also have fine division of labor and hire various experts to perform their duties.

This kind of "flow" program is like the product production assembly line of other companies, and is a product of the highly developed era of large-scale machine production.

Although movies are an entertaining spiritual product, Hollywood has materialized and industrialized it based on market needs.

The result of this fine division of labor has its favorable and disadvantageous side.

On the one hand, every detail of the film production, such as set design, scene expression, character dialogue, etc., will be very excellent and exquisite because of the control of a very proficient professional; on the other hand, when every professional in the detail wants to express his creative personality, many personalities will eventually be submerged in the noise of the crowd due to the collision and the inability to grasp the overall situation, becoming a programmatic and standardized appendix for production.

Although there is such a paradoxical relationship, for the current Hollywood film industry, refined and modern professional division of labor is still an important "joint" to improve product and industry quality.

The script was handed over to the screenwriter team to enrich the facts based on facts, while Murphy considered the specific shooting plan, the first thing was the production concept.

The final film of the film must be objective and calm like the script.

In terms of basic narrative, Murphy is preparing to use the common narrative routine of confrontation between good and evil, but it is an unusual way to not deliberately exaggerate tension and conflicting and opposition. He does not need to create the adventures he has to go through to explore the truth in the film, nor does he randomly exaggerate the threats and blows from the church, nor does he need the secret destruction of villains, or even use too many of the protagonist's inner struggles and emotional changes.

In his plan, this video is just a simple and simple way to show how these reporters fulfill their responsibilities and use the power of public opinion to compete with power.

In some ways, it is better to say that the two sides confronting the film are justice and evil, and it is better to say that the journalist's professional ethics persistence and laissez-faire with the flow.

In addition to being a counterattack against the Catholic Church, this can also win the greatest support of media and public opinion!

In today's society, no one can underestimate the power of media and public opinion!

There is no heroic and dramatic charge, but only trivial and meticulous work, but for the press that pursues the truth, it is in such step-by-step trivial matters that the power to change the status quo has been gathered.

This is what Murphy wants the film to reflect journalists.

In addition, in terms of the Catholic scandal, Murphy intends to focus the film on the behind-the-scenes work before the famous report was released, hiding the focus of the case behind the narrative, which not only gives the film more space to show the spirit of the real main characters, but more importantly, avoiding rough value judgments and aggressive accusations.

Obviously, the actions of the Criminal Father should be worthy of whipping, but this is not what Murphy wants to do. His films will state the process of revealing the truth itself, and what attitude towards the truth, as he thought at the earliest, is to give the audience to choose the audience for such things that are directly related to the next generation, which is more insightful and good and disgusting than imagined, and is far from being guided and led.

In fact, this kind of rejection of the result is not Murphy's choice to deliberately avoid the problem.

On the contrary, in too many similar films, the director or screenwriter implants his own strong judgment into the film and presents a video-forming manifesto on the screen of the theater.

Of course, such a choice is far from wrong, but in such a serious and sensitive film and involving such a huge strength of Catholicism, a calm and restrained attitude can ultimately give the film a heavier texture.

In this real case involving sensitive topics such as religion, children, and legal fairness, how to objectively and sincerely show the truth, and how not to become a farce of playing gimmicks to expose people's scars is the part that really tests Murphy, the director and screenwriter.

Although he is indeed not a good person, and by the standards of many people, he can be completely planned to be among the ranks of villains, Murphy still has his own understanding of justice.

The meaning of justice is not only to punish sins, but also to protect innocent people!

In the absence of visual stimulation and tension in the film, Murphy believes that only this calmness and restraint can bring the unique temperament of a film with serious themes.

Another point is that this film is fundamentally a noir movie. Whether it is the theme or content, it has the characteristics of such films. Murphy also chooses dark tones when choosing painting styles, just like the winter sky in Boston.

By October, all script creations were completed, and Murphy also came up with a complete project plan. Based on the successful cooperation in the past and the big sale of "Dark City", as well as a counterattack against Catholic attacks, 20th Century Fox also gave the green light to the project, saying that the investment of $40 million and participation in the Venice Film Festival is not a problem.
Chapter completed!