Gavin Scott (screenwriter)
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- For other people named Gavin Scott see Gavin Scott
Gavin Scott (born 1950) is a novelist, broadcaster and writer of the Emmy-winning mini-series The Mists of Avalon, DreamWorks’ Small Soldiers, Working Title’s The Borrowers and Sci Fi’s Legend of Earthsea, spent ten years making films for British television before becoming a screenwriter, creating more than two hundred documentaries and short films for BBC and the commercial TV, including UK’s prestigious Channel 4. His first assignment in the United States was with George Lucas, developing and scripting The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.
His work ranges from family entertainment (Dangerous Archeologists) to comedy (The Suit, The Book, The Film and the T-Shirt) science fiction and historical dramas.
Scott wrote “Krakatoa”, a Titanic-style movie for National Geographic Feature Films, and has recently completed an eight hour adaptation of War and Peace for Lux Vida SPA, directed by Robert Dornhelm (Into the West, The Ten Commandments).
For Castle Rock he scripted "Brooke", the saga of an emotionally damaged young 19th century Englishman who set up a dynasty of white rajahs in Sarawak, and “First American”, the story of revolutionary war hero Daniel Boone, who rose above personal tragedy to save America’s western settlements during the Revolutionary War.
He created and executive produced a 22 part television series set in the nineteenth century about the origins of the creative ideas of Jules Verne, which was broadcast around the world.
His children's film "Pirates of Treasure Island" [AKA "Battle of Treasure Islnad"] starring Randy Quaid, is released on DVD this year and promoted in an unusual website Gavin created with Jeff Ali: www.treasureislandsummer.com
Born in Hull, Yorkshire, Gavin emigrated with his family to New Zealand in 1961. At 17 he spent a year as a volunteer teacher in the jungles of Borneo, working with the children of head-hunters, after which he studied history and political science at Victoria University of Wellington, and journalism at the Wellington Polytechnic. He returned to Britain overland across Asia in 1973, traveling through Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Afghanistan and Iran, and worked for Shelter, the British housing charity, before joining the Times Educational Supplement, from which base he also wrote features for The Times.
After five years as a reporter and program anchor for BBC Radio Gavin began in 1980 making films for BBC Television’s Newsnight, covering literary as well as political subjects: among his interviewees, J.B. Priestley, Christopher Isherwood, Iris Murdoch and John Fowles. He then made documentaries on science and culture for series such as Horizon and Man Alive before joining Channel 4 News, for which he made films until 1990.
It was during this time that he started writing novels, including “Hot Pursuit” (about a Russian satellite that crashed in New Zealand) and “A Flight of Lies” (about the hunt for the bones of Peking Man). These were published by Collins, Andre Deutsch, St Martin’s Press and Penguin Books). His novel “Small Soldiers” was a bestseller for Grosset and Dunlap in 1998, and he has recently written a Dickensian historical novel set in the nineteenth century, “The Adventures of Toby Wey”.
Gavin is also a sculptor, creating shadow boxes similar to those of Joseph Cornell, using mass-produced toys as his medium. He lives with his family in Santa Monica, California.
