Was it something I wrote?

Update

2010-09-17T23:21:00.002+01:00

Apologies to those giving a gentle nudge. I've been really busy, honest! The Book! Okay so way back in the spring the book went out to about half a dozen of the big publishers. The agent's plan was to put it out to a few, see what the feedback was and if it was positive then hit another half dozen.
The feedback was pretty good. I recall three out of six of the editors said they loved it but were gutted because the marketing department for various reasons ranging from 'already have our new thriller writer for this year to 'it's too tough a market right now for literary thrillers'. How much of that is bullshit that really means 'didn't like it enough' I'll never know.
One said they didn't like it and one we never heard back from ever.

But that was enough for the agent to send it out to another 8 publishers. To me this is quite a long time ago and I tend not to look back but I recall about 4 positive feedbacks going from ' 'I loved the story and characters but didn't like the location' to 'He is a remarkable talent with a fantastic book and it is with the deepest regret that I can't convince the marketing department that ,,,, etc (okay I remembered that one)
Again, how much of that is bullshit I don't know.
I think two didn't like it but didn't really give any feedback and two never replied.
I'm not one for flogging a dead horse, and my agent seems convinced that though this might not be book 1 it will sell eventually. Or in plain English, get another away and suddenly it's good enough to sell.

Being a writer and therefore by definition having a mental disfunction, I started book 2. Unfortunately, as anyone who has read my meanderings is aware, I've joined the ranks of those working for a living after ten years of pissing words on paper for pay, so book 2 is slow going. In my work I'm pissing more words on paper but the job satisfaction isn't quite the same and the hours are considerably longer. I work in the City so by the time I get home I'm pretty much either fucked or drunk, neither of which is conducive to good writing.
Anyway, that's the state of play. No mega deal for the book I spent months writing, but am I discouraged? Nah.
I spent years as a screenwriter and so spent many cumulative months on various projects that never saw the light of day. It's all subjective. Right time. right place, right person.

As writers you know that my way will be 'as soon as I get a deal the City can go screw itself.'

It's the way it always will be for writers. We're cursed, and God bless us for it.

Moment Of Truth

2010-01-19T20:10:00.002Z

Well I guess all I can do now is cross my fingers. My agent returned from Australia last week after a month away, read the latest draft and announced it was going out to publishers this week.
I'm pretty excited but not hyperventillating, probably because as a screenwriter I'm used to work going out to producers with little chance of anything happening with it. I know this situation is different, but I'm trying to keep it in perspective. Just because a book goes out to publishers doesn't mean anyone's going to buy it.

However, I wrote a book. Got an agent. Got it to publishers. I'm counting that as a win! Some dosh would be an added bonus. The other thing is that my agent has smartly targeted just a few publishers to see what the feedback is. If it's 'We like it but...' then I'll take note of the 'but' and possibly re-write.

Obviously I'm hoping the response is positive, in which case it will go out wide. I've been over a year farting about with the book for various reasons and frankly am getting a little punch drunk with it. Especially bearing in mind that it hasn't changed that much since about April last year. Most of the interim period was messing around with agents, waiting for responses, summer holidays etc. It's really hard to believe it's taken so long to get to this stage.

Anyway, my agent says it will now go quiet for a couple of weeks, which for a screenwriter is no time at all. My mate Dublin was getting offers on his book after about a fortnight which he found pretty incredible after a career as a screenwriter. I should be so lucky!

So that's the state of play at the moment. In two or three weeks I should know if it's a dead duck, a re-write or sold. (which will mean a re-write but at least it will be a paid one!) Either way I've absolutely enjoyed the process of writing a novel, something I didn't know I could do. Whether I've written one that makes it to the shelves is now in the lap of the gods.
I'll keep you posted.

You don't have to be crazy.....

2009-11-17T20:58:00.003Z

to work here, but it helps.

Yep a cliche that a writer would never use. But cliches become so because they tend to be true. And I do actually believe that in order to actively seek and then survive the life of a professional writer you need a certain degree of insanity. Except you don't think you're insane, it's only everyone else who thinks you are.

And who can blame them? You have no job security or career structure. Your entire livelihood is based on the subjective decision of others. And unlike the work of a self-employed carpenter for example, your work is up for scrutiny by millions of people who have access to the internet and aren't slow about voicing there opinions.

I 've noticed that James Moran has stopped blogging and for a nano second Stephen Fry stopped twittering. A writer is open to abuse in ways never before anticipated. And for a writer that is tough, especially for the sensitive variety and especially for a TV/film writer. We have our names on the credits but the viewing public as a rule have no idea of the battles fought and lost so any sense of injustice over criticism leveled is magnified because the writer in general is overuled by the producers et al and can count themselves lucky if 70% of what was envisaged ends up on screen.

It's why I'm trying to move out of that arena with the novel. I want more control over what appears. If I get slated then fair enough. I'll know it was mostly down to me. If it works then it might give me more leverage if I go back into TV. Though to be honest I think it's doubtful if I will go back. I wouldn't trust any of the current regimes on any of the terrestial channels to know good drama if it fucked them soundly and left a return airfair to Rio on the sideboard as a tip.

So yes, a degree of insanity is a pre-requisite to being a professional writer. But not too much. As Swiss Tony from The Fast Show would say - being a writer is like making love to a beautiful woman; Nutters don't get to do it. But someone a little off the wall just might.

It's not a sprint

2009-11-12T19:15:00.004Z

It's a marathon, after first completing a slow jog with a dead leg from Bloomsbury to Soho via Dusseldorf.
Or so it seems at the moment.

For anyone wondering if I was alive or not, yes I think I am. And ready to continue the saga of my quest to turn from TV to novels. To continue where I left off, I have now signed with an agent. Not the mega agent but the other good but less high profile one, for reasons that I will now bore you with.
Back in the summer (remember that couple of weeks?) I got line by line notes from mega agent. The other agent had suggested that I alter the structure of the book, and while I understood his reasons, it wouldn't have been the book I wanted to write.
Yes okay, I can hear the snorts of 'prima donna' but hell, I've spent 10 years writing shite at the behest of others and don't want to spend the next ten doing the same.

So I put the other agent on hold and duly did the line by line notes for mega agent who had no concerns about the structure. Soooooooooome time later, I got a reply from mega agent saying she wanted to pass me on to another agent there because she thought it needed more editing for description and this agent was a whizz, and was that okay with me?

In principle it was. Everyone needs a good editor. I think the original title of Mein Kamph was something like 'My four and a half years of struggle against lies, stupidity and cowardice'. I don't think it would have been quite so popular with the original title, possibly because some words have two or more syllables.

But... I was then told (cos I asked) that the suggested agent/whizz editor hadn't yet read the manuscript. I mentioned that there was another agent who wanted to sign me and holding him off was making me a litttle uncomfortable, so a little haste would be appreciated. I got a message back that the suggested agent would read the first 50 pages overnight and get back to me.

Three days later ....... not a dicky. One thing that 10 years in the Tv trenches has taught me is that you go where the love is. By this point I was feeling like the spare prick at a whore's wedding so decided to go where the love was.

I called the agent who wanted to sign me and told him of the problems I had with his notes. He suggested a meeting the next day. The meeting went like this :-

Me - My difficulty is that the notes you gave me would make a great book. Just not the book I want to write.

Agent - The only reason I made those suggestions was it would make it an easier sell. An absolutely archetypcal thriller if you will. Personally I love the book the way it is.

Me- How about I finish the draft I'm working on with the current structure, give it to you for notes and then we put it out to a few publishers for feedback. If it comes back that they want the structure changed, then I'll change it.

Agent - Fine by me.

Forms signed, hands shaken, meeting done. Okay those were the highlights after the chit-chat, but as a synopsis that was pretty much it.

I've just finished the draft and sent it in. Once again awaiting notes, but this time the marathon is extended yet again as the agent is jetting off on holiday for the whole of December, hey ho. Hopefully I'll get the notes back before he goes and can work on the book so it's ready to go out in January.
Did I say via Dusseldorf? Try Tokyo.

Anyway, what did I learn? Well, the fact that mega agent liked the structure gave me the confidence to stick up for it with the agent who suggested I change it, so I can't say that the months of delay before signing was wasted time. And I'm extreamly happy with my agent, well respected agency, a guy you can talk to, loaded with integrity, business savvy, the bees knees.

I learned from my beautiful and talented girlfriend who hooked up with me just before I started this entreprise that, contrary to my own self-image and denial of others opinions, I do indeed have a kamikaze streak and so it's a good job I'm a well hung stud-muffin who's fantastic in bed or I'd be dumped. ( She doesn't know I write this blog so I can get away with a little exaggeration. I don't really think she'd dump me)

I guess the next thing of note will be when and if the book goes to a few select publishers for feedback. There will be another post then for anyone who isn't sick to death of the longest suicide note in history!

Time for an update

2009-10-05T20:04:00.002+01:00

Life gets tedious donnit? Well, not really, it can just seem to have a hiatus now and again; the trick is to enjoy the hiatus to the best of your ability.

So here's the updated skinny re: my foray into novel writing.

Mega agent gave me notes somewhere near the begining of August. I was pissing off to France for a couple of weeks at about the same time. So not a lot of work done then. In my defence it was my first ever proper holiday with my new significant other with rug-rats in tow. My familial duties during the day and getting rat arsed at night with an eclectic bunch of Slovenians who were also staying at the same converted farmhouse [long story] made actual work not as high on the list of priorities as I might have hoped.

But boy..... did I learn a lot. And in my view that is the one of the few things a writer can put in the bank and live with. Apart from money.

nearly July

2009-06-22T19:28:00.002+01:00

Jings and help ma bob, where does the time go? I just realised that it was June 2nd when I posted that I was waiting on notes from the big agent. The exciting news is that I'm still waiting. Not that I can complain much as the wait is due to a medical glitch resulting in hospitalization. [the agent, not me] Though truth be told I did complain - silently to myself, you know the kind of thing , why me? If it was raining soup I'd only have a fork, etc.

I'd like to think that the reason for my apparent initial lack of sympathy was due to the pressure of holding off another agent who has offered representation and not just because I'm a selfish git. But there is another reason why time is important. As my mate Dublin said, and I paraphrase, 'They all fuck off for the summer' Actually I didn't paraphrase very much of that.

You see, Dublin had pretty much finished his 'going out' draft about this time last year but his agent told him he may as well take his time because there was no point in it going to publishers until September when they were all back from their summer jollys in the fleshpots of Margate or trekking in the foothills of Butlins [I hear times are tough in the publishing world] I figure his agent must have been right due to the amout of zeroes in Dublin's deal when it finally went out in September.

So this delay seems to me to pretty much mean for certain that at best the book won't go out until the nights are drawing in. At worst it won't go out at all of course and that will be another story.

Bearing in mind I began writing the book last September, that's a whole year of my ever shortening life gone for a Burton. That might not seem a lot to you, but I enjoy my earthly pleasures to such an extent that I think the old 'three score years and ten' is wildly optimistic in my case.

What's more to the point is that it looks like I will have to put on a suit for the first time in fifteen years. Yes the time has come when I have to get a proper job. Man cannot live by bread alone and I am doughless. Having concentrated on the novel over the last year and become tired of the whole TV game to the point where I can't be arsed writing for it [and to be fair the feeling is probably mutual in that they can't be arsed employing me] money has become an issue. A few months back I put feelers out in my old career, mainly to please those riding the alimony pony, not really thinking it would ever actually come to the point where I had to do anything about it. But this latest delay which will now turn into months has forced my hand. I've been offered a consultancy job for an initial three months, which suits the time line down to the ground. I figure it'll take them that long to discover I'm crap by which time the book will hopefully have sold.

This is as close to a back-up plan as I ever get.

So that's how things roll at Chez English. The next expected news is next week when I should finaly get the notes I've been waiting for. Coincidentally the week where I should be donning the old whistle and flute [ if it still fits]

Meetings

2009-06-02T17:08:00.002+01:00

For those of you following this foray into the novel writing world, and I know there at least three of you lol, here is the latest.

I met with the big time agent who said she loved the book and would give me line by line notes shortly. She didn't get down on bended knee, call me the greatest gift to writing since Jeffery Archer and offer to have my children, but I'll let that slide. Neither did she offer to actually sign me, saying that she never signs a client until the book is ready to go out. Fair enough. It was a good meeting and the broad notes she gave were very do-able. I haven't done anything about them as yet because experience in the trenches tells me that anything I do on the broad notes can easily be fucked six ways from Sunday by the line by line edit.

I got back from the meeting and checked my email. Lo and behold to my great surprise I'm invited to another meeting with another agent. I trotted along and that too seemed to go pretty well. The broad notes were a bit more onerous involving some hefty structural changes that right now I think may or may not change the tone of the book, and again he didn't whip out the papers and ask for my John Hancock.

That didn't worry me too much. With no mention of signing I was free to take or leave whatever notes I wanted and after due consideration go for a re-write with whichever agent I thought best.
Until yesterday
That was when the second agent mailed me to say he had thought about it over the weekend and wanted the old moniker asap.
To make matters more complicated the first agent mailed to say her notes would be delayed as she had to go to LA for most of this week.

So what's a girl to do? I like the second agent. He 's with a good agency, gives good notes, is a nice guy and clearly has integrity. The first agent, I've yet to see substantive notes but liked her and what she had to say and she's with an agency with major international firepower.

I guess common sense has to come in here. There's no way I can sign for the second agent without seeing the first agent's notes. As my mate Dublin pointed out, these guys spend all day pressing the reject button so I shouldn't feel bad about keeping them waiting for a decision. They do what's best for their business and therefore so should I. For my business I have to decide on who gives the best combination of getting the book into shape to sell and then selling it. Two equally important parts of the equation. I won't have all the information I need until I get the second set of substantive notes when the first agent gets back from La La land.

I don't want to piss off the second agent by stalling. As I said, I liked what he had to say, but it's a risk I have to take. This is a business when it comes down to it. And talking of business I feel a bit like a whore working two beds, trying to figure out which one is the more lucrative, but hey, no lay no pay.

I'll stall and I'll wait. If it goes tits up.... well you know me. I'll let you know!

But here is the major difference between book agents and film agents that has only just become apparent to me. Because I'm a bit thick.

A film/tv agent will take you on not because they think they can sell your script, but because they think they can use it to get you other paying work. A book agent takes you on because they think they can sell your book. End of story.

My sense of dramedy kinda likes that.

And yet another

2009-05-13T10:31:00.002+01:00

Is blogging magical? No sooner do I post than something happens. Or it could be Eleanor breaking my legs! If so it worked.

I mentioned in the previous post the agent who asked me to call before signing for anyone else as she hadn't finished the manuscript? Well she still hasn't, but emailed me to say she wants to meet next week.

I know enough to know that agents don't meet with writers unless they are pretty serious. I don't want to go into names at present but here was how this all came about.

A few weeks ago I had just gotten a couple of rejections. As a pro writer and therefore by definition a masochist nothing spurs me on like a rejection so I thought I would go to the top this time and query three of the biggest players. Two responded almost immediately and one responded with a deafening silence.

A couple of weeks later one came back saying she hadn't finished it but really enjoying it. This is the one asking to let her know before I signed with anyone else. I thought at the time that it was promising but didn't make too much of it as she could still finish the book and decide it was a steaming pile of crap.

I didn't hear anything for a week or so, then the other big player came back having read the first 10 chapters and asked for first refusal on the manuscript.

As I said in the previous post I didn't quite give that but told them I would wait to hear from them before signing with anyone else.

Now it seems to me that any right thinking person is going to use what little leverage they have in this situation, so to find out where the first agent was at I emailed her telling her of the second agent's interest, basically stating they had asked for first refusal. Never lie! It is a very small world!

She emailed back asking for a couple more days, then the next day asked for the meeting. Of course she may well have got back to me this week anyway, but I don't think a little pressure ever hurt anyone.

The thing that strikes me is that if I had taken the first two or three rejections as gospel and thrown in the towel then it would never have got to this stage. My mate Dublin Dave, he of the mega-deal, has a good chuckle over some of the rejections he got for his novel before striking gold shortly after. It is a very subjective business.

So that's how I went about it. a short query letter, a submission, and a long wait. The query letter consisted of just a short introduction saying who I was, a one paragraph description of the book and finishing off by saying I had solid ideas ready for five more novels. [No one is that keen on a one-book writer]

My success rate on requests was pretty high so it seemed to work.

I'm still waiting for the second agent to get back, and a third has had a re-write. But as Dublin said the other day, writing is one half of the job and selling is the other. For example, off his own back, and not from his publisher, he has got some A list writers to blurb his novel. That's chutzpah! Being a good mate he has also volunteered to quiz his editor on the merits of the two major agents interested in my book, thereby giving me some valuable information, but maybe as importantly creating a little ripple of buzz that there might be a hot book out there.

You've got to work it!

I guess it's going to be a long week to the meeting and that tiny voice in my head is still saying she might actually finish the book and change her mind. If I wasn't insecure I wouldn't be a writer!

The latest

2009-05-11T10:45:00.002+01:00

Eleanor has reminded me that it is some time since my last post. In the intervening weeks life has treated me like an excited puppy, in that it has smacked me on the nose then rubbed it in my own wee. Nothing to do with writing but a reminder that if you don't take care of things they have a habit of biting you on the ass.

Anyhoo, back to the book. After an initial surge of requests from agents everything went dead, in that I heard practically nothing, nada, zilch for several weeks except for a couple of rejections from agents citing that they didn't really handle that type of material, which made me wonder why they had requested it in the first place? Oh and one from an agent whom I thought would lap it up but said he was too busy with existing clients. That was a disappointment, mainly because I think it was really just a brush off - but it's a numbers game so I ploughed onwards.

One particular very big agency asked for an exclusive read of the first 10 chapters, stating that they were very quick and on that basis I agreed, but after a month I decided that either they weren't that quick or weren't interested so sent it out to a few more.

Again, things went quiet for a couple of weeks but then in the space of a few days a week or so ago I got what I think are some good notes back from one agent who said he'd be happy to take another look if I felt like re-writing to his notes, and another top agent sent me an email to say she hadn't finished the book yet but was very much enjoying it and to please call her before signing with any other agent.

Then a couple of days after that, the 'exclusive read' agency, about 7 weeks after I first contacted them, finally got back to say they loved the first 10 chapters and please send the rest, again on an exclusive read basis.

I decided that honesty was the best policy and told them what I had done and why. They took it pretty well, apologising for the delay caused mainly by the London Book Fair taking up their attention and still wanted the read. But they did ask for first refusal on the manuscript.

This is a top agency and one I'd love to sign for, so on the basis that they said they'd get back to me hopefully this week I agreed. Well I didn't quite agree. I said I wouldn't sign with anyone else until I heard from them, which isn't quite the same thing as first refusal but I think is fair enough.

So that's where I'm at. Three good agencies are showing a bit of interest, but I've been in this game long enough, albeit the TV side, to know that doesn't count for a bucket of warm spit until the deal is done. And then of course, even if I'm signed there is no guarantee the book will sell. Though at least the agents involved have more than enough juice to get it read by the top people over a weekend kind of thing, which I'm told counts for a lot in this business.

So it's fingers crossed that at least one of the three will come good. Time wise I guess I'm about six to eight weeks behind where I hoped I'd be, but having no experience at this I don't know whether I was being unreleastic or not.

I should know in the next week or two whether I have a shot with an agent and then the real white knuckle ride starts with re-writes and going to publishers. I'll keep you posted!

The story so far.....

2009-03-17T09:35:00.003Z

Okay, time has passed and after an initial send out to half a dozen agents here is the score sheet.

Two agents have had the first 10k of the novel for about four weeks - no word as yet.

One has had the first 10k and knocked it back citing how busy he was with the London Book Fair as the reason he was not able to rep it. [which means he didn't really dig it that much]

One has had the full manuscript for three weeks - no word yet.

One has had the full manuscript for two weeks and knocked it back. Apparently he was looking for a more different take on a classic genre. I'm not going to panic about that. I write stories the way I write them and if that is more of a classic take on a classic genre then that is my taste. It is all very subjective.

One has had the full manuscript for a day - the bugger hasn't got back yet.

My initial plan was to target a few specific agents and if none bit then I might at least get some feedback that would improve its chances down the line.

Got to say the feedback so far has been less than illuminating, but I think I'll persevere for a while. It isn't the agent's job to give feedback to someone he or she has no intention of signing, but if they are honest enough to say exactly why they didn't go for the book then that can be helpful.

I'm not throwing this out as rock solid advice, just the way I'm going about things. The other plus with this method is that it gives you time to read and re-read the manuscript, honing as you go. You can always find something that could be done better and as there are still most of the big agents to try this can only help if or when they read the book.

On another note, I sent a spec script to World Productions last week. The company famous for This Life and perhaps not so famous for Rough Diamonds, Party Animals and Goldplated.

A guy's gotta eat, and the producer I sent it to is a fan and also a very nice person.

She emailed me yesterday to say that it was her last day in the office as everyone was being made redundant.

World Productions, one of the former powerhouses of Indie production going to the wall? Times are tough indeed.

Be prepared, they are quick!

2009-02-27T10:41:00.004Z

So last Friday lunchtime I sent off four query letters to agents. Being used to the film and tv world I expected the sound of silence for weeks if not months. Imagine my surprise when all four responded within hours asking for the first 10k.

It is indeed a strange land!

Two of them asked for a detailed synopsis as well. Which of course I hadn't done. Luckily having whipped up treatments at short notice in the past I wasn't much fazed by this but for someone who maybe isn't used to it then maybe forewarned is forearmed.

You can see from the above I am a dummy at this and of course everyone else already has a detailed synopsis already written.

So with packages duly emailed back to them on Monday I sat back to wait in the expectation it would be some time before I heard anything.

On Thursday I got a request from one of them for the full manuscript. Now, as I've said, I'm a dummy at this game but that speed of reply is something that I know all you TV veterans out there think only survives in a world of chocolate lampposts and candy cotton clouds.

But it's true I tells ya. Just like in Waterworld, that fabled dry land does exist.

Okay it may just mean I get to hear my rejections quicker, but hey. The point is I guess, that if I had gone by normal TV timetables for reading material, I would have been tempted to have sent
out the first 10k while I still had another 20k to write, thinking I'd be finished by the time anyone got back to me.

Far as I can see that is a definite no-no. If an agent gets back to you in a timely and professional manner I figure the last thing he wants to hear is 'I haven't finished it yet'.

Update

2009-02-24T21:12:00.002Z

Firstly, Dave and Will and Potty and Adrian and John and Charlie and everyone else who is still reading this after all this time, thanks for the exclamation marks, lol.

I started up the blog again mainly because I thought it would be interesting for writers who haven't yet done it to see how the process worked, or didn't, with a TV writer going to novels.

Have no idea how this will pan out, as it may be a very short re-start before the novel world quickly tells me to piss off.

But here's the skinny as I have played it so far.

Step 1 - Write a novel

Step 2 - Send off query letters to any book agents for whom you have managed to finagle direct e-mail addresses. [Dump addresses are not worth bothering with unless you plan on living to 120]

Step 3 - Finally remember that sending off query letters to any Tom, Dick or Dick is not the way to go.

Step 4 - Have a good mate who has just had a half million dollar book deal give you addresses of agents who get back to you the same day and are interested in the same kind of material.

Step 5 -Make sure that the 10k words you send off to said agents who get back to you the same day aren't shit.

Okay I had two advantages. Steps 1 and 4. Step1 is common sense and step 4 is earned from the trenches. Friendships forged in the heat of TV battle are like veterans from a platoon hitting the beach on D day. Except half of the platoon are Nazis.

Associates grass on you to the Gestapo. Friends are like Anne Frank's landlord.

Anyhoo, the first 10k of the novel is now with 4 of the top agents. Now it's squeaky bum time.

When you've done what you can, all you can do is wait.

For those about to die

2009-02-03T21:51:00.003Z

The lights have been off and the blinds shut for a few months now and I've been a reclusive, obnoxious bastard. But the novel is just about finished.

In a week or so I'll be sending it out into the big wide world and so I thought that, bearing in mind I have no knowledge whatsoever about the publishing world, it might be of interest to someone to see how, or if, it progresses.

For the last 10 years I've written for TV, mostly in serial drama, with an option or two on my own creations. I know a fair share of producers and network execs and agents, and I know from looking at a story before I even begin to write the script that it will come in at X pages plus or minus five.

But this is different. I don't know any publishers. I don't know any book agents. I don't even know if I can write a novel. I mean write a novel as opposed to type 400 pages of drivel. Is 300 pages the second act mid-point reversal? Who the hell knows.

All I can say is that I like how it's turned out. Which, admittedly isn't saying much as I may be slightly biased. But more importantly I liked the process. I even like the fact that I'm a total virgin in what is for me a shiny new arena.

I can tell the kind of stories I want to tell and not have half a dozen bods sticking their oar in at every stage, and that is HIGH COTTON after some of the assholes I and every other TV and film writer who lasts more than a few years have had their fair share of. I might not make any money from the book, but heck, it took me less time to write than the sum total of a couple of years worth of spec scripts that got nowhere, and it did my soul a lot of good.

So here we are. No agent, no contacts. An unknown submitting his first effort. Yeah baby! Let's roll the dice.

Au revoir

2008-10-02T17:56:00.002+01:00

I'm calling time on the blog, at least for a few weeks. I'm knee deep in something not connected with TV and as such don't have much to say. I may be back and may not. If not, thanks to you all for reading and for your comments. I hope some of the less ranting posts have been helpful. And I hope some of the more ranting ones have struck a chord with pro's and given a different view to non-pro's.

Keep doing the do, people. Write on. We are story tellers. Keep telling them.

String theory

2008-09-12T17:20:00.003+01:00

Like most people, because the second act is a bit dull, I only skim Stephen Hawking's ' A Brief History Of Time. But second act apart, it's a great education on how puny your mind is.

However, his central theme of the search for a unifying theory of EVERYTHING makes him one of the world's most important contributors to written, and /or filmed entertainment. And that's not just because he appeared in The Simpsons.

For entertainment to be successful, EVERYTHING has to come together. The writer does what he/she can and throws it out there. Blood, sweat and tears should have gone into it, but that guarantees nothing. You then need a talented producer, a talented director , a talented cast and good scheduling and publicity. And if that's not enough, you need a whole hell of a lot more.

You need the audience to like it. They don't have to love it. There are very few shows or movies I love, but there are a good number I like. These are the ones when that 'chemistry' comes together and actually makes me care about what's going on.

That's the string theory of entertainment.

Fingers Crossed

2008-09-08T15:55:00.002+01:00

My mate's first novel went to publishers over the weekend. His top flight agent reckons by the middle of this week he'll know if it's champagne or diet coke. I'm guessing the former. My mate is an excellent writer and this agent knows his onions. He recently got an 800k advance on a three book deal for a first time writer.

As some might have read in an earlier post, my mate is a dyed in the wool TV writer and I've found his comments on the switch to novels both enlightening and encouraging. So much so that if he weren't such a good mate I'd poke his eyes out with a sharp stick.

The creative satisfaction is greater.
The people are nicer to deal with.
The writer is looked on as undoubtedly the most important element in the process.

Bugger!

Having said that, he still wants to write for the screen. I guess it's the screenwriter's bug. More deadly than a NHS hospital. The need to see your words transformed from the page to the moving picture, with living breathing characters.

I'm praying his book takes off in a big way for two reasons. Firstly he's a good mate who has suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous execs, took a stand and suffered financial hardship as a result. Stand up guys are few and far between in this biz.
Secondly, as a best selling author, he won't have to toe the line like most jobbing writers, and as execs will be falling over themselves to commission something we might see his last spec get made, which having read it, I would watch in a heartbeat.

So, no names, no pack-drill, but a collective crossing of fingers would be much appreciated.

It's not me - honest

2008-09-03T17:56:00.003+01:00

Okay so I posted about The Secret Millionaire and lo and behold it beats BBC drama 'Mutual Friends' in the 9pm ratings this week.

I don't think that's down to my 10 regular readers perhaps changing their viewing habits because of my review. It's down to the audience watching something that connects with them. It's a piece of hokum. But it's hokum that people actually care about.

I decide which Programme I'm going to watch the same way I decide which movie I'm going to see. A combination of the talent involved and the trailers. Mostly the former. But I can be put off by the trailers and PR crap. I didn't watch Bonekickers because I just didn't connect with the trail highlighting 'A group of maverick archaeologists......' I could tell it wasn't for me from that alone.

Use oxymorons only when they don't sound like they were concocted by someone in sixth form media studies.

Never seen an ep of Mutual Friends. But it lost a million viewers and got butt fucked by a reality show on a minority channel in the prime time slot.

That should tell us something? But what? David Hare's 'My Zinc Bed' on BBC2 didn't exactly set the ratings alight either, despite starring Uma Thurman. Well I guess it tells us nothing. My view is that TV has been dumbed down to the extent that Soap, Reality and Gameshows have become the audiences expectation. Hence part of the reason for the dwindling audiences. Gripping drama has become the exception.

As a teenager I remember watching The Singing Detective, Edge Of Darkness, GBH, Boys from The Blackstuff, Auf Weidershein Pet and on and on. I didn't need or want yoof TV. Network attempts to provide yoof TV generally pissed me off as patronizing twaddle.

Nowadays, unfortunately Network attempts to provide adult drama hit that same spot.

A Plug

2008-09-01T21:02:00.002+01:00

I always read Robin's blog over at Writing for Performance. [If I were more computer literate I'd have a link here, but he's on my blog roll thingy.

Always interesting articles pulled from the press, reviews, interviews, music. Very nice. Another one I read regularly is Dead Things On Sticks, Dennis McGrath's Canadian blog.

Don't get me wrong, I read and enjoy a heck of a lot more blogs, but it is interesting to see how sometimes a degree of synchronisity occurs.

Dennis has recently posted about the fear factor in blogging and how he feels people don't comment on his, sometimes shoot from the hip, blog, because they perhaps fear repercussions within the industry.

Lucy Gannon recently gave a scathing interview attacking the BBC and their commissioning policies. Robin has pulled a recent interview from the press where she plugs her latest project, The Children - a three parter for ITV.

When I read her initial attack I admired her bollocks. I knew about the 3 parter for ITV, but for a long term pro, that doesn't make a twinkle in the eye of daddy swallow in Africa, never mind a summer, career wise. So for a pro writer to openly come out and dis the Beeb, that was high cotton.

In Robin's Blog I notice the tag line that Lucy has recently become a writer on Coronation Street. Corrie writers have probably just about the longest shelf life of any soap. Tough to get on the show, but stable once you're in. Aha! The coming over the parapet to take a pop at the BBC makes sense. Or so you'd think.

But you know what, I respect her bollocks even more now. TV land doesn't like boat rockers. So yes she can give a rollicking to the BEEB knowing she's okay financially for the next few years. But someone of her experience also knows that some people have long memories. So it was a brave stand, because nothing lasts forever. She knew her position, she had a 3 parter and a spot on the premier soap for ITV and as such her criticisms could be spun by the BEEB as being a disgruntled writer whom they didn't want to hire. She knew that, and she still said it.

It's a bit like when Jimmy McGovern said everything on ITV at 9pm is shit. Okay he had his 'The Street' series coming out on BBC at the time, but he also had his one off 'Cracker' coming out on ITV at 9pm. Something ITV were keen to point out in their defence.

Not much was made of it at the time. But the more that established and talented writers come out and say something is rotten in the state of TV then the more the dunderheads might listen.

Gender - Benders

2008-08-29T17:06:00.003+01:00

I see Jeremy Paxman has been putting the cat amongst the pigeons again. First it's the dumbing down of the BBC, then it's Marks and Spencer underwear, and now he claims there is no place for the middle aged white man working in TV.

On the first point - agree. On the second point - agree. The best underwear I have found is Petroleum [the make not the liquid]. Doesn't fade and keeps the crown jewels safe. [The worst is Calvin Klein btw]

On the third point - well I'm not sure if he was talking about TV in general or the news department. And I'm not sure he's right in either case. It depends on what level he's talking about. The REAL big bosses are still predominantly male. But the commissioners and gatekeepers tend to be female.

Apparently 60% of the TV audience is female. But I've never been a fan of statistics, they tend to say whatever the proponent wants them to. Soaps are the biggest weekly ratings performer in any schedule, and soaps tend to be predominantly female orientated. Ergo I'm not surprised at that statistic. But does that mean that females are given preferential treatment over males when it comes to script editing, producing , development and commissioning jobs? I very much doubt it.

Here's a theory I have just thunk. It won't win me any fans with the PC brigade but hey ho. Men tend to fall into three camps.

The Ruthlessly Ambitious - climbing the corporate ladder or starting businesses for whom the deal is better than [or at least as good as] sex.

The Steady Eddie's - the salts of the earth who want a decent job with enough satisfaction and money to be content and look after their family.

The Wasters - Drink, drugs, violence and meaningless sex.

I reckon the split is about 1o - 85 - 3 [the other 2% want to be writers and so are beyond hope]

With females I reckon the split is more like 5- 93 -1 [only 1% want to be writers because they are way more sensible than males, equally only 5% want to be ruthlessly ambitious for the same reason]

So there you go. Using these irrefutable statistics it is easy to see why executive positions in TV are more favoured by females. Also, as any married man knows, women are both far more self convinced and more comfortable at telling you what you have done is wrong.

But to get serious. I don't think their is any gender conspiracy. Good grief, get a grip Jezza. What I do think is that I don't have a lot of faith in the current network regimes that they actually know their audience. I don't care if they are male or female.

Good drama transcends gender. The paucity of good drama on TV right now isn't a male/female issue . It's about executives of whichever gender being more concerned with media politics than the audience. They are so far up their own arses with talk of multi platforms and digital media and 360 degrees, and the rest of the jargon that they forget what their primary function is, if they ever knew it in the first place.

The Bullshit Detector

2008-08-28T09:16:00.003+01:00

I've had two sets of notes on my new spec from two different prodcos. One said they didn't think the twist to a classic genre was big enough and the other would prefer not to have the twist at all.

What's a girl to do?

Well, nothing for the moment. When faced with two opposing views of a major part of the script I tend to wait for a few more notes and then see which way the wind is blowing. It also goes without saying that if either of these prodcos REALLY REALLY liked the basic script concept, then they'd be on the blower asking if I'd be amenable to changing it to suit their wants. Phone is not ringing off the hook.

So I have good reason for not doing anything at the moment. But had either of them come back saying they would like it to be more x, y and z and could I do that? Well, that's when the Bullshit detector has to come in to force. It's a two way detector, picking up your bullshit and theirs and is one of the most vital tools in the writers.... . toolbox.

No one likes to work for free, but it happens all the time. Heck the spec was free work to begin with. But interest is interest, and if you figure you can do it and not harm your original concept and reason for writing it in the first place and if you have the time then why the hell not? It's a tough old world out there and at the very least you're showing willing.

But first your Bullshit detector has to come into force. On one level, who are these people, what's their track record? Are you just going to be throwing good time after bad? On another, do you actually think the notes won't harm your belief in the script or is it a bag over the head and write for old glory?

It's usually quite easy to tell the two extremes when someone is either blowing smoke up your ass or is just way off base with their take on the script. Much more tricky is to recognise difficult but constructive notes. And again that's when your own Bullshit detector has to kick in. Are you clinging on to the script as is, because you like it so much and how dare anyone say it isn't fantastic?

When I get notes on a spec I give them the once over then set them aside for a few days. It's very easy to get defensive at first blush, and you want to be open to whatever is being suggested. A couple of days takes the edge off.

William Goldman said that 'when you start believing all the hype, you're finished as a writer.' It works the other way too. Start believing all the criticisms and you might as well break the pencil.

Writing is always subjective to the reader. Sometimes you'll be right and sometimes you wont be. Hopefully your Bullshit detector will kick in and point the way.

The Secret Millionaire

2008-08-26T21:31:00.004+01:00

I'm watching it right now. Lovely altruistic idea. A millionaire goes undercover in a deprived area and at the end of the show gives a large wad of dosh to deserving recipients.

The voice over after every ad break reminds us that the millionaire is undercover. This weeks millionaire is posing as a street warden.

How many street wardens have a fucking camera crew following them around? Completely nuts. But I like it. I know it's a huge fake but I don't care. Would I watch it again? Possibly. It's life affirming TV and that's rare enough to make me forgive the fakery.

It's about The Audience, stupid

2008-08-25T19:27:00.002+01:00

This seems to be a recurring theme in my recent posts. I guess it's weighing heavy on my mind at the moment. I read some of Armando Iannuci's Alternative McTaggert Lecture at the Edinburgh TV festival. Iannuci is responsible for some of the best comedy shows on TV including Alan Partridge and The Thick Of It, so whatever he says is worth taking account of.

He advocates the BBC creating a HBO pay per view type channel.
I had to think hard about that. My first reaction is that there is no way in hell the BBC should be involved in pay per view. Not while the licence is in force.

Ostensibly his argument is that given the budget restraints he's found lately and restrictions on what he'd like to do, the BBC should be maximising foreign sales in order to plough more into content that will sell world wide and therefore generate income, and when this happens there has to be a sales vehicle to capitalise on it.

There appears to be two different arguments here. By having a dedicated pay per view channel that doesn't go through the usual commissioning process of one size fits all they have more chance of the break out hit that will sell world wide. And secondly the current commissioners on the main BBC channels are a bunch of tossers and BBC Worldwide don't know their arse from their elbow.

Okay, it's actually the same argument but I gave the political spin and the actual meaning.

Iannucci is a writer/producer, so I can see where he is coming from. Look at The Office. A huge hit on both sides of the Atlantic and sold to loads of other 'territories' [as the sales people have it]

It must be doubly frustrating for a writer/producer/writer to see genius fucked up rather than just the one hyphenate writer/writer.

But let's not get carried away here. Do we really want a two tier BBC? One that produces crap and one that makes money? Not while I'm spending how ever many squids on a licence fee.

If they can't make good TV with the billions they get then you have to look at who's in charge. Simple as that. At the same festival/jolly boy's outing, esteemed Director Of Vision Jana Bennet defended the accusation that digital channels BBC3 and 4 were denuding BBC 2 of it's status by saying 'that is an old argument and I don't buy it'

Well, old doesn't mean wrong, especially as the age of the argument probably dates to the time when the entire BBC2 drama budget was shifted to BBC3 and ....who the fuck are you Jana?

The AUDIENCE don't care about channel loyalty. The AUDIENCE care about entertainment. Mindless entertainment has it's place. Hey I love it on occasion. But like too much scrumpy, it's a yoofs drink that makes you regret it in the morning. The eternal dichotomy between entertainment, money and audience is that there has to be a tri-partite contract between them.

But the most important element in the trifecta is Audience. We are not stupid. I say that as the audience because that's how I watch TV.

What a tangled web we weave

2008-08-20T16:48:00.005+01:00

I guess it's wading through the Gruniad media blog thanks to anons links that has set me off on a political bent [media politics] But make no mistake, media politics play a great part in what gets commissioned and what doesn't.

Take the news that the BBC have just greenlit a remake of The 39 Steps, to be produced by BBC Scotland.

I know, the first question is WHY? Several films and a series have already been made. But hey ho, I happen to love the story. So I thought about it some more. It really makes a lot of sense. Jane Tranter prodigy Ann Mensah, head of drama at BBC Scotland has been coming under fire in the Scottish press for a complete lack of Scottish based commissions. Relying on such Scottish fare as Waterloo Road and Film 2008 wasn't cutting it. A large swathe of the drama budget going on a Scandanavian based detective show didn't help matters.

There is Hope Springs in the offing. A Shed Productions effort already being dubbed by insiders as Hopeless Springs. But on the even more down side I hear the flagship soap River City is in deep doo-doo. The geniuses have decided that rather than be a two half hour a week soap they are going to get rid of many of the characters and sets and turn it into a one hour drama with self contained stories. By the way I'm also informed that the geniuses set about demolishing and rebuilding exterior sets without applying for planning permission and after it was pointed out to them that is a 'little on hold' shall we say.
So....... Fuck the audience then? Change the format and nature of the programme after 6 years? Better to dump it now and start afresh. The audience is going to be spitting feathers so the new format is on a losing wicket from the off. More fodder for the Scottish press.

So with that in mind it makes perfect sense to commission yet another remake of a well known and loved tale. It's Scottish [mainly] It's branded. It's almost guaranteed ratings and even BBC Scotland would have a job screwing it up.

So there you go. If you were in the political know, you could have pitched Brigadoon.

The drama crunch

2008-08-20T00:43:00.004+01:00

This blog might seem to be the Cassandra of the scribeosphere. But bear with it. I am a glass half full guy really.

C4 has slumped to it's lowest ratings since 2001. ITV has slumped to it's lowest ratings ....ever? The BBC are on top only because their shit is less shittier than the others and it's the first channel on the remote.

The X Factor is ITV's biggest non soap ratings winner. Without it they would be toast. You can say the same for C4 and Big Brother.

I hear rumours that Julie Gardner is to replace Jane Tranter at the BBC. I'm sticking to my glass half full. Say what you like about Doc Who, she had the balls to let a writer be the showrunner, and made it plain for all to see that Stephen Moffat is going to be a great one. And all credit to Russel T Davies for bringing him on board.

But essentially what all the channels are missing is 'must see drama'. That's obvious. Why are they missing it? Not so obvious. There are various factors. but I think number one is a generation gap. A two fold generation gap. A 'Thatcherite' legacy has given us a bunch of middle ager execs who hold the purse strings and believe the market is King coupled with a brash know it all Blairite brigade who believe if they talk convincingly enough about 'new media' they should be listened to.
Neither really know what the fuck they're doing so you end up with the camel. The horse designed by committee.

And what they forget in the scramash for ideological domination is the most important factor.

THE AUDIENCE

Who put the ass in classic?

2008-08-17T17:12:00.015+01:00

I just got feedback on a spec from a well known prodco. Please bear in mind the following is in no way a reflection on the prodco. They are doing what needs to be done.

So they loved the script, but didn't feel they could do anything with it as thanks to Life On Mars [meant ironically] the Broadcasters were only looking at classic genres if they had a massive L.O.M type twist.

Nothing wrong with that. Well, okay one major thing wrong with that. Apparently the perceived wisdom percolating down from the broadcasters is that they will 'only' look at classic genres if they have a massive Life On Mars type twist. That 'only' is the rub.

Now, whether that perception is erroneous or not, it is still there. And if that perception is true, then the Broadcasters are just plain wrong. I'm in no way suggesting my spec is shatteringly brilliant and these fools can't see it, by the way. Way too long in the tooth for that kind of thought process. And I know the person at the prodco enough to know that if my script sucked they would tell me. It's the reasoning that irks.

A huge twist is simply a bait and switch trick. A non recurring phenomenon. You can't build a drama schedule on it. Life On Mars worked, even though the concept of 'is it real or is he in a coma' is a hoary old drama chestnut. It just hadn't been seen on TV for a while and certainly not in series format.
But that was then, and this is now, and if you keep trying to emulate the success of something you end up with a load of pale imitations. The big twist series works if used sparingly. If not you get with what I call the 'Brookside'

A well loved soap garnered a few column inches and ratings with a sensational plotline. Instead of letting it rest, it was decided to try and emulate it in ever more frequent bizarre stories. As a result the audience grew tired as the characters they tuned in for were subjected to more and more unbelievable scenarios. Ratings began to dive and the soap was cancelled. Entertainment is a fickle son'bitch. The audience can smell a stinker quicker than you can write it.

Take a look at 3 of the biggest rating shows on TV. New Tricks, Foyle's War and Doc Martin. None have huge twists. Okay Foyle's War is [was] set in the Forties, but a twist on a classic genre in the vein of Life On Mars? Hardly. High Concept doesn't mean huge twist. New Tricks, Foyle's War and Doc Martin all have High Concepts.

But equally as important, they are well written, well acted dramas. And that is why they are and were ratings hits. Like Inspector Morse or Traffic. The 'let's have the same as the last hit but different' mentality may be okay for the film producer huckster out to make a quick buck. But TV has to be in it for the long term and that 'different and that's it' dog don't hunt with the mainstream TV audience.

It's also telling that a 3 year old series is being referenced as the bar to aim for. That mentality clearly hasn't produced much of note in the intervening years.

But hey, I remember when torture porn was the flavour of the month. This will pass, same as that did. Meanwhile it's hunker down and write. Hopefully what YOU like rather than just what you think MIGHT sell. Chasing an audience rarely works. Chasing what a Broadcaster says it wants is generally even less fruitful.

The spec has just gone to a few more prodcos. It'll be interesting to hear their take.

Anniversery

2008-08-12T20:40:00.010+01:00

Two to be precise. I've just realised that the preceding post was my 300th, I know, it seems a lot more to you who have to wade through them, but it is also 10 years this month when I began writing for a living.

Been rich, been poor. Rich is better. But I wouldn't change a second. Well okay there are about 25 vital minutes spread out over 10 years when an ounce of shut up would have made a pound of gold, but hey ho.

So at the risk of being more pompous than usual here's my take on the state of play right now.

We're fucked.

At the BBC all I can see are the 'Tranterites' And by necessity that means the Indies pitching to the BBC. 'Will Jane like it' seems to be the catchphrase. Well I've got to say that the Tranterite taste doesn't really bear up to scrutiny. A glance at the schedules as you try to find something worth watching tells you that.

At ITV I see will and effort but no direction as they desperately throw shit against the wall hoping some of it will stick.

5, well I'm not sure they even do original drama.

Channel 4 - Used to be THE place for worthwhile drama. Now they seem to be capitulating to the yoof syndrome a bit too much.

Multi- channel - Sky make some attempts at original drama but it still is primarily the place to watch big budget high concept US shows bought in for a fraction of the production costs.

I could write an essay here as to why this has happened and my suggestions for fixing it , but 10 years of TV writing have sapped that particular skill. Instead I'll try to nutshell it, and there's nothing wrong with that by the way! So here it is. The answer to everything.

DON'T FUCK WITH THE AUDIENCE, THEY KNOW MORE THAN YOU DO

The spin off

2008-08-11T19:18:00.003+01:00

So, we have the 'legendary' Holby franchise, Dr Who and Torchwood, Saving Grace and Doc Martin, Spooks and Spooks Code 9 [watch out for the upcoming Spooks- the kindergarten years] Echo Beach and Moving Wallpaper.

This set me thinking that maybe the wind is blowing in the direction of the spin off. Not as a result of fear, lack of imagination and reliance on branding to fool an audience of course, perish the thought. No, perhaps there are actually some genuinely great spin off ideas out there akin to Frazier - Cheers. I've listed some of my ideas below. Please feel free to add.

Will Scarlett medieval Rock God - the rise and fall of a Plantagenet poseur

The Bill After Hours - a drama surrounding the lives and loves of the Sun Hill cleaners who come in at night and solve crimes using only the white-boards and litter.

Spoks - Vulcans are recruited by MI5, writes itself!

Homes Under The Hammer House Of Horror - House flipper TV presenters are smeared with raw meat then given a hundred yard start before a pack of ravenous dogs are set after them. Winner takes all.

American Idle - Paula Abdul shags all the winners and they never work again. Oh wait a minute ....... been done.

Rose and Clone and Low Esteem are Wed - Dr Who's assistant finds living with his clone isn't as easy as she thought. Complications ensue. [ may change the title, bit of a reach]

Piece of piss this, I should be a producer!

Ears open

2008-08-11T11:36:00.004+01:00

Bear with me, this starts off as an NHS story. I finally decided to do something about my ankle. It's been 8 weeks and the recovery seems to have plateaued. First I had to register with a doctor, as being a bloke, I haven't been for about 3 years and have since moved. Then I had to make an appointment which meant waiting 3 days for my details to go on line and then phoning up at 8.30 in the morning with all the other hopefuls.

Job done. My GP diagnosed a classic ruptured or torn Achilles tendon and gave me a letter to take to the fracture unit at my local hospital at 8.30 this morning to have an X ray and ultrasound. Perhaps I should have been a little wary when the letter started off ''Dear Doctor at fracture unit'

I tipped up at the fracture unit at 8.30 am having paid the 4 quid parking fee, only to be told by the doctor there to basically piss off he was busy and make an appointment. I went to the desk to make an appointment to be told that I couldn't make one there as I had never been to that hospital before.
Say what?
I was directed to make an appointment through Central appointments, which was located at a hospital 10 miles away. I phoned the place to be told that I would have to get a letter from my Doctor, which 5 days later would go to a consultant who within the next week or so after that would fix an appointment.

So it could be another 2 weeks before I got an x-ray? Yup. As I'm on the limit for surgical intervention as it is I thought 'bollocks to this' and went to casualty instead. They diagnosed a ruptured Achilles tendon and made an appointment for me at the fracture unit tomorrow. A complete waste of time today for me and hard-pressed casualty and another 4 quid parking tomorrow. However I gave my unexpired day parking ticket to an old dear on the way out so perhaps karma will operate and someone will do the same for me tomorrow.

Anyhoooooooooo, during the interminable wait in casualty an old guy came in and plonked himself down beside a young guy.
Old guy then launched into a moaning diatribe about the weather, the government, immigrants, and being old. He finished off with -
''They don't care about old people, when we reach 70 they should just take us out and shoot us''

The young guy replied ' Give me a gun and I'll do it now.'

Ears open all the time. You never know when you might hear a bit of dialogue gold.

What you talking about Willis?

2008-08-06T22:33:00.002+01:00

Holby Blue has been axed - from Broadcast

'A source close to BBC drama said senior executives were concerned that the series could undermine the Holby brand.'

Say what?

Couple of things here. The Holby brand? You mean Casualty and Holby? Two medical dramas losing ratings as fast as the audience dies off. Whose bright fucking idea was it to call a cop show Holby Blue anyway? The little I watched had no connection with Holby or Casualty whatsoever. And whose bright idea was it to put it up against The Bill, a 20 year old ratings staple?

I'd guess it was the marketing bright sparks. The same ones now wittering on about brands. While we're on about bright sparks, can anyone tell me who or what a Director of Vision is meant to be? And if the BBC must have one can we have one a little more impressive than the current incumbent? She comes across like a startled deer apologising for crapping in a field.

Grump over. Normal programming is now resumed.

Suspension of Disbelief

2008-08-06T18:00:00.002+01:00

In all the morass of character and story and rhythm and arc and structure, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that the primary job of the dramatist is to have the audience lose themselves in what they are watching.

All of the above list, and more, go towards that. But here's what I think is the best 'assist' to that suspension of disbelief. Recognisable moments.

I don't know if that phrase has already been coined, or is even proper English, but by it, I mean those actions or dialogue which the audience can relate to and ground them in the story.

You have a wedding scene in an action movie? Have a shot of a six year old page boy picking his nose. No matter what happens next, the audience is with you. They believe this 'could' be a wedding.

Pulp Fiction is perhaps a good example, assuming you can write dialogue like early Tarrentino. The famous 'Royale with cheese' exchange both grounds the audience and serves as a great juxtaposition when they grab shooters out of the trunk. The audience is already with them, even to the extent that they can happily accept Uma Thurman drawing an imaginary square on screen.
Less is more is a very good and useful adage. But less can sometimes be less when it comes to immersing your audience. A shot here and a line there can make all the difference, especially if tied in to character. The audience MUST accept what they are seeing. Not believe, but accept.

I have a crap memory, but there are countless examples where a line or a shot is there just to ground the audience. And never forget the importance of 'background'. I tend to watch things like an audience and so don't specifically pay attention to what William Goldman called the 'shit-work' I.e the work that no one notices but without it the whole thing would fall apart. Take a staple 'great' movie like Casablanca. Shit work had already been done with the singer who went with the German to spite Rick and the guitar playing female, so that when Lazlo had them all singing the French national anthem, when we cut to them it really means something. Brought tears to the eyes, even.

'Moments' elevate a script. Tie them to theme, character and story and you've struck gold.

The most valuable hour you'll spend this year

2008-08-04T19:20:00.004+01:00

Go to Jim Henshaws blog at http://the-legion-of-decency.blogspot.com/ and watch the Head Fake lecture given by Randy Pausch.

It's ennobling, life affirming and other adjectives not yet invented. As my son would say - I cried like a little bitch at the end.

Writers are crazy

2008-08-02T21:49:00.002+01:00

You hear that a lot. Not to your face so much, but that tends to be the perceived wisdom in the industry. Not just in the industry, try telling a doctor or an accountant what you do for a living and be truthful about the insecurity and just how far you are out on a limb as far as a career and and a pay-cheque are concerned and you can see the crazy-meter hitting red in their eyes.

But define crazy? Writers don't live within those parameters. I'm considering becoming Bi-polar. It works for Paul Abbot. Talent will always be viewed as 'suspicious' by those with the money in this industry. They can't quantify it and reduce it to a formula of the sure hit, which is what every fibre in their being is aching to do.

We are in the ENTERTAINMENT industry. Define entertain? It's impossible to do on a subjective level. You can be a producer who says ' I'll put this actor in this project with this writer and director, and they are all big names so I can't go wrong.
Oh dear
Check out Eddie Murphy's last three films. If you're a glutton for punishment.

In meetings it never ceases to amaze me the disrespect the money people have for the audience. 'Will it play in Preoria' was the famous HW litmus test, and to my mind yet another of those damaging out of context sayings that are taken as gospel.

Good drama will always play. Anywhere. It doesn't matter what the subject matter is. It just needs to resonate I.E say SOMETHING to a big enough audience. To do that you have to step out of the conventions of life. Take a hard look at something that most people don't think about until you highlight it. Then they do. I'm not talking about being 'preachy' I'm talking about being 'meaningful' in a truthful way. Not patronising, not egotistical, just honest.

That's what writers should always strive to do. I've been as guilty as anyone for writing crap. I've got mouths to feed. But I tried to make it as truthful as possible.

If that makes writers crazy then more power to us.

Pet hates

2008-07-23T20:41:00.000+01:00

We all have them. Here's one of mine.

JOHN
Lovely to see you again, Karen

KAREN
You too, John.

hate it hate it hate it. Why the names? And I can guarantee exchanges like that will be peppered through the script.

NO ONE SPEAKS LIKE THAT. Not in normal conversation. Yep it's an easy way of introducing your characters' names to the audience. But it's lazy and dull and grating. It's also an indicator that the script as a whole will be over written.

Overwriting usually takes place when the writer forgets they are creating a template for a visual medium. A look or an action or a carefully chosen phrase can easily replace half a page of over- expositional dialogue.

As far as character's names are concerned, trust the audience that they won't get confused if they don't know from the opening dialogue who is speaking to who or whom. Good writing will make it clear, and a lot more subtly than 'Could you pass the salt, Sir Lancelot?'

Executives Academy

2008-07-21T10:30:00.000+01:00

I have spotted a niche in the market. The Holby Academy For Commissioning Executives is now open for business.

It's aim is to help create the future masters of the commissioning universe with an exciting and wide ranging curriculum, including -

How to recognize shit from shinola

How to pity writers more than scold them

How not to dumb down a great idea

There are more than six actors out there

Quality is better than ..... well just about anything

Redundancy isn't the end of the world.

The course will consist of an evening in the pub where invited special guests such as those that brought you Rock Rivals and Harley Street will attend then shut the fuck up and listen.

To take advantage of this fabulous opportunity at the low low cost of 5 grand a head [including open bar - there will be writers present hence the cost.] please make cheques payable to English Dave [Liberia] Inc - together with a photo, c.v and a statement of how you see the future of television in relation to your pension.

If anyone has any other ideas for the curriculum please feel free to add them. It is a very fluid course.

Help

2008-07-16T12:09:00.000+01:00

In revenge for standing on it my computer has thrown a wobbly. I'm hoping some of you boffins can supply the remedy. As you know, I'm useless.

Here's the problem. When I try to run internet explorer it comes up with a problem with an add-on.- namely google toolbar. I just about managed to find all the add ons and disabled the google toolbar.

Internet explorer now opens but won't let me publish anything on blogger. There is an error on the page and the 'publish' button doesn't appear.

I don't know if this is related or not, but I can't access my email. I have a yahoo account and when I try to open it I get a brief message saying my browser won't allow me to go to the url.

This happens whether the google add on is disabled or not.
It's obviously got me stumped. Any suggestions?

Oh Crap!

2008-07-14T12:18:00.000+01:00

This morning I stood on my laptop. Yep how dumb can you get. Now my screen looks like a bullet hole in a windscreen with spiders webs shafting out.

I don't know about you but I get very attatched to my laptop. Using another one is like sleeping with someone elses wife. The same things are pretty much there but somehow different.
Johnny Computer is my link to the outside world. It's how I make my living. It's my best buddy through those long solitary hours searching for the perfect scene.

I know prices have come down dramatically and you can get a super duper dual core processor for less than 300 quid, and if I raided my piggy bank I could probably get one. But I'm not sure I want to. While Johnny is still breathing I think I'll stick with him. The bullet hole is near the top right corner and the spider webs aren't too bad if you squint. No, I think I'll wait til he's terminal, then [whispers] I might get a shiny new mac! I hear they're very good.

The Balls Of Summer

2008-07-13T18:06:00.001+01:00

Apologies to Don Henley for the title.

I thought with the advent of multi channel tv the networks would stop using the Summer months to shove on any old crap, be it repeats or second rate shows that even they were too embarrassed to slot into the autumn and winter schedules. Apparently I was wrong.

Perusing the Radio Times I can find absolutely no drama I want to make an appointment to sit down and watch. Nada. Zilch. If anyone has a recommend I'd be happy to hear it.

The staples like Casualty, The Bill and Holby just don't do it for me. There seems to be an 'homogenisation' of Tv right now where whatever you watch seems to have been constructed on the same template. Heck half the programmes even seem to have the same actors. Not surprising really, I know for a fact that a previous controller of drama on a network had a list of about 10 actors and no matter what the project always insisted they were used. Nothing wrong with that per se, it's all marketing, but personally I thought at least half of those on the list were pretty damn diabolical in the acting stakes.

It occurs to me that maybe this homoginisation is the result of an over reliance by the powers that be on the idea that writing is a science and not an art. It can be constructed, taught and controlled, like making widgits. Bear in mind that that there isn't one solitary writer amongst the powers that be. So you can understand how that fallacy gains weight.

I recall a couple of years ago some well meaning bod at a network sent some missive to all writers they knew. It was about how to construct a character and was penned by some guru who hadn't had a thing produced in their lives. But this was the Holy Grail of the moment to the commissioners and editors. I read the first sentence and it was along the lines of ''If the character was a tree, which tree would he be?''

Utter bollocks. The delete button was hit. If I were in a meeting and some eejit asked me that I'd be tempted to lamp them. Scary to think that was doing the rounds as perceived wisdom.
But writing is scary. Certainly to a lot of execs. They don't understand it so they feel the need to create some kind of formula to give them comfort. Hell, I don't understand writing but I know there is no formula. Rather there is no formula for good writing.

Anyway, so much for the summer schedule. I was going to give Bonekickers a try, but having read the reviews, [including Good Dog's 'Cock Knockers' lol] perhaps I'll have to watch 'The World at War' on the History Channel yet again.

Failing Upwards

2008-07-08T18:55:00.000+01:00

Time I had a rant.

Brought on by the BBC deciding their top execs deserved up to £100k bonuses. Massive budget cuts in programming but the execs deserve bonuses?
Mmmmmmmm. let's investigate.

Am I wrong here? Aren't bonuses supposed to be paid for some kind of achievement? But a quick perusal of the figures don't point to much in the way of achievement.

Total average weekly viewing hours per person for BBC1 and 2 for Feb to May 2008 - 29.65
For the same period 2007 - 30.37

Doesn't seem to be an achievement in my book. Seems to be going backwards if anything.

Let's have a look at BBC flagship shows EastEnders and Holby City.

Week ending 25th May 2008 [to avoid Euro 2008 distortions] EastEnders 9.2 million viewers. Holby City 5.1 million.

Week ending 27th May 2007 - EastEnders 9.91 million Holby City 5.16 million.

Sooooooooooooo? In a year where they appear to have lost both viewing time per person per week and close on a million viewers from top rated shows, they get a bonus? Not to mention the decimation of news and current affairs, documentaries and the world renowned BBC Wildlife Unit.

What do they get when they really cock up? A knighthood?

A show I was on had close on half a million quid shaved off it's budget. No rhyme or reason for it other than that was the proportion of budget cuts it had to bear. The powers that be [marketing] then decided to spend at least that amount and more on an advertising push for the show.

That budget cut caused massive problems for the quality of the show. Core actors couldn't be held on contract and became restless. Extras were kept to the barest minimum and restrictions placed on the stories we could tell because of the non availability of cast. But what the heck, so long as you can fool enough of the people enough of the time with a fancy ad campaign.

Get these people out and get people in there who know what the hell they are doing other than the ability to line their pockets .

Top Of The World, Ma

2008-07-08T11:30:00.000+01:00

Yep that's the initial reaction to FADE OUT. The Beast is slain. The Mountain climbed. The Maiden wooed. The Dog neutered, whatever.

That lasts for about an hour with me. Then the standard doubts, fears and paranoia beloved of the writer begin to seep in. Not much, the rosey glow keeps most at bay, but enough to wake me in the middle of the night with a few 'should'aves'
But in my experience the best thing to do is just leave the beast to sleep for a couple of days. I've sent the first blush to a good mate to read as I'd like his impressions before I dive in to any re-write.
Unfortunately the fucker actually has a life, and writing commitments, which means he won't get to it til next week. But that's perfect. It can marinate away as little idea bubbles pop up in the sauce.

It also makes accepting criticism easier. No parents like being told their newely arrived mewling baby looks like Winston Churchill as the nurse hands it over. Give 'em some time and they'd probably agree with you.

But the spec is done, long live the spec. Now I just have to figure out where the next actual paid work is coming from. Ah the joys of pro writing!

Very Bendy Writing

2008-07-05T18:53:00.000+01:00

So I'm about 10 pages away from finishing the script. It's an hour long part one of two that can then be spun into a series.

And I realise that the end of this part, which involves the death of the main suspect, kinda inadvertently leads a little too much to the identity of the actual killer in the audience's mind. That gives me a couple of choices. I either muddy the waters a little more in the build up to the death, or horror of horrors, I change the identity of the killer to another character entirely. One even less likely.

I've decided on the horror of horrors route. Because the more I thought about it the more I thought not only can I make it work, but I can make it work better than the original idea. It's going to set me back a few days but as an old time HW writer told an exec when pressed for the script, 'You can have it Wednesday or you can have it good '

Embrace the bendy writing. Nothing should be set in stone. Not even the plot. It took me almost the whole script to realise I was selling it short. It happens.

Well lookit!

2008-07-03T11:06:00.001+01:00

Finally blogger has come up with a way for even idiots like me to link to other blogs I read and do loads of other stuff we technophobes were terrified of. You can check out some of my regular reads on the left. I guess most of us read pretty much the same ones. The list is by no means exhaustive and I'll add more when I'm no longer bored of doing it.

But hey I'm loving this. For me it's like when DOS got replaced by Windows. I kid you not! I'm going for a play with the whole shebang. Who knows what might happen to the layout!

[but if everything goes black or disappears you'll know it's my bad]

Back In The Zone

2008-07-02T20:09:00.002+01:00

Monday's events resolved themselves in a satisfactory manner. At least as far as I was concerned, and let's face it, that's all that really matters. lol

The script is back on track and after a full 6 hours today [I find more than that is counter productive, your mileage may vary] the end is in sight.

Without trying to sound too arsey, I'm more of a touch writer. Yes I have a rough outline before I get into script but I rely on inspiration while in the scene to create those moments that lift the script from the ordinary to the .... less ordinary?
That's why I prefer to be in the mental comfort zone when I'm writing. I need all the focus I can get and that means focus to let my mind absorb the scene, the story and the characters. As David Mamet puts it - 'What do they want?' What happens if they don't get it?' 'Why now?'
The three questions that constitute the movement from one scene to another in a true story progression and the ones all writers are most prone to gloss over. A filler scene is always just a filler scene no matter how much you might like it.

Tennis is finished. I might manage another half hour writing. Though the current scene involves naked gorgeous women so I might leave it until tomorrow. Always give yourself something to look forward to!

EDIT
A shandy and lime later and I feel like musing further. I read a great quote the other day. I'm paraphrasing but it was along the lines of '' A guy returns home to find his uncle shtooping his mum and a ghost running round the place. Write it good, it's Hamlet. Write it bad it's Gilligan's Island''
That creased me, because it's so true. There's a lot of pressure put on the writer to come up with a 'commercial' concept. Commercial nowadays basically means the marketers can flog it on the side of a bus. Not like the old days of yore when commercial meant a trailer at least. Take Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Broken Hip. Very commercial. A 'marketer's wet dream' commercial. Took a tonne of money. Possibly killed off the franchise. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice then sell me the trilogy box set special edition. But the fourth time? well that better be good!
See, I kinda look at movies and Tv like the dear old NHS. They do some shit, but so long as we feel deep down they are trying to give us what we want rather than what they want we'll forgive them. There has to be an element of heart in it.
When it is just about the hope of cash registers jingling that's when things go bad. Movie audiences down 11% this year? How many really good films so far? Tv audiences dropping faster than house prices? 'Nuff said.

No more shandys for me. I've got my naked women to wake up to!

The Comfort Zone

2008-06-30T13:30:00.000+01:00

A long time ago when I was starting out in this business I had agents in LA. I knew nothing. Nada. I could tell stories and that was about it. One of the best pieces of advice they ever gave me was that in order to write properly I had to make my personal life as comfortable as possible.

Forget the stories of the tortured poet. Writing takes focus. Focus is achieved when you haven't got 5 million other things pressing on you. Being comfortable means being in a place and time and circumstances where 5 million things aren't pressing on you. Nothing to do with being financially comfortable, except it's difficult to write properly while hiding behind the sofa from the bailiffs.

It's a strange dichotomy, because I believe that experiences in life, good and bad, heck, excellent and horrible are the building blocks of a writer's voice. But writing during one of the horrible experiences? You may get something down on paper, but I doubt if it is germain to the script you are writing.
This is perhaps why when writers are in script they tend to shut out everything they can. Focus. Always focus.
Today my life is like a bag of blind monkeys with light sabres. Nothing very serious, but big decisions to be made. If I were on a deadline, I'd suck it up, find my comfort zone as best I could and crank out the pages. But I'm not on a deadline. So I'm going to kick back, enjoy the sun and wait for the monkeys to tire themselves out. It will all be resolved by tomorrow. Maybe.
I'm not advocating procrastination, but some days you know it just ain't happening. I try to average about 6 pages a day when I'm writing a spec. A few days of extra focus and I'm back on track. Without the agony of deleting 6 pages of crap.

Completely off topic

2008-06-28T11:49:00.000+01:00

Hands up all those who survived the petrol tanker strike a couple of weeks ago? All of you. Excellent. I know it got a little hairy in Scotland where the main/only refinery is run by Shell. [the only drivers on strike] but otherwise I think we survived the earth shattering crisis quite well.
Crisis? Well only according to the media. I saw one newspaper front page with a picture of empty supermarket shelves. IN SPAIN. But you had to read the copy to find that out and that the story was 'will this happen here'?
What????? The usual feeble exortations not to panic buy were included but were obviated by quotes from hard sought out dickheads who were doing just that. When the media tries to create a story out of nothing you know things are going wrong with their editorial policy.
Fortunately most of us saw through that. Only 10% of forecourts were likely to be affected in the slightest yet the story was punted in YK2 proportions.
The real story should be why the hell we are paying £1.20 a litre. Yeah I know 80% of that is tax and the poor petrol companies make about 2p profit. Bollocks!!!!!!!!!
The money in petrol is in the production and refining, not the retailing. And those companies are so vertically integrated that massaging of pre-retail pricing is a doddle.

The main reason petrol prices are so high is of course the price of crude oil. Except it's not. The main reason is the lack of refinery capacity. Forget all the talk of OPEC conspiring to raise prices. It's the oil companies cartel who are conspiring to choke supply. Sure they could build more refineries, but a cost benefit analysis probably shows that the massive profits being made - Shell posted a record $28 Billion profit in 2007 and made $8 Billion in the first quarter this year- outweigh the cost of building new refineries for what is a quickly disappearing raw material. So they are making money while the sun shines. Simple as. And they know that 9 out of 10 of us will blame the Government or greedy Opec for the debacle and not them. So their PR remains intact.
I'm no eco-warrior, and no communist. But this is the unnacceptable face of capitalism. Joe Public being squeezed til they squeak to provide fat salaries and bonuses for execs and dividends for shareholders.
Well I'm going to do a little digging and write a script. Not much in the way of direct action I agree, but it'll make me feel better.

Dem Bones Dem Bones

2008-06-24T19:09:00.001+01:00

Part Two.
After a desperate phone call last night at 10 pm I found myself on the set of Bones again. And I got to drive a Chrysler 300 and an Audi TT Convertible. The sun was shining, the location was beautiful [The Royal Naval College at Greenwich] and on the way home at rush hour the M25 was clear. Joy of joys. It was one of those Karmic days.

I had another quick word with Hart Hanson. The old showbiz adage that 'the bigger they are the nicer they are' is most definitely true in this case. When I came across him he was looking for a peppermint tea bag for the director. Umpteen runners about and him up to his eyeballs but he took it on himself to do it. Just a nice guy. And I think that kind of leadership percolates down. That was a very happy set. Calm, relaxed, efficient. In my limited experience on set they are not all like that.
I was also chatting to a 78 year old extra [ with the fantastic name of Doris] She's been doing it for 9 years. A new career at the age of 69. No wonder that she seemed 20 years younger.

It struck me how much people love movies and tv. Not necessarily to watch, but the whole mystique. On my way to the set, in convoy with a couple of other cars, the dear old Met Police had set up a 'census' AKA let's catch a few tax and insurance dodgers. The traffic had been horrendous and we were fighting to meet our call time. The last thing I needed was to be waved in to the 'census' area. But of course that's what happened. The officer took one look at the pimp mobile I was driving and gave the 'big point'. I rolled down the window and said ' It's an action vehicle for a film set, and the two cars behind and we're late'
He said ' Oh right' and waved us through.
Movies! I tells ya, they are better than a 'midwife on emergency' badge.

And just to add to the small world motif , what with the Will Dixon/Hart Hanson connection, one of the stunt men and I used to go to the same Gym. We'd seen each other there on several occasions but had never spoken, until today when there was one of those 'Do I know you?' moments. Another good guy with some great tales to tell.

A Karmic day indeed.

I Love This Job

2008-06-23T16:01:00.000+01:00

I hesitate to even call it a job. And I think all you guys feel exactly the same way. It's a compulsion. Yes there are more worthy occupations, like saving lives and teaching and looking after the elderly and all that stuff. Heck, with some people it's a compulsion to shave 2 points off the Yen interbank rate and make a million or some such.

This is my compulsion. I'm fit for nothing else. I'm a teller of tales. My brain is a sponge, even when I'm just walking down the street, I observe human behaviour and secrete it away for future use even though I don't know I'm doing it at the time.
I like to think that I cut through the bullshit and get to the heart of 'why'. I may not succeed but so long as that is my mantra I figure at least I'm on the right track.

What set that off? I woke at 4am with good idea for my current script. I had a couple of secondary characters who were in the script as plot devices. Now though, after the good idea, they will become metaphors for the theme.
Only writers think of crap like that. At the most inopportune times. I guess I'm stuck with it. As are you.

Dem Bones

2008-06-19T16:23:00.000+01:00

I've been a pro writer for close on 10 years now. I've been on set about 6 times. See, my view was that I had no interest in the nuts and bolts of film making. If anything, getting too close to it would destroy the magic - I thought. So I avoided it. Plus once you are on set, you are the proverbial spare prick at a whore's wedding.

Then I was on the set of Bones. Here's the story. A mate of mine got an emergency call to drive an action vehicle on a set the next day. No idea where what or when, that's the way it works. But he was off to France on holiday that day. This is 8 0'clock the night before.
He calls me. Am I free? Would I fill in? Good scoff and I might get to drive a Ferrari.

Well bearing in mind my lack of 'set' time and guilt over the same I said yes. It was then I found out I had to pick up a vehicle in Windsor at 6.am. I tipped up at the place to find an ocean of mercs and BMW's, all top of the range stuff. Then picked up the paperwork and found that I was on the set of Bones in central London. Being an avid reader of Will Dixon's blog this more than made up for my recent discovery of two 5am's in one day.
It more than made up for the fact that the mercs and BMW's were for Midsommer Murders and that I was driving a mortuary van.

So there I was on set. And if you are a big fan of standing around doing nothing for hours at a time it was brilliant. I think they shot maybe 3 minutes worth at that location and for most there, that ran from 6am to 8pm. A huge logistical achievement, maybe 50 people at least, but nonetheless, of no interest to me whatsoever. I did get to buttonhole Hart Hanson, just to pass on my regards to Will. I know enough to know the last thing he wants is to be buttonholed for anything more than 10 seconds. He was very good about it btw. And I even had a word with David Borealez [sic?] Nice to see a star over 5'6. We were both lounging against my mortuary van and it seemed rude not to say something. Spoke to Michael Brandon too. Another nice guy.

But did I learn anything? Not really. Only that my original misgivings about being on set were correct. I don't want to know how difficult, or how costly or how complicated it is to film what I write. I want people to find a way to do it. Okay the experience was fun and different, but something I'll shut out from my writer's mindset. No, I'm not going to write about 300 camels coming over Tower Bridge but equally I'm not going to let logistics sway me too much at the writing stage.
I think I'll keep my distance. Deep down, I'm the audience. I don't want to know how the fairy dust gets there. It might stop me from being the audience. And that's something that worries me. When I'm writing a script I write story and character. I'm immersed in that. I don't want to be thinking 'oh wow, that's 50 people for one scene, maybe I can leave that out.'
I'd rather write it and leave it for others to cut. I wouldn't write it if I didn't think it was worthwhile. Others involved in production may have a more objective view. And that's fine. Me? I'll concentrate on inventing the fairy dust, the sprinkling I'll leave to others.

Bendy writing

2008-06-13T15:17:00.000+01:00

I'm in the middle of a script right now. A spec. So I can do bendy writing. It started off as a one hour pilot. I did my usual beat sheet, and after all this time I can tell to within half a dozen pages how long the script will be from the number and content of the beats.

But it never pans out that way. Not in a spec. See on a commission the page count is paramount. Maybe not so much in the early drafts but at shooting script most definitely. And you really don't want to be chopping 10 pages for the shooting script.

But as I'm writing the spec, well....... things occur to me. Scenes I had down as two pages can become four. Characters dictate different choices as you get to know them. The story becomes bigger or more twisty. Lots of reasons. And as this is a spec I'm just running with it. Because I don't think it hurts the story I'm writing. On the contrary. the story is dictating the length.

So with my bendy writing hat on, I'm nixing the idea of a one hour pilot and making it either a stand alone Two Parter or a two hour pilot.

Don't be afraid to be flexible. The story will tell you what the length should be and that isn't always apparent from the outset. For spec TV, Bendy writing is your friend! Because note that any producer now has two bites of the cherry when trying to sell to the networks. The pilot or the stand alone.

Book him Danno

2008-06-10T11:17:00.000+01:00

A few years ago I told my agents I wanted to write a novel. They nixed the idea. 'You're a script writer, stick to what you know' I listened to them.
A good mate of mine, a dyed in the wool script writer, has just signed with the biggest and best book agent in the country - with his first novel. He finaly got fed up with the worst aspects of the TV world. The numpty execs, the incoherent notes, the plethora of D girls with attitude, the numbing blandness that seems to be the order of the day and the pointless meetings.
He took a break and sat down and wrote a novel. Here's a snippet of the conversaton between Big Time Book Agent and Mate.

BTBA
This is fantastic writing. The pacing is tremendous. How many novels have you written?

MATE
Counting this one? One.

BTBA
You're joking.

MATE
Nope. Never had time. I've been writing TV for the last 8 years.

BTBA
Ah! That explains it.

And it does. See I think that if you are a good writer, that means you are a natural storyteller. Books, Tv, Films, all the same. Storytelling. I've been on websites where novelists and screenwriters, largely unpublished or unproduced, talk about how different the script is from the novel and how they are completely disparate skills. Bollocks. They are different platforms. A platform is easy to master. That's not a skill. Good writing is a skill and a transferrable one. Pick up just about any thriller and you will see that structurally it's just like a very long treatment for a movie.
If anything I'd say that being a scriptwriter is a major qualification to write thrillers. David Balducci only wrote Absolute Power as a novel because no one wanted to buy the script, saying there was no appetite for political thrillers. Several months at the top of the NY Times best seller list disabused them of that notion.
The novel isn't for everyone, but here's a couple of points. The shit pile in the novel world is many times greater than that in the script world [which is plenty big enough] So if you have any talent at all you will stand out. And secondly, an author is treated with a lot more respect in the TV world than 'just' a scriptwriter!
I'm dusting off a few old movie scripts and digging out a thesaurus.

aaaaaagh time flies

2008-06-05T17:52:00.000+01:00

I've just realised I was supposed to be reading a script for someone. Sorry Ben! Going to a wedding this weekend but will def get to it next week.

And that can happen just as easily with scripts you send to prodcos or agents. Don't be afraid to politely chase up reads. There's nothing worse than waiting in anticipation of a read and weeks later finding out the script's tucked in someones drawer gathering dust.

I don't have any excuse except a terrible memory and a few domestic contretemps and physical injuries [not connected] distracting me. And these people are only human too. If you are not given a time scale I'd get on to them after about 4 weeks. Again at 7 and again at 10. If they keep saying they will get right on it but still haven't then after that it's pretty much a dead duck as far as reminders are concerned so give it up.

But you can still hold out hope. I once got a job after a BBC show had my spec script for six months. The producer kept putting off the read because she didn't like the title! After that, I changed the title.

Time flies for everyone in this business apart from the writer waiting for feedback. The only way to get round this is to get stuck in to your next script. If you are trying to break in you really need to be getting at least 3 specs a year out there. And to be honest it doesn't change much after you break in. Okay you may get away more with proposals rather than specs, but given the musical chairs execs play it's very likely that after a 12 month period expires it could be that no one at an indy prodco will have actually read your work before and would prefer to see a new script rather than the one their predecessors read.

Yes it's free work. But architects do it all the time. I'm not saying it's right. It's just the way it is. Given the timidity of the networks right now, unless you are a golden ticket with a cast iron project, they are not going to be happy with just a proposal. They'll make noises about how they really would like to see a script to get the tone, and you'll trot off and write it. That's because the vast majority of cost, and therefore risk of any project is production. They want anything they can get to show the networks how minimal the risk is. The real answer is of course 'who the fuck knows?' Great ideas can be ruined by bad scripts, acting, directing, marketing, you name it.

I think the emphasis on showbusiness used to be on 'show' Nowadays I fear it's definitely more on 'business'. Entertainment shouldn't be about minimising risk. It should be about taking chances. Gut instinct not focus groups.

Go into any meeting with just about any exec and they'll bleat on about how the 18-24 age group is the key demographic they are chasing. Why? Well they'll waffle about how that age group doesn't watch tv nowadays and we have to hook them back into it blah blah blah.
Guess what? They never did watch much! They were too busy out drinking and shagging and playing football. Now it's facebook and second life. [it's not really, but because the marketing nerds are never off the internet they think all they hear there is gospel. Most yoofs are still out drinking, shagging and playing football. ]
The real reason is that the marketers have got it into their heads that the 18-24 demographic are some kind of advertisers pliant wet dream. And as usual in this business the tail wags the dog.
But it doesn't have to be that way. I know I bang on to the point of boredom. But let's get back to gut instinct. Let's have execs more concerned with producing quality than saving their arses. And let's have writers stop pandering to a system that's going to kill the medium.

Lunatics and asylums

2008-06-03T01:15:00.000+01:00

I guess I'm what's called a 'middle ranking writer' I generally make a good living but I'm far from a household name. Even in my own household.
But I have a feeling that middle ranking writers are like the middle classes, or silent majority or Mr Average, call it what you will. When they get pissed off and militant you know something is badly wrong.

I have a busted ankle right now, which let me relax today and watch a lot of tv. Or would have until I surfed the channel guide and saw there was absolutely nothing I wanted to watch. So I went to 'on demand' and luxuriated on about 6 episodes of 'Band of Brothers' back to back, an ep of 'Two And A Half Men' and the DVD of 'Flags Of Our Fathers'
All good.
Why would I want to watch the school dinner regurgitated rice pudding that is served up on Monday night TV when I can watch something good? Where's the heart? Where's the thought? Where's the connection to real people?
Maybe it's lost in a sea of no talent careerists who have forgotten or never knew that ultimately the audience will spot a fake. I speak of both producers and writers here.
In the stock market you have 'day traders'. A bunch of people who have no regard for anything other than their own short term enrichment but who can severely distort the market to the detriment of what is good for everyone else. Too many of those types are in the entertainment industry. They don't know the difference between rape and seduction. All you can do is point it out. Diplomatically if you want a career.

Are You Irish?

2008-06-01T20:46:00.001+01:00

I want to know because I might be a BBC recruiter.

Okay I'm not. But I recently found out that you can apply for production jobs with the beeb online. Just to see what questions were asked I thought I'd go through the process. It was for a trainee producer for radio comedy. Pretty much as far from what I do as you can get.

I have to admit, up to a point the questions were concise and pertinent. Then it got weird. It came to the subject of religion. When I tried to answer ' Don't give a fuck' [aka don't have one] the form asked if I was Northern or Southern Irish???

Huh? Seriously? It's important to know whether I'm a Pape or a Proddy? Maybe it's just part of that whole comedy ethos. An irony test? Or it could be indicative of the BBC. So fucking out of touch it's not true.

I'll let you know if I get the interview lol

The insanity of writing

2008-05-28T19:07:00.000+01:00

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of meeting Big Bill Martell in person, get to know him a little on his blog

http://sex-in-a-sub.blogspot.com/

His latest on 10 reasons not to be a screenwriter is, as usual, bang on the money.
Most writers write because they love to. That is both their curse and their saviour. Yes we can get dicked around by people who have less talent than Jordan. Yes, we can be looked upon as happless chicks who have to be pushed and prodded into being money making machines {for someone else usually} But we can write. And we love doing it. And we'll always have Paris. 'Nuff said.

The 'Business' can be depressing. Okay, soul destroying. Unless you keep it in your head at all times that you write because you are a writer. That's it. No more, no less. Success isn't so much about money or ratings as being proud of what you wrote. Hell, an episode of Casualty I scribed got 10 million viewers. Was I proud? Yes and no. Proud I survived a dickhead script editor [another writer refused to work with him] Proud that the episode was a great achievement in the art of drama and the reason I began writing? Not really. Okay not at all. It paid the bills and gave me another opportunity to excercise my writing muscles to the best of my ability. Do I want that to be a lasting reminder of my writing? Fuck no!

But I gave it my best. And that's what a writer does. Every time. Now, THAT I'm proud of. And in the world of pro writing that's the anchor in the storm.

3 is the new 6

2008-05-23T16:29:00.002+01:00

Last night's main channel offerings in the 9pm slot - Midnight Man ITV and The Invisibles BBC, both attracted a shade over 3 million viewers.

Seriously. I kid you not. 3 million. Now, if I was a network exec I'd be crapping my pants at those figures. Maybe they are, But I don't really think so. Because I also just read that The Fixer has got a second series. Okay this show started strongly with 6 million viewers, but by the end of the run had dropped to .... guess what? Yep 3 million.

So why has it been recommissioned? Don't know really. Maybe because Kudos are major players and have about 15 shows in development for the networks right now, and ITV, still miles behind the BEEB in the drama stakes don't want to piss them off? Maybe like with the awful New Street Law a deal was done so there had to be two series? Maybe they really do have plans to make the second series ''bigger and better'' No idea. Unless 3 really is the new 6 and if that's the case then God help us.

I say that because the last bastion of the embattled Tv exec is 'market share'. It matters more to them what their share of the audience is rather than how big the overall TV audience is. Both the producers of Midnight Man and The Invisibles can claim that their shows had a 28% share or whatever. It's a bit like John Terry being happy that only 50% of his feet slipped when he took that penalty.
It's a dangerous mentality because it embodies the 'bald men fighting over a comb' scenario. Short term survival is more important than analysing why and doing something about the fact that the audience are staying away in droves.

I know why they are staying away in droves. It's because there are too many people in the Entertainment industry who know nothing about entertainment.
Simple as that. And as difficult.

Ultimate Farce

2008-05-20T14:20:00.001+01:00

I notice Ultimate Force returned to ITV on Sunday, helping it to it's lowest Sunday audience in two years, as noted in Broadcast. I didn't see it. And I only mention it for a couple of reasons.

I've only seen a couple of episodes of this. The concept seemed like my cup of tea. Nothing wrong with the concept. Concept is great. Took me two episodes to realise it didn't have the courage or the budget of it's convictions. And that Ross Kemp is much better at documentaries.

Watching Ultimate Force and The Unit back to back is like watching Casualty and E.R back to back. You feel you want to fast forward Casualty to make it keep up. Okay that was my impression given the limited episodes I saw. It may have changed and if anyone did see the new series maybe they could enlighten me?

It seems to me it's just another example where the money isn't on screen. And by that I mean not only the production values but the writing. pay the writers double and give them more time and that show could be really good.

I guess I'm a little ticked off because of a tale told to me recently. A friend was recently on location with Primeval. He was talking about how fantastic the catering was. 5 types of starters, 4 main courses, grapes, cheeses, you name it. Most of which was chucked away at the end of the day's shooting.
That might sound petty, of course people have to eat, but to me it is indicative of the state of the industry. That day's catering probably cost more than the writer was paid for the episode.

And that's where I feel TV is going wrong. Good writing takes time. Time costs money. Money spent prior to production is always money well spent. But it doesn't seem to me that the vast majority in this industry hold that view. 'Get it on, and get it on fast' seems to be the motto. Forgetting of course that the audience aren't stupid. They don't need stuffing and sprouts to spot a turkey.

Many people in the industry know how to produce a show. Few actually know how to make it entertaining. Or if they do they cow tow to the marketers and bureaucrats and dumb it down to the bland broth that passes for entertainment nowadays. Invalid food for an invalid industry. These people are the MRSA of entertainment. Killing the already sick patient. And it's full of them. The 'hold on to what we've got' mentality is not going to work. A director friend of a friend said that in 5 years, TV execs will be like bald men fighting over a comb.
Unless things change drastically, I think he's probably right.

The Hollywood Years

2008-05-14T20:25:00.001+01:00

I love P.G Wodehouse. I love all the Jeeves and Wooster stuff. I love his towering metaphors and similies. I love his easy style.
Most of all I like his rabid social comment disguised as comedy. Some of my favourite stories are from his time as a screenwriter in Hollywood. If you want to know what's it's like to be a writer then read 'The Old Reliable' or 'Laughing Gas' because although they were written decades ago, not much has changed.

His description of the nodder in a studio meeting. Two steps below the yes man. The nodder has to wait for the yes man and the assistant yes man to say yes. Then he can nod. Classic. A producer with the brevet rank of brother in law? Pure Wodehouse.
Read him. You'll like him.

Mighty de Fine

2008-05-06T21:42:00.000+01:00

Seems to me the best writing defines an era or mood or zeitgeist, call it what you will. The best movies always do this, from Casablanca to Easy Rider to Wall Street . The best TV should hang its head in shame if it doesn't.
It set me thinking as to what defines the current era. It was a pretty depressing thunk. No talent eejits like Paris Hilton are lauded in the media. Someone flashes their tits on Big Brother and becomes a star? The BBC news gleefuly reports on the shennanagins of Kate Moss and Amy Winehouse?

Now I know that's always happened to some extent, since the days of Al Jolson, Twiggy, Simon Le Bon and the aforementioned [except Amy Winehouse has talent]. But now it seems like the only important thing is to be famous. The golden ring being held out for everyone is Warhol's famous for fifteen minutes. Fuck that! It's more like Orwell's 1984. Pop culture to keep the masses happy while they are screwed by those in control.

I'm not a political being but as a writer to me that defines this era. Your mileage may vary.

What would Jesus do?

2008-05-01T22:56:00.000+01:00

My thanks to Ben for this, which I missed.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr/28/bbc.tvnews?gusrc=rss&f

and this
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/tv/2008/04/what_a_weekend_yes_i.html

I pissed myself laughing.

It's not too hard to read between the lines.

Gotto love the 12 year old commissioning exec defending his alleged notes to Frank Deasy on The Passion, at the the cruxifiction scene ''is there enough at stake'. Untrue apparently. His defence is that the actual note was ''if the audience didn't know the story of Jesus would they know what was going on?'

You can only shake your head in wonder.

The Ugly Factor

2008-04-27T19:40:00.002+01:00

Here it is folks. The secret of sit - com writing. It came to my son and me while waiting for a Pizza. wait for it.......

Unless the male is supposed to be a ladies man never have your leads too good looking.

There it is. Think about it. Friends [including Joey] King of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond, Not Going Out, Men Behaving Badly, The Office, Only Fools And Horses, The Green Green Grass, Terry and June, Spaced, The Big Bang Theory, My Name Is Earl, and on and on and on.

This came to my attention when I happened to see and episode of 'Freddie' starring Freddie Prinze Junior [ cancelled] The guy is good looking. But not a womaniser. Result? Ratings death.

On the other hand of course the female leads should generally be as attractive as possible in a ''girl next door scrubbed up nicely'' kinda way.

Lines that might get a belly laugh from a geeky Ross or a gawkey Rodney just don't get the same reaction from young chisel face Freddie. Women might want to be with him but men want to punch his lights out. There's half your demographics gone right there.

Seems to me that if casting is important for drama it is vital for comedy.

Moral of the story - cast ugly for better line appreciation. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying any of the above males fell out the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. But they ain't the Elle McPherson of Friends [or any one of those dork's girlfiends with the possible exception of Janice] or the Pamela Anderson of Stacked.

I'm not a comedy writer so take the above with a pinch of salt. But to me comedy is usually about the underdog. Save the pretty boys for the Byronic heroes.

Life in the internet lane

2008-04-18T19:28:00.001+01:00

Everything, all the time.

When I were a lad, there weren't no t'internet. The only real avenues for any novice writer to get any kind of information on the nature and practice of screenwriting was to go to a seminar buy a book, or find a willing mentor.

Those days have long gone, thank the jebus. There are now any number of great sites with excellent writers giving free advice on everything from how to construct a pitch document to what to wear at a meeting!

Great news for the novice. But also great news for the hoary old salt. Writers tend to be a solitary breed. Especially in this country where we don't really have the writers room. Meetings between writers tend to be few and far between. Prior to the internet and email, information would be slow to disseminate. A 'bitch' [collective noun] of writers might gather occassionaly to bemoan this prodco or that exec or the PACT agreement, but it would pretty much end there. A few like minded souls shouting in the wind to each other, never knowing how many, if any of their fellow writers felt exactly the same way.

Take the recent WGA strike. I have a suspicion that a major reason this one was 'succesful' when the last one certainly wasn't, was down to the internet. The writers case was put out there, often, cohesively and entertainingly. Given that the conglomorates who own the studios also own most of the media it was pretty much the only way the message could get out. Ironic really as one of the main issues was internet residuals.

But I think even more importantly the internet enables a creative community to come out of their bunkers and realise we are all going through the same shit. Be it wrestling with a script or dealing with some dingbat exec who wouldn't know if they had an arse and an elbow, never mind the difference.

And maybe, just maybe, that level of communication will give that creative community a greater sense of empowerment. I do hope so. I mentioned in a previous comment that I might post my thoughts on why writers are generally kept out of the spotlight. Still mulling the whole scenario over. But I've most certainly come across the 'divide and rule' mentality. The internet goes some way to overcoming that. Hell, I may start naming and shaming! lol

Writer? Who's that?

2008-04-15T15:03:00.002+01:00

I'm in script at the moment so just a quick post while I mop up the blood.
Following on from the theme in the comments about the writer's anonymity - true story happening now.

A friend of a friend had a single drama on BBC1. An indy got the rights to turn it into a series with him as lead writer of course. A few weeks in they attempted to screw him over royally on both money and episodes. That's another story. The Beeb eventually got pissed off and pulled the plug.

The writer then read in Broadcast that said Indy had sold the format rights to America! Potentially huge bucks. He had to read it in Broadcast??? 3 months behind the times if you're lucky. He informed his agents, who attempted to find out what was going on and was told by the Indy that they had no contractual obligation to tell him anything until it was time to pay out.

Ahhhhh, the business of show.
Who cares about the creator, we're talking product!

Something for the weekend?

2008-04-12T01:52:00.004+01:00

I thought this was an apt title as a) it's the weekend and b) the last two posts have covered female ejaculation, cunts and arseholes. Clearly there is a recurring theme going on.

I'm writing a script just now, and one of the characters says there are only 2 motives for any crime. Sex or money.

Okay not very original as lines go, but hey. I think it's a truism and writers deal in truisims. As any Freudian analyist will tell you, boil any action down to it's true motive and sex will be behind it somewhere. I don't agree btw, tonight I tipped a waiter 20% because the service was great. I got what I wanted, when I wanted it, efficiently and pleasantly. oh.......wait a minute..... lol

That doesn't make me gay. [not that there's anything wrong with that. ahhh Seinfeld] And I was with my son so not trying to impress a bird.

But as a writer, the Freudian approach is a useful tool when approaching character motivation. It adds another layer to your view of why a character chooses a course of action, be that over a script or a single scene and helps humanise them in your mind rather than making them simply plot enablers.

A character has to have a self-perception of who they really are if they are to work on paper and on screen. That's what a real character biography is. Not what colour of socks they wear. Where they eat or what Cd's they buy. Those are just examples of how they'd like the world to perceive them. What really makes them tick is their attitude towards sex and money. Get to the bottom of that and you have a very real character.

Harsh Realities

2008-04-09T23:10:00.001+01:00

An old writer salt once told me 'Most execs are cunts and the ones who aren't are arseholes' he was pretty drunk at the time and in fairness, he had been at this a loooooong time so was probably coming off yet another meeting where the heart was ripped out of what he'd just written.

I don't agree with the above. Most execs are just trying to do their job. Unfortunately a lot of the time that might be something that is in contradiction to what the writer is trying to achieve.

Consider the advert in Broadcast I've just read for a Script Editor on The Bill. Now, The Bill goes through Script Ed's like a hooker through condoms, but the job description reads 'Must have the ability to take control over a creative project'

There's nothing about 'be able to get the best out of writers and help them to create fantastic stories, gripping characters and must see TV'

It's about control. Because episodic tv is an expensive sausage machine where on time and on budget tend to be the watchwords.

That's the eternal dichotomy that exists between execs and writers. They aren't cunts and arseholes. They just have different Gods to worship.

Female Ejaculation

2008-04-07T20:19:00.005+01:00

Yep strange title. But writers have to be students of human nature I guess, so this tickled me.

I came across female ejaculation recently, if you'll pardon the pun. Being naturally curious, and never to my knowledge having previously induced it I decided a google was in order. Luckily my computer was by the bed and she seemed too drained to notice.
Anyhoo, the facts and figures are in dispute to some extent and I don't want to spoil the romance by talking about skene glands and urethas. But having read up on the medical guff I happened upon this.

http://www.fiawol.demon.co.uk/FAC/femejac.htmd.

It's a letter from Feminists Against Censorship [Do they know it sounds like Fuck?] to the BBFC. It sets out all the medical proof for female ejaculation because the BBFC don't believe it exists and class it as , well, pissing, which means any film it contains can't recieve an R18 rating because of the Obscene Publications Act. Apparently urine isn't allowed. The FAC's case is that it isn't urine.

Does anyone really care? I mean anyone who cares if female ejaculatory fluid is an important part of the entertainment?

As far as censorship is concerned, personaly I'm of the school that finds it odd that torture porn like Hostel and the like get manstream certificates but good old porno has a list of what can get shown and what can't.

Okay, there has to be some form of censorship. If there wasn't someone would without question try to show a snuff movie. Although I'm all for Celebrity Big Brother - The Death Match!

I don't write a lot of sex in what I do. It slows up the action and rarely adds to character development, unless it is beautifully done like between Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland in Don't Look Now. I don't have any interest in seeing on screen ejaculation, male or female. Unless it is Cameron Diaz's hair gel.

But I do find it hypocritical that murders, rape, and gratuitous violence are ''socially acceptable'' as far as the BBFC are concerned. But they have to debate the existance of the female ejaculation?

Maybe I've been reading too many Canadian Blogs and the whole censorship rammy going on over there. Maybe I'm just trying to say that no matter how liberal you think the media appears, it is actually very conservative.

Lions In The Wild

2008-04-03T23:35:00.001+01:00

Shamefully stolen post from Alex Epstein

''Paul Graham has another insightful essay entitled You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss. It's about the difference he's observed between programmers who work for Google and Microsoft, and programmers who work for their own startups.

He compares them to lions in the wild versus lions in the zoo. The lions in the zoo seem "both more worried and happier."I think that's why I like show people. The ones who don't seem happier are executives. They have big salaries and regular paychecks, and here in Canada, they're not in constant danger of being fired. (Though, I suspect, they also don't have absurdly lucrative "golden parachute" clauses.) But they have to work within a structure and a specific mandate. My network executive friends may like my show, but they already have one in the same territory, or it's not in their mandate, or they can't sell it to their boss. And they're always in meetings. Ack.

I don't know anyone who's left a network job who didn't seem happier afterwards. My producer and writer friends are worried all the time. They don't know where their next paycheck is coming from. They don't know if the industry will collapse due to moralistic Conservative government intervention. They have no idea what they'd do for a living if people stopped hiring them, or paying them. But their frustrations are the frustrations of lions in the wild. They are always stalking the next antelope, or trying to keep the hyenas off of one they've already caught.

They all seem so alive.''

Kinda says it all. A writer can never be a zoo lion, unless it is for research and even then they'll probably fuck a zebra and eat a keeper.

Internet Hype?

2008-03-31T21:31:00.003+01:00

Lots of interesting comments on the last post thanks. I'm about to commit heresy. For the next twenty years at least, unless a HUGE player gets involved, TV will still be the primary method of delivering scripted entertainment. Forget all the 'let's do the show right here' bollocks.

There, I said it. Only small stones please and not the face!

Why do I think that? Because despite all the marketing hype, most people still like to sit down in their favourite armchair, watch their big screen HDD with dolby and tune out to their favourite programme.

Yep, to marketers the internet is cool and hip and trendy. But marketers deal in product, not entertainment or the reason why we like certain types of entertainment. With the marketers it's all about trends and statistics. They see a huge explosion in the use of the internet, a huge decrease in the TV viewer numbers on network primetime, put 2 and 2 together and get 17.

The internet is not the future of delivering scripted entertainment. It is the future of 'catch up' tv, 'dang I missed that' tv and 'I wonder what that's like' tv.

Watching TV is part of our social and cultural fabric. Prime time network ratings have gone down because people now have better things to do than sit down and make an appointment to watch shit. Pure and simple. Putting that same shit on the internet isn't going to make a whole heck of a lot of difference.

That's not to say that a ratings success purely on the internet isn't possible. Or internet streamed direct to the TV. And if someone has the balls to put up the cash for decent production values and promotion it might happen. But I think it will be the exception rather than the rule.

Sure, the networks can make a good deal of incremental income from the internet, but TV will still rule. Mass Entertaimnent has a lot more to do with why we view it than how we view it. But apart from porn and Youtube most of us don't want it huddled over our computers. So the Tv will still rule. The internet will be another way of feeding the TV, like another one million channels to surf. More fragmentation, more crap.

It's going to take a hell of a show to persuade the money men that a network level production value show on the internet can attract the same or more viewers.

Moaning Old Bastard

2008-03-26T18:42:00.001Z

Perhaps. But then I've been around a while and can see changes taking place over time. One thing I've noticed is the number of people I have meetings with nowadays who look like they've just stopped breast feeding. Now, I'm all for youth, but it seems to me a culture has developed of chasing the yoof market. The powers that be seem to have decided that in order to do this you need yoofs in charge.

Big mistake. Ideas are one thing. Execution is another. In this business, be it production, directing or writing, experience counts for a lot as far as producing quality is concerned. But it seems nowadays there is no 'apprenticeship' Dev Execs with no background of developing anything. Producers who were story editors for a couple of months. And the saddest by-product of all this is a gradual erosion of the respect for writers. And you know what? We've brought it on ourselves.

We've dumbed ourselves down to fit in with the wants and needs of people who have no business in this business. It's all about marketing and ratings and very little to do with quality. It's becoming like the film business. A load of dross with the odd gem which seems to appear more by accident than design.

Not only have we dumbed ourselves down, but we cowtow to the Indies who cowtow to the networks. Here's how it works. The network will issue an edict to producers on 'what they are looking for and what they are not looking for'

The producers then issue the same to writers.

Result? Some 12 year old at a network is dictating not only what gets seen on screen, but what ideas get written in the first place. And we all go along with it because we have to earn a living. Because while Network execs are on hefty salaries, us poor schlepps are freelance. Indy producers need commissions even more so. They have bigger overheads.

Originality is stifled. And even if some brave producer takes something risky and original to the networks, there is little chance of it seeing the light of day. It's a dogfight over an ever decreasing market, getting smaller because of fear of failure.

An example of this is THE FIXER. yep I watched ep 2. Nope it didn't get any better. It was as if someone had said ' find the dumbest person likely to watch this and then write it with them in mind'

The Americans do this type of show soooooooooooooooo much better. To my mind the reason being the showrunner system. The head honcho is usually a vastly experienced WRITER. Someone with dramatic sense and imagination. Of course they have network notes to deal with but they have the nounce and savvy to circumvent them or at least dilute them to do least damage.

In the old days when I were a lad, writers here were held in greater respect. That is one of the reasons why I think historically, drama was better. I think back to GBH, Edge of Darkness. The Singing Detective. I Claudius. Boys From The Black Stuff, and on and on and on. Do any of the shows I've seen in the last few years stick with me as much as those examples? Can't say they do.
And I don't think that's me saying pop music today is just a loud noise, like some curmudgeonly old git. I think it is an indisputable fact. Where are the classic series of tomorrow?

At some point the networks will realise that throwing the same old shit at the screen and hoping it sticks is not going to work. They'll realise that viewers are not stupid and stop the patronising twaddle I see on screen on a regular basis. If something is entertaining it doesn't matter if we actually have to concentrate on it a little. Drama is about truth more than clarity. I hope a lot of good people don't give up and leave the industry before that time comes. Or worse still, a lot of good people don't join the industry in the first place.

Write What You Know

2008-03-18T22:38:00.001Z

A writer is an amplifier and a magnifier. Life is about things happening to people. Drama is about making some kind of sense of it.

The arena is unimportant. Pluto, Antartica, Croydon? Doesn't matter. The essential elements of drama are that it takes a universal truth about the human condition and presents it in a way that is recognisable, engrossing and thought provoking.

As Aristotle said, 'Everything else is shit' Well okay he didn't, but I bet he thought it. Most people, in their most honest, deepest, darkest hours will admit they don't know what the hell life's about. They get by day to day, taking the defeats and the victories, cursing the fates for the bad luck and accepting the good as their entitlement. The rest are sociopaths.

Convention keeps us sane. Drama, good drama, pierces that thin crust between our imagination and our 'race memory' need to sacrifice the individual for the collective good. It reminds us that individual emotion is really the overuling factor in our lives, not pleasing bosses, making money, owning things. It reaches you on a primeval, not superficial level.

It keeps you saner than convention. That's why it's been around for so long.

The Writer has two faces

2008-03-16T18:49:00.002Z

Actually the smart writer has several. Bear in mind I'm not writing this as a smart writer. Unfortunately with me, wysiwyg. But pretend I'm a smart writer and the advice holds good.

This is a very small industry. The smart writer is a good reader of those in the business who make decisions. Be it at script level like editors or producers, or at commissioning level way up in the ivory towers.

The smart writer then tailors their demeanour to suit those personalities. Compliant? Whacky? Scholarly? Take your pick. Give those people what they want and you will have a long and golden career.

Though having thought about it I should be talking about the super-smart writer. All writers are smart. The ability to create interesting characters and stories from scratch is proof enough of that. Something no one else in this crazy business can do.

One of the reasons I play internet poker rather than face to face is because if I were across a table the dumbest player there, apart from me obviously, would see whether I had pocket aces or bluffing on a straight draw on the river. I'm a heart on the sleeve kinda guy.

The super smart writer would clean up. He'd catch the tells. Know when to push and when to fold.

There's a helluva lot more to writing than just writing. Like in poker there's a helluva lot more to winning than just having the best cards.

But never forget why you wanted to write in the first place. If you go too far towards the corporate mentality your bank balance might be black but that little voice inside you will wither and die and you'll end up writing the likes of Rock Rivals for people who don't give a shit about writers, or care about quality. Yep it's those Shed girls again! I still haven't forgiven them for paying a writer half the PACT min. when one of them is a board member!

See, the super- smart writer wouldn't even bring that up in a blog. Aaaaaah Fuck' em. I never claimed to be smart.

Riding The Pony

2008-03-13T12:59:00.001Z

On a recurring drama series, here's a typical exchange between a writer and script editor.

Writer: Yeah got the notes.

Script Ed: Great, can we have the draft like...yesterday?

Writer: No probs. Just a couple of points.

Script Ed: Fire away.

Writer: I'm not sure the suggestions for the B story are going to work. There's no motivation for the character to take that action, and it actually makes the whole strand seem a bit pony. [for non English readers - Pony and Trap - crap] I think it would be better if we came in on X doing Y and shift the emphasis to the Z character. This keeps the story arc but gives it a believable premise and doesn't change the character archetypes.

Script Ed: Mmmmmm. I see your point. Let me have a word with the producer and get back to you.

Cut To:

Five mintes later.

Script Ed: Sorry, had a go but the producer wants it as per notes.

What do you do? You ride the pony. The note might suck farts from swans, but you did your bit. Now comes the hard job. Trying to get a story that you think is a load of twaddle to work.

There can be any number of reasons why you are given notes that seem to make your episode worse and despite your best reasoning, aren't changed. Logistics, ignorance, power trips and factors relating to longer term arcs or production issues of which you are unaware and not likely to be made aware of.

When it happens, there's no point spitting the dummy out. Take a deep breath, roll up the sleeves and bend over.

THE FIXER

2008-03-11T17:07:00.001Z

I'm not in the habit of reviewing programmes I haven't actually seen. But I've recorded this and will watch it when I get these frickin re-writes out the way.

But - from what I hear, ratings wise at least, the boys done good. Over 6 mill for a Monday night 9pm slot. ITV have taken a hammering recently on just about everything they've tried. Seems they might have a ratings winner here.

I saw the first few minutes of the opening ep, and a couple of things struck me. Got to love a drama with the balls to show the protag executing a middle aged husband and wife before the opening credits. Wasn't keen on the hokey voice over basically describing what we could see on screen. Anyway there are few things I bother recording so that's a start anyway.

I mentioned a few posts ago how ITV seemed to making a real effort to invigorate their schedule. Yep there have been failures, spectacular in some cases, but major props for at least trying. They deserve a winner and I hope The Fixer is it.

Funnily enough I pitched almost exactly the same idea a couple of years ago and was told there was no appetite for violent vigilante style programmes. Just shows to go you. Tastes change depending on who holds the purse strings at the time.

But here is an attempt to reach the under 60 audience and they've snagged a good cast to do it. It comes from Kudos, which if you ignore a couple of recent misfires, has provided some of the best stuff out there. Please God, let it be good and not another 'The Outsider'. If it takes off it might open the door for a few more action dramas to balance out the glut of relationship dramas and 'pipe and slipper' viewing.

I genuinely get the feeling that ITV is becoming the first port of call rather than the last. Which they will probably admit they were. They are willing to take risks. And risk is the key to producng drama that is engaging to a literate audience. So maybe that has been forced on them because of the dire ratings and sliding share price, but both those consequences are simply the result of the audience voting with their remote.

I'm off to dig up all those old pitches. The times they are a changing - maybe?

Ignorance Is Bliss

2008-03-07T14:39:00.002Z

Two today. You can tell I'm avoiding doing notes. Heck my weekend was up the spout anyway, so I might as well procrastonate further today.

I got a call from a writer mate who'd just read the last post. In the discussion over the reasons for the rise of Gay TV an interesting proposition came out.

The less you know about writing the better.

The world is full of would be gurus telling you how to write and even what to write. It's a veritable Industry in itself. Some I daresay are worthwhile and valuable. Most aren't. They simply regurgitate the percieved wisdom of the analyst. Not the story teller. Most of them have very little in the way of actual writing credits and concentrate on packaging story and script into what is considered the executives' preferred formula.

Here's what David Mamet has to say about this 'formula' in his excellent Bambi Vs Godzilla -

''The middle men are bureaucrats, and they have a natural foe, and that foe is the script. For a star's grosses may be quantified, and a prediction (supportable even when proved false) may be made about his or her worth. But the worth of a script is moot.

How then to remove the potential (not for error, but for recrimination) of an unfortunate choice?

By removing the unquantifiable: the surprising, the unique, the upsetting, the off-color, the provocative; by removing drama.

A course in the business of screenwriting then, might teach how to recognise, in order to obliterate, drama.

Skill in this bureacratic endevour, unfortunately, will avail the practitioner little, as in shunning the original, he consigns himself to a limitless applicant pool - a pool made up of all those capable of suppressing, or incapable of possessing a love of drama.''

Now that's a fucking writer! And okay Mamet aimed that particular barb at Hollywood execs. But the same largely holds true for a lot of execs here. They are much more concerned with holding on to their salaries than taking a risk.

They look for a reprise of last years hit. The same but different.

So I guess what I'm saying is if you want some tips on how to break into the business then these ''gurus' might have something valuable to say. Providing they themselves have 'broken in' and sustained a career. Not always the case I assure you. But if you want to create something original and worthwhile then the only person who can do that is you.

That may reduce the chances of it being made, but it will be good for your writer's soul. I've said before, you have to write without fear. In order to do that perhaps a degree of ignorance would be useful.

One of the reasons I stopped reading scripts was I found myself advising people to ''shape'' their scripts into the ''perceived wisdom'. I was contributing to the lack of originality and didn't feel comfortable doing so. If I want to be a script whore that's down to me and my bank balance at the time. If I encourage others to do so then I'm perpetuating the flawed system.

The Trouble With Gay TV

2008-03-07T11:35:00.000Z

Okay I may take a few hits for this, but it isn't meant to be homophobic. If anyone thinks it is, bite me.

I was looking at the ratings for the latest Shed productions OTT drama Rock Rivals. Kind of a 'Let's do Footballers Wives, Bad Girls, Waterloo Road again but this time we'll call it.........'

A fairly bad three and a half million tuned in. I think there are a coupleof reasons for this.

Firstly, I think the 'Reality' audience is largely mutually exclusive from the Drama audience. Simply grafting a reality format and drama format together isn't going to work unless you can convince both audiences there is more to see than melodrama and bad dialogue. Seeing Shed, a reality show based drama and Michelle Collins in the same sentence is enough to have me tuning out straight away.

Secondly it is yet another of those type of programmes I was searching for an adjective for - and finally settled for Gay TV.

Waterloo Road, Holby, Casualty, Rock Rivals, The Palace, Hotel Babylon, Torchwood [or Dr. Screw as my son calls it] and on and on and on and on.

There is nothing there to get your average bloke sitting down expectantly, and TV Bosses are wondering why the under 40 male audience aren't watching?

It's because there isn't much for them. Most drama seems to be female centric and so heavily PC as to make almost unwatchable.

Remember a decade or so ago when it seemed that just about every Hollywood villian was a Brit? There was a very good reason for it apart from the quality of the actor. It was because Hollywood knew Brits didn't give a crap if they were depicted as villians. We're pretty grown up here believe it or not.

We can largely separate what is crass and exploitative from what is clever and insightful. Unfortunately from what is on offer I don't think the commissioning editors and policy makers at the networks feel the same way. Hence the steady diet of pap. Innoffensive politically correct melodrama with a view to getting as few complaints as possible rather than as many viewers as possible.

It's who you know

2008-03-02T19:15:00.001Z

How often have you heard that phrase about breaking in? It's both a truism and a myth.

It should really be expanded to ''It's who you know who knows how good you are'' Because without the material ''who you know'' is irrelevant'

Yes for sure there are a few who get in with the brevette rank of brother -in-law, or the script editor given a shot. But unless you then consistently produce the goods those inroads are short lived.

In the great scheme of things there aren't really all that many people who make a living out of writing full time. Heck I know a lot of full time writers who can't make a living. I've hit that particular highway on a few occassions over the course.

But writers live on chances. It only takes the right person at the right time in the right place to say yes. They are more likely to be that person if they have read and liked several pieces of your work beforehand.

That's real networking. Without the material to back it up all the schmoozing in the world isn't going to help. It may open a door, but that door will knock your ass off and shut like Fort Knox if that's all you got.

It's about graft and craft and talent. Then getting it to people who can and will do something with it. A talent in itself.

Your script is your best networker, because let's face it, most writers are socially inept, cynical, sentimental introverts who spend more time absorbing than actioning. Or is that just me?

Well whatever. If we are, then in the words of my Jocko ancestors ''Here's tae us. Wha's like us? Gey few. And they're a' deid''!

It's all subjective

2008-02-27T21:02:00.002Z

Every writer will tell you that criticism and rejection comes with the territory and you have to suck it up and get on with it. Good advice.

But they are missing out the stage before sucking it up which is usualy along the lines of thinking 'What the fuck is this no -nothing twat on about'

But you say it to yourself, and then you suck it up.

Because unless you are talking to God's gift to screenwriting that should be your reaction. They are talking about a piece of work your heart and soul has gone into. Of course you're going to be pissed off if they don't like it. But it has to be a quiet pissed off that quickly passes and doesn't dent your confidence.

The important thing to remember is that much the same as two different writers will have different takes on the same scenario, so too will two different producers on the same piece of work.

Is it bad or good? It's subjective.

I have a script that I wrote years ago and pretty much not only got me started in the business but got me a lot of ongoing work over the years as more people read it. Recently some new bod at a major prodco read my latest spec. Okay without too much blowing of trumpets they fucking loved it. Couldn't do it because they actually had a programme airing with a very different but still too close concept. But if I had something else get it to them ASAP! [okay I know that's only one rung up from ''enjoyable read but not for us'', but bear with me]

My agents then sent them the killer script. The old faithful. The sure thing. The work getter.

Didn't like it.

Wasn't as pacey, or witty or dramatic as the one they had just read. Fucking twats!

Except they are absolutely right.

I haven't even looked at that script in 3 or 4 years. I still haven't. I'd probably be embarrassed to. If I wrote it now it would maybe be 30% different. But if I were a new writer trying to break in it would maybe be much the same. And would maybe still work on that basis. That's a lot of maybe's. But maybe that's what writing's about.

Anyhoo, I kept the wolf from the door off that script, but the old writer's adage says 'love nothing' That has to mean after you've sent it out, not while you're writing it obviously.

Some people will love it, some people won't. Suck it up, it's all subjective. Except when they are right. Always leave enough room in your ego to recognise it when it happens.

Producers

2008-02-17T18:43:00.001Z

Producers come in several shapes and guises. A brief list below - there may be some missing in which case feel free to add.

The Time Server - one who has come up through the ranks, has no discernable talent as such but has managed to stay out of trouble.

The Safe Pair Of Hands - a good 'people person' who gets it done on time and on budget with no fuss.

The Creative Loon- doesn't give a fuck who they upset so long as their particular vision ends up on screen.

The Creative Corporate - see above, but will upset less people.

The Brother-In -Law - self explanatory

The Slummer - doesn't really give a shit but will pocket the wedge 'til something better comes along. [habitat is usually w12]

The G.O.K - as in God Only Knows how they got the job. Possibly a combination of right time, right place and loose morals.

The Eternal Optimist - an Indy producer with no money.

Okay a little tongue in cheek. Producers have a tough gig. They have to juggle time, money, internal politics and creative tantrums. In my experience as a writer the best producers are the ones who LISTEN to and digest a range of opinions. They are creative enough to see possibilities and savvy enough to dismiss what is not going to work. Then they say 'Okay you can all shut the fuck up now, this is what we're doing'

But have you noticed the huge similarities between the different types of producers and different types of writers? I could put a writer I know of in every one of those catagories. Heck I myself could fit about 3 of them depending on the day of the week.

But in all seriousness the best producers are the ones who remember that it's about ENTERTAINMENT first and MONEY second. Mmmmmm another similarity.

Don't get me wrong, I like money as much as the next guy. But to genuinely entertain takes soul first and cheque book second. Money can follow, but if it leads, you're in trouble.

Agents

2008-02-14T14:51:00.000Z

Can't live without them, can't kill them.

Okay, I jest, a little.

Agents are essentially gatekeepers. The fact that you have an agent is looked on by the powers that be as being a good thing. It says that you must have a certain level of ability as a writer.

It is of course a false assumption. There are many writers much more talented than some of the hacks with agents. However that's the way it is and watchyagonnado?

Ask any pro writer the ratio of work their agent got them to the work they got for themselves and the agent will generally come a distant second. Most of the work that has come my way has been through people who have previously read me or I've worked with.

So what makes a good agent? Someone with whom you are on the same wavelength as far as your writing is concerned. Someone who champions your work to others at every opportunity . A tough negotiator when it comes to dough.

But more importantly - one who stays the course. Every writer has a buzz in the industry when they first break. Lots of meetings, a few offers. No one wants to miss out on the next big thing.

But remember that a couple of years later there will be a 'next big thing' perhaps another client of your agent. Who are they going to push? You or the new kid on the block? That's when you want the 'longevity' factor. Unfortunately you won't know if they have it or not until that situation arises. You can't blame the agents. They are there to make money. Writers are their merchandise.

I've had 4 agents. Thinking of looking for my fifth. You've got to freshen things up occassionaly.

No fear

2008-02-06T19:21:00.000Z

While I'm still on broadband lol..................

My son was visiting a few days ago. He's grown up with me being a writer and so Final Draft is second nature to him. He is always full of ideas for scripts he wants to write and is a walking encyclopoedia of all things Film and TV. He's just turned 16.

While he was here I asked him to take a look at a pitch document I was about to send to my agents. His taste is impeccable. The bugger also has no hesitation in telling me what I've done is crap! The perfect critic! lol

So he read the pitch doc - and promptly sat down and wrote an opening scene.

No Fear.

I think the following is something that many pro writers will agree with. The script that got them just about every job and the most attention was the one they wrote when they hadn't a clue about the industry.

They just wrote.

When this is your livelihood it's easy to become embroiled in rumour and speculation and try to write something to please this network or that exec. but I think that's just about the worst thing you can do. Here's why.

Execs will always bang on about original strong voices. And they really do mean it. Of course if you write something original and strong it has practically no chance of hitting the airwaves. [I kid.....a little] But that's not the point. The point is that they then know you are capable of writing something original and strong.

That gets you in. Be it on Doctors, Holby or whatever. After that, if you can suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous script editors for long enough [they're not all outrageous, for the avoidance of doubt!] you might carry enough weight to get one of your projects you are passionate about made.

But you have to maintain the 'NO FEAR' mentality throughout. Not that easy when you are knee deep in recurring drama scripts and subserviant to the wants and needs of a particular show. But you have to remember that the reason you were hired for that show in the first place was because of your strong, original voice. That's the 'small voice inside' remember, not the 'shout it out in a story meeting' remember.

I've made a living of sorts out of writing. Been rich, been poor. Not enough rich but can't really complain. I love what I do. But the hardest part is 'NO FEAR'

Writing is a precarious business. We are generally viewed with suspicion by our ultimate paymasters because entertainment is an industry and we don't fit the industrial norm that big business would like. We are the variable that defies analysis. We are storytellers, the wandering minstrels, Aesop and Homer. [I love The Simpsons] It's quite possibly a form of OCD. It has to be, given the odds against succeeding.

But here's the thing. For writers trying to break in, don't write what you think others will think is good, write what you think is good.

Moving Echos

2008-02-06T14:24:00.000Z

I've watched a little of both Moving Wallpaper and Echo Beach. I'm not going to get into whether they are any good or not, but let's just say they ain't on my must see list.

Moving Wallpaper is my favourite of the two, but I don't really see it as ITV primetime. The in-jokes are too in and does a prime time audience really care about the ongoing shenanigans of a bunch of TV luvvees? Ask Aaron Sorkin.

Echo Beach has enough to worry about apart from actual quality. Putting it on after Moving Wallpaper is tantamount to bungee jumping with a playdoh rope. Okay there are a couple of clever moments when we see situations arising in Wallpaper that come to fruition in Beach. But WTF?????

Who in holy Jeebus thought that an audience watching a show satirising a soap would then choose to tune in to see the actual soap played dead straight?

It beggars belief. It does more than that. It's an insult to those tens of soap fans who watch Beach. Soap relies on the immersion of the audience in the characters and the world. Showing what a bunch of dickheads they are in the preceding programme and how fake the world is destroys the posibility of anyone taking it seriously.

I heard that originally the two shows were to be on different channels. If one or both are to survive I think that has got to happen. I'm no expert on scheduling but it seems like common sense to me.

I haven't been watching a lot of TV lately. I was begining to hear good things about The Palace but that seems to have been bumped to a late time slot?

The BBC updated fairytales took a bit of a dump. I didn't see any but wondered who they thought the audience was for them. It seems to me it was most likely a concept thought up by an exec rather than a writer. One of those dreamt up in a 'blue sky' coffee and croissants meeting 'here's a spiffing wheeze' ones.

I did see the last episode of The Street, which I thought was a work of genius. But would anyone other than Jimmy McGovern get away with 15 minute two handers? Not likely. The power of the exec-producing writer overcoming the cries of 'No we've got to have a cutaway, the audience willl get bored' .

I don't think it's any coincidence that the most popular dramas on TV are the ones where the writer has most say.

Thanks to all for the comments. I will try to post more frequently as life begins to settle down again.

The Eternal Dichotomy

2008-02-03T21:15:00.000Z

Or catch 22. More than any other artistic medium, film and TV relies on MONEY at the embryonic stage.
A poet or author can self publish and hope for a buzz. A playwright can get something on in a room over a pub and hope the right people are watching which results in a lucrative commission.

Screenwriting is about CASH. Not the writer's cash. And there's the rub.

Despite the fact that screenwriting is about cash remember that it's really not. It's about entertainment. You just might have to butt a few heads to get that on screen and knowing when to butt heads depends on a lot of factors. Mostly how wanky the exec your are dealing with is.

But non wanky exec plus committed writer has a good chance of entertainment. Also known as NWE+CW=MC2

MC = mass circulation

A committed exec is hard to come by. A committed writer isn't. The trick is to find where the two meet. Different agendas, same goal.

ITV - The Place to be?

2008-01-08T01:01:00.000Z

Yes I'm still alive. Technically homeless and without broadband at the mo - but still breathing. So that can't be bad. Thanks to all for the good wishes.

I hope a great 2008 for you all. We happy breed deserve it.

But I digress. I applauded Mickey Grade's move to ITV, [obviously me and Mickey are like that] he is good news for writers. And lo and behold what does the New year bring? The Royal Today, Echo Beach, Moving Wallpaper and a three night a week Law and Order knock off.

I make no claims as to quality but as far as shows that keep writers from asking 'do you want fries with that' as their day job then they are very good news indeed.

I've got to be honest and say that for a long time ITV drama has been in the doldrums. Okay, crap, and yes I watched the first few minutes of The Royal Today and it was awful. But all soaps are for the first year.

The point is at least ITV are trying. They are creating opportunities for writers with new shows. Taking risks. And might just be the new BBC. Who right now, thanks to Yorkie hasn't got the best of reps with long in the tooth writers despite the gushings of the WGGB.

Anyway, just a quickie to thank you all for your comments over the last year. My postings will be more sporadic until the dust settles but have a great year you bunch of cunts [ that's for Don lol]

The State Of The TV Nation

2007-12-05T16:54:00.000Z

So tomorrow I leave my home of six years to - I'm not sure what. Separation /Divorce is a messy business no matter how good the intentions. Anyway as a result I may or may not be off the blog for a while.

So with that in mind I thought I'd have a general rumination on the state of the Industry.

My prognosis isn't good. The proliferation of new channels in the last few years has in general backed up the old adage that 'more means worse'.

The introduction of short term contracts for most execs has led to a climate of fear where risk is avoided at all costs.

The BBC Writer's Academy is I think one of the worst ideas ever to be hatched. I don't say that just because it is costing me and all other freelancers dearly as spots on long running shows [ the only way a writer can make a living] dry up as the most favoured nation status afforded to Academy writers sucks them out of the system. I say it for creative reasons.

John Yorke has never written a produced script in his life. Yet his 'teachings ' His 'five act structure or 'Grid' or whatever the hell he calls it is being flogged as some kind of template for BBC shows. No wonder they all look the same.

It is also my understanding, I may be wrong, that Academy writers don't get a script fee for the episodes they write, but a salary which is way below the script fee. Way to circumvent the hard fought for minimums!

And finally, when I were a lad, writers got gigs by showing great original specs. Yorkie has touted the Academy as a place where writers can fail in safety. Whoop de doo. Then they get to meet the real world. Being trained to write for 4 specific BBC shows is not the same as being a writer. Meanwhile I know for certain that several real world writers of my acquaintance are seriously considering giving up TV writing. The Academy nonsense being the final straw.

Does that sound harsh? It was meant to be.

If there were some element in the Academy course that meant ''you will be encouraged to produce original work and ideas in addition to the usual bollocks'' then I might change my mind about it. Might.

Okay call me a curmudgeonly old git, but that's how I feel. And call me what you like. I'm never less than honest.

Training writers to write for Holby, Casualty, EastEnders and Doctors is like programming Robots to perform brain surgery. The Robot is only as good as the programmer. I'm far from convinced the programmers are up to snuff.

And yes if any Academy writers are reading this I may well come across as a malcontent luddite. Perhaps that comes with the territory of dealing with the shifting sands of those in executive positions over a number of years. But a word of advice. If Yorkie is sacked in the next few years the 'Academy' will be a dirty word. So to Academy writers. Be nice. Make contacts. Do a great job. But don't rely on Yorkie to watch your back. And for God's sake don't boast about being an Academy writer to any old salts who came through the trenches. It's the surest way to oblivion.

Writing is hard. What is harder is making contact with people who love your work and have the resolve and resources to do something about it. It's a symbiotic relationship. Apparatchik execs come and go. The passionate and creative execs are the ones who stay the course. Much like writers.

This one size fits all mentality is what is killing TV. Too much emphasis on what is safe and not enough on what is good. Subjective, I know, but the most memorable shows are always the most risky ones.

But I digress

2007-12-01T20:22:00.000Z

I'm going through a few domestic crisis at the moment so I promised myself I won't write about the strike or writing in general. Gets me too worked up.

I thought for a change I'd choose something less contentious.

This whole 'Teddy bear' business in Sudan? Wtf??????

Now if a Muslim teacher at a Christian school for instance had decided to name a teddy bear Jesus Whoremonger then I can see certain elements getting upset.

But here's the thing. Gillian didn't name it. Her pupils named it. 20 out of 23 of them chose the name Mohammed. The most popular boys' name in Sudan.

Then she circulated a letter to parents informing them of this. And not one of those parents complained. Why would they? They have no political agenda.

Nope, two months later a ''staff'' member informed the authorities.

Yeah right.

In Friday prayers the Imams whip it up a storm and send a few hundred rent a looneys out demanding death. The cameras are, of course, there.

It's called PR.

In essence what this means is that a handful of people suddenly have the power to besmirch a nation and a religion. For what? To put pressure on the West not to send peacekeepers to Darfur? Possibly. If so it's a tactic that has badly misfired. Unless it is a tactic to alienate moderates everywhere by the use of extreme measures intended to cause resentment and division which they can then exploit for their own political ends .

Much like the purpose of terrorism?

A big thank you to those British Muslims protesting outside the Sudanese embassy today voicing their displeasure. The way to counteract terrorism is for right minded people to actually stand up and do the right thing.

Anyway I have no doubt Gillian will be released to the British authorities shortly 'for her own protection' The Kuwait news agency have muted this ''might'' happen. Kuwait being one of the biggest aid donors to Sudan. 'Nuff said. But thank you.

I have no time for fundamentalists of any persuasion or conviction. I don't have a lot of time for organised religion in general. I'm of the live and let live persuasion.

But as a human being I've got to try to understand the motivations behind such actions rather than take a knee jerk reaction stance. More importantly - as a writer I've got to take a .............. dammit. I promised myself!

The Creation Of Memories

2007-11-24T19:12:00.000Z

Is what good writers do. That's why I get kinda annoyed when cruising the blogs during this time of the WGA strike and see the shills coming on to every site and spewing their [ironically]scripted mantra about overpaid writers.

The creation of memories is why the AMPTP are barking up the wrong tree with their version of what makes the best bottom line.

The AMPTP business model is take a film out wide, hope the theatrical release goes someway to cover costs, especially the heavy marketing needed to get any bums on seats, then make a profit on the dvd sales and TV sell through. On which they make a vast margin.

As a numbers game that works. In the short term. But in 'entertainment' if that is all you have in the short term then you are little better than the travelling circus with a bearded lady showing up at the small village. After the initial buzz, pretty soon the villagers are saying 'Is that all you got?'

I don't care whether the method of delivery is internet, movie theatre, TV or dvd. The important thing is it has to connect with an audience on a deep level. Much deeper than the bottom line expectations of the money men. Because without that deeper level of connection there will be no meaningful bottom line.

That's why they need writers. Writers are vital to that bottom line. In fact, without writers that bottom line wouldn't exist. Which is maybe why writers are treated like shit? When money and art get together, money generally doesn't want art calling the shots. And I can see their point. Money is about risk. Minimising risk in this business can easily be about keeping the creatives on a leash. A lot of us are so nuts we don't give a shit about bottom line. And neither should we if it makes us slaves rather than creators. You can go so far then that is the choice you have to make. The best money men know how to work that. The Studios and Networks are owned by money men very far removed from scripted entertainment .

But what we do, they just can't. One of the biggest B.O and more importantly DVD sellers in recent years was Pirates Of The Caribbean. Yeah it was a movie based on a theme park ride and blah blah blah. But to me, it was an almost perfect movie. And they are very rare. That's why it did huge numbers.

The Bourne Ultimatum. Again in my opinion an almost perfect movie. And the opposite of Pirates Of the Caribbean because in this case the franchise got better as it went on.

And in my opinion these movies were huge successes because they said something to the audience that was much deeper than the superficial story. Questions about who we are? Why do we do what we do? The nature of authority? And even just creating something that really entertained us enough to remember them after leaving the cinema.

Which is why DVD's are so important. I've seen a lot of traffic on the blogs from people saying the WGA should forget about the dvd formula. That is water under the bridge and they should focus on internet residuals.

Personally I think that is bollocks put forward by AMPT vested interests. Yes, internet delivery will be the prime pipeline in the near future. But that is just the initial pipeline. Because I don't think the long term thoughts of the consumer are being taken into account.

WE CREATE MEMORIES

That's why people download from I- tunes and still buy the CD. That's why people stream Family Guy and still buy the box set. Not all. But the real fans of the show or movie.

Create something people really like. And I don't mean along the likes of American Idol or Deal or No Deal. They are a hand job in a dark alley with a $10 hooker as opposed to a night with a very drunk and randy Famke Janssen.

Create something that means something to a lot of people. Dollars will follow. Providing you have a strong union fighting for those dollars. Remember that in this business writers are regarded as the flint in the zippo. The current crop of execs can trade on the zippo name for so long but sooner or later the buyers will decide that zippos are shit. Because they were too 'cheapskate' to have decent flints.

They are the English F.A of the entertainment world. People with no grounding or experience or training in football. But they control the cash.

Internet, Stars and Marketing

2007-11-22T14:31:00.000Z

I'm an Internet moron as anyone reading this blog knows. I just about have the technical ability to write a blog page and that is it. Leave aside the quality of the content.

But even I can see that it will be the viewing medium of choice for a vast audience in the very near future.

And I think that opens up a lot of opportunity for creative people to get together and ...well ....create.

In the UK there are probably less than a dozen gatekeepers who determine everything you see on TV. A yes or no from them means your project either gets green lit or languishes in the ever growing pile of spec scripts that didn't make it.

But the Internet? If you can make something you can get it on. Unfortunately that requires 3 very important other factors. Money to make something with decent production values. An audience. A revenue stream.

But say for instance you managed to attract a STAR with a good script? And say that star attachment attracts finance for production? And say you hook up with a top notch media booker and marketing department? Then all things are possible.

I don't think it will be long before this happens. Okay you could argue it already has with Quarterlife and others, but I'm talking about A list stars. Because at this point in the process I think that is what you need to generate sufficient viewing numbers to be attractive to financiers. I don't think that will always be the case by any means. But right here and now you need a hook.

So you see, I'm not thinking in terms of 'Let's shoot the thing right here, kids' I'm thinking about an actual business model, with finance and distribution.

Most A listers already have their own prodcos, and some aren't just vanity titles. They know how to get product made.

The audience is changing rapidly. People are getting more and more used to segmented payment for entertainment. Be it downloads on their phones, I tunes, Sky or Virgin Media pay per view. You name it.
The internet market is young but it is going to be huge. The distribution bottle neck is going to be broken by producers, writers and actors creating content and arranging strategic alliancies with advertisers and marketers. Or heaven forfend - even financiers who believe top class entertainment will produce profits.

Kinda like what happens now. Except it's not us that does it. It's the networks and cable outlets. But it ain't rocket science. Even for me.!

I'm going to start looking out for possible alliances now. Be back later.

Talking Turkey

2007-11-18T11:26:00.000Z

So the AMPTP and WGA resume talks on the 26th. Good news. Providing it's not a cynical ploy by the AMPTP because they know they are losing the PR battle. Once again they propose a deal which is completely unacceptable and then use their media outlets to blame the WGA. I hope not. But I am optimistic because I don't think the WGA are going to take any crap. And I think the majority of the members will support that.

Having said that, I am not a smart guy. I just got a statement saying something I wrote a couple of years ago, on a one hour prime time drama series , has aired in Canada. There are two figures on the statement and I'm so dumb I can't work out if the payment is for one episode or two. The total is about £130. No great shakes but keeps me in beer and pizza for the week so no complaints.

But it set me thinking about how much admiration I have for the negotiating committee of the WGA in terms of how much detail they have to know. They don't just have to negotiate in broad terms for a fair deal. They have to wrap it up airtight, I mean duck's arse airtight, so that the AMPTP can't wriggle out of it.

See, what set me thinking was the payment I received was my share of the BBC licensing the episode[s?] to the Canadian outlet. The Canadian outlet was BBC Canada. Okay I didn't even know there was a BBC Canada but there you go. To be honest I rarely look at the source of the cash on these statements unless it is a big enough figure for me to say a silent prayer of thanks.

But I thought I would in this instance. Maybe because the whole residual thing is so high profile right now.

Now I'm not saying the BEEB are up to any shenanigans by for instance licensing the episode for a paltry fee to a subsiduary company in order to bypass meaningful royalty payments. Far from it. They have no need to. But think about the vertical integration and sprawling media empire of the AMPTP?

Studios are already well known for dubious licensing deals on film properties with a view to minimising revenue and therefore gross and net profit participation of talent. Just a small part of the notorious smoke and mirrors of studio accounting. Made easy by the incestuous and tangled associations between provider and pipeline.

It is this that the WGA negotiators are up against. Especially difficult when they don't have access to the AMPTP figures on internet revenue. I don't envy them, but I do admire them and wish them well.

Turning Worms

2007-11-16T15:24:00.000Z

Being a writer, especially for film and TV has it's moments of triumph. The joy of working through a script, the .......... okay I'll come back to that.

But there is also a lot of insecurity both financially and emotionally. Most peoples jobs don't entail baring their emotions on the page, spending hours living and breathing other characters, and being told it needs a rewrite. lol

Yes it's not chopping wood. But then a job chopping wood doesn't rely on how great was the last log you chopped. I mean no disrespect to wood choppers you understand? I'm getting at the level of insecurity the job engenders on a day to day basis.

It is this insecurity that the 'bosses' trade on. Writing is a precarious occupation, with poverty around every corner. Ignore the headlines about the millionaire writers. They are the lottery winners. In fact there are probably more lottery winners than millionaire writers.

Writers will generally bend over backwards to keep a job. If they make waves they are in danger of not only getting fired from the show they are on, but no doubt a reputation for being 'difficult' will soon percolate through the industry.

I think this state of affairs has become so endemic that the AMPTP figured the WGA would cave easily. But I don't think they understand a writers psychology.

The worst fear a writer has is being out of a job. That is the power the employers have over them. And why we eat so much shit.

But Lo and Behold! The worst has happened. And you know what? I think the writers have a new sense of empowerment because of it. They don't have to eat shit. This is their golden opportunity to get together in force and show writer solidarity against all that's wrong with the business.

I think that sense of empowerment is what is keeping morale so high. And it is something the AMPTP probably haven't come across before. Without the threat of being fired, a pissed off writer is someone you don't want to be fighting. Because they are crazy enough to take it to the death. Something the AMPTP cartel should factor into their thinking.

Cartel? Did you know that the AMPTP have a 'secret' establishment in Encino where figures for worldwide sales of product in every possible revenue stream are collated and distributed to every member? I mean ALL the figures to EVERY member. Now forgive my muddle headed thinking, but is that not heading towards a Cartel rather than an Association?

What do I know, I'm just a crazy writer.

More thoughts on the strike

2007-11-14T12:04:00.000Z

God bless the Showrunners.

Despite threats to sue them for the entire budget of the shows, they have walked out. And that is something I don't think the AMPTP expected.

To me I don't believe this strike is so much a battle over residuals and internet and more a fight to the death over the very existance of the WGA. Given the AMPTPs stance on negotiation I can see no other logical reason for their position other than seeking the obliteration of the Guild. Something that would be disasterous for writers everywhere.

But the showrunners? Now it is a different ball game. The AMPTP were full of bluster about how many scripts they had stockpiled and they would essentially starve the writers back to work.

But with the showrunners walking out that threat is meaningless. The stockpiled scripts will lie there unfilmed.

The AMPTP argue they have deep pockets and will wait out the writers. Guess what? The showruners have deep pockets too. And without them it doesn't matter how many starving writers want to return to work. No showruner, no show.

Without them it doesn't matter how many veiled threats the AMPTP leak to mouthpieces like Variety indicating writers from Canada and the UK are being approached to scab. Without the showrunners that doesn't mean a thing.

The conglomorates who make up the AMPTP are only interested in one thing. The bottom line. I doubt if they have any understanding of the creative process whatsoever, and certainly don't seem to realise that without the writer there is no industry.

The showrunners walkout will quickly dispel the notion that writers are unimporant. The advertisers will be screaming very soon. It's been reported that there has already been a 30% drop in late night ratings. The networks 'give backs'' i.e free advertising given because ratings didn't hit targets, will be colossal.

And that is the major effect the showruners walkout will have. Instead of months of product the networks have weeks at most. And the advertisers know this. And will be going ape shit. The only way to get the AMPTP back to the table is to hit the bottom line.

And the showrunners are doing just that. I hope they keep their resolve.

Questions Questions

2007-11-10T11:45:00.000Z

Okay so the Dev Ex has read your script, likes it and calls you in for a meeting. The breeze is shot, and then come the questions. The ones that for me, bluff mode is required to answer.

Question

Which network do you see this on?

Truthful answer.

I haven't got a scooby. I just write. People like it or they don't. I don't give a monkey's which network. Isn't that someone elses job to figure out?

Actual answer.

BBC 2 - 9pm. {If in doubt always say BBC2 - 9pm.}

Question

Where do you see the story and lead character in series three?

Truthful answer

How the hell do I know? I've done enough free work without blocking out three series. Put some cash on the table and I'll figure it out.

Actual answer

There's going to be a major twist at the end of series two that propells the lead and story right through series three. I'm still working on the fine detail.

Question

Who do you see in the lead?

Truthful answer

Anyone you do.

Actual answer.

I think there are a number of young sexy leads who could play this. It wasn't written with anyone specific in mind.

Then it is your turn.

Truthful question

So are you serious about this or just spinning your wheels taking meetings to justify your job?

Actual question

I'm really glad you like this. Where do we go from here?

The truthful answer to that would be -if we were that interested we would already be speaking to your agent.

The actual answer will be -I have to run it past the boss and see what he says.

Three weeks later comes the email that you chased for saying they already have something similar in development.

I kid. It's not always as bad as that. Just enough to make it a cliche.

The Finger Of fate

2007-11-08T10:17:00.000Z

So Josh Friedman is posting again. He has an interesting take on the studio execs driving past the pickets and flipping them the finger.

Essentially saying it's refreshing to get a full frontal Fuck You rather than the earnest butt fuck they normally engage in .

Personaly I hope the writers are making note of who these assholes are, and come payback time, which will come, when these same finger flippers are blowing smoke up writers' asses, and claiming mistaken identity, the writer gives a long slow finger and takes the project down the street.

But at least it shows the writer what some of these execs actually think about them. I say some, because there are also execs who are very supportive of writers, and if had any say in the matter would offer a fair deal.

But for those execs for whom it is all about the deal, and all about the money you can see why they are pissed off at writers. Writers and actors are the two elements that they have least control over. They don't like that. It is a variable that is difficult to quantify. Talent always is. They understand balance sheets and budgets okay, it is the marker they cling to, and this strike is screwing that up for them. Advertisers are getting ansty. Distribution companies are wondering about standard of product. Foreign TV networks who have shelled out for Lost, and Heroes and CSI are saying WTF?

Writers and actors are the difficult kids, the nut jobs of the industry. If they could do away with them that would be fantastic.

But they can't. So HA!

Fade Out. What now?

2007-11-06T15:16:00.000Z

So I've just finished a spec. I mean literally, just finished. Or to be more precise, I've just finished the first draft.

Any excuse for a celebration so I'm going to........oh wait, I'm on the waggon at the mo. Dammit. I'll blog instead.

I tend to revise as I write, so I don't expect huge changes to the draft when I revisit it. Which I'll do in a day or two. Because I like a bit of distance before I dive into rewriting. Or polishing. Because assuming I haven't screwed up the concept [not always safe to assume] that polishing can make all the difference.

Here's one thing it is safe to assume, execs will look for reasons to NOT do a spec rather than find ways to make it work. That isn't a complaint. That is the nature of the business when faced with shelves full of spec scripts.

So my polish will be a 'reader' polish. Specifically geared to make it shine off the page as an interesting and exciting READ.

Heresy! I hear some say. Show don't tell. You can't film adjectives. And the rest of those ''rules''

Bollocks.

The name of the game in a spec is getting the idea, story and characters across to the reader in the clearest, fastest, and most interesting way possible.

I've read a few scripts recently that were technically perfect. Format was spot on. Very professional looking in every regard.

And the dullest read imaginable. You could feel the writers looking at their 'How To Write A Blockbuster ' self help tome on every page.
There is economical writing and there is stark to the point of anal. Stark to the point of anal is not what you want in a spec script. Help the reader out. Don't sacrifice clarity on the alter of format. Most of which seems to be propogated by people who don't actually make a living as professional writers.

If it is capable of being acted you can write it.

''Josh smiles, but in his heart of hearts knows it's bullshit.

Josh
Yeah. Sounds good.''

or

Josh
[falsely]
Yeah. Sounds good.

Ignore the literary merits of my dashed-off example. If I were a reader or an actor or a director I know which one I'd prefer to see. Obviously, assuming the spade work has been done previously then you can do the [falsely] example. But , what if it is at the start of the script? Why risk the meaning of the scene in a paranthetical that may or may not be the best use of the 3 words you can fit in? Why not tell what you are going for in clear concise terms? Again, if it can be filmed or acted, you can write it.

A lot of the best moments you seen on screen are implied in the script. Not written as such. But definitely implied.
The first example allows the actor and director to get exactly what they are supposed to be doing at this point. With a confident actor and director, magic might happen.

But most importantly of all for a spec. The reader gets exactly what is going on.

For anyone wondering

2007-11-02T22:33:00.000Z

........what all the strike fuss is about, this post, from the WA board by way of Artful Writer comments kinda says it all.

''Some of us have been screwed for a while now, and not in the pleasant sense. The below is an email post from Micah Wright, posted on the WriterAction (WGA-only board). I requested and have his written permission to spread it like the plague. ~ Tina

(FYI, to set the scene, the tone of Micah’s intro is in response to another WA poster unhappy with our leadership).

Well this is ONE angry Horad that’s confused about your stance. The AMPTP clearly never intends to pay us one single cent for internet delivery. The music business model clearly indicates that internet delivery for most, if not all content is the future. What then were we supposed to do when faced with rollbacks and refusals to bargain in good faith? Pray? Or just swallow the bullshit they were trying to shove down our throats, and forget about not only what we’re making, but also what every person who ever follows us into this union will ever make?

People like you keep bitching about the DVD negotiating point, and yeah, you’re right: DVD was lost 20 years ago, but there’s no magic rule which says we can’t reopen that topic. More importantly, though, DVD didn’t take off for almost a decade after the ‘88 strike… the Internet is here NOW, and it’s here FOREVER, and if we give in and allow them to pay us ZERO on Internet delivery, we can just kiss the idea of ever getting paid residuals goodbye forever.

It’s not self-righteousness which is driving this negotiation… it’s quite simply the greed of the AMPTP, which clearly sees this as the year in which they intend to break the WGA on the rack once and for all. But you don’t see that… you seem unable to get it through your head that the AMPTP doesn’t want to ever pay us anything. If you think these people are so reasonable and that they deal in good faith, then try talking to writers who work in Animation and Reality… THAT is the future that the AMPTP has in store for EVERY WRITER IN THE WGA. Because if they don’t have to pay residuals to the woman who wrote The Lion King, then why should they ever have to pay one to YOU? Or anyone else?

Oh, and before you give me some fucking sob story about the disastrous strike of 1988, let me bring you up to date with a more RECENT story: mine.
I came to this guild having had a “successful” career writing Animation for $1400/week for five years. During that time, I wrote on several of Nickelodeon’s highest-rated shows. My writing partner wrote and directed 1/4 of the episodes of “SpongeBob SquarePants” and I was responsible for 1/5 of the episodes of “The Angry Beavers.” The current value that those shows have generated for Viacom? $12 Billion dollars. My writing partner topped out at $2100/week. In the year 2001, tired of not receiving residuals for my endlessly- repeating work (even though the actors and composers for my episodes do), I joined with 28 other writers and we signed our WGA cards.
So, Nickelodeon quickly filed suit against our petition for an election, and set about trying to ferret out who the “ringleaders” were. In the meantime, they canceled the show that I had created 4 episodes into an order of 26. Then they fired the 3 writers who’d been working on my show. Then they fired 20 more of my fellow writers and shut down three more shows, kicking almost their entire primetime lineup for 2002 to the curb, and laying off 250 artists.

Then, once the WGA’s petition for election was tied up in court over our illegal firings, Nickelodeon called in the IATSE Local 839 “Cartoonists Guild” — a racket union which exists only the screw the WGA and its own members — and they signed a deal which forever locks the WGA out of Nickelodeon, even though we were there first. Neato!
Then Nickelodeon’s brass decided —out of thin fucking air— that myself and two other writers had been “the ringleaders” of this organizing effort, so they called around to Warner Bros. Animation, the Cartoon Network, Disney Animation, and Fox Kids, effectively blacklisting the three of us out of animation permanently.

And why did Nickelodeon do this? Why were they so eager to decimate their own 2002 schedule, fire 24 writers, break multiple federal labor laws, sign a union deal, and to even bring back the fucking blacklist? They did all of that to prevent us from getting the same whopping $5 residual that the actors & composers of our shows get.
For five lousy fucking bucks, they destroyed three people’s careers and put 250 artists out of work and fucked up their own channel for a year.

Ahh, but my episodes run about 400 times a year worldwide, though, so obviously Sumner Redstone (Salary in 2001: $65 million dollars) and Tom Freston (2001 salary: $55 million) were right to do what they did… myself and those other 23 writers might have broken the bank, what with each of us going to cost them another TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS each! OH NO! That… that’s… FORTY EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS!
A YEAR!

So don’t come crying to those of us who have EXPERIENCED what the AMPTP plans for all of the rest of you, that people who are deciding to stand up to bully-boy tactics like that are the crazy bunch of “horads” lustily marching “throught” the streets searching for blood. The AMPTP are the barbarians sacking Rome in this scenario.

The AMPTP and their glittering-eyed weasel lawyers are a bunch of lying, blacklisting, law-breaking scumbags, and the fact that they haven’t budged off of ANY of their proposals in the last three months proves that what they have in store for EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU is exactly what they did to us at Nickelodeon, and what they can do any day of the week in daytime animation. Or reality.

Strike or no strike. That’s their plan: to winnow down your membership, to snip away at your MBA, to chew away at your health & pension plans until there’s just nothing left of the WGA. Why? Because they’ve had a good strong drink of how much money they make off of animation when they don’t have to cut the creators in for any of the cash, and now they want to extend that free ride to all of live action as well. THAT is why they have pushed for this strike at every step, with their insulting press releases, with their refusals to negotiate, etc. — because they’re HOPING we go on strike, and that enough cowards and Quislings come crawling out of the woodwork after six weeks that they can force us to accept the same deal that Reality TV show writers have.
If you doubt me, go read their contract proposals again… there’s not ONE of them which isn’t an insult and a deal-breaking non-starter.
So can we PLEASE stop hearing about how it’s the current WGA management which is the fucking problem here? Because, frankly, that canard is getting a little stale.
Or perhaps you prefer presidents like the President of the Guild back in 2001 who just threw up her hands when we were fired and blacklisted out of our careers and said, and I quote, “oh well, it was a good try”?''

A screwing is a screwing is a screwing. The WGGB have indicated their full support for the WGA strike and while that means fuck all in real terms for the vast majority of us, at least I hope our American brothers know they have it.

For those of us it does affect, I refer you to the words of pastor Martin Niemoller. ''When they came for me there was no one left to defend me''

Good Luck WGA

2007-11-01T11:15:00.000Z

Just a word of support for the American readers. I know no one wanted this strike but if it has to happen then it has to.

From this side of the pond it seems the AMPTP has taken a belligerent stance from the outset forcing the WGA into a corner. For a long time, almost since the inception of movies and TV, writers have tended to be the least well paid and least regarded of the creative forces. Odd when without a script everyone else would be sitting around doing nothing. But there you go.

I've been on various websites and there always seems to be a screed of ''so called' writers almost apologising for being writers and saying things like ' a screenplay is worth nothing without a director and actors because without them you just have a script.

Horseshit. I think they are AMPTP aggitators.

If a studio is willing to spend a million dollars buying a spec script, then that screenplay is worth a million dollars. I don't see any visible director or actor making it worth that at the point of sale?

If the studios are making 80% of their revenue from DVD and TV sell through then the writers of that content deserve a fair share of that.

If a formula for payment of download and streaming content has to be negotiated it shouldn't be tied to rollbacks of existing payments for non downloaded content.

Nick Counter's days are numbered. He will be the AMPTP sacrificial lamb. More power to you WGA and the brave members willing to take a stand.

The Meh Factor

2007-10-31T18:58:00.000Z

Heroes is on tonight. And I'm ....meh? Can't be bothered. I haven't seen it in a couple of weeks, and to be quite honest the novelty wore off after about 3 eps.

'LOST' think I managed to last til about half way through season 2.

'The West Wing' End of season 4 I think.

In fact my only real appointment viewing at the moment is Studio 60. I'm begining to think that is because I know it's going to end. A few more eps then bang. Finito. That appeals to me.

Okay, most American programmes are not set up like that. Studio 60 obviously wasn't though I think I read somewhere that Sorkin only ever intended 2 seasons max.
Long runs are manna from heaven to the networks, especially the commercial networks. But are they really doing the audience any favours when they go down that route?

This is a purely personal opinion and it would be good to hear others. But I like short run series. Another of my favourites is Firefly. Another casualty of the ratings. But hey, what a great one season show. And it made mega bucks on DVD and got a movie made. [I think the series was better]

Our version of The Office. Two series and out leaving nothing but a rose smelling fart joke in the anals of British sitcom. Oooohhh er missus.

I don't think this has got anything to do with my short attention span. There is just so goddam much to do that I really don't want to get invested in something that is padded out for 8 or 9 series when a couple or three would do the job better. And yes I know there were those who were heartbroken when Sex in The City ended or Deep Space 9 or whatever but I'm just not wired that way.

Again syndication in the US demands 72 eps or whatever. I know Micky Grade has made it known he is looking for long running series for ITV. But will I be watching? Maybe to half way through season two and then cursing him roundly.

By the way I very belatedly caught The Soprano's finale last night. There are only two words to describe it.

Absolute .

Teamsters Rule!

2007-10-30T12:40:00.000Z

So the news from across the pond is that the Teamsters are throwing their weight behind the WGA in the proposed strike action. Kinda.

I think this is excellent news. Studios are far more terrified of the Teamsters than they are of the WGA.

But really I just like writing Teamsters! Americans always have such great names for things. Teamsters Local 389. I mean doesn't it just evoke smoke filled rooms, sharp suits, dodgy deals and the faint whiff of mafia?

What do we have? The South Croydon branch of the Transport and General Worker's Union. Just doesn't have the same ring does it? And possibly why prior to the Guy Ritchie inspired boom in Sarf Lundin gangster flicks you'd likely be met with a '' Brits don't do Gangsters, we have red telephone boxes and Bobbies with pointy hats'' if you tried to pitch one.

Probably why I can only think of three gangster flicks prior to the ''boom'' Get Carter, The Long Good Friday and The Krays.

Oh crap is that the time? I need to work!

Lies and Damned Lies

2007-10-28T17:58:00.000Z

Yes I'm avoiding!

But still........

Heads must roll at ITV. According to Broadcast they were beaten into 4th place behind a Welsh Channel in a poll on best Drama channels. Don't believe me?

1
BBC1
77
2
Channel 4
13
3
S4C
6
4
ITV1
5

Beaten by a Welsh language channel? Yes there is apparently such a thing. I now realise that was the multi vowelled thing on my Sky box that I thought was an electrical blip.

It also shows you what a heap of crap you can make out of statistics if you want to. If you look further down you will see Shed Productions listed in the top independent production companies for Bad Girls and Waterloo Road.

Jeez, c'mon Broadcast. I'm a devoted reader. But when you start publishing 'polls' which consist of the opinions of your contributors then you are on a sticky wicket. Especially as you must have a large Welsh contingent.

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

2007-10-28T16:00:00.000Z

It shouldn't be. I've got a ton of work to do but it's raining. For some perverse reason I always use that as an excuse not to write, whenever possible. Maybe I'm a massochist who enjoys suffering at the keyboard when the sun is shining.

Anyway, as yet another diversion I've just been looking at the BARB figures for w/e 14th Oct. I always look at these figures with a mixture of incredulity, acceptance and depression.

In that week BBC 1 had only five non soap dramas in the top thirty watched programmes. FIVE! And you had to get to 12 and 13 to find the first two. Casualty and Holby.

And that's the good news believe it or not.

ITV only had 3. Admittedly Doc Martin split the soaps with a highly creditable 8 million, but way down the list were The Bill and Rebus.

C4 had none. No non soap drama in the top thirty. Nada. Zilch. Bupkiss.

C5 had loads. But is was all North American.

BBC2 had The Tudors way up there, but at 2 and a half mill it is hardly setting the world on fire. Shame, because dodgy fx's aside I quite like it. Sam Neil is always watchable and I have fun thinking back to my 'A' level history trying to work out that the Cromwell guy isn't Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Moore isn't Thomas A'Becket. Though at least one of them is definitely for the chop if my memory serves me right.

Fanny Hill is now doing well on the BBC4 I believe, which just goes to show that sex sells. Gonna get me that Andrew Davies to write a porn flick. Can't lose. I kid, he is extraordinarly good at adapting literary material. Didn't he also do Moll Flanders [okay and just about every other period piece on TV] but it had the genius marketing tag of 18th Century Fox! Fanny Hill pretty much says what it does on the tin.

Maybe The Tudors needs some similar marketing tag to kick start an audience. My own humble submission would be The Tudors - How to Get Ahead in Marriage.
Or for the younger set - Henry had six and two gave head!

[Note to BBC publicity dept. I am available every second Tuesday. Wait til you hear my ideas for Strictly Come Dancing]

I digress. The Winter schedules are upon us. And while nothing is as yet is firing it's way on to my screen, I am ever optimistic that the Beeb can do better than Casualty and Holby at 12 and 13. I've got to be.

Trend Chasing

2007-10-26T12:00:00.000+01:00

We've all had it. The meeting with the prodco who say ''The networks are looking for Cops, or Docs, or Legal or - I believe the new buzz word is ''Shouty''.

It's understandable why prodcos hang on to the networks' every word on what they are looking for. But should a writer, especially a newer one pay too much attention and chase the trend? I don't think they should, for a couple of reasons.

Number one, get on the end of a very long queue of already established writers who have a fistfull of relevent specs. The TV business being what it is, the networks are always far more likely to go with an established writer. It's got a lot more to do with arse covering than the merits of the individual projects.

Number two, if you are a newer writer, you want to stand out from the crowd, not join the herd. You'll do that by showing originality.

Number Two and a half, now I think about it - true story. I was in a pitch meeting with a big prodco a few months back. I had about 4 projects to pitch, two of them procedural. Before I could even open my mouth the producer said '' We're not interested in procedurals, the networks don't want them''

You've probably guessed the rest. A couple of months later I got a call from the same producer. 'You got any procedurals, the networks are looking for them?'

I don't actually think the networks know what they want until they see it. Sure, they can say they want loud, in your face, contempory drama til they're blue in the face. But does anyone know what that is? Not until you see it.

When I write a spec my only concern is 'Would I want to see this'' Narcisstic perhaps, but a writer has to be. If you try to please everyone you end up pleasing no one. In my view the best TV has always been that which bucked the trend not chased it.

Creative crisis?

2007-10-24T14:38:00.000+01:00

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/opinion_and_blogs/creative_crisis.html

Don't really have much to add to this excellent piece, apart from good luck with the Controller BBC1 application. lol

I kid. PBJ is way too rich to bother with the paltry £250k on offer.

Funnily enough though I've just been speaking to a mate who recently had a spec out to about 17 prodcos. Guess which one out of seventeen didn't even aknowledge receipt, much less get back with a yes or no?

Not disagreeing with anything PBJ is saying. But just....saying, you know? Take the pole out of the rich man's camel ....or something like that.

Was it something I wrote?

Update

Moment Of Truth

You don't have to be crazy.....

It's not a sprint

Time for an update

nearly July

Meetings

And yet another

The latest

The story so far.....

Be prepared, they are quick!

Update

For those about to die

Au revoir

String theory

Fingers Crossed

It's not me - honest

A Plug

Gender - Benders

The Bullshit Detector

The Secret Millionaire

It's about The Audience, stupid

What a tangled web we weave

The drama crunch

Who put the ass in classic?

Anniversery

The spin off

Ears open

What you talking about Willis?

Suspension of Disbelief

The most valuable hour you'll spend this year

Writers are crazy

Pet hates

Executives Academy

Help

Oh Crap!

The Balls Of Summer

Failing Upwards

Top Of The World, Ma

Very Bendy Writing

Well lookit!

Back In The Zone

The Comfort Zone

Completely off topic

Dem Bones Dem Bones

I Love This Job

Dem Bones

Bendy writing

Book him Danno

aaaaaagh time flies

Lunatics and asylums

Are You Irish?

The insanity of writing

3 is the new 6

Ultimate Farce

More LA Stories

The Hollywood Years

Mighty de Fine

What would Jesus do?

The Ugly Factor

Life in the internet lane

Writer? Who's that?

Something for the weekend?

Harsh Realities

Female Ejaculation

Lions In The Wild

Internet Hype?

Moaning Old Bastard

Write What You Know

The Writer has two faces

Riding The Pony

THE FIXER

Ignorance Is Bliss

The Trouble With Gay TV

It's who you know

It's all subjective

Producers

Agents

No fear