The Deleted Scenes

I have a son!

2011-09-15T09:06:00.000+01:00

I'm not really blogging at the minute, but I'll break with tradition for this:

I'm proud to announce the arrival of Robert Arthur James-Jeffery! He was born at 11.08 yesterday morning, weighed a whopping 8lb 10 and a half oz, and he's pleased to meet you!

Her Name Is Tati...

2010-10-01T19:19:00.000+01:00

Look! Look! It's the actual real life Tati and Linny, owner and handyman (or handyboy, as 'twere) of Tati's Hotel, in actor shaped form. Click for an even bigger version! Too! Many! Exclamation! Marks!

Tati's Hotel

2010-08-26T22:31:00.005+01:00

UPDATE: Oh, look at that, shooting dates. Lovely.

Well, hello there, Blog Boys and Blog Girls. Did you miss me? It’s been a while, but I swear it’s been more painful for me. You can just ignore the site. It’s set up as my bloody homepage, I have to see it sitting there, festering, every time I want to read Penny Arcade.

But now for a big blogworthy announcement. I’m writing for a kids’ TV show. It’s called Tati’s Hotel, it’s being produced by Machine Productions of Bristol/Cardiff, and it should hopefully be on your telly screens next year (I think. I’m sure someone will correct me). It’s for four to seven year olds, so if you have kids of that age, get them watching. And if you don’t, watch it anyway.

I know. An actual telly programme. That you’ll be able to watch. You can all judge me on a mass scale. Be kind, I have low self esteem*.

The show’s about a little girl, who finds the doorway to a magical hotel in her bedroom, and which she thereafter runs as a manager, child labour laws not applying in fantasy magical hotels. Though they do apply in television, which means being very careful not to write too many scenes with the kids in, so that they can get on with their schoolin’.

Every week, a new guest turns up, causes havoc, and it’s up to Tati and her motley crew of staff to sort them out. Everyone learns a lesson, but there’s loads of gags along the way. Also, there are puppets. It’s tremendous fun to write. I’ve written three episodes of the first run of the series.

There have been two writers’ days along the way where we bashed out the tone and came up with story ideas &c. Both of these were in a hotel owned/sponsored by(?) John Malcovich (I loved him in that one movie where he played a diamond thief). If you’ve never peed while staring up at a picture of Malcovich brooding down at you, well, you’ve never been to this particular hotel. The hotel’s lovely though. But the picture in the toilet’s a bit weird**. To compound the brilliant strangeness of this day, one of the guys running the day played Ludo in Labyrinth. Great day.

So, yeah. Telly programme. Very happy.

Other awesome news includes my brother starting work at Digital Spy, and getting to interview all sorts of top telly types, including Alexander Armstrong and his personal hero, Doctor Who. Well, Matt Smith, but close enough. He got to play on the Tardis. And got told off for flirting with Karen Gillian. He’s happy as Lawrence. Read his super thoughts here: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s7/doctor-who/tubetalk/a264176/qa-matt-smith-talks-who-tour-xmas.html

* This is a lie. I have appalling high self esteem.

** In the Driftwood Arms in St. Agnes, the men’s toilet is wallpapered with old 2000 AD comics. I spent ages in there once catching up on Heavy Metal Warriors.

Real Life Fail...

2010-06-20T22:25:00.000+01:00

The best line in That's How I Roll, both the original hard-hitting adult version and the new amazing commercial kids' version (I just took out the eff words) is "She's like Jackie Chan".

It's, and I don't like to talk myself up too much, because, well, rude, but it's a very funny line. It's pretty much everyone's favourite line. It's also a bit wincey. In what's a fairly sweet script, it's the one real close to the bone moment.

Patron of the blog Pete K. Troll recently and bravely used it, in real life, in context.

Apparently it didn't go down amazingly well.

Stupid real life.

30th Birthday Request....

2010-05-05T21:39:00.002+01:00

'Sup, Scribosphere? So, I turn 30 in a few days... Saturday to be precise*. And here's what I'd like for my birthday from all of you fine people: I'd like to wake up, at 30, to a Lib Dem government. So if everyone could just do that for me (you can still get one, they're in the shops till tomorrow, I checked), that'd be great.

Now, I know that's a big ask. But it is my thirtieth. I promise I won't ask for anything again till my fortieth, at which point you can get me a flying car, or a monkey-thought translator, or a rat-bird**.

* Creeping, creeping dread.

** I may have watched Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs this eveing. Very funny. Very weird.

Oh, get him...

2010-04-12T22:40:00.000+01:00

Yes, I've still yet to have anything on the telly, and yes I'm still offering advice. I know. And I've even said this already, but in the words of Fell In Love With A Girl, it bears repeating.

Outlines then. You need to do these, and practice these, and do them and practice them some more. I say this to any aspiring/baby/beginner writers passing through as if you've had a commision, you'll have experienced this already: you spend very little time writing scripts.

And when I was writing entirely on spec (which don't get me wrong, is still 99% of what I'm doing, and yes, I know I started not only a sentence but a whole paragraph with 'and', balls to you, I don't do prose) I practiced only scripts. Now, it pays to be good at scripts. This much is true. You're unlikely to get much in the way of script writing work if you can't do this, but... outlines. Nobody will let you get anywhere near a script without a decent outline. Unless you're big and famous. Which you won't get to be without getting good at outlines. Seriously, people won't let you write the script without one. And that's what you love doing, right?

... I'm repeating myself now, aren't I? Anyway, practice outlines. Worth it. I'll stop now.

So I haven't spent much time commenting on popular culture recently, so I'll just say a quick hurrah to the new series of Doctor Who, and post two videos that I've link-whored from other blogs. Will that do?

Grammarsows...

2010-04-08T21:28:00.000+01:00

The crane fly infestation of yesterday, and Lexi's subsequent tales of her Ladybird (Ladybug for any passing Americans...) infestation, which sounds delightful but I am sure is horrifying and like something out of Arachnaphobia, only with glitz and glam that only a certain kind of bug can provide, has put me in mind of the wood louse infestation we had in my house as a child.

Wood lice would pootle around in the lounge, mostly, and mostly at night when they suspected that all good humans should be in bed. I have it on good authority that they're terrible for houses and were all eventually gassed, which puts a grim coda on an otherwise nostalgic ramble. Anyway, I always though they were kind of cute, like mini armadillos, what with their banded bodies.

In Cornwall, we call them Grammersells. Apart from me, I mishead that and called them Grammersows, which means that not only was I talking in dialect, I was talking in a dialect understood only by me, and how's that for exclusive.

Rewriting on the children's TV episode continues in earnest. It needs to be shorter, and accomodating all the necessary changes so far has actually made in longer, so I've now printed out a copy and am heading to bed with a red biro to heartlessly cull favourite moments.

I had far too much coffee this morning, and have spent most of the day feeling unpleasantly awake. Not that you'd be able to tell from all the run on sentences...

Well, that's better...

2010-04-07T22:28:00.000+01:00

If Jane Espenson has started bloggin again, I'd better too.

Things are going rather sparklingly well at the minute. The first draft of the children's TV script I've submitted has gone down well, which ace because a) it just is and b) because it means I'm energised and encouraged to write as I can crack on with the second draft. It's a lot...

... sorry, got dragged away to rid the house of a couple of Daddy Long Legs by my recently thirty year old wife. Where was I?

Ah, yes... fun. It's a lot of fun. Mad cap, great energetic kids stuff (the whole series, not talking up my ep, trying to keep ego in check these days).

Another script, again a children's script which seem to be my bread and hummus these days, has also been very well recieved, and will hopefully shortly be read by two rather famous comedians (to product it, not be in it...).

The spec which was mentioned a few blog posts back has been parked for a while whilst paying work comes in, but the beautiful thing about spec writing is that you're not paid for it, so I can a) quite happily park the motherfunster and not get a grilling from anyone / fired and b) I can go back to it inbetween paying work, so it's part writing exercise, part surefire future blockbuster. Truth be told, I'm actually working on three spec movies in various states of development, and your guess is as good as mine as to which will be finished first. One was born when a friend of mine jokingly called me up pitching a movie idea and I bullied him into co-writing. Never pitch me an idea. I will make you write it.

Finally, a slightly belated happy birthday to my wife (don't worry, I said happy birthday to her on the day, this blog isn't a surrogate birthday card) who turned a mighty 30 years old yesterday. We had a very fine tea at Fowey Hall, apparently the inspiration for Toad Hall, but failed to find Mr Toad. Perhaps we shall have better luck at locating Piglet when we visit Ashdowne Forest in July.

Two years later, Frankenstein has discovered the mystery of life...

2010-02-01T23:39:00.000Z

Now that's how you do exposition:

In other news, my agency's new website is up, so you can go here to see me rubbing virtual shoulders with Stephen Moffat. My higher billing is coincidental to the alphabet.

The horror of the first draft...

2010-01-18T23:07:00.000Z

I used to love the first draft, but then I used to think that everything I typed was gold. I balked at William Goldman barking "the first draft of everything is shit". Not mine, Bill, I would say back, to whatever book on screenwriting I was reading at the time. There was some hubris involved around this era, the heady times of 2007.

One of my TV pilots is finally about to go out to production companies, some two years after I finished the splurge draft, so for shits and giggles, I had a read of that very first draft. Oh my. The first draft of everything is shit, indeed.

Where is the pacing? Where are the characters? Why is there so much fucking exposition? And why, why oh why oh why, is it so dull? So slow? So shit?

Surely the first draft is where all of the creativity just seeps out onto the page, surely it should be the most vibrant version of the story you're telling. But no. The first draft of everything is shit.

Thank God for rewriting. New main characters added, many others dropped, plots switched, pacing tightened, dialogue rewritten so its resembles wit rather than just people mumbling on trains.

Thankfully, very few people saw this version of the script. Under ten pages of that hour long script remain more or less intact in the draft that's about to go out, and tellingly they're at the end, so I must have found my way with the script as I was writing it.

And now, like the masochist that I am, I'm embarking on not one but two first drafts, one of them co-written for the first time. Knowing now as I do that good old Bill Goldman was once again right, and that the first draft of everything is shit, I approach them both neurotically knowing that this isn't my best writing, and reassured that it can only get better.

Ironically, I hardly ever revise my blog posts. So there's over 200 posts worth of this shit now.

The Perils of Mild Success...

2010-01-13T22:58:00.001Z

UPDATE: For clarification, the first part of Pete's comments were directed at a now absent spam comment. He's also totally right about that Tammy J Troll, who did totally unspeakable things with an ogre at the Christmas party, I'm just saying.

As sometime friend of the blog, Pete K. Troll* has pointed out, I've been keeping my cards close to my chest. He said it with more vitriol, but you should see the stuff trolls eat, it's a wonder they don't belch vodka*.

This, faithful remaining readers of a moribund blog, is the peril of mild success. As I've said in my last post, I've had a pretty good year. I've had some minor successes, and it all feels like it's chugging along very nicely down exactly the route I want it to, with but a few leaves on the line.

But I can't really tell you about it.

Reason the first: writing, in the past year, has gone from being a hobby and career aspiration to something resembling a job. I have meetings. I, on occasion, get paid a bit. So I can't gossip about it, give dirt, diss on producers or whine about how nobody understands my brilliant vision for exactly the same reason I wouldn't do that for my day job: I would get fired, and other potential employers would read it and I would never work in this town again.

By the way, none of the above is meant to imply that terrible things happened that I am being tight lipped about. This is not the case. Everybody, producer, exec, and other writers that I have met has been very very nice. All the bad ones must currently be on leave. But even if I had, gossip would be out.

Reason the second: failure is not something you advertise. You wouldn't fill in an online dating form with a list of your failed romantic endevours. So when something goes wrong I'm not going to post it here. When a script gets turned down, I'm very probably just going to send it someone else, and I don't want the first thing in Producer B's mind to be "Didn't Producer A already turn down this piece of shit?". Yes, E.T. got turned down a lot, but I bet Spielberg didn't tell anyone that until the movie was in the can**.

Reason the third: Quentin Tarantino sounds like a dick a lot of the time. You remember how long he talked about Inglourious Basterds? Years before it was fucking made. And lets not forget about the Vega Brothers, and the Kill Bill sequels, or the badly dubbed Kung Fu movie he was planning. He yammers away, and it's annoying, because you know most of it will never happen. If I talked about every idea I had, I'd sound like a deluded cock; the reality is most of them will never get beyond pitch form.

I am not alone in this situation: Michelle Lipton and Paul Campbell's blogs have been put on hold, deleted, and reborn like a glorious Phoenix because they're doing well. And god bless 'em.

If I sell something, you'll hear about it. If they're filming something, you'll hear about it. And if you see me down the pub, we can gossip then.

* Trolls that burp vodka are worth an extra 200 xp.
** A phrase which uniquely can refer to both finishing a film, and going for a poo.

What Kind of Year Has it Been: 2009 Special Edition...

2010-01-06T22:20:00.001Z

It's been a pretty damn fine year, that's what kind of year it's been. First of all, and I won't bore you with personal stuff for too long as this is ostensibly a writing site (I said ostensibly, it must be a writing site)... but anyway, I got married. So that's even if the rest of the year had sucked donkey balls, I would have still chalked it up as a win.

But the rest of the year did not suck donkey balls. Not at all. For it was my first year as a professional writer. I use professional in the loose term of "have been paid for writing" but I also think I've managed to polite and keep my primadonna tendencies in check when dealing with people - I just save them all up for this blog. Aren't you lucky?

Now, I am not pretending that I am Shane Black. I will not be retiring on what I made this year, to swan around Hollywood parties and get fat and bitter, fun as that sounds. I've had two commisions, one option, and I've done a bunch of other development work which has been unpaid. But that's still an infinite amount more money than I made from writing last year, or any other year of my life for that matter, so again, win.

I've had a bunch of meetings, which are tremendously fun and exciting (wait till next year if you want the jaded version) and 9 times out 10 have ended up with me being able to fairly successfully pitch a project to someone. I had one meeting cancelled, so I went to the Natural History Museum instead and looked at dinosaurs. I'm finding it very hard to find a downside here.

I've been with my agent for just over a year as well, and in a very belated answer to Phill Barron*, yeah, it's totally worth it. This blog post would likely be a lot shorter and duller without his always skillful intervention, though I probably would still have got married. A new shiny website should be launching at http://www.berlinassociates.com soonish.

2010 threatens to be a good year too. I've got a good few projects and pitches with various people, currently in a rather lovely Schrödinger's Cat state: I certainly hope that come the end of the year I shan't just have a bunch of dead cats in a box. I'd never get the dustmen to pick that up.

I'm also working on my first spec in over a year, and my first feature screenplay in over two. I shall keep you all informed of its progress over the next couple of months. My ludicrously optimistic calculations have it that I should finish a first draft by mid-March, though currently it's just three scribbled pages of jokes and a plot that exists only in my head, so we shall see...

And finally, two amendums to my last post: Sherlock Holmes and I are just good friends, whereas I have embarked on a passionate relationship with Avatar. If you have any interest in cinema, I cannot recomend that you see it enough, and see it now, in the cinema and in 3D, because I suspect that on DVD it will be thoroughly mediocre. But then, The Who could never record an album that was as good as they were live**. Avatar is not meant to be watched on a small screen, so see it, see it now, and ignore the fact that the magic mineral might as well be called Hardtofindium.

Oh, this was my 200th blog post, by the way. Hurrah.

* Phill also wrote up a review of his year here, but strangely it stops at January. Weird.

** Apparently. I'm 29, but Lady Gaga references don't have the same gravitas. I did meet Roger Daltry once though.

A year in film - I await more trolls...

2009-12-18T00:14:00.002Z

This year, I've managed to see a paltry 23 (I think) of the films that got a cinema release. Less than two a month. Rubbish really. So, coming up with a top ten list is a little but redundant, as I haven't really seen enough to be making that sort of sweeping judgement, and there's a bunch of other films I wanted to see and didn't that I'm sure and veryvery good.

Instead, in what can only be described as utterly redundant, is a list of every film I've seen, lumped into whether I loved them, liked them, thought they were 'meh' or frothed at the mouth with how bad they were. The one time I tried voicing such an opinion on this blog before, I attracted trolls*. Bless em. Under their bridge, with only their virginity to keep them company. I may well attract more. As ever, canapés and goats' blood in the corner.

Heady Love Affairs

500 Days of Summer

Coraline

I Love You Man

Inglourious Basterds

Milk

Star Trek

Wrestler, The

Just Good Friends

Anvil! The Story Of Anvil
Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, The
Drag Me To Hell
Final Destination, The
Jennifer's Body
Monsters Vs. Aliens
Watchmen
Where The Wild Things Are

Dissapointments

Bruno

Let the Right One In

Dire Enemies

District 9

Doubt

Friday The 13th

Nick And Norah's Infinite Playlist

Terminator: Salvation

Honourable mentions to two 2008 films I only just caught: Slumdog (pretty good) and Frost/Nixon (brilliant). If others of these are actually from 2008, and I believe them to be from 2009 because of Cornwall's bleeding edge cinemas... it doesn't reallt matter.

And not even a line, a one word review to justify my opinions. I know. A shabby way to spend a 199th Blog Post.

Brighton is burning...

2009-12-07T21:55:00.000Z

Not really. The same fuckheads that burnt down the West Pier haven't started rampaging through the town in the style of fire-fond Vikings, putting all and sundry to the torch and leaving the North Laine nought but a smouldering, glittery wreck.

Hoh, no.

But... it seems to apparently be a 'musical monday' on one social networking gizmo or another. But I thought I'd kick it old school* and post video links on my blog, or if you will weblog. I know. So 2007. For your consideration, I present two bands that I very much like, both of whom are from Brighton, and both of whom are covering the same song by Bruce Springsteen, in styles most different**.

Sadly departed purveyors of delightfully bittersweet indie-prog, Electrelane:

Theatrical fairy-queen Bat For Lashes:

There. Wasn't that nicer than just being 'tweeted' a link? No? Hmmm... better go and repost these on Twitter as well then. It's a wonder I have any time for writing.

* I have literally no idea why I said that.

** There are lots of other lovely versions of this song too, including one by Tori Amos and another by Johnny Cash, but that wouldn't somewhat ruin my theme, now wouldn't it? Also, yes, I know, Natasha Khan isn't really from Brighton, but nobody is, really. Run along.

Here's the Thing...

2009-11-16T19:44:00.004Z

On Jane Espenson's much missed blog, there's a great post about two-percenters: in short, jokes that almost nobody will get. When I was writing a few sketches recently, it turned out one of them was a total two-percenter; my geeky friends (which is ammitedly most of them) all thought it was very funny. Nobody else did. So here it is anyway. I expect 98% of you to hate it.

INT. EIGHTIES SITCOM HOUSE. KITCHEN - DAY
The house itself is picture perfect. The camera work is over saturated and very colourful, and there's canned laughter at every opportunity.
KURT RUSSELL, in his costume from John Carpenter's The Thing, is bumbling about in the kitchen, preparing dinner and chatting to THE THING, which is here rendered as an unconvincing plastic puppet, a la ALF.
KURT RUSSELL
Now, this is a very important dinner for me, so I don't want you doing anything to screw this up, okay?
THE THING
(Indecipherable alien gobbledy-gook)
Kurt has hands on hips, overacting.
KURT RUSSELL
Whaddaya mean, "like what"? What was eating next door's pet
Chihuahua, chopped liver?
CANNED LAUGHTER, and more alien squealing from The Thing, which morphs into a Chihuahua with eye stalks.
Kurt takes a very tasty looking roast chicken out of the oven, places it on the work surface, then bends down to look through a cupboard.
KURT RUSSELL
Now, where'd I put that carving knife...?
He comes back up with the knife to find only the bones of the chicken remaining. The Thing gives a big burp. The canned laughter raises to HOOTS.
KURT RUSSELL
Thing! Why I oughta... what am I going to do now?
THE THING
(Alien squealing)
KURT RUSSELL
No. No way. Never. That is not gonna work...
80'S STYLE CIRCLE WIPE TO:
INT. EIGHTIES SITCOM HOUSE. DINING ROOM - DAY
Kurt and his BOSS are at the dinner table, Kurt serving an apparently new and equally delicious looking chicken. The Boss takes a big chicken drumstick in hand...
THE BOSS
You know, Kurt, there's a lot of competition for this promotion and... say, this chicken smells delicious!
The Boss takes a big sniff of the drumstick. The drumstick develops a nasty fanged mouth and leaps on the boss, knocking him off his chair.
Kurt looks down over the table as the SOUNDS OF A COMEDY FIGHT echo through the dining room, him wincing and 'oooh'ing with every crash and bang. A fountain of blood spurts up from behind the table.
The remainder of the roast chicken on the table grows eye-stalks and six little crabby legs, and scrambles off.
Straight to camera and with a "not again" smile and head-shake:
KURT RUSSELL
You've gotta be freakin' kidding me!
The canned-audience laughs and claps.
TITLE CARD: HERE'S THE THING. LITTLE CARTOON DRAWINGS OF KURT AND THE THING.
The "Here's the Thing" jingle plays.

Shameless list of press releases...

2009-11-13T19:54:00.000Z

Weeeeeeeell, hello there. How the devil are you? I know, I know, I've been negelecting you. Actually, according to my Google analytics, I've only been negelecting the perverts who turn up looking for stories of people having sex in Travelodges. Hi, perverts! How ya doing?

I do have actual blog posts planned on writing, with themes and everything, but I also have some career updating to do and that always sits kind of strangegly at the end of proper blog posts. Let's see... It's one week till comissioning rounds close for CBBC, and I have two pitches in there for the very first time, including one which you, my gentle readers*, told me to write in the first place. You must be so proud. So we'll see how those go.

I'm also writing an outline for another kids show, of which more here... that's all very exciting as it's the first time I'm working on something I've not just made up by myself, and therefore feels more like actual employment. All things being well, that should transmogrify** into a full script sometime soon. Unless I get fired, of course.

And... a meeting about a script that was previosuly all edgy and teeny has resulted into that probably being whitled into a pre-teen sitcom as well.

So, I seem to have turned into a children's writer over the past couple of months, which is lovely and fun. But just to keep a couple of rods in the fire, I also had a meeting about a script where someone gets murdered with an axe that also went quite well. Expect to see it on CITV next year!

*And perverts.

** Underused word, that.

The mind goes to some strange places...

2009-09-19T02:14:00.001+01:00

So, possibly because it's so very late, and possibly because whatever Derren Brown did to my mind had nothing to do with me sitting down, and so I can only assume had other nefarious purposes... whatever the reason, the sketches that I'm writing on spec to demonstrate to Quite Important Sketch Show that I can indeed make people laugh in a minute and a half or so... well, they've all gone a bit dark.

We started off with a child's face melting, then went on to a minor assault on a faded celebrity. Thereafter there was an iPod induced suicide, and we've just had a chicken carcass eating someone. Tomorrow I'll write up the other two, involving a small car crash and terrible profanity.

Worse, most of these are in some way inspired by the last week or so of my life. Except for the melty face, thankfully.

Drunken Uncle Blog...

2009-09-16T20:27:00.003+01:00

Yes, the once vibrant and verdant Deleted Scenes has become a Drunken Uncle Blog, turning up only at wedding discos with at least one more sheet to the wind than is advisable, and only then to talk loudly and constantly about himself and inappropriately say “fuck”.

Sidebar: when my brother one day has children, I will totally be that guy. I’m looking forward to it.

So... I have actually been up to stuff. Most notably in non-screenwriting life, I’ve had a car crash, my first and hopefully only car crash. Actually, crash makes it sound far more dramatic and end-of-Cold-Feet than it was; it was actually a very slow and annoying bump that barely bruised my knee, but which has nonetheless written off my beloved Corsa, Jimmy. I am absolutely going to stop naming inanimate objects, it makes me sad. It’s like taking the big metal blue dog to be put down. Evil insurance company is paying me far less than I think it’s worth. Finding it very hard not to spray-paint “FUCK YOU, VULTURES” on the windshield.

Screenwriting stuff: There’ve been a bunch of meetings, which has led to a bunch of pitching, which has kept me busier than I thought; making something sound good on one page is perversely much harder than just diving on in. Forgive me being vague: I don’t want to be like Quentin Tarrantino, forever talking about projects that never materialise, hence making it sound like I'm making everything up.

I’ve also attended my very first storylining day on someone else’s show which was very very fun and a little bit odd in a brilliant way: one of the people I was pitching to played Ludo in Labyrinth and Donatello in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I saved all my squee-ing until I was fully out of ear-range. Also, the hotel we were in was apparently owned by John Malkovitch. Like I said, odd, but also brilliant.

I then got stuck on a broken down train with a bunch of Plymouth Argyle fans whose entire vocabulary was reduced to mumblings about beer and imitating that Paul Whitehouse advert, which up until last night I kind of liked. This part of the day was less brilliant.

*Drunken Uncle Blog wanders off mumbling and props himself up at the hotel bar, attempting to chat up a bust of Venus*

District 9: One man's somewhat juvenile backlash...

2009-09-07T17:03:00.006+01:00

The following adjectives can be applied to District 9, most of them retaining much of their accuracy with the prefix "massively":

Soulless;
Over-hyped;
Noisy;
Vapid;
Juvenile;
Racist;
Derivative;
Glib; and
Hypocritical.

But if you'd like to sit through a film that's the equivalent of being shouted at by a teenager for two hours, and then top it off with David Brent's revenge fantasy, be my guest. Everyone else seems to love it.

Secrets nobody was keeping...

2009-07-22T21:53:00.003+01:00

So, here’s the thing they don’t tell you. Well, someone, somewhere probably did tell me, but I wasn’t listening. It could be that someone’s screaming this in my ear right now, as I type, but I wouldn’t have noticed because I’m remarkably self absorbed. Also, the radio’s on.

Treatments and outlines and ridiculously important, and being good at them is stupendously important, if you want anyone to pay you for writing.

I don’t mean that in the same way that McKee means that – that’s a writer’s treatment, and whether they’re a good or a bad thing is for the forums. I’m talking about the selling documents.

Because let’s say you’ve done your homework, read a bunch of scripts, practiced your screenwriting, got yourself a nice portfolio and a sample script and an agent and all that good stuff, and let’s say people like your sample script and ask for more – and you’ll probably want to come back with a bunch of ideas. And as they probably won’t like most or all of these, you writing full scripts for each would be a tremendous waste of your time and theirs, and everyone would crawl into a corner to slowly die whilst wishing there was an alternative.

Come out of the corner! There is an alternative! It’s the treatment (for your blues).

Sorry, got carried away a bit there and ended up on a bad pun. It won’t happen again. I had a point... oh, yes. Practice writing selling treatments as much as you practice writing scripts. 1 page pitches and several page episode and character outlines... Because you might be fantastic in bed, but if you make a bad impression on the first date, that lucky lady/boy/ladyboy will never get to find that out.

Who wants to hope I was talking metaphorically there?

In other news, I’ve started a Twitter account. Well, technically, I started it ages ago and never posted anything, but then Bill Cunningham started following me, so I thought I’d better, or he’d come and cover me with his mad bastard pulp. Anyway, I’ll probably get bored of it soon, so you can just blamed Bill for the atrophying lump of code-flesh now sitting on the right hand of the screen. Bill, incidentally, has already got bored and stopped following. So begins the rot.

In other other news, apparently my ability to pre-emptively dress like the Doctor has glitched, as I haven’t started wearing a bow tie and a tweed jacket. Oh course, what’s happened here is that there’s been a genre telly atom mash up. Happens with time-travellers occasionally – The Doctor has started dressing like Rupert Giles, I’m still dressing like me, and Giles must therefore be dressing like both the Doctor and me. That, or blue and brown suits were never that rare anyway.

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

2009-06-22T22:14:00.008+01:00

Well, with the summer solstice passing this weekend, it was a good time for a bit of a celebration of death and rebirth... that's right, dedicated readers: my laptop has died. Booooooooo. But now I have a nice new shiny laptop. Hurrah! It's all ups and downs on the solstice.

But shiny and nail-polish stain free as my lovely new Acer is, let us spend a minute to mourn the passing of my bizarrely over-specced (is that how you spell that?) but still slightly rubbish Dell, The Script Machine. Yes, I named my laptop. Nothing weird about that. It's been dying a slow and torturous death of massive crashes and complete file corruptions for three months or so, and I spent quite a lot of the past month shouting at it furiously and threatening to hit it with sticks, but t'was on those fair keys that I wrote my very first half decent scripts, and a few bad ones.

The Script Machine: 2004 - 2009. Rest in the spare bedroom.

My new laptop is very shiny, and in a super sexy midnight blue, not, not, I assure you, pink. I would include a picture, but it's so beautiful that you would all travel to my house and kidnap it, travelling with it to a cave to be your illicit-tech bride. You know you would. You're filthy.

It's crunch week for That's How I Roll - commissioning decisions from BBC3 are due this week, so I should know one way or t'other soon enough. Whichever way the decision falls, I suspect beer will follow.

And finally, in my occasional series of musical recommendations that mostly revolve around Ladytron, can I suggest you purchase their very first iTunes exclusive live album here. I should have been part of the crowd noise, but I was at the previous Astoria show, that got cancelled 40 minutes in when an amp blew up unimpressivley but fatally (for the amp, nobody actually died). Therefore, this recommendation is tinged with a little bit of resentment, which at least suits the mood of the music.

I bid you adieu.

Drag me to rationality...

2009-06-06T13:01:00.004+01:00

I went to see Drag Me To Hell recently, and it's a lot of fun, silly, scary (in a boo! way as opposed to a Session 9 could sleep for days way) and a throw-back to the sort of movies that made me fall in love with horror in the first place; not suprising, as it was written by Sam and Ivan Raimi, who are also responsible for Army of Darkness, the very first horror film I saw.

But... here's my problem. Girl gets cursed by Gypsy. Fine, story wise, if a teensy bit racist. She has two people supporting her - her boyfriend, who tells her that everything's fine, all the spooky goings on are just post-traumatic stress, there's no such thing as demons, or hell etcetera etcetra - and the weird psychic dude with the bitchin' 'fro.

Of course, rational boy's wrong, and weird-ass mystic if right. Which is a problem for me. Because those movies make me a schmuck. They make Richard Dawkins a schmuck... well, he kind of is a schmuck, but he's also right. There are no demons. There is no hell. The only curse a Gypsy is likely to utter is "Fuck off".

And have you ever met anyone who believes, ernestly belives, in psychic powers, or angels or fairies - oh, god, those people with "I brake for fairies" stickers on the back of their car. They smell like joss-sticks. They think the world's going to end in 2012, and that horroscopes have some bearing on our weekly lives.

Those people are fucking nuts. And they drive me fucking nuts. But in supernatural movie land, they're heroes.

And then, bless him, George Romero came along and calmed me down. Because of the professor on the chat show in Dawn of the Dead. Utterly rational. Utterly right. Utterly believes in zombies.

Hurrah.

Writersroom Roadshow in Plymouth tomorrow...

2009-06-01T22:43:00.005+01:00

At the risk of yet more marvelous redundancy, let me say as many others have that the BBC Writersroom Roadshow is in sunny old Plymouth tomorrow evening. You can read more about it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/roadshows.shtml.

It's at the very decent Theatre Royal (where one of the first things I ever co-wrote was staged, hoooh, yes) and you can hand in your script in person then ask the very friendly and helpful Writersroom peeps what is they do, what they're looking for and all that good gubbins.

Crazy people bringing powerdrills and chainsaws because their scripts came back with no notes are notified that their Writersroom roadshow has been moved to Jester's Nightclub on Union Street, where the bouncers will bid them a cheery hello.

Doctor Who Costume Exclusive...

2009-05-27T23:09:00.005+01:00

Oh, dear me. This blog’s just turning into a long list of apologies, isn’t it? I might as well be Catholic. Oooh, a Catholic confession blog: That’d be good. I’d read that.

So, I went to the Red Planet workshop over a week ago now, and yet I still haven’t written anything about it. It’s an experiment. I’m trying to simulate print media in a digital age. That, or I’m lazy. Actually, not even that: busy.

Jason wrote up his experience of the whole thing here, and he summed it up very well, rendering this post not only late but redundant. Tony Jordan is a palpably friendly person who sums up the noun ‘bloke’ so well he could be a dictionary definition. He also swears more than I do, which makes me just a little bit jealous. And it’s hard to bring together any sort of summary of points as it’s all just a big inspiring blur, mixed in with a lot of unrepeatable language and scurrilous accusations, and I’m not really all that blokey, so I doubt I’d have it come across very well.

Nevertheless, in short: know why it is you write; don’t bother trying to follow the crowd, as this will leave you both behind the crowd who have inevitably moved on and will also leave you artistically bankrupt*, and... um... oh, don’t worry about budgets, that’s producer’s job; fight your corner but know when to back down. I’m sure there was more.

Oh, and at one point he read my mind.

I also met someone who used to script-edit Doctor Who, which I didn’t realise until someone pointed out later; this was best for all involved as I didn’t have an embarrassing fanboy meltdown, and said person didn’t have to endure an embarrassing fanboy meltdown.

And on the subject of Doctor Who... I know what the 11th Doctor’s going to wear. Nobody’s told me, it’s just one of my very mild superpowers. Because, and prepare to gasp – gasp – in excitement, I accidentally dress like the Doctor. Not in a fanboyish way, despite such insulations in the previous paragraph, hoh no. Just, about a year before a new Doctor takes the reins, I start dressing like he will. This has started recently, by the way. I didn’t run around school with a leek attached to my jumper. But, when the new Who came on the telly, I noticed the Doctor was wearing my clothes. Not hard, back then, of course, it was just jeans and a leather jacket and a t-shirt. But nonetheless, that’s how I dressed.

I decided to smarten up a bit, somewhere towards the end of that series, and got myself a nice brown suit, which I wore with an overcoat, and because I’m not really fond of proper shoes, basket-ball shoes. A pattern was forming.

Then, with no real impetus, I changed to a blue suit. And low and bloody behold, so did the Doctor.

So, what will Matt Smith be rocking up in following his jaunt around the Tardis' mammoth wardrobe? Well, I’ve just started wearing a brimmed cloth hat. My money’s on the Doctor bringing the hat back. Also, if the current state of my hair’s anything to go by (somewhere between Yahoo Serious and Ollie Barbieri from Skins), he’ll also be sporting a white-boy ‘fro.

Although, now I come to think of it... I do seem to be describing Tom Baker. See, that’s the problem with accidentally dressing like Timelords: Nonlinearity.

And, now, ladies and gentlemen, Mitch Benn:

Oh, also That’s How I Roll has made it through all the various stages of execs and is going to Danny Cohen for next Thursday, blah blah blah.

* He didn’t actually say “artistically bankrupt”, that’s where my blokiness falls down.

Grammar, good and bad...

2009-05-18T22:16:00.006+01:00

Oh, well, hello. Yes, it's been a while. What can I say? I've been busy. Well, I say busy. I saw Emperor Palpatine* walking around Truro the other day and I've been gurgling in a fanboy-overload coma since. True.

So, and this shows how long it has been since I last posted here, as everyone is now far more interested in the shocking - shocking - idea that politicians are corrupt... but anyway, swine flu then. Swine flu, as it applies to word misuse.

Pandemic. I hate that fucking word. Or, I hate how it's been misappropriated. Everyone was "possibility of a pandemic" this, and "fear of a pandemic" that. Now, a pandemic is where virtually everyone in the world gets a disease. As a football commentator who I've now forgotten the name of** said, "always leave yourself a couple of octaves spare in case they score a goal". Fear of a pandemic is fine, no, natural, but it's getting ahead of itself a bit, isn't it? How about fearing an epidemic first? Or even an outbreak. Leave yourself a couple of octaves***.

Also, I saw the new Star Trek film at the weekend, and grammar-defenders**** who are offended by the incorrect but poetic split-infinitive of "to boldly go" will at least be pleased that Spock managed to use "infer" and "imply" in the correct senses, whilst discussing time travel paradoxes. Hurrah.

* * *

And in Oli land... That's How I Roll episode 2 has been written, and rewritten and tweaked and twisted and then ironed out and at some point probably tumble-dried, and now it's begun it's journey up the ladder of execs (who are all very nice). Fingers crossed.

I'm off on Wednesday to Flitwick for the Red Planet seminar, which I will try and report back from, then into London village in the afternoon to meet my agent and generally swan about a bit, and then on Friday, I have my first meeting off the back of Seven Spires, in Bristol. Don't worry, I won't list every other (at this point imaginary) meeting I get, but, y'know, firsts and that...

* Don't you tell me it was just Ian McDiarmid, I won't have it. It. Was. Emperor. Palpatine.

** Seriously, I know nothing about football.

*** For the record, I do not think that a lot of people dying of flu would have been a 'goal'. My conceit got away from me a bit. I just don't like the word pandemic. That is all.

**** Nazi's a bit harsh, isn't it?

A brief thought on inspiration...

2009-05-03T00:14:00.002+01:00

You'd think that having Top 100 Stand-Ups on in the background whilst trying to write comedy would be inspiring. It's a bit more like trying to have a kick-around whilst David Beckham watches.

Yeah, I know nothing about football. He's the only guy I know.

Juvenilia...

2009-04-16T23:15:00.004+01:00

Warning: This post is unintentionally smug.

There’s a big cardboard box in the corner of my bedroom, filled with a bunch of stationery and screenwriting gubbins that I keep meaning to throw away. Every so often, I look over and think, I should throw that away, but it’s largely the same colour as my walls, so like the Predator, it blends in just leaving a box shaped outline that glimmers slightly when it moves*, and I forget about it again.

Anyway, I was having one of these ill-conceived refuse creation notions the other day and started digging through it, and turned up a bunch of scripts that I wrote whilst I was at University and really should have been writing something about The Integration of the Hybrid Library into Higher Education**.

So, a quick review, in order of their writing:

Is There a Dog? A shambling, rambling, anarchic action comedy that I penned with my flatmate, Richard Fenning. Rubbish and plotless but filled with good ideas, mostly his. It looked like a script, mostly. First proper screenplay written in any length. Unfinished.

What Can I Get For a Rib? Sub-Kevin Smith blokes talking in a room that reads like a really bad episode of Skins and has a title embarrassingly taken from a misogynist joke. Some promising dialogue, still no plot. Unfinished.

Out of the Woods. Atrociously, and I hope you took the time to roll the R’s in your head whilst reading that, atrociously bad horror movie that I clearly intended to film with mates as all the locations are within about 10 steps of my parents’ house. Any indication of talent that was beginning to show in the previous two scripts flushed entirely down the toilet. Which is, coincidentally, how one of the characters dies. Unfinished.

Count 99 and Kiss Me. Fucking hell. A half decent title. And... oh, a half decent script. My very first actually quite good script. Written for the Sci-Fi competition that James Moran won. I didn’t win, probably because it’s just a pastiche of other people’s ideas (noticeably Phillip K. Dick and Jeff Noon), but it’s a nicely written pastiche if I say so myself***. Finished, though it being 10 pages long probably has something to do with that. So, development, good.

No more screenwriting happened for, ohhh, about three years after that, when I decided I wasn’t a novelist. Now, I’m not saying that everything I write now is fried gold, but I know I’m better than these scripts. It’s nice to see how bad I used to be, because it implies that I’ll keep getting better. I hope so. I like doing this.

* It does not move.

** My dissertation, a fancy way of saying ‘In the future, there will be computers’. The advent of Google rendered my degree entirely pointless.

*** I do.

I await my reply from Malta's tourist board...

2009-04-02T23:24:00.009+01:00

Hello! It's me! I used to have a blog here, remember? So, I went off and got married. That was lovely. The day itself was just all round brilliance, my wife (he he he, look, wife) looked gorgeous in her dress, I spent a lot of the day smiling, the sun shined throughout and then we had an awesome party in the evening where we got to see a bunch of people we really like all in one place. Thanks to everyone who came, to everyone who donated to our worthier-than-thou charity wedding list, to anyone who helped in any way or wished us well, and to everyone who got involved in the Libertines dance off at the end of the evening.

Then, the honeymoon, came and... now, it was lovely to spending time together, and we would have had a nice time if we spent two weeks in a housing estate in Plymouth, but... don't go to Malta. It's rubbish. It's like Italy fell down and nobody bothered to tidy up afterwards.

I like a moan, and I do have my glib blog-voice on a lot when posting here. But this is a genuine plea. There are better places in the world. Don't go.

Admitteddly, we didn't get off to a great start, which may have coloured my view of one of the world's smallest countries - we got dropped off at the wrong hotel by the airport shuttle, then had to pay for a cab to the right one, in a town nine miles away. The cab drivers in Malta apparently don't pass any sort of driving test, they just play Grand Theft Auto for a bit until they've got the gist of it. At one point we were doing 100 in a 40 zone.

Once we got to the right hotel, against all probability in one piece, it turned out to be a cockroach ridden flea pit* and what had promised to be a swimming pool was actually a closed jacuzzi.

But even if we'd had a great start, I still doubt I would have liked Malta. Everywhere's got nice bits and shit bits, I know that, but Malta's so small that they're right next to each other.

In the interest of balance, here are three nice things about Malta.

Cisk, the local beer. Very tasty.
Kinnie, their local soft drink. Made from bitter oranges and eighteen aromatic herbs and a big ball of addictive weirdness. Wikipedia calls it 'refreshing yet peculiar'. They are correct.
You can visit the pub where Oliver Reed died.

That's it. We went to Cardinham Woods when we got back and had a lovely time. We're so Cornish.

* The fleas are figurative, the cockroaches were real.

Going to the chapel, and I'm gonna get married...

2009-03-13T18:40:00.003Z

It's actually a church, but that doesn't make for cute blog headlines.

So, you won't hear from me for a bit as I'm off to get married and have a honeymoon and all sorts of cool stuff. Now I'm off to nervously practice my speech. Was fine writing it, but don't they have, y'know, actors for the actual performance? No?

So, the BBC have comissioned me to write a script...

2009-02-26T20:48:00.009Z

Admittedly, that's not the most witty, subtle or modest of head-lines, but God dammit, I wanted it up there in big motherfucking letters. Let's have that again...

I'm getting paid to write. By the BBC.

Yeah, still feels good.

Oh, you probably want to know the story behind this, right? No? Screw you. You're hearing it.

So, on the 30th of October of last year, a very kindly fellow writer e-mailed me to ask if I minded if he passed That's How I Roll, my funnier than it sounds sitcom, to a producer that he knew at the BBC, Jack Cheshire. Should said writer want to identify himself, he is very welcome, as I am very grateful but don't want him to get bombarded with scripts by the millions of readers of this blog. Sorry, back on track. No, no I did not mind. This seemed like a really damn good idea.

One week - one week, I say, and this story doesn't get much more likely from this point on - I got a phonecall from Jack at the BBC saying he liked the script and wanted to option it. Which was a bit of a lovely/stunning suprise. Yes. Yes, I wanted him to option it. A few more e-mails, voice mails and very excited phone calls followed.

Eventually a meeting date was set. 2nd of December, on the same day as I got picked up by Berlin Associates and met a load of bloggers (which is why I look so happy). That was a very busy, and very good day.

An option agreement ensued, as did rewrites on the script following comments from some very cool people. There were ten pages chucked from the end, ten new pages invented in the middle, a bad guy added and one of the characters who came in at page twenty now comes in page 4, because he was well liked. Hurrah.

Side bar - I feel extrodinarily lucky that any of this has happended, and that extends to the rewrite period. All tales of rewrites I hear seem to be nightmares of buffoonish execs and The Wrestler being tailored for Nick Cage (seriously), but mine was very very nice. All of the ideas and comments I got in were excellent and true, and the script's waaaaaaay better because of it.

Once the script was in its waaaaay better state, it was pitched to the comedy commisioner, Lucy Lumsden, who was alarmingly nice about it and agreed it should go to BBC3 to be pitched to Danny Cohen. It was pitched to Danny Cohen, which apparently went well.

Then, yesterday, I got the magic call. BBC3 are comissioning me to write a second episode. Presumably to ensure I'm not a charlatan. I may be in trouble, as I actually came across the script in the aftermath of a pitch meeting gone wrong. There were bullets and dead Mexicans everywhere. I clawed the still bloody manuscript from a dying screenwriter's hands, and fled back to my wife Kelly McDonald. Another Mexican with terrible hair is coming for me now. So I'd better go.

Horrifying Remakes...

2009-02-16T22:44:00.001Z

Whilst in the grubby, straight to DVD end of horror original stories are bumbling along quite happily (well, not happily, but you know what I mean), mainstream horror seems to be entirely remade. I know this isn't news, by the way, but it's kind of leading to something.

Remakes, like sequels, are fundamentally whore movies. They don't love you, they're just in it for the money. But there's $5 crack whore remakes, and then there's Johanna Lumley in Shirley Valentine remakes. And here's the difference: don't bother remaking something that's already good. No need. There's The Thing, and the Fly*. Both great remakes, from interesting but imperfect originals. Then there's The Omen 666, Rob Zombie's Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw remake, and it's .... urgh... sequel. All pretty much perfect orginals that had no need of a crass remake**.

With this in mind, I bring forth for your consideration 5 horror movies that should be remade, and 5 horror movies that should be left the hell alone. Feel free to disagree, shout, scream and/or add your own suggestions.

Films to be remade:

Hellraiser. Apparently this is already in development, so I'm off to a good start. The original has a simple but efficient story (the novella's even leaner), some awesome imagery, and great mythology. The direction's alright. But the dialogue's poor, the acting's terrible, it ends with a tramp turning into a dragon, and most of all - it's set in London, it's filmed in London, and yet all the brits are played by Americans. Who don't try to hide their accents. Remake please.

Nightbreed. Don't worry, this isn't just a list of Clive Barker movies, promise. Same problems as Hellraiser: great idea, great imagery, decent story, shodding acting, direction and script. Would do well as a TV series, as the guy-with-strange-dreams-gets-framed-by-his-psychiatirst-for-a-series-of-murders-and-goes-looking-for-a-mythical-city-of-monsters-before-being-murdered-and-coming-back-from-the-dead-and-then-the-serial-killer-shrink-a-drunk-priest-and-a-hick-sheriff-try-to-destroy-the-monster-town story has enough trouble fitting into this paragraph, let alone into a movie.

Paperhouse. Very creepy Coraline-esque British horror (girl draws picture, picture becomes real) directed by grumpy fellow Bernard Rose, hamstrung by low budget and bad kid acting.

The Howling. Retreat for woman attacked by werewolf turns out to be filled with werewolves. The irony of it all. I caught this one when I was doing my trawl through the horror section in my local video library in 1995. (I pretended to be a very slight 18 year old. They must think I'm... ooh, approaching 32 by now. Proper subterfuge, that.) Anyway, my mates had all sold this to me as a classic, and... not so much. It's kind of funny, and kind of scary, but for most of the film it kind of ambles along not really knowing what it is. Could probably benefit from being a little less quirky. I'm a soulless studio suit, really.

Dead and Buried. Small town cop investigates brutal murders in his town, someone gets a hypodermic in the eye and it's all to do with really good taxidermy. Essentially a great and very creepy idea, but... I won't spoil it for you, but the end's rubbish. Someone needs to make a version that makes a bit of sense, please.

Films to stay the hell away from:

Candyman. One by both Bernard Rose and Clive Barker, so they can forgive me for dissing them earlier. A film that scares you with Tony Todd's voice alone. Takes in race, myth, infidelity, the American class system and has a cracking central performance for Virginia Madsen.

A Nightmare on Elm Street. I know you're doing this, and you must stop now. Kane Hodder may have been the best Jason, but Robert Englund is the only Freddy.

The Shining. The minute it makes sense***, it stops being scary. Which is why the mini-series was rubbish, and... oh, wait, does the mini series count as a remake? Rubbish.

Bride of Frankensteing. Oh... hang on, Sting did one, didn't he?

Psycho. Shit.

Hmmm. I was a bit late, wasn't I?

* That these movies managed to pack themselves full of subtext also helped: The Thing is about the Cold War, and the Fly is about AIDS. But that's indicative of good film making, by good film makers, the sort that would choose to remake films that need remaking. See how I twist the world to fit my point?
** I avoided The Wicker Man, because I love the original so. I haven't seen the Friday the 13th remake yet. On the plus side, Friday the 13th is fun but silly, and not a sacred cow by any means. It's got Kevin Bacon in hot pants, which damages a lot of it's credibility. On the minus side, it's been done by the same diretor who ruined Texas Chainsaw, and who seems to think that horror movies are exclusivley about screaming. I will withold judgement. For the record, mt favourite Friday the 13th movie is 10, Jason X. Not a popular choice, but I'm sticking with it.
*** I know I said Dead and Buried should be remade to make sense. I have no defense, I just wanted to stop you pointing it out.

Justifying geekiness...

2009-02-03T17:02:00.007Z

... or how Role Playing can help you become a better writer.

It's no big secret that I'm a bit of a geek; that I walk around in a T-Shirt with "Geek" written across it a goodly portion of the time does little to help matters. My peculiar geek poison of choice is roleplaying games. If you're not sure what they are, here's a quick primer.

Now, you may just think that RPGs are just nerdy nonsense, and to a degree you'd be right. But not if you take them as seriously as I do. In a roleplaying game, most of the group play characters within a (usually) fantasy world of some kind, and one member of the group is the Games Master - in my group, usually me.

The GM is responisble for all the rules arbitration, playing all the supporting characters and antagonists, and - most importantly - coming up with the story. Every week. Story, story, story. I must have learnt something, right?

RPGs will identify your strengths and weaknesses.
We all say we love feedback. "Read my script and give me feedback" we cry, like a hungry, angry baby. Sometimes, we even listen. But mostly only if we were thinking the same thing anyway. Can't do that with RPGs. Because if your story's not going well, your friends will slump in their seats. They'll start looking longingly at your X-Box. They'll chat and flip through magazines. And at that point, you can't help but acknoledge this isn't your finest hour. If things are going well, your group will be having a great time. They'll be lively. They'll play in character more. They'll laugh at the funny bits, get into complex moral debates that you've set out before them, and - in one particularly proud Cthulhu moment - jump and scream a little bit. Instant feedback. Measurable feedback. Honest feedback.

RPGs can help you with treatments and outlines.
The story notes that I use for planning roleplaying games are almost identical to the ones I use when planning a script - the plot in beat form, snippets of description and dialogue, character descriptions. And very week you have to come up with a new one. So you're learning to outline, fast, and you're getting better at it every week. And not only are you plotting each week, you're running a campaign, a series of linked adventures. So that's a series outline then.

RPGs teach you to improvise
When you're GMing, you control all the world - expect for the bloody players. And those sons of bitches will always do something you don't expect them to. So you're spitballing story about 50% of the time - basically, you're live pitching. How often to we get to practise that?

RPGs teach you about suprising inevitability.
Players will do things you don't expect them to. I've done this one, but it teaches you two distinct things a) spitballing, as seen above, and b) suprsing inevitability. I forget who said it now, but stories should be both suprising and inevitable. RPGs teach you this very literally.

Characters in stories are forever trapped in their fate, and no matter what they try and do, they're going to end up there, because we've already decided it. Same with RPGs a lot of the time. I know what I want my characters to do. But my characters are living breathing people who aren't party to this. So you set them up. You put them in untennable situations, where they choose to act in the way you know they will. It's evil, but it's fun. But, but, but. The players must never ever realise that this is what you're doing. They need to make the choises you want them to of their own free will. And when they try something you know they must fail at, they must feel like they have a chance. When you know they're going to succeed, they must constantly feel the threat of a failure. Just like when an audience watches your show then.

RPGs teach you about motivation.
The worst games I've particiapted in as a player-character are the ones where I'm swept along by a railroad plot. If your players don't want to go on whatever mission you've planned for them, don't moan and whine. You've plotted badly. Because if you've plotted well, the players will be biting off your ear for your quest. Because it's not your quest, it's theirs.

To flip it around for a sec, in writing the equivalent of a rail road RPG plot are plot-robot characters. In a TV drama recently, the whole plot revolved around one character not telling the other an important piece of information. Which he had no reason to withhold. At all. Hence the plot began. More plot happened. Character two asked character one something. He withheld information. Again. Again for no reason, other than without it, said episode would have been about a minute long. Tragedy ensued, but it was unnecessary tragedy, because the characters were plot robots. I failed to care.

RPGs teach you to roll with the punches.
Not literally, sadly, or secondary school would have been less painful and more Jackie Chan. People join the group. People leave, permanently for a new job, or semi-permanently to go travelling, or for a holiday, or because they're ill for a week or whatever. I've had to write long running characters out, and I've had to give them suitable exits. I've had to write characters out so that they can come back. I've had to introduce new characters in a way that doesn't feel silly or stilted. I've had to write 'Doctor-Lite' episodes to explain people's absense.

Getting a bit ahead of myself here, but I'm glad I've had the practice.

Still not dead...

2009-01-31T22:11:00.002Z

Despite an apparent lack of activity that could rival the amount of good to be found in Iggy Pop's insurance advert, and despite several blogs shutting up shops recently, I am very much still here. Allow me to explain.

1: I'm getting married. In, like, six weeks. Wait, slightly under six weeks. In six weeks I'll be a husband. With a wife and everything. Magic. But a lot of time is spent thinking, and planning, and... alright, that's mostly my girlfriend doing that. But I do spend a lot of time oooooohing and aaaaahing at wedding presents as they arrive, does that count?

2: The internet is out at my house. Most outright practical reason for no bloggery. And, no, sadly my desire to blog has not become so great that I can now direct my thoughts straight into the inter-ether, I'm simply leeching off my parents' connection. And you wouldn't want to read the blog of my actual thoughts anyway, it would be confusing, ill thought through and prone to wondering off on tangents. So in no way like what you actually get.

3: I'm waiting for something worth blogging about. Which sounds terribly morose, but I'm waiting for the most-important-phone-call-of-my-life-so-far (it's alright, I'm not married until March, I can still talk about writing like that till then) and then I'll have something to talk about, one way or t'other.

4: Ummm... I was struck dumb after seeing this?

I'm sure I'm a bit late in hating on this epic piece of marketing fail, but I've only just got over it enough to type. If you don't know who Iggy Pop is, it's just a weird fucking advert that doesn't make you want to use whatever the hell service they provide. If you do know who Iggy Pop is, then it's the most soul crushingly banal thirty seconds of telly you've ever seen.

Now wash your mind:

Celebrate Little Brother

2009-01-22T16:55:00.006Z

It's a kind of sort of pun!

Congratulations to my little brother (officially my taller brother), Morgan, who begins his ascent in the world of telly-production on Monday when he joins RDF as a logger. Sent CV out on Monday, got call last night, starts Monday. Properly, properly mad, and apart from not getting to see him much anymore, properly good. Give him a few years and he'll be the controller of ITV.

Yes, I'm planning my nepotism in advance.

It's late and I'm tired...

2009-01-09T01:12:00.003Z

... so instead of anything about writing, here's some web videos.

The best fake trailer that ever has and ever shall be made:

And the Skins marketing team contuing to produce the best adverts this side of Guinness:

Hurrah. Sleep now.

The best of times, the blurst of times...

2009-01-05T23:41:00.007Z

Only five days into the new year, and already memed, by Lara. Well, something had to get me writing. Here's my challenge:

When it comes to writing, what do you know you're good at, and what aspect of writing are you worst at? (Procrastination is not permitted as either part of the answer.)

I can do character, and I can do dialogue, which are so closely related in TV writing (or at least TV writing as written by me) as to be all bundled up in one big thing that I can do quite well. All the arm-chair McKees will tell you that characters are what they do, not what they say, but in telly most of what people do is talk, so... there.

I have trouble writing women. They have come out, in the past, as blokes with boobs. I think the latter plagues all men to some extent, and vice versa; Toni Morrison's an exception. I seem to have found one female voice that works and stuck with it. So far, very few people have read more than one of my scripts, so I've got away with it.

Structure bugs me. It's not that I can't do it, just that it doesn't come naturally. I don't like to plan things out in too much detail beforehand - I wrote a 40ish page treatment for the worst piece of shit script I've ever written, and now I'm superstitious about them. This does mean that sometimes I often have to do that bit once the script's already at an unwieldy 40 - 60 pages, and yes, it'd probably be easier beforehand. Nightshift went through several different and painful versions because the structure was wonky.

The good news is (for me anyway), whilst I don't think you can book-learn character and dialogue, I think you can with structure. Screenwriting's both an art and a craft, and structure's very much at the craft end of things. If you're going to delve into screenwriting books, check out the structure sections, and leave the rest alone. Everything else in them is just stuff you secretly know already. I can also recommend Lucy Vee's script notes, which more or less saved Nightshift.

There we go. Hmmm... let's tag Chip, Phill, Lexi, and Ray Fresham, who apparently read this blog.

What kind of year has it been?

2009-01-03T22:49:00.002Z

Ohh, the new Doctor is younger than me. Fucking hell. Hmmm... but I do have my own eyebrows, so it evens out. Clever but not entirely subtle clips of him running about in a period costume with Billie Piper while things exploded won me over. So that's all good.

Right, back to the post. What kind of year has it been?

Well, there’s a question with several contradictory answers. At the beginning, pleasant and kind of ambley. Towards the middle, rubbish and terrifying. Towards the end, delightful and jubilant. This is a writing blog, so I shan’t linger on act 2 of the year, other than to say a) it was all my fault and b) I’m glad it’s over.

At the end of last year, I set myself what I labelled at the time some hopelessly optimistic goals. All things considered, I can end the year feeling kind of chipper. Let’s review them now...

Write Two TV Specs - Achieved.

That’s How I Roll was first up, a sitcom about two disabled friends trying to save their home from closure. Began life as a film pitch for an indie producer, who like most indie producers said some nice things, got me to do some writing for free, and disappeared into the ether. But he was nice, and polite, which is all you can ask for from people who are going to disappear. Better than someone driving by your house and shouting “Twat!” at you.

I don’t think of myself as a funny person, and though I’ve never written a script without a joke in it, not generally as a comedy writer either, so That’s How I Roll was an experiment in craft for me. Creating jokes and funny plot lines is the nearest that writing gets to work for me, and I’d be proud of THIR on those terms alone, even if everyone else hated it.

Which, as it turns out, they didn’t. It did well on Zoetrope, then some very nice feedback from other bloggers, and was eventually placed in this year’s Red Planet Prize, which was a whole bag of nice. It’s been my most professionally cuddled script, and I’m very pleased with that.

After that came Memoria, which you lovely people told me to write back in July, when I put a bunch of ideas to a vote. It’s a spooky kids drama inspired by those Russell T. Davies 6-parters of the early ninties and it came out... quite well. There’s something still not perfect about it. It’s in rewrites at the minute. Nonetheless, I’d expanded my TV portfolio, including one with limited special effects, and one with no swearing. I must be growing up.

Complete Two Film Specs - No. Nowhere near. A bad miss.

Really. Didn’t do very well hear at all. The massive film script that continues to formulate in my head has been doing so for a couple of years now. I was sure this year was going to be it, but got as far as a couple of pages of notes. One day, I’ll have done enough research, and encouraged myself enough, and it’ll be my Butch and Sundance (sorry, my massive ego intruding there...), but for the minute, it continues to fester in my brain.

I pitched an outline for a low budget sci-fi, which I’m still proud of, and opened a very positive communication with the producer before they ran out of money and disappeared into the ether. See the above comments about indie film producers. Again, they were very nice, and the only disappointment is that the idea is fundamentally theirs, so I can’t take a story I very much like any further. Worse things...

I wrote a short script called The Fixer Upper, about an errant house spirit. People loved it and hated it in equal measure, which was a bit weird, but altogether nice. It was a bit long for a short script, but too complete to expand. I’m glad I told it.

Get An Agent. Did that.

Someone helped me tremendously, and I’m not saying who in case the hordes (hordes!) of people that read my blog pelt the person in question with scripts, but I’m sure they know I’m grateful; they may identify themselves if they wish.

Having an agent has so far literally paid for itself. He’s going to start pitching my drama pilots in ... oh, shit, anytime now. Better do a bit of last minute polishing.

Have a meeting in which I’m marvellously urbane and charming, off the back of which I get commissioned on a show.

I ain’t saying nufink.

So what’s up for next year?

Write more. Unless paid writing gloriously intrudes, two TV pilots and a feature spec sound good to me.

Improve as a writer. Looking back on stuff I wrote even a year ago, I cringe. I’d like to keep doing that, in as positive a way as possible.

Meet more writers. They’re great people all round, as far as I can tell, and a helpful and collegial bunch too, and December would have been duller without them.

More meetings, more pitching, more hustling. Meetings are fun. Everyone waiting in the lobby wears exactly the same outfit as you. It’s spooky, like writer uniform. Good meetings lead to...

Get paid to write. I’m not a novelist, after all*.

* Sorry, Lexi. This is actually because I don't have the patience. If I really wanted to be well paid, I be an actor. If I was better looking and capable of more than one note when talking. Seriously, Cybermen, expressive next to me.

Merry Xmas everybody!

2008-12-24T23:05:00.001Z

That is all.

This and that...

2008-12-18T22:14:00.005Z

Sorry, blog's gone off the boil a bit at the minute, as I've been a pleasant sort of busy.

Quick precis of events from my life:

Big secret thing is proceeding nicely. More phone calls, an e-mail or two and a lot of typing. Come January I will either have a big announcement to make or go very suddenly quiet and sullen, in which case I hope you will all have the decency to pretend these last few excited blog posts never happened.
Someone shot my bedroom window with a BB gun. Joke's on them - it was so poorly insulated anyway that I can't notice! Ha!
I've written a joke about Cliff Richard. Oh yes, I'm not afraid to touch all the tough subjects. Take that, Cliff.

Re: Agents*

2008-12-14T20:41:00.003Z

Sooooooo then...

Number 1 in the list of 2 previously secret things that left me grinning like a loon, as seen in this excellent bit of reportage by Mr. Arnopp.

I've got an agent. He's called Matt Connell**, he's at Berlin Associates, and he's already hustling for me.

So that's a bit good. That, along with Red Planet and the other still secret thing have made for a pretty damn fine end to the year.

Cheers!

* Number 2 in my occasional series of obscure Ladytron references.

** Also the agent of blogger and very nice fellow James Henry, who I surely owe a pint.

So then, London...

2008-12-04T20:40:00.001Z

Any attempts at obfuscation are largely pointless, as I met almost everyone who reads the blog at the pub straight afterwards, but... that was interesting. And good. Very interesting and very good.

More as the ink dries.

Oh, and aren't blog people lovely in real life?

I should probably be writing.

Things continue to go suspiciously well...

2008-11-26T23:55:00.006Z

YYYYYAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYAYYYAYYYYYYYYY!

Excuse me, that wasn't at all dignified.

All right, just once more.

YAAAAAAAY!

I've got through to the finals of the Red Planet Competition 2008. If that wasn't exciting enough, the e-mail alerting me to this did so with

GIANT RED LETTERS

which I appreciated greatly.

That's How I Roll, the little script that happened by accident, is really doing me all right at the minute.

Yay.

Anyone else celebrating?

Good/Bad...

2008-11-17T21:01:00.005Z

Well, that was phone call #2 in big lovely secret thing, which was interspersed with e-mail #1 and voicemails #1 and #2. Mostly all today. Phew. Everything still all pointing in the right direction, and I'm lining myself up for a very busy day on the 2nd of December. When I get to the pub, I'm either going to be unbearably chipper or depressingly dour, depending on how my two (count em) meetings go that day. Either way, I apologise in advance to those attending.

So, that's good.

Bad: My little brother want to find work in magic telly land. His dream lies in producing. Yes, I'm planning my future nepotism surfing already. And, no, none of this is the bad.

Said little brother (he's 22, and actually bigger than me, so I should probably start referring to him as my 'taller brother') is living at my parents house at the minute, working a bar job till he has enough money to support the big move to London, where he plans to work as an unpaid runner, working his way up.

Which was all going well until someone stole £800 from him and spent it on porn.

Bastards. Seriously, shitheaded fucknutted bastards. Online crime? That doesn't even have the balls to be proper crime. If you want my money, have the decency to dress in a hoody and threaten me with a stanley knife. Setting up a fake pay pal account? That's just rubbish. Not even your crack-mom will love you for that.

And on a practical note, how much porn does one man need? £800 worth? In a week? How do you find time to eat?

Anyway, Paypal and the bank people are all being lovely and hopefully taller brother will get his money back soonish.

But still. B-A-S-T-A-R-D-S.

I done used my talkin' words...

2008-11-06T20:52:00.005Z

Well, that was an exciting phone call. I shan't say too much else, as I am both a tremendous tease and because there's always that chance that these things go nowhere, then much like when my girlfriend lets me cook breakfast at the weekends, there will be egg on my face.

So, yes... exciting. However, it did underline that I really shouldn't be allowed to talk to people in real life. I'm much happier behind the shield of an e-mail, blog, or whatever. And yes, even though I begin this sentence with a conjunction, this is about as eloquent as I get. In real life I would have just mispronounced 'eloquent'. And 'mispronounced'.

So let's hope my giggling school-girl phone persona didn't sink the whole thing. Heee hee.

Heeeee heee hee.

Oh, and at Boz's request, Halloween reviews: Wrong Turn 2 is stupid teens-vs-cannibals gorer that's made at least 900% better by the appearance of Henry Rollins as an ex-marine. Proper good. The Orphanage is slightly overrated spookiness with actually quite a happy ending if you can get past what's literally happening. All The Boys Love Mandy Lane is depressing, witty and very good. Plus it has young Austin Powers from Goldmember in it, which has to be worth the price of the rental alone. Hurrah for Halloween.

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T13:23:00.004Z

Some men can play football. Others have a beautiful singing voice. The lucky few are amazing lovers.

I can carve awesome Jack O'Lanterns. It's my burden.

Pizza and beer in for this evening, when we shall be settling down to the delights of Wrong Turn 2 (sex, death and Henry Rollins), The Orphanage (some spooky looking Spanish kid with a bag over his head) and All The Boys Love Mandy Lane (not, as the lady at the video shop suggested, a romantic comedy to finish the night off, but a violent slasher movie).

Have a spooky evening, everyone.

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

2008-10-26T18:31:00.004Z

Nnnnnnyyyyyyeeeeaaaaa... Fable 2 is good. You know, quite good. Literally quite good. Okay, that's out of the way. Let's have a moan.

I'm getting a bit jaded. I know, I've not had anything produced and I'm already getting cynical. It has been said before, not incorrectly, that I'm a massive fucking drama queen.

But, y'know, you start getting nice feedback, top of the world, then you get complacent until you get some bad feedback. You meet a producer, you have lunch, nothing happens. Someone likes your treatment, but they've run out of money. Success not massive currently.

But... (time to turn my frown upside down) I never ever get tired of having a new idea. I fucking love that. That bit where the connections in your brain go... Giant robots - mutant animals - gay romance - a rediscovered Excalibur! (That was just a load of bunch of random words, but it actually sounds quite fun...) Then running off to grab scraps of paper and scribbling down line after line. Mmmmmmm. Actually physically exciting*. Tingly.

I had one of those recently.

Hmmm... this wasn't a moan at all, really, was it?

* Not like that, you with the brain in the gutter.

Boo!

2008-10-19T00:12:00.005+01:00

Yes, it's perhaps a little premature, but there are Christmas adverts on the telly already.

So we've gone a little Halloween themed here at The Deleted ~~Scenes~~ Screams - for the rest of October, blog mascot Spec Monkey has been shipped off on holiday and The Great Cthulhu will be filling in for him.

Be nice, he's hungry for souls.

Cathedrals and such...

2008-10-10T13:41:00.004+01:00

There's a saying that you don't know what you've got till it's gone. I think it's truer that you don't know what you've got till someone points at it and says 'ooooohhh'.

I'll be walking along in Truro and see a tourist taking a photo, which always bemuses me until I look up and recall the bloody great Cathedral standing in the middle of the town.

Similarly, I like my house much more directly after someone new has seen it and said 'oooooh'. I don't spend a lot of time doing that in my own house, that would just be odd, but it's nice to get appreciation of something of your own vicariously.

The opposite also holds true. If someone looks at something of yours and says 'urrrrgh', or even worse 'hmmmmmm...', you get sensitive, even if you love it.

This is true of my short script The Fixer Upper, which personally I think is the best thing I've written, but which has recently come in for a double kicking - my worst review from the Writersroom people to date, who are usually very nice, and getting dropped from the BSSC. I feel a bit sorry for the little fellow.

It also happens to be with an agent currently. Seemed like a good idea at the time...

A few things, then...

2008-10-06T20:03:00.006+01:00

So... The Writer's Tale is rather good, isn't it? Now, I'm only two chapters in, so I shan't rave about it like a little schoolboy, but I shall just say that, so far, it's possibly the best book ever. Now, wait until I finish it and decide that it's not really all that. Then I'll just come back and delete this blog post. See how very, very cunning I am. Vulpine, you could say. Oh, yes.

Oh, and go here and get six free scripts, which, yes, I have link whored from Jason Arnopp.

For people who think I never write about proper writing anymore, I'm formulating a televsion adaptation of a public-domain story which is turning very, very nasty in my head, a movie idea which is all going a bit Charlie Kaufman (don't worry, I don't think I'm as talented as he, though I do have better hair) and a short story about a badger who's also a detective. Balance is important.

Finally, I have also been memed, thoroughly memed, by Rach to choose a song that I think sums up writing. Well... not all of it, obviously, but... Drinking in L.A. Someone else has probably got there before me, what with it being the only song I can recall that's literally about screenwriting. And I'm not saying screenwriting's hell, anything but, and in fact I've never been to L.A. But I've had a day just like this, and I really enjoyed it. Just replace the name 'Mike' with 'Dan'. We really did do nothing, absolutely nothing that day.

I woke up again this morning with the sun in my eyes,
When Mike came over with a script surprise.
A Mafioso story with a twist,
A Too Wong Foo, Julie Newmar hitch,
Get your ass out of bed, he said:
I'll explain it on the way.

But we did nothing, absolutely nothing that day, and I say:
What the hell am I doing, drinking in L.A. at 26?
I got the fever for the flavour, the payback will be later, still I need a fix.

And the girls on the bus kept on laughing at us,
As we rode on the ten down to venice again.
Flaring out the g-funk,
Sipping on a juice and gin,
Just me and a friend.
Feeling kinda groovy,
Working on a movie. (yeah right!)

But we did nothing, absolutely butkis that day, and I say:
What the hell am I doing drinking in L.A. at 26?

With my mind on my money and my money on my... beer, beer!

I know that life is for the taking, so I better wise up, and take it quick.

Yeah, one more time at trader vics.

Some men there wanted to hurt us,
Another man said we weren't worth the fuss.
We could see them all bitching by the bar,
About the fine line, between the rich and the poor.
Then Mike turned to me and said:
What do you think we got done, Son?

We've got a conclusion, and I guess that's something, so I ask you:
What the hell am I doing drinking in L.A. at 26?
I got the fever for the nectar, the payback will be later, still I need a fix.

We need to fix you up, call me Monday and maybe well fix it all up.

Hell-a-l.a., hell hell-a-l.a.! ...

So I ask you:
What the hell am I doing drinking in l.a. at 26?

Hell-a-l.a., hell hell-a-l.a.

P.S. My beard has grown back just fine. I know you were all concerned.

Guest Post: Clever Things about Stupid Films

2008-09-25T01:22:00.007+01:00

Having just finished watching Doomsday, it's clear that Neil Marshall badly needs to direct something he hasn't written, because that is one good lucking, fucking stupid film. It's a bimbo of a film. Which brings me nicely to my guest post. My brother did films studies at Uni, and wrote about gender issues and misogyny in Neil Marshall's films. And people saying smart things about beer and popcorn movies are always worth a read. So here you go:

Neil Marshall’s debut feature, 2002’s Dog Soldiers, offers a complex presentation of men and masculinity. Marshall’s decision to cast his lead characters as soldiers provides an interesting insight into the director’s own relationship with issues of masculinity – notions of ‘not being man enough’ become a recurring theme throughout the film. Dog Soldiers does not glamourise ‘male-ness’ per se but rather portrays the ‘hyper-masculinity’ of the tough, skilled soldiers as an ideal. The film’s first three sequences define Marshall’s take on masculinity – they present the ‘ordinary man’ as weak and passive while glorifying the idea of man as soldier. An unnamed camper (played by Craig Conway) serves as the film’s first presentation of male-ness – in terms of male archetypes, this character could perhaps be considered an example of the “new man” (see Monk, 2000: p.158). Marshall clearly defines the character’s ‘sensitive’ nature – through dialogue, it is established that he works as a writer and has maintained a long-term relationship with his girlfriend. He is also portrayed as being ill at ease with nature, lamenting the presence of “bloody midges” – a quality which is marked as decidedly un-masculine when his girlfriend refers to him as a “big girl’s blouse”.

In the subsequent scene, the couple’s tent is attacked by a pack of werewolves. The female camper is quickly dragged outside by the creatures and torn apart, leaving her boyfriend covered in blood and shaking with fear. Though a suitable weapon lies within the man’s reach – a silver dagger which the girl had previously presented to him as a gift – his feeble, shaking fingers are unable to grasp it in time and he too is killed. Repeatedly then, the male camper - while not obviously effeminate - is presented as un-masculine, his sensitive demeanour and lack of physical prowess leaving him unable to defend himself or his girlfriend. In the film’s second major sequence, Neil Marshall contrasts the camper’s ineffectual nature with the ingenuity and athleticism of Private Cooper (played by Kevin McKidd). While the male camper was unable to defend himself, Cooper – attempting to evade capture as part of a Special Forces selection process - displays impressive fighting skills, defeating three enemy soldiers and using a torch as an improvised weapon.

The film’s third major sequence introduces Cooper’s squad, led by Sergeant Harry G.. Wells (played by Sean Pertwee) and composed of Private Joe Kirkley (Chris Robson), Private Terry Milburn (Leslie Simpson), Private Witherspoon (Darren Morfitt) and Corporal Bruce Campbell (played by Thomas Lockyer and named in reference to the star of the Evil Dead horror trilogy released between 1981 and 1992). Neil Marshall’s decision to feature soldiers as the protagonists of Dog Soldiers raises a number of interesting points. Clearly, the fact that these characters are soldiers has a substantial impact on the film’s narrative - as the first scene demonstrates, ordinary men stand no chance against the werewolves. However, the soldiers – heavily armed and having received extensive physical training – are able to defend themselves, at least temporarily. It is the soldiers’ capacity for self-defence that provides the ‘action’ aspect of the film and helps distinguish them from the stereotype of the typical horror movie victim – a helpless (often female) figure prone to screaming, crying, running and little else – since while “male action films can indeed wallow in suffering, they also wallow in extended frenzies of sadism of a sort exceptional in horror” (Clover, 1992: p.18).

The soldiers are initially presented as straightforward, broadly masculine figures, exchanging rather vicious but good-natured banter. Marshall establishes the soldiers’ typically masculine nature early on in this third major sequence by revealing their love of football, since that sport is generally considered a male-dominated pastime (‘More than just a game’: 29/4/08). While the other soldiers are poised, ready for action, Joe – who laments being “stuck up the backside of beyond without so much as a six-pack or a telly” - sits sulking. Sergeant Wells subsequently reprimands him, barking “Get off your big fat lardy arse and make like a soldier!” - implying the soldiers’ superiority over ‘normal’ men who lack their military training. Wells also warns his men that, if they fail to defend themselves, their enemies “will be having your bollocks for breakfast”. Marshall’s decision to have the Wells character equate defeat with castration is an interesting one – this idea reoccurs later in the film when the soldiers discuss their personal fears. When Private Witherspoon – nicknamed ‘Spoon’ – admits that his greatest fear is castration, the other soldiers murmur in agreement, leading Cooper to respond “There’s no argument there”. Castration is thus presented by Marshall as the ultimate male anxiety – the soldiers presumably fearing that the loss of their genitalia would essentially relegate them to the role of women. It is perhaps unsurprising then that Sergeant Wells at one point refers to his squad as “ladies” in a derogatory fashion. The other soldiers’ confessions are equally revealing: Joe reveals that his greatest fear is watching a penalty shoot-out, demonstrating once again his masculine obsession with football, while Cooper – in the film’s first real example of misogyny – claims to be afraid of women.

Throughout Dog Soldiers, the male characters display a generally low opinion of women. Responding to Joe’s complaints about missing the football, Sergeant Wells assures his men that he would like nothing more than to “jump into a warm bed with a nice hot woman and watch the footy”. Wells’ statement reduces women to a sport or hobby enjoyed by men - the inference seems to be that they are to be ‘played with’ and then summarily dismissed. Neil Marshall subsequently furthers the notion that women should be regarded solely as sexual playthings, the other soldiers also equating women with football through a series of crude one-liners (“Planning on scoring, Sarge?” “Mind you don’t foul her in the penalty box!”). Marshall’s decision to have his male characters employ misogyny as a sign of their masculinity is perhaps unsurprising. Claire Monk has noted that while the 1990’s was a “decade of sexual liberation” the increasing prominence of women in the workplace “heralded a resurgence of masculinism and misogyny” (2000: p.157). Notably, few of Dog Soldiers’ male characters are openly aggressively misogynistic – the soldiers express any such sentiment by way of their unsophisticated, often vulgar jokes. This veneer of humour is important, as Monk has also discussed how the use of “post-modern irony or humour” had granted misogyny “a new respectability in some quarters” (2000: p.162). Marshall’s decision to employ humour in such instances is also important in maintaining the audience’s sympathy for his protagonists. While an audience member might disagree with the soldiers’ sexist statements, the use of humour creates a reasonable level of doubt as to their sincerity. Any claim that the soldiers’ dialogue is intended to be ironic or ‘tongue in cheek’ essentially absolves Marshall from accusations that he is presenting chauvinistic characters as heroes.

It is important to note however that while the soldiers do share certain masculine characteristics - such as their love of football, sexism and a refusal to show fear - Marshall ensures that each character displays their own memorable, individual traits. The character of Sergeant Wells, for example, is an interesting one, shifting as he does from typically masculine behaviour to a more sensitive demeanour. Wells is initially portrayed as a stereotypical high-ranking army official, barking orders at his men and reprimanding any behaviour he considers unprofessional. This persona reoccurs throughout the film - having been wounded by werewolves and forced to rely on Cooper to help him walk, Wells asks for his gun despite the fact that there is no immediate threat. It is as though the gun serves as a symbol of his masculinity – Wells is aware of his weakened state and so relies on the weapon to boost his self-image. At one point, the character (under heavy influence of alcohol, which Cooper is using as a sedative while tending to his Sergeant’s wounds) professes his love for his squad, claiming that “every single of ‘em could marry my sister” – implying something of a proprietary attitude towards women.

However, Neil Marshall also reveals a sensitive side to the character of Wells, contrasting the Sergeant’s sincere nature with the other soldiers’ emotionally reserved manner several times throughout the film. For example, at one point Wells recounts the tale of how his old friend Eddie Oswald was killed by an anti-tank mine while on patrol in Iraq and subsequently proposes a toast to his fallen comrade. The toast is followed by an awkward silence, only interrupted when Spoon begins telling another crude joke. Clearly, the soldiers have been made to feel uncomfortable by the emotional nature of Sergeant Wells’ story and so Spoon, the first to speak, uses humour as a defence mechanism, in order to prevent the discussion becoming too morbid or upsetting. The soldiers are therefore able to maintain their masculine emotional reserve.

Along with Sergeant Wells, another character who deviates substantially from the soldiers’ brash, masculine style is Private Terry Milburn. Neil Marshall repeatedly portrays Terry as the weakest of the soldiers. While the entire squad is shocked when a dead cow falls onto their camp from a cliff-top high above, only Terry loses his wits entirely – he fires upon the cow despite the fact that his weapon is loaded only with blank cartridges and remains unsettled for some time afterward, appearing anxious and trembling. Later, he is seen to vomit in the aftermath of a werewolf attack - unable to handle the pressure of a combat situation. Neil Marshall also ensures that Terry’s later attempts to reassert his masculinity are unsuccessful. Having apparently fended off another werewolf attack, Terry remarks “Dogs? More like pussies!”. Such masculine quips - a staple of the Hollywood action hero (Gibson, 2004: p.180) - occur throughout Dog Soldiers. For example, Cooper references the famous football quotation “They think it's all over...it is now” at the film’s climax, immediately prior to shooting the final werewolf. However, Terry’s attempts to cast himself as a masculine action hero by making a wisecrack of this sort are promptly undermined when the werewolves return, dragging him through a window and killing him in a brutal fashion.

Thus far then, Neil Marshall appears (for the most part) to have followed the accepted rules of the classic horror movie – those who allow themselves to become victims are gendered female, while those who save themselves are male (Clover, 1992: p.59). In order for male characters to be killed, their masculinity must therefore be undermined in some way – for example, they are no longer able to employ a firearm as a masculine (somewhat phallic) symbol. At this point, it would perhaps prove useful to consider Dog Soldiers’ sole major female character – the zoologist Megan (played by Emma Cleasby). In introducing Megan, Marshall initially appears to subvert the conventions of gender in the horror film (see Clover, 1992: p.60). Rather than portray the female character as the victim who is rescued by a group of strong men, Marshall instead has Megan come to the squad’s aid – their leader seriously wounded, firing in all directions, the soldiers’ situation appears hopeless till she arrives in her car to save them. However, this role reversal does not last long – once the soldiers reach the apparent sanctuary of a nearby cottage, Megan is regarded by the soldiers as an outsider, a woman in a man’s world. Indeed, Marshall himself appears to feel the need to justify her presence, casting the character as something of a love interest for Cooper in a sub-plot that receives no real resolution. The film’s male characters frequently refer to Megan in this fashion – Sergeant Wells calls her Cooper’s “girlfriend” while the sinister Special Forces soldier Captain Ryan (played by Liam Cunningham) mocks their relationship, asking Cooper if he is “chasing that first kiss”.

Megan’s eventual betrayal of the soldiers is an important point to consider when examining Dog Soldiers’ depiction of women. The character is shown to be untrustworthy several times – she initially lies to the squad about her previous involvement with Captain Ryan, then later tricks them into using the last of their artillery to blow up an empty barn, allows the werewolves to infiltrate the cottage and finally reveals that she is a werewolf herself. The idea that Megan is an outsider among these men is thus reinforced by Marshall, as he reveals that she has in fact been working for the enemy the entire time. Interestingly, Marshall has Private Cooper display only anger toward Megan upon learning of her true nature – rather than expressing shock at the fact that she is a werewolf, he appears vindicated since, in his opinion, his misogynist attitude towards women has been justified by her betrayal. Cooper does not even discuss Megan’s unfortunate predicament – he remarks “new woman, same old shite” – indicating that her betrayal was inevitable not because she is a werewolf, but simply because she is female. Furthermore, Marshall even has Megan herself warn Cooper against trusting women - she remarks “Being nice to women will get you nowhere, Cooper. Being nice to me will get you killed” – and has the character explain her betrayal by revealing “It’s that time of the month”. Marshall is effectively demonizing the bodily functions of women, associating the female body with monstrous imagery simply because it differs from the male form.

Megan’s femininity seems to pose a problem for Marshall. While initially rather feminine in appearance and referred to as “posh” by the soldiers, the character becomes more masculine as the film continues - as though Marshall recognises her ‘outsider’ status and is attempting to integrate her into the male group. By the film’s conclusion, Megan is sweaty, wears a grubby vest and has become as foul-mouthed as the soldiers. This feminine to masculine transformation is a common trait of the horror film, such works repeatedly contemplating “mutations and slidings whereby women begin to look a lot like men” (Clover, 1992: p.15). However, while Megan may become masculine, she cannot truly become a man and so the character remains problematic, since male audience members often have difficulty with female characters who “behave malelike [sic] in their confrontation with horror” (Zillmann & Weaver III, 1996: p.96). The anxiety surrounding Megan’s character is thus expressed via her transformation into a werewolf, the character discarding the last of her feminine traits in order to become a grotesque exaggeration of masculinity – violent, vicious, hairy and meat-eating.

What was I thinking?

2008-09-19T00:10:00.003+01:00

Hmmm... I've had my beard for, like, three years now. That's a long time to have a beard.
My beard retains smells. It's like having a merengue stuck to my face.
A lot of people don't have beards. I look unusual.
I should totally shave my beard. I'd look totally sexy if I shaved my beard.
Hmmm, that's coming off in big chunks.
Oh.
Well, I do look younger.
And yet somehow like my dad.
Was my chin always this big? Were my eyes always that close together? My nose looks huge.
My chin is cold.
I miss my beard.
I should totally grow my beard back. I'd look totally sexy if I grew a beard.

Dragons, and the slaying thereof...

2008-09-17T22:17:00.005+01:00

"Children already know about dragons. What fairy tales tell children is that dragons can be slain." - G K Chesterton

One of my favourite tricks when I was at Uni in my beloved Brighton was taking one book, ripping all the quotes from it, and having a bibliography of ten books, by magic, with a hey presto. I've done that a bit again here, as I've just come across that quote in a collection of Neil Gaiman short stories, but fuck it, it illustrates my point.

Stories need hope.

Yeah, they need characters, and act turns and themes and probably dialogue, but other than and above all that they need hope.

I'm seeing a lot of stories without hope currently, and to me, that's writers hating their audience. It's writers saying "fuck you for reading/watching this". It's Johhny Rotten coming out for the encore, sneering "Ever feel like you've been had" and staggering back off.

Now don't get me wrong. I can handle a sad ending. Well, I say handle. I can cry like a hungry, angry baby at a sad ending. But I like them, sometimes. Cassablanca? Yep. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? Yes please. King Kong (orginal)? Oh, most definitley.

But The Strangers? Wolf Creek? Closer? And, oh, sitting in the corner and stroking ~~it's~~ its* chin, laughing at the other boys at the party, Funny Games?

I truly fail to see the point.

Hope, people. We need hope.

Lets slay some dragons.

-------------------------

On the subject of hope, congratulations to James Henry and Patroclus, who have brought possibly the first Blog Baby, and certainly some hope, into the world.

* Darn.

The countryside is dangerous...

2008-09-14T21:44:00.007+01:00

Sorry, that last blog post was rubbish. My brother called it the "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull of Blog Posts", you wait ages, and then... balls. Sorry.

Anyway... the countryside is dangerous. Specifically, doing circular walks in the countryside is dangerous. One particularly good case of getting utterly fucking lost inspired the morphing forests in Seven Spires.

Today we went for another circular walk. Foolish, some might say.

Well... well, yeah. Yeah.

My girlfriend broke her wrist this afternoon. This is thoroughly rubbish, but to add extra rubbish, we were half way through the walk and in the middle of the god-damn woods.

So poor girlfriend, who was incredibly hardcore about the whole affair, had to walk another three miles, through similarly treacherous conditions to get back to the car. Which she did without moaning a bit.

I suspect I would have whined like... well, I was going to say a little girl, but given that my girlfriend is both a girl and physically quite little, this seems thoroughly inappropriate.

Like I said: hardcore.

I am quite fond of humans...

2008-09-08T00:31:00.003+01:00

As a qualified librarian* it is with a heavy heart that I must inform you: your public libraries have been taken over by Daleks.

See them, sitting there, smug. Glowing, alien.

Obviously a Dalek's a dangerous beast, even when they appear to have had their deathray and plunger-thing removed, as these specimens had, so I sauntered quickly past them and to an elderly eccentric lady librarian, as they all should be***.

"Hi, I've not got my card on me, but..."

"We can't help you."

"I'm sorry. Since the machines came in, we can't look you up anymore."

"Oh. Can I return these books?"

"At the machine." **

As I left, she grabbed my arm, looked deep into my eyes and whispered horsely "Help us! Please help us! They won't let us leave!"

She wasn't there next time I visited.

Bloody Daleks.

HAIR UPDATE: Because Rob asked for it, and you should never, ever ask me for anything, for I am likely to do it. Currently three and a half centimeteres long, with large patches of grey. So now you know.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this has been my most pointless blog post ever. Hurrah.

* Yes, genuinely.

** The machine recognises books on sight. Machines should not have knowledge of this sort.

*** I am a libraryman, obviosuly.

Stream of conciousness panic...

2008-08-26T23:10:00.006+01:00

Yesterday, I so had the Red Planet down. I was, perhaps, the most prepared I have ever been. I had two scripts to choose from - my half hour comedy drama, and my half hour dark kids drama, which was recently and charmingly described as a sci-fi Grange Hill.

So, just a brief check of the rules, and...

Oh.

Shit.

60 minutes? The script had to be 60 minutes? When did that happen? Wasn’t it just any old tosh last year? Fuck.

Since last year’s red planet, I’ve not written anything that long. In a spurt of rare productivity for me, I’ve got a 45 minute drama, a short film, and two half hourers.

What to do, what to do? The short script’s totally out. Can I stretch any of the others? Nightshift’s stretching at 45 minutes as is. Another thirty pages on either of the half hour pieces would feel very much like two episodes stuck together, because, duh, it would be. No go there.

Hmmmm. Perhaps I could stitch the two of them together? Surely Tony wouldn’t notice if the comic misadventures of two disabled friends trying to save their home from closure suddenly morphed into four kids having their memories wiped in a mysterious post apocalyptic world, would he?

Sidebar - that’s totally how Dusk Till Dawn happened. Trust me.

Okay, let’s see what I’m working on now - a movie outline, my first in a while. It’s going very nicely, thank you, ideas flying this way and that. It could spin off into a series. Shit, I’ll just cut the movie in half and call it the first part of a two part pilot, and...

Shit. Movies and telly aren’t the same thing, apparently. The minute I start trying to structure the movie idea like a TV show, it falls apart. Balls.

To the ideas file... oh, mythical Greek creatures in London comedy drama. Love that idea. Okay, that’s it then. It was always meant to be an hour long, so I’m in good stead.

Of course, it’s not written.

Okay. Ten pages by the end of September. I can totally write the rest whilst I’m waiting to get judged, and...

I have no idea what I’m doing.

No buts...

2008-08-22T21:04:00.006+01:00

Well, the Broadcast HotShots list is out, bringing the youngest, freshest and lowest calorie writers, producers, and ... well, let's not pretend I care about anything other than the writers. It makes for depressing reading. Only two of them are older than me, and they're not in the photo - clearly too old and haggard to show in the press. God bless them all, with their full series commissions at 20 and their full heads of hair, and... no, I can't do it. I hate them. Bloody young people.

Anyway, I'm not here to bore you with my neurosis and petty jealously. Well, to be fair, that's pretty much all I do here. But I've got a point. And an unrelated one. No cunning segues here. Hoh, no.

Sorry, where was I?

Ah, yes. Receiving feedback. Troublesome business. Because, of course, you've written a thing of pure genius and then people have the effrontery to tell you that there are things wrong with it? The fuckers.

So here's my one rule of receiving feedback. Never, ever say "yeah, but". I did recently, and for that I apologise.

So, why shouldn't you do it?

Two reasons, with an option on a third.

Reason the first: They are probably right. You, of course, are far too close to the matter to see it, but they probably are. And even if they're not...

Reason the second: They will not care.

You will never, ever change anyone's mind by saying "yeah, but". Your marvelous explanation of why your first act is 60 pages long and then everyone dies at the end of act two, and why you brought in a whole set of new characters with only five pages left? They. Will. Not. Care. You will never, ever, change their mind. And neither should you.

What you will do is make yourself sound a bit of a whining prick. Which leads to...

Reason the third: That's one person who won't want to give you feedback in the future. But you can always give it to your mum. She likes what you write.

The Three Old Gentlemen of Brighton...

2008-08-19T01:29:00.007+01:00

Well, I've just spent about four hours correcting my blog layout after cocking it up royally. There are more fun ways to spend an evening.

H'okay, a few things...

The first draft of Memoria is finished. I'm too close to it at the minute to judge it fairly, so it'll have to go in a shoe box for a bit. I'm not sure if the tone is right, maybe too dark, and I'm not sure if it flows properly. Many of my early scripts revolved around people saying witty things until something bad happened to them. I've fallen back into that a bit with this one. Hey ho.

In better news, That's How I Roll, my sitcom, was rated in the top three scripts this month on Zoetrope, as was my last script, The Fixer Upper. Here's to being consistently quite good.

Finally, I've started something of an experiment. Well, I say experiment, I seem to recall Charles Dickens doing something similar a while back. It's a serialised novel, it's called The Three Old Gentlemen of Brighton, and I'm posting it here:

http://thethreeoldgentlemenofbrighton.blogspot.com

Feel free to wander over, have a gander, and tell me where I've gone horribly wrong in the comments thread.

The plan is to post a new chapter every month or so, but if it falls flat on its face I reserve the right to delete it and pretend it never happened. I trust you'll all play along.

Too stupid to even deserve a title...

2008-08-15T21:53:00.005+01:00

I lost a little bit of faith in TV today, when I head that this programme might be making the journey across the channel...

Battleship.

This is a show where celebrities stand on platforms in a pool, and play Battleships against former Deal or No Deal contestants. Seriously.

When a Battleship is sunk, the appropriate platform gives way, and the celebrity, or Deal or No Deal contestant as it may be, is dunked in the pool.

Again, seriously.

That sound you can hear? That's a barrel being scraped.

Cassandra...

2008-08-13T22:49:00.002+01:00

There are few things dumber that you can write in a blog post than a prediction of writer’s block, even if you’re joking. Especially if you’re joking.

I did it here. And what have I had since then? A few showers, several hot meals, and writers bloody block.

I’ve heard people say there’s no such thing as writer’s block. Terry Pratchett’s fond of saying that plumbers don’t get plumbers’ block.

To an extent, he’s right. I’ve not stopped writing. There have been blog posts. I’ve written, as I am wont to do in these situations, the first chapter of a novel. I have many first chapters of novels, they tend to come about whenever I’m blocked. The second chapters elude me. I’ve also run four sessions of Dungeons and Dragons, which requires some small amount of story telling skill.

But I have not been able to write Memoria, my darkly darkly kids drama. Mostly because I’ve been stuck on one scene, the scene where the gang assembles, identifies that there is indeed summit strange going on in the town and sets off to investigate. It’s a horrible balls ache of a scene to write, because nothing interesting happens in it, but it needs to be there.

Stephen Moffat, in conversation with the inestimable Jason Arnopp, said that you have to be careful in over plotting because it leads to scenes that are not worthwhile in their own right, that are just there to set up interesting stuff that will pay off later. He said it more eloquently than that, but then he’s Steven Moffat, innit?

This scene is one of those scenes.

Anyway, I still haven’t written it. Balls to it. I’ve skipped ahead and written some of the interesting stuff that happens later. It’s fun stuff, too. Running, hiding, investigation, strange gadgets, smart kids getting one over on sinister adults, all the things that you watch this kind of programme for.

We’ll just have to figure out how they got there later.

A lack of work-space, and not falling at the first hurdle...

2008-08-07T22:03:00.004+01:00

How do all. First things, first: slightly premature self congratulation time. If you look here, you will see that The Fixer Upper, a short script about a mad fairy largely inspired by Mr. Nibbles*, the rat that lived in the attic of our flat, has yet to be kicked out of the British Short Screenplay Competition. So, woot for me, and for Chip, and Elinor, and the other four hundred and seventy or so people who've made it this far.

To business proper. Michelle Lipton memed the hell out of me, and I didn't notice. Sorry about that, I've been away from the internet. I've been tasked with showing y'all my workspace.

Problem is, I don't really have any. I'm writing this from the slightly stained sofa in our front room. Which wouldn't make much of a picture. I have a laptop, so sometimes I write in the garden, or on the bed. I certainly don't have a shed like some people. Well, I do, but it's full of tools and half cans of paint and spiders, who as we all know are far from conducive to writing**.

But if you happen to visit Truro Starbucks, and you happen to see a serious young man with more than a little of Barton Fink about him*** sitting in the window seat and staring at a laptop in the hope that words will magically end up on the screen, that's probably me.

Say hi.

* Later to be renamed Baron Von Rattington after he cunningly escaped our attempts to assassinate him, and required a more fitting, more sinister presence.

** Spiders. Back seat bloody writers, I tell you.

*** I'm growing my hair. I'm not entirely sure why this is.

Fuck Travelodge, fuck them right in the ear...

2008-07-28T21:34:00.010+01:00

You've all been wondering where I've got to. I know. I've seen you chatting about me on the gossip forums. One rumour had it I was in LA, vying to become the third bidder for Jamie Lynn Spears' baby, alongside Maddona and Angelina Jolie. In New York City, somebody said they saw me singing the blues*.

The truth is far uglier. I was, obviously, being held captive in a Travelodge. Allow me to tell my harrowing story.

I'm in Brighton for my brother's graduation. Some celebratory beers had been consumed the night before. I am in a Travelodge. It's eight o'clock.

At eight o'clock, someone starts drilling into the fucking wall of the next room. Did I mention it was eight o' fucking clock? And that they were drilling? My fury level chocked up to one.

I am, however, a reasonable man, so gathering together my sword cane and an old but perfectly servicable revolver, I went to make my way to the reception to make my grievance known.

I got as far as the door. I tried to open it. In this I failed. Hmmmm... I thought. Girlfriend** is called over to have a go. She is also unable to open the door. The lock is, politely, fucked. Fury meter: two.

I look around for a phone to call reception and let them know of our predicament. There is no phone in my room. A little context: I am on the fourth floor, stuck in a room with no phone and windows that do not open, presumably to stop you leaving and finding a better hotel. In the event of a fire I would be, and I am loathe to use the word again, but here it is anyway: fucked. Fury at three.

I get the Travelodge number from one of those hideously overpriced directory enquiry services on my mobile. Of course, Travelodge, for my convenience, have only one phone number. I call this one number, get the number of Travelodge Brighton. I specify which one, knowing that there are two.

They give me the wrong number anyway.

I get the right number from the wrong Travelodge.

I call reception.

They are on do-not-fucking-disturb. I have lost track of my fury meter at this point, but it's somewhere in the low hundreds.

Giving up on trying to sort this alone, and with but pence left on my phone, I called my Dad, who was staying several floors below. He eventually located some builders - the ones who were doing the drilling in the first place, irony of ironies - who proceeded to break the door the fuck down.

Now free, I rushed to reception in order to verbally assault the first person of any authority I came across.

The manager, of course, wouldn't be in until after lunch. Which was, coincidentally, after check out time. After all the angry people have left. A cunning ruse.

All the more cunning, we came back and moaned at him. He was a complete dick about it, and made that woooooooh handbag noise. Fuck him, and his company, right in the ear.

An aside: the builders, our eventual saviours, were staying at the Premier Lodge across town. Wise gentlemen indeed.

...

Also whilst in Brighton, I discovered a square block of frozen blood and fish heads about three feet across lying on the beach. Very popular with sea-gulls.

* Turns out it was just a man who looked like me. Possibly this man.

** Whose name isn't really 'girlfriend', but who wishes to retain her blogonmyity.

My amazing process...

2008-07-14T22:25:00.004+01:00

Stage One in my tremendously well defined process consists of wondering around, saying 'hmmmmmm', and scribbling things in notebooks, as previously mentioned. Occasionally I will also stop the hoovering to yell some piece of particularly ingenious plotting to my girlfriend.

Stage Two consists of getting a bit stuck. But not badly.

I kind of boned myself at the outline on this. Not that it's a bad outline. It just started off very detailed and then teetered off. If I had been outlining the rainbow song, it would have been along the lines of "Red, and yellow, and pink and green, orange and some other colours that'll probably come out brown if you mix them together, googoocachoo", which I think we can all agree would have made nursery-school singalongs far more interesting.

But, but, but. Saturday was a really really good day for writing. First day on the script, and 17 pages written, which is just shy of a personal best. And I wrote the first few pages in a coffee house. I'm now part of a screenwriting cliché, and I'm happy with that.

Onwards to Stage Three: Three months of writers block. Every has to have their process.

Doing it for the kids...

2008-07-04T20:29:00.003+01:00

So, by something of a landslide, the kids have it. The next thing I shall be writing is my spooky kids drama, with an option on Satyrs getting chucked out of Spearmint Rhino once that's all done.

Good points were made by all; my brother wanted me to do the commercial one as it would be the biggest challenge for me (he's right, and I run screaming from it), and David almost had me with his cunning double dare, I'm a sucker for that.

To answer a couple of points... Don't worry, Boz, I do have some heavy shit up my sleeves. No Lost style not having a fucking clue for me. No, no*. And Patroclus: I simply intended the script to appeal to only one child**, and hence my apostrophe was perfectly placed, thankyouverymuch.

Cheers all for the voting. Now to go off and write it.

Oh, it's called Memoria, by the way.

* Genuinely. No, really, I do. Promise.

** Always a dangerous possibility when I write something...

Now, I'm not saying you're evil, but...

2008-06-28T11:09:00.004+01:00

We're writers. We give birth to characters, tell them what to say and put them through all sorts of cruel situations. We've all got a bit of a megalomaniacal streak. So this should appeal to you all...

I'm stuck on what to write next. I've got a bunch of ideas, and I like them all, but if I write one I shall always be worrying that I'm neglecting the rest, that my time would have been spent better elsewhere. So you're going to choose for me.

I present for your consideration four short ideas, accompanied by my patented LazyPitch™. You can tell me in the comments section which you'd most like to see. If any of the ideas is particularly popular, or someone just puts forward a really good case for writing one of them, then written it shall be.

Your contenders are:

The Kid's One: A group of early-teen misfits are drawn to investigate when a new kid turns up at their school, covered in scratches - and everyone else acts like he's always been there. The type of dark kid's drama that they used to make in the late eighties and early nineties, usually with a pre-Who Russel T. Davies somewhere behind the scenes. LazyPitch: It's Dark Season meets Dark City. Y'know, for kids!

The Commercial One: Female centric comedy drama concerning an unusual occupation. Hopefully funny, sexy, clever and glamorous, with a smidgen of tabloid TV about it. LazyPitch: It's Sex and the City meets (an imaginary, good version of) Footballers' Wives!

The Expensive One: A feature idea this time, a rip roaring adventure movie that would be waaaay too expensive to make, but the sort of thing that might get me noticed just as a spec if I was to knock it out of the park. A famous historical character leads a double life, involving sword fights, cannibals, costume balls and forbidden romance. LazyPitch: It's Shakespeare in Love meets The Princess Bride!

The Other One: Kind of combining aspects of all the others (including being a bit pricey...), it's the fantasy comedy drama TV show, for adults this time around. An ordinary Joe tries to make his way in a modern London where mythical Greek creatures are all around. LazyPitch: It's Reaper meets Jason and the Argonauts!

So there you go. I need your input, people. Discuss amongst yourselves.

I can only assume I was number 26...

2008-06-24T01:20:00.006+01:00

So, it seems that everyone else had bribed/slept with the judges, because I didn't qualify for Sharps. Despite making room for another five people, I was not amongst them. Harrumph.

Actually, I'm alright about the whole thing. Genuinely. The script I entered was a very early draft - if it hadn't been for the competition deadline, it would still only be doing the rounds amongst my private circle of readers. But, hey, look, a thirty minute comedy drama. Didn't have one of those before.

The Fixer Upper, which is finished, has gone off to the writersroom classic, and to the British Short Screenplay Competition. I unleash boggarts on them all.

Anyway, it's stupid late, and this post seems to have rambled it's way into a fairly dull cull-de-sac, so I shall leave it there, promise a more adroit, urbane post at a later date, and wish all of those on the Sharps shortlist the very best of luck. Fuckers.

The lottery...

2008-06-18T12:33:00.005+01:00

So, Sharps has received about 600 applicants. Given that Red Planet (which was admittedly less prescriptive and had a LARGE CASH PRIZE) received just under 7 billion, I'm kind of liking those odds. As David points out, we've all got about a 1 in 30 chance of getting through to the workshop.

Which, of course, we haven't really*. I've heard a lot of variations on "You've got more chance of winning the lottery than making a living as a screenwriter" and so forth. But you can't be a talented lottery player. You can't have a gift for the lottery, or get better at the lottery through practice.

So screenwriting's not a lottery. If I don't get through, it'll be because someone more talented than me did instead**.

This sadly means that if I do get through, I WILL BE UNBEARABLE.

* Yes, David said this too. I've essentially stolen his post wholesale.

** I am pragmatic now, but if no e-mail comes on Monday to congratulate me, then I will become convinced that all of the short list are both screwing and bribing the judges, possibly at the same time.

Credible?

2008-06-16T09:43:00.004+01:00

Every writer, whether they're in round-the-clock meetings with commissioning editors or still typing for a couple of hours after getting home from their day job, has written something they're not proud of. That stinker, that reeker, the one that not even the mother could love.

That script? The one you keep in your bottom draw to remind yourself how not to do things? The one Uwe Boll would reject with a polite letter? The one with NEVER AGAIN scrawled across it in flourescent marker?

That script is better than The Incredible Hulk.

It goes samurai, cowboys, songs, then maybe dwarves...

2008-06-13T11:33:00.016+01:00

So, it's Friday, I'm this close to finishing my Sharps entry (a hasty proof reading and dash to the post office at lunchtime...) and I have been memed, by Rach, so that I can destress, bless her virtual cotton socks. My brief is thus:

"List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs."

And my answer is this:

1. Ladytron – Predict the Day
I could have happily just listed a random selection of 7 songs from the new Ladytron album, which I will go on and on and on about until you all hate me. This one's particularly good though, and shows off a few of the things they've learnt whilst touring with Nine Inch Nails.

2. Black Kids - I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You (Twelves remix)
a) Take one corking indie tune that sounds more than a little like The Cure; b) remix into synth-pop genius; c) bounce around in your car d) a lot.
3. Los Campesinos! - Broken Heartbeats Sound Like Breakbeats

At a time when indie is largely represented by Scouting for Girls (urgh) and the Hoosiers (uuuuuurrrrrggghhh), it's nice that someone still thinks it's 1994.
4. Mark Lanegan and Isabel Campbell - Who Built the Road
The man from Queens of the Stone Age and the lady from Belle and Sebastian out Nick Cave Nick Cave. Good things result.

5. The Organ – Memorize the City
Because fast, sad, singalong pop corkers are a rare thing to find, and because sounding like The Smiths never hurt anyone. Sadly missed.
6. Does it Offend You, Yeah? - We Are Rockstars

They've got stick for having a name which is admittedly rubbish, but you know what? They are rockstars, and this grinding smashing synth rock proves it irrefutably.

7. Electrelane - To The East

I've always got time for Electrelane, especially when they're this good. Riot-grrrl and prog combine in a way that really shouldn't mix, but does so beautifully anyway. Also sadly missed.

I think everyone who's likely to have had a go has, but on the off, tagging Boz, Michelle Lipton, Patroclus and Michael Dennis. Don't feel you have to take part though. No chain letter-esque vengeance will follow*.

* It will.

Post tantrum...

2008-06-12T13:56:00.002+01:00

Oooooo, that was all a bit dramatic, wasn't it?

Very first draft of Sharps entry now complete, which admittedly doesn't leave me a lot of time for feedback or redrafting, but we go to war with the soldiers we have: in this case, me, a bucket load of insecurities, and a sub-par laptop.

I can take some small comfort in that nobody (at least nobody who's posting...) seems to have had the easiest ride with their entries, with a couple of people abandoning their first drafts altogether or wondering if they've written "self-indulgent twaddle". I am not alone.

Now off to cut vast swathes of it out with a highlighter in my hand and a smile on my lips.

Also: I've been more than a bit grumpy (of course, the perfect mindset for writing a light comedy drama) whilst trying to finish this up, so if you know me in meat-space, I can only apologize.

In which I throw a Streisand-esque tantrum...

2008-06-11T08:38:00.006+01:00

So, despite having a head-start on most of you script-writin’ fools* when Sharps was announced, despite already being half way through a half hour piece that easily fits into the ‘health of the nation’ category some weeks ago, despite having all my stars aligned and despite keeping up to date on my nightly prayers to the Great Cthulhu, my Sharps entry is STILL NOT FINISHED.

This is causing me some small** modicum of stress.

We are at 26 pages, and we have five days, but it needs to be posted off on Saturday at the latest…. Notice in that last sentence how I have already begun dissociation by referring to myself in the plural.

Four pages. That’s all. Just four. But where are they? Where?

I’m glad I love writing so much, or I’d really hate it.

* You are not fools.

** It is not small.

Writing as a job…

2008-06-05T08:36:00.007+01:00

…is still something I’m a long way off achieving, but I got a little taster of it on Tuesday, like one of those ‘experience days’ you can buy from Smiths. I didn’t get paid or anything (oh, the thought), but the process was…

Applied for one of the jobs on Mandy.com on Monday, most of which are clearly a load of hairy nothing put up by ‘producers’ who’ve had a half-baked idea for a film and have placed an ad before they can stop themselves. This one seemed pretty good though – the producers had made two films, the last of which had people I had heard of in it, which means they must be able to raise a decent amount of money*. Thought I’d give it a go.

They’re looking at a few writers, and wanted an outline by Wednesday – not something I could achieve without several uncomfortable panic attacks if I were to try and do it in the evenings, so I took the next day off work (don’t worry, it was holiday not a sicky I AM NOT A MONSTER**).

Got up, dropped girlfriend to work, sat at a table (I know! Already this is the most professional writing I have done!) and worked through the day on John Rogers' suggested 48 minutes work, 12 minutes break schedule. Got an outline that I was happy with in about 6 hours, put it out for feedback, amongst the more positive I’ve had, which helped me to clarify a few bits I’d left out.

It’s gone off to the producers now, who are reviewing all the outlines submitted and will let the lucky lady/boy/lady-boy know early next week.

I’m sure there was a profound point to this post, with themes and allusions and everything, but I think all it really says is:

“Yes please. I’d like to do that some more.”

* I mean this in the least whorish way possible.

** Plus I write this blog under my real name, so an admission of guilt here would be inadvisable.

You may bow before me now...

2008-06-04T20:16:00.004+01:00

I have just got the Let Sleeping Rockstars Lie achievement on Grand Theft Auto IV. This is because I have just taken out someone who made the game in an online death match.

If you think this is too trivial a thing to merit a full blog post, then YOU UNDERSTAND NOTHING.

Being as nobody asked...

2008-05-30T09:15:00.012+01:00

... this is how I realised I wanted to be a screenwriter. It did not start well. It started, all things considered, disastrously.

Firstly, the caveat: Yes, writing about how I decided I wanted to become a screenwriter whilst still having next to no success at it is monstrously egotistical. I know this, and yet I type on...

Back around, ohhhhhh, 2005 or so I was harbouring some ill-born notion of being a novelist. My dazzlingly brilliant début novel was to be titled A Billion Atoms, a tragic love story about murder and reincarnation which would leap straight from my pen to the top of best-seller chart to Richard and Judy’s collective lap. I started penning (with an actual pen! I know!) this load of pretentious twaddle in notebooks for a little while before it became apparent that whatever I might be, I was not a novelist.

Round about the time that I was not writing my novel, my girlfriend mentioned a pop-science article about how serial killers may be the result of a faulty gene, and the ethical ramifications of scanning expectant mothers to find Li’ll Ted Bundies. I read the article and said “Oooh, there’s a movie in that”*. Out loud.

I’d written scripts on and off since I was about eight, when me and my friends came up with a television script called ‘Mean Streets’ (being eight, we were unaware that Martin Scorsese already had his mits on this title), which was a bit like Monster House. We even got as far as sending a proposal to the now defunct TSW, who wrote back very positively, as I remember it**.

Scripting continued here and there, a few unfinished horror scripts and shorts whilst I was at college, a few aborted comedies at University. I entered the odd competition, including that one that James Moran won and I did not.

I hadn’t written anything in script form for a couple of years when this idea came to me, but when it did, it gripped me. I was sure it was going to be a super-duper smash, that the cream of directors and stars would be falling over themselves to make it. I direct you to my comments above regarding my ego and its monsterism.

I bought ‘Teach Yourself Screenwriting’ (actually not as terrible as it should be, and certainly more fun to read than ‘Story’), read it from cover to cover, then began in earnest. I didn’t own a computer at the time, so I wrote a step outline and treatment longhand in a spiral bound notebook. This still baffles me.

After finishing the treatment, I transcribed my Tipex encrusted masterwork onto a very very old laptop that was donated by my girlfriend’s brother. You know the laptop that Julia Roberts uses in My Best Friend’s Wedding? Exact same one. It had a floppy disk drive, which seems as archaic as cave-paintings now, and it would frequently corrupt my files. I loved it to little pieces.

I worked feverishly on the script for about six months, all told. I’d write in bed and during my lunch break, on my custom Word template, transferring files between two or three floppy disks because at least one would need formatting by the end of the day.

Then, one day, I was done. I printed it up, bound it, looked at it proudly.

And I knew that day that it was a steaming pile of shit.

Truly, it’s a terrible, terrible script. All of the stuff from the article was jettisoned, and I was left with an action horror movie about a world full of serial killers. Not a good one. A really, really bad one. This wasn’t just writerly post-partum depression, which hits me every time I finish a script whether I think it's good or not. I still check in on the script occasionally, like a deformed incestuous son I’ve locked in the attic. It’s still just as evil and ugly, munching from its bucket of fish heads in a darkened corner.

Despite all this, I loved the process tremendously. I knew I was going to be a screenwriter, even if I wasn’t good at it yet. Hubris gets me through a lot.

The next screenwriting book I bought remains my favourite non fiction book of all time: Which Lie Did I Tell by William Goldman. Reading it directly led to my next, much better script, not in terms of story, but in being inspired to write. And, yes, trying to write a bit like William Goldman.

Incidentally, at the end of Which Lie Did I Tell, Goldman lists a number of ideas for movies that he likes but couldn’t be bothered to write because he’s too old and too rich. One of them’s about identifying a gene which is responsible for creating serial killers, and the action-horror that could unfold from this.

Huh, I thought.

* Reading this back, it appears that my attempts at a screenwriting career started as an elaborate form of procrastination, doesn't it? For the avoidance of doubt, I really really love screenwriting.

** Come to think of it, I think it might have been the nicest reply I've got to date. Hmmmmm...

A quick cry for help...

2008-05-27T11:57:00.008+01:00

Not a serious one. Well, nobody's in mortal danger, anyway. Go about your business.

Does anyone in the know know what the writersroom attitude to short scripts is? I've been invited to send in another script, and the one I'm happiest with at the minute is The Fixer Upper.

Whilst they say they take short scripts, I'm not sure if the medium might count against me, as it's not the sort of thing the beeb would actually make*.

Anyone?

* And yes, I'll be honest, I do have semi-regular fantasies about them picking both of my pilots. Though I'd be happy with just one, really.

Oh, so this is a writing blog...

2008-05-23T13:00:00.009+01:00

Hmmm, yeah, haven't done much talking about writing, recently. It's been all holiday this and concert that. So, by way of amends, here's what I've been up to recently:

Wrote a two minute sketch which I've entered for consideration into the next Dumbfunded show - they do an open call for sketches and then put on the ones they like. It concerns an overly specific Sat Nav, and it's kind of polarising people - of the people I've shown it to, two loved it, two didn't get it at all, and with the last one it raised a smirk. We shall see.

I've been translating Nightshift into American, partially because someone Stateside has expressed an interest (don't worry, I know it'll come to nothing) and partially because it's a displacement activity that feels like work. One thing I've come up against: there is no American word for 'mate'. Sure, there's plenty of things that feel like equivalents - buddy, pal, etc - but none of them carry quite the same weight of implied masculinity and slight social awkwardness that 'mate' does. Cheating slightly, I've kept the lead Irish so I don't have to find alternatives for his inventive cursing.

I powered up my laptop with the intention of making a few last changes to my short script The Fixer Upper before sending it off to the BSSC, only to find I'd somehow wiped all my previous amendments and was back at the very first draft. Luckily I had a PDF of the current version to hand, so spent a frustrating evening getting back to a state I wasn't quite happy with anyway. Gah.

I've spectacularly failed to do anything on my Sharps entry since last announcing proudly how well it was going. Concious that I very much need to be getting on with that. It might be a little too far over into the comedy side of comedy drama, but it fits the competition guidelines so well otherwise it'd be a shame not to enter it. I can always hope the jokes aren't funny.

Finally, I came across an outline for a kid's TV series last night that I'd written only a couple of weeks ago but somehow forgotten all about. Happily, I still like it a lot, though it may be a smidge too dark in places. Whatever it ends up being, I have a good feeling it'll take up a fair bit of my time once the comedy and short script are off the desk.

See? It is about writing.

Slightly longer, but still not entirely proper post...

2008-05-21T09:09:00.009+01:00

Okay, a few things. My holiday, in rough order of experience, in the form of a list:

Stonehenge: Big pile of rocks, very impressive for the first five minutes, after which it remains a big pile of rocks;
Motorcyclists on A roads: Suicidal;
Brighton: Still lovely as long as you avoid Queen's Road;
The "Home Hotel" in Brighton: Delightful;
Stephen Grant: Very funny;
Gamarjobat: Very very funny;
The food and service at the Punch and Judy: rubbish;
Ladytron: Aces for the 40 minutes they played before the power went; and
London: Baffling and terrifying.

So, Russel T. Davies is scarpering and Steven Moffat has assumed the crown then? Interesting stuff. Most of the focus has been on Who, but I'm equally interested to see what the big man with the glasses does next. As long as there aren't any farting aliens in it, I'll be happy*. Oh, what if he does Dark Season 2? And gets Kate Winslet back? I'd fucking watch**.

There's a new bit to the website, which if you cast your eyes over to the right (or have some basic peripheral vision) you will see is named The Memery. I'm not sure if it's a pun on memory, or a virtual hatchery where chirping little links sit, hungry for worms. Anyway, it's a constantly updating set of links to stuff from the web that I like but that isn't worthy of a full post***. Enjoy it, or I'll be crushed.

* Yes, it's been four years, but the Slitheen are still rubbish. Yes, worse than the Candyman.

** Entirely sincere. Sounded sarky though, didn't it? I have Dark Season on DVD. Really.

*** Like Raiders of the Lost Ark re-edited as a serial. See, good stuff.

Quick-not-proper-post...

2008-05-19T08:24:00.005+01:00

It's Monday and I'm just back from holiday, so I have no fucking imagination right now. Instead then, imagined notes from 2008 on the Fawlty Towers pilot, link-whored from James Henry.

I recently received this snippet from the above joke-notes in a reader's report, more or less verbatim:

"We appreciate the fact that your show is a studio-bound laugh-out-loud audience show, as we have said many times we are looking for more studio-bound laugh-out-loud audience shows. However, I have to tell you we are not looking for more studio-bound laugh-out-loud audience shows at this time, and we suggest in future you try submitting a studio-bound laugh-out-loud audience show."

I am not alone.

Fibreglass dinosaurs = youth...

2008-05-12T08:31:00.010+01:00

There must have been something in the water around August of 2006, because it seems like a lot of the Blog Mummies and Blog Daddies got together and did a special hug, giving birth to a lot of little Blog Babies around April and May of last year. Helen, Stuart, Jason and then moi.

Yes, it was the blog's first birthday on Saturday, and my birthday but a few days previously. I'm now 28, meaning my claims that "I'm still really in my mid twenties" are left far behind as I tumble closer and closer to something resembling adulthood. Combating this, I went and looked at fibreglass dinosaurs, which were, of course, awesome.

As something of a late birthday present, my short script "The Fixer Upper" was announced as one of Zoetrope's top rated scripts for March, which is all sorts of tasty and shiny. Feeling quite optimistic for the BSSC, now.

Shall be away from Blog land for a few days as I'm visiting my brother in fair Brighton, and viewing a musical display by Ladytron. Which brings me to my last point... You all want to celebrate my (and Spec Monkey's) birthday, right? Okay.

Ladytron have a new single out today. It's called Ghosts, and it's reallyreally good. They've never been in the Top 40, which is alarming. So, as a present to me, yourselves, and the good people of Ladytron, go out and buy Ghosts today*.

That will be all.

* Please note I'm not endorsing HMV as such, it's just the only place online I could find selling the single in physical form. Please buy Ghosts at your local independent record store. That will be all.

Two for two...

2008-05-07T08:20:00.008+01:00

... or more adventures in being damned with faint praise.

Back at the very start of this blog, I announced that Seven Spires had gone off to the BBC writersroom. All terribly exciting. Then, about four months later, I received some very nice feedback and a request for my next script. Tremendously exciting. Sent off Nightshift at the beginning of February. Stupendously... you can see where I'm going with that.

Anyway, writersroom report came back on Nightshift yesterday, which had again got a full read, which again they liked, and with again a request to read my next script. Which is, and I don't want to seem ungrateful or blasé here, kind of where I was anyway. So, nice, but just less exciting, kind of no steps forward, no steps back.

As my mighty Exalted campaign came to a thrilling conclusion last night (Sword fights! Betrayal! Dispersions cast on the validity of key characters' claims of parentage to other key characters!) I can happily crack on with the sitcom, which ties veryvery nicely into the Sharps competition*, being concerned with the health of the nation and being half and hour long without me having to tweak a thing. Slight dilemma... is it in poor form to send it in to Sharps and the regular writersroom as my second invited script?

The other option for something to send to the writersroom is my short, The Fixer Upper, which has been probably my best received script to date; but I'm not sure how the BBC feels about shorts. Do they, we could very well ask, like short shorts? Many thanks and massive props are owed to Chip, Jason and the other, blogless, Jason who reviewed the script and came back with some very handy suggestions to make it tighter and funnier, and to the boys and girls at Zoetrope who said less useful things, but gave it a score of Very Good across the board, bless 'em.

Wow. There really wasn't much of a through line to this post, was there?

* Robin Kelly has some interesting thoughts on Sharps here. Check it out, serious footnotes are a possibility.

Back in the drawer, Miss Sharps...

2008-05-02T09:48:00.010+01:00

Oh, this looks quite good, doesn't it? And by 'quite', I mean 'very'. And by 'good', I mean 'ace'. Or I would, if 'very ace' was grammatically correct*.

I shall, of course, be entering. Normally, these "write about this issue... go!" things throw me, as nobody ever says "enter a thirty minute script about cyborgs fighting demons or some shit", but I think my ~~sitcom~~ comedy drama fits very nicely into "health of the nation", thank you very much.

Also... I moan about Cornwall a fair bit, and don't want to give the impression that I don't like it here. So, for balance, yesterday I went for a drive during my lunch hour and ended up here:

So, I'll leave Cornwall alone for a bit, at least until the next time I see what my job would be worth in any other part of the country.

* I am aware of the irony of making a joke about grammar in a paragraph where three of the four sentences begin with a conjunction. Also, yes, I know that the title of this post is a bit rubbish. This footnote has now become a catalogue of failures.

Scalar measures of worth...

2008-04-30T11:33:00.005+01:00

The sitcom is coming along nicely, having reached the 19 page mark last night. I know measuring writing output in terms of quantity rather than quality is kind of prosaic*, but I always like it when a script starts to feel heavy when lifted in one hand, and 20 pages of A4 does it for me. This, along with literally** dying after running from the car park to the office is giving me the nagging suspicion that I may be no longer the lithe athletic whipper-snapper that I never actually was in the first place.

Oh, and it's funny, hopefully. The Sitcom: Hopefully funny, definitely heavy. I'd buy that.

Also, my new, sweatshop free, vegan, union made and oh-so-beautiful trainers arrived this morning. I feel like a better person already. Admire them, and by extension me, below:

Ooooooooooh. So pretty.

* So very, very nearly a pun.

** Not literally.

Wooooooooooooo!

2008-04-25T09:40:00.014+01:00

That was the sound of joy, by the way. I sound like a deflating balloon, an air raid siren, or a ghost when filled with happiness. Which is appropriate enough because...

Being Human has got a full series.

This is a very good thing.

If you didn't see Being Human at the start of the year, it was a flat-share dramedy about a ghost, a werewolf and a vampire in their twenties (literally for their werewolf, more just of a twenty-something 'vibe' for the others).

As I've said here, here and here, the pilot was tops. Now we have another six episodes*. I feel this is a personal triumph for me, Piers, Jason, Rob and David. We went on and on and on and on about it until they made a full series. This idea intrigues me, and I will be rolling it out to every aspect of my life.

Work on the sitcom is coming along at a nice, comfortable but not slack pace. This is also a good thing. On the whole, I'd say that good things and better than bad things. Hooray for them.

UPDATE: Also excited about the reappearance of Blake's 7**. Hooray for British genre telly!

* I am available to write any or all of them, incidentally.

** Still available.

Today is an exciting day...

2008-04-23T08:26:00.004+01:00

It is a momentous day. Because today, somewhere out in LA, Joss Whedon is going to shoot the Dollhouse pilot.

It's time for the children to come in from playing; Daddy's home.

Pushing my patience...

2008-04-21T08:29:00.007+01:00

Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love the living dead. They don't even have to be shambling brain eaters. I'm happy for eloquent, friendly walking corpses to populate my fiction. And I wanted to like it, I really did. But...

I do not like Pushing Daisies.

Perhaps I was hoping for too much, based on American hype - I love American telly, but generally only telly that the Americans do not love. Knowing that it was intentionally Amelie-esque should have probably set off some alarms as well, as I thought that was the most overrated film of the past eternity.

But it's not the twee that gets me, nor the stylisation. It's that fucking voice over.

Stupid narrator, with his E4 man voice, and his constant wittering on and on about things WE CAN SEE ON THE FUCKING SCREEN. "The pie-maker picked up his fruit..." Yes, I know, I just saw him pick up the fucking fruit.

Whatever happened to show, not tell? When did it become okay to show us something obvious and then tell it to us as well? And we are told, on regular 10 minute intervals that the pie-maker can raise the dead, but only for a minute before he has to touch them again, returning them to the dead, or someone else must die.

Oh really, Mr. Voiceoverman? You should have said.

Now I'm done slagging other people's shows... Work on the sitcom is going okay. Still at the outlining of part two, but I think we're going to a good place. The issue I'm having is with my own internal PC policeman.

The show's leads both have disabilities, one with spina bifida, one with a spinal injury. It's not a gimmick, it's important to the whole set up of the piece. The trick is, what jokes can I make? At what point do I just become Jim Davidson? Hopefully never ever ever. I'm avoiding jokes about disabled people, which I don't think are funny anyway, and sticking with jokes that people with a disability might make. I think I'm doing okay.

Seems reasonable...

2008-04-16T08:15:00.004+01:00

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith today announced that specialist ANTI-TERROR POLICE forces are going to be posted into MUSLIM communities, including schools, in an attempt to curb RADICALISM and EXTREMISM.

Ms. Smith also declared that in her war against CURDLING DAIRY PRODUCTS she has ordered that all DOUBLE CREAM be left out in the HOT, HOT SUN, and that lemon juice be added DIRECTLY TO THE COWS.

Where did that come from?

2008-04-14T10:44:00.004+01:00

Heard back from the guy at Mandy.com last night. He's already got someone in mind for the script I'd originally showed an interest in, but liked the sample I provided, so it looks like I might be working on something else with him. Dandini.

This leaves me with ten pages of a comedy script (I wrote the intro scenes as an example) that won't be used, and will end up being very different from the finished script the other writer's working on.

Or, to look at it another way, I've got half a sitcom.

One I had no intention of writing. One that's come out of nowhere. One I like quite a lot. How did that happen?

Spoke to the guy who had the original idea. He's fine with me developing it myself, as I'd gone in a completely different direction to what he'd envisioned (but with style, obviously). So, now I have to come up with a different plot for the second half so as to avoid conflicts, and bam! Another piece for my portfolio.

Magic.

And relax...

2008-04-13T15:56:00.008+01:00

Well, that sucked. Last week was stupidly, insanely, James Moran-level busy, but sadly not with writing. Huge project and nasty deadline at work meant I ended up working a 50 hour week, not something that fits comfortably into my bourgeoisie office-boy existence.

Having no real time to concentrate on writing meant I was way more productive than normal, kind of a reverse procrastination. Heard back from an agent who liked Nighshift, so sent off Seven Spires to them; they didn't think they were the kind of thing that could sell currently, due to there being lots of similar stuff already on or in development (the Zeitgeist remains forever two weeks ahead of me...) but said some very nice things about them, and me. Anyway, they're into reading whatever I write next, and they don't generally take unsolicited malarkey, so 'win', I say.

Had someone who's in a position to get pilot scripts to that there Hollywood read and like Nightshift, which is all sorts of dandy, though he's not in a position to do anything with it until later in the year, which of course gives me time to relocate the action of the pilot script Stateside. Even if it comes to nothing, it'll be a fun rewriting exercise.

Replied to an ad on Mandy.com, and wrote up the first ten pages of a comedy film, a departure for me, as an example.

Recieved much lovely feedback on my short script The Fixer Upper. Have cut a bit at the end which was meant to be cute but, according to more than one person, not just the filthy mind of Jason Arnopp, sounded a bit perverse. I am, however, RUBBISH and have got nobody their promised quid-pro-quo* feedback to them yet. Sorry, everyone.

So, actually a busy week writing wise, despite an insanely busy week non-writing wise. I would say that I should have weeks this busy more often, as it would spur me on, but I'm not fucking insane.

* Sorry, love, don't speak Celtic.

Guidelines for writing a deleted scene...

2008-04-11T11:26:00.004+01:00

Someone surfed in looking for that very search term yesterday...

Keeping my monstrous ego a little bit in check and assuming that they weren't looking for guidelines on how to write a blog just like mine, I imagine they wanted to know how to write a scene that gets deleted from a film or TV show. So...

Write it poorly, young apprentice. Make it unnecessary. Reveal no character. If a comedy, ensure that the jokes aren't funny. You'll be well on your way to your scene never making it to the screen - if you're really lucky, it'll never be filmed.

Good luck.

It's like the Matrix, but, y'know, backwards...

2008-04-09T10:13:00.004+01:00

Real life is intervening in my cyber life, a massive deadline at work accounting for my sub-par level of posting recently. Once it's done, I'll get back to giving this blog the attention it deserves.

Side note: I may be terribly last week, what with everyone talking about Doctor Who and that, but weren't the last two episodes of Torchwood just a little bit ace? I laughed, I cried, I hurled*. Torchwood series 3, should it emerge, will be a different beast altogether, but if they can bring Billie back after saying that she would never ever ever ever return, Tosh and Owen can probably hope for a guest spot at the very least.

So, in the absence of real news, I give you a one item list** of vegetables that could also be the name of an alien race in Doctor Who: the Celeriac. Oh, yes, you fear the Celeriac now, don't you, Dok-tooor?

Oh, also, I apparently haven't said "fuck"*** on the blog in two months. Consider this remedied.

* One of these isn't true. Have fun trying to guess which!

** No, I don't think this counts as a list either. I may add to it later. Peace.

*** I am both big and clever.

The Office Worker Character Class: A Spell List...

2008-04-02T15:37:00.006+01:00

Summon Sandwich-Man 1

Conjuration (Summoning)

Level: Office Worker 1, Sor/Wiz 1 Components: V, S, F/DF Casting Time: 1 round Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels) Effect: One summoned provider of baguettes Duration: 1 round/level (D) Saving Throw: None Spell Resistance: No

This spell summons a provider of sandwiches (typically called Terry). It appears outside of your office and acts immediately, on your turn. It provides you with a choice of baguettes, rolls and occasional cakes to the best of its ability. If you can communicate with the sandwich man, you can direct it not to provide sandwiches, to provide sandwiches to co-workers, or to perform other actions, though you will be required to engage in an arcane mix of inane banter and comments upon the weather.

This verbal component of the spell involves wondering when the sandwich man will appear. He will typically appear within minutes of voicing your concern that he will never bloody turn up, and that you haven't had any breakfast this morning, so you are starving.

Arcane Focus: Between £2.40 and £2.60 in change.

Having just spoken to British Gas re: a complaint...

2008-03-31T10:49:00.004+01:00

... don't use their Homecare package. It involves them coming to your home, taping you to the floor, and doing horrible things to you whilst they steal your money. Carefully.

A moment on the vicious undead maw...

2008-03-28T13:36:00.004Z

Because there can never be enough articles about zombies...

The Zombie's Guide to Diet and Exercise.

Head over to Pink Raygun now, and get in touch with your geeky-feminine side. You big girly geek.

Who likes short shorts?

2008-03-25T15:06:00.009Z

With flagrant disregard for my previous whining about everything I write getting shorter and shorter*, I have written a short.

It's 15½ pages long, it's a family comedy and all being well, I'm going to submit it to the British Short Screenplay Competition and Super Shorts.

What it needs now is feedback. Dirty, grubby feedback, from big ogres with clubs, who'll bash it out of all shape, fit it up in a full body cast and send it home in a cab to lick its wounds. Which it won't be able to do, on account of the full body cast.

I think that YOU, yes YOU there reading this very blog post, could be that ogre. E-mail me at o.jeffery AT yahoo.co.uk if you're up to the challenge.

I promise*** not to further spread rumours about your prelidiction for eating kittens whilst wearing the fur of puppies if you do.

* Never talk about what you're going to write next on your blog. You will not write it, you will write something else instead, it leaves an unpleasant paper-trail, and makes you seem like a flight-headed young gallivant. You know how Quentin Tarantino has been going on about Inglorious Bastards since I was but a wee bairn, not forgetting Grindhouse 2 and the Kill Bill animated sequels that never materialised? Annoying, isn't it? So I'm stopping. Let's hope he will too**.

** The Deleted Scenes, astronomically overestimating its own importance since 2007.

*** No I don't.

Extravagantly blatant word whoring...

2008-03-20T14:58:00.009Z

I am breaking the non-commercial sanctity of the blog world to pimp myself shamelessly once more.

Yes, the Writing... page has been updated with not only a new extract for you to wrap your browsers around (the first 34 pages of the Nightshift Pilot), but also a review... from no less than the BBC*. Yes, feedback has arrived from writersroom. For those of you too busy** to go to the page itself, the review is replicated below:

“... a gripping contemporary horror story in the tradition of genre fiction like Primeval, Torchwood or Buffy ... the economical opening scenes balance horror and wit in a way that is genuinely representative of the rest of the script. The isolated community of Seven Spires is convincingly evoked while the sharp dialogue roots the characters firmly in the 21st century.

The key characters of Becka and her father Jonas are complex and believable ... both have that appealing combination of moral strength and psychological flaws that keeps an audience engaged. The writing shows an impressive use of pace to create genuine suspense.”

Primeval and Torchwood? I am so the new James Moran. I await an appropriate rush of commissions and the attendant space virus. Clicky click now.

* Technically, there's also a review by author, screenwriter, erstwhile 2000AD editor and speaker at this year's Screenwriter's Festival, David Bishop, who left it there of his own free will. In no way did I promise to throw him to my zombie hordes if he didn't say something nice.

** If you are fending off a zombie apocalypse, for example, I fully understand if you just want to get the gist of the review here. Get yourself some tinned food, a method of defence (preferably a shotgun, easier to come by in America/the West Country), board up the windows, remove any limbs which have been subject to a zombie bite, then power up your laptop and look at the writing page then. Go on, I don't mind waiting.

Not my best week ever, writing wise...

2008-03-20T08:38:00.009Z

... but otherwise very nice. The weather was good, I had some time off work to celebrate my anniversary with t'girlfriend, and saw some pygmy marmosets wrestling at the zoo. Sadly, the last bit isn't an arranged activity like the penguin feeding, the marmosets are just athletic and spontaneous beasts.

Writing wise, not so good. Got turned down for the Screenwriter's Festival pitch thingy, which means I can't afford to go. Anyone get through?

Also, circumstance is beginning to lend credence to my whole "stolen brain" quirk... I'm being watched, or there are radios in my teeth, or someone's reading this blog (first two concepts way more likely). Every great idea I have ends up as having just been green lighted for someone else, or even more annoyingly has managed to get all the way to the cinema without me hearing anything about it, only to shout "My idea's on Film 2008" in not inconsiderable distress. A nasty by-product is that if my idea hasn't already been taken by someone else, I begin to suspect that it's no good...

I am clearly just the very embodiment of the Zeitgeist. That, or I read a tiny article about stuff in Broadcast, forget about it and then convince myself that it's my idea. Or something.

It's the tune from Deliverance, yeah?

2008-03-12T14:58:00.003Z

When writing Seven Spires, with its animal sacrifice and creepy ass Cornish folk, I did sometimes wonder if I was unfairly slandering and further stereotyping my fellow county-men.

Apparently I wasn't.

Altogether now... da da dah dah dah daaah dang dang...

Lost my focus. I can has urs?

2008-03-06T08:52:00.003Z

Lots of ideas at the minute, very little focus, which can be a dangerous situation for a writer. Lends itself to writing eight pages or so on something and then abandoning it in a skip somewhere, only to be surprised when they turn up on advert for a shelter, Neil Morrisey giving them words I couldn't: "I know I'm a good idea. Why did my daddy abandon me?"

Best not to get involved in that sort of thing at all.

...

So, I've written eight pages of a novella, eight pages a comic script, and had an idea for another television show last night. I haven't done any work on the more important outline.

Balls. I'll go get the skip.

This must be how normal people felt when Elvis died...

2008-03-05T11:26:00.013Z

Gary Gygax has gone to the appropriate alignment-specific afterlife. I always figured him for Chaotic Good.

One of the last creators of a truly new form of pastime (Pastime? Who am I kidding? Obsession.), the world will be a poorer, less dragon filled place without him.

Dungeons and Dragons wasn't the first RPG I played, but all roleplaying sprung from that well.

I've bonded with more people over RPGs than any other one thing, and whilst friendships came from all the other stuff that makes life fun, more often than not Rifts, Vampire or Fighting Fantasy served as that first connection.

GMing is where I first started telling stories, something that's still very important to me. I owe Gary Gygax a lot, not least my Tuesday night Exalted sessions.

I hope he knew how happy he made a lot of people.

The online tributes continue:

Order of the Stick: A Brief Tribute

Penny Arcade: Bordering on the Semi-Tasteful

John August: Failed his Last Saving Throw

Wizards of the Coast

James Henry: Gary Gygax Changed My Life

XKCD: The Ultimate Game

Oh, look, the Internet...

2008-03-04T10:06:00.008Z

Eagle eyed / bored readers who've made it all the way to the bottom of the page will have seen that I now have so many links in the Misc. section that they're literally spilling out of the template. Which looks a bit shit, sorry.

Anyway, I thought I'd call your attention to a few of them. On the webcomic front, we have Freak Angels, a serioso (kind of) and importantly free web comic from the Guru Warren Ellis, who I understand is quite well liked in comic circles. Coming out weekly.

We also have Dark Horse Presents, the one page on MySpace that doesn't make me scream with rage, being an online reimagining of the long cancelled, once flagship title from the eponymous atramentous pony. It's a bit patchy sometimes, but the first three issues featured the brilliant Joss Whedon's equally brilliant Sugarshock!, which you must go read as soon as you get through this post. Not before, now.

This is a bit of a viral phenomenon, like flu, but I shall big it up anyway... Garfield Minus Garfield. Which is Garfield, but y'know, without Garfield. Which makes the whole thing much funnier, and makes Jon Arbukle look like a sad, lonely, possibly schizophrenic and bipolar man. Like I said, funny. And to show that there's no good idea I can't steal, here's The Deleted Scenes special one time limited edition GMG:

Quite pleased with that. On the blog front, we have The Further Adventures of Boz, who's linked up because he kindly gave me a shout out in a post, and because it's a lovely read. Especially his musings on leap years.

That is all. Go now, link away. There's loads of other good shit down there too. Eventually I will post something about writing again.

We, the undersigned vampires, werewolves and ghosts...

2008-03-03T08:59:00.004Z

Howdy all. Being Human was great, wasn't it? You'd like to see more, wouldn't you?

You would? That's great! How about signing this petition?

http://www.petitiononline.com/bbcthree/petition.html