Pressure of work has meant I haven't blogged for days. Sorry about that.
The second cut of the Monsters scenes was hugely better and we have a little way to go on that, the music is being composed as we speak (yes indeedy, original score too). I have designed and ordered new business cards.
Oh, I finished the treatment of Clones last night and popped that off to the collaborator. After all the prevaricating it took a mere 45 minutes to wind up - I was really cooking by the end, I love writing action sequences.
I've been working on the new website, I need to get something in place by next week.
And because of the screenwriters festival I have had to compress three weeks of the day job into two weeks, I'll be in Cheltenham when they do the next launch. Eeek.
And finally I got sort-of good news from my accountant - my business did so well in 2008 I have a huge amount of corporation tax to pay ... damn.
What's on the turntable? "Tour de France, Etape 1" by Kraftwerk from "Minimum-Maximum"
Showing posts with label Clones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Clones. Show all posts
Friday, October 16, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Wouldn't you know it, part deux
So I'll send them Monsters and then when they say "what else have you got" I'll say "Well..."
That should do the trick.
I'm now halfway through the treatment for the first episode of Clones - I hate writing treatments, I want to do action and dialogue. I'm desperate to do my exciting* on-page editing - where I change scene dramatically between different bits of action. But in Clones we have only one hand-held camera (it's a little bit Cloverfield) in the first episode and I'm feeling all hemmed in.
Such is the writer's life.
* apparently
What's on the turntable? "Lunar Sea (live)" by Camel from the extended "Moonmadness" on Spotify
That should do the trick.
I'm now halfway through the treatment for the first episode of Clones - I hate writing treatments, I want to do action and dialogue. I'm desperate to do my exciting* on-page editing - where I change scene dramatically between different bits of action. But in Clones we have only one hand-held camera (it's a little bit Cloverfield) in the first episode and I'm feeling all hemmed in.
Such is the writer's life.
* apparently
What's on the turntable? "Lunar Sea (live)" by Camel from the extended "Moonmadness" on Spotify
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Something about writing
I thought I'd say something about writing since, at least theoretically, this is a screenwriting blog.
The TV-related project Traitor required me to write eight story ideas, a paragraph on each, which I have now done.
I compiled them into a single sheet - made a point of using the same font that the company used for their briefing sheet - adjusted the font size so that it was nicely readable but all fitted on to one page and off it went.
So that's another job complete. Nothing may come of it but that's the way things work in the writing world.
Next comes the proper treatment for Clones.
What's on the turntable? "Oye como va" by Santana from "Viva Santana" (which is a huge compilation of Santana tracks)
The TV-related project Traitor required me to write eight story ideas, a paragraph on each, which I have now done.
I compiled them into a single sheet - made a point of using the same font that the company used for their briefing sheet - adjusted the font size so that it was nicely readable but all fitted on to one page and off it went.
So that's another job complete. Nothing may come of it but that's the way things work in the writing world.
Next comes the proper treatment for Clones.
What's on the turntable? "Oye como va" by Santana from "Viva Santana" (which is a huge compilation of Santana tracks)
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
This week...
... I have mostly been devising stories.
Takes about an hour to work through a character and, with the help of the 36 dramatic situations, devise (hopefully) interesting and unusual story plotlines for the Traitor project. Only one more to do for the end of the month deadline.
Shooting for Monsters this weekend. Eeek.
I've booked the accommodation for the Screenwriters festival for self and daughter.
Met with collaborator on the Clones project, mostly happy with the skeletal treatment, just a few modifications required and I'll get that knocked out next week, I think.
Then I can start to think about re-writing Tec.
The Boy went off down south this morning and, as I write, he'll be in the Bamzooki studio, according to the schedule. He's filming this afternoon and tomorrow morning then back in the afternoon. Depending on the outcome he may, or may not, be back there again soon.
What's on the turntable? "Human behaviour" by Bjork from "Debut"
Takes about an hour to work through a character and, with the help of the 36 dramatic situations, devise (hopefully) interesting and unusual story plotlines for the Traitor project. Only one more to do for the end of the month deadline.
Shooting for Monsters this weekend. Eeek.
I've booked the accommodation for the Screenwriters festival for self and daughter.
Met with collaborator on the Clones project, mostly happy with the skeletal treatment, just a few modifications required and I'll get that knocked out next week, I think.
Then I can start to think about re-writing Tec.
The Boy went off down south this morning and, as I write, he'll be in the Bamzooki studio, according to the schedule. He's filming this afternoon and tomorrow morning then back in the afternoon. Depending on the outcome he may, or may not, be back there again soon.
What's on the turntable? "Human behaviour" by Bjork from "Debut"
Saturday, September 12, 2009
In the cards
Bill Martell, in a recent blog but also in his Script Secrets, talks about one of his writing techniques when it comes to writing features: having got the story idea, setting and main characters sorted out he writes ideas for scenes on index cards.
He doesn't write the ideas in any particular order, he just writes out lots and lots of scene ideas - things that could happen in the story. Doesn't even matter if they are self-contradictory, the key point is to just write out lots of scenes - more than you need.
Having done that he starts to organise them into the film structure. He uses the cards so he can shift them around easily. There will be cards that he doesn't use at all in the end. (As an additional factor he likes to have something cool in each scene - doesn't have to be a big cool thing, it can be a little cool thing - but always something.)
So I thought, for Clones, I would try it. But I used Celtx instead, which has an Index Card facility.
I wrote scene ideas, one in each card and just kept adding. After about 20 minutes I had everything I could think of for the first Clones episode, in no particular order. Then I spent another 20 minutes putting them into an order that felt right. Threw some away, and added some others to link between the ones I had.
Then I read it through and added detail. Finally compiled it into a single text document (manually, there's no feature for that) and I had the skeleton of the treatment for the first episode. In just one hour.
Neat.
What's on the turntable? "Souvenir from China" by Jean Michel Jarre from "Aero" (courtesy of Spotify)
He doesn't write the ideas in any particular order, he just writes out lots and lots of scene ideas - things that could happen in the story. Doesn't even matter if they are self-contradictory, the key point is to just write out lots of scenes - more than you need.
Having done that he starts to organise them into the film structure. He uses the cards so he can shift them around easily. There will be cards that he doesn't use at all in the end. (As an additional factor he likes to have something cool in each scene - doesn't have to be a big cool thing, it can be a little cool thing - but always something.)
So I thought, for Clones, I would try it. But I used Celtx instead, which has an Index Card facility.
I wrote scene ideas, one in each card and just kept adding. After about 20 minutes I had everything I could think of for the first Clones episode, in no particular order. Then I spent another 20 minutes putting them into an order that felt right. Threw some away, and added some others to link between the ones I had.
Then I read it through and added detail. Finally compiled it into a single text document (manually, there's no feature for that) and I had the skeleton of the treatment for the first episode. In just one hour.
Neat.
What's on the turntable? "Souvenir from China" by Jean Michel Jarre from "Aero" (courtesy of Spotify)
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
The Daughter Goes To Cheltenham
The Cheltenham Screenwriters' Festival gets another attendee - sort of.
My daughter is going to be one of the runners at the 2009 event - so now I have to shell out for her accommodation, while she gets the opportunity to get up-close with famous people.
Meanwhile, I got a kick up the posterior on the collaboration Clones: I have to get some form of treatment out by the weekend. The producer chappy has a distributor that's interested in taking a look and we need to hit them before they go cold.
Damn my unprofessionalism of the last few weeks.
Still, there's nothing like a real deadline for motivation.
(I hate writing treatments.)
What's on the turntable? "Shepherd Moons" by Enya from "Shepherd Moons" (courtesy of Spotify)
My daughter is going to be one of the runners at the 2009 event - so now I have to shell out for her accommodation, while she gets the opportunity to get up-close with famous people.
Meanwhile, I got a kick up the posterior on the collaboration Clones: I have to get some form of treatment out by the weekend. The producer chappy has a distributor that's interested in taking a look and we need to hit them before they go cold.
Damn my unprofessionalism of the last few weeks.
Still, there's nothing like a real deadline for motivation.
(I hate writing treatments.)
What's on the turntable? "Shepherd Moons" by Enya from "Shepherd Moons" (courtesy of Spotify)
Monday, August 31, 2009
Stress
I can take a lot but sometimes things can just get a bit much.
Treatment for the Clones collaboration; rewrite of Tec, the TV pilot; story ideas for Traitor the TV-related project; shooting of the scenes from Monsters (even though the majority of the work is being dealt with by people other than me); and all this simultaneous with things getting "interesting" in the day job (they're asking for overtime); the Teacher going back to school; the Boy going back to school; the Daughter redecorating her room and looking for work; the dog being a pain; constantly regenerating housework.
But you know what the real killer is? Unfinished tasks. Every time you have an unfinished task it hangs up in your head, it lurks there going "I'm not finished, you need to finish me now, and I'm going to sit here nagging until you do it." You might not hear it, but it's there all the same.
And it can get to such a state that you just don't know where to start = overwhelm.
Friday I go to the overwhelm stage. And Saturday was a bit hellish. I turned into Mr Nasty - the Teacher would no doubt say I'd been that way for a while, but it was Saturday when I noticed it. I resolved that something should be done.
Sunday we went to Anglesey and spent several hours on a wind-swept beach with a few other hardy souls (ah, the English summer). We flew stunt kites, walked, talked, paddled, explored, allowed the dog to run off his pent-up energy. Getting some distance between you and the overwhelm is always useful for settling the mind.
Today we worked around the house. Tidying, finishing those unfinished tasks (like replacing two main light bulbs that blew months ago). There's still all those other jobs to be done but the overwhelm is gone.
One decision that had to be made, and gone over with the Teacher, is that I'll have to move my writing to the office - rather than the more sociable location of the dining room. Turns out that I just can't concentrate with the to-ing and fro-ing of the downstairs area.
So this was good.
On a positive note, I have been going into more detail on Tec and really sorting it out: More character work, more plot work, really fixing-up the behaviour and actions of the "bad guys" so it all makes sense and can be tracked back by the detective.
And having finished going through all the existing episodes of the Traitor project, I have managed to collect together a fair number of ideas that should turn into reasonable stories that I can pitch.
This coming week is looking busy: Apart from doing 1.5 hours extra per day in the day job (I do get paid extra), I have a meeting on Thursday evening with the Director and DoP, probably have to go direct from Sheffield to the meeting location in South Manchester. Then on Saturday we're doing the auditions for the school kids. Without the right girl the first scene could be appalling - which would not be good.
Probably won't get any actual script written this week ... but I just have to accept it and continue all the preparatory stuff until I get to the point that I can start writing.
What's on the turntable? "Human behaviour" by Bjork from "Debut" courtesy of Spotify.
Treatment for the Clones collaboration; rewrite of Tec, the TV pilot; story ideas for Traitor the TV-related project; shooting of the scenes from Monsters (even though the majority of the work is being dealt with by people other than me); and all this simultaneous with things getting "interesting" in the day job (they're asking for overtime); the Teacher going back to school; the Boy going back to school; the Daughter redecorating her room and looking for work; the dog being a pain; constantly regenerating housework.
But you know what the real killer is? Unfinished tasks. Every time you have an unfinished task it hangs up in your head, it lurks there going "I'm not finished, you need to finish me now, and I'm going to sit here nagging until you do it." You might not hear it, but it's there all the same.
And it can get to such a state that you just don't know where to start = overwhelm.
Friday I go to the overwhelm stage. And Saturday was a bit hellish. I turned into Mr Nasty - the Teacher would no doubt say I'd been that way for a while, but it was Saturday when I noticed it. I resolved that something should be done.
Sunday we went to Anglesey and spent several hours on a wind-swept beach with a few other hardy souls (ah, the English summer). We flew stunt kites, walked, talked, paddled, explored, allowed the dog to run off his pent-up energy. Getting some distance between you and the overwhelm is always useful for settling the mind.
Today we worked around the house. Tidying, finishing those unfinished tasks (like replacing two main light bulbs that blew months ago). There's still all those other jobs to be done but the overwhelm is gone.
One decision that had to be made, and gone over with the Teacher, is that I'll have to move my writing to the office - rather than the more sociable location of the dining room. Turns out that I just can't concentrate with the to-ing and fro-ing of the downstairs area.
So this was good.
On a positive note, I have been going into more detail on Tec and really sorting it out: More character work, more plot work, really fixing-up the behaviour and actions of the "bad guys" so it all makes sense and can be tracked back by the detective.
And having finished going through all the existing episodes of the Traitor project, I have managed to collect together a fair number of ideas that should turn into reasonable stories that I can pitch.
This coming week is looking busy: Apart from doing 1.5 hours extra per day in the day job (I do get paid extra), I have a meeting on Thursday evening with the Director and DoP, probably have to go direct from Sheffield to the meeting location in South Manchester. Then on Saturday we're doing the auditions for the school kids. Without the right girl the first scene could be appalling - which would not be good.
Probably won't get any actual script written this week ... but I just have to accept it and continue all the preparatory stuff until I get to the point that I can start writing.
What's on the turntable? "Human behaviour" by Bjork from "Debut" courtesy of Spotify.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Auditions
Where were we?
Preparing to shoot a number of scenes from Monsters. We have a director and a producer, we have a lead actress, we have a DoP (hopefully), but no cast not until today. (Note, in the following I use the word "actor" in its non-gender-specific meaning.)
It was difficult to know what to do with Monsters - it's a good pilot script for a series that no one will want to make (particularly under current economic conditions) because it would be very expensive.
We had originally thought about doing a trailer. I read the director's description of how the trailer ought to run and I got excited about seeing it. There was only one problem: it would cost almost as much to make the trailer as make the entire episode because we'd have to cast a lot of people, and find and shoot at all the locations. It was a no-go.
Second idea: Extract a few scenes that express the content and the feel of the show and shoot those. The scenes chosen could all be filmed in one location (a school) with a smaller cast (and a schoolroom of extras). And probably done in a single day.
So the Producer sent out the casting calls, weeded out the obvious non-runners, the remaining list went to the director who selected about three actors per character and we invited them to audition. Arguably we made our first mistake there, should have had more: because 50% of the actors we invited did not confirm - and for one part, the Detective Sergeant, we had only a single actor confirmed to audition.
Today was the day and we headed off to Canal Street in Manchester. Yes, this Canal Street. The Taurus Restaurant has a room downstairs well known for hosting rehearsals and auditions - or so I discovered from one of the actors who attended. That's confusing. We were in the room downstairs, and one of the actors told me he'd been there before and then explained.
So, while the producer remained upstairs fending off unwelcome advances (at one point my daughter had to rescue her - from a persistent, fairly stupid, male) and welcoming the incoming actors, I, the director and the Daughter, went through the auditions.
I expected to have a fairly boring time of it (being just the writer) but, of course, I hadn't thought it through. Each scene has a fair number of characters, so the Daughter (who is playing the lead, Chloe) and I were kept very busy reading all the other characters, I found myself talking to myself on a couple of occasions.
So the day proceeded and we hit the next problem. One of the main characters in the story actually has only five words in the extracted scenes. It's a bit hard to audition someone on five words. We realised that we should have included a scene with a bit more meat for that character at least for the audition.
We took the tack of asking the actors what they gleaned about the character and the setting from the limited pages we'd sent. This was especially gratifying for me and I was pleased that most of them had got a good impression of the bleakness of the world I'd created, and managed to grasp the characters - apart from the one with only 5 words.
Luckily for us the one actor who had confirmed for the "D.S." (as mentioned above) was perfect. Phew. In fact there was only one situation where we had the slightest doubt as to which actor was better for a role - even then it took only a little discussion. Of course the final decision is partly down to availability and partly down to the director reviewing the tapes. But I have to say the overall quality was very good indeed.
As mentioned the Daughter, apart from being lead, is also Production Designer and has her very own team. She's already had them working hard and they're all keen to help, which is great. One of them is doing media studies and wants to do a behind-the-scenes documentary - for her course, naturally. This is quite amusing.
Other writing stuff
Did you see the free-running on the TV this evening (or even go to see it live in Trafalgar Square?) interesting stuff. My Parkour/Free-running script, Running, was requested for reading by the company on Inktip. So that's in progress.
I have the main idea for the first of my pitches for the TV-related thing I can't really talk about. Roughly the requirement is for audio-plays related to characters from the series - the first was the easiest as the character in question had something solid I could hook into. I need to put together a couple more, at least one story for each of the others, but these will be trickier as there's less to hook into. (I also have hours and hours of DVDs to watch as research - pity I can't watch TV while driving.) I need a code word for this project ... let's call it Traitor.
The Clones collaboration moves along, I got my bits done for the funding submission, but now I have to knock together a treatment for the first episode - in the next week. It's an arbitrary deadline but without a deadline, the whole thing would just drift.
Then there's Tec, the great solution to my problems that I thought of last week isn't going to fly. But I have another solution that solves the problem with less radical changes.
In other news
The family got back from Edinburgh last night, and they'd had a fantastic time. They all want to go again next year. The dog was grateful to be brought out of kennels, but needs to go through a period of re-training to remind him where he belongs in the pack structure (the bottom). And the cats once again hate us, they enjoyed a week of no dog.
Oh yes, and my current (day job) client has offered to extend my contract until the end of January. Which is nice.
What's on the turntable? "Morbio Gorge" by Gordon Giltrap from "Perilous Journey"
Preparing to shoot a number of scenes from Monsters. We have a director and a producer, we have a lead actress, we have a DoP (hopefully), but no cast not until today. (Note, in the following I use the word "actor" in its non-gender-specific meaning.)
It was difficult to know what to do with Monsters - it's a good pilot script for a series that no one will want to make (particularly under current economic conditions) because it would be very expensive.
We had originally thought about doing a trailer. I read the director's description of how the trailer ought to run and I got excited about seeing it. There was only one problem: it would cost almost as much to make the trailer as make the entire episode because we'd have to cast a lot of people, and find and shoot at all the locations. It was a no-go.
Second idea: Extract a few scenes that express the content and the feel of the show and shoot those. The scenes chosen could all be filmed in one location (a school) with a smaller cast (and a schoolroom of extras). And probably done in a single day.
So the Producer sent out the casting calls, weeded out the obvious non-runners, the remaining list went to the director who selected about three actors per character and we invited them to audition. Arguably we made our first mistake there, should have had more: because 50% of the actors we invited did not confirm - and for one part, the Detective Sergeant, we had only a single actor confirmed to audition.
Today was the day and we headed off to Canal Street in Manchester. Yes, this Canal Street. The Taurus Restaurant has a room downstairs well known for hosting rehearsals and auditions - or so I discovered from one of the actors who attended. That's confusing. We were in the room downstairs, and one of the actors told me he'd been there before and then explained.
So, while the producer remained upstairs fending off unwelcome advances (at one point my daughter had to rescue her - from a persistent, fairly stupid, male) and welcoming the incoming actors, I, the director and the Daughter, went through the auditions.
I expected to have a fairly boring time of it (being just the writer) but, of course, I hadn't thought it through. Each scene has a fair number of characters, so the Daughter (who is playing the lead, Chloe) and I were kept very busy reading all the other characters, I found myself talking to myself on a couple of occasions.
So the day proceeded and we hit the next problem. One of the main characters in the story actually has only five words in the extracted scenes. It's a bit hard to audition someone on five words. We realised that we should have included a scene with a bit more meat for that character at least for the audition.
We took the tack of asking the actors what they gleaned about the character and the setting from the limited pages we'd sent. This was especially gratifying for me and I was pleased that most of them had got a good impression of the bleakness of the world I'd created, and managed to grasp the characters - apart from the one with only 5 words.
Luckily for us the one actor who had confirmed for the "D.S." (as mentioned above) was perfect. Phew. In fact there was only one situation where we had the slightest doubt as to which actor was better for a role - even then it took only a little discussion. Of course the final decision is partly down to availability and partly down to the director reviewing the tapes. But I have to say the overall quality was very good indeed.
As mentioned the Daughter, apart from being lead, is also Production Designer and has her very own team. She's already had them working hard and they're all keen to help, which is great. One of them is doing media studies and wants to do a behind-the-scenes documentary - for her course, naturally. This is quite amusing.
Other writing stuff
Did you see the free-running on the TV this evening (or even go to see it live in Trafalgar Square?) interesting stuff. My Parkour/Free-running script, Running, was requested for reading by the company on Inktip. So that's in progress.
I have the main idea for the first of my pitches for the TV-related thing I can't really talk about. Roughly the requirement is for audio-plays related to characters from the series - the first was the easiest as the character in question had something solid I could hook into. I need to put together a couple more, at least one story for each of the others, but these will be trickier as there's less to hook into. (I also have hours and hours of DVDs to watch as research - pity I can't watch TV while driving.) I need a code word for this project ... let's call it Traitor.
The Clones collaboration moves along, I got my bits done for the funding submission, but now I have to knock together a treatment for the first episode - in the next week. It's an arbitrary deadline but without a deadline, the whole thing would just drift.
Then there's Tec, the great solution to my problems that I thought of last week isn't going to fly. But I have another solution that solves the problem with less radical changes.
In other news
The family got back from Edinburgh last night, and they'd had a fantastic time. They all want to go again next year. The dog was grateful to be brought out of kennels, but needs to go through a period of re-training to remind him where he belongs in the pack structure (the bottom). And the cats once again hate us, they enjoyed a week of no dog.
Oh yes, and my current (day job) client has offered to extend my contract until the end of January. Which is nice.
What's on the turntable? "Morbio Gorge" by Gordon Giltrap from "Perilous Journey"
Friday, August 07, 2009
Epiphany
There I was this evening doing research, some people call it watching TV. Hard work either way. And there was a re-run of a Pie in the Sky episode and I was thinking about the feedback I'd had on Tec. The thing about Pie in the Sky is that, although the protagonist has an official police position, he's effectively no longer in the Force but does the odd (in all definitions) jobs that no one else wants to do.
As mentioned in the last post the biggest problem with Tec is that, as a private investigator (well, a PI's PA really), the protagonist is not really in a position to investigate important crimes, like murder. But it's necessary to make a show that's half decent.
And then it came to me. The solution.
It'll involve a page 1 re-write, the main characters remain pretty much intact and so does the crime but the protagonist's situation changes fairly dramatically. It'll work. It's good.
Trouble is that it's all happening at once.
I just received some necessary documents and instructions in regard to pitching for some audio story work for an existing TV property - I have until the end of September to come up with some story ideas. I'll have to do a ton of research, and the parameters on length and number of cast are quite restrictive, but I realised that this situation is perfect for using the 36 Dramatic Situations to pull out some unusual conflicts.
I have a meeting on the morrow with my Clones collaborator hopefully we'll move that along a bit. We've narrowed down the audition applications for Monsters and will be holding the auditions next weekend? (When I say "we" I mean the producer and director - they ran them past me for comment.)
As you may have heard Blake Snyder died unexpectedly a few days ago. Curiously I'd never read his book Save the Cat! though he does come under the heading of someone who's written and sold scripts in Hollywood so probably has something worthwhile to say. I've just finished going through Running but wasn't 100% sure where to go from there - my attention has been a bit dispersed - I thought what better test of the book than to see if it can help. So I bought it.
I'm just 10 pages in and I definitely learned one thing - the Save the Cat! thing - good.
The family sans moi is off to Edinburgh on Monday. I dunno, how many families have almost 12-year-old boys that come into the house singing "A paradox, a paradox, a most ingenious paradox"? Must be doing something right. The good thing about them going off, and the dog going into kennels (I'll be out for 11 hours each day) is that I'll have to time for writing.
Yippee.
What's on the turntable? "Hello" by Evanescence from "Fallen" - if you like Evanescence you should try Lacuna Coil
As mentioned in the last post the biggest problem with Tec is that, as a private investigator (well, a PI's PA really), the protagonist is not really in a position to investigate important crimes, like murder. But it's necessary to make a show that's half decent.
And then it came to me. The solution.
It'll involve a page 1 re-write, the main characters remain pretty much intact and so does the crime but the protagonist's situation changes fairly dramatically. It'll work. It's good.
Trouble is that it's all happening at once.
I just received some necessary documents and instructions in regard to pitching for some audio story work for an existing TV property - I have until the end of September to come up with some story ideas. I'll have to do a ton of research, and the parameters on length and number of cast are quite restrictive, but I realised that this situation is perfect for using the 36 Dramatic Situations to pull out some unusual conflicts.
I have a meeting on the morrow with my Clones collaborator hopefully we'll move that along a bit. We've narrowed down the audition applications for Monsters and will be holding the auditions next weekend? (When I say "we" I mean the producer and director - they ran them past me for comment.)
As you may have heard Blake Snyder died unexpectedly a few days ago. Curiously I'd never read his book Save the Cat! though he does come under the heading of someone who's written and sold scripts in Hollywood so probably has something worthwhile to say. I've just finished going through Running but wasn't 100% sure where to go from there - my attention has been a bit dispersed - I thought what better test of the book than to see if it can help. So I bought it.
I'm just 10 pages in and I definitely learned one thing - the Save the Cat! thing - good.
The family sans moi is off to Edinburgh on Monday. I dunno, how many families have almost 12-year-old boys that come into the house singing "A paradox, a paradox, a most ingenious paradox"? Must be doing something right. The good thing about them going off, and the dog going into kennels (I'll be out for 11 hours each day) is that I'll have to time for writing.
Yippee.
What's on the turntable? "Hello" by Evanescence from "Fallen" - if you like Evanescence you should try Lacuna Coil
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Mayhem mayhap
Things are rocketing ahead on the filming for the scenes of Monsters. I'm being a good little writer and modifying the script to make it shoot-able on a micro-budget. I reduced the 11 pages of the scenes we'd chosen to 9 pages at the behest of the Producer, was then asked to put back several lines by the Director, and then re-edited to keep the length down to 9 pages. The Director claimed he couldn't see the join - which was nice.
We have auditions scheduled for August 15th, despite the shortness of the section we have a relatively large cast to - um - cast. At least 10 speaking parts and lots of extras. No wonder the readers labelled Monsters "expensive".
Did I mention I may have a new illustrator for the Monsters OGN? Well, I may have. It's a friend of the Director, he introduced us, so we'll see how that goes.
We're just setting up a second meeting between myself and the Clones Producer - he's been busy doing a shoot over the last couple of weeks so we haven't made much progress as yet.
In other news
The Teacher is going to the Edinburgh Festival with the Daughter and the Boy - I can't leave my job so I'm staying behind (again, just like when they went to France a couple of years ago). The Teacher has been desperate to go for years, but this year we could spare some cash and so we sat down and booked everything online. (Except the train which was done at the station to ensure they got the cheapest option.)
It was my 50th birthday last September, the Teacher got me a "Red Letter Day" present which we will be enjoying this coming weekend - we'll be hawking. No, not coughing up phlegm and spitting it out, but flying birds of prey, it's an exciting prospect. Hope the weather's nice.
The Boy got an excited email from CBBC yesterday as they need his team's zook for the Bamzooki show he's going in for. I suspect they'll be organising a seeding system for the new knockout format by pre-testing the competitor zooks, in order to make it nice and exciting. (Please note, I am no privy to any internal information about the new show, this is all supposition.)
What's on the turntable? "Truck on, Tyke" by T.Rex
We have auditions scheduled for August 15th, despite the shortness of the section we have a relatively large cast to - um - cast. At least 10 speaking parts and lots of extras. No wonder the readers labelled Monsters "expensive".
Did I mention I may have a new illustrator for the Monsters OGN? Well, I may have. It's a friend of the Director, he introduced us, so we'll see how that goes.
We're just setting up a second meeting between myself and the Clones Producer - he's been busy doing a shoot over the last couple of weeks so we haven't made much progress as yet.
In other news
The Teacher is going to the Edinburgh Festival with the Daughter and the Boy - I can't leave my job so I'm staying behind (again, just like when they went to France a couple of years ago). The Teacher has been desperate to go for years, but this year we could spare some cash and so we sat down and booked everything online. (Except the train which was done at the station to ensure they got the cheapest option.)
It was my 50th birthday last September, the Teacher got me a "Red Letter Day" present which we will be enjoying this coming weekend - we'll be hawking. No, not coughing up phlegm and spitting it out, but flying birds of prey, it's an exciting prospect. Hope the weather's nice.
The Boy got an excited email from CBBC yesterday as they need his team's zook for the Bamzooki show he's going in for. I suspect they'll be organising a seeding system for the new knockout format by pre-testing the competitor zooks, in order to make it nice and exciting. (Please note, I am no privy to any internal information about the new show, this is all supposition.)
What's on the turntable? "Truck on, Tyke" by T.Rex
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Dry white wine
I finished the first phase of editing Tec yester-eve. As I ate breakfast this morning I realised there were a couple of points that needed clarification in the story - major oops.
This is a British Private Investigator-type series with a main character who's as outlandish, in her own way, as Sherlock Holmes, House or Patrick Jane (the Mentalist). She has her specialisations and there are certain things that are, to her, completely obvious.
In that "doh!" moment I realised that there is no story explanation of those things that are obvious to her. She just says "it's obvious" - now I know why it's obvious to her but I have to indicate, in some easy non-expositional way, why. Without explanation there are major plot points in the solution of the crimes that are glossed over, as far as the audience is concerned.
I also realised that her side-kick, who is actually her boss, (similarities to the Mentalist are striking but I started this before the Mentalist appeared. Damn, Torchwood clashes with the Mentalist tonight - no competition, Torchwood wins.) Where was I, oh yes, there's a bit where she's dealing with money - that's her boss's job.
The next full stage of editing, for me, is to go through and see what can be done about the long talkie scenes. This is a liability with cop and doc drama - loads of talking, little action, limited locations. But I'm not taking it for granted.
This process worked very well for Air, if you read the first ten pages (see the link on this page) the scenes at the top of the tower, first in the room and then on the roof were originally all in the room and it was just talk. I added the action that moved them from the room to the roof which cut the long scene in half and added momentum.
After the night of a thousand red pens, cutting huge swathes of dialogue from Tec, and then the addition of the important extra scene (as mentioned yesterday) I have about 6 minutes of screen time to play with, should be plenty.
This evening I wrote my first creative input into the Clones collaboration, the backstory was a bunch of incoherent ideas (in the sense that they did not stick together, rather than illiterate), curiously enough they became coherent by turning the backstory upside down. I realised I was reading it the wrong way up*.
Tomorrow we should hear about the CBBC/Writersroom. Tense? Moi?
*Yes, that was a joke - so dry that if it were a wine it would be dust in the bottom of the glass.
What's on the turntable? "It's a Hard Life" by Queen from "Greatest Hits II"
This is a British Private Investigator-type series with a main character who's as outlandish, in her own way, as Sherlock Holmes, House or Patrick Jane (the Mentalist). She has her specialisations and there are certain things that are, to her, completely obvious.
In that "doh!" moment I realised that there is no story explanation of those things that are obvious to her. She just says "it's obvious" - now I know why it's obvious to her but I have to indicate, in some easy non-expositional way, why. Without explanation there are major plot points in the solution of the crimes that are glossed over, as far as the audience is concerned.
I also realised that her side-kick, who is actually her boss, (similarities to the Mentalist are striking but I started this before the Mentalist appeared. Damn, Torchwood clashes with the Mentalist tonight - no competition, Torchwood wins.) Where was I, oh yes, there's a bit where she's dealing with money - that's her boss's job.
The next full stage of editing, for me, is to go through and see what can be done about the long talkie scenes. This is a liability with cop and doc drama - loads of talking, little action, limited locations. But I'm not taking it for granted.
This process worked very well for Air, if you read the first ten pages (see the link on this page) the scenes at the top of the tower, first in the room and then on the roof were originally all in the room and it was just talk. I added the action that moved them from the room to the roof which cut the long scene in half and added momentum.
After the night of a thousand red pens, cutting huge swathes of dialogue from Tec, and then the addition of the important extra scene (as mentioned yesterday) I have about 6 minutes of screen time to play with, should be plenty.
This evening I wrote my first creative input into the Clones collaboration, the backstory was a bunch of incoherent ideas (in the sense that they did not stick together, rather than illiterate), curiously enough they became coherent by turning the backstory upside down. I realised I was reading it the wrong way up*.
Tomorrow we should hear about the CBBC/Writersroom. Tense? Moi?
*Yes, that was a joke - so dry that if it were a wine it would be dust in the bottom of the glass.
What's on the turntable? "It's a Hard Life" by Queen from "Greatest Hits II"
Sunday, July 05, 2009
The story so far...
Back here I outlined what I felt my goals were for this year.
1. Get a writing commission.
2. Complete my current works in progress
The WIPs then were: Air, Unit X, Une Nuit a Paris, and Winter.
So how's it gone?
No commissions, I have the collaboration offered to me specifically because the Producer liked my style. I have the other potential commission still waiting.
Air was completed to a good result.
Unit X was completed to a poor result, but I know what's wrong with it.
However some time later I re-evaluated my projects on the basis of how they could forward my career, though I can't find the post. This threw Une Nuit a Paris out of the running, as was Unit X, both need too much work. But I did finish the first draft of Unit X.
Winter was a potential commission from the BBC but wasn't accepted. It got canned by me because it's far too complicated to write as a spec, it could never even work as a spec for reasons I won't go into.
Okay, I will go into it: Imagine you had to write a script but at every major decision point you had to branch off and write the rest of the script. But you've taken one branch, now you have another decision point, the story can go two further ways, you have write both. And so on.
That's a lot of writing for a spec.
Instead I've nearly completed Tec, I wrote Which? my fun Torchwood/Being Human crossover, and experiment in writing in other people's character's voices. Tec exists to show I can write non-SF/non-Fantasy. Oh and I wrote the feature script Running as well from scratch in April.
So what's next?
Good enough.
What's on the turntable? It's quiet here on the train. I'm not in the Quiet Carriage, because people there always make loads of noise. Seriously.
1. Get a writing commission.
2. Complete my current works in progress
The WIPs then were: Air, Unit X, Une Nuit a Paris, and Winter.
So how's it gone?
No commissions, I have the collaboration offered to me specifically because the Producer liked my style. I have the other potential commission still waiting.
Air was completed to a good result.
Unit X was completed to a poor result, but I know what's wrong with it.
However some time later I re-evaluated my projects on the basis of how they could forward my career, though I can't find the post. This threw Une Nuit a Paris out of the running, as was Unit X, both need too much work. But I did finish the first draft of Unit X.
Winter was a potential commission from the BBC but wasn't accepted. It got canned by me because it's far too complicated to write as a spec, it could never even work as a spec for reasons I won't go into.
Okay, I will go into it: Imagine you had to write a script but at every major decision point you had to branch off and write the rest of the script. But you've taken one branch, now you have another decision point, the story can go two further ways, you have write both. And so on.
That's a lot of writing for a spec.
Instead I've nearly completed Tec, I wrote Which? my fun Torchwood/Being Human crossover, and experiment in writing in other people's character's voices. Tec exists to show I can write non-SF/non-Fantasy. Oh and I wrote the feature script Running as well from scratch in April.
So what's next?
- Work on the collaboration thing which we'll call Clones.
- Work on a spec for an existing TV show, which is Noise.
- Work on a second spec script for an existing TV show ... hm, that'll be called Wildlife.
- And work on new drafts of Running
- and of Tec - which will be my entry for the next Red Planet.
Good enough.
What's on the turntable? It's quiet here on the train. I'm not in the Quiet Carriage, because people there always make loads of noise. Seriously.
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