Finally, a job interview for a longer contract coming up this Friday in Preston, which if I get it means I'll be able to live at home. And this Bristol contract has been extended by two days. It all helps. My record of getting contracts from interviews is 100% so far. I'm hopeful.
As mentioned two blogs ago the Unit X script is a bit bogged down because of my unfamiliarity with the US Army in 1945. Not a huge surprise.
I am pleased to say that the person I contacted off Yahoo!Answers has replied in the affirmative so I have just sent off an e-mail giving some background to the story and the kind of information I need.
It's a tricky thing, Unit X has, as one of its themes, prejudice. If you look at the US Army in 1945 the African-Americans had their own segregated divisions and most of them weren't even allowed to fight. (Not very bright "Only the white boys can die for their country".) But there were a couple of divisions, one being the 92nd that did, in Italy. They even had non-white officers. (It was a couple of years after WWII that Truman de-segregated the armed forces.)
Now a modern TV series has to have a spread of ethnic cast but that does present issues when you're dealing with history, and real history at that.
And then there are women. How do I get a woman into this script? Interestingly, in 1943 women were finally allowed to be Army doctors, because they were running out of male ones. All nurses have to be women. Up until 1905 (I think) nurses were male, then, at a stroke, the powers-that-were in the US Army declared that only women could be nurses. It's all the fault of that Nightingale woman.
It makes for interesting characters and character dynamics. And that's just the normal stuff.
But sitting down and explaining this to someone I don't know is a bit delicate, trying to phrase things so as not to offend his potential sensibilities. We'll see. In a day or two I should get a response and then I'll see what I have to change - or whether I have to find someone else to advise me.
Postscript: He replied almost instantaneously, in the affirmative and in such a way that I can stop pussyfooting around the prejudice. Hurray.
What's on the turntable? "Joga" by Bjork from "Homogenic"
6 comments:
During the war, the US Air Force was the Army Air Force, effectively part of the same service. Within the Army Air Force you had the 332nd Fighter Group, the Tuskegee Airmen.
They fought. Big time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Airmen
I know it's probably not directly relevant to Unit X, but it's helpful background.
Yes I was aware of them, I've been all over Wikipedia on this one :-)
I found the fact the USAF was part of the army particularly interesting.
Family interest for me; my grandfather flew in B-17s out of Italy during the war.
I love Yahoo answers, I think it may have been invented solely for screenwriters.
Hi Lucy, funnily enough I have never asked a question on Y!A (though I have researched a couple of things). I'm a level 5 answerer (nearly level 6) with a 60% Best Answer rate - mostly in family and relationships. :-) Just call me Agony Aunt Adaddin.
Laurence: That's cool. My wife's father taught the USAF how to use radar. (My dad serviced Spitfires.)
Hm, you said grandfather and I said father ... methinks I'm a smidge older than you :-) but the people in my office thought I was 40. Very kind of them.
Well...you admitted to being 50, I recently admitted to being 40. So there you go. Just a smidge. What's 10 years between friends?
We're both 17 on the inside.
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