11111011010 vs 11111011011

Now that's just silly, I spent 5 minutes converting 2010 into binary, (by hand, none of this electronic gizmo help) and then checking the result to ensure I got it right.

So here we are at the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011 most bloggers have already done the customary look back and look forward, so I'm a bit late to the party - but I brought a bottle.

One of the most significant aspects of this year has been the huge reduction in my blogs - I wrote 257 in 2009 and only 61 in 2010. It's not personal, I still love you very much, but the first six months involved living at home where I find I have a lot less to say, perhaps because my evenings are not spent alone in a room. And the second half of the year I spent living back at my parents house - which has been a strange experience - and the day job was so tough I spent most evenings working as well.

This also had a dire effect on my writing output.

This year I only wrote one feature, one short, one web series (page 1 rewrite) and one TV pilot (also a page 1 rewrite).

Terrible.

So let's look at the goals I set last year:

Get a commission Well as I did virtually no promotion through the year it's hardy surprising that was a complete failure, not even a nibble. And the one show I actually had a genuine chance on - Survivors - was cancelled. I have some new ideas in this area so shall be moving ahead with that.

Finish works in progress These were Tec, the TV series, which I did complete but script consultant feedback was not great. So I have been rewriting this for a third time. And then there was Winter which I had hoped we would have shot by now but things changed...

10 new TV series ideas Nope. Just the one and that was in the last couple of weeks because I decided I might try my hand at writing a sitcom (since there are two sitcom opportunities coming up and the Daughter suggested a "situation" that I don't believe has ever been used).

Enter 4 screenwriting competitions - well I did seven (woo-hoo): Blue Cat, Red Planet, Shine's Big Idea, 4Talent and three related to the London Screenwriting Festival 2010 - and my short was on the short list for one of those (what one might generously call a "finalist").

A bit poo overall.

So, let's see other writing highlights of the year: the previously mentioned London Screenwriters Festival was brill. Thoroughly enjoyed meeting old friends, and made lots of new ones. There was also Adrian Mead's thing in Edinburgh, where I met up with David "The Bishop" Bishop and made a good contact for my feature Running which I am currently rewriting.

So, what happened to Winter? It was initially set as contemporary SF short. Then modified into a contemporary 5 part web series. Then Chris the Director suggested something which required a complete rewrite into an Steampunk piece set in an alternative 1911. Another rewrite is required to iron out the illogical bits - but the new improved "logical" version has more emotion (I love writing action, but action plus emotion is just the best).

The alternative Steampunk timeline thing is a major cross-platform or transmedia (as the buzzword goes) project and has lots of opportunities for creativity in different media.

So, targets for the coming year:

• Promotion: I'm afraid I don't want to give you the details on this. I know, I'm mean. But if everybody did what I'm about to do it would rather spoil things. Anyway this is to increase my chances of getting a commission, and amounts to getting my name out there more.
• Complete current projects: Running rewrite (and delivered to contact); sitcom scripts (codename Charity) and entered into competitions; Winter rewritten and ready to go; Tec rewrite;
• Enter 12 screenwriting competitions;
• Go to London Screenwriters Festival 2011;
• Build a website for me;
  

So there we have it.

From tomorrow I'm having a two-week break from work (and even family, though I do miss them terribly when I'm away) during which time I expect to be thoroughly revived and refreshed, becoming all shiny and new. And during this time I'll be able to get down to some solid writing - I shall hopefully finish the Running rewrite, and get Charity planned out.

I wish you the very best for the coming year (whether it began today for you, or at some time later).

Oooh, Primeval is back from extinction, I'm looking forward to that!

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What's on the turntable? "Time Square" by Tangerine Dream from "Tan-go"

And I'm back in the room

and I have so much to say that I just don't know where to start - the end result is that this is probably going to be quite disjointed.

Currently I'm having fan-girl squees all over TV writer Howard Overman - which sounds as disgusting as something he might write for Nathan in Misfits; now in its second season and as brilliant as ever (he created and writes the series - it's not for the easily offended). Plus he wrote the new Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency adaptation - on BBC4 no less, not known for its fictional drama.

Since the London Screenwriters' Festival I have been waiting on the results of certain activities. I foolishly failed to take my own advice and had high hopes of the Channel 4 mentoring scheme. My usual advice to anyone is "enter and forget", I didn't do this and was seriously disappointed when I failed to get in. Very silly me.

On the other hand the Shine Pictures competition I did indeed enter and forget- just as well.

There is one more thing I entered which I was expecting the results of before Christmas but I suspect I won't hear anything until afterwards now. Which is fine.

(Note to self: reprogram computer keyboard driver so that when I type ';' with a 't' immediately after it it changes the ';' to an apostrophe - because that is the most common typo I make and it's really annoying.)

(Note about note to self: learn how to reprogram computer keyboard driver.)

The site I was working relaunched pretty successfully - and rather better than the US version of the site which had problems every time they did a relaunch of each of its eight sections (which they did by stages). We received a personal congratulatory email from the person at the top. Very nice.

As previously mentioned I do my "I am a rock" impression during these difficult periods (though not with the bad connotations of the Simon and Garfunkel song of the same name). And today one of the staff referred to me as a "saint" - I think she was going for a Saint Peter comparison but didn't quite make it. Being a rock is all very well but, you know, sometimes even rocks need to cry. (See what I did there? No? Check the lyrics, man!)

It's Christmas. And we have rail network problems. This does not bother me. I ignore them. And travel long distances by train and arrive as required. It's been said that if someone comes back with the instant quip, he's a comedian. But if he comes back half an hour later with the quip, he's a writer.

Well, I was standing on a busy station with 500 commuters who were waiting for a train that was going to be packed, and two people decided to take out their frustration on a network rail employee. I will not stand for that sort of thing so I told them to leave him alone, in my extreme writerly cleverness I said "Why don't you leave him alone?" so then they tried to take it out on me, I gave them my best condescending smile and just turned away as in "I am not listening to your nonsense."

Of course, half an hour later, after replaying the episode many many times I realised that a much better line - played loudly to the entire audience - would have been "Do you understand the meaning of the word bully?" which would have left them speechless. Then I could have turned away without the condescending smile to thunderous applause.

Might have got a punch in the mouth though. But it would have been in the cause of art, and there is no better cause than that.

Speaking of writing (brilliant segway) I am in the middle of a rewrite of the feature script Running. Thing is this: I had two chunks of feedback from the Blue Cat competition this year and both readers liked aspects of it but there were things to work on.

I began by completely re-working the opening - not the first few scenes because they are cool - but after that. And then I got stuck. Took me a whole 24 hours to realise that I was making a huge blunder: the readers liked the story, and here I was changing the story. Major ooops.

So I threw those changes away and put back what I had before.

However I do have a slight problem: the original version of the script was set in a generic US city, so cops with guns is perfectly normal. The new setting is Edinburgh (because I have someone who wants to read it and it needs to be set in Scotland - and Edinburgh is perfect for the premise). So guns suddenly cease to be common. Bit awkward, still, I'll manage.

And then I realised the first few scenes, though very exciting and jolly good action, don't actually make much sense if you examine the logic. Ooops again. Now this is the second time this has happened to me in the last three months (I had also realised the premise of Winter made no sense either - yes, Jez, you did say that. What can I say? I can be thick as a brick.)

So, as I crunched through snow this evening I figured out how to make it make sense, which then allowed me to have the original scenes and the new scenes. Script writing can be very satisfying.

Which brings me to my last point, for now.

Writers often say that they must write. It's a curious thing to me, as if it's some obsession, because I look at myself and I think "I'm not like that". I have no compulsion to write, I enjoy it but I don't mind stopping. Failing to write does not hurt.

But my recent failure in the Channel 4 mentoring scheme made me wonder whether I should bother writing at all. I fell to imagining not writing - thing is, I couldn't. I am incapable of imagining myself not writing. So while I have less compulsion - the creativity is there and it just isn't going away any time soon whether my work gets picked up by a film or TV company or not.

Funny that.

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What's on the turntable? "All I want" by Joni Mitchell from "Blue"

London Screenwriters' Festival #3

Sooooo.

Wake. Pack. Check out. And carry heavy bags to the college. Hide heavy bags under a table, then discuss with Event staff person about storing them, and she says she'll move them to the cloakroom.

Today I am travelling light, just the one fairly light bag.

Eat a hearty breakfast when they finally let us in - 15mins ahead of when they should. I didn't quite such a hearty breakfast as things were not ready. Oh well.

None of the morning sessions impressed me, so I just hung out in the refectory and drank a lot of coffee. And then some people started returning from the sessions. It seems a shame to say this but two sessions of that morning had people walking out because they weren't very good. Hopefully the persons concerned will put this on their feedback form.

Anyway I went to the "Actors" session with casting directors and they'd managed to find an actor (Will Kemp). I was interested to learn what actors are trained to do with scripts.

The first thing we were asked to do was twin up with someone sitting beside us and each to give the other some line - any line - and then that person had to say it. This was to give the idea of what it's like to be given a line to say by someone else.

I love this sort of thing. I was sitting with William Gallagher again. I gave him "There's no way I'm doing that" and he gave me "Family's just people you can't be yourself with". We went round the class and I got the point (I think): Given that line to say I was figuring out who would say it and how it should be said. (I've done a fair amount of acting and improvisational stuff.)

Interesting stuff: In the US actor's agents won't even read a script unless the project is already financed. That's it. (Though of course if you have a personal contact with a major actor that's a different matter.)

But in the UK they will.

So what does an actor look for? A part with meaning, with emotion, with a journey, subtextual rather than expository. In fact precisely the things that we're supposed to put in anyway.

There was much discussion of the casting directors role, auditions, screen tests and chemistry tests (not heard that one before).

And what do they do if the dialogue is rubbish? The best they can.

I used my negative approach to choosing the first afternoon session, namely what don't I want to see? And as a result went to see the main man himself Chris Jones talking about "Winning Your First Oscar".

Here's the thing: Anyone can make an Oscar-winning short. It's the one Oscar category that's completely open, and you, as a writer, can get up on that stage and get your little gold man.

That's what he set out to do (for very specific reasons) and he was one place away from an Oscar nomination with his short film "Gone Fishing".

You have to be deadly serious about it - but if you are you can get the finance you need just by asking, and then asking again, and then asking again.

Not that he was suggesting it was easy. It takes real hard work, there are certain things you have to do and festivals you have to win in order to get into the long list. But it can be done. You can win an Oscar.

Chris has an online seminar on his site, and he did a detailed blog about the whole process when he did it at http://www.chrisjonesblog.com/

My final session was about writing Crime Drama. A panel discussion chaired by Barbara Machin who created Waking the Dead. There isn't really a whole lot to say about this, beyond the fact that both Cops and Docs are good because they have drama built-in and can be used to tell human stories. And that's why they are so popular and successful.

But they still have to be character-driven.

Following this was the only informal scriptchat that I attended, with the panellists. This went on for another 45 minutes or so and allowed us to get close to and get to know these big players in the business.

The event wrap part was going on at this point but contacts are more important than drinkies.

After this I chatted with a few peeps, said long goodbyes and headed back to my parents where I stay during the week while working in that Fancy London.

This event was as good as the Cheltenham events, and in one very specific way, better. At Cheltenham the guest speakers had been isolated from us writing hoi-polloi (Ancient Greek for "The Many"). But here I had already had deep conversations with a couple of the speakers (with no clue as to who they were), just sitting in the Refectory - because they mucked in with the rest of us and were enjoying the event themselves.

I can only apologise to Julie Gribble for completely failing to find time to talk to her.

Roll on next year.

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What's on the turntable? "The Cloud-Making machine, Part 1" by Laurent Garnier from "The Cloud-Making machine"

London Screenwriters' Festival #2

I was out like a light last night. Seven hours later I was awake.

Something I hadn't done the previous evening was prepare my attack on the speed-pitching. Sorting out which pitches I was going to deliver to which of my victims. Stapling the one-sheets to my writing CVs and business cards. (Yes, I am that sad/prepared, I brought a stapler and sellotape, though I have no idea what I might use sellotape for.)

The hotel booking didn't include breakfast and they are not cheap at this hotel, but the refectory was open at the college. I checked Google Maps for a quicker route through Regent's Park and set off. It was quicker.

There was breakfast. A nice big cooked breakfast - I like nice big cooked breakfasts and I can get away with it because I do a lot of walking. (In fact I am losing weight.) Chatting to other delegates, ones I knew and ones who I came to know.

I was terrible, I kept complaining how I hadn't got any of the sort of people I wanted for the speed-pitching. Everybody who I told (and who didn't I tell?) was sympathetic. Poor me.

Anyway one of my speed-pitchees (the agent) was in a session in the morning so I, calculatedly, went to that session in order to research him further. So Katy Williams and Gary Wild talking about being agents and what agent do, and what they don't do.

the most important thing when trying to get an agent: Try not to sound crazy. Just be professional. Make sure the little things are right - in other words, don't give anyone an excuse to reject you. And what they want in a client is someone who is personally active in promoting his/her own career. An agent doesn't do it all.

This handy little fact helped enormously when I saw Gary in the speed-pitch - because I was able to tell him all the stuff I did to push myself and try to get gigs, as well as producing my own material.

Katy broke an agent's job down into four areas: Sales; Lawyer; Script editor; and Counsellor.

The proportions change depending on the client.

They said a lot more besides but that's some of the important stuff.

Then I went to see Phil Parker. I'd gone to Phil's sessions at the previous Cheltenham festival and found them to be fairly important, talking as he was about writers creating entire universes in which to tell their stories - and having multiple creatives building multiple stories, images, games or whatever in those universes - while the original creator still maintains control.

His thrust this year was rather different: Film and TV are buggered (he didn't use that word). Though independents will still continue to be able to self-finance and make stuff.

Meanwhile entire web series (once the new hope) have sunk without trace and millions have been lost - but that's because the stories have been rubbish - really stunk. There was a vampire series (costing $5m to make) that was sub-Buffy without achieving even Eclipse quality (and whatever you may like or dislike about Eclipse it's made money).

But mobile has exploded.

On an income-per-minute basis the 90 second "Angry Kid" animations by Aardman have made more money than Wallace and Gromit. New delivery platforms have different narrative requirements but it's Phil's view that as writers we can cash in.

If we can write a structured character-driven 90 seconds (max of three minutes) story we can be miles ahead.

Whether you agree or disagree with Phil you can't ignore him. He's always thinking about the future and never about the status quo.

Curiously enough it is part of our world domination plan to release short bits of material as we develop our steampunk projects. Taking Phil's comments into consideration we just need to make them structured.

And then I had lunch. People were nice and wished me luck and broken legs.

And then I did the speedpitching. Considering I've never done it before I think it went reasonably well.

We got 5 minutes for each pitch with 40 seconds to change seats, which was plenty. And got 3 people to pitch to, we knew in advance who we were getting so could research them and (hopefully) pitch the right thing.

I made sure I took control, in a nice way, by shaking hands, introducing myself and asking how they were holding up :-) I'm so naughty.

Thing is, at the MetFilm School evenings Justin Trefgarne said that good pitches turn into conversations. So my view was: make it a conversation first and you're already winning.

First I had an agent - and I watched as his eyes glaze over when I said "science fiction" (apparently they'd also glazed over when someone said "period piece").

So I finished that pitch off pretty quick and he asked what else I'd done. Knowing that he's interested in someone who is pro-active in advancing their career, I pushed all those aspects of what I do and ended with my UK private eye series (something you don't get much). At which point he brightened up. So I'll be contacting him later.

Then I got a European film producer and pitched my (atypical for me) script "Une Nuit a Paris", to which he said "it seems like TV" so I admitted that I prefer writing TV. I presented him with my one-sheet leave-behind (with CV and card stapled on). Which he skimmed and went "how's it different from The Hangover?" so I said and he became interested.

Then I got the US film producer and pitched the same film (she noticed I'd taken control and was a bit miffed, so I let her have it back) and she said "So, how's it different from The Hangover?" So I looked surprised and slightly put-out. "I'm British" I said. She laughed "That's good, you keep that!" "I've got a one-sheet", I said. "I can accept that." So she got the sheet, CV and card as well. We'd finished early so I asked her what she was working on :-)

And that was that.

I hadn't heavily rehearsed my pitches, just reminded myself of the key points, because I knew it wouldn't go according to any plan I had in my head, I just told them enough so they got the idea.
In the end they're just people.

The final session of the day for me was the one on writing for kids. Well I already have a script and it was a semi-finalist in the CBBC/Writersroom competition last year. But it was interesting listening to everything that was said by the four panellists.

I didn't make any notes during this, partly because I was sitting on the floor for a lot of it (no room) and partly because by this time my head had turned to mush. But it turns out that a number of countries (like Canada and some in the Far East, and even the Middle East) are desperate for British writers. And that the kids market is very open, fewer writers seem to think this is a lucrative area - but it is. Very. Kids shows get repeated endlessly - and the writer gets paid every time.

I got some food in the bar, had a long chat with William Gallagher, (name check).

I met up with many many other people today and we did lots of exchanging of cards :-)

Last day tomorrow and I need to meet several people specifically.

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What's on the turntable? Elton John on the TV

London Screenwriters' Festival #1

I am very tired. End of Day #1 at the LSF. I'm going to try and crack through this fairly quickly because I need my sleepy-byes, but once I start writing I tend to just keep going.

Wednesday evening I prepared one-sheets for Monsters and Une Nuit in Paris, because these were most likely to be the things I pitch - oh and my writing CV. It had to be Wednesday because Thursday daytime was the only opportunity to do any printing.

Thursday I got the stuff printed and headed back to my place of residence. Late again because the day job is getting to need "working late" because a deadline is looming.

I packed my gear, as I'm staying in a hotel near the event. Packed all my stuff and realised I had rather a lot to carry - only two bags but really heavy. Normally I book into hotels the evening before an event but London is far too expensive for that.

Then horror hits. I'm entering the Shine Pictures competition which has a deadline on Friday so I'm uploading my entry, and the form refuses to accept that my PDFs are actually PDFs. I get very annoyed. I waste two hours creating PDFs in different ways trying to force the site to recognise my files. Eventually it dawns on me: I change to Internet Explorer and it works. (I am professionally disgusted - it takes work to make a site fail like that.)

Dawn's Friday morning. I'm up at the usual time, well slightly earlier really. Finish packing, dress, breakfast, lift to station, train to Farringdon, Circle Line to Baker Street. And I'm there.

I can't go to the hotel as I can't check-in yet, so I have to lug my bags around.

The event is at Regent's College which is located in Regents Park. And it's very nice in very pleasant surroundings. I encounter a co-attendee of the MetFilm School course, and rescue her from a garrulous member of the College. She is grateful.

So we arrive together. I get registered (Hina registered the previous evening), prove I am me (who else would I be). Make our way to the Refectory and grab some food while the MetFilm Yobs collect around us. And Jez Freedman. I tell everyone who'll listen that Jez is excellent as a script reader and doesn't charge enough. (I always say this, because it's true.) Jez points out that he deliberately keeps his prices low because he wants to offer a service that he didn't have when he was starting out.

Jez is one of the good guys.

It heads towards 9am and the MetFilm Yobs move as an amorphous blob to the introductory session in a large hall and fill up a row.

This is a very well-appointed college, the seats in the main hall are extremely comfortable. It has it's own cinema. Various food shops around the refectory, two bars, a very nice restaurant as well as the various classrooms.

The Introduction has David Chamberlain and Chris Jones doing a double-act. Chris takes a photo of the audience from the stage. There are announcements.

Then we get a long interview with Tim Bevan one of the founders of Working Title. He explained the genesis and working philosophy of the company - so unlike the horrors of Hollywood.

Generally speaking the original author of a script stays with it throughout its development, though other writers may be brought in for their views, a script is not put into production (usually) until it's ready. They want good stories with great characters and emotion.

His description just made me think of Pixar, which operates on a similar philosophy. And both companies produce successful films more often than not.

There was lots more but time is getting on...

The next for me was a chat with Ben Stephenson (Head of BBC commissioning) and Gub Neal who had been commissioner for ITV (during its 90s heyday) and Channel 4, but now runs the Artists Studio.

They said a lot. Too much to go into now. But I suppose the highlights were Ben's response to a question about trying to follow trends: "No, trends are rubbish." And Gub's comment about how successful writers are usually disinterested in what the audience want - they write what they want.

Does foreign money affect the writing? Gub: Yes.

How much UK output is bought by the US? Ben: None. (The only slight exception now being the US-made Torchwood.)

Then I went off to get checked-in at the hotel and missed the beginning of the afternoon sessions. So sat around and chatted to people.

I went to see what Paul Ashton of the BBC's Writersroom had to say for himself - he talked about the imponderable issue of the Writer's Voice. It's very important and people know when a writer's "got it", but nobody knows what it is. It wasn't terribly enlightening and I'm not sure it's a good choice of subject for the many new writers who could disappear up their own confusions trying to think about it.

He also said that 85% of scripts sent to the Writersroom failed the 10 page test and were sent back without comment.

I was seriously beginning to flag by this time. I tried to go to the networking session but it was packed out. I ended up in the cinema watching shorts for a bit. then went to the bar for the 8pm SF writers get together.

The bar was packed.

I gave up. And came back to the hotel.

And now I'm going to sleep. Good night.

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What's on the turntable? Something modern and cool on BBC Radio 3

Ooooh, that was good

The fourth of the MetFilm school evenings, once again with Justin Trefgarne.

We started with a viewing of "La jetée", an unusual and highly influential French short-ish film (about 30 minutes with no dialogue just voice-over and almost exclusively black and white stills instead of moving pictures) - it was the basis of Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys among others. Without going into detail let's just say opinions on the film were divided but nobody was injured. I liked it a lot.

But that wasn't the point of the exercise - Justin then split us into groups of three (luckily there were 21 people in the class) and had us pitch the film to the rest of the class. We had 20 minutes or so to prepare the pitch as "writer", "director" and "producer".

This was a mean trick to play on those who hadn't liked it but the evening was actually about some training in how to pitch - very handy for me as I've never done it and I have signed up for the pitching at the Festival which is now only a month away.

I was teamed up with Jean and Julia, and they liked the film too. We were all experienced in talking to groups, Jean is a photographer while Julia is a copy writer with a good understanding of marketing. I pretended to be the Writer, Jean was Director and Julia was Producer. It was a good combination and undoubtedly had an influence on the end result, modesty* forbids me to say more and it wasn't a competition.

So the pitching began and after each Justin asked for comments and gave suggestions on what could be improved (he's very diplomatic). A clear statement of who we were, the story's genre, a brief description of the story (a teaser), sufficient understanding of the story that you can answer questions, and passion. After all, if you don't believe in it, who else will?

An important thing to understand about pitching is that it will change into a conversation with your "audience" and it's important that it should. So rather than being exhaustive in your pitch, leave gaps in the story so questions can be asked. And when you reach the end: Stop. If you allow there to be silence, the people you're pitching to will fill it.

This really couldn't have come at a better time for me, as mentioned I will be doing it "for real" in a few weeks. I enjoyed it and have a much better understanding which means it's far less scary.

I wonder what Justin's going to do to us next time...

*Modesty is my best quality.

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What's on the turntable? "The Henry Suite" by Rick Wakeman from "The Grand Piano Tour" (a version of his "Six Wives of Henry VIII" album)

Question

This is the next instalment of my reports on the London Screenwriters Festival short MetFilm evening class course ... phew. There was a two week break between the second and third evening, and I've been a bit busy the last week hence the delay.

New speaker Justin Trefgarne a writer-director. He is a man with strong views, but a very gentle way of putting them. He has experience not only as a writer and director, but as a script reader and script editor of many years, so he knows what he's talking about.

As with Claire Moorsom he asked everybody to say who they were, what they'd written and their favourite film. As usual there was a wide variety which he noted with interest - since when he does this with students the choices tend to be limited to Pulp Fiction.

His first bold statement was that all writers should direct - at least once. Possibly one or two in the audience had while a few more of us had had something produced. His reason for this is his viewpoint on scripts: A script is just a manual for the director and the actors, and a writer needs to know how that works.

Then we got into his fundamental view of what a film is: A set of questions and answers. The concept of the central dramatic question is well known, but in his view a good film goes further than that, it is a constant posing and resolving of questions - sometimes questions are resolved immediately, sometimes partially, sometimes not until the end (occasionally never). The hard questions to answer are the real dramatic questions, others are simply "practical" questions.

The more dramatic questions a film poses, and the way it answers them, is what makes it good.

He then demonstrated by asking us to watch the first 15 minutes of Michael Clayton, it wasn't a huge hit when it was released and that was probably to do with the title. But, as it turns out, the title is fundamental to the central dramatic question of the film: "Who (really) is Michael Clayton?"

It was a very interesting exercise, one that I'd recommend. After we'd watched the fifteen minutes we spent the rest of time going through it slowly and looking at the interplay of the questions and answers. With occasional running off at a tangent, except they were always very useful tangents: explore a character by what other people say about him/her; close-ups make the audience worry because they can't see what's around the character (used a lot in horror) but in Michael Clayton the camera is on him a lot of time even when other people are talking.

Quick report ... now it's back to work.

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What's on the turntable? "Catwalk Blues" by Gordon Giltrap from "The River Sessions"

Met Film School - Part 2

So ... last night was the second night of the free screenwriting course as part of my London Screenwriters Festival ticket, once again with Claire Moorsom.

It's kind of tricky, we have a huge range of writers on the course from people who've barely put finger to keyboard to create a screenplay, to those who are pretty competent and experienced. Which means that not everything is either going to be new, or of interest, but this week was a good one for me.

Again it's not necessarily a matter of anything being new (little here was "new" to me), it's both the environment, and the difference of viewpoint - particularly when it's the viewpoint of someone who's worked with writers for a long time.

So we were looking at character, what is that makes a character in a story effective? Where effective means: the audience experiences an emotional reaction to the character (doesn't matter so much what that emotion is, as long is it was intended by the writer).

(Why do we call those who write screenplays "writers" and those who write novels "authors"?)

One of the key elements put forward was "contradiction but not inconsistency" which is to say people are full of contradictions but those are the person's character; while a contradiction is the behaviour of a person that does not fit their character.

A character has values - things they care about - which inform their behaviour, they have commitment, drive, complexity and depth. And characters in stories have to be like this - after all, who's interested in someone who wanders through life doing nothing?

These motivations lead to conflict with the environment and characters around them, which in turn reveal more about their character.

One useful item which I had not come across before was the emphasis on Choices and Decisions. I mean, it's pretty obvious that a character makes decisions as they proceed through their story. What's not so obvious is that the depth of a story increases with the number of decisions the characters can make and how they affect the plot.

I want to discuss the artificiality of stories in another blog entry, but it comes out here: We have characters whose decisions create a plot line (or plot lines) , but as the writer we generally know where we're going with the plot. So the characters are pre-destined to make certain decisions ... and yet the depth of the story is affected by the choices available.

The point is: the audience does not know where the plot is going, and do not know what decisions the characters will make. The less predictable you can make those decisions the better the audience will like it - as long as it is not contradictory behaviour.

Claire commented that it's common for writers to play it safe with their characters. For whatever reason they don't put enough pressure on them - and it is absolutely essential to make the decisions hard, and make your characters really suffer. The audience will love you for it.

A final point (well, for me, unfortunately I have to leave a little before the end because I have a long way to go, so it might not actually have been the final point) was about a character's transformation in regard to the narrative spine of the story. Identifying the change of your main character (we did discuss the stories where the protagonist does not change, as I did here) and isolating three key scenes at the beginning, the middle and the end gives you the narrative spine of your story.

Now that's a useful technique.

(There was more, of course, discussions and so forth - and there'll be stuff like this at LSWF and much more besides. You know it makes sense.)

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What's on the turntable? "The Diary of Horace Wimp" by ELO from "Discovery"

First impressions

As part of my ticket for the London Screenwriter's Festival I and a few other attendees get a short course on screenwriting. The course is based in the Met Film School building at Ealing Studios which, for me, is a bit of a trek from the place I'm staying, or is on the way back but you can't get enough education.

The first evening was introduced by the one and only Chris Jones who then passed us over to Claire Moorsom.

It was interesting evening as she endeavoured to shoe-horn what I guess was a full day's course into under three hours.

While much of the material was, for me, already quite familiar the group setting gives you the opportunity for different viewpoints and no choice when it comes to practical exercises - you know how it is if you're reading a book with exercises? Do you do them? Usually not (okay, you might but I don't).

But here there are no excuses and no escape - not that I minded.

Claire passed out some pictures and got us to get down and creative with the ideas they sparked for us. She said we could choose the picture from the pile, but I and several others just grabbed one at random - a better experiment, I thought. Interestingly I came up with something completely unlike my usual stories, a social drama set in Spain.

Then we paired up and interviewed each other about personal life events that might be worthy as a starting point for a bit of screenplay action.

In the second half we discussed what makes a strong premise using Spielberg's "25 words or less" concept. Lot's of the usual examples. If you have an interest in this I can recommend the "How to write a logline" resource in the side bar. However Claire had a number of other insights into this area that were certainly worth the journey.

All good stuff, next time we'll be going into more detail on conflict with Claire; and different speakers in the weeks to come after that right up to the festival itself.

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What's on the turntable? "Running Hard" by Renaissance from "Turn of the Card"

In other news

I finished rewriting my entry, renamed from Tec to Mara, for the Red Planet prize a couple of weeks ago, have been having a pleasant holiday and then back to work - this time in the Fancy London.

One might think that working for NBC/Universal might give me some sort of a leg up - well, it's a big organisation and I'm not in that bit. I just do websites.

I am living with my parents for the first time in 30 years. It's not too bad, and it's better than digs because I get meals made and washing done. I'm definitely not complaining. It's a mile walk to the station and that gives me an opportunity to think and get exercise.

I've been getting additional feedback on the Winter script and doing a lot of thinking about it - thinking about scripts is possibly the most important part. Hopefully I'll be giving this script a good working over in the next few weeks.

The Teacher did jury duty over the last two weeks and sat in on two cases. The first was apparently very unpleasant we won't be discussing it; the second was a waste of time and (our) money because the Crown Prosecution Service could have made a lesser charge stick, but had no evidence for the "higher valued" charge they went for (but could have had the evidence if they had interviewed just one person).

So, I have signed up for the London Screenwriters Festival at the end of October and I'm doing Adrian Mead's thing at the beginning of October in Edinburgh. But in addition, for zero pence, I also get to do a course with the MetFilm School as part of my LSF ticket - which is nice. Starts this Tuesday, I'll let you know how it goes.

Anyway, the train will be reaching it's final stop quite soon so I must pack everything away.

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What's on the turntable? All quiet.