ScriptFrenzy - that's a wrap

So, I have completed my script for ScriptFrenzy this year, 101 pages.

Funny I always seem to hit almost exactly 100 pages every time I write a ScriptFrenzy script (I've done it five times), of course 100 pages is the amount I need to "win". But I never overrun which is surprising since I barely plan these things - I start with a rough idea of the characters and the plot, and nothing else (except last year which was an adaptation).

The Teacher has suggested it's my magazine training. Nearly 20 years of writing articles for magazines (and editing them) has meant I have had "writing to length", "writing to style" and "writing to deadline" drilled into me until it happens automatically. I will write the correct length of script - almost to the page - by the deadline. I like deadlines, though not for the same reason as Douglas Adams, that's one reason I do ScriptFrenzy, I know I'll come out the other end, a month later, with a feature script.

Anyway it's done, codename Rebels, now I have a polish to do on Running which will take a couple of days and then it's on to the rewrite of Winter. Finally.

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What's on the turntable? "Brandenburg Concerto No. 1" by J S Bach.

And fade out ... fade in

Right. That's the rewrite of Running finally finished.

Just in time for me to start work on this year's ScriptFrenzy, oh good grief. Now I was going to write an SF thriller based on the idea I got at the end of watching Timeline which I called Pox. But I'm also supposed to be re-writing Winter which is a story set in a Steampunk setting.

So I thought I'd get myself in the mood by writing a Steampunk feature in the same universe. No idea what yet but typically for ScriptFrenzy you have to write 100 pages in the 30 days of April, which is a fairly relaxed 3.33333333333333 (etc) pages per day.

I'll think of something, I'm a professional.

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What's on the turntable? "Pan Dance" by Jethro Tull from "Minstrel in the Gallery"

You're going to think I'm just rambling but...

...I have a plan, and it's cunning.

Six days to the meeting with the agent.

Bring ideas they said. "What else you got?" I have ideas, quite a few. (And twelve original ideas for Hustle plots.) How about two kids series from the 70s that could be "re-imagined" for Saturday evening. A naughty $200m blockbuster book adaptation without permission (my excuse? Kate Leys told me to just write it - and, to be honest, I had to get it out of my head). And some original stuff.

Bit like the perennial question that established writers get: "Where do you get your ideas from?" The correct answer is, of course, everywhere.

I like to use ScriptFrenzy to knock out feature scripts, it's a handy deadline to write a script in a month. But this year I was thinking, hm, I've got no feature script idea, and I have a rewrite on Winter to do. And we're halfway through March. (Mind you, the last two years I've done the scripts in two weeks rather than the permitted four.) So maybe I'll skip it this year.

Timeline is a fairly poo movie that was on TV this evening. I read the book first, that was a bit poo too, and read like a movie treatment, which I guess it was. It should have been a better movie, but it wasn't.

But that's not the point.

I was watching the end of it (nothing would make me watch all of it again - well, nothing except money, or love, or cake. Especially cake.) and a scientific question formed in my mind. Something about the technology being used for the time travel. And this scientific question begat another question (also in my mind). And the second question begat a "what if"* ... and suddenly I had a plot for a feature**.

So I'll need to knock that into some sort of structural shape before April 1st, and knock the whole thing out in a couple of weeks because that's how I roll. (Unlike some I don't roll by turning over and over - that's just so last millennium.)

And that's another idea I can present to the agent.

Easy as falling off a log. (And, as someone who has fallen off a log or two in his long log-standing career, I can confirm that it really is that easy. And often as painful.)

Right. That's enough garbage for one evening. Night-night.

* In my mind.

** Guess where - though I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget.

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What's on the turntable? "In the Gallery" by Dire Straits from "Dire Straits"

You deserve an update

It's been a fairly pressured few weeks - the day job, my contract at that time, was in a very bad location for travel, had an appalling work schedule in relation to my travel, and was improperly specced which meant I ended up working all hours to finish it. Even though I wasn't getting paid for those additional hours.

Harrumph.

Just as well it was a short contract. My new contract is in a better location for travel, has a better work schedule and while my time will be filled getting the job done I will only have to work during work time.

Which is much better.

Ooh, while I'm here let me just say the commentary track on J.J.Abrams "Star Trek" is excellent, we watched it again last night and I loved it again. So I thought I'd listen to the commentary while ironing (I do 99% of the ironing) and it was definitely worth it.

On the writing front

Once I finished that contract, I got back into my rewrite of Running which is going pretty well. Had a few sticky moments but I realised that with all the changes I'd been making - as a result of this - there was one further technique I needed to apply in order to smooth out the story and ensure the whole thing flowed logically.

I needed to plan it backwards, this is another Jeff Kitchen technique and it goes like this:

Your story needs to have a logical flow. Each element of the story must be a logical progression from the previous element. You can achieve that by writing the story backwards: Goldilocks jumps out the window and runs away; Because she is scared by the Three Bears; Because she's woken up suddenly by the Three Bears; Because she ate all of Little Bear's porridge; Because she broke into their house while they were away.

Like that. You start with your ending and work back to the beginning. If you can't, you have a problem with your story: it's not logical.

So I did that with Running and smoothed out the plot and now, as I write it, I'm marking off each because.

Good news ... or not?

Back here I was a naughty tease, but I will now reveal that a good scriptwriting agency (as opposed to a web developer agency, which I also use) has read several of my scripts and concluded that they would like to have a meeting. I have tried not to get too excited as there is many a slip 'twixt cup and lip.

Hopefully I'll be able to arrange this in the next few weeks. It is quite stressful being so close, and it being so likely that nothing will come of it.

Importantly they put in writing that they consider that I can write.

Which is nice.*

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What's on the turntable? "Aristillus" by Camel from "Moonmadness"


*No irony intended - we need all the affirmation we can get.

So ... Bolivia?

What? Bolivia? No. I mean, in a minute.

First things first. Writing. Oh yes.

The talented Bill Martell has a great screen tip, which was recently re-aired, about the Antagonist. He makes the point that there's loads written on the journey of your Protagonist, but very little about the Antagonist.

Which is odd because the Antagonist is the most important character in the story. Without the Antagonist there is no story. It's obvious, so obvious it's not regarded as important. But it is.

Case in point, as you know I've been re-writing Running and it's been going a bit slowly. So I've been yanking tools out of the writers toolbox and trying them for size. They've been handy, given me some ideas and so on, but nothing's really solved the problem.

Until this script tip of Bill's popped up again and I realised that this tool had lying buried at the bottom of the toolkit  under a layer of old sandpaper and blunt blades.

The story's Antagonist wasn't clearly delineated: Why was she doing what she was doing? What is her ultimate goal? I had got some of it but there was no real plan. So I sat down and had a good think - train journeys are good for sitting down and thinking - and I got it. I know what she's doing and why she's doing it. And as soon as I did that the whole story fell into my lap. (Yes, the Antagonist is female, so is the Protagonist, I might make Detective Sergeant female too, that would balance it out.)

I should probably mention that one of Jeff Kitchen's tools implies the importance of the Antagonist's actions but doesn't emphasise it as much as Bill does.

So that was good. It meant I had to change the beginning of the story, which was a shame because I liked the opening, but that's the way it goes. Sometimes you have to kill your babies.

Bolivia? Not yet.

I've started another blog but I'm guessing most people who read this one won't be interested in that one, it's a technical blog about Drupal 7 for people who know what they're doing.

Bolivia!

My daughter is going to Bolivia as a volunteer to work with the animals, to help with her own Zoo Biology degree. She needs donations so it would be really good if you (yes you! Noo not the person beside you, well that person too, but YOU) make it easier for her to get there.

She's got herself a part-time job, while studying at University. She's taken up running so she's fit enough when she gets there. And the person who contributes the most will get a Jaguar cub as a prize. (What? No jaguar cub?) Alright, well everybody who contributes can pat themselves on the back.

How do you do that? You go here or here.

She's got a way to go to collect everything she needs - and everything helps. Do something else good today.

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What's on the turntable? "Flowers never bend with the rainfall" by Simon & Garfunkel (I've lost my harmonica, Albert.) 

Procrastination station

I'm on a train heading back to London to begin a new web development contract, having got my head screwed on straight during my Birmingham getaway.

There are two main types of contract job in my field: one where you are embedded in the company you're working for (as I was at NBC); or working for the client of an agency, as I am this time.

This job is much easier to get to than the previous one - no train changes required, going to and from, plus the station is quite close to the agency. Much more convenient.

To be honest I'm procrastinating. I've been working on Running for the past hour and a half, and have hit a logical but awkward scene. Not quite sure how it will reach the resolution it needs to reach yet, so I need to think about it a bit. The script is progressing nicely however.

I saw The Green Hornet today. Quite entertaining in general, though not a "great" film. However there was one aspect which had me in writer-gasms (hm, might not use that term again) when it came to the film's Inciting Incident. You might think that in a comedy action movie the Inciting Incident might be something huge, at least very funny or even action-y.

But it isn't, it is a tiny thing which is set-up very well and fits the main character perfectly. Quality writing, but given the main character's complete lack of caring for others, it had to be something that would reach and move him.

I also watched Jonah Hex. Even disregarding the terrible liberties they took with the story and the character, this is a poorly written film. A shame.

I also need you to start thinking about Bolivia.

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What's on the turntable? "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits from "Brothers in Arms"

Holidaayy

What?

Sorry yes, midway through my exceedingly refreshing two week sabbatical. I know, everybody else goes back to work and I go on holiday. How inconsiderate of me is that?

So what have I been doing apart from getting my head put on the right way around?

I've done some writing - still working on the Running rewrite, pretty happy with the way that's shaping up, a new ending popped into my head which is much juicier than the original. And I've been doing development work on the sitcom Charity when not seated at the computer.

This sitcom writing thing still scares the life out of me - unlike any other type of writing. I'm almost afraid to put finger to keyboard even though I have characters and storyline worked out. Why? What if it's not funny? If you read industry people discussing sitcom submissions their biggest issue with what they receive? It's not funny!

Oh well.

Oooh, I've already entered a scriptwriting competition, so that's one of my required 12 for the year.

It was easy with Without a Box (http://www.withoutabox.com/) which is another way for Amazon to take control of the indie film market but at least you can actually get something out of it. Basically hundreds of film festivals from around the world add their details to WAB, and then you can enter them online (and pay online - they [almost] always cost to enter).

Filmmakers can upload their projects and submit them (this is the majority of the festivals) while scriptwriters can upload scripts and submit those to the writing categories of festivals. Quite handy, and it means it becomes easy to enter lots of competitions and spend a lot of money.

What else?

Oh, I also started my secret campaign to get my name about more. Too soon to know if it's working.

And I watched a lot of films on TV.

See you soon.

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What's on the turntable? "Revelation Highway" by Gordon Giltrap from "Music for the Small Screen"

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"

In case you hadn't heard...

Red Planet prize is go...

Two months to the deadline - which is good for focussing the mind, I'll need to zap through a page 1 rewrite of Tec which was my original plan.

Got my second set of feedback on Running from BlueCat which was interesting. If you resubmit you can choose whether to use the same or a different reader, I chose a different one - the more viewpoints the better in my opinion.

The differences in emphasis are worth mentioning: The first reader commented a lot more on structure and balance of characters; while the second, who's clearly an action movie fan, was more about balance of action (comparing it to District 13 which is good since that's the target market) - though mentioned the lack of character development, which was fair comment.

Anyway it gives me something to work with - I doubt very much I'll make even the semis for this BlueCat competition, Running needs a lot of work.

In other news...

The Daughter has arrived in New Zealand, and in another day she'll have reached the place where she'll be doing volunteer work - still no idea what she's actually doing. We received regular text updates as she crossed the world. We're planning on making an Earth sandwich at some point.

The Boy took part in the Saddleworth Whit Friday Band Contest last Friday - being (almost) a teenager he expressed a complete lack of enthusiasm but had a great time. Even had a taste of beer apparently.

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What's on the turntable? "Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel. Quality.

Bechdel test - do I pass?

John August has been reminding everybody, who doesn't already know, about the Bechdel test which assesses the presence of women in movies. The questions are simple:

1. Are there two or more female characters with names?
2. Do they talk to each other?
3. If they talk to each other, do they talk about something other than a man?

This is relevant to me because I've just completed the page one rewrite of Winter and popped it over to the Director who is quite enthusiastic - which is nice.

So, does Winter pass (even though it's only about 30 mins long)?

Yes, two female characters with names (40% of the named characters but one of them is the protagonist) . They do talk, albeit briefly, and it's not about men.

Quick run through of other stuff I've written: Monsters passes (TV); Air passes TV); Unit X passes (TV) ; Babel passes (film); Une Nuit a Paris passes? (I think) (film); Tec passes definitely (TV); Running fails (film). So, not too bad.

And Running wouldn't be too hard to fix - several characters could easily be female.

Which leads to the question: why are they male in the first place, if it doesn't matter? Essentially because I was just following stereotypes. If I can manage two females in Unit X which is World War II US Army (okay, one's a doctor and one's a nurse); I'm sure I can manage more women in Running (in fact just thinking about it introduces some interesting possible dynamics).

How do your scripts stand up to the test?

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What's on the turntable? "Soultrane" by John Coltrane. Nice.

Travel

The Daughter took a year off before going to University. The original plan was to spend six weeks volunteering with the orangutans in Borneo. Unfortunately that ended up being too expensive.

So instead she's heading to the Antipodes - four weeks of volunteer work in New Zealand followed by some time in Australia with family.

She has paid for a lot of it herself - she found several jobs including waitressing, before/after school club assistant, and most recently cricket scorer for a local team. (Having a daughter who's a cricket scorer is slightly surreal since, as a family, we have little interest in team sports and only a slight interest in individual sports.)

Add to that the Boy is heading to France for a week and needs to know how to ride a bike. Which he doesn't. Belatedly (because he says he's got the hang of it and just needs practice) I looked up learning to ride a bike on the Inner-Tubes, um ... Inter-Tubes.

This site is good http://www.whycycle.co.uk/learning_to_ride_a_bike/

This one is okay http://www.sheldonbrown.com/teachride.html

I have not, and will not, be travelling much this year. Except to Birmingham from time to time, but I may be going to the big US of A next year.

The Boy has been choosing his GCSE options: Being a star pupil he didn't get all the choices he wanted, apart from sciences and maths, he's doing music - he's very excited about the composition part - he plays three instruments and in three bands. But, unsurprisingly in our family, he's chosen History. We do tend to shove it down both kids throats - those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it - but they don't seem to mind (the Daughter did Classical Civilisations which she loved). The Boy has a particular interest in WWII and that's what he'll be covering, so he's happy.

On the writing front...

The super secret project has been confirmed as dead (but at least it's confirmed), and I didn't get through the Big Finish new writers thingy. So those can be crossed off. It means I will definitely be using my detective script Tec for the Red Planet Prize, but that needs a page one rewrite.

I did enter the Blue Cat competition with Running and that gets announced some time in June.

I have been working through the page one rewrite of Winter definitely some good stuff there.

Meanwhile I'm also working on three website projects - and now have contributed to the Open Source software project called Drupal (means: water droplet) and my page is here it won't mean a lot to non-programmers but you can see my pseudonym there.

Gosh.

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What's on the turntable? "Heartsong" by Gordon Giltrap from "Visionary" (This was used as the theme tune to the BBC's long-running "Holiday" TV programme. So is appropriate for this post.)

One of those moments

I had that feedback from Blue Cat the other day and I was just thinking about it. There was a throwaway comment in it "In general, you have a nice writing style and a good ear for dialogue" which I already knew.

That's not arrogance (honest) I spent 17 years writing for a computer magazine targeted at the general public. This had two effects: I know how to express concepts, and do it concisely. Screenwriting requires extreme conciseness. (That last sentence, for example, started with three times the number of words.)

As for the dialogue ... well ... I hear my characters talking. It's not that I'm taking dictation, I'm the one telling them what to say, but I can hear them.

At which point, in my thought processes, I came to an abrupt halt (good thing I was wearing my seat belt). Monsters was 7th draft when I sent it out (but it was my second script ever), Air was 2nd draft, Running was 2nd draft ... they've all done well. But Tec, Une Nuit a Paris and Unit X were all a bit rubbish (Tec less so, but still...).

It dawned on me: I couldn't hear the characters in those last three or, at best, they were a bit generic.

It makes sense, of course: If a character isn't "real" that's going to come across on the page and ultimately Character is Plot, so if there characters aren't real, the plot won't be either.

This is a good positive step because it tells me what I need to do to fix those three scripts.

I'm currently reworking Running for Blue Cat, there was one particular suggestion which was very good - giving a much tighter plot - but I don't have time to implement it because it requires a complete restructuring of the script. However I'm doing a general brush-up bearing in mind the other suggestions.

That's when I'm not working on my web project.

(Got up early this morning to do all the procrastination tasks - writing this blog wasn't on my Procrastination List.)

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What's on the turntable? "Emerald" by Thin Lizzy from "Live and Dangerous"

Miaow

Amazing - or at least, interesting.

I got my Blue Cat feedback today. So I thought I'd include a picture from "Dougal and the Blue Cat" - the first Magic Roundabout film - and when I typed "Dougal" into Google, it was the first item in the list.

This feedback is a bit of a marketing trick really, give early entrants the feedback early and let you resubmit, at additional cost. Thing is it doesn't cost that much to resubmit (and get more feedback) so there's no downside.

And the feedback was fairly decent, you could argue they're being nice to encourage me to spend more money, well, okay, but I'm sufficiently far from this script to see the advice makes good sense.

I wrote Running during ScriptFrenzy two years ago and this was the second draft, which I didn't even re-read before sending to Blue Cat (not that I'd necessarily recommend doing that, but at least I know I can spull and do gud gramma). I'd written it originally for a Director I'd met through the Screenwriters Festival - but it wasn't exactly what he was looking for.

So, time to get things moving again - in between working on my website project and Winter I'll re-work Running and their suggestions will probably knock a good few pages out which won't be a bad thing, it's currently 100 pages so losing 10 pages will be fine.

I'm quite looking forward to it.

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What's on the turntable? "Rainy days and Mondays" by The Carpenters - Karen's voice is possibly the most beautiful in the entire universe, what a loss.

Damn coincidence

So the family went to see G.I. Joe today, we knew what to expect - the reviews had been along the vein of "better than you might expect". And yes, I think "better than you might expect" definitely covers it. It's not a brilliant film - though the special effects (especially the chase through Paris) are excellent. The acting is variable but then so is the characterisation delivered by the script.

It's fun.

Except I was very upset by one fairly important thing: there is something, and a very important something, in G.I. Joe that is exactly the same as in my Running script. I can see the writers of that film going through exactly the same thought processes I did and coming up with exactly the same answer. (Though they certainly did it a couple of years before me.)

Galling.

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What's on the turntable? "London" by Gordon Giltrap from "Visionary"

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.

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What's on the turntable? "Morbio Gorge" by Gordon Giltrap from "Perilous Journey"

Alone again

Dropped the Teacher, Daughter and the Boy at the station early this morning and received text reports of their progress to Edinburgh: changing at York, arriving at the hotel and being told I'll get a call when they've seen the last show this evening.

Nothing yet.

Spent yesterday hacking my way through the undergrowth of the Running feature. It really isn't as polished as I'd like but when an opportunity like this pops up you have to take what you can get. I paid my money and zapped it up onto Inktip and received my "preferred subscriber" newsletter that lists the names of the companies along with what they are after - including the company wanting the free-running/Parkour script. Which, it turns out, is a British company - almost irritating considering I spent time adjusting the script to US spellings.

On the other hand there are definite advantages - so we shall see what comes of that.

I received some DVDs through the post which are part of my research for one of the projects I can't talk about - the opportunity to pitch ideas for a TV related thing. So I watched some of that while digesting dinner.

Because of the Running emergency I didn't get the work done on the documents needed for a funding application for the Clones collaboration. But I'm on that this evening.

It's very quiet here.

But then that was part of the point of them going without me.

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What's on the turntable? "Quest" by Gordon Giltrap from "Perilous Journey"

Aha - I have been rung, they went to the Edinburgh Dungeon (free entry with the train tickets), walked around the city a bit and then went to a family-friendly stand-up session at a Comedy Club and were sitting on the front row. Apparently it was very good. [sigh]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh

I stubbed my toe!

I'm lying.

Writers, eh? Professional liars.

I have done a selection of posts about the Inktip website, which is highly respected and quite successful in getting scripts to producers. I used their free offer to post Monsters just to see what would happen.

I get their free newsletter every Friday but only got around to reading the recent issue this morning. And then I screamed.

They have a company that is specifically requesting a Parkour/free running script like Banlieue 13. That is precisely what my feature Running is, but it's not ready.

What to do ... what to do?

I've been reading Blake Snyder's Save the Cat! and, much as I like his style and most of his general ideas, it has to be said I am not a fan of any technique that prescribes plot structure to the very minute (page number) which he does with his beat sheet. Verily, with a 110 minute script he specifies his beats to the minute.

Then again he sold a lot of scripts, some were even made.

I had decided, as an experiment, I would rebuild Running to fit his beat sheet - it's all very well me saying "I don't like (in principle) techniques that are that prescriptive" but I've had nothing produced. So it's worth me experimenting just to see how things come out in the wash, it's not going to do any harm.

And that's what I was going to do - but now I have no time. Especially with everything else going on.

Lacking any decisive thought: I scream instead.

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What's on the turntable? "5 Years" by Bjork from "Homogenic"

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.

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What's on the turntable? "Hello" by Evanescence from "Fallen" - if you like Evanescence you should try Lacuna Coil

Good boy

I printed out Running and I'll start editing at lunch today.

The Daughter is having a meeting with her production team today - yes indeed, she has a team (did I say that already?) and now we have a DoP for the Monsters shoot. Yay!

More soon.

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What's on the turntable? Some music from a game the Boy's been playing...