The long dark edit of the soul

And I’m back!

Miss me?

I know you did, don’t be coy now. Come on, we’re all friends here.

Well, not all friends. I know no one likes Gerald*; but frankly, if you’re going to behave like that in public then you deserve all the shunning you get.

So I’ve had my head buried in this script to the exclusion of all else and managed to completely neglect nearly every aspect of my real and e-life.

So sorry for that, but I’ve been busy.

But it’s done now. It’s over. I have triumphed. I have journeyed into the foetid depths of my dwindling imagination and emerged victorious once more.

Or possibly victorious, it’s hard to tell until the client comes back with his thoughts – the whole thing might be a complete and utter pile of poo.

I hate the first draft. Hate it. Every time I write one I wish I wasn’t. Anything’s better than writing a first draft. Watching juggling, that’s better than writing a first draft. Organising the kitchen utensils by date of purchase – that’s better than writing a first draft too. Hell, even nailing your genitals to something acidic would be preferable.

Your genitals, please note. Not my own. That doesn’t sound like fun at all.

You know what I hate most about the first draft?

Apart from all of it?

The final check and edit before sending.

It all just feels so pointless. I fully expect to ditch at least fifty percent of the first draft during the second draft. At least, possibly more. So fifty percent of the words I’m scrutinising for sense and originality and zingy-ness will be chucked out. It’s methodically polishing stuff which is going to be just chucked in the bin.

Add to that the fact I’ve been staring at these scenes (in various forms – synopses, outlines, treatments, character breakdowns) for months now and can no longer tell if any of it is good, bad or indifferent … and the whole thing takes on a kind of Kafka-like level of inanity.

I’m fiddling intricately with stuff I no longer understand for a client who’s going to hate half of it. And if he doesn’t hate half of it, it’s my job to convince him half of it is shit; because, you know, the scariest comment you can get about a first draft is:

“I love it! It’s perfect!”

Um … no. It can’t be. Half of it must be shit. It just must be. Read it again and read it fucking properly this time.

The other end of the fretful rainbow is maybe this client is one of those clients who doesn’t understand that fifty percent of the first draft is MEANT to be shit.

What if he doesn’t get it? What if he thinks this is as good as it’s going to get and loses interest in the whole project? What if this is my only stab at writing this and I’m actually going to be permanently judged on THIS draft? What if he does something weird like send this draft out to everyone in the fucking world for an opinion and they judge me on this draft, not knowing which draft it is?

It has happened. And it’s not fun.

Couple those feelings with an all day session of squinting at a monitor until late into the night while everyone else in the house has gone to bed and perhaps you can see why I hate the first draft so much?

The second draft, on the other hand, I fucking love. Deleting whole swathes of shit with one keystroke, joyous!

So here I am, the day after submitting the script, waiting in fear of the judgement and in eager anticipation of being able to gut my own work. I’ve come through the long dark edit of the soul and am trying to reintegrate myself into society.

So what else has happened while I was away?

Well, I had one of those lovely meetings with a lovely TV development script editor at one of those lovely major production companies. Where the aforementioned lovely development editor explained, in a very lovely manner, why all my ideas were shit.

Now this may not sound lovely to you, but let me assure you it’s absolute fucking gold. I’ll go into how and why this meeting happened some other time, but the essence of why this sort of thing is so valuable is this: explaining why ideas are no good is exactly the same as explaining which ideas are good and what everyone’s currently looking for. Getting that information from someone who’s actually in the industry and actively seeking that content (as opposed to nobodies reposting the same old falsehoods on their pointless self-aggrandising blog) is amazing.

Plus, despite hating everything I pitched, she still wanted to read something else! Although, she may have just been being polite.

Either way, that was a beautiful experience.

I’ve also finished a script I’ve been writing with an actor friend (or to be more precise, my brother’s best friend’s brother) and it’s really something special. Or at least, we think it is – and I generally hate everything I’ve ever written.  Just need to make time to market that one now.

It’s a spec script! I’ve written a spec script! Me! Something I’ve written for me!

On top of that I was offered a script job I really, really want to write. Always a happy day.

And the cherry of delight on the cake of absolute awesomeness … a script I wrote years ago which has been in development for … well … since about six months before I’d actually come up with the idea, has found its way onto the desk of a guy who’s one of those people everyone’s actually heard of!

And I don’t mean just industry folk, I mean everyone.

He wrote that movie we all love. And that other one we all love. And that one I love but most people never saw. And he directed those two movies everyone except me loves which were produced by that guy we all worshipped as kids. Oh, and he directed those movies which everyone in the whole world went fucking nuts about.

That’s him!

And by ‘found its way onto his desk’ what I actually mean is ‘he asked to read it’.

So, you know, that’s a good day right there. Even if he hates it, that guy who wrote that movie we all love and that other one we all love and that one I love but most people never saw and directed those two movies everyone except me loves which were written by that guy we all worshipped as kids and directed those movies which everyone in the whole world went fucking nuts about … will have read at least one page of something I wrote.

He knows who I am! Even if he thinks I’m a talentless twat, he still knows who I am!

Happy days.

And that’s about it for now, because I’m no longer accustomed to all this bloggy chat.

In essence, I’m well. Hope you’re well too. Feel free to brag about your latest efforts in the comments, I’m keen to catch up. Next time (which will be soon) I’ll find some free shit for you.

———————————————————————————————-

*Not you, the other Gerald. You’re lovely.

Argrhu!

I huaven’pt been around muchu recently. Or at least I huavent been around muchu in an online sense, obviously I still huave a corporeal body; but, thuanks to a rigrorous exercise progrram, considerably less of a corporeal body thuan I used to huave.

If you follow me on Twitter, you may huave noticed thuere’ps not muchu to follow rigrhut now. If you merely subscribe to thuis blogr in thue vain huope I one day say somethuingr interestingr … you’pve probably noticed I’pm not huere muchu eithuer.

Truthu is I’pm ballbustingrly busy and actually feel gruilty if I do anythuingr withu my laptop othuer thuan write.

Scripts. Othuer thuan write scripts.

So whuere as some insanely excitingr thuingrs are huappeningr, I can’pt really spare thue time to tell anyone. Whuichu is most upsettingr.

Still, huopefully, I shuould be done soon and normal service will resume.

Thue eagrle-eyed amongr you may huave noticed a few typos in thuis post. Sadly thuis appears to huave been thue reesult of a small accident involvingr my laptop, a four year old chuild and a grlass of water. More annoyingr thuuan thue odd random letters is that thue backspace key eithuer returns thue cursor to thue begrinningr off thue pagre or putss it a line up. Thus huelpfully prevent sme from autocorrectingr myself by huittingr backspace after every gr, ‘p or hu.

Thuis, of course, is exactly whuat I need whuen I’pm racingr for a deadline.

Still, it’s not all bad. I have found a solution, it ‍just looks a bit silly.

In other news, Strippers vs. Werewolves is on TV tonight – 21.00 on Movies 24, that well known home of ‘quality’ movies. If you haven’t seen it yet, you’re damned lucky. If you have and want to see it again, seek medical help.

Oh, and if you feel like critiquing the writing based on the film (as opposed to actually reading the script) then just remember – praise goes to Pat Higgins, angry rants and abuse come to me.

Enjoy your day, I’ll be back soon.

Ish.

FilmCraft: Screenwriting – competition

FINALLY! A BOOK WHICH TEACHES SCREENWRITERS HOW TO GET LAID!

Okay, so it’s not a ‘get-laid-quick’ book; but (despite the odd choice of cover photo) it’s still a damned fine book.

More importantly than not being a ‘get-laid-quick’ book, it’s also not another ‘How to’ book which tells you all the endlessly recycled secrets of screenwriting you never needed to know but are expected to pay for when you can learn for free with a bit of effort and an internet connection.

Tim Grierson’s FilmCraft: Screenwriting is actually a really cool collection of interviews and profiles with (and of) some of the greatest screenwriters ever to put finger to keyboard. It’s kind of a coffee table book, but jam packed with interesting interviews and behind-the-scenes bits and bobs.

I got sent a copy yesterday by the (presumably) lovely Emily Owen of Ilex Press and I’ve got to say it’s an incredibly beautiful book. I’ve only had time to flick through it (and read the odd bit here and there) but it looks really interesting.

This is the press blurb:

From the Hollywood blockbuster to the American indie to the international arena, the writers in this book are the people responsible for some of our most indelible cinematic memories of the last 50 years – and most audience members don’t recognize their names, let alone know anything about them. Screenwriting aims to give these creators their much-deserved moment in the sun. A must for students, cinephiles and anyone interested in the craft of writing for the screen.

• Featuring in-depth interviews with modern masters of film ranging from Billy Ray (Flightplan, The Hunger Games) to Stephen Gaghan (Traffic, Syriana) and Guillermo Arriaga (Amores Perros, Babel, 21 Grams).
• Includes fascinating behind-the-scenes material from the contributors themselves, including shooting scripts, writers’ notes and unseen visuals.
• Features supplementary legacy profiles of the greatest writers of cinema’s history – Woody Allen, Ingmar Bergman, Paddy Chayefsky, Ben Hecht and the famous duo of Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond.

Tim Grierson is a film and music critic whose writing has appeared in Screen International, L.A. Weekly, Backstage, The Village Voice, Revolver, Vulture, Wired and Blender, as well as on About.com, IFC.com, Yahoo Movies and Gawker.com. He is the co-author of FilmCraft: Cinematography – a profile of the world’s greatest cinematographers – and the author of the Mark Everett biography Blinking Lights and Other Revelations: The Story of Eels. Tim has served on the jury of the City of Lights, City of Angels (COL•COA) Film Festival, and is currently vice president of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

And there are more details here: 
http://www.ilex-press.com/books/filmcraft-screenwriting/

If you listen to John August and Craig Mazin’s Scriptnotes Podcast (and if you don’t … really? Start now.) then you’ll have heard John describe this book as his ‘one cool thing’ for … um … well, one of the recent weeks. (I don’t always listen to the podcasts in order and tend to get confused a lot.) Anyway, John August thinks it’s cool and he wrote Big Fish, so he’s probably right.

The best part of all this is the copy I have here is not for me, it’s for you.

Yes, you!

Although … I might fight you for it. It is lovely.

No, fair’s fair – it’s a giveaway copy and give it away I must.

So … I need a competition. Something fun, something easy enough to get people entering but not so easy it’s insulting.

Hmm … I suppose I could just get you to leave comments and pick a winner at random … but that sounds a bit dull.

Damn it, I hate thinking up competitions.

Ooh! I know! That’s the competition!

If you want this fantastic book, which normally retails at £19.99, then come up with a competition which has this book as a prize and post it in the comments. You don’t have to actually enter your own competition or even be capable of winning it. You can choose “write an Oscar-winning script using only the letter Q” or ”build a matchstick model of my arse on the moon wearing oven gloves” or anything else you like.

It doesn’t have to be feasible, achievable or even pleasant – just think up something which makes me laugh and I’ll pick the one I like best.

Don’t be mean, tell all your friends to come and enter (because you’re so clever they can’t possibly compete with you) and give everyone the chance to win this lovely piece of work.

As for a time-scale, for you … I give you a week. Let’s say the closing date is the 24th May 2013.

Good luck!

Other people’s ideas

I think we all become scriptwriters because we have lots of ideas, lots of stories to tell. It’s certainly true for me, whenever people ask me how I became a scriptwriter, my stock answer is:

“As a child I told a lot of lies. Turns out, as an adult, if you write those lies down you get paid for it!”

Which is more or less exactly how it happened.

But the thing is, as a scriptwriter, I actually spend more time writing down other people’s ideas.  It seems to me the job is mainly taking other people’s thoughts or images and translating them into words. Sure, if I write a spec script (which I haven’t done for years) then they’re my ideas … but as soon as the script sells, it belongs to someone else and they want their ideas layered over the top.

And that’s when it gets difficult.

I find the hardest part of the job isn’t putting my ideas down on paper in a concise and lucid manner; but putting other people’s ideas down on paper in a concise and lucid manner. Mainly because their ideas are rarely concise or lucid to being with.

“I’m a little confused with this note, are you suggesting we replace the scene where we reveal who the murderer is with a masturbating baboon? Oh, it’s allegorical, is it? There was me just thinking you were a pretentious twat.”

But the pinnacle of hard-isity is writing a script for an idea which is already half-written (whether that half-written means a synopsis, treatment or existing script) because I have no idea what bits of this idea mean to the person who hired me.

When I’m asked to work on someone else’s idea, the first thing I try and do is work out what the story is actually about. Whose story is it? Why could it only happen to them? What do they learn? What’s the theme/point of it all? Basically, what is the story trying to say?

Asking the person doing the hiring doesn’t always help – if they’ve tried to write it themselves and got stuck, it’s usually because they have a pile of good visual ideas with no idea how they connect together. My first job then is to try and put a skeleton inside the body they’ve already created.

In theory, that doesn’t sound too bad. You’d probably imagine it would be easy, just cut it open, insert the bones and sew it up again.

Simple.

Except, no.

Because a story without a theme, the body without the skeleton isn’t a head, two arms, two legs and a torso waiting to be animated – it’s a pile of unidentifiable organs and fleshy bits. There’s frequently no way of telling which bits belong where. Sure, some bits are obviously eyes or a lung; but other bits aren’t so clear.

Frequently what I’ve been given, once I separate it into piles, is three arms, five legs, no head and a torso which belongs to a goat. Or maybe just one massive arm with nothing else attached. One where the skin appears to be cobbled together from six different ethnicities and the flesh is infested with maggots.

Without that clear skeleton of …

• Whose story is it?
• What does he want?
• Why does he want it?
• What’s stopping him?
• What does he actually need?
• Other questions I can’t be arsed to write down.

… then there’s no way I can make a coherent person out of the disparate body parts. The easiest way to make it work is to put all the bits to one side, craft the skeleton and then see if any of the bits belong to it.

This is fine if I’m dealing with a producer who’s optioned/commissioned a script from someone else, tried to get it work, can’t and has come to me to try again. Usually there’s one or two core images/concepts they want to keep; the rest is up for grabs. Here’s a spleen and an elbow, make up the rest yourself.

Fine. If I know the size/location of the spleen and elbow, I can make up a body to fit around it. That’s okay.

But what if the producer wrote the initial idea? Or worse, the director? If it’s a director then there’s usually a load of really cool images and shots and things happening which HAVE to stay in. They have to. If it’s a producer, I often get saddled with an unworkable mish-mash of characters because they’ve already promised the roles to certain actors who will guarantee financing/distribution.

If I have to throw it all out, then it’s essentially telling the person who hired me that all their ideas are crap.

Even if that’s true, it’s not very nice to hear. The person who made this random pile of body parts worked really hard on them.

Really hard.

True, they’ve worked really hard in the wrong way on things which don’t matter until late in the game; but they’ve still worked hard. They have an emotional attachment to the seven really cool ears they’ve designed or the new type of liver which is sixteen foot long – throwing them out would be a disaster!

Sometimes the bits are fine, they just need explaining. If he can explain what the spleen is and what it does (which is impossible, no one knows what a spleen’s for. No one!) then I can work it in. Frequently though, the first few drafts of a new synopsis are just me trying to understand what the intention behind all  the wobbly bits was. I often find myself throwing out all the bits which aren’t needed, crafting a perfectly working body and then finding out the two spring-things were spring-loaded kneecaps which enable the body to jump really high and thus become an awesome basketball player.

Oh, right. I get it now.

So why not just make the body taller and ditch the springy bits no one is going to believe? You hadn’t thought of that? Of course not, that’s why you hired me.

Sometimes none of the bits I’ve been given belong to the idea the person who hired me had in mind, because they don’t really know what they had in mind in the first place. Sometimes all of the bits belong (albeit in a different order) but I didn’t know that because the person who hired me is incapable of articulating what their idea is. And, of course, sometimes it’s all just my fault for not listening, not understanding or simply grabbing the wrong end of the stick and running like hell in the wrong direction.

This process, this understanding of intention, is the part of the job I find the hardest. It’s a laborious, frustrating process which can result in both sides thinking the other is a fucking moron … but it’s a vital step. I’ve walked away from some projects because I couldn’t work out what the hell they were on about. I’ve been fired from others for much the same reason.

Luckily I seem to (eventually) get it right more often than not; but it doesn’t change my loathing for that bit of the process.

Hopefully the future will bring some kind of what’s-the-fucking-point telepathy which will help people understand each other; but until then I guess I’ll spend my days knee deep in unidentifiable wobbly bits, praying that last squelch wasn’t me stepping on anything important.

P90X vs biscuits

I was having dinner the other day with the admirable Arnopp, conversing about all things writerly, when the conversation drifted (as it often does) to exercise.

Now you may think exercise is an odd thing for two writers to talk about, given writing itself is about the least energetic thing you can do (even though thinking does burn quite a few calories); but that’s kind of the point.

There’s a tendency for writers to pile on the pounds a bit. I guess it’s due to moving nothing but your fingers and eyes for hours on end, usually within sauntering distance of the biscuit barrel.

I don’t know why, but chocolate biscuits seem essential to the writing process. Or my writing process at least. Some people like to choose the right music to write to, I like to choose the right biscuit to set the mood.

The end result of years of finger-waggling and biscuit-guzzling has left me slightly larger than intended.

I don’t know how it works for women, but as a man I’ve always said “The day I can no longer see my own cock will be the day I hit the gym in earnest”.

Well, that day … never came. Although I suspect I may have been leaning forward a bit.

The day that did come though was the “clothes are too tight and I can balance a mug of tea on my stomach whilst sitting bolt upright”. Okay, so the personal tea shelf is quite useful; but the clothes thing was annoying.

So it was time to do something about it.

But what?

I’ve been an occasional gym member over the years and found it takes too much time getting there/back; plus, if you work out how much time I spent in a gym versus not in one, I largely paid NOT to go to the gym.

Which is a waste.

There’s a free gym on the Secret Writing Island; but I could never guarantee it wasn’t full of other people. I hate going to a busy gym Having to constantly modify my workout to anticipate which machine/piece of equipment will be empty next just irritates me beyond belief. Seriously, if you ever see an episode of Death in Paradise in which everyone in a gym is dead except for one chubby, spoon-wielding,  ginge – IT WAS ME!

Years back I used to train three different martial arts on various nights … but I’m a family man now and disappearing every night is frowned upon. Mostly by me. So that’s out.

Time is another restriction. I don’t want exercise taking up all morning. Nor do I want it taking up all evening. If Mandy’s out of the country then I have to look after Alice and can’t really leave the house, so I needed an exercise program I could do in my own house, with limited equipment which didn’t take longer than an hour a day.

Enter P90X.

I don’t know if you’ve seen the infommercials for this; but it’s all over American TV and looks really, really fucking annoying.

But … I wasn’t getting any thinner it seemed to tick all the boxes – an hour (ish) a day, limited equipment, no need to go to the gym.

I’m a bit obsessive when it comes to research, so I spent a few months poring over the details and decided … oh fuck it, why not?

And you know what? It’s been really good.

Well, mostly good.

I’ve enjoyed it anyway.

Or at least the bits where I wasn’t lying broken in a pool of my own sweat vowing to hunt down and murder Tony Horton.

I didn’t do the before and after photos because … well, it’s a bit weird; but let’s just say after completing the program I can happily report my penis and I are once again seeing eye to eye.

To be fair, I didn’t even do it properly. Instead of six days a week, I did four or five and I didn’t even bother with the meal plan. I did give up chocolate, sweets, crisps and biscuits for February (never give up stuff in January, it’s too long. February’s much more civilised) and have subsequently found I’m not that bothered about snacky stuff now.

Or, you know, significantly less so.

Immediately pre-P90X I ate 16 Lily O’Brien’s chocolate chip cookies in less than an hour.

That’s just silly, in anyone’s delicious book.

P90X is essentially a series of alternating muscle/cardio videos – 14 in all. You do muscle/weight stuff on the odd days and cardio stuff on the evens. The muscle stuff is broken down into groups so you don’t work everything at the same time, whilst the cardio stuff is plyometrics (an hour of ‘fuck me is this nearly over yet?’ jumping and squatting), Yoga (an hour and a half of ‘fuck me, I can’t do that!’ whilst dislocating the odd shoulder) and Kenpo (an hour of vaguely martial-art-themed punching and kicking. I’m quite good at that one).

I’ve found I can do it immediately after Alice has gone to bed or early in the morning before breakfast, depending on whether I’m in the UK or on the Secret Writing Island. It’s an hour of effort with no travelling time … and, well it worked for me.

I look better, I feel better and I’m thinking better. Hopefully that translates into writing better too … but probably not.

For me, it’s a good system at a reasonable price. Even more reasonable if you get a second hand set off eBay.

No, there’s nothing revolutionary in it. Yes, you could put a similar program together yourself; but there’s an inherent level of motivation to be had from following a video. It’s far easier to give up or slow down (on the cardio bits) if you’re just doing your own thing, so for me it was worth it.

There are dozens of similar products out there, this was just the one I chose. I think I’m going to try Insanity next because the adverts amuse me.

“Most of you watching this won’t be able to do Insanity. If you try, you’ll fucking die so don’t even bother.”

But if you’re feeling a bit porky and want to sort yourself out, you could do a lot worse than checking out P90X.

Like I say, it seems to have worked for me.

Or at least, everyone keeps telling me it has. At great length and in effusive detail. Which is exactly the same as having friends and family following me around saying:

“Fuck me, you used to be so fat. You were massive. Oh my God, you were so big I wanted to be sick.”

All fucking day.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to do some one-handed press ups.

I need the other hand to eat these biscuits.

They loves it at Cannes, they does

Occasionally I get asked to write (or re-write) a script by someone (be that producer, director, actor or anonymous other) whose idea “went down really well at Cannes”.

Sometimes they’ve shown this idea to huge celebrity x or massive producer y or ginormous studio z and the response was incredibly positive – they love the idea/treatment/script and said this person should go away and get a script (re)written. Come back and see us when you have!

This used to impress me as much as it impressed the person who wanted to hire me to work on their fabulous idea. I mean, if huge celebrity x, massive producer y and ginormous studio z think it’s a good idea then it’s got to be worth working on! At least the person I’m writing the script for has someone in power eagerly waiting to read it when it’s done! That’s got to be better than writing a script for someone who has no idea what to do with it afterwards, isn’t it? I mean … they love it! Right?

Well, yes … and no.

Yes, because the person doing the hiring has at least worked out how to get the material in front of someone who could, potentially, make it.

And no because if the idea/treatment/script were any good then said important person would have bought it.

The vital bit of the second paragraph is “go away”.

“I love it! Come back when you’ve developed it further!” means “Fuck off and take your stupid fucking ideas with you.”

But this is a polite industry staffed with “artistic” people who react badly to criticism, so no one is honest. Not really. A producer/exec/actor will rarely tell you something is truly awful because they don’t want to offend and they don’t want to risk being wrong.

Just because someone puts a god awful idea in front of you today, doesn’t mean they won’t come up with a work of genius tomorrow. It’s unlikely in most cases, but not every piece of work from a good writer is going to be perfect. Or even good.

Similarly, just because you don’t like an idea doesn’t mean it’s inherently bad – someone else may like it. Several hundred million someone else’s might like it. If they do, then it makes sense to invest in that person’s bad ideas because … well, fuck it. If the idea makes money, it doesn’t matter what your personal feelings are about it.

There are plenty of films I think are appalling which have been smash hits – if I’d been in position to commission those ideas, I’d have lost my studio untold millions. Okay, so that happens; but if you decline politely then at least you’re in a position to say yes to the film maker’s next project. If you tell them to take their talentless shit and fuck off then they’re unlikely to want to do anything other than yell “I fucking told you!” through your letterbox at three in the morning.

So no one says no. Or rather, they say no; but make it sound like “I love it … but it’s not for me.”

Which leaves me in the interesting position of dealing with people who think their idea is awesome because no one’s told them it isn’t.

And in a way that’s fine, because they hire me to fix it.

Sometimes there is a nub of a good story buried in the script/treatment/idea and there’s something to build on – those are the jobs I accept. Sometimes there really isn’t anything to it – those are the ones I politely decline, for much the same reasons listed above.

The problem comes when the hirer believes the “It’s great! Please go away.” means their idea is so amazing it doesn’t need much work. Those projects are tricky because they don’t want to be told what’s wrong with their idea – they know for a fact there’s nothing wrong with it because x, y or z loved it.

It’s really hard to explain to people what x.y or z really meant without upsetting them. I try not to get involved with people like that because … well, it’s just frustrating and pointless. Unfortunately it’s not always possible to determine how immovable people can be on ideas before you sign the contract.

I wish I could. I wish there was some kind of collaboration test I could get potential employers to fill in. Something which would let me know how open they are to new ideas and how clingy they’re going to get to the bits which don’t work.

But there isn’t. Or at least, I don’t think there is.

So instead I’m left with my fallible intuition and the annoying realisation that I will occasionally get trapped in one of these pointless arguments.

I should just tell them the truth.

If they loved it they would have bought it there and then! Money is the only yes!

But I never do. I just swear a lot in private, wait a couple of years and then change their names and genders so I can whine about it on here.

Does that make me a hypercritical coward?

Yes, probably.

Sorry.

Wreck-it Ralph

I occasionally rant about films which disappoint me. I try not to slag films off willy nilly because … well, it’s a bit dull, isn’t it?

Every now and then there’s a film I have high expectations for because the creative team behind it have struck gold before or because it’s an unutterably cool premise or because I fall for the hype and get all wound up about it. When those films suck, I get a bit upset and occasionally feel the need to vent – especially when they’re films everyone else seems to love unconditionally.

I don’t know why, it just rankles.

I rarely praise films though, not at great length; but I feel I really should.

Why?

I don’t know.

Whether I like or dislike something should be largely irrelevant to most of you reading this. I mean, it’s not like my opinion holds any sway … fuck, it barely holds any interest. But I’m much happier being nice about stuff than nasty, so in order to redress the balance, let’s talk Wreck-it Ralph.

Have you seen it? If not …

MILD SPOILER WARNING!

Actually, you know what? These aren’t really spoilers. I think the film’s excellent and even if I describe every minute of it to you, you’d still enjoy it for the sheer exuberant awesomeness it is. Having said that, if you haven’t seen it and want to experience it fresh … then stop reading now.

Wreck-it Ralph – loved it. Paper Man, the short at the beginning, is so beautiful I thought it was going to overshadow the film … but it doesn’t.

Wreck-it Ralph is so exquisitely crafted it’s just a joy to behold – the spine is so clear and every beat hits dead on. It’s the story of a man who can’t accept his place in the world and everyone he meets reflects his own flaw. Instead of learning to love himself, he sets out to attain external validation (winning a medal) but even that he does wrong – instead of earning the medal (or affection), he tries to steal it.

Venelope is (on the surface) just like him; but she wants to gain acceptance through her own merit. The villain is just like him; but is further down the path Ralph has set himself on – it’s just beautifully orchestrated.

I aspire to creating such a solid spine in everything I write; but it rarely actually materialises and tends to get bogged down in details, scenes and characters which have nothing to do with the theme or heart of the story.

Wreck-it Ralph breaks down into four beautiful parts – he isn’t happy; he tries to change it by doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason; he tries to do the right thing for the wrong reasons and finally he accepts his place in life and does the right thing for the right reason. He learns to use his unique skill for good and finds his place in the world – it’s just brilliant.

Following this sort of structure may seem formulaic but it creates moments of genuine emotion because everything Ralph, Venelope and King Candy do comes from acting on the same impulse in different ways.

The set up is smooth and flawless – you get a ton of information about how the world works without really noticing it.

I love animation anyway; but having a four-year-old, I tend to see more of it than I would otherwise wish to; but when it’s as good as this … it’s just sublime. I’ve seen quite a lot of heavy-weight films this year and the best of them left me thinking “yeah, that was okay” Wreck-it Ralph is the only film I’ve seen this year which thrilled me and left me with a big smile on my face.

It’s also the only one I can hold up as a template against the scripts I’m writing at the moment and go “Ah, that’s why it’s not working – that bit’s sticking out too much!”

Not that I’ve ever said that; but you know what I mean.

So … yeah. Wreck-it Ralph – go see it and then think about it. A lot.

Or don’t.

You know, I feel like I had more to say when I started this post … now it all seems a bit pointless.

Motivation, will power and confidence

I try not to give advice in the main, partly because the Internet is awash with bad advice, partly because I think people should figure things out for themselves; but mostly because I think you”d have to be fucking mental to listen to anything I have to say.

Having said that, this post is advice.

Sorry.

I think it’s important advice because it will help you become not only a better writer but also a better person.

Probably.

Well, maybe not.

Let’s just say I think it’s important, you may not.

Motivation, will power and confidence – three things which are essential for a script writer to possess.

Obviously you also need talent, skill, an understanding of structure, time something to write with or on … and, you know, lots of other shit … but let”s not get picky.

Motivation, will power and confidence – the ability to start writing when you don’t want to, the ability to stick at it when there are better things to do and the ability to sell yourself and your work when it’s done. Three essential things which have one thing in common – they don’t fucking exist.

Seriously, there are no such things. These aren’t physical attributes. You can”t measure them. There are no units of confidence. You can’t say he’s got three Beckleys of motivation or she’s got five Arnopps of will power. They aren’t innate abilities, something you’re either born with or not – they’re states of mind and, like most states of mind, you can simply choose to have them.

A confident person is someone who thinks she’s confident. A motivated person is someone who believes he’s motivated. Will power? It’s just telling yourself ‘no’. There’s no physical reason why one person is better at or has more of these qualities – it’s all in your mind.

Okay, so confidence can be eroded by other people. Sure, I get that. I’ve been there – at 13 I burst into tears and hid in a box in the storeroom of my mother’s shop rather than conduct a three-question survey. That feeling has never left me, I’m terrified of social situations and would rather be struck dead than engage a stranger in conversation.

And yet, despite that, I recently walked into a house full (and I mean FULL) of strangers and interviewed them all for two hours as research for a TV project.

How?

Simple, I just pretend I’m an incredibly motivated, strong-willed, confident guy.

And do you know what the difference is between someone pretending to be these things and someone who isn’t?

Nothing.

If you’re reading this blog then you’re probably a writer. In which case you’re used to pretending to be other people (or acting, if you prefer). The only way to write a script is to pretend to be each character on every page. We act out every role so we know what that person would do next. We pretend to be hundreds of other people in our career … so why not in real life as the need arises?

When I want to be better at Kung Fu, I pretend I’m Bruce Lee. When I want to be better on the guitar, I pretend to be my mate Mark Allen (who is just fabulous). When I want to be the kind of person who can confidently walk into a room, I pretend to be someone who can walk confidently into the room. Which, embarrassingly, I’ve recently discovered is Jon Pertwee’s Doctor.

Why? I don’t know.

Does it work? Yes.

It’s that simple, really.

Now some of you reading this won’t believe it. You’ve tried giving up smoking or drinking or chocolate biscuits and you couldn’t. Possibly because you *tried*.

Tried. What the fuck does that mean?

Did you sit there with a biscuit in front of you, wrestling with your own arm as it moved of its own free will?

“I tried giving up smoking” You either give up or you don’t. There is no try as Yoda famously said – and he should know, because he had Frank Oz’s hand up his arse and a face like a gangrenous scrotum.

You want to give up smoking? Pretend you’re someone who doesn’t smoke – then there’s nothing to give up because you DON’T smoke.

You want to be more confident? Just fucking pretend you are and you will be.

Seriously.

Okay, okay, so I did read some research once which said the bit of your brain which produces saliva is larger in extroverts than in introverts. There is a physical difference and in theory you can measure that at birth and determine what kind of person the baby will be.

And maybe that’s true.

Or maybe the saliva-producing part of your brain merely enlarges to cope with demand because extroverts talk more and need more saliva?

Is it nature or nurture? I don’t know. And you know what? I don’t want to know. Because if it’s nature, then I’m fucked – I will never be anything more than a terrified teenager hiding in a storeroom. If there’s a choice (and there is) and you can believe in one thing or another – believe in the one you can control.

Motivation, will power and confidence – how much of each you have is totally up to you.

Really.

Just like believing this post.

The HMV high

On the day it was announced HMV was going into administration, producer Jonathan Sothcott posted this on his Facebook page (reprinted here with his permission, don’t go copying and pasting it willy nilly now):

Administration doesn’t mean closure but today’s news about HMV appointing administrators makes it a dark day for the UK film industry. With 90% of physical sales made at supermarkets, HMV was the last bastion of the niche title after the fall of Virgin, Zavvi, MVC, Choices, Tower Records etc. With the supermarkets (understandably) focussing on big budget studio product and uber-commercial top 20 material it means there is nowhere left to buy independent films that don’t make the cut. As a producer, I’m fortunate that my films generally get picked up by the supermarkets. As someone who loves DVDs, I’m gutted that my choices have been so limited.

As a teenager I caught up on more cult movies in the Brighton and Croydon branches of HMV than anywhere else. I know there wasn’t an internet then so the concept of ‘rare films’ made collecting videos more exciting but it was an experience that generations to come are unlikely to have. On Christmas Eve I queued for over an hour in HMV in Croydon buying Christmas presents and it gave me a renewed hope that the rumours were not true and that HMV might live to fight another day.

Alas it was not to be. There’s a lot of silly talk about downloads replacing physical formats and how you have to ‘face up’ to it – scant comfort for the 4,300 people facing unemployment. Download might be on the horizon but I promise you it isn’t here yet. No HMV will push piracy rates up and it will be the illegal downloads that skyrocket.

Sad, sad news.

And it got me thinking.

It got me thinking about how much I enjoy the act of buying something physical, of walking into a shop with cash and walking out with a product I have to wait until I get home to watch.

It got me thinking about what it will mean for low-budget film-makers in the UK and how (apart from a select few who “qualify” for supermarket sales) HMV is the only outlet where people can buy their films; but most of all it got me thinking about how exciting it is to see your own DVD for sale in a shop.

Now, I don’t know if that means anything to you. Mainly because I don’t know who you are.

You may not think seeing a DVD of a film you’ve had a hand in creating on an actual shelf in an actual shop is particularly exciting. Maybe you’ve had so many DVDs released you no longer care? Maybe you’re far too cool to get excited about such trivial things? Maybe you’ve never made any contribution to a film, script or otherwise, and just don’t see what the fuss is about?

Me? I fucking love it.

Regardless of the quality of the film itself, I find something electrifying about seeing my work in a shop. Being able to buy it in public is part of it; but a greater thrill is anyone else can buy it too!

They might buy it in front of me!

They might even tell their mate what they’ve heard about the film. Good or bad, doesn’t matter – it would be an unfiltered opinion!

Okay, so you could argue that the internet is full of unfiltered opinions; but you could equally argue most internet opinions are written using the ‘cunt’ filter. (Yes, including the ones expressed here.)

Even better than that, maybe the guy behind the counter will make some comment on my purchase? Maybe he’ll tell me I’m wasting my money and should buy Football Fuck Ups Vol 18 instead? Maybe he’ll look me in the eye, recognise I’m in some way connected to the making of this DVD and acknowledge me with a knowing nod of the head?

None of these things have ever happened,  by the way; but they could! One day, they might, who knows?

Okay, they probably won’t; but buying your own DVD in an actual shop is so exciting (to me) that it overrides all reason.

First time I saw a DVD of my work on sale was The Evolved. Annoyingly, I bought it before I’d thought of taking a pic.  I had to go back into the shop (or store, for t’was in America) and ask the clerk if I could put it back on the shelf and take a photo of it (lest he saw me taking it off again afterwards and accused me of stealing).

Surely this would be the moment where he recognised my greatness!

 

No. He just said “Yeah, whatever. Do what you like.” and strolled off to be impossibly cool somewhere else while I giggled insanely and snapped the photo above.

Not immediately above, higher than that.

Not that one, the one above that.

Go back and look at it! Between The Exorcist and The Evil Dead! How fucking cool is that?

The photos are in chronological order, by the way. I suppose I should move them around so that one is next to this sentence; but I just can’t be fucking bothered.

Oh, I’ve just remembered! I got so excited about seeing The Evolved in store that next time I passed an FYE, some months later, I went in and bought it again. Yes, I am the guy who bought all the physical copies ever sold! Both of them, that was me!

The guy in that shop did pass comment on the DVD, he looked at the cover, looked up at me and said …

“Holy shit! What the fuck is that?”

 

I love seeing my work on shop shelves and I love buying them with my own cash … and it saddens me that generations of film-makers to come may not have that opportunity.

If HMV goes (as it probably will) then only those who make the kind of movies supermarkets want to sell will get to experience that buzz; and supermarkets are notoriously fickle about what they will and won’t stock.

Yes the death of HMV would have wider implications for the UK film industry (this article in The Guardian highlights most of them); but from a purely selfish level, I need that small victory at the end of the process.

Writing a film is fucking hard. Dealing with the development process is even fucking harder. Watching the final product emerge as an absolute fucking mess is just soul destroying; but being able to walk into a shop and buy a copy of the DVD, no matter how atrocious its contents … it’s a high I genuinely hope those who’ve never experienced it get to love one day.

But realistically, no HMV means you probably won’t.

You can’t see this, but I’m now doing my sad face.

Jealousy redux

Did you read this excellent blog post by Debbie Moon?

If not, you should. Go on, go have a read, we’ll wait …

…

… while they’re off reading the post, have you noticed how much more attractive they are recently? I mean, I don’t know what it is, whether they’ve lost weight or done something with their hair, but … wow! I’m a quivering rod of sex-citement when they’re in the–

Shh! They’re coming back, act natural!

…

… Read it? Cool. Good post, isn’t it?

No, no I always stand like this.

Anyway, my favourite bit about that post is point three. Writers do tend to get inordinately jealous and dispirited by other writers’ success.

This is silly.

Really.

I’ve blogged about this before: 
http://phillbarron.wordpress.com/2011/04/16/jealousy/
; but it’s worth repeating because … well, it’s probably not worth repeating. To be honest, I’d forgotten I’d written that and only worked it out after I’d written this and WordPress pointed out I was repeating myself. However, let’s not dwell on that. Let’s pretend this repetition was intentional from the start and that I pay as much attention to what I write as you do.

So … yes, it’s silly.

Yes, there are a finite number of jobs – considerably less than there are writers; but it’s very rare that someone else get exactly the thing you want.

Well, okay, that depends on what you want. If you want to write for a specific TV show, then every writer who does is doing the job you want. Similarly, if you want to adapt a specific book then you’re shit out of luck too.

But apart from that (and some other stuff I haven’t thought about), particularly in the movie industry, someone else’s success is completely irrelevant to you.

Or at least, is far from detrimental. It’s certainly not worth being jealous about.

If you know this person, then you should be pleased for them. Their success is a good thing for several reasons:

1) It makes them happy and happy people are nice to be around. Happy people make me happy.

2) Having successful industry connections is never a bad thing.

Let’s say you’re a writer who’s best mates with Steven Moffat – that would be a good connection to have, wouldn’t it? It may not guarantee you a job on Doctor Who; but it means you at least have access, and that’s half the battle. There would have been a time when he was just starting out and only one step ahead of someone with no credits – getting all upset about that just taints a possible future connection. You don’t know which of your connections will be important/influential in the future, so why not just be nice to/happy for everyone? It’s self-defeating to be otherwise, as well as being cuntish.

3) The other person’s success is probably not what you think it is.

This is particularly true in the UK film industry. A writer you know has been hired to write a film script for an actual production company!

Oh my God, that guy’s so much more successful than me!

Erm … yeah … possibly not.

In the UK, most films are independent. Only a very small minority of films have any kind of development budget. Most of these films pay either a pittance or nothing for the script until the first day of principle photography.

Okay, so he’s writing a script for an actual production company … but that company might just be one guy with no money who’s printed up some business cards.

Yes it’s nice to be writing for someone as opposed to chucking stuff into the spec void (which, by the way, is a stupid way to think about it – target your writing to an audience, be that a producer or an agent or an actor or whoever … don’t just write stuff you have no clue who would want to read it unless you’re just starting out and need the practice) but it doesn’t mean there’ll be either a film or some money at the end of it.

Even if a writer you know has a script in development with a major TV company … doesn’t really mean anything. Someone who works for that company might have read the script and said “Yeah, it’s alright … would be better if all the characters were animated teapots though.”

The writer goes off to make the (unpaid) changes with no contract in place and tells everyone they’re developing something with Bumfuck TV.

Writers make shit up. We exaggerate. We find the drama in the situation and expand on it. That’s what we do. Fuck, that’s what everyone does. A guy who gets beaten up by two men will say he was beaten up by three men the next day and by eight the next week … humans tell stories, particularly if the stories make us seem more successful or less stupid.

Writers aren’t wrong to fudge the truth to make themselves seem more successful – it’s absolutely the right thing to do. We absolutely should be celebrating every success, no matter how minor, because the job is mainly a race with no finish line.

Writing is just a series of hurdles, for everyone, no matter how successful they are or aren’t. The job is primarily to see how many hurdles you can jump over before the race gets cancelled and the project falls apart … at which point, you go back to the beginning and start again.

Yes it’s frustrating, yes it’s largely a waste of time and effort … but that is what the job is: a hurdles race against yourself where there may or may not be a finish line.

Getting bent out of shape because someone else has jumped over one more hurdle than you is silly. They’ll probably fall at the next one. If they don’t, that’s a good thing.

Even if you know for an absolute fact (which is impossible) that you’re a better writer than that guy … so what? If you’re better and that guy can do it, so can you.

Writing is about who you know, there’s no denying that … but you can easily get to know people with a little effort. Beyond that it’s just about being good at the job.

EVERY aspect of the job.

Be a good writer, be nice, be helpful, be a team player, be supportive, be visible, be the kind of person people want to spend time with … and you too could find yourself being “hired” to write a script with no hope in hell of being produced.

Personally, I want all my friends and acquaintances to succeed. I want them to have rich and varied careers which take them to unprecedented heights … because I like them and because, whereas it may not help me directly, it certainly can’t fucking hurt.

If someone’s doing better than you, ask them what they did and copy it. Be motivated by other people’s success, not envious.

Jealousy … you just don’t need it.