Meeting of minds

A few hours ago I got a phone call:

“Hey, where are you?”

“On a train.”

“Cool, where you going?”

“Falkirk.”

“Where the fuck is Falkirk?”

“Scotland.”

“What the fuck you going there for?”

“To meet a mate. Well, I say he’s a mate but I’ve never actually met him.”

There was a long pause.

“So how’d you know him?”

“I met him over the Internet.”

There was an even longer pause.

“So … you’re going on a blind date?”

Not exactly. Now I come to think of it, it is a bit odd. Having accidentally found myself in Glasgow, I decided now was the ideal time to go and see Gordon Robertson - a man I’ve known for three years, but have never actually seen or spoken to.

So how do I know him? The power of the Internet, of course.

Flashback to 2005 and several deluded, yet hopeful writers are terribly excited to have been chosen for Shoot the Writers! Seemingly we’d beaten off all opposition and were now faced with the very real prospect of winning a nationwide competition and becoming incredibly famous.

As it turns out, the show was pretty bad and was buried in the late night schedule - still, it was a telly credit and not to be sniffed at.

At about the same time I’d started writing for The Treason Show and was having some moderate success. Gordon recognised my name on the running order and from the Shoot the Writer’s forums and introduced himself.

Three years later and we’ve been in semi-regular contact ever since. We read and slag off each other’s work - in the nicest, most constructive sense - we used to compete for Treason Top Trumps- until I gave in and conceded to his superior output; and we’ve each been among the first to see any completed projects the other has wrangled and finagled through production.

In short, we’ve been keeping a semi-jealous eye on each other’s career, being as supportive as possible whilst being slightly envious at the same time.

And today we’ve finally met.

I’ve just got back in fact and I can say he’s a jolly decent chap. Although bordering on the Scottish side, something which doesn’t really come across in his emails.

We met, we had some food and we talked a lot.

I didn’t kiss him though, I don’t like to put out on a first date.

So there you go. If any of you are ever at a loose end in Glasgow, I can heartily recommend popping over to Falkirk and sampling Gordon’s hospitality - he even bought me a present (well, it’s for Alice; but I opened it for her on account of her not being able to use her thumbs yet) which I thought was particularly nice.

Hmm … maybe I should have put out after all?

Feedback

A friend of mine has this project in production, one I was curious about and really wanted to read. He’s not the writer, but being the generous soul he is, he said yes.

So he sent it, I read it and I thought that was that … but he asked me what I thought. Now, I wasn’t going to say anything, since I’d asked him to send it to me and was pretty certain my opinions were unsolicited and unwanted. However, he asked, so I told him.

I didn’t like it.

It was just a first draft, but I thought it had a lot of problems and said so. I tend to be fairly frank with my opinions - I think it’s a waste of time and insulting to fob someone off with pointless platitudes.

My friend disagreed with my opinions, which is fair enough, they are just opinions after all. He told me everyone else involved in the project loved the script - which, to be honest, surprised me, I really did think it had a lot of problems.

My friend sent me the list of notes the writer was actioning for the second draft and I was even more surprised - the notes written by the people who loved the script were exactly the same as the ones I wrote. They covered exactly the same points and flagged up problems in exactly the same areas.

The only difference was in the tone of the notes, these people are heavily invested in the project and intend to make it; hence their notes are very positive. I have no interest in the project, beyond wanting my friend to do well, and my notes honestly pointed out what I saw as the flaws.

So where I’d said it wasn’t dramatic enough to be interesting; they’d said the plot needed a few more twists.

Where I’d said the main character spontaneously changes personality halfway through; they’d said the character’s journey needed to be a little more gradual.

And where I’d said the supporting characters didn’t have any character; they’d said perhaps more can be made of the main character’s relationship with the supporting characters.

Basically, they were nice, I wasn’t.

My notes were written like a viewer who wanted the project to be good, but ultimately didn’t care if it wasn’t; theirs were written from the perspective of people who’ve invested time and money in the project and desperately want it to succeed.

Personally, I think their notes are better.

Their notes lead to a better script, mine lead to a binned project and a pissed off writer. It’s been a bit of an eye opener for me and something I want to learn from. From now on, whenever I read and comment on a script, I’m going to put myself in that frame of mind - someone who wants the script to be better.

It’s a simple change for me, but it makes a massive difference to the resulting notes. From now on, I’m going to phrase all my notes in positivity; from now on I’m going to spread the love.

Breaking and entering

I’m trying to organise a museum heist at the moment … and it’s proving to be a bit tricky.

It’s for a film, obviously.

Unless this is a double bluff? Some kind of feeble online alibi?

Which it’s not.

The problem starts with the production demanding six characters be used in the heist; and on my first attempt I managed it with only one. This won’t do and, frankly, is quite worrying since I appear to be a criminal mastermind.

A few years back I spent the afternoon casing the British Museum for a different feature project, with a view to writing an action sequence which interrupts a heist. I wandered around for an afternoon, making notes and feeling decidedly dodgy; my business card was gripped tightly in one hand, ready to be offered as an excuse for marking security features on the maps they handily provide. Funny how some research comes in handy years later.

Fourteen years ago, a friend and I planned a robbery of the cinema we worked at. I thought it was a purely intellectual exercise, something to while away the long summer days when the films were shit and everyone had gone to the beach instead. Unfortunately, he was deadly serious. A fact I only found out when he actually started buying some of the equipment.

I’ve had some interesting friends.

Funnily enough, I did eventually get sacked from that cinema for theft and vandalism; but that’s a different story.

Suffice it to say it involved Maltesers and Kurt Russell - another tale for another time.

But I digress.

So I’ve managed to crack a large museum with only one character, making the other five completely superfluous - time for a rethink.

I’m now up to five characters and I’m really struggling to find a job for the sixth. Or rather, I can think of something for her to do, but therein lies another problem.

This is only a heist film up to a certain point, after which it changes track and the heist is (more or less) abandoned. The problem there is the first half of a good heist film is full of little things which make no sense until they’re put into play near the end. Suddenly the seemingly random action becomes a clever and secret way of avoiding a pitfall.

Good heist movies keep you guessing all the way to the end.

But what if you haven’t got an end? What if none of the seemingly random and pointless set-ups have a pay off? All you’re left with is a set of random and pointless scenes. I don’t want people coming out of the film going:

“Great film, but what the fuck was the point of the rubber chicken?”

The sixth character would look decidedly odd and completely unnecessary because the reason for her being there won’t ever be revealed.

One way round it would be to spell out exactly how they’re going to do it and what everyone’s role is; but that won’t work either. Apart from being boring and talky, it takes too much time and I need that for something else later. I could do something funky and clever, a flash-forward which shows what her job is going to be, but again, I hit the page count issue.

The other snag is this has to look and smell like a heist film to begin with and that includes leaving little things a mystery for later.

Funnily enough, writing it down like this, it doesn’t seem like a problem at all - I can think of several ways round it; but when I sit down to write the treatment they just slide away and the logical flaws are revealed.

So it’s back to the drawing board.

I’m sitting here, surrounded with little bits of card with things written on them like:

Shut down the alarm system.

or

Take out the phone lines.

And another pile which explains what can go wrong with every step and how they’d need to switch to a back up plan. I’m trying to divvy them out between the characters but I keep hitting the same snag - it only takes five people and that’s stretching it. I will get there eventually; but it’s taken longer than I originally thought.

It’s funny what skills you need as a scriptwriter: I’m mentally designing a museum and its security system; then I’m trying to crack it. The temptation is to design flaws which I can then exploit; but since that’s a bit on the shit side, I’m trying not to. The key is to make the security clever and the criminals very clever.

Unlike real life where heists generally involve a group of masked thugs wandering in somewhere and hitting people - no style. Security firms are rarely that clever in real life either.

Another friend of mine, a security consultant, one day found himself consulting on security (because that’s what he did) for a large department store. He spotted a camera which could spin through 360° - a useful tool, if it hadn’t been placed up against a pillar which blocked the view of half the shop. He dutifully pointed it out to the store manager who thought about it for a bit, agreed with him and had the camera moved to the other side of the pillar.

When faced with stupidity of that magnitude, my friend did the only sane thing - he robbed the store blind and walked off with £18,000 worth of goods. Like I say, I’ve had some interesting friends.

Meanwhile, back at the point: I’m still not finding a role for this woman. This museum now has better security than the Bank of England and it’s still rob-able by five people.

And rob-able isn’t even a real word.

Maybe I’m being too picky? Maybe I should just go with a flawed plan which makes no sense?

Worked for all the ‘Ocean’s 1#’ films and no one seems to notice or care. In the first film it took 11 of them to do about 4 jobs. For example: two people pushed the cart with the little Chinese guy into the vault while another guy put the explosive in completely separately - why? Why not put the explosives in the cart and have one guy push it?

The second film?

Don’t get me fucking started.

Sorry, back to the point again.

This woman, what the hell do I do with her? I’ve half a mind to make one of the other guys deaf, mute and blind so she needs to go along as an interpreter - but it’s not that sort of film.

Maybe she could just provide the catering?

I will crack this eventually, but right now it’s bugging the hell out of me. Still, it’s an interesting problem to have and screenwriting is all about solving interesting problems.

If it was easy, it wouldn’t be fun.

Internet advice

A few years back I had gallstones and they really, really hurt. My doctor told me the only solution was surgery to have my gallbladder removed. Oddly enough, I’m a little adverse to having bits of my body cut off and became convinced there must be a better way; after all, they got in there without surgery, there must be a way to get them out.

Enter the Internet.

A quick Google later and I found numerous people who claimed to have solved their gallstone nightmare without surgery. There were numerous testimonials from a diverse range of people and since there was nothing to buy and no one to pay, I decided to give it a go. After all, I had nothing to lose except endless nights of crippling agony.

And so it was on one lonely night I locked the doors and drank a pint of olive oil and half a pint of lemon juice.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever drunk a pint of olive oil; but if you haven’t … don’t.

I mean, seriously, don’t. It’s fucking rank.

In the cold light of day you might think this was an incredibly strange thing to do; but at the time, whilst faced with crippling pain and impending surgery, it seemed perfectly logical and reasonable. It’s the same logic which drives people to pay large sums of money to Homeopaths for a mixture of sugar and water - the alternative isn’t very nice and there’s anecdotal evidence to say it works.

But here’s the thing, anecdotal evidence isn’t evidence. It’s just people talking shit.

A year or so and several gallstone attacks later, including one which led to me being hospitalised with pancreatitis on Christmas day, I had the operation and have lived in gallbladder-less comfort ever since.

The point is, the Internet is full of dodgy advice. There’s no regulations so anyone can post any old shit and claim to be an expert.

Now to the real point.

I keep reading the exact same advice from various ‘experts’ about how to create, write and sell scripts. They all say the same thing and it all sounds reasonable and correct; but, and here’s the thing, not one of these people have ever had a script produced. Most of them have never even had a script optioned.

This is not to say their advice is wrong, but it should be treated with a degree of suspicion. These people haven’t learnt their advice first hand, they’ve read it in books. Books written by other people who’ve never achieved any success but instead have chosen to earn a living by selling the ‘SECRETS OF WRITING’. The information and advice in these books, which may or may not be true, gets retold, embellished and re-distributed around the net by people who profess to know THE TRUTH.

They don’t.

Or at best they might be partially right.

I’m just a beginner, but already the advice I read just doesn’t quite marry to my experiences.

I just think people should be careful whose advice they treat as gospel. If someone claims to have had massive success with their career based on a particular website or method - where’s the evidence? If it’s done them so much good, why haven’t they got any IMDb credits?

This is not to say you should automatically ignore everything everyone says, but surely it’s better to add more weight to the advice of people who practice what they preach? Even advice from unproduced writers can be useful, but it’s not to be slavishly stuck to. Listen to what people have to say and then ignore the bits you don’t like.

Basically, have a healthy degree of scepticism.

Don’t just blindly follow advice, no matter how many others swear by it - unless it’s someone whose work you trust and respect. Question everything, ignore what you want and never, ever believe what people write on the Internet without proof.

Hell, if I was you I wouldn’t even believe this post.

I don’t.

Asking the right questions

To me, writing is all about asking questions. When you’re writing a script it’s things like:

• What does the character want?
• Why does he want it?
• What’s stopping him getting it?
• Do I really need another cuppa or am I just avoiding doing any work?
• Ooh, what’s on YouTube today?

Then you move on to dealing with notes and to questions like:

• Are you out of your fucking mind?
• You want to turn the main character into a what?
• Why the fuck would she take her clothes off in the middle of a court case?

But even when watching films I ask myself questions. If it’s a good film, I ask things about the plot:

• Who’s the murderer?
• Why did he make that phone call?
• I wonder if she’s going to take her clothes off?

Of course, if it’s a great film I forget to ask questions and get swept along by the whole thing; but afterwards the question I like to ask most is:

• What questions did the film makers ask themselves to arrive at those answers?

This to me is the most invaluable question I can ever ask. How did the writer or director or producer or whoever arrive at that decision? What questions could I ask which would produce those answers?

For a genre film I might ask myself what are the essential elements I need in this film; or perhaps what the clichés I need to avoid? If it’s a spoof I might ask: what’s funny about the film/genre I’m spoofing? I might write lists down in answer to these questions and then eliminate or incorporate them all into the script.

Sometimes the question defines the concept of the film; for example, ‘Shaun of the Dead’ and ‘Hot Fuzz’ have the same question:

• What happens if you relocate a typically American genre to England?

America is a land of extremes, England is a land of mediocrity. We don’t have crashing storms, deluges and deserts; it’s just mostly a bit damp. This shift in attitude creates both of those films; if you’d thought of that question, you’d have written the films. By working out what question was asked to create them, you can apply it to other genres. Sometimes the question can be reversed:

• What happens if you relocate a typically English genre to America?

Which sparks off, well … nothing. But it could have done, and that’s the point.

Every film I admire I look at the bits which impress me, whether it’s the story or a particular character or even just a particular joke and I ask myself the question:

• What questions did they ask themselves to come up with that?

Maybe they didn’t ask themselves any questions, maybe it was a flash of inspiration; but the task here is to reverse-engineer the film. By taking it back down to a question or series of questions, hopefully you can apply the same answers to your own project and maybe even recapture some of the same magic. Because after all, the one question you don’t want anyone asking about your work is:

• Why the fuck am I watching this?

Loving the treatment

So I’m working my way through a treatment at the moment. I know some people hate them, but I love ‘em. Some people think they restrict creativity or somehow strait-jacket the story telling process.

Some people are, of course, mental.

This is my favourite part of the process, just telling the story before you get bogged down in dialogue and page counts and all the technical gubbins of writing a screenplay. I love the organic nature of the whole thing, that it’s easy to alter scenes as you go.

If a good idea for act two necessitates changing a scene in act one - it’s only a paragraph instead of having to juggle pages of dialogue. I love the way it twists and changes as you go with better ideas, supplanting the old ones without effort or emotional attachment. I haven’t spent hours or days worrying at a scene because at this point the scene is just a few lines long.

Once a treatment’s finished, it’s easier to find the flaws and fix them. If the story sags anywhere - you can spot it and correct it. Reading back through and changing it is effectively re-drafting and saves time later on. Similarly, it’s easier for the producer or director to say what they do or don’t like about it; and once they’ve changed their minds, it’s easier to fix.

It’s just … easier.

As an extra Brucie bonus, once you get to the actual scripting - it doesn’t feel like a first draft. The more time you spend on treatments, the further along the script is by the time you actually get round to typing FADE IN: Not only have you nailed down all the story elements and the character arcs, but you’ve been thinking about each scene with every pass over the treatment which should make writing the scenes ridiculously easy.

In my mind, the first draft of the script is actually equivalent to the third or fourth draft - it’s already most of the way there. This certainly seems to bear out with the films I’ve had produced so far, where the differences between the first draft and the the final draft are mostly cosmetic. It’s rare to have to go back and change anything structurally or to alter a character beyond recognition.

I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but it’s rare.

I love all this pre-writing since it makes the actual writing bit a hell of a lot easier. Altering scripts is a pain in the arse and is needlessly difficult. Synopses, outlines, treatments, character outlines and back-story … those are where the majority of the work should be done. If you’re waiting to resolve these issues in the script, you’re working too hard.

Busy doing nothing

My name’s Phillip Barron and it’s been a week since my last post.

A week? Christ, I’m turning into Stuart Perry.

So what have I been doing in the last week?

Nothing much.

Well, that’s not true - I’ve been mad busy every day but none of it’s massively exciting. I’m just working and sleeping, plodding through to the next stage of every project, one after another, desperately trying to get everything done before the baby arrives.

Sunday I took a day off, drove to Birmingham and waved a sword around under the critical scrutiny of a Chinese Kung Fu Master. Then I drove back.

Today I’ve managed to squeeze in a little bit of procrastination and counted my Target novels, largely in response to posts by Rob and Dave. This is tougher than you might think since it’s not immediately clear what constitutes a Target novelisation. Do the radio episodes count? I think not … largely because I haven’t got them … but if not, then do the ‘Missing Episodes’ count? And are they really as crap as I remember them?

All important questions, but I have no more time. I must get on before the baby arrives and I down tools for a couple of weeks. All I have left is a treatment to finish and a script re-write. I’m fairly sure I can squeeze those in before Mandy squeezes the baby out.

Oh, and a couple of scripts to read; but they can wait … I’ll need something to do while Mandy’s giving birth.

Take ‘em out back and shoot ‘em in the head

A few years back (2004? 2005? Can’t remember) a producer I knew was going to Cannes (maybe it was 2003?) and he wanted ’ a pile of feature scripts’ to take with him.

It was 2002, definitely.

Or maybe 2001.

Fuck it, it was years ago whenever it was. Anyway, in January he said he was going to Cannes. By May I’d written him six feature scripts. Two of them were re-writes of earlier scripts, four were completely fresh.

As it turns out, he didn’t take any of the scripts with him - he either forgot them or didn’t have space in his suitcase or some other fairly useless excuse.

Over the next few years those six scripts, with the addition of one more became my spec library. I whittled away at them on my own for a while, submitted them to TriggerStreet and used the feedback to re-write them until they were all in the top ten.

Satisfied they were all of a reasonable quality, I sent them out to anyone and everyone who would read them. Currently, of those seven scripts, three are under option; one lies in pieces, after I dismantled it to discover why it was shit and never quite got round to putting the pieces back together again; and three have never had any interest whatsoever.

Well, that’s not strictly true. One of them won me some script coverage which in turn got me a discussion with an American manager which in turn led absolutely nowhere. The general consensus is it’s a fantastic script; but too British for America and too expensive for Britain.

The other two … nothing. No one has ever shown the slightest bit of interest in them. One of them is a very personal story which doesn’t quite work. The other is a rom-com: a great concept which isn’t quite realised properly.

A while back I came to the conclusion these scripts just weren’t good enough; but I continued to send them out on the grounds someone might be stupid enough to make them. I mean, people like all kinds of shit so why not these three? Maybe they’re not as bad as I think they are?

Or maybe they are exactly as bad as I know they are.

Today though, I have decided: no more. I am officially retiring the last of these three spec scripts. No more will I send them out in the vain hope of finding a home for them. These three club-footed children of mine are finished. It’s over. Nobody loves you kids so get in the sack, hold onto these bricks and it’s a dizzying plunge into the icy waters of oblivion for you.

Bye now. See ya. Bye, bye.

I’m not deleting them, of course - just in case; but I’m no longer actively sending them out or letting people read them. If someone happens to ask me specifically for something which is identical to one of the scripts then maybe I’ll fish them out of the river - but barring that unlikely scenario, they’re gone.

With that in mind I’ve also removed all of the sample scripts from my website. All of the sitcoms and TV series and short films - all gone. None of them are representative of my writing now, they all show what I could do three or four years ago.

I’d like to think I’ve improved a little since then.

My watch word from now on is quality, not quantity. I’ve build up a nice CV and it’s now time to focus on newer and better material.

So there.

As an aside, I’ve just had an email this morning telling me one of the three under option, FLEECED, starts shooting in 18 days. That’ll be my third feature produced this year and we’re only half way through. With a baby arriving this month, another blackbelt grading this weekend and The Wrong Door hitting BBC 3 in the Autumn … I’m really liking 2008 so far.

The starving artist

There was a flurry of posts on Shooting People this week, sparked by a guy who was wondering if he should give up if he hasn’t achieved success by a certain age.

Naturally, the flood of responses told him not to be silly, keep pushing for the dream, never give in, never give up … etc, etc, etc.

Personally I had to fight the urge to tell him to quit now - part of my ongoing project to eliminate all the competition.

All well and good.

Although a couple of people posted replies along the lines of:

“Scriptwriting is my life. My wife has left me, my kids have been taken away, I’m being kicked out of my flat, I’ve been on the dole for years and I feed myself on one tin of beans a week. I’m starving, I’m impoverished and I’m bitterly depressed, but it’s worth it because I’m pursuing my dream and I’ll never give up.”

This struck me as … fucking stupid.

Scriptwriting is your life?

Really?

My life is my friends and my family. It’s experiencing new things, meeting new people, going to new places. It’s hard work, it’s laughter, it’s learning to cope with the knock backs. It’s loving and being loved in return.

Screenwriting is sitting in a room on your own hunched over a keyboard.

I’m not saying I don’t enjoy it and spend a large proportion of my life doing it; but it’s not a life. And given those two descriptions - who sounds most likely to have something to write about?

Um … obviously, I’m talking about the definition of a life versus the definition of screenwriting. Anyone who’s had all the wife leaving, being made homeless, starving issues probably has quite a lot to write about. You’d probably slit your own throat whilst doing it, but there’s a lot of meat there. What I’m talking about here is people who deliberately let their obsession put them in that situation, not people who are unfortunate through no fault of their own.

Writing is a job, just like any other. Yes it can be fun, and yes I enjoy it more than any other job I’ve ever had - but it’s frustrating, depressing and chock full of stupid office politics. Imagine the worst office you’ve worked in - or better yet, take the worst people from every office you’ve ever worked in, imagine them all suddenly becoming famous, highly strung, deeply unsure of themselves and sporting an ego the size of Africa.

Now multiply it by a thousand and you’ve still nowhere near the egg-shell treading nature of the job.

The point is that whereas people dream of becoming a writer - once you’re getting paid and having to do it on demand it quickly becomes work-a-day and tiresome. Why do you think writers procrastinate so much? Not because it’s such a wonderful experience that you can’t wait to immerse yourself in it time and time again - but because there’s frequently more interesting things going on around you.

Like washing the dishes, or cutting the grass, or even reorganising your sock drawer.

It’s the same as any job - bits of it are more fun than others, there are days when you can’t wait to throw yourself into your work and days where you can’t wait to give up and go and watch TV.

I decided a long time ago that I would never, ever be a struggling artist. I don’t see the advantage of staying at home all day every day trying to write when no one wants to read it, starving yourself in pursuit of a fantasy job which you may never achieve.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t try - but for god’s sake: be sensible.

No job is worth losing your lover over. No job is worth becoming homeless or losing access to your kids or starving yourself. These are not the actions of a well balanced individual.

And I can guarantee no one who refuses to work and stays at home all day does any more writing than anyone else. Honestly, I can guarantee that. People who have all day to write do exactly the same as people who only write in the evenings or weekends: spend most of their time browsing the net for porn.

Writing is one of those careers which may never happen - you have to be realistic. I’m not saying you shouldn’t try, you should. I also don’t advocate setting yourself a deadline - there’s no reason why you can’t keep writing until the day you die. If you enjoy it, keep doing it - but for fuck’s sake don’t starve yourself to do it.

You need a plan, a strategy. Find a day job which allows you the time to write and pays you enough to live on. Comfortably.

With this in mind, here’s my quick guide to finding an ideal, writing friendly, day job.

1. You need a job which pays you enough to live on. This is important, you don’t have to struggle and it doesn’t make you a better writer. Yes experience is good; but if I wanted to write about being homeless I would pick someone off the streets, buy them a meal, ask them some questions and then use my fucking imagination. That’s what it’s there for. Most of the people you’re writing for don’t know what it’s like to be homeless either - they won’t know the difference.
2. Make sure your job doesn’t take up too much time. 9-5 is okay, but try to find one without a massive commute. Adding two hours to the beginning and end of each day is not a good idea.
3. Find a job with no homework. Don’t pick something where you have to spend four hours a night filling in paperwork - what’s the point? That’s writing time.
4. Find a job which requires little or no thought. If the job isn’t mentally demanding, you can spend your working day thinking about Vampires and explosions and shit.
5. Don’t work on your own. You need to meet lots of people so you can steal their life stories and their speech patterns. Characters are so much easier to create when someone else does it for you.
6. If possible, avoid working with computers. You don’t want to be staring at a computer screen all day and again all night. Plus, computers are complicated and you have to think about them. See point 4. The only exception to this is if your job consists of sitting at a desk with a computer and you have no work to do. Brilliant, you’re now getting paid to write.
7. Avoid responsibility. Only accept promotions if it means doing less work for more money. The goal here is not to get too involved in your day job, just go in, do it, come home. Don’t get involved. Satisfaction comes from writing, this is just to pay the bills.
8. Consider shiftwork. If you don’t have a family and you don’t mind missing the odd Saturday night, try working odd hours. That way, when you do start having meetings you’ll be able to take them midday, mid-week without having to phone in sick.
9. This is very important, find a job which is tolerable. You don’t have to love it, but you do have to like it. A boring, depressing job makes you … guess what? Boring and depressed. Find something which is a bit of a laugh and doesn’t make you want to kill yourself and others. Remember, you may be doing it for the rest of your life.

There, simple isn’t it?

At the end of the day, becoming a scriptwriter costs money. You need a computer, software, a printer, stamps, envelopes, paper, ink, competition entry fees, travel fare for meetings, attending festivals, courses …

YOU NEED MONEY TO MAKE MONEY.

Being a full time writer might be your dream, but it shouldn’t be your life. You may never make it … don’t waste your life in pursuit of something which may be forever out of reach. Again, I’m not advocating NOT trying. Try your hardest, be dedicated, write as often as you can without losing touch with friends or loved ones; but be realistic. You need to look after yourself, physically and emotionally. For that you need money and you need love.

Get your priorities right, it’s just another job.

IMDb message boards

As far as I’m aware, there are only two kinds of people who use the message boards on IMDb to talk about low-budget films and film makers: teenagers who can’t get laid and feel the need to vent their frustration by slagging off movies on the Internet; and the film makers themselves who pretend to be teenagers in order to defend their film/selves from the vicious comments.

It’s slightly different for big box office films, but for small, independent D2DVD movies, this is pretty much always the case.

Hence you get films where the message board discussions read:

chickfucka176

“this film suxx OMG its’ so lame (the director) is shit he cant make a good film he must be gay”

Only with worse spelling, grammar and punctuation. Chickfucka176 is someone who posts his hatred for films pretty much from when school finishes until his parents make him go to bed. Hence ensuring his eternal virginity.

This will usually be followed by a response like:

rothe direct

“I love this film. It’s the best thing I’ve ever seen and I highly recommend people go out and buy it. The director is fantastic and is definitely a rising star who will surely be snapped up by Hollywood after such an amazing debut. I’ve heard he’s got a big cock too. I imagine loads of girls want to sleep with him.”

Where “rothe direct” is usually a poorly thought out anagram of the director’s name. This will be his first and only posting on the message boards - subtle.

This is pretty much what the message boards on IMDb are for and, although amusingly diverting, are also the reason why I rarely read any of them. I do read the reviews for my own projects, particularly the bad ones since they’re the funniest. The tag line at the top of this blog comes from one such review: “A new low for the British Empire”. “Leprosy is funnier” is another favourite review of mine.

However, following a discussion about the message boards on Trigger Street, I was idly flicking through and I found this one:

bobthefirst

keep an eye on this fella….definitely someone we’ll be hearing from in the future!!

Normally, I’d dismiss this as someone trying to big themselves up; but it’s on my message board.

What the fuck?

bobthefirst has been a registered user since 2006 and has posted three times in two years. One on Jeffery Jones, one on Green Zone and one on me.

For the record - I am not bobthefirst; but the question remains: who is he? I don’t think it’s someone I’ve worked with since I have no connection to either Jeffery Jones or Green Zone. I doubt it’s one of my friends since most of them have better things to do and are more likely to call me names instead. There is a worrying possibility it’s either my parole officer or one of the lovely people from the juvenile detention centre. Oh, or possibly the police officer who arrested me for counterfeiting*. (bob - bobby? bob the first - Robert Peel himself, risen from the grave to feel my collar?)

I doubt this is some random bloke who was browsing IMDb and was blown away by my profile page - so the most likely possibility is it’s one of you lot.

So come on, ‘fess up.

Who done it?

* Only one of these three people exist. I’ll let you decide who.