Messy

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WARNING!

LONG POINTLESS POST WHICH WILL PROBABLY MAKE YOU THINK LESS OF ME

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I went to a fancy dress party at the weekend, which, at first glance may not seem like it has anything to do with writing.

To be honest, at second, third and fourth glances and a final lingering stare it still has very little to do with writing; but bear with me.

The theme was 1968, since it was a friend’s 40th birthday party and ‘68 t’was the year he was born.

Money’s a bit tight at the moment, so the costumes needed to be cheap and easy to make and after much deliberation I realised this was my one and only chance to dress as Captain Kirk without feeling the need to kick my own geek-boy arse.

So I bought a red mini-dress for Mandy and a long-sleeved T-shirt and some gold dye for me. We already had the necessary boots, tights and trousers so we were all set - but the costumes weren’t quite right. Some gold ric-rac braiding for the sleeves and hey, look! There’s a site which sells the badges - cool. That really sets them off.

So there we are: two Star Trek costumes for under a tenner each …

 

Except … no. The more observant among you (or at least, among the few of you who are still paying attention - there is some writing stuff coming up, promise) may have noticed a communicator and tricorder in the above photo. Because suddenly, the urge to ‘do it properly’ gripped me.

We needed all the toys.

Needed, you understand?

NEEDED.

So I was halfway through buying two phasers, two communicators and a tricorder when Mandy wanders in and asks:

‘What are those for?”

Ah, right. Mandy has zero interest in sci-fi and has no idea what accessories should or shouldn’t go with the costume. Not only that, but no one at the party is going to know what a tricorder is or what it does beyond a vague understanding that it’s something they once saw on the telly.

No, all they care about is the costumes are roughly the right colour and shape. As long as it’s recognisable as a Star Trek uniform from a distance - they’ll be happy.

So I cancelled the order … sort of.

Obviously I still bought myself a communicator and phaser - I’ve wanted them since I was six.

For Mandy, I figured any black handbag which was taller than it is wide would do as a tricorder … before my anal retentiveness kicked in and I decided to just build a mock up out of card. A simple box covered in the black sticky-backed plastic I bought to hide the shame of my gay laptop should do. I just needed a reference photo …

Which plunged me into the world of prop making and detailed schematics. Okay, so I didn’t go as far as building my own vacuum forming machine - but I wanted it to look as accurate as I can make it without actually spending any money.

Because, well, I’m a little on the anal side.

Sometimes.

Which brings us, eventually, to the point.

I’ve noticed with screenplays that format is nowhere near as prescriptive as various gurus, teachers and general know-it-alls would have you believe. Like the fancy dress costumes, as long as your script looks roughly like a script, no one cares.

Except people who’ve been on these courses which tell you otherwise.

You know, the people who don’t actually make a living in film or TV and have no ability or experience. Those type of people.

There’s a great analogy for sticking to standard screenplay format about wearing a suit to an interview. You know the one: presenting your script properly is the equivalent of presenting yourself properly - and this is true. It’s always nice to read a script which looks the part - but no-one’s actually looking at the colour of your screenplay’s socks or the width of its tie knot.

No one cares as long as it’s vaguely right - the content is what’s important.

However, once again, my anal-ness kicks in and I feel the need to iron out all the little creases. In fact, there are a list of things which really piss me off if I leave them in my screenplay. If I see them in anyone else’s, they merely nark me. However, the more items from the list - the more pissed off I get. There is a tipping point where I spiral off the edge from reading a screenplay fairly, to looking for all its faults. Once I’ve crossed that line, I’m less likely to give it a fair chance.

I don’t want that happening when my script is read by anyone else, so I go out of my way to avoid it. These aren’t gospel rules and possibly no one else in the world except me cares about them, but I thought I’d post them anyway:

Single word on the next action line.

You know, when you have a line of action description and the last word spreads onto the next line? I hate this, it looks messy. I will spend literally minutes staring at a line to try and stop this happening. There is always a word or two you can delete which will condense it. Every time I see this, I think the writer’s just lazy and isn’t trying hard enough.

Although, possibly, they just have more of a life than me.

To me this is an exercise is being concise. Part of the art of screenplay writing is to say as much as possible with the least amount of words.

Unlike this post, which is kind of the other way around.

(CONT’D) after character names.

Weird one this - some people think it’s gone out of fashion, some people think it’s essential. Personally I find it a complete waste of time and ink. It just clutters up the page without adding any useful information.

‘Oh, the same person is still speaking, are they? I thought there were two people in the room with the same name.’

Someone once told me at a table read that the actors were struggling because I didn’t use (CONT’D) on every bit of dialogue. Possibly that’s true at a table read where no one had learnt the script - but it’s not going to be true by the time you get to production and personally I think the solution is just to hire cleverer actors rather than clutter up my beautiful script with pointless contractions.

More than four lines of action in one block.

I firmly believe this is just a guideline rather than a definite be all and end all - who the fuck decided on four? Why not three or five? Will someone really bin your script because it has a …. gasp … five line block of action?

Of course not.

It’s a guideline to stop you filling the page with a single block of action. Every time I see big blocks of text, my mind just slides to he last word and carries on.

But … once you know some people might be counting, more than four lines just looks weird. Especially when the fifth line just has one word. You lazy bastard! ONE WORD? Sort it out!

Starting each block of action with the same word.

John opens the door.

John combs his hair.

John punches the old woman in the face.

Enough about John already I’m sick to fucking death of hearing about his age-biased violence. I think it looks really weird when every action line starts with the same word. It’s like a list of bullet points. This is a relatively new one for me, one I didn’t realise I was doing it  until Danny pointed it out on his blog. Now it drives me mad and I avoid it at all costs.

Thanks Danny, ’cause I really needed another thing to be obsessive about.

Which and that.

You just don’t need these words.

Except when you do.

But generally, they just take up space. Apart from this blog, which I tend not to spend too much time editing, I look carefully at every instance of ‘which’ or ‘that’ to see if I really need them. Most of the time they can be removed without anyone noticing.

So I do.

CAPITALS

Not all capitals, obviously - it would be a pretty odd world without them; but I hate SEEING every OTHER word CAPITALISED. It MAKES me FEEL like I’M stuck IN a ROOM with BRIAN Blessed.

STOP SHOUTING!

Again, this is a matter of taste, but it doesn’t half piss me off to see every ACTOR and every SOUND and every PROP in capitals. It’s just fucking annoying to read. Capital letters make me mentally raise my voice, which inexplicably  makes my eyebrows raise. A line full of capitals gives me a very tired forehead - it’s not fun.

Okay, so maybe a production company might insist on this because it makes it easier for a certain department or an actor who can’t read his character’s name unless it’s in capitalised; but unless someone specifically asks me to do it - I won’t. I hate the way it looks.

Double space after a full stop.

Taste again. I think there was a reason for this when type was handset - but it’s no longer valid. Some people may prefer the way it looks or consider it proper English or something; but for me it’s just irritating. It wastes space and when they all line up it looks like someone’s spilt Tippex on the page. Maybe some people think it looks neater - I don’t know. It just reminds me of when I used to work in a cinema and people would leave a seat between them and the next couple. The end result being an auditorium which looks full but actually has a third of its seats effectively rendered useless.

Interestingly, Germans don’t do this. A coachload of Germans will fill up the auditorium from front to back (or back to front). Very orderly and civilised race the Germans.

Having the same word directly underneath itself.

I don’t know how to explain that properly - it’s when you’re writing action or dialogue and the same word (or group of words) reoccurs directly underneath the last occurrence. It just looks wrong and I try to avoid it - hard to do on a blog where the width of the published post is different to the draft version; but inexcusable in a screenplay. I think my bug bear with this is my eyes slide off the top line onto the second line and everything stops making sense.

And other shit.

Which covers the things I can’t remember right now.

Like I say, none of these things seem to be standard format - but they all make a script look messy. I work hard not to have them in my scripts and am a little disappointed when I see them in others’.

So there you go, a post about me dressing up as Captain Kirk which turned into a rant about spaces after full stops. It’s like an episode of The Simpsons, only with less pictures and nowhere near as funny.

The party was great by the way, and our costumes went down well. I’m quite proud of Mandy’s tricorder - okay, so it’s not an amazingly accurate reproduction; but it looks okay from a distance and it cost nothing but an afternoon to make:

 

I even put a photo of our baby scan on the screen so it looks like it’s ’scanning’ Mandy’s bump. I thought that was a nice touch.

For any Trekkies reading this - yes I know the buttons, the lights, the moiré disc, the dimensions and the general construction are completely wrong; and yes I know how pissed off that will make you … but that’s exactly my argument about scripts. It’s okay for me not to care about Tricorder accuracy because I’m not a massive fan - it’s not okay for me to ignore the minor details of script presentation because that’s what I do.

Okay, rant over. Feel free to ignore, add to or dispute anything you want.

Character introductions

 ”We need to re-shoot scene 67, but we can’t get the actress back - can you think of a way around it?”

Thus spake the director on that cold and windy morning.

Two thoughts immediately crossed my mind:

1. Just say yes. Make him think it’s really difficult and a lesser writer would struggle but luckily he’s hired the best around, a guy who makes the impossible happen. How hard can it be?
2. What the fuck happens in scene 67?

Maybe I should know my own scripts inside out, but this is for a film which has finished shooting (or so I thought) and I’ve written four drafts of a different screenplay and the outline for a TV series since then.

And anyway, who actually knows the scenes in their scripts by number? Not me, that’s for god damn sure.

A hurried script consultation later and I’m regretting my automatic assurances. Scene 67, it turns out, is the first time the hero meets his love interest.

Bugger.

How the hell do you get round that? The next scene she’s in, which has already been shot, clearly shows they’ve already met. With no opportunity for any re-shoots with the actress, that scene can’t be changed.

Besides, there isn’t the money or the time to re-shoot any other scenes - it all has to be handled within the confines of the new scene 67.

My side of the follow up conversation went something like this:

“Has she got an identical twin?”

“Oh, can we clone one?”

“What the fuck do you mean the technology isn’t available yet? I’ve seen it on the TV.”

“TV is real, fuck off.”

“Okay, what about a body-double? … And a face-double as well.”

“Ooh, I know - do that thing like Oliver Reed in Gladiator.”

“Well, get a bigger budget then you tight bastard.”

“Take shots of her from throughout the film and cut them together to make sentences.”

“Oh. How shit will it look?”

“She could be a quick change artist.”

“Fine, give her a big hat … Or a veil! Let’s put a veil on her! Then you can use a different actress!”

“I don’t know why she’s wearing a veil, because she’s on the way to a wedding or something.”

“Some people other than the bride wear veils to weddings.”

“Alright, fine - make it her wedding.”

“The husband? He died.”

“Yes, he died immediately after the wedding, but before she had a chance to remove the veil.”

“Make it a funeral veil then.”

“Yes, it’s a dual purpose veil she wore to her wedding and her husband’s funeral. It’s reversible.”

“That’s right, then she went to a nightclub … Where she fell in love with someone else.”

“It’s not shit, it’s inspired!”

“Fine … Fancy dress! Make her dress up as Bugs Bunny.”

“Fancying Bugs Bunny does not make the hero gay. Fucking weird, yes, but gay - no.”

And so on. I think a solution has been found, but once again I find myself charting territory I wasn’t prepared for. How do you rewrite a character’s introduction without actually having the character present? Who runs a course about that one? Huh? Where’s the information I need to do my job? How do you cope in the modern world when Google fails you?

Like I say, a solution has been found - it’s not ideal, but it should work.

What is it?

Well, you’ll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, look through your script and see if you could take any character out of the scene which introduces them and still have it introduce them. Think about that and then think about getting people to pay me more money.

2007

So, how did 2007 go for you?

Mine went something like this:

JANUARY

Decided to stop fannying around and use two contacts I have at two production companies to submit ideas for TV series.

As of yet, I still haven’t managed this.

In a similar vein, I vowed to devote myself to writing at least one spec script in the coming year.

Failed there too.

I entered the Gumball 3000 script competition.

Didn’t win.

I thought the competition had disappeared up its own arse, until I found this. Hmm, did Mike Figgis really enter this competition?

I received the following notes about a feature film which was due for imminent production:

“We want the two Cuba Gooding Jnrs to be African tribesmen, one a medicine man and one a chief, who Tom Jones promised jobs as Traffic Wardens.”

“there is a mine of comedy related to having a dragon spunk bomb explode up your ass and the consequences thereof. I would encourage you to pursue that line of thought”

 “I’ve got this animatronic stag’s head…”

and my favourite:

“Tom Jones should be more like Idi Amin.”

The film still hasn’t been made.

All in all, January was a bit of a failure. The only really positive bit was buying a board to cover with brightly coloured index cards.

I quite enjoyed that bit.

FEBRUARY

Feb kicked off with the Gothenburg Film Festival where, against all odds, The Evolved was being screened. It went down really well and even sold out; I fucked up my first Q&A and still got asked for an autograph by a deranged Japanese fan.

Upon my return, I decided to be more proactive and use one of my cinema contacts to arrange a screening of the film in the UK.

Still haven’t done that.

I somehow got bombarded with scripts from people who wanted feedback. Why did they choose me? Who knows. I tried to oblige for a while, but it was getting on my nerves and taking up far too much time - so I said no and it all stopped.

Christ, all this seemed much more exciting at the time.

MARCH

I lost £90,000 of money I hadn’t even received when a potential feature film budget got cut in half.

Bollocks.

On the plus side, the feature still hasn’t been produced so I haven’t actually lost any of the money I haven’t received.

Not much consolation.

I spent four hours watching someone light a bottle of whiskey and wrote an advert for scented hemorrhoid cream.

And got paid for both of them.

I decided to stop telling lies and remove all the bullshit from my CV.

Chameleon, a martial arts feature film, disappeared up its own arse. No one told me, I found out by accident.

I fought a man whilst dressed as a granny. To be fair, he was dressed as a granny too.

He won.

I decided, rather randomly I thought, to send a script into the BBC Writersroom.

They didn’t like it.

And that was pretty much all I did in March.

Depressing, isn’t it?

APRIL

Ah, right. April must be where it started to get better …

No.

Someone described The Evolved as a “new low for the British Empire”.

I’m quite proud of that.

One of my sketches featured in a ‘Best of …’ thing, despite me not having entered the competition.

That was quite special.

I offered a brief rant about bloggers cloaking themselves in anonymity whilst simultaneously trying to promote their writing … and the next day hordes of people (very small hordes, possibly just two people) revealed their real names.

I’d like to take credit for that, but I suspect it was just a coincidence.

I had a meeting with Don Allen about writing a film for him. I was on top form in that meeting … I babbled incoherently about random things until we ran out of time; and … HOLY SHIT! I got that job.

Cool.

A week later I met Jonathan Sothcott about him using one of my short scripts in a horror anthology - five shorts in one feature. He had my script, one other and needed three more. I pitched six ideas, he loved five of them enough to not even bother contacting the other writer and upped the film to six shorts in one feature.

He turned out to be Martin Kemp’s business partner and between them they knew enough people to pack the film full of celebs.

DOUBLE HOLY SHIT WITH CHOCOLATE MONKEYS ON TOP!

I was right, things did get better in April.

MAY

May kicked off with a bout off contract signing.

Cool.

The BBC Writersroom included me on their blogroll. I was one of nine links then, there’s only ten now - so I’m quite chuffed by that.

Thank you Mr … am I allowed to mention your name? Or will that provoke howls of jealousy from other non-linked-to writers?

I’ll just leave it, you know who you are.

I wrote all six segments of the horror anthology which became known as ‘The Summoning’.

I went to Cannes: crashed a car; crashed some parties, got some expensive dinners bought for me; nearly spent 23,000 Euro on a poker table (not gambling, I nearly bought it in a charity auction); got harrangued by a producer who kept asking innane questions; met some nice people; saw one shit film and spent an obscene amount of money.

Was it worth it?

No.

JUNE

Swore a lot.

Met Martin Kemp.

Walked into a lamp post.

None of these things are connected.

Poured Diet Coke into my laptop.

Optioned another feature film.

Got upset about stamps.

Killed a character because his name started with the wrong letter.

Got my phone bill from Cannes.

Cried about my phone bill from Cannes.

Briefly believed a Welsh woman was an Indian man in a kilt …

AND THEN SOME FUCKING CUNT POURED TEA INTO MY LAPTOP.

Okay, so I poured a teensy, tiny bit of Diet Coke into it a few days earlier; but this guy poured a whole cup tea in and then fucking denied it.

Son of a bitch.

Bastard fucking son of a bitch.

Bastard fucking whore-mongering, cock sucking, son of a bitch.

Oh, and I submitted some sketches to the BBC on a friend’s recommendation.

JULY

Karma Magnet was filmed, starring Gary Kemp and Adele Silva; and directed by Martin Kemp.

I wasn’t there.

The whole laptop saga kicked off. Read all about it here, here and here.

The result?

A gay laptop.

Great.

Almost immediately afterwards I met Abi Titmuss.

She was very polite and didn’t laugh at my girlie pink laptop at all.

At least, not to my face.

Oh, and I lied about talking to John August.

A month of highs and lows.

AUGUST 

Fucked about a bit.

Slagged off creative people.

Mentioned to the world about how nice my wife’s breasts were.

Met a load of the fellow bloggers for the first time, most of whom didn’t believe I exist.

And … um … that’s all I did in August.

Pathetic, isn’t it?

SEPTEMBER

A new first for me, I turned down some paid work.

And then obsessed about it for months weeks … a bit.

Had a request for more sketches from the BBC and bought a toasted sandwich maker to celebrate.

Was sick from eating too many toasted sandwiches.

Slagged off writers in general, for no good reason.

Hit myself in the face with a big bastard sword.

And then fell asleep in a meeting at the BBC.

A particularly good month, I thought.

OCTOBER

Got a bit upset about mobile phones in movies.

Found out the BBC meeting didn’t go quite as badly as I thought.

Wrote a feature film in five days.

Swore never, ever to do it again.

Shouted at the BBC producer for not using script writing software - haven’t spoken to him since.

Met Gary Kemp.

One of the potential feature films got cancelled … and became something a lot, lot cooler which I still can’t talk about.

Wet myself with excitement.

And finally reached saturation point with projects and had to start turning down work in earnest. I turned down a lot of work in October - if you’re one of the rejected: sorry.

NOVEMBER

Wrote a factually, morally and in every other way just plain wrong rant about the term ‘Continuing Drama’.

Sorry.

Admitted to having a Batman costume.

Met Lee Otway.

Got asked to write a treatment for a feature which included the words nudity, vampire, caribbean and Nazis.

That was fun.

Had a cup of tea ruined by an explosion in an airport.

That wasn’t so fun.

And found out the BBC sketch show is using some of my stuff and wants to cast someone really, really exciting in my sketches … but not from the producer who still hasn’t been in touch.

DECEMBER

Got asked to write three more treatments for three more feature films.

Wrote them.

Met Terry Stone.

Slagged off producers.

Slagged off writers, again.

Got a free T-shirt.

And finished off the year by discovering a guy offered to completely fund one of the potential feature films.

 

So, where does this leave me? What conclusions can I draw from this year?

Um … I should learn to keep my fool mouth shut?

Probably.

What does 2008 hold?

Well, so far I’ve got one feature shooting in January, one in February and another ten in development which could spring into production at any moment.

But they probably won’t.

I’ve got a TV series being prepped to do the rounds, with three others hovering in the wings of potentiality and a BBC sketch show hurtling through production as we speak.

Or as I speak.

Or type.

And this morning, I managed to negotiate myself a bacon sandwich.

With HP sauce.

All in all, 2008 is going to be a great year.

Lame meme

Thank you Piers, thank you very much. I’ve survived over a year without being tagged by anyone and you had to go and do it, didn’t you?

So, five things I’m proud of which other people think are lame …

I can’t help noticing a lot of other people list ‘crying at sad movies’ as one of their five.

Wimps, the lot of you.

Crying at sad films? For God’s sake, grow some balls. Real men don’t cry, not ever.

Maybe, just maybe, if your first born is being sacrificed on an altar made from the murdered corpses of your parents, your partner is being raped by Satan and a muscular chap repeatedly kicks you in the balls whilst wearing steel toe-capped boots encased in concrete, maybe then a single manly tear is acceptable; but crying at films … ?

Okay, yeah, I do that too. Doesn’t everyone? Something’s sad, you cry … what’s the problem? Since a lot of people have listed that as one of their five, I’ll try and think of something different.

1) I LOVE MY WIFE

Okay, so on the surface this may not sound that lame; but to put it in context, I regularly find myself in the company of people who cheat on their partners. The majority of people I hang about with, almost 100%, have cheated at least once. Most of them do so with gay and reckless abandon at every opportunity and expect me to join in.

I frequently find myself having to explain to people that I’m married and don’t want to go whoring. They usually point out they’re married too. I have to quantify being married with ‘happily’ married, before they understand.

Actually, they don’t understand, it’s an alien concept to them; but they leave me alone.

2) I HAVE A BATMAN COSTUME

Aha, more familiar territory. This is definitely lame, sad and downright pathetic; but it’s a great costume. I made it myself. When I first met Mandy, I made her a Robin costume too. Some people might think dressing your girlfriend as a twelve year old boy is a little odd, but there you go. These are the costumes:

 

Two photos, because in one I’m pulling a silly face, and Mandy is in the other. I made both costumes, I even made batarangs for my utility belt. This was a Halloween party. On the way there, we got accosted by some kids who demanded sweets. I told them I didn’t have any pockets, but they thought I might be carrying some in my belt.

Meanwhile, one of them was studying Mandy.

“Are you meant to be Robin?” She asks, Mandy confirmed she was. “Oh, you’re a bit of a slutty Robin, aren’t you?” The other kids told her she couldn’t say that, she protested she ‘meant it in a good way’.

I also had a car like this at the time:

Which helped set the costumes off.

Lame? Yes.

Proud? Oh yes, but perhaps not as proud as I was of the Spiderman costume my mum made for me when I was 7. I used to wear that one to school under my uniform … just in case of emergency.

Some people grow up, some just get older.

3) I DON’T DRINK

Alcohol, I don’t drink alcohol. Not that I need to clarify that since it’s such an invasive drug that it’s actually hijacked the verb, but I have some really picky friends who feel the need to pull you up on statements like this.

What’s to be proud of here?

Well, not drinking is really difficult.

Don’t smoke?

Fine.

Don’t take heroin?

No problem, it’s not for everyone.

Don’t drink?

What the fuck is wrong with you?

I used to have to pretend I was a recovering alcoholic just to get people to leave me alone. It’s not just a socially acceptable drug, it’s a socially expected one and I don’t like being told what to do.

If pushed, I will tell people why I stopped:

I was the first of my friends to learn to drive and the first to own a car - hence I drove everywhere. I can remember sitting in a pub at 17 thinking ‘I’m not having fun’. I vowed the next week I wouldn’t drive so I could enjoy myself.

Then I got angry.

I didn’t start drinking until I was 14, I know I definitely had fun before that. So I obviously don’t need booze to have fun. I’m in the same place with the same people, doing the same things and I’m not enjoying it - why? Why does not drinking suddenly make something not fun?

Ah! Because it wasn’t fun in the first place, I was just too drunk to notice.

At more or less the same time, some of my friends started to get into harder drugs. I didn’t want to. Their argument was it was no worse than alcohol. I agreed.

I changed my vow, I decided I wasn’t going to drink ever again, I was only going to do things which actually were fun.

I’ve never been bothered by other people’s boozing until recently. I keep meeting girls who get so drunk they don’t know how they got home or who they got home with. Basically, they get raped on a regular basis and they’re fine with it.

I meet guys who get drunk and punch things: the walls, the furniture, their girlfriends and they think this is fine (both parties think it’s fine) because they were drunk and couldn’t control their actions.

You can control your actions, you don’t drink at all.

Almost everyone I know is addicted to alcohol and doesn’t know it. As far as they’re concerned it’s not a problem because everyone else does it. I’ve seen fathers allowing their toddlers a sip of beer every night because ‘they want them to be proper drinkers when they grow up’.

As an experiment, every time you hear someone talking about drink, replace it with the word ‘heroin’ and see how odd it sounds to a non-drinking.

Nowadays, when people ask me why I don’t drink I tell them: “Because it’s a lethal toxin which destroys your productivity and ultimately kills you. Why do you drink?”

Fuck, that was a long rant.

Sorry.

I’ll try something a bit lighter.

4) DICK GRAYSON IS MY FAVOURITE COMIC BOOK CHARACTER

There are two lame parts to this.

1) I have a favourite comic book character when the majority of the planet thinks comics are for kids.

2) Dick Grayson? Dick? The first Robin? Everyone else hates him.

They’re wrong.

Dick is a great character. Why does Batman need a Robin? Well, because his parents were killed when he was a child and he’s never grown up. Dressing as a bat and hitting people is a very childish response to the world’s problems, especially when you’re an intelligent billionaire. Why not run for president and sort out society’s problems? Why not buy businesses, run them as non-profit making organisations and give people meaningful jobs which pay well? Why not improve education? In short, tackle the cause of crime, not the end result.

Bruce Wayne suffers from Peter Pan syndrome, hence he takes in a young boy. People giggle about their relationship, it makes Bruce look like a gay paedophile; but the truth to me is he’s a child in an adult’s body who needs a like-minded friend. The only solution is to find a boy of the same mental age as him.

But Dick grows up and the two of them fall out. They argue because Dick is no longer a child. Bruce pushes Dick away and replaces him.

From Dick’s point of view … well, every child (even a lot of the abused ones) looks up to their father. There’s a particular point in your life when you realise you’ve become better at something than your dad, when you realise he’s not perfect and it’s crushing. Then you get over it and get on with your life. If he’s not perfect, you don’t have to be either. It’s a moment of acceptance and becoming.

Dick has never had that. His ‘father’ is Batman. Batman doesn’t make mistakes, how do you live up to that? Dick lives with a constant inferiority complex brought on by trying to live up to an impossible standard.

Then Batman pushes him away.

To Dick, this feels like an admission from Bruce of Dick’s failings as a human being. He’s never reached the point of becoming a man and goes out into the world with a massive inferiority complex. This is a man who can out fight almost anyone on the planet, who’s a superb athlete, stunningly good looking, well liked, brave and has just about every advantage anyone could ever wish for … and he thinks he’s worthless.

I like Dick.

A statement I thought I’d never commit to print.

5) I LIKE LEARNING THINGS

Okay, last one.

Anyone still reading?

No?

I like learning things, I like knowing things.

At some point in the UK (can’t speak for the rest of the world) knowing things became bad. At school, I had to pretend not to understand anything because it wasn’t cool. Cool people don’t know stuff, they’re not clever.

Well fuck you.

I like knowing things and I like learning things. I like to alternate my reading between fact and fiction. The problem is I get so excited when I learn something new I feel the need to share it with other people. People who then think I’m showing off because I’m cleverer than them.

I’m not cleverer than anyone, I just read it in a book and think it’s interesting. I like to share knowledge and I like people to share knowledge with me.

I have friends who are very intelligent, but are convinced they’re stupid. Why? Because they don’t have the knowledge to back it up and they feel acquiring knowledge will make them a target of ridicule. Learning stuff is just not the done thing.

I do find this attitude wears off as people get older. I find myself in discussions with twenty-year-olds who won’t discuss anything except tits and football (boys) or make-up and big brother (girls) because they fear being ridiculed. If I make an effort to drag them onto a different topic of conversation, they invariably say it’s nice to talk about something different; but then go straight back into comfortable ground with the next person they talk to.

Most days I can’t be bothered. People in their thirties tend to be a bit more relaxed, have less to prove and are happier to talk about more interesting topics. Not all of them, but they’re generally more comfortable with their place in the world.

In short, I’m a geek and I’m proud.

So there you go, my five lame things meme. I would tag some other people, but it seems I’m the last person to be named. Everyone else has already done it, or at least the people whose blogs I read.

Oh, except maybe Sally Lawton.

Anyone else who hasn’t done it yet, consider yourself tagged.

And anyone who actually read all the way to the end of this post, well done you.

Continuing Drama

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WARNING! DO NOT READ THIS POST.
IT’S INACCURATE, MEANINGLESS AND JUST PLAIN WRONG
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As everyone knows, a while back the BBC decided to stop calling soaps ’soaps’ and call soaps ‘continuing drama’ …

Except, hang on, does everyone really know this?

TV, newspapers, magazines and everyone I know who’s not a writer still calls them soaps.

Do ITV and Channel Four still call them soaps?

Do Channel Five even have any soaps?

Have I ever watched Channel Five?

For the life of me, I can’t think of one program I’ve ever watched on Channel Five … how odd.

I don’t know when the BBC made its decision to change from soaps to continuing drama. For all I know they may have always referred to soaps as continuing drama and it’s only recently come to my attention; but for the purposes of this post, I’m going to assume it’s a relatively recent memo which was circulated around BBC staff. A memo which went something like this:

“Stop fucking calling them soaps, you bastards. It’s continuing drama, got it? Continuing fucking drama. Fucking deal with it.”

But presumably on headed paper.

And here’s the point.

Yes folks, that’s right: today I have a point.

Who is this change aimed at?

People who like soaps, call them soaps. People who don’t like soaps call them long names with lots of swearing in them.

The people who like them, the viewers, aren’t really aware the name has changed. Presumably, they have no interest in what they’re called anyway - as long as the shows continue to get made.

The people who don’t like them … is it an attempt to curry favour by pretending they’re not soaps? Lots of companies and organisations do this, in an attempt to distance themselves from the food poisoning/nuclear contamination/child molestation they’ve dumped on their consumers. It’s a move made by someone who knows what they do/produce is bad and want to distance themselves from it.

Again, since this information isn’t widely known, it would appear not to be the case.

So who is actually aware of this name change?

Writers, directors, producers … basically, anyone who works or aspires to work in TV.

Ah, interesting.

Being as I’m a writer, and only really read information by other writers, the only people I’ve heard refer to soaps as continuing drama are other writers. I’ll talk about this because it’s the only real reference point I have, and I’m presuming it’s a microcosm for how the industry has reacted as a whole.

New writers who like soaps and want to write for them are quite happy calling them soaps. They frequently refer to them as soaps and then guiltily correct themselves as if they’ve used a bad word. So the name change isn’t aimed at them.

New writers who don’t like soaps and don’t want to write for them (and possibly have no hope in hell of making a living in the UK) think the name change is a desperate attempt to pretend the shows aren’t a pile of shit. The name change might be aimed at tricking them into writing for something they don’t want to, but I doubt it. These still seem to refer to them as soaps without feeling the need to kow-tow to a weird form of non-political correctness.

Established writers who don’t like soaps and don’t want to write for them (are there many of these?) may be aware of the name change, but again, I doubt this will suddenly change their mind about the nature of the shows. I can’t see many suddenly turning around and deciding it’s okay to be a continuing drama writer, but not a soap writer. These guys seem to delight in referring to them as soaps just to annoy anyone who calls them continuing drama.

Established writers who like and already write for soaps … these are the only people I’ve heard consistently refer to them as continuing drama. They are the only ones who seem never, ever say ’soap’.

Maybe they’re following a BBC mandate which might otherwise cost them future employment?

But since these are the same group of people who regularly berate writers who don’t want to write for soaps as snobs, it just smacks to me of embarrassment. Whenever I read of some writer piling into a discussion in defence of continuing drama by accusing anyone who doesn’t like them of being up their own arse … it just sounds wrong. It sounds very Mrs. Bucket.

It’s not like people still calling Emmerdale ‘Emmerdale Farm’. It’s not an obvious name change which is branded on the product, in the same manner people refuse to abandon names like Opal Fruits, Marathon or Jif - fucking get over it, these products don’t exist any more and haven’t for years.

Since it’s not a widely used term and it’s not written down anywhere where the average member of public can read it, it’s a pointless correction.

“I’m a continuing drama writer.”

“What’s that then?”

“You know, Eastenders, Casualty, Holby … that sort of thing.”

“You mean soaps?”

(Embarrassed shuffle) “Maybe.”

“Why didn’t you just fucking say so?”

It’s like ‘Life on Mars’ writers refusing to admit the show was a Sci-Fi show. Will you just fucking get over yourselves?

As far as I can work out, the change from soap to continuing drama might be an attempt to rebrand the shows to attract new talent who would otherwise be reluctant to work on a soap; but seems more likely to be for the people who already work on the shows and are embarrassed about it.

If that’s the case, why write for them?

And where does this end?

Will Doctor Who be rebranded as a non-reality based drama?

Will documentaries become narrated factual drama?

Is it just because you can’t call a BBC department the ‘Soap Department’?

Am I wrong and have completely missed the point?

Have any of you worked out I don’t really care what they call these shows and I’m merely ranting to avoid doing any real work because I don’t know how to fix the current draft?

Oh, and I lied. I don’t have a point - just a LOT of meaningless words.

Mixbag

A few random things which have happened in the last few days:

        1) Completed the rewrites to the five day feature, they only took half a day. Not because I was moving at lightning speed, but purely because there were very few notes on the original draft. I could take this as a sign of my blossoming genius, but I suspect it’s more to do with the producer reading the script and giving notes on the same day. The further I get from it, the more little flaws I keep finding; there’s bound to be a few major ones somewhere.

 On the positive side, the producer emailed the revision (which is really the first proper draft) to the money men without reading it. He says he has enough faith in me to know it’s good enough to send out.

Which I thought was jolly nice of him.

        2) Had a meeting with Martin Kemp, Gary Kemp and Jonathan Sothcott about ‘The Summoning’ and other stuff. An intense, short meeting which was basically four people shouting ideas at each other until we had too many. Now I’ve just got to try and sort them into a reasonable order.

        3) Wrote out a list of a dozen sketches for the, as yet untitled, BBC sketch show, and had just sat down to write them when I got a phone call from the producer asking me to tweak the selected sketches from the 30-odd I wrote at the beginning of the month.

The great thing about this was I got to see which of these particular style of sketches are currently in the running (it may change, who knows?) and I get to tweak them so there’s a story which runs through them. Basically, because they were all written as individual sketches, one of the characters gets a little repetitive after the third week. Now she has a bit more to her - assuming the changes are acceptable and don’t get the entire series of sketches binned.

The bad thing about this is I was asked to write them to the specific format they use on this show. That’s not a bad thing in itself, except I was struggling to work out what the format is. It seems to me to be fairly random and to change from page to page. Plus, I had to amend word scripts, so I couldn’t use Final Draft (or Sophocles or Movie Magic. I tried importing the script into all three and they just got confused) which meant I had to type all the character names out by hand.

And the scene headings.

And format everything individually.

Very retro.

Very annoying.

I’ve never really realised how much slower it is to write without proper screenwriting software, it’s a fucking nightmare. By the end of a long day’s work, I’d only managed to tweak the twelve scripts and write two new ones. I think under ‘normal’ circumstances I’d have managed to write at least another five or six.

I finished the day in a blaze of swearing and a resolution to buy the BBC a copy of Final Draft.

        4) The BBC then redeemed itself by telling me who they’re approaching to play the lead in my sketches.

I’m not saying who it is, because he may not do it; but suffice it to say, I was excited enough to shit myself.

        5) One change of pants later, I realised my list of twelve new sketches was mostly shit anyway. So it’s probably a good thing I spent the day swearing at Word instead of committing them to paper.

        6) One of the feature films I’m working on is no longer a feature, it’s something much, much cooler.

        7) I read a script by a guy who’s just had one of his other scripts optioned by one of the top Hollywood producer/directors. Ignoring the fact it was full of passive tense, wrylies, unfilmables, camera directions and bland characters … it was still a bit shit. Good premise, badly done. I read the script he had optioned by said ‘big cheese’ and that was even worse. It didn’t even have a good premise.

        I read another script by a guy who used to be in a soap of some kind and that had absolutely no formatting whatsoever. Dialogue was sometimes in bold, sometimes in brackets and seemed to float around the page. Action wandered about all over the place. Sometimes it was full page width, the  it would be in brackets in the centre, then it turned up inside people’s dialogue.

Honestly, you’d think this guy had never seen a script before, instead of having been (or maybe still is?) an actor in a long running soap. Unless, that’s how they write their scripts and all these formatting rules are an Internet myth put about by bored readers who just want to confuse people? I mean, seriously 3) , 7) and  - all three scripts by people who should (and probably do) know better - not one of them has anything remotely like the format the gurus tell us to use.

I’m still sticking to these ‘rules’ because I happen to like them; but really, does anyone else give a shit?

        9) Made up a feature pitch on the spot. It went down well. Now I’ve just got to find the time to write it.

And that’s it. That’s been my week. A lot of little bits and bobs with no cohesive whole.

A bit like most of the scripts I’ve read recently.

What Century is this?

Mobile phones ruin movies.

And not just in the ‘turn that fucking thing off before I make you eat it’ kind of way. I mean seriously, what the fuck is wrong with these people? This type of conversation might just be acceptable:

“Mum’s been hit by a bus? I’m on my way.”

If it’s followed by a swift exit.

This type of conversation is never acceptable:

“Yeah, so me and Donna, you know Donna, yeah? … That’s her, real fucking slapper. Anyway, me and Donna, were at Burger King yeah, and you’ll never guess what? … No, they forgot the fucking chips!”

Why are these people in the cinema? What the fuck possessed them to think sitting behind me (and they’re always directly behind me) in a noisy cinema is the best place to make a call about Donna-the-slag’s lack of fucking chips? Have they not paid to get in? Do they select the movie to match the type of phone call they’re going to make?

Fuck off and leave me alone!

Oh, look - I’ve gone off on a tangential rant already. I’m not talking about this, I’m talking about mobile phones in movies.

It seems to me that a large part of a scriptwriter’s job in the 21st Century is coming up with new and inventive reasons why mobile phones don’t work.

Most horror films would be over pretty quickly if the hero could just ring the police.

Most Rom-Com would be a lot shorter if boy rings girl and tells her it’s all a big mistake, don’t get on the plane.

Most ‘falsely accused’ films would be scuppered by the hero taking a photo of the real villain and texting it to his mates.

It amazes me in movieland how often people can’t get a signal; particularly since the only place I can’t get a signal anymore is in my own fucking house.

What is that about? No radio, DAB, mobile or TV signals can penetrate my house. What the fuck is it made of? And why? I can get a signal at the bottom of the Dartford tunnel, but not whilst sitting on my sofa.

Yet in movieland, mobiles hardly ever work - and when they do, no one really uses them:

“I need to tell you something.”

“You do? I’m on my way!”

And the guy hangs up and races across London. I saw this three times in an episode of Eastenders a couple of weeks ago. Three times this idiot ran halfway across London so someone could show or tell him something. On one occasion, he’d just left someone to run somewhere and when he got there, she demanded he come back.

I know it’s not desirable to impart information over the phone, but come on!

“I’ve got to show you something.”

“Oh fuck, but I just got here.”

“No, you need to see this, now!”

“Can’t you just send me a photo?”

“No, I’ve got an iPhone.”

“Video?”

“Err … no, but you can get it to do stuff by touching the screen.”

“Just nothing useful?”

Maybe that’s the answer? Give everyone in your script iPhones, then they won’t be able to send photos, videos or call each other since they’re all locked to the same provider and had to change their phone numbers.

Or perhaps all movies should just be set in the late eighties/early nineties?

Or, my personal favourite, an alternate universe where the mobile phone was never invented? Seems reasonable to me, it can be the same universe where computers boot up instantly, hackers are cool dudes and brand new cars fail to start until you’ve sworn at them/slapped the dashboard/got the killer on the bonnet.

Shit

“I’m a writer.”

Those words strike fear into my heart.

Not when I say it, when I hear it from someone else. I get this sudden chill as the doubts run through me:

“Shit. He’s a writer, a proper writer. I bet he’s studied and everything. He’s going to find me out. He’s going to talk to me for two seconds and realise I don’t know shit, haven’t got a clue. He’s going to mention some clever writing term I don’t understand and expose me for the fraud I am.”

Panic sets in, my breath grows ragged, my palms start to sweat, I make really bad jokes - I can’t bear this.

Then, somewhere among the rapid-fire stream of bullshit flowing from my nervous mouth is a gap and this ‘writer’ gets the chance to say something, and I realise …

it’s okay, he’s a twat.

He doesn’t know shit. Sometimes I get as far as reading something someone else has written before coming to the same conclusion and I remember the truth of the situation:

99% of writers can’t write.*

But hey, that’s okay because 99% of actors can’t act. I’m not experienced enough to draw the same conclusion about directors or producers, but I’m betting it’s about the same.

I’ve sat there with writers, who ask questions which are the equivalent of a mechanic asking “Is this the engine?”, and realised why so much shit gets made.

And I’m not talking about the shit which makes it to the screens, that’s the cream of the crap river which spills out of the movie industry. Even the stuff which makes it to DVD is a small portion of the total number of badly filmed turds which do the rounds.

The worst films? Usually from people who are writer/director/producers - one guy who can’t do three jobs and there’s no one there to tell him. I used to wonder why nobody speaks up, why don’t people stop these fucking appalling travesties getting made?

Sometimes it’s because they still get paid whether it’s good or not, but I think it’s mostly because no one knows any better. Even when a film’s made I hear the people involved raving on about how wonderful their masterpiece is.

It’s not, it’s shit.

Which is why I really like working with people who can:

1. Confidently tell others their last project was shit
2. Explain why it was shit
3. Tell me what’s shit about what I’ve just handed them

These are the people I want to work with, honest people who know their limitations and want to improve themselves. With one or two exceptions*, I’ve been very lucky.

Now come on, own up. How many of you reading this think you’re in the 1%?

I like to think I’m a good writer, but then I like to think I’m smart, good looking and still young enough to be ‘with it’.

I’m not.

If I was I wouldn’t use words like ‘with it’.

Still, I know my limitations - I just wish I could shake that sudden rush of anxiety I get when I meet other writers. After all, 99% of us are all wallowing in the same mud.

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* Rest assured, I’m not counting myself in the 1% who can.

* I’d like to think you know who you are, but you probably don’t

Recommendations?

I turned my computer on this morning and found I had 41 emails, but when I looked at Outlook Express, there were no new ones to be seen.

Odd.

Scrolling up revealed the sneaky buggers, interspersed among the ones I’d already read over the last 48 hours. Once again, my increasingly erratic email service has randomly opted to hold some messages back and allow others through. Some of the messages had been delayed by two days, others turn up instantly; so, for example, I get the message:

“Why are you fucking ignoring me?”

Twelve hours before I get the one that says:

“Hi Phill, are you available for a meeting on … ”

And once more I’m reminded I really, really should change my web-hosting to one which actually forwards on the emails when it gets them rather than when it feels like it.

So that’s what this is, a plea for some recommendations. I want some cheap web-hosting with a reasonable sized web-space. This time, I also want someone who provide both a POP3 server and an SMTP one, so I can actually send emails from my phone instead of confusing the fuck out of everyone by reading their emails and replying by text.

Is that too much to ask?

I don’t know, on the grounds I know very little about this sort of thing.

I’m with 123-Reg at the moment and I really don’t want to give them any more money, if I can avoid it; on the grounds they’re part of the Pipex group and should stop hiring David Hasselhoff for their adverts and spend the money on some fucking customer service monkeys so I can actually get the fucking service I’ve paid for.

I could rant on, but I’m tired. So if anyone knows anything about the subject (web-hosting, not Pipex being a bunch of illiterate muppets) and can recommend a good provider, I’d love to hear from you.

Thank you very much.

What story?

While I’m on the subject of stupid people advertising for writers, there’s another issue which constantly surprises/confuses/annoys and amazes me: the directors/producers who advertise for a writer to flesh out their story.

They’ve got money behind them (proving there’s no link between money and common sense), they’ve got a story outline, they’re just looking for a writer to flesh it out.

Brilliant.

Someone’s going to pay me to write a script from their treatment - they’ve already done half my work! Getting the idea, outlining it, writing the treatment - that’s the hard part. Writing the script is a cake walk compared to everything which comes before hand - it’s all in the preparation.

So I apply for these jobs and invariably they send over the story outline.

Or at least, what they think is a story outline.

Usually, what they send you is a random series of notes which may or may not be about the same story.

Here’s how they’d outline the story of the ‘Three Little Pigs’.

“There’s these three pigs and a wolf and some bricks. They play golf a lot, sometimes on a Tuesday. One of the pigs builds a house but the wolf kills him. Then we have a bit with a vicar who wants some magic jelly, but the wolf is too busy with his PlayStation. Oh, and there’s a forest or maybe some Meccano and I think Charlton Heston would be great for the elephant rider. So after the house has been sold to a terrorist, it gets invaded by bees, but all the bees have got wellies on which is symbolic. And then the wolf marries a pig. It’s a kind of love story/social commentary on the state of Britain.”

Which often leaves me with three thoughts:

1. What the fuck is that all about?
2. Do I really want to work with this numpty?
3. How much is he paying?

I’ve turned down so many of these idiots I have a standard reply … which I’m not going to post here in case any of said idiots are reading.

Which they probably can’t.

Honestly, I don’t expect a director/producer to be able to write - if they could, they wouldn’t need me and that would be bad; but I do expect them to have at least a vague story.

And by story, I mean something with a beginning, a middle and an end - not a random collection of words and images.

And the worst bit, the bit that really, really amazes me - some twat has given them development money.

Who? Where are these rich fucking idiots who obviously can’t read and have never been to a cinema in their life?

What the fuck is going on?

I mean really, I have low standards, I’ll work on anything - but how the fuck do you go about teasing a story out of the shit which spouts from the faces of these morons?

Do they ever get films made? Does anyone ever read their ideas and go “Ooh wow, a film about bees in wellies with pigs and shit! Sign me up!”

Unfortunately, yes.

It’s called ‘The British Film Industry’.