FINALLY! A BOOK WHICH TEACHES SCREENWRITERS HOW TO GET LAID!
Okay, so it’s not a ‘get-laid-quick’ book; but (despite the odd choice of cover photo) it’s still a damned fine book.
More importantly than not being a ‘get-laid-quick’ book, it’s also not another ‘How to’ book which tells you all the endlessly recycled secrets of screenwriting you never needed to know but are expected to pay for when you can learn for free with a bit of effort and an internet connection.
Tim Grierson’s FilmCraft: Screenwriting is actually a really cool collection of interviews and profiles with (and of) some of the greatest screenwriters ever to put finger to keyboard. It’s kind of a coffee table book, but jam packed with interesting interviews and behind-the-scenes bits and bobs.
I got sent a copy yesterday by the (presumably) lovely Emily Owen of Ilex Press and I’ve got to say it’s an incredibly beautiful book. I’ve only had time to flick through it (and read the odd bit here and there) but it looks really interesting.
This is the press blurb:
From the Hollywood blockbuster to the American indie to the international arena, the writers in this book are the people responsible for some of our most indelible cinematic memories of the last 50 years – and most audience members don’t recognize their names, let alone know anything about them. Screenwriting aims to give these creators their much-deserved moment in the sun. A must for students, cinephiles and anyone interested in the craft of writing for the screen.
Featuring in-depth interviews with modern masters of film ranging from Billy Ray (Flightplan, The Hunger Games) to Stephen Gaghan (Traffic, Syriana) and Guillermo Arriaga (Amores Perros, Babel, 21 Grams).
Includes fascinating behind-the-scenes material from the contributors themselves, including shooting scripts, writers’ notes and unseen visuals.
Features supplementary legacy profiles of the greatest writers of cinema’s history – Woody Allen, Ingmar Bergman, Paddy Chayefsky, Ben Hecht and the famous duo of Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond.
Tim Grierson is a film and music critic whose writing has appeared in Screen International, L.A. Weekly, Backstage, The Village Voice, Revolver, Vulture, Wired and Blender, as well as on About.com, IFC.com, Yahoo Movies and Gawker.com. He is the co-author of FilmCraft: Cinematography – a profile of the world’s greatest cinematographers – and the author of the Mark Everett biography Blinking Lights and Other Revelations: The Story of Eels. Tim has served on the jury of the City of Lights, City of Angels (COL•COA) Film Festival, and is currently vice president of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.
If you listen to John August and Craig Mazin’sScriptnotes Podcast (and if you don’t … really? Start now.) then you’ll have heard John describe this book as his ‘one cool thing’ for … um … well, one of the recent weeks. (I don’t always listen to the podcasts in order and tend to get confused a lot.) Anyway, John August thinks it’s cool and he wrote Big Fish, so he’s probably right.
The best part of all this is the copy I have here is not for me, it’s for you.
Yes, you!
Although … I might fight you for it. It is lovely.
No, fair’s fair – it’s a giveaway copy and give it away I must.
So … I need a competition. Something fun, something easy enough to get people entering but not so easy it’s insulting.
Hmm … I suppose I could just get you to leave comments and pick a winner at random … but that sounds a bit dull.
Damn it, I hate thinking up competitions.
Ooh! I know! That’s the competition!
If you want this fantastic book, which normally retails at £19.99, then come up with a competition which has this book as a prize and post it in the comments. You don’t have to actually enter your own competition or even be capable of winning it. You can choose “write an Oscar-winning script using only the letter Q” or ”build a matchstick model of my arse on the moon wearing oven gloves” or anything else you like.
It doesn’t have to be feasible, achievable or even pleasant – just think up something which makes me laugh and I’ll pick the one I like best.
Don’t be mean, tell all your friends to come and enter (because you’re so clever they can’t possibly compete with you) and give everyone the chance to win this lovely piece of work.
As for a time-scale, for you … I give you a week. Let’s say the closing date is the 24th May 2013.
I think we all become scriptwriters because we have lots of ideas, lots of stories to tell. It’s certainly true for me, whenever people ask me how I became a scriptwriter, my stock answer is:
“As a child I told a lot of lies. Turns out, as an adult, if you write those lies down you get paid for it!”
Which is more or less exactly how it happened.
But the thing is, as a scriptwriter, I actually spend more time writing down other people’s ideas. It seems to me the job is mainly taking other people’s thoughts or images and translating them into words. Sure, if I write a spec script (which I haven’t done for years) then they’re my ideas … but as soon as the script sells, it belongs to someone else and they want their ideas layered over the top.
And that’s when it gets difficult.
I find the hardest part of the job isn’t putting my ideas down on paper in a concise and lucid manner; but putting other people’s ideas down on paper in a concise and lucid manner. Mainly because their ideas are rarely concise or lucid to being with.
“I’m a little confused with this note, are you suggesting we replace the scene where we reveal who the murderer is with a masturbating baboon? Oh, it’s allegorical, is it? There was me just thinking you were a pretentious twat.”
But the pinnacle of hard-isity is writing a script for an idea which is already half-written (whether that half-written means a synopsis, treatment or existing script) because I have no idea what bits of this idea mean to the person who hired me.
When I’m asked to work on someone else’s idea, the first thing I try and do is work out what the story is actually about. Whose story is it? Why could it only happen to them? What do they learn? What’s the theme/point of it all? Basically, what is the story trying to say?
Asking the person doing the hiring doesn’t always help – if they’ve tried to write it themselves and got stuck, it’s usually because they have a pile of good visual ideas with no idea how they connect together. My first job then is to try and put a skeleton inside the body they’ve already created.
In theory, that doesn’t sound too bad. You’d probably imagine it would be easy, just cut it open, insert the bones and sew it up again.
Simple.
Except, no.
Because a story without a theme, the body without the skeleton isn’t a head, two arms, two legs and a torso waiting to be animated – it’s a pile of unidentifiable organs and fleshy bits. There’s frequently no way of telling which bits belong where. Sure, some bits are obviously eyes or a lung; but other bits aren’t so clear.
Frequently what I’ve been given, once I separate it into piles, is three arms, five legs, no head and a torso which belongs to a goat. Or maybe just one massive arm with nothing else attached. One where the skin appears to be cobbled together from six different ethnicities and the flesh is infested with maggots.
Without that clear skeleton of …
Whose story is it?
What does he want?
Why does he want it?
What’s stopping him?
What does he actually need?
Other questions I can’t be arsed to write down.
… then there’s no way I can make a coherent person out of the disparate body parts. The easiest way to make it work is to put all the bits to one side, craft the skeleton and then see if any of the bits belong to it.
This is fine if I’m dealing with a producer who’s optioned/commissioned a script from someone else, tried to get it work, can’t and has come to me to try again. Usually there’s one or two core images/concepts they want to keep; the rest is up for grabs. Here’s a spleen and an elbow, make up the rest yourself.
Fine. If I know the size/location of the spleen and elbow, I can make up a body to fit around it. That’s okay.
But what if the producer wrote the initial idea? Or worse, the director? If it’s a director then there’s usually a load of really cool images and shots and things happening which HAVE to stay in. They have to. If it’s a producer, I often get saddled with an unworkable mish-mash of characters because they’ve already promised the roles to certain actors who will guarantee financing/distribution.
If I have to throw it all out, then it’s essentially telling the person who hired me that all their ideas are crap.
Even if that’s true, it’s not very nice to hear. The person who made this random pile of body parts worked really hard on them.
Really hard.
True, they’ve worked really hard in the wrong way on things which don’t matter until late in the game; but they’ve still worked hard. They have an emotional attachment to the seven really cool ears they’ve designed or the new type of liver which is sixteen foot long – throwing them out would be a disaster!
Sometimes the bits are fine, they just need explaining. If he can explain what the spleen is and what it does (which is impossible, no one knows what a spleen’s for. No one!) then I can work it in. Frequently though, the first few drafts of a new synopsis are just me trying to understand what the intention behind all the wobbly bits was. I often find myself throwing out all the bits which aren’t needed, crafting a perfectly working body and then finding out the two spring-things were spring-loaded kneecaps which enable the body to jump really high and thus become an awesome basketball player.
Oh, right. I get it now.
So why not just make the body taller and ditch the springy bits no one is going to believe? You hadn’t thought of that? Of course not, that’s why you hired me.
Sometimes none of the bits I’ve been given belong to the idea the person who hired me had in mind, because they don’t really know what they had in mind in the first place. Sometimes all of the bits belong (albeit in a different order) but I didn’t know that because the person who hired me is incapable of articulating what their idea is. And, of course, sometimes it’s all just my fault for not listening, not understanding or simply grabbing the wrong end of the stick and running like hell in the wrong direction.
This process, this understanding of intention, is the part of the job I find the hardest. It’s a laborious, frustrating process which can result in both sides thinking the other is a fucking moron … but it’s a vital step. I’ve walked away from some projects because I couldn’t work out what the hell they were on about. I’ve been fired from others for much the same reason.
Luckily I seem to (eventually) get it right more often than not; but it doesn’t change my loathing for that bit of the process.
Hopefully the future will bring some kind of what’s-the-fucking-point telepathy which will help people understand each other; but until then I guess I’ll spend my days knee deep in unidentifiable wobbly bits, praying that last squelch wasn’t me stepping on anything important.
I was having dinner the other day with the admirable Arnopp, conversing about all things writerly, when the conversation drifted (as it often does) to exercise.
Now you may think exercise is an odd thing for two writers to talk about, given writing itself is about the least energetic thing you can do (even though thinking does burn quite a few calories); but that’s kind of the point.
There’s a tendency for writers to pile on the pounds a bit. I guess it’s due to moving nothing but your fingers and eyes for hours on end, usually within sauntering distance of the biscuit barrel.
I don’t know why, but chocolate biscuits seem essential to the writing process. Or my writing process at least. Some people like to choose the right music to write to, I like to choose the right biscuit to set the mood.
The end result of years of finger-waggling and biscuit-guzzling has left me slightly larger than intended.
I don’t know how it works for women, but as a man I’ve always said “The day I can no longer see my own cock will be the day I hit the gym in earnest”.
Well, that day … never came. Although I suspect I may have been leaning forward a bit.
The day that did come though was the “clothes are too tight and I can balance a mug of tea on my stomach whilst sitting bolt upright”. Okay, so the personal tea shelf is quite useful; but the clothes thing was annoying.
So it was time to do something about it.
But what?
I’ve been an occasional gym member over the years and found it takes too much time getting there/back; plus, if you work out how much time I spent in a gym versus not in one, I largely paid NOT to go to the gym.
Which is a waste.
There’s a free gym on the Secret Writing Island; but I could never guarantee it wasn’t full of other people. I hate going to a busy gym Having to constantly modify my workout to anticipate which machine/piece of equipment will be empty next just irritates me beyond belief. Seriously, if you ever see an episode of Death in Paradise in which everyone in a gym is dead except for one chubby, spoon-wielding, ginge – IT WAS ME!
Years back I used to train three different martial arts on various nights … but I’m a family man now and disappearing every night is frowned upon. Mostly by me. So that’s out.
Time is another restriction. I don’t want exercise taking up all morning. Nor do I want it taking up all evening. If Mandy’s out of the country then I have to look after Alice and can’t really leave the house, so I needed an exercise program I could do in my own house, with limited equipment which didn’t take longer than an hour a day.
Enter P90X.
I don’t know if you’ve seen the infommercials for this; but it’s all over American TV and looks really, really fucking annoying.
But … I wasn’t getting any thinner it seemed to tick all the boxes – an hour (ish) a day, limited equipment, no need to go to the gym.
I’m a bit obsessive when it comes to research, so I spent a few months poring over the details and decided … oh fuck it, why not?
And you know what? It’s been really good.
Well, mostly good.
I’ve enjoyed it anyway.
Or at least the bits where I wasn’t lying broken in a pool of my own sweat vowing to hunt down and murder Tony Horton.
I didn’t do the before and after photos because … well, it’s a bit weird; but let’s just say after completing the program I can happily report my penis and I are once again seeing eye to eye.
To be fair, I didn’t even do it properly. Instead of six days a week, I did four or five and I didn’t even bother with the meal plan. I did give up chocolate, sweets, crisps and biscuits for February (never give up stuff in January, it’s too long. February’s much more civilised) and have subsequently found I’m not that bothered about snacky stuff now.
Or, you know, significantly less so.
Immediately pre-P90X I ate 16 Lily O’Brien’s chocolate chip cookies in less than an hour.
That’s just silly, in anyone’s delicious book.
P90X is essentially a series of alternating muscle/cardio videos – 14 in all. You do muscle/weight stuff on the odd days and cardio stuff on the evens. The muscle stuff is broken down into groups so you don’t work everything at the same time, whilst the cardio stuff is plyometrics (an hour of ‘fuck me is this nearly over yet?’ jumping and squatting), Yoga (an hour and a half of ‘fuck me, I can’t do that!’ whilst dislocating the odd shoulder) and Kenpo (an hour of vaguely martial-art-themed punching and kicking. I’m quite good at that one).
I’ve found I can do it immediately after Alice has gone to bed or early in the morning before breakfast, depending on whether I’m in the UK or on the Secret Writing Island. It’s an hour of effort with no travelling time … and, well it worked for me.
I look better, I feel better and I’m thinking better. Hopefully that translates into writing better too … but probably not.
For me, it’s a good system at a reasonable price. Even more reasonable if you get a second hand set off eBay.
No, there’s nothing revolutionary in it. Yes, you could put a similar program together yourself; but there’s an inherent level of motivation to be had from following a video. It’s far easier to give up or slow down (on the cardio bits) if you’re just doing your own thing, so for me it was worth it.
There are dozens of similar products out there, this was just the one I chose. I think I’m going to try Insanity next because the adverts amuse me.
“Most of you watching this won’t be able to do Insanity. If you try, you’ll fucking die so don’t even bother.”
But if you’re feeling a bit porky and want to sort yourself out, you could do a lot worse than checking out P90X.
Like I say, it seems to have worked for me.
Or at least, everyone keeps telling me it has. At great length and in effusive detail. Which is exactly the same as having friends and family following me around saying:
“Fuck me, you used to be so fat. You were massive. Oh my God, you were so big I wanted to be sick.”
All fucking day.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to do some one-handed press ups.
Occasionally I get asked to write (or re-write) a script by someone (be that producer, director, actor or anonymous other) whose idea “went down really well at Cannes”.
Sometimes they’ve shown this idea to huge celebrity x or massive producer y or ginormous studio z and the response was incredibly positive – they love the idea/treatment/script and said this person should go away and get a script (re)written. Come back and see us when you have!
This used to impress me as much as it impressed the person who wanted to hire me to work on their fabulous idea. I mean, if huge celebrity x, massive producer y and ginormous studio z think it’s a good idea then it’s got to be worth working on! At least the person I’m writing the script for has someone in power eagerly waiting to read it when it’s done! That’s got to be better than writing a script for someone who has no idea what to do with it afterwards, isn’t it? I mean … they love it! Right?
Well, yes … and no.
Yes, because the person doing the hiring has at least worked out how to get the material in front of someone who could, potentially, make it.
And no because if the idea/treatment/script were any good then said important person would have bought it.
The vital bit of the second paragraph is “go away”.
“I love it! Come back when you’ve developed it further!” means “Fuck off and take your stupid fucking ideas with you.”
But this is a polite industry staffed with “artistic” people who react badly to criticism, so no one is honest. Not really. A producer/exec/actor will rarely tell you something is truly awful because they don’t want to offend and they don’t want to risk being wrong.
Just because someone puts a god awful idea in front of you today, doesn’t mean they won’t come up with a work of genius tomorrow. It’s unlikely in most cases, but not every piece of work from a good writer is going to be perfect. Or even good.
Similarly, just because you don’t like an idea doesn’t mean it’s inherently bad – someone else may like it. Several hundred million someone else’s might like it. If they do, then it makes sense to invest in that person’s bad ideas because … well, fuck it. If the idea makes money, it doesn’t matter what your personal feelings are about it.
There are plenty of films I think are appalling which have been smash hits – if I’d been in position to commission those ideas, I’d have lost my studio untold millions. Okay, so that happens; but if you decline politely then at least you’re in a position to say yes to the film maker’s next project. If you tell them to take their talentless shit and fuck off then they’re unlikely to want to do anything other than yell “I fucking told you!” through your letterbox at three in the morning.
So no one says no. Or rather, they say no; but make it sound like “I love it … but it’s not for me.”
Which leaves me in the interesting position of dealing with people who think their idea is awesome because no one’s told them it isn’t.
And in a way that’s fine, because they hire me to fix it.
Sometimes there is a nub of a good story buried in the script/treatment/idea and there’s something to build on – those are the jobs I accept. Sometimes there really isn’t anything to it – those are the ones I politely decline, for much the same reasons listed above.
The problem comes when the hirer believes the “It’s great! Please go away.” means their idea is so amazing it doesn’t need much work. Those projects are tricky because they don’t want to be told what’s wrong with their idea – they know for a fact there’s nothing wrong with it because x, y or z loved it.
It’s really hard to explain to people what x.y or z really meant without upsetting them. I try not to get involved with people like that because … well, it’s just frustrating and pointless. Unfortunately it’s not always possible to determine how immovable people can be on ideas before you sign the contract.
I wish I could. I wish there was some kind of collaboration test I could get potential employers to fill in. Something which would let me know how open they are to new ideas and how clingy they’re going to get to the bits which don’t work.
But there isn’t. Or at least, I don’t think there is.
So instead I’m left with my fallible intuition and the annoying realisation that I will occasionally get trapped in one of these pointless arguments.
I should just tell them the truth.
If they loved it they would have bought it there and then! Money is the only yes!
But I never do. I just swear a lot in private, wait a couple of years and then change their names and genders so I can whine about it on here.
I occasionally rant about films which disappoint me. I try not to slag films off willy nilly because … well, it’s a bit dull, isn’t it?
Every now and then there’s a film I have high expectations for because the creative team behind it have struck gold before or because it’s an unutterably cool premise or because I fall for the hype and get all wound up about it. When those films suck, I get a bit upset and occasionally feel the need to vent – especially when they’re films everyone else seems to love unconditionally.
I don’t know why, it just rankles.
I rarely praise films though, not at great length; but I feel I really should.
Why?
I don’t know.
Whether I like or dislike something should be largely irrelevant to most of you reading this. I mean, it’s not like my opinion holds any sway … fuck, it barely holds any interest. But I’m much happier being nice about stuff than nasty, so in order to redress the balance, let’s talk Wreck-it Ralph.
Have you seen it? If not …
MILD SPOILER WARNING!
Actually, you know what? These aren’t really spoilers. I think the film’s excellent and even if I describe every minute of it to you, you’d still enjoy it for the sheer exuberant awesomeness it is. Having said that, if you haven’t seen it and want to experience it fresh … then stop reading now.
Wreck-it Ralph – loved it. Paper Man, the short at the beginning, is so beautiful I thought it was going to overshadow the film … but it doesn’t.
Wreck-it Ralph is so exquisitely crafted it’s just a joy to behold – the spine is so clear and every beat hits dead on. It’s the story of a man who can’t accept his place in the world and everyone he meets reflects his own flaw. Instead of learning to love himself, he sets out to attain external validation (winning a medal) but even that he does wrong – instead of earning the medal (or affection), he tries to steal it.
Venelope is (on the surface) just like him; but she wants to gain acceptance through her own merit. The villain is just like him; but is further down the path Ralph has set himself on – it’s just beautifully orchestrated.
I aspire to creating such a solid spine in everything I write; but it rarely actually materialises and tends to get bogged down in details, scenes and characters which have nothing to do with the theme or heart of the story.
Wreck-it Ralph breaks down into four beautiful parts – he isn’t happy; he tries to change it by doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason; he tries to do the right thing for the wrong reasons and finally he accepts his place in life and does the right thing for the right reason. He learns to use his unique skill for good and finds his place in the world – it’s just brilliant.
Following this sort of structure may seem formulaic but it creates moments of genuine emotion because everything Ralph, Venelope and King Candy do comes from acting on the same impulse in different ways.
The set up is smooth and flawless – you get a ton of information about how the world works without really noticing it.
I love animation anyway; but having a four-year-old, I tend to see more of it than I would otherwise wish to; but when it’s as good as this … it’s just sublime. I’ve seen quite a lot of heavy-weight films this year and the best of them left me thinking “yeah, that was okay” Wreck-it Ralph is the only film I’ve seen this year which thrilled me and left me with a big smile on my face.
It’s also the only one I can hold up as a template against the scripts I’m writing at the moment and go “Ah, that’s why it’s not working – that bit’s sticking out too much!”
Not that I’ve ever said that; but you know what I mean.
So … yeah. Wreck-it Ralph – go see it and then think about it. A lot.
Or don’t.
You know, I feel like I had more to say when I started this post … now it all seems a bit pointless.
If not, you should. Go on, go have a read, we’ll wait …
…
… while they’re off reading the post, have you noticed how much more attractive they are recently? I mean, I don’t know what it is, whether they’ve lost weight or done something with their hair, but … wow! I’m a quivering rod of sex-citement when they’re in the–
Shh! They’re coming back, act natural!
…
… Read it? Cool. Good post, isn’t it?
No, no I always stand like this.
Anyway, my favourite bit about that post is point three. Writers do tend to get inordinately jealous and dispirited by other writers’ success.
This is silly.
Really.
I’ve blogged about this before: http://phillbarron.wordpress.com/2011/04/16/jealousy/ ; but it’s worth repeating because … well, it’s probably not worth repeating. To be honest, I’d forgotten I’d written that and only worked it out after I’d written this and WordPress pointed out I was repeating myself. However, let’s not dwell on that. Let’s pretend this repetition was intentional from the start and that I pay as much attention to what I write as you do.
So … yes, it’s silly.
Yes, there are a finite number of jobs – considerably less than there are writers; but it’s very rare that someone else get exactly the thing you want.
Well, okay, that depends on what you want. If you want to write for a specific TV show, then every writer who does is doing the job you want. Similarly, if you want to adapt a specific book then you’re shit out of luck too.
But apart from that (and some other stuff I haven’t thought about), particularly in the movie industry, someone else’s success is completely irrelevant to you.
Or at least, is far from detrimental. It’s certainly not worth being jealous about.
If you know this person, then you should be pleased for them. Their success is a good thing for several reasons:
1) It makes them happy and happy people are nice to be around. Happy people make me happy.
2) Having successful industry connections is never a bad thing.
Let’s say you’re a writer who’s best mates with Steven Moffat – that would be a good connection to have, wouldn’t it? It may not guarantee you a job on Doctor Who; but it means you at least have access, and that’s half the battle. There would have been a time when he was just starting out and only one step ahead of someone with no credits – getting all upset about that just taints a possible future connection. You don’t know which of your connections will be important/influential in the future, so why not just be nice to/happy for everyone? It’s self-defeating to be otherwise, as well as being cuntish.
3) The other person’s success is probably not what you think it is.
This is particularly true in the UK film industry. A writer you know has been hired to write a film script for an actual production company!
Oh my God, that guy’s so much more successful than me!
Erm … yeah … possibly not.
In the UK, most films are independent. Only a very small minority of films have any kind of development budget. Most of these films pay either a pittance or nothing for the script until the first day of principle photography.
Okay, so he’s writing a script for an actual production company … but that company might just be one guy with no money who’s printed up some business cards.
Yes it’s nice to be writing for someone as opposed to chucking stuff into the spec void (which, by the way, is a stupid way to think about it – target your writing to an audience, be that a producer or an agent or an actor or whoever … don’t just write stuff you have no clue who would want to read it unless you’re just starting out and need the practice) but it doesn’t mean there’ll be either a film or some money at the end of it.
Even if a writer you know has a script in development with a major TV company … doesn’t really mean anything. Someone who works for that company might have read the script and said “Yeah, it’s alright … would be better if all the characters were animated teapots though.”
The writer goes off to make the (unpaid) changes with no contract in place and tells everyone they’re developing something with Bumfuck TV.
Writers make shit up. We exaggerate. We find the drama in the situation and expand on it. That’s what we do. Fuck, that’s what everyone does. A guy who gets beaten up by two men will say he was beaten up by three men the next day and by eight the next week … humans tell stories, particularly if the stories make us seem more successful or less stupid.
Writers aren’t wrong to fudge the truth to make themselves seem more successful – it’s absolutely the right thing to do. We absolutely should be celebrating every success, no matter how minor, because the job is mainly a race with no finish line.
Writing is just a series of hurdles, for everyone, no matter how successful they are or aren’t. The job is primarily to see how many hurdles you can jump over before the race gets cancelled and the project falls apart … at which point, you go back to the beginning and start again.
Yes it’s frustrating, yes it’s largely a waste of time and effort … but that is what the job is: a hurdles race against yourself where there may or may not be a finish line.
Getting bent out of shape because someone else has jumped over one more hurdle than you is silly. They’ll probably fall at the next one. If they don’t, that’s a good thing.
Even if you know for an absolute fact (which is impossible) that you’re a better writer than that guy … so what? If you’re better and that guy can do it, so can you.
Writing is about who you know, there’s no denying that … but you can easily get to know people with a little effort. Beyond that it’s just about being good at the job.
EVERY aspect of the job.
Be a good writer, be nice, be helpful, be a team player, be supportive, be visible, be the kind of person people want to spend time with … and you too could find yourself being “hired” to write a script with no hope in hell of being produced.
Personally, I want all my friends and acquaintances to succeed. I want them to have rich and varied careers which take them to unprecedented heights … because I like them and because, whereas it may not help me directly, it certainly can’t fucking hurt.
If someone’s doing better than you, ask them what they did and copy it. Be motivated by other people’s success, not envious.
I was sent this email yesterday, thought you might find it useful/interesting …
SCREENWRITING WORKSHOP MAY/JUNE 2013
This is a unique opportunity for UK writers to work with an inspirational writer and practitioner. Gill Dennis is Master Filmmaker in Residence at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, and co-writer of the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line (2005). He will be running a two-part workshop for eight writers (working in two smaller groups).
This course is suitable for screenwriters working on a feature or short film script, as well as novelists and/or short story writers who want to adapt their own work for the screen.
There will be two workshop meetings for each group of four writers, plus a one-hour individual meeting with Gill for each writer.
Gill will read all the scripts in advance. Participants will be asked to read and discuss the work of three other writers.
The first meeting will be on Saturday 18 May. Group 1: 10.30am -1.30pm, Group 2: 2.30 – 5.30.
On Sunday 19th and Monday 20th Gill will meet each writer for a one-to-one meeting to set objectives for rewrites.
The two groups will meet with Gill again on Saturday 1 June (same times) to discuss the resulting revisions and changes.
BIO:
GILL DENNIS’s screenwriting credits include the Oscar-nominated film WALK THE LINE (2005); RETURN TO OZ (with Walter Murch, 1985); RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE (TNT, 1996); and an original mini-series, HOME FIRES, named as one of the top ten television events of 1987 by Time Magazine. He also worked on scripts such as THE BLACK STALLION, APOCALYPSE NOW and POLLOCK.
His current projects include FOREVER with director Tatia Pilieva, now in post-production; SPANISH BLOOD with Aza Jacob, starring Jennifer Lopez and John Hawkes, which will be shot in the Spring; and an adaptation of Joe Sacco’s FOOTNOTES FROM GAZA for the director Denis Villeneuve (INCENDIES).
As Master Filmmaker in Residence at the American Film Institute, Gill has mentored many of the new generation of American filmmakers, including Jonathan Levine (THE WACKNESS), Jacob Estes (MEAN CREEK), Goran Dukic (WRISTCUTTERS), and Aza Jacobs, whose feature TERRI screened at last year’s London Film Festival.
Gill Dennis won the L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award for Distinguished Direction in Theatre, and has taught screenwriting workshops in Ireland, Portugal, Scotland, and Australia.
APPLICATION PROCESS:
If you’d like to take part in this workshop please send a short writing sample together with a covering letter telling us something about you and your writing and the screenplay you are developing. No attachments. Paste text in the body of your message and email to this address: londonwritingworkshops@gmail.com
Applications will be considered on a rolling basis. If you are accepted, you will be asked to pay a deposit to secure the place, and to send in a full draft of your screenplay by mid to late April 2013. The balance of the course fee will be payable before the start of the course.
DEADLINE: applications before 31st March.
WORKSHOP FEE: £350
” Gill Dennis is a man who ‘knows that the way to learn is to listen, and to ask the questions that will find the heart of the subject. He’s an expert communicator, which serves him both as a teacher and writer.” – from the publicity for Gill Dennis’s masterclass at the 2011 Galway Film Fleadh
I began the year seven days after everyone else because I’m fucking hardcore, despite having been teetotal for 22 years now.
Maybe I just forgot the new year had begun?
Either way, I began with an explanation of one of my favourite writing techniques, THE BOX.
This technique is so awesome and so useful, not only have I not used it since; but I have no recollection of ever using it in the first place. I’m assuming I just made it up.
You know, lied.
Then I had a moment of genius. I know it was genius because Steven Moffat said it was. On Twitter. This is as close to a fact as you can possibly get without using things like set-squares and alphabet-heavy theorems.
This post garnered more views than my arse did that time I accidentally left it in Trafalgar Square. What’s more, people seemed to like it. It wasn’t really anything much to do with writing and had more to do with my inability to repair a car … but it’s quite funny.
Essentially, I explained How to beat procrastination and was generally awesome while I was doing it. Assuming ‘awesome’ is a synonym for ‘a bit sad’.
You should read it.
I’ll wait.
I immediately failed to capitalise on this massive new following by bloging about some confused Thundercats and rounded off January by having a film I had almost nothing to do with, Stalker, released on DVD.
Ten days later, I was still pretty upset about people charging writers for bad advice and gave my own bad advice for free. This time about dual time-period script writing. I have since ignored every single one of these ‘rules’ … with catastrophic results.
Explained the difference between a character being likeable and people fucking right off with their stupid fucking notes about kittens and fucking rainbows. Or something.
Swore I’d fucking show you all by explaining why script format was important. This would be it, the definitive guide to every aspect of script format explaining why I’m right and you’re all fucking wrong.
Which isn’t egotistical at all, it’s just the way of the world.
And then there was the Strippers vs. Werewolves première.
This post is well worth reading. It’s a master-class in how to blog about the première of your own film when you think it’s shit, without mentioning how shit you think the film is; but instead mentioning sausages. A lot.
Seriously, go read it. See if you can find any mention of how shit the film is.
I began May by making good on my promise to explain every aspect of script format. I started with the title page … and then gave up. For ever. I mean … what’s the fucking point?
The 7th of May was Me Day when the whole world revolved around me for 24 hours.
It wasn’t my birthday or anything, it was just a day when the whole world gathered round to worship me and celebrate how amazing I am. Or was. You may not remember it because I think you were temporarily dead that day.
Ooh, this post on Script Trajectory was quite good. Must have been ill that day.
The papers in May did a mighty fine job of promoting the BluRay/DVD release of Strippers vs. Werewolves by pretending not to know something they patently do and being all sniffy about it in a headline grabbing way.
I can’t be fucked with this, I’m knackered. I’ll finish it off tomorrow.
July was the month I was recruited by a clandestine organisation to invade a nation of pixie warmongers who live in an old forgotten tea cup behind my garden shed. I was given a spud gun, a nifty secret hat and a licence to break wind in public and sent off to murder pixies. After a series of, frankly, quite dull adventures involving grit and teaspoons, I found myself in Yakatang (the capital of the pixie nation, it looks a bit like Harlow only not quite so grim and with a few extra pixies). I was all set to assassinate King Ian (Yakatang’s chief biscuit maker and all round bastard) when I realised the whole incident was merely the result of a dodgy kipper that morning and I had actually invaded Lakeland, naked save for a pink Santa’s hat and brandishing a small clockwork frog.
Come to think of it, that might not have happened either.
I can’t really remember July, can you?
Oh wait, yes I can. In July I …
Went to the BBC TV Writers’ Festival, met all sorts of splendid people and burbled insanely about The Dukes of Hazzard at every opportunity.
Slipped off to the secret writing island for interesting conversations about ‘the first ever genital piercing’ and ‘how to wake someone up with a spoon’ before proclaiming I had a new regime … and then failing to do anything about it.
And then promoted a festival because someone asked me to and it was easier than thinking of anything new to write.
And really, that was it. That was the whole year.
Fuck me.
I did do quite a lot of proper writing too, I just didn’t really talk about it much. I script edited hours and fucking hours of Persona, wrote far too much of it and worked on multiple drafts of seven features … so not too bad.
But not good enough.
I will do better next year.
Which is in about five hours’ time.
If you want proper stats and all kinds of flashy animation about all the stuff I blogged about this year, then you need help.
If you can’t be arsed to click the link, then the gist of it is female superheroes always get drawn in anatomically improbable positions, thrusting breasts, bums and crotches at the reader … often all at the same time. In order to ensure they get the maximum sexy-fect from the thrusting, they usually choose to fight crime in as little clothing as possible, preferably with only their nipples and crevices covered and all else on display. Male superheroes, by contrast, like to cover themselves up and sensibly protect their genitals from supervillain attack.
In order to demonstrate how stupid this is, people have taken to drawing Hawkeye in the same poses as the women.
It seems to have started with this cover:
… and spiralled off into mass-hilarity.
Some people think it’s highlighting something stupid and/or offensive about the way women are portrayed in comics.
Some people think it’s just a giggle.
Others think it’s not a problem because female comic readers want to see strong muscular men flexing their strong muscles while male readers want to see women being all flexible and improbable.
Me?
Well, kind of bits of all of the above really.
I’m not a fan of semi-naked superheroes. Possibly because, no matter how sexy semi-nudity can be, I find it’s completely cancelled out by a lack of common fucking sense.
If you’re going to be crawling over the rooftops, getting shot at and climbing up walls then surely, for the love of fuck, you’d want to wear something unrippable and a little bit padded? Imagine climbing up a granite building, reaching over the ledge at the top and hauling yourself onto the roof.
Now imagine doing that with a bare midriff, dragging your naked stomach over rough stone as your entire bodyweight presses down on it.
Ow.
I have a similar opinion on reality.
Attractive woman on a night out, wearing practically a nightie in the summer = sexy.
Same woman wearing the same (nigh)nightie in the winter?
PUT SOME FUCKING CLOTHES ON.
Blue is my favourite colour, but not for skin. What the fuck has gone wrong in your head that you think no clothes are the best clothes to wear in the winter? You’re showing a basic lack of survival instincts and if attraction is mostly a primal urge to do with finding a mate with strong genes, then the primal bits of my brain are telling me you’d be an appalling genetic match – you couldn’t look after my offspring, you’re unlikely to survive the winter for fuck’s sake.
I’m as much attracted to the way people think as the way they look. Attraction for me is physical and mental. I can talk to someone I consider plain and end up fancying them. I can talk to someone stunningly good looking and end up thinking they’re a complete and utter twat.
Wearing the wrong clothes for the situation is not attractive. It’s fucking stupid.
I did this survival course once where we had to climb out of the water and into liferafts. Climbing into a liferaft is fucking hard and takes a lot of effort. Liferafts are not comfortable against the skin, plus water is cold. There were some women who turned up in bikinis, froze, scraped their stomachs and generally fell out of their bikinis.
Don’t get me wrong, I like tits. If someone falls out of their bikini under warmer, less stupid circumstances I consider it a good day. In this situation I just felt these women were remarkably stupid. Or at the very least, stylistically misguided.
If you’re a costumed vigilante and you want to fight crime, wear some fucking trousers and a decent top. Preferably one with bits of armour and spikes in it.
But what if you have super powers? What if scraping over rough brick isn’t really a consideration because you have titanium-strength skin? You don’t feel bullets, let alone cold so why bother with anything other than the skimpiest of costumes?
I don’t know about you, but every time Wonder Woman twats someone with an uppercut, I worry she’ll pop out of that corset. If Supergirl turns too quickly or takes a fairly longish stride she’d probably have to stop and tuck her clitoris back into her costume – is this sensible?
Maybe these women are completely comfortable with nudity and feel they have nothing to be ashamed of? Maybe they could happily fight naked and only wear the briefest of costumes in public as a sop to humanity’s weird prudishness?
Maybe.
Just seems fucking moronic to me.
As for frequently drawing characters getting changed or taking a shower or lounging around the house in their thongs … I kind of … hmm. I like it, sometimes; but maybe less is more?
The worst offender for me was a Batgirl vs Catwoman book where Catwoman stripped off and ran into a nudist party and Batgirl stripped off to follow her.
What the fuck?
Okay, Catwoman … yeah, maybe; but Batgirl should have just stormed in and beat the fuck out of anyone who tried to stop or strip her. Batman wouldn’t have taken his clothes off in the same situation – it’s hard (tee hee) to be menacing when your cock and balls are on display – so why the fuck would Batgirl do it? It just makes her look like a twat.
As for the majority of female crime fighters being able to stand with their tits and arses pointing the same way … why is that sexy? Women are sexy because I am a straight man and programmed by evolution to find that specific shape sexy. Changing that shape into something with a front-arse or back-tits is just weird. If it’s not woman-shaped, it’s not a sexy woman.
The sexy-posing I waver on. I think it depends on the character in question. Batgirl, Huntress, Wonder Woman, Supergirl … no. I just don’t think it suits their characters. Catwoman, fuck yes. She’s absolutely a character who uses her sexuality to unnerve her opponents – male and female. She should always be draped over stuff or thrusting curvy bits at people … just not when she’s angry. I reckon it’s something she practises … but forgets when she loses her temper. Then it’s just arse-kicking time.
The legs-akimbo backflipping shit … again, I think it depends on the character – male and female. I’m quite happy to see Dick Grayson or Spiderman hurling themselves through the air doing the splits … but not Batman. Harley Quinn – yes. Poison Ivy – no.
Although I think Poison Ivy would be very sexy-posy most of the time.
So as a male, heterosexual comic reader who genuinely believes most situations in life can be improved with either full or partial nudity … can we just tone it down a bit? Or a lot?
Try and be anatomically possible; try not to have every female character capable of doing mid-air crotch-thrusting splits; try to limit the showering/changing scenes to every now and then and for fuck’s sake give these women some proper clothes to wear.
If for no other reason, consider this – I’m covertly training my four year old daughter in a variety of martial arts, partly for her own protection/fun/fitness; but mostly so she can, if she chooses, be a costumed vigilante when she grows up. Part of that training covers standing with her spine facing the right way, adopting a stance which protects sensitive areas from attack and not wasting time draping herself sexily over things when she can just punch the gun-toting maniac in the throat and be done with it.
But most of all, she’s my daughter and I can fucking guarantee that if she wants to fight crime she’ll be doing it in sensible fucking clothes.
Fancy winning DARK SHADOWS on Blu-Ray for Halloween?
If the answer’s no, then … well, fair enough. You can go back to whatever it is you were doing.
If, on the other hand, the answer’s yes (because, hey – who doesn’t like free stuff?) then you’re in luck!
Maybe.
So some random people (who either are Warner Bros or have something to do with them) emailed me and said I could have a copy of Dark Shadows to give away if I did this post, and I thought … well, I didn’t know what to think really. I’m not sure I want this blog to be pimping films I haven’t seen; I’m not even really sure I want it to be one of those blogs which gives stuff away because … actually, I don’t know why.
I mean, I know I have given stuff away in the past, such as a handful of scriptwriting books I didn’t want any more and hundreds of pounds worth of video projector … which I also didn’t want any more. I guess technically I am giving £30 away to anyone who buys an LSWF ticket from me; but this feels different somehow.
This isn’t my stuff to give away.
This sort of makes me some kind of corporate whore.
But then I thought, ah fuck it – someone might want a copy and who am I to stand in their way?
So here we are, I’ve been given a copy of DARK SHADOWS to give away. If you want it, it’s yours. Just answer this simple question:
What?
Answers in the comments below and make sure I can contact you (email me, perhaps? phill@phillipbarron.co.uk), because I need to send your UK address to the give-away people by the 30th October.
So let’s say you have to have posted your answer by the 28th (this year) to give me enough time to get my shit together. That’s five days. That’s enough, right?
Other terms and conditions:
I’m just going to pick someone at random, there is no merit involved.
You have to have a UK address.
You have to post your answer naked.
For fuck’s sake, please don’t send me naked photos of you posting the answer.
Unless you want to.
I’m supposed to embed this web app too … but WordPress won’t let me. So instead here’s a photo of the web app which links to an online version elsewhere:
This may or may not completely invalidate the competition, in which case I don’t owe you nothing; but will probably buy you a drink at some indeterminate point in the future. Let’s be honest, the language and general apathy might invalidate the whole thing anyway. I certainly wouldn’t give me a free anything, I plainly don’t deserve it.
I'm a UK scriptwriter who's had nine feature films produced. I've also had some bits and bobs on TV and co-created the first smartphone broadcast, app-drama series, PERSONA.
Now in its seventh year, this blog is mostly a chronicle of my career; but it's also an insight into the grubby bits of writing no one really tells you about.
Reality here has been stretched, altered, bent and completely ignored to make my life funnier, more interesting or just different for the sake of it.
Tim Grierson’s FilmCraft: Screenwriting is actually a really cool collection of interviews and profiles with (and of) some of the greatest screenwriters ever to put finger to keyboard. It’s kind of a coffee table book, but jam packed with interesting interviews and behind-the-scenes bits and bobs.
And there are more details here: http://www.ilex-press.com/books/filmcraft-screenwriting/
