You don’t say …

Or rather, I don’t say a lot about the WGA strike - doesn’t mean I don’t care.

I’ve avoided covering it primarily because I’m getting my information from other blogs - I don’t think there’s anyone who reads my blog who doesn’t read them too; and re-posting the same stuff everyone else is seems a bit pointless.

In a similar vein: I don’t write any ‘How to …’ posts.* Partly for the same reason: everyone else either already has, or is in the continual process of doing it better than I could; but mostly because I can’t believe anyone in their right mind would want script writing advice from me.

I mean, why would you?

Even I don’t want writing advice from me.

John August, William Goldman, Tony Jordan† yeah fine. I’ll accept they probably know what they’re talking about. If they want to give advice, I’ll listen.

I may not understand, but I’ll definitely listen.

My information comes primarily from reading the Internet witterings of other scribes and from bits and bobs I’ve gleaned whilst bored in Waterstones - it seems a bit pointless passing it on as if I’ve got any deep insight or indeed even the vaguest idea of what I’m doing.

So I won’t.

On the strike front: I’m aware the AMPTP and the WGA are sitting down for a chat today, and I hope it goes well. If it doesn’t, I’m over in the States next month, I might pop down to LA and join the picket lines for a day.

Maybe. If I get time.

I’d blog about that, but otherwise I’m going to leave it to wiser and more informed heads than my own to spread the word.

Just wanted to clear that up in case anyone thought I was a heartless opportunistic fiend.‡

———————————————————————————

* Except when I have.

† To pick some names at random, without thinking, and whilst watching the telly. If your name’s not included, don’t worry, I love you too.

‡ Which I am, I just don’t want anyone to know.

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.

Writing Drama

Part of being an internationally famous writer means people send me free stuff to review.

No Aston Martin’s yet, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

An embarrassingly long time back, I received a copy of ‘WRITING DRAMA’ by Yves Lavandier.

I say embarrassingly, because it took me a long time to read - that’s not the book’s fault; but for the past few months I’ve had very little spare time for reading.

Anyway, I’ve read it. I liked it, and I thought I’d let you know what it’s like.

It’s a very comprehensive book. It’s not just a guide to writing screenplays, it’s an incredibly in-depth discussion of the underlying principles of writing all drama. I’m not University material, but I’m guessing it’s the sort of book which could easily form the foundation of a degree course.

Each section goes into a hell of a lot of detail about different aspects and theories of drama writing. So much detail in fact, I frequently felt I needed to put the book down and digest the information before moving on.

I could easily imagine a lecturer setting exercises based on the individual chapters and taking the best part of a year to get through the book.

It has a lot of examples from a wide range of popular movies, comics and theatre - so many, in fact, that the index contains 38 pages of title references in teeny tiny writing.

Personally, I found the book very useful, since I was in the middle of re-writes to a feature at the time. The chapter on Dramatic Irony convinced me to change the nature of the information I was keeping back, a change which dramatically altered the tone of the script for the better.

Yves has a different take on the three act structure to the definition I’m familiar with, and I can’t say I entirely agree with it. That’s not to say I disagree, since it makes perfect sense, but I find other definitions more useful to my writing style.

That, however, is a tiny niggle about what is otherwise an excellent book. Like I said, it’s not a ‘How to write a screenplay’ book, but it will get you (or at least me) thinking about different aspects of your story in new ways.

What can I say? I found it useful, and I don’t begrudge the time I spent reading it.

If anyone wants to check it out, it’s available from Le Clown & L’enfant, priced €38.

Now then, Aston Martin; I’d like a blue … actually, I’m not fussy. I’ll take whatever you’ve got.

Back on track

I’ve managed to move past the sophisticated block and get on with the plot, thanks in part to the director; but mostly to my wife, Mandy.

In the original draft, the character was a bored socialite who wanted something more for herself but didn’t know what that something was. She was cleverer than she felt she was allowed to be. Not having a job or any ambitions was part of her character.

And that worked fine, but the director wanted her to be more sophisticated - and I had no idea what that means.

To me, sophisticated equals boring. I racked my brains, trying to think of an actress I considered sophisticated without thinking they were dull, pompous or stuck up.

And I couldn’t think of anyone. This girl is the principle love interest, by definition she has to be interesting and lovable. Sophisticated is not a word I’ve ever applied to anyone I’ve ever fancied.

I had a chat with the director, but his vision of sophisticated wasn’t something I could get behind. The character he mentioned I found icy, boring and aloof - difficult to use her as a role model. He suggested a job for her: yoga teacher, which helps give her some direction; but I still had no mental image. Mostly because I’ve only ever met two yoga teachers and they were fucking nuts.

Later on, I was chatting to Mandy about my inability to get a handle on the character and she instantly suggested Audrey Hepburn, Lana Turner, Ingrid Bergman - in fact almost any actress from the thirties/forties/fifties.

Suddenly the word sophisticated was replaced with the words elegant, poised, graceful, charming - words which have a much better association for me and a whole new image popped into my head.

I can get on with the re-write now, I have a clear image in my head and her dialogue springs easily to mind.

And that’s why I love Mandy, she has the ability to say one or two words which cut right to the heart of the matter. She sees solutions to my problems; problems I’ve struggled with for days, she solves in a flash. And afterwards, I always wonder why I never saw that solution; they are always simple and always obvious - after the fact.

That to me is true genius, the ability to see the simple solutions from an angle no one else thought of.

Mandy’s the youngest of three sisters - she likes to play the baby, she likes to play the dizzy blonde; but underneath it all is one of the most insightful minds it’s ever been my pleasure to meet. There are very few people in the world who are allowed to see this side of her - I’m very privileged to be one of those few.

She’s got great tits too.

How to write songs (Part 2)

Thanks to everyone who sent in songs in answer to the last post; they were all pretty cool. I’ve posted these three for your general delight:

Rummy Rummy Rummy by Gordon Robertson

Send in the Browns by Piers Beckley and Christine Patton

Cash by Piers Beckley and Christine Patton

I’d love to write a blow by blow account of why they’re good, but I honestly don’t know - or I’d be writing songs like these myself. I guess they fulfill all the criteria mentioned in Mark Brailsford’s tips yesterday.

If anyone, including the authors, wants to deconstruct them and explain where they’ve gone right, please be my guest.

How to write songs

Or more specifically, how to write parodies of songs for a satirical revue. The few posts I did on ‘How To Write Sketches’ seem to be quite popular, so I thought I’d follow it up with a companion post about comedy song writing.

The only flaw in that plan is: I’m shit at writing songs.

I’ve never quite got the hang of it and my success rate is appalling. It takes me hours to write one, most of which is spent scouring rhyming dictionaries. I can write four or five sketches in the time it takes to write one song and my songs almost never get performed.

I keep going though, I don’t like the thought of not being able to do something. Sooner or later I’ll get the hang of it.

Probably.

So advice from me on song writing is completely useless. I guess I could write a ‘How Not To Write Songs’ post, but I won’t - because I honestly don’t know where I’m going wrong.

With my musical ineptness in mind, the following post is a series of tips  from Mark Brailsford (the director of The Treason Show); I guess they work equally well for NewsRevue.

Here’s what he has to say:

The songs that work best in the show tend to have a set-up verse and a hook chorus structure. The most successful songs in the show parody the ‘hook’.

DEF: Hook as in the lyric that makes the song instantly recognisable, in most cases the title of the song. Some examples:

• ‘Robert Deniro’s Waiting’ by The Bangles - ‘Robert Mugabe’s Hating’
• ‘Leader of the Pack’ - ‘Leader Talking Crap’
• ‘We Will Rock You’ - Four vicars singing: ‘We’ll Unfrock You’

There is no hard and fast way to conjure up the inspiration, but this works for me sometimes:

1. I look through my collection of well known songs and see if they prod an idea, (usually favourite songs produce the idea).
2. Look in record shops at the compilation collections.
3. Trawl the Internet for ’60s-’90s pop charts.

One of the most frequently asked questions we get is: “Why didn’t my song get in to The Treason Show?”

The songs that are most frustrating tend to show promise as an idea and then peter out because of the following:

1. The hook isn’t a parody.
2. The song is too obscure (An audience must be likely to know it).
3. The lyrics have no gags (We scrub so many songs because it’s just stating the obvious with no story).
4. (AS ABOVE) No progression through the lyrics. 

Think of your song as a sketch set to music. Ideally with a set up, establishment and pay-off/punchline (In a song’s case usually the hook).

Of course there are many exceptions and sometimes a serious song with a great ‘reveal’ at the end is superior.

We had a song about crap shops in Brighton, ‘Buying Shit in the Laines’ to the tune of ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’ by U2. It had a great ending from an entirely different song: “But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”. It also had the benefit of an angle: shallow Chav girl from Croydon shopping in Brighton, which added characterisation to enrich the point.

These are just one or two ways of looking at it, it comes down to your own personal way of doing things. Here’s a list of suggestions for now (This isn’t personal taste, it’s what has worked in the show in the past):

• Top 20 hits in today’s chart (But only ones that have a recognisable melody and hook).
• Music to Watch Girls By (All 3 collections, over 100 songs).
• Guitar based solo artists and bands such as Paul Simon, Kinks, Beatles, Stones, Eagles, The Jam, Fleetwood Mac.
• Queen
• 30’s and 40’s Jazz classics. (Old Black Magic, Lady is a Tramp, etc)
• Abba
• Disco hits (Well known ones)
• Motown (Perfect structure for the show with good harmonies)
• Well knows Broadway/West End musical numbers (Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend, Money (from Cabaret), Oliver, Phantom of the Opera, Oklahoma, Guys and Dolls etc)
• Elvis
• Tom Jones

Personal tastes vary from Bob Marley to Radiohead and Manic St Preachers to Gershwin and Charles Trenet. (If anyone fancies writing stuff from them, great!) But it’s an open book and there are so many great options that I haven’t mentioned, just listen to what’s around you in shops, cafes etc and see if anything drops into place. Then marry it up to the news and our edit sheets and you may surprise yourself with inspiration.

Hope it helps.

Cheers all,

Mark Brailsford

I’ve just realised, that’s my first guest post.

Sort of.

He didn’t actually write that specifically for me, it was a general email to The Treason Show writers a while back, but I got permission so it still counts.

Inspired? Bursting with song ideas? I am, but they’re all shit. Never mind, persistence is the key.

Incidentally, if a more competent song writer wants to donate a song as an example, please email me and I’ll post it here for all to see.

And laugh at - but hopefully in a good way.