Wrong Door day

I can’t see out of my right eye. For some reason it’s swollen up so much it’s completely closed.

I don’t know whether I’ve been bitten, got a sty or been inexplicably punched whilst asleep (for anyone thinking of punching anyone, while they’re asleep is the best time); but whatever the reason, I’m viewing the world in a monocular fashion without the benefit of depth perception.

I quite like it.

Apart from the pain.

But, none of that matters because The Wrong Door kicks off today. Tonight to be precise. 10.30 on BBC Three to be even preciser.

Here are some more reviews if anyone cares:

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/entertainment-catch-all/2008/08/23/don-t-miss-86908-20708084/

http://gizmodo.com/5041672/the-wrong-door-if-terry-gilliam-directed-transformers-as-a-tv-variety-show

But hey, feel free to make your own mind up tonight.

Join me, go on, you know you want to; and if you want to totally immerse yourself in the same viewing experience as me – tape one eye closed and jab pins into your face whilst watching.

You know it makes sense.

Multiple credits

Have you ever looked at the credits on a film and wondered how they can have got through so many writers? There’s a temptation to assume the first writer must have been shit and replaced with the second writer; but sometimes the list can include four or five successful writers – they can’t all be incapable of writing, surely?

Well, yes, sometimes they can. Part of the problem there, of course, is not everyone agrees on what ‘good’ writing is. We can all reel off a list of points: sparkling dialogue, interesting characters, a gripping plot … but all of these things are subjective and not everyone agrees on what they actually are. I’d say it’s easier to identify bad writing, but that’s not true either.

Not everyone likes the same thing.

On the other hand, some successful writers are absolutely fucking awful. They aren’t successful because they’re good, they’re successful because they sound like they’re good. They talk themselves up to such a point they get paid ridiculous sums for their work and when they deliver a pile of shit, it gets hushed up because the production company doesn’t want to admit they paid over the odds for someone who can’t write their own name. It could well be they were good at one point in the past, before their ego got in the way; or it could be they wrote one piece of absolute genius by accident and have lived off it ever since.

Anyway, here’s an incomplete and totally inaccurate list of why you end up with more than one writer on a film:

INCOMPETENCE

As discussed, sometimes this is the writer; but sometimes it’s the producer or director. Writer A might deliver exactly the script he was asked for, only to find out the people who did the asking had no idea what they were asking for.

“This script’s rubbish, it’s got a giant monkey in it – how shit is that?”

“Well, you did ask for a sequel to ‘King Kong’.”

“Yeah, but I meant something like ‘American Pie’ meets ‘Casablanca’.

At which point, Writer A gets fired.

CHANGE OF DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER … OR BOTH

Director A gets Writer A to write the script. Director A then falls out with Producer A and gets sacked. This usually involves someone sleeping with someone else’s partner. Director B loves Writer A’s script but because Producer A hates Director A and everything he touched, Writer A gets sacked. Writer B adapts Writer A’s script and does a half-arsed job but they’re still happy … until Writer B is spotted having a drink with Director A’s neighbour and Producer A gets into a strop and fires him.

Director B shouts at Producer A who then has a nervous breakdown.

Producer B sacks Director B to avoid being shouted at and hires Director C and Writer C.

By this point, no one can remember what the original film was supposed to be about, so they decide to play it safe and just remake something from the sixties … badly.

CHANGE OF PLAN

Writer A gets hired to write an Action film, because that’s what he’s good at. Producer A wants to sleep with Actress A, so he changes his mind and turns the film into a female led Rom-Com. Actress A refuses to sleep with Producer A who fires everyone and then has a nervous breakdown.

Alternatively, Producer A asks for a particular kind of script. Writer A delivers exactly what he’s asked for and everyone is very happy. Producer A then talks to his friends who convince him his original idea was rubbish and he immediately blames Writer A for not ignoring the original brief.

DEATH

Sadly, sometimes a writer dies before finishing the script.

Sometimes, it’s not so sad and the world has one less talentless alcoholic.

OUT OF TIME

Writer A has six months before he needs to start work on his next project. He thinks six months is loads of time to write a film, but has failed to reckon with the Producer and Director’s inability to reach a consensus. Director A thinks the script needs more emotional depth; Producer A thinks it needs more tits. By the time they’ve agreed that emotional depth can be delivered topless … Writer A has moved on and the whole fucking mess gets passed on to the hapless Writer B.

OUT OF MONEY

Sometimes Producer A will promise Writer A ‘X’ amount of money in advance and ‘Y’ amount of money on delivery.

By the time the delivery date is reached, so many people have had nervous breakdowns, died or slept with other’s partners there is no more money to pay the writer. Writer A refuses to release the material; but due to a bizarre contract clause, retains his credit.

Writer B is hired to write a new script for less money and no credit, so the Producer can retain the kudos of having Writer A’s name on the film. Because Writer B is rubbish, Writer A gets blamed for the appalling film and never works again. Conversely, Writer B goes on to run a major studio.

There are many, many other reasons why a film can have more than one writer; but strangely, the script not being good enough is fairly rare. The basic message is: at some point it’s going to happen to each and everyone of us. When it happens to you, don’t get angry, don’t get upset. Just accept it in good humour, make sure you can find someone else to blame and then follow whoever fired you home and key the fucker’s car.

How to deal with notes

So you’ve finished the first draft of your latest script and sent it off. It was a difficult process fraught with many pitfalls and as the day of the deadline dawned you realised you hadn’t actually written anything.

After watching eight or nine hours of TV, you finally knuckled down and furiously scribbled whatever random words popped into your head in a blaze of panic induced creativity, finally emailing the script on time – because 11.59 pm is technically still the same day.

Well done, you can relax and fanny around on the Internet … until the notes arrive. Here’s a quick guide to dealing with notes. Once you’ve identified these simple steps you can move through them quickly and deal with the notes in a calm and effective manner:

STEP ONE – RAGE

How fucking dare they criticise your masterpiece? These fucking idiots wouldn’t know a good script if you shoved it up their arse and set fire to it. They shouldn’t be allowed to make sandwiches, let alone fucking films. You’ve a good mind to ring them up and tell them all what a bunch of talentless cunts they really are.

STEP TWO – RELUCTANT ACCEPTANCE

Once the fires of indignation have burnt out you can re-read the notes and consider them in a new light. Okay, so maybe some of the notes have some worth to them. Less than half, mind you; but they’re not all as stupid as they first appear. One of them even makes sense, in an odd sort of way.

STEP THREE – MORE RAGE

Oh fucking hell, changing these things is going to mean actually doing some writing. Can’t these fucking people understand how difficult that is? The A-Team’s back on Bravo, how the hell are you expected to get any work done under those kind of conditions? They probably think it’s just a few hours work, but they don’t understand the creative process, once you add on all the procrastination this thing could take weeks. They’re fucking vampires, just because they’re paying you doesn’t mean they own your soul.

 STEP FOUR – COUNTER ARGUMENT

Apparently they do own your soul, it’s in your contract. You sit down and write notes on their notes, arguing against every point. The more times you can use phrases like ‘character arc’, ‘remaining true to the underlying theme’ and ‘intrinsic logic of the character’s psyche’ the better. Cite films which don’t bother explaining the character’s motivation or avoid the clichéd notion of ‘making sense’. The more detailed your notes are, the less likely it is you’ll have to do any real work. True, writing these notes takes longer than it would to re-write the script; but it’s the principle god damn it.

STEP FIVE – BELLIGERENCE

The nagging suspicion sets in that their notes make sense and are beneficial to the story. By dissecting them and arguing against them you’ve slowly realised their true worth: half of them add to the story, the other half are personal choice and make no difference whatsoever – except the person paying your wages wants them to be like that. When the producer rings you up to discuss your notes, you want to apologise for calling his mother names and reach a sensible middle ground.

However, that would mean admitting you’re wrong and there’s no fucking way that’s going to happen. Instead you discuss the relative merits of the script until you manage to suggest a third way forward – one which addresses his concerns without using his ideas. There’s nothing wrong with his ideas, but you’re not going to let the fucker think he knows what he’s talking about. That way lies madness and leads to producers writing their own scripts. Even when they’re right, tell them they’re wrong.

STEP SIX – EVEN MORE RAGE

Oh for fuck’s sake! You’ve just talked yourself into doing the fucking re-writes. Okay, not exactly as they were first noted, but you’re still actually going to have to do some fucking work. This is fucking intolerable. There must be something in your contract which says you don’t have to do any more work. Why is life so fucking difficult?

STEP SEVEN – PROCRASTINATION

You know you have to do the re-writes, you know the deadline is fast approaching but you just don’t feel like doing any writing. There are hundreds of TV channels, if you keep flicking long enough you’re bound to find something to watch. Maybe there’s an episode of ‘Homes Under the Hammer’ you haven’t seen more than twice? Ooh! There’s a documentary on the history of cheese on the Cheese channel, that might be interesting!

It’s not.

When you’ve watched as much Simpsons as you can bear, it’s finally time to retreat to the computer and knuckle down to some proper procrastination.

Write a blog post, browse for some porn, sign up to some random forums and slag everyone off. This is an important part of the writing process, it’s like a venturi, building up the twin pressures of guilt and panic until they erupt in literary genius. The longer you can avoid writing, the better it will be.

STEP EIGHT – PANIC

Holy fuck! The deadline’s in three hours and you haven’t written a fucking word. The most important thing at this point is to find someone to blame. If you’re in the house on your own, text someone asking them to ring you urgently then scream at them for interrupting you. You can always claim you sent the text two days ago and they obviously don’t care about your well-being. Finally - after one last check of the news, just in case there’s been some terrorist attack you can claim a friend died in; or perhaps a nuclear war has broken out and your script won’t be needed until next week? – you make the changes you were asked to do and deliver the script at 11.59 pm.

These eight simple steps are vital to the writing process. You need to pass through each one in order to reach your goal. Now that you know what they are, hopefully you can shorten how long you spend on each step and free up your time for more important things. Like sleeping fourteen hours a day, or looking up the origins of rude words … until the next set of notes arrive and the process begins all over again.

Kick off

Mixed Up starts shooting today.

This is good news, I like it when projects start shooting – there’s a lot less chance they’ll fall apart and disappear. It’s not a guarantee of course, but it’s marginally less likely.

What impresses me most is the speed with which this has all come about. It was the end of November last year when the director, Lawrence Pearce, took me to peer through the windows of Beanos and mentioned something about a slacker comedy.

Since we’d met to talk about a different project, I thought we were just idly chatting on the way back to the station. It wasn’t until a week later I learnt I was writing it.

Lawrence provided the story, I provided a synopsis followed by a treatment and started the script near the end of January.

That’s three months from typing FADE IN: to the director yelling: ‘ACTION!’

That’s pretty quick.

By way of contrast, there’s another project I’ve been working on which is still going SEVEN YEARS down the line. SEVEN FUCKING YEARS! Three months? That’s the way it should be. All films should work like that.

In those three months (or less really, since it took three weeks to deliver the first draft) producer Jonathan Sothcott has secured funding and a great cast: Billy Murray, Adele Silva, Lee Otway, Zara Dawson, Abi Titmuss, Anna Brecon, Terry Stone, Giles Alderson, Katia Winter and of course, Sylvester McCoy.

Great cast, great location, great director.

Great script? I don’t know, people seem to like it. I’ll reserve judgement until I’ve seen the final product.

Despite my own paranoia, I have high hopes for this one. It’s exciting and it’s happening right now. No messing about, get the script, get the money, make the film.

I love it.

Having said that, with production starting today, I am, of course, going to go and hide in the Caribbean until it’s all over.