I was going to write a very angry post today about Directors and their inability to be decent fucking human beings … but then I thought again.
‘Why?’ I hear you ask. Surely I’m about due for an ill advised, ill thought out and mostly untrue sweary rant? I mean, it is almost Christmas after all.
Well, because I spent all day yesterday working on the third draft of a treatment for a feature project I’m really excited about and (once the inital ranting about nonsensical notes has abated) am getting more excited about with each successive draft; I’ve just finished a very leisurely and rather lavish breakfast which included lashings of tea; I’m spending this morning knocking out a few sketches for another feature film’s website; this afternoon I’m looking at ideas for a series of webisodes to promote a third feature film and tomorrow I’m running through an ADR list and suggesting final dialogue for a stupendously exciting feature film which might actually be finished any year now!
On top of that, this is the current view from my window:
And this is waiting for me as a treat on Sunday:
So today, I don’t really feel much like ranting. I mean, come on – does life ever get any better than this:
Right, are you back? Up to speed on the whole situation? Good.
So in a nutshell, James, being the talented chap that he is, was one of three writers on the latest series of Torchwood – handpicked by the mighty RTD himself.
By the way, there are going to be spoilers from now on – don’t read on if you haven’t seen all five episodes of the last season.
James helped plot out the season and co-wrote one of the episodes – the hardest episode to write too, if I may make so bold. The middle episode of five is tricky because it’s the tipping point of the story, there’s a lot of explaining to do after the crash bang opening, dismantling of the team in episode one and the regrouping, rebuilding of the team in episode two. Episode three is where we find out what’s going on and where everything reorients itself towards the end – it’s fucking hard to write just that bit on its own … but James pulled it off with style, panache and other words which mean the same thing.
And can I just say, the whole season was fucking excellent. I’m not a Torchwood fan, I don’t like the show at all, but I was completely gripped by the story. Even Mandy sat and watched it with me – and as a rule, the words Sci-Fi have her reaching for the eye-gouging pins. It was a fantastic piece of telly which thrilled, chilled and made me cry.
On top of actually writing the show, James then went on to inform, educate and amuse his and Torchwood’s fans by explaining the process behind the writing, talking about the show as it aired and generally giving everyone the kind of insight into how TV is made which is usually reserved for specialist magazines or DVD extras.
He didn’t have to do this, he doesn’t get paid for it and it’s not going to generate him any new work. He gets no benefit out of it apart from the satisfaction of being nice to people.
And those people repay him by calling him names, accusing him of moronic stuff and generally being a bunch of whining cunts ABOUT SOMETHING HE DIDN’T ACTUALLY WRITE!
All of you should just fucking grow up. It’s a TV show, Ianto Jones is a fictional character – he doesn’t exist. Yes, you should be sad at his death because that’s what good telly is about, eliciting emotions. It’s okay to be disappointed because he was your favourite and now he’s not in it anymore and it’s perfectly acceptable to decide a show is no longer something you like and opt not to watch it again.
It’s not acceptable to hound and abuse a guy who DIDN’T ACTUALLY WRITE THE BIT YOU DON’T LIKE, call him names and accuse him of some nasty stuff.
The accusation I find particularly moronic (apart perhaps from the twat who accused him of deepening his/her depression) is that of homophobia. As if somehow Ianto was selected for death because he was gay.
Fuck off.
Russell T Davies has done more to promote gay characters on TV than any other writer working today. He is fucking gay for God’s sake. He’s even put gay and bisexual characters into Doctor Who, showing kids it’s perfectly okay to fancy whoever the fuck you want.
James, whilst not being gay to the best of my knowledge, is quite a strong proponent of gay rights and always sites man on man action as being one of Torchwood’s strengths.
John Fay who actually wrote that episode – I have no idea and I don’t care. He wrote a great episode, his sexuality isn’t important.
The argument here is really a variation of the girlfriend in a fridge syndrome – which is all bullshit. Hurting or killing a main character’s loved ones is a powerful writing tool which generates plot and emotion. In most comics, which is where the fridge thing comes from, the protagonists are straight men so the loved ones are usually their girlfriends/wives. If Jack had been straight or currently seeing a girl, then it would have been a girl who died in that episode.
The gender or sexuality of the character is not the deciding factor in the death of a character – it’s their closeness to the main character. In this case, Ianto was the closest so he copped it. If things had gone differently, it would have been Gwen who died.
But it wasn’t. Ianto died and it was very sad. Jack’s miserable and the world is doomed – that’s great telly. Cry while it’s on and then go out and enjoy your life because, and this is an absolutely vital piece of information which will improve your life immeasurably, if you reserve that depth of emotion and compassion for REAL people instead of fictional characters, your life will be so much better.
Drama is all about the suspension of disbelief and in order to enjoy anything you have to be able to PRETEND the characters are real for the duration of the show – but when that show finishes you have to be able to switch your disbelief back on. It’s not real, they’re not real and the writers can do whatever the fuck they like to them – it shouldn’t in any way, shape or form affect your real life.
If a show stops pleasing you, either hang on in the hope it’s going to get better or stop watching. You do not own those characters and it’s not up to you what happens to them. If you want to own the characters, learn how to write, practice until you’re as good as James Moran and then fucking do it yourself.
The bottom line is, I enjoy James’ blog and have done so for a long time. I sincerely hope he doesn’t let a few (and it is just a few, the majority were quite supportive) random nutcases stop him from imparting his wisdom to up and coming writers who look at him as an inspiration.
James is a writer who’s acheived what the rest of us are aspiring to and his blog tells us he achieved it not with some God given talent or blind luck, but by working fucking hard and making sure when opportunity knocked he was ready and good enough to make the jump to being a professional writer.
He left the door open a chink, just to shine a little light on the path and show the rest of us the way. Now whinging morons have forced him to shut that door to protect himself. It’s a damn shame and you should all be fucking ashamed of your behavior.
One thing I find you have to do as a writer is constantly readjust what you think of as being exciting. It’s like a series of little victories which are horrendously exciting the first time you achieve them, but quickly become tedious when you slog past them for the hundredth time without actually getting any further down the road.
For example, I can still remember the giddy excitement I felt when I first sat down to write a script. This was it, I was on my way! After years of telling people my sci-fi series was far superior to anything currently on telly, I was actually going to prove it!
Surely fame and fortune would be mine by the end of the week?
Nope.
It turns out, writing a script is difficult and writing a good script is nigh on fucking impossible (hence my comfortable rut of consistent mediocrity). Once you’ve started the first script, starting subsequent scripts is easy. It’s finishing the fuckers which is the tricky part; but that’s the next milestone …
I’ve finished a script! I’ve actually finished a whole script! This is so exciting! I’m days away from being rich and–
Nope, apparently it’s shit.
Bugger.
Still, now you’ve finished one script you can finish others and while it’s nice to finish them, it never feels quite as exciting as the first time you type THE END. You soon learn that particular goalpost is not really a major achievement but more a prerequisite for actually being a scriptwriter.
And so on. Every time you achieve the next step it’s initially exciting until you realise that particular project just isn’t going anywhere and is a career dead end. It’s like a giant, life long game of snakes and ladders where it’s increasingly difficult to get excited about any given ladder since you know you’ll be back at the beginning any day now.
Over time you just learn not to be phased by it. The first time you option a script is pant wettingly exciting, the tenth time without a single one of the projects going any further is considerably less so.
And all this is right and good, you can’t continue to be excited by the same thing over and over again indefinitely, certainly not when the reason you’re getting excited is because you believe it’s a step on a journey somewhere. The problems arise when you have to deal with other people. When someone options a script from you, you have to pretend to be excited because it’s their project now and they’re excited because they know for an absolute fact they’re going to make a fucking amazing movie out of your script …
Whereas you know, with reasonable statistical certainty, they’re not going to achieve anything and you’ll probably never hear from them again until they ring to apologise for the project falling apart because they couldn’t get funding/the actor they need/out of bed in the morning.
So you have to pretend and jump up and down and squeal and shout ‘Yay!’ a lot until they let you go home.
Similarly, when someone else options their first script and is breathlessly exuberant – the correct response is to buy them a drink and go ‘CONGRATULATIONS! That’s fucking awesome!’ because it is. Getting a script optioned by someone is awesome …
It just doesn’t actually mean anything useful.
Neither does winning a competition, getting a commission, getting an agent … hell, even going into production can ultimately result in nothing useful at the end of it. I’ve had seven feature films start shooting now and not one of the fuckers is actually finished. Even the one already out on DVD.
Maybe someday they will, maybe they won’t. If one of them ever does (and it’s actually good) then I probably will get a bit of pant moisture building up, but until then, I’ll just calmly wait and see what happens. An attitude I think confuses people:
“Oh my God! So-and-so’s in your film! That’s so cool!”
“Yeah, yeah it is.”
“You don’t sound particularly excited.”
“No? I can wave a flag, if you like?”
And so on.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying people shouldn’t get excited about these things, because they are exciting and it really is great you’re all making progress. I’m happy for you, I really am. I’m just not going to get excited about any of my projects, no matter how many times people talk about theatrical releases, until I’m sitting a cinema watching a film I wrote which I, and everyone else, have bought tickets for.
Basically, I’ll believe it when I see it.
Having said all that, I read an option agreement this morning whose terms did have me browsing the Aston Martin website and picking out colours …
Damn it, I’ve just wet my pants and drooled all over the keyboard …
That’s the third question anyone asks me upon finding out I’m a scriptwriter:
“How did you get into it?”
The first two, as I’ve mentioned before, are usually:
“What do you mean?”
and
“So … do you write the story and someone else writes the words?”
Which is the kind of moronic question I reserve my blank ‘what the fuck are you talking about?’ face for. It’s right up there with “Well if evolution’s true and man did evolve from monkeys, why are there still monkeys around?”. What are you, fucking eight? I knew the answer to that before I had pubes … and other such rants about stupid people.
Anyway.
“How did you get into writing?”
The answer is: LEGO.
Which, despite the picture, isn’t the same answer as the answer to the question about monkeys and evolution – the answer there is ’ask something sensible or fuck off’.
When I was a kid there were only three toys: Star Wars figures, Action Man and Lego.
There were probably others, but who cares? A list of three is easier to deal with.
The cool thing about Lego is Lego is ALL toys. Everything you can imagine, you can build – given enough bricks and ingenuity.
This was brought home to me over the weekend when an early finish to the ’til Death re-write prompted an impromptu visit to my parents’. Being the doting grandparents they are, they’d gone rummaging around in the loft, found a box full of Lego and separated out the Duplo bricks for Alice to play with.
Whilst digging around in the Lego, my mum found this:
and after a further spot of digging, I unearthed these:
and
The first one, obviously, is a Lego TARDIS. The second one is a hatstand, complete with 4th Doctor scarf and hat – all that remains of the separate and extensive TARDIS interior, and the third is a grandfather clock created to double as the Master’s TARDIS.
An old (and not very funny) joke in our house was if you couldn’t find anything it would invariably end up in the Lego box – primarily because once scattered all over the room, the Lego would stay there until my brother and I were forced at knife point to put it all away; a process which involved grabbing handfuls of anything small, untangling them from the nasty polyester carpet and hurling them into the box.
And because of that, all sorts of crap is now preserved in that old Lego box …
Although when my Mum came up with the idea of putting all the Lego on a curtain before play (meaning the corners could be gathered together which scooped all the Lego up in one go) that ‘crap accumulation’ process stopped. Cleverer people than me could probably pinpoint the exact date when it happened by examining the amassed fragments of toys in a Jurassic Park, fly in amber type process.
But there is still a lot of stuff preserved, a history of games I played and toys I once owned. A brief search on Sunday revealed Superman’s boot circa 1978, the rudder from an Action Man Sea Wolf submarine, a Bayko brick (a particularly nasty construction set which involved sticking foot long, razor sharp pins into a board and then tripping, spearing your face and killing yourself), a Scalextric … thing (it’s green and diamond shaped?) and half a Thundercat’s logo stuck to bits of Lego.
But it’s the TARDIS and the Thundercats thing which got me thinking. You see, I didn’t just build things with Lego – I stuck bits of paper to them too. When I built the Thundertank (which had working claw grapples, opening cockpit and rear section and removable hoverboards) I also made costumes for the characters – likewise for Doctor Who, initially there was Tom Baker’s costume but later on my brother and I created our own Doctors to play with.
“What the fuck has this got to do with writing?” You are doubtlessly, and quite rightly, asking.
Well, in addition to creating costumes and sets, I used to come up with storylines for us to play. These reached their zenith when …
Do you know, I think I’ve blogged about this before.
Bugger.
I could just give up here or I could plough on regardless …
Oh I’ll finish what I’ve started.
My brother, his friend and I built three Lego spaceships and invented a whole world they belonged to. Crucially, we were always convinced these spaceships belonged to a TV series. I used to come up with the stories, then we’d build any sets and costumes needed to tell them. We’d play a bit of music as an intro and again for the end credits and we’d always finish on a cliffhanger.
Over the years the world and the stories became more and more complex until there was a whole mythology around the characters and five years worth of individual stories which built up to an explosive climax.
Which are the best kind.
As time went on I never forgot those stories and always maintained they were better than any of the then current Sci-fi on TV until people got so pissed off with me talking about an imaginary TV series they told me to write it or shut the fuck up.
Preferably the latter.
And as soon as I started the floodgates opened – before long there were more ideas coming than belonged to that one series … besides, I wanted complete control over it and obviously needed to build a better reputation for myself first. So the series went on the back burner and there it stayed until Joss Whedon made Firefly – an exact replica of the series I’d had in my head since I was a mere whippersnapper.
Balls.
Still, Lego, that’s where it all started for me. I’ve still got that Lego Spaceship in my office and here it is, The Morning Star:
It still inspires me to keep writing whenever I feel a bit blue and serves as a constant reminder – I’ve been making shit up for a long, long time.
And there you go.
How did you get into it?
Feel free to treat this like a meme if you wish – I’m not tagging anyone because I don’t really like putting people under pressure and can’t bear the crushing rejection when they don’t bother. So if you want to have a go, have a go – if not, don’t.
George MacDonald Fraser died. I was a bit upset about that.
I set out to write a feature in six days (due to some ridiculously bad time-management skills). I actually managed to write it in three … and it was shit.
I found out I had no idea what blue pages actually are. Or rather, I knew what they were, but not exactly what they looked like and how to do them. I’m still not 100% sure but I’ve come up with my own version and no one’s complained so far.
Whilst on location for ‘K‘ I managed to work out a cheap way of throwing an actor off the roof.
I got fired from a film and inexplicably became obsessed with tin foil as a direct result. Looking back on that, it might have been a teeny tiny nervous breakdown.
I learnt how to write a sex scene which won’t upset actresses, then got called a sexist by Piers for using the word ‘actresses’.
Weirdly, someone asked me to put more swearing into a script. I’ve never been asked for that before or since.
I learnt how to keep actors happy. Or happier, anyway.
I finished the first draft of ‘Mixed Up‘ and for some reason felt the need to post a video of my friends and I massacring ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love’.
I decided ‘Mixed Up‘ was going to be my last low budget film and from now on I was going to concentrate purely on some TV specs.
I started work on two more low budget films. Since I can’t remember what they were, they obviously went the way of most low budget films and imploded on contact with reality.
I went to the thing I got invited to – a BBC shindig and chance to meet the producers of the BBC’s New Comedy Unit. Where I stood in the corner for a few hours, got very hot, very angry and completely failed to meet any of the producers of the BBC’s New Comedy Unit.
I realised there are very few female sidekicks.
I picked up even more low budget film work.
Abi Titmuss completely failed to mention me in The Sun and then promised to continue to never mention me in public. I decided not to believe she existed.
Karma Magnet turned up online. People seemed to like it.
Abi Titmuss made good her promise and failed to mention me in Closer.
I confirmed, once and for all, actors don’t really have sex in sex scenes. Unless it’s porn.
I got to write for Doctor Who. Not the show, or even the current Doctor, but for Sylvester McCoy and that’s good enough for me.
I decided some actors needed punching in the throat.
And then ‘Mixed Up‘ started shooting, so I went and hid in the Caribbean.
Went to the screening of The Wrong Door, met loads of people including Doctor Fox, Sarah Morgan and her boyfriend, didn’t make a tit of myself (except with Doctor Fox) and managed to steal a T-shirt:
Two days later, I had to give the T-shirt back. A handy tip – if you steal something, don’t mention it on your blog.
Learnt how to be constructive with my criticism rather than just scrawling SHIT on the script in red ink, wiping my arse on it and sending it back.
Met Gordon Robertson after knowing him via email (not in the biblical sense, that’s impossible) for a few years. He’s a nice bloke.
And then waffled on a bit about random shit to avoid having to do any real work.
Discovered cats and touchscreen computers don’t mix.
The Wrong Door got a lot of publicity in the run up to the show – 12 of the 14 reviews I read were very positive. 2 were very negative.
The Wrong Door kicked off. So did a guy called Ben Randall who was so upset he didn’t find a programme funny he came all the way over to this blog to call me names.
The Wrong Door had the highest opening of any show on BBC Three (about four people) which seemed to greatly upset a handful of Internet loonies who went on and on and on about it for fucking ages.
I made the mistake of suggesting the people coming to my blog to call me names because they didn’t find a TV programme funny were a bit mental. Several people took great exception to this and went far out of their way to call me names in an effort to prove how mistaken I was about their lack of sanity and a real life.
Got my first death threat. Actually I got two death threats and one offer to rape my three month old daughter to ‘teach me a lesson’. That was nice. Perfectly sane behaviour that, I thought.
Still working on that fucking treatment.
Had a superb meeting where people offered me lots of money. I didn’t, and still don’t, really believe them.
Got offered another low budget feature film. That’s more like it.
Yet more abuse about The Wrong Door. One guy has taken to posting insults then changing names and agreeing with himself. He doesn’t seem to be able to grasp concepts like IP addresses, I can see it’s all one guy. I assumed this was a guy because I like to think women have better things to do.
An old project threatened to spring back to life … and then didn’t.
Finally finished that fucking treatment.
Oh and a bit more abuse about The Wrong Door.
On a serious note, all that abuse was a bit wearing. You write in the privacy of your own room for years until someone decides they want to make your work. You’re pleased, they’re pleased, the show comes out and generally people either like it or turn it off. Then a small contingent of morons think it’s perfectly acceptable to come and call you names, threaten your family and generally behave like cunts because – horror of horrors – THEY don’t like it. It’s depressing and it’s demotivating. I expected to be slagged off in papers if the critics didn’t like something I’d written. I expected to be slagged off on forums or other people’s blogs – all that’s fair enough; but the sheer persistence of a few individuals who felt the need to come here and spout off about it did actually get me down.
Until Oli sent me a cartoon. Which explained everything and really cheered me up. I decided I would find some way to repay him, somehow.
I completely failed to do some writing and in a gargantuan procrastination session, I redesigned my website.
Fixed the second act thing and discovered it no longer matched the ending.
Wrote a whiny post about writing treatments in the hope a certain producer was reading and would let me off for not turning in a treatment he was expecting. It didn’t work. Turns out he can’t read.
Wrote a writer’s vision for a sales pack – I don’t have any vision.
That guy’s still answering himself on The Wrong Door posts.
Hooray! December! This post is finally over and we can all go home!
Assuming any of you are still here.
Met some more writers in the pub: Paul Campbell, Danny Stack, Lara Greenway, Michelle Lipton and Oli … as well as the normal crowd. They were all nice. I told Danny and Michelle the secret which isn’t really a secret – just something I don’t bother telling people. Danny immediately left the pub, Michelle wanted to hug me.
Got angry with ten imaginary people because there were ten of them.
Panicked. Finished the script.
Cut out every other word in the vague feeling it might make it exciting and mysterious. It didn’t.
Told people how to wait. Not sure why, probably avoiding some other work.
Declared my love affair with Apparitions. Which I still haven’t seen the last episode of. I’m a fickle fucker sometimes.
Had some fun. It was fun.
Met James Moran. Told him the secret which isn’t really a secret – he seemed to find it funny.
And there you go. That was 2008 for me. How was it for you?
More than a few years back, Mandy and I frequently argued about money.
Fair enough, money is a common cause of arguments for most couples.
What made it a mite unusual was we were arguing over what to do with money we didn’t have and were more than likely never going to get. This was the point in my life when I was beginning to sign movie contracts and although the option fees were always modest, the expected final fee would be a fair amount of money.
For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about (you know, the people who are still trying to find out if actors really have sex in sex scenes) an option is a kind of promise by me not to sell the script to anyone else and allows a producer the rights for a fixed period of time (usually a year or two) to try and raise money to make the film.
Sometimes you get paid a percentage of the budget every year, sometimes you get a one off payment, sometimes you let them have it for next to nothing because no one else is interested in that script and it’s better to have someone else hawking your script than to have to do it yourself.
An option only really applies to a spec script, since (hopefully) you’ll be paid a reasonable fee for anything written on request.
Either way, on the first day of principle photography (the day when the actors start not really having sex with each other) you get the main bulk of your fee which will usually be between 2.5% and 4% of the film’s budget.
Or at least, that’s how it works in the shallow end of the pool. There are minimums you can expect to get paid, but in micro-budget land that can work out as more than the total budget for the film. At the other end of the scale, on a $200,000,000 film … I have no idea. 4% of 200,000,000 sounds like an awful lot of money, but good work if you can get it.
I can’t, in case you were wondering.
Or at least, not yet.
My, that was a long explanation considering the majority of people who read this blog are writers who already know all this. Some of you probably have a considerably better idea of how the system works than me, this is just my experience: sign an option for a pittance in the expectation of getting a shit-load of cash dumped on you in two years’ time.
Remember, at this point you still don’t really know what the budget will be – that’s something for the producer to decide when they go through the script. I’m sure they have a vague idea before they sign, but most of them are quite coy about telling you until they know for certain.
So some time after signing, you casually enquire what budget they’re hoping to raise. They tell you and you nod politely and allow the conversation to drift onto other matters.
On the way home you jump up and down, screaming with delight and punching the sky until a passing police officer asks you to stop.
And that’s when the arguments start.
Not with the police officer, with your partner. Unless your partner is a police officer.
Suddenly it seems you’re going to be very well off in exactly two years’ time.
What the hell do you spend the money on?
My first thought is always an Aston Martin, but realistically I think I’d have to really have run out of things to buy before I ever wasted over £100,000 on a car, no matter how pretty. Having said that, I’m pretty certain I could spend £30,000 on one of these, conscience free:
The arguments range from paying off the mortgage, retiring, expensive holidays, new houses, hiring someone to do the hoovering, the biggest fucking TV you’ve ever seen in your life … the list is endless.
So are the arguments.
Eventually it all reaches a kind of simmering resentful compromise where you both agree to pay off the mortgage but secretly keep one eye on the TV ads.
Before you know it, the two years are up and … nothing fucking happens.
The producer not only couldn’t raise the money, but seems to have disappeared off the face of the Earth.
Two years of arguing over non-existent money.
Brilliant, thanks a lot.
After the third or fourth time of this happening, you start to get a little wise. When someone tells you the budget, you don’t believe them. Or genuinely don’t care. Nothing is real until it happens, possibly not even then. There is nothing in this business which is worth getting excited about until you know for a fact it has already happened.
The future does not exist, ignore it and live for today.
Do you have a large sum of money in your bank account? No? Then there’s no point trying to spend it, is there?
I have strictly adhered to this philosophy for a few years now and I fully intend to stick to it for years to come.
Or at least I did.
Until a phone call a few days ago:
“Hi Phill, I’ve got director x interested in the film, only he doesn’t think the budget is realistic.”
Oh here we go, my imaginary fee is about to get cut in half.
“Really?”
“Yeah, but he knows some people who want to invest and we’re looking at £xx,xxx,xxx now.”
Holy fucking shit! That means I get … fuck, where’s that contract? What’s my percentage?
HOLY FUCKING SHIT!
HOLY SHIT!
HOLY FUCK!
SHITTY FUCK!
HOLY FUCKING SHITTY FUCK!
ON A STICK!
Of course, I’m no more likely to get this amount than I was to get the last amount. The smart money is still on there not being any money at all, ever; but … still.
Suffice it to say, the house is full of TV adverts and arguments once more.
Come on, ‘fess up; who’s been waiting eagerly for my return?
None of you? Really?
Oh.
Okay, fine. Sod you then.
I’ve been having a great time. Thank you all for your congratulations on the last post, they’re all much appreciated. So far Alice is a very laid back baby …
She tends to sleep more than she whinges and we’re all feeling very rested and happy.
I haven’t done a scrap of writing in the last two weeks and I’m itching to get back into it. The next week’s already mapped out and a few other projects are lurking in the wings waiting for a spare day or two to shine.
Although I’ve been bone idle for fourteen whole days, things have been ticking over in my absence and stuff has been happening without any extra effort from me. In the last two weeks:
1)Fleeced started shooting. This is my third feature to go into production this year and I can’t help thinking one every two months isn’t a bad average. The cast includes George Calil, Alan Convy and Natasha White; and it’s directed by Humaira Shah … beyond that I don’t really know anything. I’ll post more info as and when I get it.
2) An old project, one I thought long since dead, has resurfaced and threatens to spring into life once more. I was so convinced this one was dead it hasn’t even crossed my mind for months; but apparently there is a way forward. Wheels have been set in motion, steam is building up and I’m currently wandering the globe (or at least the UK … and by email, which probably doesn’t count as wandering) trying to get the band back together.
3) An extremely well established project, one which had got so far down the line it didn’t seem feasible it could go wrong, has gone wrong. Sort of. In the best traditions of the industry it threatened to implode in a frenzy of incompetence, political bullshit and bitchy back-stabbing. Although, that may have all been sorted now.
4) I got an invite to a screening of The Wrong Door, which takes place next week. I’m looking forward to this as I have absolutely no idea of what to expect. The weird thing about working on a sketch show is you don’t know what any of the other material will be like or how much of it will be yours. To be fair, I have read a handful of other sketches from other writers; but I’ve no idea if any of them made the final cut.
And 5) I got a few quotes in an article on TwelvePoint.com, written by our very own Lucy. Since this article was featured on the very first day of the launch of this fantastic new site; I’m chuffed to have at least got a vague mention. Probably not quite as chuffed as Lucy to have actually written the article; but chuffed none-the-less.
And that’s about it. Isn’t that enough considering I’ve done nothing for two weeks?
Oh, and to back up Stuart Perry’s post about Cyril Connolly’s quote “The pram in the hallway is the enemy of art” …
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.
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 monthsweeks … 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’.
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.
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.
I need a certain amount of money before a certain date or something unpleasant is going to happen.
I’m not talking ‘pliers and toenails’ kind of unpleasant, just something I’d rather not have to do.
I don’t normally worry about money. Generally, money is just something which drops through the letterbox whenever I need it – it’s a convenient arrangement which suits me nicely; but with baby on the way I have to be a bit more realistic. Mandy and I had a long chat, weighed up the options and realised there weren’t any – I had to be a man about it.
So I hid in the toilet and cried myself to sleep.
The decision was made, I girded my loins (which was fun) and reached for the phone … and it bleeped.
An email.
From the producer of one of the five new feature projects I’ve acquired over the last month or so. A chance encounter has brought him face to face with a man who fancies investing in a feature film. The producer mentioned the film we were planning and the guy’s interested – he’d like to invest.
How much?
All of it.
The whole budget, one investor, there’s the money - go and make a movie.*
Holy shit.
My fee?
Somewhere around the exact amount of money I need to avoid any unpleasantness.
Did I say holy shit?
What about holy fuck?
Fuck me ragged?
Now, I don’t know about you; but if I saw my life in a movie I wouldn’t believe it. You couldn’t write a scene where two people are discussing the need for x amount of money and then have someone else ring up and offer it to them.
Life isn’t supposed to work like that, it really isn’t.
Luckily, life (or at least my life) doesn’t seem to know that.
Which set off a bit of random paranoia. How come the universe seems to be operating in my favour? How come when I need something it just turns up? It’s almost as if, somehow, the universe is looking out for me. As if the whole of creation is bending to my will, for my benefit.
Or at least the section of it which deals with money and writers.
Maybe I am the centre of the universe and all of you are here purely for my amusement?
Nah.
It’s an easy thought process to get swept up in though. The human mind is not designed to deal with coincidences. We build things, therefore anything which seems constructed must have been built by someone else.
Which is the central theme of ‘Karma Magnet‘, a man who gets carried away with this idea of the universe working for him.
It’s a behaviour I see all the time in other people, particularly the devoutly religious† and spiritually inclined‡- an inability to recognise a coincidence as a coincidence and an ego big enough to assume the vastness of infinity actually cares whether or not you bump into someone from school in Marbella.
It doesn’t, but it’s a hard thought to shift.
Regardless, one of the five has gone from a possible project to a very probable project and I’ve gone from excited to very excited to being a little scared.
I’ve also found out when they need the script by and how much time I’ve got between now and then.
HOLY FUCKING MONKEY SHIT!
Enjoy your Christmas, I don’t know if I will.
——————————————————
* It’s not quite this simple, there’s a load of paperwork to be sorted through first – but assuming nothing goes wrong, it’s going to happen very fast.
There’s precious little* advice on the net about how to handle rejection.
I’m not talking about being rejected. That’s easy to deal with, I have a simple three step formula:
Forget you’ve sent stuff to people; that way, if they don’t get back to you, it’s not a problem since you weren’t expecting them to anyway.
Understand that this is just one person’s opinion about one product – it’s not a fact and it doesn’t apply to you as a person/your entire catalogue of works.
Find out where they live and set fire to their pets.
Easy. I never feel bad about rejection.
Mass puppy murder, yes; but rejection … not bothered at all.
What no one tells you¤ is as you start to get a little bit more well known/successful/lucky, you get flooded† with job offers and you have to turn some of them down.
I’ve been living in denial of this fact for a while now.
“Pile it on!”
“More work!”
“I can cope!”
“Oh fuck, no I can’t!”
In this last week, I’ve had three offers from people I’ve worked with before … and I’ve had to say no to all of them.
I hated doing it, and I’m still not sure if it’s the right decision; but I did it all the same.
Last year (or maybe the year before), working on a low paid project, with slim chances of getting made, was fine. I’d rather be working for a little money for someone who actually wanted to read what I’ve written, than writing a spec script for no money and then have to persuade someone to read it afterwards. It’s a simple formula:
Little money + a first timer pushing your script forwards > No money + no interest
At least in my world.
I still believe that, I really do; but now there are extra factors:
More money + someone famous pushing your script forward > a little money + a first timer pushing your script forward.
My life situation has changed (for the better, but in a worrying way). There’s a lot more‡ work on offer and only so much Phill to go around.∞ In essence, I need more money than I did before and I’ve got more work to choose from.
This doesn’t mean a higher paid project is automatically more worthwhile than a lower/no money project, because it doesn’t quite work like that.
The formula for this calculation looks something like this:
[n(n-1)/2 - 2D]/[n(n-1)/2] = 1 – 4D/n(n-1)
Where ‘D’ means … um … a doggie, maybe? And ‘n’ means I just picked a random formula off a random webpage.
Okay, so I don’t have a formula – which only makes it harder.
There are some well paid gigs on the table right now which might happen, or they might not. There are some high profile projects in production/in development which may lead to even better things, or they may not.
Then there are the projects with people I know, like and want to work with but who have no money.
It’s all very difficult.
The end result is I’m having to turn people down. I’ve gone from rejectee to rejecter and I don’t like it. In a way, it’s nice a nice position to be in, I have a choice of projects. In another way, it’s horrible and I hate it. I have to say no to people.
Hopefully, these people understand and won’t take it personally. I hate to think I’ve upset anyone … but I’m hiding my cat just in case.
———————————————————–
* I don’t actually know, I haven’t looked.
¤ Or maybe they do? See the above note.
† A very small flood, more of a damp basement; but you get the idea.
‡ One is a lot more than none. Two is a lot more than one. Three, four? We’re getting into loads now.
∞ Although a steady stream of biscuits and an ever decreasing exercise regime seems to be increasing the amount of raw material.
Posted by phillbarron 
Posted by phillbarron 
Posted by phillbarron 
