#PhonePhill – Conversation #1: Calum Chalmers

Surprisingly, this actually worked. It turns out there are people in this world who actually want to talk to a complete stranger about writing and/or random stuff on a whim.

Conversation #1 was with Calum Chalmers.

Actually, technically #1 was Tim Clague who rang up on a whim just because … well, just because he can, I guess. I think it was meant to be a gag but it was foiled by technology – my phone correctly identified him before he could spring his dastardly trap. But hey, he rang, so let’s call him Conversation #0 and use that opportunity to slip in teaser trailer #2 for Who Killed Nelson Nutmeg?

But back to Calum Chalmers, the proper Conversation #1.

Calum is a writer/director who has also acted at least once. Here he is, on the left, in David Lemon‘s Faintheart:

As often happens in these situations, although Calum and I have never met or spoken before, we do have a few mutual friends. It’s a small industry on a small island, be nice to people – everyone knows someone who knows you.

As the appointed time for the call approached, I remembered one key fact: I fucking hate talking on the phone. Especially to strangers. You might think it’s odd that I decided to try this experiment … and you’d be right.

Still, as it happens the conversation was easy and flowing and genuinely interesting, entertaining and fun. Or at least I thought it was, I’m not going to round putting words into Calum’s mouth.

Had a lovely chat with screenwriter @phillbarron. We hadn't spoken before today but he let me interrogate him for a 100 minutes.#PhonePhill

— Calum Chalmers (@Calchal) April 28, 2015

We talked about a lot of industry stuff, films in general and about Calum’s career so far and his future plans.

I had no idea going into this how long the call might last and was quite surprised to find out it went on for about an hour and a half. Didn’t feel that long, but unless there was some kind of incredibly localised temporal anomaly … that’s how long it was.

Calum’s written and directed two shorts so far:

If You Go Down

and

Graduation Afternoon

He was kind enough to send me a link for Graduation Afternoon and it’s very good. Here’s a trailer:

One of the things we talked about is something I think we all struggle with: what should I do next?

We have all these ideas, far more than anyone could possibly write in a lifetime and somehow we have to pick the one to focus on, the one we think has the best chance of moving our career forward.

The glib answer is ‘pick the one you care most about’.

But which one’s that?  I know I have a good dozen ideas I’m equally as excited about … until I actually try to write them then I quickly discover how interesting things like bus time tables and bits of wall are.

So maybe we should be more mercenary?

Maybe we should focus on the one which is most likely to catapult us to fame and fortune and … something else beginning with ‘F’.

Um … Fridge? Foot spa? Falafel?

No idea.

But which one is that? Which project is most likely to get us the falafel we so desperately crave? Is it the low budget thing we can make ourselves? Is it the sell out thing we’re pretty certain we can get funding for even though it’s bound to be terrible? Even if we can get the money, do we use it for a micro-budget feature or a big-budget short? Do we aim for commercial success? Or Internet notoriety? Or festival love?

Well, the answer’s simple:

I have no idea.

In pretty much the same I have no idea why anyone would want this:

All I do know is I enjoyed chatting with Calum and look forward to Conversation #2 on next week’s #PhonePhill.

If you want to be Conversation #3 then drop me an email and we’ll work it out.

If you’d like to chat with Calum yourself, you can find him on Twitter here.

#PhonePhill

Last Monday my phone suddenly, and unusually, emitted a strange sound. It was a sort of warbling, chirping noise I hadn’t heard before.

And it didn’t stop. It just kept on warbling and chirping.

Quick as a flash, I ambled out into the garden and found a stick to poke it with (just in case it was dangerous) and upon my return I was delighted to discover an email from the lovely Danny Stack informing me he’d tried to ring and inquiring how I was.

As it happens, I was perplexed.

Apparently my phone can receive phone calls, a capability I was hitherto unaware of. Truly we live in an age of wonders where mere phones can receive phone calls. I’m half convinced it can make calls too … but further investigation is required before I commit myself to such outrageous claims.

Monday was a good day. It was the day we finally had our hall carpet fitted after months of sanding, scraping, painting and varnishing. Here it is:

I think it looks quite nice.

On a day which included the culmination of months of hard work, a phone call from Danny was absolutely the highlight.

If you don’t know Danny, you should. His blog, here, is one of the very, very, few of the UK-advice-blogs which is worth reading. Danny’s the real deal, a working writer who shares vaulable insights. If you don’t read his blog, then you should at least listen to his and Tim Clague’s podcast which is equally as informative.

Danny and I keep in touch via the odd email or social media message. Occasionally, once in a blue moon, we’ve meet face to face … but that’s kind of it. So to get a phone call out of the blue with no motive attached is … well, it’s special.

It’s lovely, in fact.

And it got me thinking.

Maybe there are other people out there who fancy a natter? Maybe you’re a novice writer who’d like to chat to someone a teeny bit further down the path? Maybe you’re an incredibly experienced writer who’s (inexplicably) got no writing chums to talk to? Maybe you’re an avid movie watcher who’d like to ring up and know just how the fuck utter dross like Strippers vs Werewolves got made? Maybe you just want to complain to someone about your boy/girlfriend’s utter inability to grasp simple concepts like special relativity?

Maybe. I don’t know.

I’m usually procrastinating so if you fancy a little chat, email me (the address is on the right – take this as a simple intelligence test, if you can’t find it you probably can’t operate a phone anyway), I’ll send you my phone number and you can ring up and have a chat.

I don’t know if anyone wants to do such an outlandish thing as actual voice-to-voice contact with another human being … but if you do … great. If there’s more than one of you per week (which seems unlikely) then we’ll form some kind of queuing system.

Or line up in height order or something.

If you’re in one of those dangerous foreign places then maybe we can Skype or something. So long as you don’t expect video because that involves me putting pants on and that’s never going to happen.

Share this post with people if you like. Or don’t. It’s up to you. I’m just curious to see what happens.

#PhonePhill

Spoiling yourself

WARNING!

CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR

SAVING MR BANKS

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

AND

THE SIXTH SENSE

MIND YOU, IF YOU’VE READ THIS WARNING THEN YOU’VE ALREADY SPOILERED SAVING MR BANKS

Too many cooks may spoil the broth, but too much information definitely spoilers the movie.

For me, at least.

I’ve long been bamboozled by the level of spoilers in soap operas. I can’t understand why people want to know what’s happening in an episode before they’ve seen it.

“This is the one where so and so finds out thingamajig is her dad!”

As far as I can tell that’s every episode of every soap ever, but why would you want to know that before you watch it? Why is that fun? Why would you want to know anything about an episode of your favourite show before you’ve seen it?

Same goes for films. Why do people spend the year before a film is released dissecting trailers in the hope of finding out what the story is about? Why do people hunt down leaked screenplays and set images?

Isn’t half the fun of seeing a movie being surprised?

Or is that just me?

Some films don’t wait for their audience to hunt down spoilers, they just spoiler themselves right off the bat.

The piece de resistance when it comes to spoilers has to be Saving Mr Banks – never before has a film been so comprehensively spoilered by its own title.

How much more amazing would that film have been if you didn’t know P L Travers’ objections were all about Saving Mr Banks? Imagine what a revelation it would have been to have got to the Walt Disney speech where he figures it out and have a light bulb click on in your own head.

I don’t even know if I’d have linked the flashbacks to P L Travers if I’d hadn’t read the title of the film.

But no, they put the twist in the title of the film. That’s like calling “The Empire Strikes Back”, “Vader is Luke’s Dad!”.

And just in case you didn’t get it from the title, they put the revelation scene in the fucking trailer. Right in there. Front and centre. Who made that decision? And why?

Imagine that person or persons cutting a trailer for The Sixth Sense. Would that film have been better or worse if it had a shot of Bruce Willis staring at the camera and saying “I’m dead, aren’t I?” in the trailer?

I’m voting worse, you may beg to differ.

“Let’s not call it “The Sixth Sense”, let’s call it “Kid Counseled by Dead Guy” that would be sooooooooo coooooooooool.”

“It’s about Saving Mr Banks, isn’t it?” For fuck’s sake – why was that line in the trailer? Why was anything from that late in the film in the trailer?

All I want in the trailer is the set up and maybe a montage-y thing summing up the first half of the second act. I want it to be a pictorial version of the blurb on the back of a DVD.

Or BluRay, if you want to be fancy.

“This is a story about someone who wants something but can’t get it because of reasons.” Thanks very much, that sounds interesting, I’ll go and see that.

“This is a story about someone who wants something but can’t get it because of reasons and there’s this really cool bit at the end where you realise everyone has escaped from his imagination.”

No! Noooooooooooooo! Fucking NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stop spoilering films for me! Stop spoilering them in trailers and posters and especially stop spoilering them for me on Facebook, at great length, and then tagging me in the post.

I don’t want to know. Honestly, I don’t. I’ll unfriend you. Seriously, I’ll fucking do it.

Well, okay, I won’t do it because I’m vaguely interested in your amusing cat stories and the outside chance you might post a photo of yourself in your pants … but, come on! Don’t spoiler the film for me.

Hell, don’t spoiler the film for yourself.

And trailer makers, just fucking don’t.

In general.

Please?

Necessary shitness

The first draft of anything is shit. Everyone knows that. But how far does that shitness extend? Is it just the first draft of a script? Or can you extend it to a scene? Or a line?

I’m always acutely aware that as we progress towards and even through production any rewrites are effectively first drafts. Anything which hangs over from the first full draft of the script will be rewritten, tweaked and massaged 50 times. Anything which is inserted on the set, minutes before being filmed will be a first draft.

The first thing I thought of.

The shit.

Sometimes not. Sometimes those things turn out to be the best bits of the entire film. Hopefully the script is robust enough to cope with having the odd scene yanked out and replaced at a moment’s notice.

But still I worry.

Not about being shit. Or writing shit. But about letting people down.

Actually, no. That’s not true. I don’t feel like I’m letting someone down if the first draft of a new scene isn’t perfect because that’s a silly expectation. The first draft isn’t going to be perfect and I know that. The thing I worry about is does the client know that?

When I get asked for a last minute replacement scene or line of dialogue, do they remember the five or six years we spent pummeling the script into a half-decent shape? Do they remember all the dead ends we strolled confidently along, absolutely certain that this time we’d cracked it? Do they remember all those drafts which just didn’t work or made the script worse than it was before? Do they remember the u-turns and the climbing down from our respective high horses when we realised our most cherished inclusions were dragging the whole thing under?

Or do they just look at the current draft, the one which seems perfect and flawless and beautiful and wonder why anything new added to it can’t immediately achieve the same standard?

I hope not.

I hope they understand the first draft of anything new is just a thumbnail sketch, a rough edit to act as a starting point. It’s a talking point, a jumping off point for a discussion.

Basically, I don’t want them to think that that’s the best I can do.

Which sounds odd. As if I’m not really trying on the first draft of any new line or scene … but I am. I try really hard and the results will always be fair to middling. Even though I’m trying my hardest, that isn’t the best I can do because it isn’t the end of the process, it’s the beginning.

Or at the very least a temporary midpoint. A way of saying “I’ve penciled stuff in, speak now before I ink the bastard”.

I really don’t mind being told something I’ve written is terrible. I do mind a client thinking it can’t be improved upon. Or more specifically, I can’t improve on it.

Something on my mind? No, no, no.

Why yes, I am currently waiting for notes on a couple of projects. How did you know?

Vanishing point

I once accidentally got involved in a discussion/argument about the midpoint of Back to the Future.

It was one of those pointless online scriptwriting debates where lots of people who’ve never sold scripts harangue each other for not following rules laid down by other people who have also never sold scripts and have instead taken to writing books about how people can achieve successful writing careers by following the advice which didn’t work for them.

For some reason (call it capricious youth, call it naivety, call it shit-stirring) I chipped in with my opinion:

The midpoint in Back to the Future is when Doc Brown points at the audience and says “We’re sending you back to the future.” The reason I think that’s the midpoint is because that’s where the intermission was in the cinema … so it’s probably roughly halfway through.

I got called a lot of names.

Actually, I don’t think I did. I think people just disagreed … but that doesn’t sound as interesting as the version where everyone except me is an idiot. Despite the precise opposite being true in almost every case.

Some people thought the midpoint came a few sentences later when the characters realise Marty’s past is disappearing.

Others thought it was at the end of the scene when Marty accidentally outshines George in the town square/skateboard bit.

Others still thought it was later on again, when Marty fails to get Lorraine interested in George and they come up with the new plan to get them to kiss on the dance floor.

Yet more people thought it was when Marty threatened to melt George’s brain.

One or two even thought it was earlier when Marty finally managed to persuade Doc to listen to him. An upbeat midpoint.

I believe there was even one lone voice who insisted (quite vocally, possibly in ALL CAPS) that the midpoint comes when Doc realises it’s impossible to generate the 1.21 gigawatts needed for time travel.

At the time I remember distinctly not caring.

But it’s been playing on my mind ever since.

Well, not ever since. Occasionally. When I’ve got nothing better to do. Or when I have got better things to do and don’t want to do them.

It’s not that I think I was right (which is weird – I always think I’m right) and don’t get me wrong, I still don’t care … but my not caring has become the point. For me.

I don’t think these points should be points. I don’t really like having a specific frame of film I can point at and go “Aha! That’s the inciting incident!”

Or the midpoint or the ‘all is lost’ moment or … you know, stuff.

Apart from those times where the midpoint is a twist or shock reveal which throws the film onto a completely different path … I think these story points should be kind of smeared out.

To me, a midpoint isn’t point, it’s curve. It’s where the story changes trajectory because sustaining the pursuit of one goal for the entire second act is a tricky thing to do.

Something happens which either knocks the protagonist off course or changes their goals. Or introduces a new goal they have to accomplish before they can achieve their original one.

Sometimes these are instant, right-angle changes … but more often than not they’re a slight change of course. Sort of heading towards the original goal but on a tangential path. Or maybe a parallel one?

A single event may initiate that course correction but more often than not several things have to happen to push the protagonist onto the new course. The curved path between course A and course B is a constant state of change during which the protagonist tries to stay on course A like a satnav refusing to accept the driver is trying to avoid the A259 … before finally (and grumpily. I’m sure my satnav gets the hump) accepting the new route home.

In other words, it’s not an obvious text-book point. It’s a gentle, organic change from one state of play to another. The midpoint I scribbled on an index card at the beginning of the process becomes a scene or a sequence, smearing the point out over several pages of script.

I kind of see that as my job, to make clear and identifiable points and then hide them in the flesh of the piece. The changes should feel surprising but also inevitable. They should feel like there was no other way for that change to happen … but not stand out as a plot point we were aiming to hit precisely on page 55.

I like my stories to have smooth transitions from one act to another rather than sharp and spiky points which flag themselves as screenwriting 101.

Except when I don’t.

Sometimes that shock twist or reveal is the best thing for the story. I guess each story defines its own type of plot points.

So in the case of Back to the Future – who was right? Where is the midpoint?

Well … all of the above. Surely? All of those things contribute to a change of direction and a new goal for the character. All of those things happen somewhere in the middle and the fact no one can agree on which one is THE one is kind of the point.

At least I think it is anyway.

I don’t know how to end this post, so I’ll end it on a largely unconnected anecdote. My six-year-old daughter watched all three Back to the Futures on consecutive weekends. During the third film, Doc Brown tells Marty to take the time machine back to 1985 and dismantle it. My daughter made me stop the film and demanded to know why he wanted the time machine destroyed?

“Well,” says I, “you remember in the second film when Biff got hold of the time machine? He changed everything didn’t he? He made it all bad and Doc doesn’t want that to happen again.”

My daughter thought that was silly:

“He doesn’t have to destroy it though, does he? Why doesn’t he just put a lock on it? It could be an electric lock with a voice thing so you have to say ‘Hello, this is Doc’ or ‘Hello, this is Marty’ and the door would open. But if you didn’t say it then it would electrocute you and kill you.”

Which, as points go, is a damned fine one … and one I wish I’d thought of.

A bit like this watch:

I’m going to stop now. Choco-delirium has set in.