One of the projects I’ve been working on for a while now is a sitcom called ‘That Band’ which is the brainchild of Lee Otway, who in another life was Bombhead in Hollyoaks.
Lee’s a really sound guy, someone I’ve got a lot of time for so even I’m going to sit down and watch Channel Four at 18.30 tonight to see his return to Hollyoaks. I’ll even be hanging around to see the post-credits tag, because that’s how much I like him.
Shall I see you all there?
I know it’s traditional to do your end-of-year-blog-round-up at the end of the year you’re rounding-up, but I didn’t, so I’m doing it now.
And no, I haven’t caved in, bought an iPhone and then failed to wake up for three days in a row (although I do find it highly amusing and can’t wait to smile smugly at certain friends of mine whose most cherished and deeply held belief is ‘Apple products never go wrong’.); but I’ve just been excruciatingly busy with Persona … which the more eagle-eyed among you may have noticed completely failed to manifest itself two days ago. There is a reason for that, but it will have to wait.
So, what did I do in 2010 (which I can’t believe I’m talking about, it’s so last year)? Well, I did something rather like this …
I explained how to be happy, in a rather long winded post which went on for so long it annoyed the piss out of me; Lord knows how you felt about it.
I discovered there was a 5,50 in the morning, ate my first school dinner since I was 11 and became the world’s first, ginger Bollywood consultant.
Updated Quicktime.
Discovered a watched kettle does boil and took a video to prove it:
Equated ‘In the Night Garden’ to genital piercing.
Then ran head-first at a wall and played with some bunnies.
Posted lots of behind the scenes videos for ‘Just for the Record’.
Talked about Piers‘ Writers’ Social.
Got lost in America and had to ask where I was.
Updated iTunes.
Spend a weekend in a fabulous house on Anglesey (which may or may not have some connection to St Seiriol) with a Lord who taught me how to con money out of people on Waltzers and a young woman who tries to bring helicopters down by hitting golf balls at them (but is considering giving it up because she almost hit a car and feels that’s a bit dangerous), whilst working out a plan to invade the Falklands as the first step towards exploiting the untapped mineral wealth of Antarctica and being served dinner by William Wordsworth’s great-granddaughter … surprisingly, this wasn’t a dream and did actually happen.
Failed to get mentioned in The Sun, Broadcast and GMTV.
That was pretty much it for February.
Wondered if Caprica would get any better – decided it wasn’t worth spending the time to find out. Did it get better?
Got given a note I didn’t understand.
Accidentally saw Superman Returns and got all shouty and upset.
Updated Quicktime and iTunes.
Explained how to deal with notes by wearing a skirt and letting other men in skirts stab you.
Broke down exactly how I deal with a thirty-day deadline … badly, is the answer, in case you were wondering.
Went to Piers‘ Writers’ Social.
The DVD for ‘Just for the Record’ became available to pre-order.
Remained unconvinced by 3D. I’m still not convinced – good idea or pointless gimmick?
Got very stressed because I was working on five projects at the same time – five! How pitifully small that number seems now. My stress dissolved in the face of this pretty picture:
Which may or may not be in pre-production around about now. Probably isn’t.
Got held prisoner in France due to a dastardly plot involving my parents, British Airways and an Icelandic volcano.
Got a bit disappointed by the Daleks and their magic Easter egg.
Decided I don’t trust anyone’s opinion.
Updated Quicktime.
Got in a bit of a tangle about an exclamation mark!
Updated Quicktime.
Spent three days shitting myself here:
Stayed awake for 36 hours, whilst travelling eight hours across five time zones so I could get to here:
Just so I could attend the premiere of ‘Just for the Record’
Updated iTunes.
Went to see ‘Just for the Record’ in the same cinema I went to see all of the films which initially inspired me to be a writer. A film (based on) a script I wrote showing in an actual cinema! And not just one cinema, several across the country. Something I wrote got a theatrical release! … Shame it was a bit shit really.
Explained how cold reading helps get you out of holes you dig by being thoroughly unprofessional.
Realised IMDb ratings may be a slightly better work of fiction than the films themselves.
Was deeply surprised to find ‘Just for the Record’ in the DVD charts. Number 13, if you’re interested:
Updated Quicktime.
Went on a long and pointless rant about builders.
Updated iTunes.
Went on a long and pointless rant about isms.
Was surprised to receive a smattering of complimentary emails.
Updated Quicktime and iTunes.
Stole some money:
Wrote my most popular post of the year: It’s not fair
Listened to two Jamaicans argue about the best way to spray paint an elephant.
Had a First Look at LVJ:
Got called a lying bastard for failing to recognise Apple as the true inventor of video calling.
Updated Quicktime.
Updated Quicktime.
Updated Quicktime.
Pause/beat – not the fucking same.
‘The Wrong Door’ came out on DVD! No one bought it! Hooray!
Got angry about some spelling.
Updated iTunes.
Updated iTunes.
Promoted some random shit.
Updated Quicktime.
Saw some films.
Updated iTunes.
Failed to understand semi-colons.
Updated Quicktime.
Invented a new sport.
Failed to win at the sport I’d just invented.
Updated iTunes.
Got removed from a project for waiting too long for them to send me some feedback.
Updated Quicktime.
Made some robots swear:
Updated iTunes.
Swore I’d make the robots swear once a month, just for fun.
Updated Quicktime.
Failed to make the robots swear ever again. This will probably be a lifelong failure.
Updated iTunes.
Got annoyed with people slagging off Richard Curtis.
Updated Quicktime.
Someone set up a Twitter account in my name … still don’t know who.
Updated iTunes.
Realised I don’t know what iTunes is or why it’s on my computer. I mean, I know you can use it to buy music and stuff; but what’s all the rest of it for? As far as I can tell it’s something which gets between your computer and an mp3 player or a phone and … makes it all a bit more complicated. A bit like a geriatric butler who insists on chewing your food for you. I mean, what the fuck is it for?
Decided to uninstall iTunes.
Got excited about a poster I haven’t seen for twenty-five years.
Liked ‘Roger and Val Have Just Got In’ even if no one else did.
Uninstalled iTunes.
Moaned about people fucking up my (admittedly poor) scripts by removing, changing or otherwise tampering with the protagonist AFTER the fucking script has been shot.
Uninstalled iTunes.
Updated Quicktime.
Updated Quicktime.
Uninstalled iTunes.
Went to the theatre – nothing blew up, no one got naked and there was a surprising lack of giant killer robots; but it was actually very enjoyable.
Updated Quicktime.
Expressed a desire to project a photo of my balls onto various people’s faces.
Uninstalled iTunes.
Uninstalled iTunes.
Updated Quicktime.
Uninstalled iTunes – what the fuck is this shit? Where does it keep coming from? I don’t want it. I don’t need it. Please, please fuck off!
Gave up and updated iTunes.
Tried to name a space shuttle ‘Brian’.
Updated Quicktime.
Learnt there is such a thing as a one word pitch.
Updated Quicktime.
Had a warm gooey feeling because I did something uncharacteristically nice.
Updated Quicktime.
Got confused between my imagination and a piece of paper.
Updated Quicktime.
Tried to decipher the numbering system of a script competition.
Updated Quicktime.
Updated Quicktime.
Updated Quicktime.
Updated Quicktime.
Updated Quicktime.
Realised iTunes seems to have given up asking to be updated.
Updated iTunes.
And Quicktime.
Confessed my sexual fondness for a cartoon character.
Updated Quicktime.
Ranted about working for two producers who hated each other.
Updated Quicktime.
Wished Apple would just make Quicktime work properly in the first place. Or at least the last place, since it seems to update every fucking two days and still doesn’t actually fucking work. What exactly is updating? Is inability to play any fucking file whatsoever?
Uninstalled Quicktime.
Reinstalled Quicktime so I could watch a film trailer.
Updated Quicktime.
Updated iTunes.
Updated Quicktime.
Updated iTunes.
Updated Quicktime.
Talked about the snow for fucking ages.
Updated Quicktime.
Realised I’d spent more time updating Quicktime than fucking breathing. In fact, I’d go so far as to say updating Quicktime is 80% of my social interaction with the world.
Talked about some loveliness.
Realised Quicktime hasn’t asked to be updated for a week. I miss that little guy.
Did something I didn’t want to do and enjoyed it.
Made writing ridiculous complex with all sorts of colour-coded formulas.
Where’s Quicktime? Why isn’t it talking to me any more? Have I upset it somehow?
Got really excited about the trailer for:
And began the nine day countdown to … nothing.
UPDATED QUICKTIME! HE’S BACK! HE DOES LOVE ME! … Bollocks.
And that was about it. There wasn’t a lot of actual blogging happening this year, primarily because 2010 was the year of taking on too many projects. 12 features in all. 12 – fucking ridiculous. Behind the scenes, unblogged, I managed to work my way through 9 of those 12 features – 3 of them are still waiting patiently in the wings; invented the format for, hired writers for, developed, wrote and script-edited Persona (which has been delayed, but is definitely starting in January this year); attended a lot of meetings; met the world’s most pretentious man; travelled 8402 miles in 16 hours just to wank into a pot; became a sort of Producer; was forced to interact with actors; set fire to lots of things which went fizz …. bang; ruined four rolls of really expensive wallpaper; loved my wife and my daughter and generally had an absolute fucking ball.
What does 2011 hold?
Well, Persona for one thing. Those last three films and then a break from films for a while. Probably. Maybe some features going into production. Twitter – maybe? I might just follow people for a while and see what happens. And … um … sleep. I need some sleep. Quite a lot of it, really.
Happy New Year!
Eh?
http://www.gm.tv/entertainment/latest-entertainment-news/44838-bruce-as-band-manager-in-tv-gig.html
Do what now?
http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/technology/that-band/5010643.article
Who the fuck is Lee Hupfield?
When did all this happen? What the fuck is going on?
So here we are at the end of the year, hell at the end of the decade and …
Actually, when does the decade end? Is 2010 the end of this decade or the beginning of the next one? Tricky number, zero. Still, fuck it. If the Romans couldn’t get to grips with it then why the fuck should I? I mean, they built roads and shit while all I’ve ever done is push buttons on a keyboard … and even that I do pretty badly.
Mind you, have you seen the roads in Rome? Shockingly bad. Fuck knows how those people supplied an empire.
But I digress.
Did you have a good Christmas? Did Santa bring you everything you wanted? I asked for World Domination and some French Fancies but the fat git failed on both counts. How was 2009 in general? Mine went almost exactly like this:
I realised we were living in the 21st Century … nine years after the fact.
Discovered Oli stops reading when he reaches his own name and then talked briefly about magic puppies with Lego faces.
Tries to get someone to hold my hand.
Learnt, once again, communicating by email results in appalling scripts and that the more notes someone has for you, the better the script is.
Revealed I had a BIG IDEA … with no time to write it.
Had a pile of work, so massive and so daunting … I decided to fuck everyone off and go to Disney Land instead.
Didn’t go to Disney Land, just knuckled down and attacked the pile of work.
Talked about a Writer’s Vision – basically how to lie in order to get money.
Revealed to the world that Satan talks to me through the TV and told me I have to leave Pipex and sign up to Sky Broadband or he’s going to make me rape, kill and eat next door’s babies.
Fielded an email from an American Production company looking for something almost exactly like the BIG IDEA. It’s right easy this marketing lark – you just sit there and wait for them to call you.
And then saw Seven Pounds and got depressed because I can’t write like that.
Had a pointless conversation with an Air Hostess in the middle of a forest.
Got bored.
Decided, more or less on a whim, never to speak to anyone ever again.
Named and alphabetised my T-shirts.
Decided I didn’t want to be in Battlestar Galactica.
Revealed my obsession with Creative Screenwriting Podcasts.
Got confused about Easter.
And got bored once more, this time by Benjamin Button. Fuck it, if he doesn’t pay any interest in his own life, why should I?
Failed to blog about THE A TEAM V DAD’S ARMY and DAISY DOGNUTS. No, I have no idea what that means either.
Talked about the technical difficulties involved in writing a script … although for the life of me I can’t remember which fucking script I was talking about. I may have been making shit up to make myself seem cool.
Shit a solid gold brick.
Explained why this:
Made me into a writer.
Discovered a clone of me from the future used to stalk me in the past.
Got attacked by a T-Rex and rescued by Spiderman.
Got nominated for a Rose d’Or. Sort of.
Met up with Lara Greenway and Terry Wogan in Madam Tussauds.
Got emails from actors asking if they could be in a film I didn’t write. Only to find out I may have written bits of it, sort of.
Realised I could carry all my scripts around on my phone, all the time.
Got annoyed about mugs and companies who sell themselves as cool without actually telling you what their products do. Like Apple.
And offered to buy people lunch.
Got nominated for a BAFTA. Actually, this has nothing to do with me.
Dropped an imaginary phone into an imaginary vat of home brew at Dan Turner’s imaginary house.
Wrote a script to an extremely complicated and prescriptive set of rules. Rules which the producer who set them immediately complained about.
Karma Magnet came out as a DVD extra.
Pimped some stuff for someone else.
Got fucking angry about the media’s ‘information’ about Swine Flu and declared it was all fucking bullshit and no one was going to die from it. Bird Flu, anyone?
Warned people their ideas would make a 90 page script into a 180 page script. They didn’t listen, I wrote the script, they got upset.
And filming started on a sitcom pilot … so I hid in Crouch End.
Wow, nothing really happened in April, did it?
Got annoyed about story drops – the point in a film/TV thing where you could stop watching and not feel like you’d missed the next hour.
Got really unreasonably upset about MOMENTS LATER. That must have been a particularly bad day.
Just for the Record began filming. I went to hide in the Caribbean and got sucked off by an air steward in First Class. There was a video of that and everything … but I seem to have lost it.
Got a phone call from the Mail on Sunday who wanted to talk to me about not being in Cannes.
Took a meeting in a room chock full of little rubber pigs – every single one of which bore a sticker proudly proclaiming: THIS IS NOT A TOY
Went to Nuneaton. Never again.
Apparently I went on holiday somewhere, but for the life of me I can’t remember where.
Oh, and I bought a new laptop:
Touchy touchy!
Came over all positive for a moment and said some nice things. Hopefully that was just a phase.
Launched Jack Tweed’s movie career. Great.
Went to the Screenwriters’ Festival and drew some sperm:
Muttered something about being forced to promote stuff even when I thought it was shit
Saw a preview/promo for Fleeced:
Saw a trailer for Just for the Record … which has since been removed. Damn.
Saw a poster for Just for the Record … which has since been binned.
Tried to make sense of Spatulas, Iguanas and a fruitbowl.
Attacked a man on the bus so I could rip this page from his paper:
Because of this paragraph:
Which is about a sitcom pilot I co-wrote.
And came over all nice again and promoted other people’s short films.
Finally explained about the movable goalposts of excitement.
Held a meeting in a street which was on fire.
Attended a screening of Splendid. It was.
Got hassled by an all female Squad of pissed up Motown fans. One of whom insisted she was a natural blonde with the landing strip to prove it who went on to kick me in the chest with a spiked heel. I quite enjoyed that day.
Got angry about morons giving James Moran a hard time for writing good telly.
Did this:
For these people:
Deleted more than I wrote.
Ran out of ways to procrastinate and very nearly had to do some work.
And saw the trailer for the sitcom pilot I co-wrote:
Oh, and a music video from the same:
Another trailer for Just for the Record. This one’s still there!
Took part in a three-way conference call between New York, Barbados and Crawley. (I was in Barbados, but strangely my car was in Crawley).
Was told I wasn’t allowed to photograph an imaginary gorilla and used it as an excuse to show this trailer again:
Finally realised (but haven’t fully accepted) that NO ONE FUCKING CARES ABOUT SCRIPT FORMAT.
Confessed I frequently imagine I’m Steve McQueen.
And tried to work out what I wanted out of the SWF.
Are we all still here? Are you as bored as I am yet? Yes? Good, moving on.
Saw a trailer for Exposé.
Signed contracts and received feedback for the BIG IDEA. Wait, did I mention I sold the BIG IDEA without trying? No, not to the American Production company, but to a different American Production company. Actually, my friend sold it for me without my permission or knowledge. Suits me, as long as I don’t have to do any work.
Made some cats out of blue icing.
Talked about two adaptations and how they’d missed the fucking point. Since I’m now working on two adaptations I look forward to people throwing that blog back in my face.
The Dutch gave me some money, via the BBC.
So did Sweden, Denmark, Italy, America and Russia.
And, for reasons which escape me, babbled about furniture for far too long.
Is that it? Is that all I did in September? Was it a short month this year?
Hooray! This is nearly over and I can go and do something more interesting!
In October, I lost my rag with Microsoft.
Got suckered into thinking this was a real school orchestra:
Got stuck in a rant about designing cars and then bought one to cheer myself up.
And … that’s it? That’s fucking it? What the fuck was I doing in October?
Went to the Screenwriters’ Festival – fannyed around, didn’t really make the most of it and met a lot of nice people. Like Hayley McKenzie – she’s lovely. Oh, and I compared cock size with Simon Beaufoy. I’m not telling you who won.
Masturbating monkeys … I still don’t really want to talk about that.
Tried to sell my car via my blog. Bizarrely, I actually sold it in absolute darkness, during a storm and a power cut to two Eastern Europeans who paid cash and didn’t want to test drive or even inspect it.
Got all mellow and wibbly over stuff like this:
Wrote an open letter to directors.
Wrote an open letter to writers.
Wrote an open letter to producers.
Hmm … looks like I did more in November than October but still, come on! Have I really been too busy to blog?
Yes, I have as it happens …
Moaned a lot about writing constantly without actually writing any scripts.
Pointed out the target audience for a script is the producer and the director, not the people who pay to go and see a film. That’s the target audience for a film.
Spoke to a wall.
And that was it. That’s the entire fucking year.
I can’t help noticing the beginning of the year involved a lot more blogging than the end of the year. I’m sorry about that (unless you hate my blog, then I’m happy for you) but I have been exceedingly busy. I’m currently working on four feature scripts as well as keeping all the other plates spinning and blogging has become an expensive luxury.
January and February 2010 promise to be absolutely fucking mental and possibly completely impossible – but hopefully once this lot is out of the way, normal blogging service will be resumed.
And by normal service I mean me talking shit in extremely long-winded, ill-thought out and ill-advised posts.
Happy New Year to you all, see you in the next decade!
Or maybe the last year of this decade … depending on how you count it.
Even more ‘That Band’ goodness, as well as the trailer:
and the music video:
There’s also this scene:
Well lookee here, as well as the trailer:
there’s also a music video:
Who’da thunk it?
Good gravy, a sitcom trailer on YouTube … wait a God damn, cotton picking moment …
That’s my sitcom!
Well, one I co-wrote anyway with Lee Otway anyway.
Want to see the rest? Storm your local broadcaster and demand, DEMAND I SAY, they commission it immediately. If they refuse, shit on their desks.
Or don’t.
Don’t is probably best.
Umm …
Here it is:
I'm a UK scriptwriter who's had nine feature films produced. I've also had some bits and bobs on TV and co-created the first smartphone broadcast, app-drama series, PERSONA.
Now in its thirteenth year, this blog is mostly a chronicle of my career; but it's also an insight into the grubby bits of writing no one really tells you about.
Reality here has been stretched, altered, bent and completely ignored to make my life funnier, more interesting or just different for the sake of it.
Please don't take offence.
The Jobbing Scriptwriter 