Monday, May 24, 2010
Away on holiday [ash cloud permitting)
I'm away on holiday until the first of June, ash cloud permitting. Seems likely I'll get away, but uncertain whether I'll make it back - Icelandic volcanoes may decide otherwise. It's unlikely I'll be blogging from Madrid, so try not to smash the place up in my absence [i.e. no teenage parties]. Be back before you know it, refreshed, relaxed and full of the joys. Meanwhile - onwards!
So those cuts won't be needed?
When it comes to radio drama, my default advice to anyone going along to a recording session at a BBC studio is take cuts with you. There's nothing worse than sitting in on the read-through of your script as it sails past the maximum duration of your slot. When I wrote a Women's Hour Drama play in 2006, it ran long for the allocated 15-minute slot [closer to 13.5 minutes in actuality].
Having been forewarned about this possibility by my producer, I'd brought cuts along. But even those weren't enough on the day, so I found more cuts to get it down to length. Timings for drama are an inexact science, as different acting styles have a marked effect on how long scenes run. Yes, there are indicative word counts to guide writers, but nothing is an absolute.
Last week I was at BBC Scotland's Pacific Quay headquarters for recording of a new radio play, Legacy. Louise Ironside had written part one and I had written part two. Both episodes are for the 30 minutes 7th Dimension slot on BBC7, with transmission dates at the end of August. During writing we both struggled to hit the suggested length of 4000 words [4200 at a pinch].
My play was recorded on Thursday, and had come in around 4500 words - nearly 10% over length. So I prepared as many cuts as I could, but found it very difficult. Legacy is a tightly plotted tale, there wasn't much fat on the bones available for trimming. When we got to the end of the read through, finding cuts was not an issue. The play had short by several minutes. Yikes!
[There's lots of possible explanations for why it was short. Legacy is a thriller, with lots of overlapping dialogue and on-the-run scenes. That made it considerably pacier than the more sedate pace found in other radio drama. We didn't have any form of narration either, which adds considerable length. Suspect it was sheer pace that did for us.]
I delved back into previous drafts and found a large chunk of scene I'd cut because it wasn't working. I wrote some bridging lines and reinserted it back into the script. Even so, I hadn't solved the problem that caused it to be cut in the first place. this became evident when the actors were given the new pages. But hearing it acted out loud helped us find a solution. Phew.
The final scene also offered an opportunity to add pages. The climatic ending read fine on the page, but the read through made it clear more was needed to make the most of the tense finale. By this point it was 4.40pm and I had to leave in 30 minutes for the first night of a play I was directing, two hours away from Pacific Quay. It was a real now or never moment.
I borrowed Louise's laptop and devised two new pages to augment the finale scene. Then a dash up to the fourth floor to print them out, and another dash down to the ground floor studio to hand them over. I had to leave before the final scene got recorded, but my producer sent positive noises the next door so it all seemed to work. Guerilla radio drama writing at work.
All in all, it was a fascinating - if somewhat scary - experience. I've never done rewrites under such pressure in a professional situation before, certainly not with actors waiting in the next room. It was reassuring to find I could meet the challenge, my years in daily newspaper journalism paying off. But I wouldn't want to make a habit of it, if possible. Onwards!
Having been forewarned about this possibility by my producer, I'd brought cuts along. But even those weren't enough on the day, so I found more cuts to get it down to length. Timings for drama are an inexact science, as different acting styles have a marked effect on how long scenes run. Yes, there are indicative word counts to guide writers, but nothing is an absolute.
Last week I was at BBC Scotland's Pacific Quay headquarters for recording of a new radio play, Legacy. Louise Ironside had written part one and I had written part two. Both episodes are for the 30 minutes 7th Dimension slot on BBC7, with transmission dates at the end of August. During writing we both struggled to hit the suggested length of 4000 words [4200 at a pinch].
My play was recorded on Thursday, and had come in around 4500 words - nearly 10% over length. So I prepared as many cuts as I could, but found it very difficult. Legacy is a tightly plotted tale, there wasn't much fat on the bones available for trimming. When we got to the end of the read through, finding cuts was not an issue. The play had short by several minutes. Yikes!
[There's lots of possible explanations for why it was short. Legacy is a thriller, with lots of overlapping dialogue and on-the-run scenes. That made it considerably pacier than the more sedate pace found in other radio drama. We didn't have any form of narration either, which adds considerable length. Suspect it was sheer pace that did for us.]
I delved back into previous drafts and found a large chunk of scene I'd cut because it wasn't working. I wrote some bridging lines and reinserted it back into the script. Even so, I hadn't solved the problem that caused it to be cut in the first place. this became evident when the actors were given the new pages. But hearing it acted out loud helped us find a solution. Phew.
The final scene also offered an opportunity to add pages. The climatic ending read fine on the page, but the read through made it clear more was needed to make the most of the tense finale. By this point it was 4.40pm and I had to leave in 30 minutes for the first night of a play I was directing, two hours away from Pacific Quay. It was a real now or never moment.
I borrowed Louise's laptop and devised two new pages to augment the finale scene. Then a dash up to the fourth floor to print them out, and another dash down to the ground floor studio to hand them over. I had to leave before the final scene got recorded, but my producer sent positive noises the next door so it all seemed to work. Guerilla radio drama writing at work.
All in all, it was a fascinating - if somewhat scary - experience. I've never done rewrites under such pressure in a professional situation before, certainly not with actors waiting in the next room. It was reassuring to find I could meet the challenge, my years in daily newspaper journalism paying off. But I wouldn't want to make a habit of it, if possible. Onwards!
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Well, that was quite a week
Feel the need to clear my head of a bunch of stuff, and what better place to do that than here, right? [Apologies if you disagree, I'm going to do it anyway.] For a start, this week was the culmination of four months of rehearsals for Les Liaisons Dangereuses, a play I directed for the Biggar Theatre Workshop. Last Sunday was dress rehearsal day, seven hours of hard work.
That showed how much we had achieved, and how much there was still to do. Monday night we were back for our second and final dress rehearsal. Much better, much slicker, and a whole lot more reassuring. Nothing like getting your cast into their actual costumes, using the chosen props and becoming accustomed to the venue to pull everything together. And so it proved again.
Tuesday was a night off from the show, while Wednesday brought a technical rehearsal just to get the scene changes slick. Our normal venue is undergoing refurbishment, so this show was transplanted to the Biggar Municipal Hall. That meant no standing sets, just furniture and a trio of scenes, some lighting and acting to create the illusion of 18th Century France.
Thursday was our opening night, everything coming together at last. Not perfect, but a brilliant first effort. Friday night got away from us, thanks to a row in the audience who'd had too much drink before arriving. They thought it was a pantomime, deciding to boo and hiss through the show. They had a great time, but ruined it for everyone else, especially the actors.
Saturday was our last night, and we saved the best for last. The cast and crew rose to the occasion, despite sweltering humidity in the venue. Afterwards we had a delightful post-show party, which no doubt left a few sore heads this morning. Now the venue's been emptied, the costumes are being packed away and the show fades into memory. Alas, all theatre is temporary.
While all this was going on, I've also been busy writing. Spent last weekend and Monday polishing a scene by scene, should hear back about that in the next few days. Tuesday was spent prepping for Wednesday and Thursday when I was at BBC Scotland's Pacific Quay building for recording of my new radio play. [I'll be blogged about that experience tomorrow.]
Friday I was teaching on the Creative Writing MA at Edinburgh Napier University. Our full-timers have just started their final trimester and are now working on their major project. We gave them a day of goal-setting and preparatory guidelines on how best to tackle their creative writing capstone. Hard to believe they'll be gone by September, replaced by a new cohort.
Friday also saw my guest blog posted on the Angry Robot Books website about the perils of faking it as an author in a genre you don't love. Think I must have written that earlier in the week, although I can't remember what day! Anyway, read it for yourselves here and see if it makes any sense.]
Yesterday was Day 3 of the CBeebies Lab, at the Scottish Book Trust in Edinburgh. We got feedback on our developing ideas, meet the head of animation and acquisitions for CBeebies, invented a new show from scratch and pitched it in 30 minutes, and so much more. The CBeebies Lab is brilliant, I'm learning a ton of stuff about a new and unfamiliar market.
Sara Harkins from CBeebies Scotland and Caitrin Armtrong from the Scottish Book Trust are doing us proud with this, I feel privileged to have been one of the 13 writers selected for it. Our challenge before the next session is to write a pilot script. Just need to figure out how to do that, other writing gigs and a holiday. Onwards!
That showed how much we had achieved, and how much there was still to do. Monday night we were back for our second and final dress rehearsal. Much better, much slicker, and a whole lot more reassuring. Nothing like getting your cast into their actual costumes, using the chosen props and becoming accustomed to the venue to pull everything together. And so it proved again.
Tuesday was a night off from the show, while Wednesday brought a technical rehearsal just to get the scene changes slick. Our normal venue is undergoing refurbishment, so this show was transplanted to the Biggar Municipal Hall. That meant no standing sets, just furniture and a trio of scenes, some lighting and acting to create the illusion of 18th Century France.
Thursday was our opening night, everything coming together at last. Not perfect, but a brilliant first effort. Friday night got away from us, thanks to a row in the audience who'd had too much drink before arriving. They thought it was a pantomime, deciding to boo and hiss through the show. They had a great time, but ruined it for everyone else, especially the actors.
Saturday was our last night, and we saved the best for last. The cast and crew rose to the occasion, despite sweltering humidity in the venue. Afterwards we had a delightful post-show party, which no doubt left a few sore heads this morning. Now the venue's been emptied, the costumes are being packed away and the show fades into memory. Alas, all theatre is temporary.
While all this was going on, I've also been busy writing. Spent last weekend and Monday polishing a scene by scene, should hear back about that in the next few days. Tuesday was spent prepping for Wednesday and Thursday when I was at BBC Scotland's Pacific Quay building for recording of my new radio play. [I'll be blogged about that experience tomorrow.]
Friday I was teaching on the Creative Writing MA at Edinburgh Napier University. Our full-timers have just started their final trimester and are now working on their major project. We gave them a day of goal-setting and preparatory guidelines on how best to tackle their creative writing capstone. Hard to believe they'll be gone by September, replaced by a new cohort.
Friday also saw my guest blog posted on the Angry Robot Books website about the perils of faking it as an author in a genre you don't love. Think I must have written that earlier in the week, although I can't remember what day! Anyway, read it for yourselves here and see if it makes any sense.]
Yesterday was Day 3 of the CBeebies Lab, at the Scottish Book Trust in Edinburgh. We got feedback on our developing ideas, meet the head of animation and acquisitions for CBeebies, invented a new show from scratch and pitched it in 30 minutes, and so much more. The CBeebies Lab is brilliant, I'm learning a ton of stuff about a new and unfamiliar market.
Sara Harkins from CBeebies Scotland and Caitrin Armtrong from the Scottish Book Trust are doing us proud with this, I feel privileged to have been one of the 13 writers selected for it. Our challenge before the next session is to write a pilot script. Just need to figure out how to do that, other writing gigs and a holiday. Onwards!
Friday, May 21, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Great minds think alike, or fools seldom differ
Spent most of Saturday at day 2 of the CBeebies Lab for writers run by CBeebies Scotland and the Scottish Book Trust. Lots of fascinating insights and information, such as the revelation that writers get paid per line of dialogue! That's because many shows have the same opening and closing sequence every time. It's more cost efficient to pay writers by the line, not the ep.
But it was something that came up during a conversation at the break that inspired this blog posting. I was talking with another writer about why spec scripts of existing shows don't work in the UK. Send a Doctor Who script to the production office in Cardiff and they can't read it, for fear of wannabe writers claiming their great idea got ripped off in a subsequent episode.
Somebody asked if it was really possible for two writers to come up with the same idea entirely independent of one another? And then it happened, right in front of them. A writer on a CBeebies show had come in to talk about their experience on that series, and as a professional writer on numerous TV dramas for adult audiences. (I won't name names, not without their permission.)
One of the projects they mentioned is getting presented to the BBC soon. The writer had their fingers crossed, hoping it gets accepted for further development. When we broke for coffee and the conversation about coincidence came up, I mentioned a pilot script I've been developing. Lots of research interviews and thinking, nothing on paper just yet.
When I mentioned the premise, the guest speaker was flabberghasted - my pitch sounded exactly like the project they've been developing. It's entirely coincidental, and pure chance that it happened to come up in conversation. But the synchronicity was a touch unnerving, even if it proved how writers in different places could have very similar ideas without knowing it.
Having talked it over with the guest speaker, I'm going to keep developing my pilot. It's a good idea, and could make a great calling card script. Right now I need a strong, contemporary pilot in my portfolio and this fits the bill. But the whole thing was living proof that no idea is wholly original. It's not the idea that counts, it's the execution. Onwards!
But it was something that came up during a conversation at the break that inspired this blog posting. I was talking with another writer about why spec scripts of existing shows don't work in the UK. Send a Doctor Who script to the production office in Cardiff and they can't read it, for fear of wannabe writers claiming their great idea got ripped off in a subsequent episode.
Somebody asked if it was really possible for two writers to come up with the same idea entirely independent of one another? And then it happened, right in front of them. A writer on a CBeebies show had come in to talk about their experience on that series, and as a professional writer on numerous TV dramas for adult audiences. (I won't name names, not without their permission.)
One of the projects they mentioned is getting presented to the BBC soon. The writer had their fingers crossed, hoping it gets accepted for further development. When we broke for coffee and the conversation about coincidence came up, I mentioned a pilot script I've been developing. Lots of research interviews and thinking, nothing on paper just yet.
When I mentioned the premise, the guest speaker was flabberghasted - my pitch sounded exactly like the project they've been developing. It's entirely coincidental, and pure chance that it happened to come up in conversation. But the synchronicity was a touch unnerving, even if it proved how writers in different places could have very similar ideas without knowing it.
Having talked it over with the guest speaker, I'm going to keep developing my pilot. It's a good idea, and could make a great calling card script. Right now I need a strong, contemporary pilot in my portfolio and this fits the bill. But the whole thing was living proof that no idea is wholly original. It's not the idea that counts, it's the execution. Onwards!
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Random thought: who's arch enemy are you?
When I'm teaching my Creative Writing MA students, I like to remind them that most people think of themselves as the hero of their life story. We invent narratives for ourselves to help explain our lives, we turn our lives into story - hence, life story. But if we're the hero of that narrative, doesn't that mean we also have an antagonist, an arch enemy, a foe to fight?
[Excuse me while I continue driving this train of thought along...] Now, I doubt most people have a single nemesis that last their whole lives from childhood, through school into jobs and careers, before a final confrontation that leads to the death of either [or both] individual. That epic struggle would be a bit over the top, unless you've a very fraught family life.
More likely there's a series of people with whom you come into conflict at different points in your life. The person at pre-school who got the attention, the affection or the toys you wanted. The person at school who bullied you or did better at subjects you loved or got the position in the sports team you craved. The person at work who got your promotion, and so on.
I guess in real life these people aren't your arch enemy, they're your competition. But in life stories they become more mythic - the mother who belittled you, the bully who humiliated you, the jerk at work who got their comeuppance. It's what we do, we create stories to make sense of our lives. But there's another side to that coin you might not have considered.
While you're casting other people in your life as villains of a situation, somebody else could be casting you as their arch enemy. If you excelled in a class, other students may have envied, even hated you. If you got a promotion, others may have felt embittered that they missed out. If you have children, those who don't may wish they had your family situation.
Not sure where I'm going with this, but there's at least two sides to every story. Thinking about all those points of view may be time consuming, but it could lead to a deeper understanding of all the players, their motivations. That should lead to better stories. How you apply that understanding in real life is another matter. Onwards!
[Excuse me while I continue driving this train of thought along...] Now, I doubt most people have a single nemesis that last their whole lives from childhood, through school into jobs and careers, before a final confrontation that leads to the death of either [or both] individual. That epic struggle would be a bit over the top, unless you've a very fraught family life.
More likely there's a series of people with whom you come into conflict at different points in your life. The person at pre-school who got the attention, the affection or the toys you wanted. The person at school who bullied you or did better at subjects you loved or got the position in the sports team you craved. The person at work who got your promotion, and so on.
I guess in real life these people aren't your arch enemy, they're your competition. But in life stories they become more mythic - the mother who belittled you, the bully who humiliated you, the jerk at work who got their comeuppance. It's what we do, we create stories to make sense of our lives. But there's another side to that coin you might not have considered.
While you're casting other people in your life as villains of a situation, somebody else could be casting you as their arch enemy. If you excelled in a class, other students may have envied, even hated you. If you got a promotion, others may have felt embittered that they missed out. If you have children, those who don't may wish they had your family situation.
Not sure where I'm going with this, but there's at least two sides to every story. Thinking about all those points of view may be time consuming, but it could lead to a deeper understanding of all the players, their motivations. That should lead to better stories. How you apply that understanding in real life is another matter. Onwards!
Friday, May 14, 2010
Greenock: it's further away than you'd think
Did an event at the Greenock Public Library last night to help promote its new collection of graphic novels. Having clocked the fact that teenagers and young adults were not using the library much, Inverclyde Libraries chose graphic novels as a way of getting that audience in. The library now has 300 titles ranging from Kick-Ass to Gemma Bovary, 300 and Robert Crumb.Despite some dismal weather, the launch got a great turn-out [four times the audience for Ian Rankin, apparently]. But the event was not a one-off. The library is also running a ten-week course on reading and writing graphic novels [already fully subscribed]. And the books were flying off the shelves while I was there last night.
There was coverage in local papers beforehand, and I got interviewed for a local radio station and by STV for one of its news magazine shows. All in all, a well organised and enjoyable event. I wish other libraries would follow the example of Inverclyde Libraries. If you want to reverse an aging readership trend, you need to take action. [That applies to comics publishers, too].
For some reason, I hadn't grasped how far away Greenock was. In my head it was somewhere near the southside of Glasgow [suspect I was been confusing it with Govan]. Three hours before I was due to leave, I thought it best to look up my destination online. Turns out Greenock is so far west of Glasgow, you go any further and you'll be swimming.
A quick reassessment of my plan to drive there followed, especially as I'm on another deadline at the moment. Instead I blatted across to Lanark and got the train to Glasgow. Switch trains and on to Greenock, a journey of about 2.5 hours. But I managed to write several chunks of a scene by scene en route, so it wasn't wasted time. All in all, a good day. Onwards!
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Radio drama: slow, slow - quick!
Been a while since I've written any radio drama, but that's changed in the last month or two. Happily, I can talk about the writing process for this now as my script goes into the studio for recording next week. I've written the second ep of a two-parter called Legacy, with Louise Ironside at the controls for the first half. It's for BBC7, likely to be broadcast in August this year.
[An aside: Waaaay back in February 2006, I sat alongside Louise at an Adrian Mead seminar. She had just joined the River City writing team, so I picked her brains. By chance we both ended up writing later that year on Island Blue, the Radio 4 drama that secured my first broadcast. Fast forward to 2010 and we're writing together again. It's a small world, this writing game.]
The Legacy project was born out of an online game for the visually impaired [though the two things share no narrative DNA]. Last May I was having a natter with BBC Scotland radio producer David Ian Neville and he asked if I wanted to be part of a brainstorming session. I went along the following week, as did Louise, people from various BBC areas and an outside company.
We had a fun half-day throwing round ideas, with no particular pressure attached. [Louise also got paid for attending, and a nice lunch too - bargain.] Then it all went quiet, as these things often do. In January this year the Legacy project was revived for another brainstorming session. We arrived to hear it had been commissioned as a two-part radio drama for BBC7. Nice.
Since then it's been a plethora of scene by scenes, conference calls, and writing to find a story that worked across two very different narrative platforms. [I won't get into the non-radio element just yet, if you don't mind.] The challenge was creating a story that worked well if you only experienced it on one platform, but which was a richer narrative across both.
Happily, Legacy takes places in a genre where I've got form, so that sat comfortably with me. But it'd been four years since my last radio drama work for the BBC, so there was some rustiness to shake off. I'd like to think I'm a better writer than I was back in 2006, so the scripting process has been much smoother. [Sigh, I really shouldn't incite hubris like that.]
There's more work to be done with the other narrative platform for the Legacy project, but for now I can feel the weight of one deadline lifting from my shoulders. Just as well, since I'm writing a scene by scene this week, got a one-page pitch for another project due on Tuesday and it's day two of the CBeebies Lab this Saturday in Edinburgh. Busy, busy, busy. Onwards!
[An aside: Waaaay back in February 2006, I sat alongside Louise at an Adrian Mead seminar. She had just joined the River City writing team, so I picked her brains. By chance we both ended up writing later that year on Island Blue, the Radio 4 drama that secured my first broadcast. Fast forward to 2010 and we're writing together again. It's a small world, this writing game.]
The Legacy project was born out of an online game for the visually impaired [though the two things share no narrative DNA]. Last May I was having a natter with BBC Scotland radio producer David Ian Neville and he asked if I wanted to be part of a brainstorming session. I went along the following week, as did Louise, people from various BBC areas and an outside company.
We had a fun half-day throwing round ideas, with no particular pressure attached. [Louise also got paid for attending, and a nice lunch too - bargain.] Then it all went quiet, as these things often do. In January this year the Legacy project was revived for another brainstorming session. We arrived to hear it had been commissioned as a two-part radio drama for BBC7. Nice.
Since then it's been a plethora of scene by scenes, conference calls, and writing to find a story that worked across two very different narrative platforms. [I won't get into the non-radio element just yet, if you don't mind.] The challenge was creating a story that worked well if you only experienced it on one platform, but which was a richer narrative across both.
Happily, Legacy takes places in a genre where I've got form, so that sat comfortably with me. But it'd been four years since my last radio drama work for the BBC, so there was some rustiness to shake off. I'd like to think I'm a better writer than I was back in 2006, so the scripting process has been much smoother. [Sigh, I really shouldn't incite hubris like that.]
There's more work to be done with the other narrative platform for the Legacy project, but for now I can feel the weight of one deadline lifting from my shoulders. Just as well, since I'm writing a scene by scene this week, got a one-page pitch for another project due on Tuesday and it's day two of the CBeebies Lab this Saturday in Edinburgh. Busy, busy, busy. Onwards!
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
2000AD invades, err, Emmerdale?!?
In a truly bizarre moment last night, Emmerdale regular Paddy was spotted reading The Best of 2000AD Monthly. Even weirder, that's a 1991 issue of an old 2000AD reprint title. I remember when one of my favourite TV dramas, The Cops on BBC2, had a constable who kept current issues of 2000AD in his locker - back in 1991. What next, Judge Dredd arresting Stacey Slater for murdering (SPOILER)?
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
Sunday, May 09, 2010
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
TV shows that have influenced me
Yesterday I responded to a Lucy Vee meme by wittering about movies that have influenced me and my writing somehow. Now here's the TV version: What TV programme at some point in your life made you a) understand the creative process and b) influence your own style of writing? I won't bother tagging three people, since none of the lazybones I named yesterday have yet risen to the challenge.
Let's get the obvious choice out of the way first: Doctor Who. This show has loomed large in my consciousness my whole life. I saved money from a paper round to buy a Polaroid camera just to take photos of the title sequence. I won a fancy dress as your favourite book character contest at Pt Chev library, thanks to a hat, long scarf and Who novelisation.
The show's core concept of being able to go anyway in time or space is so ultimately brilliant, so completely fluid. The cliffhanger storytelling model of Classic Who, the novelty of new worlds and new eras to explore, the levels of jeopardy and morality - all are core components of my writing. But the Doctor almost always wins, not true of most of my stories.
Just as influential - maybe even more so - was Hill Street Blues. This sprawling American police procedural with its ensemble cast chimed with me like few shows do. Characters were heroic but flawed, neat resolutions for storylines rare. Overlapping dialogue, hand-held camera work that put you into the middle of things - many things that made shows like The Wire great started here.
I see the influence of Hill Street Blues in a lot of my stories. It's probably the reason I favour TV drama over writing for film. I want to replicate the chaotic style of that great early 80s show, and movies don't love ensemble storytelling. HSB turned me into a TV writer, so a big thanks to Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll [and David Milch too]. I owe you. Onwards!
Let's get the obvious choice out of the way first: Doctor Who. This show has loomed large in my consciousness my whole life. I saved money from a paper round to buy a Polaroid camera just to take photos of the title sequence. I won a fancy dress as your favourite book character contest at Pt Chev library, thanks to a hat, long scarf and Who novelisation.The show's core concept of being able to go anyway in time or space is so ultimately brilliant, so completely fluid. The cliffhanger storytelling model of Classic Who, the novelty of new worlds and new eras to explore, the levels of jeopardy and morality - all are core components of my writing. But the Doctor almost always wins, not true of most of my stories.
Just as influential - maybe even more so - was Hill Street Blues. This sprawling American police procedural with its ensemble cast chimed with me like few shows do. Characters were heroic but flawed, neat resolutions for storylines rare. Overlapping dialogue, hand-held camera work that put you into the middle of things - many things that made shows like The Wire great started here.I see the influence of Hill Street Blues in a lot of my stories. It's probably the reason I favour TV drama over writing for film. I want to replicate the chaotic style of that great early 80s show, and movies don't love ensemble storytelling. HSB turned me into a TV writer, so a big thanks to Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll [and David Milch too]. I owe you. Onwards!
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Influences: Or How Lucy Vee Memed Me
Got memed by Lucy Vee yesterday. Here's the short version: What single film or TV programme at some point in your life made you a) understand the filmmaking process and b) influence your own style of writing? [Then tag three people and reprint these instructions]. Sigh. I always struggle to answer the influences question, but here goes. Spoilers ahead, I guess.
Unlike Lucy's experience with Se7en, I can't think of a single Damascene moment where a film or TV programme made me understand the creative process. There have been movies that chimed with me, like obscure Australian musical Starstruck or the siege-tastic Zulu starring Michael Caine. [Grud knows I've used the latter as inspiration for all manner of stories over the years.]
Perhaps the most influential film on me was the original Rocky, written by and starring Sylvester Stallone. It's a movie that's been undermined by a slew of sequels and also gets a lot of stick for winning the Best Picture Oscar for 1976 ahead of more critically favourites like Taxi Driver, Network and All The President's Men. So citing Rocky as an influence is far from cool.
But people who slag it off or sneer at Stallone's subsequent career might consider actually watching the original Rocky if they've never seen it, or giving it another chance if they have. This is no flag-waving, commie-bashing, Mr T-smashing slug-fest. The 1976 film is remarkably downbeat. Rocky's a pug who breaks thumbs for a loanshark, an outsider, a nobody.
Rocky gets offered a chance to fight the world champ - and turns it down. Even when he accepts, Rocky knows he hasn't a chance of beating his opponent. Instead he sets himself one goal - going the distance. Do that and his life might have a meaning. the other thing people forget about Rocky - he loses the big fight. There is no fairytale ending [the sequels did that].
So how was that influential? I heart downbeat endings and Phyrric victories. Plucky underdogs and hopeless cases are my thing. My most creatively sucessful screenplays have focused on such stories. A lot of that stems from seeing Rocky at the early age, and embracing the idea you don't need to be the greatest to win. You can lose and still win on your own terms.
So that's the film I consider a key influence. Tomorrow I'll have a stab at identifying a TV programme that's shaped how I write. And, perhaps surprisingly, it's not Doctor Who. In the meantime I hereby tag Jason Arnopp, Miss Read and Robin Kelly.
Unlike Lucy's experience with Se7en, I can't think of a single Damascene moment where a film or TV programme made me understand the creative process. There have been movies that chimed with me, like obscure Australian musical Starstruck or the siege-tastic Zulu starring Michael Caine. [Grud knows I've used the latter as inspiration for all manner of stories over the years.]Perhaps the most influential film on me was the original Rocky, written by and starring Sylvester Stallone. It's a movie that's been undermined by a slew of sequels and also gets a lot of stick for winning the Best Picture Oscar for 1976 ahead of more critically favourites like Taxi Driver, Network and All The President's Men. So citing Rocky as an influence is far from cool.
But people who slag it off or sneer at Stallone's subsequent career might consider actually watching the original Rocky if they've never seen it, or giving it another chance if they have. This is no flag-waving, commie-bashing, Mr T-smashing slug-fest. The 1976 film is remarkably downbeat. Rocky's a pug who breaks thumbs for a loanshark, an outsider, a nobody.
Rocky gets offered a chance to fight the world champ - and turns it down. Even when he accepts, Rocky knows he hasn't a chance of beating his opponent. Instead he sets himself one goal - going the distance. Do that and his life might have a meaning. the other thing people forget about Rocky - he loses the big fight. There is no fairytale ending [the sequels did that].So how was that influential? I heart downbeat endings and Phyrric victories. Plucky underdogs and hopeless cases are my thing. My most creatively sucessful screenplays have focused on such stories. A lot of that stems from seeing Rocky at the early age, and embracing the idea you don't need to be the greatest to win. You can lose and still win on your own terms.
So that's the film I consider a key influence. Tomorrow I'll have a stab at identifying a TV programme that's shaped how I write. And, perhaps surprisingly, it's not Doctor Who. In the meantime I hereby tag Jason Arnopp, Miss Read and Robin Kelly.
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