Twitter

Hello you! Just deleted my Twitter account. It's a really brilliant service full of brilliant people, but it's not working out for me right now. Maybe I'll go back there one day, maybe not - have maintained a 'holding page', just in case. Thanks to everyone with whom I exchanged tweets! It honestly wasn't anything you said. You rock.

Er, in case you were wondering - there's nothing to worry about here. Twitter is great and everything, but committing 'Twittercide' really doesn't suggest anything bad going on behind the scenes! One thing's for sure - I'll get more work done. Twitter can be a real distraction...

Screenwriters' Fest: Who Dares Wins

Last week's Screenwriters' Festival was tremendous. A whirlwind of opportunity, education, friendly faces and achievement. All wonderful and all very tiring indeed - think I'm only just recovering now.

After SWF 2008, I rolled out a whole load of journalist-style coverage on this blog. I'm very sorry, but that won't be the case this year, because I didn't approach the SWF like a journalist. I approached it like a screenwriter, which I hope you'll agree is right and proper, given the festival's name and my chosen career direction. There just wasn't time to approach the SWF properly and be able report at length. The only session during which I took actual notes was How To Be Better, hosted by story editor Kate Leys and agent Rob Kraitt - and I'll share those wisdom pearls in a bit.

Tackling the SWF in a more focused fashion meant I often sacrificed social time with friends - although there were some great evening meals, at which I tried to let my brain wind down a tad (see above for mirthful evidence - those chuckle-smiths are Phill Barron and Michelle Lipton). I didn't drink booze and even went to a gym near my hotel on a couple of mornings, to stoke those handy endorphines. I also attended fewer sessions this year. Not because I felt I had little to learn or gain - far from it - but because so much preparation was needed for other goals. For one thing, I had several 'speed date' meetings with prospective agents and wanted to fully prepare for those. How could I best sum up my CV from the last few years in five minutes? This was the first time I'd really engaged with agents, with a view to finding the right representation (until now I've deliberately been pro-active, building my own credits and contacts) and I rather fancied getting it right.

There was also the little matter of having two Doctor Who sessions to moderate. I'd never moderated a live session before and once again, wanted to get it right. Taking good advice from the likes of heat's Boyd Hilton, Doctors writer David Bishop (how'd you like that soundbite description, eh Bishop?) and script guru Adrian Mead, I over-prepared for both the Classic and Further Adventures sessions, treating both like military operations, while allowing for a fair degree of spontaneity on the day. The Classic session, in the festival's main hall, needed an especially large amount of pre-planning. On top of forming sentences aloud (when I'd much rather be writing them, frankly) and interviewing Philip Hinchcliffe, Terrance Dicks, Bob Baker and Andrew Cartmel in an entertaining and balanced fashion, I had to find relatively even-spaced moments during the hour-session (which ended up as more like 90 minutes) which provided neat segues into a video-clip on the big screen.

Thankfully, both sessions went really well. I was very pleased and also received some great feedback. Thank God for that.

Aside from posing its own personal-development challenges, being a speaker at the festival was useful in two ways. For one thing, it raised my profile - I was listed in the festival programme alongside producers, directors and heads of drama. Secondly, I was able to access the fabled green room, whenever I liked. Unsurprisingly, I made full use of that access.

The green room caused a certain degree of botheration among a few festival-goers who couldn't enter it. To some, it created an 'us' and 'them' divide - why couldn't the various agents and producers mingle freely? I'd say the answer is that they're human beings and they mightn't especially want to. Some of them do, some don't. A fair few of them probably want to do their bit, speak to a handful of people, then hang out in the green room and catch up with each other.

Most times in that very staff-room-like space (almost certainly because it was a staff-room - the festival's new venue being the delightful Cheltenham Ladies' College), I saw industry folk asking each other what they'd been working on, swapping notes and generally chewing fat. Fair enough, surely - and a green-room person's need to mingle with delegates is dependent on their own needs. If they're an agent, looking to build their client list, then perhaps they'd be out there more, doing the rounds and chatting to writers. If they're a producer with a slate sorted until 2012, then they understandably have less motivation. Either way, there was nothing to stop anyone grabbing them when they did emerge blinking into the sunlight. One of my good friends at SWF stood for an hour outside the speed-dating sessions, determined to talk to someone they didn't have a scheduled speed-date with. It worked. Bingo. Polite persistence pays off.

Plenty of guests/speakers were highly available: a fair few - like Armando Iannucci, James Moran, Phil Collinson, Ashley Pharoah, Kate Harwood and Steven Volk - took part in impromptu Scriptbites sessions, which involved them chatting quite informally to a circle of delegates in one of the two cafes. Very useful and more intimate affairs (see my accounts of such sessions with Tony Jordan, Julian Fellowes and Barbara Machin from last year). Interestingly, on the two occasions when I managed to hand DVDs of our Splendid sketch-show pilot to attendees like the amiable Iannucci and BBC drama-lord Ben Stephenson (once again eminently listenable at SWF), it was outside of the green-room. So it can absolutely be done.

Now then: here are some useful snippets from Kate and Rob's session, which was so well-attended that various people sat on the floor throughout.

1) Everyone in the TV and film industries is afraid. Assume that they're afraid and try to deal with them appropriately. Try to calm them - be confident. It might help.

2) It's worth remembering that the UK and US have come to use the term "development hell" in different ways. The UK describes "development hell" as something in development, whereas the US uses the term to describe something which isn't in development at all.

3) If a script note isn't working for you, call your script-editor/director/whoever and discuss it, well up front. They're paying for you to do this and you must fulfil their notes. It'll be easy for them to call your agent and say you're off the project.

4) When you get a good script-note (as in accurate), a bit of you will recognise it. Look out for that feeling.

5) You need to be able to translate some script-notes. "Of course, the ending doesn't work" probably means "I don't understand how the ending can work that way". So in actual fact, the beginning might be the problem, because it's not setting up the ending well enough, or at all.

6) It's good to start a meeting by asking "What do we need to achieve in this meeting? What needs to get done today?".

7) If someone pays you to write a script, it's not yours any more. It's theirs.

Marvellous stuff. What a festival. I'm still in the process of determining what direct knock-on effects will come from it, but as I mentioned in my last post, there's no way of predicting some of networking's slow-burn benefits.

Other Blog-Posts On SWF 2009...

Elinor Perry-Smith on Chris Jones' opening speech and Doug 'Toy Story 2' Chamberlin

Phill Barron on his personal experience of the event

Lucy Vee with an overview and several session-notes

Adaddinsane blogged throughout the festival itself, starting here

Elinor Perry-Smith with more notes on Kate and Rob's How To Be Better session.

David Melkevik: 50 Things I Learnt At SWF

Laura Anderson on her Day Three arrival (includes handy notes on agent Julian Friedmann's How To Negotiate Your Contract session)

SWF 2009: Prep & The Slow-Burn Networker

The Cheltenham Screenwriters' Festival kicks off on Monday morning. For a fair proportion of attendees, of course, it actually starts tomorrow night with some networking. Piers and I threw ourselves a Scribomeet on the night before SWF 2008. This year, the festival itself has organised its own semi-official meet 'n' greet night at The Queens Hotel, so that's where I'll be, along with fellow bloggers Piers, Michelle and Phill, endeavouring to banter with old friends and new.

Traditionally in the run-up to SWF, I write about how to prepare for the event. This year I can't, because I'm too busy preparing myself. This is, in no small part, because I'm a speaker this year, chairing both the Doctor Who Classic Adventures (Andrew Cartmel, Terrance Dicks, Philip Hinchcliffe and Bob Baker) and Further Adventures (Gareth Roberts, James Moran, Michael Stevens, Joe Lidster) panels. They're going to be a lot of fun, but naturally take extra time to research. See you there if you're a Who fan, or even hopefully if you're not.

TwelvePoint.com has published a fine series of articles on how to prepare for the SWF - and if you're a delegate, you should already have picked up a free six-month subscription to the fine screenwriting website, so go soak up all that wisdom.

Here's precisely what you'll get out of the Screenwriters' Festival 2009: whatever you put into it. At the same time, temper your expectations - it's unlikely to change your life overnight, or even in this coming week. It's more of a slow-burn. Case in point: at the 2007 festival, I randomly met a script editor called Sarah Olley as we both made cups of tea. We chatted, got along well and swapped cards. There seemed to be no immediate way in which we could help each other out professionally, but socially things worked well. Eighteen months later, Sarah asked to have a look at a few of my spec scripts. We then met for lunch and she told me about an online drama she was developing for Eye Film & TV, called Tempting Fates, and for which she needed a writer. Cut to the present day, after a lot of work, and Tempting Fates is now online - catch up on the first week of mini-episodes here.

So don't expect to bump into an eccentric millionaire producer with a suitcase full of cash at SWF. But do expect to give it your all, then reap the rewards over time.

Tempting Fates: And They're Off!

Tempting Fates, the online drama which Eye Film & TV hired me to co-storyline and co-write in a real team-effort along with director Frank Prendergast and the splendid Sarah Olley, has now started airing. The first short segment can now be seen at the official website. You can also see it on student TV network Freewire's channel 106 and over at Little House TV.

The whole of this season is 40 segments long, divided into four ten-segment episodes which will run on weeknights over the next eight weeks. There are also a couple of sites which expand and back-up the Tempting Fates universe, such as main character Professor Morgan Node's own video-blog, in which he babbles like a madman about fate, destiny, the universe and everything.

But hey, enough of my yakkin'. Head over to the official site and have a look. It's the beginning of a really fun adventure at an Earth university for the fates' three apprentices - Chloe (spins the thread of life), La (measures how long that thread will be) and Attie (gives it the snip) - with lashings of gallows humour.

More Tempting Fates links:

Join the Facebook group

Follow TF on Twitter

Subscribe to TF on YouTube

Norwich Evening News article on the show

My previous blog-posts re: the show

Tempting Fates: New Teaser & Start Date

The teaser-trailer for Tempting Fates is now online. This is the online comedy/drama series which I worked on in the first half of this year, having been hired by the good people of Eye Film & TV to co-storyline and co-write four 50-minute episodes (which will each go out in five-minute chunks, never fear).

I'm pleased to say the trailer looks great, and it's clear that director and co-writer Frank Prendergast has captured all the fun of the Fates. The four main leads, whose names I have yet to learn, really look right for the roles, too, so I'm very happy.

Tempting Fates starts online on Monday, October 19. I'll naturally be reporting back with more details. In terms of what it's about, the teaser will give you the gist, but it's very fundamentally three hot goddesses killing people on a university campus. Always a pleasure.

So here's that teaser - if you like, then do spread it around, and/or join the Tempting Fates Facebook group. For some reason, the video's screen overlaps into this blog's sidebar, but I've no idea how to remedy this, so we'll all just have to make our peace with it.



So. How you been?

Who Will Read Your Fucking Script?

A History Of Violence scripter Josh Olson's recent article, quite simply entitled I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script is a highly entertaining piece of work. As m'learned colleague Stuart Perry has blogged today, it also provides food-for-thought on the ways in which screenwriters can legitimately advance themselves. Here's my take on it. (Incidentally, none of the following will not refer to screenwriters as "aspiring" or "fledgling", as I dislike those self-imposed, self-limiting terms - see here for details).

Is Olson saying that scripters should never approach more experienced writers, asking for feedback on their one-pager, their treatment or indeed their painstakingly-researched 140-page Crimean War drama? I don't think he is. He's simply getting across his own standpoint in such matters, in hilariously matter-of-fact terms, and explaining the unfortunate incident which led him to that conclusion.

The world owes us neither a living, nor a script-read. I don't doubt that most established writers have a strong sense of altruism and the desire to help less-established writers up the ladder. But here's the rub: there's rarely time for altruism. The credit crunch's effect on the UK TV industry, in particular, means that even established writers are having to fight their corners and preserve their positions. So sitting down to scrutinise and assess 60 pages of script from anyone but Close Personal Friends won't be all that high on their agenda.

Does that mean writers shouldn't attempt to get their scripts in front of people who can help them advance, either via notes, advice or contacts? Of course it doesn't. It just means that we need to be careful, thoughtful and, above all, respectful, in the way that we go about it. Time and time again, we're told that this business, like any other, is about relationships. And we're told this, time and time again, because it's true.

Relationships need to be nurtured. Unhurried. Time and familiarity will help deepen them. Introduce yourself to Gosford Park scribe Julian Fellowes at the Screenwriters' Festival, for instance, chat for five minutes, then ask if you can bung across a PDF of your true-life tale about badger-baiting for his perusal, and you can surely imagine what a dim view he might take of that. If, on the other hand, it's the third year that he's enjoyed speaking with you, he can tell you're serious - and most importantly, suspects you might be quite good - he might well suggest you send it to his agent.

Perhaps one of the most important points made by Josh Olson, and almost certainly the thing which raised his ire the most, is that Treatment Guy hadn't taken the time to attain a high standard. Certainly not the kind of standard which befitted a document being absorbed by the brain behind the excellent A History Of Violence. Olson felt somewhat emotionally blackmailed into reading the document, then felt downright insulted by what he saw. Treatment Guy had completely screwed it up for himself and, as it turned out, others, by not learning the basics. Anyone approaching an established writer should make darn sure they've got something which is worth their time and attention. Otherwise, they might as well stumble over to Picasso and proudly show him a cock-and-balls doodle.

No-one should ever expect an established scripter to teach them how to write. That's every beginner's job - or, if you like, the job of books, classes, courses or however they choose to pull together their basic toolkit. Obviously, it would be brilliant if Paul Abbott decided to take someone by the hand and give them a crash-course in scriptwriting, but it's never going to happen. Notes from an established writer are the very most we can expect, and they're gold-dust.

This Summer, I've had a few established TV pros read one of my spec scripts. One of them, I corresponded with for literally three years before even asking. The others, I asked slightly sooner, then patiently waited for a year while the script sat on their hard-drives. I didn't mind at all. Never once asked them if they'd received the script, and certainly not if they'd read it yet. It was enough that they had agreed to read. Eventually, they did - and thankfully came back with huge sighs of relief that I could write. That must be a major reason why established writers mostly turn script-reading down - the fear that a script will turn out to be "All work and no play makes Jason a dull boy", written 5000 times. That, of course, and the ever-present fear of some writer springing up with a lawyer five years down the line, claiming that their precious, unique ideas have been stolen.

Put yourself in an established writer's shoes. Why would they want to read your script?
1) They like you. (Except that weird clicking noise your jaw makes, but they can live with it.)
2) There's something in it for them. This could either be some way in which you can help them out in return, or just the satisfaction of having given something back to the talent-pool from whence they came.
3) You are humming nursery rhymes while pressing a gun muzzle against their perspiring forehead. Effective, but a short-term strategy.

So. Josh Olson will not read your fucking script. But another writer might. Consummate timing and the utmost respect will help determine whether they do. Seriously delivering the goods will help determine whether they end up glad they did.

Screenwriters' Festival Update: Doctor Who Sessions

I'm very pleased to announce that I'll be hosting one of the Doctor Who sessions at this October's Screenwriters' Festival. Tremendous.

My session will focus on the pre-millennial show and the people behind it. Confirmed names are: Terrance Dicks (legendary writer of both the TV show and countless wonderful Doctor Who Target novels and script editor 1970-1974), Philip Hinchcliffe (classic producer of Who's wonderful 'gothic' Tom Baker period from 1974-77), Andrew Cartmel (splendid script editor 1987-89). All of these people delight me - they're men I'm excited to meet, let alone interview on a stage at my favourite screenwriting event.

Some post-millennial Who names have also been announced, for a different SWF session: James Moran (writer of The Fires Of Pompeii and part-time goat-straddler), James Strong (director of many fine eps) and Gareth Roberts (writer of many fine eps). Excellent.

The Screenwriters' Festival runs from October 26-29 at Cheltenham Ladies' College, and as usual, will be an unmissable event for anyone serious about contributing to the world of moving-picture entertainment. Get your tickets here, you cheeky little sapphire.

Splendid: The Official Trailer

It's now online. See it here and if you like it, tell other people about it. Splendid!

One Way To Break Into Radio Comedy

Hot on the heels of my last post about having a sketch broadcast on this week's episode of Laurence & Gus: Hearts & Minds, I've had more good news confirmed. I'm going to be on the commissioned writing team for the next series of Radio 4's comedy sketch-show Recorded For Training Purposes. Very excited about this, as it's a fine show, broadly employing the themes of modern technology and communication.

If you've been reading this blog since the beginning of last year, you may vaguely remember the path that's led me here. But maybe you've only just landed, having typed "writing for comedy sketch shows" or "oiled-up lesbians" into the Google machine. And besides, why should you have to recall stuff? You're my guest here, so sit back with a cup of tea and a macaroon and I'll do the legwork. Here's a recap, for those who are interested in writing for radio comedy, probably with some new details if I remember them:

DECEMBER 2008: Recorded For Training Purposes issues an open call for sketches, asking for a maximum of three. I send in two and hear good things back from producer Ed Morrish, who invites me to a "non-com" writers meeting, attended by 15 writers out of the original 1500 applicants. "Non-com" refers to non-commissioned writers, ie writers who are not guaranteed any airtime unless they produce sketches which make people's jawbones fall off with mad laughter.

LATER IN DECEMBER: The meeting happens, in which Ed and RFTP's three script editors dispense fine sketch-writing advice.

JANUARY 5, 2009: One of the two sketches I originally sent Ed, System Of The Damned, is performed and recorded at the BBC Radio Theatre. I blog about this here, as well as tardily listing some of the aforementioned sketch-writing advice.

JANUARY 22: The episode of RFTP featuring System Of The Damned goes out on Radio 4. Champagne corks strike ceilings, chez Arnopp.

MARCH 9: It becomes pleasingly clear that there is actually a system in place in the BBC Comedy department, regarding writers. And no, not the big bad system that some folks like to imagine is conspiring to keep them out, but a system in which producers develop writers. Today, I attend a BBC radio sketchwriting workshop and blog about it here. It ends with a live comedy evening at The Albany pub, where all of the workshop attendees see sketches they've written during the day performed onstage. Nerve-wracking - especially as David Mitchell's in the audience - but great fun and vital experience. I specifically blog about that evening session here.

MARCH 13: Further evidence of a system being in place, as Ed recommends me to Colin Anderson, producer of Laurence & Gus: Hearts & Minds. I'm among the writers called in for a meeting with Colin and cast, then sent away to fashion our most side-splitting treasures. The next couple of months are all about delivering the best stuff you have within your funny-bones, then attending try-out nights and recording sessions to see if you've got anything into the show. Luckily, I really like the show, so am guaranteed a good, ticklesome time whether I have material in or not. I write about this whole process here.

AUGUST 4: Success! A sketch in tonight's episode of Laurence & Gus. By this point, I also know I'm going to be on the RFTP writing team, but can't yet make that public. Lots of internal hoorays going on.

So what does it mean to be on the writing team of a radio comedy show? Basically, it means I'm commissioned to write a minimum amount of air time, attend meetings and work more directly with Ed and the script editors. Beyond that, who knows? I'll find out next month when the meetings kick off.

Hopefully, though, this post offers hope that there absolutely is a way in, and people who care about, and have a vested interest in, developing scribblers. Like most mediums, radio is hungry for the right writers. So make sure you're the right writer in terms of skill and attitude. Keep your eyes peeled in handy places like the Writersroom's Opportunities page, scanning for open calls which will allow you to prove yourself.

For a splendid piece on the Radio 4 Commissioning Process, enjoy a good soak in Michelle Lipton's torrent of insight and advice here.
And dear lord, she's just posted a new fountain of truth, in the shape of a piece about the practicalities of writing for radio, here.

A Thoroughly Splendid Update

Cor blimey, love-a-duck, what a busy time it's been, and continues to be. Life is tremendous, right now. Here's what I've been doing with myself, on a professional level:

SPLENDID!
As you may recall, with your big old brain, there exists a pilot for the Splendid sketch-show, which we screened a few weeks back. Part of the reason we held that screening, was to see how we could strengthen that pilot. As Splendid (with both a big 'S' and a small one) director Dan Turner fully explains on his blog here, we then decided that our preposterous pilot needed a final sprinkle of quick, visual gags, to round it off nicely.

With that in mind, a full day of shooting happened last Friday. While I was unable to attend any of the original, glorious eight-day shoot for the pilot, I was able to go along for the ride on Friday, and help out wherever possible. It was a bruising schedule, to be sure, but so full of fun, stretched out between a greyhound stadium in Essex and Elstree Studios. God, we shot some ridiculous things that day - including a sketch which is arguably the silliest thing we've yet done. It really was a joy to be able to walk up to a monitor, inspect the frame and announce, "That is utterly fucking preposterous"... and for that to be a compliment. What a day. Another highlight was sitting in the back of a car with Splendid man Richard Glover, high on Opal Fruits (known by no-one as Starbursts) and shrieking at each other as the day wore on and hysteria took over.

RADIO!
I'm firing party streamers all over the shop, making it notably harder to tell you about developments in Radioville. I have a sketch on prime-time Radio 4 this very evening, goddammit. At 6.30pm, it's episode four of the excellent comedy series Laurence & Gus: Hearts & Minds. I spent a number of weeks, earlier in the year, bombarding the show with sketches because I love the duo's idiosyncratic style. I was determined to make something stick, and finally, World's Most Placid Man was performed and recorded. Cue cake and bunting.

RED PLANET!
After the excitement of being a finalist in the Red Planet Prize competition and the ensuing workshop with Tony Jordan, I'm now well into the hard graft of developing ideas for new TV malarkey. A fun process, to be sure.

TEMPTATION!
Screeching Satan on a cock-shaped pogostick! Tempting Fates, the online drama series which I've co-written and storylined, is now in its second week of filming. It's being made by the wonderful people at Eye Film & TV, and will be visible and audible via the WWW later in the year. I'm loving what I've seen of the cast, and can't wait to see the results. Essentially a black comedy, Tempting Fates is about three female Fates, who sashay down to Earth in order to murder various human targets. My kinda concept.

JOURNALISM!
The first part of my Doctor Who Magazine interview with Tom Baker seems to have gone down well, which is a relief. The second part will be in the next issue, out August 20. Whereas Part One focused primarily on Tom's memories of Doctor Who, Part Two is much more about him as a person. This issue will also feature my studio report from recording sessions for the new BBC Audio drama Hornets' Nest, which sees Tom reprising his role as the Fourth Doctor. Brilliant. Lately, I've also interviewed Ozzy Obsourne and Spooks' Richard Armitage. Tremendous distractions from open Final Draft files, all.

In case you were wondering, the above photograph of Ozzy and I happened seconds after I asked him to tell me the bat-eating story, one more time.