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Pulling Teeth

So there I was, this morning, lying on the dentist's chair. Talking to my very nice dentist about what I'd been doing since I saw him. Screenwriting, mainly.

"Screenwriting, eh?" he said unto me. "How does that work, then? Do you write the action stuff, like 'He walks through the door'?"

At this point, I wrestled him to the ground, grabbed a drill and intoned, "Is it safe? Is it safe? Is it? Is it?", entirely ignoring his terrified shrieks.
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7 comments:

  1. Phill Barron30 May 2008 at 14:55

    It never ceases to amaze me how clueless people can be about what a scriptwriter actually does. It's hardly a technical term like Gaffer or Best Boy or Grip ... SCRIPT. WRITER.

    The clue's in the title.

    I can understand questions like:

    "Do you write your own ideas or do you write what people tell you to?"

    That's a sensible question with a very complicated answer; but:

    "Do you write ALL the words?"

    Strikes me as needlessly moronic. No, I just write every sixth word. Unless it's a Friday.

    Oh wait, have I missed the point and gone off on a pointless rant?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jason Arnopp30 May 2008 at 14:59

    There's no such thing as a pointless Barron rant. Every one a gem!

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  3. Phill Barron30 May 2008 at 15:10

    They didn’t let me, they didn’t let me because they was afraid. I didn’t want to eat their parakeet, but it wouldn’t BLOODY SHUT UP. An elephant? In Peckham? More like TAPIOCA.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jason Arnopp30 May 2008 at 15:16

    I take it all back. And Phill, I'll see that rant and raise you five egg-whisks and a fuck-HANDLE.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous30 May 2008 at 16:07

    Normally people think that screenwriters just come up with the dialogue*, so your dentist is a step ahead of that at least, eh...?

    How's yer gob?


    * Possibly an idea enforced by certain actors thanking the writers for "all the wonderful words...".

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  6. Unknown31 May 2008 at 11:24

    Your last day at work and you had a 'dentist's appointment' in the morning? Heh heh.

    Incidentally, someone I know who writes for a soap always gets asked which character he writes for.

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  7. Phill Barron31 May 2008 at 11:39

    Does he tell people he doesn't write a specific character, just a specific emotion?

    At the moment he writes all the ambivalent lines, but he's hoping to move up to indignant anger because that's where the money is.

    ReplyDelete