Weekly Interview (2)

This week's interview comes from MakingOf, which is a brilliant site featuring hundreds of interviews with writers, directors, actors et al.

This is a talk with Don Roos (MARLEY & ME) where he talks about how to get work done. If you're struggling with getting that script finished, maybe Roos' method is right up your street. Strangely, it includes only an hour of work a day. Share your writing methods in the comments section. Enjoy.....

Weekly Interview (1)

From now on, every week, I'm going to try and post an interview (either transcribed or on video) with a writer/producer/actor/director - any interview that can be remotely useful or interesting to us screenwriters.

The first interview is a segment from Jeffrey Berman's The Write Environment and is with TV master Joss Whedon. He needs no introduction, but for those who don't know, Berman does a mini-bio of his work. Enjoy!

Characters in Exile

I thought I'd go through all the characters in my story for Exile. If not just for my own benefit but for the weirdos out there who care too.

ROMAN
Roman's a depressed vampire living all alone in a dodgy London flat. Running from his dark past, he has a strong friendship with the local Butcher (who he gets blood from). He also has a possible love interest in Chloe, a woman across the street.

KING
As his name would suggest, King thinks he is one! He'll do anything to annoy the vampire-hating society, including dressing like a 70s punk. He's a good friend of Roman and is the only one who knows about his past.

ASHA
Roman's love interest, another vampire who saves his life in the heat of battle. A member of Logan's gang, she spends most of the movie uncovering Roman's past, healing his present and setting up his future.

LOGAN
Logan is a tough, take-no-shit guy who heads a gang of resistance vampires. When Roman comes in and puts the entire group in danger, things inevitably kick off.

HARRISON
Another member of the vampire gang; a young man who wants everything too fast. As the rest of the group give him less important jobs, he begins to feel insignificant which brings out his Judas side...

CURTIS
A military General hunting Roman across London with a band of mercenaries. For what reason? That's a secret...

FATHER ANTHONY
The vampire-hating, human-loving priest who attaches himself to Curtis' band of mercs, desperately trying to ensure that no innocents are hurt.

CBBC script

Been a bit quiet on here recently. The reason being my CBBC script.

I found out a lot of useful information at the Q&A last Monday but didn't intend to submit anything for the competition (none of the ideas I had were appropriate).

Nearly a week later, on Sunday night, I watched John Carpenter's VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED. You know which I mean - the one where all the women are knocked out and knocked up then give birth to those blond alien, psychic kids who make everyone do things they don't want to (such as put their hands in boiling water or light themselves on fire).

Anyway, those kids are damn scary! After that, I watched the season finale of SUPERNATURAL (which was awesome by the way). I was expecting to see evil demon Lilith possessing that freaky kid, but alas, it wasn't to be.

That night, I couldn't get to sleep. Instead, I lay awake thinking of a show about a bunch of psychics. Then I thought they could have different powers. They could be kids. They could spend every episode saving their school from other (evil) psychic forces.

So I woke up on Monday morning and started making notes. I usually like to have an idea in my head for a bit before I jot anything down - give myself chance to ponder on who and what the story's about. But I didn't really have time if I wanted to submit it the CBBC competition (deadline is a week today)

So I took the page of scribblings I had and started to write the script. I spent most of the day writing the first two acts, then stopped for a break. I restarted at 11.30 and carried on until 1.30am (keeping myself going with a mixture of soft mints and smarties).

Yesterday was spent getting people to read through the script and redrafting. Today I fixed all the typos, plot holes and dialogue shittiness that comes with every early draft.

The script is done now. I still need to check (again) for typos and print it out. Then I'll bind it and post it off to CBBC tomorrow. I don't expect to win - there are plenty of better, more experienced writers entering. I'll be absolutely thrilled if I managed to get shortlisted in the top 20. Here's what's potentially up for grabs:

A shortlist of 15-20 writers will be invited to a masterclass in July 2009. The final 8-10 shortlisted writers will then be selected and spend an intensive residential week developing their work, improving their craft and pitching to CBBC in September/October 2009. The final shortlist will receive CBBC mentoring from the development team and a £300 bursary.

The shortlist will be announced on 10th July - which just happens to be the day after I get my uni results back for year 2. So it could be either a very bad week or an amazing one. Let's hope for the latter, yes?

Good luck to everyone else entering the competition and happy writing :)

Review: OCCUPATION

This three-part war drama is definitely the best thing to come out of the BBC in recent years. Superb writing from Peter Bowker is what really drives it home. An incredibly powerful and original story, combined with Nick Murphy's clever yet subtle direction are a perfect combination.

Then there's the acting - perfectly executed. Great performances from James Nesbitt (as always) and Stephen Graham, as well as Warren Brown, who deserves a special mention for some particularly emotional scenes - his agent's phone is going to be ringing off the hook now!

The story seamlessly skips in time, often showing 'three months later' etc. When this happens so often in shows, people can become confused and lose connection with story and characters. In OCCUPATION however, this is not the case. Rather than throwing layers of exposition and lesser moments at the audience, the story remains fast-paced throughout. At no point do you feel cheated in what you see, as the audience is given the freedom to resolve certain story elements for themselves.

It's a must-see for everyone (war fan or not). Packed with great characterisation, strong storytelling and powerful emotion, OCCUPATION is a landmark in British television. Hopefully there will be many more dramas like it in the coming years (and if we're very lucky - one of them will be mine!)

Note: you can still catch this on BBC iplayer here.

London & CBBC Q&A

As you'll know, I went to London yesterday to meet up with Michelle. We've been friends for about a year but only spoke yesterday - weird I know! Anyway, after getting up at 6am (to make the most of the day) I got on that tiring train to London. On the way, I saw some interesting people. At 8am, the three blokes at the table next to me broke out their first cans of Stella. Less than two hours later, they had consumed 10 between them.

I met up with Michelle and we faced navigating London. We may have gotten lost a few times but we made it. We also got a fair bit of exercise walking all over the place, including from King's Cross to Oxford Street - go us!

Before then, outside King's Cross, I saw a few police cars and ambulances. I also saw a cop getting kitted out in anti-stab gear and whatnot. Caught my interest to say the least. Then we saw about 4 police vans racing around, packed with fully-armoured cops. They seemed to be sectioning off an area outside King's Cross. Not a clue what it was about, so if anyone does, let me know.

Where was I?

So after getting lost a few times in London and walking for miles, we made our way to Sloane Square and chatted for a bit, while sitting by a pretty fountain thingy. There we saw this random bloke shouting insanely loud into his phone. Was quite funny. Another guy appeared at the fountain, took a handful of really dirty water and either drank it, or used it to do his hair (we didn't see). Either way - freak!

Then we met up with Katie inside the Royal Court Theatre, had a good natter about writing and went into the CBBC Q&A. This is the part where I'd go through what happened in there but other bloggers have beaten me to it. So I'll link you to Jason's post - he links to other people who have talked about it.

But they haven't covered everything. [Note: I put 'anything' here originally. Supposed to be 'everything'. A complete typo I assure you - no insult intended. Good links] So I'll just bullet point a few things that should help with children's writing and drama in general. They're not particularly organised, but some useful info here:

• Steven Andrew (new head of CBBC drama) has the vision of making kids see the world in a different way. Write something that shows the world differently.
• Never patronise the kids - they know when you're doing it.
• On that note, be careful. There are some issues that are out of bounds and shouldn't be dealt with too much. Some things they're not looking for are; relationships (bf/gf) and sport.
• They see kids' TV as having 5 genres: action/adventure, morality, fantasy/sci-fi, comedy, multi-cultural. They also seem interested in mental/psychological issues, but only if it's done right. Research before attempting! Know that schizophrenia is not Multiple Personality Disorder. Attack one of those areas. Do it well and - most importantly - differently!
• Don't just write a drama about saving the world etc. Make sure things are grounded. Show the kids' real problems. Eg - they worry about exams etc.
• In kids' drama, the kids need to do the main things - it's no good having an adult think of the thing that saves the day. A child needs to do that - it's their show.
• Don't write the kids into every scene - they can't work all the time (for legal reasons). So have some scenes with just adults to even things out.
• You can do stranger, weirder things with kids because that's what they like. Have some insane, bizarre events.
• Go with the standard conflict & resolution process: someone needs to get somewhere. The car breaks down. Their friend gives them a lift. They get a flat tyre. He steals a skateboard. It breaks. He finds a bike..... you get the idea. One problem is solved and they're faced with another.
• Be careful what you show kids doing. The BBC can't condone dangerous behaviour without consequence. If someone climbs a tree, they need to get hurt top show the kids at home it's dangerous. Similarly, if someone breaks the law, they need to get caught.
• Remember the core of the story/show. In BUFFY, it was about her slaying vampires. The finale still had that. Your show should know what the purpose is and stick to that above all else.
• Provoke a reaction to a character - make the audience care about a character and make them respond to their actions.
• Action vs dialogue. Kids like action, not lots of talking. Don't tell when you can show. Anyway, kids can't remember pages of dialogue. They can, however, remember where to walk.
  
• Have a small cast to save money.
• Keep the perspective from the child. As soon as you're not telling the story from the child's POV, it becomes an adult drama.

Those are the majority of things I took away from the session. As I've said, check out other bloggers, especially Michelle, because she'll be posting more no doubt (probably tonight). Katie has also done a vlog about the night here.

After the CBBC session, we hung out in the bar at the theatre (where a lot of celebs go, including Matt Smith - the new Dr Who)

After a few drinks, we made our way to King's Cross. On the tube, we saw some females devouring a bottle of vodka and some beer. To be honest, they looked more like orcs than women!

After leaving Michelle and Katie, I got on my train and collapsed. I fell asleep, woke up, got off the train, got ripped off for a taxi and climbed into bed dead on midnight.

Looooog day. Worth it though - I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Happy writing folks.