TAPS: Rehearsal Day

Sitting in my hotel bar with a pint, reflecting on a day which has both frazzled and exhilarated me. I've been babbling about this weekend on Twitter - using the hastag #TAPSdiary, if you're interested - but I had so much to quack about this evening, that only a blog would do.

We had a full day of rehearsal on my TAPS script Ghost Writer at ITV Yorkshire, with the five-actor cast going through the whole thing twice - firstly in chronological script order, and then in shoot-order (literally the order in which it'll be shot tomorrow morning, grouping all the scenes together in terms of their set, in order to save valuable time).

Director Guy Slater is a veteran, and brings every bit of that experience to bear on the production. He's fantastic: a walking cauldron of persistence, perspective, ingenuity and cut-glass vowels. I love the fact that he so clearly 'gets' Ghost Writer, and wants to bring it to the screen in as intact a form as possible. I had my laptop with me today, along with a print-out of the script. As we went along, I made notes on that print-out with a red pen, but a new draft of the script wasn't deemed necessary. On a couple of occasions, I spoke to an actor about a line-change and they then simply made the adjustment to their own script. Simple. Phew. Not that I'd mind making more extensive changes - I'm primarily here to learn, after all - but let's be honest, it's much nicer when it just works. Actors also made minor changes to lines, in order to make themselves more comfortable, which is great, because provided the meaning isn't changed, it just comes across as more natural.

The actors are fantastic, and today has seen me gain an even greater appreciation for thesps in general. Barrie Ryan English, who plays Ghost Writer's main character Darren, deserves special mention. Not only does he go through the emotional wringer during this story, but he's in all 21 scenes, which puts tremendous pressure on him. But he was great today, delivering the Darren I had in mind, and more besides. The outrageously delightful Fiona Wass (previously seen in the series Grownups) plays Sadie to a tee; hard Manc fella Giles Ford (The Bill, Corrie, Emmerdale) is perfect for brash laddish bloke Corin; bee-yewtiful Lisa Brookes (Casualty 1909) is just great as Helen; and Seamus O'Neill (from Dead Man's Shoes - one of my favourite films, hooray) rocks the house as cafe owner Ron. I feel truly spoilt to have a cast without a single weak link in sight. I also feel terrible that one of the characters dies in a heartbreaking fashion, after comparatively little screen-time.

Christ. I've turned into a luvvie.

In fairness, it's hard not to. When you sit through a full day of rehearsal and see how much work everyone puts in, how many different variables they need to constantly bear in mind, and how damn good they are at doing so, you'd be a madman to speak about them with anything less than the highest praise.

Tomorrow morning, over the course of four-and-a-bit hours from 8.30am, Ghost Writer will be shot on four interior Emmerdale sets. We took a lunchtime look at those sets today, in order to familiarise ourselves with them - for the rest of the day we were in a rehearsal space, constantly moving furniture about to simulate the different sets. I can't wait to see it all committed to film: Ghost Writer means a lot to me, and this is the best Christmas present I could hope for.

Tonight, I think, will be all about beer, takeaway pizza and brain-numbing TV of the highest order. Hello X Factor...

TAPS: The Weekend Begins

Will be off to Leeds shortly, for the rehearsal-day and shoot of my Ghost Writer script, thanks to those lovely TAPS people. Will blog about it ASAP afterwards, naturally - until then, feel free to follow me on Twitter. Good DAY to you.

Ghost Writer & TAPS

Hello, you utter delight. I recently had some good news. A month or so back, I took part in TAPS' annual Continuing Drama course, which this year took place in Old London Town. It was a three-day affair which I can heartily recommend: I learnt a great deal, which I will almost certainly blog about separately soon.

The culmination of the course, however, had a competitive element, in that everyone needed to pitch a 23-minute one-off original TV drama, then write the script. Ten people out of 30-odd would then be chosen to address their assigned script-editor's notes (my script editor was the lovely Nicola Larder) in order to produce a second draft, at which point four final scripts would be selected. Ghost Writer, my own script - a relationship drama with a supernatural undercurrent - turned out to be one of those four, which made me very pleased indeed.

So, what next? It's all happening rather quickly, much like TV. The four scripts will be shot over the weekend of December 4-6, on the Emmerdale sets. I'm delighted to have a wonderfully experienced director in the shape of Miss Marple/Love Hurts veteran Guy Slater, with whom I spoke on the 'phone today. It was great to hear that he liked the script a lot, and that the only tweaks he needed to discuss right now were practical, physical concerns like sets and props. It was also nice when he 'phoned me back after having spoken to the casting director, and asked whether I'd be "miserable" if an Irish character had to be made non-Irish. Needless to say, I wouldn't be miserable about that at all.

I'm very much looking forward to heading for Leeds over that weekend and experiencing a day of rehearsal before the shoot. During that prep-day, I'll need to be armed with a laptop, in case spontaneous rewrites are needed. Love that pressure and that challenge.

After Ghost Writer and the other three scripts have been filmed and completed, they'll be readily available to view on the TAPS site. You can see the last few years' films there right now, including Rewind by m'learned colleague Rob Eveleigh.

I've privately thanked - or at least, I really hope I have - everyone who helped me, in some way or other, with Ghost Writer's evolution. But thanks once again. The script means a lot to me, and I can't wait to get it on film.

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!