A to B (And All the Way Back Again)

Once upon a time, I wrote a script. In chronological order, this is what happened to it:

1) To start with, read about Terry Illot and the Hammer Films episode here.

2) After that, Marchmont Films got their grubby little hands on it – you can read the full sorry lowdown here.

3) More or less at the same time, this happened (hello Yellow UK!) (I never got those script reports done, incidentally).

4) November 2007, and the script is selected by METLAB for development and eventual pitching to a cabal of investors. After a meeting in January 2008, I launched upon a month’s worth of rewrite and whizzed the new draft over to the truly gorgeous Lucy Vee for comment (Lucy is/was METLAB’s script editor of choice). Notes came back: super! At this stage, I was hoping to get another meeting with both Lucy and John Sweeney (METLAB head cheese) as per the original ‘calling notice’ to discuss potential ways forward. For whatever reason, the meeting never materialised. Wary of putting a lot of work in for no discernible gain, I turned my attention elsewhere (I was mid-way through a tricksy collaboration/treatment; stay tuned for more fun and games on that one at some point). Over the next few months, I waited for a meeting and a plan of action from John Sweeney, but nothing turned up. By now, I was starting to get the feeling that nothing was going to come of this (my sixth sense by now is quite well attuned to episodes of this sort). The project sat on the backburner for several months until I e-mailed John asking him what was going on (and giving him an ultimatum of sorts). I received this in reply. Game over.

5) In February 2008, I got this from an agent at United Agents:

...I absolutely loved it. It is smart and witty and unsettling.

...I’d love to read anything else you might want an agent to sell and I’d love to meet, if you’re still looking for representation.

Er, let’s think about this for a second – yes please!

Then: complete and utter silence for months. I chased up Mr Agent on a couple of occasions - he was always politeness and charm personified, but still nothing doing. Is it worth another chase? Probably not.

(Apropos of nothing at all, United Agents represent Henry Naylor: a couple of friends of mine were on the same Cambridge Footlights revue as Mister Naylor, and had a frankly uncalled for rhyme whenever his name arose in conversation: “Henry Naylor, Henry Naylor; about as funny as Vlad the Impaler.” Honestly, there’s just no need for it (*chortle*)).

6) “Notable Producer X”: I am wary of blogging too much about this at the moment, as I might say something I'll regret (as if that's ever stopped me before).

7) BBC Writersroom: a couple of months ago I got a lovely letter from Writersoom with a couple of pages of notes saying how much they liked the script and inviting me to send my next grand opus in (which I duly did, only for it to come back a month later – they’d already read it, you see. Oops).

Strangely enough, I wrote this in a post on 30th July 2007:

... if you want to know where NOT to send your speculative scripts, then stay tuned – I seem to have an almost supernatural knack for ferreting out production companies for whom procrastination is a profitable pastime...

In a bizarrely circuitous fashion, over a year later I’m back to where I started from - which really does go to show that if you want a successful screenwriting career, keep one eye permanently glued on Unfit for Print. Whatever I do, do the exact opposite: you really can’t go wrong.

METLAB Gets Credit Crunched!

Things have been very quiet on the Metlab front for the last few months (what with me being busy elsewhere with Red Planet, Sharps and that unnameable treatment), so I thought I’d give John Sweeney a prod. Got the following e-mail today:

Thanks for your thoughts. I have given the matter a lot of thought and because of the changes brought about by the current economic situation, our potential investors no longer being available, I think it best that we do what you suggest and draw a line under this episode of Metlab...

So there we have it.

I think the next step here is to write a post about the many and varied hoops that my poor ickle METLAB script has jumped through over the last couple of years – it ain’t pleasant reading, but at the least it’ll be entertaining...

Metlab Update, Part 6

Yet more feedback from the script correction house of Ms Vee. This time I got a solitary ‘WTF’ , one ‘DON’T PANIC’, and something called a “pffffffffffffffffffffffflllllllllllllrrrrrrt”, which I can only assume is either an extended raspberry or the sound of something deflating rather slowly. I’ll go for a combination of the two, I think. It looks like I might have to return to an outline, or at the least a rewrite of the first thirty pages just to get things kicked off.

I’m sure that my fellow ‘Labbers have all been eminently sensible and have honed their outlines and treatments to a shiny, gleaming perfection before launching upon a first draft. I roll a slightly different way, and frankly, it’s pretty rubbish. That said, I’m writing a ‘sort of’ treatment/ outline for someone at the moment, and I have to say it’s far more enjoyable than I thought, so in future, I might have to stick with this method – it’s only taken me about a million drafts to realise this, but then I always was a bit slow on the uptake.

Metlab Update, Part 5

So, Metlab yesterday.

All very painless as it turned out. Lucy Vee and John Sweeney one side of the table, Martin and I on the other. My notes from the meeting read, “double goal”, “Mind Hunters”, “no gore”, “necrophilia”, “conflict vs empathy” and “dialectical materialism”. Blimey! Sounds a bit like Katie & Peter Unleashed to me. I have a new draft to wrestle into submission (two falls or a knockout, grapple fans) by the beginning of April.

As well as being an all round nice guy, I also discovered that there is very little about Doctor Who that Martin does not know. I’m not the world’s biggest DW fan by any stretch, but I will say that I was seven years old, I loved it. I also have only one DW anecdote, as follows:

When I used to live in Cambridge, there was a great book cum junk shop on Mill Road – I bought a Doctor Who paperback in there for 10p, purely due to what was printed on the spine. The book’s title was Doctor Who and the Planet of Evil, written by Terence Dicks. The problem was the designers/type setters had forgotten to leave a large enough space between the words ‘evil’ and ‘Terence’, so the book was actually entitled Doctor Who and the Planet of Evil Terence Dicks – which is, when you think about it, a pretty frightening prospect (OK, so it was funny at the time).

January Meltdown

That sounded a little unnecessarily dramatic, didn’t it? Let’s start again...

The script that had hung around at Hammer for a while before propping open a door at Marchmont for about a hundred years has now been taken under the kindly wing of METLAB. No doubt I’ll have my work cut out there over the next few months, but rewriting is kinda fun (in a vaguely masochistic way).

With that script out of the way, I've started angling about for something new to work on. I thought I’d alighted on something at the beginning of the year, but it turned out to be a false start (i.e., twenty pages in and I just wasn’t feeling it). So I’ve taken the momentous decision to write it in prose, which brought about another momentous decision: I have bravely postponed doing anything on it until 2009, which gives me another year to think about it.

So, something new.... hmmm... When in doubt, I always delve into old notebooks and half written/abandoned scripts in an attempt to revitalise something that once upon a time sounded like a good idea. And I think I’ve got one. Sort of. Maybe. What I've got is a rough and ready draft that comes in at the 85 page mark before it runs out of steam, but it’s got legs I think. I’ll drag it out and give it a dust down and see what can be done with it, if anything. And if I can – well, I guess that’s 2008 sorted out. As I spent the whole of 2007 rewriting, it’s about time I tackled something new.

It’s either that or antagonise Marchmont again, but I’m getting bored of that...

Metlab Update, Part 4

Got my METLAB feedback back from Lucy Vee this week – to summarise I got one ‘Argh!’, one ‘YAWN!’, one ‘I may die if I read one more script with these in’, a line about nipple tassels and a recommendation to watch Pitch Black until my eyes bleed (thank you Amazon: Pitch Black for 80p!). All in all, I thought my script emerged a little bruised but still cocky enough to think it might just have something. Lucy’s notes are always fun to read anyway (especially when she’s putting the boot in).

Bearing in mind the average Hollywood screenplay typically goes to eleven or twelve drafts even before production, there’s still a good deal of work to do here (currently at third draft stage) – but hey, I happen to like re-writing, which is just as well really.

Boring Draft Update, part 2

As previously reported, I’ve been cocking about with an iteration of a script that’s been selected for next year’s METLAB. And, wonder of wonders (mostly due to the Chip Smith patented ‘Script Randomiser’), it’s finished. For several days I was horrified to discover that I might end up with a new draft that might tip the hundred page mark, but thankfully I was able to wrestle manfully (like Johnny Weissmuller with a rubber crocodile) with the ending so that it came in at what I think is a very reasonable 95 (do spec screenplays need to be any longer than 90-95 pages? I think not, but answers on a postcard).

Given the choice between writing a first draft from scratch and rewriting, I’ll go for the rewrite any day – mostly because I’m scared of big, white open spaces. That said, I’m always amazed what I discover when I delve into the weeds of a rewrite:

- In first drafts, without exception, I always overwrite. I can always edit scene descriptions down by at least 25%, which I think makes for a smoother, quicker read. Dialogue-wise, the same goes. Less is more. Or something. (Or is it KISS? – Keep It Simple, Stupid – I forget).

- I can’t stress this enough, but the best screenwriting maxim is get in late, get out early. The script I’ve just finished spent the first six/seven pages laboriously setting up the scenario – now, I’m there inside three pages. I also managed to sever four pages from my pointlessly protracted (and potentially expensive) conclusion, which meant I even had room for a fictional gameshow theme tune – every script needs one!

- I can’t stand exposition in a script, even though I tend to write it in absolute bloody swathes. This script is no exception, although I am starting to devise strategies so that it’s not so obvious, like having people do stuff whilst my exposition clanks about like a skeleton jacking off in a biscuit tin.

- Introducing what is an essential element of back story has meant that I’ve had to go through the whole script on an evangelical mission to update and improve its narrative coherency. What a bitch! Some sequences fly by – others squat on the page and challenge you to a slapping match, the little bastards. What I tend to do is get in there, write it quick, and sprint out before anything has the opportunity to slap me round the back of the legs.

- Budget wise, I’ve taken the opportunity to get rid of one expensive location and replace it with something cheaper but that gets the job done in half the time.

- There is ALWAYS room for improvement.

Given that I’ve spent the entire year rewriting and nothing else, I think it’s time for something new. So far I have a title, a logline and a talking dog. Class!

I’m frazzled – I think I need to go for a lie down.

Boring Draft Update

The next draft of my script for METLAB isn’t really a new draft at all – what it is is an iteration.

I tried to follow some initial advice from John Sweeney about the opening scene, but couldn’t make the logistics of it work (you know, who stands where, who’s watching who, who’s looking after the bazooka) – so I’ve spent a lot of time tarting about with a more coherent back story. The general pain in the arse with back story as far as I’m concerned is that very often you don’t get to see it in its entirety on the page – as long as it contributes to the internal logic of the script then I’m happy, but it’s a lot of work for something that essentially remains unseen.

I’ve also had to do some additional research into leylines and standing stones (stop chortling at the back! The appearance of Stonehenge never did Halloween III any harm). And whilst I’m on the subject, here’s Chip’s Top Screenwriting Tip of the Week: DO NOT attempt to do your research as you write (I’m very often flipping between my script and several whacked out sites on leylines). As I gathered a little while back, I have the crappiest working method ever – but at least I’m in good company. No doubt if I relied on an outline a little more, my mental state would be that much calmer, but things would certainly be a lot less entertaining.

I’ve also started to be a little more brutal with some much loved scenes – unless it’s in there for a reason (i.e., to move the story forward), it’s out. Reading through a previous draft, it was quite alarming to see how much exposition I’d somehow managed to shoehorn in, so there’s a job of work there to make this less clunky and/or obvious. And bearing in mind METLAB’s budgetary guidelines, I’m already thinking about how to shave a few quid off here and there – for instance, the Godzilla-esque dinosaur fight scenes have already been dumped (just kidding). I’ve also taken on board some more decent advice from John Sweeney to make two of my central characters a little more larger than life – i.e., a touch more obsessed, mental and vain.

Like I said, it’s an iteration – I dread to think how much more I’d have to do to call it a proper re-draft.

And with that in mind, here’s a Jane Espenson moment: breakfast this morning? Espresso and two Anadin Extra – the only way to start the day!

Metlab Update, Part 3

OK, so the Red Planet results are in, and I didn’t get through to the second round. Hey ho, no great shakes.

However, as if to balance up this obvious karmic injustice, the man from Metlab has just said yes!

Well, not exactly ‘the man’ himself, but his warped yet strangely loveable sidekick, Lucy Vee.

Things kick off in January, which means one of two things:

i) Based on the notes I took in the meeting with John on 1st November, I crank out a third draft of the script that’s been selected for the patented METLAB hack ‘n’ slash, or

ii) I rely on the robust yet slightly pedestrian second draft.

Bit of a no-brainer isn’t it?

Third draft here we come.

I’ve absolutely no idea how many people applied for METLAB, but apparently I’m one of four, which is nice.

Incidentally, the last time I got selected for something like this was a few years back when Lighthouse ran a little critique course for writers. I was one of twelve in the group, and of course was all hugely excited over it. In an idle moment, I asked one of the Lighthouse bods how many people had applied: was it a lot? She looked at me as if I had just escaped from secure accommodation, and said, ‘Twelve’.

Hey ho!

Metlab Update, Part 2

I met John Sweeney from METLAB on Thursday afternoon at London Metropolitan University. The best way to describe John I think is ‘irrepressible’. His enthusiasm is hugely infectious, and besides – how can you possibly dislike someone who greets you with the line: ‘The only problem with Universities is that they’re full of students!’

If you haven’t heard of METLAB click here – suffice to say, as a ‘scheme’, it sounds massively exciting. John takes on the role of ‘studio head’ (“Like Harvey Weinstein,” he said, “but with ten times the ego!”) and with the assistance of various script editors (of whom Lucy is one), attempts to hone and polish (or in my case hack, slash and decapitate) your script until it resembles something that can be successfully marketed. The whole process takes about nine months, with a meeting once a month – a little like a truncated MA course, but with the emphasis very much placed on having a finished ‘product’.

A couple of days before the meeting I finally managed to get my script over to John in a format he could actually access – and he liked it. Even so, he spent some time riffing on a possible opening scene which was about ten times better than the one I have in there currently (John: “I’ll take a credit for that!”). This to my mind is the essence of METLAB: if you’re precious at all about your writing, this isn’t the place for you. As John said, if you can justify it, fine: if not, out it goes. If I get on, it looks like being an interesting and informative nine months...

Oh, and John signed my book as well...

Anyway, I’m on the shortlist, so more news as it drops into my inbox.

Metlab Update

Those terribly nice folks at Metlab (well, John Sweeney to be precise) have requested the full script on the back of the synopsis I sent in a little while back – which is nice. Plus a ‘meet and greet’ next Thursday: which will be hopefully be enlightening and entertaining.

I sincerely hope it’s not an interview type situation as I tend to come across as either one of the following:

a) a highly enthusiastic version of my usual pessimistic self (I tend to switch to this default for all job interviews), or

b) a tongue tied inbred with a medication problem.

I suspect it will be a combination of the two!

METLAB COURSE 2007-08

Thanks to Lucy for the tip off on METLAB this year.

The email below from John Sweeney gives an outline of what to expect:

Thank you for your enquiry about the new Metlab course.

Here are the answers to the questions some of you have posed.

1) This is not a taught course. That is, we will not be teaching people the various formats and methodologies for writing scripts.

2) The aim of the Metlab programme is to develop commercially viable scripts, either from existing scripts or potentially viable treatments that adhere to the principles laid down in the book: Successful Business Models For Filmmakers. These principles are based on tried and tested formulas used by the mainstream film industry.

3) If the script is made into a feature film, the University will retain 2% of the gross income accruing to the film, after it as been released.

4) The writer retains all other rights to the script and the right to be paid.

5) To be considered for the programme, a one or two page synopsis/treatment for a genre based feature film must be submitted.

6) The closing date for submissions is 1st October 2007.

7) Final selection will be by interview, scheduled for October 2007.

8) The programme is free.

9) Writer must be willing to accept and carry out the changes to their script, as and when requested.

Thanks for your interest,

John Sweeney - Metlab Director

My application is already in, so we'll see what happens.