I'm a Loser, Baby...

So the scores are on the doors for the next round of Red Planet. And as Paul Campbell points out, the entire Scribodome and its dog are through – everyone that is, except me.*

As Chester Babcock might say:

Cock.

There – that feels better already.

Huge congratulations to everyone who made it through (too many to mention here, but you know who you are, you lucky swines!), and commiserations to me. I suppose I ought to start on that supernatural period piece I’ve been planning for the last couple of minutes (dystopian sci-fi being hopelessly outré this year, of course) ;-)

Ah well – time for a beer.
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*And Lucy and Elinor and Rach, of course. Commiserations, guys – I feel your pain. *sob*

Submissions

My Red Planet and RISE submissions are packed up and ready to go, which means I no longer have to tinker with them until I go all cross-eyed and unnecessary. The script I’m submitting for RISE has been rattling around in my hard drive for a while now, so a week of work to make it ship shape (me hearties) seemed reasonable. However, my Red Planet entry was entirely written from scratch, which meant I had to call on the duumvirate of John Soanes and the still blogless Caroline, who both offered up some decent tweaks (at least they didn’t say it was shite, which is the reaction I usually expect). I also called upon Mr Voodoo himself, Adrian Reynolds, who made a crack about The Bill and the word ‘plethora’, which made me realise I had some rewriting to do. So, thanks to all.

With the first ten pages of my RP entry this year, there were at least a couple of things I wanted to do:

1) Establish the character of my protagonist, and
2) Establish the milieu of the story

However, I wanted to do this in the context of scenes that kept the story moving without becoming bogged down in great big tar pits of exposition. Two films I’ve seen recently helped inform my thinking here – There Will Be Blood, and The Silence of the Lambs. There Will Be Blood's opening fifteen minutes are entirely soundless, and are almost exclusively devoted to establishing the character of the protagonist, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis, giving yet another scenery chewing turn). Whilst mining for silver, Plainview falls down a mine shaft, badly injuring his leg. However, this doesn’t stop him from dragging himself to the nearest prospecting office, where the staff assess his claim as Plainview lies on the floor in front of them, his leg shattered. Whilst keeping the narrative moving, this tells you all you need to know about his character – what’s more, not a single word has been spoken.

With that in mind, I looked at the opening twenty minutes of The Silence of the Lambs, which again, is a fantastic example of how to establish character – however, where There Will Be Blood is almost exclusively concerned with the character of Plainview, The Silence of the Lambs is slightly different inasmuch as there’s one helluva lot of potentially labyrinthine narrative that needs to be covered off. As with most films, I find the first twenty minutes or so of ‘set-up’ to be the most intriguing, but with The Silence of the Lambs, perhaps it’s worth taking a few minutes to figure out how screenwriter Ted Tally did it so well:

* Clarice Starling tackles an obstacle course at the FBI Academy (we know she’s at the FBI Academy as it’s printed on her sweatshirt). The fact that Clarice seems to be running the course by herself gives us an early indication of her character: she’s enthusiastic, ambitious, eager to impress, perhaps even a little desperate.

* After being interrupted mid-course with a message that Jack Crawford (her boss) wants to see her, Clarice jogs back to the Academy , where she steps into a lift with nine red shirted FBI trainees – the fact that these trainees are all men is no accident. When Clarice steps out of the lift some seconds later, the men have all gone. This is the milieu that Clarice finds herself in (the scene is repeated some time later as Clarice stands in a funeral home surrounded by male police officers, just in case we didn’t get the message first time round).

* Clarice walks into Crawford’s office, but he isn’t there. Clarice turns and... that’s the end of the title sequence. Five minutes in, and already we have a fairly good indication of Clarice’s character and the environment in which she finds herself.

Subsequent scenes in Crawford’s office and at the Baltimore State Forensic Hospital keep the story moving forward whilst fleshing out the character of Clarice. From her conversation with Dr Chilton, we learn that she is resourceful and quick witted, even when Chilton tries to unnerve her with a lurid account of the serial killer Hannibal Lecter’s extreme violence. In her interview with Lecter, Lecter mercilessly dissects Clarice’s character (“You’re not more than one generation removed from poor white trash, are you?”), which again gives us some valuable background. And then – horrors! – a flashback to Clarice’s childhood, where it transpires that Lecter’s description of her background was not entirely correct, but pretty damn close all the same.

It’s perhaps worthwhile to note that it’s the secondary characters within the narrative that give us the descriptions of Clarice’s background – the qualities of character that will help Clarice later in the narrative are demonstrated by her in her interactions with Crawford, Chilton and Lecter (a combination of guile, intelligence and ambition). Twenty minutes in, and you know all you need to know about Clarice Starling (even down to the type of car she drives, which is seen as another signifier of her many motivations). And what’s more, the narrative is up and running. The two are pulled along together hand in hand – we know that Clarice is ambitious enough not to let her objective slip from view, and it’s this that initially provides forward momentum.

It’s a superb opening – not that I’m saying that my RP entry comes anywhere close, but if you’re going to be inspired by something, it may as well be something exceptional.

Round Up (That's a Brand of Weedkiller, Isn't It?)

I hope everyone’s efforts on that Red Planet thing are all going well. Mine consists predominantly of psychiatrists, economics and privatisation (a lot like my day job), and is threatening to get horribly complicated at any second. Actually, scrub that – it’s horribly complicated already, and this time I started from a five page treatment. The next step now is to get sixty pages in the bag, and wrestle manfully with them like they’re someone dressed up in a rubber Godzilla suit (again, a lot like my day job).

On the ‘marketing’ front, I’m getting scripts read in the most unusual and surprising of places. It will be a while before I can blog about these, as the entire process is no doubt going to drag on to a conclusion, be it good, (probably) bad or indifferent. Suffice to say that when I look these people up on imdb, I run the entire gamut of emotions from mildly excited to vaguely concerned. Don’t ask me what it all means – I’m getting a stabbing pain in my eye just thinking about it.

Anyway, Red Planet aside, I’m off to Paris for five days to celebrate this blog’s first birthday on July 29th (that’s an outright lie - the blog celebration bit, not the Paris bit. Just to prove it, I will post a photograph of a croissant next Tuesday, so stay tuned!). Pip pip!

Time Team on Acid

Contains Spoilers for last night's Bonekickers

Ever since Life On Mars, one gets the impression that Ashley Pharaoh could pitch his shopping list to BBC executives and get given the green light for a six part series exploring the mysteries of supermarket trolleys and the fruit n’ veg aisle. That said, Bonekickers was all right I suppose (and certainly not as godawful as Gareth McLean made out in Tuesday’s Guardian), but it entirely depended on what you were looking for – if that happened to be a drama-lite romp thought seven hundred years of pseudo-history, you were in luck. If not – oh well, just sit back and marvel at the errant silliness.

Bonekickers did at least have a brain cell rattling round in its mostly empty head, if only for the realisation that a dramatised Time Team would have been like watching the live feed on Big Brother. A crazed, right wing Christian group wearing limited edition Templar t-shirts was wheeled out to do battle with a bunch of perplexed looking Muslims (fresh out of the story conference, no doubt), one of whom got his head cut off by Paul Nicholls (gotta take the work where you can get it these days I guess). A sub-plot too far methinks, as by the halfway point Bonekickers had forgotten about its brain cell and proceeded to stagger toward its deliriously daft finale. In fact, there was so much overt nonsense on show that an extra twenty or so minutes or so might have calmed things down somewhat, and allowed for some much needed tying up of loose ends.

With the recently announced Red Planet competition in mind, anyone looking for clues as to what a returning series looks like wouldn't have come away with anything useful from Bonekickers, save for the fact that the first episode was exceptionally plot heavy. The main characters were introduced via the tried and tested mechanism of a fresh faced newbie in their midst, but save for a perfunctory line or two, character development was not something that Bonekickers particularly interested itself in, as it spent a lot of its time bumping into convenient narrative signposts, such as an old geezer who was able to point the way to the one true cross (well, a warehouse full of them at least).

So: it was all right. But judging by this outing, at least shopping lists are coherent.

Plate Spinner Extraordinaire

Whilst everyone and his/her dog has been away at the Screenwriter’s Festival, I’ve been putting my extremely ad-hoc and random marketing plan into operation, which is much like keeping a series of plates spinning whilst rubbing your head and patting your stomach at the same time – or something (you get the idea). Last week seemed the ideal opportunity as well, as the competition were all off playing croquet in Cheltenham ;-) (I went to a school with a croquet lawn and two grass tennis courts – how posh am I?)

The upside is that I got two script requests and a chat with my agent chum (just because you haven’t heard from someone in a while doesn’t mean they’re not interested – very often, a polite phone call is enough to gently prod them into action). Baby steps all, and it keeps those plates spinning I guess. And what with METLAB in a Ripley-esque state of suspended animation, I idly starting wondering what had happened to TAPS. One e-mail later, it transpires that the scripts are out with ‘industry professionals’ for a read – decisions as to the final scripts may/may not be made in the next couple of weeks. Probably best not to hold your breath.

I’m also still tarting about with that treatment, which now has a deadline of late August. And then of course, there’s the RISE Summer Challenge and the new Red Planet thing – lots to keep anyone occupied over the summer I reckon. The Red Planet competition looks great (as usual), so I’ll have to get my skates on at some point and do something about that.

As you were...

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!

Competition Frenzy!

Rightly or wrongly, I’ve entered three scripts for the Red Planet Prize – (just as well they changed the rules really).

I’ve spent 2007 re-writing all of these scripts, because – let’s face it – first drafts suck the big one (and so do my second and third drafts for that matter). In fact, I’m still ploughing through a re-write on one of these (it’s amazing what you discover when you run through a hastily written first draft: a three page telephone conversation! Argh! A five page monologue! Double argh!)

Anyway, here are the scripts I’ve submitted and some choice comments against each from reviewers far and wide:

NIGHTFALL: There were several things about it I did not fully understand.

DAMAGED: This has a first script feel to it - which isn't a bad thing. (Don’cha just love Trigger Street?)

SUICIDE’S SON: My fave comment of all - The title sounds like a goth band – change that. Thanks Oli – I’m working on it!

Damaged was a finalist here (they insisted on calling me "Christopher" for some reason), but I got bugger all exposure out of it, and every single agent I informed simply went, ‘Meh,’ and fell asleep. I also entered the screenplay competition at the Vail Film Festival, but heard absolutely nothing, even when I e-mailed them a very polite question – however, by then, they already had my $60, so screw you, Chip! Caveat emptor indeed.

All of which means I guess that you have to put your faith in the biggies – Blue Cat (hmmm, think I might’ve shot myself in the foot there), the Nicholl, Big Break, Slamdance, etc.

Problem is, these are all US-based competitions – not a big deal as such, but it would be nice if there were a few more homegrown competitions as well, which is the reason why Red Planet Prize is so welcome (and free to boot – my favourite price).

(There’s the British Short Screenplay Competition of course, but I’ve never entered – personally speaking, the prospect of writing a ten page screenplay fills me with total dread).

Red Planet aside, I don’t know about the whole competition thing to be honest – at least with Blue Cat you get coverage, but this can vary in quality, as Scott the Reader knows all too well. And now with Without a Box, there are literally hundreds of competitions queuing up for you to throw your money at, which simply leads me to the conclusion there’s a ton of money to be unlocked in all those spec screenplays in them thar hills.

I think in future when given the choice between $60 script notes and a $60 screenplay competition entrance fee, I’ll probably go for the script notes. It will almost certainly lead to a better script, which is surely the reason we’re all doing this – right?

Planetary Problems

I have a problem with my entry for Red Planet, which basically boils down to misalignment and lack of time (and too many gigs on the horizon – Battles at the Concorde 2 anyone?)

Everyone knows about Red Planet by now, so I won’t bore my only reader (Hey! How ya doin’?) by shilling out the lowdown. Suffice to say, I think I’m fucked. I don’t think that either of the scripts I have ready to go are suitable (I’m fairly certain the nice people at Red Planet will not want to see a broadly generic horror script or an JG Ballard inspired sci-fi drama).

However, I have a script that might fit the bill. Problem is, it’s a complete drunk - in order to get it up and walking about, I need to feed it black coffee and walk it round the block, never an easy undertaking at the best of times. This is what I mean by misalignment. With every opportunity that comes along, I’m not convinced that what I have up my sleeve is suitable, or even good enough. So I obsess about the next script – this script it’s where it’s at, I tell myself - this script is the one. Problem is, it’s always just around the corner, waiting to be written and/or re-written, an alternating to and fro of hard work and procrastination. By the time it’s finished (well, inasmuch as any script can be said to be truly finished), the opportunity I had in mind for it has moved on, freeing up time for me to obsess about the next script. It’s like that hoary old saying about waiting for a bus and three of them coming along at once – in my case, the buses come along on time and all in a nice orderly line, but my script is too drunk to get on them, let alone flag one of them down (yeah, OK, so my analogy sucks, but you get the idea).

That said, I think I the first ten pages or so are pretty serviceable – but after that point, it all goes a bit Pete Tong. At the moment, my script looks like the backstage area of a gameshow – the pastel coloured façade of the first ten pages is all a big con – behind that sits a mess of cables, harassed production assistants and lots of gaffa tape (and to add insult to injury, someone’s drunk all the booze in the green room and eaten all the peanuts).

This is a script that’s been round the block several times now. A malicious script editor (stay tuned for more fun on that one) told me to write about what I knew, so I did – a script set in the buying department of a major UK airline. Problem was, 9/11 put paid to that. I had to wait three years before I could pick the script up again, dust it down and figure out what the hell I wanted to do with it. The solution? If I was going to rewrite it, I had to make 9/11 an integral element of the narrative – you could not have a script set in this industry and not mention it. In other words, a huge undertaking. Whether it works or not is something I’ll leave to the readers at Red Planet – that is, if I get the rewrite finished by October (assuming they even want to see it in the first place).

And that’s my second problem – time. A page one rewrite in two months? Hellfire. It takes me three hours to think about a half page conversation, let alone write it, so I need to generate some time from somewhere. And gigs of course - always gigs.

I ought to stop bitching and get on with it, right?