Imposter

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how I was beginning to feel like a real freelancer (still missing the payment, but that’s by-the-by) well, scratch that. I feel like an imposter. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve had two meetings with Gub Neal, creative director of The Artist’s Studio (formerly of Granada, Channel 4 and Box TV). We met at a member’s club in London, which states on their website that their members are ‘mostly artists and writers’. I was well out of my depth. Sat in on our second meeting (on the club’s rooftop terrace this time – pretty nice office!) was the studio’s development exec Julian Stevens and, for the beginning of the meeting, Adam Tandy the producer of The Thick of It. And all these interesting, talented people were proper grown-ups, while I nodded and smiled away in my Primark jacket with an oversized pink flower in my hair.

But regardless of this sudden feeling of youth when I spend the rest of my time saying things like “gosh, doesn’t time start going faster after twenty-five” and “well, I wanted to own a house by thirty, but let’s say thirty-five…” the meetings were interesting and incredibly useful. They spoke a lot about the realities of getting funding in the current climate, and of considerations not just of the writing but of franchising angles and the importance of international appeal for distribution and co-funding. From a writing and editing point of view it’s fascinating to see what other considerations come into play. For now they have given me a couple of books (one of which is the property of one James Nesbitt, apparently. Must remember not to leave it on the tube) to read and provide reports on, followed by some scripts.

However my top tip from that meeting came from Julian, who quizzed me on my knowledge of writers, and said that every time you come across a writer make a note of three things they’ve written. So, first one: Roy Mitchell, whose script I was sent by Gub as a little test of my analysis, wrote i) episodes of New Tricks (2003-2009) ii) and episode of the crime drama Blue Murder in 2006 and iii) a couple of Casualty episodes in the 80s.