Beggars Vs. Choosers - Contacting production companies

I have spent my morning contacting some more TV production companies. It’s a necessary but not particularly fruitful task. Back in March of this year (when my enthusiasm was bursting at the seams) I contacted just over 30 television production companies. And do you know how many responses I got? Go on, guess. One. That’s right – one. Thankfully it was from the fantastic Gub Neal at the Artists Studio, who has been keen to share his knowledge and has hopefully got something in return. Well, if my BBC pitch document works out well he will certainly have got his money’s worth! Remember: when I say money’s worth I mean the price of a bottled water at the Century member’s club.

Maybe I’m being a little harsh on the rest of them. I did have meeting with Laurence Bowen at Feelgood Fiction (though no response yet on a recent follow-up email I sent) who was hugely encouraging. I also had a lovely polite decline from a lady called Michelle at Wall to Wall. I received the below one-liner with some rather cryptic acronyms from Noel Gay television:

Hi
We actually stick to synopsis only unless it is a writer I know about
BW
CA

If that’s not a brush off I don’t know what is.

Now for a list of some companies I heard NOTHING from. Not even an automated response thanking me for my interest:

Baby Cow,
Ecosse Films,
Festival Films,
Avalon,
Coastal Productions,
Hat Trick Productions,
HBO,
Mentorn,
Oxford Film & Television,
Red Planet Pictures,
Shine Entertainment (also registered on their website),
SMG/ Ginger Productions,
Slate Films,
Spellbound Productions,
Talkback Thames,
Tiger Aspect Productions,
World Productions
…and so on.

This isn’t just an exercise in naming and shaming, nor is it more wallowing in my own failures (see posts ‘Dejection & rejection’ parts I and II). I want to remind myself of who I contact and their responses. After all, that’s what this blog is for: charting my journey and keeping track of learnings along the way. It seems in this business rejection is something you have to learn very quickly; to be perfected over time.

I am awaiting responses from Kudos films, Mammoth Screen and Left Bank Pictures, who are all three that I would REALLY like to hear back from.

Maybe this is karma after the number of sales calls I bat back on a daily basis during my day job at a media agency. Or maybe the TV production companies can tell they’re just another name on my hit-list, that of course there’s some companies that take preference – for example I’d give my left pinkie fingertip for a job at the BBC, Tiger Aspect, Kudos et al - but that at this stage in my career I’d take pretty much anything.

The Deep

I’m not sure if it’s just because I scan the TV listings for them, but there seems to be more one off dramas and mini-series’ on television then in previous years. And good quality ones, at that.

This week sees the start of The Deep written by Simon Donald*, which stands out due to its unusual setting – almost entirely in a submarine deep under the sea. The whole things feels incredibly sci-fi, even down to the vampire squid (pictured) that the crew watch dance past them. As well as feeling like made up science the story-line is far-fetched to my mind, but no doubt is actually pretty much factually accurate an incredibly well-researched.

There are aspects that seem implausible, such as whether a dead marine biologist’s husband (also a marine biologist) would be involved in the recovery mission for her submarine’s black box. However this is easily forgotten once we delve into the submarine mission.

In the tradition of cabin-fever movies such as The Hole (2001) gradually tempers flare, and we leave the first episode reading the eerie message ‘RAYMOND MURDERED MADDY’. One of the main techniques used to build the claustrophobia was only having limited scenes above the sea. That way the audience feel trapped along with the characters – I know my heart was beating a little faster when the lights on the submarine went out.

There are, of course, some faults with a script like this. Dramatic lines can feel tacky, and explanations of scientific objectives can get wordy and unwieldy. Plus the relationships between the crew members initially seems more distanced than you would expect for people who spend weeks at a time working in a confined submarine together, and the relationship reveal seems a little trite. However I’m just being picky, and at the end of the episode I raised myself up from lolling on the sofa and gazed wide-eyed at the unfolding spectacle. And I can’t ask for any more than that, showing that the script must be doing an awful lot of things right.

*Murphy’s Law, Taggart, Soldier Soldier.

Dejection and rejection part II

Oh, yeah - and another thing. It has been noted on the BBC Writersroom blog that one of the writers going through to this years Writer's Academy has 33 Doctors episodes already credited to him. Now, I understand that writers entering the Academy are already required to have proffessional credits but this just seems a bit much. If this writer does have so much potential why hasn't it already been spotted and nurtured by the BBC? And I also understand that if I were that writer I'd be pissed off if I wasn't entitled to enter, but - y'know - it grates a little. And I am, of course, just bitter.
Over and out.

Dejection and rejection

The saying goes that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Au contraire, in these days of unpaid internships. However I’m offering something for free (me) and no-one seems keen to take me up on it. I have emailed numerous (30+) TV production companies to offer my services and only heard back from three. That’s less than a 10% hit-rate. And, in fairness, two of those emailed back to let me know that my services wouldn’t be required. Feelgood Fiction (see blog from 13th Jan ’10) were kind enough to invite me in and give me some advice. Carnival Films have kept me on file (see blog entry from 20th Feb ’10) and offer plenty of encouragement and kind words, but still no cigar.

Working with The Artists’ Studio is great, but the work only trickles in. The disheartening truth is that there’s too many people and almost zero jobs. I’m feeling a bit down at mouth today, after working hard for five months now and really not seeing any results. I have completed my first script and submitted it to both the BBC Writersroom and the Red Planet script prize but what are the chances of those coming into fruition? The only way my writing will get better is through experience and from immersing myself in the TV world. The ideal career path for me would be to get work as an editor and then, years down the line, settle down and try writing. Ah, well – now that I have the time available I should try and hone writing skills anyway. So my writing projects are:

-Senses now completed and submitted, try and adapt to a stage play and submit to new writing theatres.
-Begin new TV script.
-Continue with radio play script You Can Never Go Home.
-Write Asham Award entry, due 30th September (still having trouble with the Gothic theme!!)

And the final project on my list is to stop feeling dejected and get back in the saddle. What’s five months rejection in the grand scheme of TV careers? I bet there’s plenty more to come.

The Silence

This new BBC One four-part series was of particular interest to me. The Silence is a Whodunnit with a twist – the main witness, an eighteen year old girl, is deaf. I have a cousin just a few years younger than the central character, Amelia, who also had a cochlear implant and one thing that has stayed with me is witnessing, as the implant’s volume was switched up for my cousin, the first time she experienced thunder. It really makes you think that deaf people not only have a different exterior life, the way they communicate, but also the way they think must be different to hearing people. For someone who has never heard sound it is almost impossible to describe and overwhelming to hear at first, and in my opinion Fiona Seres captures this in her enthralling script.

Using silence as a way of separating her main character from the rest of the cast is a great device. As well as providing an interesting insight into hearing problems there is also opportunities for eerie silences. This is demonstrated by the contrast for Amelia between the jumble she hears with the cochlear implant, and the deathly silence she sees as respite without it. In addition to this lip-reading serves as a valuable plot device – all things a hearing person would struggle with.

Even if we disregarded this hook Seres uses it’s still a great show. She has a real talent for tailoring dialogue to a specific character. For example Dervla Kirwan’s character has a very Irish syntax and choice of vocabulary. Examples such as ‘they were always gorgeous together as kids’ and ‘we’ve a place for her here’ stand out as being specific to that character, and this is the case throughout the show.

It may seem like I’m grasping for examples, but that’s because I’m looking forward to tomorrow night’s instalment to see how the tale unfolds. And deaf protagonist or not, that’s all a Whodunnit needs to provide me with.

Oops

I seem to have accidentally put the TV on some sort of setting that narrates what is happening on the screen: "Charlie walks over to Shona, she stands up and backs away" etc etc. Thought for the first half hour Casualty were trying some new avant garde script technique. It was only when Eastenders appeared to have adopted the same writing style that I clicked on. Still can't fix the TV though.

Identity

I just watched (thanks to good old ITV player) the first episode of the new ITV crime drama Identity. I really enjoyed it, and found the odd cheesy script moment could be forgiven for the complexity of the tale that writer Ed Whitmore weaves. Identity fulfils being both a nice taster of the series to come – setting up some personal intruige withy DI John Bloom seemingly too far involved in being an undercover policeman. As soon as we see him enter a mob party and exchange some lingering glances with the mob boss’ wife we know the next few episodes will provide some reveals. However even without these tantalising teasers episode one was an interesting stand-alone, and felt a little unusual compared to the standard crime drama. Unlike many shows on at the moment, a large percentage of the action and gore seems to happen off screen, leaving Bloom and his partner DSI Martha Lawson (Keeley Hawes) to unravel the mystery.

Whitmore has a good ten years of experience as a TV writer (Silent Witness, Waking the Dead and a BAFTA nomination for co-writing Hallam Foe), and yet some of the dialogue still seemed a bit rough round the edges. There were lines which no doubt if I was listening as an audience would have been seamless, but following on my the feedback on my own script there was the odd bit of signposting – ‘what are you saying about my sister?’ - to establish characters. Plus lines which were definitely served with a side of edam. Some were rescued only by the laissez-faire delivery by Aiden Gillen (otherwise known as my willingness to suspend my disbelief for him at all times, in this post Queer as Folk world). For example Gillen, as DI Bloom, states at one point ‘He didn’t want Curtis’ identity, he wanted his soul’ though he makes the soul seem something much more disposable and marketable than most would. And while discussing a married man’s homosexual affair Stuart Jones lived again in beautiful lines such as ‘You can’t argue with a hard-on.’

As with the criticisms of my script (hence my hyper-awareness of these issues) there were some lines which dragged on longer than they ought. For example Tessa Stein’s line ‘Welcome to the twenty-first century. If your credit’s good you can live your whole life without ever meeting a soul.’ Inaccuracies aside, this line could have been made better by splitting the line between two characters as a snappy exchange:
‘If your credit’s good you can live your whole life without ever meeting a soul.’ To which another character would respond with ‘Welcome to the twenty-first century.’ I am beginning to learn that simple tweaks to a good script can easily make it great. Now, not that I’m telling my grandmother to suck eggs, but how about a work placement, ITV Studios??