Mad Men

I love Mad Men. Now, I know everyone's saying that right now. It's very zeitgeisty to plan your wardrobe or your interior design around it, but as far as I can tell not that many people actually watch it. Those that do have come in late and my series one and two dvds are proving a very popular loan at the office. Look everybody - there's a well-dressed bandwagon, let's jump on it!

I'm pleased to say I've been there since day one and, for me, it's just getting better and better. Episodes 6-9 of series four are beyond words fantastic. As far as working on a TV show is concerned, Mad Men is the dream...

The Little House (ITV)

It seems to be ITVs 'Freaky Family' season, after last month's remake of Bouquet of Barbed Wire, and now The Little House. Written by Ed Whitmore (Identity, Silent Witness, Waking the Dead) it tells of a young mother’s experience as her mother in law muscles in on her life and her newborn baby. Suitable eerie and atmospheric, it is good but not great. There’s nothing that raises it above the other dramas out there. Not a bad thing, but I’m not on the edge of my seat for episode two. Perhaps I’d be in more suspense if the audience was left in doubt as to whether the main character’s paranoia is the result of mental illness or of the mother-in-law’s Machiavellian tendencies. I won’t tell you which it is, just in case you haven’t sussed it yet. Clue: watch the trailer. It’s not subtle.

Late night tales

I feel like I'm back at uni. After weeks of festering inactivity on the writing front I'm getting involved with the BBC In the Red rapid response short script competition.

I worked on my script, which is about military cuts, for much of yesterday but there's still plenty to do on it. Came home from work and cracked on with the script pretty much straight away. It's now twenty to one and I've got the old style Essay Crisis feeling of 'oh god, this is twaddle but getting something on the page is the main thing.'

I'm off to bed now, with time for one last quick edit tomorrow lunch and off it goes. I'm not 100% happy with quite a few scenes, but I suppose that's the point of a rapid response piece. The brief was to take a few risks and write outside your comfort zone, which I definitely feel I have.

Single Father (BBC)

Episode one of Single Father was lovely. Written by Mick Ford, who has been writing for television on and off since the Play for Today 1980s. His recent credits include Wiliam and Mary, Ashes to Ashes and Inspector George Gently.

It's the story of a family designed to pull the heartstrings. The first episode set the happy family scene. A cast of David Tennant, Suranne Jones and Laura Fraser are all eminently appealing. Even the kids (and I normally can't stand a child actor!) are decent. The script is understated, playing on long silences and lingering looks. It allows the deep gutteral howling pain to slip through the gaps in the dialogue.

I'm not sure that Ford needed to play with the narrative linearity; once I saw Rita die I waited somewhat impatiently through the flashback. Though it set the scene of the family appropriately it didn't propel the story in any way. Though perhaps made more poignant by the knowledge that it wouldn't last.

It's not quite as gritty as Recovery*, the drama Tennant did back in 2007 with Sarah Parrish which told of a happily married father of two who is left brain damaged after an accident, and his subsequent struggle to recover. Single Father was a bit more emotionally driven rather than issue-led.

Overall I loved it, though in subsequent episodes the script will have to work hard to differentiate itself from plenty of shows before this that tackle the same issue of being a widowed father with young children.

And it looks like there's more drama where this came from at the BBC this autumn and winter.

*Written by Tony Marchant (Holding On, The Mark of Cain, The Knight's Tale from The Canterbury Tales BBC adaptations).

Geekery

So, here's the thing. I used to be cool. Not Shoreditch faux-cool, bordering on Nathan Barley, but I lived in East London, worked in advertising and subsisted on free drinks. I attended media parties with champagne on tap and those little mini versions of sausage and mash or teeny-tiny burgers, as seemed to be de rigueur. Rumour had it the industry had a three strikes rule on cocaine, necessary due to the huge number of people caught by their bosses hoovering it up in the workplace.
Now since I've had this change of heart on my career there's no room for a quick drink after work turning into a 3am night bus nap home. Instead of Time Out magazine my shelves are filled with screenwriting bibles: Story by Robert McKee, The Writers' Tale by Russell T Davies, The Screenwriter's Handbook 2010, Studying Plays, Scriptwriting for the Screen by Charlie Moritz...The list goes on, and I haven't even started on the podcasts that fill my ipod (recommend Danny Stack's Scriptwriting in the UK), or the scripts printed off from the BBC Writersroom site. I am doing the thing I think necessary to suceed - which is to immerse myself wholly and completely in this industry. I am currently living and breathing this, and no doubt it will slowly drive me insane. But at least it proves I'm serious.

Excluded

Last night there was a new drama on BBC2 as part of their Education season. This was Excluded by Brian Fillis, who I hadn't previously heard of though he was nominated for a BAFTA in 2007 for his drama (now, don't laugh) Fear of Fanny, charting the career of TV chef Fanny Craddock. Despite the silly name wish I'd seen it as Fanny and Johnnie Craddock were played by Julia Davis and Mark Gatiss who are both brilliantly funny and pretty dark (just watch Crooked House, Night-Night or the criminally underviewed pilot Lizzie and Sarah). Anyway, I digress. I tuned into Excluded because it was billed as 'partly improvised' which interested me. It's a very brave writer who allows people to improvise. An interview I once saw between Larry David and Ricky Gervais demonstrated both ends of the spectrum, obviously David's Curb Your Enthusiasm being the best example of improvisation and Gervais saying he scripted The Office to within an inch of its life, no improvising allowed. I was interested to see how the improvisation worked in Excluded, but with a classroom full of kids it was hard to see what was scripted and what wasn't. It's a risk to let people improvise, and even more of one to let kids do it, who have a tendency to over-act even within the limitations of a script. It was a good show, but for me didn't have the magic that should have been there. Though I admire Fillis' bravery. More of that, please.

Elliot Grove Q & A at the BFI

The BFI Southbank is currently running a lecture series on screenwriting. Writers appearing in the series include: Sir David Hare (The Hours, The Reader), Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty, Slumdog Millionaire), Peter Morgan (Frost/ Nixon, The Queen, The Special Relationship), Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada, 27 Dresses) and Ronald Harwood (The Pianist, The Diving Bell and The Butterfly). Although I don’t have any particular interest in getting into film writing I am interested in all aspects of writing for the screen. The lecture I opted for was perhaps the most relevant to me, as it was about the art of writing rather than about films generally. Elliot Grove is the founder of the Raindance Film Festival, started in 2003 to support the British Independent film industry and they now provide training for writers and film-makers (which, as with all these courses, is extortionately expensive at £290 for two days).

Grove seems like a fascinating man, growing up in a rural Amish community he describes his first experience seeing a film and how he got into films via art school and set design. When it came to setting up Raindance he said he realised one thing: that Brits can be snobby about something new and unbranded. They like to know what they’re going to get. So to his first film few film festivals the audiences were mainly American or from elsewhere in Europe. However over the next few years it grew, and now is a huge event in the film lovers calendar. This got me to thinking – I don’t have to sit and whine, I have to set something up myself! It would be great to have some sort of support or networking system for young people who want to get into TV who are under 30 with limited experience. It’s all well and good to get advice from established professionals now, but let’s be honest – the nature of the beast is very different from ten years ago.

The rest of Grove’s talk was anecdotes from his work, and a good chunk of advice:

-Learn how to format correctly and uniformly.
-READ scripts. Look for patterns in the scripts, both good and bad. Most bad scripts make the same mistakes so make sure you recognise them in others to avoid making them yourself.
-The industry is surrounded in mystique. Try to break that down.

They don’t want to meet new talent. They say they do, but they don’t. They’re worried you’ll be good and steal their cheese.

-The reasons why people don’t write are i) Lack of confidence ii) Self-destruction iii) Procrastination.
-The best way to write is to write a little every day and to keep that time sacred. Don’t let other tasks get in the way.
-The biggest thing is to entertain; if you’re not doing that you’re in the wrong business.
-The four basic tools for story-telling are: the characters, what they do, what they say, and the setting. Weave them together so the seams don’t show.
-Fim-making is about commerce. A writer has to inspire everyone else making the film, and once it’s written let it go.
-Don’t put reality into your script as we see it every day. Shape it into a story.
-People are voyeurs, put something on the screen that they would want to watch.
-Writing is a very minimal art form, so select your words carefully for maximum impact. Think about the impact of walk versus rushes, dashes, limps etc.
-But don’t overwrite. Every time you write something down re-read and ask yourself: is there a quicker way to say that?
-You aren’t writing a screenplay for the audience. You write it for the reader (who is invariably white, male, middle-aged, middle class). The role of a film-maker is to illicit emotion in an audience but the role of a writer is to illicit emotion in a reader.
-You will stumble on misfortune, don’t take it personally. Ask yourself if every hit film good? And therefore is every good film a hit?

All in all very useful and, more importantly at the moment, very inspiring. I’m off to adapt Senses as a stage play and see if I can have any luck getting that produced.