Archive for April, 2010
Tuesday, April 27th, 2010
Writing Pet Hate #1: Limbo Between Scenes
I often get asked whether working as a script reader or aspiring writer ever ruins just trying to be a viewer. Mostly, I get more disheartened by really good films and telly because I think I’ll never be able to do something as good – but then that just makes me try harder. (Writing Tip: Watch some good films and telly!) But I do have bugbears that have always irritated me when reading a script or watching Film/TV. My absolute pet hate…
Cutting from a scene in location A to a different plot in location B and then cutting back to the plot in location A as if no time has elapsed.
Pretty specific (and pedantic), I know. But, as the assumed attention span of audiences is getting shorter and shorter, I’m seeing it more and more and this is what can spoil watching film and telly for me. And I can see the rationale: intercutting story strands quickens the pace. But while it might quicken the edit, more often than not, I find it stops dramatic tension from building. With each cut, we have to start all over again.
It’s the pace-writing equivalent of the SUDDEN NOISE in a horror film. It can work. But it’s cheap …Plus it feels like the other characters in Scene A have been frozen in time and space while you were watching Scene B! 
Don’t get me wrong, cross-cutting itself is a brilliant tool in the writer’s kit specific to the medium and allows juxtaposing scenes for brilliant comedic/dramatic effect. But I think it works best when you imply what happens in between the cut. As with dialogue, it’s as much about what’s not said (or, in this case, seen) as what is.
If you feel you need to liven up your scene by intercutting, maybe you should look at the scene itself. Can you do anything to sustain the tension other than cutting away? Maybe, instead of turning one longer scene into two shorter scenes, should it have been one shorter scene to begin with?
Disagree? Bring it on! But also, please share your own writing bugbears (no points for saying ‘bloggers who pretend they know what they’re talking about’)
Thursday, April 8th, 2010
What makes a good Calling Card script?
As the opening and closing dates for the BBC’s Writers Academy have now been announced (Deadline May 5th btw), I’ve fallen into a downward spiral of second-guessing as to what script I should submit as the best example of my work.
I took a bit of a blow when my intended project turned out to be very similar to an idea I read about by a former Writers Academy student (down to our titles almost being identical) as well as a recently released feature film touching on the same themes. Obviously all three scripts are entirely different but they are similar enough for me to worry that a reader will pigeon-hole it as ‘another bloody (something) script’. And no, I’m not telling what it was about
So that leaves me questioning what makes a good Calling Card script? And for the Writers Academy in particular. Is a feature unsuitable for this scheme? Is a TV pilot too risky on if they like the series idea? I’m erring towards a single drama as the happy medium - but is the single drama too much of a rare format to be useful (and will it just give away I was too chicken to write a feature or a pilot?)
Gah.
The one thing I do know is to not just mimic Eastenders or Casualty. In past application years, an offbeat murder mystery has gotten me far further than my attempt last year to write (what I thought) was the kind of thing they’d be looking for - which promptly saw me knocked out in the first round. I’m sure I’m right in saying that the BBC want writers who can bring something fresh to Doctors or Holby – not just imitate it!
And yet I’m still a bit wary of sending them my oddball spy drama 
So what are your thoughts? Do you have a particular format you use to open doors first and then sell your other projects? Has a particular genre always proved successful for you when making first contact? I know we all write differently so might have different answers, but what sort of script has proved your strongest calling card?
