Er

I fell over.

Yeah that'll do. I fell over for roughly eighteen months. But hey, did I party at the same time!

Yeah! Rock and roll!

Things I have done in the intervening period, as well as falling down.

Heh - period.

I ... er ...

Finished the MA. Had my first script optioned - my MA project, Lilith the vampire thing. Not going anywhere with it at the moment, I got some development money from North West VIsion, but I am slightly at odds with the dudes who optioned it, so we have to do one of those 'what now?' development meetings to assess what we want it to look like in the near future ...

Now writing an - unpaid of course - script which has attracted a lot of interest from a famous German director. As in ... ask people who he is and they drool and say 'wha?'. But then name some of his films and they go 'gah' and smile and nod. And then they drool some more!

So the writing is moving ahead nicely. Not easy when you have fallen down but there you go.

Whilst being in this little puddle of mid-fall lowness, I also ... er ... struggling here, as there isn't much to tell.

Split up with Mrs MWF.
Moved out of the house. Living on the parental farm. Because I am thirty six.
Had a minor mental breakdown and went on funny pills.
Quit the job. Now writing full time for a year.

So all in all a pretty even time.

Watch this space for more pop ... er ... pop pickers.

Here I return triumphant

Well pop pickers, time for another bag of utter cuntshite to foul up the scripwriting blogosphere.

Where do I sit within this fast-becoming over populated world?

Fairly and squarely in the 'unproduced' section I am afraid. One of the millions as opposed to the twenty.

And loving every minute of it.

I dunno what it is about the Spring/Summer interface paradigm, but it was at about this time last year that I got my first proper-ish break. Being commissioned to re-write a horror film. It didn't get made, but it got me into the Writers Guild, got me a little bit of moolah and immediately elevated me to second-dan scum.

And now this year ... things are beginning to kick off a little bit too.

Firstly and foremostly, I have to finish three scripts by the middle of June for college and shit. Not going to happen at all. But I am doing my best dammit. I will be brave, and in about two months I will have two kick-ass feature length scripts to hawk around.

I also decided to make a film. Obviously I am not busy enough. I need to be doing more, when not holding down the full time job (at which I still rock), keeping a very lucky lady on her toes and being the lynchpin of at least twelve different social circles.

So the current plan is ... write a script in July/August. Get it developed and finished by Christmas. Do some technical training shit, get a small team of people together. Shoot a feature on DV in March/April next year. Edit in May/June. Get a rough cut together and use that to raise some funds for proper post-production and marketing.

Shoot the film for a couple of grand. Maybe 10-20 for the rest of the stuff.

Honestly, it's easy.

As the old say goes: if you want something doing, ask a busy man. I think.

So ... as soon as I bought the Guide to Keeping Guerillas or whatever it's called, I got a call from my very good friend the Famous Director. I sent him String a couple of weeks ago - a 30-page treatment, the product of months of sweat, pain and darts thrown at the Yorkshire Menk's head.

He called me a week later - last Thursday. I couldn't take the call as I was eating onion rings and watching the cricket. But I called him back. He has read the treatment twice. He loved it. He said 'can I take it to Cannes?' I said you can take it to Fine Fare for all I care bitch!

So it's going to Cannes. He gave me some notes. On Friday he called me again and said 'how soon can you make those changes?' I said a couple of days. He said 'get it to me by Saturday and I can get it into the hands of ***** *****. That is not a real name, but it covers up the name of an ex-Hollywood A-lister. The sort of bloke who can still open a film, even though he is not as big as he was in the 1990s. And a man who could probably play the main role.

Excited? I am trying not to be.

Oh yer - and I am having meetings with another prodco ... something to do with writing some pitches for them to take to funding companies I think.

So get down on your knees bitches, and suck from the hosepipe of the SCRIPT DADDY.

Here I Come Over all Romantic. On the Vicar's Face.

Hey everyone! Guess what? I am a father!

Well, strictly speaking I'm not, but I did do the vagina thing with a real woman. None of that 'doing it the other way to save babies' sort of stuff.

It took a while. But some soft lighting and a couple of doses of Rophynol and I was away with the fairies!

Right. Life updates. My readership of one is getting not patient. So much so that his hair fell out, and we can't have that can we??

General life things are moving along at a manageable pace. Nothing too fast, nothing too slow. Just the usual sort of speed. Not moving house, we realised that we were too busy. We 'agreed' this during the Rophynol session.

So I have been concentrating largely on the writing, with a variety of things happening.

I have also been working very hard on some work things.

The main reason?

I live in a world where we have paymasters. Whose paymasters are politicians. As a result, the ultimate decisions about our survivability are made by ill-informed rabble-rousing cunts with half an eye on their own cocks - when they don't have them shoved into key holes and trees and suchlike.

Anyway. Writing 101 ... updates since last month or six ...

• Flood
  The treatment went to the crazy Germans.
  
  Not so sure that they got it, but they were not entirely dismissive. So it looks like I might have to knock out a spec script. If that is the case then I will sit on it for a few months - get the college stuff (aka 'The Portfolio') done first.
  
  I also wrote a two-page synopsis that simplified the themes and spine of the story.
  
  Maybe not so useful for the Germans, but good for me and for the people who are trying to sell it.
  
  So the current status of this piece is 'pending German follow-up'.
  
• String
  Had a set-to with the Shetland Menk. We seem to be working better as a result, but still need to keep her motivation levels up. Obviously when we start getting paid for our work this will seem less like a chore.
  
  But ... we are close now to finishing our 'call it a treatment so I don't have to pay you' for the Famous Director.
  
  We have completely re-written the story, and I have just spent the last three days working on this and nothing but. Finished it at about 1am Tuesday morning.
  
  We should work through this this week, and then send it off to the Famous Director after next weekend.
  
  If he likes it then we get money to write it.
  
  If he doesn't then we go the extra two feet and turn it into a proper script.
  
  Then we start to hawk it around the world ourselves.
  
  The current status of this piece is 'going narrow then wide and shit'.
  
• Them cartoons
  Waiting for the man from the Beeb to get back to me.
  
  He is now away until early May, so status='no go on the no show homes'.
  
• Lillith
  Haven't had to do much here for a bit now. My last missive saw the step outline finished. That got approval to go to the next stage.
  
  So now it's gone to my selected professional advisor. He gives feedback on the outline, and using this I have to write the first draft of the script by the middle of June.
  
  Really, really looking forward to starting this. It's going to be tremendous fun which probably sounds a bit noncy.
  
  I didn't get a reply from my chosen professional advisor. He is too famous now for people like me. And directing a film in the US, which probably doesn't help.
  
  So I had an advisor selected for me by school. And he is very, very cool! I ain't going to tell you who he is, but he has written for loads of TV shows, is doing some stuff now for some actors who I admire a fucking fricking lot, and he has cash flowing in from the Film Council for a horror film script.
  
  Given that Lillith is a horror film script, I think you get that he is a good fit.
  
  Current status='powder dry, cannonball in tube, swarthy foe in sight'.
  
• Mind Fuck Book
  This is racing along, although I have not touched it for a week or so.
  
  The book is so cinematic to begin with that the challenge for me is making it mine ... putting my own stamp on it.
  
  Tomorrow night and hopefully Saturday I will knock out another fifty pages or so.
  
  Again, going well, great fun, and a nice little portfolio piece when finished ...
  
  Current status='sucking me dry like a sucking loach'.
  
• Welcome to my World
  I spoke to the Irascible Tutor #1 about my rejection (see below) from the Film Council.
  
  Basically the official position is ... it looks pretty good.
  
  It contained a request to send in more stuff, which is not what these people do for everyone don't ya know.
  
  So ... another thing to write out in full, on the off-chance that the same person is still there and able to get me some sweet folding.
  
  Current status='assholes!'
  
• Good Wood Bad Wood
  This was a piece I did for college last year.
  
  About a man who mutilates himself for love.
  
  I entered it into this competition: http://www.iwcmedia.co.uk/television/drama_prog_1.html.
  
  Push boundaries' they say. Oh fuck, did I do that.
  
  But the problem is ... is TV ready for me? Is it? I somehow think not.
  
  I'm just too out there man.
  
  I have a lot to say and what I say isn't comfortable for those in the mainstream.
  
  Some themes I will be dealing with over the next few months with my writing:
  
  Gays burn more quickly than non-gays.
  
  If you wrap a turd with gold paper it's still a turd, but now it's got gold paper around it.
  
  When vampires kill miners they turn into vampires who eat coal.
  
  And ... if I touch a girl's hand for thirty continous seconds then I own her.

Look out world - here comes fatty!

Here I come around the mountain

Bah

Balls to big news

The last weeks have been rather busy for this aspiring Player of Games.

What with the house hunting (we may move, we may not, in six months we could rural yeo-people, then again we could be urban sophisticates), the work stress (big changes in the world of civil service). And the strange noises coming from the loft, the unexplained lights hovering around outside and the regular alien bottom-rapings.

So I'll cut to the chase, max the envelope and get some brand muscle on the writing shit.

• Flood
  The last time I wrote I had finished a rather substantial re-write of the treatment (now up to about 11 pages and running).
  
  It's still not there yet. But Irascible Tutor #1 dug many elements of it. Enough to send it to his business partner, the development and funding guy for their company.
  
  His response was: it's not ready yet.
  
  But it was ready enough for him to have with him at the Berlin Film Festival.
  
  He got talking to a German production company which had a film in competition. They are raising money to make English language genre films.
  
  He gave them the Flood treatment.
  
  My fingers and toes and anal hairs are crossed.
  
• String
  We are supposed to be working on the final touches of the story.
  
  Which of course means a pretty major re-write.
  
  But the Yorkshire Menk has gone off the radar, so I am in a bit of a quandry.
  
  Do I trust her to deliver when she is not doing so? Or do I cut her out and plough on?
  
  The Famous Director is not too fussed about time, as he knows he is getting us to write a virtual script for nowt.
  
  But I am the service provider. And he is a customer - and one with a great deal of power.
  
  If he says take six weeks I want to do it in one.
  
  I think a fight is brewing.
  
• Them cartoons
  Henceforth known as City of Dreams on Sea, and World of Chop (Incorporating House of Chop).
  
  I met a man from the Beeb a couple of weeks ago. That was the big news. So not that big really.
  
  I had approached him for advice about who at the Beeb could help us develop a script into a proposal ready for commissioning.
  
  And the dude gave me that very advice. He was also going to give feedback on the script I sent.
  
  That was due a couple of weeks ago, but I am giving it one more week before doing the follow up.
  
• Lillith
  This one was at step-outline stage. My tutor was not getting certain key aspects of it.
  
  As in: he thought it was a supernatural tale. Pah! It was a tale about someone going mental dressed up as a supernatural tale.
  
  He got that point, and then came back with some other feedback. At the time I was quite sceptical about it, for the reasons above. But, during the last tutorial session, as I listened to one of my fellow-students slogging through their work, I got it.
  
  He was right.
  
  Too much happened in the final act. Too much was introduced late in the second act. So an intriguing opening led to about half an hour's worth of flatness. Nothing going anywhere.
  
  Deadlines were looming ... so I took the Sunday out and completely re-did it. Introduced a completely new sub-plot, and moved a pivotal point forward, so it became what looked like the inciting incident. (Although in reality, as it's a tale about madness, the inciting incident takes place some time before the story actually starts. Take that!)
  
  Seems to work now. And I am in line for a first. Good boy!
  
  I managed to get the e-mail address of the extremely famous director through a mate of a mate.
  
  I wrote to him asking if he would be my prof. advisor, but I haven't heard anything. Not surprising really.
  
  He has made two films. The first was a cult hit in the UK. The second got him universal praise, interviews with Jonofan Woss, and it opens in the US this summer. And he successfully pitched a new project to one of the major Hollywood studios a couple of months ago.
  
  So he is about six months too stratospheric for me ...
  
  No worries though. I'll end up with some young upstart from Shooting People with a camera and a iMac in his Mum's bedroom.
  
• Mind-fuck book
  This was the book I chose for the adaptation segment of the MA. I got the author's permission to do it.
  
  He is supposed to be doing a treatment at some point, but he hasn't got around to it.
  
  So I either (a) do it, can't do anything commercial with it as he has sold the rights based on the treatment, but use it as a calling card; (b) do it, he isn't pursuing the treatment and I get some money folk to approach him with option money.
  
  I have only been working on it a week, but already I am away with the fairies. It one crazy book!
  
• Welcome to my World
  I didn't mention this one in my uber list back in the day. It was something I put together for the Film Council's '25 Words or Less' competition.
  
  The genre was 'Stalker'. Examples given included Single White Female, One Hour Photo, Cape Fear - films where the stalker is the bad guy, and the protagonist represents us and our fears about the precariousness of modern life.
  
  The brief was: make your ideas big, fill them with commercial potential.
  
  So I twisted the whole thing on its head, and made the protagonist into the stalker. Made it funny and black. But not commercial.
  
  I got a great rejection letter last week, in which they said 'we loved it, it made it onto the shortlist. But it was not commercial. Finish it and send it in to the usual development channels.'
  
  Now I know a rejection is a rejection, yada yada yada. And shit.
  
  But I would also like to know how much of that rejection is by rote. Two out of the four paragraphs have got 'cut and paste' oozing from every pore.
  
  But two are less obvious.
  
  I need to know if they were written for me and me alone. If so then I have a name at the Film Council I can pursue. If not then I am back amongst the masses.
  
  BUT HOW THE JIMMY DO I FIND THAT OUT???

Here is where I keep you in suspenders

Can't tell you what the big news is yet fans.

Loads of work going on at the moment, last minute re-writes of things.

So all I will report today is ... my favourite piece of junk mail ever.

The sender's e-mail address is 'Mature'.

And the title is 'sloppy gum jobs.'

You can't buy class.

Here is where I ratchet up the tension.

The Big Book of Screenwriting says all sorts of things.

Like 'Three is the Number of the Acts', and 'Conflict, Escalation, Resolution is the order of the day.'

Today I am going to give you an object lesson in the concept of escalation - and tension.

But before I do ...
Ever get the feeling that there just aren't enough hours in the day?

I made a suggestion to my missus last night. Maybe ... I could move to a twenty-four hour day like my friends. Get twice as much done you see.

She said she would think about it and stuck me back in my box.

Other news in my crazee world.

This blog has two readers. Well, one reader but he has a wife.

He met the Yorkshire Menk on Thursday. She was staying at Chez MWF so we could do the Running Around Hospital thing on Friday. It was after 11. We had been drinking lager (big joke there, I am a real ale fatty). My Fan says 'ah, you must be the Yorkshire Menk!'

Luckily I had already told her what I was calling her, so that anecdote fell a little flat.

Fell over at work today. Bruised my little finger. That's about as interesting as it gets.

SO MUCH FUCKING WRITING! And none of it finished, or signed off, or anything like that.

Straight into the projects fan(s). Hold on to your hats.

1. Flood
   Have done the big re-write of the treatment.
   
   It stinks, but then it sort of makes sense.
   
   Major changes to both plot and characters.
   
   I need to sit on it for a few days. Maybe run it past the Irascible Tutor when I meet him tomorrow night (before he heads of for Reiki, heh heh).
   
   
2. Lillith
   Finally got my feedback today - two weeks late.
   
   Suffice to say that there is some - it is some way from being signed-off at this moment in time.
   
   I can't even get my head around whether or not the feedback makes sense.
   
   Am going to have to read it on Wednesday night and either (a) batter everyone's head or (b) meekly subside and trot off to do more work on it.
   
   
3. Running around Hospital
   We knocked out a nice proposal for this on Friday. The Yorkshire Menk and I.
   
   What was originally a slasher film with a twist could now be something much, *much* more creepy.
   
   Something that sends the audience home in a seriously unhappy frame of mind.
   
   Sent it to Famous Director on Friday. Will probably hear back from him in a year or so.
   
   
4. String
   No movement yet. Will try to look at it next week. But I AM FUCKING RUNNING OUT OF DAYS.

Because ... something else is going on.

Something big. Very fucking big.

What is it? I hear you ask.

Well ...

Here is (schnnnnk bllllgerr**&"*$$$

Come in? Come in?

This week I have mostly been cementing my status as 'The Doctor'.

Not that one. I don't do time travel. But the master of other people's scripts. And all round good guy. We had a session at college, everyone talking through the latest stage of their MA projects. Mine is Lillith - more on that later. I endeared myself to my colleagues with a string of practical yet visionary suggestions, leaving them all the better for having known me. I also giggled like a child and made rude comments whilst people were reading their work out.

Ah well. No-one's perfect.

I also had my first experience of the recording studio the same night. We have to write a radio script as part of the project. This was known as 'Boy and Padeophile' in the now-legendary summary of my work I did yonks ago. Its real title is 'Where the Mad Men Go'.

Anyway ... everyone gets 10 minutes of their script performed by drama students - they get assessed on this so it's win-win all round.

Now ... I am months behind my peers with this (with teacher's blessing though, coz I am special). But I still knocked out ten pages for the performing thereof.

I must admit that I wasn't overly confident that all would be well. The reading directly before me was a bit of a farce. Bad accents, giggling (I can do it, actors are NOT allowed), poor preparation. We were running at least 45 minutes late when I got there.

But the personnel changed for mine. A different group of actors for two main scenes - both tw0-headers, the first one a father and his adult son throwing barbs at each other under the pretence of a jocular conversation, the second two old dears on a bus. All of which revolves around a murder trial - which you never witness during the play.

The first bit was acceptable. Not great. But the second, set on the bus. What a difference. Two actors who had prepared, rehearsed amongst themselves. And who got it. I wrote it with a particular type of performance in mind. And they agreed. They did it in one take - seven minutes without a hitch. Fantastic.

And now the important updates:

• Flood
  More notes. More fundamental changes.
  
  As soon as you sort one problem out - you clear the way for focus on another one.
  
  This one requires two principle characters to be totally re-thought, and two to have completely different roles. And there are only three principle characters in it.
  
  It's quite good in ways though, as I can see real improvements with every draft. Thank god this is a treatment and not a full script.
  
  I got ten days to sort it. I wish I was getting paid to do it. But at times like this ... patience my boy. I am the MASTER!
  
  
• String
  We are still sitting on this. The Yorkshire Menk read my suggested changes and dug them. We are both agreed that this is damned close to being the finished article. Will probably read it again and start the final polish in a week or so.
  
  Send Famous Director an e-mail telling him how we were getting on.
  
  He's not the most conscientious e-mail responder in the world, so I texted him four days after I sent it.
  
  Sorry he says ... can't read it yet. Am in Utah at the Sundance Festival.
  
  I hate him.
  
  
• Lillith
  As promised fans, news on the big MA project.
  
  You know how I said the Kick Ass Tutor just didn't get it?
  
  I sent him the latest draft of my step outline last week. Included in the e-mail was an explanation of what exactly the film was about. Something I hoped was in the outline, but as he kept missing it I began to wonder.
  
  He replied the next day - said 'that is exactly what I was suggesting. But better.'
  
  So good in some ways. Exasperating in others. The good thing is that I am perilously close to having the step outline finished.
  
  The next stage is to write the script proper. Three drafts over a year. You work with a professional advisor. The college picks them for you - unless you want to contact one of your own. I have e-mailed a top director, who would be perfect for this. But he is a bit of a Hollywood darling at the moment, so that may be hard.
  
  Fellow students, thus far, have managed to snaffle two of Britain's biggest comedy gods (people more often behind the camera than in front, but pulling the strings behind things such as ... The Day Today, Brass Eye, Jam, Alan Partridge, Fist of Fun, Saturday Night Armistice ... the list goes on) and one of Britain's most famous directors. Period.
  
  Cunts.
  
  
• Running around hospital film.
  You know. The one that got cancelled last year.
  
  If you cast your tiny minds back a month or so - you will remember that Famous Director was talking about resurrecting it. I said I would do a proposal. Sent it to the Yorkshire Menk for her opinion. She sat on it for a while (earning a stern rebuke from the Doctor).
  
  But her feedback on it was top dollar. This week we are going to spend a whole day on it. Should come up with something pretty fucking cool.
  
  
• That new idea.
  The real-time horror thing. Probably not going to send it in to the competition. It needs too much work to be ready in time.
  
  The basic problem is - I want the film to be done in proper real-time, and I want that to be the source of much of the tension and fear.
  
  So when the heroine has to run down a mile-long road to get home. You see her running for the whole mile.
  
  Apparently that makes it an art-house film, instead of a horror film. So if I want to do something for a competition ... I would have to make it more snappy and zappy.
  
  Which sort of defeats the point of the whole thing.