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.
  

Here is where I amaze the world

Tonight I was due to have a meeting with the Irascible Tutor#1. But he sent me a 'text message' yesterday, telling me he had food poisoning.

This is a txt mssge that I will treasure for a long time: "Will get in touch once the mudslide stops"

Here is where I see everything.

Hi fans!

Today I want to talk about a couple of things, so listen up.

Firstly - things I have seen. Encompassing television and DVD, and segueing into my gladness at British tv. Starting with:

The wife and I are lucky enough to have a television with embedded video recorder. We are about to upgrade our combo, and I was giving it all this (in the same way that lobsters give it 'all that') about losing the video.

I said - I don't watch tapes any more, and TV is rubbish, so what good does it do?

Well ... more fool me that's all I'll say. The machine has been in regular use for the last few weeks, let me tell you!

British TV is currently awash with authored tv, made with the nerd in mind. Well written, well directed, great productions, well acted, chuck in a bit of metaphorical balls, you got yourself a TV show sir.

The revolution started with Doctor Who being such a success. Paving the way and shit.

At this current present moment in time I am mostly watching Life on Mars (time travel, mind games, cop work and natty dreads), Hyperdrive (British Council meets Spaced on a space ship), and Eleventh Hour (Quatermass with the cast from Extras).

Coming up this year we have Torchwood (Dr Who but darker with gays and weapons), more Afterlife (ghost stories done a la Kay Mellor) and of course, The Doktorrr.

All of these shows to savour. And all of them well-written, natch. And well-cast. Well-acted, great production values. Hurrah for television!

And last night I finally watched The Eye. A cool film - and proper scary too. One of the few films that has actually made me jump, some of the set-pieces are up there with the Jaws-boat-head combination. Thought the final third got a bit weak, but the Buddhist finale saved the day.

Some people don't like all of the shows/film above. I have seen negative reactions to at least three of the above.

To which I respond: I fuck cunts like you up the arse.

And secondly - I have had another megatastic idea for a film!

Problem is it's going to be a bitch to write.

I was reading about the Golconda Horror films competition here. There is a link to the competition itself - but it's a shite website, pointless flash and pdf's all over the shop.

And ... why should I make it easy for you to enter the competition? I win - you don't. That's the way of the fist.

Anyway, I wasn't going to enter but now I am. Had a very simple idea for a suburban take on the slasher - but done in real time.

It's panning out quite nicely. But the competition people require the script to be least ninety pages long.

That's all well and good ... when page length has a direct relationship with screen time.

You see ... you novices need to realise why there are scriptwriting templates.

They enable readers, producers and vampires to skim a script and say 'x minutes long, yy million galactic credits to make'.

Film scripts tend to equate one page with one minute of screen time.

Radio tends to equate ... something with something. Forty five minutes mean 6-7500 words, whatever the fuck that means when stuck in the radio template.

Anyway, back to the one page=one minute thing. All well and good if it's a normal script. You cut around, stretch time here, compress it there. Put in plenty of white space, nice active descriptions and plenty of action.

Easy.

But in real time? The horror and tension comes from your hero being stuck in a traffic jam, knowing full well that something terrible is about to happen at home. Not being able to move. Should be excruciating.

But much of the value comes from the mundanity around them. How to describe that in a funky way?

To me - a ninety minute real time slasher film should take about ... 60 pages in standard script format.

But no, those arses at Golconda ...

Here is where I drown.

I have bought so many DVD's over the last few weeks that I am in mortal danger.

Last night the piles of discs and boxes became so big that it collapsed under its own gravitational pull.

There were so many DVD's that the total mass of stuff in our lounge took us just over the Chandresekhar limit.

Result?

The door to the kitchen is now an event horizon. I stepped over the threshold this morning. Now my foot is eight thousand miles long and my wife made of paper.

But I rescued the two latest dics to grace the lounge:

• The Machinist.
  Grate. Really enjoyed it. Watched it twice in fact.
  
  I bought it for a reason - which I will not give away here until all of my fans tell me that they have seen it.
  
  Made famous by Christian Bale's frankly stupid weight-loss before doing the film. Which is a distraction from a smart, unsettling but entertaining film to be honest. He's such a good actor that he could just act thinner.
  
  
• The Ring.
  As in the American attempt to buy in to the Japanese book/TV show/Film franchise, also re-done by the Koreans.
  
  And here I wade in to the ongoing Ring/The Ring debate.
  
  As in: which is better, the 1998 Japanese movie or its 2002 American remake?
  
  The arguments for either side tend to be:
  
  More original, more subtle, more intelligent, better themes, better acting, better sound, more imaginative, more frightening. (The terrifying Japanese film about an unstoppable supernatural intervention into the super-modern world.)
  
  Versus
  
  U suk this one had mroe jumps and better shit and shit u r a jerk. (The competent American remake about a little girl who had issues in her childhood and caused people do die a CGI death. Made for idiots with a two second attention span who need 'shit here' written on their toilets.)
  
  No prizes for guessing which version I prefer.
  

Here is where I come out. Partially.

Got my first rejection from the BBC's Writersroom last week.

For those of you not in the know ... here is a link to an explanation of what they do.

And yeah yead. Rejection is bread and butter for writers. And shit.

That won't stop me cancelling my TV Licence fee until they make something I wrote.

It's my right.

Other writing news, coz that's all that matters. The most important news is that I am going to start giving my scripts their proper names! How's about that for brave!

For example: the script rejected by the Commie lickspittles at the BBC was called Singer's Night.

• Groundhog Day's for Pussies
  From henceforth in known as String. As in our very own attempt at a bit of Bad-Science.
  
  I am still working on the enormous treatment with the Yorkshie Menk.
  
  Ideally we should have finished this by now. But then again in an ideal world I would have a reasonably-sized penis. I guess the other way of looking at this is that we are doing the full script - just without all the dialogue.
  
  And it is big. We are up to just under 9,000 words. A forty-five minute radio play is 6-7,500.
  
  We have nailed theme, story, plot, characters and much of the dialogue. Are pretty-much scene-by-scene.
  
  However ...
  
  It's not quite there yet, dramatically. I am not sure if the tension ratchets up enough yet.
  
  No real feeling of escalation.
  
  
• End of the World.
  From henceforth onwards ... known as Flood. As in the ancient myth that gave rise to the story.
  
  Still with Irascible Tutor #1. Due for feedback in the next day or so.
  
  
• Woman Sex Death.
  This one shall be forthwith henceto known as Lillith. As in the ancient myth of blood sucking chicks who were made of mud and who wouldn't have sex with Adam.
  
  I have just done version two of the step outline. Kick Ass Tutor will get it e-mailed to him tomorrow. His last burst of feedback was useful and aggravating at the same time.
  
  Useful in that he makes comments at all the right points. If something is dramatically weak or silly he spots it.
  
  Aggravating in that much of his feedback is just ... wrong. He still sees a different film to the one I am attempting to describe.
  
  And who's fault is that?
  
  Mine of course. So fuck you Kick Ass Tutor. And ta. He made someone cry in last week's tutorial too!
  
• Mind-fuck book.
  As in - Mind-fuck book. I ain't giving away the title for this one, as the rights are still available. So nob off.
  
  But ... the author of the book e-mailed me within a day to say 'go for your life'.
  
  So I am.
  

Here is where I do good work.

Before running downstairs to watch DVD.

Well kids, three weeks off work, and what have I got to show for it? Apart from a terminal cold?

The following. I am not doing that 'what I did on my holidays' stuff. Instead I will tell you what I got on my holidays, DVD-wise:

War of the Worlds, Batman Begins, Dr Who (entire 'first series') box-set, Adaptation, and Special Editions for Se7en, Silence of the Lambs and Jaws.

And I bought these DVD's for my missus (amongst other things):

Seinfeld series 4, Sideways, City of God, Memento Special Edition (the one with the film going forwards too).

So pretty productive all round.

Now on to the writing. Special project updates ... lock and load! (All project numbers refer to the definitive list of projects as posted here.)

• Stupid cartoon sketches. &
  
• Stupid cartoon sitcom.
  These is the shockingly silly stuff that I developed with my very good friend the Norwegian Psycho.
  
  Way back when they got various people excited at Channel 4 and Talkback. Didn't really work out though. The attitude from the commissioning people seemed to be: we like the ideas, we like the pictures. But now go away and do us a sample animation. And the sample script needs some more work. Despite being a wannabe writer/animator combo, we were just not ready for that.
  
  Skip some scenes to late 2005.
  Now pay careful attention: this is one good reason for a doing a good screen writing MA. We had a masterclass a couple of months ago from a woman at the BBC. I asked her a question about the BBC's attitude to animation proposals with artwork but no animation. She said 'good question. Don't know.' But she did give me the name of a guy who could probably help. And looks like I am meeting him some time in the next few days. Which is nice!
  
  Had I not been on the MA, it's doubtful that (a) I would ever have got to the stage where I can construct a good script - I learn through physical action and verbalisation, not through reading and assimilation - and (b) I would never have met this woman.
  So do the MA etc.
  
  
• Groundhog Day's for pussies.
  This was project seven on the big list.
  
  Spent two days this week with the Yorkshire Menk, on a treatment-writing marathon. Have now done a 25-page treatment. From this, a full script is a walk in the park taking a piece of piss.
  
  Then ... late last night the fucker texts me and says she thinks it needs 'more story'. Bastard! I can see her point actually. At the moment it's a bit 'Before Sunrise' in vibe, but what we are looking for is a little more 'Groundhog Day'. Even though it's for pussies.
  
  So we will see what that entails. And I had a cool idea too. This one is probably closest to getting made, so we are going to do a video diary if we actually get commissioned to write the full script. Imagine the hi-jinxs!
  
  
• End of the World.
  My sub-Ringu, post-Hunger horror film.
  
  I've just finished version two of the treatment. Sent it off to Irascible Tutor. No doubt in a couple of weeks I'll get that phone call. 'Hey pal how'you doing? Just read the treatment. It's almost there. There's just 20 words I need you to change ...'
  
  
• Woman Sex Blood
  This one rocks my world. My over-the-top sex horror film.
  
  I have been working on a ten-page outline for this. Should have it finished by next week, am just a couple of scenes away from getting the first draft done - ready for checking and editing.
  
  I was going great guns with it until New Year's Eve. At 2:00pm I was happily typing away. By 2:30 I was lying down, shivering and gibbering. Bad cold: go away!
  
  
• Mind-fuck book
  This is my proposed adaptation of a book for the MA.
  
  Have just e-mailed the author - or a representative of his - asking his permission to do a thirty-page adaptation. At this stage I am proposing a purely academic pursuit, but then ... if I discover that the rights to the book have been sold elsewhere, then I shall not bother with it and instead do something else. I have my back-up book ready to go. A big tent-pole mutha fucka, sort of like 'Reign of Fire' meets 'Da Vinci Code', but good.

So there you have my updates. Now I'm off to watch Jaws. With the enhanced sound quality of DVD you can really hear those people drowning ...