Montage

I've been stopping by a few other writerly blogs recently, good to read and I like the notion of a writing 'community' (I'm a fantasist I know), we need to keep in touch, talk to each other.
I used to go to my local writers group in East London once a week - we'd listen to each others work, drink tea, eat biscuits then sometimes retire to the pub.
Good times - it also gave me a deadline to write to, in the absence of any commissions. Some writers can be quite suspicious of new writing initiatives and training schemes, it seems.
I see my time as an Academy Writer as an apprenticeship - on the job training, and no you can't teach 'writing' any more than you can teach 'art'. But Da Vinci had his apprentices and he too was an apprentice himself once - there's a lot to be said for learning structure and technique, especially if you want subvert it, grow, become innovative etc.

So back to my innovative Holby episode that fell onto the doormat in DVD form recently. It has a title at last. I've posted before about how difficult it can be to watch my own episodes, it does get easier the more TV hours you clock up. I managed to get through this first viewing of 'We Said Some Things' without squirming too much or without having the script on my knee thumbing through the dialogue to see what they'd cut.

Holby City can be montage Heaven or montage Hell depending on whether you happen to love or loathe the device. Personally I prefer to montage at the beginning middle or end of an episode rather than montage twice or indeed in all three - there you can be heading for montage overkill.
Montages do have to be written, I don't just write 'Montage with music' after the scene heading and hope for the best. It is a compressed chunk of storytelling and needs to be planned and structured like the rest of the script. I always hope to marry certain lyrics with particular on-screen action, choice of music is very important. I did manage to get a Monkees track into my montage for one episode.
I'd really enjoyed constructing the final montage for this last Holby - it encapsulated my themes, it had some dancing, wonderful music, a period costume change.. (I kid you not).

My montage was cut.

True - my producer had phoned and warned me that once they'd come to filming they didn't think they could do my montage justice - given the budget and scheduling constraints. I had to make do with a trimmed down version and different music was used given that my overarching montage theme had been excised.
I was disappointed I have to admit, but the rest of the episode was really quite good - Hey ho, maybe it was just as well the ep wasn't upstaged by all singing all dancing montage madness.

Another problem with montages is that they eat up scenes. I'm writing a Holby at the moment that is quite pacy - lots of scene cuts, 4 story strands, lots going on - a nice meaty episode. I'd notched up quite a few scenes already by the time I'd finished. Then I found a wonderful place in the storytelling where I knew the only way to get the most out of the story was to tell it in pictures with music - I penned a montage sequence that promptly added another 6 or 7 scenes to my already bursting scene count. Granted each scene is probably only a sentence or two long .. but it may take some negotiating with scheduling.

Best montage? The end of Donnie Darko to 'Mad World'. Has to be.

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