The College on Tour
So last week the College went to Manchester and had fun, despite the weather living up to the Manchester cliche of dark, cold and drizzly. Further entertainment was provided by a group of WWE wrestlers on tour who were staying in our hotel, and were pursued by some quite alarming fans - overweight, massively pierced, and obsessive. Although the Kevlar vests recommended by Aspie Boy were unnecessary, one day I found a bullet outside the hotel, and the next day I found a discarded black bra with large green spots. Make of that what you will.
We began the week with a visit from Jon Mountague, who established the BBC's Comedy North and is now its executive producer. Jon talked about his past career, which involved working with some, um, large personalities including Alan Davies, Danny Baker, Jo Brand and Dale Winton, before setting up shop in Manchester. The unit has been responsible for I'm with Stupid, The Visit, Massive, Scallywagga, and co-produces Ideal with Baby Cow. A new series of Scallywagga has been commissioned, as well as a series from We are Klang! and a series of Admin, and the unit is working on web content as well as planning for a potential series of low-cost pilots.
We looked at the pilot of Spacehopper, which became Scallywagga the series, and discussed what changes were made and why. As expected, they were a mixture of thoughts from the commissioner and channel, and analysis from the production team,which led to some re-casting, a new stylistic focus, and more young characters at the expense of older ones to fit the brief of BBC3. Further adjustments are expected in the second series, highlighting the fact that television series evolve.
The writers then embarked on their project for the week - re-storylining and re-writing scenes for a problem first draft of an established audience sitcom. At our summer workshop, the writers had asked for this one to have a practical element, so for some of the time they became a team, with me as sort of guide and sort of writers' assistant, trying to avoid giving away the solution that the production found for the episode.
It was an interesting and, as it developed, demanding experience, which if nothing else demonstrated that solving problems with a team is just as hard as solving them by oneself. The solution that the production chose actually hovered in the air before disappearing, but the analysis was good and the rewriting was enjoyable. Watching the finished episode was illuminating, and the consensus - though hardly earth-shattering - was that mainstream sitcom isn't as easy as it looks. Given more time, I think the group would have come up with a valid and entertaining alternative solution.
We had a surgery session, when the writers talked about how their original ideas were coming on and problems they were facing, which resulted in some useful suggestions. One good thing about the college is that it's not competitive, so people are happy to chip in ideas rather than guarding them in case someone else wins.
Then we had a visit from a winner, the Manchester-based writer Danny Peak, who came top in the Sitcom Talent competition of 2002 with his show The Bunk Bed Boys. Having won a competition in 1992, Danny worked on scripts without success until Talent, a remarkable example of keeping faith with your ambitions. Since 2002, he has written episodes of a number of shows, including Two Pints, My Hero and My Parents are Aliens, until being asked to write I'm with Stupid, and then gaining a commission this year for a BBC1 sitcom, Big Top as well as writing on Not Going Out.
Danny is a big P G Wodehouse fan, keeps a shelf of published scripts, and as a book for writers recommends Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott.
Our third visitor was the Brighton-based psychotherapist and writer, Loretta Riordan, who did a fascinating session on the psychology of character, having endured a difficult train journey with many diversions and a coach full of drunken QPR fans on their way to defeat by Manchester United. (Arsenal's young guns triumphed over Wigan that night, though the senior Unreliables failed to follow suit against Aston Villa on Saturday).
Beginning with Freud's analysis of humour and jokes, continuing with Jung's archetypes, moving on to Adler's adoption of humour as a therapeutic tool, and advising avoidance of websites which talk about enneagrams and personality scales, Loretta instead recommended delving into the literature of transactional analysis as a useful tool for writers devising characters (the foriginator of TA, Eric Berne, has an entertaining book called Games People Play), and not least looking into oneself by keeping a journal and doing 'free writing' - essentially thinking of a character or topic and writing for no more than ten minutes without thinking. Then take the most important thought, express it in a sentence, and free write again.
As parting exercises, Loretta invited us to think of the person in our lives to whom we had felt the strongest negative response and to work out why, and to say without reflecting what our favourte fairy stories were (there was one confusion when someone picked Rumplestiltskin when meaning Rapunzel, doubtless Freudian in some sense).
There wasn't time to analyse this in Manchester, but I've been thinking about my choice of Sleeping Beauty. Am I the Prince or Beauty (in the spiritual sense, obviously)? Thinking about that made me think about aspects of myself and before I knew it I had invented two viable characters. So, as I heard no one say in Manchester, think on.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~28~RS~)
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't was an interesting and, as it developed, demanding experience, which if nothing else demonstrated that solving problems with a team is just as hard as solving them by oneself.'
Did you learn nothing from CLEANERS Micheal :)
Sounds like a jolly session.
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I was drawing a general moral!
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That's very interesting once more.
If you will stay in cheap hotels....like the one beginning with Brit, you'll find bras etc and bullets...hehehe.
It's rained up here non stop since one hot week in May, so we're all developing webbed feet.
In your last sentence or two, are you figuring out if you're gay or not?
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@Damejuggles
Ooh, matron.
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@Damejuggles
I never thought there was any doubt.
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yea, the weather's been really bad up here
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@) Micheal
On a serious note, what was the sitcom that they were working on an episode from? Was it a 'team written' one or a 'singularly' authored one?
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@Michael
When you say they were a "team" working on the episode, how did that work? Were they all equals, or did one or two come to dominate and dictate the direction they took?
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@MisterP
It was an episode of a team-written audience show.
@Aspie
We pretended we were a writing team setting out to deal with some problems. Rather than assume the role of showrunner myself, or appoint someone from the group, we did it consensually, and ran with the ideas that felt good and seemed to work, though I asked the odd question and made the odd point when it felt as if we were heading in a wrong direction. I indicated what problems needed to be solved and kept those at the forefront. So in essence I facilitated.
As ever with a group of writers, some are louder and some are quieter, but because everyone enjoys everyone else in the college, determination to get an idea across was matched with courtesy, and nobody dominated.
In the real world, there would be someone saying 'yes' and 'no', so discussions would be more driven, but in any team context it's important that everyone with something to say is heard, and the quieter ones encouraged to chip in.
From my small experience of American tables, the ones that feel happiest and most purposeful are those where the showrunner is more facilitator than dictator.
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@Micheal, the reason I asked was because I was wondering if it is easier to come as a staff writer to a team written show rather than to a sole authored one. Is it easier to come in and write an episode of My Family, say, than to come in and write an episode of One Foot in the Grave I wonder?
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@MisterP
That's interesting. With a team, stories are discussed collectively and broken down into scenes, which is probably easier than coming up with six or eight on your own. Even if one writer does a first draft story outline, it comes back to the group.
One's status in a team depends on experience, so it's unlikely that a new writer joining a team will get an immediate script commission, unless they're quite senior and experienced and have been head-hunted. It seems to work loosely that the showrunner does a couple, the next most senior writer does a couple, and the other four are credited to individuals, leaving three or four writers unrequited in terms of an episode credit. Though all scripts are worked on by the team of course, and are probably extensively rewritten during the production process.
So it's different from being a sole writer in many respects.
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Mister P
IMO, writing an episode of a sole-authored sitcom might be easier, because they are often far more idiosyncratic and easier to mimic. Team written shows - whatever their undoubted advantages - don't always have a great deal of individuality.
In the same way it would be easier to write a Bob Dylan song than a Boyzone one.
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I am not sure I agree Aspieboy even Bob Dylan can't write like Bob Dylan sometimes.
:)
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@MisterP
I was thinking Bob Dylan forty years ago.
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Well I suppose Dovovan's catch the wind was a bit Dylanesque but I am not sure anyone can really do what he does apart from Leonard Cohen who is his own genius.
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@Mister P
Oh boy, I wish I'd never mentioned it now. Forget I said anything. :)
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Consider me a goldfish.
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I think the answer to this one is blowing in the wind.
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Oh dear. You know the times they are-a changin' when Michael starts cracking funny. ;)
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Moving on from the Bobster...
And this is usually the place for some lively discussion, Piers from the writersroom has posted some tips including this bit.
'A script is a BLUEPRINT for a subsequent production process in which writers will not necessarily be heavily involved. A drama or comedy script has no literary merit or value in its own right. A script is there to be MADE.'
Although I see where he is coming from I don't entirely agree with this statement. What does the panel think?
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@MisterP
Paul kindly said he didn't mind if I expressed a view. So I have some disagreement with the blueprint statement as it relates to comedy. Writers are involved throughout the production process (and into post-production), so while a film script and some drama scripts may be blueprints from which writers may be excluded, comedy expects the writer to build the finished model.
I see what he means about the literature thing, in the sense that some drama scripts read more like tedious prose in whcih some action is buried, but i particularly like scripts which are a pleasure to read, the best of which certainly aspire to literature.
By the way, are you still around MrsM?
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Micheal I may be a little flat but we are singing from the same hymn sheet!
It is a different kind of literature but the writer should still transport the reader/director etc to the same imagined world and hold them there.
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@Micheal.
Debate raging elsewhere but...
Re: The old debate of whether, when sending in a spec sitcom script, should it have to be the pilot episode or just an episode generally.. or if you have two, the best, in your own opinion, of them?
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@MisterP
Debate? Elsewhere? Good Lord! Why don't they come over here and have a go?
I think it's best to send a pilot script/first episode, but it should have a proper story, feature all the regular characters of a series, and get on with the plot. Too many first episodes tend to be strong on introduction and light on story, and thus not representative of the rest of the series.
Readers - and audiences - are interested in moving forward with the characters rather than finding out about where they have been.
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Cheers Micheal :)
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@Mister P
I wondered where you got that Michael Jacob quote from on the BSG. Now I know I feel strangely disappointed. :)
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That's probably an entirely different Mister P.
:)
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@Mister P
Impossible! I'd recognise your "writing style" anywhere. ;)
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I have a patent pending!
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