We don’t know jack about TV September 24, 2009
Posted by James D Hartland in BBC, BBC Writer's Room, Seminars, TV, Television, Training, UK Film Council.5 comments
I attended another two days of seminars his past week, and as ever they were about feature films. I must have gone to 20 such events in the past few years, all about feature film writing, all provided for free from my local screen agency.
The problem is, here in the UK, everyone agrees that TV is where a writer stands the best chance of making a living from their craft, and that even if you did go on to make films you would probably work on a TV show at some point.
So where are the TV seminars?
I’d like to think I’m almost an expert on film structure by now, in part because I have gone to so many of these seminars; but I couldn’t begin to tell you what is the best way to deal with character development over several series of a TV show, or what is the best way to structure an episode into acts or sequences to best maximise the format; other than using my gut instinct of course. It seems to me like there is a massive training shortage on this sort of thing.
At least from my perspective.
Maybe if I was in a different part of the country there would be loads of this training, but here in the North East there hasn’t been diddly. The BBC do a couple of mentoring schemes for writers based in the north, but that is kinda too little too late because by the time you get on one of those schemes you are already a really good writer well on your way to being a professional.
Where are the grass roots training schemes? Why aren’t there more seminars that do “TV drama structure 101″. The BBC or who ever could get 100 writers at a time and tell them everything they need to know to go away and write a nicely structured show. I mean this is essentially what these Film seminars are aimed at doing, just raising the grass roots level of knowledge on how to write a good feature film. They don’t set out to turn you into the finished article.
It just seems crazy to me that I know shit loads more about how Hollywood writes its scripts than I do about my own country’s TV, which like I say, is most writers’ best chance of making a living as a screenwriter.
I guess the problem stems from there being a Film Council to oversee the development of the Uk Film industry but there’s not really a TV Council over seeing the development of Television in the same capacity. But there are some funding bodies out there providing training for Television so there’s no excuse for why I should be able to go to 20 film seminars and only 1 TV seminar in the same time period.
That said, my own personal lack of knowledge on TV writing also stems from the bias of screenwriting books to deal with feature films. I must own 20 books on films but only one or two that are applicable to TV. In fact I can’t really remember anyone ever recommending me a single TV book to pick up. Everyone just reads books about feature films it seems.
In fact, consider this a shout out… anyone who knows a good book about writing TV drama leave a comment below. Realising there is this training gap I’d really love to go away and learn all about TV writing.
UPDATED: A blog about script editing & other news January 23, 2009
Posted by James D Hartland in Career, Celtx, Emmerdale, Script Editor, Soap, TV.add a comment
I’ve been putting off writing a blog for a while now because I was hoping to have some news to be able to tell you, but that hasn’t gone to plan. I’m waiting to hear back about everything I was going to blog about, like my recent job interview.
Last time I blogged I referenced that I had an interview for a big show that gets 7-8 million viewers. Well I may as well reveal that was yet another interview on Emmerdale, this time for the more appropriate job role of Script Editor.
A position Skillset describes as:
Script Editors provide a critical overview of the screenwriting process, and liaise between the Producer or Development Executive and the Screenwriter. Script Editors do not offer solutions, but instead use their analytical skills to help Screenwriters identify problems, explain the potential consequences of Screenwriters’ choices, and thereby help to strengthen and develop screenplays.
More of the Skillset summery here
I’ve yet to hear back from Emmerdale about the job so I am assuming I haven’t got it. Hopefully I’m being too hasty in this opinion though. That job would have been a great jumping off point for my career and the pay was very respectable (28k starting salary going up with experience).
It’s funny, soap is not really a style of storytelling that has interested me as a writer in the past, but in doing some sample editing for the producers prior to the interview I came to realise that when it comes to editing the scripts at least, it was just as rewarding as working on any other type of script, as you were still asking yourself the same basic questions like “How can I increase the conflict in this scene to its maximum?”
One thing I came to realise though is just how lovely feature film formatting is. I have obviously read stuff written in other script formats before but it wasn’t until I was working on the scripts that I came to realise how horrible the TV soap script formatting is. Everything from the way they are laid out on the page to the way there are never any line breaks in the action paragraphs even when the two actions are performed in different parts of the location, it’s just not very clever IMO.
Update: Seems I was too hasty to blog about not getting the job. After the recent changes at Emmerdale they have put back making a choice on the new script editor for a few weeks. Fingers crossed…
In Other News
I’m still waiting to hear back from the bigwig, critically acclaimed production company that asked me to send them some of my work. Having spoken to the producer it seems that I’ll have an answer on that front in the next week or so, until then nothing really to report.
I guess I could stop being so vague about who these companies are that I talk about but I dunno, I always think I should wait until something comes from these opportunities before I talk about them with specifics. Fingers crossed I’ll have some good news to report soon.
Celtx
In other other news, I was hoping to be able to blog about Celtx 1.1 coming out, but from talking to one of the developers it seems that the next release is coming later that month. It’s been well over 6 months since the last release so hopfully there will be a lot of big juicy changes to report. If nothing else the app has been ported over to the Firefox 3 codebase (Celtx like Songbird, Miro and several other apps is based on Firefox code) so the app should be faster, prettier, and generally better.
Charlie Brooker on Screenwriting on Youtube December 14, 2008
Posted by James D Hartland in Charlie Brooker, Screenwipe, TV, Writer's Hangups, Writer's Lifestyle.4 comments
In case you missed the recent episode of Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe all about screenwriting when it was up on iPlayer the entire thing is now up on youtube until someone decides to take it down.
Here is part 1. Click the More below for the other parts.
Charlie Brooker on Screenwriting December 3, 2008
Posted by James D Hartland in Charlie Brooker, Graham Linehan, Jesse Amstrong, Paul Abbott, Russell T Davis, Sam Bain, Screenwipe, TV, Tony Jordan, Writer's Lifestyle.1 comment so far
If like me you get a kick out of seeing intelligent deconstruction of Television from a technical and creative perspective (but with lots of swearing and potty mouthed humour) then you will pleased to know that the newest series of Charlie Brooker’s excellent Screenwipe returned to BBC4 a few weeks back.
I was going to blog about the shows return at the time, but I definitely need to blog about it now because the latest episode was dedicated entirely to writing TV here in the UK. Consider it a must watch! It was totally fascinating from start to finish.
Watch it on iPlayer here youtube here
For those who have never seen the show before: This episode is strangely subdued by Charlie Brooker’s standards. I guess because he just gives the writers time to talk. Normally it is more like this -
The time I was interviewed for the top job at Emmerdale August 16, 2008
Posted by James D Hartland in Emmerdale, Job Interview, Script Editor, Soap, Story Department, Story Editor, TV, Yorkshire TV.1 comment so far
A few years ago, something strange and unusual happened to me , something which I have not really not really told a lot of people because it’s slightly embarrassing.
What is this weird and wonderful thing?
Well, I was once interviewed for the position of Story Editor at Emmerdale, a position which is pretty much the top job on Emmerdale besides being the head producer (when it comes to writing at least). This is the person who is in charge of coming up with the story lines and generally making sure the writing process goes smoothly.
I was clearly 10 years under experienced to be getting interviewed for this job, so how did this terribly embarrassing job interview come about?
At the time I was applying for writing jobs within the TV industry to get my foot in the door. In TV the bottom ladder of the writing world is working in the story line departments on soaps, where as the name suggests you are working on the story lines for the shows rather than writing the specific episode scripts. The job ladder is such that after doing that for a few years you are usually deemed to have earned your spurs and can then think about writing individual episodes. (Of course there are many ways to skin a cat and many writers do not work in the storyline department of a soap before moving on)
I had applied for a bunch of jobs as a Script Editor, which is the rank and file position in the story line department, I had not received anything except rejection letters but I knew the competition was stiff so I wasn’t overly concerned as every week another job seemed to pop up. One day while checking for script editor jobs I saw the job for Story Editor on Emmerdale and decided to have a punt on that. It would only cost me the price of a stamp after all.
This is where I show how naive I was, because I knew the job was a step up from script editor but I didn’t really know how much of a step up. As far as I was concerned it was just a slightly different job role within the same department of the show. It never crossed my mind that I was applying for a job hugely above my station and that I would just seem really naive to whoever read my CV; they would think I’m clearly someone who doesn’t understand the job roles on TV (and they would have been right!)
A few weeks went by and then I got the phone call. Emmerdale asking me for an interview! I was over the moon. This was my ticket to my first job in TV. Of course I was still completely in the dark that this job was out of my league, but now I’ve just been offered an interview why would I suspect anything?
I decided to be well prepared for the interview by researching the job role of Story Editor as much as possible, and it was at that point that I started to get a few reservations about the job, it sounded like it had a lot of responsibility!
The more research I did the more I realised how advanced this job seemed. I would have been in charge of the whole story line writing department and would be co-ordinating with the big cheeses on the show! I began to wonder if maybe this was a suitable job, but hey, they asked me for an interview for it so they must think I’m capable of it right?
So I get to Yorkshire TV headquarters for my interview, wearing a suit for the first time in my life, and I head up to the front desk and explain why I’m there. The receptionist seemed confused and asked to see my letter. At the time I just assumed she was a crap receptionist, but now I think she must have been confused by this young guy who looks about 15 turning up. Maybe she thought I was 30 and just had a growth hormone problem that made me look so young?
I sat waiting for the interview and beside me were a couple of other candidates, they looked early 30s and seem very professional looking. I was basically just trying to look as if I’m a proper adult, and failing miserably, with my notes in a college student style binder.
After waiting a while and seeing a couple of TV stars walk past I was called upstairs to the Emmerdale offices. The interview was on
That is where things really went shitty. I was woefully unsuitable for the job in every respect and I couldn’t answer any of their questions. You can’t comprehend how bad it is to sit in a job interview where you are 10 years out of contention and know nothing about anything. You would rather walk in on your parents doing it than sit through this, believe me.
An example of the epic failure: They asked me what sort of managerial experience I had, I struggled to think of anything, and realising that things were going badly I decided humour was my best defence, I told them that my managerial experience to date comprised of being a sixer in the cub scouts. Oh believe me it was painful! I was only in there about 5 minutes before they had seen enough and said they would be in touch, but those 5 minutes were pure agony.
I kinda felt resentful towards them because I was clearly unsuitable for the job, so why did they waste my time by making me travel to Leeds for 5 minutes of the most painful discourse ever to take place in a job interview.
I kinda joked afterwards that maybe there was a James Hartley who had a killer CV and the head honcho at Emmerdale called down the corridor to the intern “Get me that James Hartley on the phone”. Maybe they just needed to make up the numbers? Maybe I’m just too good at blagging it and rather than look at any factual information on my CV they just fell into the hype? Who knows, but it was a complete waste of my time and money going to that interview.
Interestingly, at the Northern Screenwriter Conference 2007 one of the writers there talked about how he got his first break in TV writing on Emmerdale and he said that he had gotten interviewed for a job that he was blatantly unqualified to do (sound familiar?) but that realising he was totally unsuitable for the job, rather than carry on the charade he said to them ‘look I know I’m not good enough for this job, could you offer me a starter position instead’.
First point is, it’s eerily similar to what happened to me, maybe at Emmerdale they have an in office game where they interview one person who is completely unsuitable just for a laugh? 
(Though more likely it’s just a coincidence)
Either way listening to him retelling the story made me realise what I should have done! I should have said to them that I’m looking for a lower level job and what can you do to help me. Getting a face to face contact with someone in these writing departments is like gold dust and that could have been a ticket to get my foot in the door. Maybe if I had asked them they would have felt obligated to help me out after clearly wasting my time so badly. I don’t think I would have said something in the interview, but I could have certainly rang them up a day or two later. It never crossed my mind to do it though. I felt so pissed off and embarrassed by the whole affair that I didn’t really want anything to do with them.
But if I ever get wrongly interviewed for a job again I’ll know what to do!
But oh well. I don’t think my life has turned out terrible since then so I’m not really wallowing at a missed opportunity or anything. It’s just one of the many interesting little moments of my life I can look back upon. If nothing else I got practice at wearing a suit for the day.
A rant by a cynical and bitter writer about the injustices in the world after someone failed to recognise his genius May 10, 2008
Posted by James D Hartland in BBC, BBC Writer's Room, Ensemble, North East Voices, Northern Voices, Rants, Rejection, Shameless, TV, Training.3 comments
Being able to take rejection is one of the best skills you can have as a writer, because if there’s one thing you can be guaranteed it is that you will be rejected a lot.
When ever I hear writers moaning about the rejection they just got I always have serious doubts over their future in the industry, because as much as anything becoming a successful writer is about getting through all the initial rejection without going insane or giving up. One of the best compliments I’ve ever been given is being told that I seemed like the kinda guy who would never get disheartened by rejection.
I guess that is somewhat of a disclaimer because the rest of this blog is about my latest rejection and how lame it seems. I just wanna make it clear that I’m not one to moan about rejection normally, but for some reason I felt compelled to blog about this one and get it off my chest. So given this is a bit of a rant I may well sound a bit bitter and like I am complaining over nothing.
OK, so it goes like this…
I applied for the BBC training scheme called North East Voices. The application process involved writing a short logline for an original TV drama and then writing a one page synopsis of the drama. In addition to this you then had to submit a writing sample of 30 to 60 pages.
The idea I had pitched was an ensemble drama featuring 8 principle characters as well as a whole community of other characters. Think something like Shameless where is has the central family and then also has the neighbours, and the people at the pub and the corner shop, and other families, and the police and and and…. My idea wasn’t quite that big, but it was definitely an ensemble drama set in a certain large community.
So basically I had this problem of how on earth do I set that up with just one side of A4 to do it.
I’ll be honest, having never pitched an ensemble TV drama before I was a bit at a loss as to which way to set up all these different people in a way that is both clear to read and still engaging, but to do it on one single page of A4? Ouch!! It would be hard enough if I had as many pages as I needed, but 1 was gunna be hard.
I decided that since my 8 characters were forced together by outside circumstances and forced to live together that the best option would be just to set up all the main character’s and their one or two inherent flaws or quirks which would leave the reader wanting more (or so was the idea).
Eg. A had this super chavy character who was an academic genius to the bemusement of her chavy parents who can’t understand how she ended up so smart, and despite being a genius this girl spends most of her time getting into fights and going shop lifting with the chavy friends she grew up with on her estate. I ended it by saying something like “Her problem is whether she will manage to stay out of trouble long enough to graduate”.
I was kinda aware that I hadn’t really gone into the specifics of how any of these stories might develop over the series, I was instead trying to set up 8 really interesting premises that interweaved with each other that you would want to know more about. I couldnt see any other way to do it on a single side of A4.
So off I sent my application, not entirely happy but quietly confident.
Alas, I ended up only making the “long short list”. One of the perks however of being on this long short list is they gave you written feedback on your idea rather than a stock no thank you letter.
I got the feedback in a letter today and reading it gave me with no surprises over their main criticism…
The synopsis resembles a list of character bios, rather than an outline of how the series might be sustained by developing interviewing and resolving distinct character journeys.
So I guess the flaw I knew I had before I applied was what eventually screwed me??
Well, in the next paragraph of the letter it goes on to say…
If the writer shies from developing the drama inherent in such a colourful ensemble, the series may be steered toward a “sketchier” feel that is likely to run out of steam and be less gripping as a result. How might the odd co-dependence between Jenna and her priest evolve, for example? Does John’s love for Frankie remain unexpressed? [edit - then it goes on to list a question for each of the characters I wrote about]
Bottom line then, I failed to give them what they wanted. What I wrote was too much setting up my really interesting characters and not enough of what then happens to those characters. I can’t expect them to just take a leap of faith and assume that I can write all these stories in a lovely overlapping interesting way just because I can set up some interesting characters…
but at the end of the day I just can’t see how I could have done all that on one side of A4! I filled the page just describing the characters, how am I expected to then tell you how each story progresses as well?
Sure I could have just bunged a sentance at the end of each character’s paragraph that crudely sums up where they are are at the end of the series, but that isn’t going to give you a sense of how the stories evolve either, plus some characters can’t really be summed up like that.
This is where I hold my hands up and say I don’t really know enough about TV show development. Maybe all TV shows are pitched on a single side of A4 and there is just a knack of getting an ensemble drama to fit? I just feel like had it been 2 pages rather than 1then I might have been able to explain some of the developments I have in mind for the things I set up.
Please BBC Writer’s Room, make it at least 2 pages next year. OK?
I guess I’m a bit miffed that my idea seems to have been rejected as much as anything because of the restriction of having to fit an entire TV series and all its developing character arcs on a single side of A4. It seems to be that the application process for North East Voices with its one page synopsis being everything is inherently biased towards shows that have a small selection of characters and more similar content from episode to episode (like a cop show that has the same formula each week), because surely if I had set up a show with 3 characters doing the same thing each week then it would be based purely on its potential rather that what is or isn’t shoehorned into the synopsis.
But then again, maybe I just plain suck and it is entirely possible to do all this on a single side of A4 but my suckyness prevents me? I’m totally open to the idea that maybe I just suck at this. Anyone out there is welcome to leave a comment saying I’m a synopsis writing retard, but if you do then please also tell me how I should have summed up a big ensemble drama on one page in a way that gets across all their individual character developments. I’m eager to learn!
That said, this was not the only reason my application failed. The other criticism was the fact my writing sample was a feature film aimed at the US Market and thus
it’s difficult to tell whether the writer will make the adjustment to a series that specifically targets British mores and humour
Yeah because being a gruff Northerner I can only write stuff for people in California!
I wonder if the tone was really any different or whether it was more that my feature is set in a US High School which is such an intrinsically American thing that he or she assumed there was no way it could be similar to something shown on British TV.
But hey, even though I disagree with their assumption that despite being a British writer I can’t write for a British audience, the point is the writing sample was different enough that it put doubts in their mind, and perhaps ultimately they would have given me the benefit of the doubt over my 1 page synopsis had my writing sample been a similar 60 minute TV show script to the one I was pitching.
I think in order to effectively pitch TV ideas I’m gunna have to develop some TV scripts to show people, because I can only see myself running into this problem again, even if the next feature film I use is set in England! So with this in mind I might actually continue developing this idea off my own back anyways.
Also, I guess if they run the scheme again next year I will be way more concious to make sure what ever I hand in gives some indication of how the stories will progress over time!
Anyways, rant over.
I’m still alive, just busy April 20, 2008
Posted by James D Hartland in Funding, LA Features, TV, Television, Training.add a comment
After going through a period of blogging almost every day I’ve not written much lately. A few possible topics did spring to mind but nothing uber compelling. I’ve been kinda busy.
The most interesting thing to note is over the past few weeks I’ve been working on a spec TV project which is something a bit different for me. Up until now I have pretty much only worked on short films or feature films, although I did dip my toe into some TV stuff a while back. It’s been pretty fun to work on something so different. I find some aspects of TV writing a little clunky, but I’m sure a TV writer would say the same thing about feature films.
Aside from writing I’ve been applying for several schemes, both of the training and funding kinds, so that took up a bunch of time, more time than I would have liked really. You don’t appreciate just how long it’s going to take just to fill out all the forms and get everything printed off. Now I’ve just gotta wait and hope someone sees my awesome talents.
The daft thing is if I get on any of these schemes I’m probably going to have to forgo sleep because I’ve still got a bunch on my plate with other stuff, including the LA Features scheme which is still going strong. I guess that would be a nice problem to have though, not enough time because I’ve been selected for yet another career progressing scheme.
In terms of the LA Features scheme I’ve got something like 8 or 9 weeks before I need to hand in the next draft now. I’ve got to basically go back and rewrite it from scratch though as I’ve really fallen into a black hole of not being able to take the current draft forward. It sounds like a big deal to start it again from scratch but really it’s been liberating. I now get to solve problems and come up with new killer ideas without all the baggage of the previous work to get in the way. And frankly whole sections of the old script are going to end up copied and pasted back into the new one anyways, so it’s not like I am throwing the old draft out of the window. That said though I’m still going to have to work my butt off to get it all finished on time.
