Wednesday, 28 November 2007
Goldman Awards 3
To the brave, honest and noble writer who sat patiently through a lengthy elaboration of ‘The Grid’ in the conference room of a bland hotel over the course of several days (see ‘Swimming Lessons’ below). This writer, who has contributed successfully to British Television for years and is both respected and admired, was less than impressed. When asked for an opinion, this writer obliged by giving one in an attempt to be helpful. A week or so later, this writer was dismissed without explanation from the show she had served on and off for decades. It was thought, presumably, that no explanation was necessary.
UK Broadcaster Content
INT. DAY. THE BACK-BEDROOM OF A HUMBLE SEMI-DETACHED HOUSE IN A MODEST PART OF TOWN. 12.07. DAY 1
[Writer’s note: I’d prefer this to be ‘the enormous converted loft-room of a six-bed mansion … ?]
[Producer’s note: check with budget.]
[Line Producer’s note: you do realise who we’ve got playing the lead?]
FAUSTUS IS SITTING AT HIS DESK IN FRONT OF THE COMPUTER. HE COUGHS GENTLY AND BEGINS TO TYPE, READING ALOUD AS HE DOES SO.
FAUSTUS: Never let it be said that we’re all doom and gloom. There is now something for UK writers to celebrate.
FAUSTUS STOPS, SIPS FROM A MUG OF TEA, GRIMACES - IT’S COLD. STARTS TYPING AGAIN.
FAUSTUS: The good news is that the BBC, ITV and C4 are going to …
HE FLICKS BACK TO THE BBC WEBSITE, THEN STARTS TYPING AGAIN.
FAUSTUS: … launch a joint on-demand service which will bring together thousands of hours of television in one place.
FAUSTUS SMILES A LITTLE, RE-READS IT, RUBS HIS EYES, READS IT AGAIN. YES, IT’S TRUE. HE TYPES.
FAUSTUS: Of course The WGGB and our respective agents are going to have to bargain hard over this, but at least there’s a potential for royalties. And in a way it’s a bit of a celebration of all our efforts, of the great writing that happens in this country.
HE TAKES A BREATH, SMILES, LEANS FORWARD AGAIN, EARNEST NOW, ENTHUSED.
FAUSTUS: According to the BBC News website, ‘Michael Grade, ITV's executive chairman, described the project as having the potential to become "an important shop window for UK broadcaster content and a great destination for viewers".
HE SMILES, GIGGLES A LITTLE, THEN SUDDENLY LOSES THE SMILE, FROWNS AT THE SCREEN.
FAUSTUS: ‘UK broadcaster content?’ Funny old phrase to use. ‘Broadcaster content?’
HE PONDERS FOR A MOMENT, STARTS TYPING AGAIN.
FAUSTUS: To illustrate ‘UK broadcaster content’ the website offers an example of a Channel Four drama ...
FAUSTUS SITS THERE FOR A MOMENT STARING AT THE BBC WEBSITE. THEN HE MOVES FORWARD TO TYPE BUT HIS FINGERS ARE SLOW, LEADEN, HIS MOUTH IS SET INTO A GRIMACE.
FAUSTUS: A still from ‘Ugly Betty’.
FAUSTUS STARES AT THE SCREEN, LOOKS AT HIS NOTES, SHUFFLES THROUGH THEM, SIPS FROM HIS TEA, GAZES OUT THE WINDOW, HIS EXPRESSION BLANK, HAUNTED.
[Producer’s note: This is nice but I’m not sure the actor we’ve booked can do ‘blank and haunted’ could he cry or bang his fist on the desk or chuck his computer out the window? Also do we need the mug of tea?]
[Writer’s note: I’d prefer this to be ‘the enormous converted loft-room of a six-bed mansion … ?]
[Producer’s note: check with budget.]
[Line Producer’s note: you do realise who we’ve got playing the lead?]
FAUSTUS IS SITTING AT HIS DESK IN FRONT OF THE COMPUTER. HE COUGHS GENTLY AND BEGINS TO TYPE, READING ALOUD AS HE DOES SO.
FAUSTUS: Never let it be said that we’re all doom and gloom. There is now something for UK writers to celebrate.
FAUSTUS STOPS, SIPS FROM A MUG OF TEA, GRIMACES - IT’S COLD. STARTS TYPING AGAIN.
FAUSTUS: The good news is that the BBC, ITV and C4 are going to …
HE FLICKS BACK TO THE BBC WEBSITE, THEN STARTS TYPING AGAIN.
FAUSTUS: … launch a joint on-demand service which will bring together thousands of hours of television in one place.
FAUSTUS SMILES A LITTLE, RE-READS IT, RUBS HIS EYES, READS IT AGAIN. YES, IT’S TRUE. HE TYPES.
FAUSTUS: Of course The WGGB and our respective agents are going to have to bargain hard over this, but at least there’s a potential for royalties. And in a way it’s a bit of a celebration of all our efforts, of the great writing that happens in this country.
HE TAKES A BREATH, SMILES, LEANS FORWARD AGAIN, EARNEST NOW, ENTHUSED.
FAUSTUS: According to the BBC News website, ‘Michael Grade, ITV's executive chairman, described the project as having the potential to become "an important shop window for UK broadcaster content and a great destination for viewers".
HE SMILES, GIGGLES A LITTLE, THEN SUDDENLY LOSES THE SMILE, FROWNS AT THE SCREEN.
FAUSTUS: ‘UK broadcaster content?’ Funny old phrase to use. ‘Broadcaster content?’
HE PONDERS FOR A MOMENT, STARTS TYPING AGAIN.
FAUSTUS: To illustrate ‘UK broadcaster content’ the website offers an example of a Channel Four drama ...
FAUSTUS SITS THERE FOR A MOMENT STARING AT THE BBC WEBSITE. THEN HE MOVES FORWARD TO TYPE BUT HIS FINGERS ARE SLOW, LEADEN, HIS MOUTH IS SET INTO A GRIMACE.
FAUSTUS: A still from ‘Ugly Betty’.
FAUSTUS STARES AT THE SCREEN, LOOKS AT HIS NOTES, SHUFFLES THROUGH THEM, SIPS FROM HIS TEA, GAZES OUT THE WINDOW, HIS EXPRESSION BLANK, HAUNTED.
[Producer’s note: This is nice but I’m not sure the actor we’ve booked can do ‘blank and haunted’ could he cry or bang his fist on the desk or chuck his computer out the window? Also do we need the mug of tea?]
Tuesday, 27 November 2007
Swimming Lessons
An interesting story reaches us of a Public School that installed a swimming pool with a view to teaching its pupils how to swim. A teacher was duly appointed to give instruction and lessons commenced. After a while, the Head Teacher, whose pet project this was, went to the pool to see how it was all going. He was a little bit disappointed to see that very few of the children were able to stay afloat never mind get from one end of the pool to the other. This was in spite of the efforts of the swimming teacher who marched purposefully up and down explaining the principles of swimming, demonstrating all the moves and exhorting them to get it right. When the Head Teacher expressed concern, the swimming teacher said that really, he was doing all he could but there wasn’t a talented swimmer among them and they would just have to be patient.
After some time the Head Teacher went back to see if anything had improved but the children were still splashing around helplessly, flailing their arms and legs in only a vague approximation of what they were being told to do. The swimming teacher by this time was an enraged beast, frustrated by the stupidity of his pupils, railing at them from the sides. In a moment of insight, the Head Teacher barged the swimming teacher into the water. The swimming teacher promptly sank to the bottom. He couldn’t swim at all.
The moral of the story is that the best people to teach are those who can do. Mere experts can offer something, perhaps, but not the thing itself. A mere expert is one who has studied the art without practising it. Through careful analysis, detailed comparison and often with the help of power-point presentations, they tend to arrange the bits of whatever discipline it is they’re extolling into handy categories that fit nicely into a grid. If the grid hangs together, this is then given the title of ‘knowledge’. Their next move is, quite validly, to test this ‘knowledge’, this grid against different examples of the art. In writing, for instance, the grid is superimposed on a few ‘classic’ films, television dramas and so forth. So long as bits don’t stick out (and if they do they are generally ignored), the grid is declared to be correct. After that, it’s just a matter of passing the grid on to as many people as possible until it becomes a credible method. In time, anything that doesn’t fit is condemned as ‘not writing’. Writers that don’t conform or dare to question are declared to lack sufficient enthusiasm. Eventually all the bits that don’t fit no longer appear. Eventually, everything conforms to the grid. Resistance becomes futile. You are with us or against us. Kneel before The Grid.
Now, Faustus doesn’t have a problem with the likes of Bob McKee or any of the other script gurus whose systems, grids, books, software programmes and power-point presentations are now so readily available. They do have something to offer. But there is something else. There is an energy and power among writers, a creative urge often honed through years of study and experience that can’t be dismissed simply because it won’t be squeezed into the dull strictures of a tidy format. What saves some of the gurus is that they remain in contact with the writers from whom they learn. What any of the gurus teach, please note, is only what writers have taught them. This fact is often forgotten. They teach systems derived from people who did not know those systems. Even if the gurus simply gleaned their ‘method’ through the study of classic scripts, those scripts were written by a writer. However, it remains the case that once the method has passed through a sufficient number of unquestioning hands it tends to become something else, a free-standing, self-sufficient claim to be ‘the law’. That’s how writing is done, that’s what writing is, what isn’t this isn’t good. Writers aren’t asked about it anymore. They are simply told about it.
In recent months, The Grid has become the new creed for anyone who wishes to write for the BBC. It’s a curious little artefact borrowed from various gurus and cobbled together from the producer’s point of view. It might seem harmless enough except that conformity is a mandatory requirement. However many episodes of however many shows a writer might have written over the years, including TV features for which they’ve won prizes, whether or not they have been key writers or core writers or even taught extensively (shared their art) in writing foundations and universities, if they don’t attend a ‘Retraining Course’ to learn all about The Grid, they are sacked. Or as the BBC puts it, “Some writers went on it [The Grid Course], adjusted well and have continued to write”. The others, presumably, didn’t go on the course, didn’t adjust therefore and no longer write. So they have only themselves to blame. According to the BBC, “Some writers grab the opportunity and some don’t.” (From the WGGB/BBC meeting in October).
There is nothing wrong with would-be teachers learning from writers (by means of script analysis) and passing on the knowledge to newer, aspiring writers if it’s remembered that that’s how it is. There’s a decent living to be had out of it, after all, and we shouldn’t begrudge anyone a decent living. It becomes more sinister and infinitely less useful, however, when it turns into a gospel to which all writers have to subscribe (‘grab the opportunity’). What deforms the process is the severance of connection between learning and writing, which is to say the teachers of The Grid no longer recognise that all their knowledge derives ultimately from the natural talent, instincts and direct experience of writing that you can only get from real writers. The Grid is foisted upon writers without the writers being asked to enhance or develop or indeed to vivify it – through their dedication, passion and real knowledge – as the living, breathing, ever-adaptable, constantly creative act that writing needs to be to be called ‘writing’.
One result of this policy is the excision of ‘older writers’ (A pejorative BBC term) from the talent pool. Of course, you have to be tough in this game and if people get stuck in their ways then maybe they have to be replaced. But the history of writing tends to suggest that the more you do it, the better you get. Moreover, as a writer matures, so they see more of life, experience more, have more to say in different ways. Passion, oddly, is one thing that writers increase with age and experience. So we’re not talking about a lack of ability, commitment or passion. One producer put it frankly when she bewailed the fact that ‘established writers aren’t able to adapt to our way of doing things’. It’s not that ‘older writers’ lack knowledge, ability or passion. On the contrary, they know too much, have too much ability and are far too fussed about quality. A younger writer might accept a ludicrous note where an ‘older writer’ will argue against it. By ‘adapting’ is meant shutting your mouth and doing as you’re told. It means The Grid.
Perhaps to camouflage the practice of sifting out any but the most pliable and sycophantic, much work is being done to create and perpetuate a myth that these ‘older writers’ are just a bunch of crusties, past their prime, lazy and out of touch or, as the BBC describes it in a single word, have become ‘comfortable’. This would be remarkable if it were true. Remarkable because that simply isn’t how writing works. What is meant, of course, is that ‘older writers’ have the knowledge and experience to write beyond The Grid while, increasingly, producers and editors don’t know that there is anything beyond The Grid. We have heard numerous stories of editors and producers staring blankly at the writer who has attempted to explain something in terms that weren’t used at the last training course. Alongside this is an even more pernicious myth that ‘older writers’ don’t know how to write and therefore need to be taught. It is supposed that because they don’t know and perhaps don’t much care for the latest whizzy term for some particular plot point, they have no idea how to structure a story, develop a narrative, form a character and generate dialogue. One wonders how they’ve managed thus far. Although it’s too ridiculous an idea to merit any further refutation one does have to ask what opportunity it is that they failed to grab when they declined the offer to be ‘retrained’ by someone who hasn’t written a single piece of drama in their life.
Of course, it might be argued that older writers need to give way to newer writers or ‘fresh blood’ as the BBC rather worryingly calls it. This is fine. New writers must be given the chance to forge careers for themselves. But if you destroy a whole generation, from who will these new writers learn and take inspiration? The man with the laser pointer and the handy flow-chart? The past generation of writers (and we’re talking ancient souls here, some of whom are now in their forties and fifties) learned from their forebears as indeed their forebears learned from their predecessors. That’s how it works. With a bit of help from charts and grids, perhaps, what is communicated from one generation to another is much more than a check-list of story beats and a system of Acts derived from Chinatown. It’s the thing itself. This might baffle a good many producers and editors – not to mention flipchart fanatics – but writers will understand. It’s the thing that hit you when you realised you couldn’t ignore the need to write even if that meant an uncertain career path with no discernible reward in sight. It’s what made you write and write and write when you should have been looking after your finances. It’s what makes you turn your life into story and turns your stories into life. It’s what you feel when you meet people and see the world from their point of view. It’s everything you think and feel and breathe. When writers meet, they know what they’re talking about. It’s what they do. And, oddly enough, it is communicable. Get a good writer up there and it pours from them. It’s no surprise that many writers also teach, often ad hoc, giving inspiration and real knowledge to new writers in a way that no list of bullet points will ever achieve however pompously delivered.
If The Grid and its imposition sounds like a bit of in-house politics of no interest to any but those who win or lose - or play the game - then consider its wider effects, particularly on that most important of creatures, the audience. For how long will they put up with bland, homogenised drama that conforms only to a strict and predictable pattern? Editors might rub their hands in glee because draft seven finally looks like the format they’ve been lashing the writer to write but the audience won’t. Because in the end that’s not why they switched on the TV. Someone unkindly said that, apart from the costumes and the faces, virtually all the mainstream dramas have become interchangeable. All the episodes progress in the same way. The stories start like this, within the first three minutes this happens, ten minutes into the show the hero does a that … and so on and on.
As we’ve said elsewhere, the writing is, as it were, on the wall. They are switching off. And it’s worrying. The BBC response is to buy wholesale or nick shamelessly from the Americans. Or they repeat old shows made in a different era because they were written by writers. Many of the successes, meanwhile, either derive from the inspiration of a previous TV generation (Dr Who, Robin Hood) or come from books (the next Austen) or indeed radio. Of course we can’t deny that there is some terrific stuff on the box, new stuff, creative and innovative stuff written by writers who have been trusted and given the opportunity to write. But consider that the future of high-end drama is being forged, even as we speak, in the bowels of Series TV with its producers, editors and writers all processed by The Grid and its methodology. Consider this and be afraid.
The BBC says it puts writers at the heart of its shows. What it means is that it sits them down and tells them how to write. It gives them a Grid and shows them how to join the dots. It reads their work according to a tick list. It never asks them what they have to say or why. It never wonders if maybe the writers know something about writing that they might like to share with us. It fails consistently, deliberately and abjectly to tap into the one great thing this country has always been good at: writing.
We can only hope that one day the writers will be used for their proper purpose. To be heard. In the meantime, so long as they listen to what they’re told and don’t put up any resistance, at least they’ve got a job.
After some time the Head Teacher went back to see if anything had improved but the children were still splashing around helplessly, flailing their arms and legs in only a vague approximation of what they were being told to do. The swimming teacher by this time was an enraged beast, frustrated by the stupidity of his pupils, railing at them from the sides. In a moment of insight, the Head Teacher barged the swimming teacher into the water. The swimming teacher promptly sank to the bottom. He couldn’t swim at all.
The moral of the story is that the best people to teach are those who can do. Mere experts can offer something, perhaps, but not the thing itself. A mere expert is one who has studied the art without practising it. Through careful analysis, detailed comparison and often with the help of power-point presentations, they tend to arrange the bits of whatever discipline it is they’re extolling into handy categories that fit nicely into a grid. If the grid hangs together, this is then given the title of ‘knowledge’. Their next move is, quite validly, to test this ‘knowledge’, this grid against different examples of the art. In writing, for instance, the grid is superimposed on a few ‘classic’ films, television dramas and so forth. So long as bits don’t stick out (and if they do they are generally ignored), the grid is declared to be correct. After that, it’s just a matter of passing the grid on to as many people as possible until it becomes a credible method. In time, anything that doesn’t fit is condemned as ‘not writing’. Writers that don’t conform or dare to question are declared to lack sufficient enthusiasm. Eventually all the bits that don’t fit no longer appear. Eventually, everything conforms to the grid. Resistance becomes futile. You are with us or against us. Kneel before The Grid.
Now, Faustus doesn’t have a problem with the likes of Bob McKee or any of the other script gurus whose systems, grids, books, software programmes and power-point presentations are now so readily available. They do have something to offer. But there is something else. There is an energy and power among writers, a creative urge often honed through years of study and experience that can’t be dismissed simply because it won’t be squeezed into the dull strictures of a tidy format. What saves some of the gurus is that they remain in contact with the writers from whom they learn. What any of the gurus teach, please note, is only what writers have taught them. This fact is often forgotten. They teach systems derived from people who did not know those systems. Even if the gurus simply gleaned their ‘method’ through the study of classic scripts, those scripts were written by a writer. However, it remains the case that once the method has passed through a sufficient number of unquestioning hands it tends to become something else, a free-standing, self-sufficient claim to be ‘the law’. That’s how writing is done, that’s what writing is, what isn’t this isn’t good. Writers aren’t asked about it anymore. They are simply told about it.
In recent months, The Grid has become the new creed for anyone who wishes to write for the BBC. It’s a curious little artefact borrowed from various gurus and cobbled together from the producer’s point of view. It might seem harmless enough except that conformity is a mandatory requirement. However many episodes of however many shows a writer might have written over the years, including TV features for which they’ve won prizes, whether or not they have been key writers or core writers or even taught extensively (shared their art) in writing foundations and universities, if they don’t attend a ‘Retraining Course’ to learn all about The Grid, they are sacked. Or as the BBC puts it, “Some writers went on it [The Grid Course], adjusted well and have continued to write”. The others, presumably, didn’t go on the course, didn’t adjust therefore and no longer write. So they have only themselves to blame. According to the BBC, “Some writers grab the opportunity and some don’t.” (From the WGGB/BBC meeting in October).
There is nothing wrong with would-be teachers learning from writers (by means of script analysis) and passing on the knowledge to newer, aspiring writers if it’s remembered that that’s how it is. There’s a decent living to be had out of it, after all, and we shouldn’t begrudge anyone a decent living. It becomes more sinister and infinitely less useful, however, when it turns into a gospel to which all writers have to subscribe (‘grab the opportunity’). What deforms the process is the severance of connection between learning and writing, which is to say the teachers of The Grid no longer recognise that all their knowledge derives ultimately from the natural talent, instincts and direct experience of writing that you can only get from real writers. The Grid is foisted upon writers without the writers being asked to enhance or develop or indeed to vivify it – through their dedication, passion and real knowledge – as the living, breathing, ever-adaptable, constantly creative act that writing needs to be to be called ‘writing’.
One result of this policy is the excision of ‘older writers’ (A pejorative BBC term) from the talent pool. Of course, you have to be tough in this game and if people get stuck in their ways then maybe they have to be replaced. But the history of writing tends to suggest that the more you do it, the better you get. Moreover, as a writer matures, so they see more of life, experience more, have more to say in different ways. Passion, oddly, is one thing that writers increase with age and experience. So we’re not talking about a lack of ability, commitment or passion. One producer put it frankly when she bewailed the fact that ‘established writers aren’t able to adapt to our way of doing things’. It’s not that ‘older writers’ lack knowledge, ability or passion. On the contrary, they know too much, have too much ability and are far too fussed about quality. A younger writer might accept a ludicrous note where an ‘older writer’ will argue against it. By ‘adapting’ is meant shutting your mouth and doing as you’re told. It means The Grid.
Perhaps to camouflage the practice of sifting out any but the most pliable and sycophantic, much work is being done to create and perpetuate a myth that these ‘older writers’ are just a bunch of crusties, past their prime, lazy and out of touch or, as the BBC describes it in a single word, have become ‘comfortable’. This would be remarkable if it were true. Remarkable because that simply isn’t how writing works. What is meant, of course, is that ‘older writers’ have the knowledge and experience to write beyond The Grid while, increasingly, producers and editors don’t know that there is anything beyond The Grid. We have heard numerous stories of editors and producers staring blankly at the writer who has attempted to explain something in terms that weren’t used at the last training course. Alongside this is an even more pernicious myth that ‘older writers’ don’t know how to write and therefore need to be taught. It is supposed that because they don’t know and perhaps don’t much care for the latest whizzy term for some particular plot point, they have no idea how to structure a story, develop a narrative, form a character and generate dialogue. One wonders how they’ve managed thus far. Although it’s too ridiculous an idea to merit any further refutation one does have to ask what opportunity it is that they failed to grab when they declined the offer to be ‘retrained’ by someone who hasn’t written a single piece of drama in their life.
Of course, it might be argued that older writers need to give way to newer writers or ‘fresh blood’ as the BBC rather worryingly calls it. This is fine. New writers must be given the chance to forge careers for themselves. But if you destroy a whole generation, from who will these new writers learn and take inspiration? The man with the laser pointer and the handy flow-chart? The past generation of writers (and we’re talking ancient souls here, some of whom are now in their forties and fifties) learned from their forebears as indeed their forebears learned from their predecessors. That’s how it works. With a bit of help from charts and grids, perhaps, what is communicated from one generation to another is much more than a check-list of story beats and a system of Acts derived from Chinatown. It’s the thing itself. This might baffle a good many producers and editors – not to mention flipchart fanatics – but writers will understand. It’s the thing that hit you when you realised you couldn’t ignore the need to write even if that meant an uncertain career path with no discernible reward in sight. It’s what made you write and write and write when you should have been looking after your finances. It’s what makes you turn your life into story and turns your stories into life. It’s what you feel when you meet people and see the world from their point of view. It’s everything you think and feel and breathe. When writers meet, they know what they’re talking about. It’s what they do. And, oddly enough, it is communicable. Get a good writer up there and it pours from them. It’s no surprise that many writers also teach, often ad hoc, giving inspiration and real knowledge to new writers in a way that no list of bullet points will ever achieve however pompously delivered.
If The Grid and its imposition sounds like a bit of in-house politics of no interest to any but those who win or lose - or play the game - then consider its wider effects, particularly on that most important of creatures, the audience. For how long will they put up with bland, homogenised drama that conforms only to a strict and predictable pattern? Editors might rub their hands in glee because draft seven finally looks like the format they’ve been lashing the writer to write but the audience won’t. Because in the end that’s not why they switched on the TV. Someone unkindly said that, apart from the costumes and the faces, virtually all the mainstream dramas have become interchangeable. All the episodes progress in the same way. The stories start like this, within the first three minutes this happens, ten minutes into the show the hero does a that … and so on and on.
As we’ve said elsewhere, the writing is, as it were, on the wall. They are switching off. And it’s worrying. The BBC response is to buy wholesale or nick shamelessly from the Americans. Or they repeat old shows made in a different era because they were written by writers. Many of the successes, meanwhile, either derive from the inspiration of a previous TV generation (Dr Who, Robin Hood) or come from books (the next Austen) or indeed radio. Of course we can’t deny that there is some terrific stuff on the box, new stuff, creative and innovative stuff written by writers who have been trusted and given the opportunity to write. But consider that the future of high-end drama is being forged, even as we speak, in the bowels of Series TV with its producers, editors and writers all processed by The Grid and its methodology. Consider this and be afraid.
The BBC says it puts writers at the heart of its shows. What it means is that it sits them down and tells them how to write. It gives them a Grid and shows them how to join the dots. It reads their work according to a tick list. It never asks them what they have to say or why. It never wonders if maybe the writers know something about writing that they might like to share with us. It fails consistently, deliberately and abjectly to tap into the one great thing this country has always been good at: writing.
We can only hope that one day the writers will be used for their proper purpose. To be heard. In the meantime, so long as they listen to what they’re told and don’t put up any resistance, at least they’ve got a job.
Friday, 23 November 2007
WGGB Vs BBC
As American writers (bless them) stand on picket lines shoulder to shoulder with cast and crew, the Writers Guild of Great Britain shows itself to be no slouch either. It asked its members what their experiences are of working for the BBC and the answers were shocking. So they prepared a report and sent it to the Beeb.
A meeting was called last month. The BBC grumbled that some of the language of the report was 'intemperate'. The WGGB explained that the report only reflected the sort of language they were picking up from their members. The BBC said they'd let that go for now and promptly embarked on a power-point presentation.
After watching a bunch of headings flit in and out in brilliant colours from different directions and having listened carefully to all the bullet points, the WGGB invited the BBC to come and give the presentation to its members (an event now scheduled for December.) The BBC was much cheered. They had, after all, thus far failed to 'win the PR war'.
Huh?
Have pity on the WGGB, though. They lack the clout because not all the writers are members but writers tend not to join because the WGGB lacks clout. Catch 22 innit?
So, if you do happen to spare a thought for writers in America bringing programme-making to a standstill, ponder also the stiff rebuke our own union got for 'intemperate language' in its honest report to the BBC. Makes ya wonder.
More to come, by the way. Faustus is still collecting the data. But be warned, some of you might find it disturbing.
A meeting was called last month. The BBC grumbled that some of the language of the report was 'intemperate'. The WGGB explained that the report only reflected the sort of language they were picking up from their members. The BBC said they'd let that go for now and promptly embarked on a power-point presentation.
After watching a bunch of headings flit in and out in brilliant colours from different directions and having listened carefully to all the bullet points, the WGGB invited the BBC to come and give the presentation to its members (an event now scheduled for December.) The BBC was much cheered. They had, after all, thus far failed to 'win the PR war'.
Huh?
Have pity on the WGGB, though. They lack the clout because not all the writers are members but writers tend not to join because the WGGB lacks clout. Catch 22 innit?
So, if you do happen to spare a thought for writers in America bringing programme-making to a standstill, ponder also the stiff rebuke our own union got for 'intemperate language' in its honest report to the BBC. Makes ya wonder.
More to come, by the way. Faustus is still collecting the data. But be warned, some of you might find it disturbing.
Goldman Awards 2
A long-standing writer with a CV as long as yer arm, guv, found himself on a 'returning series'. He'd done them before, loads of them, and was therefore very welcome on a show that could be doing better. His stories were great, the treatment as professional as you'd expect but the first draft met with a cool response. He took notes and made changes. They still weren't happy. He tried again. Nope. Finally he said what do you want? They proudly showed him the shooting script of another episode they were all very happy with and said this is what they were looking for. He read it, said, "I'm sorry, I just can't write that badly." And walked.
Sunday, 18 November 2007
On Set
We are still reeling from the news that our American counterparts are needed on set in case any tweaks are required to the script. In fact their absence is a part of the reason why American TV production has ground to a halt.
In the UK their absence is an industry requirement. One or two Directors might invite the writer to pop in and say hi but saying hi is just about all you get to do. It's even astonishing to many UK writers that the Writer and the Director get to meet at all. I mean, what could the person who wrote the script and the person directing it possibly have to talk about?
Is this good for the programme?
If not, why is it standard practice?
One theory is that by introducing the writer to other people in the programme-making process a misleading impression is created that the writer has a useful contribution to make to that process. This could lead to people like directors and actors taking them seriously. You might end up with writers expressing a view about the script!
Then again, their absence provides a helpful person to blame for things in the script that don't work without them stealing kudos from the producer and the editors for anything that does.
Another reason perhaps is that the director and writer together might arrive at decisions by themselves. Creatives being creative? Unimaginable!
In the UK their absence is an industry requirement. One or two Directors might invite the writer to pop in and say hi but saying hi is just about all you get to do. It's even astonishing to many UK writers that the Writer and the Director get to meet at all. I mean, what could the person who wrote the script and the person directing it possibly have to talk about?
Is this good for the programme?
If not, why is it standard practice?
One theory is that by introducing the writer to other people in the programme-making process a misleading impression is created that the writer has a useful contribution to make to that process. This could lead to people like directors and actors taking them seriously. You might end up with writers expressing a view about the script!
Then again, their absence provides a helpful person to blame for things in the script that don't work without them stealing kudos from the producer and the editors for anything that does.
Another reason perhaps is that the director and writer together might arrive at decisions by themselves. Creatives being creative? Unimaginable!
Tuesday, 13 November 2007
Cut-backs
Cutbacks at the BBC? It’s a pity. Iconic factual programmes like ‘Rough Justice’ chopped to save money. The cultural flagship of Radio Drama squeezed so hard they might as well call it ‘unrehearsed readings’. Globally respected Newsrooms decimated. Why?
Of course it’s not the fault of the Corporation which now faces a fiercely competitive media environment. You see, over the last few years, the media itself, which is to say film, TV, the web and everything that goes on these platforms like drama and documentaries, news and information, gaming and sports has become huge. There is so much money to be made that everyone’s piling in for a slice of the pie. How could the BBC not fail in one of the world’s most flourishing industries? Er, let me read that again …
Okay, so maybe it was because of the disappointing license-fee settlement and the costs of digitising the nation. The story is that the corporation was hit by a less-than-expected income at a time of extraordinary expense. Our sympathy with this version of events is diminished a tad when we see the vast sums still sloshing into the pockets of Management Consultants, IT systems, relocation expenses, the cost of building buildings and then wondering what to do with the buildings that used to do the job quite adequately, startling increases of executive salaries and the hurling of cash at certain celebrity presenters that are of lottery-win proportions. So yes, cut-backs are in order but the BBC doesn’t exist to provide accommodation for an army of executives and IT experts or to feather the nests of a few (admittedly very professional) stars, it’s there to make programmes.
But let’s put that to one side and accept that the corporation is a bit strapped for cash at the moment. So do we put that violin to our chin or back in its case? Consider this: now more than at any other time is it possible for the BBC to generate revenue apart from the license fee. They ought to be swimming in it.
So why aren’t they?
Perhaps the answer lies in evolution.
In The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin wrote: “Although a high standard of morality gives but a slight or no advantage to each individual man and his children over the other men of the same tribe … an advancement in the standard of morality will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another.”
Revisiting the original theory, evolutionists are now beginning wonder if there is some merit to the concept of group evolution. The idea is that a lack of integrity (my words) and a propensity to shaft your colleagues in order to scratch your undignified way to the top might benefit you, but a group in which that sort of behaviour outweighs its morally-centred contrary will fail against groups that are, well, more proportionately altruistic.
If that sounds a little theoretical, let’s take some practical instances. In principle it works like this: a decision is made not on the basis of what’s good for the tribe (as Darwin would have it) or those it serves or with whom it trades – which in turn benefits the tribe. It is made on the basis of what’s good for me even at the expense of the needs of the tribe. So you sack that producer because he threatens your position, never mind how good he is. You don’t appoint that editor even though they’re good at their job because they know you’re no good at yours. As Producer you insisted on a scene in an episode which the writer resisted. The editor didn't like it either though he/she isn't telling the writer that. You now realise that it's a bad scene and the writer was right but you still insist on keeping it because worse than a duff scene is allowing the writer to think that he/she might be right. You know your series editor is an idiot but he/she is a friend of the executive producer and that already jeopardises your position so you keep shtum and watch the damage unfold. And so on and so on. The fact is that you are not providing the very best for your audience and, sooner or later, they'll abandon you. That they can now do so is what is meant by a 'fiercely competitive environment'. You now devote most of your creative energy trying to think of excuses (license fee disappointment, extraordinary expenses) hoping that your pleas won't be drowned out by the sound of chickens coming home to roost.
In drama, this takes on a more insidious level of degeneration. Since the classical narrative, based on the classical character, is one of transformation from the small to the large, the mean to the generous, the vicious to the virtuous, when you have small, mean and vicious people sitting around trying to reflect this 'journey', the result is a general sense of vacuity. They simply don't understand it. So they nick from the pattern-book of other shows, these days largely American shows, and reach for adaptations because somewhere along the line there was an original author who did understand these things. But the hollowness at the heart of their output begins to grate. They turn to 'issues' instead, lifting stories from the Sunday Supplements. It gets even thinner. Finally, in desperation, they cast pretty people in the central roles and do deals with celebrity magazines. It sells mags but it ain't drama anymore and after a while the audience drifts off in search of something more real.
In the world of factual programme-making, there has been quite a fuss in recent weeks over faked footage. Daft as it might seem when the proverbial hits the fan, if the only consideration was my job, my position, my promotion, my prospects, then the clouding of judgement and it's consequent idiocy is at least logical. The phone-in scandal? Where was the voice that questioned the breach of trust, loyalty, audience-care? Silenced by the clamouring voices of ambition, short-term gain and personal success at the expense of anything and anyone.
But let's step back for a second or two and ask ourselves if this description of avarice and paranoia truly describes what we know as the BBC. Are there people, as described, knifing their way relentlessly up the hierarchy, establishing little fiefdoms of absolute rule at the expense of real talent, real creativity, a real attempt to give the audience what it needs? Where, to put it another way, does the BBC as a whole fall in the spectrum of altruism/selfishness? A helpful method of analysing any tribe in these terms is simply to observe its performance against its rivals. In other words you only have to ask: how are we doing? Flourishing or failing? Do the facts speak for themselves?
Okay, this is not to be taken too seriously and certainly not all the ills of the Beeb can be ascribed to this process. But the contention here is that it’s a factor. And if we truly care about our old corporation, then we should take a good look at the ethos by which it runs - not just its stated Reithian objectives, but the prevailing atmosphere. What really drives it? A desire to do something well for the benefit of everyone inside and outside the corporation or mere personal ambition?
It may not be the only question but we think it’s a good one.
Of course it’s not the fault of the Corporation which now faces a fiercely competitive media environment. You see, over the last few years, the media itself, which is to say film, TV, the web and everything that goes on these platforms like drama and documentaries, news and information, gaming and sports has become huge. There is so much money to be made that everyone’s piling in for a slice of the pie. How could the BBC not fail in one of the world’s most flourishing industries? Er, let me read that again …
Okay, so maybe it was because of the disappointing license-fee settlement and the costs of digitising the nation. The story is that the corporation was hit by a less-than-expected income at a time of extraordinary expense. Our sympathy with this version of events is diminished a tad when we see the vast sums still sloshing into the pockets of Management Consultants, IT systems, relocation expenses, the cost of building buildings and then wondering what to do with the buildings that used to do the job quite adequately, startling increases of executive salaries and the hurling of cash at certain celebrity presenters that are of lottery-win proportions. So yes, cut-backs are in order but the BBC doesn’t exist to provide accommodation for an army of executives and IT experts or to feather the nests of a few (admittedly very professional) stars, it’s there to make programmes.
But let’s put that to one side and accept that the corporation is a bit strapped for cash at the moment. So do we put that violin to our chin or back in its case? Consider this: now more than at any other time is it possible for the BBC to generate revenue apart from the license fee. They ought to be swimming in it.
So why aren’t they?
Perhaps the answer lies in evolution.
In The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin wrote: “Although a high standard of morality gives but a slight or no advantage to each individual man and his children over the other men of the same tribe … an advancement in the standard of morality will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another.”
Revisiting the original theory, evolutionists are now beginning wonder if there is some merit to the concept of group evolution. The idea is that a lack of integrity (my words) and a propensity to shaft your colleagues in order to scratch your undignified way to the top might benefit you, but a group in which that sort of behaviour outweighs its morally-centred contrary will fail against groups that are, well, more proportionately altruistic.
If that sounds a little theoretical, let’s take some practical instances. In principle it works like this: a decision is made not on the basis of what’s good for the tribe (as Darwin would have it) or those it serves or with whom it trades – which in turn benefits the tribe. It is made on the basis of what’s good for me even at the expense of the needs of the tribe. So you sack that producer because he threatens your position, never mind how good he is. You don’t appoint that editor even though they’re good at their job because they know you’re no good at yours. As Producer you insisted on a scene in an episode which the writer resisted. The editor didn't like it either though he/she isn't telling the writer that. You now realise that it's a bad scene and the writer was right but you still insist on keeping it because worse than a duff scene is allowing the writer to think that he/she might be right. You know your series editor is an idiot but he/she is a friend of the executive producer and that already jeopardises your position so you keep shtum and watch the damage unfold. And so on and so on. The fact is that you are not providing the very best for your audience and, sooner or later, they'll abandon you. That they can now do so is what is meant by a 'fiercely competitive environment'. You now devote most of your creative energy trying to think of excuses (license fee disappointment, extraordinary expenses) hoping that your pleas won't be drowned out by the sound of chickens coming home to roost.
In drama, this takes on a more insidious level of degeneration. Since the classical narrative, based on the classical character, is one of transformation from the small to the large, the mean to the generous, the vicious to the virtuous, when you have small, mean and vicious people sitting around trying to reflect this 'journey', the result is a general sense of vacuity. They simply don't understand it. So they nick from the pattern-book of other shows, these days largely American shows, and reach for adaptations because somewhere along the line there was an original author who did understand these things. But the hollowness at the heart of their output begins to grate. They turn to 'issues' instead, lifting stories from the Sunday Supplements. It gets even thinner. Finally, in desperation, they cast pretty people in the central roles and do deals with celebrity magazines. It sells mags but it ain't drama anymore and after a while the audience drifts off in search of something more real.
In the world of factual programme-making, there has been quite a fuss in recent weeks over faked footage. Daft as it might seem when the proverbial hits the fan, if the only consideration was my job, my position, my promotion, my prospects, then the clouding of judgement and it's consequent idiocy is at least logical. The phone-in scandal? Where was the voice that questioned the breach of trust, loyalty, audience-care? Silenced by the clamouring voices of ambition, short-term gain and personal success at the expense of anything and anyone.
But let's step back for a second or two and ask ourselves if this description of avarice and paranoia truly describes what we know as the BBC. Are there people, as described, knifing their way relentlessly up the hierarchy, establishing little fiefdoms of absolute rule at the expense of real talent, real creativity, a real attempt to give the audience what it needs? Where, to put it another way, does the BBC as a whole fall in the spectrum of altruism/selfishness? A helpful method of analysing any tribe in these terms is simply to observe its performance against its rivals. In other words you only have to ask: how are we doing? Flourishing or failing? Do the facts speak for themselves?
Okay, this is not to be taken too seriously and certainly not all the ills of the Beeb can be ascribed to this process. But the contention here is that it’s a factor. And if we truly care about our old corporation, then we should take a good look at the ethos by which it runs - not just its stated Reithian objectives, but the prevailing atmosphere. What really drives it? A desire to do something well for the benefit of everyone inside and outside the corporation or mere personal ambition?
It may not be the only question but we think it’s a good one.
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