Write Here, Write Now

RIP

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 07:55:17 GMT

Silence please. This blog is dead!

Please update your bookmarks from here to

www.lucyvee.blogspot.com

I will be moving the useful articles over to blogger in the coming months. Please feel free to check back here if neccessary or if you can't find what you're looking for, email me and I'll point you in the right direction.

See you on blogger!

STOP PRESS

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:42:33 GMT

The new blog is up and running!

It's alive! It's aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive!!! *evil laugh*

Go on over now, there's a party - I'm drinking on my own!

>BURP<

Censorship - What Rating Are You?

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:30:34 GMT

A post over at Shooting People got me thinking this morning: a Shooter was enquiring if Script Readers et al would provide ratings for scripts if asked. The answer from BANG2WRITE would be a resounding yes by the way, but immediately it made me wonder a) what my own specs would be rated at and b) whether this would be any use in selling them.

Now, "Mary Whitehouse" and "censorship" were rude words in my house when I grew up. My father seemed to take any kind of censorship entirely personally: be it a 18, 15, 12, PG or even U certificate in question, from flesh-eating space aliens to unicorns jumping over the rainbow, he would always complain it was no one's right but his own to decide what he could and could not watch. With this background then, I became very interested in film censorship: WHY were films classified anyway? This is a democracy, right??

The wind was taken from my sails then when I discovered, after attending a few conferences at the BBFC and talking to people who sat on the board (one nice lady even helped me with a university project on the subject), that in actual fact, we are all part of the classification process. Decisions on how to rate films are apparently made on the opinions not only of a select few, but audiences as well. That's why films seem to get gorier and certificates seem to be going down - they actually are: our ability to withstand gore in particular has gone up, quite literally.

That doesn't mean classifiers do not make mistakes. Anyone remember The Cave? That was rated 12A at the cinema, the same as both Batman Begins and Spiderman: knowing my son likes monsters, I almost took him to see it. Thankfully I didn't. It involved a rather nasty scene in which a man is impaled on spikes that made me wince. Me, wince: lover of all things horror! Later it was re-classified to 15, more in the keeping of a film with that level of gore and creature violence in my view.

But it's sex that appears to make certificates jump up to 18 - in this country, anyhow. Would A History Of Violence have been classified at 15 instead, even with those close-ups of mangled faces, had it not had both those very flagrant (and rather fabulous) sex scenes? I think so: No Sex Please, We're British?

However, does knowing the possible rating of your script have any bearing on whether you can sell it? I don't think so. I do however think it can help you understand your story - something a surprising amount of writers do not seem able to pinpoint when asked, "What's this script about?" Also, perhaps it will throw up some recurring themes in what you want to write about: knowing you have a problem is half the battle in breaking the addiction! ; )

So, I had a look at a few of my scripts with this in mind:

THY WILL BE DONE. Supernatural Thriller, Redemption. Think this one is an "18": there is a scene in which a child is murdered, but also two graphic sex scenes, one which is pretty violent, though not rape.

EYE OF THE ECLIPSE. Horror, Revenge. Again, "18". Though the monsters are pretty gory, again I think it's the sex that will assign this to adults-only if it ever made it to the cinema.

HUSBAND AND FATHER. Drama, Coming-Of-Age. "18" again: though very different in tone to the other two, again it's the sex!

I am definitely seeing a recurring theme here. Am I obsessed? "They" say you unconsciously reveal your preoccupations through your writing after all...

Now you've seen my dirty laundry, what about you?

Yes, New blog is still Officially Screwed...

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 18:20:01 GMT

...What can I say? I have LOST INTEREST. This is how my mind works: something new comes along, I do it, it works out = everything's fine. It doesn't work out? Well clearly it's the thing/event/other person's fault, not mine, I'm perfect = screw this for a lark. Mate.

To be fair, I did call Secret Service Bro-In-Law: "Hello, bro-in-law who sells only insurance and doesn't carry the military secrets of Great Britain in a briefcase," says I; "Think my widget is experiencing a meltdown." "Nothing's ever simple with you, is it?" Was his retort. Was that a double click on the line? We're bugged! I had to put the phone down before the spooks arrived again.

So I gave up without really starting. I admit it. I was talking (writing? It was email, does it count as talking? Or would it be typing? Or tapping, a handy almalgm of the two!) to the lovely Jame Moran and he gave me a rather luscious idea after we were tapping about something completely different. Love it when that happens. I've spent the whole afternoon outlining it. So it would appear I have sucked some of James' success out of him Rogue-style after all. Yes!

So blogger templates can go to hell...Until I'm not so inspired, that is. Then it will be a welcome distraction.

Readers Are Right. Writers Are Wrong.

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 09:26:11 GMT

That get your attention? We may be underpaid and overworked my friends, but we have THE POWER. The power to make or break careers; champion you or crush you into dust!

Actually you'd have to find us first under the huge amount of paper that covers us at all times, not to mention the brads and bindings and treasury tags that litter our hair. Plus you'd have to make an appointment, since we're working day and night right up til a year next wednesday!

Okay that's all an exaggeration, but maybe you have the picture now: we're not monsters. But we do have pet peeves. I've written about them before on this blog, but now it seems the lovely Scott has also stirred up this hornet's nest (and of course I couldn't resist adding my tuppence worth!). The ubiquitous Shane Black Argument (yawn) has reared its head, plus the thought that Readers are somehow anal retentives whose sole purpose in life is to destroy the lives of spec screenwriters. Rock on!

In other news, it would appear my blogging absence has some of you out in the 'Sphere worried, if this email is anything to go by, from a chap (lady?) going by the email handle ChowYunFatisFat:

Where are you? Are the kids alright? You haven't written an entry since last thursday. That's nearly a week! Not like you. Plus I really need some help on my overwriting problem, you promised us a post on this ages ago.

Chow, I can assure you that everything is fine in the Bang2write household. I will attempt to write a new post on overwriting ASAP. However, I've had a ton of development notes to do and I'm trying out for a new scriptreading gig, which is exciting. Also, my secret scriptwriting partner has fallen off the edge of the known universe in some kind of secret stress, so I've been trying to find out what's going on. NOTE: If anyone sees him out in cyberland, he'll write for onion rings, so tempt him in with some, keep thedoor locked and I'll fetch him later.

Also, many thanks to lovelies Chris, Good Dog and The OR for their help in trying to rectify my recalcitrant pink blog over at Blogger. I will get on to it, I promise.

In the mean time, what have YOU been working on?

It's A Conspiracy

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 12:12:35 GMT

I told you. Machines do not like me. Did YOUR blogger template malfunction on your ass and go all pixellated?? Well?? I bet it didn't. This is why I resisted going across to The Dark Side for so long. I KNEW it would happen! AOL is so much easier with its fill the blank space link things and drop down menus. Shame on you Blogger People for not making it more user friendly! I am not a stupid person; I'm an educated woman, in fact. Yet as soon as I open that bloody template with its > and < all over the joint I'm reduced to infantile tantrums and swearing of such ferocity that I'd scare Jethro. It boils down to this: I have better frigging things to do!!

Now, I could give myself some kind of deadline for learning or have lessons or something, but I've decided to try a new, more effective tack. After all, there are so many non-techies using the internet now, it's my duty! So:

Blogger has one month to come over to my way of thinking and make the templates easier to manage or this cute bunny gets it.

I'm serious.

In other news, Lilirose's transformation from baby to hybrid-kitten-thing is almost complete - she tried drinking out of the cat's water bowl this morning. Plus, this is one of the dates some historians believe Jesus really was born. And it's also Kevin Costner's birthday. Work that one out.

Clickit

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 09:16:20 GMT

Click on this link.

Yes, this one.

I order you!

It Was A Time of War

Mon, 15 Jan 2007 17:01:25 GMT

Between man and beast. Or at least baby and cat. Lilirose and Crampon-Fred, the kitten with ADHD, are fighting at every opportunity. Much as I'd like to blame the cat, it's Lili who's being a royal pain. She has hundreds of toys of her own, yet wants his - even if his is a much-chewed, furry Santa with a bell on his hat and tied to a natty bit of elastic on the back of the living room door. In addition, Lilirose has discovered this week she mostly likes eating cat crunchies whenever she can get hold of them - but not salmon and herring, oh no: has to be duck flavour. Natch. Anyone would think I never fed the little bugger. Ah, they grow up so fast.

Nowt to report here, other than Ofsted are still threatening to visit college; I'm indifferent now. There's only so much "Aha! We're coming to inspect you any minute...Any minute now...Yep, you scared? Huh? Yeah, any second now we'll come and watch you in your lesson....You ready? Well, not just yet...FOUR WEEKS FROM NOW!" Yawn. My inspection folder came back from Faceless Admin Guys - apparently it's not good enough. It's missing some sort of report on SOMETHING COMPLETELY USELESS AND ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH PHILOSOPHY IN ANY WAY. Some other Faceless Admin Guy stopped me in the corridor the other day (yes, he had no face: really) and said: "Lucy, we need your sexual, cultural and spiritual ethos for the audit." It was all I could do to NOT say "Actually, that's mine Buster: you can't have my sexual, spiritual and cutural ethos, I've spent the last 27 years refining it!" until it occurred to me he probably meant some sort of piece of paper and oh yes: there it is in my pigeon hole this morning! Hallelujah.

So: how do I address sexual, spiritual and cultural orientation in my lessons? Well, one can always say: "Greetings Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Blacks, Asians and Caucasians, let's learn philosophy" each morning, but somehow I don't think that'll go down too well, so I'm off to make up meaningless crap to keep some bureacrat happy. In the meantime, please check out The Rouge Wave. She's another rather lovely Reader. I thank you.

Touched!

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 15:09:51 GMT

Well, seems like it might be my week for submissions. Having had a script invite for The BBC Writer's Room last saturday, Touch Films have called me with reference to their Writer Development Programme in association with South West Screen. I sent my "expression of interest" back at the beginning of November and it seems they like my idea, because they want me to submit some of the script. Obviously not the time to get over-excited, but you never know in this game and it's a cool start to the year.

If you live in the South West of the UK and want to read more about this initiative, check it out here. And let me know how you get on!

Script Revamp

Wed, 10 Jan 2007 13:11:56 GMT

Well, it seems the new script for next Writer's Room submission is alright: well, I say "new" but really it's a new draft of an old draft REVAMPED MASSIVELY. Don't you just love it when a Revamp goes well? Though I must say, I'm wondering why I didn't bloody do it this way in the FIRST place - a bit like every saturday I wonder why I didn't pick the numbers that come up in The Lottery. I mean, there are only 49 to choose from for pete's sake. If I HAD written the script this way though, would it be the same as it is now? Or did I have to go down these avenues, cul-de-sacs and under the sea and into the centre of the earth to see what people WOULDN'T like to finally find the bits someone would??

Ah, the screenwriter's sixty four million dollar question...Along with why do we have to use courier when there are so many other, cooler fonts and why no one in the movies notices the difference between the muppet and CGI versions of their pets/farm animals/monsters/aliens*. Mystery.

* delete as appropriate.