Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharaoh recently (as Variety would put it) set up their own shingle: Monastic Productions.
Anyway, they're coming to London on Monday 14 April to talk about their work including Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes, and upcoming series Bonekickers .
After the talk there'll be an open Q&A. Get your free tickets here.
You’d think there would be some logic to the notion that a half hour show would be less intensive to write than a full 60 minute job.
I have just finished my Eastenders script (well almost - I’m still waiting for it to be signed off) and at one point last week I had to crawl under the duvet and hide. “No more! I can’t write another line!” Instead I listened to a Radio 4 programme about what a wonderful innovative TV drama ‘The Prisoner’ was. It was me running across that beach being chased by a bouncy ball, I am not a soap writer I am a free woman…
It has been exhausting. My first commission after graduating from the Academy all those months ago was an Eastenders, I have rather fond memories of the process. Rose tinted memories? I went back and looked over all my old notes, totted up the number of drafts it took me - the work load is probably equal to what I’ve just done. The time to do it in must have been condensed surely? Annoyingly I have been getting notes back Friday afternoons and the temptation to work weekends with the notes still fresh, is too huge. As a freelance worker almost all my working life, the weekend as a two day break, is a concept that must be fitted in wherever possible - often mid week.
At this point in blogging - the phone rang. It was my editor. “Hiiiii …” with that sing song hate to do this to you, type of greeting… “About Scene 20a.”
Scene 20a has been following me around for a day or so now. It first pitched up just before I was about to take my niece to Victoria Coach Station after a chocolate filled Easter visit. As she packed her bag I wrote Scene 20a - a little bridging scene that my editor and I agreed was needed to keep my narrative balls up in the air. If you drop a narrative ball, the story stops dead and is forgotten about.
At the coach station, with noisy tannoy for company I was on my mobile discussing the scene I’d sent an hour earlier, waving my niece off I agreed to a few amendments. After chucking some oven chips on to cook back at the ranch, I amended the scene - sent it off again.
“We’re almost there...” my editor told me just now - one more push on Scene 20a. I’ll leave the birthing analogies for you to imagine.
I have just sat in bed, Barbara Cartland like, laptop on my knee re-writing little Scene 20a. It is only a page long and that is a difficult task, especially as I tend to overwrite everything. But with Scene 20a now fully fledged and nestling nicely between Scene 20 and 21, perhaps I can get this script signed off.
I have a Holby Commissioning meeting next week and need to move my head out of Albert Square. I’ll also be working with a new (new to me) script editor, and look forward to forging a new working relationship.
We’ll be shy with other to begin with - how do we sign off our emails? ‘Best wishes’? ‘Look forward to hearing from you’? ‘Dahhrling, mmwwahh xx’?
I wonder what his pink fuzzy/blue prickly ratio is? My last Holby editor was very supportive and had that canny skill of making me feel I was only the writer he was concerned about at any given time.
I’ve been flying solo writing Continuing Drama shows for a year now - having flown the Academy nest. Each script has been a completely different experience and I’m still enjoying the process. The workload has been about right - with space to breathe (I got a repro 1940’s swing dress pattern for Easter.. if I don’t craft I die) and I’ve enough guaranteed work to know I won’t starve next Christmas.
Life is good.
Hullo.
Guess what we've gone and done then?
Check out the new version of the writersroom website.
Good, eh?
It'll take a month or two to migrate all of the content over. If there's something you particularly miss, let me know either via email or by leaving a comment below, and I'll pop it on the top of the queue.
Also, if you spot any broken links, shabby grammar, that sort of thing, give me a shout.
Some interesting things going on over at Radio 4 at the moment...
Specifically The City Speaks, which bills itself as a film for radio based on an idea by Peter Ackroyd.
The concept is that while the play's transmitting on Radio 4, you can press the red button on your TV, and you'll be delivered images which complement and enhance the radio play.
The plays are going to be performed in Radio 4's Afternoon Play slot between 2.15 and 3.00pm on Wednesday 19 and Thursday 20 March 2008.
You'll also be able to listen to the plays on the Radio 4 website, or watch the films on the BBC Film Network
Worth checking out, I think
Kudos. My Casualty Ep got a mention on Harry Hill’s TV Burp (the man’s a genius). I have arrived.
I’ve just sent off the second draft of my current Eastenders episode. Since I last wrote for EE, the system has changed slightly with fewer drafts being called for and (I surmise) slightly more directive notes.
Most interestingly they no longer demand to see a treatment and after the commissioning meeting (where all problems are supposed to be ironed out) the writers can go straight to script. I guess there are fewer ‘variables’ on an Eastenders script - no guest storylines or bloodied freak accidents to get given the OK, but I found moving straight to script with out discussing my treatment quite unnerving.
I could have passed the treatment onto my editor first, but the turnaround was tight and I needed all the writing time I could get. Some writers say they hate writing treatments, I’m the type who considers the treatment the sacred text, it’s where the work is done, the structure and the story. The scripted dialogue is then the icing on the cake, the fun bit that can be done with a smile and music in the background. Once I get notes on a draft, I go back to the treatment, sort out the problems there, before adjusting anything in a subsequent draft.
There’s always so much to cram into an episode of Eastenders, bit like playing Tetrus - all the pieces need to fit smoothly together and move around the square with ease. 5 different stories are playing at any one time in a typical episode - count them next time you watch. Then there’s the added fun of the scheduler’s notes.
For example:
“Only 3 pages in the Vic please, I know it’s Peggy’s story but, Peggy is not available. Stacey can’t be seen with Steven and Bradley, Bradley can be seen with Stacey - but only in the Allotments. You can only use the Minute Mart if there’s an ‘R’ in the month. Wellard is on holiday…etc”
It’s a great technical exercise constructing the Treatment, and yes I got my five coloured felt pens out again and drew up my wall chart of 40 boxes, one for each scene (give or take). The end result can look like a demented tube map with pictures.
Waiting .. as ever .. for notes.
After 3 months hard graft on a script, gently culling scenes, thrashing out script notes over coffee with an editor, crying on the way home because your beautifully constructed episode has just collapsed due to a weakness in the C story strand… After all the bartering, rewriting and isolation… it’s bliss to finally get the Shooting Script through the letter box.
I read a recent Shooting Script of mine curled up on the settee, enjoying the story, all the work done. Surprising then to see one or two scenes somewhat chopped about, the odd line changed, dropped, expanded upon. This is the definitive script, we signed off on this - all those delicate negotiations - what happened?
Actors, that’s what.
Some actors just can’t help themselves - they have to tweak their lines. Control freaks?
I don’t tell them how to act…
