Monday, March 28, 2011

If Your Name's Not On The List...

'Unsolicited scripts are not welcome.'

Surely the person who made that decision should be stripped naked, rubbed down with sandpaper, smeared in lemon juice and beaten to death with their own underpants just for daring to slam a door in the face of your awesome talent? How very dare they, how very dare they indeed!

OK STOP! *slaps you in the face with a week old halibut*

Unsolicited scripts are not welcome for several reasons; it may be you've sent your script to a small production company and therefore they don't have the staff to read unsolicited work, they may have decided it's easier to let agents do their work for them rather than hire readers because they want to save their money for chocolate digestives instead of the plain ones with their tea, or maybe they just prefer to spend their time on Facebook, Twitter or Googling their own name every five minutes to see if they've moved up the listing. Whatever the case there is still a way of getting them to read your work without resorting to kidnap and nipple clamps.

If they have an email address send them a short, very polite email telling them you are aware of their submissions policy, that you don't have an agent, but you were wondering if they would kindly read a one page outline of your project. Most recipients will ignore you, some may even laugh in your face, some might take out restraining orders and some will reiterate their submission policy *just* to make it clear to someone as stupid as you. But there may just be one producer who emails you back and says, 'oh go on then'. Think of it from their point of view, they would rather read a one page outline than miss out on the script of the century.

If you don't try then why bother writing your script in the first place?

If you don't ask, you don't get.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Outcasts & Being Human Series Finales

Outcasts: I really liked the final episode. It set up some interesting cliffhangers for the second series - if they had been given the go ahead for one - and the dialogue was much improved. The only thing I really didn't like was the fact that Julius Berger's villainy was watered down when we learnt he was working for someone else. He would have been a much stronger/evil/power hungry character if he had been working on his own. Yes, we know that the people he was in collusion with were far more manipulative and dangerous than Julius had been, but I personally would have preferred to see him more in control and not someone else's lap dog. Not a bad episode though.

Being Human: My God, what great drama! This is what good TV is all about. While we were teased by the 'Wolf Shaped Bullet' and who it might be, it really could have only ever been George. Any other choice and it wouldn't have made any sense, or had such poetic justice, it had to be George just as Mitchell had to be the one to kill Herrick. But what hit me the most besides the awesome acting from Russell Tovey, Aidan Turner, Lenora Crichlow, Sinead Keenan and Jason Watkins, was the even more awesome dialogue..."I'm only doing this because I love you." That is how great dialogue should be written; that is how great drama should be written. Being Human blew away everything else that was on TV that night. If all TV drama was that good I'd never get my arse off the sofa.

Monday, March 14, 2011