Although first - don't feel sorry for me about the rejected script thing, it happens all the time (although I appreciate the sentiment, obviously). As long as you have loads of projects on the go at any one time, it's surprisingly easy to just go 'tch' at having a script turned down, then go on to the next thing, especially when it's something you wrote a fair amount of time ago. And it's quite sketchy in nature, so I can always strip it for parts...
Thanks for anonymous for this Guardian article and Patch for this one in the New Statesman. Patch also writes about whether 'advertorial' style blog posts could turn out to be something of a mixed blessing for the companies concerned here. And I should point out that I'm easily tall and pretty enough for the both of us, so no worries there.
Some great comments in the original ads-in-blogs-post, so thanks for that, and keep them coming.
Something I'd completely forgotten about, talking about selling out your principles and waking up one day wondering where your soul used to be, is that I was approached sometime after the first series of Green Wing by an advertising company who wanted to do some kind of big lager-drinking summer promotion that would appear in one of those men's magazines with a title like Balls or Plinth or Dur or Look Tits. The proposal was to come up with some huge blokey pull-out guide to summer, and for some reason they thought I was the person to do this (I know). Part of the deal was they wanted an interview, and a photo.
I had a meeting with my agent, and we decided that the whole idea was naff and unpleasant and ghastly, and consequently we should as for something in the region of ten grand. I asked that in the photo I should be holding a magic sword, with at least two scantily-clad women lying at my feet gazing adoringly up at me, but I don't know if that made it into Agent Ginny's final proposal. Sometimes she forgot stuff, it was weird.
Anyway, we waited to hear, and nothing happened, and in the end it turned out that they thought I was one of the cast (who, I don't know) and they didn't even know writers were involved in the show anyway, what with it being completely improvised and that, and then it turned out the lager company went with another idea anyway. Honestly, it's not good for your ego, this business.
But at least I found the amount for which I was willing to totally discard the olive linen shirt of principle and don the gaudily tie-dyed t-shirt of venality, so that was good.
21 comments:
>>I'm easily tall and pretty enough for the both of us<<
I am, of course, so tiny as to be almost invisible, which is fortunate, because I am also terrifyingly ugly.
But, Mr Henry, you are very coy about photos are you not? I have yet to see a mugshot - and I've looked.
And aren'y you up early!
I was asked to be involved in the same campaign and expressed interest, but we didn't get as far as discussing money. Which officially makes me a MORE MORAL PERSON, by a factor of oooh not very much at all.
The amount you'll mortgage your principles for changes as you age. When I was a callow 19-year-old with hair like someone from the Plymouth Brethren, I accepted £250 to pose for some photographs for a group of German hair fetishists. (Clothed photographs, in which I was brushing, brushing, brushing.)
Not only did I happily take the money; I also allowed the fetishists to take me out and buy me a very expensive dinner. And one of them bought me a new modem. At the time I thought I'd been awfully clever. Eleven years later, I occasionally happen upon one of the pictures and they make my insides feel all sicky.
Principles inflation means that I would probably brush my hair for perverts for about £5000 these days.
I wish it to be known far and wide that I will brush my hair for perverts for £250. I might even accept a near offer.
Mind, my hair is all of 4mm long, so it would take a very particular brand of pervert. Still, should any of them happen across this blog - coooeee! Perverts! Over here!
Sorry, Liz, that kind of misses your point, doesn't it?
Blimey Liz, what a fantastic story. Interesting lot, yer fetishists. I happened upon a smoking fetishists' site once, which had an in-depth guide to films with people smoking in them, and marks out of ten for the sexiness thereof. I seem to recall my future screen avatar Winona Ryder scoring quite highly for her - ahem - fag action in Night On Earth, a rating with which I disagree vehemently. Winona is a rubbish smoker, smoking fetishists.
If you do feel like including a photo at any point, you should make sure you are wearing the 'gaudily tie-dyed t-shirt of venality' - I'd certainly pay to see that.
Still wondering where a callow 19 year old meets a group of German hair fetishists urgh.
I'd quite like to see the sword scenario maybe you could ask for volunteers for the scantily-clad women roles.
I wouldn't be physically able to get a brush through my straggley tatty hair.
I'd do it for a pint and a bag of chips if I could...
Know thyself - and thine own price.
For some reason my hair seems to rapidly be disappearing from my scalp and reappearing on my arse. So, if anyone wants to take pictures of me brushing my bum hair I'm available.
I'd pay someone to brush my hair if I didn't have to buy things like chips and beer.
I really paid for the 'tall and pretty enough for the both of us thing' by the way, which was entirely appropriate, but later I got to eat figs, which was extrememly pleasant.
No-one cared for the 'Look Tits' magazine? I was quite proud of that one.
"No-one cared for the 'Look Tits' magazine?"
Too close to reality I expect. I'm going to attempt to create a highbrow men's magazine. Called Hark! Mammaries
I once devised a magazine of homoerotic etchings that came out four times a year.
Hung, Drawn & Quarterly.
Billy: surely Lo! Mammaries!?
No, because men aren't interested in lo' mammaries.* It's nice, high, perky ones that get the look in.
*unless you're into 'that sort of thing' or are indeed 'Aged' yourself.
i almost spat (spitted?) my tea on the keyboard because of "Look Tits".
i swear if i ever am in a position of power in a publishing house...
really, it sounds much better than "gq".
"Look tits" made me giggle James, twas very inspired. And Billy, "hark! mammories!" is genius too. I have a male friend who was once going through the FHM stage, and had posters of scantily clad women on his bedroom walls. He came home one day to find that his mother had cut tennis dresses out of newspaper and stuck them over said scantily clad women. What a legend.
maybe 'Hark! Mammeries' could have a fetish of the week section starting with those infamous Germans. I have lovely hair and I will brush it for £500 or the payment of my library fine.
I currently have purple hair (red dye gone wrong) and have decided that instead of brushing it I will let small creatures scurry through it and create nests as i saw a picture in a hair fashion mag and this sort of look seems to be all the rage now...
So far no germen tourists have commented on the state of it...
wv - juizebl. nearly jeezabel which is what my friend called me the other day in a fit of old fashioned prudishness...
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