My pilot script for TEEN DRAMA PROJECT has gone off to the Big Chief Head Lady

...who has to look at the script and decide whether to:

1. Chuck it in the bin.
2. Shoot a pilot.

(UPDATE: Just to clarify, I don't mean pick up a Sig Sauer SP2022 and gun down a qualified aeronautical operator. This is almost certainly frowned upon at the higher echelons of the BBC).

3. Commission me to write a number of further episodes ranging from one to, dunno, realistically, four?
4. Keep the characters and setting and give them to some other writers to lark about with (I will still get some money and a 'created by' credit though).
5. Get me to rewrite it, but this time set in space (I wouldn't mind this actually).

Although before it got sent off, I had to come up with a one-page document that would sum up the tone of the beast. I turned to Patroclus for aid in this matter, as she is a professional writer who has to use punctuation and spelling or she gets told off, making her very much the Player to my Gentleman* (as t'were).

Patroclus suggested an emoticon. Presumably right in the middle of the page.

I liked this idea. It was bold, visual, and crucially, would be hard to misquote. It's tricky though, as although PROJECT TEEN DRAMA is ostensibly a drama, which would suggest:

:(

... the pilot script has been heavily influenced by American series such as 'My So-Called Life', 'Freaks and Geeks' and, greatest of all, 'The OC', all of which have a healthy amount of humour to lighten the seriousness. Which is more:

:)

Of course there's always:

: /

... but that looks a bit non-commital. In fact the whole thing was starting to make me feel:

:S

In the end though, I found one which perfectly suggested 'a drama with comedy leanings, but nonethless underlying tones of seriousness that complement the humour rather than distracting from it - taking a holistic approach to the genre, if you'll allow me to be so. Which was:

; |

Which I wrote on the centre of a bit of A4 with magic marker, popped in an envelope and posted off to BBC TV Centre (Big Chief Head Commissioning Lady) with a first class stamp.

No of course I didn't. I emailed a tone document backwards and forwards between the producer and her glamorous assistant a few times until we'd got it right, and then it was sent off.

Part of me really wishes I'd done the other thing though.



* Tim F spotted that I got my arcane cricketing references the wrong way round there.