tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108315182024-03-13T13:41:30.233+00:00James and the Blue CatWriter of thingsJames Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.comBlogger928125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-55410753187378580312018-04-24T10:44:00.000+01:002018-04-24T10:44:02.596+01:00US TV DRAMA PITCH GENERATOR... and THEN I thought, why not make a US version? In case I ever have to go and pitch over there, you never know.<br />
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Behold <a href="http://perchance.org/375wgv65ln" target="_blank">THE US TV DRAMA PITCH GENERATOR</a>, which is like the UK one but has a much bigger budget.<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mujZHFiQHss/Wt78WoxiqSI/AAAAAAAABUA/I3kRyMucrI4n-EiycJVAKm2r0066jMrZQCLcBGAs/s1600/uspitch.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="462" data-original-width="978" height="151" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mujZHFiQHss/Wt78WoxiqSI/AAAAAAAABUA/I3kRyMucrI4n-EiycJVAKm2r0066jMrZQCLcBGAs/s320/uspitch.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-69110245667780153532018-04-24T10:42:00.000+01:002018-04-24T10:42:04.287+01:00UK TV Drama Pitch GeneratorI got a bit tired of constantly coming up with new ideas for television shows, only for them to be constantly shot down, so I decided to come up with a way to randomly generate them.<br />
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Behold <a href="http://perchance.org/igad5q8qsg" target="_blank">THE UK TV DRAMA GENERATOR</a><br />
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An example thereof:<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UwY7QSrIu-U/Wt7weK1bBPI/AAAAAAAABTw/C8x0_2kb8K8APVP5v94WR0nRnd1wqVHVQCLcBGAs/s1600/ukpitch.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="482" data-original-width="978" height="157" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UwY7QSrIu-U/Wt7weK1bBPI/AAAAAAAABTw/C8x0_2kb8K8APVP5v94WR0nRnd1wqVHVQCLcBGAs/s320/ukpitch.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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(I'm trying to work out how to embed it in a blog post, not sure yet)<br />
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<br />James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-74204548417031944152018-01-03T18:46:00.000+00:002018-01-03T18:46:08.113+00:00Always spell-check your email headers<div class="p1">
It’s just occurred to me that as Steven Moffat’s run on Doctor Who has finished, I can now tell you how I sent the worst typo IN HISTORY to the production team without worrying I’ll be giving away any potential spoilers or anything.</div>
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The Doctor Who series before the last one (or possibly the one before that), I was approached for possibly writing an episode for the series, which as you can imagine is quite an exciting thing to be asked to do. The odds weren’t great, I think they had four episode slots free, and they’d asked sixteen or so writers to come in and do a pitch. So after submitting a few one-paragraph ideas, I got on the train to Cardiff and had a preliminary meeting with the lovely script editors Richard and Derek (*waves*), then worked the ideas up a bit more, and then was asked to come to another meeting in Chiswick, in front of script eds, producer and S. Moffat. I’ve met him before, he’s very nice.</div>
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The pitch meet opened thusly:</div>
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MOFFAT : So, what's your relationship with Doctor Who?</div>
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ME: Well, I wasn't allowed to watch it because it was deemed 'too scary', but my library had the Target novelisations, so in my mind there was only one Doctor who sometimes had a scarf and sometimes didn't, but didn't really have a face because I'm not great at faces, but either way, he always seemed more of a literary figure than a visual one.</div>
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MOFFAT: (shocked) You weren't allowed to watch Doctor Who?</div>
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ME: *sad face*</div>
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MOFFAT: That's basically child abuse!</div>
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ME: (getting phone out) I KNOW, RIGHT?! Please call my mum and tell her.</div>
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(I didn't actually do the last bit but MAN I wanted to).</div>
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I then did the worst pitch I’ve ever done. Started off well, then my brain clagged up I said ‘and then’ a million times and forgot bits and had to go back and start again at least twice I DON’T RECOMMEND THIS and I was reduced to asking for some water, and the sound of the water jug being slid across the table to me was exactly the screeching sound from Men In Black when Will Smith drags the table across the interview room, it was uncanny.</div>
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By then, the odds had already narrowed to eight writers for two eps, although if you’re a Doctor Who fan, you’ll have spotted my name isn’t on any of the credits, so you know how this ends. Well sort of, smarty pants, although you don’t know exactly how I get there, so settle down.</div>
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Sadly, the big ideas I’d had were already taken (the Doctor organises a heist! we go deep inside the Tardis for a thing!), so I was given an idea to muck about with: Strax the Sontaran, member of the Paternoster Gang the Doctor’s occasional chum, is taken back to his home planet by his fellow Sontarans, who view him as a traitor for his regular helpings-out with the human race, not to mention one Time Lord, and place him on trial, the sentence: death. And probably a horrible death too, because if you’re not familiar with the Sontarans, they’re basically the angriest baked potatoes in the galaxy, and enter every room like this: GAAHHHHHH!</div>
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So it doesn’t look good for Strax. I had an idea for how you’d explore this, and Steven Moffat was throwing better ideas at me like one of those baseball machines in American films, I was sort of juggling his ideas while mine fell all over the floor and rolled under tables and so on, but we got somewhere in the end, and even though it was the worst pitch I’d ever done, I got to go away and write it up.</div>
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This reminds me, I had another idea about an old battle Tardis. A Tardis specifically designed by the Time Lords for WAR, and they said ‘ah, we’re just about to do this’ but clearly they never did. Where’s Battle Tardis! I LOVE Battle Tardis!</div>
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Anyway I wrote it up, and they batted it about, and by then it was me and another writer up for one remaining slot and to cut a long story short (too late!), they went with the other writer, so I didn’t get to write for the Twelfth Doctor in the end (sad face).</div>
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But that’s not what this is about. What this is about is, during the development process I got an email from the script editors/producers of Doctor Who with the RUDEST TITLE HEADING EVER.</div>
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Crikey! I thought, and also Gosh, and I Don’t Think They Meant This Email Title For Me. Had they perhaps replied to another email, forwarded it to someone, then it had got all caught up with their email to me? It seemed unlikely, but I couldn't think of a better explanation, I decided to reply to it, not mentioning the somewhat enormous faux pas in the email, they’ll spot if themselves, I thought, and realise what they did.</div>
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Only a day or so later did the horrid truth assert itself, like a Battle Tardis would have done if they’d ever done that episode. Because I suddenly realised that the email was in reply to ME, which meant the original title had been written by YOURS TRULY, and they’d just politely not mentioned it and replied back to me in much the way I’d decided to do to them.</div>
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So remember, the idea for the episode was for 'Strax' to be put 'on trial'.</div>
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James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-28832388399884857072017-11-14T07:44:00.001+00:002017-11-14T07:47:43.791+00:00Trying to buy a watch on Oxford StreetI am in London for meetings. The meetings are fine, everything else is confusing and upsetting.<br />
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First of all I trip up on Oxford Street, which is no fun when you are in your early to mid-forties, as one's entire life flashes before one's eyes. Then, a moment later, I trip up again, with the same result, only this time I got more of the subtler background jokes, which was nice.<br />
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My watch is broken (an earlier incident), so I go into Muji on Oxford Street to buy a new one. If this was a film, a large 'A SIMPLE TASK' title card would flash up ironically, in a special font designed by Wes Anderson.<br />
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There are many watches on a display thing in front of the till. I reach out to a reasonable-looking example, only to be confounded by some sort of invisible forcefield I realise too late is clear perspex, rendered invisible by the strong overhead lighting. No worries, I think, I shall simply try again, this time extracting a watch from 'above'. I do so, only for my hand to crumple against the exact same barrier. I refuse to look round, because now a queue has built up behind me, every one of whom must be convinced I am the drunkest man in London (I've had two coffees, which is admittedly two too many).<br />
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Giving up, I ask the lady behind the till, who, I'll be honest, has been staring at me throughout, if I can have one of the watches.<br />
'We don't have any watches', she says.<br />
'Erm', I say, pointing at the watches. My hand accidentally hits the perspex again. I can hear a worried sigh from the queue behind me, but refuse to turn round.<br />
'We have some watches here,' says the lady in the exact same tone, somehow not admitting this is the exact opposite of what she said just seconds ago, and lifts a battered margerine tub of slightly knocked-about watches onto the counter. For a Muji store, this feels like the least on-brand move she could have made, to be honest, but I let it slide.<br />
'That one please', I say, pointing to the simplest possible looking watch, but my pointing doesn't seem to have worked and the lady looks confused. 'Three in from that side, and three in from that side', I say. 'The one in the middle'.<br />
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The lady looks at the watch. 'We don't have that one', she says.<br />
'But it's right there!' I say. We are both becoming tearful now.<br />
'I will look downstairs' says the lady, and flees.<br />
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The queue is making rumbling noises behind me now, but I refuse to turn round. After an hour or the lady returns with a small cardboard box.<br />
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'I have a watch', she says, and shows it to me. It isn't the one I wanted, but it could conceivably be a man's watch, and it has hands, which fit almost all my requirements.<br />
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'Yes!' I nearly shout. I buy it and leave the shop, refusing to look anyone in the vast queue in the eye on the way out.<br />
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(This is the watch I ended up buying, which I quite like, although it verges on fussy for my tastes)<br />
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Outside, even though I am on the different side of Oxford Street (on the south side heading east to west, rather than the north side heading west to east, compass fans), I trip twice more. The first time I notice that a lady who played an assembly line work at the small electronics factory I worked at in the early nineties now plays a South African dental technician at my current dentists. The second (or fourth, to be technically accurate), time, I become annoyed by the intrusive background music.<br />
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BUT THAT'S NOT ALL.<br />
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At Paddington Station, I go to pick up my small suitcase thing from left luggage.<br />
'That will be FORTY POUNDS', chuckles the man in left luggage. His co-worker is giggling alongside him, and they are both waiting for me to get the joke.<br />
'Forty pounds?' I ask, confused. They instantly stop laughing.<br />
'No', says the first one, offended. '<i>Fourteen</i> pounds'.<br />
'It says twelve pounds here', I say, pointing at a thing.<br />
'Yes,' says the first one. 'Really it is only twelve pounds'. The co-worker sighs deflatedly in a manner that suggests they had a whole routine going and I RUINED IT.<br />
'Because fourteen pounds isn't that much more than twelve pounds', I start to say, confusedly, but the first man is holding up my suitcase.<br />
'Or we could KEEP YOUR BAG FOREVER!' shouts the man, laughing again.<br />
'No', I say firmly, pay the money and take the bag.<br />
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A small queue has built up behind me. I do not look any of them in the eyes on the way out.<br />
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Today I have to go into London once more. I am not entirely looking forward to it.James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-62892424757065216402017-11-12T18:46:00.001+00:002017-11-12T18:46:31.386+00:00Dan Black - Symphonies<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HYxly14v5do" width="480"></iframe><br /><br />
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Cor, just stumbled across this on my ipod random shuffle thing, and realised I hadn't heard it for years (since 2009 to be exact). Amazing video as well.James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-29854203999141611952017-10-14T19:33:00.000+01:002017-10-14T20:04:26.543+01:00Skype meetings<div class="MsoNormal">
I’d already had one meeting with two television producers, to discuss
a two page outline I’d written for a series based in Cornwall,
about people who work with the sea, specifically the coastal bits of it,
although I’ve probably said too much already.</div>
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That first meeting had gone very well. We’d discussed tone, plot,
the central character’s emotional arc (I’d remembered to suggest he had one, I
don’t always), and we’d all gone away content we were going to start making something amazing.<o:p></o:p></div>
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However, just to make sure, a Skype meeting had been arranged, for a
couple of weeks later. I’d put aside forty minutes, maybe even an hour. This was going to be done properly. And after five or so minutes of chit-chat, we got right down
to it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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PRODUCER 1: ….so, what we need to discuss is how we see this
show developing. Where it goes. Where the characters go, and where we, the
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PRODUCER 2:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As well
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PRODUCER 1: Well obviously. Also the feel. What kind of <i>feel</i> does it have?<o:p></o:p></div>
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ME: Cool! Well, I see this as having a Seventies thriller
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So-<o:p></o:p></div>
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PRODUCER 1: Oh.<o:p></o:p></div>
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PRODUCER 2: Hmm.<o:p></o:p></div>
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ME: (desperately tacking in the opposite direction) Although
obviously more contemporary than that. Technology’s going to play a big part in
it, so-<o:p></o:p></div>
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PRODUCER 1: Sure, sure.<o:p></o:p></div>
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PRODUCER 2: Sure.<o:p></o:p></div>
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PRODUCER 1: Hmm.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LONG SILENCE.<o:p></o:p></div>
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ME: That’s not how you saw it at all, is it?<o:p></o:p></div>
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PRODUCER 1: No.<o:p></o:p></div>
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PRODUCER 2: Not really.<o:p></o:p></div>
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ME: Shall we leave it then?<o:p></o:p></div>
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PRODUCER 1: Let’s do that.<o:p></o:p></div>
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ME: Right okay cheers then.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I press Control and Q on my keyboard, which turns off the
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ME: OH FOR FUCK’S-<o:p></o:p></div>
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A gentle ‘ding’ from the laptop as the Skype <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">actually</i> turns off.<o:p></o:p></div>
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ME: (weakly) - sake….<o:p></o:p></div>
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James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-2173184171224311302016-11-18T20:22:00.002+00:002016-11-18T20:35:13.042+00:00Je Suis RonI had to write this whole experience down as it was so bizarre I thought if I didn’t, it might evaporate like it had never happened, which would be a shame.<br />
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Like many people who work from home, I am plagued, PLAGUED I tell you by scam callers. Usually the ones who claim to be called Bernard or Kevin or Helen even though they have quite a thick Indian-ish accent - it's NOT RACIST to think there might be a contradiction there although I'd be perfectly happy to be set straight on that matter - and tell me there’s a problem with my Windows computer, which seems quite likely, or would be if I didn’t have a Mac, which for Apple’s many faults (being actively evil on a global scale, continually trying to remove the star ratings on iTunes etc), doesn’t actually go wrong very often.<br />
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Either way, Bernard or Kevin or Helen seem awfully keen on my following instructions which a cynical person might suspect will lead to money being moved from my bank account to anothers' in a post-ethical manner that would make it hard to retrieve.
The thing is though, I can’t bring myself to be rude to these people, because that’s probably the best job they could get, and also I’m weak-willed and scared of confrontation.<br />
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So normally I say ‘ooh I’ll go and get my laptop’ and spend ten minutes bumbling about, periodically returning to the phone and saying things like ‘maybe it was in the East Wing, I’m sure I was there this morning’ then wandering off again until eventually they give up. This way I haven’t been rude to anyone, but that’s ten minutes they couldn’t trick my elderly nan into email them her savings, which would be difficult to be fair, because she’s dead.<br />
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Anyway, I haven’t had a scam call for ages, and I almost miss those crazy guys, then this morning, Ron called.<br />
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RON: (thick Bangladesh accent, but in your head so you're the racist one NOT ME) Hello, my name is Ron there is a problem with your Windows computer.<br />
<br />
I immediately minimise the document I’m working on because it’s not like I need an excuse to <i>not</i> write.<br />
<br />
ME: Right, gosh, what shall I do?<br />
RON: Is your computer in front of you?<br />
ME: No.<br />
<br />
Long pause.<br />
<br />
RON: (helpfully) Could you perhaps go and get it?<br />
ME: Yes!<br />
<br />
Followed by a good long while of me bumbling about and doing the ‘ooh I'll find it in a minute damn that butler etc’ stuff. When I return, Ron is still on the line. He has not given up!<br />
<br />
ME: Okay, I have found my laptop.<br />
RON: This is great, sir.<br />
ME: It is, isn’t it?<br />
RON: What is on your laptop at the moment?<br />
ME: A word document.<br />
RON: You must close it.<br />
ME: Right-oh.<br />
<br />
I do close it, because I am METHOD, and it’s only work.<br />
<br />
RON: Have you closed it?<br />
ME: Yes, but it’s happening verrrrrry slowwwwwwwly.<br />
<br />
A very long silence.<br />
<br />
RON: Is it closed yet?<br />
ME: Neaaaaarrrrrrllllllyyy.<br />
RON: I know what you’re doing.<br />
ME: (guilt) What?<br />
RON: I know what you’re doing. I know what you’re doing. I know what you’re doing.<br />
<br />
Pause.<br />
<br />
RON: I know what you’re doing.<br />
ME: You’re freaking me out a bit Ron.<br />
RON: I know what you’re doing.<br />
ME: At this point, I really <i>don’t</i> know what I’m doing.<br />
RON: I know what you’re doing.<br />
<br />
I decide to play Ron at his own unnerving game.<br />
<br />
ME: (Unintelligible whispering)<br />
Ron decides to join in.<br />
RON: (Unintelligible whispering)<br />
<br />
We are now whispering unintelligibly at each other. It’s weirdly intimate, and I give in first, by giggling. Then Ron starts giggling.<br />
<br />
RON: You fucker.<br />
ME: (shocked) Ron!<br />
<br />
More giggling from Ron.<br />
<br />
ME: I'll be honest, I am stringing you along a bit because that stops you getting money from other, more vulnerable people, nice grans etc.<br />
RON: (cheerful) Okay.<br />
<br />
Bit of a pause.<br />
<br />
ME: So where are you calling from?<br />
RON: Bangladesh.<br />
ME: Is it a big office?<br />
RON: Yes.<br />
ME: Are there many people in your office?<br />
RON: Yes. Do you speak any other languages?<br />
ME: (immediately) I speak fluent French.
(I don’t).<br />
RON: What is French for ‘my name is’?<br />
ME: That would be ‘je suis’ – NO WAIT! That’s ‘I am’. My name is ‘Je m’appelle’ something.<br />
RON: Say, my name is (Bangladesh word).<br />
ME: Ron. Are you trying to make me say ‘My name is fucker’ in your native tongue?<br />
<br />
Ron giggles.<br />
<br />
ME: I should say Ron, I don’t approve of your business practices, but I am at least enjoying this conversation.<br />
RON: Goodbye.<br />
<br />
There is a long silence. Ron doesn’t seem to want to put the phone down.<br />
<br />
ME: We both know this has to end, Ron.<br />
RON: I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING.<br />
ME: Goodbye Ron.<br />
<br />
Ron giggles. I put down the phone.<br />
<br />
Goodbye Ron.
James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-8023898310020732562016-02-05T11:30:00.001+00:002016-02-05T11:53:06.658+00:00The Rejection Thing<div class="storify"><iframe src="//storify.com/james_blue_cat/learning-to-love-the-rejection/embed?border=false" width="100%" height="750" frameborder="no" allowtransparency="true"></iframe><script src="//storify.com/james_blue_cat/learning-to-love-the-rejection.js?border=false"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/james_blue_cat/learning-to-love-the-rejection" target="_blank">View the story "Learning to love the rejection" on Storify</a>]</noscript></div>James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-79304032170519755002015-10-06T06:52:00.000+01:002015-10-06T07:37:33.146+01:00ReactionsThe long summer is over (it's been over for a while, but Autumn only kicked in a couple of days ago, like someone shifted a load of recycling and found the big red button marked 'Chilly/Damp' and said oh <i>there</i> it is and pressed it).<br />
<br />
I hardly managed any meetings over the summer, mainly because I was looking after two small children, and also most telly people are either on holiday, looking after their small children or drunk at the Edinburgh Television Festival. Okay, fine, some of them are actually making television programmes, or say they are, it's hard to check, because there are so many channels now. Sometimes they're drunk, looking after small children <i>and</i> making television programmes, which explains a lot.<br />
<br />
I did sneak in a couple of meetings towards the end of the summer though. My favourite went like this:<br />
<br />
INT. OFFICE - DAY<br />
<br />
I enter the room. Two producers and a script editor are looking warily at a wodge of stapled paper on a coffee table before them. It has my name on. It is a spec (speculative) sitcom script I wrote!<br />
<br />
PRODUCER ONE: At first I thought I didn't like this script very much.<br />
ME: Okay...<br />
PRODUCER ONE: But then I realised I just didn't understand it.<br />
ME: Oh.<br />
<br />
Quite a long pause.<br />
<br />
PRODUCER TWO: I did understand it!<br />
ME: Huzzah!<br />
PRODUCER TWO: But I definitely didn't like it.<br />
SCRIPT EDITOR: I read it, and I did like it!<br />
ME: Great.<br />
SCRIPT EDITOR: But then I realised I hadn't read it properly, and when I went back and read it again, I realised I hadn't understood it at all, and now I don't like it.<br />
ME: Right.<br />
<br />
I reach over and pick the script up, even thought it technically belongs to them, because they printed it out and everything. Slowly I slide it into my bag. No-one tries to stop me.<br />
<br />
An awkward silence follows. Finally:<br />
<br />
ME: Okay, was this it, because this is turning out to be quite a depressing-<br />
PRODUCER ONE: Oh, wait, we liked the other thing you sent us!<br />
PRODUCER TWO: Yes! That was much more our sort of thing.<br />
ME: Huzzah again!<br />
<br />
SCRIPT EDITOR pulls a hitherto-hidden cord and lots of balloons fall from a net in the ceiling. We all jump around for ages to the sound of Taylor Swift's 'Shake It Off'. Eventually we all sit down, panting, and a runner takes all the balloons away.<br />
<br />
PRODUCER ONE: Okay, I have two things I would like to say about this idea. In which order would you like them?<br />
ME: Do the second one first.<br />
PRODUCER ONE: Very well.<br />
PRODUCER TWO giggles.<br />
<br />
That last bit really was word for word. And a lot of the first bit. Some of the stuff in the middle was made up to some extent.<br />
<br />
<br />James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-44892797054364165942015-08-11T09:15:00.002+01:002015-08-11T09:18:05.394+01:00I dunno, he's just one bloke, I reckon we could take him.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ip3SWx-f2hc/Vcmuux7NB5I/AAAAAAAAAmw/3P8o9EXzQr8/s1600/Charlesthreat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ip3SWx-f2hc/Vcmuux7NB5I/AAAAAAAAAmw/3P8o9EXzQr8/s400/Charlesthreat.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
(yes, I've already put this on Twitter, I just want it on record I spotted it before Private Eye)<br />
<br />James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-32676286884058118822015-07-08T08:02:00.001+01:002015-07-09T09:30:44.705+01:00Beard MeetingsA few years ago now, some big city, either Manchester or that other one, paid about seven million quid for a facial recognition system that would plug into the city centre CCTV and allow the authorities to quickly spot and track down malcontents, miscreants and general riffraffery. The system was turned on with great fanfare, only for it to rapidly become clear that... it didn't work. At all. Further investigation revealed that not only did it not work, it had never worked in the first place.<br />
<br />
Which is the first time I've ever felt sorry for a bit of software, because my own facial recognition system is at best somewhat glitchy (it has been pointed out in the comments below that the technical term for this is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopagnosia" target="_blank">prosopagnosia</a>) . Mind you, that CCTV system didn't even recognise black people as being human beings as opposed to, say, strangely mobile bits of building or shrubbery, and I'm not quite that bad. No-one's ever paid seven million quid for me to turn up for a thing that I can not only not do, but also be a massive racist into the bargain (I'm sure someone will let me know if I misremember).<br />
<br />
My not-goodness at faces would lead to conversations like this one, in my early twenties:<br />
<br />
FRIEND: Why do you keep blanking me in town?<br />
ME: I've never blanked you!<br />
FRIEND: You regularly walk past me, and you only spot me if I put my face in front of yours and say HELLOOOOOO!<br />
ME: Yes! That's how people recognise each other from a distance of more than eight inches, surely?<br />
FRIEND: HOW CAN YOU NOT RECOGNISE MY FACE WE'VE BEEN BEST FRIENDS SINCE WE WERE FOURTEEN.<br />
ME: Yes, well, you say that.<br />
FRIEND: We've also shared a house for the last four years.<br />
ME: PROVE IT.<br />
<br />
I realised a while ago this also partly explains my long struggle to deal with abstract concepts like plot and narrative structure, because if you're not great at face, the film-watching experience goes like this:<br />
<br />
ME: okay, the dark-haired guy in this who stabbed someone earlier is now arresting... himself! Wait, they're two different people! He's cloned himself! This film is BRILLIANT! Oh wait, they're two different people. And now the blond woman has gone back in time to fight her earlier self - oh that's her <i>sister</i>.<br />
FRIEND: I'm not watching films with you any more.<br />
<br />
Anyway, after that, I put a lot more processing power into actors' faces, and now I'm all 'ooh he was Phoebe's boyfriend in series one of Friends, that guy was in Grosse Point Blank for about thirty seconds' and so on, which is just as annoying but in the other direction.<br />
<br />
I also got better at actual real life peoples' faces once I tried out the whole 'eye contact' thing, but the system still crashes from time to time, thusly:<br />
<br />
A couple of years ago:<br />
<br />
INT. PRODUCTION OFFICE - DAY<br />
<br />
I am waiting to meet a lovely producer I worked with on a fun project about six months previous. An unfamiliar lady, a PA I assume, wanders out and starts talking to me about a new project, which is nice, but we should probably wait until the producer is here. After about half an hour I start to wonder if the producer is ever going to turn up, and then the penny drops.<br />
<br />
ME: Wait, it's you! You had a haircut!<br />
PRODUCER: ?<br />
ME: (quickly) Nothing.<br />
<br />
AND NOW WE ARE UP TO SPEED. Well, yesterday. I am in an animation workshop, involving four other writers and a lady producer (I haven't seen a man producer in about five years, I think they've all died out). Having drunk an enormous amount of coffee, I suddenly realise I quite need what the americans refer to as a 'bathroom break', so I dash out, and then I dash back again, because I don't want to miss anything. Bearing in mind I also have quite poor spacial awareness (if you are thinking to yourself that this writer is possibly a couple of steps into the 'bit special' spectum, I would say this: BINGO), I run back in roughly the same direction, see a group of people through a glass door, crash through and sit down.<br />
<br />
There follows a moment of silence, at which point it occurs to me I am quite possibly IN THE WRONG ROOM ENTIRELY and about to utterly derail series six of Game of Thrones or something.<br />
<br />
Quickly I cast my mind back to a few seconds ago and try to recall the exact faces I saw through the glass door. All I can come up with is that they were definitely faces.<br />
<br />
It's still silent. Suddenly I remember: it was a comedy/animation writers' workshop. Beards! Beards are the answer! I look up very slightly and assess the beardage in a clockwise direction. Fair beard, dark beard, lady producer with no beard, dark beard, ginger beard. I reach up to my own face, bit stubbly, this probably is me. I am almost definitely in the correct room. It's still a bit quiet though. Finally:<br />
<br />
PRODUCER: All right, James?<br />
ME: YES AND I AM DEFINITELY BACK IN THE ORIGINAL ROOM THAT I LEFT AND YOU ARE ALL THE SAME PEOPLE AHA HA HA.<br />
PRODUCER: Righto.<br />
<br />
Anyway, it all worked out fine.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-53037030726063091642015-06-11T11:54:00.001+01:002015-06-11T11:54:58.013+01:00Afternoons of Futures PastJust after I'd finished writing for the second series of Green Wing, I had a meeting with a BBC Drama producer and we talked for a while about serious matters, and then it turned out we were both HUGE fans of The O.C. so we could stop pretending to be grownups after that, it was great.<br />
If you never watched The O.C, shame on you, it was a teen drama/soap thing set in Orange County, and it was brilliant, first two seasons at least. Much funnier that it had any need to be, which is always my favourite thing.<br />
<br />
So, Drama Producer and I, fired up by mutual love of good entertaining telly, started developing our own take on a drama that could be funny and moving and entertaining at the same time, with characters who actually felt like real teenagers rather than the mouthpieces of cynical old hacks. The BBC commissioned two scripts, then dithered a bit, then decided not to go any further with it, which was a terrible shame, but their inalienable right.<br />
<br />
Drama Producer and I started developing another show for the BBC, and this one didn't happen either, and then she left to work somewhere else, but we kept meeting up for chats, because when you meet good people in telly who are fun to work with and you trust, you jolly well cling to them. Recently, Drama Producer moved to an entirely new broadcaster and we had one of those meetings where we talked about all sorts of things, until she said 'hey, what happened to that first thing we worked on, the teen soap comedy thing?'<br />
<br />
And I said I hadn't taken it anywhere, because I'd liked working on it with her so much I didn't feel anyone else would get it.I still used it as a sample script, because we'd developed the crikey out of it, so it was watertight, but I didn't really trust anyone else with it.<br />
<br />
DRAMA PRODUCER: So... shall we maybe have another go at it?<br />
<br />
ME: OOH YES PLEASE.<br />
<br />
Which is what's happening. And this does happen a lot, things you thought were dead suddenly get a second chance and so on, it's either a good thing, or it drives you mad, dunno which yet. I only mention it because we have a problem with this one which has never come up before, thusly:<br />
<br />
DRAMA PRODUCER: Okay, we have an issue which is not insurmountable, but is holding things up somewhat. Because what has happened it, some of the rights have remained with the BBC from when we developed this in the first place, and the person who nailed down these rights was an absolute ARSE and is making my life very difficult as I am having to engage with the fine points of this annoying contract on an almost daily basis, and now I wish I was dead to a certain extent.<br />
<br />
ME: Tell me who is responsible for this hackery, this jobsworth, this detestable contracts goblin, and madam I shall see them hang! (I'm writing an 18th century based thing at the moment and sometimes stuff bleeds through).<br />
<br />
DRAMA PRODUCER: It's me.<br />
<br />
ME: What do you mean it's you?<br />
<br />
DRAMA PRODUCER: I did the original contract, and it turns out I was very good at this sort of thing, I had forgotten.<br />
<br />
ME: So what you are saying is you, my agent, and myself are now engaged with a version of you from the past, who is a total badass?<br />
<br />
DRAMA PRODUCER: Yes.<br />
<br />
ME: Well now I want to make a series about <i>that</i>.<br />
<br />
DRAMA PRODUCER: Please focus.<br />
<br />
ME: Sorry.<br />
<br />
Anyway, the battle continues.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-66614410473822703012015-06-02T10:57:00.002+01:002015-06-02T17:32:29.638+01:00A meeting in a restaurant.Recently I had a MEETING. I haven't written about MEETINGS for a bit, because looking after small children makes you tired, and the people with whom I was having MEETINGS were starting to pick up the disconcerting habit of actually reading the blog afterwards. But the kids are at school now, and this was a little while back and I don't think this producer is in the habit of reading blogs so I think we're fine.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I was in London, and my agent likes it when I'm in London, he can ring around television producers and say things like 'James is in London! You have exactly twelve hours to book a meeting before the bright lights and moving vehicles become too much and he scurries back to his burrow in Cornwall THE BIDDING STARTS NOW!'<br />
<br />
So amongst my other meetings, agent had scored me a quite last minute thing with Quite A Big Producer, who I'd never met before, and much more excitingly, the meeting was arranged for exactly lunchtime, in Quite A Posh Restaurant. I even had to check beforehand if I was supposed to wear a grownup jacket or summat and not a stinky old fleece with a lego space logo on it (model's own).<br />
<br />
INT. QUITE A POSH RESTAURANT - DAY (SPECIFICALLY LUNCHTIME)<br />
<br />
I discreetly give my name to the discreet waiter person at the discreet bar and he checks the list, discreetly, obviously, then ushers me over to a small table, where Quite A Big Producer is sitting, staring into space.<br />
<br />
I introduce myself, sit down, and wait for QAB Producer's focus to zero in on me, which takes a while, quite frankly. Discreet Waiter comes over and asks if I'd like anything to drink. I force down the impulse to shout AHAHAHAHA FREE BOOZE ALL OF IT, and ask for a still water, because I am professional. All the time I am looking down at the menu laid discreetly to one side. I am quite hungry, because I had to rush to my first two meetings, so didn't have time for breakfast, and after this meeting I am going to have to rush to another meeting, so this meal will have to be planned precisely.<br />
<br />
QAB Producer and I shoot the breeze for no more than five minutes, trying to work out who we have in common (no-one) and discussing what the broadcasters are looking for at the moment (I know, but I'm not telling them, in case they get someone else in). Then there is a silence.<br />
<br />
Discreet Waiter comes over with a notepad.<br />
<br />
DISCREET WAITER: (discreetly) Are we ready to order?<br />
<br />
There follows a silence, during which QAB Producer looks at the menu, then at the other restaurant patrons who are all nomming merrily, then down at the floor, then back at the other diners again, then back at me. I am using this time to pick out items on the menu which are not French, but will comprise a full meal, which turns out to be totes doable, huzzah.<br />
<br />
Then there is a slightly longer silence, after which QAB Producers utters six words that still echo around my brain sometimes.<br />
<br />
QAB PRODUCER: No, I think we're done here.<br />
<br />
Discreet Waiter takes my menu away. QUAB Producer looks at me. Discreet Waiter looks at me. Slowly I stand up, turn around and leave the restaurant.<br />
<br />
Luckily, my next meeting is with one of my Top Favourite Producers, who takes pity on me and lets me have one of her fruit pastilles, so never let anyone tell you everyone in television is evil, it's just most of them.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-41083893075238930582015-05-15T06:48:00.001+01:002015-07-09T09:31:15.524+01:00The Delivery Man - S01E06 - Breasts previewLook I'm sorry, that's what the clip is called. Final episode of The Delivery Man goes out Wednesday 20th April, ITV, 9.30pm and may God have mercy on all our souls.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XfkVQYqz9i8" width="480"></iframe>James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-80193523269105200512015-04-16T11:51:00.000+01:002015-04-16T11:54:53.382+01:00Concept Art: Opal & RedthredA reminder of what these posts are about: I've been working with the students at <a href="http://www.falmouth.ac.uk/animation" target="_blank">Falmouth's Animation and Visual Effects course</a> to develop some brief outlines for animated show - my outlines, their art.<br />
<br />
The second brief is for an idea called OPAL & REDTHRED. Longtime blog readers might remember this is something I've developed before, with the ace illustrator <a href="http://sarahgordonartist.bigcartel.com/" target="_blank">Sarah Gordon</a>, as a short webcomic called <a href="http://jamesandthebluecat.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/bridge-tunnel-how-opal-slew-dark-lord.html" target="_blank">BRIDGE & TUNNEL</a>. I really wanted to come back to this world though, so I thought I'd see what the students would do with it.<br />
<br />
Here's the brief:<br />
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">OPAL AND REDTHRED<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-indent: -36.0pt;">
Animated
series for 8-12 yrs.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Opal’s an axe-obsessed dwarf princess and the chosen Champion of Light,
Rethred’s a mopey wizard whose power comes from the Dark (but he’s not ‘evil’,
he’s quite specific about that). Together, they’re dedicated to defend the
fantasy world of Erithea from all magical dangers. Unfortunately, the fantasy
world of Erithea has moved on a bit, and now everyone has tablets, libraries,
school buses and clean toilets, and doesn’t really need champions any more.</span></i> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><i>In a world where trolls drive buses, goblin caverns double as sports
arenas and elves are always the coolest kids at school, there isn’t much heroic
fantasy adventuring to go around any more. Which doesn’t mean Opal and Redthred
won’t do their utmost to go out there and find it.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><i>Based in the (mostly) human city of Scälmo, Opal Signisdottir (who’s run
away from her stern father the Dwarf King) and Redthred the Unsure (Dark Wizard
in training) are officially allowed to reside in the Enchanted Tower of
Destiny, and skip most of their lessons, on condition they maintain a watchful
eye for magical threats of all kinds. And when those don’t appear, which they
usually don’t, they spend their time adopting magical pets, finding treasure,
eating spicy kobold pizzas, exploring magical underground cave systems (sewers)
and generally getting into more trouble than if they actually were battling magical threats.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Here be de art:</span></div>
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Firstly, <a href="http://emilyclayanimation.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Emily Gray</a>'s take on Opal, who I saw as part Princess Leia, part girl Gimli:</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2aJjr5hmRLY/VS-PezaPtLI/AAAAAAAAAj0/0WDq6flmzOw/s1600/opal2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2aJjr5hmRLY/VS-PezaPtLI/AAAAAAAAAj0/0WDq6flmzOw/s1600/opal2.jpg" height="400" width="316" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BcuDYSYEWjA/VS-Pe1J0x4I/AAAAAAAAAjw/pblowfBZlb8/s1600/opal3%2Bemily%2Bclay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BcuDYSYEWjA/VS-Pe1J0x4I/AAAAAAAAAjw/pblowfBZlb8/s1600/opal3%2Bemily%2Bclay.jpg" height="400" width="210" /></a><br />
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... which were great. Then she went with shorter hair, a bit harder edged, which I liked. I was tempted to move to something more cartoony, but decided to let Emma keep working in a more naturalistic style, see how it worked.</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0OE4SydN5vQ/VS-O7ZgTvJI/AAAAAAAAAio/z0--O95WpZA/s1600/emilyclayOpal18.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0OE4SydN5vQ/VS-O7ZgTvJI/AAAAAAAAAio/z0--O95WpZA/s1600/emilyclayOpal18.png" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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Here's Emma fleshing out the world a bit with some more non-human characters:<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h98WfHvZGAQ/VS-PhmVKQkI/AAAAAAAAAkE/jR5vlbKOG-c/s1600/opal5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h98WfHvZGAQ/VS-PhmVKQkI/AAAAAAAAAkE/jR5vlbKOG-c/s1600/opal5.jpg" height="400" width="315" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6v7t91P5zKg/VS-PibyVQRI/AAAAAAAAAkU/j10FK8xOtco/s1600/opal6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6v7t91P5zKg/VS-PibyVQRI/AAAAAAAAAkU/j10FK8xOtco/s1600/opal6.jpg" height="400" width="283" /></a></div>
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... and a bit of the central location, the city of
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VC_d0gBJ8xw/VS-PcfJDJmI/AAAAAAAAAjk/0MmWIqcNhtA/s1600/opal10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VC_d0gBJ8xw/VS-PcfJDJmI/AAAAAAAAAjk/0MmWIqcNhtA/s1600/opal10.jpg" height="400" width="283" /></a></div>
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And finally here's Emma's take on the depressed student/wizard character Redthred, who looks UNCANNILY like me circa 1991.</div>
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So yes, these were great. </div>
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Rachel Denton did some more cartoony/younger style takes on Opal as well, which were lovely and sparky:<br />
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The stickers on the axe were a particularly nice touch. </div>
James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-56845612434582786302015-04-15T10:53:00.001+01:002015-04-15T11:31:55.718+01:00The Delivery Man, tonight 9.30pm ITVArgh bloody hell there's a sitcom starting tonight and I wrote somewhere between a third and one half of it*, put it down to administrative error on ITV's part.<br />
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<br />
<br />
<br />
What happened was, ages ago, I caught up with Victoria Pile (creator and producer of Smack The Pony, Green Wing, Campus) and her common law illegal immigrant (Scotch) partner Rob Harley (writer and producer on the above) in London, and they said 'we've got some projects on the go, dunno if you're interested in writing for some of them', and I steepled my fingers like this *steeples fingers* and said 'proceed', and they said '(first thing I've forgotten) and then (second thing I've forgotten) and also we're doing this thing with Darren Boyd as an ex-cop who quits the force and becomes a male midwife' and I was all 'Hellloooooo!'<br />
<br />
Because my memory is narrative-based rather than working on the tradition 'reality' base of most hu-mans, this bit might be wrong, but I <i>think</i> what happened next is they gave me two thirds of a script that they'd been stalled on for six months, and I arsed about with it for a bit and then it was INSTANTLY greenlit by ITV. Okay that probably wasn't what happened, but I'm going with it.<br />
<br />
So yes, lots of readthroughs and rewrites and auditions later - look, here's a picture of one of the readthroughs:<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NPSTBxKGpb8/VS4zflPUW-I/AAAAAAAAAiQ/QFSRrxzM14U/s1600/delivery%2Bman%2Bscript%2Bread%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NPSTBxKGpb8/VS4zflPUW-I/AAAAAAAAAiQ/QFSRrxzM14U/s1600/delivery%2Bman%2Bscript%2Bread%2B1.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
...it all got filmed in a big shed somewhere in Walford or Charnham or on the Jasmine Allen or one of those London places, and I was there for a couple of days and had to tell Paddy McGuinness to please say 'vanilla monolope' like it does in the script, it'll make sense when it comes out, honest, and then it was ready to go out, BAM, it's magic.<br />
<br />
LOL, as David Cameron likes to say, it wasn't like that at all, because a half hour comedy on a commercial channel these days is twenty two minutes thirty seconds, so poor Christian in the edit suite had to spend ages trimming bits and holding them up to the light and tutting and trimming more bits, but now it's READY so watch it, or don't, up to you.<br />
<br />
*estimates may varyJames Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-72176704899990261912015-03-26T21:12:00.002+00:002015-03-26T21:19:15.123+00:00Concept Art: RUNEPAWSo here's a nice thing: having worked with <a href="http://www.falmouth.ac.uk/animation" target="_blank">Falmouth Uni's Animation and Visual Effects Department </a>a few times in the past few years (I mainly talk to them about narrative structure, because a lot of student animators can create a thirty second piece in their sleep, but when they have to do something more than four minutes long they tend to shout 'Awk' and fall over), it became apparent that this year is really really good. Or to be fairer to the other years, their collective art style would seem to lend itself very well to the sort of animation I like writing for.<br />
<br />
Which made me think 'Hmmm'. 'Hmmm', I thought. And I looked at a few written outlines I'd been noodling about with, and wondered how much better they'd be, and how much more inspired I'd be to work them up into something richer and more interesting if, say, I had a room full of really talented drawists doing lots and lots of concept art for me.<br />
<br />
And they went for it! Hahahaha idiots (I love you guys). As part of their professional development, I've given them three very brief outlines, and they're doing concept art, and then I'm giving them feedback, and then they're revising their work, and where we end up, no-one knows. Except hopefully, they'll have a portfolio full of concept art they wouldn't otherwise had, and I'll have some developed outline pitch documents with lovely art, and they keep the copyright on their work so I can't pitch anything involving their art without their permission.<br />
<br />
Obviously the spectre of 'hey guys do this work for me I can't pay you but think of the EXPOSURE' is going to lurk over this, but they will get course credits. Also I've tried to recreate the feel of a genuine animation creative workshop by giving them a) sweets and b) a bucket of lego to play with while we talk, so there's that.<br />
<br />
Anyway, the process has begun, so I thought I'd put the first few pieces up. Where I can, I've linked to the creators' blogs or tumblr feeds or whatevs, but for GOD'S SAKE PEOPLE get a Twitter account, I get so much work now from Twitter, it is essential if you live in Cornwall like an idiot.<br />
<br />
Here's the first outline:<br />
<br />
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<i>RUNEPAW (CGI/mixed)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i>Animation for pre-schoolers, teaching navigation and simple
words.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i>Following the adventures of Ingrid Runepaw, a brave Viking
mouse, and her intrepid crew of mice, rats, stoats and one rather cold lizard,
as they explore the frozen North in order to uncover stories of adventure and
derring-do – while having no small amount of adventure themselves.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<!--StartFragment-->
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>RUNEPAW is all about exploration and stories, teaching
children the basics of map-reading and navigation (why does it get warmer as
you go South? Can you sail off the edge of the world?) and uncovering
retellings of classic myths and legends as they go (the animation moving from
3D CGI to older forms of animation, such as 2D or stop-motion as the stories
are told).</i><o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
I needed some character art, some background/environment stuff and... anything else they fancied doing really.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
AND NOW SOME ARTINGS. This is just a brief selection really, there's some more great stuff which hasn't made it into the Google Docs folder yet, but I'll put it up when it appears.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><a href="http://leonieisaacs.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Leonie Isaacs</a></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-z6PJxCo37BE/VRR3w33K_iI/AAAAAAAAAhw/9G1QzxHH_qI/s1600/runepaw1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-z6PJxCo37BE/VRR3w33K_iI/AAAAAAAAAhw/9G1QzxHH_qI/s1600/runepaw1.jpg" height="223" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gBrwXRerHj4/VRRxmXyFeFI/AAAAAAAAAf0/zbQm18q9Mcc/s1600/runepaw2%2Bleonie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gBrwXRerHj4/VRRxmXyFeFI/AAAAAAAAAf0/zbQm18q9Mcc/s1600/runepaw2%2Bleonie.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><a href="http://ghigogiacomo.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Giacomo Ghigo</a></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oOjLlb4xtAQ/VRRydhu3rXI/AAAAAAAAAg0/C0mqK6emGik/s1600/runepaw01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oOjLlb4xtAQ/VRRydhu3rXI/AAAAAAAAAg0/C0mqK6emGik/s1600/runepaw01.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Grayling Breckon</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KFmjsM9IlkI/VRRyTGaYkeI/AAAAAAAAAgk/0yffQ4g1xOs/s1600/Arctic%2C%2BJames%2BHenry%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KFmjsM9IlkI/VRRyTGaYkeI/AAAAAAAAAgk/0yffQ4g1xOs/s1600/Arctic%2C%2BJames%2BHenry%2B2.jpg" height="250" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6s3gP_aILrw/VRRyTBC8VaI/AAAAAAAAAgE/JhhiHwSLvJU/s1600/Arctic%2C%2BJames%2BHenry%2B.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6s3gP_aILrw/VRRyTBC8VaI/AAAAAAAAAgE/JhhiHwSLvJU/s1600/Arctic%2C%2BJames%2BHenry%2B.jpg" height="250" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><a href="http://darkofmud.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Mads Johan Øgaard</a></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<br /></div>
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Sophie Rippington</div>
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THEY ARE SO GREAT. The other ones are great too, with a more Disney/Dreamworks influence, but they're not online yet.</div>
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The interesting thing is how much it makes me go back to the original concept and redefine it. I'm already chucking out the mixed narrative/story within a story idea - if the characters are this loveable, I want to spend time with them. Also I need to figure out the rules of this world: are the animals aping a viking culture that's around them? Is it set in the modern day, but the animals have their own culture? Or are there no humans in this world, so the animals have stepped up to fill that niche, as it were. How do they perform basic metallurgy (seriously, I have to think about this).</div>
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More to follow.</div>
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James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-54343694135896078112014-11-30T19:56:00.000+00:002014-11-30T21:20:35.423+00:00'Hey Duggee'A thing I wrote some episodes for (as did some other types, but this my blog not theirs) is coming out first thing in 2015 on CBeebies and there's a website up and everything, so please go and take a <a href="http://www.studioaka.co.uk/OurWork/heyduggee" target="_blank">sneaky peek.</a> Go and look at the trailer, it's great!<br />
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It's called 'Hey Duggee', and the man behind it, <a href="http://www.studioaka.co.uk/People/grantorchard" target="_blank">Grant Orchard</a>, has been sweating LITERALLY BLOOD over it, as has the rest of the team, but who cares about that, more interestingly it's a gorgeous-looking thing, here's a pic below from one of my episodes called 'Paddling Pool':<br />
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So if you didn't click on the trailer for some unfathomable reason, imagine the above image moving around a bit and narrated by Alexander Armstrong, who needs the work frankly.<br />
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<br />James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-28430700839978413872014-10-29T17:57:00.000+00:002014-10-29T18:14:16.845+00:00'There's A Worm At The Bottom Of The Garden'Yes it's a short story, but if you're not into reading fiction on the internet, it's a <i>very</i> short story, part of the <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Urban-Legends-Horror-Short-Stories-ebook/dp/B00OYGDQVQ/">'Den Of Eek' anthology</a> which has just been released on Kindle, with proceeds going to support cancer charities, as part of <a href="http://www.denofgeek.com/">DenOfGeek.com</a>'s Geeks Vs Cancer appeal. Each story deals with the theme of urban legends.<br />
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I read this story as part of an event last Halloween, and was lucky enough to go last (everyone's receptive to the final story of an evening because then they can go to the loo qualm-free). I've never read a story out loud before, and there turned out to be a surprising amount of adrenaline involved, basically because the feedback loop for a scriptwriter is usually, at best, six months-ish, so hearing people's reactions seconds after I've flapped some wordings from my mouthhole was a weirdly new experience.<br />
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A lot of this story is in the reading, so you have to imagine my voice, which is like a cross between Benedict Cumberbatch and Jon Hamm but sexier than I've made that sound ANYWAY SHUT UP JAMES DO THE STORY.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There’s A Worm At The Bottom Of The Garden<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That thing that every barcode has to contain the number
‘666’ or it doesn’t work? Or if you pull a face and the wind changes, you’ll
get stuck like it? Or that thing about the dead granny on the car roof? My dad
made all those up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dad loved his little stories. He was a writer, although if
he’d told anyone that, he’d have had to kill them. Or give their name and
address to a third party a couple of doors down who’d do it in-house. If he
ever did have to tell people where he worked, he usually said Health and
Safety. Which was true. Kind of.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It had all begun in World War Two. The British government
had cracked the whole radar thing, and the Germans wanted to know how their bombers
were suddenly being located in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night by
Hurricanes and Spitfires that had come seemingly hundreds of miles out of their
way for no good reason.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The explanation the British Government came up with was
‘carrots’. Two thriller writers and a librarian were pulled out of their normal
duties and told to come up with a story that sounded good, before the Germans
made the connection with the oddly-shaped concrete structures on the Kent coast
and realised the Brits had the ability to see flying things and floating things
from quite a long way away, and we lost our advantage for good. What the
writers came up with was ‘carrots’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Specifically, that carrots gave their consumers excellent
night vision, and that the British populace had started eating carrots dawn,
noon and night, and consequently every spotter on the ground, every plucky
pilot with a handlebar moustache, every old maid cycling to church with a cold
beer or something, had consequently developed hawklike 20/20 vision and the
ability to spot a Heinkel bomber ten miles away on a dark night even in thick
cloud.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The story was printed out and passed on to trusted agents
who began spreading it in every tavern, teashop and town hall in the land. The
Germans bought it. And the British bought more carrots. Many many more carrots.
Because of the night vision thing. Which was why, when the Germans finally did
twig radar, the two conscripted novelists and the librarian weren’t sent back
to their units, but given a nice office and told to keep coming up with the stories,
even after the war ended, the government thinking: if a made up story can sell
carrots without even trying, how far can we take this thing if we really go for
it? And thus the secret government department of UrbLeg was created.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The plan was to release controlled legends in conflict
areas, carefully engineering flawed narratives into each story’s DNA, rendering
them unbelievable once they had spread beyond a certain point. So by the time
people started comparing notes and saying things like ‘Hey, if that thing with
the clown and the scorpion is true, who the hell is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">telling</i> the story?’, the damage was done, the seed of doubt sown,
the regime destabilised, the rebellion suppressed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, it couldn’t work forever. Rival nation states
quickly worked out what was going on, and began setting up their own UrbLeg
departments, often contracting their best literary talents to work undercover.
Early experiments often ended in failure: French weaponised narratives often
imploded in ennui, the Russians’ went on for so long, and so gloomily, many of
their targets simply wandered off, and the Americans included such overt
product placement, the targets became suspicious. ‘And the murderer was calling
from inside the house! On a Bell Electric Western System telephone, which has
great audio clarity and comes in a variety of colours!’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was bad enough that when these narratives met each other
in the wild they started mating, creating thousands of bastard anecdotes with
minor variations, each a little more macabre, a little more likely to dig in
with it story hooks and be carried to places UrbLegs were never meant to go.
Bad enough that they started coming home to roost, the creator of the ‘spiders
bursting out of the boil on the girl’s cheek’ story hearing it told back to him
just three weeks after he’d generated it after a bad marital breakup and way
too much coffee. But worse, far worse, was what a squad of brutally conscripted
magical realists locked in a bunker somewhere in South America managed to do,
sometime around the early Seventies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My dad had just started working at UrbLeg then, recruited
after his regularly rejected series of children’s stories called ‘The Constant
and Depressing Deaths of Tiny Emil and His Friend Harbottle” had come to the
attention of a high-up civil servant with an eye for talent, and positions to
fill after a number of internal breakdowns. And so his first day at work, my
father heard the gasps of disbelief, and saw the trembling hands clutching
faxes, that announced the first weaponised narrative had gone meta.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Out there, in the South American rainforest, the magical
realists, who already had a bad rep for playing with nested narratives, had
gone completely, bug-eyed insane, and created an urban legend that had turned
itself into a coherent system of interrelated and sequentially organized
stories sharing a common rhetorical desire to resolve a conflict by
establishing audience expectations according to the known trajectories of their
literary and rhetorical form. Shit had got real.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A United Nations approved list of literary critics were
parachuted into the jungle, fighting three days and three nights until the
breakout was suppressed, every single one desperate to point out the irony that
they were critiquing urban legends in a singularly rural environment, but all
the time knowing introducing one more ounce of self-awareness could turn the
whole thing really fucking icky. Finally it was over, loose story threads
burned from the trees by flamethrowers, every last potential sequel stamped
squealing into the blackened ground, and my father and his new co-workers
gathered round a speaker listening to the whole thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After that, it could never be business as usual. The South
Americans had made a crack in the world, and it was only a mater of time until
something forced its way through. Things quietened down, ambitions lessened.
UrbLeg started restricting itself to homilies, minor anecdotes, satirical
nursery rhymes. Many of the staff were laid off, and when I replaced my dad
after he died after a thing in ninety-six, UrbLeg was down to three people. The
internet gave us a brief resurgence, but was really just cranking out umpteen
variations on the same old ‘waking up without kidneys’ stories on various
forums. Still, it paid the mortgage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Until the Coalition took over. One day, without warning, we
were all sacked. And the next day, rehired again, on zero hour contracts by
StoryCorp the same large corporation, with fingers in television, films and
advertising that had, as far as we could tell, taken over every urban legend
generation department across the known world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For three days, nothing happened. There were rumours we were
being integrated into viral marketing units, maybe doing some ARGs for some
upcoming computer game. Then the order came, to every UrbLeg department across
the world, just two sentences, one little story we had to get out to every
sentient being on the planet. Our terms of employment ended after this last
job, and we couldn’t help noting StoryCorp didn’t appear to have made any long
terms plans for paying gas or electric on our building either.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The new story was “There’s a worm at the bottom of the
garden, and his name is GARKASH THE DESTROYER, BRINGER OF THE END TIMES, DEVOURER
OF HOPE. Please do not resist his coming”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">True story.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-29505587928696262532014-10-15T11:12:00.000+01:002014-10-15T11:13:46.682+01:00ReadthroughsI have been in London doing script readthroughs for <a href="http://www.comedy.co.uk/guide/tv/the_delivery_man/" target="_blank">The Delivery Man</a>. A script 'readthrough' is where you read 'through' a script, where would you be without this blog and its industry insights eh, NOWHERE FAST that's where.<br />
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Junior actors, or 'actlets' get very excited about readthroughs, because they think it is an opportunity to try out different voices, and add or take away bits of dialogue depending on how clever they are feeling that morning, but they are WRONG, a script readthrough is mostly to see if the script is as long as the telly slot it is supposed to be fitting into. Ideally just a little bit longer, so if anything goes wrong you have stuff to cut, rather than being too short so that you have to add stage directions like 'everyone stares into space for 1min 32 seconds' like Pinter did WE'RE ON TO YOU PINTER.<br />
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If it's too long, that's not good, unless it's exactly twice as long, in which case you cut it in two and phone the broadcaster and say 'hey, good news, we have an extra episode!', which is more or less what happened with episodes eight and nine of Green Wing series one. #true<br />
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In case you don't believe I was in a 'room' with 'actors', here is a photo of me with 'actor' Alex MacQueen, who played Julius in The Thick Of It and is thus a hero to<a href="https://twitter.com/patroclus" target="_blank"> @Patroclus</a>, who insisted I had my picture taken with him.<br />
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It turns out this is a great way to divide and conquer actors and thus let them know who's boss, by casually announcing 'my wife has insisted I take a 'selfie' with one of you BUT ONLY ONE WHO COULD IT BE'. Cue actors flicking their eyes from side to side with increasing nervousness over potential loss of status as I walk slowly around the room saying things like 'lalalala it could be you- BUT IT'S NOT, maybe it's this actor NO IT ISN'T, here we go it's Alex'.</div>
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It has been pointed out that Alex looks almost more excited to meet me than I was to meet him, which only emphasises how good an actor he is, and all the other ones could learn from him and his positive attitude.</div>
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Anyway, we start the readthrough, then realise no-one is available to time it.</div>
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ME: Where is Chris, the First Assistant Director? For usually it is he who times these readthroughs.</div>
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SOMEONE ELSE: Chris is in LA filming the new series of Episodes.</div>
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ME: CURSE YOU STEPHEN MANGAN AND YOUR ATLANTIC STRETCHING TENTACLES OF EVIL.</div>
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So I volunteered to time the readthrough, which disappointed everyone in the room because they were secretly hoping I would read some lines, at which I am very good. They didn't say anything, but I knew that's what they were thinking. However, now I had to not read lines and turn my phone back on, because I had turned it off so it didn't ring during the readthrough, which was very professional of me, I think.</div>
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Long silence.</div>
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DIRECTOR: Can we start now?</div>
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ME: My phone is still starting up.</div>
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Long silence. Eventually my phone makes a small beeping noise and something swims to the surface of the picture bit, 'screen', that's the word I was looking for.</div>
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ME: (helpfully) This phone is a Samsung Pocket Geo!</div>
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Everyone absorbs this information.</div>
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DIRECTOR: Now can we start?</div>
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ME: It's just sorting out its icons.</div>
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Further silence.</div>
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ME: Ooh, I've got Google+ on this, that's bound to come in handy at some point.</div>
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Bit more silence.</div>
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ME: Nearly there.</div>
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ACTOR: We could use my phone if it's-</div>
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ME: LOOK I HAVE ONE JOB ALL RIGHT?</div>
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Phone beeps.</div>
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ME: (calmly, with air of authority) You may all proceed.</div>
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I can now announce the following scoop, which will surely be in all the major media outlets seconds after I press 'Publish', that Episode 4 currently runs at thirty minutes twenty eight seconds, which is a bit long for an ITV half hour, which is twenty two minutes twenty seconds.</div>
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So basically we're going to have to sack someone. Not Alex though.</div>
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<br />James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-73373621210734469512014-09-25T06:44:00.000+01:002014-09-25T11:32:10.092+01:00The Delivery ManI haven't done this blog for ages! Poor thing, I have neglected you.<br />
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Anyways, I'm surfacing, because to everyone's surprise, including my own, I seem to be co-writing a sitcom that is actually going into production. IN PRODUCTION! It is this one: <a href="http://www.comedy.co.uk/guide/tv/the_delivery_man/" target="_blank">The Delivery Man</a>, and filming starts in November, to be shown on ITV sometime in Spring next year. It stars, amongst others, Darren Boyd, who I've written for in Smack The Pony and Green Wing but never actually met, so that'll be fun.<br />
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There is an actual production office and everything. Look, here is a prop!<br />
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Next week there is a full table read of the first three scripts. Which means I am going to be in a room with other people. SCARY.</div>
<br />James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-16989750693175893942014-07-13T15:31:00.003+01:002015-03-26T21:33:08.711+00:00Penryn Arts Festival: Screenwriters/Writers Q&A 2014This is quite specific to Falmouth/Penryn, but as part of the Penryn Arts Festival, I'm doing a Q&A next Friday with <a href="https://twitter.com/EmmaFrostLondon" target="_blank">Emma Frost</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/emily_barr" target="_blank">Emily Barr</a>. Details below:<br />
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<b>Jamaica Inn screenwriter to lead writers’ panel at <a href="http://www.penrynartsfestival.co.uk/" target="_blank">Penryn Arts Festival</a> PENRYN, 13th July 2014</b></blockquote>
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Emma Frost, screenwriter of the Emmy-nominated BBC television drama The White Queen, as well as the recent BBC1 adaptation of Jamaica Inn, will be taking questions from drama fans and aspiring writers at a Q&A session at Penryn Town Hall on Friday evening.</blockquote>
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The panel session is part of the Penryn Arts Festival, which takes place from this Friday 18th to Sunday 20th July at locations and venues around the town.
Emma will be joined on the panel by fellow Falmouth and Penryn-based writers James Henry (screenwriter, Green Wing, Smack the Pony, Shaun the Sheep) and Emily Barr, author of thriller novel The Sleeper, set on the Cornwall-London sleeper train.</blockquote>
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The Q&A is a fantastic opportunity for aspiring professional writers to ask any questions about the creative writing process; breaking into the industry; and balancing a professional writing career with living in Cornwall – as well as any questions about the three writers’ novels, dramas and comedies.
The session is free to enter, but those wishing to attend are asked to reserve a place via the <a href="http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/penryn-arts-festival-writers-qa-tickets-12156864509" target="_blank">Eventbrite link</a></blockquote>
James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-77948225912609755522014-03-03T11:59:00.001+00:002014-03-03T12:01:10.605+00:00At Home With WritersHalf past seven. The children are in bed, and my wife <a href="https://twitter.com/patroclus" target="_blank"><complete id="goog_1584133722">@Patroclus</complete></a><complete id="goog_1584133722"> and </complete>I have retired downstairs, where the gentle clicking of laptop keys is the only sound for half an hour or so. Finally:<br />
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ME: What are you doing?<br />
@Patroclus: Thing about geoploitical implications for Finnish energy companies' IT systems.<br />
ME: Ah.<br />
<br />
Pause.<br />
<br />
@Patroclus: What are you doing?<br />
ME: Outline for that CBeebies thing, about a caterpillar.<br />
@Patroclus: Ah.<br />
<br />
Pause.<br />
<br />
Suddenly:<br />
<br />
ME: OH THIS IS TOO HARD!<br />
<br />
I storm upstairs. After a while:<br />
<br />
@Patroclus: Can I have a bath after you?<br />
ME: GOD, WHATEVER, YES, FINE.<br />
<br />
Half an hour later:<br />
<br />
ME: I'm finished in the bath now, and I think.... I <i>think</i>, I've cracked the caterpillar outline.<br />
@Patroclus: That's good, I've nearly done the Finnish thing now.<br />
ME: OH WHO CARES ABOUT YOUR SORDID BUSINESS WORLD I'VE BEEN MAKING ART.<br />
<br />
'DUGGEE' begins this September, on CBeebies.James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-16224892642258806592014-02-04T11:20:00.000+00:002015-07-09T09:31:50.128+01:00Bridge & Tunnel: How Opal Slew The Dark Lord<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10831518.post-76496674443556694312014-01-17T13:46:00.002+00:002014-01-17T13:49:43.417+00:00How Opal Slew The Dark Lord: Part ThreeHere are the final three pages of the first Bridge and Tunnel comic, scripted by myself, illustrated by <a href="https://twitter.com/ratherlemony">Sarah Gordon</a>. Should be some news on where this is going to go next early in Feburary, so keep an eye out. In the meantime, thanks for reading, and for lovely comments on here and on Twitter.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GNt6tC-n51E/UtkzV1F0MkI/AAAAAAAAALE/xjd2NhjfPd4/s0/BRIDGE+TUNNELP10005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GNt6tC-n51E/UtkzV1F0MkI/AAAAAAAAALE/xjd2NhjfPd4/s850/BRIDGE+TUNNELP10005.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dZGD4hSfv20/Utkzfw_qWuI/AAAAAAAAALQ/S4MSMx5G0L8/s0/BRIDGE+TUNNELP10006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dZGD4hSfv20/Utkzfw_qWuI/AAAAAAAAALQ/S4MSMx5G0L8/s850/BRIDGE+TUNNELP10006.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-G0pLrTNUR04/UtkzfjrhNpI/AAAAAAAAALM/y1tJojehA4Y/s0/BRIDGE+TUNNELP10007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-G0pLrTNUR04/UtkzfjrhNpI/AAAAAAAAALM/y1tJojehA4Y/s850/BRIDGE+TUNNELP10007.jpg" /></a></div>James Henryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16604261370633794445noreply@blogger.com0