Week Beginning 9/3

This week has been a little hectic with continued pre-production for "Lord of the Rings in 60 Seconds" as well as pitching my TPA/DFTV collaboration proposals to Ros and Adam on Wednesday. Over and above that we had classes.

Monday was our pitches to Barbara for a programme for the 8pm Sunday evening slot on BBC or ITV. Galina, Charlotte and myself pitched a drama set in a theatre called the Millennium Hope. I have to say I did quite like the idea, and if we have time it would be nice to look at developing it further after we had the notes back from Barbara.

Tuesday was a Gaelic class in the morning. Grand. Then a Screenwriting class in the afternoon where we did some work deconstructing Shawshank Redemption in discussion. This shows me just how far the classical structure can be twisted into something more unique

Wednesday was a PAT tutorial followed by a Programme Meeting and a class on TV, where we watched both Hancock and Steptoe. I had never seen Steptoe before and found it to be more of a comedic drama than a true comedy. Perhaps the later episodes had a different tone, but certainly the one we watched was only intermittantly comical. I can't imagine that these rag and bone men were any more representational of the people of their time than the Larkins (or whatever they were) who had come previously. Perhaps, however, there was something in the aspirational character of these individuals that struck a chord with the nation.

Thursday was a packed day with a morning class with Abigail looking at contracts for writers in quite significant detail. This is all quite useful as general background information for the TV/film industry, but given that Abigail is convinced we will be lucky, when we graduate, to be employed as runners, it all seems a little academic.
At lunch I was helping Phil with auditions for Lord of the Rings, then quickly nipping along to the second half of a screening of Apparitions by Tony Wood. Graeme and myself were supposed to be filming this Masterclass, but as we had no time to adjust the camera before he began talking, as the backfocus was significantly out of kilter and the only microphone we had was a cumbersome boom mike, the whole affair was less than professional. The talk itself was very engaging. I like that fact that Tony was rebelling against the PC culture within broadcasting.
On Thursday night I was ushering a play at the Citizens done by Langside College. It was entitled the Pillowman, and I was blown away by it. In terms of quality, it stands up against anything that has been performed at the Citz in the last two years. I won't go into much detail in terms of the plot or the characters, but the theme is quite clear. The pen, it is said, is mightier than the sword. But that does not mean it is better than the sword. (I suppose I had always taken it that way.) The pen (words, ideas, stories) simply has greater power than the sword (violence, government, death). Power for building up or for pulling down. Lives can be wrecked by the pen just as by the sword, and they can even be wrecked accidentally. The play is a plea for all of us who are writers or who aspire to be writers to take our work seriously and not to underestimate the ability we have to change society, or to change a persons life for good or for bad. We cannot be careless or thoughtless when we write, anymore than we should be careless or thoughtless when handling an AK-47.

Friday was a screening and discussion of Sea of Souls, which was enjoyable to watch for one episode, but which looked as though it could quickly become formulaic if the characters were not allowed to develop. The afternoon was a screening of Casablanca, which was an even better watch the second time round! Wonderful stuff.