Wednesday, April 26, 2006

DEV-IL IN DISGUISE


Spring has sprung
The grass has riz
Does anyone know what development is?

Now that the weather's finally picking up, there's a lot of hot air about development around, what with the BBC dishing out a million quid to cash-strapped regional production outfits, such as struggling indies, Endemol Glasgow and IWC (otherwise known as I Want Cash). You'll also notice the perennial crop of development workshops, such as Arista's The Business of Development, a snip at 250 pounds. So for all of you who can't afford the industry skinny - which I guess means anyone reading this - welcome to my no-shit guide to development.

Development's a torturous rite where writers get screwed by producers who get screwed by the likes of the Film Council and the regional film bodies because development - also known as 'soft money' - doesn't pay producers a wage, so they have to steal it from somewhere, meaning writers - also known as 'soft targets' - get mugged. By the way, there's no point asking the BBC to cough up - their stock excuse is 'we don't do development, we don't need to', which I guess accounts for schemes like New Talent that pay tyro scribblers less than minimum wage for episodes of quality BBC 3 dramas.

The purpose of script development, we're told, is to get a screenplay into the best shape to make it attractive to potential investors. In other words, it has to be commercial. Or at the very least it has to feature posh people in silly clothes falling over. Development Executives - usually called Natasha or Charlotte - are paid sizeable five figure salaries to oversee the mysterious process of turning gold into lead. Meanwhile the writer's lucky if they see a couple of grand, having already written a first draft for hee-haw because nobody reads treatments. But because Natasha's really busy with her 79 other projects, it takes her a while to read your second draft, let's say six months, by which time you're selling Sky TV packages at the local call centre to make a dent in your overdraft.

Then, having lied to your boss - a funeral usually works - to attend a script meeting, you're a little miffed when Natasha suggests 'useful' changes such as - we really need a love interest or isn't the ending a little too downbeat? To which your producer nods in agreement while you're chucking daggers at him, wishing it was his funeral. And after Natasha runs off to her next meeting (three bottles of dry white with her just-dumped girlfriend) - you and your producer pick over the corpse in the pub where, having downed six pints of cooking lager at your expense, said producer starts weeping inconsolably and won't stop until you agree to write another draft. For free.

This scenario, like a recurring nightmare, is generally repeated for a few years, bouyed up by your producer's delusional belief that he's got 45 per cent of the budget in place. Meanwhile, you've been promoted to call centre supervisor and in your spare time make abortive attempts at novel writing and despair over your creeping alcoholism. Your script, meanwhile, has been through eight drafts and the wringer which, for two grand, paid you an hourly rate of 7p.

So does development make a script any better? Getting back to the notion of commercial - just how commercial can a low budget movie be? Which is what yours would've been, if only it got past go. And if the budget's low, say in the 1-2 million quid bracket, who's prepared to throw cash to sell the movie? Just how many of these films ever paid back their investors? Virtually none would be a fair assumption. And it's here that public money falls down the pan, because if you can't make a low budget commercial film - one that has stars and plays on 400 screens or can even attract a distributor in the first place - why bother to make the script commerical?

In fact, why bother with development at all?

I'm sure if this was pointed out to our public film funders, they'd deny it, claiming they encourage risk taking, welcome new talent, support cutting edge films blah-di-blah. Just make sure your script deals with football/children/dodgy drugs/girls with big knickers/fart jokes/
kebab shops and has a part for Julie Walters. And don't forget the upbeat ending.

11 Comments:

Blogger Danny Stack said...

Brilliant! Should be printed out and given to all MA screenwriting students all around the country who think their career's going to take off just because they've graduated...

4/26/2006 11:16 PM  
Blogger Leanne Smith said...

Well Danny, why don't you do that thing? Just cut and paste and send to all your mates. Isn't it about time they knew the truth?

kiss kiss
Leanne

4/26/2006 11:53 PM  
Blogger Danny Stack said...

I've tried. They don't listen.

4/27/2006 12:46 PM  
Blogger Leanne Smith said...

Never mind Danny... but do me a favour and spread the word about my blog.

Lx

4/27/2006 2:28 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I recognise this!
I should point out that the purpose of "development" at the Film Council and other UK funding bodies is for Natasha Double-Barrell and her chums to hobnob it with Ewan McGregor, Kiera Knightly and so on. It has nothing to do with ever making a film that anyone would want to see.
If an original script were ever to actually get the greenlight and god forbid get made, then Natasha would have to stand accountable and that means running the risk of failure - which of course she must never do. Hence nothing ever leaves development and she continues to quaff champagne at the tax payers expense. But that's ok because she's looking for "cultural" films which means films where working class people swear and fight and are grateful for the crumbs people like Natasha throw them. Natasha love the downtrodden working class and that's how she thinks they should continued to be seen on film - after all, her only experience of a council estate has been via a Mike Leigh film.

I say hang Natasha and disband the Film Council. Without all this phoney soft money that distorts the market, real film-lovers with enough money to make a low-budget movie might actually stand a chance of having it seen!

Keep up the good work.

4/28/2006 6:44 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The bus of development is expensive and probably best for Producers and Execs.

But recently they ran a Low Budget High Quality - £200 for two days of very well researched, excellent information and insight into the business.

I don't live in London so had to travel, blag a place to stay etc, but this is definitely a seminar that any independent filmaker tired of the prevailing system should get along to if they run it again.

I think, hope that a lot of the current way of developing film stories, making and distibuting can be pushed aside for some with new technologies and a less top down view of the vision of film.

4/28/2006 10:48 AM  
Blogger James Moran said...

Cooking lager? Weeping? Ooh, you make it all sound so glamorous!

4/28/2006 9:11 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Leanne,

Do I smell snide in that last comment? He mentioned nothing - no, yes, I agree - about your very clever and sneakily well-made argument.

I'm sure 'cooking lager' will turn up in this guy's next script... Being a writer, it's clear he focused on it a little too hard.

You hit a nerve girl. Keep it up.

4/29/2006 1:56 AM  
Blogger James Moran said...

Anonymous: Would you relax? It was obviously just a joke - people imagine the writing life to be glamorous, and Leanne has very wittily shown that no, it really isn't. That's all I was trying to say, really. The post was very funny, and painfully true. It certainly wasn't intend as snide or anything else negative.

4/29/2006 11:05 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You are a genius. Consider yourself added to my blog roll!

4/30/2006 9:40 AM  
Blogger James Henry said...

I had an excellent meeting with a film producer recently, who, every time I mentioned a film that had inspired me, went into imdb to see how much box offit it had made.

I hasten to add, he was a thoroughly nice chap, and seemed quite keen on reading some of my scripts (the fact that I thought he had already read them and that was why I had got the meeting in the first place is neither here nor there). But I'm not doing any more rewriting for free - that path leads only to madness, and despair, and cooking lager.

Great post.

5/03/2006 1:03 PM  

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