Tuesday, September 18, 2007

WLTM...


I’ve never been so desperate that I’ve tried speed dating, not even for a laugh.

The basic problem I think is living in Paisley. Not that your chances improve much in Glasgow, where most of the guys you meet are either dumb or too busy acting dumb, usually because they’re hiding a wife and three weans. To balance it, there are a lot of females out there doing pretty much the same thing. Don’t believe me? Get your arse down to Union Street at half two on a weekend night (or any night) and, like the remote police camera vans now blocking the corner of Union Street, you too can witness the hordes of drunk lassies at the taxi rank clutching heels in one hand while smoking a Mayfair with a Mulberry handbag in the other. In other words, your average BBC 1 audience.

I get the feeling that this kind of semi-comedic social realism is exactly what BBC Scotland, together with their pals at Scottish Screen, want to encourage. The deadline’s just passed for a drama scheme called The Singles which on paper looks like a brave attempt at getting homegrown writers/filmmakers on the bottom rung of the biz. The budget - £450,000 may look like a useful amount of money, but it’s not. Not according to somebody I went to Uni with a few years back who knows somebody who knows that the average per-hour cost of network TV drama is calculated at around £750,000.

But like everything else about the BBC – and there’s plenty to slag but I won’t slag SS here because they never got round to Fast Forward Features (see archive) – the problem is a) London, b) London and c) London. Apart from River City – and it doesn’t take a genius to know that particular show will never go network, no matter what anybody says. Personally I think it’s gone downhill again lately, but I live in hope.

I expect when it comes down to it, London will beat BBC Scotland into submission and before you can say opt-out – the budget for The Singles will be instantly halved and the whole scheme will languish in purgatorial development. How do I know this? I don’t. The other day I googled ‘BBC Scotland Drama’ which took me to the BBC Scotland Drama site from where the only drama I could find was River City. No mention of any other show – one-offs or series.

Hmmm… I thought, unless RC’s the only gig in town, then either BBC Scotland Drama is worse off than I thought or they’re not telling us something. I’ll take a punt on the latter. Seems to me that virtually all the drama commissioned out of BBC Drama Scotland comes out of England anyway. Scratching round online, you find companies like Sony Productions credited for ‘Sea of Souls’ Not that anybody gives a toss about where the money comes from – or goes – so long as the programmes don’t insult the intelligence of the average settee tattie.

While Alex Salmond rants about a drop in overall UK spend on TV production in Scotland and when you’ve got the likes of Mark Thompson, ex C4, now top BBC axe-wielder, telling us that there’s not enough talent or ideas here, well – you have to wonder if The Singles will ever happen. Or if they do go ahead, can these dramas be trusted to such untalented locals?

Now I don’t know what any other writer has submitted for The Singles, but you can bet cash-strapped indies from down south have spent the last few months pouncing on anybody remotely Scottish to milk them for ideas, just as every writer on River City will have chucked a treatment in, no matter how comfy their current gig. And no doubt a few ambitious shorts filmmakers will hope TV will buy into their quirky ‘loosely-based-on-my-childhood’ stories.
No doubt other ideas will include mid life crisis domestics featuring downtrodden-but-fiesty 40-something females taking on men, say in a crap football team where they’re suddenly championed to victory by some unreconstituted old fart who thinks they should be nailed to the kitchen floor.

Maybe Thompson’s got a point after all… but I live in hope.

16 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

They devoted a whole session at the EdFilmFest to appealing for more proposals, seemingly there's a shortage of submissions and not enough from outside Glasgow. But they did mention having a thriller and I think a romcom shortlisted, which at least lifts it slightly out of the usual Scottish scene. The problem may be with the execs involved, one of whom once rejected a proposal of mine with the words "I found I couldn't identify with the characters as they were all of above-average intelligence."

9/20/2007 12:51 AM  
Blogger Leanne Smith said...

A big thank you for sharing that.

I guess what they meant - but can never admit - is that the average intelligence of their script readers was below the wit of your characters.

I heard from a cred source that they've had only three 'decent ideas' in to fill the ten hoop-jumping slots so maybe free-writing fatigue has finally set in. 5 pages of a mini-bible of a totally new idea is a pile of work for any writer - wannabe or otherwise. FOR NO MONEY.

Or maybe, just maybe, we're too smart for BBC 1 audiences.

Lx

9/20/2007 1:38 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This was a cack handed brief from day 1. First they wanted ideas that could spin off to series. Then they didn't.

First they only wanted submissions through indy prodcos. Then they didn't.

Possibly when they realised that indy prodcos weren't interested in doing the amount of work required prior to commission, with only a 3 in 10 chance of anything that was even comissioned making it to screen.

All done with the best of intentions no doubt, but a little more thought into it before rushing out with the announcement would have gone a long way to not making this look like amateur hour.

9/24/2007 5:22 PM  
Blogger Leanne Smith said...

Let me get this straight - a change of brief that's won't be rolled out as a series AND they're now doing it inhouse?

No wonder they didn't get bombarded with submissions. I think writers are beginning to get a bit wise to being mugged.

Speaking of mugging, I assume this means that SS is subsidising BBC Scotland Drama. Meanwhile the poor punter coughs up twice - once for the licence fee and once for the Lottery.

Am-dram indeedy...

9/24/2007 9:06 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

They're not doing it in house. Just relaxed the rule that submissions could only come through a prodco. The writer could submit direct.

Though I'm not sure what would happen if a writer direct submission was actually accepted. Would the writer have to shop around for a prodco willing to become involved or would BBC/SS provide a shortlist or......who the heck knows.

I think it was a knee jerk reaction to a lack of quality submissions, caused mainly by the originally ill thought out brief.

9/25/2007 10:12 AM  
Blogger Leanne Smith said...

Thanks for the explanation. Couldn't agree more.

I guess if a writer direct submission got past go the powers that be would hand the gig to one of their pals. Track record meaning an ex-head of development at SS or some ex-BBC producer now scratching a living in the indie wilderness.

If I was in their shoes, alarm bells would be ringing. I'd put more effort in turning out better writers - and I don't mean 22 weeks of 'how to write a short' - I mean a proper 'addressing the market' scheme with some heavy mentoring from experienced writers.

But that would be too sensible, wouldn't it?

9/25/2007 10:40 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The trouble is, they DO want us to address the market, or rather, make TV proposals that are just 1% different from what's already on TV. Whereas a glance at my TV assures me that what really needs doing is a lot of Tv that's 75% different from everything out there. And they are not interested in doing that at all.
D Cairns

9/25/2007 3:59 PM  
Blogger Leanne Smith said...

Nice wee debate we've got going here.

I don't think we're in disagreement but when I say address the market, I mean scripts of the calibre of say, The Wire, not Monarch of the Glen.

Much moaning goes on about Glasgow being the centre of the Scottish televisual universe, but looking at the usual BBC Scotland drama fare, you'd be forgiven for thinking the Scots all live in bucolic splendour - Two Thousand Acres of Sky, Hamish Macbeth and the above.

So while there's a lot of snide comments going round about BBC Glesga, where's the classic Glasgow gangster show? Where's our version of the Sopranos? Or a better cop show than Taggart? A better take on city corruption (backhanders for 2014 comes to mind) than The Wire.

It's the wholesale lack of ambition I'm criticising. That and the BBC/SS assumption that great ideas - and scripts - come for free. In the end, you get what you pay for.

Lx

9/25/2007 5:37 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great post (and blog). As an 'insider' I laughed out loud at a lot of this. You are so on the money you don't even realise.

I'm a Scottish writer but BBC Scotland and SMG are on my C or D list for submitting material. Too many bad experiences over the years. One meeting with Roz Kidd at SMG will live long in my memory.

If it was down to those two entities (and Stuart "There'll Be A Glasgow Gangster Drama Over My Dead Body" Cosgrove) I wouldn't have got started, never mind actually make a living writing for television. That was down to English indies and broadcasters where I was hired when I couldn't even get a read at BBC Scotland.

It's one of the worst indictments of Scottish society that talented Scots have to go south to get an opportunity.

Keep on, keeping on.

9/25/2007 9:00 PM  
Blogger Leanne Smith said...

Thanks for that.

Totally agree. The problem we have here isn't a lack of talent. The problem lies at the door of - as you rightly say - SMG and BBC Scotland, where the commissioners would rather chew broken glass than hire anybody local, which says more about their own lack of nerve than the talent here.

And while I'm at it - isn't it about time that toerag Cosgrove gave up a few of his well-padded gigs instead of pronouncing on what should or shouldn't get made here? After all, whose fault is it that TV here is so shite?

Lx

9/25/2007 11:07 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

At least we still have Taggart. Though to me it seems Mark McManus hasn't been in it for a while.

Or could it be SMG grimly clinging on to a brand name so they can at least have one networked series?

Kinda difficult to sell a show internationally though if the name of the show is related to a character who no longer exists.

Magnum P.I - starring the guy who bought over the business after Thomas Magnum moved to San Francisco to sell mustache wax?

That could work?

9/26/2007 5:18 PM  
Blogger Leanne Smith said...

Even better for Glasgow - Magnum PIE - the everyday tale of a fat fucker who when he's not in the chippy busts crime in the city that never sweeps, well, judging by the cheggie and pizza boxes clogging up Sauchiehall Street...

Not starring Robbie Coltrane, of course.

Lx

9/26/2007 5:37 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

''Even better for Glasgow - Magnum PIE - the everyday tale of a fat fucker who when he's not in the chippy busts crime in the city that never sweeps'


ha ha ha

Watch for this on a network near you!

Especially after producer speak-

Robbie Coltrane would be great for marketing. His B Roads travelogue really raised his profile. This part is made for him. And he's my cousin's Godfather. Plus he's the best known Scots actor after Sean Connery. Just take out any reference to Scotland and I'll talk to my boss about maybe getting you to do a 10 page treatment. Who knows? After that there might be some payment involved. No need to thank me.

9/26/2007 7:27 PM  
Blogger Leanne Smith said...

Absolutely. Love to write you a treatment for nae money. In fact, why don't I just chuck in a free first draft? Seeing as Robbie will want script approval and all...

Aye, when I stop laughing... by the way, mine's a Baileys and brandy, big man...

Lx

9/26/2007 9:40 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Kinda difficult to sell a show internationally though if the name of the show is related to a character who no longer exists."

Sadly not - Taggart sells all over, particularly in expat-heavy territories (Canada, Oz, etc.)

These foreign sales (and, since 2003, DVD sales, which are also suprisingly healthy) go straight into SMeG's coffers, bypassing ITV.

No-one at SMeG wants to be the person to kill the golden goose, so they let it whither in its coop instead.

10/25/2007 2:41 PM  
Blogger Leanne Smith said...

Cheers for that.

Someone I know who was visiting Down Under told me how they wanted the floor to open and swallow them up when Taggart appeared on TV there.

Of course no-one at SMG wants to kill it off, just like no-one at Smegland making a nice living (and usually with a few shares) wants to leave. They'd sooner pull out their own teeth with rusty pliers.

I don't mind so much they won't kill it off, I just wish they would have better scripts and acting. It's not like they don't have a budget, but then again maybe this brand of no-brains-required telly is more sellable to other territories than say, The Wire.

Lx

10/25/2007 6:42 PM  

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