Stephen Gallagher interview

British screenwriter, Stephen Gallagher, interviewed on an excellent American writing blog, Complications Ensue. This is part one of four, and though it is mainly concerned with explaining the British commissioning system to Americans, it makes interesting reading for Brits as well.

Stephen dropped me an email to mention Complications Ensue and also to recommend I Find Your Lack Of Faith Disturbing, another very enjoyable American writing blog.

It seems that one of the sub-genres of the screenwriter blog is the pitch post. From what I can tell, everybody's a fucking expert on pitching projects. Everyone's got a song, a dance, a corkboard, some Willy Loman trick. I love John Rogers's recent post on pitching television and I even found myself using the term "story lens" in a meeting. Of course I have no idea what "story lens" means and there's a pretty good chance I used the term incorrectly. But whatever. It's not like these people know what I'm talking about half the time anyway. In fact, if I make the classic mistake of asking for that second Diet Coke, there's a good chance I'll do at least one five minute caffeinated riff about whatever's within my reach on the coffee table.

The truth is, I pitch like a drunk sailor. In my twelve years of Monkeydom I cannot remember EVER selling an original feature idea in pitch form. I've had meetings that resulted in me getting hired for jobs, but I'm pretty sure that a) I already had the job going into the meeting and could only have lost it or b) my competition had been arrested for child endangerment earlier in the day.