Comedy producer and writer Gareth Edwards has been appointed acting head of radio comedy at the BBC, while a permanent replacement is found for Paul Schlesinger.
Edwards TV credits include the Bafta award-winning That Mitchell and Webb Look, and series four of Dead Ringers, both for BBC2. His radio credits include Bleak Expectations, Vent, and That Mitchell and Webb Sound, all for Radio 4.
I did not price the book at anywhere near retail, as I couldn’t imagine doing so for something that wasn’t yet retail quality. On the other hand, I knew people enjoyed reading it — this based on the enthusiasm the web serialization had garnered — so I figured there was nothing wrong with charging a little. After all, I do write to (eventually) get paid and the story was available for free to those who wanted to browse through my blog to read it. Having it on the Kindle was value added. So I set the price at $3.49. Amazon knocked twenty percent off to $2.79. That put the book firmly in the impulse buy category.Link via Galley Cat, which also has a report about the upcoming Kindle 2.
The novel has sold relatively steadily since publication, with a slight bump in October (people like to buy horror stories around Halloween, oddly enough). ”Relatively steadily” means roughly a copy a day—which is far better than I expected, actually, and an encouraging number for first outing.
In interviews over the years, Mr. Hayes was forthright about what it was like to write for Mr. Hitchcock. “I enjoyed working with him professionally, but off the screen he wasn’t so likable,” he told The Worcester Telegram & Gazette in 1999. “He was egotistical to the point of madness.”
Ofcom sees fixing children's television as part of a broader package for all public service content. Behind the scenes it is working on refining a scheme for contestable funding with a new mission statement: "long-term transferable funding".
Under this proposal, programmes could be financed via a new model akin to the BBC World Service, or Teachers' TV, which are government-funded. Alternatively, strands such as news or drama could be franchised out to a number of suppliers, who could be invited to bid - but marketing and scheduling would be critical. A proposal from Channel 4 for older children had been virtually mothballed - but this could rescue it. Channel Five has offered more children's programming, and even a new digital channel, if Ofcom would provide free spectrum. But there remains a big question - where will the money for contestable funding come from: the BBC, the digital surplus assets, spectrum freed up after digital switchover, or an industry levy?
We do not oppose this in principle, because in the UK the services of the BBC are free of advertising and we would not wish this to change. However the BBC is well financed through a licence-fee system. It appears that the current French proposals will cut FT’s income by 800 million Euro. Such swingeing cuts will severely damage FT’s ability to commission and broadcast programmes of quality and threaten its ability to continue as a meaningful Public Service Broadcaster.He continued:
We are also concerned that in this situation the ability of screenwriters in France to earn a living in the television industry will be seriously affected, both by a reduction in the amount of programming commissioned and by undermining the general level of payments to writers.Yesterday French writers staged a one-day strike in protest against the proposals.
CBeebies has commissioned its first standalone web project based around letters that come to life.
Alphablox is aimed at 4-to 6-year-olds and features wordplay, short comedy clips and a world that children can create by joining letters together. It was ordered by Michael Carrington and is a Magic Lantern production.
Hodges takes a cheerful view of the human spirit. Each character has their own personal road to redemption, and a group purpose underpins their tiny clan – although there are a number of very unpleasant events. “It’s about hope,” he insists. “It’s about what it takes for the best of us to endure.”There's another interview with Hodges on the BBC Writersroom, where they've also got the Episode One script (pdf).
Gwyneth Hughes - Miss Austen Regrets (Best Short Form TV Drama)
The writers of The Bill, Season 23 - Geoff McQueen (series deviser), Richard Ommanney, Neil Clarke, Steve Griffiths, Emma Goodwin, Julian Perkins, Steve Attridge, Clive Dawson, Peter G. Morgan, Andrew Taft, Chris Murray, Tom Higgins, Julia Wall, Maxwell Young, Jane Marlow, Sally Tatchell, Si Spencer, Matthew Bardsley, Jonathan Rich, Matthew Leys, James Hall, Chris Murray, Stuart Morris, Nicholas McInerny, Chris Ould, Alan Pollock, Simon Moss, Nicholas Martin, Scott Cherry, Doug Milburn, Steve Trafford, Stephanie Lloyd Jones, Steve Baillie, Frank Rickarby, Andrew Alty, Will Shindler, Chris Dunn, Sarah-Louise Hawkins, Len Collin, Gregory Evans, Tom Needham, Patrick Homes (Best Soap / Continuing Drama Series)
Heidi Thomas - Cranford (Best TV Drama Series)
James Corden and Ruth Jones - Gavin and Stacey, Series 2 (Best TV Comedy / Light Entertainment)
Lucinda Coxon - Happy Now? (Best Play - Theatre)
Mike Kenny – Electric Darkness (Best Play for Children and Young People - Theatre)
Ronald Harwood - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, based on the book by Jean-Dominique Bauby (Best Screenplay - Feature Film)
Sanjeev Kohli and Donald McLeary – Fags, Mags and Bags (Best Radio Comedy / Light Entertainment)
Chris Harrald - Mr Larkin's Awkward Day (Best Radio Play)
Kate Clanchy – What Is She Doing Here? (Best Book)
Rhianna Pratchett - Overlord (Best Videogame Script)
Tony Collingwood - An Award for Outstanding Contribution to Children’s Writing
David Croft and Jimmy Perry - A Lifetime Achievement AwardBBC One and BBC Two will be available to watch live online from 27 November, Jana Bennett, Director of BBC Vision, announced today.
The channels join BBC Three, BBC Four, CBBC, CBeebies and BBC News which are already simulcast.
They can all be watched online via their channel sites on bbc.co.uk through a wide range of internet enabled devices. They can also be watched through BBC iPlayer.
Jana Bennett said: "The launch of BBC One and BBC Two online completes our commitment to make our portfolio of channels available to watch on the internet.
"From 27 November licence fee payers will be able to watch BBC programmes, live, wherever they are in the UK on their computers, mobile phones and other portable devices.
"Through iPlayer and series stacking, they'll have the option to catch up with them later."
One of Australia’s most successful screenwriters, Oscar nominated Jan Sardi (Shine, The Notebook, Mao’s Last Dancer) says “Far from taking the Australian film industry in a new direction, Screen Australia's proposed guidelines spell disaster for an industry already on its knees.”
In initial consultations Screen Australia acknowledged the importance of quality scripts in the creation of outstanding film and television, and expressed a commitment to supporting writers with the time and money necessary to write them. Their proposed guidelines however show an abject failure to fulfill these commitments.
If their draft guidelines are put into practice, future funding eligibility requirements for screenwriters will be so high they will exclude all but a small handful of professional writers and force others into potentially unproductive partnerships before the first draft is even written.
Funding for first-time and emerging screenwriters will also be completely abandoned and a total disregard is shown for the basic rights of writers through the proposed insistence on early transfer of copyright without any mandated protections.
“Abandoning emerging screenwriters and inflicting shotgun weddings on experienced writers, directors and producers reeks of a government bureaucracy all too eager to divest itself of responsibility and accountability for where Australian taxpayers money goes - it is not the way forward,” says Sardi.
Australian Writers’ Guild Executive Director, Jacqueline Woodman, says “In their eagerness to establish sustainable businesses and let the marketplace develop and promote projects, Screen Australia appears to have forgotten that before there can be a ‘project’ to be developed, a script must first be written.”
Research will range from on-set motion capture to accurately and unobtrusively merge human performers and digital character models; to next-generation synthetic performer technologies, such as richly interactive, highly expressive robotic or animated characters; to cameras that will spawn entirely new visual art forms; to morphable movie studios, where one studio can be turned into many through advanced visual imaging techniques; to holographic TV. It will draw on technologies pioneered at the Media Lab, such as digital systems that understand people at an emotional level, or cameras capable of capturing the intent of the storyteller.Reflecting on the new 'Center', in The New York Times, Michael Cieply asks whether the whole concept of story in film is under threat.
A common gripe is that gamelike, open-ended series like “Pirates of the Caribbean” or “Spider-Man” have eroded filmmakers’ ability to wrap up their movies in the third act. Another is that a preference for proven, outside stories like the Harry Potter books is killing Hollywood’s appetite for original storytelling.
Independent TV producers and ITV have laid out a code of conduct for product placement on television, which they would follow if the practice becomes permitted in the UK.
The British government is currently consulting on the AVMS Directive, which would permit EU member states to allow paid-for product placement in drama and entertainment, but not in news, current affairs, consumer advice or children’s programmes. The practice of product placement is already widespread on US-originated TV programmes.
Shakespeare Naughty Pillow - $29.95Of course, we all know what writers really want for Christmas.This is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a pillow with a bunch of “bawdy” Shakespeare quotes.
So you’re a writer…overweight, slouchy posture, pallid skin, bad eyesight…but don’t worry. Once you get those four Long Island Ice Teas into that girl at the bar and bring her back ’round your sweet Valley Village love pad, she’s going to stumble to the bed, catch a glimpse of the naughty pillow and read something like:
But that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead or hang my bugle in an invisible baldric all women shall pardon me.
Ohhhhh YEAHHHHHHHHH.
You know what’s great about the Shakespeare Naughty Pillow? It pretty much guarantees you will never have sex for the rest of your fertile life, ensuring the end of every genetic line predisposed to buy stupid crap like a Shakespeare Naughty Pillow.
Might take a few generations, but Darwin is patient.
ITV has followed BBC1 into Saturday teatime family drama (adding the imminent Demons, starring Philip Glenister, to Primeval), and ITV2 will be home to a third series of Secret Diary of a Call Girl and a new show, Trinity, which Mackie mind-bogglingly describes as "American Pie meets Brideshead Revisited". But the ITV1 weeknight 9pm slot remains "absolutely crucial" to her strategy.On his blog, McLean reflects on the interview.
"Our strategy is very simple and is something that Peter [Fincham, ITV director of television] has been very clear about since he came in. We want to deliver a broad range of popular, quality series."
Speaking to people about Mackie and ITV, I realised there's an enormous amount of generosity towards her and a will for ITV drama to succeed – for more than purely selfish reasons. If nothing else, it keeps the BBC on its toes and goodness knows it needs the exercise...Update (18.11.08): A more downbeat message in a report by Kate McMahon in Broadcast:
There is, of course, plenty still to be done at ITV but I think Mackie is the person to do it. She said she wasn't interested in the BBC head of Fiction job. I really hope she meant it – unless she plans to go and dismantle it. But let's not get me started on that one.
ITV chief operating officer John Cresswell has hinted that the broadcaster could scale back its drama output to focus on entertainment shows as the economic crisis deepens...
Asked about the future of drama, Cresswell said: "Will drama programming change? Well, Peter [Fincham] has got some really interesting ideas. The mix is always up for review. Drama plays an important part in the appeal of ITV to advertisers as it has a reach very much targeted at ABC1s, but for us, we may get more value from other big entertainment shows and perhaps even more specialised factual shows."
It can be hard for writers to ignore a strong fanbase, however. "The internet definitely has a growing effect on television," says the TV writer Phil Klemmer. He was part of the team on the now-cancelled teen detective drama Veronica Mars - and "it got to the stage where we'd be logging on after each episode to see what grade we'd received".
But the relationship soured three seasons in. "We found ourselves facing a backlash," Klemmer says. "People would be posting 'save our show', and accusing us of having destroyed it. They'd email the writers saying what we were doing wrong. It was a bit like a really bad break-up."
TV and media companies can make ten times as much by putting a video on TV than they can by putting it on the Web, even if that video attracts the same size audience. Online video startups can look at that as an opportunity to close that gap, but they should also realize that the Web is not the only game in town. In fact, cable companies are striking back by gradually shifting up their video-on-demand channels to a bigger mix of free, advertising-supported video. Cable’s answer to Youtube will be more video-on-demand channels with better videos that advertisers will line up to buy ads for at ten times the price they are willing to pay for ads on YouTube, or Hulu for that matter.
As mentioned here before, American versions of two British dramas cretaed by Guild members are currently playing in prime time in the USA - Eleventh Hour (created by Guild Stephen Gallagher) Life On Mars (created by Mathew Graham, Tony Jordan and Ashley Pharoah). But which one is best? In Wired magazine, Hugh Hart presents a 'smackdown' to find a winner. Round 3: The Running-Around-in-Underwear Scene
"Life on Mars": A thug in boxers races out of a fitness club, chased by Keitel, also in trunks, in a madcap dash that ends in a Central Park pond.
"Eleventh Hour": Rachel races from her room into a hotel lobby dressed only in a robe and lingerie while responding to an accidental emergency call from her new-on-the-job science adviser.
As a writer yourself, what did you think of “Breaking Dawn”? Fans were pretty divided.Twilight trailer
I was utterly compelled by it, first of all. I understand why there's uproar, but I respect Stephenie for having made the choices she did. She easily could have played it very safe. She could have had the series go on for another eight novels, but she took a risk. And she blew it out! She just completely went wild. I just think that that's such bold storytelling. She turns the series upside down.
Here's the thing: If you're playing it safe, you're not going to offend any of the fans. If you take a risk, you risk losing your entire audience, you risk destroying your entire series. We deal with that on "Dexter" all the time [the series on which Rosenberg writes). Every time you take a risk, you have a 50-50 chance of choosing wrong. We've all seen series take that risk and fall flat on their asses and everyone cries, "What have you done to my series?" And then you're the most hated person. But I think Stephenie was true to herself and her story and that's what is important.
Science fiction writer Barrington Bayley died last month at the age of 71. There are obituaries on Locus Online, The Times, and by Michael Moorcok in The Guardian. Barrington Bayley, who has died aged 71, was a writer of metaphysical, absurdist "space opera" - the science-fiction subgenre of epic adventure/romance stories set in space. He was perhaps best known for those he inspired, among them the writers M John Harrison, Iain M Banks, William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and the so-called "cyberpunks".There's lots more information about Barrington Bayley on this fan site.
Perhaps cats are important totem animals for writers. Perhaps writers hope their independence and mystique will rub off on them, and seek to emulate the slightly magical moggy's feigned disinterest when those bad reviews roll in.Or perhaps we just need a tough critic from time to time.
Words by Sherry. Photo by Julie. From icanhascheezburger.com.
“I’m proud of this book There are poems about the state of society, poems about war.
“I also exercise the right to free speech and criticise certain religious practices like female circumcision, George Bush’s use of religion, as well as Christians’ treatment of homosexuality and the treatment of women, especially in Islam and Catholicism.
“People have obviously felt threatened about this and activated a religious protest and Waterstone’s have bowed to it.”
Waterstone’s spokesman John Howells said: “We have cancelled the planned event involving Patrick Jones this evening at our Cardiff Hayes branch as we felt it was not appropriate to go ahead in the light of potential disruption.
“However, his book remains available at the store.”
Channel 4's head of programmes Julian Bellamy has confirmed that C4's programming budgets will be cut by "at least" £25m next year, with daytime and drama to be hit hardest.
In 1963 in the city of Durban the South African government halted my career as a writer by imposing a ban which forbade me any form of publication, performance or public speaking. A year later I was imprisoned for opposing apartheid, and five years after that house arrested on my release. Living in the UK since 1970, first as an exile then as a citizen, I’ve seen my poetry, short stories and a novel published and work for stage and television performed, but have remained unpublished in South Africa.
So it was an emotional and somewhat triumphal moment on an evening this March to be on a public platform in the city where I was banned – and to be reading a poem as part of a week-long writers’ festival.
“I can’t for the life of me understand why we’re not more proud of the civil war,” Flannery argues. “In our schools, we’re taught that the Cavaliers wore their hair long and had fun, while the Roundheads wore their hair short and banned Christmas. And that’s about it. Regicide, interregnum and restoration, and there you have it. We’ve been invited to feel that England lost its wits for a little while, courtesy of some rather dour men. Actually, it’s the crucible for all the subsequent European revolutions. It radicalised a lot of people and left a legacy of ideas that we’re still battling over. We should, as a nation, be informed about that and take a proud interest in it. Also, for a writer, it’s the most glorious landscape for love and action.”
Michael Fassbender as Rainsborough and Dominic West as Cromwell in The Devil's Whore (Photo: C4/Giles Keyte)The departing BBC Fiction controller, Jane Tranter, has said today that budgets for British television drama are at breaking point and that broadcasters are in danger of showing "theatre and not television".
Tranter added that the majority of drama is made is at the limit of "what we can ask the production teams to do" and that "budgets cannot keep on falling".
She said: "There's really not much more we can cut without endangering not just the quality of the work, but also the quality of the lives of the people who work on these things."
In The Independent, Jay Merrick explores Leicester's new Curve Theatre, by the architect Rafael Viñoly, which opens this month.The architecture does not so much demonstrate the modernist form-equals-function mantra, as act it out. At the Curve, the usual demarcations between on-stage and backstage, promenade spaces and operational spaces, actors and punters, have been erased. It was unsurprising to learn that Viñoly’s original sketches for the theatre amounted to theatrical, public and operational spaces divided only by curtains.
With his sitcom Outnumbered (co-written with Guy Jenkin) returning to BBC One on Saturday, in The Guardian, Andy Hamilton reveals the secret of writing comedy for child actors. ...our top priority was to keep it all feeling natural, so we opted for some radical measures. Firstly, to avoid the children sounding scripted, we decided not to give them a script. We would write a script - otherwise we would not get paid - but we would only give it to the adult actors. The kids would not be allowed to see it. We would tell them the gist of a scene, then wait to see what came out of their mouths.The first series of Outnumbered has won Hamilton and Jenkin a nomination for a Writers' Guild Award.
A collection of rare texts by William Shakespeare is to be donated to the London theatre that bears his name.
US playwright John Wolfson has pledged more than 450 works, including a first folio of 18 Shakespeare plays, to be handed over after his death.
Wolfson said he was "fortunate to have found a place as appropriate for my books as Shakespeare's Globe".
On BBC Writersroom, an invitation to sketch writers to submit work for the new series of Recorded For Training Purposes. Recorded for Training Purposes is a sketch show for BBC Radio 4. Its remit is to be about "modern communication" - a wide brief, that can cover anything from straightforward sketches involving unhelpful helplines to parodies of modern types of TV/Radio.The deadline for the submission of no more than three sketches per writer is 17 November 2008. Full details from BBC Writersroom.
The first series went out in January 2007, with a second series broadcast the following September. For the first series there was a national search for new writers who would write the series alongside a few more experienced writers and script editors. For the second series, the amount of material from these new writers was increased, with the more experienced writers taking a back seat.
It has a cast of six - three men, three women - who can, collectively, play most ages.
For the third series, there will be a core writing team of people who've written on the first two series. However, the show will also be opened up to, well, anyone. Anyone who sends stuff in will have their stuff read (which is why there's a limit of three sketches; sorry, we don't have time to read any more than that), and the best stuff will work its way into the recordings. If the audience like it, it'll get on air, and you'll get paid and credited for your work.
In the 1990s he simultaneously had America's number one movie (Jurassic Park), its number one bestseller (Disclosure) and its top TV series (ER).In The New York Times there's an appreciation of his work by Chalres McGrath.
All the Crichton books depend to a certain extent on a little frisson of fear and suspense: that’s what kept you turning the pages. But a deeper source of their appeal was the author’s extravagant care in working out the clockwork mechanics of his experiments — the DNA replication in “Jurassic Park,” the time travel in “Timeline,” the submarine technology in “Sphere.” The novels have embedded in them little lectures or mini-seminars on, say, the Bernoulli principle, voice-recognition software or medieval jousting etiquette.There are also obituaries in The Guardian, The Times and The Daily Telegraph.
Writing for Radio
Kwame Kwei-Armah and Sarah Daniels talk about writing for radio in London on Thursday 20th November
Kwame Kwei-Armah is currently writer-in-residence for BBC Radio Drama. His play Elmina's Kitchen was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play, and won the Evening Standard's Charles Wintour Most Promising Playwright Award, and his work includes Statement of Regret, Fix Up, and Let There Be Love.
Sarah Daniels has written for Radio, Television, and Theatre, including episodes of EastEnders and Grange Hill. Her plays have been performed at the National Theatre, the Royal Court Theatre, and the Royal Exchange. The script for her radio play The Sound Barrier can be downloaded from the BBC writersroom Script Archive.
Sarah and Kwame will answer questions on Radio Drama in London on Thursday 20th November from 6pm onwards.
The address is:
Maylebone Conference Centre
35 Marylebone High Street
London
W1U 4AA
To book your free ticket, email writersroom@bbc.co.uk with the subject line Radio Drama Q and A.
...the Arts Council will be looking to create new-style funding agreements. "I want us to look at loosening the uniform three-year cycle, and examine instead a range of funding possibilities, with some bodies on longer term arrangements than now, and some on more flexible, shorter term arrangements," declared Davey.He also introduced a new consultation on self-assessment and peer review.
Steven Moffat, Gail Renard and Jonathan Harvey
...a few years before his screenplays for “The Queen” and “The Last King of Scotland” propelled him to the head of the class, Peter Morgan was so fed up that he was ready to try anything — anything! — that wasn’t a film script.Frost/Nixon trailer
A special section featuring Daniel Craig and Brad Pitt, clips of breakthrough performances, an interactive look at “Frost/Nixon,” a movie calendar and more.
He considered bungee jumping and mountain climbing, he said not long ago from his home in London. But he chose something even riskier. He wrote a play about the landmark 1977 television interviews that David Frost conducted with Richard M. Nixon. Relying on the accounts of participants and fictionalizing here and there for effect, he made sure to write it, he said, “in a way that breaks every single rule of screenwriting.”
This two-parter is jointly funded and filmed by ITV1 and the German state broadcaster ZDF; touchingly, both channels will show the same version. Online chatter from Bill lovers has expressed regret the show didn’t twin with CSI — which, as CSI costs roughly $3m (£1.5m) an hour to make, suggests the fanbase haven’t quite understood their show’s place in international television’s ecosystem. But you can understand their wishful thinking. CSI is a prolific master of the twinned show, crossbreeding with other locales in its franchise and also with the FBI agents of Without a Trace and the sleuths of Cold Case.
The latest Bond film, Quantum Of Solace, written by British screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade along with American Paul Haggis (based on a story by Ian Fleming and starring Daniel Craig, pictured above), has broken the record for highest box office receipts on its first day, reports BBC News.Studios still largely see showrunners as another form of employee. But the clout on display during the strike evidences a recent subtle shift in television. Once anonymous workmen leading their writing staffs, showrunners increasingly have become CEOs of their creative product, showered with accolades when the shows do well but forced to deal with challenges like budget crunches and the industry-wide concerns over falling ratings and the slowing ad market.
Tim Kring, creator and showrunner of NBC's "Heroes," says he acts as a "brand manager and spokesman" for his show.
"It's such a nice phrase, and nobody knows what the hell it means," says David Wild, author of "The Showrunners: A Season Inside the Billion-Dollar, Death-Defying, Madcap World of Television's Real Stars." "They're the quarterback and the head coach, the person calling the shots. Usually it's a writer who is the creative and general force behind any show. But there are nonwriting showrunners. The irony is there's a built-in conflict: If you're coming up from the ranks of writing, you celebrate creativity unbound, and it seems the real showrunners are the ones who have that creative spirit -- but with organizational skills."
Hassan Abdulrazzak has won the 17th annual Meyer-Whitworth Award for new writing for his first play Baghdad Wedding, which premiered at the Soho Theatre in June 2007.
Ashley Meyer, Hassan Abdulrazzak and Lisa Goldman at the Meyer-Whitworth Award presentation.
Iraqi-born Abdulrazzak, who is a microbiologist, beat off competition from four other short-listed finalists to receive a cheque for £10,000 during a presentation ceremony at the National Theatre.
