Landmark US copyright ruling

A landmark court ruling in America has suggested that producers could be entering into an implied contract with writers even by hearing a pitch or reading a script, reports the New York Times (free registration required).

The judgement follows a lawsuit filed in 1999. Jeff Grosso, a freelance magazine writer and high-stakes poker player, contended that Miramax had stolen his original script "The Shell Game," which he wrote in 1995. Mr. Grosso sent an unsolicited copy of the script to a production company that had offices in the same TriBeCa building as Miramax and a had first-look deal with the company. Later, he came to believe that many of its plot and character ideas had been folded into "Rounders," which starred Matt Damon.

It's still not entirely clear what the implications of the judgement will be.

For the last month, Hollywood legal circles have been puzzling over the decision, which declares that movie and television executives enter an implied contract every time they read a script or hear a pitch. The ruling, if it stands, appears to strengthen the position of writers. But industry watchers say it may also put a new chill on the already frosty business of selling ideas, by forcing studios and networks to spell out terms or seek legal waivers before they read or listen to a word.

Tony Jordan hits America

EastEnders veteran scriptwriter, Tony Jordan, is developing a soap for American TV, reports Media Guardian (free registration required).

He's working with 19 TV, the company that Mal Young will be joining when he leaves the BBC at the end of the year.

UK Writer (Paul Abbott)

Thanks for all the kind words about the first edition of UK Writer magazine. (If you're not a Writers' Guild member you'll have no idea what I'm talking about. So join.)

Many people seem to have enjoyed the interview with Paul Abbott, including one excitable gentleman who said: "What an opener - an interview with Paul Abbott. Some people have heroes such as John Lennon, mother Theresa or Martin Luther King. Mine is the Abbott."

I think he'd better remain nameless.

Sher slams literary elite

Sir Anthony Sher is giving up novel writing because he simply cannot get noticed, reports The Independent.

"The literary world is a sort of club that lets some people in and some not," he complained, "and for some reason I wasn't let in. The way that they let you know you're not going to be let in is they don't review your book. Or they review it so slowly it dies at birth and the publishers don't want to publish your books any more."

If a famous playwright like Sher can't get reviews, what hope is there for the rest of us?!

Universities are destroying the novel

DJ Taylor in The Guardian argues that "the boom in academic writing courses has led to a glut of soulless novels".

Leaving aside a few shining heroes such as Malcolm Bradbury, what the academy has done for English literature in the past two or three decades could be summarised on the back of a small postcard. The more that literature in this country becomes the exclusive province of the university system, the worse it will be for all of us.

Matthew Friday's last post

On 5 October Matthew Friday's first play, Che Guevara's Motorbike or How I Found My Father, which he is also directing, opened at The Rosemary Branch in London. Many of you will have read the background on the Writers' Guild website and followed his trials and tribulations here each week. This is his final diary entry.

Week 7

The hardest week of my life has passed and what I hope will be one of the easiest is just about to start.

The first week of our run at the Rosemary Branch was an incredible experience, filled with more highs and lows than a sea in a gale force storm. I don't have the space to detail it all here. As I've said before, come along and you can find out from me and the actors. But here's a brief summary.

Well, on the whole the audience has enjoyed the show. Some of them really enjoyed it and they told us so. Some love the fast, frenetic pace, others find it tiring. Some totally accept - for comedic purposes - the situation and the twists in the plots, others find it implausible. Most people thought the play was funny. Some laughed more than others. My friend Ralph Noland roared with laughter.

We've had much more than our fair share of criticism. I'm secretly furious that no one is giving me any credit for this, my debut play. Yes, I admit that being a debut playwright and theatre director at the same time is probably taking on too much. (I have also co-produced it and I do the lights and sound every night.) But still, that's the reality in the Fringe. There's no money to pay anyone.

I have had my first taste of critics at the sharp and spiteful end. The New Camden Journal reviewer, Richard Hodkinson is right to have criticisms of the play. It's a debut play and like all debut plays ever written, it has numerous problems. However, I want to point something out. Among the many things Richard Hodkinson disliked was the plot. He said he couldn't follow it.

Ralph Nolan did. In fact he thoroughly enjoyed the whole play.

Ralph Noland is completely blind.

I have many more examples of people who enjoyed the play, among them elderly people with hearing problems and teenagers who would normally be bored by the theatre.

So, it was a tough week. I am hoping that audiences are not put off by the review. We need a lot more or we'll go into debt. We're not letting oddly harsh reviews put us off. We've got two glorious weeks ahead of us.

Fingers crossed. Or whatever you do in Theatreland.

American screenwriter talks

Talks between the Writers' Guild of America (west) and the employers continue...

The writers are trying to get some of the same benefits recently secured by directors.

Your Negotiating Committee, our staff and our consultants have been studying the DGA deal carefully. Both the companies and the various unions take advantage of pattern bargaining (or are disadvantaged by it, depending on the circumstances), so if history is a guide, the DGA contract will have profound implications for our own.

Sue Townsend

Robert Hanks interviews novelist Sue Townsend in The Independent.

For the last year she has been in a wheelchair, a consequence of a condition called Charcot's joint, in which the bones of the foot crumble. In her case, it is a complication of diabetes (she was diagnosed as diabetic in the mid-1980s, after a heart attack). But she looked it up and "I wasn't surprised to find out that this affliction is shared by lepers and people with syphilis. I kind of toyed with the idea of starting a club and seeing who turned up." She can still get up and down stairs, but "I can't walk with any grace. I can't walk far without swooning around the place."

Townsend's latest and possible last book, Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction, has just been published.

Do British films have writers?

A big splash on the front of the Observer's Review section yesterday headed Brit flick fever declared that:

British movie-making is on a roll. From edgy revenge tragedies set in the Midlands to Bollywood marriages made in Bath, there is an unfashionable optimism about our film industry. We bring together 25 of the actors, directors and producers who are playing the leading roles in our screen revival.

Good news, of course. But do these films have writers?

There are none in their list apart from Annie Griffin, and that's because she's a writer-director.

UK Writer (The Ladykillers)

The Guild's new quarterly magazine was distributed to members last week. We are hoping to carry correspondence on this blog. Here's the first contribution from Tania Rose.

I opened my copy of the new (very attractive) version of the Bulletin this morning and amost immediately found the piece on the results of the election for the 'top 10 films of all time' and my late husband's film The Ladykillers (original version) voted as one of them.

I cannot resist writing this letter in case any other writers are interested.

Bill dreamed the film, literally. He woke me up one night and told me he had had this dream and he wanted to tell it to me in case he forgot it.

The basic plot can be told in about 2 sentences, and I was awake enough to realise that it was one in a million.

He went back to sleep and I sat up in bed going over and over it in my head for ages because I had nothing to write with and I didn't want to go and get pencil and paper in case I woke the baby.

When he woke up next morning he had forgotten it. I tell you this because I wonder so much how many other examples there may be of creative dreaming of this nature.

Feel free to add comments, or email your own letters c/o the Guild office.

Elfriede Jelinek has won the 2004 Nobel Prize for Literature.

The Austrian novelist, considered by some to be a surprise winner of the $1.36 million prize, was praised for her "musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power".

BBC News has an interesting profile.

SCENE London 2004

SCENE London 27-30 October is The Script Factory's annual events programme as part of The Times bfi London Film Festival.

There's loads going on including previews, discussions and masterclasses from the likes of Julian Fellowes, Danny Boyle and Mike Leigh.

Kathleen Jamie wins Forward Prize

Scottish poet Kathleen Jamie has won the £10,000 Forward Prize for poetry with her collection The Tree House, reports BBC News.

The award for best first collection went to 29-year-old Leontia Flynn, from Fife, for her "strikingly original" debut These Days.

Daljit Nagra, from west London, won the prize for best single poem with Look We Have Coming To Dover!

New playwrights wanted for big spaces

Maddy Costa in The Guardian asks if new writers are being conditioned to keep their work small scale.

The real culprit, though, isn't a lack of ambition, but funding. Although the injection of £25m by the Arts Council into theatres for 2003-6 has done much to inspire confidence in artistic directors, the feeling pervades that they are afraid to programme new writing because it won't achieve the box-office returns necessary to balance the books. What has arisen, says [Nick] Starr (executive director at the National Theatre), is "a spirit of self-denying caution".

Top agencies merge

Two top literary agencies, the Rod Hall Agency and Alan Brodie Representation, have announced that they will merge, creating what will possibly be the largest independent literary agency in the country, reports The Stage.

The same report mentions that a memorial service to remember Rod Hall, who was killed earlier this year, will be held on 15 October. And an award for new writing is being created in Rod Hall's name.

Mathew Friday's diary (6)

On 5 October Matthew Friday's first play, Che Guevara's Motorbike or How I Found My Father, which he is also directing, will open at The Rosemary Branch in London. You can read the background on the Writers' Guild website and follow his trials and tribulations here each week.

Week 6

Tuesday
The last week and we're not ready.

Today was not a great rehearsal day. The run-through was lack-lustre and I was worried that the actors had not yet managed to get 'off book' - the theatrical term which means they know their lines.

This is not to say they're not working hard. We all are. It's extremely hard working on a play on the Fringe, without any money and with everyone having to go their jobs to pay the bills. It's about as tough as it gets. We all want the play to be at its best for opening night next Tuesday.

I had to reassure the Artistic Director that we would be ready and fit to perform. I then had a good chat with all the actors. In talked to them about the play, their parts, any worries they might have. I needed their advice about how to put the fun and energy into play and they gave me the collective benefits of years of theatre acting.


Thursday
The hardest day so far. In coming to the theatre I knew that we had to work hard to get the play into the state it needs to be on Tuesday. Undoubtedly, a tough call. We're running out of time, lines are still not learned, the Artistic Director is worried, I'm beginning to panic.

Deep breathing. Deep breathing. You can cope.

So, it was time to pull out the theatrical big guns. We did three exhausting run-throughs today. The first one we did with fun in mind. I chose a famous play, film or character to act each scene in the style of. So, Act 1, Scene 3 was performed in the style of His Girl Friday. Act 3, Scene 1 was done in the style of The Muppets. It sounds bizarre, but it’s a good way of injecting some fun into the play. For the most part if worked, though the second half slowed down and the fun turned into hard work.

The second version of the play we did imagining the performance was in the Roman Coliseum. This meant big performances projected to an audience of ten thousand people, a long way away. If the acting wasn't good enough, the actors were to be thrown to the lions.

The second run through had as many problems as the first, only in different and sometimes new positions. I was beginning to get the sinking feeling only associated with very large ships. But luckily we did not hit a creative iceberg. We surged on with the third run-through which went, I am very relieved to say, well. Well enough.

The performances were bigger, the interactions sharper, the energy higher. The actors are going into the theatre tomorrow to run the play and work on their lines while I'm at work. I'm happy to have a break and let them bond without me heckling them from the light/sound booth.

Saturday
Two runs this morning. I wish I could say the play was ready for Tuesday. I should be able to say the play is ready. But it's not. We need more time and run-throughs. Well, we can squeeze a maximum of four more in if we're lucky and all goes well.
Tomorrow we are not rehearsing. We're getting into the theatre after the last show of Making Dickie Happy to begin work on our set. I know some of the actors need more time. I know some of the actors just want to get on with it. I feel both. We have what we have: two days to go.

Monday
It's late and I am exhausted. Too much has happened over the last tow days to detail here. The word limit and the limit of my energy will cut it off short. If anyone wants to know about the extreme highs and lows of theatre work, hours before the show is going ahead, than come and see the play and I'll fill in all the details.
Just today there have been more highs, lows, tantrums, heavy lifting, hard critique and brutal honesty than I want in a year.

Yes, we've had a bad day. A bad Dress Rehearsal. Theatre lore says a bad Dress Rehearsal can make for a great performance, because it gives everyone - the director included - a sharp kick up the rear.

'Sharp' is the operative word. We need to sharpen up this play. Turn it from a pleasant and highly useable butter knife into a deeply cutting and lasting meat clever. On the plus side, ten hours of collective work on the set has made it look great. Paul created a wonderful light for the poster of 'Che Guevara' poster. And the bookings are going nicely. I have a number of friends to thank for that. No room here. I will do it personally.

In fact, both room and time have run out. I hope you have enjoyed this round-up of our work over the last few weeks. There has been more hard work from my actors than I can properly detail here. I hope you can come and see it.

Brits dominate International Emmys

British dramas dominate the list of nominations for International Emmy Awards, announced today.

In the Children and Young People category there is a nomination for The Illustrated Mum, written by Debbie Isitt and based on the book by Jacqueline Wilson.

In the TV Movie/Mini-Series category there were nominations for Henry VIII (written by Peter Morgan), Canterbury Tales (episodes written by Tony Marchant, Peter Bowker, Tony Grounds, Sally Wainwright, Avie Luthra and Olivia Hetreed) and The Deal (written by Peter Morgan).

In the Drama Series category there were nominations for Shameless (written by Paul Abbott) and Waking the Dead (created by Barbara Machin).

The Awards will be presented in New York City on 22 November.

Theatres face disability action

Actor and Thalidomide campaigner Mat Fraser has warned it may take a "flood of court cases" to make all theatres obey new laws on disabled access, reports the BBC.

Under new Disability Act legislation, businesses (including theatres) are required to make "reasonable adjustments" for disabled staff and customers.

He [Fraser] fears some of the older theatres in London and other cities are "going to have to be sued" before they make the changes needed.

"That's the way it is," he said. "Let the carnage begin and hopefully in two years' time we might be able to go to the theatre."

A rival for the BBC?

Last week media regulator Ofcom produced a surprise recommendation that there should be a new public service broadcaster to rival the BBC.

In MediaGuardian (free registration required) Ofcom Chief Executive, Stephen Carter, defends the idea.

We favour competition, because it produces new ideas and innovation. So we could have recommended a commission which would decide, programme by programme, what to fund in the existing broadcasters. But such "arts councils of the air" have a poor pedigree when they have been tried elsewhere. In practice a high proportion of the budget goes on bureaucracy; also, designing creative output via not just one committee (the broadcaster's own management) but two (the arts council of the air) is not a recipe for great content.

So, instead Ofcom is proposing a single, not-for profit, creative organisation - a public service publisher - that would be responsible for the whole process of commissioning, overseeing and distributing public service content from top to tail; initially mainly on digital television but increasingly on other new media platforms such as broadband servers and 3G mobiles.

Granta anniversary

Granta, the leading magazine for new writing, is 25-years old.

In MediaGuardian (free registration required), Editor Ian Jack looks back to its origins and points out that writers are not the only ones who get rejected, it happens to editors too.

In 1979 Kingsley Amis responded to an invitation to write for Granta by saying "Thank you for your letter. I am afraid you are almost certain to be unable to afford me. Anyway, I will proceed on that assumption."