LA Features and Spark 2007

Two new opportunities, with thanks to BBC Writersroom for the links.

The LA Features Scheme, being run by Northern Film and Media, is looking to support experienced regional writers to develop a full length feature screenplay aimed at the American market. The scheme is only open to submissions from individuals who have had a script commissioned before, either regionally or nationally, and are willing to commit to a rigorous scheme and work within the tight deadlines specified. Full details are available on the website. The deadline for applications is 13 August 2007.

The Spark Scriptwriting Scheme is run by Screen Yorkshire and offers the chance to participate in a development programme of workshops and tutorials. Applicants must be aged 18 or over and live or work in the Yorkshire and Humber Region. The closing date for applications is 15 August 2007.

Stoppard on the radio

In The Daily Telegraph, Gillian Reynolds celebrates the BBC's season of Tom Stoppard plays on the radio.

The test of this season for me was Arcadia. I saw it first at the National Theatre, admired it more than I liked it until the very last scene when, quite suddenly, I got it (or thought I did), the past fused with the present and the tears came to my eyes. What was I crying for? Happiness, I think.

The next time I saw it on the stage, in an amateur production, I thought it wouldn't happen again because I'd see it coming. I didn't. Nor did I with the radio version, on Radio 4's Saturday Play a couple of weeks ago. Out of the blue again came that feeling of mysterious resolution, of being plaited into the workings of time, feeling that all was clear and right, if only for that moment.

Margaret Atwood's new play

Novelist Margaret Atwood has adapted her novel, The Penelopiad, into a play that will open at The Swan next month. In The Times, Lucy Powell asks her about what it was like adapting her own work.

Margaret Atwood is about to join the long list of famous novelists who have turned playwright – a list that she’s the first to admit does not make encouraging reading. “They had this idea that beautiful actors would speak their wonderful lines and everybody would swoon,” says Atwood in her Canadian drawl, on the line from her home in Toronto. George Eliot? “Awful.” Charles Dickens? “A dabbler.” Henry James? “Well, yes.” Tennyson’s verse dramas? “Frankly pretty dreadful. Apparently it’s because they’d never worked in theatre.”

Fringe press

In The Times, Ian Macmillan enters the world of the small publishing company.

It's hard to find appropriate language to describe those who run literary small presses, but they are the true heroes of literature, sailing into stormy seas when others prefer the flat, flat calm; they are the grassroots football of literature, playing on muddy pitches in front of small but enthusiastic knots of people, as opposed to the prawn sandwich, big-money Premiership of the mainstream publishers. Maybe neither of these hits the exact spot, but you get the drift.

Julia Donaldson interview

In The Daily Telegraph, Judith Woods talks to author Julia Donaldson, creator of The Gruffalo.

Picture books are where her heart really lies.

"The Gruffalo was written at a time when a lot of picture books were about unconditional love; 'I love you, little so-and-so', that sort of thing," she says. "Then along came The Gruffalo with this exciting, dramatic story and was very different.

"Picture books are such a wonderful thing, I love them. They're much more grown up and imaginative than other fiction. A picture book can be a fable or poetry or convey a deep truth; they capture children at that point before they get into the predictable territory of pony books or football books. A picture book really can break the mould."

Tony Jordan interview

In Media Guardian, Owen Gibson talks to TV writer, Tony Jordan.

Sometimes, says Jordan, you have to wait for the climate to change before a show can get made. "I was born for this era. I'm 50 next week, but I wish I was 25 again. Because I was born for this era of high-concept, bold ideas. The six ideas I pitched this week I would never have got made or even got through the door before," he enthuses.

Hollywood gears up for writer contract talks

Strike talk is rumbling around Hollywood again. With the Writers' Guild of America West (WGAw) due to start formal talks with the industry about a new contract next week (the current one expires in October), talk is turning to memories of the 1988 writers' walkout.

One of the big issues up for discussion could be the distribution of residuals, reports Michael Cieply in The New York Times. At a recent meeting of top Hollywood executives, he writes, they:

...were emphatic in calling for the dismantling of a system under which specific payments are made when movies and programs are put on DVD, shown abroad or otherwise resold.

Instead, all such revenues would be pooled and companies would be able to recover their costs before sharing profits with the performers, writers and directors. “There are no ancillary markets anymore; it’s all one market,” said Barry M. Meyer, chief executive of Warner Brothers. “This is the time to do it.”

The WGAw rejected the idea, however.

In a statement, John F. Bowman, who will lead the writers’ negotiating committee in the talks, flatly rejected the idea of replacing residuals with a profit-based formula. “Our members can’t rely on Hollywood accounting,” Mr. Bowman’s statement said. “The companies have lost the right to talk about a profit basis for residuals.”

In the L.A. Times, meanwhile, Richard Verrier profiles the producers' lead negotiator, J. Nicholas Counter III.

Counter's tactics often involve putting opponents on the defensive, portraying their positions as unreasonable while rattling off statistics showing the industry's economic woes. When leaders of the Writers Guild of America recently telegraphed their demands, including securing "fair compensation" for entertainment distributed over emerging technologies, he publicly blasted them as an "assault on the industry."

Guild leaders dismiss such remarks as ploys to unnerve the rank and file.

"That's the sort of thing he does," said Patric M. Verrone, president of the Writers Guild of America, West. "It's worked well for him in the past, but I don't know that it worked this time."

Update: more on the WGAw's perspective in The L.A. Times.

Doubts raised over Channel 4 radio plans

From Matthew Hemley in The Stage:

Channel 4’s plans to take on BBC radio with a slate of new dramas on its forthcoming digital stations have been met with scepticism from independent producers, who fear the organisation may not have the budget to fund quality productions.

The broadcaster last week won a licence from regulator Ofcom to launch three branded radio stations, including Channel 4 Radio and E4 Radio, which are expected to include new dramas and comedies.

In The Daily Telegraph, Gillian Reynolds also casts her eye over Channel 4's radio plans.

Joseph Delaney interview

In The Times, Amanda Craig talks to author Joseph Delaney about his best-selling children's books, the Wardstone Chronicles.

Delaney is a master story-teller, as rooted in his native Lancashire as Alan Garner is in Cheshire. He has sold more than 500,000 copies in 20 countries, and deserves every bit of his success.

“My partner Marie got up at 4am to go to work, so I’d write between 6.15 and 7.30 every morning before going to teach,” he recalls. “Carolyn Whittaker, the only agent I approached who didn’t turn me down, never earned a penny from me for ten years while I was trying to write for adults. So, like Tom [narrator of The Spook’s Apprentice], I had a long apprenticeship,” he says wryly.

BBC TV long-running drama review

From Leigh Holmwood for Media Guardian:

The BBC1 controller, Peter Fincham, is considering the future of several long-running drama series, including Dalziel and Pascoe and The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.

Mr Fincham has already taken the decision to axe The Chase and New Street Law and is reviewing other BBC1 returning dramas.

The future of titles such as The Inspector Lynley Mysteries and Dalziel and Pascoe is also uncertain as the channel looks to refresh its drama output.

Senior BBC drama executives, led by the controller of fiction, Jane Tranter, met at an away day last week where it is thought they discussed their strategy and plans for new shows.

TMA rates increased

The Writers’ Guild has agreed a 4.3% cost-of-living increase in the minimum fees paid by regional theatres. The agreement (pdf) with the Theatrical Management Association (TMA) and the Scottish Society of Playwrights is one of several that the Guild has to secure minimum terms and conditions for theatre writers - see the Guild's website for details.

Stephen L Carter interview

In The Independent, John Freeman talks to American lawyer and best-selling novelist, Stephen L Carter.

At the offices of his New York publisher, Carter appears to be fighting another lawyerly battle with the forces of literalism. New England White (Jonathan Cape, £17.99) has just earned two trenchant, mostly positive reviews in The New Yorker and the online journal Slate, the latter commenting on Carter's "painfully cynical perspective on American race relations". Carter serves up a disclaimer about ideas in general as they appear in his fiction. "The opinions expressed by my characters are not necessarily my opinions," he says with a grin which disappears as quickly as a man puts away his wallet in a crowded room. "But I try to create characters who are complete enough, so that they have ideas that – whether you agree with them or not – sound natural".

David Storey interview

In The Daily Telegraph, Japser Rees talks to David Storey ahead of the West End revival of his play, In Celebration.

Storey fell into theatre in 1967 when the Court finally staged a play he'd submitted eight years earlier. The Restoration of Arnold Middleton earned him a share of the Evening Standard's award for most promising playwright. It took his co-winner, Tom Stoppard, four years to come up with a full-length follow-up to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. In four months, Storey wrote several of the plays on which his reputation still rests.

"I don't think I'd been to the theatre more than a dozen times in my life," he says.

"All the plays were written out with no knowledge of the theatre at all. The only plays that have ever worked are when I start with the first line and a vague idea of what they might be about and they write themselves."

Veterans' benefits

A guest post by Wally K Daly.

At a recent meeting of the Guild Welfare Committee - a committee that comprises the Guild Treasurer Robert Taylor, doyen comedy writer Dick Sharples, the General Secretary Bernie Corbett and myself - after having settled all outstanding matters, discussion turned to one of the benefits of working in the industry that is not widely know.

There is a club for technicians of any discipline in the industry (except acting) that allows for free cinema entrance to the club member and a guest at specified times, which are very generous. The first two weeks of a new film being screened are usually excluded but that apart most days and times seats are available at no cost, at the discretion of the cinema manager, all over the country.

To join, an application must be made and if accepted by the committee which meets on a bi-monthly basis, the membership generates a fee of £20 per year – a cost of course recovered after one visit to a cinema with a friend. On being accepted for membership you will be issued with a very nice lapel pin, of camera and clapper board design, and a tie so garish and awful that you are guaranteed never to wear it.

The only slight fly in the ointment is the major membership requirement. Membership is only open to those who have been in the industry for at least 30 years.

Make your application to the British Cinema & Television Veterans, 22 Golden Square London W1F 9AD. Or Telephone :020 7287 2976 for an application form. (Office not open on Friday or Monday)

Good Writing Will Find Its Way

On the final day of the International Screenwriters’ Festival, Abi Morgan, writer of Sex Traffic and the film version of Brick Lane, and Diana Ossana, Oscar-winning writer of Brokeback Mountain and the Lonesome Dove miniseries, were asked about their experiences as women in the industry. Both agreed that, in the end, it comes down to the work – that’s all the matters.

It seems to be generally accepted, both in the UK and the US, that while working in the film industry can be damaging and oppressive to a writer’s spirit, in TV the writer is much more highly regarded. It would have been interesting to have heard from successful British TV writers such as Andrew Davies, Lynda La Plante, Russell T Davies, Paul Abbott and Kay Mellor about their experiences.

It seemed to me that what came out of the four days in Cheltenham was this: If you are a good writer and if you write with intelligence and passion about something you care about, then your work will get noticed. Sure, if you work in the film industry, you may get screwed along the way. But writing and getting paid for it can be a wonderful way to make a living. You don’t have to do it and you have to take responsibility for the choices you make. When you write a script (as Michael Goldenberg put it) you are making a series of tiny little choices about how to tell a story. And if you want to see that script become more than a pile of paper, you have to choose your collaborators carefully, stay true to your vision and know when to walk away. But you should never get discouraged. Never give up.

As Diana Ossana said, ‘Good writing will find its way’.

Advice from International Screenwriters' Festival

If you are a writer, the advice emerging from the International Screenwriters' Festival seems to be this: If you want to make money, write for TV. If you want to be the author of a work, write books or plays. If you want to get your heart broken, write a film.

The four days of the festival (which is not really a festival but a conference) has been broken into two parts. The first two days give hints and tips to emerging talent on how to break into the industry. The second two days discuss strategies for professional writers on how to survive in the industry, particularly the film industry.

Advice from the ‘Rising Talent’ days seemed to be this: Write a spec script that is original and intelligent. Even if the script is not perfect, if you are good at writing, someone will spot that talent. People are looking for writers, not scripts. If you are a new writer, you can be helped to fix anything in a script except the characters. If you can’t write characters, you are not going to make it as a writer. So if you are writing a spec script, start with the characters. Paul Ashton of the BBC writersroom had lots of advice but basically it boiled down to this: write a script that only you could write. It was implicit in the advice from several speakers that if you watch TV and think some of the shows are rubbish, don’t think you can get away with writing a rubbish script to get on that show. The people who get hired are the ones who write brilliant spec scripts.

The Rising Talent days also saw the launch of two competitions – one to help you to get into TV, one to help you get into the film industry. Details in earlier posts, below.

Advice coming out of the Professional days is this: You need to negotiate and communicate. If you’re no good at either of those, buy a book or go on a course – you need to be able to do it. Collaborate but don’t compromise your vision. You were hired because (to go back to Paul Ashton’s words) someone thought that you were going to write a script that only you could write. Michael Goldenberg, writer of Contact, Peter Pan and the fifth Harry Potter, said ‘stay true to your vision’. He also said working on a project should fun – otherwise how can you be creative and anyway if you don’t have fun, what’s the point? William Nicholson, writer of Gladiator, Shadowlands and The Golden Age, said that you need to think of yourself as a film-maker rather than a writer. David Hare embodied this when talking about films he had worked on – using the words film-making and writing interchangeably to describe his part in the process.

Everyone seemed to agree that film-making can only work if the writer and director want to make the same film. There is not necessarily a good or bad way to tell the story – but you will have an opinion about the way you want to tell it, which is why you got hired. You need to discover if your way is also the director’s way by talking about it as much as possible early on. If you don’t see the film the same way, then if you are in a position to do so, you should walk away. If you don’t, you’ll probably get fired. In film, writers get fired all the time – both William Nicholson and David Hare had been fired, but only during development, not during production. When working on a film, both they and Tony Grisoni, writer of Queen of Hearts and In This World, described a process that involved endless drafts and rewrites, endless conversations with the director and even with the leading actors if they fancy themselves as writers and want to rewrite scenes and dialogue, and being available during shooting and editing. In other words, they do whatever it takes to get the film made. Film-making is difficult and William Nicholson said that if you want to get hired to make the next film, you need to become known as a problem-solver.

As we go into the fourth day of the International Screenwriters’ Festival (day two of the professional days), discussions continue, with contributions from, among others, Anthony Horowitz, writer of Stormbreaker, Misomer Murders and the Alex Rider books, and Stephen Frears, director of Dirty Pretty Things, The Queen and High Fidelity.

Jana Bennett's proposals for kids' TV

From Ben Dowell in Media Guardian:

BBC Vision director Jana Bennett has proposed the introduction of film production-style tax breaks to help the UK's struggling children's TV sector.

Ms Bennett's tax breaks proposal was one of three ideas she floated today in a speech at the the youth film festival Showcommotion in Sheffield.

She said that children's TV may need a "significant intervention" to avoid what she calls the current "crisis".

In addition to tax breaks for children's TV production, similar to those enjoyed by the UK film industry, Ms Bennett asked whether all public service broadcasters should be forced to commit to children's production.

Update: Here's the full text of Jana Bennett's speech.

BBC radio drama scripts

The BBC Writersroom is quietly going about building up a useful script archive.

The latest to be added, as highlighted by Piers Beckley on the Writersroom blog, are four radio plays.

They include The Incomplete Recorded Works Of A Dead Body (pdf) by Ed Hime, nominated for the Prix Italia for best original radio drama.

Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber

For the Writers Guild of America West, Bridie Lee talks to scriptwriters Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber (The Butterfly Effect, Kyle XY) about their long road to success.

I had given myself 10 full years. By year six, I fly back to New York and I'm eating with my Dad and my dad says, “Eric, what are you doing with your life? It's never too late to go back to law school.” At the same time, I don't even think my brain could retain information like it used to in school. I'm ruined. I'm damaged goods over here. I don't know what else to do. It was a big idea to think 10 years, but by the time we got to year seven, we were ready to crack. There are only so many times, month after month, where people can ask, “How much longer are you going to keep this up before you turn into a real person?”

Screenwriter Development Competition

Oscar-nominated screenwriter William Nicholson launched South West Screen's Development Competition at the International Screenwriters' Festival in Cheltenham today.

If you've written a feature length screenplay with commercial potential, the competition could help you to take your script to the next stage,

The winner will receive £3,000 and mentoring from William Nicolson (writer of Gladiator and Shadowlands).

Deadline for applications: 12 noon on Thursday 16th August 2007. The winner will be announced on Monday 1st October 2007.

For full details of how to apply, including eligibility criteria, visit the South West Screen website.

Tips for New Writers from Tony Jordan

While launching Red Planet Pictures writing competition at the International Screenwriters' Festival today, Tony Jordan had plenty of advice for new writers about the craft of writing, how to get your script noticed and how to cope with rejection.

The craft

• Start with character.
• Write from the heart - put everything into the script.
• It's not your job to worry about budget. If you want a helicopter in your script, put one in. Someone else can always take it out.
• Don't second-guess what you think people want.
• Don't write something that is like a successful show that's already on. Be first, don't follow - you'll be too late.
• There is no secret. Just write.

How to get noticed

• Be nice to people. Script editors are on a career path. The script editors and secretaries you meet today are the commissioning editors of tomorrow.
• Use the same creativity you put on the page to get your script made - Tony used to put sweets in the jiffy bags when he delivered his scripts. People remembered him. Do something creative that will make sure people remember you.
• Scan the credits of your favourite shows - write to the script editors and producers of the kind of show you'd like to make
• Red Planet Pictures has an open policy - if you've got a script you want them to read, send it.
• If you believe in your script, you have to get people to look at it - pursue them.

How to survive rejection

• Don't let anyone tell you that you can't write - how do they know?
• Remember that Tony Jordan still gets rejected. It hurts - every time he vows to give up writing. But he always goes back to it - and he gets shows commissioned.
• Never give up.

Red Planet Pictures Competition Launched

Writers Tony Jordan and Danny Stack launched an annual writing competiton at the International Screenwriters Festival in Cheltenham today which will result in a new writer getting a £5,000 prize, representation from an agent and a commission from Red Planet Pictures, the production company Jordan set up last year.

Tony Jordan explained that the prize reflects the preoccupations of new writers that he remembers from his days starting out in the business 1) I'm skint 2) How do I get an agent? 3) How do I get a break?

Details of the competition are available on the Red Planet Pictures website but in brief, you need to submit ten pages of a script - any script - and a covering letter with a half page synopsis by email to redplanetprize@redplanetpictures.co.uk by 1st September. Shortlisted writers will be invited to submit the full script some time in October, with a winner to be chosen - by judges including Stephen Fry and Mark Gatiss and Julie Gardner, Head of Drama Commissioning at the BBC - just before Christmas 2007.

No-one is excluded from entering the competition, although essentially Red Planet Pictures are looking for new writers rather than those who have been writing for top show for the last ten years. If you already have an agent, you can still apply. And -as Tony Jordan put it - if you're rich and you don't want the prize money? Well, you don't have to have that, either. But if you want a commission - whether for an existing show such as Holby Blue or to develop an original show - then this competition may be your way in.

Tony Jordan's advice to those thinking of submitting their work? Write from the heart. They're looking for good writers and if you can write, they'll spot it.

International Screenwriters' Festival

There are still a few tickets left for the International Screenwriters' Festival that's getting underway today in Cheltenham - you can go for a single day if you want.

For those of you who can't make it, Guild member Helen Smith will be posting here about the events of all four days (assuming she can get online).

If anyone else is blogging from the Festival, feel free to let us know in the comments.

Inside the Writersroom

Kate Rowland and Paul Ashton from the BBC Writersroom will be in conversation with Guild website and magazine editor, Tom Green, on Thursday 13th September at the Writers’ Guild Centre in Kings Cross.

The event will be held from 7-9pm and will focus on how the BBC Writersoom finds and develops writers for radio and TV drama.

Tickets for this event will be £5 for Guild members and £7.50 for non-members. Please join us after the event for a complimentary glass of wine.

Places are limited so please book in early and advance. If you would like to attend this event please send a cheque payable to the Writers' Guild, and address the envelope to ‘BBC Writersroom ’, Writers' Guild of Great Britain, 15-17 Britannia Street, London, WC1X 9JN .

Radio 4’s Poetry Slam

Radio 4 has announced that it will broadcast the final of it's first-ever Poetry Slam from the Bristol Poetry Festival in September.

Radio 4’s first-ever Poetry Slam will bring together some of the best-known and most popular spoken word performers from all around the country to battle it out for the title of Radio 4 Slam Winner 2007. The competition will be fierce, the rhymes will come thick and fast and the energy will be positively humming for three high-octane programmes that showcase the best and most exciting acts in slam poetry right now.

Woody Allen's fiction

In The Independent, Boyd Tonkin celebrates Woody Allen's comic fiction and introduces a new short story, Nanny Dearest.

Impatient critics have often accused Allen's movies of bypassing the dirt, diversity and even danger of the real Manhattan (in the 1970s and 1980s, if not now) in favour of a seductive bourgeois fantasy. He has admitted that "The New York in my films is the way I'd like it to be." But then he's no sort of social realist, but an auteur who spins a witty, almost pastoral dreamland of love and loss, sushi and cocktails, showtunes and therapy. This self-created world hovers somewhere above and beyond the grime and din of actual city streets.

His stories are equally delicious confections: virtuoso turns, tipsy on their own linguistic ingenuity. They owe something to his idol SJ Perelman, the comic genius behind the Marx Brothers' best scripts, and to the poetic New York street patter of Damon Runyon's yarns. But the erudite knockabout is all Allen's own.

Roger Crane interview

In The Daily Telegraph, Jasper Rees meets Roger Crane, an American playwright who is having is first work staged (in the West End) at the age of 61.

He is sitting in the back row of the stalls of an empty Theatre Royal Haymarket. Compact and trim in off-duty sport casuals, whatever playwrights are meant to look like, Crane doesn't.

"Each of the people in the programme has a biography a page long of all their achievements. And mine is one line. If you did a movie of it, no one would believe it," he says.

Tough Times for Screenwriters

In the Sunday Times Culture magazine, Richard Brooks comments on reports that Raj Persaud will be among the speakers at the Screenwriters' Festival in Cheltenham next week:

At the Cheltenham Screenwriters’ Festival, which starts on Tuesday, there are talks from David Hare, William Nicholson and Raj Persaud. Why the psychiatrist? He is there to expand on his theory, based on research, that film writers have a tougher time than directors or producers: apparently, award-winning screenwriters die earlier than other film folk. He blames anxiety about perfection and lack of recognition. I would have thought it’s constantly having your script rejected.

Give Us The Credits We Deserve

Screenwriters are asking for the credits they deserve in a manifesto to be debated at the International Screenwriters' Festival in Cheltenham next week, reports Dalya Alberge in The Times:

Thousands of screenwriters around the world have signed a manifesto demanding greater respect for their work from producers and directors. When the credits roll, they want their names in bright lights, along with those of the actors.

Screenwriters feel so strongly about the issue that they are staging a debate at the International Screenwriters’ Festival in Cheltenham, which runs from July 3 to 6.

William Nicholson, who scripted the Oscar-winning Gladiator, and Jeffrey Caine, nominated for an Oscar for The Constant Gardener, are among leading British writers who are calling for recognition of their rights over their films.

They claim that producers often employ production lines of writers. Nicholson was brought in on Gladiator after two writers had been sacked.

He told The Times yesterday: “The writers contribute to the end product, like the director, actors, cinematographers. But we writers are not asked for our own vision.”

Caine is also dismayed by how low the screenwriter is regarded. He said: “You’re invited on set on sufferance. If your lines are being shredded by an actor, you mention it to the director, who may or may not say something to the actor.

“Some actors don’t even acknowledge that they worked from a script. To listen to their Oscar acceptance speeches you’d think they improvised the dialogue.”

The manifesto, backed by guilds representing 9,000 writers, states that the screenwriter is a film’s “primary creator”. This is in conflict with Hollywood companies, which assert that the studios are the author and own the work.

Purnell takes over at DCMS

James Purnell has replaced Tessa Jowell as Secretary of State at the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS). Ben Russell in The Independent writes:

Mr Purnell was head of corporate planning at the BBC between 1995 and 1997. Bright and personable, he is spoken of as a rising star of the Labour Party. He is a Blairite member of the up-and-coming group of young Labour MPs which has found favour with Mr Brown's inner circle.

Update: More on James Purnell from BBC News.

ALCS and your money

A guest post from the Chair of the Guild's TV Committee, Gail Renard.

I'm forever urging members to register all of your broadcast and published works with ALCS. The secondary royalties collected are your money, and should rightly be in your pocket.

I've had queries from members lately asking if they should register their animation credits with ALCS as well. The answer is a resounding yes. You can do this easily on-line or by letter. Or if you have any queries, phone them.

ALCS are truly writer-friendly. And when you have time, visit the ALCS website and make sure all of your works are listed.

If you ever have any problems getting your ALCS money, please let the Guild office know and I or another of the Guild nominated ALCS directors will happily help you.

So why are you still reading this? Register now!

Texts Don't Grow On Trees

A new campaign, Texts Don’t Grow On Trees, has been launched by the European Writers’ Congress (EWC) to raise awareness of authors’ rights across the continent.

The campaign asserts five principles:

1. Authors must never be pressured into waiving their rights to be named as the authors of their work;

2. Authors must never be pressured into allowing their works to be treated in a derogatory manner;

3. Authors need to be free to make a choice on licensing their works for reproduction communication, distribution, interpretation, and modification in any form and medium of their choice without pressure or interference from others;

4. Authors must be rewarded by a conforming and timely execution of the licenses by their licensees;

5. Authors must be remunerated in fair relation to the profits arising from the licensed exploitation of their work.

To support these principles, the campaign will:

• Underline the eminence of authorship by promoting the uniqueness of individual creation;

• Highlight the integrity of original works by denouncing misappropriations and derogatory treatment

• Promote the authority of creators over their works by educating them on the powers of licensing agreements;

• Advance the control of authors over the execution of licenses by proposing model statements for licensing contracts;

• Require licensees to fairly remunerate the authors who create the one crucial ingredient for success.

"The idea behind this campaign is to educate and inform the reading, viewing and listening public; not criminalise them,” said EWC board member and former Chair of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, Graham Lester George. “Our ambition is to get them to see us as workers too, with all the same basic living problems: homes, children, bills, mortgages etc., and that taking our work without payment deprives us of income.”

The EWC is encouraging authors to sign up to support the campaign.

Hollywood copyright battles

In The L.A. Times, J.A. Feranandez reports on a spate of copyright battles as documentary makers accuse feature film writers and producers of ripping off their material.

Last Wednesday, L.A. attorney John Marder filed a copyright infringement and breach of implied-in-fact contract suit in federal District Court against Warner Bros., screenwriters Cory Helms and Jamie Linden and others on behalf of filmmakers John Witek and Deborah Novak.

Witek and Novak's Emmy-winning documentary "Marshall University: Ashes to Glory" details the same incident of a West Virginia town struggling to find redemption after most of the members of the university's football team die in a plane crash (Novak grew up in the town and was present for the major events depicted in both movies).

In the filing, they claim that the producers saw the documentary, actively solicited participation from Witek and Novak and offered them a contract before communication abruptly ceased. The studio then went on to make the fictionalized film.

Rock novels

In The Times, Tom Cox assesses thirty years of attempts by authors to write novels about rock music.

What novelist with a big record collection wouldn’t be excited at the prospect of writing about rock’n’roll life: the internal politics, the heartbreak, the potential for myth-making? Nonetheless, the rock-novel genre contains some of history’s most misguided books. Bad fake music journalism disguised as fiction for people who don’t read fiction? Literary slumming from writers who really should know better? Overexcited fan-boy ramblings? It’s all here.

The new sci-fi

In The Guardian, Gareth McLean investigates the resurrection of TV sci-fi.

It can't be a coincidence that Lost, Heroes and Battlestar Galactica are laced with paranoia and suspicion - of government, of others, and, in Lost, of the Others. Just as Invasion of the Bodysnatchers in 1956 played on fears of reds under the bed, these are the times in which we live. [Tim]Kring [creator of Heroes] points out that heroes emerge in popular culture at times of crisis in the real world: Superman, for example, was born from the depths of the Depression. As Doctor Who supremo Russell T Davies notes, albeit while emphasising the optimism of his own show: "We live in a time of terror."

Plowman to leave BBC

By Ben Dowell for Media Guardian:

The BBC head of comedy, Jon Plowman, whose credits include Absolutely Fabulous and The Vicar of Dibley, is leaving the corporation after 27 years.

Mr Plowman said he had decided to "return to the coalface" of programme-making as a freelance producer, after 13 years as a comedy commissioning executive, but insisted that he hoped to continue his relationship with the BBC. He will leave the BBC later this year.

Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci

In The New York Times, David Itzkoff talks to screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci about how they went from a shared love of the French New Wave to writing the new Transformers film.

In Hollywood Mr. Kurtzman and Mr. Orci have become the go-to screenwriters for mega-budget fare like “Mission: Impossible III” and “The Island,” as well as this week’s film adaptation of “Transformers,” based on the Hasbro toy franchise. And they have recently completed a “Star Trek” prequel intended to rejuvenate that venerable science-fiction franchise.

Yet while these screenwriters concede with laughter that their careers may have strayed somewhat from their youthful auteurist tendencies, “that spirit,” Mr. Orci said, “lives on.”

Transformers trailer

Let's make a Story bonfire

In Media Guardian, playwright Mark Ravenhill reveals his fears about the growing influence of script-writing guru Robert McKee, author of Story. Ravenhill quite likes the book itself, he says, but worries about how it is being used.

Writer delivers script, goes in for meeting. "I'm missing the initiating incident on page 23," is a note that you're very likely to hear in our Story-centred world. Rarely, "Why are we making this?" and certainly not, "Are we challenging any ideas about form?" Recently, a playwright told me that he was advised by one major theatre to read McKee's Story. This is a book about writing a Hollywood movie! It's frustrating for us writers. But it's disastrous for you as an audience member or reader. Gradually, our culture is turning into the equivalent of the McFlurry. And that's got to be bad.

So here's the solution. A book burning. It's not something I'd normally advocate and not something the Guardian would, I imagine, endorse. But I think we have to do it. Writers, producers, editors, if you have a copy of Story - get in touch. We can make a lovely bonfire in my back garden. We'll imagine a richer, more exciting culture. And that's good for everyone, isn't it?

Judge McKee for yourself: take a look on YouTube at his take on Citizen Kane and Chinatown.

High Court backs critic

From Roger Pearson in The Press Gazette:

An Evening Standard theatre critic who did not like British composer Keith Burstein’s opera about suicide bombers, calling the tone “depressingly anti-American” and finding the notion that there was anything heroic about the bombers “a grievous insult” was entitled to give her honest opinion, London’s Court of Appeal ruled today.

In a milestone ruling which strengthens the legal position of newspaper reviewers and critics, Lord Justice Keene, sitting with Lord Justice Waller and Lord Justice Dyson, backed their rights to give “fair comment” in their reviews.

Eddie Braben interview

In The Daily Telegraph, Dominic Cavendish talks to Eddie Braben about what it was like to write for Morecambe and Wise.

As Braben recalls now, when he was first summoned by Bill Cotton, then Head of Variety, to meet the pair, he had the effrontery to tell them: "There's something missing from your comedy."

"What we never saw," says Braben, "was the genuine warmth that existed between them. I always felt Ernie was too hard, too abrasive. He had this charming innocence but you never saw that in the act. He was the typical feed."

Braben tilted the balance of the double-act towards a more engaging equilibrium.

The future of Bristol Old Vic

On The Guardian Theatre Blog, Lyn Gardner expresses concerns about the approach being taken by the Bristol Old Vic in its quest for new funding.

If the money isn't raised then the theatre has no future, but the danger is that in securing those funds it sells its birthright for a temperature-controlled auditorium and seats that all face the stage (some of them don't). Clearly under [Simon] Reade, the theatre did not win the loyalty or affection of Bristol audiences. But if the theatre's refurbishment and closure had been conducted in an orderly fashion, there would have been time for widespread consultation to find out what the people of Bristol would like from their theatre and where that might fit within wider theatre activity in the south west and a national strategy for regional theatre and touring. Instead, an attempt is being made to raise money before anyone knows what might go on inside the building.

As Gardner mentions, Theatre Bristol is facilitating a meeting to discuss the future of the Old Vic on 21 July.

Face2Face with Tony Jordan

BBC writersroom in association with The Royal Court Theatre are holding an open and free event on 11 July 2007 where Tony Jordan will talk with Kate Rowland, the BBC's Creative Director of New Writing, about creating, writing, and sustaining popular television drama series.

Get full details from the BBC Writersroom.

Alan Plater in Orkney

Former Guild President, Alan Plater, has become a regular visitor to Orkney in recent years, reports Alfred Hickling in The Guardian. His latest community play from the St Magnus festival is Tales From The Golden Slipper, with music by Peter Maxwell Davies, based on the life of notorious Orcadian, Willie Farquhar

"This place lives and breathes stories," says Plater. "Anyone who wants a part, I write one for them. You only have to shake a copy of the Orcadian [the weekly local newspaper] and ideas for plays fall out." Even so, Plater takes issue with the paper's account of Farquhar's appearance before local magistrates, which described him as Orkney's Al Capone. "I think he was actually closer to being Orkney's Sir John Falstaff," he says. "He was more of an old-fashioned lord of misrule than a hardened criminal. And people really adored him - he was, as Shakespeare's fat knight says, 'not only witty in myself, but the cause of wit in other men'."

Geekspeak

On the Guild website, Henry's Cat writer, Stan Hayward, explains the joys of search.

It would not surprise me if Google or Microsoft offered to buy the Writers' Guild for a billion or so. As the service it offers is 100% information, and as most of its members process information, it probably has access to more fields of information than any other group in the UK.

LoveHoney story competition

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Play & Record

Play & Record is a composite broken comedy show for BBC7, made up of sketches, characters, songs, and other odds and ends from a wide range of writers and performers. It's intended to introduce new talent to BBC7, so one thing we are definitely looking for is writers who have yet to have material performed on the radio.

More from BBC Writersroom. The deadline for submissions is 16 July 2007

Kem Nunn interview

For the Writers Guild of America West, Denis Faye interviews Kem Nunn about his forthcoming collaboration with David Milch for HBO, John From Cincinnati.

When you're creating a bizarre, cryptic world like the one in John from Cincinnati, do you, as a creator, need to know the “why” of the weirdness, or are you just flying by the seat of your pants?

That occurred to me earlier on in putting this show together. If you were doing this as a feature or if I was doing this as a novel, it would have to have the old beginning, middle, and end. If you're going to turn the thing in and get your check from the publisher, you've got to nail some things down.

Take an imaginative movie like Being John Malkovich. I thought the first half of that movie was enormous fun, but eventually you get to the part where you have to explain it -- and my interest falls off. The imaginative part was fun because it kind of invites you into a dialog with the piece -- you're trying to think ahead of it, you're trying to think about what's going on and that can be an enjoyable process. But the filmmaker, because he or she is compelled by the form they're operating in, has to give you an answer. They have to tell you what's happening, what it's about and it often ends up like the old '50s sci fi movies where it's scary as long as you didn't have to see the monster, and then the monster comes out and it's James Arness in a rubber suit -- it all goes out the window.

In a way, episodic television is a perfect forum to explore some of these "paranormal" -- for lack of a better term -- themes and ideas and the stuff we hope to engage within the show because you can do the first part of that equation. You invite the audience into a kind of dialogue with you about, “What does it mean that this guy's floating up in the air? What's truly miraculous? Is that the miracle or is the miracle in one character discovering his love for another character?” It invites a certain dialogue between the piece and the audience.

But from a practical point of view, when you determine that someone is going to float off the ground, is it just a case of, “Let's make this guy do this just for kicks,” or do you decide ahead of time, “He floats in the air because of reason X”?

I don't really enjoy weirdness for the sake of being weird. I want it to be driven by something, even if I'm not sure exactly what it's driven by. It's not just, “Wouldn't it be cool if this happened,” but sometimes, as a writer, you have a sort of intuition. I'm not quite sure why it should happen yet, but I think it should and I think it makes sense in faith that if I continue to address myself in the proper way to this material, this will be further revealed not only to me, but to the audience.

The series started in America last week - there are (lukewarm) reviews in The New York Times and The LA Times.

"His name's not John and he's not from Cincinnati" - series promo

Two screenwriters with no complaints

In The New York Times, Michael Cieply talks to screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely [The Chronicles Of Narnia, The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers] .

Sometimes, lore to the contrary notwithstanding, it is good to write for the movies. Especially if you are sipping a soy latte or an Arnold Palmer on a sunny day in the Los Feliz district (a place up the street sells “vibrational bliss”), with a partner who can grab your thoughts in midair, bobble them around and hand them back before you finish the sentence.

“I like movies fine, but we’re not film school people, so this isn’t —— ” Christopher Markus began, to which Stephen McFeely added, “A route to director or going to parties,” because, Mr. Markus concluded, “I really want to write, and it’s the only thing I’m good at.”

Kudos moves into film

From Owen Gibson in Media Guardian:

Kudos, the television production company behind the hit series Life on Mars, Spooks and Hustle, has revealed ambitious plans for a fledgling film unit. It has three British films already in production and 10 more in development, and separate deals to turn many of its hit television shows into cinema releases.

The company, which was recently acquired by Elisabeth Murdoch's production company, Shine, in a deal worth around £35m, claims its hallmark is "quality populism"

Southwark Playhouse looks to Elephant move

From Nuala Calvi in The Stage:

Southwark Playhouse is to relocate to a new, purpose-built theatre in Elephant and Castle, under plans submitted to Southwark Council.

The company has been homeless since the owners of its Southwark Bridge Road base announced that they would not be renewing its lease.

It will now be included in a major redevelopment project by First Base on the site of the former London Park Hotel, being designed by Millennium Dome architect Richard Rogers.

The plans include a 250-seat theatre shell at the base of the 44-storey tower block, with “significant” front of house and backstage facilities and an additional education and community space.

Stoppard season on BBC radio

The BBC have released more details of the season of Tom Stoppard plays to be broadcast on Radio 3, Radio 4 and BBC 7 from 29 June.

There will be a mix of new adaptations of stage plays and original radio plays, as well as a documentary about Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead.

ITV1 to focus on 9pm dramas

ITV Chairman, Michael Grade, has said that he wants ITV1 to reclaim its position as a home for quality drama, reports Leigh Holmwood for Media Guardian.

Speaking at the Rights Lab conference, organised by producers' alliance Pact, Mr Grade again reiterated that the time when ITV would copy other broadcasters' ideas was over.

"Priority number one is for ITV1 to regain its ground in 9pm drama," he said.

"[ITV director of drama] Laura Mackie and her team are raising our ambitions in this area so if you think that we're only interested in detective dramas or psychological thrillers, think again," Mr Grade added.

"Mobile, Fallen Angel, Kingdom, the Jane Austen season and Talk to Me have done well for us, but we need more, particularly more returnable series.

"We want the next Life on Mars, the next Spooks and, yes, we're still in the market for the next Morse, the next Foyle's War or the next Doc Martin. Not copies, you understand.

Easier said than done, of course (and Grade himself has said it several times already since he joined ITV).

Meanwhile, as Maggie Brown reports for Media Guardian, long-time head of ITV drama, Nick Elliot, threw his farewell party earlier this week.

He was responsible for 8,000 hours of drama and scores of series while at the Network Centre: Cracker, A Touch of Frost, Midsomer Murders, Cold Feet, Foyle's War, Miss Marple, Prime Suspect, to name but a few - and always tried to mix in the spiky one-offs with the more routine.

The final move at his leaving do was to invite onto the stage with him the ITV drama commissioning team who have taken over. A younger generation, all female bar one lone male, led by Laura Mackie, Sally Haynes and Corinne Hollingsworth.

Casualties

A guest post from Guild member Gregory Evans:

I had mixed feelings when I heard Casualty had "triumped" (to use the word, and spelling, from the show's official website) at the recent BAFTA Television Awards. The BAFTA for Best Continuing Drama, as I understand it, is awarded for a particular episode submitted by the producers (in this case it was the Christmas two-parter), but is also in recognition of the overall high quality of the series throughout the preceding year.

Part of me was pleased Casualty won its BAFTA - because I think it's a great show; because I know quite a few of the team who worked on it in 2006 - I know how hard-working and talented they are, how genuinely nice, how deserving of the honour - and also because I wrote two episodes last year, so I feel I played a small part in its success.

But another part of me (the meaner, nastier part) didn't give a shit about the award because that's how Casualty has treated a lot of its regular writers over the last few months.

I was one of those writers. I've written Casualty scripts (among other things) for the past five years, usually about three episodes a year, and I was considered one of their "core writers".

I delivered my last script in December. It went through smoothly, as usual, and everyone was pleased with it – especially the director, who did a superb job, and the producer, who was making her final episode after being with the show for about four years.

A couple of weeks later, I asked the series editor when I might be commissioned again. A lot was changing in Casualty around that time: the executive and series producers were both being replaced, along with several script editors and episode producers. It was more than the usual job-churn you get in any long-running tv show, it was a change of management.

In light of this, the series editor told me she couldn't say for sure when I'd be commissioned again - it was likely the new producers would want to bring in "new blood", would want to "reinvent" the show - but she assured me I was a "valued writer" and that I'd be commissioned for an episode some way into the new series, which was just about to go into production. "Several seasoned Casualty writers are understandably unhappy about this," she wrote.

Actually, I wasn't unhappy at all. I was busy with other things, so I was in no hurry to start another script, but I wanted a rough idea. She told me I'd probably get an episode sometime in February, and I left it at that.

That was the last I heard. Since that email early this year, no one from Casualty has been in touch with me, or my agent - either to offer me a job, or to tell me they don't want to work with me any more.

A while ago, on the advice of another writer, I emailed the new series editor (who I knew when he was a researcher) to find out what was going on. I didn't get a reply.

It's some small consolation to know I'm in excellent company: the new management at Casualty seem to be treating all their "seasoned" writers in a similar way.

Shortly after the BAFTA was announced I had an email from a fine and vastly experienced writer, who wrote four superb episodes of Casualty last year. He wrote to me: "I appear to be persona non grata with Casualty these days. I did think when they won their BAFTA I might have got some acknowledgement but not a peep." And he ended up: "I watched the BAFTAs and heard Andy Harries' advice to producers: Treasure your writers. If only!"

I had a similar email a couple of months earlier from another Casualty casualty, also a "core writer", who's written some of the finest episodes over the past few years (including several in 2006). He told me that, since the arrival of the new management, no one had bothered to tell him what was happening: "I haven't even had the courtesy of an email," he wrote. "Any loyalty I had to the show is now gone. In fact, I think that being so loyal to them was stupid. [...] I don't think they realise how priceless it is to have a bunch of experienced writers on hand to guarantee quality."

Another writer, who I met at the leaving do for the executive producer, had recently been fired from his episode after the second draft, something that had never happened to him before in a long and distinguished career.

Like these writers, and others, I once felt enormous affection and loyalty towards Casualty. Whenever I stepped into the warehouse in Bristol where it was produced, I felt included and valued, part of the team.

I'm not complaining about what has happened at Casualty. Producers can use the writers they choose, of course; long-running series need reinventing from time to time; "new blood" is a good idea (we were all new blood once). It's how it's been handled that's been so crass. For a show that's all about sympathy and professionalism, it's been heartless and unprofessional.

Gregory Evans is currently writing for The Bill

Chinua Achebe wins Man Booker international

Chinua Achebe has won the 2007 Man Booker International book prize - an award for a body of work rather than a new book.

The description of Achebe by some commentators as 'obscure' has riled Maya Jaggi in The Guardian.

The question arises, obscure for whom? Achebe, aged 76, is revered across continents as a founder of the modern African novel in English. Things Fall Apart, his 1958 debut about the devastating impact of Christian missionaries on Igbo culture amid the scramble for Africa in the 1890s, is one of the most widely read novels of the 20th century. Nor was Achebe obscure to the galaxy of writers - including Nobel laureates Wole Soyinka, Toni Morrison and Nadine Gordimer - I heard pay birthday tributes to him at Bard College in upstate New York, where he has taught since a car crash in Nigeria 17 years ago left him in a wheelchair.

Yet making the case for profiling Achebe in this paper in 2000, I was struck anew by how towering figures in world literature can fall beneath the radar in the west, or slip from memory. It may be worse for those not writing in English, as I was reminded by the death on Sunday of Senegal's Ousmane Sembène, aged 84, a francophone novelist and founding father of sub-Saharan African cinema. Hardly a household name - though, like Achebe, he deserves to be.

Blurb coming to Europe

San Francisco-based Blurb, a site that enables users to print as few as one copy of a book on demand, on Wednesday announced plans to expand its business to Europe.

The company plans to begin printing books in the Netherlands in three weeks. Europeans can now order books with a shipping time of 5 to 7 days (instead of 7 to 10 days) at a lower shipping rate.

More from Miriam Olsson for Cnet.

I've never heard of Blurb, but it sounds like competition for Lulu.com.

Chase comments on Sopranos finale

David Chase, creator of American TV series The Sopranos, has responded to criticism of the final episode, reports BBC News.

"I have no interest in explaining, defending, reinterpreting, or adding to what is there," he said of the drama's end...

"People get the impression that you're trying to mess with them, and it's not true. You're trying to entertain them. No-one was thinking, 'Wow, this'll tick them off," he added.

Dedication dilemmas

By Edward Docx in The Daily Telegraph.

There are some novelists who will tell you that it's the characters or the plot that cause all the trouble, or the research, or the pacing, or managing point of view, or controlling tone; but you would do better not to believe them. All of these are exasperating. But the thing that really screws you up is the dedication.

The book may be good, bad or both, but once it is finished you can dodge it, stand by it, disown it, move on, say you did or didn't mean it, point out that you made it up, insist that it has nothing to do with you or anything that has happened in the past. The dedication, on the other hand, is where you have to say exactly what you mean. The dedication is where you can balls up the rest of your life.

Docx gives some great examples, including this by J.D. Salinger for Franny and Zooey:

"As nearly as possible in the spirit of Matthew Salinger, age one, urging a luncheon companion to accept a cool lima bean, I urge my editor, mentor and (heaven help him) closest friend, William Shawn... lover of the long shot, protector of the unprolific, defender of the hopelessly flamboyant... to accept this pretty skimpy-looking book."

The Croak - Action Transport

An intriguing writing opportunity called The Croak, from young people's theatre company, Action Transport, courtesy of the BBC Writersroom. The initial deadline is 24 June 2007.

The Croak will bring together experienced writers, aspiring writers, and new writers. It is a learning experience, the chance to write your own play supported by one of the UK's leading companies for young people. Experience is not required; wanting to write is the only qualification.

Michael Rosen is new Children's Laureate

Michael Rosen succeeded Jacqueline Wilson as Children's Laureate yesterday, reports BBC News.

"I see my job as Children's Laureate being an ambassador for fun with books. I hope that I'll be able to boost all children's reading for pleasure but also to give a special lift to the wonderful diverse world of poetry for children."

In The Guardian he is interviewed by Simon Hattenstone.

The trouble is, he says, educationalists and government ministers have tried to take the fun out of poetry. They have reduced it to a question to be answered in a Sats test, and that is one thing he is keen to change.

"The question is, how d'you encourage it, not how d'you say, 'Uh-uh, no sorry, what we're going to do now is look at The Owl and the Pussycat and count the adjectives.'"

On location with Debbie Horsfield

In The Times, Daphne Lockyer goes behind the scenes on the new BBC TV drama True, Dare, Kiss, written by Debbie Horsfield.

True, Dare, Kiss centres on Phil (played by Dervla Kirwan, of Ballykissangel fame), who returns to Manchester for her father’s funeral and is reunited with her siblings – Nita (Pookie Quesnell), Beth (Lorraine Ashbourne), Alice (Esther Hall) and Dennis (Paul Hilton). After an absence of 20 years, she finds it unchanged from a fateful night in the 1970s when a cataclysmic event shattered the family’s life.

“It’s as though the house has been preserved in aspic,” says [producer, Marcus] Wilson, who also co-produced Life on Mars and has brought his expertise of all things 1970s to this set, too – the preponderance of Formica and swirling carpets here are just the tip of the iceberg. “We wanted to present the idea that whatever happened on that night caused the clock to stop.” The exact nature of the secret, which stalks the very heart of this dysfunctional family, will be revealed, eventually, in the six-part drama. “But unlike Cutting It, where an audience could dip in and out, True, Dare, Kiss requires them to stick with the ride throughout,” says Horsfield. “I hope they will want to.”

Wikibook = wikibomb

From The Globe and Mail:

For some reason, the hunt for the great Internet novel is still on. The hunt, of course, isn't for a book about the Internet; the object here is a book written by the Internet, in the same collaborative spirit that cooked up Wikipedia.

The results thus far aren't promising. But the "wisdom of the crowds" is in these days, and so we watch as one well-meaning website after another tries to make a go of having the mob write fiction. One large attempt recently ended in glorious disarray, but others are still ongoing. Unsurprisingly, the less ambitious they get, the more successful they become.

Tony record for Stoppard

Tom Stoppard's play The Coast Of Utopia won a record seven Tony Awards in New York last night, including Best Play. As BBC News reports:

The 69-year-old, who won his first honour in 1968, said: "I feel a bit nostalgic actually because this year it's 40 years since I first came here with a play...It was a different planet in 1967, the Broadway theatre. It had a little ashtray clamped to the back of every seat and the author got 10% of the gross."

ITV.com ready for relaunch

ITV.com has long been one of the worst media websites around, impossible to search and bereft of content. Hopefully, that will all change - a relaunch is set to go live next Tuesday. As Mark Sweeney reports for Media Guardian, the main innovation included in the £20m revamp is the broadcasting of shows from ITV1, ITV2 and ITV3 live online.

A staged rollout of ITV.com's video streaming will see the 30-day catchup service and programme archive activated for different programme genres on a week-by-week basis.

Soaps such as Coronation Street and Emmerdale will be the first genre to launch, followed - on subsequent Tuesdays - by broadband games, drama, lifestyle, sport, entertainment and news.

AGM 2007 report

A report on the Guild's 2007 AGM is now available on the Guild's website.

Knocked Up

Blogger, writer and romantic comedy specialist Billy Mernit isn't afraid to put the boot into films he doesn't like. But this week he's found one to rave about: Knocked Up, written and directed by Judd Apatow. And, as ever with Billy's posts, there are useful insights for writers.

Knocked Up proves what should be the present-day romantic comedy screenwriter's maxim: don't write a "Romantic Comedy."

No, write a story about two fascinating, funny people who irrevocably change each other's lives, and leave all that Same Old Shit (e.g. the Bad Date Montage, et al) out of the picture.

Knocked Up trailer

The Royal Tapes

BBC Radio Five Live has launched a new competition open to all writers, The Royal Tapes.

We want you to submit scripts of up to three minutes in length featuring two characters, which capture a moment, an extraordinary emotional idea inspired by the role that the monarchy plays in our lives, a microcosm of the drama that surrounds the royal family.

It can be funny, surreal, poignant or challenging. Your drama can be about anyone and be set anywhere – be original, be provocative, be dramatic. The scripts are from your perspective and don't have to contain a royal character.

Entries must be received by 12 noon Friday 29 June. Thanks to BBC Writersroom for the link.

Six words that sold a script

From Jay A. Fernandez in The LA Times:

It's rarely a good idea to greenlight a movie off of a title alone (unless it includes the words "Pirates" and "Caribbean"). That's like falling in love with a MySpace photo.

But when Harvey Weinstein pulled the trigger on the latest raunchy comedy idea from "Dogma" and "Clerks II" writer-director Kevin Smith after Smith had written only six words of it, Weinstein's $15 million looked like a pretty good bet.

The title? "Zack and Miri Make a Porno."

Guild signs new TNC Agreement

From the WGGB website:

The first-ever minimum terms collective agreement for playwrights was negotiated between the Writers' Guild and the Theatre Writers' Union and the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Court (collectively, the TNC), and signed in 1979.

In 2004, both the Guild and the theatres felt that a complete revision of the agreement was necessary. The Guild met with the PMA to draw up our bid in June of that year and negotiations with the three theatres began in September 2005.

The Guild negotiators (David Edgar, Nick Dear, Paul Sirett and Olwen Wymark) were advised by a PMA delegation (Alan Brodie, Diana Franklin and Mel Kenyon). Negotiations were concluded successfully on 26 March this year and the agreement was signed on behalf of the Writers' Guild by David Edgar, our new President, at the Guild's AGM on 1 June 2007.

The headline gain is an increase in the up-front fee for writers (the combined commission, delivery and acquisition fees) from £8,467 to £10,000, in all RSC, NT and RC spaces except for the Theatre Upstairs. The £10,000 play achieves a long-lasting ambition for playwrights, and will serve as a benchmark in negotiations with other companies.

In addition, we have removed loopholes in the rehearsal payment system, ensuring that playwrights are paid for all the days they attend rehearsals (and readings and workshops outside the rehearsal period), for conducting other production related business (like interviews and programme compilation), and for those days on which it is mutually agreed they should not attend.

We also made sure that the playwrights' right to casting approval was safeguarded in the new agreement.

For the first time, we have guaranteed writers' hotel and accommodation expenses (within the terms of the theatres' expenses policies), both during rehearsals and during workshops, auditions and research.

Concerned about the implications of granting theatres automatic rights to include extracts on their websites, we insisted that website rights be granted under a separately-signed agreement for a limited period.

We have reduced the option periods that theatres may purchase for the United States and the English Speaking World from eight months to six, and given playwrights greater influence over third party productions licensed by the TNC companies.

In addition, many clauses were revised to reflect best current practice and to accommodate changes in the production environment over the years.

Inevitably, we made some concessions. However, we are convinced that the resulting agreement and model contract improves the original in form and content, and will improve the pay and conditions of all playwrights working for the TNC theatres.

You can download the Full Agreement from the Guild's Rates and Agreements page.

A writer's entourage

In Written By, the Writers' Guild of America West magazine, David Hoag looks at the rise of literary managers and the other roles in Hollywood writers' growing entourages.

“Primarily, for me, the manager is very hands-on in development of spec material, which is really what I have him for,” says screenwriter Keith Domingue, who has written feature assignments for Village Roadshow, Dimension Films, and MGM, among others. “I look for someone who will become a development partner. I need that because it allows me to take more creative risks with my spec material.” As a result, Domingue will work through multiple drafts with his manager, something generally not possible with an agent. “From my experience, few agents have the time for that,” he adds.

Fever Pitch at the Screenwriters' Festival

The Screenwriters' Festival (3-6 July 2007) have launched their Fever Pitch competition in association with 4Talent. Entrants must submit a 25 word pitch for a film or TV drama along with a 150 word synopsis. Writers of the best ten will invited to attend the Festival and pitch live in front of an audience who will pick the winners.

The closing date for entries is 22 June 2007.

Behind the scenes at The News Quiz

On BBC News, Stephen Robb goes behind the scenes at Radio 4's The News Quiz.

Over two days up to the Thursday evening recording of The News Quiz, the writers each produce about 40 jokes - 10 for each topic.

"People say, 'How do you think of jokes?' but it's like asking a lorry driver, 'How do you drive a lorry?' It's automatic after a while," says Rhodri Crooks.

"The deadline seems to focus your mind," adds Simon Littlefield.

But the writers do admit to rituals that help them think, with Crooks disappearing for long walks, and Littlefield stepping out on to the balcony to smoke and gaze over central London rooftops.

President Edgar

At the Guild's AGM on Friday 1 June, David Edgar was confirmed as the new President of the Guild for a three-year term.

David Edgar is one of this country’s’ leading playwrights, having worked in the theatre, TV, film and radio. He is perhaps best known for his large-scale dramatisation of Nicholas Nickleby for the Royal Shakespeare Company and for television.

Other key works have included Pentecost, which won an Evening Standard award in 1994; The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs; Albert Speer, based on Gitta Sereny's biography of Hitler's architect; and Playing With Fire. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has at various times served as Resident Playwright at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Fellow in Creative Writing at Leeds Polytechnic, Professor of Playwriting Studies at Birmingham University and Literary Consultant for the RSC.

For the Writers’ Guild he has recently led the negotiating team creating an updated Minimum Terms Agreement covering the RSC, Royal National Theatre and Royal Court – which he has officially signed today, the first day of his Presidency. As President of the Guild he will speak for writers on public issues and will have a non-voting seat on the Executive Council.

David Edgar’s appointment continues the Guild’s tradition of choosing leading writers as its President – he takes over from the TV writer and novelist David Nobbs, while previous holders of the post have included J.C. Wilsher, Ian Curteis, Rosemary Ann Sisson and Alan Plater.

You can hear David Edgar in conversation at a Guild event on 7 June.

Meeting the agents

For those of you unable to make it to the Guild's Meet The Agents event last week, there's now a report up on the website.

Update: Guild member Frances Lyn has posted her impressions of the meeting.

Media Predict

Media Predict is a new online game from America that creates a stockmarket for media talent. Players register, get a virtual $5,000 to spend, and then back the projects or people they think will succeed.

As The Economist reports, the people behind Media Predict plan to charge companies to have projects listed.

This year was kind of a bloodbath for new [television] programmes,” says Brent Stinski, Media Predict's founder, “so we know that their systems need improving.” Advertising could provide another source of revenue. But laws against online gambling will probably foil Mr Stinski's hopes of turning the exchange into a real-money stockmarket. Traders will probably have to settle for prizes, which will be introduced later this year, and the warm glow that comes from knowing that they are the secret arbiters of public taste.

Future Perfect 2008

Paines Plough theatre have launched their Future Perfect scheme for young playwrights. Thanks to BBC Writersroom for the link. The closing date is 11 June 2007.

Future Perfect is a once in a lifetime opportunity to stretch your ambition as a theatre writer.

A year long attachment, Future Perfect aims to create a space for writers to explore their individual voices. Playwrights are inspired to develop their vision and confidence through challenging practical writing projects.

Alongside these projects writers will develop a full-length play with the support of Paines Plough's literary and artistic team.

We are looking for six writers between the ages of 18 and 30 to become Future Perfect 2008.

Will Ferrell - FunnyOrDie.com

American comedian Will Ferrell has a new online venture that is proving as successful as his feature films, reports Laura M. Holson in The New York Times.

For Will Ferrell, who commands up to $20 million for movies like “Anchorman” and “Blades of Glory,” starring in a short Web video may not seem like the best use of time.

But one afternoon in early March, Mr. Ferrell walked to a guest cottage at his Los Angeles home with a small crew that included Adam McKay, who is his production partner and the director of “Anchorman.”

With a camcorder rolling, Mr. Ferrell improvised a sketch as a down-on-his-luck tenant being harassed by a foul-mouthed, booze-sodden landlord. The actor playing the landlord was Mr. McKay’s 2-year-old daughter, Pearl.

“The Landlord,” which took 45 minutes to shoot and cost next to nothing to produce, was posted on the new Web site FunnyOrDie.com on April 12.

As of yesterday, the sketch had been viewed about 30 million times, and the newly posted outtakes have been watched more than 1.6 million times. (This being Hollywood, Mr. Ferrell and Pearl have already shot a sequel: “Good Cop, Baby Cop.”)

Doctor sells screenplay to Hollywood

From Dalya Alberge in The Times:

A doctor is swapping medicine for Hollywood after learning that her first screenplay is poised to go into production with an A-list cast.

John Malkovich, Peter O’Toole and Darryl Hannah are among the stars lining up for the period epic, Love and Virtue, written by Mia Sperber, who is a consultant radiologist in Liverpool.

Everyword at the Everyman

Next week (5-9 June) at The Everyman theatre in Liverpool, it's the Everyword annual new writing festival.

Open your mind this June with Everyword 2007. The Everyman’s annual festival of new writing is back with a week of workshops, seminars, readings and events to stimulate your mind and get the creative juices flowing. Whatever your level of Experience, Everyword has something to suit.

This year we bring you workshops from some of the industry’s top companies and practitioners including Tim Firth, David Eldridge, Frantic Assembly and Paines Plough, as well as readings of new plays from up and coming new writers and one-off writing events to really get you thinking.

Radio 4 denies sneaking out Kureishi drama

From Ben Dowell in Media Guardian (free registration required):

Radio 4 last night aired its controversial Hanif Kureishi drama Weddings and Beheadings, which describes the work of a cameraman who films the executions of western captives in Iraq.

A Radio 4 spokeswoman denied that it had "sneaked out" Weddings and Beheadings, which was due to be broadcast on Radio 4 last month, but was pulled at the last minute after the kidnapping of BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston.

However, Weddings and Beheadings was dropped back into the Radio 4 schedule with only three days' notice on Sunday and was not featured in any daily newspaper radio listings yesterday.

Pullman attacks broadcasters over children's TV

Children's writer Phillip Pullman has attacked broadcasters for their approach to children's TV, reports Amelia Hill in The Observer.

Philip Pullman, the Whitbread award-winning author of His Dark Materials, has condemned children's television as 'social poison', treating its audience as marketing opportunities while portraying them as dangerous and feral.

Pullman castigated broadcasters for sacrificing high-quality programmes in favour of those that yield more marketing opportunities. 'Children are regarded by broadcasters as a marketing opportunity at best, a dangerous and feral threat at worst, and an expensive nuisance otherwise,' Pullman said. 'This social poison goes much deeper than broadcasting, of course, but it's particularly visible there."

Guild website

The Guild website is down at the moment due to technical problems. We hope to have it up and running again as soon as possible.

Update: all fine now - it was a problem with the hosting company.

Silence of the clams

On his blog, screenwriter Craig Mazin is trying to eliminate clams. ("According to Jane Espenson, clams are one-liners or comic concepts that have gone stale from overuse.") Some examples:

The Inside Voice: “I’m sorry…did I say that out loud?”

The Freudian Slip: “Hey, Carol, I see you’re wearing some new boobs…I mean boots!”

The “Mr.” Insult: “Oooh, check you out. Mr. Big Man! Mr. Crazy hat-wearing guy!”

The Nutty List: “All I know is I want to eat a steak, get laid, and play some golf…not necessarily in that order.”

Dante’s Clam: “This is the date from hell!”

Wole Soyinka interview

In The Daily Telegraph, Helen Oyeyemi talks to Nobel Prize-winning writer Wole Soyinka.

He laughs when I ask if his exile and displacement have created a need for him to be in a state of discomfort to see clearly.

"No, nothing like that; the compulsion to write overrides my difficulties, it's not defined by them. An idyllic period of my existence was when I had a den attached to my home... a writing den, and no one had access to that unless they had their own special visa, applied for weeks in advance." He smiles ruefully and shakes his head.

Surviving Edinburgh

Dave Cohen's article from the most recent issue of the Guild's magazine UK Writer about how to survive the Edinburgh Festival is now online. Lots of tips - mainly about saving money.

The King Of Queens ends

One of America's longest running live-audience sitcoms, The King Of Queens, has come to an end. For the Writers Guild of America West, Dylan Callaghan talks to one of the show's creators, David Litt.

Here's something I learned that stuck with me the whole time during this show -- when I first started I was really into jokes. I'd have jokes in my head and write toward the jokes to the point where the story was serving the jokes. What I've learned is that it has to be the other way around. You have to write good characters and good stories and the jokes will flow from there. People worry about the jokes, but they should worry about the characters and the jokes will come.

Northern Film & Media bursary

Thanks to BBC Writersroom for the link to Northern Film & Media's bursary scheme. The closing date for applications is 7 June.

Northern Film & Media is to support two regional writers to develop a full length feature screenplay through a £10,000 bursary scheme.

Running for the second year, Northern Film & Media launched its Script Bursaries 2007 in late April.

Calling for 8-10 page feature treatments that have the potential to become well developed and commercial feature screenplays, Northern Film & Media expect all writers applying to be able to deliver a high quality completed script within the timescale indicated.

Northern Film & Media will pay the two successful writers £5,000 each for delivery of the completed screenplays.

The scheme also aims to develop writers in their production of scripts of the highest quality. To ensure this, Northern Film & Media will work with the writers and provide expert editing assistance from industry professionals on the projects.

The scheme is open to writers based in the North East region (Northumberland, Tyne & Wear, County Durham and Tees Valley). Applicants must be over 18 and not in full-time or undergraduate education.

Haggis back on Bond

Oscar-winning screenwriter Paul Haggis is back on the Bond franchise, reports J.A. Fernandez in The LA Times.

Haggis has more than earned whatever he's being paid to rework the "Bond 22" screenplay by regular Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade ("The World Is Not Enough," "Die Another Day"). His rewrite of Purvis and Wade's "Casino Royale" script helped to revitalize the aging franchise and give it the edgier credibility it needed to hook a new generation of fans and score the franchise's biggest box office — $588 million worldwide. (Don't cry for Purvis and Wade; they keep getting the Bond assignments and they're writing the new "Barbarella" screenplay that Robert Rodriguez just signed on to direct for Universal on Monday.)

The state of EastEnders

EastEnders recently got its lowest ever audience share, but is it as bad as people as some people make out, asks Caitlin Moran in The Times.

I watched this week’s quartet of ’Stenders, and it’s really quite good. Honestly. The green shoots of recovery are all over Albert Square. Monday’s episode starts quite badly – Phil Mitchell is called upon to save the life of a drowning child, and does it by wobbling the kid around on the ground in the manner of a dog searching for a treat in its owner’s pocket. But there are all kinds of long-term plot-threads yielding the occasional fleck of pure gold.

Update: In The Guardian, Mark Lawson considers the show's latest trailers.

Advance plotting

On The Guardian Books blog, Neil Griffiths explains why he never plots stories before writing them.

Although I would like to think there are as many varieties of writer as there are writers, there really are only two: those who plan and structure (to whatever degree) before they start and those who don't. I am the latter. Actually, I like to think of myself as a torchbearer (or is that trailblazer?) for this minority group (we are a minority group, I'm sure), because I reckon I do the least planning and preparation of any writer out there.

More Guild events

Soap Writers' Forum

If you're currently writing for any long running TV drama series or soaps, whether writing your own original work or episodes of existing series, The Writers' Guild invites you to join us for the Soap Writers' Forum on Tuesday 3rd July at The Writers' Guild Centre from 7.00 pm - 9pm.

The Guild's Television Committee is currently working on a Good Practice Guide and we want to get an overall and realistic picture of what it is like to work on major TV continuing drama series today. Come along and share your experiences whether you've been writing for soaps and drama series for a while or you're new to this area. The event is free and open to all working TV writers, Guild members and non-members.

If you would like to attend the forum please email Moe at: moe@writersguild.org.uk or contact the Guild Office on 0207 833 0777


Writers’ Guild Variety Nights

The Writers' Guild Variety Nights are back from Tuesday 10th July from 7.00pm - 9.30pm.

Writers' Guild Variety Nights are a series of regular events at which writers can showcase their work, or just come along and network with each other, in an informal 'industry' environment.

Whether you are a performance poet, a novelist with a desire to share your latest chapter, a playwright with a favourite scene, a budding comic or you feel you could come along and be an enthusiastic audience member - we want to hear from you!

Performance slots are open to everyone but Guild members are given preference. Each performer will be given a five minute slot. Tickets cost £2 for Guild members and £3 non-members and will be sold on the door but places are limited so please book in advance. If you would like to attend please email Moe at : moe@writersguild.org.uk or contact the Guild office on 0207 833 0777.

Rehearsed Readings at the Guild

Writers' Guild and Equity Rehearsed Readings continue with A Friend of Ronnie's by David Barry and Taste by Dick Sharples.

A Friend of Ronnie's :
"Susan is doing research for a book on the Great Train Robbery. She interviews Arthur, one of the last surviving participants, who reveals a little about the robbery and a lot about himself."

Taste :
"An elderly couple who have sold their house keep returning - to the distress of the new resident. "

A Friend of Ronnie' s and Taste will be read from 7.30pm on Wednesday 18th July at the Writers' Guild Centre. Tickets cost: £6 (members of the Writers' Guild and Equity) or £8 (non-members), including a free glass of wine. To book a ticket please email Anne at : anne@writersguild.org.uk or contact the Guild office on 0207 833 0777.

All events will be held at Writers’ Guild Centre, 17 Britannia Street, Kings Cross, London WC1X 9JN.