JG Ballard on CSI

Author JG Ballard thought TV was an "ageing theme park, which we visit out of habit rather than in hope of finding anything fresh and original" until he discovered C.S.I: Crime Scene Investigation. In The Guardian, he examines the shows appeal.

Given that there are no interesting characters, no car chases or shoot-outs, no violently stirred emotions and no dramatic action, why is the C.S.I. series so riveting? What is it that grips us to the end of the episode, which is scarcely more than an elaborate crossword puzzle with human tissues in the place of clues? My guess is that the answer lies in the inner sanctum at the heart of all three series - the autopsy room. Here the victims surrender all that is left of their unique identities, revealing the wounds and medical anomalies that led to their demise. Once they have been dissected - their ribcages opened like suitcases, brains lifted from their craniums, tissues analysed into their basic components - they have nothing left, not even the faintest claim on existence.

Film Archive Action

A report in Private Eye (not online) last week highlighted concerns among National film and Television Archive "insiders" about new policies by The British film Institute.

A campaign group has been set up, Film Archive Action.

Film Archive Action is the website of the Custodes Lucis Group.

The Custodes Lucis (The Guardians Of Light) are campaigning against the changes being imposed on the National Film and Television Archive by its parent body, the British Film Institute.

These changes mean that the NFTVA will no longer be the national heritage moving image collection, but is being reduced to the status of a film library to be used by the BFI for its own purposes. Acquisition and preservation policies will be designed to suit the BFI's as yet undefined 'cultural plan'. The needs of researchers will be ignored: cataloguing the Archive's holdings in order to provide good documentation has already been reduced to virtually nothing. A third of the film technicians at the Archive's Conservation Centre were made redundant last year; the BFI has not yet replaced their work with any alternative procedures for conserving and preserving the films. This world-renowned collection is now threatened with destruction through ignorance and neglect.

Catherine Bailey interview

Producer Catherine Bailey interviewed by Nick Smurthwaite in The Stage:

In her quiet, unassuming way, Catherine Bailey has become a dynamic force in British drama. As well as 150-odd radio plays and serials, including this year’s gold and silver award winners in the Sony Radio Awards, she has produced the feature film Spider, directed by David Cronenberg, a dozen or so TV documentaries, a children’s TV series, and now looks set to launch herself into mainstream TV drama.

Elaine Sperber to leave CBBC

From the BBC Press Office:

Elaine Sperber has decided to leave the BBC after six and a half years as CBBC's Head of Drama.

During her time with CBBC she has been instrumental in producing and commissioning some 53 series, serials and single dramas including the highly successful Tracy Beaker, Kidnapped, Feather Boy, Stig Of The Dump, Pig Heart Boy and Mark Haddon's original comedy, Microsoap.

Elaine said: "When I arrived at the BBC I wanted to make children's and family dramas which were more contemporary and reflected the lives of the audience who watch our shows.

"I was committed to expanding the range of content and style for the viewers, treating them as the sophisticated consumers of programmes they truly are. I think I have achieved that."

In praise of short books

William Grimes in The New York Times looks at a growing trend for bite-size publishing.

The Modern Library, in its Chronicles series, expands the short-take concept to just about everything. It has included titles by A. N. Wilson on London, Jeffrey Garten on globalization, Colin Renfrew on prehistory and Pankaj Mishra on the rise of modern India. My introduction to the series came with "The Company," the snappily told history of an idea that today rules all our lives. The authors, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, who both work for The Economist, begin with simple barter exchanges in ancient Mesopotamia and in a little less than 200 pages arrive at their final destination, the multinational corporation. In a couple of hours, the reader travels through all of recorded history and comes out the other end, stuffed with valuable information and pointed toward the future.

Give me more. I mean, less.

Writing for computer games

More than 150 people packed into BAFTA last night for a Guild event looking at the role of writers in developing computer games.

On a panel chaired by Andy Walsh (who has written for games, TV, film, radio and stage) everyone agreed that writers were, or at least should be, central to the process.

Lydia Andrew and Guy Miller

Lydia Andrew (Sound Supervisor) and Guy Miller(Creative Director for the Harry Potter games franchise), both from EA, kicked off by arguing that computer games need scriptwriters for:

• original stories
• structure
• character depth and evolution
• high quality dialogue
• to assist with adaptations

Ideally, they said, the writer should be involved right from the start helping to develop original ideas. But this doesn't happen much at the moment.

Lydia outlined some of the difficulties of writing for computer games:

• non-linear narrative
• the amount and type of dialogue
• the need to learn a new set of techniques and technologies
• the undpredictability of the player
• the constantly evolving nature of the game development cycle.

The challenge for the future, Guy argued, was to redefine the process of storytelling. Games needed to be more emotionally compelling, while retaining gameplay. No one quite knew how it would be done, he said. But writers will be in the lead.

Chris Bateman

Chris Bateman, Managing Director of game design and scripting company International Hobo, began by stating that the overall quality of narrative in the games industry is currently poor. But it is improving.

The script budget is normally about 2% of the total, he said. Which, although low, is still an improvement on the 0% of a few years ago. The problem is that writers are still being brought into the process too late.

Chris suggested that writers without prior experience in the games industry were most likely to find work either writing 'cut-scenes' (the set pieces where the narrative is spoon-fed to the player) or technical writing for documentation that accompanies games. The more complicated narrative design required more understanding of how games work, he said.

As examples of games with competent narrative he suggested:

• Grand Theft Auto San Andreas - simple narrative structure but some nice touches, such as the players actions being referred to on the car radio
• Silent Hill 2 - a bold attempt at integrating narrative into gameplay
• Discworld Noir (for which Chris led on design and script) - a simple script but complicated structure that allowed players to choose their own route through the game.

James Leach

Next up was James Leach, Head of Writing at Lionhead Studios.

His main concern was that professional writers who get involved in computer games should stand up for what they believe in. Too often, he argued, story points get over-explained and repeated. Stories get cut to pieces and actors, rather than recording dialogue together, never meet.

Less is more, he insisted. With dialogue and plot points, the key is to get as much information over using as few words as possible.

Katie Ellwood

The final speaker on the panel was Katie Ellwood, Narrative producer and director on Sony's The Getaway and the forthcoming The Getaway 2.

As an example of a game where good writing supported the gameplay, she suggested Ico, a game so emotionally involving that it can make players cry.

At Sony, Katie explained, they have been spending a lot of time thinking about the role of writers in games and on The Getaway they had a writer involved right from the start.

Katie ended by showing a scene from The Getaway 3, running on a PS3. It was an almost photo-realistic recreation of Piccadilly Circus. Apart from the people. Who, as several panel members commented, can still not be rendered convincingly.

Writers and theme

A questioner from the floor suggested that writers should be used more to generate the theme of a game - that, after all, is what writers do in other mediums.

Guy pointed out that for Harry Potter games they use JK Rowling's themes, and Andy Walsh said that in four of the last five games he has written the question of theme has emerged in discussions.

However, talking to writers in the bar after the event, it was clear that many felt that the industry was still not looking to writers to pitch original ideas. Why shouldn't it be more like film, when spec proposals are submitted, options bought etc? That, several people said, is what would really take the games industry forward.

How writers are found

While Chris and James said that they have plenty of CVs sent to them by potential writers, Lydia said that she had never been approached (writers flocked to her in the bar afterwards). Katie said that she tended to use agents to find writers, but there was a lack of knowledge about the games industry among agencies.

Where next?

As Chris pointed out, story and dialogue are worth 10-15% in the all-important games reviews, so producers should be willing to invest in writers and story development. If they don't, Katie said, they will be left behind.

The Writers' Guild is keen to represent the interests of games writers as their role in the industry develops and, as a starting point, has designed surveys for games writers, aspiring games writers and games producers.

Guild Events and Communications Manager, Naomi MacDonald, said she was hopeful that more games writers will join the Guild and that last night's event can be followed up with more in the future.

Mumbai in Mokum (Amsterdam)

Some of Mumbai's most notable names appeared in a small auditorium in Amsterdam, which sometimes goes by the Yiddishe nickname of 'Mokum'. A few passionate Dutch fans of Hindu descent tried to talk their way in, but the meeting was strictly aimed at Dutch film professionals. Co-organised by the Dutch screenwriter's guild, the Netwerk Scenarioschrijvers, the idea was to bring Indian industry professionals in touch with their Dutch counterparts, as part of the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) which had descended on Holland as part of their goal to celebrate Indian Cinema around the globe.

That's right, Indian (or Hindi) Cinema. No 'Bollywood' please, we're Indian. Early into the seminar it was established clearly by director Karan Johar that Bollywood is seen as a derivative term, suggesting that Mumbai intends to emulate Hollywood. "Why call us anything that mirrors something else? Our movies have a soul of their own. Why not call it Sholay?" Too bad the term has already been embraced the world over and that non-Hindi cities like Kolkata and Lahore are calling themselves K- and Lollywood respectively.

Also present was veteran screenwriter and lyricist Javed Akhtar, responsible for some of the 70's groundbreaking classics like Sholay and Deewaar launching Amitabh Bachchan's acting career as 'angry young man'. Faced with a Dutch audience reared on the Calvinist model of 'less is more', he went on to explain the inner workings of a typical Indian film, which mostly operates on the basis of 'more is more'.

Javed Akthar: "European films tends to deal with one emotion, or one problem. You can see them as short stories. Whereas an Indian film is more like a novel. If you would make a film in India called It Happened One Night, people would feel cheated! They want larger than life stories. Indian sagas have to have every emotion in the book. We took movie cameras from the West, but our epics are thousands of years old. Other influences are Urdu poetry and Parsi theatre, which used songs and Victorian novels. It's a strange synthesis of East and West. In our first talkie from 1933 there were fifty songs! There was never any doubt that we wouldn't use songs. As a lyricist, I write to an existing tune and I try to solve a narrative problem in the content of the lyrics. But I'm always dependent on whether a story is conducive to writing a song, whether it has certain sensibilities. Language is becoming more urban. Life is speeded up by technology. The tempo increases and the words become less important." Akhtar went on to pick up the award for best lyrics for the film Swades at the IIFA awards ceremony three days later.

The evening was moderated by Dutch film scholar Marijke de Vos, who co-edited the book Behind the Scenes of Hindi Cinema that was launched simultaneously. Indian critic/screenwriter Deepa Gahlot describes the role of the Indian screenwriter as follows: "In Hollywood, the writer is an important part of the filmmaking process: a novelist may receive millions of dollars for the movie rights to a book, and a scriptwriter is paid to develop an original or adapted screenplay. The Bombay film industry treats the writer as a lowly hack. More often that not, the producer wants to copy a foreign film, in which case the writer simply 'Indianises' the names and situations, and passes the work off as his own. Frequently, scenes and lines are written on the set, and often changed to suit a star's mood. [...] This disrespect for intellectual property is apparent in the poor quality of most commercial films. Scriptwriters who have made names for themselves are Wajahat Mirza, Akhtar Mirza, KA Abbas, Sachin Bhowmik, Prayag Raj and Salim-Javed (=Javed Akhtar)."

Yes, a handful of writers in Hollywood might be making big bucks, but unfortunately greenbacks alone do not prevent one from getting treated like a lowly hack, which is a more universal phenomenon than Deepa Gahlot might think. There were a few Dutch writers in the audience that night who could have confirmed that statement. But the night ended on an exuberant note with the screening of the Karan Johar-written smash hit Kal Hoo No Ho, which is so visually dazzling and drawing tears to the max, that even Dutch screenwriters forgot their troubles such as bad meetings, unenthusiastic script editors and late payments.

The Writer (a sculpture)

A table and chair the size of a house has been captivating visitors to north London's Hampstead Heath.

The 30ft (9m) sculpture, The Writer, [by Giancarlo Neri] will be on Parliament Hill for four months before returning to Italy.

The tribute to the loneliness of writing is meant to inspire visitors to the heath, which has associations with writers Keats and Coleridge.

More from BBC News.

Sky buys Artsworld

Sky, often perceived as the champion of low-brow, has bought the very high-brow Artsworld TV channel, reports The Independent.

Five years on [from its launch], Artsworld is still widely regarded as filling a gap unserved by any other channel in the market. True, arts and culture play an important role at BBC4, but, the BBC is quick to stress, BBC4 is not and never has been an arts channel. From launch, Artsworld's commitment to an eclectic - often high-brow - mix of arts from around the world gave it an elitist reputation in some circles. But the arts world embraced it with open arms. "An absolutely brilliant channel: wonderful and courageous," is the view of Victoria Todd, director of the National Campaign for the Arts. "It has touched nerve-endings that the BBC has long forgotten in its arts programming."

All3Media buys Mersey TV

Independent production company All3Media has snapped up Hollyoaks and Grange Hill producer Mersey Television in a deal reported to be worth £35m.

All3Media, headed up by former Granada CEO Steve Morrison, completed the deal to buy Mersey TV, which produced the now-defunct Brookside, after its chairman Phil Redmond put the business up for sale earlier this year.

All3Media, set up by Morrison in 2003, started buyout talks with Liverpool-based Mersey in April.

Redmond will remain involved in the company as executive producer of BBC children's drama 'Grange Hill'. His wife Alexis will step down as managing director of Mersey TV.

More from Brand Republic.

Alan Clarke's Work Celebrated

The London Film Academy is launching Under the Influence, a series featuring the world's filmmaking talent, starting with ALAN CLARKE, described by fellow British film director as 'the best of all of us' .

To mark the 15th anniversary of his death and celebrate his work, Riverside Studios and Curzon Soho is hosting events over two weekends in July (14-17 and 21-24).

Under the Influence - Alan Clarke examines his most significant work through a series of masterclasses and panel discussions with many of his colleagues and collaborators, filmmakers and actors alike including: producer Sandy Lieberson and Lesley Sharp, who worked with Clarke on Rita, Sue and Bob Too; Corin Campbell Hill (director and Clarke's First AD; writer David Rudkin (Penda's Fen); Vertigo magazine editor, Gareth Evans; director/writer/actor David Leland; Margaret Matheson (producer of Scum); actress Lesley Manville (The Firm) and actor Ray Winstone.

For those of you too young to remember Alan Clarke, this is a chance to catch up with the work of one of the most exciting, and visceral directors Britain has produced. David Hare described Clarke as a 'profoundly anti-establishment artist, that's his stance, and that's his glory'

For further details, contact the RIVERSIDE STUDIOS. Tel 020 8237 1111
or the CURZON SOHO. Tel 020 7734 2255, or log onto their websites.

Richard Curtis and the G8

Guild member Richard Curtis is one of the guiding lights of Comic Relief, and now he's training his eye on the G8 summit with a new drama for the BBC about poverty and politics, The Girl in the Café.

There's an interview by Adam Sweeting in The Times and interesting analysis from Mark Lawson in Media Guardian (free registration required).

A favourite competition idea in literary magazines is the collaboration between unlikely writers and The Girl in the Café frequently feels as if Richard Curtis has been locked in a room with Trevor Griffiths: a sequence of floppy-haired confusion over the hotel booking for the couple will suddenly give way to a stretch of electrifying dialectic about dirty water supply.

Ireland considering end to writers' tax exemption

The Irish government is considering ending tax exempt status for writers and other artists, reports The Guardian.

The scheme was dreamt up 1969 - the year Beckett won the Nobel prize for literature. It was the brainchild of Charles Haughey, then finance minister, now better known as the disgraced taoiseach who once spent £6,000 of public funds on Parisian shirts and took up to £8.5m in payments from businessmen. Haughey wanted to be seen as a patron of the arts.

All income from a "creative" work such as a novel, play or song would be exempt from tax, he decided. He told the British bestseller writer Frederick Forsyth, who had moved to Ireland and availed himself of the scheme, that his plan was "not so much to bring you bastards in, but to stop the outflow of Irish talent".

Third series of Doctor Who commissioned.

Jane Tranter, BBC Controller of Drama Commissioning, has confirmed that a third series of Doctor Who - plus a second Christmas special - has been commissioned. Filming of the second series is due to begin next month.

The early announcement about the third series is part of a new policy at the BBC to make longer term commitments to successful shows (as seen recently with New Tricks).

The latest Doctor Who Press Pack has an interview with lead writer, Russell T Davies.

One of the things that makes me laugh is when I read something which says 'gay writer of Second Coming, Casanova and Queer as Folk has made family viewing an event'.

It just shows that anyone can write anything. All that pigeon-holing that goes on is nonsense. No writer should ever sit there and think – I'll only write gay things.

I used to work in children's television and it was harder to move from children's telly and break into adult television. I was a young writer and no-one knew my name. People would just sit there and say, but you’ve only done children's.

I knew I could write anything. I knew I could do adult drama, but everyone pigeon-holes everyone.

What I love about Doctor Who is that it has come full circle, it's for adults and children; it's doing everything I like doing.

High court rejects Springer legal review

The Christian Institute's bid to bring judicial review proceedings against the BBC for its broadcast of Jerry Springer - the Opera has been rejected by a high court judge.

The Newcastle-based evangelical group vowed to take the action after the broadcaster refused to apologise for the expletive-strewn opera. The BBC was issued with legal papers in early March.

It applied for a judicial review claiming the BBC had violated its royal charter and hoped to win a hearing which would examine how responsibily BBC bosses executed their responsibilities.

But the high court has refused to grant the Christian Institute permission to bring judicial review proceedings against the BBC.

The full story, by Chris Johnston, is on Media Guardian (free registration required).

Steven Knight - polymath

Steven Knight tells Lyn Gardener in The Guardian how he manages to create gameshows (Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?) and write novels (The Movie House) plays (The President Of An Empty Room) and screenplays (Dirty Pretty Things).

"There's nothing I can do about it," he says. "If an idea for a game show comes up, it comes up. It's all writing, just with a different emphasis. I see everything I do as being quite unified.

To get a game show into production is as challenging and as intellectually demanding as it is to write a novel or screenplay. Getting Millionaire right was as hard as writing Dirty Pretty Things. Harder. In the pilots, contestants kept wanting to take the money; we had to find ways - the lifelines - of keeping them in the seat, answering the questions. But there is so much snobbery about popular culture. A game show just isn't valued as much as a novel."

Halliwell's top 1,000 movies

John Walker has compiled a list of the 1,000 best ever films in order of merit for Halliwell's Film Guide. He tells The Times about his choices and why he made them.

The book wasn't intended as a symptom of delayed adolescence, though I did find myself chanting the mantra of Trainspotting's Renton "Pain and craving. A need like nothing I've ever known will soon take hold of me" in brief moments of daylight before plunging back into a darkened room for another fix of cinematic delight.

His Top 10 are:
1. Tokyo Story
2. La Règle du Jeu
3. Lawrence of Arabia
4. The Godfather Trilogy
5. The Seven Samurai
6. Citizen Kane
7. Raging Bull
8. Vertigo
9. Some Like It Hot
10. 8½

(If you really like this kind of thing, you can read the full list)
A few similarities with Guild member's Top 10, but rather more international.

And the winner is... not you (again)

Novelist Justin Cartwright in The Independent shares some of the literary prize winner's speeches he didn't get to make.

I found this collection of speeches in the inside pocket of an old jacket of mine, a black Armani jacket, bought at a knockdown price, from an Oxfam shop in l986, the year I was nominated for the now defunct Sunday Express Prize. The jacket has been worn about six or seven times; in an attempt to look writerly, I have sometimes worn it with a Nehru shirt, sometimes with an open neck. It has doubled as a dinner jacket when the occasion absolutely demanded. None of these speeches was ever delivered, because, although shortlisted, I did not win any of these awards.

Blackpool triumphs at Banff

BBC One series, Blackpool, written by Peter Bowker, has won the Global Television Grand Prize at the prestigious Banff 2005 Rockie Awards. This best of festival award came in addition to winning Best Mini-Series.

"Blackpool stood out in an excellent competitive field by virtue of its highly creative and innovative synthesis of music and drama in the exploration of human relationships," said [jury chairman, Fil]Fraser. "What emerges in this production is nothing less than a new genre of television programming, a major step forward in advancing the kind of quality television that this festival was born to celebrate."

Searchable database of theatrical productions

The Theatre Museum, Covent Garden, has launched a project to set up the UK’s first searchable database of theatrical productions, following a £22,000 grant from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, the national development agency which advises government on policy for the museum sector.

The project will attempt to unite the cast lists from every recorded theatrical production, currently held by separate theatres across Britain. The information will then be stored on a database that will be made accessible to members of the public.

The full story is in The Stage.