Tim Clague

16 February 200826 September 2012

DateNight Prep

A pitch is where you, a writer, a person used to working long hours all by yourself, a person usually socially awkward with bizarre idiosyncrasies, a person who chose writing for a living because you can’t express yourself in words, a person who is the furthest and farthest thing from any type of salesperson, must now sell your idea.
– Murderati

Never have a meeting. Always have a conversation.
Tim Clague (emphasis added)

Less than a week to go until DateNight 1.1, and the familiar tendrils of fear and self-loathing plait my intestines.

I’ve searched my archives for articles and posts on pitching. Recommended reading: from the US, Kay Reindl and Murderati; from the UK, Danny Stack and Tim Clague.

I’ve drafted leave-behinds. Single-page distillations of the project*, not only do they succinctly describe the project (‘It’s a situational comedy about a jive-talking skateboard’), they’ll be a crutch for whatever I end up blathering (‘Did he just say it’d contain coarse lang- whoa!‘), and will quite handily include my contact details.

I’m practicing smiling. I’ve been told that I come across as rather serious and unsmiling. I’m looking to strike a balance between confidence and humility (‘Yeh, shucks – I so rock’) that won’t unnerve people.

Which leaves the spiel. An interesting observation: instead of writing to be read, I have to write to be heard. And as with dialogue writing, it’s not just content I have to worry about (the leave-behind is a big help there), I need to ensure that I provide sufficient motivation:

PRODUCER

... A jive-talking skateboard.

Called Samuel L Jackson.

PRODUCER

Called -.

Producer can only blink rapidly, momentarily struck dumb.

And his sidekick, a laid-back surfboard. Called John Travolta.

The Producer leans forward:

PRODUCER

(leans forward)

Tell me more.

* Despite my complaints about synopsising, those hateful little documents have been quite helpful.

1 December 20075 August 2012

Point & Click

This week, in lieu of my usual witterings, I offer you:

At The Editing Room, Rod Hilton writes ‘abridged scripts’ of popular films – but in an indecently irreverent spirit that harks back to web classics “movies in a minute” and “movies with bunnies”. Behold his takes on The Bourne Ultimatum, The Departed and Ronin.

Bang2Write head script-reader, Lucy, is oft-name-checked in the UK scribosphere – and for good reason: her Write Here, Write Now blog has gems aplenty to offer, like no, your script idea has not been nicked, Worst. Feedback. Ever., and The List. (Collective fedora-tip: Messrs. Barron, Clague and Stack.)

A mere twelve months ago, Severance scribe James Moran listed seven reasons why his beloved horror genre can sometimes suck ass. Read. Memorise. Avoid. (Insta-fedora-tip: Write Here, Write Now.)

Former Paramount Theatre manager Dan Slevin used to throw together the best – the best, I tell ya – weekly e-newsletters. I may have been in the wrong city at the time (Christchurch, then Dunedin), but the reviews, descriptions and one-liners were a pleasure to read, and welcome heads-ups on what might (eventually) hit the South Island. He’s now the Capital Times film reviewer – and generously reprints his reviews at his blog, Funerals and Snakes.

And for something different, try killer-fact.com where literary quizzes (what novel opened with “Call me Ishmael”?) gleefully rub shoulders with polls like which Spice Girl to eat first when all the food has run out on your desert island. (Fedora-tip: NZBC.)

Update: the killer-fact.com page now says “This account has been suspended – please contact billing…”. Guess you’ll have to take my word for it.

17 March 200727 July 2012

Point and Click

Between searching for bill-paying work, and drafting pitches for writing work, all I’s gots for ya this week is more linkages.

John Rogers has a great post on credits arbitration – it’s interesting in an “as you pass a flaming wreck” kind of way. (See also Josh Friedman‘s experience, Being A Play in Two Parts.) For myself, I swear by the excellent New Zealand Writers Guild model contracts, though none of them mention residuals.

John August has an interesting post on publicity. I admit to being Kiwi-bloke-ish in my self-promotion: essentially a “build it and they will come” approach. (This blog and the attendant dfmamea.com site was a tentative step in the self-promotion direction. It’s provided a fantastic avenue for procrasturbation.)

Whilst clearing up my massive RSS backlog (and inadvertently deleting a mass of ‘Important’-flagged ones), I found a wealth of left-field ideas and approaches to film distribution from Tim Clague‘s Projector Films blog. The ideas are a bit scary and newfangled for a conventional and blissful ignoramus like myself, but they’re exciting and exhilarating, and any day now, I’ll understand it all.

And finally, courtesy of this from TeeVee, there’s the Brilliant but Cancelled site which seems to have some neat feeds on a range of shows that didn’t survive transmission on American t.v. It doesn’t have UnSub, Game, Set and Match or Now and Again, but. Hope springs eternal.

7 March 200727 July 2012

Point and Click

Congratulatoriations to Joe Hitchcock on his recent betrothal. While his digital feature, Down by the Riverside, nears completion, he’s about to dive into an animated short, The North Pole Deception. Joe was kind enough to help us in our final days of BREAK. Go well, Joe.

Danny Stack at Scriptwriting and Script Reading in the UK kindly introduced me to writer and director Tim Clague‘s Scriptwriter’s Life. It’s almost ridiculously simple and self-explanatory… and a challenge I can’t back away from. (Dammit. I thought this writing gig was gonna get easier.)(Today I learnt that a U.S.P. is a “unique selling point”, as per Mr Clague’s post on pitching yourself and your U.S.P.)

On a completely un-sceenwriting-related topic, courtesy of the avuncular gentlemen at NZBC, may I recommend Paper, Scissors, Rock, which has some acerbic observations about gang patches and gaming addiction, and David Farrar, whose blog been keeping me informed and enlightened, though I suspect he may be of a navy-blue political persuasion.

Finally, some homegrown name-dropping: Luke Sharpe‘s peeps at BunkerMedia are responsible for the new-look New Zealand Writers Guild website. Go check ’em out.This just in: Mr Sharpe is empowering Parnell.