Working Title Films Action 2009

Action! 2009, a training programme from Working Title has been launched and applications are now being accepted. This is a great opportunity for anyone trying to break into the film industry! This programme will give the successful candidates first hand knowledge of how an international production company operates and the practicalities of film making.

Working Title Films’ Action! Programme invites outstanding individuals seeking a career in film to apply for 3 one-year positions at our London office. We are looking for hard working and resourceful candidates, able to demonstrate the ambition and drive necessary to make the most of this unique opportunity. Successful applicants will have basic office experience, appropriate to entry level opportunities, and be able to express themselves with excellent verbal and written communication skills.

You must be available to work on a full-time basis, Monday to Friday, from June 2009 for a year, and to attend interviews in London in April and May 2009. Bursaries of £14,000 will be awarded to successful candidates, and if you don’t live in London, additional discretionary funds may be available to help with your relocation costs. Reasonable, pre-approved travel expenses to and from London for the selection process will be reimbursed.

Our aim is to improve your opportunities for a career in film by giving you:

• First hand knowledge of how an international production company operates.
• Hands on experience in finding and developing scripts.
• Exposure to the development and production process from the first idea to the big screen.
• Insight into the practicalities of film-making as well as learning how to nurture creative talent.
• A range of industry contacts and help with future opportunities

How to apply for ACTION!

DO:

Use the questionnaire to tell us about yourself and your passion for film.

Tell us about any office experience you have gained whether relevant to the film industry or not. Include your current job if you have one

Apply Early so that we have time to assess your application.

Let your passion for film show through

DON'T:

Send your application via Royal Mail. This year applications will ONLY be accepted via the internet unless you have special permission from the ACTION! Co-ordinator.

Send showreels, scripts, etc. along with your application. Additional materials received with the application will be destroyed without being viewed or read

Call our office to check if your application has been received. If you have completed the application correctly you will receive a confirmation email .

Send your application at the last minute.

Closing date is Feb 20th 2009

Apply now

Things we noticed watching holiday TV (Spoilers)

Okay so finally, I know breath has been baited, but am all caught up on my Christmas TV watching. There was Affinity, another Andrew Davies adaptation of a Sarah Waters novel, the Gavin & Stacey Christmas Special and of course Doctor Who. I couldn't help feel that the premise, that David Morrissey was in fact a future doctor, was cooler than how the reality turned out. I mean it was good, and I enjoyed it, and Morrissey was fantastic, but the grander, wider mythology seemed to be missing. Maybe it was because The Doctor had no assistant and there was no real follow on from how we saw him last. I'm not sure. I can't quite put my finger on it. But it was still great fun. But the two shows I want to talk about at greater length are The 39 Steps (BBC) and Caught in a Trap (ITV).

I have to say I personally find the decision by the BBC to adapt John Buchan's novel a bit perplexing. This was the fourth version of this story, with another one being planned by the great Robert Towne (although this is apparently on the back burner.) Remakes of Hitchcock films on the whole always seem a bit odd, as you are pretty much setting yourself up for a fall before you even start. Another thing that stood out was the fact that although the phrase period piece is usually the death nail, both this and Affinity fall under that category. So were there no other exciting, original scripts knocking about at BBC HQ that could've seen our license fee money invested more interestingly? But oh well. To the show. It was OK. Exciting at times, a little ludicrous in others. I know everyone does it, but nothing annoys me more than when people are chasing someone and instead of waiting until they have them in their sights, call out to them to stay where they are! In this case, German assassins were pursuing our protagonist, who was waving down their car thinking it was someone else. He had no idea. They could've driven up as close as they wanted and shot him. But no. Instead one of them leans out the window, tells him to stay where he is, and takes a pot shot from fifty yards, giving him a chance to escape. I mean come on people! This was not the only time this sort of thing happened either. It's so infuriating.

The other major problem was the voice over. A lot of scriptwriting books are anti voice over full stop, but I don't agree. Quality use of voice over can be excellent. I read a script recently that was a masterclass in this, with the voice over by a young girl telling us something completely different to what was actually occurring on screen. It made it funny and all the more poignant. However, in The 39 Steps the voice over by Rupert Penry-Jones told us exactly what we could see and knew. Stuff like "I had to get out of London" whilst we're watching him at the train station, er, trying to get out of London, or "I have to find Captain Kell before they find me." Well, yes. That is indeed what you have to do. It reminded me of The Long Firm, a few years ago, a mini series I enjoyed, but one that did exactly the same thing. It betrays a lack of confidence in either the writing, the story, the actors ability to deliver a performance, or all three. The 39 Steps was adapted by Lizzie Mickery, who wrote The State Within a couple of years ago, a thriller so convoluted that it could've done with a voice over! But it wasn't needed here and annoyed rather than informed.

Far better fare came from Caught in a Trap. It was inspired by the true story of a woman who stole hundreds of thousands of pounds from parking meter fees to fund an obsession with Elvis. Written by 26 year old James Graham, this was his first screenplay after winning awards writing for the stage. So first and foremost, plaudits must go to Greenlit and ITV for believing in this script by a relative newcomer and backing it all the way to screen. Read an interview with James here to find out more. What attracted me to this comedy drama was the fact that it featured a protagonist who committed massive theft and fraud, who gets caught, loses everything, goes to jail, but all the time you never lose sympathy with her, actually want her to succeed, and also managed to pull off a feel good ending of sorts. That's extremely smart writing and follows in the footsteps of Can't Buy Me Love (Tony Jordan), The Secretary Who Stole Four Million (Lucy Floyd) and The Storyteller (Jez Freedman. hehe just kidding)

How did he do this? Firstly, Gemma (played by Connie Fisher) was shy, downtrodden, teased by her co-workers and loved her dad whilst having a strained relationship with her step-mom. There was also something suitably weird, yet at the same time familiar, about her obsession and how she chose to spend her ill gotten gains. If she'd blown it all on bling, clothes and the usual material crap, we might have lost sympathy. But the fact that it all went on this weird sub-culture of Elvis memorabilia was quirky, funny and touching. Can I honestly say that if I had two hundred thousand quid to spend, I wouldn't blow the lot on Star Wars or Arsenal memorabilia? Well I probably wouldn't, cos my wife would kill me, but if I was Gemma, and living in a fantasy, I might well.

The tricky thing with Caught in a Trap was always going to be the ending. Gemma had to get caught, and like her real life counterpart, was sent to jail (albeit two years instead of three.) But unlike in real life, where the council was left hugely out of pocket, in this drama, we were told that Gemma's acquisitions were actually appreciating in value and that their eventual sale would in fact turn the council a profit. You were left with the feeling that oh well, lessons were learnt, she was naughty, but all's well that ends well. And it's clever writing and a smart example of where changing the facts will benefit fiction. By the end, Gemma had also connected to another (living) human being in the shape of Joe Absolom, and the final scene, of him visiting her in jail, gave the impression that he would be there when she got out.

I think this post has gone on long enough so I will finish there. But I was really pleased that like Fiona's Story, written by newcomer Kate Gabriel in September, James Graham developed this script and was given the chance to helm the project all the way to transmission.

‘Should entertainment not drama be ITV’s priority?’

As I'm still catching up on my festive TV (told you I rarely watch things live) I thought I'd address the question above. This was apparently posed in the 'fun column' in Broadcast during December. Now, as it's called the fun column, I'm assuming that it is indeed just a bit of fun. And thankfully the result was Yes - 30% and No - 70%. But when I read about it in Twelvepoint.com I thought this was the dumbest thing I'd heard all year.

Surely the answer has to be no, no, no. Just because ITV hasn't quite managed to get a great returning series off and running, doesn't mean it should stop trying! Please don't just leave us with I'm an idiot get me out of here, X-factor, Dancing on something or other, et al.

There have been some successes, most notably Lost in Austen, and others such as Midnight Man, The Fixer and Primeval. As well as foreign imports like Entourage, Dexter and Pushing Daisies.

And is cool stuff coming up in the next few months - just check out their website. It's also a good way of course to see who's making what.

So whilst I will get to my festive TV review this week (hopefully Wednesday!) I'm already looking forward to watching Demons, The Diary of Anne Frank, Waterloo Road, Hustle, Life of Riley, 24.

And that's just in the next week or so! Who says these are dark times for TV drama?

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all the onthebloggers. Hope hangovers are receding already and no one did anything too stupid last night!!

Things are a little more sedate in this household, (we are quite the party people) where the custom for the last three years has been to see the new year in by eating lots of tasty junk food and watching The Most Annoying People of the Year on BBC3 (Got to be the funniest show of the year too, with the possible exception of Outnumbered!) Before switching over in time to see the midnight countdown and lots and lots and lots of fireworks.

Elton did a fabulous job of putting on a show last night but I couldn't help but feel that it was past his bedtime.

To mark the new year, I have decided to spend the day with a Lord of the Rings marathon. I bid you good day... and a great year.

Freedom of Expression

I think I'll wait until after the holiday season to look at what was on TV - so in the meantime there's something else I want to talk about - Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Speech, and how it specifically relates to screenwriting.

Often cited as one of the key tenants of any democracy, it's also a massive responsibility and continually used to defend offensive material. The most obvious minefields surround race (although fortunately not nearly as frequently nowadays) and religion. Thankfully, during my script reading career I have never encountered anything I have found offensive, and I'm not sure how I would react if I did. That's not to say that I have not read stuff whose message or theology I have not agreed with. It will come as no surprise that as an Orthodox Jew, I don't subscribe to Christian beliefs, particularly about Jesus. But that doesn't mean that I can't enjoy the mythology of movies such as The Matrix and Narnia, even though its allegories are pretty clear. So too when I give feedback on a script - for me the important questions are is the story telling working, how is the structure, the characters, the themes etc. It's important to remain objective. But it's difficult too, as movies are often open to interpretation. What is inoffensive to one person is not to another. I think Kevin Smith's Dogma and Monty Python's The Life of Brian are hilarious, but the latter was originally banned and the former received a lot of unfair criticism (especially for a movie that if you watch it, is certainly not anti-religion, it just has a rather unique take on it!) But what about Mel Gibson's The Passion... I have not seen it myself so cannot comment directly. But it caused huge offense within the Jewish Community, despite claims that it had no intention to do so. (Gibson's subsequent anti Semitic drunken rant did not exactly help these protestations.)

Maybe that's an obvious example. Let's take The Golden Compass instead. I haven't seen the movie yet (it's on my to do list) but I've read Philip Pullman's novels, His Dark Materials. Pullman is a renowned atheist and his novels certainly have an anti religious theme. But they work as intended and are often seen as a rebuttal to C.S Lewis and his resurrecting lion - which is fair enough I suppose! Then there's Jerry Springer - The Opera, which many Christians thought blasphemous due to its depictions of Jesus, but which the BBC nevertheless decided to broadcast. What about Theo Van Gogh, murdered for making a film about violence against women in Islamic societies or the Danish cartoon depictions of Mohammed that caused riots all over the Muslim world? As I say, it's a minefield.

How does this relate to non creative activities? When, for example, convicted Holocaust denier David Irving is invited to speak at Cambridge, or Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gives a speech at Columbia University, the defence is often that the opinions of these people are given a platform so they can be shown up for their disgusting content in intellectual debate. I've always thought this pretty stupid to be honest. The platform gives legitimacy to their opinions regardless. You wouldn't waste time to debate whether the sky is in actual fact green and the grass is blue. There would be no value in that because there is no legitimacy in the claims. But that aside, how does that argument extend to a one way broadcast in Channel Four's alternative Christmas message? There was no avenue to question, challenge or debate. Instead we were treated to a carefully orchestrated peace to all mankind message from probably the biggest threat to world stability apart from Osama Bin Laden. It seemed like nothing else than an appalling attempt by Channel 4 to shock (had they run out of funny celebrities for their message?) but only they know what their true intention was.

And here lies the crux. Like a bad tackle in a football match, only the perpetrator knows deep down whether their intention was to go for the ball or injure his opponent. Creative writers are no different. Only we know what our intent is when screenwriting. Are we out to question, debate, shock or offend? How do we approach screenworks that may do all four? Honestly, I have no idea. Banning everything that may be controversial is hardly the answer, but neither should we be naive enough to think that everything under the sun should be allowed. I hate it when the most extremist, disgusting and offensive views that have no intrinsic value, are given weight and a platform, whilst everyone hides behind the banner of free speech. Freedom of Expression and Free Speech are a right, but they are also a privilege. And if they are abused, the offenders should not be appeased.

I'm not suggesting that any readers of this blog are guilty of anything! But as a general point, we must be aware that we choose the subject matter and the themes and the character and every single thing that goes into making our screenplays. I certainly do not think we should all stay away from controversial subjects. That would be like driving with the handbrake on. But we have a responsibility in creating the stories we tell and it's not one that should be treated lightly.

That's entertainment

It's inevitable at this time of year, people take stock about what they have done and achieved over the past twelve months. I've done a bit of that but I'm not going to bore you guys with it! So too we look forward and think about what we want to do in the next twelve. But I'm not gonna bore you with that either, save to say that I want to secure an agent, make a short film or two and continue to write the scripts I want to write. And it's that last bit that I want to focus on, not for me personally, but what do we writers as a whole want to write in the coming year?

This will apply mostly to speculative film scripts, which as we all know stand a very small chance of getting picked up, let alone actually made. But leaving that aside for now, the slush pile is still out there, it grows stronger by the day and it's not going anywhere any time soon! I've listened to and read about many excellent people explaining the problems of the British film industry - and I dare say they all know a great deal more than I do and talk a lot of sense. Why certain films get made over others, why most fail at the box office and why our industry appears to continually live on the brink of collapse? But ultimately, although many grit their teeth when admitting it, all films start with one thing... the script. Films get made based on the scripts screenwriters write (loosely in some circumstances! And not forgetting commissions which don't start as the writer's idea - but even those have to still be written).

So to some degree at the very least, the films that are made are dependent on the scripts we write. And to some extent at the very least, we can choose what they will be. Let's think back now to what John Woodward and Chris Collins from the Film Council said back in September.

Films should be entertaining. You need to remember that. There’s a bit of a British thing that sees a lot of history scripts and biopics. That’s fine. We welcome them. There’s nothing better than telling a story about something familiar with a new take on it... But there is also a need for contemporary stories that are about something... It’s worth noting that it’s easier to
finance genre movies than straight drama. But the statistics and submissions seem much more weighted towards drama. This is dangerous if you want to create a commercial, profitable industry.

I read a lot of scripts, from companies and individuals, so can form my own idea of how this slush pile is looking. And I think we as writers can still do more to create more entertaining and commercially viable scripts. Commercial seems to be a dirty word here that of course it's not in Hollywood. But funnily enough, no one seems to mind when Hollywood creates a fantastic blockbuster, a comedy or action movie or whatever, that everyone enjoys, critics included. The 'commercial' slur is only brought out when a crap film is made and seems like a complete sell out with no value, commercial or otherwise, at all. This is not what I am talking about. For our purposes, let's assume that we are talking about good scripts, because that's what we all set out to write. But for some reason, in the UK, we often choose to invest our creative energies in gritty, social realism dramas, mostly about abuse of some kind, that tend to end tragically. I can't for the life of me think why. Maybe it's seen as a more noble form of writing. Maybe it's a cultural thing, our writing heritage often linked to the stage, whereas America's is from the screen. Maybe it's because when award season comes along, the films recognised are much more likely to be dramatic 'message' movies.

I want to be clear that there is nothing 'wrong' with these movies. There is tremendous value in these films and their excellence deserves to be recognised too. But I believe that there is an equal value in films whose only goal is to entertain. What's so wrong with that? Entertaining people, making them laugh, or just making them happy, is a noble pursuit in itself. Think of the films you reach for when you've had a crap day, or you're depressed or just in a bad mood. When I was in hospital a few years ago two of my best friends turned up with a Playstation 2 and a copy of Love Actually. During the many weeks of recovery I would watch Shakespeare In Love, or South Park Movie, or The Office, or pretty much anything that made me laugh. As much as I admire Traffic or The Insider etc, I certainly didn't feel like watching that type of movie.

Without a shadow of a doubt, there is room for both types. But if you have a couple of ideas, one an entertaining genre film and the other a gritty drama, don't think the 'right' thing to do would be to write the message movie. I don't even think it will necessarily show off your writing to any greater degree. (Comedy is often thought to be the hardest thing to do, but make someone laugh their arse off whilst reading your comedy feature and you've got a good chance of getting a meeting.) Although to be honest if you are writing a television feature it may be worth ignoring this entire post. I find it interesting that the precious TV one off slots are pretty much exclusively reserved for 'issue led' dramas. This is both a shame and shameful. Whatever happened to just good story telling with excellent characters? There is merit in that too - a screenplay can just be about that (I say 'just' as if that's not hard enough to write!).

It's just a thought, mine and no-one else's. At the end of the day everyone has to write what they want to and are passionate about. But I think it's worth bearing in mind when starting a fresh project in 2009. Turn on the news and it's all doom and gloom. Read a newspaper and it's global economic implosion. Should the entertainment industry not do what it says on the tin? Should our creative output add to this worldwide feeling or should we take the opportunity to make people happy and laugh? Is there any more worthwhile creative goal than that?

Holiday Greetings

I would like to wish all my Jewish readers a (belated) happy chanuka, all my Christian readers a merry christmas, and all my agnostic or atheist or other readers a happy extra days off work - wohoo!