Bad Neighbours

Three things to say about this.

One, the title change, from Neighbors (US) to Bad Neighbours (UK).  I approve of the spelling correction, and presumably the addition of ‘Bad’ was intended both to raunch it up and to distinguish it from everyone’s favourite antipodean soap?

Two, I haven’t seen it, but the pitch is so delicious – frat house moves in next to young parents bemoaning their lost youth – that it would seem hard to foul it up.

Three, I love this story (h/t Charles Gant at the brilliant Guardian UK box office blog):

“The success of Bad Neighbours may prompt reflection at its backers, going by comments made by Seth Rogen to Variety at the SXSW festival. After Universal bought the pitch in 2011 and Nick Stoller signed on to direct, the film's progress through the executive ranks was slower than anticipated. "It seemed like we were going to enter development hell," said Rogen. "We went into a phone call that we thought was going to be our green light, and we got a bunch of notes. We went back to the studio and said, 'What is the amount of money we can make this for where we stop having these conversations?'" The budget was then chopped in half to $18m. If a film succeeds wildly beyond expectations as a result of studio executives being sidelined in the creative process, it's certainly one for them to ponder.”

 

Tom Williams

+44 7712 010 591

www.tajwilliams.com

 

Update 4 - Quality not Quantity

Final topic.  Again, not a topic.  More a manifesto for 2014.  A bit like this manifesto, which I happened upon a couple of days ago and enjoyed.  But a personal one.

This year, I will follow the quality of a project and the people involved in it.  I will reject projects and people I find lacking in quality.

I said earlier, it has been four years since Chalet Girl was filmed, three since it came out.  That project, and those people, remain my professional high point.  I am still working with the director and both the producers on various projects, and our creative sympathies and synergies remain as strong as ever.

So why have I not been able to replicate that model across other creative teams?  I have worked on half a dozen major projects since Chalet Girl came out but none of them has yet fused together creatively in the way Chalet Girl did.  In some cases, I followed a pay cheque.  In other cases I thought I was entering into one kind of relationship, but it turned into another (like this old lady).  Others, to be fair, are still in play, but nothing is approaching production at what you might call warp speed.

Case for the defence.  There is nothing wrong with taking what work comes along.  Nothing wrong with being a jobbing writer.  No shame at all in earning a living at this game, even if you’re not running at maximum creative capacity, or the road is a little bumpy, or, potentially, heading nowhere.

But still, time is dragging on and my ambition remains undimmed.

So how to get there?  I now believe it is by eschewing the so-so projects, by thinking hard before taking a job just for the money, and by running a million miles from people who talk shit.  Life is way too short for any of that.  Instead, I will actively pursue those people and projects I want in my creative life.

Cases in point:

Through the Writing Assignment Tracker project I worked closely with a producer whom I have come to admire greatly, and whose script sense I value highly.  I look forward to working with her on another project.  This is high on my pile.  Why take a dozen general meetings with people you don’t know, in the hopes of finding a creative bullseye, when you have people out there with whom you know you work well?  They are precious commodities, make sure you are mining them judiciously yet vigorously!

Recently, I have worked with an experienced director on a rewrite.  I think we got each other, I think he liked my work and I think his coat-tails have space for me on them.  I have him in my sights for more projects, once this one runs its course (hopefully all the way into production).

There is a script editor who loved Kajaki, and who has got me countless meetings with producers off the back of that.  I need to stick with him, cheek by jowl.  And possibly buy him a bottle of wine.

Through my recent Adventures in TV I have developed a good relationship with the head of development at a well-established TV indie.  I feel I can now pitch her TV ideas as they come through.  One of them may hit.

And I am compiling a list that I will shortly send to my agent of producers and directors, and in some cases writers, whom I want to meet and work with.  They will all be set a grade or two above where I’m at.  The challenge will be to convince them that I can be more useful to them than they can be to me.  Richard Curtis doesn’t know it yet, but he does in fact need me in his life.

And in the past, if I have seen an announcement in Screen that so-and-so has optioned a book or true story that I like, or that the BBC is launching a series of remakes of classic novels (like they did recently), I have emailed them, or my agent, with a polite ‘do you think I could possibly get on the list?’ query.  Now I’ll go after those jobs harder, and if necessary less politely.  I should be doing this stuff.

All of this might involve doing some more work on spec, so I will need to balance this with income from other sources.  Might be back to the two weeks / months on, two weeks / months off model. 

But I trust that this is the way ahead.  I want twenty-year relationships with these people.  I want to go all the way with them.  Quantity shortens the odds, but not by much.  Quality is the only sure fire way to emerge from the pack.

Topic ends.

Update 3 - It's easy when it's good

Next topic.  Barely even a topic in fact, more a statement.  It’s easier to write when you know what you’re writing is good.

World’s most obvious sentence?  Possibly, but it feels pertinent.  Over the last few years I’ve worked on a couple of projects that have been quite hard work.  Round peg, square hole kind of jobs.  Books that don’t naturally lend themselves to film adaptation – at least, not without wholesale reinterpretation.  Rewrites with conflicting notes flying in from all directions.  One-line pitches that don’t quite extend to a hundred pages.

You do the work, you go through the process, you put something together that looks and feels like a screenplay, and in some cases that’s enough, people appreciate the endeavour and follow the journey.  But in other cases, however hard you try to hide them, the difficulties you had in the writing are communicated in the read.

I’d even put Chalet Girl in this group.  It was a fun idea and there was a clear and strong central journey for our protagonist.  But it always felt we were straining a touch to inject drama, or indeed comedy, into the material, rather than the material naturally offering it up to us.  I’m very proud of the film, and it delivers, and the director and producers and actors all did an amazing job and made my writing look and sound as good as it was ever going to look and sound, but in hindsight I do think some of that tough-slog process comes over in the finished product.

Compare this with some other projects I’ve worked on in the past few years.  Like Kajaki, or like this rewrite I’ve just done, or like the ten page treatment I wrote for Base, or like some of the delicious new proposal pdfs I’ve been sending out over the past few months.

When you know – you just know – that what you’re writing is good.  It fits, it flows, it feels right.

Kajaki was the accumulation of a couple of years of research, of talking with the guys who were there.  My job was to tell their incredible story, get out of the way, try not to fuck it up.

This rewrite, a fresh reimagining of a classic novel for a modern audience, just hit a wave – a combination of tone of voice, lean structure, a couple of stylistic tricks – and I rode it all the way to page 106.

I literally punched the air after I finished writing the Base treatment (with a co-writer).  It felt literally perfect, in form and tone and character, down to a killer ending that twisted it all upside down but in a way that made sense to the world and protagonist we had created.

Even this three-page proposal I sent out two days ago.  I’m just so excited about it.  I can’t stop re-reading it, just to check that it’s as good as I think it is.

I bet Richard Curtis thought the same when he finished Notting Hill.  Or Andrew Niccol when he finished The Truman Show.  Or Wilder and Diamond when they finished The Apartment.  Those scripts just fit, they flowed, they felt right.

Wow.  MASSIVE arrogance, hubris, presumption in the above statements.  Of course I don’t count myself as being in the same class as any of these writers.  And there is every chance that none of the final films of the scripts / treatment I mentioned will be any good. 

But I feel – I know – that I did a good job on my end of things.  And it has taken me thirteen or more years of professional writing to be able to say that, and to be able to tell the difference.

And the lesson in all this is it’s probably better to wait for the right idea to come along – or, to put it another way, to spend more time looking for, sniffing out, digging up the right idea – than it is to jump into a half-cooked idea, one that doesn’t easily fit / flow / feel, and crossing your fingers and hoping for the best. 

Inevitably, sometimes you might only realise that you’re on the right / wrong track half way through the process.  I guess the trick there is to refine your evaluation skills so that this point comes earlier and earlier as your career goes on, so you waste less and less time.

Topic ends.

Update 2 - When to begin?

Right, quick ‘topic’ posts.  First, when should you actually commit to starting work on a project?  Case study.  At the moment I’m ‘in conversations’ with a producer I rate on a project I love.  It all looks great but there is no deal on the table just yet.  I have had some time this week to give to it, so I have started the research journey – reading books, reading scripts, watching movies, making character notes, scene beats etc.  It will give me a head start when the deal is done.

But is this smart?  Or is it naïve, presumptuous, and potentially a massive waste of time?  What if the deal doesn’t get agreed?  Or if the producer ‘goes quiet’ or ‘gets swamped on another project’, as some producers (not this one, to my knowledge) are known to do.  Then have I just wasted a week on a job that is never going to materialise?

A question for any writer reading this blog – please post in comments.  Do you always wait until you have signed a contract before you start working – not writing, working – on a project?  Or do you maybe wait until you / your agent have agreed terms?  Or are you happy to get going on a handshake and a verbal agreement, even with no figures on the table?  I usually find myself in the latter camp.  Perhaps I’m a mug, or still at the ‘pleeeeease give me work’ end of the spectrum, but it seems to be the way it goes.

Chalet Girl went into pre-production before it was fully financed.  It was shooting before finance actually closed.  They had to jump the gun if anything was going to happen.  The same situation appears to be looming for Kajaki.  Raise the money to shoot it, shoot it, then raise the money for post and distribution off the back of the rushes.  It’s not text-book, it might even be called dangerous.  But if it’s the only way of keeping on the front foot, then it may be the only play you have left.

It all ties in with this maddening aspect of a writer’s / producer’s / self-employed person’s life: managing your month.  Right now, I’m available.  I have May free to jump into this new project, I could have it done by the end of the month.  But if I wait two weeks while ‘conversations’ are had, then something else might have come up in the meantime.  An old project resurfacing, maybe one on which I still have contracted passes left to do, so I can’t fob off.  Or a corporate gig that will give me breathing space for another few months.  What then?

And what have I done in the meantime?  I have my overheads, my burn rate, my monthly nut.  Suddenly I’m having to revise my cash-flow projections, dig into my rainy day pot.  That can’t go on forever.

And what am I working on in the meantime?  I make sure I always have a couple of long-term ideas / research projects that I can pick up and put down if a week suddenly opens up in front of me.  And I’m careful not to show my palm to too many short-term revenue generating gigs, like corporate work or teaching or journalism.  The money is always welcome, and you can usually find a way of squeezing them in, but if you say no too many times they will stop asking.

So it’s a tricky one.  When do you begin a project?  And what do you do while you’re waiting to begin?

Topic ends.

Update 1 - the update

First post since December.  Apologies.  My ‘writing assignment tracker’ is on pause while the script I wrote is shopped around.  There is a deal with the lawyers at the moment, which is exciting, but I can’t say any more about it because I don’t know any more about it.

In order to get my blog count up I’m going to split this morning’s offering into four posts – the first, this, a brief update on what I’ve been up to, then three ‘topic’ posts on stuff that’s going round in my head at the moment.

So, since December I’ve:

-          Worked on that quick and dirty rewrite I mentioned here.  I delivered the revised draft just before Christmas and it was good enough to get a green light for three days of location filming with some principal cast.  So I got paid my writing fee and even a principal photography bonus.  All great.  Except then that they pretty much junked my entire draft and went back to the calamitous previous version.  It’s a long and very weird story but the lesson is don’t work on vanity projects, unless you’re only doing it for cash.  More on that in my ‘Quality vs Quantity’ post coming later on today.  (No hyper-link because it doesn’t exist yet.)

-          With some change banked, I could spend a blissful January back in the R&D lab, working up some new TV and feature ideas.  God that was fun.  Buying a lot of second hand books on Amazon, immersing myself in a couple of new worlds, looking for stories and characters and themes, and then squidging them all together into some new and gleaming proposal documents.  I do love a freshly minted pdf.

-          The TV series idea – 6x42 min 9pm ITV comedy-drama – took up most of February.  I partnered up with a ‘subject matter expert’, who also happened to be a great writer in his own right, and we followed the “Pitching A TV Idea For Beginners” play book.  Step 1, work up idea.  Step 2, work it up some more.  Step 3, send to agent, work it up some more.  Step 4, agent sends it out to a number of independent TV production companies.  At this stage, Step 4a usually kicks in – nobody likes it, do not pass go, do not collect £200.  In this case, extraordinarily, somebody did like it, so we moved onto Step 5, work on it a bit more with production company.  (Usual discussions of ‘do we need to take an option on this or are you happy for us to shop it informally…?’  Usual outcome.)  Step 6, production company pitches it to ITV.  Step 7, rework it some more on the back of ITV’s not-unfavourable comments.  Step 8, submit it to ITV drama department.  Step 9, put the kettle on.  That’s where we’re at now and I shall keep you posted.  The odds never get any better, but if the worst that comes from this is I’ve gone through the process, and learned a lot, and made a good contact at a good production company, then it’s disappointing but not totally wasted time.

-          March was back to earning a bit of money (my R&D fund had been largely maxed out by then), did another corporate job which was interesting as ever but also got in the way of two exciting low-budget feature / tv movie ideas that I was desperate to get back to.  Finally got back to one of them, and that’s now with the BFI.

-          A script I wrote in about five days got sent out in LA and New York through a manager who is informally repping me there.  Predictably, no bites.  Lesson is you should probably work on scripts for longer than five days, even if your manager is desperate to get something out there.

-          The vanity project resurfaced.  They want you to do some work to the old script, Tom.  But I’ve already done that.  Oh, yeah.  We’ll get back to you.

-          April was an exciting month.  A project came to me with a great director attached, a hot actor interested, and various distributors, financiers etc circling.  The script was based on existing material, and was good but not landing the knockout punch.  Can you have a look at it Tom?  We can pay x (insert low figure here) upfront but xx (insert slightly higher figure here) when it goes into production.  I read it and gave some notes which they liked.  I took the job not so much for the money (either now or, less likely, later) but for the chance to work with a director whose work I’ve enjoyed in the past.  And it came together really well, and everybody likes it.  So we’ll see.  More on this in both ‘Quality vs Quantity’ and ‘It’s easy when it’s right’.

-          And since sending that in I’ve managed to finish the second feature-length proposal and send it out – another deliciously beguiling monochrome pdf.

-          And KAJAKI has been moving ever-closer to a start date.  The fund-raising thermometer is getting hotter by the week, we have some great casting agents attached now and we’re sprinting towards a shoot in Jordan in the summer.  Will keep you posted.

-          And I’ve also managed to fall out spectacularly with a writing partner with whom I’ve worked on the same single project for over fifteen years now.  No blame on either side, just two ships sailing in very different directions.  As a writer you can’t control much – not the business end, the money, even the response to your work.  All you can affect is the process and your own quality control.  In this case, both of those were being compromised too, so that wasn’t great.  A tough nettle to grasp in the end, but the air has cleared now.

My ‘brief updates’ are never that brief, are they?  And looking back, I’ve squeezed a lot into the first four months of the year – hence the lack of blogging I suppose.

I’ve got to tell you I’m pumped.  My son just turned four, which tells me it was four years ago that Chalet Girl was shooting.  Since then I’ve had one low-budget feature shot, and some fun and challenging script commissions, and the whole Kajaki ride.  But I don’t want that ‘production year’ gap on imdb to grow any bigger.  I need another movie made, or a TV show announced, and I’ve got to push and push and push until that happens.  2014?  Oh yeah, come on you beauty.

Interview with moi-meme

http://askthewriter.co.uk/post/68770263690/atw-meets-tom-williams

Writing Assignment Tracker X and other furry animals

I left off the last thrilling instalment of the Tracker with the question of whether, now that I had finished the full second draft (with a good amount of back and forth in between) the script would be deemed to be in sufficient shape to send out to a director, or to cast.

The answer to that was, for the last month at least, not… quite…  Another few tweaks and nips and tucks, in particular a couple of key scenes picked over again and again to make sure we are all absolutely happy with them.  Because however annoying and late in the day all this work is, it is worth it.  You never get a second chance to make a first etc etc.  And nowhere is that more true than in the creative industries.  If you’re going to travel 99 miles, why not go one more to make it The Best You Can Possibly Do?  This really is the only lesson ever worth knowing as a writer.

So now I can say, with a degree of confidence and an equal measure of exhaustion, that, right now, it probably is.  Any more work might start to take it backwards.  And it is certainly time to get fresh eyes on it.  It has been over a year since this core group of one writer and three production companies set off on our merrie way.  Now it is time to add more travellers to our fellowship, to ferrie us onto the next stage.

So is it going to directors and cast?  No!  More excitingly, in fact, it’s going to a real live film studio, in Los Angeles of America. 

This relatively happy ending (they’re all relative), and the fact that we’ve reached instalment X, seem to make this a fitting time to bring to an end the official portion of my Writing Assignment Tracker.  It’s been emotional, I’d like to thank my dog etc. 

I’m not going to do a comprehensive round-up of Wot I’ve Learned other than to say that contracts can never accurately predict how the writing process will play out, so as long as you are aware of that when you’re discussing them, and don’t try to stick to the letter of the legally negotiated agreement afterwards, you will probably have a happier and more professionally harmonious experience.  Don’t be afraid to go the extra yard, even if you’re sick to death of rewriting that scene.  If it ain’t workin’, it ain’t workin’.  And probably MOST importantly, do whatever you can before the project begins to ensure that you and the rest of the team are at least roughly on the same creative page.  If you’re heading in the same direction, there will be strength in numbers, and that will make you look good.  If you’re pulling against each other, someone is going to get ripped apart, most likely you.

I shall keep you informed of any relevant progress.  I’ve put the ‘final’ chart at the bottom of this post.  The two remaining steps are, I believe, to accommodate studio / financier notes, and then director notes.  After that, who knows?  They’ll probably get Princess Leia in to do a rewrite and pay her fifty times what they paid me.  I shall blog about that if it happens, believe me.

In other news, I’ve sneaked in another rewrite job in and around this big commission.  It’s been a crazy ride and I’ll tell you about it one day, but it was another case of ‘just write the first draft so we can see what we’re working with here’ (as with most rewrites, this was one of those ‘Page One’ ones).  I bashed out twenty pages a day for a week, submitted a first pass at 113 pages, and have spent the two weeks since whittling it down to 94 pages.  I could have sworn on my dear dog’s life that there weren’t twenty pages (of genius, naturally) to be cut out of the first pass.  But there certainly were, and it’s all the better for it.  First drafts are the shoot.  Lots of energy, noise, fun, creativity, and you never quite know whether it’s brilliant or dreck.  Second to eleventh drafts are spent in the editing room.  That’s where the work happens.

(Side point.  This job is another case where I have done about a month’s worth of work, and delivered it, and still have to take it on trust that I’m going to be paid some time.  This crazy business!)

What more?  Lots more.  Between now and Christmas, I’m working on three or four new projects that are all in the concept / treatment / early first draft stage.  A couple of TV series ideas (WHEN is someone going to pay me to write a TV series, I ask you?).  A kids’ TV idea, inspired by my occasional moments of self-harm whilst watching Peppa or Wibbly-Wobblies or whatever with my kids.  I think I’m onto a corker but need to play it slow.  And I’m also working on a couple of feature ideas, one old (revisited) and one new.  I’m spending lots of time working out and writing up the treatments, which will then get taken to the BFI / BBC / Film 4, which will then get turned down and get put back in the Drawer Where Ideas Go To Die.  But it’ll be fun while it lasts.

I’m finally joining the WGA and, for what it’s worth, wish I had previously joined the WGGB as that might have saved me $2,500 in the long run.  So look into it.  This will be my first experience of organised labour (labor) so will let you know if that transforms my working life in one way or another.  See you on the picket line, comrades!

I’ve also had some very gratifying emails from readers of the blog over the past month.  Thank you for those, nice to know it’s not just my mum etc.  And on a related note, CHALET GIRL is getting a lot of air time on Film Four at the moment, with corresponding twitter activity.  I have actually written some people’s favourite ever film.  I am a golden God.  Happy Christmas.

Here’s that updated chart:

Step	Name	Duration Sched / Actual	Delivery Date Sched / Actual	+/- Schedule
1.	First Draft Treatment	1 month	15/11/12
	Initial Step Outline	2 weeks	26/10/12
	Initial Step Outline client comments	4 days	30/10/12
	First Draft Treatment	2 weeks	16/11/12	-1 Day
2.	First Draft Treatment client comments	3 weeks	06/12/12
	Client comments	2.5 weeks	03/12/12	+3 Days
3.	Second Draft Treatment	10 days	16/12/12
	Writer response (not treatment)	2.5 weeks	20/12/12	-4 Days
	Client comments	3 weeks	06/01/13
	Second Draft Treatment	10 days	17/01/13	-1 Month
4.	Second Draft Treatment client comments	4 weeks	13/01/13
	Client comments		21/01/13	-1 Week
5.	First Draft Script	12 weeks	07/04/13
		9 weeks	22/03/13	+2 Weeks
6.	First Draft Script client comments	8 weeks	02/06/13
		3 weeks	11/04/13	+7 Weeks
7.	Revised First Draft Script	4 weeks	30/06/13
		5 weeks	16/05/13	+6 Weeks
8.	Revised First Draft Script client comments	2 weeks	14/07/13
		5 weeks	16/06/13	+4 Weeks
9.	Second Draft Script	4 weeks	11/08/13
	Second Draft first act		26/07/13
	Second Draft first two acts		30/08/13
	Second Draft complete	16 weeks	4/10/13	-7 Weeks
	Second Draft revised	6 weeks	27/11/13	- a lot now…
11.	Second Draft Script First Set	6 weeks	22/09/13	TBC
12.	Second Draft Script Second Set	6 weeks	03/11/13	TBC