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Abroad Thoughts from Home
This is probably the most niche blog post ever, but I wish I’d had access to something like it when the need first arose. It’s the Idiots’ Guide for a British writer joining the staff of a US TV show. How you land the gig is up to you. This is just about the admin.…
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Revisiting Robinson
In a message via the contact page, Nancy wrote: My family and I have really enjoyed watching the Crusoe series but wish we knew how the story would have ended. Do you have any ideas how you would have reunited Robinson and Susannah? Well I do, and I did, although in series TV drama it’s…
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On Method
For anyone fascinated by process, and I know I’m not alone, here’s an example from Derren Brown’s blog in which he records, with staged photographs, the evolution of a painted portrait. It has a relevance to writing that I’ll explain in a moment. For those from outside these shores who may not be familiar with…
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Origin
I’ve been waiting for a hook on which to hang a mention of Danny Stack’s slick, thoughtful and entertaining short-film debut, and it now arises in the form of screenings at Jersey’s Branchage Film Festival on September 26th and at London’s Raindance Festival on October 7th. Danny’s Scriptwriting in the UK blog has been a…
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Crusoe Region 2
This one sneaked by without my hearing about it… the full season is now available on a Region 2 3-disc set, presumably replicating the content of the Region 1 release. Which will mean no DVD extras, which is a pity. NBC had a behind-the-scenes crew covering just about every aspect of the show’s making, and…
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Scripts Online
Over at his Complications Ensue blog, Alex Epstein provides a handy link to a site called Pilot School where downloadable scripts for a host of pilot shows can be found. I don’t know where they’re sourced from, but they include one of my drafts for the British pilot of Eleventh Hour along with Mick Davis’s…
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Screenwriting Sense
Talks on writing can be useful and fun. Usually if they’re fun, they’re useful – at the heart of all entertainment is a sense of play, and the art of the Art is learning to play to a purpose. On the positive side, I attended a MediaXchange event in London in 2002 in which a…
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The UK Writer in US TV
I’ve been urged to share my experience of writing for the American TV system as I’ve experienced it these past few months. Here’s how it went: 1. On the back of the Eleventh Hour remake I get an invite to meet the Bruckheimer gang, aka JBTV, to talk about developing something new, and at the…
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The Writers’ Guild at 50
Here’s a thing I didn’t know: if you’re a member of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and you sell a script in the US, the hefty WGA registration fee is waived. And WGA membership is a requirement over there, not an option. This just received from Tom Green: The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain…
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Right There, Right Now
In her craft blog Write Here, Write Now, Lucy Hay posts on the reluctance of British and American writers to tackle sex scenes in their screenplays. Which reminded me… I once wrote a draft of a script with a sex scene where I constructed it as I would any kind of action – laid out…
Hauling Like A Brooligan
Stephen Gallagher
