On Heroes

I recently attended the last in this year's SPARKS workshops up in Yorkshire.  It's been six months of intensive work with 3 bunches of writers.  My lot were developing TV series, and a damned good job they did too. And the other groups were working on feature projects, creating a wonderfully diverse range of projects.

I did a brief talk on one of my favourite shows, Heroes. Not everyone loves this show (Jeff Somers is agin it, and he's someone whose opinions I very much respect) but I find it exhilarating and fresh and, damn it all, wonderful.  But, as is always the way, when you have to teach a movie or a TV series,  you look at it with fresh eyes.

And what I discovered about Heroes, on a second viewing with notepad in hand, is how much of it is not great; and how little that matters. 

The stuff that's not great is, really, all the voiceover narration by the Mohinder character. On first hearing, it seems fine; but when you listen again, and focus in on the content - well, it's so much tripe really. It's all platitudes and generalisations, and doesn't advance the story. (And of course, almost all the of the 'science' that Mohinder spouts in his actual dialogue scenes is, um, pretty dodgy.)

And yet, this doesn't matter.  It doesn't matter because Mohinder's voiceover is there for a complex and subtle reason, and not because the narration is needed to move the story.  It was added, in fact, in post-production, always a sign of a panic last measure; and what it does is add style. 

There's a scene in Ep 3, which I screened, in which the Nikki character is burying some bodies in the desert.  (If you want to know why, you need to watch it.) It's classic thriller stuff, well shot admittedly, but very much the kind of scene you might get in any crime show.  So it could easily look, well, B movieish, or cheap tellyish.

But when the scene is played out with actor Sendhil Ramamurthy's beautifully spoken voiceover on top of it, it becomes special, and evocative, and stylised.  It's more than a woman burying bodies; it's a scene of sublimity and pathos.

This is one of the great tricks of the show; everything is stylised,  enhanced, 'more so.'  The colours are richer than life, with yellows and oranges and browns and fabulous set designs, and Indian streets stalls selling brightly coloured fruit, and shockingly bold shirts, and vividly rich lighting.  And the angles are cleverly chosen, bold and striking and disorienting, the shots develop swiftly and in a complex way, and every single shot has a three dimensional quality (something in the foreground, something in the background, something in the mid-ground, so the eye is constantly tantalised and entertained.) 

And the voiceover adds a whole level of stylisation on to this; it makes us aware that what we are watching is meant to be thought provoking and idea provoking and assumption provoking.  The voiceover teaches us how to 'read' what we are watching, in other words.

But Mohinder's prose, as I say, is painted on with a very broad brush; I have a feeling, really, that it was written in a hurry.  But I'm not carping, just observing; and the narration is spoken so beautifully that it's a pleasure to hear it, even if I often don't bother listening to it.

And I came away once more confirmed in my belief that American TV series are better than their British counterparts because they really really care about style, as much as they care about content.  Every great American show has its own visual aesthetic, its own style rules - from the jerky camera movements of NYPD Blue to the staccato explorations of urban New Jersey in The Sopranos, to the lush malice implicit in the cinematography of Desperate Housewives. Whereas British shows tend to be shot in one of two ways; cinematically (if it's high budget telly) and cheaply (if it's factory telly.)  But there's no real attempt to do what movie directors to - to create a unique visual look.  (Compare Spielberg's Minority Report, with Spielberg's ET, and compare them both to Spielberg's Schindler's List - they represent three totally different directorial 'looks'.)

After my brief talk to the SPARKS group,  we did a question and answer session, and it quickly emerged that Heroes  is a show which has really captured the imagination of almost all the writers present.  It's Marvel comics merged with prime-time US TV storytelling skills (Stan Lee even has a cameo as a coach driver.)  And it is, I would argue, one of the most visually beautiful TV shows ever made.

Later in the course of this residential weekend, we had a screening of the classic British film The Life and Times of Colonel Blimp, one of Powell and Pressburger's most outrageous, and funny, and satirical, and thought-provoking films. It features a very different type of hero - a moustachio'd Colonel Blimp who appears in the first scene as a figure of fun, and emerges after the film has told his story, as a man of romance, passion, and integrity, and heroism.  It's a homage to an old fashioned kind of British hero.

There are plans for another SPARKS workshop next year; I hope very much to be involved in it. 

On Hebden Bridge

I spent last weekend in Hebden Bridge, a startlingly beautiful town in Yorkshire with mill chimneys and clock towers and horribly, horribly steep hills.  I was teaching on a workshop run by Screen Yorkshire for new and established screenwriters. 

Jeremy Dyson of the League of Gentlemen was there too, giving a talk on how to write...he's an engagingly and delightfully grounded guy.  He spoke about he and his pals took a show to Edinburgh, worked their socks off to make it good - and the rest was history.  Success swooped and swept them away, and the success of the League has been remarkable.

But Jeremy has kept a clear understanding on what it's like to be on the other side of the wall, and judged his audience extremely well.   A number of the would-be writers on the workshop had completed an MA in Screenwriting at Leeds Metropolitan University, in the hope it would lead to fame and fortune.  And Jeremy was one of the first people to do that same course; and here is now, writing comedies for men dressed as big breasted women in Royston Vasey.   

Jeremy spoke brilliantly and very honestly about what it is like to be a writer.  It is basically very hard because you get out of bed, sit in front of the computer...then nothing happens.  And when nothing happens, for hour after hour, day after day, it does become profoundly embarrassing.  It is, I would surmise, a bit like being a gigolo who doesn't much like sex.  It is horrible, and awful, and also petty, and humiliating.  There is the blank page. There is the writer staring at it.  It's not a bit like Clint Eastwood glaring at Lee Van Cleef.  It is just basically....banal.

All writers know this.   Clever writers use words like Writers Block to add dignity to the embarrassing phenomenon of creative impotence.  And smart writers like Jeremy have a whole battery of techniques for conjuring up a creative mood in which the words happen. For Jeremy, it hinges around having a clear desk, a neat environment, and stopwatch techniques in which he forces himself to write 5 minutes of anything, however crap it may be. Then he takes a break. Then he writes for another 5 minutes.  Then - and then, something takes off and magic comedy results. When the flow flows, it really flows.

After Jeremy's talk, the writers broke up into 3 groups of 5.  I was teaching the TV drama group, who were full of pizzaz and optimism and paid me the enormous compliment of actually having heard of the first TV show I worked on, The Paradise Club.  (It's a cult hit, but there's a ghastly rumour that all the tapes have been lost or hidden in some basement somewhere - though this is a show that cries out to be given a DVD release.) 

Kathyrn O'Connor, head of development of the Northern office of Talkback Thames, came to talk to the writers about TV today, and gave great feedback on their stories.  I gave my usual spiel about the fact that TV really has got more interesting - it used to be nothing but police procedurals, but now high concept and science fiction and weirdy and wacky are all in vogue, which means there is at least the possibility of drama that's excitingly different.

The projects pitched to me ranged from a cop show (by an actress with recent  CAD room experience, ie being the person who sits behind a microphone telling the area car where to go) to teen drama (sexy, stylish, full of potential) to precinct drama to hugely ambitious melodrama.  Interestingly, most of the writers doing the TV section of this SPARKS course have significant experience as writers, but are looking for human contact, and feedback, and career openings. The talent is out there...it's finding a way to connect that's so hard.

Later that weekend, at the instigation of script guru and my pal Simon van der Borgh, we did a pitching session in which all 15 writers had 15 minutes to pitch their idea to a scary panel including myself, Simon, Hugo Heppell (head of Screen Yorkshire) and Ann Tobin (senior lecturer at Leeds Met University.) As a joke, we compared it to the X Factor (I was cast as Louis of course.) In reality - it was alarmingly and terrifyingly like the X Factor. For a new writer, to walk in a room with four industry professionals and pitch a project which then gets ripped to shreds must be one of the most frightening experiences possible...and frankly, we pulled few punches in our critiques.

But we were nice with it; and the truth is, that degree of adrenalin does really help the creative process. I was amazed at how much the projects developed and grew after that Bunsen Burner process.

 But then, of course, the follow up to that kind of scary pitching session has to involve TLC and slow, careful project development.   Writers need a safe space in which to try out ideas; and they need room to spread their wings.

I love teaching; over and above the high quality work that results, the whole process is about getting the best out of people.  And to be part of that process is a privilege. 

SPARKS continues through the Autumn and into the early months of next year.  I salute Screen Yorkshire for actually giving a damn about the new screenwriters in the region, and for giving them a chance to develop. Some will be better than others; some will have careers, some won't. But everyone gets an even break, which is all we can ask for in this wicked world.

On Being Betrayed by a Friend

Harry has been a very close and valued friend of mine for a number of years. I'm not blind to his many faults, but I've always regarded him as a man of integrity, and someone I could trust. So it came as a bitter blow to me when he calmly and coldly announced that he was personally responsible for the assassination of Princess Diana. 

Harry then went on to explain, with ruthless logic, that she had to die because she was a liability to the British state. And he showed no qualms or remorse as he carefully explained how the 'hit' was managed.

Then I noticed that Adam Carter was hiding a smile, and I began to wonder - was this a wind-up? My guess was confirmed when Harry  admitted that he was merely being ironical. Yes, he had been responsible for a worst-case-scenario exercise which explored ways of killing the Princess. But the death itself was an accident; not an MI5/MI6 conspiracy as some people foolishly believed.

My relief was mingled with chagrin, as I realised that I had once again got confused about the difference between reality and fiction...Because Harry Pearce is not in fact my friend. Nor have I ever met him; nor, in fact, does he exist.  He's a fictional character in the hit BBC series Spooks; and the Princess Diana speech came in a Howard Brenton scripted episode at the end of series 4. 

I've always admired Spooks since its first audacious series.  But it is the later series which really capture my imagination, when the show developed an effortless ease and a deadly cutting edge.  It's a show characterised by fabulously understated acting, in which a look or a grimace can speak a thousand volumes, and defined by high-octane storytelling in which twist follows twist and the energy level never dips.

I've been watching the show obsessively for the last few weeks, in preparation for a workshop in Bradford on film and television writing (organised by Hugo Heppel, of the enterprising regional screen agency, Screen Yorkshire.)  Normally I'm used to teaching groups of 3 or 4; but on this occasion I was addressing a lecture hall of 100 + keen would-be writers.  It was a nail-biting experience, but made easier because I shared the teaching load with the charismatic and fearless Simon Van Der Borgh, a screen writer, film analyst and teacher who (would you believe it! considering how amazingly young I look!!) was my student when I was a lecturer at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield.

Simon analysed film structure and showed clips from the movie Sideways; I analysed television drama structure, and showed the Princess Diana episode of Spooks in its entirety.  It was extraordinary to see how well the TV drama stood up to this kind of close scrutiny. The episode is virtually a stage play, taking place during a 'lockdown' in the series' standing set. And there's one prolonged scene which consists of a character (Zaf) talking us through how Diana died. There were no guns, no car chases, just one man talking and talking; but it was spell-binding...And the star of the episode was Lindsay Duncan,  who gave a masterclass in scary menace.

Harry argues that it's not possible for men in his business to have friends - you can only have 'colleagues you would die for.'  But so long as the show lasts, he'll continue to be my pal, and trusted guide through the evil machinations of global politics....