Tag Archives

A Taste of Things to Come

 

I watched this yesterday and I know a few of the people involved as it’s made by my old colleagues at Channel X so I declare an interest, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and reckon it’s a great pitch for a series.

 

 

Channel 4’s Comedy Blaps are just that – lower budget ways to pilot potential series ideas which have lead to shows like Chewing Gum and a couple of series coming this year I think. And many broadcasters have commissioned tasters – shorts usually based on a few scenes from a full half hour script – that have then gone straight to series. Many are not made public, but it’s great that some now are so we can see things in their nascent form. Tasters give everyone a chance to test the writing, direction and cast but it’s not easy to do, of course.

 

I’m not going to do a full analysis because I have a life but this works and is well produced because….

 

It’s a timely idea, relevant and interesting.

 

The writing is excellent – a great set of characters from whom great comedy can emerge. The reveal of Sami and how they all react is a great set piece and there are some lovely lines ‘hard bristle’ stood out for me.

 

It’s written by Rufus Jones who plays Peter so the cast has a great foundation to build on and they’re all very good indeed.

 

The set up for the story and where it might go is all there. And all the relationships are well thought through and explored efficiently with an ending that leaves you wanting to see more.

 

I know if you’re trying to make shorts and tasters on no budget at all (this was, of course, funded by Channel 4, but the budget would be low) then it is difficult to match, but you must look at what other shows have been successful and aspire to them.

 

 

4 January 2018 , , , , Permalink

How does a show get made?

Someone dared ask me this question.  Do people really expect me to give away the secrets of television alchemy?  Luckily I’m a kind and gentle soul so here is the answer.  You chuck a load of hard work, sweat, luck, disappointment, rejection, misery, elation, hope, pre-crushed dreams (use pestle and mortar), joy, wonder, some jokes, the bruised cheek of Clarkson’s alleged fracas victim into a cauldron and boil for anything from one to ten years.

If you’d like to know the exact recipe – weights and timings etc. – then please send me one million dollars.  Oh, I’ve just had an email promising me four million, three hundred and twenty three thousand.  Just give me a minute to send my personal details to this kind reader and I can continue to provide this exciting and informative content totally free of charge.  Right, done.

The questioner went on to ask, ‘does a production company make a programme and then sell it to a broadcaster, what is the process?’  With maybe a few rare exceptions a production company never makes a show before selling it – if anyone has any examples that prove the rule then let me know1.   Even making a fully budgeted pilot and certainly a series would bankrupt or certainly have a huge impact on most production companies, even fair sized ones.  Much better, then, to get the broadcaster to pay for the show before making a massive turkey.

What production companies do is generate ideas and attempt to persuade a broadcaster to invest in them.  This is usually a long process with a number of steps before a channel decides to commission a series.  It’s understandable, a series costs shedloads of cash – to give you a vague idea a half hour comedy might be anything from £100,000 per episode at the very low budget end to £250,000 or more at the higher end.  Dramas generally have bigger budgets and we comedy producers are not bitter at all.

I’ve had plenty of conversations, usually with friends of my parents, about this and they are staggered by the amounts, ‘my licence fee, it must all be unionised!’ etc.  No, the crew work their nuts off and rates haven’t changed in years, the production company makes a small amount of money to keep generating new projects, actors get paid a lot less than you think…  the glamour.  If you want to make money go work in the city.  I don’t want to go on or this will turn into a rant and no-one wants that.  As Sam Smith says, ‘I do it for the love and honestly I didn’t nick that bloke’s idea, it’s pure coincidence that it’s exactly the same, yeah?’

I’ll stick with the process as it relates to comedy and my experience.  We generate ideas either in house, someone sends us a good script or treatment or we see a performer and try to work up ideas with them.  Sometimes we will invest a small amount up front into developing a script or shooting a short taster to demonstrate the idea.  There are examples of production companies investing a bit more time and money up front in an idea they truly believe in, but are either struggling to sell or to give it the push they think it needs to win a commission.

One oft quoted example is The Mighty Boosh.  Baby Cow put around £40,000 into a pilot the BBC commissioned.  Essentially they wanted to ensure it was so good the BBC couldn’t say no.  That is still a huge, risky investment for a production company up front.  Obviously with the BBC already interested it had a good chance and they trusted their instincts, but would have known success was not guaranteed.  We’ve often had to do this at Channel X to ensure a pilot or taster will work.

When we have a project that’s ready for a broadcaster’s commissioning editor to look at, then we’ll send it and tell them it’s the best thing in the world ever and they’d be a fool not to commission it.  Then we wait for the phone to ring or an email to ping through, often for a very long time.  Of course, most things are rejected and usually not because they’re shit – one of the reasons commissioning editors trust production companies is that they act as a quality control filter in the stampede towards the elusive slot on a channel.  Commissioners have to choose one out of a number to progress.  And they have their bosses, the marketing people at commercial channels and their bosses’ bosses to convince.  Or maybe they do just think it is shit.  Sounds tough?  It is.  Tough.

Let me take you through a few steps.  A production company sends a comedy project in and here’s what might happen…

1) Script Commission:  If we send a treatment from a writer with some experience the broadcaster might commission a script.  That means they are paying the writer to both produce a pilot script to bring their idea to life and also to option the writer and production company for a period of time (usually 12-18 months) so they have the exclusive right to then make a pilot and/or series.
Often, particularly with newer writers, we will send a full script that we have worked with them on for some time.  If a broadcaster likes it then they may want to see if the writer can produce more material and commission a second script.  It’s a small investment to see how the idea develops and to buy into the idea.

2) Taster / Teaser:  If an idea has a particular visual style or is a vehicle for a performer then a broadcaster might commission a taster or teaser (sometimes called a mini-pilot)  It’s essentially a 5 to 15 minute short with a few scenes.  This is becoming more common as it is much cheaper than a full pilot and can be enough to show that a series would work.  Detectorists was developed this way and the series was commissioned without the need for a full pilot – there were two full episode scripts and a series outline to go alongside the taster, so a lot of work had been done by Mackenzie Crook and the production team.

(A production company will often put a small amount of its own money into shooting a taster before pitching to a broadcaster, particularly if the idea or format is a bit tricky to understand on the page).

3) Table Read:  A broadcaster likes a script and wants to hear it come to life.  They could commission a table read where the company casts the script and gets the actors together in a big room to read it aloud while the producers and commissioners watch.  They can be great.  They can be painful.  There’s nothing worse than a bunch of great actors reading a comedy script and seeing commissioning editors and channel controllers sit in befuddled silence.
Sometimes an actor who would be great on screen isn’t great in a table read or some of the timing doesn’t quite come off or maybe the atmosphere is just a bit weird and the channel controller is having a bad day because some kind of fracas has occurred involving one of their big name talents.  Who knows?

Fortunately tasters and other development tools seem to be taking over, see also….

4) Live Showcase:  Few and far between, but the BBC has done a number of sitcom showcases in Salford in recent years.  Hebburn came to life this way.  The show is performed like a play in front of an audience, including commissioning editors.  If the audience laugh, the commissioning editor doesn’t just have to trust their own instinct.

(Like tasters, production companies and often writers and comedians put on their own showcases. Again, it is a cost-effective way of bringing the work to life and can be a great way for new writers to test their work).

5) Pilot:  Well done.  If you get this far, you are doing great.  The broadcaster loves your script, your table read went down a storm or your taster was a piece of genius.  They’ve commissioned a pilot and you get to make a show.  One whole episode to show it’ll be the best series ever.

And then…
You got the casting perfect, the actors and director made all your jokes even funnier than you thought they could be, the crew did a brilliant job – you could see and hear everything, actors had costumes, sets, props and make up.  The runner remembered how you liked your tea / coffee and wasn’t a jumped up nephew of the executive producer.  Phew.

And finally you get your…

6) Series: The broadcaster loves your script(s), pilot or taster and your series outline.  Congratulations.  They do a deal with the production company to make the show.  With British comedy usually the vast majority of the budget comes from the broadcaster.  Some money may come from other sources – distributors who may pay an advance on international and DVD sales although there is generally a lot less money to be made from this in comedy than drama and other genres – there are exceptions, of course.
What the broadcaster is doing is paying the production company to make the show exclusively for them and for it to be broadcast on their channel a certain number of times.  I don’t want to go into the details of rights etc. because I’ll bore myself and you to death, but it’s that kind of stuff.

So that’s it, I think.  That’s the process.  I think it’s as clear as I can make it and I hope it’s useful, but do comment if you have any questions.  And if you manage to get your project moving forward at any of these stages then you are doing well and possibly even have talent.  If it falls at any stage, and it most likely will, then try again.  Most people have to push at the door with a number of ideas before it opens.  Alternatively use a battering ram.  I’m sure threats of violence have worked, but it’s not really my style.  Good luck.

1 I do know of individuals, student filmmakers etc. who have made a series or several episodes of a show, but these are usually guerrilla filmed shows where everyone is working for free or very little. There may well be examples of companies producing episodes of low cost programming (factual shows can be much cheaper to make as they can be shot by a one or two person crew, you don’t have actors etc. although it is still advisable to have food, preferably hot, available for hangry presenters) but I can’t think of any off the top of my head.

15 March 2015 , , , , Permalink

Taking Rejection

Ed Milliband believes what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but that’s absolute tossballs.  I’ve never been the same since my mate gave me some funny looking mushrooms he found on Dartmoor one autumn morning.  They didn’t kill me, but every day I look in the mirror and ask myself; ‘Is this a future prime minister I see before me?’ And every day I answer; ‘No, it’s a multi-coloured marshmallow face, now let’s get the crack-pipe a’ smokin’ and seize the day.’  Bet you a tenner I last longer in my job than Ed.

Learning how to deal with the tough times is a necessity in the world of showbiz.  Rejection happens a lot.  It’s like being a spotty teenager for your entire life as execs and commissioners tell you your idea smells and they wouldn’t snog it even if you were the last development producer on earth.  The likelihood of either getting the first job you go for or winning a commission for your first ever idea is very close to zero.  Unless your mum/dad is a high ranking television exec who can usher you through the door or you genuinely are the huge talent you think you are then be prepared for a lifetime of repudiation with the occasional bout of acceptance, joy and exhilaration.  The good times are worth it.

The first thing to do is to accept it’s going to happen.  Be enthusiastic, chase your dream, but also be realistic if only for your own sanity.  It’s incredibly exciting when you think you might have a chance.  Throughout my career I’ve gone through the process of meeting people for jobs and occasionally getting them and often not.  At the same time I’ve always tried to pitch my own ideas and most of the time they fall into the pit of development despair.  Occasionally they pique someone’s interest and when they do it is incredibly exciting.  Experience tells you it is just the first fence in a Grand National style race where the vast majority of ideas will fall horrifically and end up in a tin of dog food or a crispy pancake.

I’ve talked before about the currency of ideas and this is one of the major reasons to keep going in spite of rejection.  They do open doors and get people interested in you and can lead to other opportunities even if that particular project stumbles and fails to make it, even as an each-way bet.  Here’s one example of excitement, hope, rejection and redemption.  Someone should make a film of this blog.  Or at least work up a treatment, maybe shoot a taster and then bounce it around in development for eternity.

Nearly ten years ago I was working in factual programming as a freelance producer / director and trying my hand at comedy in whatever free time I had.  I’d tried writing a few things, done a moderately received Edinburgh Fringe Show, and was regularly dying on my arse at stand up venues across the country.  But then I had an idea to combine comedy with documentary (I know. This has never been done, has it?) and pitch an idea.  It was about testing quick-fix, self-help type ideas to get rich, successful, find love and I was going to thrust myself into those techniques as a journalistic fall guy.  Through my factual work at Tiger Aspect I had met a comedy producer, Lucy Robinson, who actually showed an interest in my work and offered incredibly helpful and straightforward advice.  Often she was critical and rightly so.  It’s important to remember that if an industry figure is willing to give you their time then they already think you have some talent, so if they give you constructive criticism then take it with grace.  You may or may not agree with every or any point, but they are trying to help.  Ignore them at your peril.

Lucy had moved on to work with Channel X, took my idea to them and it lead to my first meeting with Jim Reid and Alan Marke, which was incredibly exciting.  Going to the office and seeing posters of the iconic shows they’d made was nerve-wracking, but here were two decent guys who, in spite of the warehouse conversion office setting, didn’t have a hipster/media wanker bone in their bodies.  And they wanted to talk about my idea and how we’d develop it.  They agreed to shoot a taster.  I knew that to get a production company on board with an idea was a massive step forward.

The idea of the show was to look at quick fix ideas and expose their ludicrous nature, and we decided to film me trying out some techniques to meet and impress the opposite sex, as this seemed like a straightforward thing to set up, and something we could shoot in one day, on the street. I know this sounds bit Dapper Laughs and given the fact that this has been in the news, followed by the reports about Julien Blanc and his hideous ‘techniques,’ I’m a wee bit nervous about showing it to you. But hopefully it’s clear that, unlike Dapper, the joke was on me as the whole thing descended into hideous awkward chaos. Maybe I should retire the Matt Tiller character. If you’d really like to see what I did then it’s here.

After the shoot, I wasn’t sure how it’d gone and thought it might just be a bit shit. My first edit of the taster was poor — it was a lesson in being too close to the subject as Lucy came in and totally turned it round and made the best of the material. She told me Jim and Alan had a meeting set up to pitch a handful of projects to the BBC and would show them the taster. I was nervous and trying not to think about the fame and riches that inevitably lay ahead of me.  Take that school chemistry teacher who said I had no flair, my time has come.1

After the meeting Lucy called to tell me that the Head of Comedy at the BBC loved it.  Of the ideas Channel X pitched, this was the one they wanted to take forward. She sounded excited.  I was excited.  It was exciting.  All they had to do was convince Stuart Murphy at BBC Three to commission it and I would be on my way to fame, fortune and a Twitter backlash as soon as Twitter got invented.

But alas, as you can probably guess from my lack of either fame or fortune, it was not to be.  Stuart watched it and apparently liked it and thought it was funny, but didn’t want to take it further.  The main reason was that there were plenty of white, middle class comedians he liked, would love to work with and couldn’t find a place for, so didn’t feel this was something he could bring to BBC Three.  Even though I was obviously gutted, I couldn’t argue with that and have never felt bitter about that decision.  I knew there was a wealth of talent out there pitching ideas and there were top level stand ups and character comics who deserved breaks far more than I.

Following on from the taster I took an idea based on it to the Edinburgh Fringe, Matt Tiller… Ladykiller, which was fun.  It was a show that could go brilliantly or hideously as it involved a huge amount of audience interaction, but overall it was a great experience.  And it was while I was in Edinburgh performing that Jim at Channel X first approached me about working for them.  A few weeks later I had moved to Manchester and was developing television comedy.  So, even though the venture was in many ways a failure, (well, not in many ways, it was a failure) it had a real positive impact on my career.  So, like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill having recovered from a bullet to the head and eventually lopping the top of Lucy Liu’s head with her Hattori Hanzo sword, it was success hewn from the steel of failure.  Except, in spite of the title of my fringe show, I didn’t actually kill anyone.

1 Maybe he was just annoyed that I accidentally filled the school chemistry lab with chlorine gas forcing the class to evacuate.

18 November 2014 , , , , Permalink

In the pipeline

Hello

It may seem that I have been rather quiet of late.  On here, that is.  In my non-virtual life I’ve been incredibly noisy.  I’m learning to play the pan pipes and the sound is far from soothing in the hands of the beginner.  The neighbours are getting irate.

In truth, I’ve been busy with many projects.  They are in a pipeline.  It’s too early to say if that pipeline will burst due to metaphorical pan-national conflicts or reach its final destination and pump television bronze into the homes of millions (or more likely thousands looking at modern day viewing figures).  We may yet have to be pleasant to Russia, say we’ll forget about Ukraine and ask them very nicely for their cheap television.

One thing I can tell you about is a BBC Radio 4 pilot from an excellent stand up comedian, Liam Mullone’s Disappointing World, which is being recorded in London on November 24th and if you want to be in the audience then click here.  It’s looking like a really good show.

Of course, I am very pleased indeed to have a passing association with the brilliant Detectorists, which will return for a second series.  It’s made by my company, but sadly I can’t claim any credit – a brilliant bunch of people, with Mackenzie Crook at the helm, made that happen and they are truly deserving of its success.

In the meantime I’ll have to keep you guessing on the other stuff I’m working on, because I don’t like talking about things that aren’t certain to make it our screens or at least to pilot stage.  There are usually several hurdles to leap and these can often cause a stumble, humiliation and a nasty graze.  A bit like when I ran for an old routemaster bus and fell on some tarmac opening a hole in both a recently purchased pair of jeans and my knee.

Also apologies for people who have contacted me and not received a response.  I’ll try to respond to questions in blog posts.  If you have sent scripts then I promise that I do look at them, but unfortunately can’t always get back to people.

I’ll try and get to a proper blog post soon, but right now I’m busy thinking of something profound to say about Dapper Laughs, but I’m just in despair.

Thanks

Matt

 

 

10 November 2014 , , , , Permalink

An Open Apology to Graeme King

So you know how to approach people and you’ve sent your amazing email/letter/pigeon/parcel full of bribes.  But what if you never get a reply?  From anyone.  Ever.  This may mean all that self doubt, the voices in your head telling you that you are rubbish are true, but it probably doesn’t.  If I listened to them I’d be back in Plymouth working for a regional stockbroker; something I did for a short period during the flurry of Thatcherite privatisations.  It seemed a complete nonsense, but I was getting £2.50 an hour and people who bought and sold their shares on the first day of trading made enough to pay for a holiday, so that was good and definitely worth it in the long term.

I’ve had several people contact me asking for advice and I will try to respond either in a blog or personally, but I felt there was someone who deserved a response first; Graeme King.  I am sorry Graeme.  Please accept this blog as a humble apology for failing to reply to your email of 11th September 2011 – I’ve just dug it out and that genuinely was the date it was sent.  Maybe picking an inauspicious date meant your approach was doomed to failure from the start.  Or maybe it shouldn’t have made any difference at all.

Often when I receive an email I’ll read it and if it’s interesting or there’s some merit in the material I’ve been sent I think, ‘I’m going to reply to that’ and then maybe the phone rings or another email comes in, I get distracted and good intention evaporates into the vapour of inaction.  Sometimes that’s the end of it, but Graeme’s case is one I’ve often thought of.  I’ll be walking somewhere and it pops into my head, but then I’m sucked back into the world of media nonsense and Graeme is left alone, unloved and reply-less.

In his email Graeme told me he had made the effort to see my Edinburgh Fringe show that summer, thus joining a highly exclusive club.  He even claimed to have enjoyed it, something most of the audiences and critics couldn’t even be arsed to lie about.  He had gone above and beyond the call of duty and still I didn’t reply.  I thought writing this blog was going to be redemptive, but no.

Not only had Graeme done his research, but he also sent some promising material – a series of well written sketches.  He very politely wrote that we must be inundated with submissions, but he was very serious, would love to work with/for us and any feedback would be greatly received.    Here’s what I should have said in response…

Dear Graeme

Thanks for sending in your sketches and for enduring my Edinburgh show.  I can recommend a counsellor to deal with the trauma this may have caused.

I enjoyed reading your sketches.  There were some good ideas and jokes.  (I won’t embarrass Graeme with specifics, but I did honestly give them a quick read and there was some good stuff that made me laugh.)  We’re not producing any sketch shows, but I would encourage you to look into opportunities where you could submit your ideas – in radio and children’s television, for example.  Also it would be worth trying to find performers to work with and try out your sketches live and/or film them.

Our main focus is developing sitcoms so if you have anything you would like me to look at in future then do send it my way and I do keep writing.

All the best and good luck.

Matt
x

By the way, the kiss at then end is a little joke.  I would never send an unsolicited kiss.  In fact I rarely initiate a kiss at the end of an email or text.  I think it’s a bit much sometimes, but if someone sends me a kiss then I think it’s rude not to kiss in reply.  If I then forget to reply with a kiss I feel bad and worry about causing offence.  It’s a kissing nightmare.

I guess the main piece of advice to take is this; if you don’t get a reply it doesn’t mean your material is awful and you should give up.  Leave it an appropriate amount of time and then follow up.  Send your material to as many people as you can find who might look at it and do it as politely as Graeme.  Sometimes you may just get a reply even if that reply comes in a guilt-ridden, self-loathing fuelled blog two and a half years later.

31 May 2014 , , , , Permalink

How to Approach People…

The title of this blog suggests some kind of self help manifesto.  A quick internet search reveals a gap in the market.  There appears to be plenty of titles aimed very specifically at men who would like to approach women, but none for people who would like to approach people.  I’m not saying you should never approach a woman, but if you do please be polite, avoid unwanted physical contact and take rejection gracefully; smile and walk away.  Also do your research.  No, don’t do that.  Unless you’re Bill Murray in Groundhog Day it’s a bit creepy if you already know everything about them.

QUICK SPONSORED MESSAGE (by me): Sign up to my mailing list for updates about stuff (and possibly badgering about my music too) here:

Actually, all those rules apply to approaching people in the media with your idea, but this time include the research.  It is good to know a bit about people before you make your approach.

I’m writing this because I had a message from a gentleman called Marcus Ako asking for advice.  Here it is:

Hello,

Thank you very much for your incredibly informative and witty blog. Would you be able to spare a moment to give some advice?

I am a writer/actor with an idea for a tv show (yes, I know… I am one of those, but please don’t hit delete yet). I have a pilot script written and a synopsis for eleven 30-minute episodes. I believe the idea is solid for a company like Tiger Aspect. What is the best way to approach them or other companies to score 10 minutes to pitch? I know I could stand outside their office with a boom-box, but I’m afraid they may miss the reference and have me arrested.

Any advice short of “give up” would be welcomed.

Marcus

Thanks for the message Marcus, which is a pretty decent example of how to contact someone.  Flattery may get you somewhere.  Try not to cross the line into obsequious brown nosing or continue further until the person you’re contacting starts to worry that they’ve cultivated a stalker.  The opening sentence is good.  It makes me feel good about myself and therefore more receptive to getting off my arse and typing this.  Flattery doesn’t always guarantee a reply.  I’m going to write a separate post about one approach someone made.  It wasn’t a bad example, in fact it was an incredibly good one and I didn’t respond, which I feel immensely bad about, so I’ll rectify that in a blog.

Marcus goes off the boil a bit when he mentions Tiger Aspect1.  Why aren’t you sending it to me at Channel X, Marcus?  What have we ever done to you?   But a quick look on Tiger Aspect website shows they don’t accept unsolicited scripts.  In which case the boom-box may be your only hope.  Please don’t employ the boom-box.  I’ve already demonstrated how these tactics are doomed to failure.

Here are some tips in no particular order of usefulness.

1) Find production companies that do accept unsolicited scripts.  Research them and see if they are producing shows in a similar vein – in tone or type – as some, but not all, companies do lean towards certain styles.  Many, however, are just looking for good scripts and the fact that their last show was a studio sitcom doesn’t mean that is all they want to make.  The PACT website is very useful and The British Comedy Guide is quite a good resource too.

2) It’s not really worth sending an email asking what people want to see.  If you’re not already a contact of the person you’re approaching then the only thing that’s going to get a response is material they think is great.  And if they haven’t read your work before then they want to see a script or at the very least a well written treatment with some sample scenes.  So just write as brief and polite an email as possible with a bit about you and the project and attach the work.  I just want to click on the attachment and have a look.  It won’t guarantee a response, of course.  Not getting a response happens to all of us.  It still happens to me and it is frustrating, but the only answer is to keep trying, but try to avoid showing your frustration.

3) It’s not really worth emailing with a request to come in and pitch your idea.  It’s very unlikely that I would invite someone who hasn’t already proved their credentials in for a meeting and I’d guess that probably goes for most other execs.  But I have asked people to come in if I liked a script, an idea or a video link they sent me.  

4) You can’t expect feedback.  It’s great if you can get it and I try to give some feedback if I like something and see potential, but there’s rarely time to give detailed notes.  I need to find projects that I think have real potential to be commissioned.  I want to find projects that I find interesting and funny and work with people who are interesting and funny.  I have to be able to look a commissioner in the eye and say that I back that project fully.  I’m a very bad liar.  And I do feel bad about not getting back to people.  I know my guilt isn’t going to help you progress but at least you can take some comfort in the fact.

5) Even if you’re sending your script to an info email address, find a name at the company to address your email to.  The least you can do is have a look at their website.

6) Maybe tell the company that their last show was ace, no matter what the critics or the rating said.  If you hated their last show then don’t go on about how your script is ten times better and how you can’t believe that show got made.  The company will either be well aware that their show went to shit or disagree with you and think it was brilliant.  Have a look through their back catalogue and say that you loved one of their shows that only ran for one series and was criminally overlooked.  For Channel X that might be Snuffbox or for me at Channel X North that might be one of the Comedy Labs we made that never went to series.  At the very least, they had their moments.

7) What is your show about and is there a unique or particularly interesting angle?  It is still the writing that counts, but a timely idea or an area that has not been explored before is more likely to garner interest.  And pitching a show with a similar subject matter to a recent show is always unlikely to work.  So, sending a script to me about a family set in the North East is probably a waste of time.  If you have written that script and it is brilliant then it could still work as a writing sample, but you’ll need to have other ideas.  And write those other ideas.  Hopefully your next script will be even better and cover a subject that hasn’t been done before or at least not in the last ten years, so people might have forgotten about it.

8) Find other ways to bring attention to your writing.  This is probably the thing I try to hammer home at any event where I’m asked to speak.  The series I’ve developed have come from writers who have brought themselves to my attention in different ways.  David Isaac who wrote Lunch Monkeys had been helping a talented director, Jason Wingard, create sketches set in Manchester mini-cabs called Where to Mate? featuring a very funny comic actor, Peter Slater.  I’d seen Peter live, his agent showed me the sketches  and then I met Jason and David.  David asked if he could send me some scripts and because he had already proved he could write funny stuff I said yes.  In the case of Hebburn, I had seen Jason Cook’s stand up and was keen to work with him.  Simple as that (well, plus several years trying to get the thing commissioned).  Also both of them were very nice, polite and a pleasure to deal with.  Obviously the power’s got to them now and, like me, they are insufferable.

9) Further to the above, bring your scripts to life.  One of the great things about working with stand ups and having done stand up myself is that when you perform live you know when something is funny and you know the pain of when it is not.  Find some actors to read your script aloud, ideally with an audience.  Film some scenes.  Do something.  Otherwise you might be sat at your laptop for years going bananas.

10) Take a punt on contacting people – producers, agents, people you are a fan of.  But be polite and don’t expect a response.  Companies may not accept unsolicited scripts, but you can send them a link to something you’ve had filmed or invite them to a showcase.  If your stuff is good enough eventually someone will talk to you.

11) Use social media.  Post links to your work.  But be polite.  Don’t constantly tag Graham Linehan or any other famous comedy tweeters.  But do think before you make approaches and don’t overdo it.  I was once contacted on Facebook messenger by a writer who had previously emailed me material.  I think I had responded to one project, but not to a subsequent one.  He could see that I was online, but when I ignored him he sent several messages asking ‘are you there?  Matt? Hello????’  It was in the evening and I was just on Facebook looking at endearing family pictures of friends and posting sincere comments.  I’m not at work when I’m fannying about on Facebook, unless I’m doing that at work, in which case don’t tell the boss. So do be careful how you use social media.  But if you are funny and interesting on Twitter or Facebook there’s a good chance you are funny and interesting in other ways.  My friend Michael Spicer, who I met because he sent sketches on a VHS, yes a VHS tape, to a company I was working for many years ago, is a great example of this.  He is very funny on Twitter and consequently people go and look at his sketches on youtube which are also very funny.

12) Be resilient. There is a line here.  If people are forever ignoring you and no one ever gives you one iota of encouragement other than your mum, then of course there is a point when you should look at your work and ask yourself, ‘could be improved?’  The answer is probably ‘yes.’  Almost all scripts can be improved.  I’m not going to tell you to give up.  I’d never tell someone to give up.  Several people on youtube have suggested that I give up on life entirely, but fortunately enough people have said things like ‘don’t kill yourself Matt, this stuff is average,’ to inspire me to carry on regardless.

So those are my tips, which have conveniently made a list of twelve.  So there you have my official top twelve tips for approaching people.

I can offer a zero percent guarantee that they will work, but I hope they are useful.  I’m sure there are other things you can do, so if anyone has any suggestions then do let me know.

And finally, as I mentioned in tip 2, it is unlikely that someone will invite you in to pitch face to face unless they like something you’ve written or made.  There are other tips for face to face meetings and maybe I’ll blog about those, but I’m running out of steam now.  I fell asleep in front of the telly in the early hours watching Spiral on Netflix leaving a half eaten brown stew chicken from the local Jamaican take away on the coffee table.  An insight into the glamorous life of the television executive for you there.

Good luck Marcus.

1 I have nothing against Tiger Aspect, which was a lovely place to work when I was with them.

If you enjoyed the post then you can delve further into my oeuvre and support my work by purchasing my music. The lovely Tom Robinson off of BBC 6Music says it’s good. 

12 May 2014 , , , , Permalink

I’ve Got An Idea…

Most of my ideas have, thankfully, never seen the light of day, although forthcoming appointment to view television series Britain’s Tastiest Village1 has definitely been ripped off from a proposal I sent to the Head of Daytime Twee Food Based Countryside Shows at the BBC many years ago. It’s a nest of creative blood sucking vampires out there. I guess I just didn’t have the vision to commit to the scale needed to take it from daytime to primetime without even a short toilet stop at shoulder peak. And that last sentence just proves that I have been to many commissioning briefings.

The value of the currency of ideas is something I learnt early on and TV gold is always a safe investment, even though no one has a clue which idea will transform from a scribble on the back of a fag packet into a gleaming ingot locked in the vault of Simon Cowell’s production company.

Having ideas and showing people that you can think creatively is, of course, going to help you progress in the media. But when I wrote to television companies as a young man I just thought, ‘This is a brilliant idea, they’re going to think I’m a genius and immediately make the show, stick it on the telly and this time next year I’ll be a millionaire. Or at least have paid off my student loan.’ So when I posted my letter to Chris Slade at Two Four Productions I was convinced my idea for ‘doing a programme about the Tinside Lido’ would have been brilliant even though the idea was just ‘let’s do a programme about the Tinside Lido.’ I think there were some other ideas in the letter but I can’t remember them, so they must have been even less exciting.

For those (un)fortunate enough to never have been to Plymouth, Tinside Lido is an incredible semi-circular Art Deco swimming pool that is the centre piece of the seafront. It was open when I was a kid in the seventies and eighties. I didn’t appreciate it then and just thought the water was very cold, something that didn’t seem to bother me when I snuck in with a bunch of drunken merry makers for an ill-advised midnight skinny dip when I was about 16. Happy days. Fortunately, I survived. The lido was then left to ruin until it was restored and reopened in 2005. It has been battered by the recent storms but will survive according The Evening Herald, Plymouth’s local newspaper. All very interesting, but not necessarily a great television programme without proper research or some kind of angle.

Amazingly however, Chris invited me in for a chat. Obviously I thought, ‘This is it. This is my time. We are going to make this show together, you and me Chris, and we are going to be rich,’ Chris was a television personality having presented shows in the South West for years and had co-founded a production company, Two Four, that was doing well. Turned out that it was just a chat. I guess at the time I was a bit disappointed that my life didn’t immediately change, but now I know how important those little advances are. It was just a chat, but a very encouraging one. Chris had taken the time to read my letter, invite me in, give me advice and tell me to keep in touch. Three years later I was working for Two Four.2

This was the first of many examples where sending ideas has helped me get a meeting or a foothold somewhere in the industry. There are very few of my own ideas that have been made. I did get two late night documentaries for Channel 4 commissioned – anyone see Bare & Breakfast about naturist guest houses? Hopefully not. The final shot features me running across the screen stark bollock naked. That’s what television executives might call brave, but I would like to ban use of the word brave in relation to television unless it refers to reporting from a war zone or very dangerous covert filming. My efforts just upset a friend who tuned in randomly to Channel 4 in the early hours, got excited when they heard my voice narrating this odd little documentary only to be appalled by the sight of me scurrying in my birthday suit. The reason for my exposing appearance was that it was all shot by me and I was filming an interview outside. It started raining so I had to run, turn the camera off and lug my gear inside, which seemed like an amusing way to end the film. And I was filming it naked because it was a documentary about naturism and I’m not arsed about the televisual appearance of my arse. That documentary got me through the doors of Tiger Aspect Productions where I freelanced as a producer/director regularly for a few years.

Contacting people with ideas has often lead to opportunities and I encourage you to do so. Do it with grace and research the people and companies you contact. It won’t guarantee a reply, but it will increase the chances. My current job with Channel X came about because I pitched an idea to a producer who had worked at Tiger Aspect, but was now working with Channel X.  They decided to develop it and it nearly got me a job on the television fully clothed. I’ll write about it in more detail in another post, but the salient point is that the idea lead to a relationship with Channel X which convinced them that I might be worth offering a proper job to. And the rest, as they say, is a footnote in comedy history.

1 If you don’t get the reference then watch the BBC comedy W1A.

2 Don’t worry, I wasn’t just sat on my arse for three years waiting for Chris to call again. I did other things.

10 April 2014 , , , , Permalink

A Hat Trick of Disasters

When you’re trying to get into a creative industry you would think that being a bit creative and trying to make yourself stand out is the thing to do.  Unfortunately, just like when you are desperate to get a date with someone you really fancy, desperation can be off-putting.  Animals do all sorts of show offy stuff – prancing about flashing their feathers, doing a dance, waggling their arses.  The human equivalent would be wearing a tight t-shirt with my amazing guns almost bursting out of it while clubbing on Union Street1.  Unfortunately the guns are more like those toy pistols with the BANG! flag and I had no tight t-shirts, just charity shop shirts and jackets.  Sometimes it’s better to protect your modesty.

Sadly, in 1994, desperate times called for desperate and ill-thought out measures.  I had tried writing the usual formal letters to production companies begging them for work experience to no avail.  I had applied for jobs and kept getting rejected, unless working in HMV counts.  What I needed to do was show my creativity.  I loved comedy, so why not write to one of the biggest comedy production companies and wow them with how hilarious I am?  A sure fire route to success.

I had enjoyed Jimmy Mulville’s work on Who Dares Wins, Chelmsford 123 and was a big fan of Drop the Dead Donkey and Have I Got News For You. My plan was to write the funniest covering letter to Jimmy at Hat Trick Productions and he would find enclosed the most brilliantly comic made up CV possible.  He would read it, literally wet himself and hire me on the spot.  Deal.

The letter and CV probably exists on a now obsolete floppy disc somewhere in my archive of shame. I can’t remember much about the content, but the CV was entirely fictional and the letter probably contained an offer to prostitute myself to the entire company.  One thing I do remember very clearly is writing that I would be happy to prepare lines of cocaine for Angus Deayton.  It was a long time before that scandal broke, so little did I know this was obviously too close to the bone.  Jimmy probably burnt the letter while on his own powder binge cursing my name and vowing never to employ me.2  I’m sure this is why Hat Trick has never given me a job, although I don’t think I ever applied for one after this.

Worse than sending the letter, I tried another kamikaze approach.  On a visit to London – possibly at the same time as the abortive Byker Grove interview – I decided to pay Hat Trick a visit.  I don’t know why, but I must have read stories of people turning up on doorsteps and walking into a job.  London is Britain’s city of opportunity, you go there to make something of yourself.  You take risks.  You make your mark.  It was lunacy.  My method was a bit like when Michael Moore or Mark Thomas turn up in the lobby of an evil corporation and demand answers while the poor receptionist wonders what to do.  The difference is that Michael and Mark have charisma, a camera crew and a reason to be there.  I turned up, shuffled in, gave the receptionist my name and told her that I’d sent a CV.  I was convinced that they’d recognise my name and want to chat.  But it soon became apparent that my communication had not had the impact I desired.

Time decided that it would move horrendously slowly just to milk the moment as I sat nervously sweating while the receptionist wondered what on earth to do with me.  She did pop into the office and returned to tell me that they weren’t aware of me.  There was no sign of Jimmy, nor any of the celebrities associated with Hat Trick. It did dawn on me almost as soon as I’d entered that this mission was doomed to failure.  Maybe if I’d had the presence of say Matt Berry or Johnny Vegas then things might have been different, but even then they’d have probably just wondered what a brazen, voluminous, beast was doing in the building as opposed to the shy, quiet, slim, young man that I was.

At the time the failure just seemed to prove how difficult and how painfully far away my goal was.  What I eventually learned was that just trying to be funny in an approach is not enough.  And just doing that looks like you’re trying too hard.  You need to have substance.  If I’d sent my hilarious letter with a brilliant idea for a show, a script or a video then maybe they’d have overlooked the facetiousness and appreciated that I had something to offer.

I often get emails that try this method and occasionally people turn up at the office, but they’re never anywhere near as embarrassing as my effort and if they do appear at the door, they usually have a CV, a script or DVD to hand over.  If someone makes some attempt to be funny then I don’t mind that and sometimes I even drop my hard hearted executive air and laugh.  But that alone is never enough.  It has to come with some signal of intent that you’re serious about working in the industry.  Produce some evidence that you really are up to the job, before trying to help celebrities indulge in substance abuse.3

I’m very lucky that, having ditched my early career development techniques, I have been able to work with some great comedy producers.  Sadly I have never worked with Jimmy or the late, great Geoffrey Perkins, who was at Hat Trick, became the BBC’s Head of Comedy and then moved to Tiger Aspect when I was freelancing for the factual department and had the air of a very lovely man, but I do have the pleasure of developing comedy with Jim Reid and Alan Marke at Channel X and have worked with Henry Normal at Baby Cow, thankfully without having to make an arse of myself in their reception areas.

 

1 Union Street is a notorious Plymouth night time destination.  As a teenage goth, then indie kid, my friends and I would be out in our ‘alternative’ gear avoiding eye contact with the drunken hordes. Many would have beaten us to a pulp just for accidentally looking at them.  We had to walk the entire length of Union Street, because the indie club was at the far end past the glossy nightspots of Jester, Garters and Sergeant Peppers, where I once worked as a glass collector and barman.  Fights broke out every weekend, but I could duck behind the bar.

2 Jimmy Mulville has talked publicly about his personal life in many honest and inspirational interviews.

3 When I finally got a job in television I was disappointed to discover that cocaine was not to be found in every cubicle and what I’ve seen has never been anything like an episode of Mad Men.  I’m glad, because I’m not really like that, but the occasional bit of glamour wouldn’t go amiss.

17 February 2014 , , , , Permalink