You know it makes sense.
Author: John Page 56 of 121
As m’chum Steve has already recounted, on Friday night he and I went to see a filming of the Channel 4 comedy The IT Crowd. His post says a lot about the shows, so this is my more self-absorbed version of events (ahem).
It was a lot of fun, and the first time I’d seen a studio sitcom recorded in… hmm, come to think about it maybe it’s the first time ever, so it was fascinating to see how it was all done. It was filmed at Pinewood Studios, and it was startling – in the best way – to see how the offices and other rooms in the show look in reality and on screen.
Steve and I were the guests of my friend Sean, who’s IT Consultant for the show, so after Sean and the other cast and crew members had done the hard work, Steve and I stepped onto the set to help Sean with de-rigging, as it was the last show of the series. This felt kind of odd in itself – I’ve followed the show since it began, and so to be crawling round on the floor behind Roy and Moss’s desks and helping pull cables through the wall made me feel like I wasn’t quite in the real world any more (I felt like Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit when he goes into Toontown).
Anyway, after we’d helped Sean do what was necessary, we were taken into the green room, where various members of the cast and crew were having a well-earned drink. Just inside the door, and looking surprisingly relaxed, was the writer-director Graham Linehan, who Sean kindly introduced me to, and explained to Graham that I’d contributed to one of the show’s websites.
Graham – and I’m going to call him by his first name because he’s a friendly chap and I don’t think he’d take offence – asked us if we’d had a good night, and specifically what we’d thought of a particular scene in the last episode, and it was very interesting to see that he’d thought of an angle on it which I hadn’t; very much a case of the creator being so in control of the material that he’s able to see things which someone who’s less steeped in it (me on this occasion) would miss. But he was friendly about it, and it was a genuine shame that I had to leg it early to get the last train home, as it would have been good to chat more.
I’ve barely touched on how funny the shows were – mainly because Steve’s covered them in more detail, and also for spoiler-related reasons – but they were very strong episodes, and all in all it made for a cracking night out, and I’m mega-grateful to Sean for getting us on the guest list.
If nothing else, looking at the size of the sets, all the lighting overhead, the cameras and mics pointing at the cast, and the number of people who were hard at work, it made me even more keen to continue with writing, given that everything in that studio was there because once, Graham Linehan sat down and typed ‘INT. OFFICE – DAY’…
Evening, all. I have two quick techie questions which I’d appreciate assistance with…
1. Does anyone know where I can get hold of the Russell Brand Radio 2 show as broadcast on Saturday 25 October? This isn’t the show with the Andrew Sachs calls, it’s the one after it, in which he alludes to the Daily Mail’s nazi-sympathising past whilst apologising to Sachs, and strangely enough the BBC didn’t release it as a podcast (and indeed they’ve removed all the old shows from iTunes and the show-related page from their website). As I used to enjoy listening to the podcasts, I feel I’d like to hear the final one by way of closure, so any links to appropriate locations would be very gratefully appreciated.
2. On a slightly more involved note, could anyone advise me how to set my ‘From’ address in Outlook 2007? I’ve got a number of e-mail addresses which feed into the programme, and I want to set it so that it shows a particular e-mail address as it goes out, and not the slightly less elegant-looking one which is the default setting. I can do it manually, but if there’s a way to do it automatically, that would be handy.
If you know the answer to both or either of the above, you’re smarter than I am, so if you want to share the wisdom around, please use the Comment facility, or you can e-mail me at ohJohnyoureallyarealuddite(at)johnsoanes.co.uk.
Thanks!
I’ve written about National Novel Writing Month here before, and crikey o’blimey if November hasn’t come round again.
For those of you who haven’t heard of it, the basic idea is – yes – that you write an entire novel in a month; for the purposes of NaNoWriMo (as it’s known), a novel is anything upwards of 50,000 words, which works out at about 1500 words a day.
I’ve never really done it properly – I usually cheat and use it as a springboard to get on with a novel I’m already working on, and even that with mixed results – but I think it sounds like a great way to just get the ever-problematic first draft done, and there are lots of people around the globe doing it at the same time, which removes the isolation that often comes with writing.
It’s based in the USA, but it’s more International than National, with groups meeting up for ‘write-ins’ all over the place (there were definitely meetups here in London last year, for example).
So, if you fancy taking up the challenge, click on the link above to find out more – it costs nothing to participate, and all you need is something to write on/with and a willingness to be honest about your wordcount. I won’t be doing it as I have non-novel writing (there’s an ambiguous turn of phrase) to get on with, but if you do join in, let me know how it went – I know Laura‘s taking part, but are there any other takers?
NaNoWriMo runs until the end of November, so (glances at watch) you’ve only lost a minute so far (and we could attribute that to the time taken to read this post, right?)…
Well, outside my window the day is starting to turn to night, as as the light curdles and turns to dark here in London, it feels about the right time for a Halloween-related post.
I actually want to share something quite startling with you, an image which may well make some of you declare “well, that’s just sick“, and turn away from your screen with your hand over your mouth. I’m not looking to shock you for sheer effect, but I think that this is one of the few days of the year when we take a particular pleasure in being frightened. As Clive Barker once wrote, “there is no delight the equal of dread”.
Given that this week’s posts have been quite heavy on the text and links and slightly lighter on the images, I wanted to post this particular picture on the blog, but it did occur to me that it could be rather off-putting for the more sensitive, so – against my initial impulse – I’ve decided to post a link to it, rather than run the risk of someone coming across it by accident and then complaining that it was presented without warning.
Anyway, enough of my explanations, let’s see if we can’t get on with the item in question – an image which I find repulsive at first sight, and yet there’s something vaguely hypnotic about it; as if I’ve made the mistake of looking at Dracula’s eyes, somehow I… just… can’t… seem… to… look…away…
Ready? All right, then. Brace yourself, for the horror of which I speak lurks but a mouseclick away. Tremble, mortals, for the terror is here…
Hey, I did warn you.
*With an admiring tip of the hat to Mr Danny Elfman.
I wish I could claim that this post was going to live up to the promise of its title, and tell you absolutely everything you could ever need to know about screenwriting in a creative fashion, but brace yourself: it’s more of a pointer towards a site which not only rejoices under the above name, but which also offers a number of freebies of interest if you’re a writer.
Creative Screenwriting is a magazine, based in the USA, but sold in various locations around the globe, but if you can’t find a copy near you, you can still benefit from it, particularly in the following two ways…
Firstly, there’s a free weekly newsletter which you can subscribe to here. It tends to focus on the content of the current issue, but it also has the ‘headlines’ of writing-related news, and links to issues of interest. Certainly worth giving it a quick skim every week to see if anything in there catches your eye, I feel.
Secondly – and arguably more usefully – the magazine also issues regular podcasts, featuring interviews with a number of well-known writers. Specific ones I’ve enjoyed this week have been Q&As with the writers of Hot Fuzz, Zodiac and the Dark Knight, and I’m looking forward to the fruits of further rummages through the archive. You can find them at the magazine’s blog page, which is here.
On the basis of the material mentioned above, I fully intend to pick up a copy of the actual real-world magazine as soon as I find it, but of course it could well be that you good people already know all about it, and the above is very much a case of teaching one of your parents’ parents to produce a vacuum on the external surface of an unfertilised fowl ovum.
So, if the above is old news, then I apologise – but if not, well, then, I suggest you take a clicky-look!
To no-one’s complete surprise, one of the BBC’s most popular stars has announced he will stand down following allegations of misuse of telephone equipment.
Full story here.
If you – like me – have what might be classified by some people as ‘too many books’, and you hate the idea of throwing them out, you might find some alternative uses for them here…
Strangely attractive, I feel, though they don’t go so well with a comfy chair and a cup of tea.
Apologies if you’ve seen this before – but you may well join me in feeling that the oddest news story to come out of the US Elections is this one.
To my mind, the main clue that she made it all up was, of course, the fact it was the wrong way round… does it make anyone else think of Mr Finch’s case-winning argument in To Kill A Mockingbird?
Click here before the end of the day to download Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook talking about their joint work ‘Doctor Who – The Writer’s Tale’. As you may well know, this is a massive tome dealing with RTD’s work on the most recent series of Who, and this is an interesting talk about it. Simon Mayo hosts, and my opinion of him went up a bit on listening to this, as he asks some decent questions.
But be swift – this is the last of the seven days when the podcast’s available!