Cheer Up Ken

The BBC Writer's Festival in Leeds last week was fascinating on a number of levels. It's always good to talk to men and women on the same journey, it's good to learn from some of our more successful writers, it's good to shoot the breeze and it's good to hear what everyone else is going through.

BBC Writer's Festival Logo -erm, what exactly is it?

 

Doesn't matter what stage your writing career is at, you will have horrors that haunt your sleeping and waking moments. The series that never was - had a few of them - the episode that got rewritten because the director didn't like it - been there, the T shirt's a little old but still smells - the producers who loved your work so much they forgot to buy it, even though you'd told all your friends you'd had a series commissioned - don't want to even think about that, still shuddering now.
But amongst all that we had a good laugh and swapped some mighty good stories - those that weren't true had been written and rewritten in our heads to sound true. Stories at a writer's festival should be the best stories ever told!
In one of the sessions the question was posed, "Is the Grass Greener...? " It was aimed at dispelling the myth that writing in America for American series is better than knocking things out for British audiences. Everyone agreed on one point - whatever the pain - the money is much, much better. The American system demands a different kind of writer, one who will pool his or her plots in the writer's room as the series is mapped out, arcs found and stories 'broken'. Breaking a story is something I've learned to do even though British writers don't really write the same way as our better paid American counterparts. The 'breaking' is working out what happens just before the commercial break. Makes sense that you work out plot points so that there's a cliff hanger of sorts at the point at which our work cuts away to adverts for diarrhoea pills and sanitary towels - we have to provide an incentive to watch all the way through the break to find out what happens (at least for those people who still watch TV in real time).
In this session we got to hear from some guys who had experienced the best and worst of the American system and also from Swedish writer Lars Lundstrom who's had his work adapted over there although he's never written in the US. Lars being on the panel opened the door to talking about whether life is greener in Sweden. Turns out there's one TV station and not many writers or actors.
Even so, rcent Danish and Swedish series have become must watch TV for so many of us - The Killing, Borgen, The Bridge - have all exerted a mighty influence on the market. Commissioners now look at dramas set in Brighton and ask "Could you make it a bit more  Nordic?" - and with a straight face.

 Lars wrote on the Swedish series Wallander, the character Kenneth Brannagh plays in the BBC series. Both are based on books by Henning Mankell (I read two last summer and they drove me mad. Hated them, which surprised me because they've sold well and provided Swedish TV and the BBC both with series. It could have been the translation - but I hated the structure and the repetitious  procedural, however..) Lars take on the British Wallander was "It's a bit glum, slower than the Swedish version and devoid of jokes". I'm  with you, Lars. Having sat through two episodes of the new BBC Wallander I feel ready to slash my wrists. The gloomy skies, the washed-out pallet, the moments when old Ken looks off into the distance whilst the director holds the shot forever and a day. I swear he was dribbling in the last episode. The plots aren't great, the characters aren't compulsive, the music drones, the dialogues clunks along - you'd never believe that this is getting a sizeable audience. 
Brannagh is such a watchable actor, so inventive and yet here he'd bringing us a character so desperately down beat you want to scream at the telly.  Comparing it with Swedish and Danish series it doesn't come out well. The stroytelling in the Swedish and Danish series may be slow but the pace of the episodes isn't. It's not MTV, whip-pans and cut, cut, cut but they keep going forward. The Beeb's Wallander clumps along in lead boots. But for me the most telling difference is that series like The Killing, Borgen and The Bridge have compelling caharcters that draw you into the story whilst Wallander seems hell bent on concentrating on one character hell bent on pushing you away.

Spidey v The Batman

I know, I know, it's been a while. So many distractions to keep a man away from his blog.

The new Spiderman film is out there. Fantastic! Brilliant! Astonishing!  Oh, I haven't seen it and won't be queueing and paying, the reason is simple.The constant re-invention of comic book titles has now got to the point where I couldn't care less how good it is - I'm bored with the genre. Bored, bored, bored. I hear it's very good. Great. Loads of kids - dads, mums and the odd Grannie - will have a fabulous time enjoying it. But it's going back to the origins again, to reinvent the character again. Fire up the franchise motors, break out the MacDonalds tie-in merchandising, dust off the spidey duvets; ladies and gentlemen it's Spidey time again.

But not for me. No siree.

Last comic book caper I saw was The Avengers. It was good, a bit talky for some but i quite liked that aspect of it. Coming away from the cinema we talked about it as we always do, good, bad or indifferent. Love 'em or hate 'em there always something to discuss. To learn from.

But..

Ask me to describe my favourite scene right now - in fact any scene right now - and...sorry, that was me looking off into the middle distance desperately trying to remember anything that happened. Nope, nothing has stayed with me. Not one moment. 

These movies cost as much as the Greek national debt yet have no lasting effect on me at all. They're bubble gum, comic capers, that re-invent themselves with such regularity now that I can't be bothered any more. They've become the new westerns.

Except...

The Batman 'triology' is different (it was never meant to be a trilogy, it just happened when the first one and then the second one went stallar). What Christopher Nolan shaped in the first two films is something far more interesting than anything else out there that features men in capes. Even more interesting than the Watchmen movie. But then Nolan's cv is unlike the directors of other comic book films - with the exception of Kenneth Brannagh who helmed Thor. Nolan has been exploring extraordinary stories and structures since he first got to sit in the director's chair.

Momento - a story told backwards about a man who has no long term, medium term memory.

The Prestige, two rival magicians vie for the ultimate illusion, tricking each other and the audience.

Inception, a film so dense and layered no one could possibly follow it - or at least that would be the feeling of most studios. However Inception was so clever, so absorbing, so intriguing that it found a huge audience and made those dumb-ass execs sit up and realise we want more from science fiction than cgi monsters and endless explosions (Michael Bay take note).

2008's The Dark Knight wasn't a comic book film at all, it was a proper drama, wrapped up in a thriller. Yes, it had the added edge of Heath Ledger's penultimate performance but this was an astonishing piece of work. So many scenes stay with me, even though I've only seen it once.

Every movie can't resonate like that. I like fluff and balderdash in amongst the great tales but too many sweets make your teeth fall out and I'm of an age where I'd like to hang on to what I've got. So, I'm choosing my goodie bags carefully. I'll catch Spidey on the box - maybe - but the Batman I'll be out there queueing for.