City Lights review for Empire First Take Club

So basically I’ve never seen a Charlie Chaplin film. Obviously I’m aware who Charlie Chaplin is – that black and white guy with the little moustache who tried to conquer Europe – but I’ve never actually seen one of his films.

Also, I have a prejudice against elderly comedy. As anyone who has sat grimacing through the ‘light relief’ in a Shakespeare play will tell you, comedy doesn’t age well. 

The opening scene of City Lights did not bode well. The kazoo voices were a worrying sign. Admirers may mourn many things about silent cinema, but I don’t imagine kazoo voices are one of them.

Fortunately it’s uphill from there. I admired the simplicity of the plot – Little Tramp falls in love with Blind Flower Girl and pretends to be rich in order to woo her and save her from poverty. As with many modern comedy scripts, its basic function is to be a washing line for Chaplin to hang comic set-pieces on.

And those set-pieces are without exception brilliantly realised. It’s a thing of wonder to see physical comedy – in many ways the purest and most universal form of comedy – come to life with such precision.

The first set-piece to make me actually laugh was the Tramp saving the Millionaire from suicide. The fact that the film incorporates dark themes such as suicide, poverty and homelessness adds to the laughs – it feels like there’s something real at stake, something to be won and lost throughout the film. The set-pieces at a nightclub, a party at the Millionaire’s house, and of course the boxing ring are also a joy to watch. The sheer level of technical skill on display boggles the mind.

Most of the film is shot in long-shots, there are only a few close-ups, and those by and large are for sentimental scenes. I’m guessing that close-ups only really came to prominence in film during the sound era, when dialogue made the psychology of the characters and what they were (or weren’t) revealing in their faces so important.

The title is misleading – there aren’t many city lights on show, and exactly what city we’re in seems hard to identify, as the film seems to be entirely shot on Hollywood backlots.

From a screenwriting point of view, the relationship between the Tramp and the Millionaire impressed me the most. The Millionaire is a comic take on Jekyll and Hyde – he considers the Tramp his best friend and showers him with money when drunk, and has no idea who he is when sober. It’s a great conceit, brilliantly played by Chaplin and Harry Myers. Myers has my favourite throwaway gag when he literally throws away a photo of his ex-wife out of shot.

The more famous relationship between Tramp and Flower Girl I found less entrancing. On first encountering the Flower Girl, my wife Wendy wondered whether she was really blind or faking. A deception like that would have given the character at least two dimensions, but evidently the budget of the film could only stretch to one.

Overall it was good to fill in a hole in my cinematic CV and have a laugh while doing so. Although I’m surer than ever that the use of the kazoo voice should be restricted purely to the teacher in Charlie Brown cartoons.

Producers To Watch Out For

TV PRODUCERS.

Who are they and what they hell do they do?

If you glance at the credits of your favourite TV show, you’ll spot the Big 3 of Writer, Director and Producer. (There are often plenty of Executive Producers too, but that’s a whole other blog).

It’s pretty easy to comprehend what the first two mean. The Writer writes the script. The Director tells the actors and crew what to do. The Producer … produces? Like a magician producing a rabbit from a hat? Or like the American term for fruit and veg - he/she sprinkles the Writer and Director with a watering can full of money, thereby producing a prize-winning television marrow?

Probably the most vivid layman’s idea of what a producer does derives from film: Harvey Weinstein with his cigar barking orders, hiring and firing and placing large bets on movies with his wads of cash.

That is the biggest difference between film and TV producers. A film producer’s main job is to drum up the funding to make the film. In the UK that usually means an eye-watering patchwork quilt of financing deals and tax breaks and pre-selling of distribution rights. When it all comes together, the film producer is like a cowboy or cowgirl heroically forging a new frontier and creating a bustling town from an empty desert.

The TV producer’s role is different because in TV the financial structure is much simpler. A TV series is generally wholly financed by the channel broadcasting it. As soon as that one deal is in place, the funding issue is effectively over.

So what do TV producers do? If you are a writer going for your first meeting with a TV producer, who are you meeting?

I thought it might be helpful to break down five very different types of people I’ve encountered in TV, all of whom share the same job title of producer. 

The Creative Producer

This is the producer you want and need, and if you find a good one, never let them go. The Creative Producer is someone who understands both the creative and business side of what goes into making a show. They are as comfortable dealing with actors and execs as they are with reading and responding to scripts. They give you good notes – but not too many, and at the right time, expressed in a helpful way. They praise you when your writing’s going well and give you support and encouragement when it’s not. They won’t micro-manage you, but instead trust you to do a good job and are there to back you up when you feel like you can’t go any further. Above all, they put the show first and bend over backwards to protect you and your precious stories and characters from the slings and arrows of outrageous channel interference and production meltdowns. I’ve been lucky to have worked with more than my fair share of Creative Producers over the years and it’s one of the reasons I feel protective when the ‘suits’ get a knee-jerk slagging off from writers. The true Creative Producer is your bodyguard and friend.

The Line Producer

A producer who does a brilliant job of managing all the hugely complex elements of a production from the channel executives to the catering, but doesn’t get involved in the writing process and doesn’t give you script notes. Sometimes this kind of producer is exactly what you need – particularly if you are getting creative feedback from other people in the production, such as a trusted script editor or creative channel commissioner. These are the ego-free heroes and heroines who keep a show on the road without looking for glory or asking for admiration (although a bit of both is always welcome). You’ll start to appreciate good Line Producers when you’ve been landed with a terrible one and suddenly realise all the life-saving work the good ones do without you noticing. It’s time to sing a song for the unsung Line Producers – a song of long hours, endless emails and making sure the toilet truck isn’t parked next to the catering van.

The Empire Builder

The opposite of the Line Producer, the Empire Builder wants and needs to be front and centre. This is the kind of producer who is likely to announce (or merely think) ‘this is my show.’ Empire Builders are much more focussed on relationships ‘up’ (who’s the most influential exec at the channel?) than ‘down’ (how is the Second Assistant Director getting on?). Empire Builders often excel as salespeople – their greatest strength is being able to sell a show with their charisma, enthusiasm and political know-how. They are half-human, half-iPhone. They know who’s in and who’s out at the channel, who’s the power behind the throne and who’s a sock puppet. Or they like you to think that they know. You need to watch out for Empire Builders when you start to get the feeling that your show is merely a small principality in their burgeoning, world-conquering domain. A principality they might at some point need to dissolve and strip for parts if a larger territory has a greater need. Try and use the formidable skills of the Empire Builder without ever taking your beady eye off them.

The Frustrated Writer

Now we turn down a darkened corner into the land of Producers To Avoid. There are frustrated writers lurking within the heart of most producers, but only the Frustrated Writers have failed to hold their urges in check. They will attempt not just to rewrite your script, but write it for you. None of your ideas will be good enough for the simple reason that they’re your ideas, not theirs. There’s rarely a cure for an advanced case of Frustrated Writer, so as soon as you spot the symptoms, don a protective suit and leave the building by the nearest exit, throwing blank sheets of paper over your shoulder as you do so.

The Ripoff Merchant

We’ve journeyed up the producer river like Martin Sheen, now it’s time to meet our Colonel Kurtz – the producer who abides in the heart of darkness – the Ripoff Merchant. The Ripoff Merchant is a producer who breaks the most important unwritten rule of producing – ‘the show comes first’. As you get to know them you’ll be chilled by the dawning realisation that they’re more interested in making money than making a good show. Hopefully you’ll never encounter one of these but if you do, my advice is to grab some garlic and a wooden stake and plunge it directly into their heart.

I thoroughly recommend Andrew Ellard’s excellent breakdown of the 3 types of script editor, which helped inspire this blog:

https://storify.com/ellardent/three-script-editors

Screenwriting Mind Games

There are various mind games you have to play on yourself to be a screenwriter. Here are my top 4:

1. THE GAME OF FIRST DRAFT vs LAST DRAFT

Your first draft will never, ever be your last draft. Unless you're directing, producing and paying for the film yourself - in which case, may God have mercy on your soul.

You will end up rewriting the bloody thing 5, 10, 50, 100 times. Whatever the total number of drafts you eventually reach, the only guarantee is that it will be at least 2 and possibly 200 more than you thought were strictly necessary.

However, when you're writing that all-important first draft, you have to forget about all those future iterations and treat it like the last draft you'll ever write. Why? Because there's no quicker way to kill off whatever life is in the words you're writing than the thought 'that'll do'.

You have to pretend that this weak baby gazelle of a script, spindly legs burdened by the weight of expectation, inexperience and its own tortured story logic, is the best version of itself it's ever going to be and give it everything you've got. That's the only way it will be anywhere near good enough to earn its passage to the second round of the endless Script Olympics.

2. THE GAME OF WRITER vs READER

There are two distinct roles you have to play in the writing process - writer and reader. Personally when writing a draft I move constantly, like a shark, never reading over what I've written out of fear that its total awfulness will sap my self-belief and I'll never get to the end - and getting to the end, especially on a first draft, is everything. No-one ever had two-thirds of a script produced (although some would argue that George Lucas achieved this not once but three times).

But once a draft is done, it's time to take off the writing hat - the racing helmet worn to protect the wearer from dangerously high typing speeds - and put on the reading hat - the deerstalker in which one can comfortably ease back in the armchair to absorb a good yarn.

Leave as long as possible between writing and reading. It takes a generous cushion of time to fully achieve the hat-exchange maneuver - to stop being the precious writer and forget about all the great reasons why super-criminal Toby Nutkins just has to be wearing red trousers when he's confronted by The Beagle - and instead calmly observe the boring scene/annoying character/terrible joke and take a hatchet to it with a cry of 'who wrote this shit?'

3. THE GAME OF ARROGANCE vs HUMILITY

Writing any script - particularly your first script - is an act of extraordinary arrogance. 'Here I sit, Josephine Shithead, preparing to join the hallowed ranks of the Coen Brothers, Lena Dunham and the guys behind the Scary Movie franchise by writing a script. A script so goddamn great it will pole vault its way over all the scripts written by all the other Shitheads who think they are the real deal when the fact is they are not - whereas I, on my very first try, quite definitely am.'

It's essential to be drunk on a neat shot of 100% proof arrogance before writing a script or you'll simply never manage to pull it off. A balanced, reasonable view of one's own capabilities and the odds against success would mean the balloon of self-confidence deflating approximately halfway through the first scene, leaving nothing but the low pathetic hiss of dead ambition.

But that neat shot is strictly for First Draft Guy. First Draft Guy can be as arrogant as Han Solo but subsequent drafts need to be written with the humility of Yoda. Otherwise you'll just be another knobhead with a terrible script he thinks is great. And Lord knows we don't need any more of those.

4. THE GAME OF DISCIPLINE vs RELAXATION

Professional writers learn to make friends with deadlines. But what do you do without deadlines – when no-one is waiting for you to deliver your script or frankly cares whether you finish at all?

Create artificial deadlines. Much like a six-year old who imagines if they step on the cracks in the pavement a bear will attack them, you can pretend that if you don’t finish a scene by the end of the day, a bear will attack you. If you don’t find the prospect of bear attack convincing, go for a different threat, such as ‘if I don’t finish this scene by 5 o’clock I am a total failure as a human being.’

Problems start when these fear tactics work too well. You find yourself typing sweatily, looking down the barrel of a lifetime of self-hate you have so enthusiastically promised yourself, and in the process, are unable to write anything halfway decent. The brain needs to be supple not clenched to do its work. You may find that taking a walk in the park is as crucial to your creativity as banging away on a keyboard. Just as long as the walk doesn’t end in a run to the pub/cinema/crackhouse.

If you are tempted to run, remember – the bear will find you. Not a metaphorical bear, the actual bear you hired me to bring round at 5 o’clock – remember?

Originally published in The Guardian on 31/7/13: 

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/jul/31/sam-bain-how-to-write-screenplay-script

Notiquette

'Notiquette' - the art of giving and receiving notes - is one of the least talked about but most vital parts of every screenwriter's life. (I can't speak on behalf of playwrights and novelists, having had only a passing experience of being either, but I'm sure it applies to them too).

Being a member of a writing partnership, as I have been for the past fifteen years, makes Notiquette a constant part of my working life. Solo writers may have days, weeks or months of writing alone in their garret/penthouse (delete as applicable) before they send their masterpiece off and await the 'ping' of head-swelling praise or testicle/ovary-crushing criticism (delete as applicable), but a co-writer gets notes on a daily, hourly, minute-by-minute basis. After fifteen years I've learned what the tiniest muscle movement on my co-writer's face means with regard to the joke I've just pitched or the tone of his voice on the other end of the phone says about the quality or otherwise of the scenes I've just emailed. And I’m pathetically grateful for his fake laughter at my substandard gag. I'd choose a genuine belly laugh every time, but I deeply appreciate what the fake laugh means - that he's trying to deliver a negative note in the kindest possible way. Which is perhaps the essence of all good note giving.

Of course the basis of our note give and take is friendship and trust. We trust each other’s judgement and sense of humour and we are patient with each other’s foibles. It’s a very different thing when we are faced with feedback from a producer or script editor whom we may not know very well, or even at all. It’s particularly hard when a writer is starting out as he/she doesn’t have established relationships with trusted producers/script editors – everyone is a stranger. How can I trust this person? Am I a pawn in their weird mindgame or are they an angel sent to help me write a better script?

Here are some tips for note-givers.

Note Don’ts:

1. Don’t rewrite the script and send it back to the writer. Admittedly this has only happened to me once, and it was done by a producer/script editor who had come up with the concept of the show, but it is still a high-watermark of note-don’ts.
2. Don’t forward to the writer an uncensored email containing extensive, negative notes from a third party who is not in any way involved in the process. (This has only happened to me once, but once is enough.) The note-giving process has to occur within a ‘circle of trust’ and a note has value in proportion to the commitment of the person giving it. In other words, if you’re not involved in the project and you don’t even like it, please don’t give me your notes. (There are exceptions to this rule – for example, rejection letters do occasionally contain worthwhile notes. If all the rejection letters you get contain the same note, it’s probably worth taking.)
3. Don’t take the piss. All writers get it wrong, but it is our right  to fail (and know we’ve failed) without getting humiliated in the process.
4. Don’t give too many little notes at an early stage. We don’t need to know if some lines or jokes could be improved at Draft #1 – at Draft #1, we just want to know if the story is any good at all.
5. Don't give notes based on how you would write the script - if you want to write, there are plenty of blank pages still available.
6. Try to avoid emotional/inflammatory language in notes. Say there are problems, not that something is 'sloppy' - say it could be funnier, not that it's 'schoolboy humour.'

Note do’s:

1. Please make suggestions and come up with ideas. A list of problems is depressing. A list of problems peppered with ideas for solutions is less depressing. Plus it shows you’re making an effort and putting yourself on the line. It’s a lot safer and easier to be critical than it is to be creative. If even one of your ideas is worth including, we will be forever grateful. If all of your ideas are terrible, that will make us feel better about our half-decent ideas – although we may be able to take your notes seriously ever again. It’s a risk worth taking.
2. Do include relevant anecdotes from your life, the more embarrassing the better. They may not get into the script, but they make you more human and we are better able to accept you hitting us over the head with your notes as a result.

 Here are some tips for writers (note-receivers):

1. Try not to treat every note as if it was an arrow aimed by an assassin straight for your heart. If you can find even one thing in any given set of notes which helps you improve your script, they were worth receiving. 
2. Have compassion for the note-giver. Like the wolf in the forest, they are just as scared of you as you are of them. They are probably frustrated writers at heart, who envy your good looks and your prodigious talent.
3. Forgive them their confusion. They may not even really know why they don’t like something. But if you can figure out why they don’t like it, you’re halfway to solving it.
4. Realize the value of a good note-giver. If you can find a note-giver you can trust, whose judgement you respect, whose sense of humour you share, grab hold of them and never let them go.

Get noting!

Originally published in a blog on 9-2-11:

http://sambaintv.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/notiquette-by-sam-bain.html