While the turn out at the meeting was high, we were quite short on the ground for ladies when it came to the reading. Sad really, as this was a rare occasion when we actually had roles for them (as a male dominated group, female characters only seem to rear their head to provide a companion to the males in the script.)
Anyway, our main feature tonight came curtsey of Martin Price and Lawrence Scholey, their script entitled Please Help Me saw a group of flat mates throw a party. Warmly received by the group for its humour and creative events, there was of course plenty of ideas for improvement. Although the script flowed quite nicely, many considered it to be a series of sketches rather than coherent plot. A slave to the devices, the script failed to set up any of the events before they happened, this left audience surprised, but missed out on the trick of building anticipation. The idea of throwing a party although a fine idea does not work for a pilot or spec script. Since a party involves so many people it does not give a good idea of how the series would play out, we don’t know who are the regular characters, and who are just around for that episode. The originality of the idea was also questioned, it is well known that every writer has a flat share script in their back pocket, right next to their heaven and hell script, there would have to be something special in that script to make it stand out in the crowd. Being Human after a year in development solved this problem by making one character a werewolf, one a ghost and the other a vampire.
As writers we will often draw on our own life experience when writing a script, the mistake we often make is to take just the events and characters that we fondly (or not) remember and forget the emotion behind it. We hide our deeper feelings behind the visual, but it is that emotion which makes real characters that the audience connects with. Inside we share many of the same vulnerabilities and fears and we can sympathise when we get to see it in others. Since Please Help Me was based on many real life experiences it could have benefited from revealing a little more depth and brutal honesty in the characters.
Sketch wise we had The Flush by Mark Leeson a charming piece of character interaction on the serious matter of phone etiquette. The visuals needed Porn Sketch by yours truly brought up interesting debate, but from my point of view the visual nature of the sketch could not be captured in a reading, so I am still not sure the best way display what I believe is a very strong idea.
ComComedy had a weekend full of filming, a series of office sketches were produced using material supplied by members of the group and call has been put out for sketches based in a park. You can find more details on ComComedy here.
Right, back to writing for me now. Until next time.
