The brothers say hello

This is the film we made for the Fringe press launch, which took place this morning. I don't know whether they used it or not - if they did, it probably looked less grainy than what you'll see below. Next time I upload to youtube, I'll make sure not to compose a shot full of leaves - they take up a lot of memory so the faces become a bit Dietrich. 

This is my homage to all the classic femmes fatales, in their vaseline-blurred beauty. Not that Jerome and Martin need that sort of help. But no matter what it looks like, their comic timing shines through.  I can't wait to rehearse with these two.

The Human Side

Following Sunday’s reading (more mug than saucer, I'm faking posh with this photo) I’ve got a bunch of new ideas - things to try, things to cut, things to improve.  It’s hard work, but good work.

I find it very useful to read through the script with a single thing in mind - being in Joe’s head, being in Tom’s head – do their actions and intentions all make sense? 

Then I swap the character hat for the god/writer hat: is every line active?  I’m trying to make sure the characters never do anything without trying to affect the other.  This will hopefully go some way to keeping Dad’s Money human. But there's more to it than that.

I watched a play tonight where, towards the end, two characters delivered monologues about the traumatic experiences they’ve been through.  They were very, very bad experiences - but they didn't move me.  The story involved some potentially very dramatic events, but the play consisted mostly of dualogues where the characters argued very directly over the facts at issue in the scene, so we never saw the human consequences.  It got boring.

Was it boring because the story was boring?  I don’t think so.  Macbeth would be boring if we just saw moral debates on the murders.  We don’t – Shakespeare shows us both the incitements to the killings, and the effects of the deaths on the perpetrators, the deceased’s family, on the entire kingdom.  That’s the good stuff.

It’s the same reason we want to see the weeping family on the news.  It’s the same reason the WAGs are in the paper.  It’s the same reason we gossip.  And it’s obvious we lap this stuff up, but it’s not always obvious when it’s missing from a script.

I’m going to head back to my play and read through again, digging as deep as I can into the human side. 

Reading

Yesterday, Jerome and Martin came round to read through the first draft of the play. I was pretty nervous - the play's still too raw for me. I wrote it on Tuesday, and normally no one would see new stuff for at least a couple of weeks - particularly not the actors who have to bring these characters to life in a month's time. So I made an effort and softened them up with ginger biscuits. Always a good bet for a diabetic like Martin.

Readings can be tough for a writer. You've lived with these characters for months, and they instantly stop sounding like they did in your head. Some things are better, some things hurt. But I was very pleased with what the actors came up with. They work together very well, and a lot of the humour hit right off the page. Also, there's a benefit to the rawness - later on, good actors will make bad writing seem better than it is. The first read can teach you a lot about your script.

Yeah, I was pretty happy till I came upstairs to see Martin calling the Samaritans and Jerome deciding whether to jump.

Chewbacca Tattoo

I particularly like the fact that the host appears to be almost as hairy as his tattoo. Couldn't he have simply shaved Chewie onto himself?

Since finishing the first draft a couple of days ago, I find myself slacking off a little. 

First Draft

Wrote the first draft yesterday. I woke up just before five, and worked for seven hours, flying on Apple Jacks and coffee. Left myself shaking, back shot but with thirty-six pages of play. 

I think it's good, but it's too early to tell yet. I'll leave it for a couple of days, then re-read before I start cutting and sanding. There's a long way to go, but for now, I'm pleased.

Cooking

I'm still at it. Compare this picture to earlier in the month, and you'll notice the big change: blu-tacked cord is now snaking through the scenes. I'm making progress, but I can't shake the feeling that the wall would look better with a picture of Stringer Bell.

This morning, I have written a good, barbed joke for scene one and the final few lines of scene three. I've also made chocolate ice-cream which isn't freezing properly and some promising borscht. If the guests can overlook the outline of two brothers belting each other on the wall, it should be a good night.  

On Film-Making

I’m reading this book by Alexander MacKendrick, who directed some of my favourite films including The Ladykillers and The Sweet Smell of Success.  He talks about how the fact a script must be written with words makes one think about it verbally, which is a handicap to mastering the pre-verbal structures of narrative cinema.  We automatically equate thought with reading and writing, rather than visuals.

I think it’s true for theatre too.  You write plays with words.  Writers are also encouraged not to put in too many stage-directions - it can be seen as treading on the director's or the actors' toes - so I tend to stick to dialogue.  In the past I’ve written clever stuff and I've written funny stuff, but what’s engaging about a play isn’t what people say to each other, it’s what they’re feeling as they say it.

Writing Dad’s Money, I’m burying deep into the emotional journeys before I write any words.  Dialogue comes naturally to me, and it’s very hard to hold back from it, but I hope it’s going to make a deeper, more brutal, more beautiful piece when the words finally come.