So my latest screenplay – “Otherworld” – has gotten through
to the second stage of the Red Planet Prize.
It is wonderful news, and a real opportunity. I’ve entered the prize once before, in 2008,
with a script that was thrilling, exciting, far too expensive for production on
TV budgets, but most importantly, incredibly undercooked. I’d not thought past episode 1. I’d certainly not thought of episode 5 or 50
or 500. With “Otherworld” I see all
those episodes, I obsess of those episodes in a way I never have with a TV show
before. Which is why I’m going to be so
crushed if I fall at this hurdle – but I suppose why, if I do fall, I’ll take a
week, then pick myself up, dust myself down, figure out where I went wrong (and
not curse Red Planet for failing to see my obvious genius!) and work on something
else. I already have a few great ideas
stewing away.
Anyway, I wanted to bring your attention to another
wonderful post on Jason Arnopp’s blog – with guest blog from Robert Thorogood –
where Robert explains how he came to be commissioned with the wonderful Death
in Paradise (clue: it started when he became a finalist in the Red Planet
Prize, the same Prize I'm through to the second round with this year!) So can I push you in the
direction of Jason’s blog and Robert’s oringal BBC Writersroom post where he
explains some of the story behind how he came to be a produced writer? For the aspiring screenwriter, it is chock full of goodies!
What follows are my comments on Jason’s blog, which I
thought I’d share with you all:
Thanks Jason for bringing Robert's article to greater
attention. I'd read his original
Writersroom piece and always wondered how and what he'd been selling before his
first professional commission.
As somebody who has entered the Red Planet Prize this year –
and gotten through to the second round so far (Yay!) – it is always helpful to
read how people entered the industry.
It sounds like Rob had made a large number of contacts before his first produced
commission, but it was the writing on Death in Paradise that got him
through.
As somebody who lives away from
the city (rural Wales, in fact), apart from online I never to get meet industry
execs. I spend my working hours in a convenience
store stacking shelves while at night writing scripts, and finding ways of
getting my work read (the Writersroom has been invaluable, and given me two
page and a half deconstructs on the two scripts I’ve sent in, and my third
script is the Red Planet one).
Sometimes, when you’re out in the cold, desperately knocking
on the door to try and gain admittance, everything seems futile. People having the honour to see their work
produced – you, Rob, James, Abi, Russell T., you seem like lottery winners, the
lucky few – while the rest of us are stuck out in the wasteland, wondering how
long it is before we devour the corpses of those who have already died out here.
It’s easy, though, to forget that you all kept working, and working, and
working until your fingers bled – and it’s tough to forget that graft, because
we never had the (mis)fortune to read those horrors that dwell in your bottom drawer,
to see those unproduced little monsters.
So thanks Jason (and by extension Robert) for reminding us all out in
the cold, dark hinterland of uncommissioned hell, that we have to keep working,
and working some more, and keep pounding that door.
