28 June 2012
Posted in Film

An open letter to screenwriters from Writers' Guild members Richard Curtis and David Seidler

As fellow screenwriters, we are writing on behalf of the InternationalAffiliation of Writers Guilds (IAWG) and the Federation of Screenwriters in Europe (FSE) about important research into the visibility ofscreenwriters at film festivals.

Building on a survey conducted in 2010, we are undertaking a wider investigation into the visibility of screenwriters at film festivals. Togather this information, we are keen to hear of your experiences througha brief online survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ScreenwritersSurvey

It will take just five minutes of your time and your participation willbe greatly appreciated.

Your answers and comments are central to this research. They will helpus all understand how screenwriters could be better supported atfestivals and what is necessary to achieve this goal. The findings willbe published in a report to be released in Autumn 2012. IAWG and FSE represent more than 20,000 writers working in film, radio and television on five continents. This joint initiative arose from the 2009 World Conference of Screenwriters in Athens, where it was resolved that the vital contribution of screenwriters needs to be more fully acknowledged both within the film industry and in the public arena atlarge.

Thank you for your consideration.

Yours faithfully

Richard Curtis and David Seidler

Here's the article by Guild member Guy Hibbert (pdf), published in the Writers' Guild magazine UK Writer, about the origins of the film festivals campaign.

25 June 2012
Posted in TV

Jayne Kirkham reports from the Prix Jeunesse International Children’s Television Festival 2012

(The Amazing World of Gumball, created by Ben Bocquelet, winner of the Prix Jeunesse International award for Fiction for 7-11-year-olds)

Despite the rise of the internet and social media, in most parts of the world television is still the leading medium for children. For over 40 years the Prix Jeunesse Foundation, based in Munich, has sought to promote television that enables children to see, hear and express themselves and their culture and that enhances an awareness and appreciation of other cultures. Built on a solid foundation of academic research, Prix Jeunesse takes very seriously the idea that good children’s television is a social responsibility. Its biennial festival, the Prix Jeunesse International, awards the world’s best children’s and youth programmes and engages producers and broadcasters in hands on workshops and other partnerships for excellence.  

It is a lot of fun. And rather tiring. There were 85 shows in competition, covering fiction and non-fiction in preschool, 7-12 years and 12-16 years age ranges, plus some 400 other shows also available to view. After each category delegates discussed what they had seen before secret ballots were taken. A Prix Jeunesse is a tremendous accolade, but winning is not all that the festival is about.

Unlike markets like MIPCOM, business takes a backseat here. Instead it is an opportunity to learn more about children in different countries and cultures. It's also offers chance to see different ways of doing things and to be inspired. A selection of the very best programmes from this year’s Prix Jeunesse will be screened at the Children’s Media Conference in Sheffield 4-6 July. If you are going, don’t miss it. If you’re not going, go.

So what or who inspired me? The producer from Bhutan, who is pioneering youth television in his country; The Chalk Boy, a drama from the Philippines that made me leap out of my seat; Mina Moes, a live action story about a courageous little Dutch girl determined to wear her Minnie Mouse ears no matter what everyone else thinks; the astonishingly creative Design Ah! from Japan that uses image so perfectly and had one of the most positive depictions of women. That is probably my big ‘take away’ (if you’ll excuse the kids’ TV technical term): that worldwide, women still have a stupidly long way to go before being portrayed as anything other than mothers, bossy big sisters and love interests. Gender Representation is something that the Prix Jeunesse Foundation has recently investigated. In the largest ever children’s TV analysis they have looked at gender representation in 19,664 programmes from 24 countries. The results are published at childrens-tv-worldwide.com.

One more thing that I learnt and that is that Nordic drama series for kids are just as excellent as adult shows such as The Bridge or The Killing (although with less… killing) but here in the UK we still have some of the best children’s television in the world. Really we do. Consistently. Across all genres. Whether it’s from the BBC or independent companies, our storytelling and our understanding of our audience is second to none. There are few territories where children are served as well as the UK.  The danger is that we take it for granted and we could lose it so easily. Look at what happened when ITV shut Granada Kids. The BBC Trust says Children’s is one of its five editorial policies but it has to make cuts somewhere. Dedicating two channels to children’s content looks like content is protected but by taking children’s programmes off of BBC1 and 2, the terrestrial contracts and fee structure, will no longer be appropriate. Writers and other creators are looking at 50% drops in income. Great savings for the Corporation, but at some cost: you know the cliché, pay peanuts and you’ll get monkeys.

With the Guild having recently signed the best Television Writers’ Agreement in the world, we are in a good position to look carefully at the implications for children’s television specialists, both live action and animation.

It’s a negative thought to end on but only if we do nothing. As I said, Prix Jeunesse takes seriously the idea that good children’s television is a social responsibility. Several times during the festival I was reminded of the United Nations’ International Convention on the Rights of the Child that the UK signed up to some twenty years ago. It is a right, not a privilege, for children to enjoy and participate in cultural and artistic activities, be given news and information appropriately and educated so that their personality, talents and abilities are developed to the full. I think that gives the Writers’ Guild a good base on which to go forward when discussing children’s media matters with industry and Government.

View the full list of Prix Jenuness International 2012 winners (pdf)

23 June 2012
Posted in Theatre

The Writers' Guild of Great Britain passed an emergency motion at its AGM on 14th June deploring Arts Council England's withdrawal of investment in the future of dramatic writing and writers, and resolving to lobby the Arts Council and Government for a change of policy on the issue.

The motion was sparked by the recent rejection of a bid by North West Playwrights (NWP) for Grants for the Arts funding. In recent years regular Arts Council funding has been withdrawn from NWP and similar writer support agencies Script (West Midlands) and Theatre Writing Partnership (East Midlands).

As the motion notes, producing theatres, under the pressure of funding cuts, are reducing their support for writers and new writing. Aside from NWP the only bodies offering development services for scriptwriters independent of theatre companies are New Writing North and New Writing South – both as part of a general portfolio of facilities for all forms of writing.

Julie Wilkinson, who proposed the AGM motion, said: 'Dramatic writing requires a high level of professional skill and experience. Hacking away at the roots of the industry by cutting resources available for new writers will damage the long term future, not only of theatre writing, but television, radio and film as well.

'These cuts mean that support now depends on where you live, with only patchy access to script development services available in a few areas. We have seen great improvements in the diversity of writing and writers on the English stage, since 2003, as a result of strategic funding decisions; but without effective policies to support emerging talent, writers who cannot fund their own training will find it much harder to make their voices heard.'

Guild President David Edgar seconded the motion, saying that playwriting development agencies like North West Playwrights played a vital role in the huge expansion of new theatre writing in England over the last 20 years. Now that so many are losing their funding, he continued, there is a real danger that the next generation of playwrights will be unable to develop their craft as effectively as those who are now dominating the British stage. Founded by the Theatre Writers’ Union (which joined the Guild in the 1990s), North West Playwrights was and is the leading organisation in the field.

The motion was passed unanimously, and the Guild's Theatre Committee, led by playwright Amanda Whittington, will be seeking early contact with the Arts Council.

20 June 2012
Posted in General

Julian Williams urges budding writers to join the Guild

We’re a mixed bunch at the Writer’s Guild of Great Britain. Candidate Members like me and Full Members like a lot of you.

We’re successful, hopeful, trying, succeeding, struggling, fighting. We’re against the odds most of the time and some of the time one of us pops up with a great news story. That something we’ve created on a blank sheet of paper gets into production. Or print. Or on screen.

Mind you, half the time we’re probably viewed, we writers, as being mad as hatters. And half of that time we could well be!

But there’s one thing and one thing only that unites us, draws us together, protects us, gives us strength and a sense of unity, that is there for us when we need it most and that praises us when we deserve it most.

A parental hand. A guardian. A promoter of our truths and ways and thoughts.

I am, of course, referring to our very own Writers’ Guild of Great Britain.

And when I look at my membership card and think about why I have it and that I can hold it and it feels real. I feel protected, supported, encouraged, hopeful and energised.

I implore all budding writers to join the ranks of the established and take out a Candidate Membership. And be part of the team. Where you’ll never walk or write alone.

This article first appeared on Julian Williams's blog

Join the Writers’ Guild Of Great Britain

19 June 2012
Posted in General

Extracts from the speech given by the new Writers' Guild Chair, Roger Williams, at the AGM last week

I've been trying to remember of late when exactly I became a member of the Writers' Guild. I think it was 15 years ago. I was 22 years old and an early starter. Longstanding Guild member Sion Eirian was at a performance of one of my plays. Sion had his recruitment patter down to a fine art. He started by telling me how great my play was before sweeping in for the kill and asking me to join up. Flattery, in my case, really will get you anywhere.

The Wales branch met at that time in the back room of a rugby club in Cardiff on the third Wednesday of each month except August, when members would be at the National Eisteddfod, and December, when everyone would meet for a curry. It was at these committee meetings that I learnt about the business of being a writer. Contracts, negotiation, attendance fees, and the industry gossip. Individuals - often in competition with each other - coming together with the shared interest of helping one another.

This is fundamentally what the Guild is to me. Writers working together to get a better deal, to defend our rights and to campaign on issues that unite us.

I graduated from the smoky rugby club to being a representative on the Guild's Executive Council . Terrifying at first. I don't think I spoke for a year, but with time I found my feet and you'll be relieved to learn, I'm starting to get the hang of it.

So, I take over as Chair. Not an easy job when you remember whom I'm taking over from. Robert Taylor has done a tremendous amount for the Guild. He's overseen - with Bernie Corbett and the staff - a series of initiatives that have prepared our union for the future. The new BBC agreement, the establishment of Writers Digital Payments and the Writers Guild Foundation.

Thanks should also be paid to Rupert Creed, the outgoing treasurer, for his commitment to the Guild. I know the Guild is in a better shape now thanks to the work of these two men.

I lo ok forward to working with new treasurer Andy Walsh, new deputy chairs Ming Ho and Antony Pickthall and the. I also look forward to working with you because we ARE doing this together.

You've shown your commitment to the Guild by coming here today to the AGM and I encourage you to continue supporting our union in whatever way you can.

If you give a talk about your work, mention the Guild. Join Twitter and retweet the Guild's news stories. Persuade your colleagues to sign up. If you aren't on a Guild committee, join one. If you are on a committee, join another.

It is through dialogue and co-operation that the Guild is where it is today and long may it continue.

(Photo of Roger Williams by Warren Orchard Photography)

15 June 2012
Posted in Books and Poetry

Myles McLeod on self-publishing a picture e-book, Caroline’s World

On my brother’s 30th birthday I presented him with a poster of his rock family tree. It had all the bands he had drummed for to date. On my thirtieth birthday my brother presented me with an animation based on a character I drew as a child, The M Man. You can watch it on YouTube if you like. We’re not only brothers but business partners in the aptly named duo The Brothers McLeod. He does the pictures. I do the words.

On our sister’s 30th birthday we hit upon the idea of making her a book. Having two older brothers can’t have been easy for Caroline growing up. That might be why she invented Caroline’s World. When we made things difficult, or told her something wasn’t how we wanted it, she would respond with, ‘It’s not like that in Caroline’s World!’ It was the perfect comeback. It’s also what provided the inspiration for her book… a picture book that her child self could have called her own. So we wrote it, illustrated it and then worked our way around the self-publishing site blurb.com. We printed a few copies and gave them to her on her birthday. She loved it. She wasn’t the only one. We sent it to a few publishers too. They read the book and wanted to see us! Great! They also loved it. They passed it round the office. Everyone in their offices loved it! So, did they want to publish it?

No.

So that means one of two things. Either they didn’t really love it after all, or it was good, but for whatever reason it just wasn’t right for their limited list of picture books. So what next? The obvious next step was to look at self-publishing. Blurb.com was good, but the print version of the large hardback book was forty pounds just to produce. Not very commercial! Instead I started to try and get my head around the Amazon based Kindle market – e-books. Kindle isn’t just the hand held device, it’s also an App you can download to any computer, iPhone of Android phone. I spent a lot of time reading how to format the book, with the added complication that ours was really just a series of pictures that had to be formatted to the correct size and resolution. Then I had to fiddle around with the HTML of the file. Fortunately I did some website development a few years back. I have to say it’s not quite as simple as I hoped, but I got there in the end.

During this time I also went to a very useful and informative talk by Andy Conway who self-published a number of books last year. He’s much further ahead of the game than I am and also self publishes printed books. You can find him and his blog online at andyconway.net. His talk helped confirm I had been doing all the right things and wasn’t about to publish a load of gobbledegook.

Finally I published the e-book on Amazon. It was now available to buy in the USA, UK and some other European countries. Initially, only a few friends bought one in the UK. We had no USA sales at all until I enrolled the book in the KDP Select programme and gave the book away for free for a few days. Yes, for free. Over 2,000 people downloaded it. Strangely I wasn’t annoyed. I was pleased. I liked the idea that the story was out there, being read and shared. However, after the free period ended we had a few US sales as well. It had basically worked like a promotion.

The self-publishing dream is of course to make enough money by directly selling your books to punters that you don’t have to do anything else. Of course, the reality is more prosaic. I’m led to believe most successful e-book authors do a lot of blogging, tweeting, guest blogging on other people’s sites, online forum discussions, and that sort of thing. They obviously also use the KDP Select programme to promote themselves as well. The other main factor in success is the number of titles you publish. The more you have, the more they help to promote each other.

So far we might have made enough money to buy a couple of pints of beer. To be fair it’s only been online for about a month. Also we’ve only published one book. Added to that our book is full colour which doesn’t look so great on a black and white Kindle device (though not as bad as you might think). In the USA they have the Kindle Fire which is a full colour tablet. It should be out here eventually. The funny thing is I’m just happy that it’s out there and that we’re in the market. It seems to me it’s only going to get bigger and bigger over the next ten years and our book is there ready to be purchased, and more importantly enjoyed, and hopefully yes, even loved.

http://brothersmcleod.co.uk/carolinesworld.shtml

08 June 2012
Posted in Film

Screenwriter Lindsay Shapero talks to Oscar-winning film editor Jim Clark about his remarkable career and the insights he has for writers

You can listen to Lindsay's interview with Jim Clark in our podcast

‘If you’re handed a boring load of old tosh, it’s rather difficult to weave it into a masterpiece, but often a fine film can be carved out of confusing footage.’

On meeting film editor Jim Clark, you can see why he’s always been in such demand – he displays brutal honesty and total dedication, wrapped up in old school charm. He’s very entertaining company and it’s what makes his memoirs such a rewarding read – he doesn’t spare the blushes of the super egos.

A film editor is the ultimate back-room presence. The one with the golden eyes. The one who knows everybody’s secrets, the actors’ and director’s brilliance and flaws. Expected to be magicians and alchemists, film editors lead us into a story through a sleight of hand, turning base metal into gold.

It’s a career for lone wolves, the work commencing once the cast and crew are finished. Jim’s long-time collaboration with the notoriously mercurial but brilliant film director John Schlesinger was one of the lynchpins of his career. ‘John trusted me when he didn’t trust anybody,’ Jim says. ‘Very generously, he said I’d saved his arse a lot of times.’

They made seven films together, including classics such as Midnight Cowboy (screenplay by Waldo Salt) and Marathon Man (screenplay by William Goldman). Jim was the only one Schlesinger felt he could leave with his rushes – rightly so, as Darling, their first film together, won Oscars for its writer Frederic Raphael and star Julie Christie. It helped put both director and editor on the map.

08 June 2012
Posted in Books and Poetry

A talk given by Nick Yapp for the European Writers' Council 2012 Authors' Rights Conference

I’ll start with a confession. To my shame, only after 32 years as a writer have I finally read the UNESCO Recommendations on the Status of the Artist. Reading them, I thought for one moment that I must have died at my laptop and passed on to the authors’ Land of Dreams, for the Recommendations not only affirm that there is a need to improve the 'social security, labour and tax conditions of the artist, whether employed or self-employed', but also that member states should provide both 'assistance' and 'material and moral support' for authors. This goes hand in hand with the process of education to create a public 'capable of appreciating the work of the author'. And, crucially, the Recommendations recognised the right of trade unions and professional associations of artists to defend the work of their members.

The Recommendations were drawn up following a conference in Belgrade in the autumn of 1980. The term ‘Artist’ was taken to mean any person 'who creates… or contributes to the development of art and culture and who asks to be recognised as an artist'. The Recommendations were to apply to everyone from ballet dancers to puppeteers, from actors to circus performers, 'irrespective of race, colour, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, economic status or birth' – so I guess that must include every one of us here… or does anyone feel left out?

In preparing this paper, I have substituted the word ‘author’ for ‘artist’, in the hope that this will make it easier for us to focus on the issues we’re dealing with – it might complicate matters if you have puppeteers in mind all the time. And beyond mentioning this now, I shall plead no special case for the fact that authors (with poets and painters) are the most solitary of creative artists. One other small point - the website version of the UNESCO Recommendation has been poorly proof-read – but we authors are used to this.

As for ‘status’, well, there is a whole section on this. 'The word signifies on the one hand, the regard accorded to authors in a society, on the basis of the importance attributed to the part they are called upon to play therein and, on the other hand, recognition of the liberties and rights, including moral, economic and social rights, with particular reference to income and social security, which authors should enjoy.'

So far, so wonderful. But many changes have taken place in the world of authors since 1980. Indeed, the reality is that we are not only living through the greatest revolution in writing since the invention of the printing press, but also in the greatest ever revolution in the dissemination of ideas. Put an idea on the Internet, and it can reach millions of people around the world in a matter of minutes. The speed and irresistible power of this process makes you wonder why and how any regime can still think it worthwhile to operate a policy of censorship.

06 June 2012
Posted in Theatre

Playwrights should take amateur theatre more seriously, says Fin Kennedy

(photo of Fin Kennedy by Sarah Lee)

This spring, my best-known play, How To Disappear Completely And Never Be Found, opened on both sides of the Atlantic, in London and in Washington DC. Later this year you can also catch it in Greenwich, Northampton, and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Other performances have just closed in York, Warwick and Belfast. Last season you could have seen it in Bristol, Bournemouth, Dunfermline, Guildford and Edinburgh (again). No, this isn’t a set of professional tour dates. Not one of these productions will be reviewed by the national press. The truth is that I have a play that is popular with – whisper it – amateurs.

To be fair, the London production, by final-year acting students at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA) is about as professional an amateur production as you’re likely to get, while the Washington DC version is actually the latest small scale professional theatre to produce the play in the States. But the fact remains that, five years on from its world premiere at Sheffield Crucible, my play seems to have entered the theatrical bloodstream both here and in the US, and is having the most extraordinary and unexpected afterlife.

The play first achieved some notoriety as the surprise winner of the 2006 John Whiting Award. It was the first time in the award’s history that an unproduced play had won. The irony was that the script had been doing the rounds of literary departments for more than 18 months, and had been rejected by almost every theatre in London. There was a time when it seemed as if the play’s title was an ominous reference to its fate, not to mention that of my own career. (I had actually abandoned playwriting to retrain as a teacher when the script scooped the award. I used the prize money to give up the PGCE and return to writing.) How To Disappear seems to have gone from the play that no one wanted to one that, in the amateur sector at least, is rarely not on somewhere.

All right, I’ll stop showing off. No one was more surprised than me by the play’s unlikely change in fortunes. But I’m rather proud that it seems to have gone on to appeal to so many grassroots performance groups around the country. Its popularity, particularly among university drama societies, has led to regular correspondence with a whole range of people, and interviews with amateur sector media such as Amateur Stage Magazine and Stage Talk TV. It’s a sector that’s off the radar for most professional theatre-makers. In fact, shamefully in my opinion, we have tended to be rather sniffy about it. But for playwrights in particular, as state funding for professional theatres contracts and commissions dry up, amateurs are an increasingly important marketplace for our work. They’re also a wonderful example of an entirely spontaneous and self-funding movement of ordinary citizens so in love with our art form that they want to get involved. We should be taking them more seriously. After all, weren't we all amateurs once?

01 June 2012
Posted in TV

Changes safeguard writers in the age of online viewing

(Photo: Success at last! The Writers’ Guild negotiating team celebrates the end of four years’ hard negotiations. From left: Ming Ho, Gail Renard, Bernie Corbett, J.C. Wilsher, Robert Taylor, Anne Hogben)

Major new agreements between the Writers’ Guild, the BBC and the agents’ trade body were signed yesterday (Thursday 31 May 2012), bringing the contractual terms for TV writers fully into the digital age.

The signing ceremony took place in the brand new rebuilt Broadcasting House in central London – the culmination of more than four years’ negotiations that started before the builders even moved in.

Guild General Secretary Bernie Corbett said: 'This is a hugely significant day for writers, safeguarding their interests – and their incomes – whether future viewers stick with broadcast systems or increasingly use online on-demand services. And it gives the BBC the ability to commit fully to an online future, continually increasing the ways in which both current and archive programming can be made available. These negotiations have been an incredibly long-haul, and I congratulate Guild Chair Robert Taylor, whose vision and clarity throughout his three-year term of office have been a major factor in bringing these talks to a successful conclusion.'

The agreements, as foreshadowed at the Guild AGMs in 2010 and 2011, introduce a completely new system to pay writers for the use of their work on the iPlayer online system. A new company called Writers' Digital Payments, jointly controlled by the Guild and the Personal Managers’ Association, will organise payments in proportion to the number of viewers who click to watch each individual programme. The same system can be extended in future to cover payments for possible online archive projects.

In addition the new agreements massively extend the programming covered by collective bargaining, bringing in for the first time drama and comedy commissions below 15 minutes, dramatic material in documentaries, and reforming the way sketch material is commissioned and re-used. In another important change, programmes repeated on secondary channels such as BBC3/4 and the children’s channels will earn residual fees based on a percentage of the original fee, instead of the much-criticised standard fees paid up to now.

To pay for these improvements most writers will lose the 15% additional fee paid upfront for a five-year iPlayer and secondary channels licence. The new agreements mean that this money will now find its way much more accurately to the writers of the most-downloaded and most-repeated shows. Another important change is a reduction in repeat fees, which it is hoped will enable the BBC to repeat many more shows, thus spreading the payments to a wider range of writers. But to avoid a disproportionate pay cut, current EastEnders writers have their fees system ring-fenced and there will be a two-year transition period for writers already working on other long-running series.

The new system will come into force on 1 July 2012 for new commissions, and all programmes commissioned since November 2002 will automatically switch to the new terms as and when they are repeated and/or made available online. Writers of material commissioned before November 2002 will have the option of switching to the new system – as recommended by the Guild and the other parties to the agreements – or remaining on their original terms.

More details about the new agreements and how they will affect writers in practice will be issued within the next few weeks, including a special website with answers to frequently-asked questions and other information. Almost 11,000 writers (or their estates) who have worked for the BBC over its entire history will be contacted by post with an explanation of the new agreements and an invitation to sign up. Look out for more information on the Guild website.

01 June 2012
Posted in Events

The Writers' Guild AGM will take place on Friday 15 June - all Guild members are welcome to attend.

Venue: Free Word Centre, 60 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3GA

Time: 10.30-17.00

Members wishing to attend can download a copy of the Minutes from the 2011 AGM.

28 May 2012
Posted in TV

Applications are now open for Coming Up 2013, the scheme for emerging screenwriters and directors run by Channel 4 and Touchpaper Television

Now in its 11th year, Coming Up is currently the only talent scheme in the UK where emerging filmmakers have the opportunity to make an authored drama with a guaranteed half-hour network broadcast.

They are looking for: 'Bold, original and surprising ideas with strong voices – unafraid of ambition, wit, urgency and fearless entertainment.' Films will need to be shot in four days on a limited budget

Who can apply? 

• Writers who have not had an original single, series or serial broadcast on UK television. Writers who have contributed episodes or series and serials (eg a long-running soap) are eligible to apply.
  
• Directors without a primetime TV drama credit.
  
• Writer/Directors: They will accept submissions from writer/directors who meet the criteria for writers and directors as per above, but excellence in both disciplines must be shown to be considered in this category.
  
• Submissions from multi-cultural and regionally-based filmmakers are encouraged.

Full details and application forms are on the Coming Up web pages

The closing date for applications is 2 July 2012.