Is there a man more aptly named than Russell Brand?  Consistent, distinctive, and seemingly omnipresent, the presenter-cum-lothario is on-message 24/7, his electric hair and woman’s trousers defining him as clearly as a logo even before he opens his mouth and does his shrill stuff.  It’s a considerable achievement, and one that those of us aiming to create memorable films and television programmes could learn a lot from.

A lot of writers get sniffy about advertising and marketing.  More fool them.  I’ve learned –and earned — at least as much through work in those worlds, with big name clients from Kodak to Virgin, as I have through screenwriting workshops and going through the script development process with script editors and directors. 

Forget the word ‘brand’ for a minute, and instead ask yourself this: would you like to create focused story concepts that register with an audience, and by doing so become a go-to writer for whatever sector it is you’d like to be making a living in?  Great: because learn to understand brands and that’s precisely what you can achieve.

I’m especially conscious of this at the moment because of an opportunity to write a low budget film that has a (verbal, currently) offer of funding from America.  Why?  In a nutshell, the director has established his own brand well enough to be seen credibly.  And I’m here to come up with a story that will work on that budget.  Which I believe I cracked yesterday.

Time for a recap.  The low budget film sector in Britain is at a fascinating time.  There are, thanks to opportunities like WarpX, Microwave, Qwerty, and the assistance available from regional screening agencies, a wide range of possibilities for the wannabe filmmaker.  Which is great…as long as the writers involved have the ability to develop novel concepts into striking scripts that will inspire actors and directors to create uniquely compelling films that audiences will seek out and see at the cinema, since the object of all this is to persuade people to part with cash for an evening out that may well involve babysitting fees, and we want them to have a memorable time.

Well, that’s the way I see it anyway.  And I wish more writers and directors felt the same way, because I continue to meet people aspiring to make films who have no concept of an audience and no sense of what it means to engage with them.  In which case, let’s look at things another way…

Look at the evidence of your own purchasing decisions, whether it’s your DVD collection, your footwear, your haircut, your holidays.  Each of those choices says something about you, individually and collectively, and – like it or not – shows the ability of someone somewhere to identify you as part of their market.  Fine, don’t use the word market if you don’t like it.  I’m exaggerating to make a point: what’s important is that you consider it.  And when you’re considering your story at the treatment stage, start to figure who your audience is, in detail, and bear them in mind when you’re writing.  It’s something we do naturally anyway: the way you tell a story to one group of friends in a pub is different to the way you’d relate it to your gran. 

Thinking with clarity about who you’re writing for is essential.  It’s a requirement of any work you’ll do within television, for a start, where the specifics of a particular show as contained with in its series bible effectively contain the worldview and detail of how that show is perceived by its audience.  Branding, in other words.  It’s a vital part of getting the title right for a film – I’m currently torn between two for the low budget project I’m developing, one ‘feels right’ and certainly sounds snappy, but is the name of a foreign dish and may misleadingly paint the story as an obscure piece of world cinema; the other is a distinctive expression in English that serves to identify the protagonist pretty well.  Branding, again.

When I’m script doctoring with a writer or director, branding is one of the key things I think about, and is why I like to have 1:1 sessions in person or on the phone.  It’s then that we can clarify exactly what they are aiming for, and only with that in the open – something a lot of film makers never consciously think about – can we move on to fine-tune the script or treatment more clearly so it communicates to an identifiable audience.

The fact that I personally don’t like Russell Brand’s ‘thing’ is neither here nor there.  He is reliably guaranteed to deliver his form of entertainment to those who want it, leaving me the option to search for alternatives that float my particular boat elsewhere…