Where other people get satisfaction from cryptic crosswords or Sudoku, I derive pleasure from coming up with straplines.  I’ve been doing that this afternoon, while at what would otherwise be a rare loose end, and have set my sights on coming up with straplines for the projects that a producer colleague will be taking out with her to Cannes.

She initiated the first of those concepts, that I’m doing a good job at working into a treatment.  The story concerns an a remote island where an unusual presence amplifies emotions with unfortunate consequences, the idea being to create a low budget sci fi/horror tale.  And I’m very pleased with what I’ve developed from that basic premise, and the title I’ve come up with for it.

Contagion, it’s called, and that has a pleasing feel to it, with its implicit notion of a virus and other unpleasantness appropriate to the genre.  But, what about the strapline?  It took a little while and some false starts to realise that the heart of the story is very much about that unique element of emotions being toyed with.  And from there it wasn’t far to CONTAGION: your emotions will be the death of you.

In nine words, that line captures pretty succinctly what audiences are in for.  No indication of how feelings create doom, but hopefully the concept that the two are linked is one that would appeal to both genders with a yen for a Friday night shocker at the cinema.  Which, bottom line, is what we’re aiming at here: a decent British horror that can turn a profit on a low budget.

Then there’s another project, a very different one.  It’s a personal drama masquerading as a psychological thriller, and it’s a story that means a lot to me.  It’s very much the sort of film that would appeal to fans of Memento and Insomnia.  Only, I never had a title for it until earlier today.  It had been lumbered with the working title Fallen Angel, but even to me that sounds like a dismal AOR ballad, the sort of trite stadium pleaser that Guns ‘n’ Roses would crank out before their big rocking encore.

Anyway, I now have a title for it.  State of Mind. Which, yes, may well owe something to State of Play.  But why ever not?  Works for me anyway.  Takes you straight to the heart of things, which I want the strapline to tease out some more.  Hmm.

The strapline then…well, straplines in this case.  I’ve come up with a few, variations on a theme, and I’m leaving it to the producer to filter through and decide which she thinks works best.  Or maybe one in particular will start to stand out for me, and I’ll propose that one.  Whatever.

Anyway, here are the contenders…

STATE OF MIND: sanity is just a choice.

STATE OF MIND: sanity is overrated

STATE OF MIND: sanity isn’t always the sane choice.

STATE OF MIND: why be limited by sanity?

All of these, I believe — as of 17.36 on Tuesday April 28 — have something going for them.  They’re all striking propositions that would provoke at least some people to want to know more, and that’s exactly what you want a  strapline to do.  Simple as.  And difficult as.

We shall see.  One version of events is that we now have enough raw stuff to do mock-up posters, but I don’t know whether the producer considers that a useful route.  At any rate, I certainly feel I’ve given her some lines which trip off the tongue with ease, and hopefully leave people intrigued.  And if those people happen to be potential production partners or financiers, so much the better.

This year, I’ve spent a lot of time developing new projects.  And that’s a very different sort of thinking than required for actually writing them.  At the development stage, I’m concerned by finding the identity of a story, establishing what makes it different from anything else out there.  And at the same time, I’m curious what existing stories I can learn from.

It’s an interesting stage, that utilises some of the same thinking skills as copywriting does.  The commonality is about establishing uniqueness in some regard, and finding a way to capitalise on it.  My training in this comes initially from working in the world of recruitment advertising, writing job ads that would appear in anything from The Sunday Times, to (seriously) Plastics & Rubber Weekly, to whatever your local newspaper is.  Having to capture the essence of a job in three paragraphs, while also conveying the employer’s brand, done to appeal to the small number of people you want to apply for the job and put others off, all packaged halfway creatively with a credible headline…it takes some doing, and I did it again and again and again, writing thousands of ads for two agencies as a copywriter.

I got to write brochures, and radio ads, and speeches and more, but recruitments ads formed the basis of that skillset.  Now, those copywriting skills are invaluable in coming up with concepts.  But actually writing the script calls for a different set of muscles.  Here, what’s important is empathy, to be able to understand where a character is coming from and how they wish to express themselves.  Pace, so scenes move at a rate that pulls the audience along with them, and changes as and when necessary to create a compelling rhythm.  And purpose, so that each scene serves a function in the overall story.  There’s also the business of conjuring what happens on a screen in terms of images and sound, so that the story is told primarily by those means, and isn’t just a matter of talking heads.

Every time I do some scripting, I learn again what it’s like to do so.  Sometimes it works beautifully, other times less so.  It can take a while to hit a groove that works for the script in question.  The last couple of days, that’s been about finding the rhythm of the pilot episode of an animated series for kids.  And I reckon I’ve got it, though can see that I may be challenged on some of the choices I’ve made.  That’s in the realm of tone: the series has a quasi-fantastic setting, but I wanted the relationships between children and adults to feel real.  So, the mystique is in the world of the story: the kids can and do have adventures, but adults will be around some of the time when they do.  Which I hope is a feature in this story’s favour: I like the idea of realistic relationships in a fantastic milieu.  Fingers crossed.

It’s been fun playing with some of the possibilities of animated storytelling.  The episode has a false start that leads viewers down one road, before making it clear that we’re headed down another.  That’s done through a fantasy sequence, which is a case of both having and eating cake: ie, it presents the show as being more full of derring-do that it actually is.  A risky strategy, arguably, to show viewers what they could have and then take it away.  Making it important that I get right what is actually delivered.

Another delightful animation element is the brief appearance of a buffalo as imagined by three different characters, an indulgence which would be ridiculously expensive if filmed, but costs no more than a cat or dog in animation terms.  And it brings to life the interior worlds of the characters pondering the hairy herbivore beautifully.  Fun fun fun.

There’s already some concept art been done for this project, and when I hand it over to my collaborator he’ll do some more inspired by the script I’ve written rather than the one we’ve been imagining up till now.  This is something we’ve developed for a few months now, and it’s been fascinating to see it evolve.  And in a couple of weeks we’ll be pitching it to an outfit who may want to take the project further, as partners or in some other form.  It’s an interesting adventure, and I’ve enjoyed every minute.

These days, the only stimulant that passes my lips is caffeine.  And a mug or three of java from my steampunk style coffee pot can provide quite the jolt.  Not something for every day, for sure.  But, from time to time, that’s an indulgence I enjoy. The natural buzz of a decent mug of quality coffee is something to look forward to.

Contrast that with the feverish buzz that comes from knocking back cans of Red Bull or any of the other tins boasting the presence of taurine in the ingredients list.  Taurine itself, I’m told, is neither here nor there: merely part of the marketing of what is in essence a dose of concentrated sugared-up caffeine strong enough to propel a greyhound round a racetrack at maximum velocity in pursuit of a mechanised rabbit.

All of which is by way of explaining the distinction between the first and second films in the Crank franchise.  The first I find ennervating, hilarious, delirious in its creation of an insane world for Jason Statham to rule.  The second, Crank: High Voltage, takes the same basic formula and reduces it to a means of getting Nuts readers to high five the cinema screen.

Way back when, Deadline magazine introduced Tank Girl to its readers, many of whom would perhaps have not minded a touch more Nuts about the publication.  But this was back in the days of Red Wedge, so there was a degree of political po-facedness about the proceedings.  And that was probably a good thing.  Tank Girl was a pin-up character for male and female readers alike, a feisty heroine who combined perky breasts with a crewcut variant, the look rounded out by Dr Martens boots and a potty mouth.

Like Tank Girl, Crank doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but is hugely enjoyable for people who enjoy the medium just as much as the message.  There’s an anarchic spirit to Jason Statham’s character that similarly animated Tank Girl: both are in the spirit of Bugs Bunny, indestructible tricksters who can get away with all kinds of mayhem and destruction because they embody a certain kind of knowing innocence.

For the first chunk of Crank: High Voltage it looks like directors and writers Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor have succeeded in bringing their not very intellectual property into a second story intact.  But then there’s a nude shot which looks like it emerged from one of Tony Scott’s fantasies, and that’s the first of many times we get to see naked women in the film for no particular reason.

Now, it might seem churlish to complain about the presence of bare flesh, one of life’s finer pleasures, but in Crank: High Voltage it serves the function of taurine, ie a supposed stimulant that’s really a distraction from the overall experience.  And that’s a shame.  In many other respects, the film is as enjoyable as its predecessor.  Words like madcap could be employed, and for sure it’s a fun ride a lot of the time.  But some of the choices left a bad taste in my mouth, such as the depiction of the Chinese prostitute who declares that Chev Chelios (Statham) is the man for her and won’t let him go.

Crank was never going to be subtle fare, and noone is suggesting it should be.  There’s a place for energising nonsense, decent quality trash, and in that respect the first Crank was a Pot Noodle of a film.  Not a film to watch with your inlaws, but good for a night with friends.  This time round, the creators have tried to second guess us, and just as the ad agency who came up with the strapline ‘the slag of all snacks’ for Pot Noodle seemed to be mystified that people might find that concept offensive, Crank: High Voltage takes what was good about the first film and manages to make it just that bit unappetising second time round.

Once upon a time, I did a politics degree.  Don’t laugh.  One reason was my interest in social change, and I thought learning about politics might provide insight into that.  Seriously, don’t laugh.  I was young, naive: it happens, OK?  And as my studies continued I realised that social change is only possible when individual change happens, and that’s more to do with issues generally associated with psychology than politics.

Besides, during the course of my degree I got to see some politics in action.  And realised how little what we were studying had to do with the realities of police getting armoured up and chanting Maori-style hakas while clattering batons against their shields before heading out to deal with striking miners.  That was a sight I witnessed when I saw how the police were starting the day while staying at a university hall of residence when most of the students were away on holiday.  And I saw other things, like how pitiful and hate-filled organisations on the left were for the most part.  And what I saw that inspired me came from very different sources.

Which is a roundabout way of saying I’m kind of jaundiced about mainstream politics.  But my attitude is as nothing compared to the vitriol with which Armando Iannucci views the political caste and their machinations.  His vicious humour about matters of state, and the increasing role of spin within them, has been abundantly clear throughout his career as a writer and producer, and now he’s honed that barbed outlook to lethal precision with In The Loop, a feature that he directed and helped to write.

What distinguishes In The Loop from Armando’s similarly textured tv project The Thick Of It is the international scale of what’s happening, with some parts of the story happening in America, and what’s at stake: war.  The feel of what happens is convincing because of the use of handheld cameras and a degree of improvisation: it comes across as very real because of that.  And the insight into the individuals complicit in what’s happening — noone, but noone, is innocent — is as credible as it is scathing.

Much of the dialogue is blistered with obscenities that make you realise both how funny swearing is when done well, and how some people can use it as an instrument of aggression.  The chief culprit is Malcolm Tucker, brilliantly and brutally portrayed by Peter Capaldi, a man for whom there’s no situation that can’t be spun and who no longer has any notion that what he’s doing might be questionable.  But at least he knows he’s a shit, which perhaps makes him less reprehensible than some of the weaker minded individuals who he spins, playing on their desire to be seen in a good light while in their darkest moments knowing that they are but tools.

If there’s anyone resembling a hero in this parade of dullards, nincompoops, psychopaths and powermongers, it’s General Miller, brought to life by James Gandolfini.  Some writers have suggested that he doesn’t match the style of the film, and I can see what they’re getting at.  I also believe that this mismatch is to his advantage, since it’s the General whose compromise — to reverse his dove position and take a hawkish stance — is sincerely motivated by the desire to support the young men who’ll be sent to die as a result of the jockeying and cauldron-stirring that’s taking place.

You can question whether this is a piece of cinema or could have worked just as well on tv, but you can’t question the passion and satirical x-ray vision that Iannucci and his collaborators bring to this hilarious depiction of the machinery of state gearing up for war.  And the fact that Tony Blair’s verminous PR fixer Alastair Campbell says it’s not funny tells you everything you need to know about this exceptional film.

You’ve got to hand it to the undead.  No sooner do you think that films about vampires and zombies have run their course, than a film appears with a unique angle on what it is to be a vampire.  On this occasion, the film is Let The Right One In, a Swedish story that weaves its charms with the depiction of the relationship between a young boy, Oskar, and his undead neighbour Eli, a pale girl who has been 12 for quite some years.

Unlike the lavish visual spectacle that vampire films often aspire to, this one is conceived in naturalistic muted tones, with blood red being the most vibrant colour.  And that works thematically too.  Young Oskar’s life is typical of that of a young Stockholm kid, the biggest drama in his world the fact that he’s being bullied at school.  Pretty soon though, he realises that new pal Eli is a vampire, and it’s this connection that starts to turn things round for them both, leading to Oskar to turn the tables round on his tormentor by whapping him round the head with a pole.  And that choice sets other motions in action, the consequence of which provides the film with its grisly climax.

To begin with, Eli sources blood through a hapless serial killer.  But he messes up once too often, and Eli is left to fend for herself.  Only, by now she’s already embarked on a tender romance of sorts with Oskar, who inevitably becomes involved with supporting her alternative lifestyle.  In less sensitive hands, this would be Juno meets Lost Boys, but director Tomas Alfredson makes choices according to a different rhythm — as much as anything, this is an elegaic tale of first love.

But yes, it’s also a vampire film, and has to establish exactly what genre conventions it will follow, and which it will cast aside.  Obviously the notion that you have to invite a vampire into your home is one of those choices, there in the title where it’s as much to do with letting someone into your heart.  But there’s also the business of what vulnerabilities vampires have, and it’s here that the film makes an unfortunate misstep.

Eli’s first victim in the story has a group of misfit friends, and the story follows what happens to them.  That includes another of their number being snacked on by Eli, and her subsequent stay in hospital.  As far as I can figure, the only purpose of this sequence is to demonstrate what happens when a vampire is exposed to sunlight, which the victim does gloriously when she explodes into flames.  Only, she’d already been seen smouldering at an earlier point, so I’m really not sure what the purpose of that digression was, other than to double underline the need for Eli to be kept by Oskar in a box when they’re travelling away on a train at the film’s conclusion.

It’s possible that the business about spontaneous vampire combustion makes more sense in the novel, by John Ajvide Lindquist, who is also responsible for the screenplay.  At any rate, it strikes the only false and redundant note in an otherwise skilfully written script.  And it underlines a distinction between scripts and prose: the digressions possible in the latter will be clearer by the time they reach the screen, since they create impatience in the audience.  Especially when the story has already gone a long way down its track, you don’t want to be led a merry dance that takes you somewhere else for no good reason.

Let The Right One In is a sweetly morbid film about getting by and fitting in and finding someone who’ll help you do all of that and more.  It’s a welcome addition to vampire lore, and its Scandinavian origins get me excited about what might happen if a distinctly Australian, Korean, or French vampire film were to join the canon…if you’re aware of any such, from those or other countries, please let me know.

Well, that was…creepy.

I’ve had a series of dreams over the last couple of years since recovering from an illness that led to a hospital stay and necessarily taking some time out to get better.  Their common theme is that I’m putting my life back together by going back to college to do a new course.  Sometimes the dreams are about finding a new place to live while I’m there.  Or going to the college library for the first time.  Or realising that I’m near the end of the first year and in no way ready for the forthcoming exams.  That kind of thing.

This time round, the dream took me further back.  In the dream, I was aware that a guitarist noted for having an enviable Telecaster collection (believe me, not something that would interest me in real life) would be playing at the secondary school I’d attended.  And my feelings about that ignoble institution can be found here.  So, I turn up for the gig, dressed in school uniform since this is a closed gig.  The fact that I’m older goes unnoticed, but I realise when I see the guitarist that he’s backed by a band of teachers.  A slap bass playing woodwork teacher.  A middle-aged woman playing saxophone.  And so on, standing in a line and reeking of wrongness.  It’s all a bit too awkward to watch, so I leave the audience and wander the school.

Coming to the cloakroom, I find it empty and see an admirable bag, the sort I can’t afford for myself but which someone with rich parents has bought for them.  I pick it up, and make my way out of the school grounds, where I realise that it’s Sports Day.  And I’m one of the sports.  This isn’t a place for me, and I leave the boundaries of the school and find a wrinkled pack of Golden Virginia in one of the bag’s sidepockets.  At which point, I’m struck with guilt, and realise I should return the bag.

Heading back to the school, I wander round the periphery of the audience watching the Sports Day events.  I manage to put the bag down, but a prefect spots me, and comes over.  He’s curious about what I’m doing, not satisfied by my explanations, and I head away from the school.  He follows me, and we end up in town, presumably having taken a bus there.

I’m still dressed in school uniform and want to change, and the prefect is following me.  He finally catches up, and I assure him I mean no harm: I went back just to catch the gig.  He’s not convinced, and I can sense the line of his thinking.  I assure him that, despite having just spent time in hospital and being vulnerable, I’m no kind of danger to the school or its pupils.  He doesn’t buy it.

Looking for somewhere to lose him, I head into a big discount book store that’s crawling with customers.  I make my way to the graphic novels section, and it’s there that I finally manage to break free of my pursuer, amid a tangle of prams on the way out from the store and back into the hurlyburly of the city centre.

The prefect heads back to the graphic novel section, wondering if he’s going to find my story in there somewhere.  He looks through all the covers, asks the staff if the story sounds like one they’ve read, and finds no resolution to his questions: he’s less sure now that the guy he was following was any kind of predator, and is starting to wonder if he may have even been a ghost…

Like I said, creepy.  And pretty much perfectly structured just as it is.  Does the mind dream in story structures then, or is that the result of having a committee of dreamcrafting elves who’ve absorbed lessons while I’ve been reading McKee, Truby, and the like, and know what form I want them in?  Anyway, I can’t help feeling that one day I’ll be telling a longer version of essentially the same tale in the form of a script…

So, a few of my projects get to go out to Cannes next month.  I won’t be going with them, this year anyway.  But they’ll be with a producer who I like and trust, and who shares my ambitions to create films that attract audiences and acclaim.  That means I have a few weeks to polish the work that she will be taking out with her, so that each treatment is in tiptop condition.

In turn, that’s involved listening to some interesting feedback.  The producer likes one particular concept, but suggests moving it into a fairly near future and changing the culture of the characters.  Hmm.  Interesting, but she’s actually picked up on something very relevant: by having a present day setting with Muslims in my tale, I immediately limit the potential audience I’d attract, especially given what would be a potentially contentious ending that might put American backers off.

The answer came to me this morning while I waited for a tram: Buddhists!  Yes, shift the action in the prologue to Tibet and make the victims Buddhists, and the story works just as well but has new added potency because of the popularity of Buddhism.  Didn’t Noel Coward write a song called Don’t Be Beastly to the Buddhists?  Well, I’ll save you the bother of Googling and tell you that the answer is no.  But having Buddhists in the story will make the ending a lot more palatable to a mainstream audience, while maintaining the meaning it always had.  Result.

Said producer is also asking me to come up with a treatment based on a concept of her own, a science fiction horror fusion.  The core idea was always a winner, the interesting bit has been coming up with a way of bringing out its strengths.  And I feel that’s the contribution I’ve made, so that what could have been seen as a Dog Soldiers/Predator riff now has something deeper about it, a touch of Quatermass.  In other words, a film that’s about something other than the adrenaline its viewers experience, though they’ll still get to produce plenty.

(Fusion is a funny word, especially used in the context of science fiction.  I have visions of a Star Trek officer saying ‘There’s jamming in the fusion chamber!  John McLaughlin is duetting with Stanley Clarke on a 12/8 version of A Love Supreme!’.  That said, genre-splicing is not much better a term, conjuring up images of the Brundlefly from Cronenberg’s signature sf-horror blend The Fly.)

Said producer will also be taking my psychological thriller that’s actually a personal drama, and has yet to find a convincing title.  This is a special tale for me, one I’m particularly proud of: sf/horror romps tap into my love of genre storytelling, but this is one that has its roots in personal experience.  All of which serves to make me sound like Barton Fink I’m sure…but damnit, didn’t he want to write the best wrestling movies a man could write?  And once again I’m twitching in reminiscence of the cage fighting treatment that made it to a meeting with Jean Claude Van Damme, wondering with a shudder what would have happened had he decided he was interested in the project…

Anyway, all of the above means I’ve got plenty to keep me busy in the coming weeks.  Especially since the main item on the agenda is writing a book.  Best say little about that save that it’s a biography, so part of the process is coming up with a way of working that suits its subject and myself equally.  And, so far, I’m pleased to say that seems to be what’s happening.

Interesting the effect that technology has on the world of writing.  The act of writing itself has been transformed beyond recognition by the word processor, which allows people to take for granted a process that until the 19th century people had to do by hand and in candle light, or more recently by picking at the keys on a typewriter, an invention which Jack London found tested the strength of a navvy of his acquaintance, who couldn’t sit at the thing for a few minutes without it hurting his back.  Now we take keyboards for granted, and spend hours perched at them, hopefully in ergonomic chairs with eyesight-friendly lighting.

‘Electricity has changed the world more than Marxism’, and if I could be bothered to look up the source of that quote the internet would trace it for me within seconds.  And it’s not just the means of production that’s changed.  The interconnectedness of modern technology has changed the whole writing world.  This blog is one microscopic example: it’s led to people getting in touch for script doctoring work, and the discipline of doing it has made me realise I’m perfectly capable of writing a book, something I’d never previously considered, and two of which I’m set to write this year.

The bigger picture is more interesting still, and I’m not sure I grasp the full implications myself.  But let’s look at books some more.  The nature of book buying has been changed by the existence of Amazon, which has challenged the high street retailers, who themselves had already cowed the independent bookstores into submission.  Now, the world of Print On Demand publishing is signalling a new trend: people creating books without the need for publishers.  If you’ve got a market, this is a way of satisfying their interest in what you do.

But books are still part of the older model of what writing is for, and I’m primarily a screenwriter, one with a copywriting background: two areas where writing is less apparent to the general public.  And technology has created another market for writers: computer games.  I had a run-in with this world last year, and had a fascinating time coming up with some demo material that the client loved, but ultimately didn’t go with because their project was growing in scale and their priority was to ensure that players had a satisfactory playing experience, without the embellishments that my input would have added.  Now though, with the games market rivalling the film business in terms of revenues, writers and games companies are taking each other seriously, as this piece about the inclusion of games writing on a university syllabus makes clear.

Another new academic course is a forthcoming one on Social Networking, following hot on the heels of the news that school kids will be taught how to Twitter.  For once I’m ahead of the curve, if barely, having been Twittering for a couple of weeks now.  It’s been entertaining enough, but I was wondering if anything of substance was going to emerge from Twitter.  It has.  Today, Twitterers are agog with the astonishing news that Amazon has made the impossibly homophobic move of not listing gay-related books in its ranks of adult materials, while continuing to promote any amount of mainstream hetero crud, not to mention material that others find equally offensive, eg Mein Kampf, manuals for training fighting dogs, and so charmingly on.

Amazon’s stance is a PR disaster of suitably Biblical proportions, given it’s happening over Easter.  And Twitter is right there, tracking every clumsy move the company is making and providing links to summaries of what’s going on, petitions, and the like.  Check out this letter for an overview, this piece about some of the writing affected by Amazon’s cackhanded bigotry, and though I’m not at all convinced by the effectiveness of internet petitions, here is where you’ll find a relevant one.  Me?  Fuckers won’t be getting any money out of me — and I’m a good customer — until they reverse their stance.  See if you can spread the word and persuade friends to do the same.

I have a dream.  Hear me people.  From coast to shining coast, every man, woman and child will be able to tell a computer their interests, and from that data a customised show will be digitally created and beamed straight to its intended recipient.  The age of broadcasting is over, and the new age of narrowcasting is here.  And yay, the oceans shall rise and the air will hum with programmes whizzing to breakdance enthusiasts partial to cookery competitions, Morris Minor owners thinking of retiring to somewhere in the sun with a swimming pool, and toddlers with a liking for bumblebees and poo.  Each microniche an audience in the bold digital age, every one worth cultivating and entitled to just what they want, when they want it.

That’s one vision anyway, and though argued with a touch of sarcasm there are proponents of that way of thinking.  Latest example of where that trend leads is The Mentalist, a show devoid of anything resembling wit, compassion or originality, but damn if it isn’t finely honed.  Not just a cop show, it features a maverick cop.  And not any old maverick cop, but one whose methods cause controversy with his colleagues, though he has a knack for pulling a result out of the air just before the last beat is played out with quartz precision.  And our maverick cop has a gimmick.  He has a canny knack for the kind of headgames that Derren Brown has popularised in the UK.  Perfect!

Well, it had to happen.  Look in your local bookshop if you don’t believe me.  Paul McKenna knows how to make you thin, rich, and sleep with his series of slim volumes.  Any number of chancers are offering to revitalise your life with homeopathically watered down versions of something that passes for NLP to those who’ve not had contact with the genuine article.  Diabolically clever serial killers are luring their victims with cryptic mindgames, on alternate thriller covers between the ones offering further iterations on the theme of the Da Vinci Code, Shakespeare Conundrum, Pam Ayres Paradox etc.

So, no wonder that a show like The Mentalist exists.  There’s a whiff of the zeitgeist about it.  Its DNA shows traces of a dozen other cop shows, and the patina of body-language reading, David Blaine-esque street magic and half-assed hypnosis will give the gullible the impression that what they’re watching is a primer on sophisticated contemporary policing.  It isn’t.  But if you’re in the mood for a detective show with a different pitch, then The Mentalist will keep you going.

Make no mistake though.  This is by no means the kind of quality crime programme that America can produce when the right constellation of talent comes together.  There’s no David Simon or Shawn Ryan conjuring the familiar elements into another Wire or Shield.  No, this is more along the lines of CSI.  Predictable entertainment with no moral centre.

Is there a justification for this kind of show?  Bottom line says that whatever attracts an audience will be put out there for as long as that audience watches it.  And audiences will watch all kinds of crap.  The notion that television can have a purpose, something beyond attracting ad revenues, is an obscure one to many within the industry.  But we need people with that wider vision, however eccentric, to be willing to share it with us.  That’s what makes the difference between shows like Six Feet Under, State of Play, Madmen, and any amount of formula garbage.

All of which is to pick up on a point that musician Robert Fripp makes, about the distinction between popular and mass entertainment.  Popular art can touch the lives of millions: The Beatles are his preferred example.  The mass market has no room for originality and heart: Oasis will do just fine.  And if you don’t get that example, best check your pulse before checking out of here, and no protestation on the guestbook on your way out.

Just yesterday I was speaking with a friend who’s adapting a comic into a screenplay, and learning from that something about the world of negotiation and the things that people will try and get you to do.  He maintained his stance about what he was prepared to do, and what wasn’t on the table, and that attitude served him well.

Today, a producer I’ve been speaking with mentioned her plans to develop intellectual property in the form of comics, using the expression ‘IP cubed’ which she’d been introduced to as a way of getting across why production companies and financiers are excited about seeing proposals in a graphic format.  It means you have in a comic what amounts to a storyboard that can be read in less time than a screenplay, and convey more of the visual qualities of what’s happening than Courier 12 and a few choice adjectives ever could.

That’s the creative side sewn up then, and means that the producer in question will take a bunch of concept artwork to Cannes with her, possibly in the form of a Flash animation with accompanying music.  Which is a few notches above the elevator pitches that people are supposed to be ready to perform at a moment’s notice when someone with a wallet appears.

The other useful angle of having the work there in comic form is that many of the potentially thorny issues about rights and the like are dealt with ahead of time, reducing the chance of being stitched up by a sharky outfit.  And that’s well worth taking into consideration: you won’t get rich scripting a comic that’ll likely not have massive sales, but if it establishes you as a co-creator of a film, or even a franchise, then that’s a deal to be pondered seriously.

So, colour me interested. What with being a lifelong comics reader, this is an opportunity that excites me.  I’ve skirted round the industry before, but my experiences were not encouraging: I was asked by a Marvel UK editor to come up with a pitch derived in part from a Dr Who comic series proposal he’d read of mine.  This was at the time when Marvel UK were starting to originate work of their own rather than just reprinting the likes of Hulk and X-Men.  I bust my balls over the next week creating about 20 pages of material that I sent in to the editor in question…and never heard back despite the fact that he’d specifically asked for it.  Nice.

Not a good experience, then.  But on the other hand, looking back, I was ill-prepared at that point for the realities of being a professional writer.  I had good ideas, but lacked the ability to write consistent scripts, and suspect I’d have fallen at the hurdle I and so many other wannabes were looking to get over, the one that got you to the offices of Vertigo.  The DC imprint had welcomed Alan Moore, Pete Milligan, Grant Morrison and other Brit creators, but no way was I ready for an opportunity like that: those who made it over all had a grounding in 2000AD that had honed their professional as well as creative capabilities, and 2000AD showed zero interest in my submissions.

That was then.  This is now.  And I feel very much on top of my game, and if the opportunity to develop comics that I own or co-own is one that’s open to me, believe me I’m going to make the most of it.  The producer in question is already working on some interesting projects with credible artists, and I’d love the opportunity to bring some of my stories to life.  Watch this space?  Let’s hope so…