I attended a Bafta screen writing session yesterday, so this post is about all the above, a lot about screen writing and film making too, and about the homecoming of Davy. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Duncan Kenworthy is a man I wouldn’t mind drinking a cup of tea with. Not in the romantic kind of way, but more in the romantic comedy kind of way. I would just like to have a talk with him. About Four Weddings, Notting Hill and not the least Love Actually, as he produced all three of them. Which makes him kind of producer King of British rom-com’s.
Mr. Kenworthy was attending a screen writing evening at Bafta yesterday, and it was interesting. 3 writer had a part of their script performed/read by actors and the writer and Duncan Kenworthy commented on it after in a short panel session.
The 3 parts where from 3 different genres, and rom-com was not one of them. His comments were kind of predictable, but useful to have in the back of your head.
- think about your genre and make your story at least sell-able
- think if you want to make a movie or a TV drama
- think about what it will cost to produce. A rom-com set in space might be original (hey, there is an idea) but it’s also expensive to make
Some things I thought about when being at Bafta:
- there is a lot of competition! A huge hall filled with aspiring screen writers. It is kind of overwhelming, and bad for your confidence, if you had any to begin with.
- I didn’t like any of the scripts performed.
- Do not chew chewing gum when being interviewed on stage. One of the writers did and it was so so so unprofessional. And irritating.
Afterwards there was a short possibility to fire questions at Duncan. And so I did (with my heart nearly galloping out of my chest, but I did remember to speak reasonably English – why do I have this in big groups of people? It is very annoying!).
Q1. Is there any future for British Rom-coms? As I haven’t seen any decent ones in the cinema for a long time!
Yes there is because people love the genre. But believe it or not, there aren’t any great scripts out there.
Romantic comedy is the hardest genre to write (oh bugger).
And as the premise of every romantic comedy is “two people meet in the beginning, we all know they will end up together in the end, but we have to keep them separated throughout the whole film” keeping it original and believable in these times with mobile phones and Easyjet – well that is tough.
So eat that – aspiring rom-com writers (me). I ate that and it didn’t taste well I can tell you.
Q2. Any chance of you working together with Richard Curtis again?
Not in the near future. Kenworthy is working on a roman period piece with Kevin (Last King of Scotland) McDonald.
Richard Curtis in the mean time has written The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency together with Anthony Minghela, who will direct it.
And Richard Curtis is currently working on
The boat that rocked –
A period comedy about an illegal radio station in the North Sea in the 1960’s. Which he has written and direct. Starts filming in March 2008. Richard Curtis can get anyone he wants to in his cast, but I know which name I want to see on the cast list for that one.
Good, that was BAFTA. I hope I picked up some magical vibes from Duncan K.
Other news:
we have been looking at the picture of Ricky G. her in the office too (in it’s original size, will post it in the photoblog at some point) and we are pretty convinced it is him. Things like that do give me hope though. Be prepared to be surprised.
I mean how big is the chance that, when in New York, travelling the Roosevelt Island Tramway
on the way back to Manhattan, taking a casual picture from the cabin of a yellow NY cab beneath me, that on that picture a bloke walks into the frame of the picture (which I was pretty annoyed about), and after a closer look at that picture when coming home, that bloke turns out to be Ricky G. I can’t get my head around it, but that must be a very tiny chance. It freaks me out, I think it is cool, not because of Rick G. but just that it happened, in other words – weird and strange and unexpected things do happen in life. I’ll cling on to that.
And just to let you know: you can all sleep well tonight, we are reunited as you can see in the top of this post. Davy returned home and we go all Ahrr again: 2 disc special edition.
Yeah I always get entirely bummed at any event like that – I know that 90% of that room are posers or just don’t have enough talent, the difficulty is figuring out if I am in the other 10% or not! Only hard work and bags of writing will tell…
Al
Yeah exactly. I think you are right about the amount of posers. I try not to be intimidated by the amount of people who was there yesterday. And you are right, only one way to find out if we are any good.
Good luck to the both of us :)
“weird and strange and unexpected things do happen in life.”
Pedestrianwise I once slipped on a banana peel, landing on the part where my back has another name.
Thought it was only seen in slapstick movies. I know better now.
I am in doubt. Could Ricky G. have a doppelganger?
Visiting a concert in Gent, Belgium I was once kissed by a lovely girl, unknown to me, who thought I was someone she knew intimately.
I assume she returned to my doppleganger :-)
I think that is so cool. Weird and strange things do happen … it’s what makes life so magical.
You have the opportunity to write a great rom com. Most people don’t put in the kind of hard, slogging work that you have so that cuts out about 80% of the people. Just keep on doing what you’re doing, taking in the advice and keeping your chin up! We’re all pulling for you!!