Fat Pigeons

Callaghan asks the question “What’s your all-time favourite moment in a TV show?” Spoilers for Ultraviolet follow. That’s the 6-episode TV series written and directed by Joe Ahearne, not the film of the same name. There are vampires. You can’t record a vampire on video or audio tape. An elite team has been set up […]

Andrew Stanton is a writer at Pixar. At this year’s Screen Expo he gave a keynote talk. Fortunately, someone in the audience was taking notes. And putting them on the Internet. Part One and Part Two. Have a read – there’s loads of good stuff.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve watched all of Firefly again. Plus the commentaries. It’s still utterly brilliant. (It’s a Western. In space. With horses and six-shooters. Get over it.) And suddenly it seems that others have independently had the same urge at the same time. Like English Dave and Alex Epstein. Is it […]

Let’s talk about The Outsiders. 90 minutes long, and a backdoor pilot if ever I saw one. The whole thing was done with a gusto and brio that I haven’t seen in an ITV drama since – well, since the 1970s, truth be told. What we had here was a production that echoed the classic […]

You may or may not recall that earlier this year Patrick Stewart and Ashley Jensen were in a show called Eleventh Hour for ITV. It claimed to be an exciting new concept which would use the latest science news-stories as a what-if to spark intelligent human drama. It wasn’t terribly good. So what happened? Writer […]

You’ve probably not heard of a bump key. Here’s why you should care: A Yale-type, or cylinder, lock has a cylinder that rotates. The mountains and valleys, the dents cut into the top of your key, push small pieces of metal (known as pins) within the lock up and down. Most of the time, they […]

From Red Right Hand comes a simple request. Put up one page that you have written within the last year. No explanations, no excuses. Here you go.

Having trouble thinking up ideas for your next epic? Great news. Those helpful folk at How To Write Screenplays. Badly. have the solution to your woes. From the people who brought you Rapebear. He’s the bear – that rapes.

Japanese poem Five syllables, then seven Then five at the last To be true haiku A season must be invoked Use a metaphor Kigo, season word Cherry blossom used for spring Snow stands for winter Now use a cutting Haiku should be two pieces Complementary For english haiku Merely form will be enough Five, seven, […]

Right now I’m writing a proposal for a drama series, with a shiny spec script attached. The cards are off the board, and it’s straight to script, no time for a treatment. The second episode, no less, because according to Katharine Way, writing the first or last episode is just far too easy. Huh. Anyways, […]