Those were the Dark Times…

Yeah, so. It’s an open secret that I am the world’s second-least successful screenwriter. I say second-least because the one thing I can absolutely be certain of is that there is someone, somewhere, who is having a lousier time in the film world than I did. To that someone, I say: “dude, what the hell? Quit already!”

What you have to understand about the Orange ads is that they are all true.

Every single one. The stars in them are not kidding around. They have changed the words to protect the guilty, but things that stupid do get said in movie pitch and movie development meetings by people who are paid a lot to be very good at cinema. And the way that you know that is this: every year, there are dozens of movies which never even make it to DVD release. They are so bad, they are not good enough to share shelf-space with the Australia remake of Gone With The Wind in which Scarlett is a dog. They do not even get internet distribution, because having them on the server is not cost-effective.

Each and every one of these movies started out as someone’s brilliant idea, and then went through the development process in the wrong way. And these movies are still among the best of the movies which come out of the development process, at least by the measure of those who greenlight movies, because they got greenlit. And then they actually did get a cinematic release, albeit a brief one in Matahuxee and Pinner.

This is not to say the development process cannot be amazing, if painful. It is to say that sometimes it is not so much development as extinction. You do get magical times, when you meet a development exec whose take on your story is exactly the same as yours, and who helps you shave away the rubble of your messy creativity and streamline your script into something which shines with what you intended but did not actually produce. And sometimes you have pitch meetings like that, too, moments of perfect understanding.

You also get deranged, freakish questions which suggest – or alas, reveal – that your interlocutor has not listened, read the single sheet of paper in front of them, or thought even briefly about what’s under discussion beyond a ten second guilty moment in Starbucks.

For Example:

Couldn’t we set it on the Moon?

I pitched a small story about London, a local thing. It was nominally a detective story, but really it was a love story where the boyfriend was dead and the girlfriend was investigating his murder. I thought it was tear-jerking, sexy, human and mysterious.

“Well, I’m worried that the boyfriend is dead,” someone said in my first meeting. “I mean, it’s hard to place female actors in lead roles.”

I was confused. ”Hard with whom?” I asked.

“Well, with production companies.”

“You run a production company though, right? I mean, this one?”

“Yes. That’s true.”

“So…”

“Well, I’m not comfortable with it. Demographically. Maybe you should kill the girl instead.”

Yeah, I thought, because we’ve never seen that before. She obviously realised that. “Hm, well, I don’t know. I’m just worried about that.”

“Maybe,” said someone else, “they could be lesbians?”

“Titillating evil Sharon Stone lesbians or real human ones?” I asked, because I am an idiot.

“I think they could be both, surely?”

This is the thing:

The myth is that in the US, they take your integrity and they give you money, whereas in the UK, you get much less money but your integrity, your art, your soul are you own.

Yeah. And if you believe that, I have a nice strip of land in Paris you might like to buy, on the cheap, all you need to do is knock down this metal tower thing and you’d have some prime real estate.

My experience of the UK was that by and large you got to keep very little from the jaws of the Lowest Common Denominator machine, and got paid less. If you want to write a story which demands integrity, my advice would be to write it as a novel. When it’s a hit, you can adapt it or direct it or do whatever you want. No one will argue with you when you’re Dan Brown.

That’s not to say I didn’t have fun.

It’s huge fun, and sometimes, when someone says something outrageous, that pushes you in a new direction which is exciting and special. Sometimes the pressure forces you to concentrate on what’s really important in a story, throwing away everything else. If nothing else, film is a distillate.

And the people can be amazing. Everyone bitches about what a shark-pond movies are, and it’s true. At the same time, it’s a shark-pond in part because everyone in it cares so much. The stakes are high, vast money gets spent, audiences weep or laugh or boo. Movies are theatre where you can never erase your mistakes. All the same, in the mix are people of staggering probity and sensitivity: intelligent, good people. I never worked with him, but it was my privilege and pleasure to know Simon Channing Williams, who was Mike Leigh’s producer for many years. Simon was a man of enormous compassion and wit, and he dealt even-handedly and generously with the people around him. More than that, he was a friend. Everyone who knew him misses him.

In the end, you’re not always dealing with people.

Movies are a business, and while the person you meet may be a gem, the industry is a prison fight. You will – understand this, because how you respond to it may determine a great deal – you will get shanked at some point.

When I was very new to the business, I got a job writing for a project which was being put together by a US company in the UK. I met and hugely enjoyed the company of a guy we shall call Bob. I don’t actually remember his name. (Hey, I met him twice and it’s more than a decade ago. Not to mention what happened next.)

Bob probably gave me the job because I was young and inexperienced. He wanted something fresh, and he was working with an old concept. He wanted a kid, because this was for kids. I jumped at the gig. I was going to an office in London which had a big, recognisable logo, one of those ones you see before the movie starts. Ooooo! Ma, lookee, I’ma go Holly-woood!

It’s like going to Buckhingham Palace. It’s so awesome, it makes you forget why you came. It’s supposed to make you forget why you came. Architecture and branding are a weapon. Even flunkies (cute, pseudo-available, sassy, bringing coffee) are a weapon. Building passes, posters on the walls, signed photos of actors receiving Oscars, pictures of parties in glossy magazines… weapons.

Bob and I got on well. We worked out what I would do. I needed a couple of weeks, which is also about how long it takes to get paperwork together. It is not unusual to work in advance of the paperwork. In fact, many contracts on mainstream movies don’t come through until months into the process. Legal wranglings in the movie world are endless – a situation which is not improved by the fact that every single contract defines its terms fresh, from scratch. There are no standard words. “Net” and “Gross” do not mean the same thing each time. (Remember that, because one day, if you’re very lucky, it will be important. If you miss the catch, you will end up like Art Buchwald, and industry legal gongfu come a long way since then.)

And then, when I turned up to deliver the work, Bob was gone. Fired. The project was still live, but Bob was out.

And so was I.

But I’ve done all this work!

Not for us, you haven’t.

But we had a deal!

Not with us, you didn’t.

Bob shook my hand, in this very building!

Got a contract?

No…

Bye, then.

Six hundred quid, ladies and gents. The new boss, Paul, was staying in a hotel where the nightly fee was more than that. If ever I should sell a book to that company, the cost will include my six hundred quid. Which will confuse the hell out of them, but I’m petty that way.

You’re dealing with the system, not the person.

All of which means exactly nothing.

Why? Because everyone has a different experience. Everyone has different hurdles and pitfalls and such. And the rewards are strange and wonderful and sometimes huge.

And yes, at one point, someone did say to me: couldn’t we set this movie on the Moon?