Karl Pilkington - Man or Character?

I've always thought this, and I'm sure many other people have too. Karl Pilkington has to be scripted, surely?
I love the show to bits, I have three of the audio books and the first three "Ricky Gervais Show" series but I can't get my head around it (not his head like a fucking orange).

A little bit of context, Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant, the two acclaimed creators of "The Office" (Don't worry there will be a blog post about my love for David Brent soon) are joined by there producer at XFM Karl Pilkington to discuss recent news stories and events. With this as a basis for the podcasts it shouldn't be as hilarious as it is. It's Karl that steals the show week after week. 

How can a man be as naieve as Karl, it's something to behold. My favourite part of the show had to be "Monkey News", dropped after the first series, it's brilliant. I have no idea what inspired Ricky or Steve to make Karl research the so called Monkey News but it's actually genius. Karl will find a story that involves a monkey in  one way or another to which Ricky and Steve rip it to shreds. Monkey News has included :A monkey having an seizure whilst in the national (Karl didn't want name them) bobsled team, a monkey flying a rocket into space with a banana dispenser onboard and my personal favourite a suited monkey charming Cher on a Russian Chat show.

Another great feature of the show is "Karls Diary" where Steve reads out his thoughts after Karl kept a diary whilst on holiday, in which he noted how many cross-eyed people there were in Gran Canaria. 

I would love to believe that Karl is just one of those phenomina that cannot be explained but surely Karl Pilkingto is an extension of himself, maybe he is naive to a degree but I believe that he is in fact a comedy talent, maybe he writes his own scripts? Or possibly the three of them write the show beforehand. If  you haven't seen the show, and therefore have no idea what im talking about, then I suggest you download them as soon as you can. They won't dissapoint, especially if you're a fan of The office, Extras or Life's too Short.

With this in mind it must be said that Karl Pilkington, If you're a fictional character than you really are a genius, if not, nevermind, Keep it coming.

Cheers.

The Sopranos

How you doing?

Over the past six months I've dedicated myself to one TV series and neglected all others. This may seem pretty normal, however I've become consumed by this series, four seasons in six weeks. Thats 42 episodes in 42 days. A Damn good average I'd say.

All this time I've been thinking to myself "God I'm falling in love with this series and I have nowhere to vent it"and then I thankfully remembered this little sight where these sort of self-written mini essays are not only welcomed but encouraged!

This series, created by David Chase, is addictive. I finish one episode and I automatically start the second. For some reason I can't seem to shake off the attraction of watching The Soprano empire crumble (Don't worry no spoilers here. More on that later.). Not only is it well written but it also boasts guest directors including a favourite actor of mine Steve Buscemi who directed the episode "Pinelands" such a simple premise, two guys get lost in the woods, however it is so fufilling seeing the cabin fever set in pushing these two characters to breaking point.

The main character Tony is as flawed as Don Draper, however you get the feeling that Tony is at the very least remorseful and regrets the bad decisions he makes (believe me there are alot). He is a man who acts upon instinct and is incredibly unpredictiable providing many shocks throughout the series.

My favourite character is Christopher, Tonys nephew, the heroin addict that has been known to beat his girlfriend. Great role model. But the reason I love this character is the way he is the only member of the family to have other aspirations shown when it's revealed he is an avid screenwriter (yay) and wants to write the next Godfather/Goodfellas.

Fan-boy moment over. But there is one more thing I wanted to say. If your watching a series, DON'T AT ANY POINT go on the internet and research the show, that means not going on youtube to find a song (Police mashup in the intro of season 3), that also means not going on wikipedia to find out the episode listings to write a blog.

It leads to major disapointment, the pulling of hair and floods of tears. DON'T DO IT.

Be warned.

Picture of my favourite character doing what he does best.

Cheers.

The Bafta Awards Ceremony.

This post has nothing to do with my BUStation work so if you are here to read about that then I apologise. This post is actually about the Bafta's.

A summary I guess with my personal opinions on the films that I had seen which were nominated, the films I hand't seen and the top three films I now desperately want to see.

With Brad Pitt, Gary Oldman and Marty Scorcese all present, this years Bafta ceremony was a star studded affair. Out of the nominees for best film I have to shamefully admit that I haven't seen any of them however I'm aiming to rectify this by the arrival of the Oscars.

With "The Artist" picking up seven Bafta awards, including best film,director and orginal screenplay, I am aiming to see this film at the weekend in the cinema. For a silent movie to win the original screenplay award must mean it is a very special medium of story telling. This predictably is at the top of my list.

I had a dream last night that I gave my condolonces to George Clooney, after reading so many reviews applauding Clooney's brilliant performance in "The Descendents" I was very suprised to not see it pick up a single award. In the dream I spoke with Clooney about how unlucky he has been, packing a powerhouse performance in the same year as a movie phenomina and yes, he was charming and a great guy in the dream. Therefore this film is second on my list to see before the Oscars.

 In third is a British film, winner of the best adapted screenplay, starring Gary Oldman and Mr British A.K.A Colin Firth this spy thriller has just been released on Blu Ray however I am still hoping to see it on the big screen at somepoint.

The personal highlight of the evening was the "Fellowship" award, last year handed out to an ageing Christopher Lee, saw Martin Scorcese take to the stage. As we looked back upon his work it made me realise what a consistent and hard working man he is. A real inspiration to any film maker.

My favourite Scorcese film is a tie, sorry for being a dick, I couldn't decide between the two. Both films contain an eccentric lead character, two fantastic performances from the leading men and are seperated by a 28 year gap.


Guessed it yet? If not, they are 1976 film "Taxi Driver" starring Robert De Niro and a long haired Harvey Keitel, and the 2004 epic "The Aviator" with Leonardo DiCaprio and Cate Blanchett.


A picture of Harvey Keitel looking almost like Tommy Wiseau.

Cheers.

Feedback a.k.a Having to realise your not as great as you think you are.

Hello.

This blog post won't be a fun one to write. That's not because I don't like blogs, I actually am learning to quite enjoy this, no. It's because it deals with that moment that you send your work out with the belief that its the dogs bollocks and then having the stark contrast of opinion against that.

I don't think it's arrogant to love your own work, if you didn't then whats the point in doing it in the first place, especially as a writer, but being brought back down to earth is a horrible,sickening and pretty much depressing experience.

Okay. A little bit of context. If you have read the first two posts you will know that I was writing a 3 page script for BUstation about a man named Gaz who is chasing up football results for his "Accumulator", also the title of the script (finally a releveant and credible title). Well, I had completed the first draft, sent it to the editor and I have to say it felt good. I then went away on holiday to the States for christmas, basked in the sunshine, eat my weight in tortilla chips and halfway through the holiday I decided to check my emails.

This is when I saw the little email which even warned me that I should probably leave it till I returned home. Well turns out that my story had a number of major problems, and once I read through this feedback I completely agreed.

My script didn't show an aspect that was "Hidden" which was the whole purpose of the brief, my character "Gaz" was very open about this bet he had made. I had run over the three page limit, which I honestly didn't realise till I had checked, and most importantly I had made it very difficult for the production team to actually make. Alot of the exposition within the script was revealed through a sports presenter on the television meaning that with the small budget the production unit had this would be near impossible to produce.

I believe feedback from a fresh pair of eyes is essential as it spots the niggles that you can fail to see. I think it's good to have somebody read through your work who will pull no punches, there has to be an understanding that it is nothing personal, but pure perfectionism.

Anyway the conclusion to this story is that I needed to do a complete re-write of the script to make it viable to produce which I will discuss in the next blog which finally makes it into 2012!.

A picture to let you know how I handled the feedback.

Enjoy.

p.s if your reading this, thanks for the feedback, it actually helped substantially.




 

As Daft as a First Draft.

Welcome back.

Time to dive into the depths of NOVEMBER.

The second day of my BUStation career consisted of writing the first draft of my Hidden script; I mentioned in the last, and first, post that I was going to write a script about gambling (It also had a great picture of Tom and Dustin, you're welcome).

I had decided that my main character was going to be called "Gaz", because I picture him as the "absolute lad" we all secretly aspire to be. He's a fitness instructor at the gym and has a problem with gambling, in particular betting on the football. This led to the title of my script "Accumulator" after an ex hobby of mine.

I decided that the narrative will follow Gaz and his quest to find out the football results. I now needed a "James Corden" type character to bring in a couple of chuckles (ha ha ha) so I thought it would be good to have this character in the ofrm of Gaz's client at the gym.

With this addition it meant that I could bookend the script nicely with a role reversal by having it finish at Dylan's bar with the revelation that Gaz had lost, the house always wins, and Corden doing what he does best by consoling him with a pint.

I now had the characters,narrative and arena, all I needed to do now was actually put pen to paper (type on the computer whilst constantly checking my twitter and gmail) .

Well there we go, instead of the CARS, FOOTY and TITS that I promised in my last post you actually got a pretty little blog post about a man called Gaz and a tale of playing with fire and getting burnt.

I hope you like James Corden.

Cheers.

Intro.

Hello, alright, how you doing?

This is an introduction to a blog about everything and nothing. It might interest you, it may not. It will serve as a memory of events that have come and gone, therefore it will be sporadic and it most likely won't make alot of sense.

So, I am a student in my second year at University. I study Scriptwriting for Film and Television. This first post will date back to mid October when we first started our Professional studies.

We were asked to complete three days worth of work for the University mini production team "BUStation". As a writer I thought "Shit, what the f*** am I going to do with that?" But then a friend suggested we join the Soap that had been running called "Hidden". GET IN. To which I calmly decided I would like to contribute to.

On the first day of BUStation we met and had an informal meeting to discuss the parameters and guidelines for the script. It had to be : No more than 3 pages, Contain no obscene or offensive language (But nudity was permitted) and it had to have a character that was "hiding" something .

That was the end of the first day, the concept had been set up and the deadlines set for a first draft. I went home and brainstormed which addictions people are the least proud of, yes there are many that friends of mine like to boast about, so it led me to pinpointing three addictions as unsatisfactory : Smoking, Drinking and Gambling. I guess they all go hand in hand really, however I chose to go down the Gambling route.

There are so many avenues for potential gambling these days I figured this could definetley work in a campus context.So now I had my theme, my hidden USP, I just needed a lead character, a narrative and conflict to inject into the script.

Well that about does it for the first introdcutory post in my blog. I hope I came off alright and not too pretentious, if that is the case then all I can say is "What you gonna do?" It's one of those things. That's mid October done and dusted, nex time I will dive into NOVEMBER where I will talk about CARS . . . FOOTY . . . TITS . . . Nah not really, just more information about a Scriptwriter writing a blog.

Here look at a picture of Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. 

Cheers.