Hackney Library show’n'tell - 05/09/2009
After getting a Facebook message a few weeks ago from an ex-coursemate, Laurent (who is now living in London for a while), asking to meet up sometime to share ideas, I got all excited about writing again. While I’ve been trying to write a web series for a while, I did that age-old trick of procrastinating for months – it’s easy when you have no-one to answer to.
Soon after I got that message, I whittled down the first season from 24 roughly 10-page episodes to 13 roughly 15-page episodes. This has cut a lot of the fat from the main ongoing plots and actually made it much more possible to shoot on a budget. The whittling down included basic breakdowns of what the six main characters would be doing in each episode, quick character bios and possible ideas for later seasons if the first goes down well (both for the cast/crew and viewers). I even wrote the pilot script, which was the main thing I was putting off – once that gets written, there’s no pretending it’s just an idea anymore.
So, today, I carted myself off to Hackney Library to see him and share ideas. On a quick side-note, Hackney has definitely cleaned up it’s act. The library was probably the best modern public library in London I’ve seen, and the area itself doesn’t deserve the “it’s run-down” complaints I’ve heard since as long as I remember.
Laurent actually chuckled at a few things in my pilot script, which surprised me – I know it’s meant to be a comedic drama, but I was scared I’d lost the comedy by way of trying too hard to introduce the characters and set-up relationships between them. He also had a few ideas for elements to include in every episode, such as keeping the opening of each episode similar in every episode (much like how My Name Is Earl finished every episode with Earl and Randy talking in bed). It also allowed me to look at the characters in a new way through someone else’s eyes and add some personality traits that would make sense and take away others that would detract from their planned arc.
He himself had a brilliant project that I hope to contribute to, and has a similar intrigue for web content, which should make it easy to bounce ideas off him in the future, as it’s definitely what I’m most interested in at the moment. We’re planning on making it a weekly thing, which is something I’ll definitely need as it finally gives me someone to answer to!
Copyright © 2009 Andrew Sparkes