Having been going to Hackney for almost three months now (how time flies), Laurent came up with the scary idea of actually making the first episode in order to use it as a pitching tool to look for funding from proper companies/people. But having thought about it, the first episode is probably easy enough to film quickly and on a ‘micro-micro-micro-budget’ budget (couple of hundred quid). I use the words “probably easy enough” with extreme optimism seeing as I have no idea exactly how hard or expensive it is to film anything of any real quality.

But the main problem I project this early on won’t be the actual filming or even the crew that does it. It’ll be the cast. Why? Well, the crew are going to be people who have the freedom to potentially leave the project at any time (not that I won’t hold it against them!) to be replaced with anyone else that can do that job. They’ll also be close to my age, (most) will have taken a media production degree at university, have a love of film/television/web video and a passion to enter that industry. But the cast don’t really have the freedom to leave when they so want, will be younger than me, might not really know what they want to do with their lives and might just take an acting gig to fulfill a bit of narcissism and get their face in front of the camera.

The series hinges on a group of older teenagers who are together for an extended time, and I’ve already heavily plotted out the thirteen episodes of the first season and written a third of them. In a proper production with a budget including cast salaries, the money can be a motivator, and even on a micro-budget web series with unpaid adults, the dedication is going to be at a slightly higher level with people who know they want to act for a living and are willing to put up with the long, exhausting days involved. But with unpaid teenagers, the excitement is going to wane a lot quicker and I can see at least one or two having second thoughts.

Not only have I plotted out the first season, I’ve also already started thinking of plots for two further seasons, and it’s imperative that the same main cast stick around because the series as a whole focuses on the growth of these characters from teenagers just out of school to young adults in the real world. So if one leaves, not only will the audience feel a little let down by not knowing what happened to them, but it could also rip apart a great storyline I’ve been planning and foreshadowing for quite a while.

But hey, time for some more optimism.

Right now all I need is the cast, the crew, the time, the money, the locations and the equipment to shoot the pilot (easy, huh?). So I’m going to get that out of the way first, and if I need to reshoot any scenes due to actor changes between the pilot and the main series being shot, that’s something I’ll have to work through then. Then again, I could end up with the greatest young cast there ever was that are dedicated, hard-working, great actors and genuinely funny. Weirder things have happened to me, half of which are inspiration for the series itself!

I liked Blackadder because it had wit, but not a snobbish, intellectual kind. Just a little wordplay here and there, with a heavy sprinkling of dramatic irony. You knew the outcome of the last season before the first episode of it even ended – they were gonna die. It was WWI in the trenches, for Christ’s sake. You, similarly, know that by the end of the last season of ‘Mother, we’ll have met the titular ‘Mother’. And that’s from by the end of the first episode of the first season. Barney is also the first true comedic heir of Blackadder’s innuendo.

C’mon. It’s three guys and two girls (bumped up to three on occasion) in their mid-20s to mid-30s set in New York with their big apartment as a repeat location. It has Friends written all over it. They even comment on Friends with the quote; “Hanging out a coffee place, not nearly as much fun as hanging out at a bar”, when sat in a coffee shop all episode instead of their usual drinking place. However, it betters it… (Yes, call me a blasphemer, if you must): While the Joey/Rachel plot was obvious filler when the main story had gone on too long, when Barney (the womaniser) starts to like one of the female main characters in the third season, you realise the fact they are a perfect match was set up in one of the first ever episodes.

Coupling is another sitcom that’s been accused of leeching off Friends‘ formula of cast and locations, but it was amazing because it had the occasional concept episode. It once had a continual splitscreen between the girls and the guys, once showed an entire scene twice (once in English with a foreign girl, then replaying it to show the whole conversation from the girl’s side) and even also showed a drunken party twice to show both sides (drunk and sober). America had a U.S. version of Coupling that tanked, but ‘Mother has excelled where a brand-new show can, including: a total misunderstanding when a very good friend steals the main character’s name and cavorts over town, except you don’t realise until the end; an episode just like The Hangover, where the previous night’s events are explained to the lead the morning after, including an amazing twist where the girl in the bed is definitely not who you’re tricked into thinking it is; and even subtle stylistic touches (compared to other sitcoms, to me, anyway), such as a car’s odometer being the time marker for an episode.

Scrubs was and will always be up there with my favourite sitcoms, and always was for the longest time my absolute favourite. And I hate to be ‘that guy’, but I can’t help feeling that Season 9 is gonna cheapen the best finale ever; “My Finale”. Especially before Zach Braff leaves, and when he does, it’ll just be Scrubs: The New Class. Okay, tangent over. ‘Mother has Scrubs‘ voiceover narrations, a similarly awesome choice of soundtrack and even a recurring guest-run from the brilliant Sarah Chalke! Oh, and Barney is not only the new Blackadder but also the new Todd.

When you think of recent great TV comedy, you think My Name Is Earl, another great example of a single-camera sitcom, with decent music, memorable catchphrases (”Oh, snap!”, “Wakey-wakey…” and “Hey Crabman-Hey Earl” are the front-runners on the same high level as “Havvve you met…”, “Suit Up!” and “Legen…*”) and the odd special episode. But more than that, both ‘Earl and ‘Mother even beat Scrubs‘ own narration, because it has an older, wiser main character looking back with voiceovers on his misspent youth and regrets, and I’d argue the latter has the former beat due to the character having a lot more growth between the narration and when the story occurred.

Peep Show is pretty much Britain’s only recent and decent and long-running sitcom since the turn of the millenium, which…sucks. However, it more than makes up for the lack of other TV comedy. It’s sheer lack of societal know-how and the main characters’ total over-estimation of their own intelligence and skill are things that were sorely missing in most modern sitcoms, however both Peep Show and ‘Mother have reclaimed this aspect of comedy on both sides of the pond.

But that’s not to say that ‘Mother doesn’t hold up on it’s own. It has Alyson Hannigan in it, a staple of the American Pie films. It has Jason Segel in it, who wrote and acted in Forgetting Sarah Marshall as well as being in other Apatow-produced films. It has Neil Patrick Harris in it, and he needs no further introduction**. And it has ‘newbies’ Josh Radnor and Cobie Smulders in it, too, who, while not being in massively famous stuff before, are totally awesome as the leading man and the main love interest (in the first couple of seasons).

* “…Wait for it…and I hope you’re not lactose-intolerant…***”
** Maybe he does, considering I always mistook him for the brother from Malcolm in the Middle for years****.
*** “…dairy*****.”
**** Who, co-incidentally, is the brother of Hyde from That ’70s Show.
***** “Get it? Legendary. Legen-dairy. Legendary.”

Got woken up by my mum at 7 a.m. to go to her school office where I’m temping for a bit. Took one tired look at the pile of cards and thought “…Later, definitely later”. I worked until 5 p.m., came back and felt totally drained of all energy. Too exhausted going for a meal with my mum and dad and definitely didn’t want to have a drunken night out with my friends, especially considering I was temping again at the same time today. So we had pizza and I went to bed, knackered, at 11 p.m.; the earliest I’ve been to bed in a long time. All in all, it was just another day.

Was it just because of the working situation after being out of the employment loop for a while? No. I’ve never really felt that birthdays were that important. Sure, if a friend is having a meal, party or night out for their birthday, I’ll happily go and actually have genuine fun. And don’t get me wrong, I’m truly grateful for the presents and kind words on my own. But how I see it is: “Why do you need it to be a birthday to have that fun? Why save presents for one day a year*? Why not just see your friends and family as much as possible and do the same thing whatever the day of the year?”

A birthday isn’t the same as an anniversary, a promotion, passing your driving test or releasing a film/book – those are all things you’ve worked hard to achieve and deserve a celebration for. A birthday is something you have had little input in yourself. In fact, you had absolutely none. If anyone should be congratulated on your birthday, it should be your parents, surely?

Last year, I went to Bournemouth to see friends from university, but this wasn’t especially because it was my birthday. It just so happened that my birthday was when I had a break from working anyway and had enough money to spend on a trip to Bournemouth. It was co-incidence that my birthday fell on that week. I had a great time, but my birthday was the least important part of the trip for me.

I’ll probably see my friends this weekend for a trip to the pub, but once again, I’d hope they’d go to the pub even if wasn’t just a day my mother gave birth over two decades ago…

* Two, if you have a boyfriend or girlfriend on Valentines Day, and up to roughly ten if you celebrate a hoard of other arbitrary holidays. But that’s two whole other rants. Regardless, the point still stands. Buy gifts and treats for the people who mean something to you whenever you think they’d appreciate it.

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!

• The Shawshank Redemption – Critically acclaimed movie to start off the list on a high. Great acting, great writing, great cinematography. There literally isn’t a fault with it.
• The Lion King – So what it’s Disney and animated and thus ‘a kid’s film’, but it’s f’n amazing in almost every way. The comic relief characters get to me a bit but everything else makes up for it.
• The Truman Show – One of the first films I remember coming out of the cinema after, thinking “Wow..”. Jim Carrey showed he can actually act and it’s a disgrace he didn’t get the Oscar. Score’s great too.
• Midnight Run – De Niro and ‘the dad from Beethoven’ playing a bounty hunter and his white collar criminal target who have to get from NY to CA before the end of the week, being pursued by the FBI, the mob and another bounty hunter. Perfect buddy action comedy.
• Ghost – Yes, it’s another genre that I, as an adult male, ‘shouldn’t like’, but all-round, it’s a great film that’s stood the test of time.
• Fight Club – Another of those films that just doesn’t have anything wrong with it. Norton, Pitt and Bonham Carter are so perfect that you literally can’t imagine anyone else playing the parts.
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – Who’da thunk that Carrey would be in two of my favourite films? I don’t even like his typical goofy stuff, but like The Truman Show, this is one of those where he pulls it back and is all the better for it. Kate Winslet, Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry complete the power team.
• Garden State – Braff needs to write more. Nuff sed.
• K-PAX – Jeff Bridges plays a workaholic shrink, distant from his family, landed with a man who claims he’s an alien who teaches him what’s important. The concept speaks for itself, but the writing and acting is pitch-perfect too.
• Hook – Another of those ‘kids’ films’ that aren’t really just for kids. It’s magical yet human – another example of what happens when an actor best-known for comedy pulls out a semi-dramatic turn.
• Knocked Up – It’s ‘just another teen comedy’ to a lot of people, but it’s another film that has just enough actual drama to mean something. Rogen is destined for greatness, so long as he follows in Carrey’s and William’s path with a few dramatic roles in among the comedy. He has the skillz.

• The Features It Needs Next: Twitter – for Geeks Are Sexy – published on 11th August, 2009
• The Features It Needs Next: Facebook – for Geeks Are Sexy – published on 14th August, 2009

“When Jonah turned twenty-one, he thought, as all twenty-one-year-olds do, that he had a lot of potential. Twelve years on and he is stuck with: a job he hates; a cramped flat above a tattoo parlour that he mildly dislikes; a boss that patronises him constantly; a mobile telephone that hasn’t worked properly since February; and a fiancé who he’s convinced doesn’t love him back. Jonah is correct. His girlfriend, Pandora Scott, is having an affair with his best friend, Frank Peeb. With all those misfortunes, what will happen to him at precisely 6:17pm this evening is probably the closest Jonah will come to winning the lottery. That is because, at 6:17pm this evening, Jonah Bartholomew Whitlaw will die. I know this for I am Jonah’s guardian angel, Bottle.”

Bottle, his guardian angel that tries to put things right, is also thrown into danger when God stipulates that unless Jonah can accept the reality of death within a fortnight, both will end up in hell when Jonah naturally dies.

Of course, this all added up to a very depressing script that somehow managed to actually garner a good grade. My marker must have been on Prozac. As a result, since leaving university, I have been re-sculpturing the story into a feature script, with some added hope thrown in.

INT. THE SPREAD EAGLE PUB – DAY

Jonah and Frank are halfway through a pint each. It’s their second already – foam fills the bottom of two other empty glasses on the table.

FRANK

We’ve been through the football, my love-life – which is non-existent, by the way –

Frank shoots Jonah a nervous look but Jonah doesn’t register it.

FRANK

- and global-fucking-warming. Why did you drag me in here on a lunch-break?

Jonah chugs down the last of his pint.

JONAH

You always come here on your lunch-break.

Frank slams down his glass defensively.

JONAH

But I still don’t know how to say this.

Frank waits patiently, but finds time for a few more gulps of beer.

JONAH

I think I’m dead.

Frank picks up his glass in shock.

FRANK

Wow.

Frank sips his pint. Jonah twirls the foam around in his glass.

JONAH

Yup.

FRANK

But don’t say that, mate. There’s tons doctors can do now. One ball isn’t the handicap it used to be.

Jonah almost lets out a half-laugh of annoyance but keeps it back.

JONAH

No. I don’t have cancer.

Frank stops being so tense.

FRANK

You said you found a lump a few months ago.

JONAH

I told you it was benign.

Frank sips his pint again.

FRANK

When?

JONAH

When you were at ours for pizza when we watched Hot Fuzz. The day Pandy dyed her hair blonde.

Frank clicks his finger as if it was obvious, then quietens down almost immediately.

FRANK

Righhht. Hot Fuzz. Right… But what the fuck do you mean? Dead?

JONAH

I think I was on that train that exploded yesterday.

Frank shakes his head at Jonah.

FRANK

You’re here. I think you are lucky you got off before Bank, but I don’t think it was more than that. You aren’t dead. Don’t think that. The victims families don’t want you dead as well.

Jonah shakes his head more fervently.

JONAH

I was on that train. I felt the heat as it hit me. I died. I think.

Frank finishes his pint.

FRANK

You’re a nervous wreck. Drink?

Jonah stands up.

JONAH

See you later in the week, probably.

FRANK

Yeah… Okay… Fine.

Jonah nods at him and makes his way to the exit.

Our brief was the simple yet infuriatingly open-ended three words; “End of Empire”. This resulted in hours of debate over whether the project should be about a band breaking up or the end of the world (both eventually proven unimaginative when we realised other groups had already settled on these ideas themselves). However, since the project was being sponsored by Channel 4, we decided upon creating a website for a fictional television channel that was hurtling down the pan.

Channel 14 was an obvious parody of Channel 4, with shows such as Dick and Julie (a couple trying to run a chatshow while heading for divorce), Win or Don’t Win (a simple gameshow in which you get what you ask for) and Darren Beige (a street performer that was actually a wizard, except the now-immune-to-tricks public didn’t believe him).

The video content was trailers for, and clips of, these intentionally dreadful shows, which I co-wrote the scripts for. While these videos weren’t the best acted or most professionally produced student videos in the world, it ended up fitting the idea of a channel’s dismal final output much more than if the production and acting side was perfect.

During the presentation day, head of 4talent, Jo Taylor, praised our daring attitude (a hallmark of Channel 4) for lampooning the very channel that was sponsoring us, and picked it as one of the year’s three best projects.