I'm currently reading the Dr Who tome (The Writer's Tale), in which Russell T Davies spills the beans on his working methods. It's fascinating - much more so than I expected, especially the bits where you get to see the script in progress. I'd never really gone in for much reading of scripts before (apart from a couple of volumes of The West Wing, the odd Shakespeare play, and those really dull things like An Inspector Calls that you have to look at for GCSE English), and it's been a revelation.
For the first time I've seen how the directions work (the stuff that isn't the dialogue), and enjoyed reading them. Often I've not necessarily seen the actual episode (my Dr Who viewing is best described as patchy), but the pace and drive of the directions is spooky - it enables you to run the scene in your head as if you were watching it in real time. Previously I'd thought much of the success of Davies' scripts was down to the dialogue, but now I'm not so sure - the forcefulness of the directions (and some of the most succinct useage of words I've seen in a long time) gets across the story amazingly. It'd be interesting to hear from the directors of the various episodes whether they feel they've got much room for manoeuvre with scripts like that - do they really get much artistic input into the final vision?
I suppose I should really get round to watching some of the episodes in question. I did catch the rather good Planet of the Ood while babysitting this week, but that's a rewritten rather than an original Davies.
All this is making me want to attend the Story Engine conference that's running in Darlington next month - especially as one of the speakers is James Moran, who's written a Dr Who episode. I'm just up to the point in the book where he's being rewritten...
Showing posts with label dr who. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dr who. Show all posts
18 January 2009
03 January 2009
Arts Corner: Christmas telly
Happy New Year and all that. Hello 2009!
Right, that's the formalities out of the way. Now down to the important stuff: Christmas telly. For once we managed to sit down and watch some. Hurrah!
(Although I have serious doubts over whether it can be called telly if you're mostly watching it on the BBC iPlayer?)
In no particular order:
Strictly Come Dancing: 7/10 (Severrrrrrrrrrn!) I had to watch this, as the three-year-old was pretty insistent, and got her sparkly red shoes out. Poor old Rachel Stevens. Never mind, her pop career will no doubt resurrect itself.
University Challenge: 8/10 Interesting documentary - I didn't realise it had been going for quite so long. There was some rather amusing footage of a very young Stephen Fry, some good talking heads (including Bamber Gascoigne) and some amazing hairdos.
Starter for 10: 9/10 Followed on from University Challenge, and was rather sweet. But ooh it didn't half bring back the horrors of freshers parties in all their gory detail. Argh. I was that girl in the corner (albeit 10 years later and at Durham not Bristol), stuck with the bloke wittering on about his gap year in India. Sadly, there wasn't anyone as fanciable as James McAvoy lurking by the drinks.
A thing about cathedrals that I fell asleep halfway through: 3/10 Nothing personal (the first 10 minutes were pretty interesting), it's just I'd been up til 2am the night before, and I'm not much good at that sort of thing any more. Maybe that's what happens when you hit 35.
Lost and Found: 10/10 Gorgeous - a lesson in how to take a book as your source material for animation, and then expand on it without losing the essence of the original.
Father Christmas: 10/10 Ditto. And I loved Mel Smith. Far better than The Snowman.
Dr Who Christmas Special: 10/10 Mainly for David Morrissey who was fantastic, and has the most delightful voice. We also watched the Dr Who confidential, which was fascinating on the production process (although it did rather feel like watching two or three programmes shoehorned together in a random order - what's with that?). I'm reading the Russell T Davies/Benjamin Cook book, Dr Who: The Writer's Tale at the moment, so it was interesting to see how everything panned out on the screen. (I'm only up to about chapter 3 at the moment, but boy is it good - definitely recommended. Interesting stuff on how to lay out a script and on the whole rewriting process.)
Shrek 2: 6/10 Mildly amusing - and much better than the first one (if you're an adult - the three-year-old got a bit bored). Antonio Banderas as Puss in Boots pretty much steals the show.
Erm. That's about it, bar BBC Breakfast News in the Northeast and Cumbria (we like to say hello to Colin in a morning) and the odd moment of Shaun the Sheep (the new Washday DVD arrived for Christmas - thank god).
Now, where did I put the rest of that Christmas cake?
Right, that's the formalities out of the way. Now down to the important stuff: Christmas telly. For once we managed to sit down and watch some. Hurrah!
(Although I have serious doubts over whether it can be called telly if you're mostly watching it on the BBC iPlayer?)
In no particular order:
Strictly Come Dancing: 7/10 (Severrrrrrrrrrn!) I had to watch this, as the three-year-old was pretty insistent, and got her sparkly red shoes out. Poor old Rachel Stevens. Never mind, her pop career will no doubt resurrect itself.
University Challenge: 8/10 Interesting documentary - I didn't realise it had been going for quite so long. There was some rather amusing footage of a very young Stephen Fry, some good talking heads (including Bamber Gascoigne) and some amazing hairdos.
Starter for 10: 9/10 Followed on from University Challenge, and was rather sweet. But ooh it didn't half bring back the horrors of freshers parties in all their gory detail. Argh. I was that girl in the corner (albeit 10 years later and at Durham not Bristol), stuck with the bloke wittering on about his gap year in India. Sadly, there wasn't anyone as fanciable as James McAvoy lurking by the drinks.
A thing about cathedrals that I fell asleep halfway through: 3/10 Nothing personal (the first 10 minutes were pretty interesting), it's just I'd been up til 2am the night before, and I'm not much good at that sort of thing any more. Maybe that's what happens when you hit 35.
Lost and Found: 10/10 Gorgeous - a lesson in how to take a book as your source material for animation, and then expand on it without losing the essence of the original.
Father Christmas: 10/10 Ditto. And I loved Mel Smith. Far better than The Snowman.
Dr Who Christmas Special: 10/10 Mainly for David Morrissey who was fantastic, and has the most delightful voice. We also watched the Dr Who confidential, which was fascinating on the production process (although it did rather feel like watching two or three programmes shoehorned together in a random order - what's with that?). I'm reading the Russell T Davies/Benjamin Cook book, Dr Who: The Writer's Tale at the moment, so it was interesting to see how everything panned out on the screen. (I'm only up to about chapter 3 at the moment, but boy is it good - definitely recommended. Interesting stuff on how to lay out a script and on the whole rewriting process.)
Shrek 2: 6/10 Mildly amusing - and much better than the first one (if you're an adult - the three-year-old got a bit bored). Antonio Banderas as Puss in Boots pretty much steals the show.
Erm. That's about it, bar BBC Breakfast News in the Northeast and Cumbria (we like to say hello to Colin in a morning) and the odd moment of Shaun the Sheep (the new Washday DVD arrived for Christmas - thank god).
Now, where did I put the rest of that Christmas cake?
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