WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE BBC?

What TV really needs is more female directors

Amy Jenkins (Comment, last week) is right to bemoan the fact that women are a minority on the cast lists of our television dramas but I think she's wagging her finger in the wrong direction.
I have worked in television drama for 20 years and seen many of my female peers rise to positions of power and influence to the point where they are the majority of decision-makers. However, if representation of women on screen is slower to improve, it is for complex, cultural reasons that have as much to do with the make-up of society as with deep story structure. But there has been progress. These days we don't have to "balance" a strong female lead with an entire cast of supporting men, as in Prime Suspect. Let's keep challenging all drama to cast women in depth and let's try to increase the number of female directors coming into the profession. That number really does seem to have been at a standstill for the last 20 years.

Kate Harwood, Controller of series and serials, BBC Drama Production

This letter appeared in the Observer newspaper back in March. I read it, and I was aghast. It's been bugging me ever since.

Let's analyse what Kate Harwood is saying here. First of all, she acknowledges that British television, and the BBC in particular, has become largely a female preserve. I can vouch for this, having noticed, roundabout the middle of the 1990s, that male producers were becoming ever more rare.

Secondly, she admits that, even though 'the majority of decision-makers' in BBC Drama are now female, there is still a dearth of strong female characters in the BBC's drama output.

How come? Oh, well, because of 'complex, cultural reasons'. Nothing to do with the ineptitude of BBC producers. No, it's for reasons which are outside the BBC's control.

The reality, of course, is that it's not difficult to create strong female characters. Any halfway decent writer can do it. So what's the problem?

Is it really the case, as Kate Harwood suggests, that the 'make-up' of society prevents the BBC from developing good roles for female actors?

Or is it that editorial incompetence and second-guessing, constant interference, ideological bias and sheer bloody uselessness are what stand between the (mostly female) TV producers and a reasonable representation of women on screen?

Lastly, Harwood puts in a call for more female directors. The balance at the BBC has tipped, over the past fifteen years or so, increasingly in favour of female producers and female scriptwriters. Somehow or other, this has failed to result in better parts for women in BBC drama. So let's get some more female directors in. That'll make all the difference.

Actually, a director is a director is a director. Gender is immaterial. There are two kinds of director: one came up through theatre, and therefore understands actors; the other came up through cinematography, and therefore understands cameras. Beyond that, there really are only two kinds of director - good ones and bad ones. What's gender got to do with it?

Nothing at all, but in sustaining the myth that women are a suppressed minority (even though they form 'the majority of decision-makers' in BBC Drama), Harwood is both excusing herself and her fellow executives for their own failures, and seeking to extend the gender imbalance. It is difficult to see how an increase in the number of female directors will improve the quality of roles for women, if a preponderance of female producers and writers haven't managed to do so. And why are there so few female directors out there? Is it because they're discriminated against? No - how could it be, when most of the producers who hire directors are in fact female?

And where would Kate Harwood's argument go next? Let's suppose that she fast-tracks a host of female directors into the industry, and they somehow still can't come up with decent female roles. What will she blame then? Too many men watching TV?

The problem of strong female characters in TV drama has nothing to do with social conditioning. 'Coronation Street', for example, had some of the strongest female characters going, and that was years ago. No, the problem is that TV executives can't keep their bloody mitts off other people's scripts. Female characters in BBC drama have to be flawless. They must be plucky, honest, hard-working, long-suffering individuals who are invariably right, while the male characters around them are almost always weak, craven, corrupt and wrong. To create a female character with realistic human flaws would be seen as a betrayal of all those women - like the majority of decision-makers at the BBC - who like to imagine that they're struggling in a male dominated world.

The female characters in TV drama today are not, then, created to be real, or realistic, depictions, but rather to carry the burden of the wish-fulfilment and political ideologies of the TV executives. In the arse-about-face world of BBC Drama, women characters cannot be strong because they must be role-models, idealised versions of the female executives themselves.

The BBC Drama Department has made it impossible for strong female characters to be created, because they have to keep interfering in the scripts to ensure that their ideological image of women is constantly being reflected.

But far be it from Kate Harwood and her colleagues to notice their own rank inability to create convincing female characters. No, the fault isn't theirs: it's a cultural one, apparently. By which, presumably, Harwood means that there simply aren't that many strong women out there in the real world for characters to be based on. So the best that TV drama can do is to keep cloning their idealised, hard-done-by, shining examples of female virtue in the hope that enough real women out there will get the message.

The truth, of course, is that executives at the BBC are trapped in a vicious circle of their own incompetence and their out-dated ideological convictions.

The argument has moved on from the seventies and eighties. But not, apparently, at the BBC, where writers would be perfectly able to create strong, interesting, convincing roles for both men and women, if only the bloody executives would let them get on with their jobs.

NON-SUBMERSIBLE ELEMENTS

Genius or nutter? It's hard to say, really, but Stanley Kubrick knew how to make a movie.

He was naturally obsessive, which is probably no bad thing when it comes to making movies. Even us writers ought to be obsessive about our scripts.

One of Kubrick's obsessions was with Non-Submersible Elements.

Now, I'm sure you've all heard of these things. No? Weird.

Actually, Kubrick's 'Non-Submersible Elements' is just a fancy phrase for a fairly straightforward thing.

No movie should be without its non-submersible elements. These are those stand-out moments which make the movie memorable.

A non-submersible element can be a sequence or a scene, it can be a moment, a line, a shot, an image. Whatever. It is one of those things which makes that particular movie unique.

And Kubrick seemed to be of the opinion that every movie should have roughly eight of these NSE's.

Now, how often, when we're devising, developing, writing and rewriting our screenplays, do we stop to consider the non-submersible elements? How often to we pause and ask ourselves, 'Which are the eight-or-so moments in my script that will really stand out?'

We should do. Because it's those moments which matter. They are designed to stick in the mind. Non-submersible elements are what set your script, your movie, apart from all the others.

And they're something we ought to be bearing in mind right from the very start of the screenwriting process.

What's a script (or a movie) without non-submersible elements? The chances are it's a fairly mundane piece of storytelling. You may well find that a particularly memorable line, exchange, moment or sequence happens naturally in your script. Whether you manage eight or so of those moments naturally, without thinking about them, is another matter.

But knowing that a script, or a movie, should have those stand-out moments is essential if you are going to make those moments shine.

As you work on your screenplay, you should have a good idea about which moments, which elements, in your script are the non-submersible ones - and you should treat them with great care. They are the high points, the classic moments, which make your script unique. They need to be nurtured, polished, carefully set up and brilliantly executed.

Think about some of your favourite movies. What images, which moments, instantly spring to mind? Chances are, they're the non-submersible elements.

So - does your script have non-submersible elements? Does it have anything up to eight moments which stand out and shine? Is each one different, unique? Have you given each one of them its full impact and value?

What's a screenplay without classic moments? It's probably a waste of time.

Remember your non-submersible elements, and send a little prayer of thanks up to Mr Kubrick for giving them such a useful if, at first glance, baffling name.

A PLAN

I've been meaning to do this for a while. Now that the gig I was supposed to be at tonight has been cancelled, I've started giving it some proper thought. And I'd be grateful for your help.

There are plenty of books out there - not to mention courses - which purport to lead the reader through the ins and outs of screenwriting. I've read quite a few of them. Some have interesting stuff in them, the odd nugget here and there, often surrounded by wads of less than useful information. Some are - to my mind, at least - absolutely bloody useless.

One of the problems is that the expert author feels the need to parade their phenomenal knowledge of the subject at great length. Even on screenwriting courses, I've been shocked at the sense of sinking in a sea of 'How To's and 'What Not to Do's and ever deeper layers of complication.

Screenwriting is hard work, but it should also be fun. There's a lot to learn, yes, but if the balance between creative and prescriptive is all wrong, aren't we in danger of crushing the imaginative spirit and the individual voice of the writer?

I've been mulling over this for a long time, and wondering whether it wouldn't be possible to produce a guide to the art and craft of screenwriting which emphasised creativity, which takes the reader on an enjoyable journey round the pitfalls of scripts, presents practical know-how and makes the whole process reasonably clear.

And there's another dimension. This has something to do with the ways our lives are defined by stories. We're surrounded by them; they tell us what to think, what to believe. We live our lives according to the stories we've been told, and the stories we've told ourselves.

So, theoretically at least, we can devise better stories to tell ourselves (and others), and by doing so we can alter our attitudes to the world around us.

Isn't that what practically every self-help manual and self-improvement course sets out to do? To get you to change your inner story, to tell yourself a different story?

The journey of the script is the writer's journey. The writer undertakes the adventure, and lives through the long dark night of the soul which lies at the heart of the story. The writer returns with the secret of the script, the experience of the story, and, like the hero, acquires a new understanding.

I'm thinking that the time has come for me to start putting together some worksheets, along the lines of a step-by-step process, which look at the journey of the script from start to finish. I'd like to keep it as simple, as straightforward, and as stimulating as possible. I'd like to present it as a month-long plan.

The result, if it comes out all right, will be available as a PDF document.

I could do with any input you have to offer, though.

What are the areas of screenwriting, or the issues involved, which interest or concern or confuse you the most?

What could my guide do differently that would really help?

What would you most like to know by the end of it?

And would you be interested in seeing these worksheets as they come rolling off the press?

Let me know what you think.

COMMON ERRORS

I'll let you in on a little secret. Sometimes, a part of me rebels against my own strictures.

It's a kind of teenage rebellion. Screenwriting, I tell myself, is a creative art. How can there be rules? How can I stipulate that this, that or the other must happen? Surely there are exceptions! Surely, a gifted writer can break all the rules and fashion an absolutely brilliant screenplay! Not all screenplays have to look the same.

And then I read yet another screenplay in which a basic 'rule' has been overlooked. And I realise that, these so-called 'rules' actually do mean something.

Let's take the antagonist, for example. Other names include Villain, Rival, Enemy, Nemesis, Shadow, Bad Guy ... but ultimately, they're all the same. The hero of a script tends to be the protagonist ('First Contestant' or 'First Actor' in the original Greek meaning of the word), and whoever he or she is up against is the antagonist.

It's rather surprising to find that, in script after script, it's hard to pin down an actual bad guy.

I reckon that would-be screenwriters often have a great idea. They then imagine themselves as the lead characters in the story and start spinning a yarn around that lead character - and a few other characters for ballast - making their way through that great idea.

But they haven't thought it through. They're creating a kind of daydream on paper. They've imagined themselves into the role of the lead actor of hero in the story, but they've forgotten to provide that hero with a shadow, a nemesis, a rival.

I don't think that this is a peculiarly British thing. But it does betray a lack of planning and preparation. No bad guy equals no drama. The essence of drama is ... no, not conflict ... it's struggle (or, rather, it's what happens to a character as they engage in that struggle). It is possible for the hero to struggle entirely against non-human factors, or against something within themselves, but a story tends to come alive when the struggle is personified. The hero wants something, they have the gall to go ahead and try to achieve it, but there's someone who's determined to beat them, to oppose them, to steal their triumph or to finish them off.

Now, I've given this post the title 'Common Errors', of which there are plenty. You come across them all the time: scenes which wander randomly from one precise location to another without a scene break; a lack of thought given to structure (script structure or story structure); a tendency to rely on dialogue to do all the work; too many characters who aren't introduced properly, so that the reader can't really tell who's who ...

But one of the most frequent errors I come across is the lack of a clear antagonist.

Now, as my last posting mentioned, there can be a great deal of fluidity about the four principal characters (HERO, VILLAIN, SIDEKICK and LOVE INTEREST). Any of these can turn out to be the antagonist (yes, even the hero can be revealed as the bad guy). Some great stories play games with our expectations in this respect.

Hitchcock's 'Psycho', for example. It's some way into the film before we discover that the bad guy isn't the man at the start with the stetson and the money, or the cop with the mirror sunglasses, but that nice young man at the motel.

Last night, I watched Ken Loach's 'The Wind That Shakes the Barley'. The antagonist, to begin with, is the British government, in the form of the notorious Black and Tans, or certain English landowners in Ireland, and only gradually does the hero's friend emerge as the antagonist.

So it's not necessary to establish your typical bad guy right from the outset. But your story does need one.

The more daunting the opposition, the greater the danger you're hero will find themselves in, and the greater the struggle they face. Which makes for a good story.

Hence the need to prepare, as you develop your project, rather than dreaming up an idea and launching yourself straight into the script. Because some things simply cannot be overlooked. And one of those things is the antagonist.

Some stories try to get by without the hero really wanting something. By and large, this doesn't work.

And some stories try to tell themselves without the hero facing any real opposition.

Where's the drama in that?

DEVELOPMENT: 5

Okey-dokey ... so, your premise is being honed, refined and polished. You've got your basic set-up, you're paying attention to the genre and you've given some thought to the most appropriate format for the piece.

You might even have a title (but don't get too attached to it just yet).

The development of your project now takes place along parallel lines.

On the one hand, you'd be well advised to build your basic premise up in stages, aiming first for a half-page synopsis, then maybe a synopsis of a page or two, maybe making it to a five or six page outline after a little while.

This is how a great deal of script development is carried out in television. It's a simple Cartesian process, starting with the most basic 'synopsis' - the premise - and progressing to ever more detailed outlines.

('Synopsis' and 'outline' can mean the same thing; I tend to call the earlier stages synopses, and the more detailed story work outlines - the synopsis summarises the story, the outline goes into more plot detail.)

We'll worry about treatments separately. They are a blessing and a curse, and will need to be looked at shortly.

For now, though, what do you need to be thinking about as you build up your story from the premise, through a synopsis or two, to an outline?

Let's start with your characters. You've already established who your main character is - the protagonist who wants something but will have to overcome obstacles to achieve or acquire it.

What about the other principal characters?

Have you begun to establish a clear antagonist? A villain, rival, nemesis or shadow?

Has your hero got a side-kick, a friend, ally or partner?

Is there a love interest anywhere in sight?

Not all stories need all four characters (HERO, SHADOW, SIDE-KICK and LOVE INTEREST). What is more, a character can quite easily shift from one role to another. A side-kick can turn into a love interest, or even into a rival or shadow. A love interest can become an enemy.

Giving some thought to these central characters at this stage is helpful. Too often, scripts have quite strong central characters, partly because the writer identifies with the hero, but the satellite characters are two-dimensional cardboard cut-outs who exist only to advance the plot or do what the hero requires them to do.

Urgh! Avoid that at all costs. The simplest way to do so is to remember a fundamental fact:

WE ARE ALL THE HEROES OF OUR OWN STORIES.

Every character in a script, if they are going to feel at all real, must have his or her own agenda. Just like the hero, they want something, and something stands in their way.

So - while you're gradually building your story up from premise through synopsis to outline, do a little work on the side with your characters.

You don't need to fill out a whole questionnaire about each character, but you should know what each character wants and what's preventing them from getting it.

This is essential for plotting your detailed storyline. It's also fundamental to the drama of your script. If everything's too easy for your hero (because that's the only character you care about), then there's likely to be too little drama. The struggle's not there.

But if every major character is acting as if they were the hero in their own story, wanting things, struggling to achieve them, facing obstacles, making decisions and taking action, then you'll get conflict of interest, stronger characters and a better plot.

And never forget that character is revealed through action. Character is what character does. So make sure that your characters are able and willing to do things. They're not pliant or dormant. They're not just there to do a bit of talking. They're real people, with needs, desires, fears and foibles. And they DO things.

DEVELOPMENT: 4

Many thanks to those who sent in their story premises after my last posting. Premises are great - such a simple task (maximum three sentences), and yet such a universe of possibilities! I do believe it's well worth taking the time and trouble to hone your premise until it really works: it says what you mean it to say, and you can hold it in your head like a mantra, ready to pitch it at a split second's notice.

But now that you've been mulling over your story premise for a little while, honing and refining it, it's time to step back a little ways and look at the idea from some new angles.

There are two things which need considering. The first is - what's the genre? The second - what's the format?

Genre first. It's a bit of a dirty word, genre, but it's more important than it looks. It might be worth checking back through the postings on this site to find the one about genre.

Take a good look at your premise and ask yourself, 'What kind of story is this going to be?' Is it a comedy? Fine - so you're sure that this is going to be funny, right?

If it's a character-based story (otherwise known as 'drama'), do you have sufficiently strong and interesting characters, and is the situation going to push them far enough? If it's a horror, is it going to be horrifying enough? A thriller? Better make sure that there are going to be some thrills, and that the premise feels like a good pitch for a thriller.

It is possible (and rather contemporary) to throw several genres together, but all in all it's best to choose your genre and then stick to it. And then immerse yourself in that genre - read books and scripts and watch movies from that genre. Soak up the implicit rules of that particular genre. And make sure that you're staying true to the rules of that genre from now on.

You may find that your premise doesn't point to the sort of genre you have in mind (one writer I remember once tried to pitch a 'comedy' which, as a key plot point, involved a rape; she insisted that it would be a 'funny' rape, whatever that might be; part of the problem was that she wanted to write a comedy, and was trying to force the wrong story into that genre, so make sure that your story suits the genre you've decided on - if it doesn't, change one or the other, the story or the genre).

Next, format. How do you see your story developing - into a full feature-length screenplay? Into a TV mini-series, a single-strand TV drama, a sit-com, a short film, maybe even a short story or a novel ... Again, as with the story's genre, never try to force your story into the wrong pigeon-hole. You might have a great pitch for a short film, but that may not make it suitable for development as a theatrical feature.

Look long and hard at your story, and let your story tell you what if has to be - a full-length romantic comedy for cinematic release or a horror short lasting no longer than ten minutes; a three-part melodrama for television or an airport novel.

Don't try to force your story into the wrong format or genre.

And don't try to push a 'theme' or 'message'. In television drama, a lot of writers like to preface their premises or synopses with some pithy sort of rhetorical question. Actually, there only ever seems to be the one question, which goes something like: 'How far would you go to protect someone you love?' To which the only sensible answer is 'Inverness' or 'Addis Ababa'. Not only is a pert moral question like 'How far would you go to protect yadda yadda' unlikely to be answered in any depth during an episode of 'The Bill', but who's to say that your script will actually pose that question?

Did Shakespeare start work on 'Hamlet' by scribbling down the question: 'Is it right to want to kill your step-father?'

Probably not. Ignore questions about theme or message - they're an absolute waste of time and they lead to shallow thinking. It's up to a person reading your script, or watching the end result, to decide on what the 'theme' or 'message' of the story might be - it's certainly not your problem.

Trust your story to tell itself without imposing themes or messages on it, and let your story decide what genre it belongs to, and what format it's best suited to. There are times when you are the master of your material, and others when the material has to speak for itself. This is one of the latter occasions. Let the story choose its proper format and genre, or be prepared to alter the story if you have to fit a certain genre or format.

Don't try forcing a square peg into a round hole.

DEVELOPMENT: 3

So now we know what a set-up involves - a character, a desire and an obstacle or two.

The chances are that, once you've got your set-up, you'll be imagining all sorts of exciting things which can happen in your script. Which is terrific - you need all that excitement and creative energy - but keep all those ideas to one side for now.

Don't get distracted by your bright ideas. The process of screenwriting is one of expansion and contraction - some of the time, you'll need to be expansive in your thinking, open and receptive to ideas; but some of the time, you'll need to focus, to be clear and precise, and not let all those ideas get in the way.

Now is a time to focus. You've got your basic idea (set-up) and it's worth converting that into a short and pithy statement, something a little like a brief blurb on the back of a book.

The aim is to summarise your great idea, so that it can be easily and readily conveyed to a reader or listener. Also, the summary (or 'premise') will be something that you can memorise and hold onto when the going gets rough. One of the toughest things a screenwriter has to do is to remember at all times what you set out to do in the first place. Creating a succinct and enticing premise will be one way of remembering what got you going - what your original idea actually was.

An alternative name for a premise is the 'pitch'. They both serve the same purpose - to convey your idea in a concise and engaging way.

A successful premise or pitch will give the reader or listener a good sense of what your story might be, where it might go, and whether they want to know more. So it's a sales pitch, basically. You're selling your idea: your character (or characters), your situation, your set-up.

Three simple sentences should be your absolute maximum. Arguably, two simple sentences are better. Two or three sentences should suffice to express your idea. If you can't get your idea across in three simple sentences - max - then you need a new idea.

(This isn't quite 'high concept', that ghastly creation of the 1980s which gave us such awful pitches as 'Nurses in wet T-shirts', 'Whoopi Goldberg plays a nun' or 'Tom Cruise in a jet fighter'. When executives get lazy, and creatives pander to their laziness, you end up with dross like that. But no executive is so lazy that they can't get through a pitch expressed in two simple sentences. Writers can learn to organise their thoughts, and to express their idea succinctly, without stooping to the brainlessness of the 'high concept'.)

Now, there is a kind of workshop situation which can be extremely useful when you're working on your premise. A group of writers hear or read your premise, take it in, and then comment on it. Does it work? Does it leave them confused? Does it leave them wanting more? Does it actually say what you think it says?

Most importantly, how might it be improved?

This is really the start of your development process, and it's worth getting your premise to the point where it really does its job - it gets peoples' interest, it establishes the basics of the story, and it suggests a darn good script in the offing.

So - if anyone has a premise they want comments on, I would suggest that they leave it as a comment on this post, or email it to me, and we'll invite feedback. The feedback has to be constructive, of course. But as the best way to polish up your premise is to find out how other people receive it, what they make of it, and whether they think it's working or not, I think we should use this site for comments and feedback on premises.

There's your challenge. Express your script idea in two or three fairly straightforward sentences. Post it as a comment (or email it to me) and we'll 'workshop' it.

How neatly can you summarise your idea?

And can you avoid the dreaded dot-dot-dots ... ?

Over to you.