Cloudplane

Forwardly Direction

2012-01-20T02:22:00.000Z

I'll be perfectly honest - this is an odd patch for me. Right now I'm living on the floor of a friend, job-seeking, home-seeking, and my options are almost infinitely open. I have no ties, really, and my skills are as valuable and redundant in any one place as they are in another. Aside from the limitations of money and language, I could settle anywhere in the world.

Of course, if I was really that skilled, that valuable, perhaps I wouldn't be in this position. I'd like to make a TV series, direct a play, run a ridiculous art thing, but I've systematically alienated anyone who would once have thought those might be cool ideas. Not just by being an ass either - that's a crutch of which I'm painfully aware, and a quick glance through my back catalogue shows that my critics haven't been wrong. I've been attempting to put together some kind of portfolio, and it's a unique experience. I've always valued doing an ambitious thing over doing a thing right, and I think that was foolhardy. There's not a lot back there that I'm proud of.

Hence the Dickensian soliloquy - I am every old man wondering whether it is too late to change. This year I need to decide whether I'm as smart as I think I am, and whether I shouldn't just cut my losses and be an accountant, or whatever the hell I'm supposed to be. That means I should really just get a project started, and damn the consequences.

We'll approach this objectively, because frankly if I was all that then I wouldn't be without actors and collaborators right now. I'm guessing being a full time creative man isn't all standing on a mountain asking where everyone has gone. If I'm so damn smart, I'll make use of what I've got, and go from there.

The Waiting Game

2012-01-11T00:34:00.001Z

Waiting is for chumps. If you have any kind of sense, make people wait for you, not the other way around. Turn up late, change venues, actively deceive your friends - these are the actions of sensible, forward-thinking people.

I was recently caught out by an evidently more sensible friend, and found myself the first to arrive at the pleasant bistro-bar-cafe that was our rendezvous. I bought a drink, sat outside in the fading January sun, and contemplated the scene.

The rituals of waiting are familiar, from the railway platform to the hospital waiting room. You are keen to announce to all possible observers that you are expecting another person, that this brief period of solitude is either a frustrating, if entirely necessary and unavoidable, part of your planned schedule, or a pleasing entrée, whetting the appetite for the main event. Your many, many friends will be arriving shortly, and - perhaps you smile to yourself - you're glad of the respite from all the camaraderie, the general hustling and bustling of your life. You're fine with it, this is fine. You wouldn't have arranged it any other way.

This is the point at which people check their watches and their phones, and roll their eyes, tut and shake their heads. "I said 7:00, and it's now 7:03," they silently say. The lone sitter hopes that someone will ask for one of the spare chairs, so that they can loudly impart the information that others will be arriving shortly, and those chairs will be required. This tactic can backfire, of course, if the delay increases - those people who wanted the chair will talk about you, and possibly believe that you have invisible friends.

I had by this point been waiting so long that I was experiencing Zeno's dichotomy paradox (beverage department). I had ordered a pint as, frankly, I have enough working against me sitting on my own without drinking a glass of red wine or similar. The pint is a prop - it gives me something to do whilst waiting. However, it is a risky tactic, because the person waiting (with a drink) is basically indistinguishable from the person drinking alone. You - the solitary waiting drinker - don't wish to finish the alcoholic beverage because you would then be faced with a dilemma - do you once again sit motionless, without a visual excuse explaining your presence, and inviting the scorn of passers-by, or do you order a second drink - thus admitting to yourself and to everyone present that you have consumed at least one alcoholic beverage alone.

So you begin to take smaller and smaller sips from your glass, or bottle, or mug. A pint works well in these situations because you begin with a reasonable quantity of beverage. If you have decided to wait with, say, some shots, then the problem that this presents is not your only problem. But in all normal situations - that is to say, paranoid and far too concerned with what indifferent citizens may think of you - then the scene will readily come to mind.

You start with confidence - perhaps, after all, you are a bit thirsty. Half of your beery drink is gone before ten minutes have elapsed (I'll be honest - years of poverty have engrained in me a leisurely drinking pace at the best of times, so alter these figures to fit with whatever you drunken louts think best). Slowly you become uneasy - either they should be here by now, or perhaps they interpreted the rendezvous time differently. It is not quite the time for anxious texts, but you begin to perform mental calculations - what if, say, the traffic was heavier than expected? Have the clocks gone back? You take a cautious swig from your glass and set it down. You text anyway.

I always envy smokers in these situations. Armed with a packet of cigarettes, a person can wait indefinitely - they acquire an air of concentration, of contemplation, that the solitary drinker (surely a reasonable comparison) cannot approach. It is the tactility of the prop - that it still active in the hand even while not near the mouth - combined with the its tangential relation with the drinking establishment. One would not necessarily go to a bar to smoke alone, but one might to drink alone. The person who rolls their own cigarettes does not even have to smoke them - in fact, I have friends who gave up smoking but still perform this ritual on these occasions.

The pint is now in its final third, and the waiting drinker finally receives a response text. An ornate dance is made of the receiving and reading of the text - "I wonder which of my many friends of which I have many has contacted me?". You take sips from your glass at infrequent intervals, but you cannot conserve it forever.

Your friend informs you that they have now left the house. Forty minutes have passed since the arranged meeting time. Your drinking has been reduced to a confident attitude while picking up the glass to mask the tiniest of sips. These are timed to take place whenever a glass-collector approaches, for fear that they will mistake the thin line of beverage for unwanted dregs, and remove it for your convenience.

Inevitably, your friend then texts to nominate a new venue. They will not have the decency to phone you, so that you can loudly announce the new plan to the assembled crowd. Learn your lesson, and never return.

This will inevitably, but accidentally, get lots of pageviews

2011-12-19T21:58:00.000Z

I've read quite a lot of material on making indie films over the past few weeks. That includes some books, articles, and a whole lot of websites. I have no interest in creating an independent film - TV series, remember? - but my theory is that surely a whole lot of the advice must be applicable to both. I mean, it's all cameras, microphones and complaining about Apple products.

Why do I want to make a TV series? Why do I keep calling it a TV series given that it will be on the web?

I don't own a television. Television, for me, comes in discs or (more often) from the internet. By which I mean things like iPlayer, obviously. Anyway! I am pretty fussy when it comes to the kind of TV I watch. We've covered this before - I like stories, characters, worlds. I do not watch Don't Tell the Bride, or Keeping up with the Kardashians. I tell my co-workers I watch no television at all, just to avoid those awful daily conversations (it doesn't work).

Why do I like the idea of a series? It's the same reason I like genre fictions - a series lets you set up characters, and a world, and then do what you like with them. Strong enough characters can survive practically any juxtaposition - think of the shows which throw in a musical episode, or a one-where-they-all-act-like-each-other. Or a bottle episode. Right now, Community does this the best - in fact, it rarely has what you might call a 'straight' episode. The characters are so well-defined that it isn't just a case of throwing interesting situations at them, but whole genres and worlds.

That's where I want to be. I want to have a backdrop on which to mess about. I want to use all of literature, all of culture, as a lens through which to peer at the interactions of a few imaginary people. And then, before I'm tired of them, just start it all over again with another crowd.

Let's make a TV series in 2012

2011-12-17T17:13:00.001Z

I know I promise things, and sometimes I don't follow through. I am sorry, and I will try to do better. While I'm working on that, let's talk about my new exciting plan.

Next year I head to Holland and film a TV series. That's pretty great, right? The thinking is that we do a short, web-based series and for the rest of our lives, can always say that we produced a TV show. Or maybe we use it to springboard into glitzy jobs, I'm not sure. Anyway!

Right now, the main problem is that to persuade people (potential investors, cast and crew) that our TV series is a good idea, we need scripts, synopses, general information. But stories are supposed to be character led, and who knows what kind of actors I'll get. The relative abundance of volunteer actors is why this is going down in the Netherlands, incidentally.

Arguing chicken and the egg in this way is silly, of course. Write a decent script, get the actors, then change it completely later on if we have to.

What do we know? Well, male actors are going to be in short supply, so a character list should be female-biased. These people are volunteers, driven mainly by general altruism, love of performance, and my co-producer's interpersonal skills. Rehearsing and filming will be fairly time-intensive (I've opted for a single camera set-up, on the basis of equipment costs, and the fact that the actors will be used to theatre, and so blocking and re-running a scene should be second nature) so limiting the number of episodes the majority are in will be a priority.

A 'main character' list of, say, three actors. Probably one male, 2 female. It's going to be awkward that other classic sources of diversity - say, age, race etc - are going to be pretty much out of my hands. I imagine the narrative as whole as this long line, of which the actual episodes are sort of the middle. The characters' backstories will get changed by whoever ends up playing them, which in turn affects what kind of characters they become, which alters the way the stories play out, which changes the direction of the show, and whatever direction we're facing when we close.

Blundering

2011-06-26T20:56:00.004+01:00

I was cold, wet, and my legs were openly rebelling. They weren't made for this. The rain wasn't heavy, but it was consistent. It wasn't as dark as it had been, and I was beginning to think I'd taken a wrong turning, or several, at some point.

Starting in the middle of the story is cliché, the Latin pops into your head as you roll your eyes. Sometimes you can't see the beginning until you've realised that a story is actually being told. Until that point it's just been things happening to you, one after the other. Sometimes (depending on what kind of night you're having), you can't actually remember the beginning. Other people might not remember the end, but we probably have different sorts of nights.

It was 4am, which meant I'd already spent an hour on what should be an hour's journey. And I didn't recognise anything. Or worse, I was recognising streets and following them, only to realise that they were just very similar in appearance to other roads. There's only so much variety that can be expected in a straight, curvy line with houses on the sides. I've no problem with admitting I'm lost, I'm not that proud. I just never saw how admitting it actually helped. Still got to find the way to wherever you're going.

This is not how nights out are meant to end. I brought a sleeping bag and a change of clothes, for Christ's sake. I was offered not one but two sofas. That was in the drier part of the evening, before events became all connected. The route of my taxi from the station inspired a text, and the response inspired a meeting with someone entirely different. But the kingdom wasn't lost for want of a nail. The kingdom was buggered either way, and whatever any series of events that night would have led to me stumbling through the rain looking for street signs.

At some point I started attempting to hitchhike. I did this more as an empty gesture than the beginnings of a plan - I have never actually seen a car stop for anyone, especially in a city, and this was the dead hours of Saturday morning. My drowned rat looks couldn't have helped matters. One car stopped, and I realised I had hailed a taxi. I was minded to be fatalistic at this point, but was bemused to see the cab gradually roll from a stop into a sprint. "I've just got another call, mate." Right.

I remember, in the bar, someone suggesting that I should stop trying to get arty people together, and instead just write, finish some projects. And here we are, typing energetically. A connection - that's progress, good. That's almost a narrative structure, right there. We're beginning to get somewhere.

I was having to navigate by smartphone GPS. This was fine if I wanted to know what street I was on, but not if I wanted to see how that fitted into the bigger picture - for some reason both scrolling and zooming weren't working. Anything off the postage stamp sized screen was a mystery to me. I walking a map of separate screens. Once my destination and I were on the same postage stamp - about a hundred yards away from each other - then I would know where I was going. Eventually, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from idiocy.

The city has a tall tower, more or less at its centre. This is helpful, in theory, as it is a landmark one can simply walk towards. But travelling through a city with your eyes on a point is like attempting to navigate a lawn maze by the stars. Cities, at least our cities, know the secret, that one thing isn't necessarily connected to another. They abhor straight lines.

Eventually I ended up in a suburb of cul-de-sacs, right where I reckoned the university to be. It had changed, I could see that. I could still see the tower, and knew I wasn't too far from my destination, but now I was surrounded by houses and walls. One big wall. I actually did a little double-jump, hopping from a fence onto the top of the wall. I could now see the ten foot drop into a field of brambles on the other side. I lived in this city for three years. When was all this stuff added? I walked all the way back out of the estate.

I was at the mouth of an empty road tunnel. The signs all pointed into the tunnel, but I was understandably apprehensive. That was where cars lived, after all. A harsh voice sounded from somewhere behind me - only the second life sign I'd come across since appearing in the streets. My first instinct - not a reliable guide so far, admittedly - was to avoid contact, but the man, keeping his own distance as well, asked where I going. Feeling that a metaphysical response was beyond me at this stage, I told him, and he pointed at a gap in the architecture. I was metres away from my destination.

In the train station I attacked a panini with more gusto than it deserved, and swayingly purchased a notepad. On the train I wrote a few words (and long sentences) before falling in a damp, head on arms sleep. I woke moments before the train arrived at the right station.

I am a Story: Narrative/Pervasive Games

2011-06-04T22:04:00.005+01:00

Considering my previous-but-a-few post on Genre Fiction, but in the light of these running around games I seem to be doing more and more. One of the points raised time and again when I bring up the narrative side of pervasive gaming, and that was echoed again at the Igfest game designer brunch was that it only works with simple, clichéd stories.

To which I've said, frequently, 'bollocks'. Clichés and stereotypes might be alright now, but then very early cinema managed to get by with villains twiddling moustaches, and good guys who wore white. When an audience is still learning the rules and mechanics of a medium, recognisable, simplistic storylines and characters are helpful, but that isn't a problem with the medium. We're already growing a generation of people for whom this sort of reality juggling (you know you're in a game, you know you're planning a bank heist, you know you're invisible like a ninja, but you also know those passers-by are staring at you) is second nature. No, first nature. I nearly said child's play.

Those are the people who will demand the same sophistication of stories, but written to take account of the strengths of the particular medium. I already predict we'll fall into the same trap that caught computer games in the 90s, and want to be cinema - showing, not letting the audience interact. We're already thinking that we're computer games, and generating locations rather than appropriating what we've already got.

Fine fine, I'll leave my thoughts on pervasive games and genre fiction for another time.

Igfest: Gate Crash

2011-05-30T13:36:00.006+01:00

Back from Igfest late last night, a pervasive/social gaming festival in Bristol. Larkin' About were running an Alice in Wonderland-themed treasure hunt which turned in to a sort of bar crawl - I got to doze in a pub all day, made up with whiskers and dressed in smoking jacket, smoking cap as the sleeping dormouse, directing actors to the 'greatest party in Bristol'.

The Mad Hatter's Tea Party. Photo credit: Larkin' About, Facebook.

The city was excellent for this sort of thing - all the venues I encountered seemed remarkably up for getting involved - Larkin' had incorporated various barstaff into the script, reacting to codewords and providing clues and gifts to the players. It's practically impossible to imagine Manchester venues going along with this kind of thing - not understanding the audience, the games, complaining that their staff are too busy, or just generally being unhelpful. The amount of players who were delightfully smashed by the time they got to me (third location in the game?) suggests that there may be money for the bars to make, however.

It was genuinely refreshing to see a city which embraced this sort of thing - I realise a short, whirlwind tour of a festival is always going to be a biased way to see a city, but the variety of venues we saw (we were based in an abandoned fire station, converted in to a coop art place) was remarkable. Especially while Manchester's theatrical scene seems to be getting smaller.

Rainbow Rain. Photo credit: Kevan Davis, Flickr

Not that the whole city knew what was going on - I had to answer quite a few questions from confused patrons of the Bank tavern, where I spent the day appearing extremely popular and unpopular in turn, depending on whether there were players about. And on the Saturday night, which we ended spectating the 'killing fields' of 2:8 Hours Later (zombie apocalypse themed race to the end of the night), seeing the bemused passers-by was almost as much fun as watching the game.

(2:8 Hours is another eye opening experience, from a business point of view if nothing else - three nights, a remarkable number of venues, performers, chasers, technical staff, an audience of 300 per night, all paying £20, and selling out every time...).

The Sunday morning involved a game designers' brunch, everyone bizarrely focused and energetic given the early morning. This was fascinating in its own right, and I'll post some thoughts a bit later, but it was just interesting to see a lot of people in the same place for more or less the same purpose.

Larkin' About have a few other projects on the horizon, and pending my own independence, it's nice to have a decent outlet to do interesting things. Splendid.

Genre Fiction

2011-05-02T21:18:00.003+01:00

I like what I guess is called in some circles 'genre fiction'. Obviously that's a pretty big statement, and I'll qualify it in a second, but first let's board the definition train.

Genre fiction, also known as popular fiction, is a term for fictional works (novels, short stories) written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre.
-"Genre fiction", Wikipedia.

Thanks, Wikipedia. Thanks for making me sound like a massive idiot.

Ok, so this is going to be a pretty difficult struggle upwards from the depths of criticism. I'm not sure I can properly defend my tastes, but frankly I'll be happy if I can see daylight by the end of this.

So let's say I make a horror movie. Obviously I want to get rich, so I want as many people as possible to see the film. Therefore I make clear in all the trailers, posters, interviews, marketing etc that this is a horror movie, and will rigidly stick to every trope necessary. If there is a Platonic form for horror movies, then mine will be as close as metaphysically possible. Then all the horror fans will see it, because we all know that fans of everything hate innovation or change.

That's the standard narrative to genre fiction. That probably goes on, sure, but my interest is for different reasons. My point - my constant refrain, actually - is that the conventions of a genre are nothing more than a convenience. Let's use detective fiction as an example. If a new detective show starts on television, and you want all your friends to watch it, you aren't going to say that a crime took place. Or that, at the end, the crime gets solved. Your friends will know that.

In genre fiction, the plot is the least of our concern. Let's be clear, there's good and bad genre fiction, as in every other classification. But not having to worry about a plot, or even a setting, because the audience have your back, means that the writer can do fun things with the characters, or the world itself. Genre fiction is a development of the old romances. The characters bear no resemblance to the characters of 'realism', which are horrific, twisted creatures who do not belong outside of stories. Instead, they are real in the way that the people we meet every day are real - they are exaggerations, two-dimensional figures projected on the screens of our mind.

In a detective show, you know that a murder will take place and that a murder will be solved. A sci-fi show will probably question the nature of life, or humanity. Fantasy will, I don't know, say that magic is cool or something. Your audience know all that - they're comfortable with it, so you can spend time creating characters who are either not clichés, or who are clichés and revel in it. You can create a world which works like clockwork in the background of stories which might not do a single innovative thing. A story is a vehicle for getting a world into the open.

Of course, some people like game mechanics

2011-03-27T18:23:00.003+01:00

Interesting counterpoint to my 'stories are great' post. I stumbled across the post below while trying to find references, and was struck by how a narrative can be ignored and its delivery misjudged. For those who aren't aware, Oblivion is an RPG, a role-playing-game. Technically, games like it are meant to be the pinnacle of game-as-story-telling-device.

http://secondpersonshooter.com/2010/05/18/enduring-oblivion/

The blog post basically shows that there aren't so much mechanistic games and narrative games, so much as gamers for those two sides. I'm thinking about the last time I played Ludo (fucking Ludo), and how the straggling piece overtaking the leading players, the frustration of being trapped in home base became a narrative in its own right. Players imposing narrative on events is nothing new - that's how stories start, anyway - and players imposing mechanics where there are none is similarly reminding me of various anecdotes, which I'll add here if I can find the references. How that relates to pervasive games might be interesting, though.

Actually, that reminds me of Stranger on the Eleventh Floor, and how players who got lost in the wrong part of town assumed that it was part of the game. They were harassing bouncers at various clubs, trying to gather clues to our fiendish (and entirely fictitious) puzzle.

Baby Steps: Towards a new game philosophy

2011-03-27T17:30:00.009+01:00

So this weekend I sent off a script for a running-around-Manchester-game thing - 'participatory theatre', social experience whatever. We'll see whether it gets picked up, but fundamentally it meant that I've got a reasonably loose, modular framework laid out to build other games around.

I've been thinking since I started doing these shows that there's an underdeveloped niche here, and that's only becoming more clear. This week a new pervasive game group set up shop in Toronto, citing Hide-and-Seek and Larkin' About as influences, amongst others. There are now groups all over the place, but they all seem to be focused on mechanistic variations. Their creed is the augmentation, the gamification, of reality.

This fits into the nascent academic work on the field, from what I've read. Jane McGonigal's book Reality is Broken, which seems to be a bit of a sensation at the moment, advocates the application of game systems (quests, achievements, levelling up) to the real world - she's a little messianic, and the message scales from giving people validation in their daily lives right up to saving the planet. The point is that games are seen by all these people as designs, mechanisms, systems. The perfect game is something that works like clockwork - is clean, with risk and rewarded clearly defined. This is why World of Warcraft (WoW) gets so much praise - in the section explaining why time spent in games can be satisfying, McGonigal says that a satisfying experience (she's comparing it to working employment)

"[...] must present us with clear, immediately actionable goals as well as direct, vivid feedback. World of Warcraft does all of this brilliantly, and it does so continually. [...] With its thousands of potential quests, its ever-elusive endgame, and a server that generates more obstacles and opponents for you every time you log on, it is without doubt one of the most satisfying works systems ever engineered" (Reality is Broken, p.60)

McGonigal doesn't say that this is only lure, obviously - the social possibilities of completing objectives with others and generally sharing experiences are discussed at length - but I don't think I'm mistaken in arguing that this is a continuation of Gillen's comment that the dark secret of gaming is that watching numbers get bigger is enough (here, and here). As long as the game runs smoothly, the social aspects and the 'fun' will take care if itself. I don't think its coincidental that the first interface modification for WoW was apparently a 'skip quest text' function (article - actually has plenty of other interesting things to say about storytelling in games where mechanics rule).

To be clear, I think there are games - plenty of games, both digital and pervasive - for which this is legitimate and good practice. What I disagree with is that this is the only way to do things right.

Since the beginning, with Buttle, the games I've run have for the most part been actor and narrative led. My background is theatre, but it's also storytelling. I love stories, and I love how narrative works. And I'm increasingly realising that pervasive gaming seems to be one of the few expressive mediums not being used to tell stories. Where are all the storytellers? We're talking about a medium where the audience, the players, are part of events. Christ, if computer games can do it so can we.

An aside - I'm aware of live action role playing: LARPing, and I'm aware of the overlap. Technically yes, there are story based 'real world' games, but I think the similarities end in how we tell those stories, with our blend of actors and players. I'm still convinced we're doing something different, and I think we're still closer to pervasive gaming as a movement and a medium.

The prevailing wisdom is that people play these games for a feeling of control, for the satisfaction of the mission complete, the experience of doing some new and different, and the experience of doing it with other people. It's a form of escapism, just like any other medium. But the people designing the games seem to think that chess and ludo are the closest point of reference - games for which you can explain the rules, and which you can win. But what's stopping us make a flesh-and-blood Deus Ex, or Planescape? Or Mansions of Madness?

It's just another form of escapism, not better or worse. This is a countdown to a manifesto right here, I guess.

My Week, right?

2011-03-19T17:09:00.003Z

I'm pretty exhausted. Right now is actually the least exhausted I've been in nearly two weeks. This is unusual - generally I can exist without a lot of sleep, and when I'm doing exciting things I get bored with more than two or three hours. I'm also familiar with this level of exhaustion - it happened the last time I got a job! Yes, yes - I am employed, hurray for me. I work at a stockbrokers, I am tired from all the shouting 'buy' and 'sell'.

But I'm exhausted. It's incredibly strange - I sleep for about 7 hours a night, which is usually more than enough. I get up at 6am, maybe 6.15am if I'm feeling like rushing. I get back home at about 6pm, and have to force myself to bed at about 10.30pm.

Yes, rock and roll. Mentally - creatively - I'm dead during the week. Today I've managed to get some writing done, but not a great deal. And physically a sense of bone-weariness is constant from about Monday afternoon. This is unusual for me, again. I'm usually immune to normal boring human stuff, right? Anyway, the job isn't physically (or mentally) strenuous, and my diet isn't even as bad as it generally is. I suspect it's down to the hours I have to sleep - late evening to early morning is my most creative time during a non-working day, and it's the time I'm least likely to be sleepy, even when I'm tired. The sleep I'm getting probably isn't of a very good quality, for that reason.

That's all not very important. I have to work, to get cash so I don't have to work. That's the logic I'm working under. Right now we've got a potential opportunity to do some shows at the Nexus (courtesy of my tea-drinking chats during Stranger on the Eleventh Floor). The reason for the work-related blather above is that actually writing those scripts during the week is impossible. I'm intrigued to know whether I could direct during the energy-low period, but serious writing has never come naturally to me, and it's one of the first things to go during the work times.

So the work is meant to provide money to keep me in Manchester, to do the things that interest me, but the work also prevents me from doing those things. It's not the situation it could be - after all, I'm temping, and the whole point is that the job won't last forever. I just get the money and run - eventually. And then I just live cheaply for as long as possible, and try to fit in as much as I can.

Larkin' About - Nearly There

2011-02-24T12:07:00.001Z

On Saturday we go to war, we take to the streets. Larkin' About begins at 6pm and ends about midnight, but I expect to have a slightly longer day than that. I'll be running Utilitarian Geography again, alongside a new game called My Friend, the Art Critic. In addition, I've been asked to lend a hand with their grand finale, a cross between a murder mystery, a Bogart film, and Journey to the End of the Night called Stranger on the 11th Floor. The title comes from the fact that it was originally taking place in an eleven storey carpark - a late change of venue that sort of set the mood for the entire preparation. Fingers crossed that it will be excellent.

Instant Win: Green Room, Manchester

2011-02-20T14:26:00.004Z

There's an author we know
Lived a long time ago
Wrote a book 'bout a travelling son
All of it was made up
As was some other stuff
Like the life that the author would actually lead
Indiscreet
We pulled ropes and adapted it anyway

So four friends who had read
This book equally said
There's a show here that people will see
A pragmatic enhancer
Drama extravaganza
Conflicting approaches to how it will be
Different themes
One book split in four theoretically

Except they are just actors
With script-reading factors
We pulled them right off of the street
Part fiction and fact
The show's about that
An idea losing itself in its seed
Oh deceit
A script based on hardly anything at all.

(C) James Reith and Nick Howard 2011

The 60 second pitch for Occlusion, presented at the Green Room's Instant Win project on 18th Feb. It was a song! James played guitar and I flipped a flipchart very quickly. We didn't get to the shortlist, even, but some audience members said we were the best, which is super-nice. A play which is an adaptation of a fictional book, about the inevitability of loss and absence is not really Green Room's thing anyway. We sort of wanted to convince them it might be fun though.

Marketing, and I use the phrase 'Conceptual Vocabulary'. Brr.

2011-02-15T13:04:00.003Z

Books are easy, films are easy. Photographs are easy. Paintings are hard, poetry is hard. I wonder whether poetry was easier in the early 20th century? I also wonder whether games (social, computer) are now easy as well. Basically it is chicken and the egg, and I am talking about advertising.

So adverts use text, video footage, and photos. They don't use paintings, they don't use poetry (slogans don't count, even if they rhyme!). Anyone running an ad campaign has the sense to use language that will be understood by their potential customers, and the same is true of a conceptual vocabulary - if your audience can't read, you shouldn't use text. The marketing community as whole can be used as a broad weathervane for conceptual literacy - more campaigns utilising poetry would suggest a sudden resurgence of people reading sonnets, etc.

My chicken and egg point is because I'm wondering if there's a more circular connection. Ad managers are smart, but they're also human. They're going to know their audiences, but they're also going to be guided by precedent and experience. So if they've never seen a photograph before, they're going to more wary of using it in an advert campaign, even if the experts and the focus groups scream yes. And if they, say, read a whole lot of Guardian articles saying that photographs are dead, they're likely to be influenced.

The reverse is also true. If a whole lot of campaigns suddenly start using a medium, even if it's chosen because a lot of people are suddenly familiar with it (I'm thinking about the rise of social games), more people are likely to hear about it and become 'literate'. This takes on the complaint about 'new' mediums not being viable as art because the skillsets necessary to interpret them aren't widespread enough. All you need is a bit of marketing.

Block

2011-02-14T13:05:00.003Z

There's a reason I've got writer's block, quite apart from the usual I am not a writer routine. Right now there's a chance that any writing I successfully complete could be used, and turned in to a proper show. That means that I have to be pragmatic, and realistic about what can and can't be possible. We don't have a massive budget - we don't have much money at all. We don't have cameras and sound equipment. We don't have a lot of actors - not even as many as we used to in university. Hundreds of things are out right from the beginning.

Hence the block, obviously. That sort of constraint is crippling, and so for a while at least I'm going to completely ignore it. Castles in the sky will at least give me somewhere interesting to live while writing the practical stuff.

So. Hopelessly impractical art-based rpg systems. Crime in space. A theatre season where every night the same actors present a new story, with the same characters.

Next Stage of Manchester Theatricals

2011-02-04T06:14:00.005Z

Oh yes! One more thing - Beech Road, the tranquil village-within-a-village-within-a-city that I'm currently inhabiting has an annual festival. Organised by the local traders' association, it is an apparently very well-supported event, in the middle of July.

We are providing the Shakespeare in the park. Twelfth Night on the village green. Now that is one to tick off the list, right?

Finally: Leave it to Jeeves

2011-02-04T06:07:00.002Z

12 months late, I finally published the final Liverpool radio play, Leave it to Jeeves, online. Recorded in February 2010. Christ, it seems longer. Anyway, here it is:

Vimeo (Web player)

http://vimeo.com/19514699

Mp3 Download

http://www.mediafire.com/?benon1c113r7f76

More Larkin' About

2011-01-28T06:49:00.002Z

One of the other things I get to do in Manchester is Larkin' About, this city's equivalent of Hide and Seek. Way back in 2009 (I think. I didn't actually blog about it) I did a version of Buttle for them which at least gave me an excuse to buy a top hat. Which I have now left in Cardiff.

But! Despite a lengthy pause, they have reacted well to my reappearance. I'm doing two games for them in February - an actory one and an ambient - and I'm going to try to help out with their finale as much as possible as well. It involves dashing about in an empty multi-storey car park, which sounds the right combination of sprawling and compact. That's Feb 26th, anyhow.

Before that, though - more writing on that damned musical, and more on Dead Babies. I don't want to seem demoralised, it's just I'm rubbish at being funny. And these things need more than a dash of humour, otherwise they will sink like balloons made of elephant.

Good taste

2011-01-21T01:07:00.002Z

I'm wondering whether it's possible to persuade a bar to let James and myself perform a 2 man show involving dead children - dead babies, let's not be coy - as a primary concept. I'm a naturally impatient person as regards this sort of work, and I'd like to be doing a show. The idea of a two man show, which as flatmates we can write, produce and perform relatively quickly (and cheaply) is appealing, but quickly in our brainstorming session (in one of the delightful pub/bar places on our street) the dead babies idea came up. Now all other ideas seem as if we're sacrificing our integrity in the interests of taste.

I'll be defensive: the play wouldn't be about dead babies. It would just feature two people whose jobs involved dealing with people whose babies had died. There are companies which have to do this - that was the genesis of the idea. It's just, well, is it good material if people are trying to have a quiet drink?

We need a venue, I guess.

A Terrible Introduction

2011-01-20T12:49:00.004Z

Now I'm in Manchester, there are things to be done. Writing has to be completed. Shows must be organised, directed, and performed. Obviously there's smaller things like actual employment, and paying the utility bills on time, but the real reason to be doing things is so that more things can be done.

I'm naturally disorganised; naturally lazy. I also like to be doing shows and general things, and I'm smart enough to know that that can't happen unless I'm the one pushing for it. So in practise, I have to force action and organisation upon myself. It doesn't come naturally, so I get to experience it as a process - 'how do I get to where I want to be?'. This is why I make lists. Lots of lists! But also those strange internal lists where every point relies on another point being completed. And this is where I sort of am with the Chorlton-cum-Hardy International Hotline.

What a glorious title for a theatre company, right? It's so dynamic - it even has the word 'international' right there. There are no problems with it at all. But of course, you're not a theatre company unless you do theatre - otherwise you are just a company, and have to talk about 'market share', and 'customer focus'. That's too stressful, so we need a show. That isn't a problem, as there's a Chorlton Arts Festival, for which we've applied to do a mini-musical (the writing of musical occupies a separate, highly complex list in my head).

For a musical, you need actors and musicians. No problem, there's a wealth of such people in Manchester. Of course, to sound serious enough to merit their time, we'll need marketing, a website, press photos...

It sounds foolish to say that we can't go ahead with a show yet because we haven't finished the website - and it probably is - but in a torturous way there is a logic. Anyway, Manchester basically doesn't know what has hit it, keep tuning in, see you there.

I even had the soundtrack

2010-10-19T10:51:00.002+01:00

I wrote about half of an independent film (where independent is definitely a genre) last night, in my sleep. That's not so unusual. What was rather charming was that I was flickering between two dream states: one in which I was coming up with the film, and one where I was 'awake', and writing up the film in quick storyboards. Of course, this meant I didn't *actually* get up and write it down, so by the time I realised what was going on, I'd forgotten most of the important details and so didn't bother.

The brain is basically amazing. It is now conspiring with my body to ensure I get more sleep.

More Travel

2010-10-17T18:48:00.004+01:00

Vaguely, loosely preparing for a jaunt down to Somerset, as a guest of the redoubtable Reith. The plan is to resurrect an ancient project, an idea from more or less before the dawn of man - the retrospective of fictional children's television, "Remember that? Remember This?".

Right now I'm choosing to forget my hatred of film editing. I've also been pestering ICON about broadcasting the final radio play - Leave it to Jeeves. In a rather wonderful twist, the new crowd have said what a lovely thought it is, and (assuming that I am some student group) asked whether we would take a permanent slot.

Why I am not selling things today.

2010-10-11T14:50:00.009+01:00

'Liverpool by Night', by adebond

Last week I took a train up to Liverpool, and was interviewed for a job. The next day I was asked back, for an 'observation' day, in which I shadowed someone doing the job, and got to try my hand at it myself. That evening, they offered me the job. Hurray? I politely declined the job, and left as fast as I possibly could.

Why? I'm ridiculously unemployed, and surely any job is better than none? It would be a pay cheque, and something to fill the long hours. Etc etc. In my defence, the job was not what had been advertised - an immediate start admin position - the misunderstanding being on my part, possibly. Instead, the job was a sales, marketing and recruitment position, with the pay being the profit from whatever you managed to sell. It was also, inevitably, that staple of comedy: a pyramid scheme.

Let's back up for a moment. I have nothing against salespeople, and sales in general. I understand that things have to be sold. I understand - in a hazy sort of way - the psychology of sales, and the predictability of the consumer. But I don't wholly sympathise, because I'm firmly one of the consumers. I don't like to say it, but I definitely consume. I'm drinking wine and typing on my laptop and listening to a cd and blah blah blah. I'm a child of capitalism, I guess. I just don't want everyone to call me naive for this - call me naive for how I write it, but not for the idea of writing it.

On Wednesday, I went to an interview. I immediately knew the job wasn't for me - I even put on my 'business' voice, and used phrases like "career-focused" and "customer-orientated". I thought they would see through me, and that would be the end of it. When I got the call later to attend the next day, I was vaguely annoyed that it would be an inconvenience, but I still thought that maybe a business empire awaited me. I also thought they were idiots for thinking me serious.

The next day I arrived, clad in snappy suit and clutching cheap, strong coffee (it was 9am). I was introduced to my team leader, complimented on my handshake, and then, with another recruit of about two weeks, it was off to the shopping centre and our sales booth inside it. There was an awkward session of "getting to know you", in which I foolishly mentioned my scripwriting and directing, resulting in the eye-rolling situation of all concepts throughout the day being explained to me through tenuous theatrical analogies.

"We need to ensure a resale. You should know all about that, it's like a cliffhanger ending. You want them to come back, to find out what happens next."

Source: Wikimedia

'What happens next' inevitably being the purchase of more cigarette cartridges. Because for eight hours, I was a purveyor of electronic cigarettes; battery-powered, nicotine-filled, electronic cigarettes. I am now basically an expert in the things, learning at the feet of my two colleagues. People who are good at what they do are always interesting to watch, and I had the added incentive of having to emulate them. Let's call them Tom and Mike.

Tom was the team leader. An ex-barman from Ireland, probably in his late twenties, he had been with the company for two years before coming to the new Liverpool branch. He was confident, quick-witted and charismatic. There were several girls working as shop assistants around our stall, and it was easy to see that they were drawn to him, in a casual, flirting manner.

Mike was a Liverpool boy of 17. He had been with the company for about three weeks, and had just been promoted (I'll return to this). More intense and more obviously driven than Tom, he was also the more competitive - often chasing after Tom chasing after potential customers. Now, I can't do male banter, but both of these were good humoured and didn't ever get annoyed, despite my probably foolish ways. For all the extenuating circumstances of me being a trainee, that's worth noting. These were nice people doing a difficult job, and doing it well.

Our job was to sell these electronic cigarettes. A surprising amount of people bought them, plenty more tried them, and countless more saw and heard us with the product, even if they didn't stop. As a marketing strategy, you can see how this appeals to the client companies. It has no risk - as they only pay for sold units - and has that extra, 'free' reward of brand promotion. Clever.

For the employee, the motivation came from the 'progression'. Throughout the day, both Tom and Mike continually referred to their prospects within the company. There was a diagram of the various stages - from my position, selling units, through the various management rungs up to ownership of a site, chasing clients and earning £50k+, all within a year. Both of my colleagues swore by this diagram - it kept them going. But Tom had been with the company for over two years, and was still at a divisional manager level - "held back by clients with little growth potential". Regardless of that, he was still - for all his seniority - selling electronic cigarettes with me on the floor. It seemed to me that progression didn't count for a lot.

I'll level with you - I didn't make a bad salesman. I sold some cigarettes, and I got a lot more people to try it. In fact, if I was paid to advertise, rather than on a percentage of sales, I would have probably taken the job. Like, I suspect, most people, I slipped into a character and just let it take over. I was brash, confident, and occasionally funny. As a mop-haired, well-spoken young chap, I always have a rapport with older women, which formed the core of my sales (helped by the high proportion of older ladies who smoke, of course) but I was still chatting to people of all types. I'm not saying that this was some kind of miracle - obviously walking up to someone in the street with a product, rather than just the desire to chat, is a lot easier. But I was still not a bad salesman.

Throughout the day, I was pumped full of information that would make me a 'better salesman'. The company worked by process - everything was reduced to a series of steps, or to a list. This makes training easy, because everything is quantifiable and repeatable. I was warned that there would a test, and remembering all of these points was the difference between success and failure.

When we finally returned to the office, late in the evening, I was handed my questionnaire. This was in an empty room in which they'd left my notepad, and were so despairing of my intelligence that they had actually suggested that I check my notes if I got stuck. You know, the notes that they had written. I'm proud to say I didn't have to make use of that contingency, still managing to quickly reproduce those notes word-for-word. A university education, right? Then - surprise - I was granted a follow-up interview, and was told how lucky I was to get this far. This despite forgetting Tom's name on the questionnaire. A university education, right?

I'll admit, on the Wednesday, I had been gratified to get the call-back. Who wouldn't be? But I quickly realised that of course I got the call-back. For all their statements about only taking the best, it wasn't in their interest to turn anyone away. A pyramid needs a base. Ideally, they needed people who *could* rise up the ranks, but it wasn't essential. Just hire more people. And, as I said, Tom - who had been there for over two years - was still selling electronic cigarettes in the shopping centre. He may have had more responsibilities - and perhaps a bigger cut, I don't know - but he was still making his earnings from direct sales. And extolling the virtues of progression.

The final interview was with the office's manager, who had interviewed me the day before. We discussed the day's work, my own aspirations, the advantages of the company. I was enthusiastic, until basically I couldn't evade the issue any longer. The question was "so tell me Nick, what makes you the ideal candidate for this role?".

There was a pause, in which I squirmed, still unsure about how to go about my next move. On the other side of the desk, my interviewer smiled, probably writing me off - not unfairly - as someone uncomfortable talking themselves up, or just someone not too bright. But I finally said, "to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I am the right candidate." The smile on the other side of the desk became frozen.

I briefly - to an awkward silence - expanded on my position. I was careful not to denigrate the company or my colleagues - something which I hope I have preserved here. I see sales and marketing as a necessary evil, but I do not criticise salespeople. I just couldn't do it. To do it, I was playing a part, and not one which I would enjoy playing. The company also attracted those with a particular motivation - all the staff I quizzed, in my wide-eyed excited manner, were clear that it was the progression that sustained them, and acted as an incentive to work. The opportunity to rise through the ranks, to increase responsibility and earnings, and to see that ladder of progression clearly in front of them. To climb the pyramid.

I couldn't do that. I would forever be at the bottom of the pyramid, being charming to grandmothers, mocked by students, and selling the occasional packet of whatever I happened to be selling. So, in that awkward silence, I got my bags, and left the office. And then ran as swiftly as I am capable to the possibility of wine.

Line Delete Delete.

2010-10-03T15:35:00.002+01:00

Sometimes you come up with a line that isn't quite good enough. I'm describing a fairly contrary character, someone always prepared to contradict. The line which came to me was 'like the pavement outside a night club, he was always full of buts'.

The problem is the slightly ambiguous buts/butts play. Apart from looking a little clumsy, there's the unfortunate extra meanings attached. 'Like the pavement outside a nightclub, he was always full of arses'.

Not sure I'll be using that.

Travel

2010-09-23T10:42:00.002+01:00

Blogging on the train - how amazing is this Kindle? Slightly terrifying as well - how exactly did it know this was my blog (and log me in) without being told? Hmmm.

Draft script was well-received, meaning I can be a bit more radical with future drafts. Still unsure about massive monologues - can an actor be trusted with them, and would an audience tolerate them?

Right. Onwards to Budapest.

Village Fete: Art and Craft

2010-09-17T14:44:00.003+01:00

I've argued before about the differences between craft and art. Working on this script I've thought of another reason that I'm more comfortable in the former category.

I've been writing with two hats on - as a writer, and as a director. I've a little directing experience (and I don't mean that sarcastically, I mean I literally have a little directing experience) and I'm consciously examining the script that I'm writing, and working out how I would present it on the stage. My experience, for example, is that scene changes are a pain, and dull for the audience, that dialogue takes longer than you think, that props and scenery are mostly irrelevant, and that it's easier to get hold of... to get your hands on.... to recruit female actors than male. Sorry, channelling the Carry On team there, I think.

So I'm writing with that in mind. The practical limitations of what I think is the most accessible - ie, what the largest variety of theatre companies will be able to perform - is directly informing my writing. And I'd call that pragmatic approach craft, and not art.

I suppose that places 'artists' upon an skyward pedestal, and I have no intention of this being read as a passive-aggressive attack on those ivory-tower artists. Great art can be made precisely because limitations have been set, whether by budget, materials, time... But in those situations, are the artists setting out to identify the limitations, and to take advantage of them? Maybe my idea of the archetypal artist is totally unrealistic, but I want a bit more spontaneity from poets, film makers, musicians and the rest.

Writing

2010-09-11T19:28:00.002+01:00

Over the past few weeks I've had to quickly, succinctly and self-deprecatingly talk about my arty past in a number of different situations. I've been temping, and - though I always try to be ultra bland and ultra efficient in these jobs, like an administration robot - sometimes my hand is forced, and I have to reveal that I do in fact have a past, and wasn't created for the sole purpose of answering phones and filing.

Coupled with my alter-ego, who is working on scripts and stories, I've been more aware than usual of general artiness. Previously, surrounded by actors and musicians, I could evade, and generally act like a hack. In an office, I realise the pretence, and am forced into taking a stance. Am I dabbling, in which case I'm a pretentious young adult who thinks he's a writer - or am I genuinely interested, in which case I'm one of those obnoxious young adults who tell everyone that their day job is just fodder for their next novel.

Having to choose whether to be pretentious or obnoxious. Man! Can't I be both? Basically I am saying that it is now totally impossible to tell anyone ever that you are a writer, or in any way involved with any artistic endeavour, without them justifiably looking at you with disgust, contempt, or pity.

Adapting with Arrogance

2010-09-04T14:12:00.009+01:00

A theatre adaptation of a novella which expressly deals with the relationship between storyteller, story and audience, between art and reality, and so on and so on.

Any scriptwriter worth their pretension, therefore, must at least consider the relationship between actors and the audience, and between text and adaptation. I'm pretty much of the opinion that an adaptation should be able to stand on its own, and not just be service for fans of the original work. Of course, most of the time your main audience will be those fans, so you can't be too radical, but...

Anyway. There's two things I'm trying to think about. The first is making the equivalent effects from the novella, in the script. A speech, an idea, or a gag that works written down sometimes needs a little rejigging to do the same thing on the stage. The second is weaving in an added layer, engaging with the issues of the story in the context of the new format. The first is standard service. The second is arrogance most massive.

Let's take an example of the first flavour. The original text uses plenty of telling-stories-within-a-story, so it isn't a particularly big leap from that to plays-performed-within-a-play. Doing so, though, really highlights the simple virtues of written texts. The stories are made distinct by the style in which they are told, which the author can achieve (with shrewd choice of phrase and pacing, of course) in a paragraph. To reach the same point on the stage requires more exhausting explanation - the shared shorthand just isn't there. A novel reader can encounter a section prefaced by the date, and instantly think "aha! A diary entry", or an address and a greeting, and know that they are about to read a letter.

That's not an admission of defeat, just an acknowledgement of a strong medium. My challenge is not to just transfer the text (so dialogue is spoken instead of written, narration either disappears or becomes some kind of Chorus) but to translate its effect. So a story which is told in a heavy, detailed, ponderous style, for example - should that be transferred, or should I figure out what the equivalent theatrical style is, and use that instead?

That's really the easy part, and just requires delicacy and a little awareness of audience expectations.

In the text, many of the characters are storytellers. Story defines them, as it is their purpose as individuals and, in the manner of all characters, they are the voices through which the author tells his story.

In the stageplay, they will be all of that, but additionally they will be played by actors - people with their own histories and baggage. This alters how the audience reacts to them - some actors are more sympathetic, for example - but it implies a further level to the text, in which we consider the roles of the characters, and consider them as actors within their own story. It's a strength of the original text that much of this is already considered and discussed, and it only falls to me to place that structurally.

This is even without the murky elements of interpretation which come into play when actors start doubling up, playing different characters, etc. It's a fact that decisions made for the most pragmatic of reasons can have ramifications for the interpretation of a text. I'm not claiming timeless literature here, but it's still something of a tightrope.

Artistic Collaboration/Unity of Purpose

2010-04-17T11:45:00.003+01:00

Just notes. Art notes.

Roger Ebert has famously said that games can't be art because the actions of the audience can't be predicted and controlled completely, and so each runthrough is different. My response to this is twofold, and can depend upon the individual work: that art can justifiably exist as a dialogue between artist and audience, and that the mutability of interactive experiences merely makes clear the effects of interpretation on all form of art. The second response is that some games act as art gallery, rather than art - they contain moments, set-pieces, which will be experienced identically by audience members, and moving between them has a parallel with moving between paintings in an exhibition.

So far, so textbook. How then does my negative response to - say - group-written plays fit into this conception of art? It's worth noting that most games and practically all films are collaborative, with sometimes hundreds of people working on a single piece. My distaste for theatre written by a group is, when seen in this light, irrational and snobbish. However, I'd like to unpick it a little more - it's still irrational and snobbish, I think, but at least defensible.

As an artist I think clarity of purpose is a desirable aim, something that is best captured by having a single artist. But in some mediums this is impractical - must the director of a film also write and act? Or a conductor play all the instruments of the orchestra? Not only is it impractical, it also fails to bring into account potential synergy of purpose - that artists working together can still work towards a common goal. This is most often seen with the artists working in separate fields and mediums, but not exclusively.

Group-written theatre, on the other hand, most often means that the actors who will be performing the lines are also writing them. It's rare that good actors are also good writers - particularly for themselves - and so one of the mediums is likely to falter. But also, this sort of thing isn't a collaborative effort, it has more in common with 'writing by committee', where artistic integrity is inevitably diluted by the various directions of the group. I'm sceptical that this sort of writing can produce good theatre or film or whatever, but to avoid actor bias, let's consider a final example.

Let's say that I'm producing a animated film, and had the script and voicework all ready, but each segment of the film had its own artist, possibly to reduce workload and save time. You're faced with two options - either you choose a single art style reproducible by each of the artists, or you let each artist use their own style. In the first case, you'd be sacrificing artistic merit by using a simpler, compromised style whilst simultaneously constraining your artists. In the second case, you would inevitably lose creative focus because of the shifting styles.

These problems can of course be incorporated into a work, with the film being perhaps strengthened by the diverse artistic styles. But this doesn't affect the argument, because the original work would still have been hampered and changed by something which should be an invisible part of the process.

Sandpit: 15th May, Manchester

2010-04-16T20:39:00.002+01:00

A new Sandpit show in May, which is exciting. I get to ponce about referring to myself as their man in the North - the show is in Manchester, on the 15th. The theme is 'international', so I've been toying around with ideas of international intrigue.

It'll be very much a game of 1960s spies - think early Bond films, John le Carre novels, campy BBC shows like the Saint or The Man From U.N.C.L.E., the Prisoner and more modern takes on the period like No One Lives Forever. Cold War, sexy men and ladies, a total lack of trust and a license to kill. My speciality - because I have the resources - is actor-based games, and I think it'd be a waste not to take advantage of that again. Besides, I think the actors would be disappointed if I didn't need them.

It needs, then, to be a game playable by 15-20 people, and aided by 2-5 actors. I had considered quite tech-intensive ideas, but that sort of thing requires plenty of coordination, and I suspect it's better to be fairly autonomous, especially at this short notice. My first instinct is to devise a card-based system, trading and bartering information and tools possibly in a cocktail party environment.

Aha! Suddenly thought of something (I'm currently sitting in the sunshine, having just finished some excellent pancakes, and it is these I hold responsible for a brainwave). What if the game was to do with double-agents and defections? So there were plenty of tasks to perform, but only in pairs. You would have to team up with someone to complete them (set by actors, or maybe just dotted around with written instructions) but if one of you turns out to be working for the 'other side', they can sabotage the task, losing you a point. There'd have to be some extra advantage to the sabotage angle, because in a choice between getting a point each, and revealing oneself and being left open to being 'shopped' for a point, most people will choose the safe route. Hmm.

So - card-based inasmuch as your 'team' will be determined by a hidden card. Two spymasters giving instructions, and to whom presumably double-agents can be shopped. Red vs Blue, presumably. Which works quite well - the Reds vs the Blues is fairly Cold War anyway. Brillo, sorted.

LGoS Elections 2010 Live Coverage

2010-03-21T01:11:00.006Z

Many students' unions are highly politicised bodies, and often serve as a training ground for aspiring politicians. Campaigning and debate is often very vigorous, with the youthful enthusiasm of the various partisans; a student media that is itself often partisan, inexperienced and under no financial pressure to slant coverage to please a broad readership; and a general lack of serious consequences for decisions all encouraging political gamesmanship.

Quoted from 'Students' Union' on Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students'_union

Student politics. An election for the four officers leading the Guild, the students' union of Liverpool University. Responsibility over nearly 20,000 students - though most of them don't realise it. Campaigning for a week to persuade an electorate that for the most part don't know what the officers do, and for the most part don't care to find out.

Eighteen months ago I'd have probably considered that a challenge. I might have been the thirteenth candidate last week. But why be the message when you can be the medium? Friday night, the results party of the election, might have been a red letter day for the Guild, with a record number of votes cast, but it was also the first time it's been covered live by student media. Hell, it's the first live coverage LSMedia has ever attempted.

Four and a half hours of footage. Interviews, predictions, commentary. More twitter updates than I care to think about. More wires and cables than I care to think about, actually. And what I think is, even for me, a personal record in sleep deprivation.

The stats tell me we had nearly a hundred unique viewers, and as we were also being streamed into bars and the like, we can safely say it was a bit more than that. The election team - interviewers, analysts, producers, and engineers - have a broadcast I hope they're all proud of. I'm damned proud of them. We did good.

What would I have changed? Well, there's a tonne of videos and graphics and stats I'd have liked to play - we never did solve that problem. And in retrospect it would have been clever (and obvious) to run programmes through the week. And doing more outside-broadcast material would have been great. And a proper ending.

But hey, it was a first time for all of it, we fought a lot of technical difficulties and by the time we finished we were exhausted. No excuses, only reasons.

Clips can be found here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/lgos-election-2010

From the Archives...

2010-03-02T16:21:00.000Z

To: University of Westminster, Department of English
Re: Application, MA English

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am very interested in pursuing the MA English course offered by your department. Please find attached my CV, with details of my curricular and extra-curricular activities. I hope that you will find it satisfactory. But that isn't enough - higher education is a marketplace, and I want to know more about you, and the university you represent.

It's easy to write a prospectus; to tell potential students about the opportunities for academic excellence that are waiting for them. But what about the opportunities that don't appear in your literature? Does the department provide, for example, the time in its course to disappear for three weeks and never tell anyone where you were, or to hide from the friend who wants to fight you to prove that he would wait with you for an ambulance. What are the university's policies on deep rivalries between students, built on hatred in tutorials and seminars that you desperately hope will turn into passionate, dangerous sexual exploration.

Will the department offer the opportunity to sit in a friend's room in a semi-drunken haze, and feel his girlfriend place her hand in yours behind his back. What academic support would the department provide when a student, watching the damp lock of hair on a boy's forehead above them, can only think of a quotation from a book they read ten years ago, and frustratedly wonder who wrote it.

I would appreciate your thoughts on how I should proceed. I feel that, though I am impressed by your department's programme, in the modern world of higher education it is important to recognise the choices with which I am presented. I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully,

Nicholas Howard

(15th March 2009. 2.17am)

VVVVVV: I came, I saw, I died a hell of a lot

2010-02-28T19:21:00.003Z

I've just picked up my ninth trinket (of twenty) - a slightly anticlimactic reward for about forty-five minutes work. That forty-five minutes involved six rooms, three buttons, and about 750 deaths.

VVVVVV is an indie platformer, in which - following the failure of your spaceship - you (as Captain Viridian) must rescue your five crewmen from an alien world. In the noble tradition of platform games, you must traverse the world avoiding spikes and monsters. Contrary to the tradition, you can't jump. VVVVVV's unique mechanic is instead to allow you to 'flip' your character, switching from walking on the floor to walking on the ceiling, at the press of a button. From this simple idea an excellent and comprehensive collection of puzzles has been produced - some requiring a little thought, or reflexes, mixed in with a little trial-and-error. Which brings us to Veni, Vidi, Vici.

It involves threading a narrow path between a lot of spikes, reaching a platform which disintegrates upon touch, and then launching yourself all the way back down again. All to get over a tiny block that - had your character been granted even the power of lifting on foot slightly higher than the other - would be utterly irrelevant. That video - not mine, I hasten to add - also demonstrates the countless deaths to endure, and the lack of mourning for the fallen. You fail, you're flying back up past the spikes a picosecond later. It should also be noted that this challenge is entirely optional - most of the game can be accessed in your own order, and traversing certain areas is only necessary if you want to get all twenty 'trinkets'. And, dammit, I want to get all twenty.

I am not by any means a man of reflexes, concentration or particular perseverance. Neither is platforming skill mine to claim. But there's something about being granted three buttons (left, right, flip) and knowing that the only thing standing between you and success is time, effort, and the weakness of your puny human frame that presents a challenge I can't walk away from. I had a slight completionist streak, it's true - I saw the secret ending in Braid, after getting all the stars, and I still feel the silent reproach of the Hell section of Cave Story (I had to cheat). But the difference between those examples and VVVVVV's is that there's no story at stake - no greater narrative is served by finding all twenty trinkets (it unlocks an extra bit of world, admittedly). You can't spend them, á la Far Cry 2, and I'm not exactly in it for the bragging rights (I'm pretty awesome anyway, let's face it). Instead, they are just a measure of endurance - not even skill.

Succeeding had a lot to do with 'getting into the zone' - ie, bypassing conscious thought and relying on instinct. Like most of the population - at least, I imagine - I find this a little uncomfortable. Conscious thought is safe - instinctive behaviour feels out of our control, and there's more than a little creepy disassociation of self. While I understood what had to be done, I fought myself all the way - I value my self control.

Most of this blog post was written in the brief moments I managed to get into the zone, distracting myself while whatever lizard part of my brain which excels at video games did the hard work. Curiously, and against all movie-induced expectations, when I was doing best time didn't slow to a manageable crawl, but instead sped up - an observation which usually pulled me right back out into conscious thought. And character death.

There are moments of pixel-prescience in the zone. A fraction of a second in which you realise that your ever-cheerful avatar is just a little too close to that row of approaching spikes. Never quite long enough to save him, only enough time to know that this isn't going to be the time you make it.

This isn't even the most difficult section of the game, but I think it's the most perfect. The other optional challenges for trinkets - the really tricky ones, I mean - are just that bit more cumbersome, frantic or fiddly. They don't have Veni, Vidi, Vici's clarity of purpose.

The shiny trinket is - as I said - anticlimactic, but then it's not really the point. It signals and in some ways enables the experience - I think we're less likely to explore without any form of reward, and you're certainly not in VVVVVV for the scenery. But really, those hundreds of deaths were leading up to this brief, satisfying moment - you have taken the barest minimum of tools and been victorious, even over what you thought were physically your limitations.

It's shortly after this point that you realise that the game will - eventually - make you do the whole thing again, but upside down.

VVVVVV is an indie platforming game by Terry Cavanagh. A demo can be downloaded from here, as can the full game (for £9.55). It's recommended.

Sandpit: Utilitarian Geography

2010-02-28T14:53:00.003Z

Last week I took part in another Sandpit, this time in the Royal Festival Hall on the Southbank. I was running Utilitarian Geography, which I really need to add to Ludocity. Suffice to say it was an ambient game involving the audience making additions and changes to a map of the UK. Photos below:

Above is what the map looked like before the audience got to it. It's about 2.1m by 1.7m, made up of 69 A5 cards. And an awful lot of time. I was particularly pleased with Scotland:

And here is Wales:

Then the audience were allowed a go. I've got to admit I was worried - expecting members of the public to be spontaneously creative and confident enough to do something about it goes against all my experience. I thought I'd have to be present all night to get anyone involved.

I was totally wrong - in fact, I ran away pretty quickly; I was cramping their style. I got to wander around the Southbank, drink some wine and play some games. Good times aplenty.

Horse!

Game Idea: Triage

2010-02-16T15:19:00.002Z

tri·age
n.
1. A process for sorting injured people into groups based on their need for or likely benefit from immediate medical treatment.
2. A system used to allocate a scarce commodity, such as food, only to those capable of deriving the greatest benefit from it.
Quoted from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, via tfd.com

I've been worrying about a game for the February Sandpit which is themed around maps and mapmaking. My contribution is - right now - not as clear as I'd hoped, and I'm playing around with different iterations.

In the process I came up with a game idea which runs contrary to the Sandpit goals - a non-interactive game. I mean that definition as it stands - a game must feature interactivity, otherwise it's a film, or a lecture, or a performance (not that games can't also be any of these). But I'm envisioning a game which provides choices and opportunities to interact with the game elements, but - unbeknownst to the player - none of these choices change the game outcome.

Stay with me. The game could be designed around a board, or computer - quite effectively, in the latter case I think - but I have in mind an enormous map of the world. It would take up a wall, and underneath the map would be an array of red LEDS. The game would describe the spread of a highly infectious disease, and players would be tasked with halting its progress or - more accurately - delaying it temporarily. Each player would be in charge of a continent - some would be aid organisations, governmental agencies, thinktanks, military alliances, and their resources and responses would be affected accordingly. As countries succumbed to the disease, the red LEDS underneath that area would light up (controlled by the game master) - charting the spread of the infection, and providing a morbid spectacle for the audience.

Gameplay would be card-based - I have a love of cards, as I think the majority of players instantly grasp the concept. Each player would have a selection of cards indicating their resources and playable events, and they would also be allowed a little freedom in suggesting their own ways to deal with problems - in character, and at the discretion of the game master. Group discussion is allowed, along with alliances and - of course - treachery. If you think that closing off all contact to Europe might save lives - more than it will doom - then that's your call. (Smart players, knowing that the game is about a highly infectious disease, might cut off all contact with the other continents immediately on starting - they should know that closed borders are historically imperfect. It would be pretty awful to hear that the infection has entered your territory, and that you've managed to piss off all the other players unnecessarily).

Anyway - here's the point upon which I'm wavering. I mentioned above that this is a non-interactive game. The game would be complex enough that the game master could be provided with a script, 'infecting' countries along a pre-defined route regardless of player input, and the players would interpret actions accordingly. Ideally, the players would read order into what is effectively out of their control.

Of course the game could also be played straight, and would I think be quite successful. But then it wouldn't be a massively pretentious comment upon the nature of interactivity, and an (unreasoned, I assure you - this is just talk) polemical statement about mass aid. Man!

Notes

An alternative to the LED map engineering feat would be a computer, projecting the map onto a wall - the proprietary coding needed for the game shouldn't be too extensive.

Show: Take a Walk on the Wild Side

2010-02-01T11:46:00.005Z

Take a Walk on the Wild Side, 22/01/2010, The Black-E

http://www.theblack-e.co.uk/

I pushed myself off the cool stone wall of the tower, where for ten minutes I'd been watching a girl climb a pole up to a small wooden platform. Now she was sitting motionless, having no doubt earned a brief rest, while below her a solemn man played acoustic guitar, accompanying two half-smiling women singing in beautiful, totally archaic dresses. It was calm, ethereal in the tower with the spiral staircase - snubbed by the pole-climber - but I moved towards the door.

Immediately I was assaulted by the heat and noise of an underground boxing den. Five minutes later I was in a theatre empty except for a buffet table, and five minutes after that I was examining an art exhibition over the shoulders of a balancing act. Twenty minutes before I had watched tai-chi, while a teenaged clown attempt to placate a possibly bored younger clown with a balloon on a stick.

Exploring a venue, discovering acts and art in unlikely places - turning the process of discovery into performance - is not a wholly original concept for a production, though the fact that it's been done before doesn't detract from the enjoyment. Take a Walk is however the first show in my experience to build this sort of event not around a single theatre company, but around any community group or performer who was interested in taking part. The core of the event was Cardiff-based circus group NoFit State, and the director Firenza Guidi, who admirably turned the disparate all-comers into a cohesive show.

However, the exploration was allowed to last only an hour, at which point the audience had been told a performance would begin in the central area. We were also given detailed maps of where the hidden performances could be found, allowing us to make sure we didn't miss anything (or more properly, considering the limited time, regret the acts we inevitably missed). I suspect that, during the rehearsals, the show's reliance on audience members actively seeking out performers worried the organisers - not unreasonable considering the sometimes dismal support for innovative arts projects. As it turned out, Take a Walk seemed very well supported, which is very pleasing - but this combined with the perhaps insecure decision to end with a long, single location performance led to the event, at the finish, feeling much like other shows.

It is my understanding that NoFit State intended this event as a prototype, to see whether rehearsing a show involving community elements to performance standard in one week was feasible. If this is indeed the case then I think they succeeded admirably, and I hope they do manage to produce similar shows elsewhere. However, I think that the pragmatic tendency they displayed - though fair, realistic and entirely defensible - did make the show less unique and memorable than it otherwise could have been. It should be noted that the event was well-supported, with an audience made up of a full range of ages, probably helped by the community participation. Events like this - Hide and Seek also springs to mind - seem to show that audiences are more eager than we give them credit for to leave their seats in the auditorium, and to try something more interesting.

I Return From the Capital

2009-10-20T19:18:00.003+01:00

Right, Sandpit show yesterday - I am the best.

I won't bore you with my travel experiences - suffice to say, I took some trains, I took some buses. They got me where I needed to go!

The Sandpit itself was splendid fun - Manifesto went well, although there are a few things I would change about it (lack of direction at certain points, and lack of incentives for betrayal) before playing it again. Not For Us But For Them was similarly afflicted - because I was busy running the first game, I'd hoped that this would get started with people picking up the envelopes. Endearingly optimistic! Eventually I twigged and actually handed them out.

I did get really nice, unsolicited feedback from players after the games, so I'm quite pleased with how they turned out, for play-tests.

I also managed to play Pingus, a live version of the Linux game, which itself is astonishingly similar to the classic Lemmings. Teams take turns to be either brightly coloured penguins or environmentalists, with the latter attempting to save the benignly suicidal animals from walking to their deaths in oceans, crevices or off cliffs. To do this, they shared a limited number of role-cards, turning the penguins into climbers, swimmers etc. It was good fun, and also a great spectacle - we had to explain to lots of passers-by that we were, despite appearances, in fact penguins and would they like to join in? Splendid.

After the event, I was kindly put up in a spare room by the Hide and Seek organisers, which beat sleeping in a bus station by some distance. Amongst conversation (not helped, alas, by my shyness and general vacuity), I was gently quizzed by my hosts about whether the Liverpool Sandpit had captured any hearts and minds. I hadn't realised that most cities have some variant of what Hide and Seek do in London, and that Liverpool was lagging behind in a quite embarrassing fashion. Inevitably I've now thought about setting up the Liverpool version, but it would really hinge on whether anyone else in the city is interested in designing games. Possibly ONLY YOU CAN SAVE LIVERPOOL might serve to draw them out of the woodwork, and offer a safe environment to try it all out.

Not For Us But For Them

2009-10-19T00:39:00.002+01:00

Hi hello - this blog entry will be filled with images and the results from Not For Us But For Them - which is being run at the Sandpit at Battersea Art Centre, on 19th October - when the event is actually over.

(Between you and me, I'm still finishing off the instruction cards for the game, which I decided to write by hand because printing them would be too much hassle. 40 of them didn't sound a lot when I started.)

-------

One day to go; Show idea

2009-10-18T02:41:00.006+01:00

Only a day to go until I head to London for the BAC show. I'll be running MANIFESTO and Not For Us, But For Them, neither of which I've written up for the Ludocity site, because I'm endearingly hopeless. Also, I didn't want to ruin the surprise.

I've spent the day in primary school mode, though, sticking bits of paper and card together. Good fun. More of the same is planned for today - though I've done a lot before the last minute, it just wouldn't feel the same if I'd got everything finished. I feel I should be making some admission of nervousness, excitement - human emotion, beep beep - but so far I've just been concerned, in a low key sort of way, with making a good show. Obviously I want to impress the bigger kids, but it's for my own benefit as well. There's no contingency plans down there unless I bring them myself.

Ok, gear shift. Last night I finished a book that a friend had lent to me - James Blish's Cities in Flight. It's actually a collection of four books in a series, and had kept me going for a fair few days. The final book ends with the end of time, the universe, everything (and technically the beginning of a new universe, although the book ends at the very moment of its creation). I'd been listening to Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here as I finished the last few chapters of the book and, in a bit of serendipitous synchronisation, the book ended as the last track of that album did as well - Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part Two) for those of you keeping score. It was sublime, I assure you. My point is that two well-written bits of quiet resignation hit me at the same time, and I was enveloped in a lazy, melancholic haze. I hit the gin and tried to revel in it a bit.

I realised that the feeling was good. I'm as impressionable as a margarine chair, and I felt like I'd outlived the universe. I began to consider an event (finally, we get to the main course!) called, appropriately 'The End of The World'. I wanted to see if you could project that kind of feeling - a nihilistic, quiet resignation to facts - melancholic, but ultimately satisfied - and whether it would be any relation to a fun night out at all.

I envisioned a large, open plan bar, with a vast screen hooked up to a projector, playing a sunset throughout the night. As the night progresses, the sun gradually sinks, with the end of the night (and the end of the world) coinciding with the inevitable darkness. To hammer home how much time remains, there would be two trails of LED lights on each side of the screen, blinking out at regular intervals, following the sun's descent.

So far, so grim. However, as the evening progressed, marked out by those clockwork LEDS, events would occur. These would be unheralded, sometime not even noticed. The bit I'd like to explore but am still hazy on is the idea of abilities being unlocked - that somehow the end of the world allows the audience to do things they wouldn't otherwise be able to do, and that this is reflected in the progress of the evening. More in another post.

Point Counterpoint

2009-10-16T20:10:00.004+01:00

http://sandpit.hideandseekfest.co.uk/2009/10/16/guest-post-designing-and-running-buttle/

The Sandpit blog asked me to do a bit of a write-up on being a first-time designer, to demystify the process a bit and to reassure potential game creators that, if I could do it, they'd certainly be able to.

It took me quite a few hours to put the piece together, partly because I hadn't written anything other than scripts and literature essays for a few years, and couldn't get into the voice. I ended up going for something a bit more wide-eyed and naive than I hope I actually am, but I certainly didn't overplay my lack of understanding pre-game of what a playing audience would actually be like.

The most significant repercussion of that was having to switch during the game between the simple, generic tasks and focusing on the subplots, which we'd intended to be more or less secret. In the piece I glossed over what that actually entailed, and its consequences for the game. I felt that delving into that sort of thing would be a bit out of place, not to mention irrelevant, in a piece simply intended to reassure people about designing games. I think it's still worth talking about though, and as my blog is linked to in the piece, I thought I'd have a go.

One of the reasons I think it's worth talking about is that it's already been talked about, in a vague sort of way. The sidebar of the Sandpit blog publishes any recent relevant tweets (or whatever), and when I checked (hey, I don't get any writing published. I'm allowed to look!) there were two about my piece, commenting on my realisation that players wanted "LRP". A quick guess and a double-check with the dictionary would place that as Live Role Play, or possibly Livestock Risk Protection.

Let's assume it's the former. Following this interpretation, we switched from a low-value role-play system (the quest structure) to a high-value one (focusing on the quest-givers). We moved quickly from "fetch 5 drinks to progress" to quests which progressed the narrative, and were linked to that narrative. However, I think I disagree with the interpretation, because I think there's a flaw in calling this a question of role-play. The only role-play which matters in these games is on the behalf of the players, which we can only influence indirectly - ie, by creating a world and rules which rewards such behaviour.

What actually happened was that the actor roles - the NPCs, if you like - were fleshed out. The audience was reacting positively to the story elements, which as a narrative-whore makes me terribly happy. But does this mean that the twitterers were wrong to refer to this as LRP? Not really: the elements provided a greater immersion, allowing more chance for role-playing - it's a common design choice in video games, of course - Valve's HalfLife, and more importantly its sequel, spring to mind with their silent protagonist offset by heavily characterised non-player characters.

Narrative is definitely something I'd like to explore more with the game anyway - I didn't use the term in the blog piece, but the whole game was supposed to be a sandbox for emergent gameplay, the Holy Grail. Providing more opportunities for the butlers to create identities is definitely at the heart of that, and was a subject of much discussion on the night post-game.

It's also worth examining what I personally refer to when I mention story in my games. I inevitably involve dramatic and theatrical elements in most of what I've designed, because it's a major part of my background and it's what I like to be presented with in any medium - that is, a strong, overt narrative taking place in an interesting world. I'm not saying I achieve that, by the way - I mean that it's my aim. By overt, incidentally, I mean that while elements of the story can be implied, the fact that a story is taking place is clear. Obviously, I experiment with exceptions, and enjoy works that don't follow the above - but it's what I tend to return to. I like to be told a story, is all.

I recently remarked to a friend that increasingly the only distinction I can draw between the games and theatre is the level of audience control - a claim which I instantly, and purposefully undermined: how much control did the audience of Buttle have? On the one hand, we catered the mechanics of the game to their preferences, moving towards the narrative-based gameplay, but that narrative was pre-designed; in a very real sense they were moving - at their own pace and discretion, admittedly - down a linear story of our choosing.

Of course, that description doesn't take into account the actuality of the event - the actors could only confer in-character (if at all), so coordinating the plot (of which only the skeleton had been set, incidentally) became a matter of improvisation and response - a situation I'd purposefully intended, I should add. I'm not naive enough to argue that the improvisation meant that the event was out of the actors' control - though that process does rely to some degree on instinctual, pre-thought acting, so too does characterisation, which was strong enough to place quite rigid, perhaps even detrimental, limits on the performance. By that I mean that the Wodehousian characters that were being played were so familiar to the actors (through popular culture, apart from anything else) that they were acting without thinking on two levels - improvising dialogue and action, but also character. It's why I chose the era, after all. The improvisation progressed the plot, often in minor-yet-still-unforeseen ways, but it didn't derail it.

Fundamentally I think that role-playing and narrative in these games can occupy a place midway between parlour games and rpgs, which is casual without lacking depth. Part of that is creating worlds with defined rules which imply player behaviour without needing lists of what can and can't be done, and part of that is creating a narrative which pulls players through the game without prescribing their actions. Hmm, I've just realised that I've taken the long way round to some well-known truths.

Three Shows

2009-10-09T02:57:00.003+01:00

First, the bad news. The radio plays have been put on indefinite hiatus, as it was proving impossible to get actors into the recording studio. As an aside, ICON still haven't got back to me about a broadcast slot, but that's entirely moot now. I'm disappointed, of course - quite apart from the various scripts and scheduling I'd got ready, I really do enjoy doing radio shows. I have suggested that there might be one-off broadcasts during the year.

However, this does mean that an enormous gap has appeared in my schedule. This is actually quite fortuitous, as it gives me time to concentrate on the Sandpit events, which following the successful outing of Buttle has provided me with the opportunity to run one (possibly two) new games down in Battersea Arts Centre - definitely Manifesto, but potentially also Not For Us But For Them. It's impossible not to buy into UK culture - there simply *is* a vast difference between running a show anywhere in the country, and running it in London. Awesome.

Next up, ONLY YOU CAN SAVE LIVERPOOL, a Race-to-the-end-of-the-night-esque event which I'm interested in running early next summer, and for which I'm currently chasing funding. More on that in another post.

Finally, an American 30s/40s themed evening at the Guild, called SpeakEasy - complete, replete, with fedoras, trench coats, gravelly voiced bourbon toting private detectives and all the rest. A half drunken pianist, ignorant of the bar around him, a singer in a red dress. A big band, maybe a roulette wheel. I'll even try to persuade them to let me mix cocktails. The nght closes with a raid by police-dressed actors.

It's all thoughts.

Buttle at FACT

2009-09-26T02:55:00.001+01:00

Thursday - Liverpool's Long Night, at which we played Buttle - was utterly brilliant. To recap quickly, this was for the Hide and Seek group, and involved four actors playing Wodehousian aristocrats whilst around 15 players pretended to be butlers, following their orders and serving their whims.

Only two of the final performer line-up were those which had expressed an interest at the beginning, with one more coming from the improvisation workshop I had led on the Tuesday. The final role - after much soul searching and the laying aside of principles - ended up being played by me, and (as I'd hoped) turned out to be an enormous amount of fun.

Roaming the bar of the FACT building as an elderly, eccentric, phenomally wealthy peer of the realm, gesticulating wildly with a glass of brandy - it was hardly acting. I was incredibly rude to players, making it up to them with vast quantities of play money, especially upon being reunited with my late wife's prosthetic leg (don't ask).

Speaking to players afterwards, including Hide and Seek types, I managed to pick up a few good ideas about how to vastly improve the experience. I got the impression that the audience had fun, but it was pretty obvious where the flaws were. I've been encouraged to drop down to London to run the game there, which - barring the cost and time away from lectures - is possibly the most exciting thing ever.

What happened to September?

2009-09-19T21:40:00.004+01:00

The problem with having to schedule so much of my work is that, as far as I'm concerned, it's already mid-October.

By this time tomorrow, with any luck and the creek don't rise, the first radio play - Leave it to Jeeves - will have been recorded. This week I've sprung from complacency regarding the amount of time I've got, to suddenly realising that term begins next week, and with it the broadcasts. Eek!

So we've made a short film, I've messed about finishing up GuildTV News, and - as I said - we're recording tomorrow. Thank god my actors and production chaps are an easy going bunch, as a lot of my plans rely on people agreeing to do something with only a few hours notice - a situation which isn't helped by my catastrophic sleep patterns, leading me to consider 3am as the middle of the day.

I'm cautiously optimistic that a further two shows can be recorded this week, despite on of the scripts barely being started, and requiring a mighty thirteen actors to completely pull it off (ok, ok, I can double up). Considering the fourth week is ear-marked for a panel show, that takes us up to the end of October, and the Edgar Allan Poe remix. Of course, just surviving from week to week isn't an option, because I'm going to need a buffer for next term as well - I can't imagine many actors wanting to risk their third year exams. I'll need about three weeks worth of shows ready to go, just so that everyone can basically take some time off.

Sorry, more or less telling myself all this. Next on the agenda; I think I've more or less cracked GuildTV News, with a World/Local/Upcoming format that the actual people I asked seemed interested in. Potentially premièring that at Monday's LSMedia meeting, and I think it will really surprise a lot of people. Good surprise/bad surprise - we'll see.

Oh man, the future!

2009-09-05T15:30:00.004+01:00

More and more of my peers are slotting into fantastic niches, based entirely on the amount of hard work and tenacity which they've displayed. Man! It makes my lifestyle of Earl Grey tea and red wine (depending which side of dusk I wake up on), avoiding scripts, look a little silly.

But silly is fine. I've accidentally agreed to another couple of projects, both of which are far out of my comfort zone - concepts and scripts for a soap opera and a point-and-click adventure game.
One will have to be in-your-face drama, the other will have to be witty. You see my problem? Way out of my league.

To link those two paragraphs, there's been a conspicuously growing optimism amongst my collaborators that, post-university, we can all get together and live off art. I'm not convinced yet - I don't have that faith in our competing power, but fundamentally I'm not sure we can ask people to give up a year, two years, of their life - maybe waiting tables, working in bars, wasting time. Admittedly, many of those people would be the ones we need as actors, who could hold down real lives and put in the time with us when it suited them, but that's not the point - which is that they would be trusting us to make the time they spent worth while.

Whenever, over the second or third cheap bottle of red, the talk turns to the eulogizing of the glorious future, I'm cast as The Writer. I've mused before on our dearth of student writers (just checked: that's a post I didn't actually, well, post), but right now I'm the only one arrogant enough to step up to that plate. Curiously, it's only been in recent months that that labelling has happened - before then, I was just writing, I wasn't telling people (or being told) that I was a writer (and how much more writing have I actually done since then?). That's my dilemma right there - I'm only a writer when I need to be, in a 'someone has to do it' way. But it's rapidly getting out of my hands - any project I take seems to need a bit of writerly attention which, well, someone has to do.

Aimless: Festival culture

2009-09-01T17:30:00.002+01:00

Question: why is music the one art form to be accepted and assimilated into the mass consciousness? We're emerging from festival season, and the facebooks have been awash with practically all my acquaintances comparing experiences. This has always struck me oddly, but I've put it down to my usual elitist distrust of (distaste for?) large groups of people with a single interest or aim. But it's just occurred to me that fundamentally music is a form not radically different from any other, in terms of art/expression/narrative/meaning. I mean, obviously all art forms allow the artist and audience to occupy different areas and combinations within that paradigm, but they're all recognisable as belonging to it.

So what is it about music which makes the audience feel safe? It's not indefensible to say that the majority of the population distrust 'art' - they feel that it's 'not for them', or 'too difficult'. What does music do which subverts this suspicion? I'm wary of the conservative argument that you can't drink, dance and fuck to any other art form (although who else has just had a great idea for an art gallery?), but it does link back to another thing which struck me about the tales of the festival-goers. When I talk music, I talk bands and styles and details - I'm a bit too literature student to talk lyrics and feelings. As I noted near the beginning, most of the despatches from the battlefields were concerned with the experience - I'd say an easy 90% of them.

My interest here isn't to dissect the festival experience, or the attendees. I'm fascinated by the differences in what people get out of their arts and entertainments. Creamfields UK, the 'closing party of the summer', sold 66,000 tickets according to Wikipedia - or at least, I'm guessing that what that number means. Searching for more definite information on the festival's own website made me nauseous at the juxtaposition between the radio1speak and legalese. It's that glimpse at the façade over the the corporate behemoth which characterises my outsiders' view of the festivals - I'm unable to see it as anything other than a mercenary enterprise, which colours my view of the music. Not sure on this one.

Maybe I'm Proud

2009-08-10T02:16:00.005+01:00

The schedule for the radio plays is all but complete - the only gaps remain where I'm leaving potential for 'independents' to take slots. I'm hopeful that these will be taken up - not because it takes the pressure off me, because frankly it wouldn't - but because I think it would be pretty fun to see what other people put together. Inevitably, 30 weeks of Nick Radio is going to be pretty biased towards what I want to do. I'm not sure, though, whether the people who've said they would like a slot will go through with it, but I guess we'll see.

It's sort of strange to see nine months of your future allotted in this way, but the plan is to get the resource-heavy shows completed and broadcast in the autumn, leaving space in the spring for the indies to come through. It also gives me a bit of time to write some more scripts if I need to fill a gap.

The clock is ticking towards the new term, anyway, and it won't be long before I'm grinning inanely at a whole bunch of new students. GuildTV is what we're pushing this year, more so than last year. We've a whole new slant on the problem of viewers, taking the approach of what I'm calling 'convenience television'. Short on time, fast on information, big on ridiculousness, low on budget. Here's what our news programme might look like:

An Accident Waiting To Happen

2009-07-26T00:04:00.005+01:00

I'd bought a couple of new cds* (the first in about six months, probably. Hurrah for last.fm) which dropped through the letterbox this morning. Busy day, so haven't managed to listen until now. I've been looking forward to them, so I've been listening to them whilst answering emails.

It gradually occurred to me that this is totally different to how I used to listen to music. We're talking about the beginning of my cd collection, but the first few listens would usually be at night, through headphones when I was supposed to be asleep. Trite but accurate. Anyway, I guess with a rapidly increasing music collection (and busier nights? Exciting parties, I mean) this sort of listening fell by the wayside.

It's not just simple nostalgia, either, because it's a completely different way of listening to an album. Focusing totally, with no other distractions. I wonder whether it would be anything other than super-awkward trying it with a group of people - listening to an album in the dark, I mean. Pink Floyd and soft drugs spring to mind.

If it worked - if people didn't need to fill the silence (and don't some people class music as background, thus silence?) - why not incorporate it into a show? Risky but interesting would be a full darkness show, forcing your audience to listen to a play. Received wisdom is that audiences need something to rest their eyes upon (remember those pictures of families gathered around the wireless, everyone staring at the speaker grille? Same principle.) but what would happen? Crime, orgies and audience walk-outs, probably.

The other option would be to use the black inside a play. What if the Mousetrap in Hamlet was acted in full darkness? The entire thing is described in Chorus and narrated anyway, so the audience wouldn't 'miss out'.

[I think Hamlet has become theatrical shorthand for stageplays as a whole - whenever a director wants to experiment with form, they default to Hamlet. Subject for a different post.]

Right, that got scattergun, but I think it's still coherent. I'm off to listen to some lyric-intensive someone-else-can-do-genres-for-me cds.

*Black Box Recorder's The Facts of Life and Passionoia, if you're interested.

Interim

2009-07-23T22:58:00.003+01:00

I've been present at a few performances this week - theatre and concerts. I'm a fellow of compelling arrogance, so the first thought to strike me when I see something good is 'I could do that'. The first thought when I see something which isn't good is 'I could do that better'. Sadly the drama - a two-actor piece written around psychoanalysis - fell into the latter category, with stilted acting failing to transcend a script built around slightly wellworn motifs. A shame, especially considering the promising first half.

Still, I got the opportunity to strut about in a fancy jacket. An opportunity which, needless to say, I would never pass up.

Only one week of July left: not too long now before the first recordings. I'm really looking forward to getting into them. The same goes for the other shows I've got planned, but there's something about promising 15 hours of material, and then realising what exactly that entails that really focuses the mind (well...). You get a fun expression on people's faces at parties.

Audience Choice

2009-07-10T03:46:00.000+01:00

Right, it's 2am, and I have to be up in the morning to get some passport photos taken. I'm not going to discuss my sleep schedule - my aversion to all that sort of thing (sleep, not talking about it) is well documented. Instead, let's talk about interactivity and narrative progression.

When we engage with most artworks we expect to experience them in a linear fashion, dictated by the craft of the artist. This isn't an expectation we always consciously engage in - when you listen to a piece of music, you probably don't think 'I choose to listen to this track from the beginning through to the end without pausing, rewinding or fast-forwarding'. Similarly, when you look at a painting for the first time, though you might be aware of the direction in which your gaze is drawn, you don't attempt to fight it or work contrary to it.

In both examples the creator will usually (I'm going to stop weasel-wording - I know there are exceptions to all of this where the artist has specifically engaged with the ideas I'm discussing. It's irrelevant to my argument because I'm talking about the audience) have decided on the 'optimal' way to experience the artwork. Even though there are ways in which to disrupt or subvert the experience - like rewinding the music, or jumping to chapter 10 of a book - they rarely produce a 'better' artwork.

There are moments, however, when the question of 'optimal' can differ. If the last minute of a song is bloody terrible, why shouldn't you skip onto the next track when you get there? Or if the ending of the book involves the deaths of million of people, could you argue that - if you stopped reading - you are avoiding an act of genocide and generally being a humanitarian person.

The question is whether the audience should always be subservient to the will of the artist. If the artist chooses to kill off a character whom the audience love, couldn't the audience be allowed to disagree, and prevent the death? I'm not saying that every artwork or medium should or could make use of this design structure, of course. It implies a feedback routine which is absent from most artistic relationships - it's difficult imagining an author rewriting the ending of a book for the second printing, just to please the audience.

As far as I can make out, the major creative area which most actively engages with this idea is also the most fundamentally interactive - video games have a number of concessions to this way of thinking, even if not every example of the medium utilises all or any of them. The most humble would be the save/load mechanism, but it can be seen in multiple endings being provided and in open-world structures. It's also a medium in which the artists - or developers - are known to react to audience feedback and to alter the experience accordingly. I think this probably stems from audience expectation rather than some innate difference - the roots of gaming as a perceived commercial product/service rather than an artistic experience might have laid the foundation for the medium's unique audience/artist dialogue structure.

One of the things that excites me about running my nascent pervasive theatre mess Conspiracy is that it'll be a show in which participants get to choose their route through the script (not that they get to see the script) and their eventual ending. What would be more interesting, however, would be taking that thinking and applying it to standard, sitting-down theatre. How could you take the collective will of a big audience and change your play accordingly. I'm aware of attempts in this direction - the play made of the trial of Jeffrey Archer included, if I remember correctly, a guilty/not guilty poll of the audience, with two possible endings to the show. This is a little too overt for me, though.

The flaw which this highlights, and which is present in most artworks offering the level of choice which I'm advocating, is that it activates the completionist instinct in the audience - experiencing a choose-your-own-adventure tends not to be about choice at all, but about trying to find all the different permutations. By this torturous logic, the best possible implementations of choice should be invisible - the audience shouldn't be aware that the narrative has forked at all, because they were always following what seemed the most natural route. Of course, that means that all the supposedly linear artworks might already be doing this.

Destroy everything, take down the system, etc etc

2009-07-07T01:48:00.004+01:00

I find the idea of disposable art fascinating. Practically everything that we create is stored and archived, and this is getting easier and more total as time goes by. I've worked in offices, using filing systems going back years; decades - the files in question might never get looked at again, but they're there 'just in case'. I do exactly the same thing - I have a stack of backup discs, filled with ancient school projects or unfinished scripts which will probably never be referred to, but which I couldn't delete. The various creative endeavours I've helped out with through the years have another version of this, as they attempt to meticulously record every possible performance or even rehearsal - although this might be with one eye to the 'in case we get famous'. The lure of the Retrospective documentary?

The internet is a powerful resource for this archiving, obviously. It's littered with websites which have become forgotten, or are just no longer updated -frozen relics of obsolete design - but even a trawl through the archives of a long-running blog or similar can be like an unnerving time-travel, but through casual, passing thoughts only. Projects like the Wayback Machine go about this task with obsessive fervour - the idea of saving everything for posterity.

You can see where my bias lies - I do wonder whether any future historian or unlucky researcher will pore through the mountain of possible sources that we are providing. Narcissism much - it's the very opposite of the Dark Ages. But the ubiquity of recording - immortality through archiving - means that there's value in temporary objects, because they have become rare.

From an artistic point of view, the methods to capture this element are not really new. Theatre performances are temporary, as are the sort of pervasive gaming that the Sandpits make use of. Both can be recorded, sometimes to the distress of the audience: as a friend pointed out to me, it can 'cheapen' (her word) the experience of seeing a show. But unless one objects to the mere presence of cameras or microphones, any argument of cheapening can only refer to the scarcity of tickets, the fact that you have seen the show but I have not. That's an interesting desire to play with (another essay maybe), but it's functionally irrelevant - the actual show - the actual experience - was live, and any recording is really a very different show.

If you are prepared to follow me down the line of thinking which that rather pretentious distinction leads to, we get the following point. If any performance, when recorded, becomes something different (for more easily transposed mediums, like film, think the difference between cinema and DVD) - then surely all the original performances no longer exist and are already disposable. That's true. But it's not enough for me - and for the same, vague reason that the counter-argument to the 'cheapening' didn't convince my friend. Sitting at home, watching the DVD of David Tennant's Hamlet might not be the same as being at the theatre, but it would be enough to imagine it - and in a way which is much more substantial than, say, being told about it.

I'm not happy with that argument, and I'll return to it some other day - despite being important to the central point, it's not at all what I want this essay to focus on. Instead, I'd like to consider completely disposable art, and build from there.

So. A definition might be 'an artwork which is destroyed; such that no tangible trace, recording or reproduction exists, in whole or in part, and such that none of the above can subsequently be made with any accuracy'. The only concrete bit is the act of destruction, which in a creative field is exciting. It relies on a time limit being set - technically the heat death of the universe render all artworks 'disposable'. Ok, let's explore.

What springs to mind first is a novel written in ink which reacts to air - to the extent that a slow reader might not finish it in time, as the ending decays before they reach it. I'm sure I remember a friend telling me about an LP with a cover made of sandpaper, which wore down the record each time you took it out, but the closest I can find on Wikipedia is a Duretti Column album, the sandpaper cover of which destroyed the other albums on your shelf. Hmm.

I like the possibly-apocryphal example, though, because the audience is complicit in the destruction - it's a part of buying the album. This is the sort of meta-experience which I'd like to be able to capture. More work needed.

Anyway - there's also another way to look at it: to engage with the term 'disposable'. What if you created an object which was unique, but inevitably destroyed or thrown away as part of its use - one-of-a-kind condoms spring to mind. I'm no visual artist, but I spent a few nights recently putting together an A2 piece which I then wrapped a friend's birthday present in. The idea was that she'd only realise it wasn't shop-bought after she'd ripped it open - whatever her thoughts about its artistic merit, there's still something pretty unusual about destroying something that someone has put a lot of time into, and I thought that would make a good side-present. I'm a whole bundle of fun at Christmas, as you can imagine.

The crux of either direction is that the artist is placed in the position of creator and destroyer - whether or not they personally do either, they are the one putting each in motion. Nice duality, but I still come out of this essay a bit teen-punk. What makes this sort of thinking all the more tempting, by the way, is the sneaking suspicion that a destroyed artwork would gain a notoriety all by itself, and also that it would annoy the hell out of all the compulsive archivers.

Not enough air (also actual thoughts)

2009-07-01T01:17:00.000+01:00

I've been having my usual summer writing slump - brought on by a mixture of sunshine and a lack of busy, distracting activities - which I've been treating today by forcing myself to write one of the radio adaptations. I chose the Wodehouse (Leave it to Jeeves) because of all of them it's the most fun to just read - almost the whole challenge will in fact be in retaining that breezy, effortless style. I didn't actually get more than a page in - partly due to laziness on a too hot, too still day but also because not doing the whole thing as a Wooster monologue is so tricky, and a genuine decision to make. I mean, the Jeeves stories are almost all told in a mixture of straight first person narration and reported speech: "Jeeves said this. I bally well replied with..." etc etc. Doing it as a normal story would lose all the excellent writing which people are ore or less tuning in for - but you're also asking those same people to listen to one actor for 30 minutes, with occasional interjections from other voices. I should really look again at the Fry and Laurie version, which I haven't watched in years, just to see how they made it work.

One of the other projects I'd like to start next year (replacing the slot in my schedule of somthin trivial like dinner, or breathing) is a podcastalike, where there'd be a microphone, but unless it was unexpectedly good it wouldn't actually be made public. I know a whole bunch of people interested in art, culture and discussing those sort of terms and the issues arising from them loudly and vigorously. But art is pretty big, and everyone has their specialist subjects - what I'm wondering is whether getting picture geeks and movie geeks and music geeks and tech geeks and book geeks together, and then making them discuss issues that might not usually occur in their areas could produce some interesting crossovers and original ideas. It'll no doubt be more or less unlistenable, but we'll see what drops out of it.

I'm having to hold back on the Ludocity account because I was having too much fun just saying silly word combinations ('I was born gigantic', 'Let them eat cake') and then turning them into games. I wasn't using the site as it's more or less intended - as a repository of playable games - but as a dropoff for ideas that hadn't actually been tested, and I don't really want to seem like the too-keen spotty kid who's been invited to play. Probably worrying too much about it.

Oh No, The Future!

2009-06-27T20:29:00.000+01:00

I've been thinking heavily about post-uni living (it's my final year, you know), which is a bit mature for someone of my distracted nature. Obviously this isn't at my own instigation, but a result of the many ambitious, dedicated, focused ladies and gentlemen of my acquaintance. I've spent the last few hours mixing martinis for a musician within my circle (Hi, J), who has extensive plans for an independent record label. I have airy plans for a media house, flexible enough to make a leap into any genre, but it relies on a wealth of sofas and actors willing to spend their daylight hours working in bars, restaurants and shops.

I evidently have a lot of thinking to do. What spurs me to that particular goal is the offer of a pay packet from the lovely, shiny Hide-and-Seek festival (and their Sandpit offspring) chaps, who imply that they can squeeze me into their Liverpool line-up or, if not, into a London show. That means that - however tangentially - I'll be a professional theatre professional. Pretty exciting!

The gentle gin mist urges me to ponder gently, and who am I to refuse the prodding of anthropomorphised alcohol? The point is that I could (relatively) easily drop into a job in accountancy or retail management, as most of my peers are planning for themselves. I imagine that everyone goes down this safe-or-risky line of thought, but I'm not ashamed to muddle through myself. The arguments are clear, and will probably develop through the year - on the one hand, the field I plan to launch myself into is highly competitive, but on the other hand it's always been a competitive field. On the one hand, I can't see a way to mix theatre with regular meals, but on the other hand, I've survived as a student on a yoghurt per day.

Expect updates on this, and on the Sandpit shows.

2009-06-23T21:10:00.000+01:00

Imagine it happened last Monday, when I first wrote it but decided it was too self-indulgent. I haven't changed my mind, but the martinis are weakening my resolve:

"I've returned from a short break, a few days spent moving myself between sitting in a cottage on a mountain and sitting on the tops of other mountains. As I expected, neither the cottage or the mountains were equipped with internet, so I hoped to get some writing done. No chance; sun, wine and occasional games of skill (held my own at chess and cards, was embarrassingly bad at scrabble) kept my head vacant throughout- the only writing I did at all was on the train that took me a part of the way up, under the suspicious eyes of a tiny child and his father who were sitting near me. They probably pegged me as an English student.

My earlier to-do list is beginning to look a tad leaky - no surprises, of course, as I find my schedules rarely hold together unless I write them after the fact. The Sandpit/Hide-and-Seek people have offered me the chance to run a game at one of their events, and get paid to do so. It's a bit of a change from student theatre, a"

Satisfying, isn't?

Hide-and-Seek

2009-06-17T08:40:00.001+01:00

Well, I've just got a response from the Hide-and-Seek people, and it seems quite nice. At-arms-length nice, but that's to be expected. I am, after all, just another theatre-loving student as far as they're concerned.

I've also been offered the chance to use my game ideas for good: the Guild's English Society have got themselves a new regime, one which is dedicated to involving the new first-years, and an early autumnal mystery game might be just the ticket. I'm increasingly worried that I'm barrelling towards the end of my degree having demonstrated any possible skills to no one of consequence, but perhaps this is a step in the right direction.

Liverpool Friday Nights Are Awful Anyhow

2009-06-13T03:59:00.000+01:00

After seeing that they were visiting Cardiff, I spent the night thinking of game ideas for the Sandpit. It's the public participation arm of the Hide and Seek Festival, which after reading about last Summer had me sending frantic emails around trying to get something similar for the University. Essentially a festival of theatre/games/city as playground activities. Worth lots of glances.

I tried to come up with a range of ideas, staying in the low-budget, simple-to-almost-complex side of my inbuilt "wouldn't this be great?" generator. My favourite was the impossibly easy to explain Higher Still, in which players just had to get further off the ground than anyone else and take a picture to prove it, within the time limit. Astronauts always win.

Anyway, the game ideas are sent, the deliriously optimistic accompanying email is away. Now to breakfast or bed.

To-Do List For The Summer

2009-06-07T13:50:00.000+01:00

Right, a to-do list for the summer. I'm as always ludicrously unemployed, so a job search is an ongoing priority, but I mean this to be purely about artistic to-dos.

Writing scripts - I've got 10 hours of scripted material to write. That's about 2/3 adaptation, 1/3 original work - both have their challenges and highlights. Original fiction can be a lot of fun, but managing to twist a classic text into a radiophonic shape can be very satisfying.

Filming - it would be brilliant if I could get the seven short LSMedia films out of the way in time for the Freshers fayre, and not infeasible. It would be great to get another film done, but we'll have to see.

Production - GuildTV needs to be cleared up, and I really need to write out a plan for next year. No more leaving it to chance and other people, alas. In the next few weeks I need to clear the Film Makers backlog - not a small task given my lack of capable computer. Ho hum.

Things to keep me busy, anyhow. Perhaps I don't have time for employment.

Lack of update update

2009-06-07T13:38:00.000+01:00

Dang, where did May go?

We're getting dangerously close to the point where schedules can be released to actors. With luck, recording of at least one or two shows could take place in late August, a time when a few convenient guest actors might be wandering around Liverpool. Fingers crossed. I've passed one or two script drafts around, to see whether I'm on the right lines, and feedback has been positive. I'm all set to lock myself into a room for a few weeks to type some sentences.

I still can't get over this project - I was in Worcester last week, crashing an aftershow for a friend's musical, and mentioned the radio plays. The drama students I was chatting to were amazed - it really is not a medium that seems to exist as far as most people are concerned. But when you think of the flexibility, the cheapness and - so important - the short space between recording and being able to broadcast, I can't think of anything more fun right now. I'm repeating myself - watch this space for listings soon.

Gradual progress

2009-05-08T06:04:00.000+01:00

Once one has committed to providing 15 hours of entertainment, it seems that there is little opportunity for retreat. What started from a joke - the idea of student radio dramas which, let's face it, we produced in the most ironic sense - has become a monolithic entity propelling us all inexorably into the new year. God help us.

I'm exaggerating, of course. Stick to your strengths. But I reckon the radio drama slot will take that direction - my talks with the various 'independent' dramatic groups are picking up speed, and have meant that I've had to appoint a commissioning panel and various officers. Considering that the radio dramas are an idea born of a joke this is a major step, and I honestly am not sure I've made the right choice. We can dwell on my self-doubt, but essentially- as always - my problem is with other people entering into my creative vision. We can shout about my ego, but it wouldn't get us anywhere.

Come the season

2009-04-27T04:26:00.000+01:00

Possibly inevitably, I'm moving forward with the ICON Radio slot. It's far too good an opportunity - in terms of future prospects and sheer entertainment value - for me to pass up over mere practicalities.

My plan is to seek alliances with the Guild's drama societies once they have chosen their leaderships for the new year, in the hope that they will be enthusiastic about providing at least a single show. In all likelihood I will be organising the majority of the content directly rather than simply commissioning it, and for that reason I intend to get some recording done over the summer. I've worked out that even if we broadcast every term week up to the very end, that adds up to only 30 weeks - 15 hours of programming. Somehow that seems more manageable than I expected, especially with fallback, low-prep ideas that I have as contingencies.

It's still important to me that this doesn't consume my waking hours. Before the end of my final year I'd quite like to put out another stage play - a major, large-cast affair, with a prestigious script and all the trimmings. I'm not shy about being easily analysed - I want to go out with a resounding bang, and theatre has a dignity which other dramatic mediums don't meet.

To warm up for that I would ideally also direct a smaller, no-budget affair - possibly in a club-stage venue. I've an idea about the script I'd like to use for that project, if you'll excuse my coyness. My problem with the two ventures is my tumultuous relationship with the Drama Society - I've not, historically speaking, had much success with my pitches to that organisation, and I only hope that a mixture of earnestness and economic good sense can swing the deal this time.

Light Entertainment

2009-04-20T23:01:00.000+01:00

So the opportunity has come up to turn the radio thing into a regular slot next year - 30 minutes of drama and comedy each week. It could be great fun, and yet it would be a lot of work in a single direction. Sure we'd get more experienced, and things would come easier, but we'd still be filling, what, 38 half hours? I'm worried that it would need someone who can do basically variations on a theme, which bores me I know. That said, if I can be assured that other people would be filling, say, a quarter of the weeks with their own material, leaving me some breathing time and the chance to work on other projects, then I'll go ahead with it.

I can never write straight yn Gymru - I always end up in strange genres. I desperately need a film script by the end of the week, and I'm hung up on the soundtrack.

HOLMEScoming (should have used that)

2009-04-04T02:30:00.000+01:00

Holmes has been and gone (a frenzied day - the laptop with the edited file breaking, necessitating a six hour editing marathon and a last minute run to the studio), so I can think with a little more focus about new projects. I think getting a film out before summer would be excellent, but I'll have to figure out whether I'm up to the task of organising it.

I'd also like to resurrect the panel show idea. There's a perfect opportunity, with a new batch of student politicos, to use the format to introduce them to the student population and to test it out for ourselves. There are six potential guests, though four would be ideal - two on each team with captains able to deliver the funny. I'd love to host, but probably don't have what it takes.

After receiving the performance rights quotation for Under Milk Wood this morning, it looks pretty unlikely that we'd be able to finance the recording - let alone broadcast it. It's a lot more that I had thought, even without broadcast rights thrown in. It's a shame that there is no real alternative when it comes to the whole radio play as literature thing, so that might be another backburner idea, unless I can persuade the Guild to part with a great deal of cash. Not wholly impossible at the end of a budget year.

In which film thoughts are given away

2009-03-29T15:56:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow we plunge headlong into the recording of the Red-Headed League. In retrospect I'm amazed the rehearsal (Friday) went as well as it did - I was still reeling from the night before, as were two of the actors; I didn't complete the casting until midway through the reading; and the actor playing the villain originally turned up as the official photographer.

God I love student drama.

One of the benefits of a staggered (staggering?) sleep pattern is the bursts of creativity - I've managed to burn through some complex plotting on three film treatments, including cracking some problems on a script I filed away almost a year ago. Whilst only one of these is actually at the screenplay stage, I hope to have changed that by the end of Easter. I want to have at least one film complete by the summer, which I think is perfectly feasible. Of course, I'm setting myself up to deal with exam timetables, disappearing actors and all manner of mischief as far as locations are concerned, but that's all part of the fun.

So, what films? I'm jumping between the aforementioned student detective feature, Footsteps in the Library; a heavy modern-noir, The Long and Short of It; and two art-ish flicks using light scifi ideas as a vehicle into just stories. I haven't got proper names for either of them yet, so they're traveling under the concept (read: joke) names of Tomorrow is the Future, Tomorrow is Today and The Campaign for Real Time. The first dealing with loss, the latter being a straight doomed romance.

I have a weakness for world-building, for setting up a unique location by changing a simple thing. An example would be for making everyone wear more layers than is usual - indicating that this world is colder than we are used to. Alien landscapes are not to my taste, but I'm still drawn to tropes which are primarily linked to science-fiction. I'll keep my opinions on this for another day, but suffice to say I'm only interested in scifi as far as storytelling possibilities are concerned. As soon as we get a character saying science-talk very fast just to excuse some plot twist, I'm out of there.

Radio

2009-03-28T00:18:00.001Z

So the rehearsal is over (today? Yesterday? Oh dear, sleeping patterns), and we're rolling straight into the recording on Monday. This could be a lot of fun, and a good end to the term.

But this smacks of self-congratulation, and is super-dull. On with the show.

Radio Holmes; Film Thoughts

2009-03-25T16:55:00.000Z

The response to the call to casting for Holmes has been really positive - a lot more people are interested than I thought. Whether that translates into more than passing interest is more doubtful, but even so it's been a gratifying process.

I've been considering the filming possibilities more thoroughly over the last few days, and I think I'll return Footsteps (the student detective epic) to the far-backburner for now. My interest has been piqued by the opportunity to do a bit of world-building, which is always a must. The thought has also been raised that starting out with a short film, and moving onto a longer work would be the way to go, but I'm not convinced. A short film would work as practice, but I think to the cast and crew that's what it would be - not a piece in its own right. Plus, I do so love to launch into things.

Contemporary Urbane

2009-03-23T22:51:00.000Z

So, recording is over and the new play dawns. With casting on Wednesday, rehearsal on Friday, recording on Monday and broadcast on Thursday this will have the quickest turnaround of any project I've ever been part of. Perfect for my attention span.

Speaking of which, I have thought new thoughts about my next adventure. I had already envisaged something cinematic taking my interest - I have really abandoned the whole Film Makers side of things completely. As always, something has turned up - this time an email from the - ahem - 'Novus Contemporary Urban Centre', with promises of a state of the art cinema at our disposal. Now, I doubt that means a free lunch, but still - it's an exciting prospect.

I've been toying with three options. My instincts say to resurrect the student/crime feature I was playing with last term, whilst I also have the opportunity to take my cue from Novus and write something contemporary and urban.

But every fool part of me is crying out to abandon all that, and do something wholly epic. I haven't written an explosion in months.

New Ways To Say Old Words

2009-03-23T03:13:00.000Z

Right, the Sherlock Holmes script - the last of the radio dramas, for this season at least - is finally complete. And with preliminary casting not many hours away, it's not a moment too soon, either. Maybe now a quick bout of sleep would be in order.

Earnest is 2/3 broadcast, and the final part is to be recorded today as well (though it's still Sunday night as far as I am concerned). In about ten days this project will be over, and I haven't decided yet what will follow. I've a few hazy ideas that I'd like to follow up, but nothing is coalescing. More thoughts later on.

Your ears My voice

2009-03-14T00:53:00.001Z

The broadcast went off on Thursday without a hitch. Considering that I'd prepared for the file to have disappeared, or to have been replaced with forty minutes of screaming, or horses being shot or something, I was pretty relieved. All our efforts to get the show onto the website for "Listen again" style downloading have failed, however. 'Technical difficulties'. We'll get there eventually.

I am conscious of the weakness of my Earnest script - it's pretty much a reading of the play, with a few cursory (and occasionally bewildering) sound effects. I was asked in the pre-broadcast interview, why I had bothered with radio as a dramatic medium and, though I dodged the question to avoid coming across as an anti-tv snob, it's a really important point. Any medium which is attempting to convey a fiction - that you're in the desert, that you're on the ship, that you can fly - is immediately faced with the problem of covering the lie. They're helped in this by the fact that we, the audience are willing to help - we're used to storytelling, and we're prepared to be fooled. You'd think that the best way for a storyteller to keep the audience believing would be to provide as much information as possible - sensory data, backstory, incidental detail. But actually this can have the opposite effect - the more we receive, the more likely it is that something will feel out of place.

The radio is minimal - yet, if we hear a 'door closing' noise, we invent a door in our heads. Similar with coconut shells and horses. The limitations of the medium are its greatest strengths because it forces what is already happening anyway - the audience constructing the scene that they are presented with inside their heads. I'm playing with radio because I think it'll help me tell better stories. Simple.

More Radio

2009-03-03T18:01:00.000Z

Yesterday we recorded the first part of Earnest, and it's currently going through post-production (an intentionally evasive way of saying that I'm editing it on my laptop).

We managed to assemble the whole cast in a little room complete with actual equipment - a proper step forward for one of my productions. It wasn't without its improvisation, of course - one microphone duct-taped to a camera tripod because we only had one stand, etc.

Hearing the track back (we didn't have a monitor or even proper headphones, relying instead on instinct, good hearing and little ipod earphones) does highlight places where improvement is possible - some of the levels are all over the place, and there are a few slip ups I missed entirely. Overall though I think I was very lucky, as the recording seems to be of a good quality - sound and content. We should be fine!

Of course, now I'm interested in doing more radio. Might put another production together after Easter, and I might make that a 'live' recording, with an audience. If that's the case then the text we choose would have to be quite, well, interesting - it has to keep an audience focused for quite a long time, which even some of the stage plays don't manage. Needs careful consideration.

Oh, and I secretly want to change the name of the production group to "Audacious Productions".

Concept Filming

2009-02-26T14:20:00.003Z

We Film Makers have a Work Experience lad for the coming weeks. It's an informal arrangement, the chap in question is an enthusiastic university student, and it should all be good times. To provide a range of roles and film styles for him to have a go at, I'll be pulling out from my mountainous pile of scripts the LSMEDIA sequence.

LSMedia is of course 'Liverpool Student Media', the recently launched central website for the university's media groups. The sequence was originally envisaged to be played between acts at a Guild jamboree, which was later cancelled. It would have been made up of seven short films, each with wide-ranging subject matter and style, but including - subtly or otherwise - one of the letters of the brand name. Thus film 1 was a physical comedy, wherein two actors carried a large letter 'L' across campus, culminating in them dropping it. One of the actors would be impaled, and the other would exclaim 'Bloody L!'. I am a comic genius.

It's the sort of filming that can be done quite easily, and would be perfect for the website. Just hope we can get it all done.

The Importance of Getting On With It

2009-02-26T14:09:00.001Z

The main problem with any show is that actors and people in general have social lives; indeed, lives of any kind. Scheduling a rehearsal which every necessary person will be able to attend is more or less an impossibility.

By some combination of black arts and divination a short slot has appeared this coming Monday for which all the cast of Earnest, and a sound engineer, are free. There's no free recording studio, of course, but at this point I'm prepared to improvise. Sound quality is less important than actually getting the project recorded - I really don't want it to turn into a perpetual cycle of rehearsals and declining interest.

So, now I need to schedule a photo shoot, and also sound effect recording. Oh, and find a damn pianist.

The commentary, the commentary!

2009-02-24T18:57:00.001Z

Because I don't have any shows on at the moment, this blog is looking pretty self-regarding. I'll just have to keep a lid on the show-ideas (and believe me, I've kept a lot back) until Earnest or similar begin broadcasting.

Or, of course, be spurred on to do some more shows.

Gimmick Theatre

2009-02-23T23:30:00.001Z

Alright, how about a show for which all the audience had to put on big headphones (not plugged into anything). There's two routes you can go down with this - you could produce a 'point' about background music and all that, or just a quite nice show in which all the dialogue and sound is fuzzy and distant. Obviously reflecting, well, presumably some distancing in the characters, or unreality in the setting.

Ho hum - idea before concept again, right right.

Works in Progress

2009-02-22T14:39:00.001Z

There's a recognisable paranoia, when it comes to writing, about discussing ideas when they're still in the womb. I tend to launch my ideas at anyone who will stand still for long enough, partly to gauge reaction, but also to just get them loose - Mr Dick and his paper kites.

I did think that an ever-changing list of radio plays would keep me interested for a while, but I think after the Red Headed League I might give it a break. I'd like to assuage my guilt about the Film Makers, with one or two short projects, plus RTRT (more when I've done the script).

Had a look through some old script ideas during the week - always a lot of fun. Two I might take a bit further.

It's sometimes a bit frustrating that if I drop a project like the radio plays, there's no one else interested in keeping it up. I wrote this up into a slightly longer, more wallowing tract, but it was terribly dull.

Ovaries

2009-02-22T14:18:00.001Z

Filmed the last night of "That Takes Ovaries" for LGoS Women's Group. It was a real change to see non-dramaticos taking on a play - it's tempting to say it was more sincere than most plays I've seen, but I think that misses the point a bit.

A mishap with the camera's power cable left us a little stuck, however. Oh god, running (well, walking swiftly - it's what these big billowing coats are for) to the Guild trying to find a power cable with fifteen minutes before curtain up, and then finding the place dark and deserted - a few ideas about making my escape, that sort of thing.

Without ac power, the camera's battery had 13 minutes of charge - not ideal for a play of 60 minutes, with 30 minutes of open mic afterwards. In the end we fell back on any camera we had - moving between handhelds and mobile phones, discarding them as either their memories filled or their power drained. We should get a constant thread of audio from the theatre's own microphones, so only the visual element will be degraded. But the 'found footage' style that imposed itself should be really effective - actors' faces became indistinct, lighting became harsh and shots were wobbly - rather than being a film of a show, it became a film in its own right.

I'm always amazed at how much improvisation is possible in these things. Considering how dull and prescriptive most of the filming has a tendency to be, it's much more fun this way.

Radio on the Radio

2009-02-22T14:07:00.001Z

Rehearsals for Earnest are progressing - scheduling the actual recording is a little more difficult, but shouldn't be impossible. It will be interesting to see which elements work - hey, it's the first radio adaptation I've attempted, so it's inevitable that at least sections will be unlistenable.

The focus on voice has been refreshing - I hate blocking plays, always prefer to get dialogue right. That said, of course, I've found myself explaining some of the sequences to the actors in terms of how they would be moving.

Here's how it is

2009-02-22T13:49:00.001Z

Ok, I'll be honest with you - I tried to put off having a blog for as long as possible. However, it would be really useful to have a presence online - my projects tend to be a little disparate, and here I can get feedback and round up casts and crew. So, herein lies the obligatory introductory post; the declaration of goals, intentions, and manifesto.

So: theatre, arts, culture, media, audience. Words to make a career advisor squirm. I'm just going to post up any bits of projects I'm working on, then in a few months, if blogging it all seems to be any use, open the doors to an audience. It'll have to be a long term investment, I think.