3 THINGS THAT WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE: THING 2 THE BBC PROPERLY FUNDING CHILDRENS CONTENT

ACA THREE THINGS THAT WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE

THING TWO: THE BBC NEED TO STEP UP AND STAND BY THE CHILDREN OF THIS COUNTRY BY SIMPLY PAYING FOR THE PROGRAMMES THEY COMMISSION. 

Actually my second point about what would make a difference to Children’s Arts is not about more money – it's about the allocation of money. At an ACA round table last year an idea emerged that it might help focus all the multiple causes for children’s arts by establishing a simple universal principal – that being ‘Children are Important’. Seems obvious doesn’t it. But the work the ACA then did in discovering the % arts funded bodies spend on children as an audience really demonstrates just how important they all think children are… and what a shock. 

For those who didn’t see the figures in the report it shows that 17 of our national, publically funded institutions admitted (via FOI requests) to only spending about 1% of their total budgets on children. For some it was marginally higher – and for all, to be fair, it has increased in the last few years (by less than 1% in most cases). 

1% spend  for 15% of the population. 

Shamefully the BBC’s spend on children is declining, and the Arts Council had no idea how much of the money they allocate gets spent on children’s projects. Check that. No idea. That’s how important children are in the mix. Have you seen the forms you have to fill in for Art Council funding? About who the projects are aimed at and how they will benefit… do the Arts council even look at these forms? Anyway I digress…. It is plain looking around how little consideration these bodies give to children other than their obligations to an educational programme – but they do not see children as part of their core audience, and they would seem to have no interest in building an audience from children. (Is this because of what I referred to in my blog yesterday that these artistic directors see work for children as second rate – not good on their CV…?) 

But here I am going to point my finger squarely at the BBC because this discussion is about what would make a difference. Well. Properly funding your children’s television programmes would make a huge difference and here’s why. 

Firstly my disclaimer and ‘Get out of Jail Free’ card. The folk who run the children’s channels would LOVE to fully fund the shows they want – but they can’t because the BBC Management at the very top don’t believe that children’s programming is deserving of fully funding… for context to do so would require allocating about another 1% of their overall budget – bringing their total spend on kids (15% of the population) to approx. 4%... 

Did you know that the BBC only put in up to 25% of the budget of pre-school TV shows made outside of the BBC? Perhaps up to 75% of those made internally. This is how the usual boilerplate model for financing a pre-school children’s TV show breaks down, in terms of what % of the production budget is paid and by who: 

15-25% Broadcaster 

20- 30% Pre- sales to other countries 

30-40%  Tax credits in other countries 

20-35%  Advance against Licensing and Merchandising 

The upshot of this is that the majority interest in the show is from companies who business model is predicated on making money from the sale of toys/merchandising and other licensed goods. Which means that without the certainty of a strong toy line after the programme is released they will not invest in the show. Don’t get me wrong – in the commercial world it is fine to do this – it is the commercial world. The channels have correctly realised their programmes have a healthy licensing and Merchandising income stream and have used this potential as a way of driving down the price they pay for programmes (not uncommon for them not to pay at all!) It is their business model and they are entirely free to pursue it.

But the British Public Service Broadcaster has quite cynically exploited this trend and used it as a way of making less BBC money go further – to only pay 25% of the production budget. To require producers to gap finance in the same way – putting the same pressures on the content of those shows. To be clear – this means that the majority of shows on the BBC will not get made if there is no intention to release a line of toys. It also often means the editorial needs to be shared with other countries as often it is a co-production that helps gap finance these shows (often with government money) meaning the content needs to be adjusted for a more universal audience. It also means that the Channel controllers actually don’t get the final say about what shows they get… the heads of the distributors do. 

 Lets play. I shall exaggerate for effect… but only a little… 

Imagine ‘War Horse’ being produced with the same considerations. The National Theatre say they would like to do it – it’s an important, exciting and emotional work - but they can only afford to pay 25% toward the cost. That’s OK, because if all of the costumes, the script, the puppets and the music is created in Canada and imported back with a Canadian character or two squeezed into the plot in they will add in another 35%. (It’ll still work if the Horse joins the Canadian Cavalry for a bit won’t it?) And this is all OK because BIG THEATRE Distribution comes in and says they will finance the rest… if… the National agree to a few adjustments. For instance the horses. These dark wood puppets are a bit serious… could they be softer, more cuddly, with bigger eyes and a smile? And can we work in a vehicle or two – they always sell well – something with eyes that might speak? And can we also make sure we can make a further 104 new stories to support the product at retail… oh… and how about if we lose the ‘War’ bit…. Is that OK?

 Like I say, I exaggerate… but only a little. (And by the way - the Canadians are not the baddies here - it is just a normal request in a co-production) Rest assured these conversations have taken place behind the scenes of nearly every new pre-school children’s programme you see. The BBC might claim they are protecting children as an audience as part of their brave new world – but until they properly fund their programming they are not only forcing them to be consumers – but there is a form of blackmail going on. 

Unless children buy the product based on these shows and deliver a profit to the distributor the figures for future shows will stop adding up and the business model fails. If the model fails the programmes will stop being made. It really is that simple. 

Then there is the impact on the creative industry of the UK. We still have world respected creators of programming – but we are unable on the whole to make this programming in the UK. Meaning we are cutting off our creative industry at the knees. Without the BBC properly funding the programming they show so many times they are not only betraying our children, but they are killing off a huge sector of the creative industry costing jobs for our young graduates and money directly from our internal ecomony.

THREE THINGS THAT WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR CHILDREN'S ARTS

ACTION FOR CHILDREN’S ARTS CONFERENCE 19TH MAY 2012 @ UNICORN THEATRE

THING ONE: GREAT WORK FOR CHILDREN IS JUST GREAT WORK

At the recent ACA conference we were all confronted with the fact that the majority of publically funded bodies in this country spend only around 1% of their budgets on content aimed at children up to the age of twelve. For context children up to twelve make up 15% of the country’s population. Most companies have spent slightly more since 2004, but the BBC is the only publically funded body who’s allocation of funds to children is actually declining. 

We were asked to suggest three things that might make a difference to this situation, and, as the day itself was a bit of a rush, I thought I’d lay out my three points a little more clearly via this blog. One point a day… 

To explain my first ‘thing’ I’d like to start with a short anecdote (well I do work in showbiz)... 

A couple of years ago I was invited to a well known actors 50th birthday party, and found myself amongst the great and the good of English theatre and film, in fact it was impossible to reach out for an asparagus tip without brushing against an OBE or a BAFTA winner… (a normal run of the day event in the life of Will Brenton, naturally)

In the queue for the buffet, just beside the parmesan statue of Gielgud, I was standing next to a very well known film director (those of you there on the day will know who), we started the obligatory small talk and he asked what I did. When I told him I created and produced TV primarily for kids he looked at me with disbelief and said ‘Why?’ 

The more I thought about this afterwards the more I struggled to find anything right about that reaction. To give him the benefit of the doubt he may have meant ‘Why?’ in the way you might ask a specialist ‘Oh….why medieval wallpaper particularly…’ but in truth he meant ‘Why’ in the way you might ask ‘Why did you decide to join the Moonies?’ or… to put it plainly 

‘Why [on earth would anyone in their right mind want to do that?]’ 

The problem here is that his reaction was indicative of the prevailing wisdom across the board in all our industries, that being if you do work for children it is because you are not good enough to do work for ‘grown ups’. 

Cue the irony. 

So many of the works that we have taken to heart as human beings – that is as children and adults alike – were originally conceived and written for an audience of children. Peter Pan, The Snowman, War Horse, Wallace and Gromit, Winnie the Pooh, His Dark Materials, we all know how the list rolls on and on and on. These are all works that make such a strong connection, such a universal connection to something very human inside us all that they stay with us for life. The term ‘human’ is crucial here, because it includes old and young alike, something adult practitioners are NOT required to achieve. This deep connection is, perhaps, what our very honest young audience demand from us as the creators of work for them – and is tremendously difficult to do well. 

 And yet as an industry we prefer to believe work for children is second rate, practised by second rate people. As a nation we just don’t seem to be able to genuinely value pretty much anything about children and childhood – apart from their value as consumers (more of that in point two tomorrow). We are almost ashamed of them. Don’t forget we are the nation that required the publishers of ‘Harry Potter’ to release it with a ‘Adult Covers’ so that people could read it on the tube and not feel embarrassed, (as if they were reading a ‘Playboy’ tucked inside a ‘Metro…’) 

The repercussions of this attitude go deep. Our national institutions might produce work for children (usually ghetto-ised into their education departments), 'Adult' TV companies might produce some work for children because a flattered Childrens TV channel is excited to work with the ‘big guns’ - but they will rarely put their top talent onto it. In fact I know of one top TV company admitting to using their children’s shows to ‘train’ people. 

Career minded people writing and creating work in the adult world wouldn’t think of doing work for children because they would see it as a step down, a place with no respect, a signal that they are no longer as good as they were. This perception can only prevail in a country where children’s work is not respected. A common reaction to doing children shows is also to ‘age them up’ - to my mind simply a way of pretending you’re not actually doing a children’s show at all….

 Therefore, I am advocating that one of the things that will make a real difference is to value children and the work created for them alongside adults.

GREAT WORK FOR CHILDREN IS SIMPLY GREAT WORK 

 When we start to respect and admire great work for children as being on a par with all great work, then talented people will not shy away from doing it, funding bodies will see the value in allocating money to it, and perhaps our larger, publically funded institutions will see that only spending 1% of their public money on 15% of the population should not be a choice they are allowed to shy away from.

We Don't Want Story? Of course we do!!

http://www.nbcwashington.com/blogs/popcornbiz/Disney-Exec-Says-Theyand-You--Dont-Care-About-Story-127951908.html

We don’t care about story? … What?
We don’t care about story? … What??
We don’t care about story? … What???

Any way you interpret Disney Exec Andy Hendrickson’s assertion that they and we don’t care about story you can only be left rolling your eyes and tutting like an old English Teacher clutching ‘Pride and Prejudice’ faced with a detention class.

What am I telling you for? The fact you’re interested in this means you’re probably in the business of story-telling or film/TV making and this echoes what you’ve been thinking all along. You are the converted - we do care about story! We all know that story is the heart and soul of anything we do – along with Character. Without those key elements you end up with most of Tom Cruises career.

There is a huge assumption here – the idea that an audience doesn’t want something just because you’ve stopped supplying it. That’s getting away with it – it isn’t a fact in itself. How often do we see movies and think the trailer was better than the film itself? How often does your heart sink in a movie as you pass each sign post… here’s the action opening… here’s the first doorway of no return… here’s the second doorway into the third act…here’s the eleventh hour disaster… yawn yawn sigh sigh… that’s because there’s only a textbook formula.

Hendrickson talks about how Tim Burton’s ‘Alice’ had a poor story but the visuals brought people in in droves. True. But he doesn’t mention how people felt when they left. I am pretty convinced the majority of people left saying ‘It looked amazing but…’ His unspoken point is that getting people in, getting them to pay is what counts – they don’t pay on exit… What he’s missing is the we can see the formula at work, we can feel each beat of the plot, the problem is we don’t get much of an alternative.

We all pitch programmes and movies at a set of boxes that studios are waiting to tick. The boxes are the end result of their quest to quantify and control the magical elements of ‘Story’ and bottle it so they can reproduce it as often as they like. They need to reduce the variables. It’s an understandable attempt at protecting the huge investment film and TV needs these days – but it is a tactic that often ends up with unsatisfactory results – and worse than that – takes everybody’s eyes away from the truly inspiring and captivating stories that really would break through. The fact that we’ve come to tolerate this formulaic approach as the norm doesn’t mean we don’t crave more.

The industry in ‘How to write’ books, from McKee onwards, has resulted in a generation of execs who believe any successful movie can be formulaically created under laboratory conditions and then let loose. But that’s a little like cloning Eric Morecombe and expecting the clone to have the same comic timing, talent for ad-libbing and twinkle in the eye ….

And the model racks itself up – make more happen, blow more things up, raise the stakes – surely that MUST a good story make. Simply having two people stare at each other in an emotionally charged situation is way too scary. Too unpredictable. But I venture more people remember Hannibal Lecter staring at Claris than any of Mr Cruise’s Blast-Ups.

Yet everything has its place – and on many levels the formula works – it makes a film acceptable and gives the effects a solid base colour to shine against – that level of reliability is worth the compromise of quality. We as an audience accept it because we still go… so we can’t really complain.

But isn’t the net result of making things fit a formula best demonstrated by the transition of ‘The Killing’ to the US… it’s the same show… the shots, the music, the colour palette, it’s just lost something, a bit of it’s soul… a little of its magic. All the corners that have been knocked off, all the quirky characters who have been smoothed out and all the elements that didn’t ‘fit’ were exactly what made the original so compelling.

TWEET! - A Small Bird who wants to Be Heard...

When Little Tweep popped out of his egg the first thing he said was

‘TWEET!’

Which made his Mummy and Daddy smile proudly.

When Little Tweep met his brothers and sisters he said

'TWEET!

Which made them all give him a big squeezy hug. ‘What a lovely Tweet you have’ they said, and they carried on tweeting to each other all day long.

Life slipped by so quickly, and soon it was time to move to the Big Tree.

The Big Tree was full of Tweeps chattering away. Little Tweep flew straight into the middle of them all and said

'TWEET!

But nobody listened. ‘That’s odd!’ thought Little Tweep. ‘My Daddy likes my Tweet, My Mummy likes my tweet – and all my brothers and sisters like my tweet! But everyone here is too busy tweeting themselves!

Little Tweep wanted to Be Heard, so he took a deep breath in and.... he tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted!

It worked!… as long as Little Tweep never stopped some of the other tweeps heard him! It felt wonderful! At last he was a Little Bird who was actually Being Heard!

He tweeted as the sun rose through the misty morning, he tweeted as the sun shone bright and bold at noon… and he tweeted as the sun sleepily sank beneath the horizon and ushered in the Moon.

But it was exhausting! After a few days Little Tweep was terrifically tired!

‘Tweet!...Twee!...Twe!...Tw!...T….’ he wheezed. And when he finally stopped all together the strangest thing happened.

Everybody turned away.

Little Tweep didn’t like Not Being Heard, so he took a big deep breath in and… he tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted and tweeted again!

Again it worked! Again he was a little bird who was actually Being Heard!

Before long he was even more exhausted than before, and couldn’t even raise the tiniest ‘T!’…

When Little Tweep wasn't tweeting - everyone went away again!

He tried being funny… ‘Twit!’

He tried being clever… ‘Tweet=MC2!’

He tried being LOUD! TWEEEEET!

But every time he stopped it felt like he didn’t even exist….

It was strange being all alone.
In his own little tree.
In the total quiet.

Little Tweep gazed over at the other trees, trees full of tweeps tweeting to each other, day in day out. Big trees where thousands of Tweeps listened to one big tweeter, smaller trees where everyone tweeted together. After a while Little Tweep shuffled around on his branch and sadly flew away.

He flew through a field of flowers, getting giddy on their perfumes.

He flew to the top of a mountain and listened to the wind whispering stories.

He flew into a waterfall and let the cold water make his feathers feel fizzy.

He flew to the edge of the sea and listened to the music of the waves.

He flew across the moon and between the stars, until he was covered in twinkles.

Little Tweep realised he wanted to tell everybody about his adventures, so he turned around and flew back home – back to his tree – back to the clatter and clamour of the tweeps.

Little Tweep tweeted the tales of his travels to his Mummy, Daddy, sisters and brothers - and as he told them of the whispering winds and musical waves more and more tweeps began to listen too.

‘Little Tweep!’ cried his Mummy ‘You really do have the most beautiful tweet we have Ever Heard!’

Now Little Tweep loves tweeting his stories to all the other tweeps. But if feels he has said everything he has to say, if he stops tweeting and they all turn away, Little Tweep doesn't mind. He likes to fly away to where nobody tweets at all….


THE END....

..No... no shotgun.... ;-)

My Ipad Ate Bagpuss...

When you look at the funding models for Publishing and TV, (which, trust me, is not something I wake up wanting to do), it is hard to imagine a more polarised situation. Yet last week at CMC in Sheffield they were the two prevalent industries coming together and looking to the future. The shaded area where their two circles of interest cross is New Media... or more specifically e-books (ie 'electronic' or perhaps lately 'enhanced') and apps. (I reckon if I'd written 'Apps' on a Post-it and stuck it to my back a queue would have formed of TV and Publishing execs asking how I made it...)

'Why?' I asked myself, not particularly enthusiastically but the question wouldn't go away... so I 'noodled' it a bit. Apparently that's Amercian slang for 'thinking.... Is it.... typical U.S. They have something perfectly good and have to change it... but don;t get me started...

Anyway... Publishing appears to employ a 'toe in the water' approach. It usually releases one of a title and, if it gains sufficient traction/interest/sales or whatever jargon means 'works', releases another. If it really 'works' there might be a sequel with a teeny beany plush, audio version and christmas special - but even all of that is barely getting wet above the ankles. The process is measured and careful, the production costs relatively low, and it all appears well managed from a risk point of view, quite comfy slippers and cocoa really. (Obviously there are the cases of two three and four book deals with big advances and much trumpeting, but if a title bombs the sequels will never see the light of day)

TV on the other hand talks big and brash and dives straight in with 52 episodes, budgets in the millions and high expectations of reach, retail sales and brand lifespan. It is a high risk, arse twitching strategy that leaves most folk in the business so stressed a sudden cough might cause them to shatter into a million pieces (TV people are secretly held together by gaffer tape under their Gilly Hicks shirts) - and it requires everyone around the boardroom to simultaneously nod vigorously so no-one can be held responsible individually for making a bad call.

So creatively are publishers in the best situation? They can certainly get a wider variety of titles to the audience, and there certainly seems to be much more love, care and creative freedom. But their problem is the returns/profile just doesn't compare to TV - and they begrudge the idea that they can do all the work to raise a book's profile, only for TV to sweep in, buy the rights and grab all the glory. I imagine that's why they've started to try and roll the TV rights into their publishing deals (Not really fair chaps...) and some have made rather bold strides towards becoming some form of production company in their own right.

I keep wondering how we ended up at such an impractical funding model for Kids TV. It wasn't always the case that 52 eps needed to be made from the get go... there were days, not so long ago, when it was much more normal to have 13 eps - or even 6 or 7. What seems to have happened is that the cut in broadcaster funding has inadvertently upped the ante. I reckon the cycle went like this;

Broadcasters reduce license fee paid - forcing producers to fill the financing gap from distribution/toy companies.

Distribution/Toy companies say 13 eps is not enough to drive licensing - so increase requirement to 26 eps.

Financing gap left even bigger as broadcasters can't afford to commission and majority fund so many episodes from each series they take. So percentage of budget paid as a license fee drops even further.

Distribution/Toy companies say larger investment required needs even more confidence in potential success, therefore need to be sure all channels will give high profile to shows, so make 52 eps - which becomes accepted as a norm. (This is a micro version of the Hollywood $200million blockbusters being the only ones that recoup)

Industry settles at a base level of 52 eps and roughly 3-4million pounds budget to raise. Which means it takes about 5 years from concept through commission to production being delivered - 7 years to income coming back. Everyone loses the will to live and seriously discusses opening cake shop.

What interests me (OK... 'interests' might be a bit strong...) What occurs to me about the New Meeja isn't enhancing a book or interacting with a TV show (unless, as I've blahh'ed before, the enhancements are about story and character, not just making characters somersault and flowers appear) but rather the fact that it can give back to programme makers the chance to test things out, let them evolve, beautify and streamline them in front of an audience, and potentially get the audience to pay them to do so.

If TV can begin to develop and release new formats and characters using apps in a way that properly presents character and story, they might find they can free themselves up from the shrinking broadcast market which is reducing not only in the number of commissions, but also the level of adventurousness. The unknown is whether making this route to an audience successful will attract a broadcast slot, or ultimately make it unnecessary....

'I'm your agent - not your Mother!' 'I'm your client - not your property!'

So JK has left Christopher Little and they are talking of sueing... why? Surely the millions are enough - why give it to the lawyers? Traditionally actors and writers are never happy with their agents - because the agents don't pay them enough attention to make them feel 'special' - and of course the agents are frustrated with their clients because they behave like needy, selfish over grown children - but can they ever meet in the middle?

As an actor I could never leave things to my agent. The idea of sitting waiting for the phone to ring was totally alien to me, I just couldn't trust my career to someone trying to manage a list of actors that was too many to be realistic. I was proved right. All of my work, bar a commercial, a couple of training videos and a presenting job, came from my own endeavours. My first agent took this as an affront to their ability - but as their ability didn't stretch to getting me many auditions I didn't lose any sleep over it. In the end we parted company because i just wasn't getting enough jobs in the West End Musicals he was putting me up for. Really. Check my face for surprise. If he'd taken five minutes to think where my casting strengths might lie he would never have sent me up for any of them. It was lazy and dismissive - everything that is bad about agenting.

My second agent was totally different - he took time, he talked to me, he gave advice on photos, audition technique and welcomed my own efforts to get work - stepping in at the right time to negotiate on my behalf. It was teamwork and worked brilliantly. Better than that, when I met producers they all said they liked working with him - something that is hugely important in this business - which I didn't realise until much later.

There is often an unrealistic expectation of what an agent is to an actor. Firstly the idea that you are their primary concern (You're not, get over it.) Secondly that the agent spends as much time thinking about your potential as you do (If you're an actor NOBODY thinks about you as much as you do...) - and thirdly that you have the right to screw up an audition, but they don't have the right to miss an opportunity for you. Its a business arrangement, if they have taken the time to put you out there the least you can do is try not to f*ck it up. It is staggering the amount of turns who arrive at auditions without anything prepared and knowing NOTHING about what they are auditioning for. Grow up. Agents get you opportunities, they are not there to show you how to pay your bills by direct debit, tell you what colour you should paint your front door or advise whether you should wipe your bum front to back or back to front. In short, they are not your parents.

As a producer I saw a totally different side. Casting is hard. I'm sad to say the number of folk doing the rounds who just aren't good enough is a lot higher than Equity would like you to think. (Good actors take solace from this - there are fewer of you than the stats ever lead you to believe!) producing is the least appreciated of the roles. A producer spots, pitches, finances and takes responsibility for a show. People court you to get a job, then moan about it when they get it.

A good agent never sends you people who aren't suitable. A bad agent is just grateful you're seeing somebody off their lists. After a few castings where an agency repeatedly sent unsuitable actors we just stopped using them. No reflection on the actors. (I was once rushed a script for a West End Comedy - travelled down from Nottingham where I was working to audition with six others. We all lined up... I am 6'1", they were all 5'0... the part was for a jockey. The agent hadn't read beyond 'Actor required, Liverpudlian...')

When negotiating I was staggered how many agents (and Union reps) just didn't know the commercial realities of the business we are in. Making grand assumptions about the income from programmes and naive guesses about 'What people in Telly make' If an agent doesn't know what deals are being done how is the actor going to trust the deal they get? It worked in reverse too, with Unions and agents assuming we would always pay as little as possible. (Once Equity called our office, angry, threatening blacklisting us, and INSISTING we paid all the actors equity minimum in one of our live shows. This would have meant halving their wages...)

Worst of all is the agent who tries to use unreasonable leverage, threatening to close down filming, organising cartels with the actors and being offensive and rude to staff. We once told an actor we would no longer employ him if his agent didn't change their tactics. He brushed us off, saying that was their job. So we stopped using him. We had an easier life, he got an overdraft. Unless an actor is the name, the money, unfortunately the commercial truth is they are dispensable.

Its a business, nurture it.

So what has it been like as a writer? Many of the same rules apply regarding the easily bruised creative ego and the overly busy agent who is so busy being busy and tweeting about how busy they are that they haven't actually got time to be an agent. One agent completely screwed up by sending out the wrong version of a manuscript and tainting anyone's chances of reading it afresh again. They also apparently sent two other manuscripts out to 16 publishers all of whom just said 'No'. Via a different agent two of those same publishers said yes, very quickly. Now I'm not saying the first one never sent anything out at all but...

The publishers use the literary agents as a clearing house - a filtering system to stop them being inundated. This is fine - but puts the pressure on busy agencies to filter the mass of unsolicited manuscripts. It also takes the direct option away from authors, giving the agents more power in the equation, but also inappropriately turning them into first stop editors too.

The biggest difference I have found is the impression of ownership. Now, this might be agency specific, but my belief is that when a writer writes a book and an agent sells it, the only rights that pass over, and which the agent enjoys a percentage of, are those named in the deal. Being represented does not mean being owned. Every idea I have is owned by me until a deal is signed - and that goes for all rights associated with it. The BBC do this in their contracts, they specify that all your IP created whilst in their employ is theirs (a totally immoral stance if you ask me) This is why I won't sign a contract with an agent. Get the deal and enjoy the benefits, have me under contract and you will get lazy. (This is of course assuming I still deliver the goods too!)


This is about realistic expectations. As a writer what I need from an agent is an honest and constructive dialogue about what I'm writing, where it might be placed and, frankly, if its good enough. As an actor I need to know about my ideal casting, what the people I'm auditioning for are like, and approaches for the audition. As a producer I need suitable actors suggested, who arrive prepped for the audition. As an agent I need writers who keep delivering, because it is about the book and not the author, and actors who prepare properly. But then if everyone did all that it would make for a pretty boring industry...

Be Honest... E-Books are Sh*te

The fever around apps and 'enhanced' e-books is becoming unbearable, but most of all unrealistic. No-one has yet really worked out what an app is - a Game? A gimmick? An e-book? A TV show? Of course it isn't any of these. Similarly confusing is an e-book (or 'enhanced' book) - are they simply picture books with moveable elements? Or reading aides (because we all want to be very educational don't we...) It's a little like watching the early TV shows, which comprised of simply putting a camera in front of a theatrical presentation, because that's all anyone knew. Currently we are simply electronically presenting a book - with a couple of whistles and a small bell.

E-Books are sh*te. (sorry to get all Charlie Brooker) Some of them have slightly more pleasing gimmicks than others, but generally they are appalling. Why? Because the euphoria around being able to make a haystack jump in the air or touch a table and hear the word 'table' being read out has completely masked the fundamental job any type of book is meant to achieve... tell a story...

Books are a one on one absorbing experience where a readers imagination takes them right into the story they are being told. (Blah Blah Blah - we've all heard that being spouted... but then again... its true) The effects and world readers imagine are unaffordable in TV and film. Yet Reading takes more effort and commitment to the task of finishing a whole book. TV and Film on the other hand offer spectacular effects to every popcorn guzzling lard-arse who can manage to put a blue-ray disc in and press 'play' - it is also over usually within a couple of hours (unless you are James Cameron who, in my humble opinion, should keep his turgid, over-long, over rated epics to himself)

So... where does that leave the e-book? At the moment, nowhere. I'm sorry for all you courageous folk out there (and here... cos I'm trying too) but no-one has nailed it yet - because we are all chasing rainbows. The ultimate app/electronic 'book' will not be an enhanced book or an interactive animation.. it will be something else that needs to evolve. But its evolution will still need the fundamental of all our media. Character and story. I haven't seen ANY e-books or apps that retain this. I'm sorry Nosey Crow - but your 3 Pigs has no character work and only repetitive touch screen gimmicks all of which are counter to the flow of the story. What it does has is a lovely trick with the 3D environment, but not much beyond. Even the latest Oliver Jeffers app (with such high credentials) has only succeeded in totally annihilating the flow of the story by peppering each screen with needless, time wasting interactive elements.

But here's the thing - I am not a luddite or 'Flat Earth' exponent. I LOVE ipads and the potential they have. I'm really struggling with the current thinking in the products we put on them. The problem seems to come from the camps of Gaming, TV and Publishing not really being able to think outside of their own boxes... A book that moves, has a voice over and music is 'enhanced' a TV product that offers some touch screen fun is 'Interactive' and a story that allows the reader to kill the wolf or sail the boat has 'Gaming Elements' - but lets be honest... none of this really works... The 'Whoooo' button app is more fun, and much more honest.

In my experience part of the limiter here is the legalese. If an enhanced book does too much it becomes an animation - which means it strays into other definitions of rights... we need a new name (which is why suddenly publishers and TV folk are talking about the 'app' version of something... neither side can claim ownership, so ownership needs to be established afresh)

If a pig wants to build a house out of straw because it is quicker - that is because of WHO HE IS - a good story will communicate that - and an enhanced book should communicate that even better... If a visit from the Cat in the Hat encourages anarchy then a good book will communicate that and an enhanced e-book should communicate that even better. We need to stop looking at the elements around the story to enhance, and enhance the key ingredients of the story and characters themselves... then we might start making progress and making something wonderful because right now the technology is way ahead of the creative minds using it.