Bain & Armstrong
I wanted to research writing duo Sam Bain & Jesse Armstrong, masterful pair who created Fresh Meat, a major inspiration of my own show, as well as Peep Show and 2010 terrorism satire ‘Four Lions’ with Chris Morris. They are incredibly proficient writers, both seperately and together, and both them and their shows have been the subject of many awards, including the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award in 2010. Whilst Fresh Meat is primarily written by a writing team, I admire the way it balances comedy and drama – capturing the turbulent time of university. A clearly strong pair of comedy writers, I specifically wanted to focus on how the pair write comedy and primarily how they balance comedy and drama. This was both because I do not consider myself a comedy writer but felt it a very important aspect of the kind of show I wanted to make and because I wanted the drama elements of my show to not be lost amongst any comedy I was able to produce.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-01rh4yNb5U - SAM BAIN AND JESSE ARMSTRONG COMEDY WRITING MASTERCLASS
During their masterclass at the BFI, Bain & Armstrong, lay out what they’ve learned about writing comedy and keeping it from overwhelming or distracting from the drama of a scene.
If you’ve got something that works – make it longer (From Richard Curtis, Notting hill, Hugh Grant pretending to be a journalist – did 5 rather than 3)
Looking for a good line, write 10. It doesn’t matter if you fail 9 times if you succeed once (Also via R.C)
Don’t sacrifice character integrity for a joke
In episodic pieces Start with episode 3 – ignoring how they meet episodes (wrong episode, doesn’t show anything about the show)
Bain & Armstrong suggest ignoring the ‘how they met’ episode, which they call a ‘wrong’ episode as it doesn’t show anything about the actual intent of the show, just how it’s characters got here. They say that by starting on ‘episode 3’ your characters and story have avoiding typically awkward exposition that whilst is a common trope of storytelling, most audiences are smart enough to keep up without.
This tip proved especially useful early in the writing process when I struggled with the decision of where/when to enter my story. Initially I wanted to set it in the first year, exploring the character’s as they first start at university, setting it at halls – an iconic aspect of university life that has not been explored in many university based TV shows. I believe that the location of halls could be useful in providing legitimate access to wide variety of supporting roles and characters, as well as being especially effective at exploring the idea of character ‘masks’ explored in Into The Woods, exploring the face that characters present in trying to be somebody new for uni, make friends and contrasting this with the quieter moments in their rooms and how the two mix. I also considered that a show set at university halls would be best suited to a show with a changing cast, similar to Skins, an aspect I knew I didn’t want to consider if future seasons of my show was an option. This piece of advice also made me considering setting the series in the student’s third year of university, where the idea of failure had more jeopardy, and the idea of Sarah’s friends and housemates graduating without her could have been deeper explored. However, it was also the aspect that if this was a script being produced for actual television then by setting it in second year it would provide more options if considering later seasons. By setting the story in the middle of the character’s first-term of second year, I ignored the building of relationships in halls and the overplayed exposition of character’s moving in to the house, throwing audiences in at the deep end, meeting the house as they honeymoon period of living together has vanished and the teething pains are beginning to show. I felt that this would be relatable to audiences – not just university students – who had lived with friends, as well as providing the most dramatic potential, contrasting Sarah’s personal failures with the failures of the house to co-exist. The house also proved very useful in allowing me to explore the idea of young people living together and the ‘family’ unit they become and what that means to each of them.
Character is key to comedy, archetypes (not stereotype) are good to start (also used on fresh meat), real life good for comedy Archetypes will still be differently written from person to person
Casting IS key (especially with leads, bad casting can mean death)
Plan plots beforehand, creates confidence and fun comes from getting through scene.
Whilst planning out your stories properly beforehand might sound like a very basic tip, before this I was used to starting with a brief overview of story beats and then writing mostly on the fly – hoping to achieve a feeling of spontaneity and especially realistic dialogue. Perhaps rather obviously this typically found me running into dead ends and stories that were no longer dramatically interesting or scenarios that I could not see my characters realistically getting out of.
Whilst understanding my characters was my primary focus, I then spent several weeks working on my story, plots and characters arcs, ensuring I knew the stories I wanted to tell and how they would impact and work with each other. Not only did this mean that they could grow over time, being more thought out and (hopefully) slightly more entertaining but also that the writing process was much easier and felt more free – allowing me to focus on character instead of where to go next. As my scenes became more considered I was also able to consider dialogue more. Whilst I still tried to maintain my original writing method for dialogue, as I found planning it so strictly very strangling creatively, I was able to work on key lines and ways that characters reacted. For example, Sarah’s mental health became more visible throughout the first episode as I realised it’s importance throughout later episodes and the importance of seeding it in earlier in the show, even if it’s not being directly referenced.
If your character is written correctly, any dramatic situation can also be comedic
One of the problems I had when initially writing was how to navigate the arguments in the house, ensuring they had tension but also maintained an element of entertainment. In trying to show Ryan’s anger issues stemming from all-boys school bullying and trying to involve Sarah too much, I suffered in getting too extreme in the argument and turning it too physical. After further exploring Ryan’s character and adding some more humanising elements, I changed the scenes so his arguments were with Jack – both creating friction between the two and their relationship with Natalie and allowing Jack’s confident mask to create humour in their arguments. Jack’s character allowed me to hide their true meanings behind ridiculous arguments, for example attacking Ryan’s masculinity and allieviating some schoolyard bullying by calling sports gay.
Plots don’t need to be funny, characters and dialogue do
I’ve long had an affinity for ‘mundane’ stories, setting my scripts solely within a student house, avoiding other typical student locations such as pubs, nights out and locations outside of the house. However, by staying inside I felt like I was able to focus on the relationships of the characters and explore the idea of them being a makeshift family unit, both to alieve university homesickness and also provide comfort to the characters without traditional family structures. This was an important theme I wanted to portray, as it’s something I personally find lacking in much television and it would (hopefully) add a realistic and modern elements to my programme. Though the plots of bills and watching TV may sound dull, Bain & Armstrong reassured me that the strength of the characters is what adds the tension and excitement and that the mundanity or repetitiveness of life can be relatable to audiences.
Collaborators (even friends) are good to talk through plots with.
Simon inspired the sexual tension between Sarah and Ryan
If you don’t believe or care, change!
Tension (and the release of it) is funny – Four Lions, (shooting bear) [somebody has been shot but at the point of the film it’s a big comedic relief moment]
Know the tone of whatever you’re writing [four lions, somebody being blown up can be dramatic, tragic, funny etc – depends on how you play it]
Comedy is surprise - [though sometimes the expected is funnier]
Comedy drama [like fresh meat] can be tricky because of the balance. must maintain that tone.
One of the ways I wanted to bring drama into the show was through the lack of traditional, nuclear families at home – having characters with different versions of single-parent households caused by different reasons and affecting the characters in very different ways. Though the characters of Sarah and Jack both came from one-parent households, the way it had affected their characters was specifically made to contrast in order to allow both tension and comedy. Sarah searches her family structure and her father leaving to find reason in her failure – revealing her desperation to connect with him and why her mother had tried to minimise this. However, Jack tries hard to distance themselves from their family, never having properly dealt with the loss of their mother and their father’s decline following it – this denial has turned into a mask of arrogance to shield their feelings, from others and themselves.
Make sure the story is always the focus
Know tone, (can be helped by knowing ideal cast, what it’s like, knowing rules)
Story must be empathetic and something you care for. Series one or two, the man show, lots of great scenes and set pieces but in reality episode was ‘ho hum’, - story got lost and audiences felt that.
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Dan Swimer (and Simon Amstell) (Grandma’s House)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_zEp_UznsM - Making Of Grandma's House
Simon Amstell & Dan Swimer
How did it come together?
Dialogue was based on mum, Dan turned into sitcom
Table read, asked to write more - bbc said: “it wasn’t funny, it didn’t have a point and the main character had no character” so told to add, “but we didn’t do that”
Simon was archetypal buffoon that’s actually always right – he's very self-assured and confident in knowledge
More scripts, new pilot, another read, KATHY BURKE DIRECTED READ,
Writing process?
In simon’s kitchen, prompting each other Simon would pose bullshit
Director
Listened to them as writers, not wanting deliberate comedy
Cast
Rebecca Front was first name raised, funny and had great chemistry It’s “even worse” without her
Don’t write for people to like
Simon Amstell and Dan Swimer, the writers of Grandma’s House explained that after their first table read, BBC producers told them the show ‘wasn’t funny, didn’t have a point and the main character had no character’ and were told to change the show. They joke that the only change they made was making the main character less likable and changed nothing story-wise. Whilst I appreciate this is most likely untrue, it draws to attention how minimal the story arc througout each episode is. Whilst this could be considered a criticism, it is one of the aspects of the show that I find so enthralling and relatable – avoiding ‘deliberate’ drama and comedy and letting much of the story progress through conversations as the whole show is a family frequently meeting at Grandma’s house. One of my tutor’s initial comments on my script was that it didn’t have much of a continued through story – and whilst I agreed with him, and agreed it needed one, I worried that adding repeated emphasis on certain story aspects would take away from the realistic, homey approach I was trying to achieve with the script. I instead tried to follow Swimer’s approach in Grandma’s house – opting for minimal stories that relied on character and dialogue to maintain them. Swimer and Grandma’s house reassured me that lots of people sitting around can be interesting. He argues that the characters and relationships must be realsitic and interesting, with Amstel taking many lines of dialogue directly from his own family. In order to keep this realism, I stole many of the ‘house problems’ from my own experiences of living in a student house, trying to deal with ‘boring’ issues such a bills, washing up and where people should hang their washing.
BBC WRITERS ROOMS ESSENTIALS
What is the central dramatic action? Stuck in self-destructive spiral, trying to find way out, Sarah must figure out how to balance university life, friend’s dramas and home troubles to survive to her final year of university. Is she doomed to fail through birthright or causing her own implosion. (Birthright is main step away from vanity project – hope my family don’t mind!)
Is the Journey compelling? Will it last over several weeks? Failure is a universal feeling. Also want to focus on friend’s, looking at their own personal failures and how each deals with them. Hoping to use natural comedy of scenes and young people’s attitudes to keep from getting too depressing.
A coherent world is crucial! What are the rules? What do and don’t we need to know? Mostly like ours, except with (overheard from real-life) oddities, mostly to stand in Sarah’s way and make her question what she needs to succeed – dealers not about on wednesdays.
What kind of story? What makes it this way? What makes it different? Drama/Comedy. Like skins or late Fresh meat. One of my favourite aspects of young people is how seriously they take the things they probably shouldn’t, whilst laughing at adversities and self-deprecations. Good way to flip everything on it’s head in a way.
What audience response do you want? What’s the tone and feel? Is it consistent & coherent? What emotional response? Coherent but seemingly ‘unstable’ contrast of inspiration and hopeless anarchy reflecting fighting self-doubt. Trying to be self-aware of how short-term fixes to problems have become long-term problems themselves. Not necessarily like Sarah, but empathise with her.
Why is this important? Why now? Rare to see stories of failure, always relevant. Big gay cast.
What’s the theme? What are you exploring? Failure. Where does self-choice fit into nature vs nurture?
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