Inspirations 5: Rectangle of Cloth

Today's Inspiration: El Mariachi

The final stepping stone on my path leads me to the DVD age.

Though I had been 20-odd years watching Private Schultz, Minder, The Ladykillers, Doctor Who, The Singing Detective and many more shows on the goggle box, I'd never owned my own TV. My family had had one, then my college had had one, then flat mates or girlfriends had had one, I'd just shared each for long spells.

[This ain't an isolated phenomenon - I don't think I've ever bought a tea towel, but I always seem to have a collection of them. I've never been to Torbay. I don't know anyone who's been to Torbay. I don't even know where Torbay is: how did I get a rectangle of cloth emblazoned with it's tourist attractions? Mysteries...]

I moved into my own flat in 1999 and had to face the inevitable - I was going to have to buy a TV. I had my eye on a widescreen model, and I was going to buy a DVD player to go with it, as they'd started to become popular. I mentioned this to a colleague, and he said 'You only really need that equipment if you watch a lot of films'. Hmm, I thought, he's right: if I get that equipment I'll be able to watch a lot of films: great! 

And so I did, and the beauty of getting on board when the DVD delivery medium was new was that a lot of old classics (film and TV) were getting reissued in the new format; I had my film school education in front of a cathode ray tube, gobbling up British classics, and Hollywood greats, as well as indie pics.

And you don't get more indie than Robert Rodriguez's mega low budget action flick, El Mariachi, which I bought in a double pack with Desperado. The film is great fun, but the real revelation was listening to the director's commentary. Everything that had inspired me up to that point seemed out of my reach: they were made in fancy studios by Olympian professionals. If I was to get my stuff to an audience, I thought, I'd have to get patronage from someone of that ilk.  But here was some one who'd been successful by just doing it himself, and he was telling me that I could do the same, and not only that, but he was telling me how.

Very soon, I'd bought a digital camera, and got some editing software, and I was making my own movies.  None of them set the world alight but each one was a learning experience, and made me a better writer.  There's nothing like shooting and editing your own material to hammer home what is dispensable or otherwise on the page.  And working with the limitations of budget is always good for the imagination.

I recommend any Rodriguez DVD: even if you don't like the film you get value for money.  As well as insightful commentaries, there's always a ten minute film school featurette on every disc, and even a rather wonderful ten minute cookery school on Once Upon a Time in Mexico.

Next: I realise that I may have created a meme here.  I'm not going to send this out to five other bloggers, because if it's a worthy meme it will self-replicate.  If you want to list five films or TV shows that have been of autobiographical significance to you (you don't have to ramble on as much as I did) then please go ahead, but please do drop me a line to let me know you've done so.

Inspirations 4: Better than normal

Today's Inspiration: The Singing Detective

People like different things, and there's nothing wrong with that. When you're an adolescent and you've been through your taste-defining stage without really realising it, but you haven't learnt enough to appreciate the limitations of what you hold to be of quality, sometimes you can be brought up sharp by different views or attitudes than your own. That doesn't mean those other views aren't wrong however...

I was about 14 when The Singing Detective first aired, and I watched the lot; suitable or not, I didn't care: I knew I was seeing something unique and special. I respect Dennis Potter as a great TV dramatist, and I respect the writer's place as primary author of a work; but, the director Jon Amiel has to take a lot of credit too - he found a visual style beyond anything Potter had imagined, and produced something head and shoulders above Potter's works up to that point.

It was provocative, it was ambitious, it could be called pretentious, you may even hate it. Fine. When it was first repeated, I devoured it once more. I was - what? - a year older and it meant more to me again. By then, I was a hospital radio DJ (apologies, all the other kids were doing it, and it seemed like a good idea at the time) and one night mid-series I was doing some fund-raising event or collecting dedications on the wards or some such. I commented to another hospital radio bod (Stuart Norval - who now reads the local BBC news down here in the South, and good on him) that I had to rush back to see The Singing Detective.

Stuart thought about this, and said: “But it's boring, innit?”

It may be provocative, ambitious, pretentious, you may even hate it. But it's not boring. I was left mouth agape guppy-fish style. I could not believe that anyone really felt like that. But after a short period of time (about twenty years) I got over it, and realised Stuart wasn't lying, and it is possible to be bored by anything, even drama. But I knew I never would be.

I, like every other writer on my blog roll, and every other writer in the world whatever level, will never be bored by this stuff - we can't switch off, we can't ignore it, it nags at the back of our mind and makes us feel guilty if we're not thinking about it. We have to live with that, and some people don't: they don't even know there's a Red Planet competition, let alone will they be scouring their inbox and the world wide web in a few weeks to see if they or anyone they know has won. They call these 'normal people'.

But writers, to paraphrase Philip J. Fry, are better than normal: they're abnormal. Hooray for that!  

Next: El Mariachi

Inspirations 3: Snake/Buddhist metaphor

Today's Inspiration: Doctor Who

I missed out on Tom Baker, because I got into Who late. The main reason for this was sheer terror - the theme tune sent me scurrying from the room, and the only glimpses I'd catch usually involved that most fearsome of creatures: K9, or as he appeared to my fevered Childish imaginings: 'Doctor Oo's little horse'. He would belch out beams of red death that felled many a guard. Evil.

But I saw a big load of repeats, including all the old doctors, in the Autumn after Baker quit, and then I saw Peter Davison's first year on the job, and I was hooked. I remember having to feign illness twice to get out of cubs so that I could see every episode of Kinda and enjoy odd pre-pubescent stirrings seeing Janet Fielding being all possessed by a snake/Buddhist metaphor.

[Another aside, another survey: I remember everyone at cubs having a vote on their favourite TV show. I told the truth this time, but Doctor Who only got my vote. What won? TJ flippin' Hooker by a landslide. The 80s, they really were a different place.] 

Anyway, as soon as I got into Doctor Who, I also got into a thing called Doctor Who Magazine. And for years, it was the only magazine I read about the making of television. And it was good too: always highlighting the importance of the writer, and covering pretty much every aspect of production, in increasing detail during the wilderness period before the 2005 resurgence. 

It was in DWM that I read about Robert McKee's Story book and seminar in an article about story structures in 1999. I booked myself on the next available London dates: my first writing course. And that was what started my path to where I am now, for better or worse.

Now a parent, I find myself in the same position mine were way back when: should I be too stringent? Or is that worse than being too lax?  As a confused white liberal, I do the whole "we don't like to let him watch too much television" thing, but - you know - it didn't do me any harm (twitch).

This year, as my boy was two years old, and Doctor Who was being shown earlier, I thought I'd give it a try.  The cute Adipose episode was fine, and he seemed to really enjoy it (although at 45 minutes he was getting restless halfway through - Daddy sat rapt throughout, obviously).  But the following week, big lava monsters in Pompeii scared the be-jesus out of him. Who do you think you are scaring my child, Mister Moran?* Well, you're pretty cool, actually. I'm sure some day soon he'll be remembering "the one with the big lava monsters" in fond terms.

Or he'll think Doctor Who is rubbish 'cos his Dad likes it, and he'll want to play football instead.  Well, it'll be fun finding out...

* If it wasn't clear, this is not an attack on James, but a very obscure Doctor Who reference.  If you know to what it refers, you are as sad as me.  Well done.

Next: The Singing Detective

Inspirations 2: Square-Eyed Boy

Today's Inspiration: The Ladykillers

Continuing my attempt to catalogue some of the key films or shows that have collided with me autobiographically, and inspired me to do such a crazy thing as write. Raymond Carver called these his 'Fires' although in the same essay he claimed that his only real 'fires' were his children - he had to keep writing to feed and clothe them. I sensed a hint of bitterness, reading between his lines, and anyone who's ever read his short story "Elephant" - and if not, why not? Go! Go read it now! - will know, he could certainly access that feeling in his subconscious and use it as a motivation for one of his protagonists.

I am lucky enough (in some ways) to only write for love (for the most part) and not to feed my son. There's always a silver lining, and the day job's is that I am freed from the curse of the freelancer; not, mind, that I wouldn't like the opportunity to give it a try sometime soon-ish. I wonder what my son, once he's old enough to appreciate it, will make of a Dad who has this burning desire to write.

My own Dad, rest his soul, did try to reach out to his square-eyed boy, but as Dad's main viewing habits involved football and athletics, there wasn't much common ground. One wonderful gift that he gave me, though, was The Ladykillers (the original, obviously). It was on BBC2 one Saturday, and he said 'Sit down and watch this, it's great' and he was right. It was. It is.

Should I do the same for my son when the time comes? Yeah. One day, I'll stick the DVD on (there's no chance, I guess, of BBC2 showing it any more) and see what he thinks. If he hates it, at least that will save him from the curse: my Dad was responsible for instilling the preconception in me that all British films I saw from that day on would be five-star works of fabtastic genius. Obviously, a lifetime of slight disappointment ensued.


Next: Doctor Who

Inspirations 1: Before German n'er-do-wells, or famous Gallifreyans

I've just spotted that Private Schultz is out on DVD. When this was first on, I remember watching it - I was quite young, maybe younger than 10 - and feeling something odd and wonderful. I now know that I was responding to great writing, but at the time it just felt like I had learned a secret. No kids of my acquaintance were watching Private Schultz (it was written by the same person that adapted the 70s version of I Claudius, I now find out!). If it had been nowadays, I suppose I could have just gone online to find a TV and film forum to talk to people about it (and they'd all be snooty to me 'cos I'd be younger than 10) but back then I had many years keeping those secrets.

So, over the next few days I'm going to post five more inspirations, with annotations on their autobiographical significance (forgive me the indulgence, I need something to post about and "wrote a lot today because of imminent deadline" is going to get boring very quickly).

Today's inspiration: Minder

Before I discovered the TV adventures of German n'er-do-wells, or famous Gallifreyans, my favourite programme was Minder. Minder was great.

I remember when I was about seven at infants school we had a lesson where the teacher took a survey of when was everyone's bedtime (dunno what this was supposed to teach us). I lied and said I was tucked up in bed by 7pm. But I was always awake till past 10 every night watching programmes like Minder and The Sweeney. My parents were wonderful. Or lax. I haven't worked out which yet.

Only one child put their hand up to a post 10pm bedtime. He was a rough but cool kid: I really should have got to know him better - we might have been watching all the same programmes.

[An aside: you know how people say they didn't realise TV shows had writers or directors when they were young (and it must be true, for so many different people keep saying it). I don't remember thinking that exactly, but I do remember a feeling that everything on TV wasn't real, like a photo-realistic animation, and all the people on TV were controlled avatars of some kind. Except Frank Muir.

I thought Frank must be real because he was on both Call My Bluff and a Cadbury's Fruit and Nut commercial ('Everyone's a fruit and nut case'). So, for a period of some months (maybe even years) I believed the only people that existed were those I'd met and Frank Muir. Needless to say, I was something of a strange kid. For some reason, though, Dennis Waterman was immune to this despite also being in two shows. I'm still not sure Dennis Waterman exists.]

To keep the spirit of my youth alive I still go to bed after 10, and I regularly lie in surveys.

Next: The Ladykillers