Copywrite

Weird guy talks about blogging

2010-03-01T00:00:00Z

Last November - hence the bizarre facial hair as part of the Movember charity campaign - I was interviewed by Bluewire Media - a Queensland web design agency - as part of their Plugged In interview series.

Bluewire have just released a seven minute video of the interview for their monthly newsletter and have kindly allowed me to share it with you as well. Covering my experiences in building this very blog, I discuss the effort I put in, the necessary attitudes to stick at it and how to increase the chances of success.

I'm not sure whether I would describe myself as "legendary", flattering though it is, but I would like to think I've learned a thing or two about this blogging lark that is worth imparting to any of you considering diving in.

But anyway...

2010-02-26T04:34:05Z

I wonder if any of you have a memory like this?

I must have been about two or three years old. Either way, my brother, who is fifteen months younger than me, was still in a high chair. I remember that we were on holiday and staying in a holiday apartment or hotel (I'm not sure which). My brother was being fed a boiled egg in his high chair and Dad was talking to Mum.

There are three reasons why I remember this early childhood scene from this particular holiday. The first is that this was when we discovered that my brother didn't like eggs. The second was that this holiday included my first ever visit to the cinema - a rerelease of Disney's Pinocchio. And the third was that I noticed Dad using a word I hadn't noticed before - 'but'.

Learning a new word

Of course, my Dad, and everyone else, would have used 'but' in conversation around me on a daily basis, but this was the first time I actively noticed the word. I can remember turning it over in my mind, trying to determine what it meant. At that age, most words seem to have a direct correlation to an object, activity or sensation. The furry thing is 'cat'; running around outside is called 'playing'; that feeling in my tummy is described by pointing at it and shouting 'hungry'. It was breakfast, and Dad was buttering toast (either for himself or for some ill-fated egg soldiers), so for a long time I thought it must have something to do with butter (I still have this association in my head today). Still, I just couldn't satisfy myself with what it meant. What was a 'but'?

I can't remember if I asked Dad what it meant. If I had done, I'm sure it would have been an extremely difficult explanation. How do you define 'but' to a toddler? Still, at some point I must have worked it out without any tutoring on the nature of conjunctions and how they relate to contrary phrases. The way children ingest and learn language is fascinating. Just think for one moment of the gargantuan task involved in not only realising that all those noises have meaning but in then deconstructing and understanding them sufficiently to imitate the same skills.

"A new word! What do I do?"

Sadly, for most people, the acquisition of new words and the willingness to study, improve and learn better language skills is rare. Beyond a certain age, most people take language for granted, assume they know enough words and resist the urge to learn new ones. This concern came up in my own writing yesterday, when I used the phrase "...authorative epithet" in describing the overuse of the word 'expert'. I considered those words for a long time. 'Epithet' is definitely an uncommon word. Would I be risking my article turning off my readers if they were confronted with unusual new words?

I decided that I didn't care. Maybe I'm wrong in thinking that. After all, I've written about writing to the reading age of a readership for greater clarity before. But there is a difference between writing intended to convey important information or instructions that need to be easily understood and writing intended to inspire, educate and fascinate.

Many people recommend reading with a dictionary near by, looking up new words as they appear. But barely anyone ever does it as it reduces the act of reading to a cold, clinical, code-breaking operation. What actually should happen is that the brain should determine meaning from the context of the words surrounding the newly discovered vocabulary in exactly the way that a child learns language.

What dismays me is that so few people are willing to make that little bit of effort. It's as if a new word is a threat to their understanding or a derisory comment on their intelligence, not an opportunity to expand their language and provide greater nuances and shades of meaning.

(As an aside, I have to mention that I first came across the word 'epithet' in an episode of Doctor Who in 1984 when the evil Master spoke the line "A most apposite epithet". Good to see that the writers of a TV show aimed at a family audience including children had no qualms about language, even if they did sometimes compensate too far into the florid and pretentious.)

I love that I managed to hang onto that toddler's wonder at language. I enjoy adding to my armoury of words and stylistic techniques and I suspect that many writers are the same. What saddens me is that many others seem to have switched off that fascination beyond a certain age and that too much of the everyday content we read gives no reason for this attitude to be wrong.

Capital punishment: why using random capitals is a crime!

2010-01-28T03:15:55Z

Agh - few things annoy my linguistic sensibilities more than random capitalisation. Sure, misplaced apostrophes are probably a greater grammatical blot on the language landscape, but the capitalisation of words is more irritating because of its intentional nature.

I'm currently editing and rewriting the copy on a massive IT website and still come across examples of nail-on-blackboard level irritation. Take the following example.

Faster, more Secure, more Stable than any other hosting available to Australian Small Business

What irritates me so much is the idea that capitalising the first letter of the key words provides additional emphasis or makes them seem more important. But capitalising the first letter denotes a proper noun and is therefore highly inappropriate. How is 'Secure" a noun? Or "Stable"? They are adjectives, people! Adjectives do NOT capitalise the initial letter.

The intention is to add emphasis, obviously. But does it need any? If something is secure, is it made moreso by sticking a capital 'S' on the front?

The second mistake is the inital capitalisation of 'Australian Small Business'. Sure, Australia needs one, but 'small business' certainly does not. Here, the mistake is more likely to do with over-eager formality, bestowing proper noun status where none is merited.

Generally, there are only a handful of times a capital letter should be used:

At the beginning of a sentence
At the beginning of speech contained within another sentence where it would normally be considered to be the start of a fresh sentence. (She said, "You're not going to wear that shirt, are you?")
When using the the nominative singular pronoun - 'I'. Although this doesn't apply to any other pronouns, such as he, me, it etc.
In the formation of acronyms and initialisms; such as NASA, where each letter indicates a word in the title
In rare circumstances, by capitalising an ENTIRE word for emphasis - although some still consider this a stylistic issue
In titles of books, movies etc; usually capitalising all but the prepositions and definite or indefinate articles, except where they also begin the title. (eg: An Officer and a Gentleman)
In certain script writing formats to denote special effects, actions or particular headings
With proper nouns

There are a few other minor variations in rare circumstances (such as the capitalisation of P in 'iPod' reflecting a modern titling convention that is rapidly dying out) but it is probably safer to avoid muddying the water with unusual exceptions to the rules that most people will never have a reason to use.

But what is a proper noun and where, therefore, should the capital be used? I know this sounds like a return to school, but it absolutely amazes me how many people have a poor grasp of these basic concepts and continue to randomly capitalise words in virtually every sentence.

A proper noun is a word describing a singular thing. There may be many cities, but only one London. (Sure, there's another London in the US, but you know what I mean!) There are billions of people, but Jonathan Crossfield is a tag used to describe only one of them. (Again, there's more than one about the place if you search Google, but none of them have blogs as good as this one, right?) Similarly, there are many small businesses, but when you name a specific business, you narrow the criteria to one.

But it isn't as simple as saying a proper noun refers to an individual thing, because I could then argue for capitalisation when I refer to 'my cat' - it is a specific cat after all. Allocating a name or title is important in this distinction. Therefore, 'The President of the United States' or 'President Obama' has capitalisation as they are specific titles related to one individual, and are therefore proper nouns. But 'president' by itself without a surname or other specific information is only a common noun.

But you probably already know all this, right? I may be preaching to the choir - I hope I am - but I needed to rant. If we don't stand up and shout "This is wrong!", the capital letter will continue to have its weight and power diluted through incorrect overuse. If we don't stamp out this blight when inflicted upon us, the meaning of sentences can become jumbled in confusion.

Lastly, a quick question. Do you capitalise the word 'Internet'? Many do, arguing that there is only one Internet, just as there is only one Moscow. But is the internet (see, I don't choose to capitalise it) a singular thing or a commodity or gestalt entity? Would you capitalise 'blogosphere', made up of all the individual blogs, or 'humanity' made up of all of us? I wouldn't. Capitalising internet, to me, seems as daft as capitalising the atmosphere or electricity. Whatever the correct answer though, usage has shown that the capitalisation of 'internet' is falling away rapidly and will most likely be very rare in the future.

What linguistic crimes do you feel are worthy of capital punishment? (Snigger - see what I did there?)

Comedy as art

2010-01-20T03:30:01Z

Comedy writing has always had a harder time finding legitimacy than other forms - television comedy even more so. Different writing genres have always been prone to elitism and arbitrary labels of legitimacy or triviality, which seems a mite unfair when we look for genuine artistry.

When we consider the classic plays of Shakespeare, most people would list his tragedies high on the list; King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet and others. But Shakespeare wrote a wide number of brilliant comedies as well: Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew and more. Certainly, his comedies are revered, and in my mind are equally brilliant. But I've yet to hear an actor talk about playing Malvolio, say, with the same gravitas as he would Hamlet or Lear. Howling at the wind seems to be more respectable than making an audience laugh.

Why do we consider comedy as somehow lesser than so-called 'serious drama'? Why is a portentous, verbose and supposedly 'deep' novel assigned more worth than, say, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - which is a best-selling comedy masterpiece that outsells most Booker Prize winners and is a work of true linguistic and storytelling skill?

Comedy has always had a harder time of justifying itself than most other genres. If people are laughing, apparently the writing has less weight than if people are crying. In a recent BBC Radio 2 celebration of the writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, Dennis Nordern had this to say about the classic Steptoe and Son.

I always remember my daughter... one of her set books that she had to do at school was a Pinter play. And I remember at one of the Parent Teacher Association meetings, saying that there were these two blokes, Galton and Simpson, whose work was not only on a par with Pinter, in the way it used everything that Pinter used - the language and the dramatic pauses and so on - but the kind of poetry that they put into demotic speech was, to my mind, way above...and that it would be a very good idea to set a Steptoe script for English A Level.

Dennis Nordern

I certainly don't wish to take anything away from the achievements of Harold Pinter - I'm as much of a fan as many of you may be. But there is no doubt that writing for the stage is more likely to get you on the school curriculum than writing a popular sit-com, no matter how skillful you may be.

The following is the final scenes from the Steptoe and Son pilot episode The Offer, written as a single one-off play in the Comedy Playhouse series. Entwining comedy with drama, Galton and Simpson avoided the banality of many unremarkable sit-coms and create an emotional honesty in their characters many more-acclaimed writers should marvel at. But despite the mix of strong performances and incredibly poignant dramatic moments, the comedy label sticks.

Although Galton and Simpson received a few awards over the years for their work on Steptoe and Hancock, it is fair to say that they are not considered by many to be in the same pantheon as Pinter, Potter or Brecht. Yet, if any of you have ever tried to write comedy, it is much, much harder than virtually any other genre. It requires additional ingredients beyond the universal need for strong story, structure and dialogue. It also needs to be funny - and 'funny' can be like trying to catch lightening.

Somehow, that extra difficulty has the ironic effect of trivialising the skill involved. Doesn't seem fair, does it!

Why I won't watch "white poster" films

2010-01-05T05:29:42Z

When choosing movies to see, I have one rule - no 'white poster movies'. What is a white poster movie, I hear you ask? Quite simply, they are movies where the poster says absolutely nothing about what you're invited to see, opting instead for a major shot of the big drawcard celeb(s) instead. White posters betray that the prime selling point for a film is the name actor and not the abysmal script or shoddy direction.

Even if I discover more about the film from other sources, the fact that the marketing team chose to go with a 'white poster' is enough to convince me that the film would be a major disappointment. If the film doesn't even inspire the marketing department to come up with something more interesting for the poster, then it must be entirely forgettable.

But the trend continues. Sometimes, the celeb may be allowed to hold a prop, but usually this is no more enlightening than the white background. So Sandra Bullock is holding an engagement ring. The film is called The Proposal, so it's not really telling us much we didn't already know. So Reese is stood on a couple of suitcases in a film called Four Holidays. Yup, still no closer to determining why this film is any more worthy of my attention than every other film based around a getaway. Another version of this poster adds tinsel to alert us that the holiday of the title is that Christmas one some Americans seem so scared to reference directly these days for fear of offending someone who probably wouldn't care anyway. (The film was released as Four Christmasses in the UK - no problems or riots in the street there.) But even with the tinsel giving us a clue to which holiday the title refers to, it doesn't do a great deal to let us know why I should open my wallet and invest in popcorn.

A film poster should entice an audience by letting them know what to expect. Look at the classic poster for Star Wars, for example. You can see it has space ships, weird aliens and robots, far off planets and a scary looking villain. Would the film poster have captured our imagination if it was just Peter Cushing (the biggest star on a largely unknown cast) against a white background? Would Raiders of the Lost Ark's poster have conveyed the excitement and pizazz of the film if it simply featured a massive head and shoulders of Harrison Ford?

Yet this is exactly the approach that Seven Pounds took with Will Smith. What is that film is about? Why should I see it? I'm sorry but, much as I like Will Smith, he's not enough by himself to convince me that I'll enjoy an ambiguously titled film without any other indication of whether to expect comedy, drama, tears or frights.

Just in case some of you interpret me too literally, adding a pastel shade of blue to the background (as in Sweet Home Alabama, right) doesn't exempt a film from this theory. The colour is immaterial, even though white is more common. It is the willingness to hang the entire marketing of a film around the central star actor(s) alone that betrays the weakness of all other selling points. Reese Witherspoon, in this example, is not even able to give us an indication of character, context or anything. She is Reese and that is all the studio thinks we need to know to get us into theatres.

I think the white poster phenomenon is a more recent development. Thinking back, I can't think of a similar poster from the 60's or 70's for example. Film posters used to be packed with excitement, working hard to inspire you to sit in a dark room with sticky carpet just to find out what happens!

It is symptomatic of the cynical approach Hollywood now takes towards movies. These films are intended to be forgettable, ephemeral distractions instead of true filmic masterpieces. The producers are after the quick return while a celebrity's star is on the rise, not the long term classic status that comes with a beautifully crafted story.

So it isn't surprising that as little effort is put into the poster than into the film itself. So far, my self-imposed ban on white poster movies has not been disproven. (Now that's me tempting fate as I'm sure one of you bright sparks will point out a brilliant and award winning film that qualifies but which I had forgotten in creating this 'theory').

For now, a white poster serves as a red flag, protecting me from soul-sucking boredom.

"Damn you Technorati - damn you to hell!"

2009-12-23T06:32:13Z

So where is the latest update of the Top 50 Australian writing blogs, you may be asking? Yes, an update is due, and no, it isn't happening anytime soon.

Some of you have already been contacting me on realising that Technorati has completely destroyed their usefulness by changing the nature of their scoring system. This obviously impacts on how the list is put together and I am yet to find a suitable replacement that can easily be implemented into the list. Reducing the list to merely an Alexa score and a PageRank score would be woefully insufficient in evaluating some of the key ingredients of a strong blog and is open to inaccuracy, manipulation and criticism. So, by themselves, they're not good enough to hang the list on.

Therefore - in the New Year I'll continue looking for alternatives. In the meantime, during the hiatus I plan to showcase some of the blogs on the list in the hope that - score or no score - you all may discover new gems, network and continue building a great Aussie writer's community with our blogs. Please keep sending me you recommendations for inclusion, your press releases, your writing news and other titbits and I may feature you and your blog in the coming weeks.

Until then, have a fantastic Christmas.

The Atheist's Guide to Christmas

2009-12-08T23:30:29Z

I am regularly asked to review books - and other things - all the time on this blog and my policy has always been to say 'no'. This blog is not for profit and doesn't include advertising or anything else that can create any bias or conflict of interest. If I review something, it should be because I have something to say about it, not because I want to do a favour to get a freebie or - heaven forbid - get cash for comment. However, this one time I'm reviewing a book that I just couldn't refuse. If they hadn't sent it to me, I'd have logged straight onto Amazon and ordered it. It's The Atheist's Guide to Christmas and is a perfect read for this godless Yule fanatic.

I must have been about 9 or 10, on my annual four week visit to stay with Dad in England over Christmas when the dilemma first occurred to me. This period of my childhood was punctuated by annual Christmas holidays in the UK - December was about the creeping dread of airplanes and sick bags, only made tolerable by the promise of snow and tinsel at the other end (I really, really hated flying). I was walking home through the snow with my Dad and brother, looking at the twinkly Christmas tree lights through living room windows and enjoying the tingly Christmassy feeling, when I was struck by a thought. "Dad. If they ever prove there's no God, will we still have Christmas?"

Despite having been brought up in a church-going family and accustomed to Sunday school in dusty old halls, even at that age I could safely be called agnostic. Although I was brought up to believe, I just couldn't get the concept to sit in my logical, enquiring mind. It made no sense to me, especially the idea of an all powerful being. I can remember giving a religious studies teacher at primary school a very hard time asking questions about the scientific nature of god - was he a ball of energy and if so, how was he sentient? If he is everywhere at once, what is he made of? Yup, a bit quantum for a pre-teen mind but if I was to believe this story, I wanted to know how it fitted in the physical world I also studied. Still, the fear that I might be right - that there was no god - meant that my favourite time of the year could be suddenly made redundant. My favourite day of the year was one scientific conundrum away from obsolescence.

Dad assured me, in the way all Dad's should when faced with a question as complex and metaphysically deep as this from a child, that Christmas 'probably would' continue as people love celebrating it so much. Even without religion, there's still the tree and presents and feasting and everything else.

Of course, this is exactly the argument others keep putting forward when they say that the true meaning of Christmas has been forgotten; we are all enjoying the trappings of Christmas while ignoring the religious significance. Thankfully, the reverse is closer to the truth; the nativity was the latecomer to the Christmas tradition and the tree, presents, feasting, singing, dancing and general rampant celebration was always the centre of the midwinter festival. It turns out I am celebrating the true meaning of Christmas every year - by staying away from church and having another pudding.

These days, fence-sitting agnosticism has given way to reasoned atheism, but my love for Christmas is still as strong as it was in that ten year old boy. So it is wonderfully exciting to learn I am not alone in my Christmas-loving impiety. Edited by Ariane Sherine - Guardian journalist and organiser behind the Atheist bus campaign earlier this year - the volume collects essays from a wide range of atheists, each with their own views on the celebration (or not) of the Christmas period. Charlie Brooker, Derren Brown, Simon Le Bon, Zoe Margolis, Ed Byrne, David Baddiel, Clare Rayner and, predictably, Richard Dawkins join many others in providing humour, advice and refreshing opinion.

Also, all the contributors and the editor have donated their full share of the profits to the Terrence Higgins Trust.

Not all the entries feel like a celebration; some essays seem to dwell too much in table-slapping assertions and argument, maybe forgetting that the reader is most likely already a convert to reasoned disbelief. Atheism doesn't have to always be earnest argument and reason. We don't need to constantly justify our position. We can be happy party people as well.

Between the dry reasoning and the lively celebration, there are also a couple of entries that descend into the bizarre surrealism of too much eggnog. Nick Doody's fictional history of the science of Christmasology - complete with footnotes - becomes heavy reading even though it's one big gag without much of a point to make.

Thankfully, many of the entries are about celebration and fun at this fantastic time of year. Many of the contributors have a very similar relationship to Christmas to mine, having questioned themselves - and been questioned - on the non-existent hypocrisy. Many love exactly the same things about the holiday that I do, have researched the same facts about the true pre-Christian origins of the festival and have reached many of the same conclusions. Mitch Benn sums it up brilliantly when he points out that Christmas - despite having Christ's name smack bang in the title - is nothing more than a name.

I have no idea what day it is where you are, but I'm typing this on a Wednesday. As such, I, in common with all respecters of tradition, have dedicated today to the glory of Odin. Man, I love Wednesdays. Bit of oar-running, bit of pillage, bit of - well, we'll crack open a bottle of mead and see where the evening takes us, shall we?

Well, exactly. Recognising Christmas no more compromises my argument for atheism than recognising January compromises my disbelief in the Roman god Janus. Detaching Christmas from its sacred traditions and enjoying it for what it is and always has been - a midwinter festival of feasting, gift giving and family - is ironically living up to the true spirit of the holiday.

This time is, and should be, for everyone - not just Christians. Truly, it is about goodwill to all men (and women), regardless of whether they agree with an outdated creationist myth or not. So Merry Christmas to one and all, whatever you believe or disbelieve.

Atomik Soapbox needs you!

2009-12-03T22:16:05Z

Just a quick reminder, to those of you that may have missed the announcement a couple of months back, that CopyWrite has split into two. All marketing, social media and interwebby type posts - past and future - now live over at Atomik Soapbox.

I say this because I notice some marketing subscribers to this blog have yet to subscribe over there, which means you could be missing out on the very posts you signed up for...

Email subscriptions to Atomik Soapbox are available by entering your address below. Also, you can subscribe by RSS.

Some recent popular posts at Atomik Soapbox include:

The first few weeks and months of any new blog are always the hardest. Help me get the new blog off the ground. Share the posts you enjoy with your friends on Facebook, Twitter or carrier pigeon. Give a friend a subscription for Christmas. (Not sure how you'd put it in a stocking, or if they won't accuse you of being a cheap b@$+@rd, but it works for me...)

Writing comedy: killing the frog

2009-12-02T02:53:57Z

I grew up with a deep love for the old-school comedy acts. I sometimes feel I should have been born twenty years earlier so I could be sat in the audience at the London Hippodrome or the Palladium to watch the variety bills that were so popular in the '50s where so many of these performers honed their acts.

While my teenage friends were sniggering at The Young Ones or a raucous Ben Elton standup, I was collecting old recordings of Tony Hancock or grabbing every repeat I could of The Morecambe and Wise Show. This isn't a value judgment - I'm not saying the old guard were better than the contemporary comics (certainly not worse) - but there was a different discipline at work, one that I admired.

Analyzing humour is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.

E. B. White

Excuse me while I kill the frog.

I can't remember how old I was when I worked out that someone must have written the lines Hancock was delivering with impeccable timing. I'm not sure I wasn't just a bit disappointed to find out that Eric Morecambe was uttering someone else's jokes and claiming the laughs. But discovering that there was such a thing as a comedy writer was a revelation. I had new heroes to worship - Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, Eddie Braben, Barry Cryer, Barry Took, Dennis Nordern, Frank Muir and many more.

More than a few of these writers went on to become performers and personalities themselves - although many would shy away from the title 'comedian'. You may disagree with me, but I think there is a fundamental difference between comedy written by someone who is a writer first and performer second - and comedians who write. And I think it is to do with crafting words.

A classic example of comedy wordplay in the old style is the Four Candles sketch from The Two Ronnies.

Sheer linguistic bliss. Ironically, considering the point I'm trying to make, this sketch was written by Gerald Wiley. "Who," you might ask? It wasn't until years later that Ronnie Barker revealed that he was the mysterious Wiley and had written many memorable sketches for Ronnie Corbett and himself under the pen name. He had decided to hide his identity when submitting scripts and jokes so that his writing could be taken on it's own merits. If a production meeting rejected a Wiley script, he didn't want anyone to be intimidated because he was in the room.

So, even though the comedian was also the writer, the script and the performers were still kept at arms length - a technique that worked incredibly well throughout their careers. Barker wrote scripts, not 'material', and the distinction , I think, is an important one. A comedian performs 'material' - these days most likely created by themselves and usually flexible, fluid and constantly evolving on the stage - the material and the performance are one and the same. A comedy writer crafts scripts that are then performed. Keeping the performance (and performers) separate from the words on the page gave more power and bite to the ink - the performers served the script instead of the other way round.

I don't mind giving a reasonable amount, but a pint! That's very nearly an armful!

Galton and Simpson wrote for Tony Hancock for most of his career - starting on radio before becoming a television sensation. Although they wrote 'material' that made its way into Hancock's stage act, primarily Hancock served as an actor in their beautifully crafted sitcoms. Although every script was written specifically for Hancock, playing to his stage personality and his comedic strengths, Galton and Simpson's scripts can equally be performed by others. Notably, Paul Merton performed many of the classic scripts in the Hancock role for a series of Paul Merton in Galton and Simpson's... (imdb) broadcast in 1996. Note, it wasn't "Paul Merton as Hancock" - this revival was about the writing, not the performer!

The fact that the script and the performer can be interchangeable demonstrates the difference between this classic form of comedy writing and the proprietorial, performance-led approach modern comedians take to their material.

Despite all of this, the best comedy writing does still require a seamless blend of writer and performer. In a sense, comedy scripts are unlike other forms of writing because the major casting has been done before a single word has been written. Therefore, the script still has to allow the comedian to perform in the prescribed way. Barry Cryer wrote scripts for Morecambe and Wise in partnership with John Junkin. He described in a recent interview how Junkin would impersonate Morecambe, wiggling his glasses as they wrote.

You've got to hear the voice. You've got to see them in your mind's eye to write for them.

No one could ever claim that Eric Morecambe, Ernie Wise, Tony Hancock, Ronnie Corbett and all the rest aren't incredibly brilliant and gifted comedians without any help whatsoever. You only have to witness those moments when sketches collapse into ad-lib or how they relate to an audience on stage to know that they are geniuses (genii?) of comedy performance and quick wit. And most of them started their careers purely with their own material which had to have been reasonably good to get them to the top . But it is a different humour, spontaneous and instinctive and serving the performance.

Scripted comedy is crafted, with every word considered and selected for how funny it makes a line. One word out of place in the Four Candles sketch would destroy the comedy. It is a balanced and honed piece of work that requires exceptional skill on the part of the comedians to deliver each beat with just the right timing and inflections to achieve maximum laughs.

The master of comedy writing is, for me, Eddie Braben. Some of his sketches for Morecambe and Wise are among the most popular moments of British television - ever. Case in point... the Andre Previn sketch.

Previn: But you're playing all the wrong notes!
Morecambe: I'm playing all the right notes. But not necessarily in the right order. I'll give you that, sunshine.

It is tight. It plays with words, situations and ideas. It revels in the structured and artificial personae of the performers. It is probably the best thing Morecambe and Wise ever performed, but they didn't write it. For me, Morecambe and Wise was never a double act - it was a threesome. Braben deserves as much credit and praise for those performances as Eric and Ernie. But, I guess, Morecambe and Wise and Braben doesn't look as good on a billboard.

Light bulb moments - finding inspiration

2009-11-20T02:41:34Z

Inspiration has been represented by the light bulb for decades. Why a light bulb? It's a pretty abstract way to describe an idea. Do we really switch on ideas? Do our imaginations stumble around in the dark until that 'eureka' moment when our brains flick a switch?

Although an idea may sometimes seem like a split second event, it's truer to describe them as the sum of a great many thought processes that finally click into place.

How many copywriters does it take to change a lightbulb?

None. I'm not changing anything. You can tell those guys in layout it's perfect as it is!

Yeah, copywriters are extremely possessive about their work. I've seen plenty of campaigns where the copy has become superfluous to the design, but someone has still insisted it appear. Copywriting is hard. When you spend hours producing a handful of words, it is easy to be annoyed if even one word is changed to accommodate someone else.

The hours I've spent staring at a piece of paper or a blank monitor screen trying to conjour up a witty and eye-catching promotional headline or motivating call to action! Copywriting is one of the most painful of writing disciplines. Attempting to find an original, mind-blowing concept that can be contained in a few words - or even a specific character count - while providing a strong motivation to consider the product on offer, is like trying to juggle ten balls at once.

Sometimes, the restrictions aid creativity but often finding the right line can be painful and take hours - even if the final result might seem obvious and simple. To be honest, the best copywriting always looks effortless and simple in retrospect, but is deceptively difficult to pin down. This is because good copywriting has that immediacy of meaning that cuts right to the nub of the argument in a way that fits all the criteria of the brief. But there's nothing immediate about sifting through the millions of alternative options and words in your mind.

Usually, I try to find inspiration through wordplay - jotting down all the words associated with the product being considered. Within those words, there may be the beginnings of a pun or a simile or a juxtaposition of opposites. Sometimes, the product lends itself to none of these.

There are certainly bits of copy I have written that I feel are pedestrian and uninspiring. Sometimes, the deadline means whatever line I have in front of me when the bell goes is the winner, regardless of any light bulb moment.

Any writer will tell you - if we could switch on inspiration like a light bulb, we'd be millionaires with a portfolio of best selling novels, award wining campaigns and movie scripts behind us. But ideas don't come like that. They are the result of research, hours spent looking at things from a variety of angles and turning them around in your head. Ideas don't come in an instant and they can't be ordered on demand - no matter what my boss may think.

And there is no switch.

The golden age of children's comics - Rare Dan Dare film

2009-11-12T22:31:58Z

Following yesterday's post on the changing world of story papers and comics, I have to share this video with you. British Pathe recently started to release archival footage on their website, giving us glimpses of extremely rare clips and film items from half a century ago.

One gem is this colour footage of Dan Dare creator Frank Hampson at work in his studio. Dan Dare, for those of you who don't know, was the lead character in the greatest British comic of all - Eagle, launched in 1950, and a perfect example of the mix of comic and story paper I discussed yesterday (history).

Eagle was created in direct response to the American horror comics that so concerned parents at the time. But, even though it strived for wholesome values and education over cheap thrills and chills, it managed to do so in a way that enthralled young readers. Dan Dare's space exploits were supported by biographical comic stories on the life of Winston Churchill or the story of Jesus. Children today would be horrified if their parents bought them such a values-laden, squeaky clean comic now, but back then every issue sold out. It is a testament to the creators who truly understood how to inspire children, rather than merely entertain. They weaved the educational material and a sense of community throughout the pages without it ever seeming to pander or lecture or patronise the reader.

To view the video, click below.

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Hampson's work on Dan Dare went far beyond any other creator before or since, as this video shows. This was the heyday of British comics. Can you imagine anyone putting so much care and detail into comics for children these days?

A century of comics and story papers

2009-11-12T03:22:01Z

Shelley and I just returned from a few days away in Kangaroo Valley. There, we discovered a wonderful second hand book and antique store that sucked the time from our day and the money from our pockets as we sorted through ephemera from past decades. I walked away with a pile of fascinating old comics and 'story papers' dating all the way back to 1901 and representing a wide shift on childhood reading.

Childhood reading and literacy is a topic that never seems to go away. Why do kids today read less than we did? Why can't we get them interested in the classic books that enthralled us? Is there any one of us who isn't horrified every time a child chooses to watch the Narnia movies while refusing to go near the wonderful novels?

Regular readers will know I adore comics and always have done. Far from being the lowbrow and worthless wastes of time our teachers insisted they were, comics were a way into reading and storytelling that shaped me and my imagination. A previous post - A lament for children's comics - discusses my personal experiences and the value they had to me as a young boy growing up in Stockport.

Today, the comic industry is near dead, except for the superhero juggernauts published in New York, serving an audience almost entirely made up of older fans that never put away childish things. Any comic shop will tell you that it is rare for a child under ten to venture within and that the average customer is more likely mid twenties or older.

Looking through these old, browned and chipped relics of early twentieth century childhood, a story is told that illustrates that downward path for the humble comic while revealing the changing reading habits of our kids.

(If you want a closer look at any of the images in this article, click to enlarge.)

Schoolboy japes and ladylike behaviour

One of the earlier examples I picked up wasThe Girl's Own Paper from 1901, with it's prim but charming cover (with a light colour touchup on the girl's cheeks. How cute.) This weekly paper ran for many years (this is Volume XXIII, number 1146!) Inside, an eager young girl would find articles on Chinese sayings and American poison oak interspersed with poetry and serialised stories like Barty's Star. Fifteen pages of dense prose (plus cover).

The Girl's Own Paper ran from 1880 to 1950 (history), before being incorporated into Heiress. I particularly love the Answers to Correspondents page on the back cover, where the writers respond to the letters received, but without ever printing the letters or questions they respond to. Hence, one response simply goes:

FRANCES.- February 10th, 1865, fell on a Friday. I think your handwriting is fairly good. It is very legible, which is a great point.

Devoid of all context, such comments form a fractured and random assortment of unconnected facts, leavened with opinions and comments with no relevance to anyone, save the original letterwriter.

I nearly picked up a 1919 edition of The Magnet - featuring Billy Bunter on the cover - but it was in such poor condition, merely opening it would have probably turned it to dust. Instead, I brought home this 1921 edition of The Gem, a similar title that also focussed entirely on schoolboy adventure and boarding school larks.

Every Wednesday, boys up and down the UK would part with one penneth ha'penny for the latest instalments of life at St. Jim's School for Boys. With one complete story, backed up by a couple of one page serials and the obligatory letters page, The Gem represents hours of weekly reading for young boys every week. The type is small and cramped, which makes me wonder about the eyesight strain readers would have suffered, reading by lamplight.

The Gem lasted 1711 issues from 1907 to 1939 (history), when the ink and paper shortages that reduced production on many UK comics and magazines during the Second World War most likely made continued publication difficult. It presents a wonderful look back into the idealised boyhoods of the '20s, with adverts proclaiming fretwork as a boy's ideal hobby, and offering an accordian for sale on easy payments of 8 shillings a month for six months. Model steam engines, Meccano, pea pistols and Vikwik Liniment ("Instantly kills pain of gout and lumbago") shill themselves to eager readers. Meanwhile, the stories themselves betray a literacy level most children of today would baulk at.

With that monosyllabic rejoinder, Arthur Augustus D'Arcy disappeared down the staircase.

I've yet to see the phrase "monosyllabic rejoinder" ever pop up Batman or Mighty Morphin Power Whatsits. The Flesch-Kincaid readability test suggests that sentence, and many others in those pages, requires a level of literacy comparable with a university education! Yet these story paperswere written and intended for young lads, no older than their early teens.

Fewer words for your pennies

Over the years, the American comics had begun to appear in Britain, and these had an influence on the future of these titles. By the Second World War, British comics such as The Dandy and The Beano were being published weekly.

Knockout was one of these new titles and I was able to pick up a 1945 issue. Knockout ran from 1939 to 1963 and a total of 1251 issues (history). Interestingly, The Magnet - that story paper competitor to The Gem - 'merged' with Knockout in 1940, again falling victim to the paper shortages of the war (history). Billy Bunter moved from book length text stories to a hybrid form of text and comic, popular during this period. Combining the comic illustrations with paragraphs of text in order to tell a story, the action was stilted and was no more than an overly illustrated short story.

Knockout (and Magnet) billed itself as "The Victory Comic", even though the war was rarely mentioned in its pages. The pride of a nation stretched everywhere, even to children's comics, as the final months of the war promised an end to the rationing, horrors and fears that Britain had contended with for so long.

The internal pages mix full comic strips with text stories, demonstrating a middle gound between the old story papers and what was to come. Television was still a few years away and children were accustomed to spending long hours indoors or in shelters as the blitz made playing in the street increasingly unsafe. Comics filled that time, but it interesting to note that the time needed to read one had now shrunk as text gave way to pictures.

I suspect this is partly due to the importation of American comics, creating a demand for locally produced versions, as well as the economies that would come with a far smaller word count. Although more illustration was needed, they filled up pages quicker. Stories became one or two page vignettes, rather than long serials - bite sized chunks with a punchline instead of complete short stories. Cheerful, quick and easy to read and, most of all, comparitavely cheap to produce.

Some of the other story papers transformed into comics during this period. Wizard, Hotspur and others swapped long text for quick laughs and comic strip adventure until, by the 1960s, all-text pages were increasingly rare. (Have a look at the incredibly racist stuff that passed for front page funnies on this 1949 Wizard cover!) This coincides with the rise of television and the beginning of a trend that saw more and more distractions and alternative forms of entertainment made available to children.

The last big UK comics boom was in the 1970s. Over the last thirty years, comic sales have declined sharply. No longer does every kid have a subscription and an allegiance to their favourite title. No longer are there schoolyard arguments over whether Desperate Dan is better than Dennis the Menace. No longer do kids trade comics like currency, extending the reach of each issue and intriducing even more to the joys of simple reading.

Looking back at those old issues of a century ago, it strikes me as sad that something as basic as childhood reading has been eroded. These children's weeklies demonstrate very clearly the changes in reading habits over the last one hundred years. They make me wonder whether we're not missing something by ignoring the simple joys of spending your hard-earned pocket money on twenty pages of exciting adventure to read by the fire with a jam sandwich and a glass of milk.

Movember: week one update

2009-11-07T05:32:23Z

Have you sponsored the mo yet?

Seven days in and we have a shape and the beginnings of something reasonably spectacular. Need to bush it out over the next three weeks and I'll have something ready to scare the ladies.

The scary part is, Shelley says she likes it!

If you don't know what I'm talking about, everything is explained in last week's post launching my participation in Movember 2009, raising money for the fight against prostate cancer and male depression. Movember started six years ago when an Australian marketing agency hit upon this fantastic way to raise awareness. Raising humongous bags of cash every year, while at the same time turning us blokes into 1970s throwbacks, Movember has now launched similar campaigns in the UK, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland and the US. Various other countries are jumping on board to celebrate the mo while raising the dosh. If you're not sure if Movember is running where you are, check the international website. Movember has been hugely successful.

I wasn't able to participate last year due to the wedding, so my mo needs to be particularly memorable this time around!

To get everyone in the mood while my stubble tries to pick up speed, this is the video created to launch this year's campaign!

Go on. Just a few clicks and a few dollars will make me feel less ridiculous about the mo and make you feel better having helped a worthy cause. To sponsor this sculpted piece of bewhiskered art, visit http://au.movember.com/mospace/259738/.

Movember: when whiskers attack!

2009-11-01T23:00:00Z

Anyone who knows me is aware that I'm a reasonably hirsute individual. But this month, there's going to be even more hair than usual - and you guys get to watch!

Yup, it's Movember time again and this year Netregistry is putting in a team to sculpt the best mos money can sponsor. My top lip is not going to know the touch of a razor for thirty days.

Every year, Movember aims to raise awareness of prostrate cancer and male depression. Money is raised and donated to The Prostrate Cancer Foundation of Australia as well as Beyond Blue - the national depression initiative.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I'm a big believer of being open about depression. There is still a great deal of stigma attached to it, particularly amongst men, which is usually due to a misunderstanding of what depression is and how it transforms a persons life.

I know I will be on medication most likely for years to come. Maybe forever. I know I have to manage my mental faculties with greater care than most people to avoid symptoms impacting on my day to day. But I also know that the alternative is a form of living hell that is completely indescribable to an outsider whose brain chemistry still works okay.

1 in 8 men will experience depression in their lifetime. What is sad is that so many still view it as weakness, not an illness. Almost 80% of all suicides in Australia are men, an astonishing statistic. Are we really that bad at seeking help or understanding what is going on? Well it seems so. Beyond Blue reports that, although male depression is at a lower rate than it is for women, over 70% of men suffering from depression don't seek help. Many choose to 'self-medicate' with drugs or alcohol. Anyone want to draw a line between those two stats?

You can help change this by sponsoring my mo. I'll give regular updates here on the blog so you can have a giggle. Will I go for the Magnum PI look or maybe a waxed creation? What about a toothbrush or a handlebar? So get clicking and donating - whether you give one dollar or fifty, it all helps enormously.

Moon: Out of this world!

2009-10-25T09:23:34Z

It took a while to be released in Australia, but finally I've seen Moon (imdb) - one of my most anticipated films of this year. It's usual with highly anticipated films to feel disappointed as the final result can very rarely live up to the expectations that grow in the imagination.

Moon is not one of those films.

This small budget little-film-that-could is destined to be referred to as a classic of the sci-fi genre and is easily my top film of 2009, although most of that could be because there is so little true sci-fi in movies these days. Yeah, this isn't ray guns and robots plastered over a story that could as easily have been a western or action flick or whatever. Most films use the sci-fi genre merely as a backdrop to tell conventional tales - and yes, I include Star Wars in that comment. After all, isn't it the same white hats versus black hats story, complete with a princess to be rescued, that has been at the centre of storytelling since the very first bard said "Once upon a time..."?

True sci-fi is not just a futuristic setting or a collection of cool gadgets. True sci-fi is about ideas, about exploring who we are now by imagining where we may be going and what we might become. The best science fiction stories are those that could not be told in any other genre. In that way, Blade Runner is true sci-fi - ironically superimposing the film noir genre onto the story in much the same way as other films superimpose the sci-fi genre on theirs (See my previous thoughts on Blade Runner). 2001 is a true sci-fi film as the story could not be told in any other genre. Even Wall-E is a more deserving pure science fiction piece when compared to the usual blockbusters like Transformers and others.

For those yet to see it, cue trailer.

Moon is so obviously a film that has been crafted by artisans, not constructed by Hollywood committee. The entire budget was approximately $US5 million - pocket change for movies these days. Yet every cent is visible on the screen. Director Duncan Jones has achieved a more convincing world than many other big budget movies I could mention. You really feel this place. The authenticity of the lunar landscape, the technology, vehicles, everything sucked you into a fully believable world. I am sure our first lunar bases will look something like this.

Jones' direction is flawless, with the beats of the film happening just where they should. The screenplay, by Nathan Parker and Jones resists the temptation to use the ingenious plot as an excuse to make it a 'twist' film. Instead, the solution to the mystery is treated as less important than how the character, Sam, deals with it. This enables the film to focus on the human element, prompting questions of identity, of what it means to be human and issues of perception versus reality. As such, Moon is reminiscent of some of the works of Philip K Dick, who was also fascinated by the idea of reality and perception being two separate things - and what happens when everything you perceive is revealed to be false.

I must also make special mention of the incredible soundtrack that so carefully evokes the loneliness and sadness of the distant moonbase. Scored by Clint Mansell (yes, Clint Poppie of Pop Will Eat Itself fame, music trivia fans), it has been a while since I have seen a soundtrack so well matched to a film.

And Sam Rockwell is incredible in what is a very difficult role.

The tragedy is, of course, that Moon is showing on only a handful of screens in Australia. Relegated to the arthouse cinemas, it won't reach the mainstream audience who continue to be fed stodgy, unimaginative and and unsatisfying celluloid experiences. In a month when queues will be lining up to see the next Twilight film or the latest Vince Vaughn unfunny shambles, a film like this gets overlooked. Yet, in ten years time, this is the film I still expect people to be talking about on DVD as a genuine classic while Partners Retreat is bundled as a two-for-one with an equally unfunny Adam Sandler flick.

Moon is still on limited release in Australia and is out on DVD in the UK next month.

It is a fine wine in a world of Coke. Shelley said it perfectly as we left the cinema together: "That was a genuinely satisfying film". And isn't that rare these days?