thatandthis

Quick early blog this one. Yesterday watched all-singing, all-dancing pigs in a shopping centre foyer and ate in Woolworth's cafe. Here Woolworths is in fact Marks and Spencers - the local version. Unbelievable but true - same chain but with local versions of products and SA stuff like water brussels etc. Clothes, layout all almost identical. Maybe inverted snobbery makes Brits reluctant to believe this until they step inside the store and feel instantly at home. Come Christmas you can even find butter basted turkeys with the M & S labels on them.

In other news the old lady next door is in hospital unable to walk - but did she fall or was she pushed? Hub inquired about her health (from her adopted daughter) over the garden wall and was told it was a broken hip. Straight after their conversation, the adopted daughter wrote a letter to the neighbour opposite accusing her of gossiping saying that her husband was very sorry for what he had done. Neighbour opposite brought the letter over to us. Hmm.

Am waiting for notes on a treatment before embarking on the first draft of a new script. The SA producer (who went to Cannes) sent an encouraging email outlining various ways forward - even mentioning money - but all very much on the back burner there yet. Still waiting to hear back on various projects including a SHORT outstanding since January. I put that in bold capitals so that blog karma will bring about an immediate response now. Usually works and better to hear something than not hear anything at all huh? This break from writing has enabled me to rethink strategies and paths and all that stuff. After the scripting 'hiccough' earlier in the year, I'd been turning my attentions to overseas - since writing for local production tends to be rather creatively 'encumbered'. But maybe it is time to put aside such thoughts and leaf through the RFP booklet once again - there's still some August deadlines approaching...

A big question mark this year is Sithengi whose future will be decided at the end of the month by the board of directors. It's unlikely that the international film and TV market will continue in its present form, or even run this year since it is now a bit late in the day to set it up. Sithengi has been an important feature of SA's film and TV industry for the last 11 years. My first time there I landed a meaty writing job - unfortunately the company liquidated 4 months into development. But Sithengi provides a chance for everyone to catch up. I've met some great people there. One key advantage is that it is small and intimate - more like Dinard than Cannes. Plus there's always a writer's forum, chance to meet international commissioners and often a couple of new writing schemes or competitions launched. It'll be a pity if it doesn't continue. Let's see.

July, July, July, July

Party over and done with thank goodness. Though the witless magician pulled off my daughter's wig (fancy dress plait thing) in front of everyone and of course she burst into tears. Tssk

Anyway after a record 22 postings in June I think I'll return to normal frequency. With the flurry of career peaks and troughs lately, I've been getting sucked into mini-dramas all over the place.

So what else?

Is it a Sufi saying or something - about how you can travel the world and learn a million things and come back and have exactly the same understanding as someone who has been shut up in a room the whole time, gazing at a cabbage...
hmm something like that..

Anyway I was thinking about that after reading comments to a recent post over at Stacks. Made me think about writing and (what I think Faith Popcorn termed) 'cocooning.' Should a writer take all his/her cues, sustenance and inspiration from boxed sets, DVDs, TV and existing shows and films? Or rather draw from what people loosely term 'real life' (whatever that is). And anyway does it make any difference to scriptwriting? What type of knowledge is the greatest asset for scriptwriters? - worldly or TV? Is it more important to know different people or to have seen a zillion programmes and be able to reference icons and invoke familiar character types?

Yes yes - probably best to just get on with the writing. But any thoughts?

fish packing

There's a small ad that appears in newspaper classifieds all over the place here - for 'fish packers in Alaska'. Yes you can earn zillions of dollars a month apparently packing fish there. Students sometimes contemplate it for a year off; 'Hey I could go and pack fish for 6 months, then earn enough to travel.' Maybe it's even a fantasy for domestic workers, packed into taxis on the early morning run from the townships to the plush suburbs. 'Maybe today I'll hand in my notice and go and pack fish in Alaska. In one year I could earn enough to buy a house.'
I met a woman who did it once - she said it was dark all the time, cold, nasty, smelly and depressing. She flew back home after 6 weeks.

After yesterday's episode of Oprah aired, I doubt there'll be too many new takers here. A pretty young woman hobbles on stage and tells Oprah her story.

She was on board a fishing trawler somewhere near Alaska, in the middle of a terrible storm. She leaned inside a menacing-looking fish disembowelling machine - trying to pull out the tails or something. Anyhow, because the sea was so choppy she'd fallen right into this lethal metal vat. Although it was switched off, the motion of the sea tossed the ship and triggered the 'on' switch. The vat's metal chomper-blades whirred into action and started to chew up the woman's legs. She couldn't get out or switch it off. Plus she'd found out that very morning that she was pregnant. High drama on the high seas. Meanwhile crucial medical help was helicopter miles away, through a storm across the ocean...

At this point, the programme cuts to a solemn-faced Oprah who reminds us of the salient facts - gross, gripping and rather unbelievable. I feel sick.
Happily a year on - the victim is now recovered (legs pinned back together), smiling and healthy. Baby is healthy too. Phew. A happy ending.
Fish packing in Alaska anyone?

Rumbles

The scribosphere's been keeping an eye on it. But now 'Spoof blog parody of young controller is the talk of (UK) television.'

Read the Guardian story here.

TV

Radio was quite big in my home as a child since we didn't have a TV until I was well into my teens - a fact which often bemuses producers and others that I work with nowadays. I remember my grandmother in Wigan had a huge radio on her sideboard that was always tuned ready for 'Waggoner's Walk'. When her programme came on, she sat in front of the radio and listened.

I don't remember missing out by not having TV - although in one lesson at school we were asked what our favourite programme was and I sat anxiously wondering what I could say. It didn't matter anyway because the first child said 'Starsky and Hutch' and so did the next and the next and the next. So when it came to me I just said 'Starsky and Hutch' and hoped I was pronouncing the title correctly because I hadn't a clue what it was.

Later on when we did have a TV - viewing was carefully regulated by my mother (who now doesn't have a TV at all.) After 7.30pm TV watching was over. I don't know whether they had the watershed but my mum's cut off time was well before it! I remember standing in my pyjamas peeking through a central heating grill half way up the stairs trying to watch the end of 'Z Cars'.

Now here with satellite DSTV there are over a hundred channels - more to choose but less choice (of anything that I really want to see.) When I first moved to these shores, I watched Eastenders probably more avidly than I had in the UK. The characters and storylines were familiar compared to those in the local soaps. Also Eastenders had a regular early evening timeslot and was pretty much synchronous with the UK transmissions. Last year they suddenly revised the schedules and lumped Eastenders into an omnibus edition on Sundays. In a family - even with a split decoder - TV watching is often about bagging your programme ahead of others - ahead of the children's TV and ahead of the sports or news. So for me, Sunday afternoon was out. BBC Prime is still my channel of choice - despite being crammed with lifestyle/makeover programmes fronted by curious hermaphoditic presenters with plastic spectacles and names that are either monosyllabic or double barrelled.

In this household, local stations are 'must see' mainly for news or local sports. The main broadcaster SABC attracts the greatest share of the South African audience - mainly because it is free-to-air. The vast portion of the population does not have access to anything other than terrestrial TV, if that. Radio has a wider reach particularly in the rural areas. In the townships there are often up to 30 people in a room - all watching a popular local TV drama such as 'Home Affairs'.

snip: this rather rambling post has been cut. I'll write more about the local broadcaster in a separate post