Quote: Mikey Jackson @ March 15 2013, 3:07 PM GMT>_< Doh! Where are my glasses?
Quote: Mikey Jackson @ March 15 2013, 11:40 AM GMTVenue: Holiday Inn Express, Oxford Road, Manchester (opposite old BBC building)
Sitcom Writing Course, Manchester Page 2
I can vouch for David. He's a good guy and a highly prolific writer with lots of experience. And he used to be a lawyer so he's dead brainy like. And he's good at COD Black Ops, which is why I will never play him.
Yeah but I see a major flaw with all these sitcom writing courses, myself - For the total beginner they might offer a way to do things, but total beginners usually don't have the writing experience, the store of ideas and characters and dialogue, the knowledge of what's gone before and what works best, and all that important detailed stuff you need to create a sitcom script good enough to get noticed, picked up, made and all of that. So it could actually get them nowhere at all - knowing how to do it but without the content and/or talent needed to make anything anywhere near the standard required. A bit pointless!
And if you DO have all that, then you probably know and almost definitley THINK you know exactly how to write and form it anyway. All you are really missing is the opportunity to get the thing noticed and sold etc. and quite honestly I think we're all in the same boat as outsiders and there isn't much more you can do other than keep hawking it around the usual outlets. Imo, these courses just give false hope and take your money, but if anyone's been on one and has since had a sitcom shown on TV then please tell me I'm wrong to be so dismissive.
I know what you mean - and I think if you go into these things thinking you're going to come out of them with a TV deal you need your bumps reading.
BUT one shouldn't overlook the invigorating effect that time spent in the company of like-minded individuals can have.
Sometimes it can give you the boost you need to get you through.
If it's what you enjoy doing, then doing it intensively in the company of experts and fellow writers may be all the reward you need.
The trouble is, the accent is always on the "making it" side of things, rather than just improving your craft and meeting interesting people.
The problem is, new unknown writers don't stand much of a chance of getting their work accepted.
Plus writing is subjective and if an editor doesn't 'get' what you are trying to get across or doesn't have the same sense of humour your script will get the usual reasons for rejection.
I have been told several times that my humour is stuck in the seventies and that the gay characters I include in sitcoms are stereotyped. Then comes along Mrs Browns Boys and surprise, surprise, the comedy style is stuck in the seventies and the gay characters are stereotyped. Ah, well, back to the drawing board
Do new, unknown writers not get their work accepted EVER? I doubt that's the case.
Probably depends on what you mean by accepted. There are stories of new unknowns winning contests, getting agents, getting rereads and feedback at WR, getting onto schemes at the Beeb, and being given options. Ah 'options'. Options for what, exactly? Sitting on someones USB drive in utter seclusion from anything else, including the prospect of being produced and broadcast.
If 'accepted' means broadcast, which I highly doubt, then let the chosen ones come forth and show themselves. With proof.
Quote: bushbaby @ March 30 2013, 11:53 PM GMT
I have been told several times that my humour is stuck in the seventies and that the gay characters I include in sitcoms are stereotyped. Then comes along Mrs Browns Boys and surprise, surprise, the comedy style is stuck in the seventies and the gay characters are stereotyped.
Which is why you should write to, email or at least leave a comment on the WR blog stating this, adding you have no confidence in their patheticly inconsistent readers or system. To me they are a joke.
If your goal is fame and fortune from writing - then sit-coms are not the way.
Ever since cheap computers and word processors came out every man and his dog could realise his ambition of becoming a sit-com writer.
Back when your only tool was hand writing or lashing out on a typewriter and tipex, you probably statistically had a better chance of being 'read'.
Even a brilliant sit-com could easily be missed among the thousands and thousands of weekly submissions.
Quote: Stephen Goodlad @ April 1 2013, 12:14 PM BSTIf your goal is fame and fortune from writing - then sit-coms are not the way.
Ever since cheap computers and word processors came out every man and his dog could realise his ambition of becoming a sit-com writer.Back when your only tool was hand writing or lashing out on a typewriter and tipex, you probably statistically had a better chance of being 'read'.
Even a brilliant sit-com could easily be missed among the thousands and thousands of weekly submissions.
The way to make a fortune from sitcoms is obviously to run a sitcom writing course, but not in Manchester, there aren't enough people with the spare cash. Guildford would be ideal.
What are you saying? People up north don't have any brass! What would you base that on? - because it's oop north.
Folk up North are more careful with their pennies - everyone knows that!
Well played 
(wipes brow)
Also companies, the beeb particulary, were adamant that absolutely they didn't want anything that was about winning the lottery........ erm
I once submitted a sitcom which was set in a Hairdressers/massage parlour and got told the subject was too iffy and they couldn't use anything that could be viewed as detrimental to women ( even though we never saw the actions in the parlour, just the characters) about a year later a drama was televised and was about a brothel!!!!!
Quote: bushbaby @ April 2 2013, 12:58 PM BSTAlso companies, the beeb particulary, were adamant that absolutely they didn't want anything that was about winning the lottery........ erm
I once submitted a sitcom which was set in a Hairdressers/massage parlour and got told the subject was too iffy and they couldn't use anything that could be viewed as detrimental to women ( even though we never saw the actions in the parlour, just the characters) about a year later a drama was televised and was about a brothel!!!!!
If it was televised a year later it means it was already well into development when they saw yours - which might explain things.
It's also a lot easier for them to say "it's not what we're looking for" than "We don't like it".