As my latest comedy script, The Gentle Sex, begins the difficult journey from keyboard to (hopefully) production, I thought it worthwhile to reboot this blog which focusses on an element of the creative process that I am quite passionate about. Age.
I shall, from the outset, put my cards on the table and say that I am, at least numerically speaking, old. I don’t feel it mind (and I certainly don’t act it) but it is fair to say that having crossed the 60th threshold, I’m much closer to my closing scene than I am to the opening act.
The reason I mention this is because for fairly obvious reasons, my age impacts on my writing output. Rule number three in Doug’s Guide To Writing is ‘write what you know’ and since I know more about being a male over 60 in 2019 than I do about being a teenage lad in 2019, my central characters tend to be older and I hope, more realistic. There will after all, be a part of me in all of them.
Thankfully, this is working to my advantage. For example when I worked on We Still Kill The Old Way it received a great deal of positive press because of the age of the main cast, most of whom were actually older than I was. This leads me nicely into the central reason for this blog because generally speaking, when I start thinking about a project, be it book or film, one of the first things I consider is who is going to read or watch it. But recently, when it comes to screenplays, I’ve also started to think about potential cast and with that in mind, what follows are 5 reasons why these days I tend to favour writing for actors who have actually been around for a while.
Choice – We have a huge untapped source of talent in this country and it isn’t lurking in acting classes or talent schools, it’s working in small theatres or sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring. Sad for them but great for writers like me because when you’re working on something and putting together a dream cast you know that there’s a greater chance of actually getting them.
Gratitude – The main reason why they’re sitting at home is because the phone rarely rings. And it rarely rings because there are so few decent roles being written for people over 60 (let alone 70!). As a consequence, if you create these age specific roles and cast accordingly, not only are the actors grateful, but they give you everything from vast experience to PR gold!
Talent – To me, it’s criminal that all this amazing acting talent is being allowed to go to waste. Aside from the ones I’ve already worked with, I can think of ten amazing actors and actresses I’d crawl over broken glass to hear reading my words yet I doubt one has had a decent film or TV role in ten years. That’s tragic, not least because, as has been proven time and time again, the public genuinely want to see these great actors on screen.
Fun – If you don’t think working with legends of the movie world is fun, you really shouldn’t be writing screenplays.
Inspiration – When an actor you’ve watched for years and who you have nothing but respect for comes up and not only praises your script but thanks you for the opportunity you’ve given them, it’s both humbling and gratifying. But equally, such praise drives you on to create more of the same which is exactly why I currently have two film projects in development that feature ensemble casts of actors over 60. And d’you know what? I can’t wait to get them moving primarily because they’re going to be great fun to work on which is kind of why I started doing this in the first place.
The problem of course, is that the production process isn’t down to the writers or the actors, it’s down to those mythical beasts called producers. So what’s really needed are more of those to step up and start taking the odd chance or two.
The talent is there, the ideas are there and as movies such as The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (1&2), The Book Club, Best Foot Forward and the recently released and quite brilliant The Good Liar have proved, the audience is certainly there, so how about it?
You could certainly do worse than drop me a line and ask to have a look at The Gentle Sex (a fabulous comedy co-written with Gary Lawrence who also worked with me on We Still Kill The Old Way) or even ask to meet up for a chat. You never know, you might be pleasantly surprised.
As some of you may be aware, I’ve been beavering away on a couple of sequels for a while now and can finally announce that In The Know, the third book in the Billy Evans gangland trilogy is now complete and will be published by Caffeine Nights in May 2020. I’ve also been working on my first military based thriller and developing an environmental project for Netflix which is proving challenging but great fun.
Alongside that, I still occasionally dive back into the sequel to Billy’s Log and have published a few extracts of ‘Billy’s Blog’ online to hopefully whet the appetite.
Please click here to visit and if you enjoy it, feel free to spread the word!
Just in case you didn’t already know, all of my books and DVD’s are available from both Amazon and iTunes.
Further information at dougiebrimson.com
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To put it in layman’s terms, all those people who worked on Green Street who took points in lieu of wages have lost out because not one of them has seen a penny of the profits generated and nor will they. Ever.
The other day, I mentioned the subject of pantsting and have had a number of mails asking me what it’s all about.
Let’s get this out in the open from the start. However it happens, rejection sucks. It sucks big.
As someone who is lucky enough to converse with people from pretty much every point of the spectrum on which human life sits, I frequently find myself responding to questions of some kind or another.
If you judged this year solely by my commercial writing output, it’s safe to say that it would be viewed as something of a damp squib.