Lee Kemp

Writing, yay.

This blog has been very quiet recently so for the 8 of you that do subscribe, my apologies. Mostly it has been due to work which has been extremely busy recently. I spent a week in Amsterdam shooting tractors for AGCO with DoP Ed Moore and camera operator Phil Wood. There are more details of this over at Ed’s website The DoP Diaries and on Fullrange’s website and work at Fullrange. I had another shoot with Bedford County Council for Bonfire Design. That’s a company I’ve been trying to do work with for about 3 years now so that was a little bit of a victory. Then we managed to get a competition in the Birmingham Post giving away three films and loads of other exciting stuff. So yes, busy.

The second reason I haven’t blogged is that I had a particular blog post in mind and it’s taking a little bit of time to put together as I want to give the season 5 and series finale of The Wire a really good close up look. Subconsciously this became one of those ‘big jobs’ that just seems bigger and bigger the longer you leave it. But i’m going to make a start this morning.

Finally I want to mention that the writer’s group I was talking about a little while ago launched last Thursday. I’d had it booked in the diary for a while so I was disappointed that the Birmingham Filmmaker’s group launched a midweek fixture on the same night and I couldn’t go to that too. I met with another writer, David Wake, who has previously run another very successful writer’s group called PostSCRIPT and we put together some ideas for what we would like this one to be. Our aim is to provide an open, honest forum to critique each other’s work, learn from each other and I would hope that eventually we will be able to give the members a sense of community. It was decided that we should keep this group small until it finds its feet.

I was fortunate enough to have one of my short scripts analysed. I had put forward one that is a finished first draft that I’ve had two working screenwriters that I know look at. They’ve both given me good feedback, pointing out flaws but being encouraging of my abilities as a writer so my ‘magical shield of self belief’ was in place. As it turns out it wasn’t needed. We went round the room saying one thing we liked and one thing we didn’t. It’s a useful exercise to enforce both parts of that. Then we began looking in detail at 9 point story structure and applying the various break points to my script. Here’s where the fun started. Two of us couldn’t agree on where various break points were and in the ensuing discussion it became apparent that there were two areas in which the script could be improved quite dramatically. I didn’t have to agree with what was said but it so happens that I did and I’m looking forward to making those changes.

The group meets on the last Thursday of every month so we’ve decided to call it Last Thursdays and once the feet are found, i’ll start inviting people.

Like most other people I (possibly) found out who the Stig was this week and felt a little bit less once I knew. I liked that there was a secret and if I was going to find out, I didn’t want everyone else to know.

This brings me far from neatly onto Battlestar Galactica. It’s been a long feverish wait after the mid-season break following the WGA strike in the states. I don’t care if you’re not a fan, you should be. The writing is excellent, the themes are complex and intriguing and the approach is utterly fearless; no character is safe and no topic is taboo. The second half of season 4 is now showing and it’s the last season. Ever. The end is coming and I feel like a teenage mixture of quietly sad and completely joyous. The impending resolution, no more secrets, all the answers will be mine. But there’s another ten episodes or so and apparently the last one will be a three hour special. OMFG, as they say. The end is coming, the secrets will be blown wide open and I can’t wait.

Then there’s Lost. I got bored around about season 3 and then picked it up again recently and now have the last 2 episodes of season 4 to get through and it’s looking pretty damn impressive. The character’s have remained mostly the same, Kate is annoying and wet and suddenly a crack native American tracker, Locke needs to realise respect is earned and not given and Jack needs to earn it and not be given it. Sawyer just gets better and better. In my frankly not that humble opinion. But it has just got so damned good recently. I think the reason I’m enjoying it so much more now is that for a while the prospect of questions without answers, or answers that just lead to more questions was just irritating. Now it feels like there is a plan, there is an answer and they’re drip feeding it to me. I’m sucking at the breast of JJ Abrams and the experience is much more comfortable than the image. The show’s gone in directions I never expected  but at least it’s going somewhere, not just meandering. The weirder it gets the better it gets. It feels like the end is coming and that anticipation, no matter how long it takes, is where the excitement comes from.

Finally I’m on the last episode of season 4 of The Wire. I believe season 5 is the last one ever. I love these characters. Literally. Their actions are completely dictated by who they are and they still manage to surprise me. In this case it’s just the plot that’s a secret but the unfolding of it and the trajectory the characters are on is intense and addictive.

I have complete faith in the writers of all 3 shows. They’ve brought me this far and haven’t abused my trust, where they’ve faltered they’ve brought me back and I know that whatever answers they choose to give me will be surprising and satisfying. But when they’re finished I’m going to feel completely full and a little bit empty. This lack is what will drive me to find the next series, the next Quality American Drama. I’ll become entangled once again, hopelessly addicted. Yearning for the answers, worried that I might actually get them and scared that I won’t.

Wow this sucks, but isn’t it great? Ed and Tony have both told me I should be watching Mad Men next. God bless you writers of Quality American Drama. God bless you and all who sail in you.