So for most of this year I've mainly been working on other people's scripts and stories and the experience has been, for the most part, akin to having one's balls smothered with Deep Heat and stretched across a tennis court for hedgehogs to roll around in.
And if you're a female and want to know what that pain is like, replace the word 'balls' in the above paragraph with 'labia'.
The problem, which has become more and more blindingly apparent as I continue to work in the local television industry, is that story, in its essence, is not considered an important part of the creative process, which is akin to saying blueprints are not considered an important part of the process of making a car.
(Take note, local manufacturers. Except the dudes that made the Kelisa. I love my Kelisa.)
As a writer, you can imagine how much this realization makes me sick to my stomach, but it is true. Story and plot come second fiddle to items such as crowd-pulling stars, and in a country that is known for not having much budget to do anything spectacular on screen, you would think that story would come first, but no.
Sadly, no.
One of my favorite examples of a situation in television where it is understood just how important the story is to the enjoyability of the show is British television. Sure, of recent years the budgets for British television have very obviously gone up, what with the likes of mass CGI use in the recent Doctor Who season and the incredible art direction and cinematography of Life On Mars, but even then, story still comes first. Back when Doctor Who was shot on flimsy sets with very dodgy looking props people still tuned in because of the stories, the characters. British TV never had the budget of American TV and even with the slicker programming of recent years they still don't have the budget of something like Heroes or Prison Break, but they understand the importance of story and it is so evident in their work. If anything, we should be following their example of good writing as opposed to trying to be like American television.
And even then, local television won't go as far as American television does. You don't see many high-concept television shows like Lost or Dexter on local television, do you?
And in a way I can understand that - there's so little money and so much fear on making back an investment that taking a risk with a concept that may go over the majority of peoples' heads is quite scary. I don't think one should be scared of producing a high-concept TV series but I can understand why one might be, and it's saddening because instead of coming up with a brand new concept producers would much rather do something that's already been tried and tested. And even if the concept hasn't been tried and tested here, at the very least it's been done in other countries and the story sells over here, hence showing a market for it.
So fine. If that's how you want to play it, fine. Do the generic stories, the ones that you know people will tune in to. Fine. Don't take risks with archetypes, don't mess with tried and tested formula and structure, don't try to subvert the genre, fine.
But does that mean no effort should be made to make the story gripping? Exciting? Enjoyable? There are very simple rules in scriptwriting that, at the very least, keeps the story going, no matter how generic. Simple rules of structure that ensure that the story, though maybe not told well, is still told and understood.
But even that doesn't matter. Why? Because at the end of the day, it seems that what producers find more important is not how many people enjoy the show, but how many people watch it, and therein lies the biggest problem with the local film and television industry.
Nobody cares about whether or not the viewer enjoys the show as much as how much profit is made out of the show. Whether the product is good or bad is secondary to whether or not people come and watch it in the first place. Draw them in, get the bums on the seats and don't give a flying fuckola whether or not they're enjoying themselves and immersing themselves into the story.
And for some strange reason that I cannot fathom this doesn't disillusion me as much as it should do.
