Thursday 4 May 2006

Busy busy busy

I've been putting together a proposal for BBC Radio 4, for the Afternoon Play, working with an independent production company. All bids have to be in by 15th May, so it's going to be tight.

I'm hoping to get a first draft sorted. Otherwise it'll be an outline and a few key scenes.

I've been outlining, planning and researching all week. I spent today working on the opening scenes and, though I say it myself, it went pretty well. Of course, I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped, but the quality felt alright. Tomorrow morning it will probably look very different.

Radio's so different to TV or Film. I keep wanting to give visual cues. All that screenwriting training about showing, not telling - well half of it goes out the window when you can't show anything. I feel like I've been given a licence to be loquacious, so I'm having to fight the urge to go on and on and on in the dialogue.

5 comments:

Danny Stack said...

My first attempt at radio was awful, really really bad. But then I realised that you *could* be just as visual and bold with radio as you could with film.

The trick of course is to keep the narrative going with just sound and dialogue, a whole new different challenge.

Lianne said...

Hey Paul - good luck with the radio script. I'm hoping to start work on a radio script soon myself, but I've never written one before either. I've been listening to Radio a lot, and I've downloaded the samples scripts from the Writers Room but I think I'll still find it difficult. Still, it's good to set yourself a challenge! Let us know how it all goes...

Paul Campbell said...

They have sample scripts for radio?

Thank you, Opti.

Lianne said...

Glad to be of service! Robin Kelly's Writing for Performance website (as opposed to the blog) also has some really useful information about writing for radio if I remember correctly.

Lucy V said...

a licence to be loquacious???

I LOVE that.

Kinda like James Bond...with a pen. Or a keyboard.