MrBiffo
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FREELANCE WILLY
🕑 Added 2018-06-28 10:27:24 +0000 UTC As it's apparently national freelancers day I thought I'd share some of my recent freelance experiences...So... I've been a lead writer on several shows before; Dani's House, Dani's Castle, and I'm still lead writer on 4 O'Clock Club. On all of those, my involvement was limited to co-creating the show and characters, writing the lion's share of scripts, and coming up with story arcs. In each instance, however, they were very much the executive producer's show. See also Pudsey The Dog The Movie, which was very much the director's baby.
That meant I got very little say on the final product - and indirectly, that slight creative frustration, and working to the behest of others, led to the creation of Digitiser2000, Found Footage and Digitiser The Show.
This year, I was lead writer under similar terms, on the 8th series of 4 O'Clock Club, but also a new kids' show - currently untitled - which I've been working on for over two years. It got the green light last summer, with filming due to kick off in a few weeks.
It's a major show for CBBC - a sort of S-Club 7/Monkees thing, where the intention is to launch an actual band off the back of it. So, part of the process has been finding a group of kids who could function both as a real band and their characters.
It has been an absolutely exhausting and debilitating process getting to this point. It's the most amount of work I've ever had to do on any show, kids or not, and this time around my involvement - as lead writer - is much more in the classic 'showrunner' sense, as in that all final decisions must be signed off by both the executive producer and myself. Unfortunately, I don't get paid at the level that my US counterparts do, hence I've also been writing 5 episodes of 4 O'Clock Club at the same time...!
The past seven or eight months have been utterly mental, and most of it couldn't be helped; until about six weeks ago we didn't even have the full funding in place, and this led to a lot of uncertainty surrounding it - when/if we were going to get paid, constantly rewriting scripts to satisfy potential funders etc. - despite the green light from CBBC...
Without going into detail... it was chaos. I wish I'd entered into it with my eyes open more, knowing that so much of it was on my shoulders. Instead, I slightly let myself be blown around by the chaotic process, rather than digging in my heels and embracing my own creative instincts. I think I just didn't quite believe that I had an executive producer who was willing to let me take the reigns to the degree that I've been wanting for years.
That has changed now, and I've woken up to what is expected from me - hopefully not too late - though the timing, with Digitiser the Show about to go into production (originally, I'd been told we were filming the music show in January and would have the rest of the year free), is not ideal!
On the plus side, we did a read through of the first block of eps earlier this week, and due to the absence of one of the cast members, I can now say I've acted opposite one of the Pussycat Dolls...
Anyway... that's where I'm at, and what my year - outside of getting married, writing Digitiser2000, running a Kickstarter, and launching a brand new video games show - has consisted of.
Yeah, I do need a holiday, thanks.
Paul
Comments
Chinny Hill
Feast and famine is sadly part of the freelancer life. If only there was some way of tieing in clients to pay no matter what. Like Cloud subscriptions or drug dealing...... Considered cloud drug dealing?
John Veness
Sounds stressful, but hopefully rewarding and worth it in the end. I'll look out for your new show, as my daughter's in the transition stage from Cbeebies to CBBC. Incidentally, how do you cope working on projects which have no name yet? I would find that hard, even just the practical stuff as to how to name files/folders, and email subject lines! Is there a cool codename?
