Blog: It's Not Like ROCK

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Last year Mr J Kell and i put quite a bit of work into writing a screenplay of Dinosaur Planet RE-SHAPING it into a 50 minute animated film, like Wallace & Gromit or The Snowman or that sort of thing. We spent AGES working on it and by the time it was finished we were really rather pleased with it - it was packed with ACTION, also GAGS and also also MIND BLOWING TWISTS. It was GOOD!

But then we got a bit stuck - what on earth are you meant to DO with such things? After a while i realised that, as I went to Poly with One Of The UK's Leading Voiceover Artistes (NB he wasn't at the time, but is now) maybe I could ask HIM, and goodness bless him he replied with the name of a PRODUCER to send it to. So I did.

FAST FORWARD to this Tuesday, when I got a Voicemail message from her asking me to give her a ring - THIS was the Possibly Exciting phone call I mentioned yesterday, and as i ALSO mentioned it turned out to be not AS exciting as it could have been i.e. she didn't say "We wish to make this into an international hollywood movie, start buying yachts NOW!" However, she was very nice indeed about it, even apologising for taking a while to get back to me, gave some pointers on the sort of thing they're looking forward, and said she'd be happy to see anything else we did in that direction.

So no, it wasn't an OFFER, but goodness me it was the nicest rejection for anything like this I've ever had. INDEED it's one of the very few ACTUAL rejections i've had - usually in The World Of ROCK you send things off to people and NEVER EVER hear anything again. EVER! We did once get a standard rejection letter from Rough Trade (i think) about a million years ago when we sent out some VOON cassettes but otherwise nothing.

And this led me on to thinking about the many many differences between my old hometown of ROCK and the strange new land of comedy/theatre/MEDIA into which we are making early foraging parties into. I love ROCK in all its forms - and the other week, when I played the PopArt gig, i was OVERJOYED to be BACK amongst My People, it was ACE - but I'm very much struck by how much more POLITE the comedy/theatre/MEDIA scene is, and also less HIERACHICAL than ROCK. Perhaps I have a wonky view, but there does seem to be less REGULATIONS about who can talk to WHOM than in bands, and also less willingness just to SNUB people as unimportant.

That's not to say that ROCK is NASTY or anything - in many ways it's a lot more RELAXED than comedy etc, and a lot less focused on career structures. Hmmm... perhaps it's all because there IS a much more easily visible and accessible STRUCTURE to Comedy Careers (do open mic, get try-out spots, get actual gigs, meet other comedians, do the fringe, do proper spots, get on the radio, get on telly) than bands (form band, do one gig to loads of friends, do three gigs to nobody, split up).

I don't know - i think this needs a bit more thought to get it straight in my head! But anyway, the point I wish to make is that I'm thoroughly enjoying my AWAY DAYS in this strange new world... and if anybody KNOWS someone who might like to make a FILM about DINOSAURS and ROBOTS, do let me know!

posted 11/2/2011 by MJ Hibbett

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