Posts
Robin Hood, Infoquake and Bella Pagan
A number of things to talk about today. I hope you’re all going to catch Robin Hood tonight. It’s a cracking opener from Dominic. I’m looking forward to watching a new fandom making itself. Do let me know about fan fiction (Robin/Much slash anyone?), music videos, excited fan fora, etc.. My first episode, ‘Who Shot the Sheriff?’ is on on October 21st.., and having just seen the final version, I must say I’m really pleased. Some lovely stuff from Keith Allen especially, and it’s very well directed by Richard Standeven.
Iain McLaughlin, the Doctor Who audio writer and current Desperate Dan scribe, took a wander from The Dandy over to Commando on my behalf the other day, and discovered, thanks to a Who fan who works there, Scott ‘Field Marshall’ Montgomery, that one writer on that title keeps dropping in Who in-jokes. His name is Sean Blair, and is indeed responsible for my appearance therein. The artist was Keith Page. It’s a pity, in a way, in that I was hoping it was someone I knew, but I’m even more flattered.
Speaking of real people appearing in media, I run a Fantasy Cricket contest, the Faringdon and Fandom League (if you’d like to sign up for next season, even and especially if you don’t know anything about cricket, do let me know, but only those who already know me in some small way, please). Our league became, during the course of the season, collectively enamoured of the P.A. to one of our number, who works as a publisher. Her name is all we know her by, and she would be referred to by said publisher only in his automated responses to our group e-mails. If he is not there, these e-mails told us, we should get in touch with Bella Pagan. Bella Pagan. A name to conjure with. The new lifestyle magazine from the makers of Bella. ‘Ten hex tricks He won’t have seen before.’ ‘Our six hundred and sixty six favourite pointy hats.’ So it was with a feeling of walls between private and public worlds collapsing that I read the latest issue of X-Men (#191), in which appears ‘temporal physicist’… Bella Pagan. I gather that Mike Carey, current X-Men writer, is known to our publisher friend, and that this is no accident. Or sign of a magickal fiction/reality breakthrough incident.
On the same subject, the Outpost Gallifrey Doctor Who forum has had a thread or two lately about how to commemorate taunted-to-death Who fan John Clews, whose passing I mentioned a while back. There’s a campaign of sorts to get a character in the show named after him. I find myself weirdly uncertain, verging on not keen. I don’t know who such a move would serve, for one thing. I don’t think he has family around to notice. Secondly, given the nature of Who supporting characters, it might be hard to find one who could be named after a real person without giving offence: I mean, how many small characters in our favourite show both survive it and are noble? But given that it’s possible to get around that, I feel it would almost be a diminishment rather than an elevation. We need to remember who he really was, not fictionalise him, and to write stories with him in mind, not just drop him into one.
I’ve just finished David Louis Edelman’s first novel, Infoquake.(http://www.davidlouisedelman.com/jump225/infoquake/) It stayed with me, kept on impressing me way after I’d finished it. David was part of the gang of writers, artists and publishers I hung out with at Worldcon, but friendship has never been a ticket for a free ride on my critical faculties. Infoquake is a book about future boardroom battles, company tussles. Only three shots are fired in total, but at exactly the right time, because this is a thriller like Graham Greene wrote thrillers. Its setting is something I haven’t seen for a long time, a quite distant future that is nevertheless utterly plausible, and remains connected (unlike say, Dune), through history, to our own. The businesspeople in question write and sell software for the human body. The book answers Geoff Ryman’s manifesto about ‘Mundane SF’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundane_SF), that is, it presents a future where no unfeasible technology or situations (faster than light drives, alien contact, telepathy) exist. People are still people, history is still history. There has been no mythological upheaval (such as ‘the singularity’) of the kind that British SF culture seems to regard as certain, a near future event, the Revolution, the Rapture. Icky reality has not gone away. There are true believers, therefore, that will assert that the novel is simply mistaken. There is still money. Someone empties the bins. The world that is built is a society of humans, based on human needs, sociability, civilisation. It is not wildly far flung. It can read on first sight as being familiar, even parochial. That is because it is flung exactly as far as it should be. The thrill of the book is a thrill familiar to those of us who do business on the net and in fandom, the thrill of being a commercial (and this is the origin of the word) adventurer, someone who ventures capital. It’s about commerce and glamour, the edges and barriers created in social situations through nothing but personality. It’s conceptually exciting, the current expressed as the future and the future as a refreshing crash through the ranks of those who say there is none. The world depicted is not an ideal: it’s a complicated mess in which characters can only do their best. Exactly like it always has been and always will be. My one caveat is that when you read the first section of the book, you’ll wonder why I made all this fuss about it. It’s not the greatest start in literature. It prepares you for a book nowhere near as good as this one. And perhaps I could have done with a bigger conceptual wallop of elevating the stakes to a new level at the end. But this is the first of a trilogy, and I await book two missing the characters, referencing things in their terms (‘a memecorp like the BBC’) expecting such an elevation, certain of it. I have faith in this Mundane masterpiece.
I worked through the lettering draft of the first issue of Wisdom with Marvel Comics editor Nick Lowe this week. It’s a fascinating process, and Nick’s very good at it, editing a lengthy page of espionage dialogue that I was sure wouldn’t fit by just snipping one word balloon. The meaning of one action sequence changed completely, for the better, by another dialogue addition he suggested. I love working with people who are prepared to take pains, and getting the tiniest placings of dialogue in comics right is the very definition of a small thing that makes all the difference. I’m sorry to find out that I won’t be able to use the manga technique of having ‘subtext’ words floating in the air beside character’s faces, because, and I should have thought about this beforehand, it doesn’t work so well in colour comics, where the lettering needs a cleared white balloon behind it, or gets lost and murky. We’re working on some sort of special box for subtext instead. Trev’s now supplying gorgeous pencil pages for issue two. I can’t wait for the first week in November. (I’m sorry to say, however, that I’m having trouble setting up an American equivalent to Forbidden Planet’s generous offer on the the title. I will keep trying.)
All of us who’ve worked on Faringdon Arts Festival were delighted this week when the first recruiting meeting for the 2007 Festival attracted twenty-three people! Caroline is FAF’s new PR and Marketing person, and there’s also going to be a new website very shortly. The FAF dates next year are 6-8 July.
I’m doing an interview for the Church Times next week about a book I recommend as having moved me in a spiritual way. So this is going to be one of the more unusual promo pieces for the manga Fruits Basket.
The great John Picacio has just sent me a first mock-up of his cover for the new Monkeybrain Books (http://www.monkeybrainbooks.com) edition of my novel British Summertime, which is on the way sometime next year. All I can say at the moment is that I’m blown away by it, and it’s great to have one of the foremost cover artists of our time onboard.
I’m delighted to announce that I’ll be appearing at the 33rd. SwanCon, in Perth, Western Australia, in 2008: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SwanCon
And, closer in space and time, that I’m popping along to the North Wales Society of Cult Television at the Faenol Fawr Hotel in Bodelwyddan on November 18th, for ‘An Afternoon with Paul Cornell’. Contact Edward Watkinson ed@britpix.com if you want to come along.
Until next time, cheerio.
Iain McLaughlin, the Doctor Who audio writer and current Desperate Dan scribe, took a wander from The Dandy over to Commando on my behalf the other day, and discovered, thanks to a Who fan who works there, Scott ‘Field Marshall’ Montgomery, that one writer on that title keeps dropping in Who in-jokes. His name is Sean Blair, and is indeed responsible for my appearance therein. The artist was Keith Page. It’s a pity, in a way, in that I was hoping it was someone I knew, but I’m even more flattered.
Speaking of real people appearing in media, I run a Fantasy Cricket contest, the Faringdon and Fandom League (if you’d like to sign up for next season, even and especially if you don’t know anything about cricket, do let me know, but only those who already know me in some small way, please). Our league became, during the course of the season, collectively enamoured of the P.A. to one of our number, who works as a publisher. Her name is all we know her by, and she would be referred to by said publisher only in his automated responses to our group e-mails. If he is not there, these e-mails told us, we should get in touch with Bella Pagan. Bella Pagan. A name to conjure with. The new lifestyle magazine from the makers of Bella. ‘Ten hex tricks He won’t have seen before.’ ‘Our six hundred and sixty six favourite pointy hats.’ So it was with a feeling of walls between private and public worlds collapsing that I read the latest issue of X-Men (#191), in which appears ‘temporal physicist’… Bella Pagan. I gather that Mike Carey, current X-Men writer, is known to our publisher friend, and that this is no accident. Or sign of a magickal fiction/reality breakthrough incident.
On the same subject, the Outpost Gallifrey Doctor Who forum has had a thread or two lately about how to commemorate taunted-to-death Who fan John Clews, whose passing I mentioned a while back. There’s a campaign of sorts to get a character in the show named after him. I find myself weirdly uncertain, verging on not keen. I don’t know who such a move would serve, for one thing. I don’t think he has family around to notice. Secondly, given the nature of Who supporting characters, it might be hard to find one who could be named after a real person without giving offence: I mean, how many small characters in our favourite show both survive it and are noble? But given that it’s possible to get around that, I feel it would almost be a diminishment rather than an elevation. We need to remember who he really was, not fictionalise him, and to write stories with him in mind, not just drop him into one.
I’ve just finished David Louis Edelman’s first novel, Infoquake.(http://www.davidlouisedelman.com/jump225/infoquake/) It stayed with me, kept on impressing me way after I’d finished it. David was part of the gang of writers, artists and publishers I hung out with at Worldcon, but friendship has never been a ticket for a free ride on my critical faculties. Infoquake is a book about future boardroom battles, company tussles. Only three shots are fired in total, but at exactly the right time, because this is a thriller like Graham Greene wrote thrillers. Its setting is something I haven’t seen for a long time, a quite distant future that is nevertheless utterly plausible, and remains connected (unlike say, Dune), through history, to our own. The businesspeople in question write and sell software for the human body. The book answers Geoff Ryman’s manifesto about ‘Mundane SF’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundane_SF), that is, it presents a future where no unfeasible technology or situations (faster than light drives, alien contact, telepathy) exist. People are still people, history is still history. There has been no mythological upheaval (such as ‘the singularity’) of the kind that British SF culture seems to regard as certain, a near future event, the Revolution, the Rapture. Icky reality has not gone away. There are true believers, therefore, that will assert that the novel is simply mistaken. There is still money. Someone empties the bins. The world that is built is a society of humans, based on human needs, sociability, civilisation. It is not wildly far flung. It can read on first sight as being familiar, even parochial. That is because it is flung exactly as far as it should be. The thrill of the book is a thrill familiar to those of us who do business on the net and in fandom, the thrill of being a commercial (and this is the origin of the word) adventurer, someone who ventures capital. It’s about commerce and glamour, the edges and barriers created in social situations through nothing but personality. It’s conceptually exciting, the current expressed as the future and the future as a refreshing crash through the ranks of those who say there is none. The world depicted is not an ideal: it’s a complicated mess in which characters can only do their best. Exactly like it always has been and always will be. My one caveat is that when you read the first section of the book, you’ll wonder why I made all this fuss about it. It’s not the greatest start in literature. It prepares you for a book nowhere near as good as this one. And perhaps I could have done with a bigger conceptual wallop of elevating the stakes to a new level at the end. But this is the first of a trilogy, and I await book two missing the characters, referencing things in their terms (‘a memecorp like the BBC’) expecting such an elevation, certain of it. I have faith in this Mundane masterpiece.
I worked through the lettering draft of the first issue of Wisdom with Marvel Comics editor Nick Lowe this week. It’s a fascinating process, and Nick’s very good at it, editing a lengthy page of espionage dialogue that I was sure wouldn’t fit by just snipping one word balloon. The meaning of one action sequence changed completely, for the better, by another dialogue addition he suggested. I love working with people who are prepared to take pains, and getting the tiniest placings of dialogue in comics right is the very definition of a small thing that makes all the difference. I’m sorry to find out that I won’t be able to use the manga technique of having ‘subtext’ words floating in the air beside character’s faces, because, and I should have thought about this beforehand, it doesn’t work so well in colour comics, where the lettering needs a cleared white balloon behind it, or gets lost and murky. We’re working on some sort of special box for subtext instead. Trev’s now supplying gorgeous pencil pages for issue two. I can’t wait for the first week in November. (I’m sorry to say, however, that I’m having trouble setting up an American equivalent to Forbidden Planet’s generous offer on the the title. I will keep trying.)
All of us who’ve worked on Faringdon Arts Festival were delighted this week when the first recruiting meeting for the 2007 Festival attracted twenty-three people! Caroline is FAF’s new PR and Marketing person, and there’s also going to be a new website very shortly. The FAF dates next year are 6-8 July.
I’m doing an interview for the Church Times next week about a book I recommend as having moved me in a spiritual way. So this is going to be one of the more unusual promo pieces for the manga Fruits Basket.
The great John Picacio has just sent me a first mock-up of his cover for the new Monkeybrain Books (http://www.monkeybrainbooks.com) edition of my novel British Summertime, which is on the way sometime next year. All I can say at the moment is that I’m blown away by it, and it’s great to have one of the foremost cover artists of our time onboard.
I’m delighted to announce that I’ll be appearing at the 33rd. SwanCon, in Perth, Western Australia, in 2008: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SwanCon
And, closer in space and time, that I’m popping along to the North Wales Society of Cult Television at the Faenol Fawr Hotel in Bodelwyddan on November 18th, for ‘An Afternoon with Paul Cornell’. Contact Edward Watkinson ed@britpix.com if you want to come along.
Until next time, cheerio.
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Loved Robin Hood... but loved the Torchwood trailer that was on straight after it a tiny bit more!
Maybe the best thing to do for John Clews in the show is a simple dedication at the start of The Christmas Invasion: "In memory of..." and all that.
It did look good. But what's going on with trailing an adult show in a family slot? And yeah, that'd be good.
Agreed. I think it was a mistake trailering Torchwood at family viewing time. There's going to be a lot of disppointed kids when it finally airs and their parents say "No, you can't watch it."
ROBIN HOOD
I'm sorry to say this Paul, but I thought last night's opener was a stinker. I'll stick with it in case it gets better (I'm sure that your episode will at least be brilliantly written) but on the evidence of last night's episode I'm not expecting much from this badly acted and tricksy-filmed series.
Paul
here's my take on Robin Hood, reposted from my own blog:
"Robin Hood Review
So what to make of the BBC’s new Robin Hood?
Overall I enjoyed it as a piece of undemanding family entertainment but it failed to please me on a couple of small but important points.
The opening episode was certainly beautifully shot and the reproduction village and castle looked the part but the cast never once looked as if they belonged in 1192 with the female characters looking far too made up and the males - especially lead actor Jonas Armstrong - looking far too pretty.
The biggest credibility gap came with the revelation that Robin had spent 5 years in the Holy Lands fighting the Crusades. Looking like he’s walked out of a photo shoot for Attitude Magazine Armstrong is physically implausible as a veteran of such a bloody campaign.
The fault for this contradiction rests with the script rather than the actor and I was left wondering how the line had managed to survive any post casting rewrites.
On the plus side I rather liked Armstrong’s cheeky chappie performance which is likely to make him popular with some sections of the audience.
As someone who likes their adventure stories served up with a generous helping of ham I thought Keith Allen’s Sheriff quickly outshone the rest of the cast with his slightly (and enjoyable) panto performance.
The spidey-sense style flashes as Robin resolved to prevent the hangings seemed a tad OTT and the overly butch nature of the music - which seemed far louder than the dialogue - simply underlined how fey some of the male characters came across.
All that said I’ll definitely be tuning in next week to see how things develop."
Sorry, the post as MayorWatch was me - I hadn't realised I was still logged in as my other Blogger id.
OOPS!
I'm taking notes. My own show will take care to feature ugly leads, directed in a dull way. Thanks for that. And what's all this 'fey', 'Attitude Magazine' business? Perhaps you could explain in some greater detail what you meant there?
I'll be sorry if this experiment in Saturday night family entertainment fails, as I would really like to see some old fashioned action/adventure type series filling the vacant slot left by Doctor Who. If only Robin Hood wasn't such gawd-awful tripe.
Hi Paul
I didn't have any problems with the direction - I just thought the flashes came out of the blue and seemed a bit 'super hero' to me. I thought the sword fight in the first few moments was well staged and perhaps I ought to add that to my original piece to better reflect my overall view.
As for ugly leads, I don't have a problem with good looking people (though sadly I'm probably not one of their number!) but I thought the cast were uniformly 'pretty' and Jonas - a very good looking chap - seemed a little young and injury free for a man who spent 5 years in the Crusades.
I understand the need to make the show different from past versions both for story telling and copyright. Daniel Craig (for example) looks to me like someone who might have been 5 years in the Crusades but Jonas doesn't.
The casting isn't 'wrong' - I think his performance was enjoyable and his winks and cheeky chappie performance will attract a legion of well deserved fans - I just don't quite buy into Robin's back story.
Now, had he been the pampered son of a murdered Earl of Huntingdon forced to toughen up in his desire to avenge his father's death I'd find the back story and casting far more in harmony.
For me casting Jonas and then asking the audience to accept him as a survivor of one of the bloodiest battles in history would have been like asking the audience to accept Prunella Scales or Penelope Keith in their Posh Lady guise as Rose Tyler's mum.
It's really not a criticism of Jonas, I just thought the concept of Robin as a war veteran didn't reflect the casting but it's not likely to be a major barrier to me enjoying the show and i was disappointed BBC Three didn't show part two (as with Spooks) as I was keen to see the story conclude.
I'm sorry if anything I've said makes it sound as if I didn't enjoy the show because I did.
Martin
It's not so much that: I'm not here to counter every negative review. While not agreeing, I do see what you mean. It's the equation of the qualities you dislike with a gay aesthetic that irks. Come on, you're a modern guy. How many readers of Attitude do you think are slight and pampered? (We'll hear from a few now, won't we?) I doubt it's a prejudice of yours, the prejudice there is embedded in the language you used, ready to trip us all up. To give you some more credit, you might perhaps equally have used GQ Magazine as an example of where one might see very modern, groomed men. Maybe that was your intention?
Paul
Yes, I did mean 'very modern, groomed men' but - and maybe this is my failing - I tend to use 'pretty' as a short hand for it.
As a gay man (I thought you knew this!) I assure you I wasn't being even remotely homophobic or prejudiced!! :D
I didn't cite GQ because I don't read it so have no idea what's inside whereas I do read Attitude and see a lot of pics of pretty people in there.
I was framing my opinion around my direct knowledge and I guess because most people who read unitnews (where my original comment was posted) know I'm gay I didn't even consider the potential for misunderstanding in reposting it elsewhere where people might not.
A big ooops!
No, I didn't know! I'm doing so well today. There are only seven hours or so until midnight, still plenty of trouble I can get into. I may go and teach some women about feminism. Still, I did earn some Stupid Liberal points there, and it's been a while since I got any of those. The Stupid Liberals have suspended my membership. I'm sorry, I do apologise.
Apologise? Goodness you've nothing to apologise for from my PoV!
Quite the opposite I've learnt a valuable lesson about properly informing the reader of any bias (for want of a better word) so as to avoid the potential for misunderstang.
Had I taken the time to rewrite the piece all the misunderstandings could have been avoided so they really are my fault.
But I think this kind of exchange is good and helpful, it's genuinely nice to see people standing up - as you did - against what might be slyly worded bigotry so for that I offer my sincere thanks.
And your rebuke was probably right - I could have expressed myself in a way which didn't even hint at me saying 'the male leads all look gay' which is what I'm guessing it seemed like to you.
I guess in the same way RTD (as he sets out in the new DWM) expains why he thinks including the word 'gay' in AOL was OK so I'm suffiently comfortable with myself to cite something as an Attitude photo shoot as an example of being too pretty without even considering the wider consequences.
I'm left wondering how many times I've written or said something which hints at an unintended meaning!
Of course at the root of all this is the fact I'm an ugly person and painfully jealous of anyone better looking :D
Evidence: http://hoscik.com/images/marty2.JPG
As always, thanks for an enlightening discussion.
Actually, in my misinformed way, I was trying to do that thing Russell does: not to let bias pass. Thank goodness I tried to be gentle with it. There's a lesson for me there: don't mount high horse without knowing what you're dealing with. I am, as the world can see, a victim of Uglyphobia. You are not. Concerning your actual points: I think there was some effort made to cast for several different aspects of male attractiveness. Hence Robin and Guy. You're not going to get genuinely ugly as a series lead anywhere, anywhen, at least not since ITC closed shop. But I think you may be pleased at how rough hewn and burdened Little John and Roy are next week. I enjoy attractive, modern, direction, but that seems to be an immensely subjective area. In terms of all the criticism voiced, I'd say remember what the reaction to 'Rose' was like. A lot of things work better when they're not part of the shock of the new.
Your point about 'Rose' is spot on and is probably true of most pilots and first episodes.
As I say I was a bit miffed part two wasn't available on BBC Three as I was keen to see the next episode and perhaps the issue you raise was subconchythingy one of the reasons.
(can you make up words when you can't spell the one you want?)
I think Spooks, Hustle and Hotel Babylon (!) look all the better for the very modern direction, perhaps it just feels odd initially when applied to a period setting?
I hope the audience figures hold up and that it gets a second series - whatever my issues with small aspects of a single episode I would much rather have original UK produced drama like this on my telly than all the imports which fill 99% of the commercial channels.
If I might get back on to Robin Hood for a bit, I must admit I agree with Martin about the unbelievability of the 'crusades' storyline.
This is where I felt it fell down, when it tried to be 'relevant' with the references to a foreign war and realistic when it's clearly not like 1192 was. Now, part of that is no one's fault because you'd hope that the actors/actresses at least eat balanced diets these days. There would probably be little interest in a drama where you couldn't tell the men and women apart if they were wearing clothes. They'd all be unkempt, hardly washing, with fleas and lice. Also, a lot of visible signs of disease. Anyone who had been fighting for five years in an era of swords would have scars from their own accidental cuts if not enemy ones. Well, maybe there would be a place for such a drama but 7 pm on a Saturday on BBC1 is not it.
Now, given that, why try to have any sense of reality at all? When Robin was a 'cheeky chappie' and it was just an action/adventure romp, I thought it worked very well. Sitting rather uncomfortably beside this are the references to the crusades, war and Much's apparent PTSD. I love Knight's Tale precisely because it doesn't pretend to be anything except anachronistic - with its modern dancing scene for example. I can't help but feel that Robin Hood would have a 'traditional' dance and you'd be left wondering why they bothered amongst all the modern make-up and man-made fibres!
If they'd made it an all-out Errol Flynn style swashbuckler with the panto villain sheriff it would've been better I think. These were the times it worked so I hope they drop the 'message' and attempts to be gritty because these were the times it didn't.
Having said all that, I'll still watch it and hope it does do well to continue to rescue our Saturday nights from Ant and Dec.
I really love A Knight's Tale, but one of the things I love about is that it presents *precisely* a mix of anachronism *and* historical reality. It's set in a specific year, and it tells us everything we might ever want to know about the real rules of jousting, for example. I don't think Robin is trying for that sort of anachronism at all, but is just doing action/adventure in a period setting, apt for right now. That is to say, exactly what successful Robin TV shows have always done. Any deviations from historical realism are there because the historical reality would be, as you say, not fun and/or alienating to the modern audience. But I hesitate to speak for the makers of a show on which I was a delighted hired hand.
I take your point on the jousting element of 'Knight's Tale'.
Perhaps it was just because so much of what I had read in the build-up to the show was about its relevance to the Iraq conflict - fighting in the Pope's war and not ours and so on. That probably meant when these references did come up, I noticed them more and they all seemed contrived and shoe-horned in.
This may be no fault of the makers - this might have been a very minor thing that has just been picked up by the press because of potential controversy. They are probably the ones making a mountain out of a molehill.
Had I watched it without this bias perhaps I'd just have seen these as they were probably meant - scene-setting lines - and not been as bothered!
That and the usual effect of pilots never being the best episodes is hopefully at work so it'll improve.
Anyway, regardless, I shall watch with interest and look forward to your episode. Keith Allen is very promising (no surprise, the sheriff is always the best character) so an episode focusing on him will be great I expect.
Caught the BBC3 repeat tonight - doesn't he look a bit like Damon Albarn? I also thought the Sheriff could have levied a tithe on cosmetics, and the camerawork was a bit "CSI: Sherwood" (or maybe "Sherwood Forest PD Blue" - anyway, me no like jerky, jumpy, allegedly "edgy" camerawork). But overall a very nice piece of drama. The characters and dialogue work for me, and the last ten minutes was top notch.
Well, I can't promise that my episode is entirely about him, but we do get to see a lot of Nottingham political plottings, and Keith is great in it.
Tried to think of a Blur song parody. Failed. It's that time of night where I've clocked off as a writer. There's a truly *great* bit of direction in three which I'll talk about once it's been broadcast.
I found the direction far too distracting. Every time I was just getting into a scene the camera started doing funny things and reminded me it was there and I was watching actors doing their lines. Also the arrow 'zings' every time there was a change of location got irritating very quickly. But maybe that's just me being in my 40's, it probably doesn't bother the 8 year olds who I presume are the target audience.
PS In this household we thought Robin looked like Robbie Williams. Robbie Hood and his Merry Boy Band!
"He lives in a hut, a very big hut in the forest/They'll give the Sheriff what for when there's more than four in the forest"...
Oh, anyway :)
I think 8 year olds certainly do make up a portion of the target audience, like with Doctor Who. It's interesting about camera moves, because they're just so subjective. Robin does exactly the zoom in things that Galactica and 24 do. British shows like Hustle do them far, far, more. But it's not like in the past we watched a steady gaze that never did anything: I, Claudius is full of sudden swoops and zooms.
I think the cuts and angles thing is just noticeable because of the period setting - Spooks is a slick modern production featuring modern settings, props and situations so slick modern direction probably feels more natural to some than it does in a forest glade?
With tregard to the direction, actually, I don't think Huslte etc do the 'mini-zoom' think that Robin Hood does all the time (that little zoom just a few mm of focal length the seems to go and or out on a character's face) -- simply because I have watched Hustle and never noticed it, whereas it (like the capions) quickly got very, very irritating during Robin Hood.
And they certainly don't do the 'same action from various angles' thing. Where Hustle etc do 'interesting' direction it tends to be in the other direction: they will cut out 'dead' time, so that for example you'll do a character searchng a room in just afew shots of a drawer opening, etc. this is, I think, actually objectively better than the Robin Hood style because it makes the storytelling mroe efficient, getting over more information in a shorter time, whereas the Robin Hood style is repetitive and makes you think 'get on with it!'.
My real annoyance, though, was the dialogue with its horribly inconsistent tone. It really can't seem to make up its mind whether to be cod-medieval or cod-Whedon, but instead see-saws between to two so that you get the same character, for instance, saying 'I fear this bodes ill for my new lodgings' and 'I was hoping for the whole bath-speed-eat thing'. Do you not find these shifts in register jar horribly on the ear? Now if they'd picked one or the other -- either modern, 'urban' dialogue, or the sort of slightly stilted phrasing that says 'olde worlde' to the audience, that would have been fine, but smashing the two together has produced something that's practically unwatchable.
It's not that this is a quirk of one character either: everyone does it, even -- heck, especially -- those who are not written as self-aware enough to be deliberately changing their speech patterns for effect, which was an excuse eg 'Buffy' could use but doesn't fly here. It seems like the lines have almost been written in isolation, with the tone decided depending on what gets the best laugh in any particular scene -- kind of like when you sacrifice consistent character for the sake of a gag, only this time what's being sacrificed is not any particular character but the rather more nebulous 'consistent tone' of the programme.
(I also join with the chorus thinking that Robin looks too young to have done all he's supposed to have done, and I'm amazed that the daughters of subsistence farmers taxed to the hilt can afford not only nice dresses but peroxide, which must be really rare in the twelfth century, but these are the sorts of things that are expecte din this kind of programme and you take with a sigh and a pinch of salt. Direction and dialogue are the real problems.)
Disappointing, I'm afraid. Though I look forward to your episode, as I have greater faith in your abilities with dialogue.
In defence of the programme, I liked the medieval-Whedon-cod. I think we're mistaken if we imagine people pre-1600 went around saying "Prithee, nuncle, mine heart had as lief partaken of the whole bath/eat/sleep thinge" or talking in iambic pentameter the whole time. It'd be terribly off-putting if they tried to write all the dialogue in authentic Middle English, or in a kind of false, stilted register-less English.
As for Robin being too young, I don't think this need be an issue. They didn't have a minimum draft age for wars until quite recently, and even so teenagers would slip through. And I'm sure the issue of very young men at war will crop up in future episodes, if the very deftly inserted scene of Much crying in the bath is anything to go by. Poor bugger's obviously traumatised.
No no no. The problem was that it wasn't 'medieval-Whedon-cod'. That would have been fine.
Rather, there were two distinct styles that it see-sawed between. There was the cod-medieval, where people didn't use contractions and spoke in a slightly unuual, slightly more formal syntax which is what nowadays is shorthand for 'look, these people are speaking old English, okay?' (in much the same way that saying 'prithee' and 'zounds' used to serve the same function).
And then there were also the modern intrustions like 'I'm not looking for a fight' / 'Too bad, 'cause I am!' and so on that just didn't fit in with the rest of the style.
If the programme had managed to integrate the two into a consistent 'medieval-Whedon-cod' I would have been impressed, but it didn't. That would have been difficult, though.
Given that, I would have expected them to go for either one or the other -- either do everything in the slightly over-formal, contractionless 'this is olde' style which seems to be their default setting, or just do everything as stylished modern cod-Whedon English. Either of those, again, would have been fine.
Instead the two sytles sit uneasily next to each other, and you're never quite sure what register the next words out of somebody's mouth will be in. And those switches are just painful to the ear, like moments of bathos in the middle of a grand epic or something.
As for Robin's age, he's not just your standard soldier: he's a noble, and he's actually been commended by the king. I don't buy that by his early twenties. He might have gone off as a teenager but if so he'd have been a squire or something, wouldn't he? Like I say, though, this isn't very important. In this sort of TV you expect realism to take a second place to a pretty face -- just like you don't complain that TV spies are attractive when in the real world being so physically striking would actually be a positive disadvatage for someone who's supposed to be unmemorable.
(And of course they wouldn't have been speaking iambic pentameter! Marlowe's mighty line, in common use four hundred years before he was born? That would be funnier than the dye-job!)
If Robin was the sitting lord of Locksley Manor when he enlisted, and not just the eldest son, I can well believe he would have gone to war as a teenage noble.
This is just like Doctor Who fandom, but without the Sharks 'n' Jets stuff!
Oh God please don't say that.
Anyway, like I said twice, the youthful-Robin thing just doesn't matter. It's part of the genre, whether it can be historically justified or not. Arguing over it is as pointless and idiotic as arguing over whether the Doctor could regenerate a thirteenth time of the ratings were still good. Let us not be as sad as that.
Heheh... if this really were DW fandom, we'd be bitching that the recurved bow wasn't the right size, or that the new Robin doesn't look sufficiently Robin-ish in practical clothes instead of an "eccentric" Alpine hat... and then we'd settle the matter with hand-to-hand combat.
My personal opinion was that I found the mix a bit clunky, (for example Robin being a bleeding heart but also rather James Bond-ish in his attitude to women (though not even James Bond ever boasted to his "love" that his lines have worked on plenty of others surely?!))
However I am sure that as it settles down and we all get used to the style then things will improve. I am intrigued to see where it goes...
Agree with the comments about the Torchwood trailer - though personally VERY excited about it, they've said all along that it'll be post-watershed. Seems very unfair on all the parents who've been trying to keep it off the radar of their kids who are now probably jumping up and down at the prospect of seeing Captain Jack again (or was that just me?? Doing the jumping up and down I mean...)
Of course I meant bleeding heart in its most positive sense of course...(hides)
Oh, yes, that reminds me, I like Robin's moneterist policies! I never thought I'd see a Thatcherite in Sherwood!
So pleased to hear you're writing for RH. Soon as I heard he was vain, arrogant and may have PTSD (RT, 7-13 Oct) I thought, boxes for BBC Saturday night hero are all ticked there.
My mate told me about some Doctor Who fan that had died, I forgot about it until I read your blog and looked up the news article. Hope the guys resting in peace.
As for Robin Hood, it was ok. Its really fun as long as you dont take it too seriously, and those arrow subtitles made me laugh. That evil beard guy was great! And I liked that bit where the guy was crying about fighting in the crusades. (either that or he was crying at eating the rose petals!)
Looks like its worth sticking with.
Catch ya later,
Jack.
Of course, the second Robin will be a happy go lucky philanthropist with a quiff of untidy hair. (Terrance Dicks would put it better.) And thanks for noticing the John Clews piece, Jack.
I loved the new Robin Hood. I had just the right balance of hokum and drama. I never expected it to be completely historically accurate. Just as there were never pirates like Jack Sparrow, there were never outlaws like Robin Hood and his men.
Its interesting that the boys I have spoken to at work were not impressed, but the girls loved it. I think the casting of Jonas Armstrong will prove to be a wise move.
Bella Pagan, a vegetarian pasta restaurant for Wiccans.
Seems like Robin Hood is one of those LOVE IT or LOATHE IT programmes. It didn’t appeal to me but I hope it succeeds for those who have do seem to like it.
It’s not the worst version of Robin Hood I’ve ever seen. There was a truly appalling episode of The Time Tunnel that had the two-fisted time travellers meeting the boys in green. It was so bad it was hilarious. Hmmmm...Time Tunnel, now there’s a show I’d like to see remade :-)
Are you a relation of Meatloaf? just been looking at a photograph of you at the Hugo Awards and we see a distinct resemblance....he is our hero but lives a long way away whereas you are very much closer ;-)
I've seen that photo and I tend to agree. Meatloaf move over. Paul can you sing? I understand you work in the Faringdon Arts Festival, will you sing in that? I'd like an excuse to visit your quaint town!
I think a Bella Pagan franchise would be a wonderful idea. Actually... Wiccan themed restaurants... that might *seriously* be... no, what am I thinking? And yes, the Jack Sparrow comparison is a good one. You don't get people being all 'nee nee nee nee, pirates weren't like that' with those movies. Or maybe you do, but I don't have to notice that. Actually, I am related to Meatloaf, on Bonnie Tyler's side. But 'quaint'! Oh dear, you're going to end up on the wrong side of a wicker man experience if you use the Q word around here. Who are you Anonymous folk, anyway? I know with the leap to Blogger 2, loads of people are now anonymous whatever they do, but I like to know who I'm talking with.
My family and I sat and watched Robin Hood together and enjoyed it. Robin doesn't look like he's been to the crusades? So what? It's early evening Saturday telly, for goodness sake. (What percentage of the population do you think know WHAT the crusades were anyway, eh?) It's got bad men in black with gruff voices, a goody who can shoot not one but TWO arrows at once and slice through a length of rope and, what's more, a clutch of busty maidens!
What's this about Torchwood being an adult programme? It's being repeatedly trailered when kids are watching. AND it's on the sides of buses.
Spooks? Sometimes it's good, but I do think it really suffers from insufficient explanation. Last week's episode was extremely pacey very early on, just so it could all slow down so we could see Adam get all overcome with emotion at the end. This week's episode was great, but with eight minutes to go I was wondering if it was a 2-parter. No - quickly gloss over the detail and have a teary ending between Ruth and whatsisname. What was the point of the scene in which Ruth went to the flat of the woman who had been bought to say she'd witnessed Ruth pushing the man off the platform? If Ruth was under house arrest why wasn't someone IN the house with her? Why didn't the blokes in the car outside notice that her hair had changed colour? Why wasn't the Fox thing pursued?
And what about Jane Eyre? It's not quite Bleak House and there seems to have been a few scenes cut that leave a few gaps, but we've all enjoyed it. The casting's marvellous. However, I had to write to the BBC yesterday to ask if the sex scene will be cut from the 5.10pm repeat next Sunday. My six-year-old daughter loves it, but I can't let her see a scene in which a woman is up against a wall with her skirt up around her hips and a man between her legs and they're both bouncing up and down, even if it is only a few seconds. Do I think they'll cut the scene? No, frankly I don't. (And I don't expect a reply, either.)
Paul: I wandered over to Chris Roberson's website the other day after reading your blog. In the photo of him on the site it struck me that he looks rather like Brak, Exeter's evil sidekick from This Island Earth! (And you look a bit like Exeter, funnily enough. Do you have a trick plane with no pilot? An acre of canvas? An interocitor?!)
Spooks:
Why did Ruth go to the flat and threaten the woman? To sell the bluff that she was the traitor.
Why wasn't someone in the house with her? Lazy plotting.
Why didn't they notice her hair had changed colour? Yes, that was crap. I thought the blonde would at least whip out a wig.
Why wasn't the codename-Fox thing pursued? I assume that was in there to show how the team all trust each other so implicitly they immediately know that it was a set-up.
A wig. Exactly what I was expecting.
Thinking about it, the Fox thing may turn up again in a later episode. I don't like the look of that sour blonde myself. She's a bad lot altogether.
Wouldn't it have been good if Exeter's assistant was called Penzance?
Spooks - the Fox Thing - will probably be touched on in later episodes. One of the team is Fox and I have an idea which (male) it is.
Hey, Exeter's in Devon, which is next to Cornwall, which is only a hop, skip and a jump from Cornell!
Might be something in it, I reckon. Are your books printed on some kind of metal?
Fox will turn out to be the Bazil character. You know, the one with the tweed jacket and bushy red tail.
Boom, boom.
The Mystery Science Theatre movie does a really good job on This Island Earth.
I pleased to say I have received a reply from the BBC about Jane Eyre. The implication is that the scene will be cut - we shall see...
Anonymous Meatloaf poster here again! Knowing who you are talking to might be a huge disappointment, I reckon anonymity is far more interesting! Great blog though, I've enjoyed reading it!..........
You're Sue from Plokta, right?
Thanks for the pointer to Mundane SF. I almost abandoned SF in my early twenties due to the ubiquity of near-magic which made it all seem less pertinent to my life than the modern british novel which I had recently embraced. There may be hope after all, and my office arguments that Star Trek and its ilk are actually fantasy, despite containing no wizards or quests, may one day become orthodoxy.
Any other recommendations within the movement? The Wikipedia entry gives criteria but no examples. Or is Mundane SF more an ideal than a movement?
I think it's a challenge to be met, but, having consulted with, amongst others, editor Lou Anders, I have the following list: Mappa Mundi by Justina Robson (I'd recommend any Justina, but my favourite, Keeping It Real, laughs in the face of Mundanism); Ian McDonald's River of Gods (which is 'mostly mundane', is great stuff and he's a mate); and Alan Dean Foster's Sagramanda, which I haven't read. Apart from the aforementioned Infoquake, I'd add Geoff Ryman's own recent works, such as the excellent Air to that list. I envy you re-encountering SF, it's a heady world at the moment.
I'm not Sue from Plokta but am looking forward to seeing the next Robin Hood.
Love the fact that Robin Hood is so deliberately full of boylove. I think that all the blatant subtext is earning it quite a fandom. Your episode was tonight's, I presume? Very nice! I take it that the Robin/Sheriff dialogue was so very slashy on purpose then? ;)
Why is this the only page I can find when looking for slash featuring Robin Hood? Surely it's unfair to have such frequent references to pretty men loving one another, when there's nothing online to satisfy the cravings such lines inspire?
I think Robin Hood is fantastic!!!
Perfect casting,funny with a lot of modern day speak thrown in,great acting and the very delectable Jonas Armstong to feast my eyes upon.What more could i ask for?(More series to be made.)
Darn, and here I thought I could settle down for a nice, quiet evening to myself without actually writing something. I have succumbed to the Robin/Much that is ever present in the back of my mind - therefore I will end up writing some fan fiction before the night is over.
I'm glad you were so inspired. And ta, all! There's a section for adult fan fic at the Robin forum I've linked to.
Hi Paul,it's probably staring me in the face,but where is the link you posted to the Robin Hood fic?All help,greatly recieved.
At the Robin Hood fansite link on the right you'll find a message board that includes a section devoted to fiction.
Hi Paul,
I just finished doing the artwork for Best New SF 23, featuring one of your tales, and couldn't miss the opportunity to say hello.
I hope you like the cover, http://www.joeroberts.co.uk/Book_Covers/Best_New_SF_23.html
Cheers, Joe Roberts
P.S. I snuck a Where's Wally style TARDIS onto last years (don't tell anyone)
That's brilliant, Joe, thanks very much! I'll blog that next week, if I may. Cheers.