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Charlie Productions : Bingo MacFlupsitt
Bingo MacFlupsit, the clown in resident, does his fair share of tomfoolery within the confines of the office but he also is able to comment on scripts sent in. Like mentioned before it was at a dark time in the clowning world but he has now seen the scriptwriting light (probably some tonne of megawatt left after a shoot we did) when he clumsily stumbled into the thing and proceeded to speak sense about plot, structure and the number 3. While not accustomed to the actual process of a normal job he has become overly bitter which can shine through quite strongly. But what we all need to remember is that really, it transpires as affection. Love is too strong a word... we'll settle for a weird feeling. So without further a do here is Bingo sharing some of that clown affection with a "client". Dear Paul; I have a feeling that no one has replied to your email since you sent it to us in May. Let this be a practical lesson in the art of getting your work read and noticed by a Production Company. We're a bag of shit, we're not a proper production company we're just, well, really it's a bunch of us who think the Blaines are the next hot thing and we all work our guts out to make their films because we think they're great and one day it'll turn round and rain sunshine on us. So, look, you've not missed out on anything because all we've got to offer you is some free advice. If you want Production Companies, like proper ones that have money and buy their own drinks, if you want Production Companies to read your work and get back to you... for Christ SAKE MAN PUT A BIT OF EFFORT IN! You've probably forgotten the email you sent - well it went like this: I'll make this quick just in case ur busy. I wrote a film script for fun, then realized it had some potential. I carried on writing and getting it perfect and ended up with a top notch script, I've had people who are in charge of the TV advertising for the north of England and they loved it but the reason I ma writing to you is to ask, who I get to read it to get it noticed by a production company? 1. 'I'll make this quick just in case ur busy.' NEVER use text slang when emailing someone you're asking for money, it makes you look like an illiterate with big thumbs. And hell, In Case I'm busy? Of course I'm fucking busy. I make the tea round here and I'm busy. Do you think Ben or Chris have slack moments? They're either working or asleep or drunk or a combination of all three. You can't start off by suggesting that they shouldn't bother to read your email because they're busy - that means - ahh fuck it, I'm busy, I'll read this another day. AND THAT DAY DON'T COME. You got to make them think "OK I'm BUSY - BUT THIS IS IMPORTANT!" 2. "I wrote a film script for fun..." for fun? Oh great. Last night I got drunk and had sex. That was fun. Do you want me to send you a video? NO OF COURSE YOU DON'T. You wrote a script, now you want to make it and you want to get paid for it. Sure that's all fun but it's all large sums of other people's money and they don't like to think of you having fun on their hard earned. Don't say you write for fun, just say you write, that works... 3. "I've had people who are in charge of the TV advertising for the north of England and they loved it..." OK OK, two things. Pedants corner first - you've had people in advertising and they loved it? What's that a boast? Hell, I've had people in advertising too, I felt cheated. Look - I understand what you mean but what you've said is gibberish, if you're writing to me as a writer I want to at least be able to read what you say. Second thing - 'people who are in charge of the TV advertising for the north of England' - who the fuck are they? Who do they work for? What do they really do? What did they say? This tells me nothing and it sounds like a very bad lie, or at best, or perhaps at worst, a very pathetic boast about nothing very much. 4. "the reason I ma writing to you is to ask, who I get to read it to get it noticed..." Back to the point about writing in English. This is nonsense. If you can't be bothered to spell check or reread your email then why should I be bothered to read your work? Perhaps you're dyslexic or blind or something - well that's tough but it just means you have to work harder. Spell checks cost nothing and they check grammar too. I haven't spell checked this email and it's probably rambling gibberish - it's not nice to get that from a stranger is it? 5. On top of all the stuff you did say that you really shouldn't have there are some big things you left out. WHAT IS YOUR FILM ABOUT? WHAT IS IT CALLED EVEN? WHY WOULD I WANT TO READ IT? I don't care that you like it. I don't care that someone who is in charge of selling ad space in Bolton likes it. I want to know if I want to bother to read it. So tell me what it is. Interest me! Excite me! Give me a reason to email you back and say "Fuck me - I want to know what happens in your script, send it to me now!" I'm sorry if this email is rude but I was going to apologise to you for not replying sooner and then I reread your email and realised that there was a very good reason why I hadn't replied sooner. You come across like a twat who's wasting my time. I bet a hundred quid that you're not. I bet that your script might even be some good. So be proud and interest me. That's how you get it noticed by a production company.I think that's what you wanted to know, even if it's not necessarily what you wanted to hear. Feel free to try again but we have absolutely no money and we're not going to make your script so don't bust a gut or cry about it or anything. But don't send an email like that to FilmFour either - they'll just ignore you - and they really could help you out. Best wishes BiNGO
Wrath is best felt when induced by a clown. Remember that always and warn the grandchildren. Clowns are not funny all the time. But they try. Tea-making is an essential skill in the entertainment industry. It's where everyone begins, unless of course you're a smart-arse and think you're above making tea. But you're not. A good cup of tea is the basic building block of all entertainment life. Huge swathes of media students gain their first employment making tea for no money for a production office. Now, it depends where you want to go in life, but generally running jobs lead to you finding a better job elsewhere once you've realised your job description does actually say 'Tea making and lifting' and that's it. Large rubber shoes help protect the unwary tea-maker from spillage, a common cause of injury. A nose which makes the noise of a horn is good for pushing against doors when your hands are full of cups of tea. And the red hair makes you instantly recognisable as the tea boy. If you want to be a runner, learn to be a clown. It's the only way. To be honest yeah I started out as a childrens entertainer. I used to dress up as Eddie the Elf. It was really the best training you could possibly imagine for a career in the unglamorous end of the film industry. Lets face it once you've earnt your living making balloon animals and telling jokes about wee for a bunch of hyperactive freaks with the attention span of brain damaged wasps when all the little bastards want anyway is to see you crash and burn, you're just about ready to cope with film executives. Trust me there's more coke and less cola but that's about where the differences end. Hi low chiddern, who h'am h'I? H'I'm h'Eddy the h'Elf h'arnt I!Yeah I guess you could say that that was my pitch, my personal statement in the interview with the Blaines. I was about twenty-five, six, something like that and I'd just started out on the whole clown thing and Chris was seven and Ben was however old he would have been on Chris' seventh birthday. Nine. Chris got all hyperactive on orange squash and wouldn't sit down. He ended up being sick over my clown shoes and had to lie down. I think he went a bit crazy at one the other kids about something and then they tried to start a fight and Adam got involved and had a nose bleed. I don't think anyone hit Chris at all. It was hellish that day actually, I've never forgotten it. I remember there was this little asain kid, who turned out to be Zee. Apparently one of the little girls had kissed him and then rushed off to eat jelly. Poor little devil, I found him crying in the corner whilst I was looking for a cloth to wipe Chris' sick off my clown shoes. Then one of Ben's friends, Keith, he was there and he decided that he would be better at entertaining them than I was. He started doing his own act at the same time as I was trying to do mine. The parents had to get quite cross with him in the end. He kept saying "But Mrs.Blaine I'm SO MUCH BETTER than that man!". Ben was just sulking in the background. He just sat by all the cakes with a face like thunder trying to give the impression he was interested in something really clever, I think he might have been sitting there pretending to read some science book or something in the hopes that someone would go and talk to him. I know I tried to cheer him up by spinning my bow tie and making my tufts of ginger hair flap up and down, but he just told me I looked stupid which I thought was pretty rich coming from a fat kid with a bowl hair cut wearing a velvet jacket and cordroy trousers with this long scarf wrapped round his neck. I mean it was Winter for sure but we were all indoors and the heating was on! He was bright pink with persperation but he wouldn't take the scarf off! So no, not all that much has changed. Charlie Productions believe passionately in doing things and always trying to stop in
time for tea.
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