A complete re-writing of the pilot script is happening right now, hopefully or last draft which is very exciting. It's a script that, if it plays out the way we want it to, will be the statement we wanted from the very beginning. There's not much else to say about this without showing actual progress, which isn't happening as we'd rather just work on the scripts to be honest...
Home, The JOB teaser has gone down incredibly well. Not the torrent of interest we had initially thought, but as pockets of interest began to emerge we could see it begin to take shape. The general opinions all round was that we had made an unpretentious peek into what the series is fundamentally about, which is incredibly positive. A genuine audience has been generated from the pool of friends and family who have spoken out about it. If you haven't seen it already here:
The JOB - Home from Ryan Jon Amey on Vimeo.
The real audience for us rests within the sofa-biders who don't mind sitting up till 11 waiting for shows like Road Wars on Sky Living. Te blind audience whose loving for mind-numbing TV surpasses the common urge to sleep and sensibility that comes attached to that. Alternatively, it will be an audience that likes clicking ON-Demand and catching it later, I don't know. It's hard to hinge an audience with the major concern not being, everyone sitting down in the right place at the right time to catch the 60 minutes we present. That 60 minutes is only 60 minutes.
Now they can pause, they can change and come back to it later, watch it online whilst blogging and chatting on puss-book. In this age, shows and programming are still staple, just how an audience receives and uses them is slightly different. I suppose now, audience demand and expanded technology have developed in this world of movement and convenience to produce a consistent sense of quality over any platform. It would have been inconceivable to watch HD videos on your phone 10 years ago.
But it is this need for demand that keeps producers and creatives busy but anxious. I find myself thinking sometimes, "we'll get swallowed by the machine and spat back out again a masticated mess". There is so much going on, our main concern has been with the writing and the quality of the writing. Overall, your average Joe Lightly or Susie Nobody won't give two shits about the technology, they want entertained, intrigued or fascinated by what they watch. It's easier for us to make the program and let the program project what audience we initially projected watch it and when and how. The power has always been with the audience and will continue to, for obvious reason...
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Below however, I go into a diatribe, although related more to audience, more on personal level...
People say (and as a phrase in general, I hate non-specifics) but people say, "everyone has one book in them...". I agreed that as a human being who thinks continuously, we have limits to how long we can pursue certain aspects that make us what we are, whether it be in the creative sense or otherwise. I tally this in with the general population who find no interest in what we would call "creative" yet I would say that painting your kitchen or totting up numbers a sense of creativity even though it uses the other side of your brain etc. No sense in belittling folk.
Be all and end all of it is, I am reaching the limits of what I think I am possible of achieving. Unfortunately, I need to live, feel like I achieved some 'thing' then get on with it, comfortable in the mind I did all I could. If things pick up, you never know, I might change my opinion on things.
I seem to have come a long way from the utterly blindly passionate film student of 6 years passed, whose love and respect for 'cinema' surpassed his arrogance and dedication to creating a singular vision only 'one' could tell, a view I don't uphold now. It is still respected, yes, inspired, yes, but all in the context that I would rather cater stories that are perfected for dramatic intensity to interest an audience.
I have picked my projects very carefully over the last couple of years, working around The JOB, that has been the primary concern which has real legs and has had well before the shooting of the teaser and has a personal aspect close to me and the rest of the writers that means there is more to it than just becoming "another TV show about coppers".
Since the turn of the year, I have concentrated on a couple of short projects, including whatever contractual obligations I still hold with bands for music videos and promos, but these projects hold the thematic concerns I have held onto since I started producing films since 2003. This does not include AtoB, The JOB short film, which comes under the banner or the overall project so doesn't really count with the projects outwith that.
I have limited myself to help me produce them in a space of time and if they remain to be the last projects I ever make, then it's fine, I did what I set to achieve:
GROUT and Enders, which I have only referred to as a damning indightment of everything I have experienced thus far since returning to Edinburgh. A auto-biographical surrealist tale about my experiences since I returned home, taking the shape of an odd coming-of-age story: "Woulda' called it 'wankers' but seemed too literal a title" (in the comedic sense). More to come on these projects eventually, more in the form of art-work firstly: www.sayzoart.blogspot.com
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We want The JOB to do well. I want The JOB to do well. I've spent too long on the scripts and the materials to not have at least looked at making the pilot in my lifetime, more for the fact that people are interested in seeing it. I want to do it, more than ever, to show people that we did. That could be 20 people or 20,000, I don't care, the fundamental basis of what we had for ourselves has now been, what do an audience want to see?
Ryan Jon Amey Henderson
Co-Creator/Co-writer