Thanks everyone!
That's wonderful! Congratulations, dude!! Looking forward to it.
I'll also be looking out for it, but maybe also post a link or so when it is out, so we can all know? Thanks!
Oh I'm sure I will do!
Well done. Can you tell us about the process (writing, recording etc etc)?
Of course. Basically I submitted an idea for the Paul Spragg Short Trips contest. Didn't hear anything for a while so assumed I hadn't won, then got an email to say that, whilst indeed I hadn't won, my idea had reached the very final stages and the commissioning editor asked if I would be willing to write it for their subscriber only market. The pay was slightly less but obviously I still jumped at the chance. I then had around a month or so to write a first draft which I needed to send in to him. He came back with some notes/suggestions which encouragingly didn't amount to me needing to make wholesale changes, and some were down to inexperience (for example I had the Doctor refer to some alien critters as buggers and he advised we wouldn't get that past the BBC so I think I changed it to devils). Anyhoo sent my second version in and he was happy with that.
All had to be signed off by the BBC but that didn't take long, then last weekend I was invited to attend the recording. It was a fair distance but it's potentially such a once in a lifetime opportunity that I had to take it. Went to a small recording studio near Croydon. They were recording five short trips. Only myself and one other author was there. Then the editor, Ian, the guy who runs the studio and the actor Stephen Critchlow (who I shamefully didn't realise was a proper ac-tor until afterwards). Mine was the last recorded, it was an amazing experience because Stephen put so much emotion into my words, emphasising some parts I hadn't even realised needed emphasising and he put so much heart into the characters. If I had one disappointment I guess it was because mine was last and it'd been a long day and Stephen was clearly quite tired by this point, but that's a minor quibble and he was still great reading mine.
It was interesting to see the process, how it tends to flow but then they'll pull him back and make him redo a line if there's been an error or if they wanted more emotion in a particular line or more/less humour. It was really facinating.
A tiny bit of BF gossip as well, first off you get the impression that it's still not a huge money making machine (which I guess we all knew) and even getting Tennant on board hasn't been as succesful as they hoped. On the subject of Tennant he loves doing it but his agent has a tendency not to pass things along (because I guess it doesn't pay that well) and they seem to have the same issue with Matt. Matt says BF haven't approached him but apparently they've contacted his agent lots, the agent just isn't passing it along!
As for the future, the impression I was given is that there may be the possibly of more BF work in the future but that it may take a while, they do seem to have a looong lead time.
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