Friday, October 18, 2002

"But why did you only cut my scenes?" And on a lighter note, the Cleaners people have suffered exactly the problem with team writing I described . As you can see from this transcript one of the writers, Tim Williams found after he'd missed a meeting that it was his scenes that met the knife when the script needed pruning. And then he proceeded to have a half hour strop. Sample choice quotes: "I just feel a bit as if my feelings have been trampled over and that my opinion doesn't seem to count..." "15 large sections of dialogue cut out of 8 pages is excessive" "OK, but other scenes that were submitted by other writers and how they compared to what appeared in the second draft. Scene 10: One word deleted, scene 11: two lines added. Scenes 12-20 no changesscene 15 3 words deleted etc" The last one is my favourite. It seeths with the obsessive search for proof of the depth of insult being borne. If this follows the pattern I experienced, Tim will find himself the topic of innumerable emails flashing between all the other participants. They will all agree that his behaviour is childish and unprofessional. Tim's opinion might not have been discounted before. But it certainly will be now. 11:22:18 PM  What Say You? []   Waiting for the Other Shoe Two things floating around here today. Firstly, the failure of the institutional Catholic Church to come to terms with the reality of what they did for years to protect and cover up child abusing priests. There are 450 legal cases pending against the Dublin diocese alone. The Archbishop of Dublin, Cardinal Desmond Connell is, putting it kindly, would not be anyone's first choice for dealing this. He was an academic in UCD's philosophy department. He got his doctorate in how angels communicate. (A kind of semaphore with their wings, apparently). This is not the CV of a natural people person. After the damning film, laying out the unforgivable institutional failures which led directly to additional incidences of abuse, two stooges were sent out to answer the questions raised. The Cardinal was busy, it seems. Their basic arguments were that (a) they never knew that child sex abuse was wrong. Ever since they found out last year, they've been much better, honest. (b) they couldn't tell the police about all the complaints they received because, well, what if people didn't want the police involved. Why, if they knew we were going to do that, they might not tell us. Better to know about it, and maybe do something, than run the risk of them not telling us at all. But it appears that the general public haven't really gone for the stooge-talk. This story has come out in pieces, and each time there's a new wave of shock and outrage. In fact, the anger isn't going away in between times. Every new publicity burst just gives it a chance to build. In the end, it will wash away a lot things long taken for granted. The Cardinal will be one of those, if he still matters enough by then. 10:29:11 PM  What Say You? []

© Copyright 2002 Simon McGarr. Last update: 2/11/02; 10:14:43 pm.