I'm back...plus interesting article in UK Sunday Telegraph today.

Hi all,
I stopped posting a few years back on misc.writing.screenplays for the obvious reasons but had no idea that there was now a moderated newsgroup - FANTASTIC! I would have been back sooner if I had known about it so "Hi" to anyone who remembers me and "Hi" to anyone who doesn't.

There is an interesting article in today's Sunday Telegraph about Hollywood going for, at last, older audiences. I wondered how long this would take to occur bearing in mind the aging demograph in the West.

Extract:
''I'm sorry," I say into the phone. "I think one of us is going through a bad cell or something. I thought I heard you say that you'd like the main character to be older." I chuckle good-naturedly, and hope that my little joke will ease the tension. I'm on the phone with a television network, you see, getting notes on a script.
In Hollywood, writers don't get paid to write. They get paid to get notes. Writers - real writers, anyway - would probably write for free. But to get a writer to sit quietly and listen to someone - usually someone in an office, with a secretary, and a salary, and a name like "Josh" or "Kristin" - say something like: "Um, can we platform the characters a bit better earlier in the piece?" Or, "I'm just wondering about the hero's journey here," you really have to cough up some heavy coin.'
Here's the link to the full article:
http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/11/20/do2009.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2005/11/20/ixop.html