Process #8: Same Old Face

Dealing with GRS

Same face, not old

In countries with an actual grown-up film and television industry (The Industry) money ($) is the main driving factor. If you have $ then you can employ people to make the films and TV shows that make an Industry. It is not an overly complicated equation.

Here in Aotearoa New Zealand, because there is never enough $ to fuel The Industry we end up relying on Gossip, Rumour and Speculation (GRS) to fill the void where work should exist. GRS does not help when it comes to putting food on the table, but it can be a fun way to pass the time.

Just the other day I heard some GRS pertaining to me. Apparently/allegedly, a person who sits behind a desk and makes big decisions was given a project with my name on it, as a writer. Apparently/allegedly they sighed and said, “same old faces”.

Obviously, as I was not there to witness any of this, I am supposing the sighing bit. Contextually, however, I feel that a sigh before saying “same old faces” is entirely within the realms of possibility. Indeed, it is hard for me to imagine one without the other.

Given that this festive time of year is when The Industry sometimes finds itself gathering in the same room to drink and moan about the state of The Industry and to exchange GRS, there is an outside chance that I will run into this desk-dweller, in a social environment.

If so, should I approach them and tell them of the GRS and ask them if this is, indeed, true?

Of course not.

Not only would that be deeply uncool, but it would also bring into play those who passed on the GRS in the first place. The ensuing “who told you that?” conversation is a lose-lose situation for all those involved. Especially me. And the person who told me, if I blab.

What would be more intriguing, however, is if the desk-dweller stormed up to me, at the party, having read my Hey, Writer Guy musings. To have an angry person in my face, demanding to know what my problem is with the phrase “same old faces” when, clearly, my face is ‘old’, then now we have a conversation worth having at an Industry Xmas function.

The first thing I would do would be to determine from the desk-dweller if it was a single part of the ‘same’ + the ‘old’ + the ‘face’ that was the cause of their ennui, or if they all came together in a ‘same/old/faces’ package deal.

If it’s my ‘face’ that is the problem, then I can sympathise with that. Most days, when I look in the mirror, I too sigh and have feelings of the “same old face” variety. Unfortunately there’s nothing I can do about that as that ship has long since sailed.

The same goes for the ‘old’ part of the equation. I could fib about my age, I guess, but I suspect the ‘face’ would give the lie to that so there’s little or no point even bothering.

The same also goes for the ‘same’ part of the equation, on a kind of existential level. As David Byrne once said: “same as it ever was”.

Thus I would deduce that the desk-dweller’s problem is of the package deal variety and here I would have to question their use of the word “faces”. The “same old face” concept in The Industry is way more applicable to actors, than it is to writers. For actors the use-by-date issue is a harsh and very real thing, in an Industry perpetually and vampirically hungry for shiny new faces – or at least new faces that can be exploited for a while before they become the “same old faces”, and it becomes time to find more new faces. And repeat infinitum.

So I will tell the desk-dweller that I presume that what they meant by “same old faces” was, actually, “same old names”. If this is the case, then I have a simple solution: I will change my name. Back in Hastings, as a lad, I was always Jamie Griffin. I like Jamie, as a name. It has an inherent youthfulness, so I would happily go back there. There are those who call me Jimmy G. and I could live with that. Back in the day, when I used to seize control of the means of music production at parties, some called me DJ Def Jim. Maybe a bit too try-hard for a 60-ish bloke? A select few call me Jimbly Wimbly but I could never use that on a professional basis because “Written by Jimbly Wimbly” is far too undignified to secure NZOA funding.

Given that it is undoubtedly not literally my name that is the problem, but what my name represents, then I would suggest to the desk-dweller that probably a better way of dissing me in an off-hand manner would have been to use the phrase “same old voices” because it is actors who have faces, while writers have voices.

Now, I would suggest, to my desk-dwelling compadre at the flash Industry party, probably over a glass of rosé, we are starting to get to the heart of the matter. The problem you have is with me and what I write – and the fact that I’ve been doing it for ages. The same old James, still banging out the same old shit.

And I’d probably surprise my desk-dwelling drinking buddy by agreeing with them – up to a point. It is important to bring new writers into The Industry. In fact, I hope that across the eons I’ve been writing in what is, inevitably, a collaborative Industry, that I’ve managed to aide and abet a fair few writers into the stupid game we play. To the point where, probably, some of them are now approaching or have attained “same old faces” status.

However, having softened the desk-dweller up with this gentle validation, it is definitely time to address the elephant at the party.

The name of this elephant is: what the fuck is your problem here?

Yes, I have been plying my trade as a screenwriter for a long time. In fact, come 2025 it will be exactly 40 years since I started as a Trainee Script Editor in the Drama Department at TVNZ.

Which I guess certainly speaks to the ‘old’ part of the equation.

Except what they see as ‘old’ I see as ‘experience’. I see it as time spent crafting my work. I see it as a world of experience, opening the doors to experiences yet to follow. I see it as learning; getting better; discovering new ways to tell old stories.

I see it as a career well spent.

The likelihood, in this fictional conversation, at this fictitious party, is that the desk-dweller will tell me that The Industry has changed. As if this explains my “same old faces” status.

And I will agree with them. Yes, The Industry has changed. When I started my career, The Industry was funded by the TV licence fee and advertising revenue. Now the question of how The Industry is funded is anyone’s freaking guess. And yes, in the intervening 40 years, delivery platforms have shifted, like tectonic plates. So yes, The Industry has undeniably changed.

But storytelling hasn’t. Beginning and middle and end. Heroes and villains. Life and death. Laughter and tears. Doesn’t matter how you dress it up or how it eventually reaches an audience, the fundamentals will always remain the same: getting people to watch the stories you write, by whatever means you have at your disposal. Bums on seats, to quote Roger Hall.

And storytelling is what I do.

And it’s not like I’ve been phoning it in. It’s not like there have ever been laurels upon which I could rest. The curse and the beauty of being a scriptwriter in Aotearoa New Zealand is that the work is the reward. And to keep working you need to keep evolving, telling the stories that speak to me – and hopefully, down the track, an audience - in the here and now.

A same old face?

On some levels, sure.

But on the levels that count, don’t you dare dismiss me in such a glib and off-hand manner.

And then I will walk away from the desk-dweller. Probably to the bar, in search of another rosé, but always with my head held high.