The editor has intuited that Tony is Chinese cinema’s best leading man sometime between seeing some stills of Lust, Caution and investigating the truth about his sad childhood on Wikipedia. So in the thrill of her discovery – and because nobody else had the time – I ended up having to write a “why Tony’s the bestest” story for Sunday in 24 hours flat.
And I didn’t write the bestest story, I know, but I had a nasty feeling when she said to send it to the rewriter, a former Fleet Streeter who is intelligent but has a tendency to overwrite. Soon enough the story came back with comments like, “Why are we writing this story?” So I told her the ed wanted a “why Tony’s the bestest” story, 60cm, and this was my attempt to rave meaningfully. Like I said, she is intelligent. She gave me an “ah, that kind of story” look and said I should rewrite the intro to better contextualise Tony and the story would be okay. So I thought maybe I was wrong about her.
But I wasn’t. In a matter of mere minutes she came to the ed and me with an idea: Why don’t we sex things up with sexy stills of Lust, Caution, sexy allusions to the sex scenes, sexy Lust, Caution puns? Okay. So I wrote about Tony’s testes, nudity, emotional nakedness, which no one in Singapore would see in the NC16 cut. But the ed said, “Let’s not rub it in.” She had a go at the story. The rewriter had a go at it. By the time it came back the intro was a long Lust, Caution pun I didn’t get. Who would start a story about Tony’s greatness with wordplay so meaningless? Oh foreign talent would. Also the ed had made Ms M call Mr and Ms Expert then beefed up the intro with two quotes on Tony’s greatness. I felt sick.
“Er isn’t it like quoting experts on how powerful the MM is?” I said.
“Not everybody knows Tony’s great what,” the ed said. Right. She hadn’t known before she saw those stills of Lust, Caution so how could Singapore know? Infernal what?
Anyways there was no time for me to unwrite the rewrite. It was out of my hands. All that could be done was to have my byline deleted. Tony deserves a better story that I could write within 24 hours, I know.
2 comments:
Oh I'm so sorry that story turned out to be such a horrible experience for you! And I know you were stuck with it after I said no! Sorry Sorry!
That said, can you imagine how much worse it would have been for me if I were the one writing the story? How to face Tony after I do a hack job on him? Some more for people who don't even understand the timbre of his sadness. Gah.
ps. totally get what you mean about over-writing fleet-streeter.
have u been fleet streeted by her? she has her fans but me, i am no fan. i think i might have said oh god out loud when the editor said to send my story to her.
anyways i should have given them a third intro, something that has what they want and what i want. but i was too tired then.
Post a Comment