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Interviews
> Ceinwen Langley
Over the past three years, Ceinwen Langley has worked as both a storyliner and scriptwriter with Neighbours, and here she chats to us about how she got into
writing, her favourite characters to write for, and her highlights from her time putting words into the mouths of the Ramsay Street residents...
How did you first get into scriptwriting?
I’ve been writing in general since I was about eleven or twelve years old. I always knew I wanted to pursue it as a career, though for a long time I thought it would be as a novelist. I think when I was about seventeen I found the
script for Thelma and Louise on the internet, and I just started copying the format and writing my own little films for fun. I enjoyed it so much I ended up applying for a film course at Uni, and to be honest it’s all gone pretty
swimmingly from there. I scored my first television job when I was twenty-one, as script assistant on a local kids show, and when I was twenty-two I was offered the AWG internship. I’ve been incredibly lucky.
In 2009, you won an internship with the Neighbours storylining department, as part of the AWG FremantleMedia Scriptwriter Training Initiative.
Can you tell us a little about that process, and what you got from it?
I applied for the Neighbours internship more for the experience than anything. I never thought I’d actually win! The entry required you to plot a three episode story arc with the existing characters, and with Didge having died on screen a
fair while ago I decided to focus my plot around Declan trying to move on with Kate. Which it turns out the story team had already plotted, which I think might be why I scored the gig!
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Neighbours story room. I honestly had no idea what I was in for. Like a lot of people, I had no idea that the storylines were written by a dedicated team rather
than the scriptwriters. And I absolutely wasn’t prepared for the huge amount of work the story team had to do. I’d just come fresh from five years at an arts University, deadlines were never really that absolute. At Neighbours, if you didn’t
meet your deadline and submit well thought out work, you were putting more work on the shoulders of a lot of already hard working people. It was a big mental shift.
And the work load! The storyliners were having to pull interesting, exciting, relatable, funny, touching stories out of thin air at a moment’s notice. And then work around cast and location restrictions, our timeslot restrictions,
scene counts… every week, for first five, then later six episodes. My first week all I could do was stare at everything in a sort of state of horror. But as the internship progressed, and they increased my role bit by bit
(the story editors very kindly eased me into it), I got into the flow. Or maybe I just went as nuts as all the other storyliners, I don’t know. But at the end of the six weeks I felt like I was working in my dream job and I didn’t want to leave.
Fortunately, about four days after the end of the internship and three days after I’d arrived home in Perth, Emma Gordon (the newly appointed script producer at the time) gave me a call and asked if I was available to come back to the
story room as a real storyliner for a month. I said yes, and ended up staying a year.
And what a year! I learned something new every day, from plotting and structuring stories to creating three dimensional characters and keeping their personality consistent and real. And having access to the kind of talent working
behind the scenes (and on screen!) at Neighbours was just invaluable. It was beyond stressful at the time, but I can honestly say that year in the story room was one of the most rewarding of my life.
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Were you a fan of Neighbours before you started writing for the series?
Like most Australian kids, I watched Neighbours and Home and Away religiously after school. But when I applied for the internship I hadn’t seen it in years.
I had a lot of brushing up to do, and I have to say it – Perfect Blend, I might actually owe my career to you!
How did a typical Neighbours writing assignment work for you?
When I first started writing scripts for Neighbours we were still following the old system, where the storyliners would write the scene breakdowns
(a document with a paragraph or two outlining each scene), which would then be allocated to the writers. The writers would then get a phone call from the story editor (my favourite part of the assignment, as I’d get to
catch up with my dearly missed story eds) to answer any questions about the episode or storylines and then they’d have two weeks to write and submit. Due to the time constraints, Neighbours writers are only allowed one draft.
The new system is a little different in that writers now write their own scene breakdown from notes and an in depth meeting with the Associate Story Producer. Because of this, the writers get about three weeks per episode instead of two.
Other than that, my process is to listen to a lot of 90’s music to psych myself up and eat alarming amounts of chocolate. Oh, and act scenes out in the shower. That’s important.
Which characters did you most enjoy writing for? And were there any whose voices you struggled with?
Tash has been a favourite of mine from day one. I was always on Team Tash in the story room, and I was thrilled when she kept popping up in my script allocations. She was an incredibly fun character to write for, and I always liked that
her sharp humour concealed a layer of real warmth and vulnerability. I enjoyed writing Rhys for similar reasons, but also because he was such a unique Neighbours character. We had so many team players it was refreshing to have a guy who
couldn’t care less about anything on the street unless it directly affected him. Chris is another favourite, but everyone loves Chris.
I think my main voice I struggled with was Paul Robinson. It’s tough to find the right balance for him, as it’s so easy to push him over the line and make him sound cartoonishly evil. You really have to ground him and his motivations,
so that no matter what bizarre scheme he’s playing at, it feels real and honest. So yeah, my Paul Robinson got edited quite a lot. But I think I nailed him in my final episode, so that was a proud moment for me.
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Are there any past Neighbours characters you wish you could have written for?
Absolutely. I missed out on writing for Steph, who I was always a big fan of. I storylined the episode before she went to jail and I wrote the episode after she was taken away again so I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.
Going back a bit further, I wish I could have written for Donna, who was a character I really loved, and I’d really like to have been able to write some classic House of Trouser shenanigans. I missed out on writing for Connor, too.
But I did get to bring back Angie, which was a personal highlight.
Your episodes have included some great one-liners, and some very funny situations (the rat in Rhys’s barbecue; Mason and Josh competing at push-ups) –
how important do you think the comedy element is in a show like Neighbours?
Ah, I loved writing that rat! That was only my second episode.
I think comedy is vital to Neighbours and is what really sets it apart from a lot of the other soaps out there. Neighbours is stuck in a family timeslot, so it can’t really compete with other shows on gritty issues and adult content.
But we do have some wonderful actors and writers who excel at comedy, and I think Neighbours is really known – and appreciated - for it. Life isn’t just made up of tragedy on disaster on catastrophe on exploding weddings, it’s also made up
of bumping teeth when you kiss and catching your mature neighbour naked and grandpa farting during a wedding.
Humour is what brings a lot of the warmth and truth to our characters and stories. And while I believe Neighbours handles authentic drama and personal tragedy (along with the odd giant tragedy!) incredibly well, I think the comedy element
is what truly makes Neigbours Neighbours.
Do you prefer writing the dramatic or the more lighthearted scenes?
My personal preference does lean more toward the lighthearted comedy scenes, but my favourites are the ones that also conceal a sense of something more. For example, one of the episodes I had the most fun writing was Tash running the trivia night,
which on the surface was just Tash being Tash, but her motivation was her concern and growing feelings for Andrew.
And the reverse is also true, one of the scenes I’m most proud of writing was Chris asking Aidan to sleep over for the first time. It was a really major deal for Chris to ask, and it meant a lot to him, but to cope he put a little lightness
into the situation.
It’s a bit of a cop out answer, but I’m a dramatic comedy kind of girl.
What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of the Neighbours format?
The strengths are numerous, but I’m probably biased. Neighbours is a show that hits you right in the heart, that despite almost thirty years of storytelling still has more to say.
I’d say the main weakness is just the time constraints, which is something nobody can do anything about. A daily serial drama running almost the entire year, every year is a massive undertaking. Your average show has thirteen –
twenty three episodes per year, so they can really take the time to perfect their scripts and every other stage of production. But in all my time at Neighbours, I’ve never seen anyone drop the ball and say ‘this’ll do.’ Even with
the restrictions of time and budget, everyone does whatever they can up until the last second to put out the best show possible.
The other weakness is promotion. I don’t think Neighbours gets all the attention it deserves these days, and it’s often dismissed by people who haven’t seen it since the nineties as being something tired and old. I also laugh
when the same people tell me (and they always tell me!) that they’ve tuned into the show for the first time in years and they ‘don’t recognise anyone!’ Well, yeah. Are you under forty and living on the same street you did five years ago? I sure don’t.
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What did you enjoy most about your involvement with Neighbours?
You mean other than seeing ‘Written by Ceinwen Langley’ on TV?
Without a doubt, it’s been the people. On a professional level, as a young writer it’s been completely invaluable to have had access to such amazing writers and story minds as people like Emma Gordon, Pete McTighe, Rene Zandveld and Emma Steele. They were incredible to watch in action, and as a bonus they’re all really nice people. I’ve learned so much from them, which I know I’ll be putting into practice for the rest of my career.
On a personal level, I’m leaving with some really wonderful friendships. The best kind of people work at Neighbours, and I’m lucky to have been privileged enough to work with them.
Finally, as it approaches 30 years on Australian television, what do you think is the secret to Neighbours' success?
All of the above! Neighbours is a show made by a really dedicated team of talented people, and that’s not about to change anytime soon. And by the nature of the concept, they have a never ending stream of characters with an
equally endless amount of potential for relationships, issues, run ins, crimes, births, deaths, and so on. And as the times move on, so does the content of the show. The storylines now don’t have all that much in common with storylines
from the eighties, and storylines in ten years will likewise be reflecting whatever’s going on in the world.
What's next for you?
I got back from a backpacking trip around Europe fairly recently (a very appropriate Neighbours exit) and now I’m working on my first Young Adult novel, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.
And after that, who can say? But I hope it involves Ryan Gosling.
Interview
by Steve. Added on 13th September 2013
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