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Thursday, November 29, 2007
Here's a nice little article in LA PRESSE on our march yesterday. Attention, c'est en français. The writer put me a bit on the spot as the writer of Bon Cop:Le principe est le suivant: quand il y a un grand succès, il faut que les créatifs en aient une partie, croit Alex Epstein, l'un des scénaristes de Bon Cop, Bad Cop. Je ne me plains pas, mais le succès de Bon Cop, Bad Cop arrive aussi après les autres boulots que je fais.When you've had a success, it's awkward to complain that you haven't been adequately rewarded. And I have no complaints -- Bon Cop has been good to me.
But not directly. I don't share in the DVD sales of the film. My payoff is that more people want to hire me to write stuff, for higher pay. I got paid on BON COP based on its budget.
Moral issues aside, this is inefficient. The next thing I write almost certainly won't do as well as BON COP, but I'll get paid more for writing it. There are lots of screenwriters whose quote depends on one hit; am I necessarily better than another guy who didn't luck into a writing gig on a movie with a great concept, great star package, brilliant director, hardy producer, etc.?
Who's heard of the BLAIR WITCH creators since? They haven't done anything outstanding; people keep hiring them hoping lightning will strike.
It just makes more economic sense to pay people for their successes rather than for the things they do after their successes.
(The Blair Witch guys did clean up economically, but that's because they also produced their movie.)
Which is where residuals come in. If your show runs endlessly on TV or the Internet, if it sells more DVDs than tickets, you should get a real piece of that success. Then you'll write not only for the theatrical release; you'll write for the DVD. You'll make your stories richer because it'll put money in your pocket to do it. Or you'll take more risks because Internet is all about niche marketing.
If your show drops out of sight after opening weekend, you should get a cup of that oblivion. Just like the studio and the producer.
N'est-ce pas?
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Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Quebec members of the Writer's Guild of Canada joined today with members of SARTEC, the Société des Auteurs de Télévision et Cinéma, our sister organization, in solidarity with the Writer's Guild strike.
Chants we had aplenty, because who knows how to hold a manifestation like the Québecois, unless it's their ancestors the French. "Pas d'auteurs, pas d'histoires! Pas d'auteurs, pas d'ciné! Pas d'auteurs, pas d'télé!" And "So-so-so-solidarité!" We had come prepared with some English cheers too, but in keeping with Law 101, they had to be half as loud, and half as clever.
Mon amie Martine has some video on her blog.
I had a great time, there were lots of reporters there from print, radio and TV, one of whom interviewed me in French -- I hope I wasn't too incoherent...
And then we went to dim sum. All in all, a lovely morning in the crisp, cold Montreal air.
And the best part of it? We got to go back to our paid gigs in the afternoon.
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I'm off to a demonstration in a bit -- if you're in Montreal or Toronto, or London or Dublin or Paris or Brisbane or Sydney or Perth, hope you'll join in!
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Tuesday, November 27, 2007
For those of you who've been out on the line -- we up here in Canada are demonstrating tomorrow in solidarity. Anybody heard any particularly brilliant chants?
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I've got a great idea for a book about movies/moviemaking. I assume this all starts with a query letter. Do you have any general advice? Also, I'm young with no moviemaking credits, how much harder does that make it for me to sell a book about movies?The book biz is an entirely different racket than the movies. Books cost little to produce, authors make very little, and it takes an astonishingly long time for publishers to produce a finished book from your electronic manuscript. (Though it takes iUniverse about two weeks...) The book biz is also bizarre because booksellers get to return any unsold book to the publisher for a total refund, which is a huge waste of shipping and paper that no one seems able to stop.
But the critical difference you need to know about is between the book biz as it used to be, and the book business now. By and large, publishers are not looking for a good book. They are looking for a book with a "platform."
What's a platform? It's what makes the book promote itself. Any book by a celebrity (Diane Keaton's books of photography, an autobiography of Joan Jett, etc.) has a platform. A book by a writer who makes a business out of selling his books has a platform. They want a cookbook by a chef who has his own cooking show, or chain of restaurants, or both. They want a book on screenwriting by an author who does weekly seminars all across the continent. They want a book on art buying by the head of Sotheby's, or the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Any book by a celebrity will get press. Thomas Hoving is pals with lots of reviewers; his books get press too. And, of course, any author who goes around personally promoting their book at seminars and other events doesn't really need press.
I was recently talking to my editor trying to sell her a second, revised, expanded edition of CRAFTY SCREENWRITING. Her main question wasn't "how will it be better than the first edition?" Her main question was what my platform is. I have a popular blog, appear randomly on radio, occasionally jury things, appear on panels and so forth. So I'm not without a platform. But I don't cross the country teaching seminars and selling my books. (I don't have time.) I may have said I would do, back when I wrote my first book, but by now it is obvious that I don't.
So it may not be easy to sell your movie book, if you don't have a platform. A great idea may not be enough.
The process for getting a book contract, as far as I've seen, is:
a. Tell your idea to a book agent;
b. If she bites, write her a proposal. This is a document of forty or so pages with a sales pitch, a marketing plan, an explanation of your platform, an outline, and a sample chapter.
c. She helps you polish your proposal then
d. sends it to publishers, who hopefully get in a bidding war.
One other thing you should know about book writing: by and large, you don't do it for the money. On most books you'll be lucky to get a $5,000 to $20,000 advance for 3-6 months work, and you'll be successful indeed if you clear your advance.
You write to help crystallize your own thinking. It may be an excuse to do some research you wanted to do anyway. It is a great opportunity to interview people who might not talk to you if you weren't writing a book. It is fun to give back knowledge.
And it sure impresses your parents!
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Did I'M NOT THERE open and close in the same week? Didn't it just open on the 21st? I can't find it anywhere?
Is this some kind of sick joke?Labels: watching movies
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Monday, November 26, 2007
We're breaking story today on a rewrite. It's a horror feature, so I'm restructuring it as 7 acts, complete with act outs. Time for the white board.
So in that spirit, here's a household tip. How do you get old dry-erase marks off your white board?
For a few marks, you can always write over it with fresh dry-erase marker, and then erase that. The solvent in the marker is exactly the solvent for the dry markings.
But what about an entire board?
Toothpaste.
A little bit of toothpaste on a rag will nicely remove old dry-erase from a whiteboard, it turns out. Toothpaste contains a very mild abrasive that leaves your whiteboard minty fresh!
Now where's my fifth act out...Labels: act structure, craft, technology
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Q. On page 210 of Crafty Screenwriting, you state that one should not photocopy the title of the screenplay to the card-stock cover. Should anything appear on the card-stock cover? If so, what? Should one laser-print the card-stock cover with the Title Page information, or is the cover just a cover?The cover is just a cover. If you're with an agency, the agency will put their cover on your script.
Lately I've seen a lot of scripts without a card-stock cover of any kind. But for submissions I would go with a plain solid color cardstock cover.
Readers: what have you seen lately?Labels: binding
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Sunday, November 25, 2007
Check the WGAw site for where to picket on the (warmer) West Coast.Solidarity Rally
Tuesday, November 27
Washington Square Park
12:00 - 1:30 p.m.
Join your fellow members of the Writers Guild of America, the labor community, and supporters and fans, as the WGA begins week four of its strike against the media conglomerates of the AMPTP.
Meet us at Washington Square Park for a Solidarity Rally. We’re expecting a large attendance from the union community -- including SEIU, SAG, UNITE-HERE, AFT, NYS AFL-CIO, national AFL-CIO, and the New York City Central Labor Council among others -- as well as some exciting speakers, music and entertainment.
And don't forget, Wednesday is International Solidarity Day. Canadians will be demonstrating (not picketing) in Montreal and Toronto (anywhere else?), Brits will be demonstrating in London, etc.
Just because the AMPTP is coming back to the table doesn't mean they won't pull another fast one. Please come out and support the strikers. If you're an emerging or aspiring writer, now would be a great time to show what you're made of to the Guild writers walking the picket line in this deteriorating weather. When you need them, they'll remember that you were there when they needed you.
Meanwhile, enjoy the "speechless campaign" on Deadline Hollywood. Here's Holly Hunter trying to get rewrite ... which has been outsourced to Bangalore.
See? This is what happens when you leave writers with time on their hands.
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Saturday, November 24, 2007
This article, like many others, says advertisers are already worried about the effects of reruns on viewership."“Everybody's in the same position. We all have stuff on the shelf we can use … the common assessment is that we're all good until January. But as of January, when new episodes of shows would have been expected, that's when schedules start to change a bit.”I think people are underestimating the effect of the strike. TV is a not a warehouse. It is a pipeline. (It is, if you will, a series of tubes.)
Yes, you can shoot and edit and show all the episodes for which there are already scripts. And that takes you to January.
But what happens in January? Can you just get the writers to air new episodes? Um, no. Writers have to think up new episodes, write first drafts and second drafts, and then take them to production. Production needs to shoot them and editors need to shoot them.
You don't get any new episodes until February or March.
Think of the strike as a growing gap at the beginning of an assembly line. When the engine-makers put down their tools, you can keep making cars until the gap reaches the end of the line. And then you shut the line down. But when you start the line up again, you have to wait for the engines before you can make any new cars. And no one's making the engines any faster than they were.
With each day of the strike, that gap in the line is getting bigger.
The truth is, the strike is already having an effect on every struck show. The effect is delayed, but it is irrevocable. TV staffs work flat out. There's no slack to take up. It's not like a plane you can fly faster to account for a late take-off. If you lose a day, you're behind a day for the rest of the season. (Okay, you can go from an 8 day schedule to a 6 day schedule, and you can do a bottle show or a clip show, but then you're just writing and shooting substandard episodes.)
Think reruns will help? Not in the long run. TV schedules already plan for reruns. But while you only lose, say, 10% of the audience the first time you rerun an episode, how about the second time you rerun it? The 10% figure comes from the audience not knowing a rerun is coming up. What happens when the audience decides "that show is nothing but reruns all the time?" They just stop watching, period.
If I were a shareholder, I'd be pretty irritated at the networks for pretending not to understand this.Labels: creative process, production, strike
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I recently got some very interesting notes from a reader. They made me think about the difference between the good notes I get from readers, and the kind of notes I give.
Reader notes are all about the experience of the movie: this character is hateful. This character is adorable. This scene is talky. I find this character confusing. Reader notes can't be "wrong," because they're telling you how they experienced the read. (Reader suggestions on how to fix things are usually wrong, but notes on how they felt reading the script are true from their perspective.) And they're crucial, because no one can have a fresh perspective on their own work; and you're not writing the thing for yourself, you're writing it for millions of viewers.
But there's another kind of notes.
When I give notes, or when I get notes from a writer who's good at giving notes (which not all are), they are all about the mechanics of the story. I usually look at the elements of the story, which are, as you will recall:a. a character we care about;The vast majority of stories that fail, fail along these lines. It's not that the characters are not well thought out; it's that their opportunity is not compelling, or their obstacles aren't big enough, or he's not in enough danger, and so on.
b. who has an opportunity, problem or goal;
c. who faces obstacles and/or an antagonist.
d. If he or she succeeds, he or she wins something he didn't have before (stakes); but
e. he or she is risking losing something precious to him or her (jeopardy).
I also look at whether the character is actively pursuing his goal, or the solution to his problem. A novel character can be reactive, a screen hero has to become pro-active by no later than the end of the second act, but ideally as soon as the situation is set up.
I look at whether the story is external or internal. Internal stories don't work well on screen. I sometimes find myself asking for a character that the hero can talk to (an "interlocutor" for want of a better word), but better than having the hero talk about his internal story is finding a graphic, visual thing that he can be doing that tells us what he is feeling.
I look at whether the writer has developed the theme enough. I was recently pitched a story about a woman who is afraid ofwho discovers that her husband is a . I liked how the theme of fearing the was magnified by her horrific discover; that's what made the story into a movie story instead of a short story.
I look at pacing. Can we set up the elements of the story sooner? Can we put the hero in more danger soon? Can we put a clock on the action?
I'm also looking to reduce the numbers of characters. Can we get rid of so-and-so? Could these two characters be merged?
I'm often looking at who the point of view character is. Recently I suggested changing the movie's point of view from one character to another, and that seemed to work rather well.
On a scene level, my notes often involve sharpening and clarifying the turns of the story. If a character is going to have two realizations, it's often clearer to make those two scenes; you don't want the story trying to do too much at once. If a character is going to change his mind, we often want to make it clear exactly when he changes his mind -- to "make it a moment," even if many things have built up to that mind-changing moment, and other things reinforce it later.
Sometimes it's a matter of taking an event or a scene and moving it sooner, or later, or trimming it out. Move a single scene, and everything may fall into place.
All of these notes are really about the mechanics of the story: how the engine of the story works. It's the difference between a driver saying that the car tends to fishtail, and the engineer saying the center of mass of the car is too far forward.
These are the kinds of notes I most like to get because they make the fix easier. If you think the problem is that the car fishtails, your "reader" response is to drive the car more slowly around corners. Your "writer" response is to move the center of mass, or to throw on a spoiler to push the rear of the car down onto the road. Then your story corners nicely at high speed.
(Can you tell I'm a Mustang fan?)
All reader feedback is useful. Intelligent, thoughtful reader feedback is invaluable. But what really floats my boat is great writer feedback. In my medieval horror comedy, John Rogers pointed out where I could have some secondary characters brutally killed about 20 pages sooner; that made the jeopardy visceral much sooner, revving the pacing up. I had not made the antagonists villainous enough (it's my liberal upbringing, I know); he suggested a way to keep their essential characterization the same while making them scarier.
I think a big part of becoming a crafty writer is learning to think in terms of the mechanics of the story, rather than merely the "structure." " Structure is a static word, but a story is a thing in motion. And, structure has become a term of art to describe the chronology of the story. But a story is not only its chronology. It is how the elements of the story work in sync with each other.
Take a look at whatever you're working on. Try to see what's going on under the hood. That's where the real improvements lie.
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Friday, November 23, 2007
I sent my spec pilot to a prodco as a writing sample. They want a bible including pilot synopsis, character profiles, and future episode ideas. Is this expected or should I be paid?Great that you've got interest in your series. If you've gone to the trouble of writing a spec pilot, then writing a 6 page bible with a synopsis, character descriptions and springboards ought to be the work of an evening. In which case I wouldn't insist on getting paid first. If they want to see another script you ought to get paid to write that, and at that point, they ought to option the pilot and the bible as well.I'm not in the WGC, don't have an agent.... what should I do?At the point where someone wants to option your material, or hire you to write something, then it ought to be a snap to get an agent. (Canadian agents are listed on the WGC website.) All they have to do is negotiate the option terms, and they're attached to your series forever more. That's a no brainer for them. Just don't sign anything before an agent looks at it.Labels: spec pilots
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Next Wednesday, the 28th, the WGC and SARTEC (the French writer's guild) are sponsoring a demonstration in support of the Writer's Guild of America strike for fair pay. This is part of the International Day of Solidarity where writers in Australia, Ireland, South Africa, Britain, and other places, are all showing their support for fair pay for screenwriters in the wired future.
We will gather at 10:30 am in front of the SARTEC offices at 1229 rue Panel East (between René Lévesque and Ste.-Catherine. The demo will run till noon.
This is a rally in support of the WGA -- not a picket. I'll be there, and so will most of the Montreal writer crowd, I hope.
All are welcome -- friends, family, aspiring and emerging screenwriters and filmmakers. So dress warmly and come meet the gang. Come say hi, come say "Hey Hey Ho Ho, Management Can't Write the Show!" ... just come.
Oh, and the WGGB's getting in on it too:British writers and trade unionists will hold a public demonstration on Wednesday 28 November 2007 in support of the American screenwriters’ strike [...] at 12 noon outside the Trades Union Congress HQ in central London. [...] Official Writers Guild of America T-shirts and placards will be distributed to participants in the demo. The event will be filmed and we hope that a video compilation covering demos in Britain, Ireland, Australia, Canada and other countries will be added to the many strike-related clips on YouTube.Gee, I hope we get strike swag too!
WGGB General Secretary Bernie Corbett said: “Guild members and other supporters are urged to come to the TUC in Great Russell Street (near Tottenham Court Road tube station and the British Museum) at 12 noon sharp on Wednesday to make this a convincing demonstration of support.
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I know some of y'all are reading the site through the feed. I don't recommend actually reading the posts that way. I often have further thoughts over the course of a day, and expand the post or clarify it. Please just use the feed to find out there's a new post.
Thank you,
The Mgt.Labels: blog
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Thursday, November 22, 2007
We watched DAS LEBEN DER ANDEREN, the Oscar winner that beat out EL LABERINTO DE FAUNO (PAN'S LABYRINTH) for the foreign language Oscar last year. Ulrich Mühe manages to be beautifully expressive in his minimalism as the secret policeman who is losing his belief in the system; Sebastian Koch is lovely as the Party approved writer whose rival is a powerful government minister.
It's interesting to watch as the meticulous Stasi guy sets up his surveillance, how much it plays like an American police procedural. Except now we're not rooting for the cop. We're worried about the guy being surveilled.
In these times where we hear so much about people who want to blow us up, it's worth remembering that it is not so nice to live in a state where the police are all-knowing, either. And it's worth watching how the very measures the State takes to protect itself against a group of people radicalizes those people and turns neutrals and even supporters into enemies.
But politics aside: a beautiful story beautifully told.Labels: watching movies
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A teeny tiny post because I know 60% of you are hoping the turkey is not too dry. (Unless you went for it, and fried the thing. In which case it's yummy, and you're hoping you don't drop dead before you can get the cholesterol out of your system.) For those of us in Canada: hope you've already got your snow tires on. Yeesh. Where's global warming when you need it?Q. I've sent a company my tv series pitch. They're asking to see a few pages. Do you think they are really interested or is this just a standard request before ultimate rejection?No, if they were uninterested they wouldn't ask to see pages. They'd say TBNT.
They want to know if you can write. No one asks to read a stranger's stuff just out of politeness. Show people just aren't that polite.Labels: queries, spec pilots
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Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Although this Jane is not Jane Espenson, she has a charming aspiring writer blog called "If This is LA, I Must Be A Screenwriter." You have to admire the logic in that. Check it out.Labels: blogs
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Matthew Dessem is working his way through the entire Criterion Collection, writing down thoughtful thoughts about classic films. Check out his blog.Labels: blogs, watching movies
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Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Thank you to the many, many wonderful people who emailed me about the internship. I am now going to sift through the submissions and get back to people. May take a few days.
UPDATE: I've made my selection. Thanks to everyone who wrote in. And good luck!Labels: internship
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Here's an odd question...I'm doing some research for a book and I'm wondering if there is a screenwriting term for those scenes where everyone is happy and things are going well, but somewhere else something bad is happening to a character that everyone cares about? For example - recently on Brothers & Sisters the entire family was celebrating and dancing but in the corner of the frame you see someone answering the telephone. You see a look of fear and dread come over this person's face.There's no term for the scene. If you rack focus from the foreground to the background, well, that's a rack focus. If everything's in focus, then it's deep focus.
I'd call it "ironic counterpoint." But I'll ask my blog readers.
Readers?Labels: craft
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What do you do when you have a great idea for a tv show, based on a column you wrote for a NY alt weekly? I've sent a few e-mails to agents but have little faith in that approach. I've also got a friend at NBC who says they'll give it a read. Sent them a two page treatment, char descrips, and a summary of about 8 episodes, but now what the hell do I do?Write the pilot.
Sometimes producers will buy a story or other underlying rights, but it's usually something they tripped over themselves. If you want to make a TV show out of your column, then do it. Write a spec pilot. Adaptation isn't easy. You may see the TV show in your own column, but asking other people to do so may be a bridge too far. You'll have to adapt it for them.
Ideas aren't cheap, but a TV idea isn't just a hook. It's the essence of the TV show. It's very hard to sell just a hook. You have to sell them something that embodies the essence of a TV show.Labels: spec pilots
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Monday, November 19, 2007
A company that is interested in one of my pitches is now interested in another one of them. But if I send them both, wouldn't that in effect pair one submission off against another?It's better to spread your projects around, all other things being equal. You might try to see which project the producer is really serious about, and pull the other one.
But bear in mind any producer has ten projects on the go, so your projects are only tangentially competing against each other; mostly they're competing with the producer's other projects. Sure, he may like one of your things better than the other; but more often he'll like one thing better for one source of financing, and the other, better for another source of financing. The producer will be sending your projects around to execs at the various channels and networks and studios; they usually won't all like the same projects. I currently have two projects at one production company. One is more of a CBC project; the other is more of a Showcase project. So they're not crowding each other out.
If the only interest you have on two projects is from one producer, it's better to get them into his hands than have them sit on your shelf. Right?Labels: breaking in, your career
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Sunday, November 18, 2007
Inspired by the 'Peanuts for Jericho' campaign, some fans have arranged to send a few tons of pencils to our studio overlords.
If you send through the site, you won't have to mail them yourself, and when the overlords reject them, the organizers have arranged for some worthy charity to receive them.
Not sure if this is as good as delivering pizza to the picket lines, but it's something.
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Periodically my parents ask me to solve problems on their Windows computers. It's a job I hate with a passion because (a) I don't use Windows (b) it's a lousy, buggy, insecure operating system (which is why (a)).
Right now I'm trying to help a friend of my parents install iTunes on her new Windows Vista laptop. Wow, is it slow. Like, 15 minutes to reboot slow. (If it were fast, I wouldn't have time to write this post.) A brand new computer shouldn't be this horribly slow on any OS. (It's a Sony Viao.)
It's come to this: for Chrismukkah, I'm buying my dad a Mac.Labels: technology
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Q. I've queried a Canadian producer with a MOW script. He's interested in the concept but tells me his funding requires Canadian writers do the work.Heh.
Is there a way to deal with this short of becoming an iceroad trucker? Get a Canadian agent? Aquire some sort of work visa? Accept the fact that hockey is here to stay? What?
Have you finished the script? Or is it just a treatment at this point?
If it's a story idea, he can buy the idea from you, then hire a Canadian writer to write it. You can negotiate some sort of producer credit (Exec Producer, Associate Producer) and payment in lieu of getting to write it. Not great if the whole point was you writing it, of course.
If it's a script, you're out of luck, unless you want to immigrate to Canada, which seems extreme for the sake of one producer's interest. (Though it is an excellent thing to do for any number of other reasons.)
There's generally no point in querying Canadian producers if you're American. It's a protected market.
You can query Canadian producers if you are European, because they can do a Euro-Canadian co-production. Though it makes more sense to query producers in your own country, who can then contact a Canadian co-producer.
Of course, if you're American, you're really out of luck at the moment -- you can't query American producers, either, until the strike is over!Q. If the writer is American, doesn't a Canadian director, actor(s), dir. of photography, composer, set designer, etc. culminate in enough points for the company to qualify the production as Canadian content (Cancon)Yes, for CAVCO, which is the 15% production subsidy that can be combined with a provincial subsidy for about 25% of the budget. No for a producer who's just planning on getting the other 75% of his budget from Telefilm.Labels: queries
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Saturday, November 17, 2007
Yesterday I wore my spiffy new strike shirt (that a friend at the Guild was kind enough to send me) to meet my editor, y'know, 'cause that's what the cool kids are wearing these days. And I was standing on the platform at 42nd Street when, wouldn't you know it, the head writer for THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS came up to me to let me know that the story about his writers crossing the picket line was wrong. (Real story: a non-writing producer who once wrote something and stayed for the healthcare crossed the picket line.)
"We're solid," he said.
I was thrilled.
I'm also glad to hear that the AMPTP has agreed to start talking again ... in a week. I'm a little frustrated that the WGAe is not striking again till Tuesday -- the two days they take off are the two days I'm in New York! So you won't get a report from the picket lines. Unless, God forbid, they're still at it around Christmas.
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Friday, November 16, 2007
My friend Barry Julien sent me this one. It's good to listen to the other side's point of view. Isn't it?
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Here's a strategy thought for the WGA strike committee: if you can get one studio to sign a fair deal with you, the others will be forced to sign the same deal or lose market share (and they hate that).
I read that a number of Teamster trucks won't cross the WGA pickets. That impacts production immediately. Some UPS trucks, too. But the WGA pickets aren't in place 24/7, so stuff still gets through.
On the other hand, it's hard for three thousand picketers to completely cover all the studios and networks.
But what if the WGA picked one network for an all-out effort to picket them? Pick whatever network seems most likely to cave. The one that, say, has the most reality shows, because they have less to lose from paying writers fairly, and the most to lose if production is shut down. (If your scripted shows are already shut down, picketing won't bother you. If you were planning to air lots of reality shows while the other networks were dark, a production shut-down is really irritating.)
Or, figure out which network or studio seems most likely to listen to reason. Shut them down.
It's not like the studios care for each other's well-being. They can't support each other during the strike, because of anti-trust. So each is on its own.
If you can get one to cave and sign, then you can move on to the next. Who's going to want to be the studio with no product while everyone else is working merrily away?
The strike committee has done a great job of getting the word out in media-friendly ways, with Take Your Kid to Strike Day and Picketing with the Stars. Now we have to convince the stockholders that greedy negotiating is costing more than it's worth.
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You can now buy your very own WGA strike swag! All profits go to the strike fund. I think this is a much more effective way to support the strike than not watching TV (unless you are actually a Nielsen family, in which case, please TiVo everything and wait at least 3 days).
Stylistically I prefer the awesome WGAw On Strike shirt you get for actually picketing, which I'll post a picture of as soon as I can find my dad's digital camera. This one seems a little off message? But I'm sure the schwag site will have more fun stuff. They just ran out of the "No Justice. No scripts" wrist bands but I'm sure there'll be more soon.
My general impression of the past few weeks is that it took actually going out on strike for people to have enough time and attention to start crafting the writers' message. But hey. It took Pearl Harbor to get the US focused on beating the fascists. And then we built 100,000 airplanes.
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Thursday, November 15, 2007
A lot of new people seem to be reading my blog lately, I wonder why?
If you're new to this blog, you may want to check out some of my older posts. Here are the ones with more signal and less noise... A thousand thanks to my indefatigable associate Webs for this.A glossary of tv writer terminology
Choosing a Story
September 2006: It's been done already
February 2007: Old copyright
March 2007: True crime
March 2007: Talent borrows
March 2007: Releases
April 2007: Write for love...?
May 2007: Books as bankable elements
June 2007: Be original in a movie spec
June 2007: It's not about you
September 2007: Write big or write little?
September 2007: Why are you telling the story?
October 2007: The three most important things I teachSpringboards
Challenge your core cast's strengths
October 2005: Trust your core cast
November 2005: When your main character lags
November 2005: After the pilot script
December 2005: Second episodes
December 2005: On to our second script
December 2005: Secret, secret, who's got a secret
February 2006: Metaquestion?
May 2006: Faking technical info
August 2006: A foolish consistency
October 2006: A rose is a rose is a rose
June 2007: Day players good
June 2007: Two-parters
August 2007: Rule of Joss
August 2007: Closing in on an outlineBeating Out the Story
How do you get away with plotholes?
Making plotholes fun
Characters and their dumbass mistakes
On characters and the dumbass mistakes they make, part 2
On calling for backup, part 2
What can happen offscreen?
Nothing can happen offscreen
Time cuts
Train wrecks and telegraphing
Second thoughts on telegraphing
Addressing viewer expectations
Tracking expectations
Losing the audience's trust
Fully resolved by first act out?
Suspense v. surprise
Compressed reality
On step outlines
The Sucky Point
Getting past the Sucky Point
Going for the gimmes in the 4400 pilot
October 2005: Writing the pilot
October 2005: Tell your story out loud
November 2005: Write a synopsis to tell a story
February 2006: Episodic vs. serial, again
March 2006: The ole episodic vs. serial question
March 2006: Shifting genres
March 2006: Clever Grey's, or mirrors make you reflect
March 2006: Dire situations
March 2006: Surprising characters
April 2006: Not what it's about
April 2006: How long to tell your story?
June 2006: Sequelae
June 2006: It's important to the main character
July 2006: Interweaving
July 2006: Interweaving, continued
July 2006: Similar characters
July 2006: Stealing
August 2006: Real characters
September 2006: Feed your head
September 2006: Deus ex machina
October 2006: How simple?
November 2006: Craft v. software
November 2006: Casting about for details
November 2006: Not just evil, but fun evil
December 2006: It's Christmas, tell your stories
December 2006: Cursing and broadcast
January 2007: Jilted
January 2007: Amazing but true
January 2007: Who's the main character?
January 2007: Late hooks
February 2007: No act structure
March 2007: Act outs in pay cable?
March 2007: Three acts vs. four
March 2007: Magical realism vs. magic
May 2007: Adaptation by Amazon
June 2007: Expectations / satisfaction
July 2007: Writing against casting
July 2007: TV acts, structure, and stories
August 2007: Thank you for not smoking
September 2007: NamesScene Work
Have uncommunicative characters explain each other
The cut away from the predictable conversation
The conversation at cross purposes
Format wars
Good playing dialog vs. good reading dialog
October 2005: Fineness in dialog
December 2005: Dialect resource
March 2006: Images as story
April 2006: NIGHT and DAY
May 2006: IM all over that
May 2006: Numbers of pages
June 2006: VO/OS/ON PHONE
July 2006: Character info
August 2006: The value of setting impossibly high standards
August 2006: (Overlapping)
December 2006: Montage
January 2007: The right images in the right order
February 2007: TV is compressed reality
April 2007: White space
May 2007: Quotes
August 2007: The scenes you want to write
October 2007: Song lyricsComedy
Three tools from the comic toolkit
Where's the comedy?
Comic commitment
Simple plots
December 2005: Comedy screenplay format
March 2006: Comedy is someone else's nightmare
June 2007: Still funny?
October 2007: PlussingRewriting
On taking notes
When to pull the plug
The Writer Bomb
September 2005: Rewriting rules of order
November 2005: Rewriting for dollars
February 2006: How much to charge?
February 2006: Rewriting notes
March 2006: The benefits of lazy revisions, or, serendipity
April 2006: How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
June 2006: Follow the pain
September 2006: Sloppy writing on staff
September 2006: Into it now
November 2006: Staying ahead of the audience
November 2006: Make it a character flaw
February 2007: Writing and rewriting
March 2007: Unique selling proposition
August 2007: His master's voiceProduction
Writing it small
Why our producer doesn't like block shooting
October 2005: Identify the gorilla
February 2006: Editor's cut
July 2006: Second-guessing Serenity
November 2006: $14 steadicam
November 2006: A bottle show is inside
December 2006: Casting
December 2006: Auditions
December 2006: Why a short?
December 2006: Diss approval, continued
December 2006: Good adaptations
December 2006: Do you need storyboards?
January 2007: Franchise
May 2007: Accidents will happen
June 2007: Walter Murch
August 2007: Controllable situationsThe Writing Room
Credit the room, not the writer
Why you must have a writing room
Writing personnel titles
March 2006: Two ways to co-write
November 2006: Not just for Battlestar fans
January 2007: Awesome retcon
March 2007: Who addresses notes?
March 2007: Who addresses notes, part two
August 2007: The mythical man monthYour TV (and Movie) Career
Your foot in the door, or why you should intern
On staffing season
Best Screenwriting School in the World. And it's free, too.
Be a back door man. Or woman
Script coordinator vs. writing assistant
Getting onto a show
Never say "no"
Contests and fellowships
Working with people who can't tell good from bad
Working for less than scale
Why you need an agent, part 37
September 2005: Read for experience, not for long
October 2005: Money and freedom
October 2005: Open-source feedback
October 2005: Don't find an agent in TO if you want to make it in LA
November 2005: Trust your agent
November 2005: Learn from the other
December 2005: The mentor debate
December 2005: Act like you're where you want to be
January 2006: Oh Canada
January 2006: How old is too old?
January 2006: Managing your agent
January 2006: On contract negotiation
March 2006: Talent borrows...
March 2006: Study hard
March 2006: Movin' on up
March 2006: The Canadian market
April 2006: Canadian looking south
April 2006: Representational arts
May 2006: Agents who charge you
May 2006: Don't ask me if you're good enough
May 2006: Split territories
June 2006: $100 a meeting
June 2006: How to get better
June 2006: Nudging agents
June 2006: Agent thoughts
July 2006: Ignore this advice too, if necessary
July 2006: One agent, two agents, three agents, four
July 2006: Hip pockets
July 2006: My new agent
July 2006: Getting it about getting in
July 2006: Queries by email?
August 2006: Manager contracts
August 2006: Selling
September 2006: Negotiating
September 2006: Late beginners
September 2006: Agents v. lawyers
September 2006: For free, again
September 2006: RTFM
September 2006: You learn something new every day
October 2006: A moving question
October 2006: Fly on the wall
October 2006: Advice from a scientist
October 2006: Aury's story
October 2006: NYFA
November 2006: Messages
November 2006: Another reason why you want an agent
November 2006: Writing samples
December 2006: Credits
January 2007: Animation
January 2007: Scale is a minimum, not a maximum
February 2007: When do you go out?
February 2007: When to query
February 2007: Be brave like Frank Gehry
March 2007: Get close to it
March 2007: How long? How much?
April 2007: Finding an individual agent
April 2007: The "take" meeting
April 2007: School
April 2007: Got rights back
April 2007: CFC
June 2007: How much?
July 2007: What kind of agent?
July 2007: Suit jobs
August 2007: Spec city
August 2007: International film distribution
August 2007: Specs v. writing on spec
August 2007: Dreams on Spec, part 2
August 2007: More on Dreams on Spec
September 2007: Chain of command
October 2007: Time to give up?Specs and Pitches and Queries
Pitches & pitch bibles
(Longish post)Two things any pitch needs to answer
What network do you want your show on?
A few more words on TV spec scripts
Why you must have specs
Why not just write the specs, already?
Network first, or producer first?
Write a spec pilot?
September 2005: How not to date your TV spec (too much)
September 2005: Pitches and spec pilots
November 2005: Spec page count
December 2005: Topicality
December 2005: Surreal killers
January 2006: Spec script title page
February 2006: Tell yourself your story
February 2006: What if
February 2006: Character pass
March 2006: Will they buy your spec pilot without a showrunner?
March 2006: Comics and Hollywood
April 2006: WGA list
April 2006: Dramatis personae
April 2006: This is the kind of feature spec you should be writing
April 2006: Three days of meetings
June 2006: Technical questions about covers
June 2006: Spec territory
June 2006: Know a director?
July 2006: Music
July 2006: Arcane medical knowledge
November 2006: Online pitches
December 2006: When is a show ready to spec?
December 2006: Spec question
December 2006: Continuity
December 2006: How to spec a House
January 2007: Unsolicited screenplays and what to do with them
January 2007: Pitches and synopses
January 2007: Pilot thoughts
January 2007: Execution independence
February 2007: Querying spec scripts
February 2007: Spec pilots and staffing season cont'd
February 2007: Staffing season, part trois
March 2007: No act outs? Horrors!
March 2007: Click this link
March 2007: Specs for cancelled shows?
March 2007: Query letters
March 2007: Specs -- Canuck or Yank?
March 2007: Pace yourself
March 2007: Medical consultants
March 2007: Spec ep queries
March 2007: Pitching at PitchIt
April 2007: What's a spec pilot for?
April 2007: Guessing game
April 2007: Pitching networks
April 2007: What to send with your pilot?
May 2007: This gets your spec passed around
May 2007: Sneaky kwerries
May 2007: Sneaky kwerries
July 2007: Template
July 2007: Why it's hard to sell an outline
July 2007: Not fanboys; execs
July 2007: And a time to every purpose
August 2007: Britspecs
August 2007: Previously on...
August 2007: Character description
September 2007: Following up
October 2007: Who needs a bible?
October 2007: Serialicity
October 2007: TV spec queries
October 2007: More on TV spec queries
October 2007: Staged readings
October 2007: Double querying?Bibles and Templates
The attractive fantasy
I just read a bad bible
What is Gilmore Girls's template?
Blowing the template on Corner Gas?
Why Tour of Duty sucks
Character names
Backdoor pilots
Who's core cast?
What's the poster?
Episodic vs. serial
October 2005: Bible is battle plan, not blueprint
October 2005: Procedural vs. character based
December 2005: BBC on templates
December 2005: Diversity pass
April 2006: Weaving A and B stories
September 2006: Against bibles
November 2006: Bibles and how to get them
June 2007: Episodic v. serial
August 2007: Where to begin
September 2007: Children and dogsShorts
March 2007: Shorts and short shorts
March 2007: Camera?
April 2007: Short film mistakes we've made
April 2007: HD v. HDV
May 2007: Fun is important
May 2007: Da film is okey dokey
June 2007: Rough cut
July 2007: Sound editing
July 2007: Sneak preview
October 2007: DistributorsReading TV (and Movies)
Where to find tv scripts to read
More where to find scripts
March 2007: Show bibles
April 2007: Bad screenplays?
May 2007: Can I ask a production office to mail me a current script?
September 2007: Post your scripts?Watching TV (and Movies)
Watching with 9 year olds
Canadian SF?
More sex please
Car wreck TV
What naughty girls those L Word girls are
24 has jumped the shark
Watching Firefly
Project Greenlight, the fake break
October 2005: TV drama moves to five acts
October 2005: Don't write clip shows
November 2005: It's the audience's show
November 2005: Five acts and weak act outs
December 2005: Write the other half
January 2006: ER pilot
February 2006: I hate Meredith Grey even more
March 2006: Old teens
March 2006: The Bedford Diaries...
April 2006: Once and Again
May 2006: How to watch TV
May 2006: Has Grey's jumped the shark or what
September 2006: Jericho
September 2006: More bitching about Studio 60
October 2006: I think I'm in love
October 2006: Go thou (and watch Firefly DVDs)
October 2006: Ain't nothing like the real thing baby
October 2006: Jericho is beginning to pall
October 2006: Our Mrs. Reynolds
October 2006: Is FNL best as movie, TV show, or book?
October 2006: FNL and the red states
October 2006: Latest Studio 60
October 2006: The Body
November 2006: Slings and Arrows
November 2006: Why is Studio 60 better?
December 2006: Daybreak's demise
December 2006: Broken Flowers
December 2006: Semper ubi sububi
December 2006: Darkness, tragedy, violence
December 2006: It's The Odd Couple meets Dick in classical Rome
January 2007: Brave writing in Rome
January 2007: Second ep -- how'd Little Mosque do?
January 2007: Denis and I advise Aaron Sorkin
January 2007: Things not to do when you're a famous writer
February 2007: FNL's five acts
March 2007: Insight into Zodiac?
May 2007: Rewriting movies you just saw
June 2007: "Fixing" RotK
June 2007: That darn Sopranos finale
June 2007: John from Cincinnati
July 2007: Not Wilde about it
August 2007: Unlikeable /= compelling; or, Californication
August 2007: Potter bashing
August 2007: Paradise Now
September 2007: Tell Me You Love Me pilot
September 2007: Back to You
September 2007: Journeyman pilot
October 2007: Friday Night WTF?Interviews
Paul Guyot, part 1, part 2, part 3. A "guyot" is an underwater seamount, in case you're wondering.
Shelley Eriksen, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5
Jacob Sager Weinstein
Chris Abbott, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5
Stephen Gallagher, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4
John Rogers, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4
Ken Levine, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4
Tom Fontana, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7
Bridget Carpenter, part 1, part 2, part 3
Ellen Sandler, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4
Alex Epstein, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5CanCon
July 2007: The WGC on the latest CRTC proposal
July 2007: Jim Henshaw guest-rants about the CRTC
September 2007: All your quirk are belong to usMiscellaneous
Characters in SF&F
Writing Animal Characters
Remedial storytelling, or why Kerry lost
Sheherezade
On telling the truth
Redistricting, a modest proposal. Nothing to do with TV, but I wish someone would pick it up and run with it.
December 2005: Let's put the Saturnalia back in Christmas; or, villains
March 2006: Copyright infringement
March 2006: Title sequences
March 2006: Naming your character
April 2006: Story consulting and credits
April 2006: Short film scripts
April 2006: Q. When is a polish not a polish
May 2006: Tragedy is comedy without the punchline
June 2006: Similarity breeds contempt
June 2006: Smokers on screen
July 2006: Hero oddness
July 2006: A message about the comics medium
August 2006: Push the envelope
September 2006: Lessons from the poker bot
October 2006: Q & A
October 2006: Epagogix, or, the Borg
October 2006: Groupthink
October 2006: Biting the hand that feeds
December 2006: Gratuitous violence in Apocalypto?
January 2007: Why I don't like screenwriting competitions
February 2007: When I hear the word "pistol," I reach for my culture
June 2007: Paper bag test and casting
July 2007: Home of the brave?
July 2007: MobisodesLabels: blog
4 comments
Québec AM interviewed me about the strike a couple days ago: why the writers are striking, how long before the strike has an effect, and how it will affect us up in Canada. You can listen to the stream. I start in at 1:28.
0 comments
Morgan le Fay--
King Arthur's lover and nemesis
--was a teenage girl once...
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