Animator? Editor?

Lisa and I are looking for an animator / editor / After Effects maven who would like to work with us on an Annoying Orange-style short, for fun and glory.

Ideally Montreal/Ottawa/Toronto, but open to people elsewhere if we can figure out how to do it.

Interested? Let me know.

Show Us How Clever You Are, If Necessary

When you're writing a spec, you try to nail the template. You try to get the character voices right, and the pace of the show, and the sets they use. You try to internalize the do's and don't's of the series you're speccing.

What about when you know the show better than the reader? Won't that get you into trouble? Say, for example, you're doing a SPONGEBOB spec, as Lisa recently did. If you know your SPONGEBOB, you know that the adorable-yet-slightly-irritating young sponge frequently gets worked up over the crabby patties he serves, and often calls them "Patty."

If your reader has only seen a few SPONGEBOBs, that may seem weird. Or to take another example that came up in these pages, lately there have been a lot of new assistants on BONES; they don't last long. It's generally considered bad form in a spec to introduce new characters, other than the episodic characters every procedural has (the victims, the perps). But in the case of BONES, you have to.

If you're doing something that is correct for the show, but which a casual viewer of the show may not realize is correct, my advice would be to hang a lantern on it. In the case of BONES, have a character say, "Oh God, not another new assistant. What is that, three this week? One more and we've got a dining room set." (Or, the good version of that.)

In the case of SPONGEBOB, you could have a character say something on the order of, "You sure do get worked up about Patty."

Obviously don't do a lot of this, or it will get annoying. But if there's something important that you feel a casual viewer may not realize actually is the show, feel free to make sure we know how clever you are.

Don't Mary Sue Me

Q. I'm working on a spec BONES, and I've introduced a new lab assistant. I know, I know, never introduce new characters in a spec script (besides the ones that are necessary for a procedural plot, etc.) But Hart Hanson, Bones' creator and showrunner, has said that he'll be introducing new assistants this year. (Quick catch-up: The series regular who played the research assistant left the show two seasons ago. Since then, a revolving door of approx. 5 research assistants have filled the role. They are interns working under the main character and not permanent hires in the world of the show.)

In my spec, the new lab assistant provides an entertaining B story -- and he leaves at the end of the episode, as many of the previous assistants have. But if I keep this plotline, will it be seen by potential readers as automatically violating the cardinal rule of No New Characters in a Spec and immediately brand me as an amateur? Or will I get any credit for closely following the intentions of the showrunner and keeping current?

That's a tricky question. You can't count on execs and producers and showrunners to have been following BONES closely, though the ones that do may give you bennies for it.

I would put it this way: make sure the new lab assistant is there to provoke interesting drama with the core cast. In other words, it shouldn't be her B story, it should be a core character's B story, provoked by the new lab assistant.