All the Gemini-nominated writers deserve to feel proud of themselves, but I'm going to be selfish and just congratulate my own buddies in the business whose writing has been honored:
Marvin Kaye for his heavily-nominated, funny and dark series LESS THAN KIND...
Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern for their heavily nominated series, FLASHPOINT...
Derek Schreyer and Karen Troubetzkoy, PLUS my editor buddy Ben Duffield, PLUS the awesome cast including Erin Agostino and Tiio Horn, for 18 TO LIFE...
Dennis Heaton (aka "Evil Dennis") who I was horrified to find out was let anywhere near a children's show...
...and Mark Farrell, who was once again nominated for THIS HOUR HAS 22 MINUTES. Mark, if you need another file cabinet for those things...
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Sheri Elwood Interview, Part Two
CS: Why shoot in Nova Scotia?
SE: They simply had the best tax incentive. I know it's a big taboo to say that. But it was a cost benefit analysis. We looked at Vancouver, Calgary, Hamilton, Halifax. Nova Scotia had the best incentives.
I mean, I own property there, and I pay taxes there. I shot my movie there, and I know the crews, so it made sense.
Of course, they give to you, and then they taketh away. Nova Scotia just yanked some of the incentives we've been relying on. It's unfortunate, you spend all this money trying to set up local infrastructure, to train a pool of technicians, and then you don't maintain that.
CS: The famous Canadian habit of punishing success.
SE: Right, if you're successful, you get less money. But we had lunch with our local Minister of Culture last season trying to impress on him and his people how much money we’ve brought into the community, so hopefully we'll get some of that back.
CS: It seems to be set in North America. Did you have pressure from broadcasters to make it more American?
SE: It's sort of an anywheresville ugly suburb. In my head when I wrote the pilot, it a suburb of Atlantic City, so if anything there was pressure from the Canadian side to make it nonspecific, for the sake of the funding.
CS: On CALL ME FITZ, your characters are compelling and fresh and sometimes outlandish. But they’re not what you’d call likable. (In fact, Jason Priestley's Dick Fitz is a right asshole, always looking out for number one, and proud of it. And Ernie Grunwald's Larry, who announces that he's Fitz's “conscience” and is out to save him, is self-righteous and incompetent.) What attracts you to writing characters you wouldn’t want to be your friends?
SE: I think at the end of the day it's calling it like I see it. These are people I know, and then I'm amping the volume up to 11. My brother's a used car salesman--
CS: So this is your family?
SE: I'm taking shades of what’s there and looking at it through a funhouse mirror.
CS: I notice that cable seems to be the home of unlikable characters. Do you think that's because there's encouragement to have characters and situations that can only be on cable? Or does every writer secretly long to write characters who are awful people, and only cable writers get to do it? Or are people actually like that?
SE: I think that everyone has a f***ed up family. So characters like these are infinitely relatable.
CALL ME FITZ was my writing sample for years. Everyone was interested in the writing, but we could never put him on network. They'd ask, “Could you get rid of the conscience?” “Could you get rid of the more unsavory elements of this guy’s psyche we don’t want to deal with?”
I think it's too general a statement to say that cable is allowing writers to be a little more truthful. Everyone’s flawed, and we're putting those flaws under a microscope. Cable allowed us to show flawed characters who say and do bad things – the things many of us would like to do and say, but are afraid to. Network is generally about selling ad time, and large corporations don’t want their products associated with degenerates.
CS: I notice that in episode 3, after two episodes which present Fitz in a completely uncompromising way, we meet Fitz's mother and we start to understand why he is the way he is, and sympathize with him a little. Another writer might have shown that sooner, and yet another writer might have never shown that. What went into the decision to hold that back until episode 3?
SE: It’s just how it played out - there wasn’t a science behind that decision. I would say that was the moment where we may have understood Fitz a little more, but it’s certainly not about redemption. Afterwards, he continues his downward spiral. Things just get worse. He does not learn his lesson. He does not become nice. And he doesn’t feel he’s done anything wrong.
CS: Larry’s clearly meant to be mysterious. On the one hand he appears almost miraculously during Fitz's accident. He knows things only Fitz could know. And he calls himself Fitz’s conscience.
On the other hand, he's no guardian angel. He makes mistakes, he gets involved in Fitz’s scams, and he tells lies. (Or I think he does.) Is “What is Larry really” a question you’re going to keep playing with throughout the series, or are you going to reveal an answer at some point?
SE: He’s horrible – he’s just as screwed up or more as Fitz is. I always intended that character to be mysterious. Is he Fitz's conscience, or is he just some psycho. It's about the shades of grey between good and bad -- is there really such a difference? That's who Larry is to Fitz.
That relationship is something I've arced out for the whole series. It goes all the way to the end. Once we know the whole story – the origin of Larry – for me, the show is over.
CS: So in an ideal world, how many seasons are there?
SE: It's a five season arc. At the same time I'm grateful that I've got this far. Season One I designed just to be a sort of a 6 1/2 hour art film box set. I'm thrilled we get to do a second season.
CS: Thanks so much!
CALL ME FITZ airs September 19 on The Movie Network and Movie Central. Check it out!
Monday, August 30, 2010
Sheri Elwood Interview, Part One
CALL ME FITZ is a new HBO CANADA series about a sleazy used car salesman (played by Jason Priestley) whose life spins wildly out of control after a strange man claiming to be his “conscience” starts interfering in his life. I was fortunate to catch up with creator-showrunner Sheri Elwood for some crafty chat.
CRAFTY SCREENWRITING: Let's start with you. You went to Ryerson – what do you feel you got out of film school?
SHERI ELWOOD: I don’t know if it was worth it. Being an undergraduate in film – unless you're setting out to be a technician, I'm not sure if it's worth it. So much of being a writer is about what is it that you have to say – what are the stories you have to tell? What is your life experience? And we were making a lot of little knockoffs of chase movies and things like that. I was so young, I didn't have a hell of a lot to say. I sometimes think I would have done better to get a degree in philosophy or literature.
People are always coming up to me and asking, “Should I go to film school?” And I tell them, learn with as much breadth as possible, and then get a masters in screenwriting. Or go get practical experience.
CRAFTY SCREENWRITING: So what was your first practical experience?
SHERI ELWOOD: I was given a National Apprenticeship award through the Academy. They sent me to John Brunton to work on READY OR NOT for Showtime [in 1995]. John’s a great supporter of young upstarts and he asked me what I want to do. I said I wanted to write, so he stuck me in Pete Mitchell's story department.
CS: The famous mentor Peter Mitchell... [Peter Mitchell won the mentorship award at this year's Canadian Screenwriting Awards.]
SE: Yeah, John was the deal maker, he put me with Pete the showrunner.
CS: I wanted to ask, what was the job or person you learned the most from. Was that it?
SE: I don't know – I didn't know what it was that I needed to learn at the time. I picked up the carpentry on READY OR NOT. Then for a long time I was mentorless. I guess the show I learned the most on – I recently worked on a series called DEFYING GRAVITY with Jim Parriott. I learned a lot from him about running a show, how to treat your staff, how to deal with politics, and most of all, how to put character before plot, always.
CS: You were a producer on DEFYING GRAVITY...
SE: I was a writer-producer. It was an American-financed show, developed in the States. Fox financed it, and CTV came on board afterwards. So we were working in the American model where writers produce their own episodes, they're on set for their own episodes. And I was running the writing room in LA while Jim shot the show in Vancouver. So I learned management skills and a lot about network and story room politics.
CS: What was different about working on an American show?
SE: The stakes were a lot higher. There was more money. And the jeopardy was greater: if the show didn't do well, we'd be cancelled immediately. There were more people weighing in. This was the studio system, so we had network notes and studio notes.
CS: Are you trying to implement the American model on FITZ?
SE: In terms of having more writers on set, yes, I would if I could. I just don't have a big enough staff. We have a good-sized writing staff when we're developing the, but once we're in prep and shooting, we're down to four people. So we can't afford to have a writer on set at all times, plus we're shooting blocks of two episodes at once, so the pressure to have my peeps at their keyboards is fairly intense.
But I think it’s essential to have writers on set – it's not a luxury. We’re lucky in that we’re building writer’s offices into the studio we’re shooting at, so the set will be just a walkie away.
[More tomorrow!]
Monday, August 23, 2010
Stupid Decisions
A friend of mine got a note complaining about a stupid decision a character made. Of course, in real life people make stupid decisions all the time, but in drama or comedy we want to feel that things happen for a reason.
I would generally translate this note to, "You haven't convinced me why this character would do this dumb thing." I would generally address the note by making sure that I'm really selling the character's flaw that makes him or her do the dumb thing. Are they vain? Make them do it out of vanity. Are they devious? Make them do it because they're being too clever by half.
A character can do incredibly stupid things. But unless they're Joey-from-FRIENDS stupid, you need to earn their mistakes. Using the mistake to reveal or reinforce their character flaws seems to work well.
I would generally translate this note to, "You haven't convinced me why this character would do this dumb thing." I would generally address the note by making sure that I'm really selling the character's flaw that makes him or her do the dumb thing. Are they vain? Make them do it out of vanity. Are they devious? Make them do it because they're being too clever by half.
A character can do incredibly stupid things. But unless they're Joey-from-FRIENDS stupid, you need to earn their mistakes. Using the mistake to reveal or reinforce their character flaws seems to work well.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Interstitials
Q. I'm writing a comedy pilot and am torn between including the talking head interstitial bits that are so prevalent in the MODERN FAMILY and PARKS & RECS of today's new shows. On the one hand including it shows a familiarity with what's trending in Hollywood, but on the other hand it's been trended to the point that it's XXXL unoriginal. I'm leaning to include it only if I can make the bits funny enough to be worthwhile + including a slightly finessed approach to it such that it's at least mildly fresh. Any thoughts?Well, it's not like MODERN FAMILY invented it. THE OFFICE has been doing it for years. Er, and didn't THE NEWSROOM do it before that?
I think the talking head faux-doc interstitial has actually moved past the point of being overused, and it is now at the point where it's just another tool like voiceover or the swish-pan.
Readers, what do you think?
Suck Doesn't Suck
Rob clearly had a lot of fun with this picture, and not just with the cameos by Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop and Henry Rollins. The "band is travelling" sequences are stop-motion animation with miniatures because, I dunno, why not. Rob has a lot of fun with fast-motion and weird color corrects and such.
Oh, and Malcolm McDowell's the vampire hunter. Complete with a series of flashbacks to 1970's Malcolm McDowell, by cleverly editing bits of some 1970's Malcolm McDowell movie. Nicely done, Rob.
And, oh, the movie is funny. And stylish. And funny:
Monday, August 16, 2010
Enemy Narrative
[Politics] I try to keep politics out of this blog, but the manufactured controversy over the Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero is almost 100% political theater, so I feel it's relevant.
Various opportunistic politicians on both sides of the aisle (today, Majority Leader of the Senate Harry Reid) are nosing in on whether a liberal Islamic organization should build the Islamic equivalent of a YMCA a couple of blocks from the former site of the World Trade Center. (It's actually patterned on the 92nd Street Y.) These demogogues are calling the cultural center a "mosque" on the grounds that it will have a room for prayer, in addition to its swimming pool, offices and auditorium. Because mosques are, y'know, scary.
(Muslims are required to pray five times a day. Without a prayer room, employees would have to pray in the street.)
I'll leave aside the question of why who builds what in lower Manhattan is the business of anyone outside of lower Manhattan (locals are for it). Or how holy we really consider Ground Zero if the plan is to build an office tower there for Conde Nast, so they can print more Glamour articles about how to give your guy a mind-blowing orgasm.
But from a narrative perspective, this is insane. The guys who flew the planes into the towers did it because they wanted to provoke a war between the United States and all Islam.
Most of the world's billion-plus Muslims do not want or consider the US to be at war with them. After the attack, there were spontaneous candelight vigils in Tehran.
One reason Al Qaeda has failed utterly to follow up 9/11 inside the US is because Muslims in the US refuse to buy into their nutty narrative. American Muslims generally don't think they're at war with America. They believe they're Americans. And they keep on calling the police when they find out that someone is trying to blow up their country.
If we want to stop Al Qaeda in the US, we should be cheering every time someone builds an Islamic cultural center. We should franchise Cordoba House and put one in every city. ("Cordoba," because in medieval Cordoba, Jews, Christians and Muslims lived together in peace while the rest of Europe was in the Dark Ages.) We should be insisting that in the US, we don't care if you're a Christian, a Muslim or a Pastafarian. Nothing would take more wind out of Al Qaeda's sails. Nothing would make America safer from fringe-Islam terrorism.
If, on the other hand, you want to give Al Qaeda as much support as possible, then do exactly what Harry Reid and Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin are doing: shout that we don't want a mosque in Lower Manhattan, because all Muslims are our enemy. Compare Muslims to Nazis, as Newt Gingrich did.
When you promote Al Qaeda's narrative, you are helping Al Qaeda. You are helping Al Qaeda.
Don't do it.
Please?
Various opportunistic politicians on both sides of the aisle (today, Majority Leader of the Senate Harry Reid) are nosing in on whether a liberal Islamic organization should build the Islamic equivalent of a YMCA a couple of blocks from the former site of the World Trade Center. (It's actually patterned on the 92nd Street Y.) These demogogues are calling the cultural center a "mosque" on the grounds that it will have a room for prayer, in addition to its swimming pool, offices and auditorium. Because mosques are, y'know, scary.
(Muslims are required to pray five times a day. Without a prayer room, employees would have to pray in the street.)
I'll leave aside the question of why who builds what in lower Manhattan is the business of anyone outside of lower Manhattan (locals are for it). Or how holy we really consider Ground Zero if the plan is to build an office tower there for Conde Nast, so they can print more Glamour articles about how to give your guy a mind-blowing orgasm.
But from a narrative perspective, this is insane. The guys who flew the planes into the towers did it because they wanted to provoke a war between the United States and all Islam.
Most of the world's billion-plus Muslims do not want or consider the US to be at war with them. After the attack, there were spontaneous candelight vigils in Tehran.
One reason Al Qaeda has failed utterly to follow up 9/11 inside the US is because Muslims in the US refuse to buy into their nutty narrative. American Muslims generally don't think they're at war with America. They believe they're Americans. And they keep on calling the police when they find out that someone is trying to blow up their country.
If we want to stop Al Qaeda in the US, we should be cheering every time someone builds an Islamic cultural center. We should franchise Cordoba House and put one in every city. ("Cordoba," because in medieval Cordoba, Jews, Christians and Muslims lived together in peace while the rest of Europe was in the Dark Ages.) We should be insisting that in the US, we don't care if you're a Christian, a Muslim or a Pastafarian. Nothing would take more wind out of Al Qaeda's sails. Nothing would make America safer from fringe-Islam terrorism.
If, on the other hand, you want to give Al Qaeda as much support as possible, then do exactly what Harry Reid and Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin are doing: shout that we don't want a mosque in Lower Manhattan, because all Muslims are our enemy. Compare Muslims to Nazis, as Newt Gingrich did.
When you promote Al Qaeda's narrative, you are helping Al Qaeda. You are helping Al Qaeda.
Don't do it.
Please?
Sunday, August 15, 2010
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