House Viewers Want Health Care; Weight Loss Fans Want Tax Cuts.

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As part of the bizarre birther saga, this Daily Mail article includes an interesting chart of different shows and how they skew on Red v. Blue. As you'd expect, football fans skew relatively Republican and 60 Minutes watchers skew Democratic. For some reason, Celebrity Apprentice fans are almost off the chart skewing Democratic.

I love that they have this information. I wonder how FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS skews?

(Personally I'm with the people who suspect the President of releasing his long-form birth certificate precisely to keep the birther meme alive, so it, and Donald Trump, can continue to suck the oxygen out of the Republican nomination race. The serious Republican candidates have to be going insane with frustration that a cartoon candidate, whose Republican bona fides are practically nonexistent, is grabbing all the headlines, just when they thought they'd hung up enough garlic to keep Sarah Palin out of the house. But that's another story.)

You Are So Undead at Just for Laughs

Just got word that YASU's been selected to screen at Just for Laughs Chicago:

Your film has been selected to screen as part of the Best of Just For Laughs Shorts Program #2 on Friday, June 17 at 6:00 pm. The screening will be presented as part of TWIX PRESENTS: TBS JUST FOR LAUGHS CHICAGO from June 14-18, 2011, at Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Which set us a-Googling, and we discovered that we also screened at the Night of Horrors in Sydney, Australia, in April, in Dawson City last Friday, and will be screening Thursday, May 5, at Dead by Dawn in Edinburgh. Who knew?

Unfaithful

I wrote a free adaptation for a short story back in university and I'd like to rewrite it, in order to make something that would be all my own, beause I really like the story I ended up with. The fact is that I really didn't stick to the written text and invented many new details. I really liked the themes and setting, which I'd like to keep in a new story, and I am afraid that it might be seen as some form of copyright infringement. Would "Inspired by a story from..." or something like that be a possible course of action? Should I try to get the authorization from the rights owners instead?

Unless it's a selling point that you're adapting a specific book or property, I'd stay away from writing anything that requires rights. By the time you finish adapting most material into a movie, it's not the same material any more. If you haven't talked to the rights owner at that point, you're free and clear. If you have, you're in a bind, and if you have a contract, you're stuck.

The reason to get the rights would be that the property itself is a major selling point (e.g. GAME OF THRONES, a best-selling series of novels); or if the material is so unique and so cinematic that anything but a faithful adaptation would make a worse movie, not a better one. For example, John Grisham writes novels that are already so made-for-features that even if they weren't best-sellers, you'd be crazy to adapt one loosely.

I can't, of course, answer the question "is my adaptation loose enough that I can steal the idea?" That requires a copyright lawyer, and even there, the answer is probably "if you have to ask, then you can't." If someone reading your screenplay would say, "Hmm, this reminds me vaguely of X, did you ever read it?" then you're probably okay. But I am not a lawyer, nor is this legal advice...

The Intentional Fallacy in Alien

In CRAFTY SCREENWRITING, I wrote:

Alien is a well-crafted story about a bunch of human beings in danger of being eaten by a monster. While we find out that an evil corporation put them in danger, the movie isn't really about the danger of evil corporations. It's about people trying not to get eaten by a giant bug. We come away from the film with just the adrenaline rush.

A Friend of the Blog writes in:

When I was a film student, Dan O'Bannon came to speak after a screening of that film, and he actually worked himself into a lather over this exact topic. "Everyone thinks this movie is about an alien, and it isn't. It isn't! It's about the evil corporations and how they only care about the bottom line, not human life!" He became so angry and vehement (without anyone provoking him) that I remember the scene rather well.

Heh.

Fundraiser

Okay, we're holding a fundraiser for Tyrone Benskin on Thursday, 7-9, in the Old Port. RSVP...

Shout Out

(Canadian politics)

As some of you may know, Canada is in the throes of an election. I was delighted to see that Tyrone Benskin, VP of ACTRA and Artistic Director of Montreal's Black Theatre Workshop, is not only running for parliament in Jeanne-Le Ber, but is within 1.1% of winning it.

I had the pleasure to work with Tyrone on Charlie Jade (he played Karl Lubinsky), and he is a wise and thoughtful man, easy to work with yet passionate about the work, a rare combination.

I think it would be great to have a voice in Parliament who knows the concerns of the performing arts community firsthand. And with the NDP surging in Québec, it's suddenly possible. So I'm going to organize a little fundraiser this week. In the mean time, check out his site, http://tyronebenskin.ndp.ca, and if you feel like it, come to our fundraiser..

Relevance

My intrepid research assistant Jennifer chased down the details on Cancon requirements for co-productions. This sounds boring, but it is important if you're a Canadian writer, because if you have a co-production, you can do exactly what I was arguing for a little while ago, that is, set your Canadian show in European (or other) history. I asked "how exactly did The Tudors and The Borgias qualify for CMF funding, given that the co-production country is Ireland and neither is set there?" Here's the answer:

1. 3.2.TV.1.1 Official Treaty Co-Productions clause concerning Essential Requirements applies when submitting an application to access funding from the CMF.

2. Every co-production project is examined individually and assessed based on story content and the time period, and it's relevance to a Canadian audience, and that of the co-producing country. For example, the time period of "The Tudors" was deemed relevant to both Irish and Canadian history. For the "The Borgias", it was the cultural and historical significance of Catholicism to a Canadian (and the co-producing country) audience.

3. Telefilm has turned down co-production applications based on more modern stories, with no cultural, historical or other relevance for a Canadian audience.

The interpretation:
The term "Canada" includes the co-producing country based on the Essential Requirements. If the content and time period are relevant to a Canadian audience, based on Telefilm's examination, then it doesn't have to be "set" in Canada.

Nifty.

I think I'll go polish up my historical ninja series now.

Warners Warning

And here's some news on the Warner Bros. Writers' Workshop:

From May 2 until June 1, 2011 we are once again taking submission for the Warner Bros. Writers' Workshop!

Things to remember:

1. There is NO golden ticket into the program- referrals should not call, send emails, or love grams- they will not help.
2. This is not a minority program- we welcome everyone from all backgrounds to apply.
3. Resumes are required to submit but they are divorced from their scripts during the first round of qualifications- you get into this program based on your writing skills.
4. The online application feature will launch on May 2nd, so no one is able to submit before then.