Writing Rooms, and Virtual Writing Rooms

I'm in Charlottetown for most of the week, teaching at the Island Media Arts "Boot Camp" for writers. I'm putting six emerging TV writers from the Atlantic Provinces through their paces. Yesterday they pitched their shows and we reworked them a bit.

Today the whole class worked as a writing room, pitching springboards for each others' shows. You can't really tell you have a show until you've worked up ten or a dozen springboards. If you have a good idea for a show, a dozen springboards should be the work of a few hours with a bunch of people, or a couple of days on your own. (See how valuable a writing room is?)

(A springboard, as you know from reading my book CRAFTY TV WRITING, is the idea for an episode in a nutshell.)

Tomorrow they're pitching springboards for THE BORDER. Yesterday we watched ep. 7, "Family Affairs" together. (You can watch it here. No idea if it plays outside Canada.) It is one hell of an hour of TV. At the end of each act out you have a pretty good idea where the episode is going, and then it goes somewhere else more interesting. Superb. Y'all probably read Denis McGrath's blog, and he is a fine blogger, but he is a knockout TV writer. (Please don't tell any American showrunners, or they'll steal him.)

If you live in a decent-sized city, try putting together a writing room of your own. In my book I talk about writing groups which critique each other's work, but a writing room would actually pitch stories and arcs and characters for each others' shows. You will learn much faster about writing for TV in a roomful of writers trying to turn an idea into a bunch of episodes than on your own. You'll learn from pitching your idea and seeing what people make of it, and you'll learn from trying to make your writing buddies'

You will all agree -- best if you sign a written one-paragraph agreement -- that the person whose show you're working on owns all the ideas you guys come up with.

If you don't live in a major urban center with other newbie writers, you can still set up a virtual writing room with Skype. Skype calls are free and it's easy to set up a conference call. It will not be as effective to do it text only, and it will be way less effective by email. You need the freewheeling nature of a meeting, where one person jumps on something that someone just said.

Try it, you'll like it. And if your first one doesn't work, build a new one with the best people from your first group and some newbies. Group dynamics are tricky.

The Mole

ABC has a new show they're promoting on, of all things, DailyKos, my procrastination tool of choice these days. It's called The Mole. I was all excited about it. I assumed it was a spy show about a compromised intelligence operation where, I assumed, everyone has motives for betrayal, and everyone is doing something on the side that could amount to betrayal. Who is the traitor? Great show idea.

How annoying to find out it's a reality show. I would totally have watched the pilot.

Still seems like a great pitch for a narrative show. I'm just throwing that out there.

What show ideas can you steal from reality TV? Is there a scripted version of SURVIVOR? How about THE AMAZING RACE? Is there a feature version of BIG BROTHER?

The Man in the Iron Man

Watched IRON MAN last night with Hunter. I was very happy with it. Together with BATMAN BEGINS, I'm hoping we're seeing a trend. Both movies put the character first. BATMAN BEGINS really delved into the drama of Batman. What kind of man dresses up in a batsuit and fights crime? Why would any sane person do such a thing? It wasn't just explaining the technology, though that was neat. It was the man Bruce Wayne, and who he would have to be, and what his personal journey would be.

Everyone has written about Robert Downey, Jr.'s great performance in IRON MAN. Maybe it's just because Downey has put himself through the mill that he projects so much about Tony Stark beyond what he merely says. We don't doubt that some woman hurt him once; he's not a playboy out of fun but because that's how he can relate to the world. His eyes say a lot.

But the script came first, and Downey had a great script to work with. Who is Tony Stark? What are his personal problems? He's kind of Asperger-y, isn't he? Doesn't have a lot of friends, can't tell when someone's not on his side, relates best to machines.

Both movies are portraits of men. Sure, neither is CITIZEN KANE. But CITIZEN KANE isn't CITIZEN KANE either, really, when you actually watch it as opposed to read about it. They're all Hollywood movies.

I'm up for a gig about a guy on the run from Mounties out in the woods. And what I told the producers was that I didn't want to make the guy your standard hero who is wrongly accused of a crime and has to run. I'd want to delve into who this character would be. The kind of guy who runs into the woods to evade cops is not your ordinary guy. The guy who can survive on his own in the woods is not someone who has much use for people. He probably makes bad decisions in social crises. He probably is someone you wouldn't want to have over to dinner. We might sympathize with him in the movie, but only the way you'd sympathize with a bear. You wouldn't want to have a bear over to dinner either.

Meanwhile, David Denby says the new Indiana Jones movies isn't that good, and if you read between the lines, the failing of the movie is the main character. Who is Indy really? What sort of man risks his life to chase after figurines? What drives him? What does he long for? I have an impression from the review that the screenwriter worked from the outside in, and that's fine, but he didn't get that far in, and wound up substituting "Harrison Ford will make something of this" for finding real dramatic meat.

The older I get the more my writing is about the characters. I wrote pretty good action sequences fifteen years ago; that always came easy. But the characters were not as rich as I try to make them now. I think a truly satisfying movie always has to be about a main character (or, rarely, in an ensemble movie, a small group) with a problem. You probably get the idea of the problem first; story comes first. But then, really delve into who the main character would be in this story. What kind of a person is he or she? What is he or she going through? What is it like to be him or her in these circumstances? That, I think, is how you turn a cartoon into a pretty darn good movie.

I didn't see the latest SUPERMAN movie, by the way. I doubt DC would let you do it, but there would be a pretty interesting movie if you got inside Superman's head. Raised by ordinary folks in Kansas, endowed with near-godlike powers, knowing you are the last scion of a planet and race that no longer exist ... that could make a guy a little weird. Certainly weirder than Christopher Reeve's Supes. There's a very dark Superman graphic novel in which the caped guy essentially becomes ruler of the world, with some unfortunate consequences for the rest of us. That's the kind of movie I'd like to see more of.

Smart Drugs

Every now and then an article comes out praising Provigil for helping you concentrate and get things done. (It also apparently helps you lose weight. I know I would go to the fridge a lot less often if I could only concentrate.)

Many of the writers I know are terrible procrastinators. I'm considered prolific, and I waste heaps of time. So a drug that would help me sit down and get things written, instead of surfing, without making me less creative, or turning me into an newt, etc., sounds pretty magical.

On the other hand, I try to avoid taking drugs on general principle. The human body is an incredibly complex mechanism, and drugs that actually change your personality sound kind of threatening. They could make you a more effective person but would you still be, you know, you?

So this is (as they say on DailyKos, my current time suck) an open thread. What are the facts on smart drugs? Has anyone found them effective? Ineffective? Side effects? Moral issues? Are we all mad not to be taking them?

Victoria Lucas: A Script Analyst I Can Recommend

I used to critique scripts for a fee, but ever since I got too busy, I've been sending people to my friend Victoria Lucas. She's a development exec I worked with back in my indie production days.

Now she's hanging out her shingle on the Internet.

Victoria is one of the extremely rare development people who can tell you what's broken in your script. Most readers will give you notes like "I wanna like the main character more" or "the scene on page 60 drags." She will tell you, "your main character needs a more compelling opportunity, problem or goal so that we'll care about him," or "you haven't properly set up the stakes on page 23, so your scene on page 60 drags."

Victoria is currently grossly undercharging for her services ($185 for 3-4 pages of notes and a telephone call, $350 for longer notes and more follow-up), so take advantage of her before she wises up and charges what she's worth.

Who said...

"When you are trying to kill a man, it costs nothing to be gracious."?

Brendan Kelly's On the Scene

Montreal Gazette writer Brendan Kelly is now blogging about the Montreal showbiz scene in Showbiz Chez Nous. Who's shooting, who's premiering, who's going to Cannes. And lots of links, especially to his Gaz articles. Go Brendan!

Can I Use an Hour Sample for Half Hour?

I am an aspiring comedy writer, but have chosen to write one of my specs on the NBC show "Chuck" because I know and love the characters. It is an hour long, but entirely different from most dramatic television, it's more of an action-comedy. Is this spec useless to me as a comedy writer even though it has so many comedic elements? Should I not show it to people interested in my work and just crank out a "Two and a Half Men" like so many other people in LA?

Think about it from the showrunner's point of view. If I'm hiring comedy writers, and I get a stack of 12 sitcom scripts, and an hour comedy, who am I going to pick?

Right now there is no shortage of qualified staff writers. You're competing with writers who have credits. You have to really grab people to break out of the pack. Anything short of "you nailed it" equals fail.

That's not to say you can't send it out. A great CHUCK is better than no script. A great TWO AND A HALF MEN (if that's what people are speccing for half hour) is better with a great CHUCK than without it. Your agent might know about a relatively more action-y, more dramatic half hour. And of course, your great CHUCK will be useful for other comic hours.

And maybe you don't want to be a half hour writer, y'know? Maybe if you love CHUCK so much you should consider yourself an hour writer. John Rogers worked on COSBY, and now he's running a one hour heist drama. I guarantee there are laughs in it. I wouldn't worry about CHUCK being sui generis. BUFFY was an action-comedy, too. If you can write action and laughs, there may be hour jobs out there for you too.