GLEE is a rare bird among writing rooms. It’s just Brennan and Ryan and Brad. “We don’t have a writing staff, which is not typical. I know on OVER THERE it was Bochco and one other guy. But I don’t understand how you do it differently. We co-write everything. We’re credited sort of randomly on the show. But we all do passes. Ryan has a really good sense of what plays in Peoria. If I wrote it, one million people would really f***ing love it.” [Note to Canadian readers: that’s a very small number of viewers.]
“Now that we’re picked up for season three, hiring writing staff would probably actually slow us down. There would be almost a learning curve – how would someone come in to write for us? Anyway, writing the show is getting easier. The show tells you what it wants. And now that people like it, you don’t think ‘I’m writing a turd.’”
One of the audience members asked if the characters were going to write original music, but Brennan didn’t think so. “The secret to how our show works is two things for me. First, people singing for no reason. I don’t, ironically, like musicals. Unless I’m in them. My sister and I when we were very young were watching THE SOUND OF MUSIC, and we were, like, ‘how do they know all the words?’ With our show, it makes more sense that people are singing. And it’s music you know, so there’s an endorphin rush from the moment you know what song it is, you’re already going there. I mean, now we can stretch the boundaries a bit, but don’t just have people just burst into song.”
A reporter asked about a NEWSWEEK article about whether gay actors can play straight people. “I don’t feel I have that much to contribute. I guess we are still obsessed with where people put their genitals
We still all giggle at that. The generation behind us is officially not going to care. They already kind of don’t care. You’re going to have to apologize to your children or grandchildren, ‘Yeah, it used to be bad, gay people couldn’t marry and all this stuff.’ I mean, are we really talking about this?”
“The tour beat all expectations. We just wondered, could we do a live tour? Would it be good? We threw out a trial balloon — and all the venues sold out in 30 seconds or something insane.”
“We get calls all the time from people who want to be on our show, but you don’t want it to be THE LOVE BOAT. I mean, ‘Who would you be?’”
“I keep hearing that there are budget cuts in high schools everywhere, but because of the show, now they don’t dare cut Glee Club. So the show is a snake eating its own tail. But I hope it isn’t reserved for music. I wouldn’t be here if not for the theater department. I’m 100% a product of American public school system; this is the logical endpoint of my arts education. Public education works – it did for me. Don’t cut all that arts stuff. If not for that, I’d be a veterinarian in Chicago.”
“I can only make sense of the world through making fun of things. For me the show is always funny, but the humor has to cut against something. A grounded foundation of story and character and heart. Oddly enough we kind of learned early on that the episodes that read the funniest on the page aren’t that funny. It’s the sad episodes, the ones that key into that sanguine earnest soft feeling that you had when you first fell in love... those are the ones that really make you laugh.”
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Barking Up The Wrong Tree
[Canadian politics]
Friend of the Blog Vince draws my attention to his letter to the editor of the Montreal Gazette objecting to the bean counters running the Canadian TV and film industry.
I don't think bean counters are the problem. The problem is the Conservative government. They are not incompetent. They are actively hostile to the idea that government should support and pay for the arts. Basically, the arts are either popular or not popular. If they're popular, they should be able to support themselves. If they're not popular (opera, ballet), let people who like them donate to them. Why should the taxpayer have to support them.?
Which is a perfectly legitimate, Republican point of view.
I disagree with it. I don't want Canada to become a cultural backwater. Every civilized country supports its own arts, with the exception of the US, which has a 300 million member audience and is the location of the international film industry (which is what the US film industry really is). I think culture is a public good akin to roads, defense, police, environmental regulation, safety inspectors and fire departments: it gives more value to society than individuals are willing to pay for. We tax everyone to create roads that some people drive on and other people don't, so what's wrong with the government taxing everyone to support a vibrant arts culture?
But the Conservatives disagree. And complaining to them is not going to be very fruitful, because their political philosophy is that government should not protect or support the arts.
The way you protect Canadian culture is you get a government of the left. In my province, Québec, for example, elections are run between the left-wing Liberals and the even-more-left-wing PQ. Culture (even English culture) is very well supported in Québec.
The way you get a government of the left is you convince the egomaniacs in charge of the parties of the left to form an electoral coalition. An electoral coalition is an agreement that if, say, the New Liberal Party candidate is ahead in one riding, the Democratical candidate will bow out and throw his support to his brother; and if the Democratical candidate is ahead, the New Liberal candidate will drop out and support him. An electoral coalition increases the representation of both parties after the election. You don't even have to agree to form a coalition afterwards; you just increase the number of MPs that both parties have.
The only reason the NDP and Liberals won't do it is because their leaders, want to destroy each other more than they want to govern Canada.
The egos of a dozen people are preventing the 67% of Canadians who vote left from having a majority left government.
Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now.
Friend of the Blog Vince draws my attention to his letter to the editor of the Montreal Gazette objecting to the bean counters running the Canadian TV and film industry.
I don't think bean counters are the problem. The problem is the Conservative government. They are not incompetent. They are actively hostile to the idea that government should support and pay for the arts. Basically, the arts are either popular or not popular. If they're popular, they should be able to support themselves. If they're not popular (opera, ballet), let people who like them donate to them. Why should the taxpayer have to support them.?
Which is a perfectly legitimate, Republican point of view.
I disagree with it. I don't want Canada to become a cultural backwater. Every civilized country supports its own arts, with the exception of the US, which has a 300 million member audience and is the location of the international film industry (which is what the US film industry really is). I think culture is a public good akin to roads, defense, police, environmental regulation, safety inspectors and fire departments: it gives more value to society than individuals are willing to pay for. We tax everyone to create roads that some people drive on and other people don't, so what's wrong with the government taxing everyone to support a vibrant arts culture?
But the Conservatives disagree. And complaining to them is not going to be very fruitful, because their political philosophy is that government should not protect or support the arts.
The way you protect Canadian culture is you get a government of the left. In my province, Québec, for example, elections are run between the left-wing Liberals and the even-more-left-wing PQ. Culture (even English culture) is very well supported in Québec.
The way you get a government of the left is you convince the egomaniacs in charge of the parties of the left to form an electoral coalition. An electoral coalition is an agreement that if, say, the New Liberal Party candidate is ahead in one riding, the Democratical candidate will bow out and throw his support to his brother; and if the Democratical candidate is ahead, the New Liberal candidate will drop out and support him. An electoral coalition increases the representation of both parties after the election. You don't even have to agree to form a coalition afterwards; you just increase the number of MPs that both parties have.
The only reason the NDP and Liberals won't do it is because their leaders, want to destroy each other more than they want to govern Canada.
The egos of a dozen people are preventing the 67% of Canadians who vote left from having a majority left government.
Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now.
Ian Brennan at Banff, Part One
Ian Brennan has had one of the most shocking and hope-inspiring trajectories I have ever heard of. Today, he’s one of the creators of the massive hit show GLEE. But if you’d talked to him two or three years ago, he wouldn’t even have told you he was a writer. “Writing had been my hobby. I was an actor.” A theater actor. He had been trying to write important plays. “But once you stop trying to write something ‘important,’ it frees you up to write what you really love.”
Then he wrote the script to GLEE, based on his fairly miserable experience as member of the Prospect High School show choir in Mount Prospect, Illinois. The draft he wrote wasn’t the peppy, arch, fluffy show that’s provoked a nationwide road show. It was a darker story, “more like JUNO or ELECTION.”
Fortunately, Mike Novick, a guy he knew at his gym, knew Ryan Murphy, one of the guys who’d created NIP/TUCK. (This is why you want to live in LA.) NIP/TUCK was just winding up its last season. Murphy was looking for a new show to do.
Murphy and his partner Brad Falchuck loved the script. Murphy had been in a glee club, too. More accurately, they loved their take on Brennan’s script. So they called him in and pitched him their version of the show. It was a TV series, and it was much lighter.
“So I sat down and wrote the first draft of the pilot.”
The pilot was picked up amazingly fast. The only note from Fox was “I think you need a nemesis inside the school. I can’t believe we missed that. And Ryan just sat back and said, ‘Yeah, I think it’s a cheerleader named Sue Sylvester.’ And now I get to write her.”
“So we were like the dog that actually catches a car: what do I do now?”
“Not that I wasn’t working hard as an actor for 12 years in the theater, but then for this to randomly happen. It’s like you’re panning for gold and — hey, remember that lottery ticket you bought?”
In other words, campers: this is one of those crazy true stories that make people move to Hollyweird and hope they'll luck into a hit show of their own. because if you have something great, and you write from your heart, and people like you, and you hit some incredible luckand sacrifice a virgin to Joss Whedon, it can actually happen.
Then he wrote the script to GLEE, based on his fairly miserable experience as member of the Prospect High School show choir in Mount Prospect, Illinois. The draft he wrote wasn’t the peppy, arch, fluffy show that’s provoked a nationwide road show. It was a darker story, “more like JUNO or ELECTION.”
Fortunately, Mike Novick, a guy he knew at his gym, knew Ryan Murphy, one of the guys who’d created NIP/TUCK. (This is why you want to live in LA.) NIP/TUCK was just winding up its last season. Murphy was looking for a new show to do.
Murphy and his partner Brad Falchuck loved the script. Murphy had been in a glee club, too. More accurately, they loved their take on Brennan’s script. So they called him in and pitched him their version of the show. It was a TV series, and it was much lighter.
“So I sat down and wrote the first draft of the pilot.”
The pilot was picked up amazingly fast. The only note from Fox was “I think you need a nemesis inside the school. I can’t believe we missed that. And Ryan just sat back and said, ‘Yeah, I think it’s a cheerleader named Sue Sylvester.’ And now I get to write her.”
“So we were like the dog that actually catches a car: what do I do now?”
“Not that I wasn’t working hard as an actor for 12 years in the theater, but then for this to randomly happen. It’s like you’re panning for gold and — hey, remember that lottery ticket you bought?”
In other words, campers: this is one of those crazy true stories that make people move to Hollyweird and hope they'll luck into a hit show of their own. because if you have something great, and you write from your heart, and people like you, and you hit some incredible luck
Friday, June 25, 2010
TPB
The movie TRAILER PARK BOYS: COUNTDOWN TO LIQUOR DAY just won Telefilm's Golden Box Office Award for most English box office of any Canadian film last year, coming in at $2.9 million.
Since Denis has gone off the air (and effed off to browner pastures down South), it falls upon me to point out that TRAILER PARK BOYS is the show that Jim Shaw doesn't think should be funded by the CMF, because it's dumb, ignorant, and obscene. (Although once he buys Global, he'll probably want that money, anyway.)
I say it's culture, and God bless'em.
Since Denis has gone off the air (and effed off to browner pastures down South), it falls upon me to point out that TRAILER PARK BOYS is the show that Jim Shaw doesn't think should be funded by the CMF, because it's dumb, ignorant, and obscene. (Although once he buys Global, he'll probably want that money, anyway.)
I say it's culture, and God bless'em.
James Manos at Banff, Part Three
(Continuing my notes from the James Manos master class at the Banff Worldwide Television Festival...)
Manos stressed that he never writes with an actor in mind. “I can’t write with Bobby DeNiro in mind. I know the person, but it’s an amorphous vision.”
That makes sense to me. Producers sometimes ask me if I have cast in mind. I find it a bit dangerous to write for a star. If you’re writing for Jack Nicholson, for example, who invests so much personality in his delivery, you might tend to underwrite the lines. Underwriting the lines is exactly what you want to do if you actually have Jack Nicholson, or Clint Eastwood, or even Dennis Leary. But if you’re trying to create a character in the reader’s mind, you have to write dialog that is as distinctive as possible — not just only lines that that character would say, but lines that only that character would say.
If you get to write for a star, of course, it’s a joy. When I wrote lines for Colm Feore for BON COP / BAD COP, I knew what he’d be able to do with them.
Manos’s first choice for DEXTER, in fact, was Greg Kinnear; he thought Michael Hall was too nice a guy to play a cold serial killer.
(Actors run into this all the time. Even though we all know they’re actors and that they play characters, we sometimes assume they’re best basically playing themselves. Some actors can only play themselves, more or less. But I know one actress who was rejected because “we’re looking for a blonde.” And a francophone casting director told Lisa a funny story about a francophone actor whom she refused to ever cast in English projects because he was so Québecois. The guy had to call back pretending to be an American actor who’d just moved to Montreal; only at the end of the phone call did he admit he was the guy she knew.)
Manos stressed how important it is for actors to have solid theatrical craft. He basically feels you shouldn’t show up in Hollywood until you’ve spent years in New York doing theater. (Theater in LA tends to be second rate because the actors are only doing it in order to be seen by casting directors, and they quit the shows as soon as they get a gig.) “Michael Hall was singing cabaret in New York when we cast him.”
Manos doesn’t read spec episodic scripts. He’s only interested in reading “a script that shows your voice ... that shows your anger. Be committed to what the story is. You can tell when a writer doesn’t really care. Is this really what happened to you? Is this what your really felt? You can tell when someone’s really lived through it.”
He also finds that a major flaw in scripts he reads is “geography. ... I’m reading a script and I’m thinking, where am I? A moment ago I was in an alley. Make sure the reader sees what you see. You are writing pictures. Stop, now and then, and look at the imaginary screen. Where is he? Where is she? It’s a lost art. If a character shows up in the middle of the scene and he wasn’t there before, I stop reading, because I know the writer isn’t really seeing the scene.”
In the ‘whatever works for you’ department, Manos doesn’t like outlines. “Outlines are deadly for me. I know the beginning, middle and end, but then I like to write. Too many drafts and pieces get overdeveloped. I’m also not a fan of telling people what I’m working on. I do believe the more you talk about something the less chance it’s going to get done. You lose the inspiration to finish the piece. I think writing a very specific outline is killing yourself.”
(Yeah, that’s a direct contradiction to my “pitch your project over and over” advice. And if pitching your project makes it lose its juice for you, don’t do it. On the other hand, having read literally thousands of scripts, I would say that 90% to 95% of them would have benefited from being pitched at least a few times out loud.)
“And executives make you stick to the outline. You become a slave to your own outline. Let me find my way through it. I knew where I’ll end up.”
Manos agrees with Hemingway: don’t end your day’s work by finishing a scene. If you know how the scene will end, leave it for the next morning. That way you’ll start the day finishing something and feel good and have momentum, instead of starting with a problem you don’t know how to solve.
Manos does another thing I don’t do and don’t recommend. He starts every day rereading from page one, and rewriting and polishing anything he doesn’t like.
Personally, I don’t reread anything while I’m writing it. I find it slows me down. The only time I’ll look at something from a previous day is if I need to put in a setup for a payoff I just invented.
Manos’s technique results in fairly polished first drafts. Mine results in very fast first drafts that I can start tinkering with. For inexperienced writers, rewriting from page one is dangerous, I think. I think it’s really important to finish things before you start criticizing them. Reading your first draft can be demoralizing. But also, endlessly polishing your first draft can feel more rewarding than writing new pages; but it doesn’t get you to the end.
Manos doesn’t write on index cards. He hangs butcher paper on all his walls, and then writes on his walls. “Until you actually see the whole movie, you can’t write it. I write down character stuff, scenes, all around the office in different color inks. You wouldn’t be able to read it, but I can. When I can see the entire movie on the wall, I can write it.”
Manos says “You can learn more watching a bad movie than a good one. You can watch THE GODFATHER for two hours and never know what happened to you. But a bad movie, you’ll watch and think, don’t do that, that didn’t work, I could fix that...”
Manos stressed that he never writes with an actor in mind. “I can’t write with Bobby DeNiro in mind. I know the person, but it’s an amorphous vision.”
That makes sense to me. Producers sometimes ask me if I have cast in mind. I find it a bit dangerous to write for a star. If you’re writing for Jack Nicholson, for example, who invests so much personality in his delivery, you might tend to underwrite the lines. Underwriting the lines is exactly what you want to do if you actually have Jack Nicholson, or Clint Eastwood, or even Dennis Leary. But if you’re trying to create a character in the reader’s mind, you have to write dialog that is as distinctive as possible — not just only lines that that character would say, but lines that only that character would say.
If you get to write for a star, of course, it’s a joy. When I wrote lines for Colm Feore for BON COP / BAD COP, I knew what he’d be able to do with them.
Manos’s first choice for DEXTER, in fact, was Greg Kinnear; he thought Michael Hall was too nice a guy to play a cold serial killer.
(Actors run into this all the time. Even though we all know they’re actors and that they play characters, we sometimes assume they’re best basically playing themselves. Some actors can only play themselves, more or less. But I know one actress who was rejected because “we’re looking for a blonde.” And a francophone casting director told Lisa a funny story about a francophone actor whom she refused to ever cast in English projects because he was so Québecois. The guy had to call back pretending to be an American actor who’d just moved to Montreal; only at the end of the phone call did he admit he was the guy she knew.)
Manos stressed how important it is for actors to have solid theatrical craft. He basically feels you shouldn’t show up in Hollywood until you’ve spent years in New York doing theater. (Theater in LA tends to be second rate because the actors are only doing it in order to be seen by casting directors, and they quit the shows as soon as they get a gig.) “Michael Hall was singing cabaret in New York when we cast him.”
Manos doesn’t read spec episodic scripts. He’s only interested in reading “a script that shows your voice ... that shows your anger. Be committed to what the story is. You can tell when a writer doesn’t really care. Is this really what happened to you? Is this what your really felt? You can tell when someone’s really lived through it.”
He also finds that a major flaw in scripts he reads is “geography. ... I’m reading a script and I’m thinking, where am I? A moment ago I was in an alley. Make sure the reader sees what you see. You are writing pictures. Stop, now and then, and look at the imaginary screen. Where is he? Where is she? It’s a lost art. If a character shows up in the middle of the scene and he wasn’t there before, I stop reading, because I know the writer isn’t really seeing the scene.”
In the ‘whatever works for you’ department, Manos doesn’t like outlines. “Outlines are deadly for me. I know the beginning, middle and end, but then I like to write. Too many drafts and pieces get overdeveloped. I’m also not a fan of telling people what I’m working on. I do believe the more you talk about something the less chance it’s going to get done. You lose the inspiration to finish the piece. I think writing a very specific outline is killing yourself.”
(Yeah, that’s a direct contradiction to my “pitch your project over and over” advice. And if pitching your project makes it lose its juice for you, don’t do it. On the other hand, having read literally thousands of scripts, I would say that 90% to 95% of them would have benefited from being pitched at least a few times out loud.)
“And executives make you stick to the outline. You become a slave to your own outline. Let me find my way through it. I knew where I’ll end up.”
Manos agrees with Hemingway: don’t end your day’s work by finishing a scene. If you know how the scene will end, leave it for the next morning. That way you’ll start the day finishing something and feel good and have momentum, instead of starting with a problem you don’t know how to solve.
Manos does another thing I don’t do and don’t recommend. He starts every day rereading from page one, and rewriting and polishing anything he doesn’t like.
Personally, I don’t reread anything while I’m writing it. I find it slows me down. The only time I’ll look at something from a previous day is if I need to put in a setup for a payoff I just invented.
Manos’s technique results in fairly polished first drafts. Mine results in very fast first drafts that I can start tinkering with. For inexperienced writers, rewriting from page one is dangerous, I think. I think it’s really important to finish things before you start criticizing them. Reading your first draft can be demoralizing. But also, endlessly polishing your first draft can feel more rewarding than writing new pages; but it doesn’t get you to the end.
Manos doesn’t write on index cards. He hangs butcher paper on all his walls, and then writes on his walls. “Until you actually see the whole movie, you can’t write it. I write down character stuff, scenes, all around the office in different color inks. You wouldn’t be able to read it, but I can. When I can see the entire movie on the wall, I can write it.”
Manos says “You can learn more watching a bad movie than a good one. You can watch THE GODFATHER for two hours and never know what happened to you. But a bad movie, you’ll watch and think, don’t do that, that didn’t work, I could fix that...”
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Addictive Gaming
Here's an interesting article about ZT Online, a massively multiplayer game crafted to take your money as fast as possible. Unlike WoW, which exists to take your $15 monthly, ZT caters to gamers who have more money than time, and players are spending hundreds or even thousands of bucks for the best equipment.
I have no desire to play the game, but it sounds like they have created a devastatingly effective business model. But is it moral?
I have no desire to play the game, but it sounds like they have created a devastatingly effective business model. But is it moral?
Short Film Financing Seminar in St. Laurent, Quebec
Financing Your Short Film!
Yes, it’s possible to finance short films in Canada, and this panel of experts will give insights and advice on just how to do it. Of course, it’s not easy, but if auteur filmmaking is the passion that drives you then this is a presentation you’re not going to want to miss! Our experts include the hugely successful animation short filmmaker Malcolm Sutherland (Bird Calls, Forming Game, Astronomer’s Dream), Tim Dallett from the pan-Canadian Independent Media Arts Alliance (umbrella group for Canadian media arts centres and co-ops), and funders Judy Gladstone (CTVglobemedia’s Bravo!FACT) and Felipe Diaz, program officer from the Canada Council for the Arts.
Financing Your Short Film! panel
Wednesday, June 30, 1pm to 2:30pm
Please join us with your questions, concerns and curiosity and take the chance to speak directly to those who’ve done it, are doing it and who make those decisions so crucial to your creative livelihood. Hosted by NFB animation producer Michael Fukushima.
If you’re able, please stay afterwards for some light refreshments and for the launch screening of our brand-new batch of Hothouse films, Hothouse 6: Inside Out, screened in glorious stereoscopic 3D!
Hothouse 6: Inside Out screening
Wednesday, June 30, 3pm to 3:30pm
National Film Board of Canada
Pierre-Perrault Theatre
3155 chemin cote-de-Liesse
St-Laurent, Quebec (H4N 2N4)
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