Half Caf?

Q. Can a writing team that's half Canadian / half American qualify for all the Canadian goodies?

A. Sorry, no.

Ah, I found the answer via this CPTC PDF: http://www.pch.gc.ca/DAMAssetPub/DAM-flmVid-flmVid/STAGING/texte-text/cptc_guide_1272631234182_eng.pdf

4.06 Screenwriters

To obtain the points for the position of screenwriter, a production must meet one of the following conditions:

a) Each individual involved in the preparation of the screenplay for the production must be Canadian. This means that all the individuals engaged in developing the screenplay, from the outline or treatment through the various drafts and dialogue polishes to the final shooting script, must be Canadian; or

b) The principal screenwriter must be Canadian and the screenplay for the production must be based on a work authored by a Canadian and published in Canada.

Notes

I try to give positive, constructive notes. Insight is rare and crucial, of course, but simply how you phrase a note can make it easier for the writer to absorb it. Here are three things you can do to make your notes go down more smoothly:

1. Make every note positive.

By positive, I don't mean tell people things are good when they're not. I mean phrase the note in a positive way.

Every negative note can be phrased positively, using a few more words.

"I have no idea who this character is." -> "I'd like to see this character defined more clearly."

"This is confusing." -> "Can you clarify what is going on here?"

"This is a gaping plothole." -> "Can you come up with a more convincing way to get here?"

"I don't believe this twist." -> "I'd like you to work a bit harder at earning this plot point."

2. Note how some of these notes are phrased personally. "I feel..." "I'd like..." It helps to avoid the Voice of God in notes. They won't be any less authoritative. Anything you say will have exactly the same amount of authority whether you claim it's the facts or your opinion. But if you state it personally, it acknowledges that you could be wrong. And you could be.

3. Note how some of these notes are phrased as a question. "This is confusing" provokes the reaction, "No, it's not! You're just an idiot! Screw you! I'm going to throw myself out the window now." "Can you clarify this" provokes the reaction, "Yeah, sure, sorry 'bout that. I'll get right on it."

Obviously it's important to be clear, and smart, in your notes. But when you have a choice between phrasing a note as "this is bad" and "I'd like to see this improved," the latter is almost certainly going to allow your note-taker to focus more on your note, and less on that peculiar combination of anger, guilt, humiliation and nausea that is every writer's instinctive reaction to criticism.

And the WGC Award Goes To...

Last night was the WGC Awards, one of the best parties in town. Getting an award from your peers is tremendously fulfilling, especially since it's based on your script, not just the movie that someone else made it into. Last night's winners were:

In Animation

Karen Moonah

The Cat In The Hat Knows A Lot About That, “The Cat In The Hat Knows A Lot About Maps”

In Children & Youth

Barbara Haynes

The Latest Buzz, “The Extreme Shakespeare Issue”

In Documentary

Christine Nielsen

The Pig Farm

In TV Comedy

Chris Sheasgreen

Less Than Kind, “Coming Home”

In TV Drama

Mark Ellis & Stephanie Morgenstern

Flashpoint, “Jumping at Shadows”

In Movies & Miniseries

Michael Konyves

Barney’s Version

In Shorts & Web Series

Lisa Hunter

You Are So Undead

The WGC Showrunner Award – Tassie Cameron

The WGC Writers Block Award – Peter Grant

The Jim Burt Screenwriting Prize – Denise Blinn

Why yes, that is wife my Lisa Hunter winning for her script for our little teen vampire sex comedy!

Co-Productions Qualify

I can't report to you the fascinating discussions going on at the WGC Forum, 'cause it's a no-tweet zone. But I did run across this handy factoid (which, caveat, I need to confirm):

Any co-production qualifies as CanCon.

This can work against Canadian writers, as when a 20% Canadian show with no Canadian writers, like THE TUDORS, qualifies to the CMF as CanCon.

But it also works for us on majority co-productions, because it removes the "set in Canada" requirement. So if you had a show set in ancient Egypt or Rome or even in the United States, which would not normally qualify for CMF funding, it would qualify if you brought in a minority 20% European partner (and shot it in Canada with Canadian actors etc.).

I think this is good news for Canadian writers, if I can confirm it, because it opens up a raft of stories that Canadian audiences might be interested in that don't take place in Canada.

Or so I'm told. Now who can confirm this for me...?

Nice YASU review

On I Like Horror Movies:

Being bitten by a vampire has become the next big thing, and all of the kids are doing it! Mary finally lets a boy go all the way, but her mom is going to kill her when she finds those puncture marks on her neck! YOU ARE SO UNDEAD is a breath of fresh air in a genre that has been beaten to undeath. The sharp wit and clever metaphors found in Lisa Hunter's script equates sex and vampirism in the same way that GINGER SNAPS linked puberty with werewolves. Meaghan Rath and Erin Agostino are each fantastic, and play right into the brilliant humor. The short wraps up with a perfectly timed twist in the end. Hopefully this isn't the last we hear from newcomers Lisa Hunter and Alex Epstein, as YOU ARE SO UNDEAD is sure to become a huge sensation with Horror fans!

Rating: 9/10.

In other news. YASU won the screenwriting award at Bleedfest LA. Go Lisa!

Way Fun Review

Way fun review of The Circle Cast.

Geoblock That Kick!

A dear friend posted this Toronto Star column about American broadcasters streaming content into Canada, commercials intact.

The key determinant will obviously be money. Once U.S. rights holders conclude that it is more profitable to retain the Internet rights so that they can stream their programs online to a global audience and capture the advertising or subscription revenues that come with it, Canadian broadcasters may find that they can only license broadcast rights with the U.S. rights holders competing directly with them via the Internet.

As content moves onto the Internet, this could present a huge problem for broadcasters that rely on a protected market. The response that we (content creators) hope they'd have is to produce more homegrown content that they could then stream into other markets. But the immediate temptation, once it really begins to hurt, will be to ask for some kind of government-enforced geoblocking. We'll see.

One space or two?

While we're on the subject of formatting: one space after a period, or two?

Back in the day of the typewriter, the standard was two spaces after a period. Then along came computers with proportionally spaced fonts, and the standard is now one.

But Screenwriter defaults to two spaces, and Courier is a monospaced font.

Do you use one space or two?



Free Web Survey

UPDATE: A slight majority use a single space.