My Promised Land

I reviewed Avi Shavit's book My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel on Goodreads. If you're interested in a new book trying to make sense of Israel, its peoples and the pickle it's in, by a prominent peacenik journalist, read my review. Nothing to do with screenwriting, so I won't post it here.

The Naked and the Dead

Q. I am writing to inquire as to how it would be possible to track down the complete series of NAKED JOSH in any visual media format, for purchase. The production company tells me that DVD release is, of course, driven by consumer demand. However in the absence of reruns, Netflix, or the like, it is difficult to see how the series might be brought to old and new viewers. It is one of the very best series produced in Canada of the past decade or so. Television for grown-up viewers. When one considers some of the schlock that's readily available via DVD, VOD, etc, it is unfortunate that a quality production remains in limbo. I'm only one viewer and consumer, but I for one would happily pay for the privilege of revisiting "Naked Josh." If you can offer any direction, I would be entirely grateful. I of course fully understand that much is out of your control even as creator.

Yes, marketing has always been one of the places that Canadian showbiz traditionally falls down. Maybe people would like the show if they knew about it, right? They certainly can't like the show if they don't know about it, can they? You could, for example, release the pilot on YouTube for free, and see what kind of views it go. Or you could release the whole thing on iTunes, which wouldn't cost very much. Or if Apple charges too much, maybe Amazon would be willing to put it up there. Certainly Netflix ought to be willing to do a deal. Or what if the network put all their archived content up on their own site, with ads? And then if something really got a lot of views, they could then have the proof of concept to license it to Netflix or sell it on DVD. One almost gets the impression that the Canadian networks would prefer if they didn't have to distribute any Canadian content at all. I don't know why you can't get NJ on Netflix or DVD. But thank you for pestering Showcase. Maybe you'll put a bug in their ear, who knows?

Ask More

Before being a famous singer and Neil Gaiman's main squeeze, Amanda Palmer was a professional living statue. She made enough money to support herself while doing gigs for even less money than you make for standing around covered in paint. She also learned how to ask people for money in a way that gave them something worth more than money.

As I'm fond of pointing out, quite a few enormously successful people went through periods of being huge flops. Stephen King wrote ten novels that didn't sell before he wrote CARRIE. Andie MacDowell, I seem to remember, lived in a car with her mom.

More interestingly is the lesson in asking. People have become very bad at asking. (Not you, dear blog readers. You are still very good at asking.) For one thing, the skill of calling someone on the phone, rather than texting them, has gone out the window.

But there is a weird human truth: if you can get people to do something for you, they often like you better. That's right. They become attached to you. (I believe it has something to do with cognitive dissonance.)

Also, if you get someone in showbiz to do something for you, then you can figure out a favor you can do for them, and now you can call them a friend.

Anyway, no one gets anywhere in showbiz without help. So you should start practicing asking for it.

That doesn't mean asking total strangers to work for you for nothing. It's the people you already know, a little. And you should not ask them, ever, to do anything you can do yourself. Only those things that only they can do for you. Like give you advice. Give you a contact. Teach you how to do something. Explain what you are doing wrong.

It's a lot of work being a good mentee. But most successful people are willing to mentor, if you learn how to ask.

Desolated by Smaug

I'm starting to feel about Peter Jackson the way I feel about George Lucas and Woody Allen. He made a couple of really great movies, but now that he answers to no one, he's become self-indulgent and a bit tedious.

THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG has a little bit of a beginning, but ends abruptly -- about where you might put the end of the second act if the three parts of the trilogy were, in fact, one eight hour movie. That seems to be how PJ has conceived of the Hobbit series. He has padded out the book, which was much shorter than LOTR, with the beginnings of an invented love story (no women in the original) and a gratuitous social-justice story, all to make it slosh into movie theatres in three consecutive waves.

I hope someone out there is working on a Phantom Edit.

I had originally heard a rumor that one of the Hobbit movies was going to be a prequel. That could have been challenging. What section of the vast body of Tolkien's Middle Earth history do you pillage? Do you tell how Smaug took over the Lonely Mountain? That's kind of a downer. Or do you tell one of the stories from the Silmarillion, none of which is much fleshed out? There is The Quest of Erebor, Tolkien's posthumously published tale of what went on behind the scenes during Bilbo's adventure; but it's more or less the same story told from another POV.

However I figured if anyone could do it justice, it would be PJ.

The movie isn't so bad. There's a lot of fun stuff. It's just that things go on too long. Chase scenes go on too long. Dialog scenes go on too long. And instead of making one really amazing 150-minute movie, this is the chest and belly of one monstrously long beast.

At a Roman triumph, they sent the famous general down the boulevard on a chariot, and all Rome applauded him. Meanwhile, a slave was put on the chariot to tell him, from time to time, "Remember, you are only human."

Or as Aaron Sorkin put it, "If you're dumb, hire smart people. If you're smart, hire smart people who disagree with you."

(So, what adventure recently blew your socks off?)

How to phrase stuff

I've been writing a lot of emails lately. I spend a lot of extra time on my emails -- I rewrite them a few times so I'm sure they communicate what they're supposed to, and hopefully so I persuade people without pissing them off.

My take on arguing by email is that it's just as convincing to say "I feel" or "It seems to me" or "My take on this is" as it is to say "it is this way"; however, "I feel" takes the sting out of my statement. Hey, that's how I feel. You may feel differently. That's beautiful, man.

Also, I ask a lot of questions. "Are you really sure this is how we should approach this?" is the polite cousin of "We shouldn't do this." But "We shouldn't do this" provokes an immediate resentment on the part of someone who disagrees; while "are you sure?" solicits his or her opinion, which is always flattering, and frames it in a way that he or she really has to look at his or her own thinking: am I sure? Am I really sure?

Asking gets the reader on your side; stating invites pushback.

Even when I'm talking about facts, I'll tend to say, "As far as I can tell," or "if I understand this correctly" rather than just writing "It's 98."

In a world where people break up by text, I get a lot of half-baked emails, mostly from younger folk. The writers don't put themselves in my shoes. Sometimes they piss me off without meaning to.

Take the extra minute to revise your emails. Then wait a half hour, and then revise again. Never send an email after 6 pm if you can send it in the morning; you may be able to trim a lot of anger and confusion in the morning.

Ask rather than stating. Make clear you know it's your opinion.

Often the most convincing way to present your argument is by avoiding making it an argument.

Four Out of Six

Neil Gaiman:  “You get work however you get work, but keep people keep working ... because their work is good, because they are easy to get along with and because they deliver the work on time. And you don’t even need all three! Two out of three is fine. People will tolerate how unpleasant you are if your work is good and you deliver it on time. People will forgive the lateness of your work if it is good and they like you. And you don’t have to be as good as everyone else if you’re on time and it’s always a pleasure to hear from you."

Or tweetable:  "Pleasant. On time. Talented. Success requires two out of three."

And then there's the Iron Triangle of Project Management:   "Fast - Cheap - Good. Pick Two." 

Words of wisdom.

TV, Oh Well

Diane Wild's TV, Eh? blog has gone down for the count. Too bad. It was a great resource for those who cared about Canadian TV. If only some Canadian networks had, y'know, clicked on that "Donate" link.

But one gets the strong impression that Canadian networks regard commissioning Canadian content as a tiresome chore; and government seems to be listening. The CRTC came around to Montreal for a "flash conference," where the question was raised, "Hey, Devil's advocate, but if we can't regulate Netflix, how is it fair to regulate the networks?"

Which the small band of creatives at the session suspected might imply, "We are testing the waters for deregulating the networks, but we want to make you feel as if we're listening to you."

To which some stalwart creatives said, "But you ought to regulate streaming video." And, "If we don't regulate the networks, there will be no Canadian programs at all." And, "If the Canadian networks don't make any Canadian content, why exactly should we protect them from competition from the American networks?"

Lisa said, "One day you're going to wake up and they're making Anne of Green Gables set in Connecticut. By then it will be too late."

The rest of the crowd at the hearing was Concordia students. Their overall reaction was, "What's TV, grandpa?"

Women in Film

New York Film Academy has an interesting infographic that shows jjjjust how few women there are in film. And yet, half the audience is women.

Plus ça change...