Archive for the ‘Television’ Category

The Medium is the Messenger.

February 20th, 2010 Clint

Bear with me, I am a minarchist and things are about to get a little snarky in here. First, I want to emphasis that I feel it is morally wrong for the state to sanction and finance one group of people’s voice over others – others who are forced to pay for it.

But the point I want to make right now is that it is pragmatically wrong as well because the people writing the regulations and mandates have historically made decisions that have been detrimental to the industry both financially and artistically.

And they are at it again.

The “Canadian Media Fund”, after about a year of being hammered out as I write this, looks like it will mandate that supplicants applicants put forward a plan that encompasses as much of the television, game consoles, smartphones and web world as it can. Your funding will depend, not just how many propaganda cultural points you can hit, but how many mediums you can floodcast on.

I think the fund chasing producers and the government bureaucrats that hold the bags of taxpayer cash have all taken McLuhan too literally.

"The medium is the message" never meant that the medium replaced the message but that the medium influences the way the message is delivered and perceived.

It seems that many self styled pundits on the future of content delivery have decided that the medium is what it’s all about and that the message is merely filler.

Don’t get me wrong, as we grow to understand the newer mediums and how they influence the packaging and perception of the message, we will learn to create great and epic works that that fully exploit the nature of those mediums.

Personally I’m developing Red Hellas with plans for novels, a one hour dramatic TV series, comic books, a half hour webisodic series and  a MMOG… but it is organic to the world I am creating. That isn’t so for most of the other projects I’m working on and it would be counter-creative of me to try and force it.

The Iliad has been brought to life in epic poems, paintings, novels, movies and eventually it will be a Massive Multiplayer Online Game that can stand with the best of those old mediums.

Were Homer to start filling in the reams of funding forms today, the state would demand to hear the awesome ringtone and to know how his business plan monetized that MMOG within the next year?

And this would surely make it ever so much more likely to succeed critically and creatively, as well as ensuring that it will be just what the audience wants.</sarcasm>

While they have no idea where they are going, these men and women are running as fast as they can and making good time.

Please, may I offer up a replacement phrase that can be taken completely and utterly literally?

"The medium is not the message, it is just the messenger."

Now don’t give him to much crap to carry.

Posted in Distribution, Film, Graphic Novel, Internet, Learning, Selling, Socio-Economics, Television, Webisodic, Writing No Comments »

So, What Do You Need?

February 18th, 2010 Clint

One of the things people do wrong is go into a pitch desperate to get the other person to do something for them. The are stuck on what they themselves need.

In actuality, what I want to do is convince the agent, manager, development executive or producer that I can do something for them. Not just one something but a lot of somethings and for a lot of years.

Since I ain’t cute enough to wiggle my eyebrows suggestively toward the good old casting couch, I have to give them confidence that I can consistently produce that which the the entire industry runs on. They need scripts and they need ideas turned into scripts competently.

I can do that for you.

You are an agent that wants a marketable project for a star client? I have a completed script that could work for them… but if none of those is the tailored fit that you’re looking for, well then I can bespoke one of the ideas I have waiting to be developed. If you don’t think any of them are going to excite the client- well is there a genre or subject matter that they want to tackle? I can take it from scratch.

You’re a producer looking for a marketable high concept film that can sell itself with a poster and a trailer and doesn’t need a $5 million dollar actor? I have just what you need right here… and with limited locations if that is what you want.

Or you’re a producer who needs a big tent pole film that will attract an actor who commands $20 million? You want that in a superhero, fantasy or… hey, Warner Brothers doesn’t have the rights to The Odyssey, that sucker has been public domain for almost three thousand years. I’ll write it, but may I suggest that you approach Mel Gibson to direct and star? The man would nail Odysseus and his movie making style would fit the tale perfectly. (Some of you readers may see him more as Ulysses than as Odysseus but that man knows story structure and I can’t really see anyone else doing a better job of either incarnation)

You are a TV producer who needs a show for either a cable channel or a broadcast network? I have great ideas but also understand that one of those is a show that needs to win critical acclaim as it builds a solid fan base while the other needs to hit as wide an audience as possible while hopefully getting some Emmy attention.

I also understand that sometimes it works the other way ‘round. Right now, NBC needs, with the desperation of a drowning man, a series that the critics rave about. They also need shows that can draw in 15 million or more viewers but they won’t find them until people start talking about great shows and NBC in the same breath.

Killing off five prime time scripted shows to fit in Jay Leno slammed on the brakes and people stayed away in droves. Enough audience did stay to make it financially viable… if they didn’t mind slowly dwindling away to irrelevance in the entertainment world while they chased a slim profit margin. The audience needs to be lured back and that will require a season of critically acclaimed shows that rival cable’s best – as lead ins to competently done shows that capture mass audience. Not just time slot lead ins but to lead the audience back in to the network.

Don’t get me wrong, I never miss an episode of Chuck, but NBC needs a show to rebuild the brand… a show like… say ‘Space Inc.’.

So, what do you need?

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Pitchmarket 2010 Research Mode

February 18th, 2010 Clint

The first thing to do when going into a pitching event like this is to learn everything you can about the people that have been brought in to sit across the table from the pitching masses.

Just pitching anything to anyone is a recipe for irritating people. If what you have to offer doesn’t fit with the person then it is a waste of both their time and yours.

Using IMDB-Pro, the supplied links and bios on their blog along with good old Google; I try to find out what they and the company have done before- then look at the development slate out ahead of them.

Then I have to make an honest assessment of the fit. Do they have a record of producing material in the same genre as the script I want to pitch to them? Do they have a track record of completing projects to a standard that I would be comfortable with? Are they already working on something that is eerily similar to what I want to pitch?

The trouble with my TV series Space Inc. is that it is a perfect fit for Tom Hanks’ Playtone as well as being a very good fit with Morgan Freeman’s Revelations Entertainment and a not bad fit for Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment… after that there is too strong a chance of it getting royally screwed up.

If I had creative control I could make it with any one of the dozens of good production companies. No production company would take that chance on a writer without years of experience in the writing room and that is only reasonable and expected.

My research is much more exhaustive than these postings will portray, there are pages for each person and links galore, but these posts will give bullet points, tips and conclusions.

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Pitchmarket 2010

February 18th, 2010 Clint

I noted that FTXEvents is putting on Pitchmarket 2010 over the March 6-7 weekend. I looked over the roster of “decision makers” and figured that maybe it was time for me to throw out some more pitches.

While there isn’t a great track record (or any record?) for writers getting hauled up from the huddled masses at any of these events- it is a chance to meet people that are hard to get to outside of these things.

Keep in mind that most of the people coming to these events are a little lower on the totem pole than they are made out to be. That isn’t to say they are not moving up, just that it is often considered a way to give baby agents and assistants who are about to become development executives a chance to be barraged by pitches- a sort of baptism by fire if you will. While they usually (not always mind you) do not have the power to give even a tentative “yes” to anything, they can take scripts to those who can. Also, their career trajectory is in the direction of that power and it certainly won’t hurt to get onto their radar.

Also, from what I hear; the further the pitches are from Hollywood, the better the calibre of people you will be pitching to. You see, when it is in their own city, there isn’t much of a draw for those higher up the hierarchy so they send the assistants… when they are offered plane tickets to a another city and are put up in a hotel, it suddenly becomes more attractive. This one is in my backyard… 2000 kilometres from Los Angeles.

Although the TSA seems bound and determined to make travelling by air as horrible an experience as possible- so the attraction of a plane ticket is subject to change.

All said, I certainly could use practice pitching my work and who knows, someone may love an idea so much that they have no choice but to champion it.

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A Wrestling Reality Show on… The Syfy Channel?

February 17th, 2010 Clint

“Once again, WWE will bring something entirely new to the television landscape as WWE meets reality TV as we introduce this brand new franchise exclusively on Syfy, WWE NXT will have a completely different look and feel from our other WWE television programming” – Vince McMahon

Don’t get me wrong, the World Wrestling Entertainment organization is followed by millions who enjoy it immensely. While it is plotted out and scripted, the men and women who climb into that ring are in phenomenal shape and put themselves through extremely arduous and body breaking tasks to entertain those millions.

I give them all due respect.

But seriously? In what frackin’ universe does does it make sense for the WWE to develop shows for Syfy? I guess we’re seeing the real reason they changed the perfectly descriptive “Sci-Fi” to a made up word that can be phonetically pronounced the same but which allows them to wander off to things that have exactly nothing to do with science fiction at all.

This is how to break it down when it is only about ratings…

Sci-Fi-No_Syfi-Yes

Looks like it will eventually result in this…

Stargate-No_WWE-Yes

What next? I hear that dancing competition shows are hot… or how about a nice hospital or police procedural?

Thank you for selling out Scyfi Channel.

Hey, you know what we need? A channel that is dedicated to sci-fi entertainment.

That would be cool.

Posted in Socio-Economics, Television No Comments »

SWE4: How to Sell Your TV Show – Marc and Elaine Zicree

November 13th, 2005 Clint

This is the second session from the Zicrees and I am learning a fair bit from them. The first is here – but to recap, he has written over a hundred episodes of television, was a producer on Sliders… the man has been there, done that. They have a website called supermentors.com
Right off the bat, there are some ideas that would, deliver a value to people reading this site and help me make contacts in the industry while also building some recognition for brand Clint-Johnson. Foremost amongst those is conducting interviews for this website which would give me content other than my own drivel.
That ain’t to say that my own pearls of ignorance aren’t worthy readin’… just that the more worthwhile content there is on this site the better. I’d learn from this and hopefully it would be valuable to you the gentle reader as well. It should have that whole win-win thing goin’ for it.
Anyway, the Zicrees tell us that while it isn’t expected that a spec pilot will actually get made, it isn’t unheard of (wohoo!). While it is generally accepted that a spec pilot is a writing sample only, both Malcolm in the Middle and Veronica Mars were spec pilots – and he feels that the climate right now is better than it ever has been for original scripts and spec pilots.
Don’t get a spec pilot confused with spec episode; with a spec pilot you are creating something from scratch that will show your distinctive voice – the spec episode is written for an existing series and you are trying to show that you can write in a style that will fit in with someone else’s show.
Marc says that there are two kinds of series “bibles” – the pitching bible and the working bible. The pitching bible is what you use to get the show sold and the working bible is what you use to get new writers up to speed and keep track of show continuity.
The pitching bible should consist of ten to twelve pages of highlights and plot points that will catch the interest of a producer. The key things to note are; who is the audience and who are the characters? He felt that this should be what you are working your pitch off of and probably not something you would leave behind. He feels strongly that if you leave too much material behind, the executive you pitched to is not in turn pitching the show to their boss. They might not have the enthusiasm that they would otherwise bring. Plus, they know what their boss is looking for and what interests them, so they would know better how to slant the pitch to the final arbiter of the greenlight.
He then went into what sort of compensation you should be looking at as a writer for television. If I could afford it, I would actually pay to write for television. Not that I would turn down a paycheck – capitalist pig-dog remember? But I will go over his numbers here for those who would find them interesting.
A newly minted staff writer can look to start at about $200,000 a year while a story editor will start at $300,000. You progress through co-producer to producer to co-executive producer on up to executive producer/showrunner. By the time you make executive producer you can expect to be making about $1 million a year. Writing credit for an episodes will get you more money on top of that yearly salary with a pilot episode going for $60,000 to $100,000.
It is no surprise that there are people who get into the business just for the money… and I think we’ve all seen the shows that this results in.
What I would find more interesting than money is that once you hit the producer level, you can pitch series ideas to studios and networks… and be taken seriously. Looking at what I did on the Ragnarok pilot, I suppose that I can legitimately call myself an executive producer… the problem would be to get any “other” producer to take that seriously.
He also broke down the season for us so that we would know when most of the pitching, developing and pilot production periods fall.
March through early June is when the production companies are listening to pitches and it is June through September when they are in turn pitching those ideas to the networks. The networks deliberate over September and October and then give the go ahead to write pilots scripts through October and November. They look over the scripts in December and then in January they go into production on the pilots for those they like. They evaluate the pilots over the spring and this gives them a couple months to deliberate before the network upfronts where they tell the advertising world what will be in the fall schedule.
And then the cycle starts over again.
He didn’t talk about it but the pilot season is starting to diffuse out through the year with a spring or summer start for some shows in addition to the traditional fall and mid-season starts. I think that this will cause the whole thing to spread out over the year so that shows are pitched, piloted and picked up at any time throughout the year. But that’s just me so take it with a block of salt.
He feels that just up and calling the production companies isn’t a problem. Call and talk to the assistant – but keep in mind that they are usually very busy people and so don’t try and have a long chat with them. Courteously ask the question and then politely thank them for the answer you get.
My take is that you focus your question and be specific – “What is Mr. Producer looking for right now?” “Does she have a Sky Marshal drama in development?.. Would she be interested in one I’ve been developing?” Don’t bombard them with questions – sweet and short are the watchwords.
He feels that you should maximize the genre crossover right now… “Cross a cop show with a family drama.”
If you want to align yourself with an executive producer, keep track of the shows that are being canceled (or not picked up) and try to get hold of those people who produced the ones that mesh best with what you are trying to do. They often don’t have another project ready to go and are willing to jump into another if it looks like a solid bet. The Hollywood Creative Directory and IMDBpro give full credits for shows. He didn’t feel that agents or managers were necessary… but that they helped a lot.
He talked more about the series that he is trying to get made picked up- Magic Time. He originally created it as a series and only when it didn’t get picked up did he novelize it. It did well as a three novel series and was turned into a successful audio book as well. This success in turn allowed him to take it back to television where it had a much warmer reception as something that had been a moderate hit in another medium.
I’ve been wanting to tackle Ragnarok as a graphic novel and this might be the way to go. I could rough out one myself just to see how much work it is.
Even for other projects, producing a graphic novel would certainly be less expensive than a full pilot episode and might generate some income where a declined pilot will usually return zero on your investment. While I do dabble in the art side of things, I am too slow and I’d have to do more than dabble to make sure that my artwork is pretty enough –

Kerrim-TheCityKerrim from my fantasy series The City

- so I’d have to find a real artist to render up the pictures. Even so, a graphic novel is a hell of a lot less time, money and work than it is for a full live action pilot.
If you are going to produce your own pilot or series, he was emphatic that you never stop asking for investors. Everyone and anyone you talk to is asked “Do you want to invest in a film? Do you know anyone who might be interested?” He has a standard finders fee of 5% for anyone who brings in an investor and that probably helps a lot. I think that would make me a little more comfortable with hitting people up for leads. I wouldn’t be asking for handouts, I’d be offering to pay for what they can do for me. I’ll have to keep that in mind for my next full length film or television project.
The “pattern budget” is the cost of the average episode with most of the big US networks running about $2 million and seeing anything under $1 million or over $3 million as dicey.
They feel that a rounded career is important and that you should have a few projects in development… I think I take that concept to its illogical conclusion.

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SWE4: Shooting a Demo Reel for TV Pilot/Feature Film – Marc and Elaine Zicree

November 13th, 2005 Clint

Are you seeing a pattern in the sessions I signed up for? Look closely now, it is a subtle one… it is an emphasis on pushing past the writing part. Like Mr. Stefanik said, 70,000 scripts are written every year- and even if that is an exaggeration, and even if most are pretty crappy… that is still a lot of straw to hide your needle. Producing something yourself is one way to stand out from the crowd. On top of that it will make you a better writer. When you have to take your words and shoot them, you yourself will find a lot of the problems in your script that would glare out at those who have made a film. Your next film will be all the better for it, I know mine will be.
It is one when a teacher or book tells you that something should be avoided when writing a script, it is another thing entirely to be sitting on set at three in the morning with a cast and crew waiting for you to fix that “something” you should have avoided. You won’t make that mistake again.
Now on to the session in question – to which I was eight minutes late. Bad form Mr. Johnson.
Marc and Elaine Zicree have a website for their own projects and another at Supermentors for their consulting services. In this session, Marc does most of the talking and he starts us off with an example of how to do it right. The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne was a shoe string self starter where Gavin Scott got $40 million dollars after showing the demo tape that they had shot.
He talked about Chis (Wyatt I’m guessing), a friend of his, who originated Napoleon Dynamite as a short film which he used to raise $350,000 to make the feature which went on to make over $100 million. While there is no arguing with the bottom line, I gotta say that I wasn’t particularly a fan of this film. A few jokes worked for me but most of it fell pretty flat. It would probably be a lot funnier if I had watched it while wasted but that doesn’t interest me. I would like to see the short though, just to see what talked people out of $350,000.
He then went into an example of how to do it wrong. A friend of his had made a short that got a lot of favorable coverage on the festival circuit. They had wanted to get some interest and use it to develop the short into a feature. They got the interest but didn’t have a full script ready for the push to the feature. The mistake was starting to push the short before they were ready to take advantage of any interest.
He also said that the time has past where people are impressed with you just for having done something, it has to be done well.
I feel that I didn’t give my actors enough direction during my shoot and it suffered for that. Then again we may have different ideas of “done well”, he uses Startrek: New Voyages as an example. The first episode of this fan made series was downloaded six million times and the second episode was downloaded 20 million times. That is all well and good but I’ve seen the first episode and it was rather bad. The set decoration and special effects were as good as you would expect from a true fans dedicated efforts… but the content they originated was sorely lacking. The writing and acting just wasn’t good enough to get any attention if it weren’t for the Star Trek connection and the huge base of Trekkers out there.
This all adds up to the fact that “good” is a very relative assessment here and what some people see as hilarious will leave some others cold. While a technically illiterate person may see a particular special effect and find it acceptable, the guy sitting next to them who has actually done some work with special effects may find the show unwatchable. Humor is even tougher to pin down with some people thinking that My Name is Earl is nowhere near as funny as Joey… and me wondering “what kind of bad drugs did you ingest?”. So I’m thinking that whatever you do, some people will find it to be unmitigated crap while the guy down the hall might see it as untapped gold.
Another thing he had to say was that a trailer wasn’t as good a selling tool as it has been hyped to be. It may get some interest but it doesn’t show if you can tell a story or not. He suggested that you take two or three scenes from the completed script and rework them to have a beginning, middle and an end… make a short film out of it. This can be used as a selling tool, sent out to the festivals or even licensed to one of the few places that pay for short films.
But he is also adamant that the short can’t tell the whole story or people feel that they’ve seen it all and don’t have a strong desire to put money into making the full show.
He showed a bit of Some Folks Call it a Sling Blade, the short that got Billy Bob a greenlight for Sling Blade. That is all great but how many of us can get J.T. Walsh and Molly Ringwald to step up for our short film? That might give a person a slight little leg up on the competition. Yeah, maybe. (where is that sarcasm font, I know it’s here somewhere?)
He insists that it isn’t all that hard to attach a name actor and that even signings at conventions give you a chance to get the face time and talk to the people. Hand them a DVD of something that you’ve done and tell them that you would like to work with them… just make sure that it looks like Oscar bait if you want to up your odds.
I really think that James Marsters would be great as the lead in The Club, the boxing club/organized crime series I’m developing… I wonder how tough it would be to get the man’s interest? He is in Vancouver shooting on Smallville and there are rumors of him becoming a regular so he might be a “local” for another year or so. I suppose it shouldn’t do much harm to try eh?
Next up Marc showed us the long trailer/incomplete short film Grayson from John Fiorella‘s Untamed Cinema – and I actually hadn’t seen this one before. It was really well done for the limited personal resources the guy had… it was made that good because of the contacts he had and their resources. The acting was good enough and the cinematography was as good as anything from the previous Batman films. Another good fan film he didn’t show was Batman: Dead End.
The examples he showed and my work on Ragnarok… it all reinforces my thinking that it is the writing and the acting that defines success or failure. There was a few missteps I made in the writing, add that to me not give the actors good enough direction – and the show suffered for it. Since it was my first attempt and I really over-reached on it… let’s just say that my next project will be far better for the experience.
Marc Zucree has written Magic Time, a three book series about a young lawyer that he is bringing around to a television series. The lawyer is raising his twelve year old sister and at the beginning she is transformed into a magical creature and taken away from him. I gotta say that there would be some overlap between his Magic Time and my Ragnarok… what with the return of magic to the world. I knew nothing about the books or series until this session and he was working on it long before Ragnarok was developed so any overlap would be strictly due to a shared cultural mythology and coincidence. Maybe I should pitch myself to him as a staff writer? 
I was impressed enough by this session that I’m thinking that I should get Supermentors to look over my rough cut for the Ragnarok pilot and try to get an impartial critique to see if it is worth the weeks of effort it would take to polish it… or if I should just cut my losses, upload the show as is, and move on to the next project. The folks that volunteered on the shoot really deserve their copy before too much more time has passed.

Posted in Film, Learning, Selling, Television 1 Comment »

SWE4: Victoria Wisdom

November 12th, 2005 Clint

Victoria (formerly with the talent agency Becsey, Wisdom, Kalajian) starts off by dissing another person running a session at the Expo, saying that they’re trying to teach how to write and not what to write… which I take to mean that she wants to tell us what to write?
And that is exactly what she proceeds to do… but in a good way.
She tells a story about a producer friend of hers who decided to dig through all the script coverage that they had been saving. Amongst the other fields they fill out, the readers have two boxes to check; writer recommend and/or script recommend. The executive went through the coverage and contacted every one of the one hundred and fifty people who got a check next to the writer recommend. They did it with the hope of finding a good new script from one of these promising writers.
Not one of those recommended writers was still writing! They knew how to write, just not what to write.
She figures that a writer can’t write in isolation, that writers are part of a huge “thing” and that we have to find where we all fit into this "thing". I gotta agree, you are a cog, deal with it.
If you are writing in isolation like I am, then you face a real challenge in writing something that isn’t already being developed or that isn’t completely un-producible in the current market. Reading magazines like Variety and the Hollywood Reporter, following the news at MCN: Movie City News, Script Sales and The Futon Criticl… they help but are no substitute for actually living and writing in Los Angeles. Deep websites like TVTracker and Studio System are good but you have to pay for it.
Would that I could move to Los Angeles.
Because she saw something original in it, she helped shepherd Criminal Minds from a clients idea through development and then helped sell it to CBS after everyone else passed on it. I’m sorry, but I don’t see anything overly original with Criminal Minds… it is a procedural that is elevated above the others by execution and Mandy Patinkin. The Inside from Tim Minear saw that with Peter Coyote and then raised them an Adam Baldwin and Rachel Nichols… and then threw in more original story lines and better writing.  I’m not saying that Criminal Minds is bad – Criminal Minds, Bones and House are the only procedurals that I watch, it is a good show but it ain’t terribly original in concept.
She had a lot of hard numbers and she was adamant that we should keep up on them.
*The average feature film costs $78 million with another $20 million for P&A (prints and advertising).
*The two Toms (Hanks and Cruise) are the box office kings. They are two who can get a film made with a simple “yes” – and if you can write a script they want to make then you are gold.
Action sells best since 16-24 year old males are the most vociferous theatre goers followed by 18-34 year old men and woman. She also feels that at 36 most people just stop going to the movies and watch features at home. So if you want a blockbuster opening then you get the 16-24 males into the seat and that means action.
My take is that action or epic films are the only ones that are worth the trouble of seeing on the big screen by anyone… and in any given year there are only a few films that a person has to see in the theatre. King Kong and Serenity should be seen on as big a screen as you can find… Cinderella Man is fine on the 50” television in the living room. If you are a 17 year old male in school and don’t have a demanding job or a wife and kids you want to spend time with… then you can wander down to the theatre and take a chance on whatever has the most exciting poster. Half way through the movie you’ll be texting everyone you know to stay away from Stealth… but you’ll sit through it and you won’t resent the people who tricked you into the seat.
But back to Victoria… and the second biggest genre in the theatre – comedy. A lot of the 16-24 will go to these and it is the biggest draw for the 18-34 bracket. I’m thinking that the action-comedy is a better bet than the romantic-comedy. She says that cynical comedy is what is getting made and not to bother with warm and fuzzy.
She feels that thrillers are a distant third because it is more complex and takes work. I just feel that there is no burning need to see a thriller on the big screen no matter how interested I am. It doesn’t need the big screen.
Horror-thrillers are hot right now although she sees the trend burning out sooner rather than later – but until then, the non-creature horror film is a good bet. No more vampires and no more creatures. Well, I have a spoof creature-feature in the works… does that count?
Bringing up the tail end is drama at some 7% of the market. She points out that these almost exclusively go to established players with their own prestige projects and trying to come into the game with a drama is almost impossible. If you have to write a drama, write it for an A list actor or director and try to get it to them. If you have access to an A list actor and can give them some Oscar bait then you have a chance since “As long as there is vanity there will be drama”. On the flipside, if you can’t get to them then she tells us to give it up.
She says that pirates are still hot and that we should be working on one for when Pirates of the Caribbean 2 makes a couple hundred million. There is still that Pirates and Cowboys script I have sitting half finished… but there are four projects ahead of it so what do I do?
Victoria’s take on television is that it is tending towards the supernatural… which would be good for my Ragnarok the Series if I were still pushing it.
While most people will tell you to write what you really want to write and don’t chase the market since it changes faster than you can write… Victoria insists that there are some ground rules and you have to write to those rules if you want to have a chance. And while the trends can change week by week, when a trend burst, you have a few months to cash in on it.
I’m lucky in that I like me some action and comedy. You might not be so lucky.
If you get a studio to bite on a pitch, they will usually want a first draft in twelve weeks, they will take about four weeks to review the draft and then give you another four weeks for the rewrite.
What isn’t good news for me is that she is sees a polyglot writer as a bad thing. “Someone who writes across genres isn’t good at any of them.” If you focus on one genre you can learn to do it well but she is scared of someone who writes several genres. I guess that I’ll have to hide the fact that I’m writing at least one thing in every genre that I know of. Bad Clint.
You’ll keep my secret right?
She insists that if you don’t know someone who will refer you to a producer or an agent then you need to find some other way and that pretty much comes down to writing contests. Without that you won’t get anywhere at all. The Nichols Fellowship is the most respected while the Chesterfield Award, Sundance Lab/Workshop and the Disney Fellowship are all highly thought of. If you get into one of those, the agents will call you.
As for places that offer to connect you up if you store your script on their website… she knows nobody who goes there. That doesn’t mean that nobody goes there, just that she doesn’t know anyone who does.
I’ve really studied the business side of things and I am actually enjoying having her confirm a lot of what I’ve learned and deduced. Even where it isn’t the best news for me, at least I know the rules that I am trying to break.
She has a lot of good things to say and is you can find her at Screenplay Wisdom.

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SWE4: Special Guest – Joss Whedon

November 12th, 2005 Clint

It seems like Screenwriting Expo 4 suddenly got a couple hundred more attendees than it had an hour ago and I think it might have something to do with the young ladies waking around in the “I Belong to Joss” t-shirts. Yes people, it is time for the Joss to speak.
I’ll argue that the man has created the best that television has to offer but I just don’t have the groupie mentality needed to worship the man… so I didn’t bring my copy of the Once More With Feeling script to be signed. And unless Mutant Enemy is signing my checks I don’t belong to Joss. Okay, so if I could afford it I would pay to work with him… he still doesn’t own me. So I guess that means he can rent me or have free use of me… but he doesn’t own me.  I am no man’s buttmonkey.
That said, I really like that a writer is getting this kind of respect. Some people get it.
I don’t know how early they started camping in front of the doors but they were about fifty people deep by the time I show up. This means that I end up sitting about a hundred feet back from the stage. You combine the distance and the fact that they have dimmed the lights, and you get a complete lack of blurry pictures or grainy video that were the highlight of my report on the session with Tim Minear.
Oh stop your whining, isn’t it enough that you get my scintillating writing?
Don’t answer that.
No, seriously, don’t answer that.
Hey, Captain Tightpants came in with Joss… and he takes the stage. “I’m very glad to be here in front of you… potential employees.” Don’t worry Nathan, I figure you won’t be hurting for work. Despite what some people were expecting, I don’t think the school of Joss will turn out many Zierings. Even though MSN flags David Boreanaz with a three Ziering rating, ‘Bones’ is doing alright. I think that the “untalented” part is where they got it wrong.
Back to Nathan and it turns out that he is here to present Joss with the Science Fiction Writer of the Year award from Creative Screenwriting Magazine. If he is his own speech writer than Nathan is a funny man even when Joss isn’t putting words in there for him.
So Joss takes the stage to a standing ovation… except for one guy off to my left who defiantly stays in his seat. That is one brave man, to tempt the wrath of the Whedon Acolytes. I vow to come to his defense if he is attacked. Not that I agree with him or anything… just a matter of principal and defending the freedom of expression. I am a First Amendment absolutist after all… which you may find odd in a Canadian but it is a matter of principal and what is right, not what chunk of dirt I call home.
Joss thanks Nathan for the speech and then complains about Nathan being funny as well as pretty. It is okay for him to be good looking since that is expected of leading men, but Joss feels it isn’t fair that he is smart and funny as well.
Joss goes on to talk about getting into the television writing business and finding that it was “More fun than anything I’d ever done… and I’d done a lot of drugs.”
He reiterated that he didn’t study writing, he studied film. He dissected them, discussed them and immersed himself in them.
“Genre mixing has always been there, my work is genre salad.”
Joss talks about how he did a spec for Rosanne and got on Rosanne. He then tells of the man who told him “It never works to write a spec for the show you wanted to apply to… except it did work for me.” So let’s see, last night Tim Minear said how his X-Files script got him working on X-Files and tonight Joss says how he got on Rosanne with a Rosanne spec… and that they guy who told him not to do it got his start that way as well. That is a lot of exceptions to the rule. But maybe it only works with writers of the Tim and Joss caliber. I don’t think I’m quite there yet.
“Television is a question while film is an answer.”
“I knew they weren’t going to keep Firefly on the air… you have Fastlane, you don’t need me! I’ll never tire of making fun of Fastlane – I wake up at two in the morning and do it.” This gets a laugh and a round of clapping. “This is why I come to writers conferences, you get applause for bitterness.”
“Once you get something on the air, with your voice, make it matter… let it mean something.”
He wanted Angel to be stand alone episodes – “Touched by an Equalizer”. He couldn’t write that and “Went to a soap opera with monsters and vampires.” I personally have trouble seeing “soap opera” as anything but bad, the only thing that I associate with soap opera is a shooting schedule that doesn’t allow anyone to do a good job. The writers have to use the first draft of a rushed script, the actors don’t have time to do anything but regurgitate the words, the director has to accept the first take where the actors regurgitate without mistakes and the editors have to shove the episode out the door as soon as it is even marginally watchable. Soap opera doesn’t mean serialized or melodramatic to me, it means too rushed to be good. Its redeeming quality may be that it is a brutal training ground for everyone involved… if you can deliver five episodes a week, one episode a week would be luxurious.
“Nathan is at ease with his good looks and talent. Me… not so much. I hate that man… and yet still want him to hold me and comfort me.”
“David Greenwalt is more responsible for Buffy than anyone who isn’t say… me.”
On building a staff of writers. “The best writers were the best people… the most decent, caring people.” “What I look for in a writer is a personal connection. The script has to have an emotional core that they get.”
On connecting with writers – “Marti – click, Doug Petrie – click, anyone named Drew.” Hmmm, now I’m wondering on the hassle involved in legally changing my name? John Clinton Ralph Drew Johnson… as I always say, can never have to many aliases.
“Tim Minear was the best pitch but I didn’t hire him because he was so full of rage. But then I meet other writers from X-Files and understood.”
“Tim Minear’s episodes for Firefly were dark, dark, dark.”
On facing down the network. Network – “If Zoe and Wash aren’t married we’ll pick up the show.” Joss – “Okay, I’m fine with that, I’m not making Melrose Space.”
“The most difficult transition from the small screen to the big screen? Nathan’s nostrils… we had to CGI them smaller.”
“On the totem pole of film, the writer is the piece of the pole that they stick in the ground to hold the pole up. You will be treated to an unbelievable amount of shit.”
“Tearing my hair out during the shooting of Buffy because of certain Donald Sutherlands rewriting the script to make no sense whatsoever.”
“Faster would be better.” That was Nathan’s ad lib contribution to the Serenity script.
“I direct it while I write it. I want the writing of the script to be like watching the show.”
He hates jokey asides in the script and feels that it takes you right out of the show. You should write like an actor and mouth the dialog so that everything is something that can actually come out of a human mouth.
On Wonder Woman – “The invisible jet will be in my movie, I promise that.”
“My greatest dream is to do Hamlet.”
On Tim’s embarrassing story from last night. – “Let me make one thing perfectly clear… I made love to the couch. I made it breakfast afterwards.”
“Fall in love with the moments, not the moves.” He feels that shows are built around the moments that make you feel and that cool action moves often got in the way. Moments = situations that make you feel. Movement = how you get to those moments.
“I left Rosanne because they didn’t use any of my scripts. I wrote six episodes and they used nothing.”
“Shows are run by writers. There are shows run by their stars… stay away, stay away, stay away from them!”
“There’s nobody out there making these little indie genre shows.” Well, yes we are Joss… my pilot is exactly what you lament the lack of… but then I’m thinking that you also expect a certain level of quality as well. Picky bastard.
On his half hour presentation for Buffy – “I had a terribly crew. It was my first time and I was allowed to be awful, they were experienced.” Does that mean I was allowed to be awful on my first shoot? Sweet relief.
“Every episode has a unique meaning that isn’t in any other episode. They might be little things… the only reason may be to get Willow into an Eskimo outfit and have Oz fall in love with her.”
After the talk is over, I wanted to go up and tell him that there are people out here making those little genre shows but there were so many people crowding around and the organizers were trying to clear the room for the next event.
Joss gives good speech. While I’ve already read most of what he said, it was still interesting to hear it from the man himself. If you are so inclined, they have a DVD available and I figure it would be worth it. Hell, I was there and I’m putting an order in for the DVD.

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SWE4: Guest Speaker – Jon Cassar of 24

November 12th, 2005 Clint

Jon Cassar is the primary director of 24 and unlike most TV directors he is a full on co-executive producer and has a lot of input – rather than being a gun for hire who subsumes his own style to fit that of the showrunner. He spoke in rapid fire about how he works and how 24 works. I’ll just retype my notes up here and let it go at that. I had to drop out early to get to a pitch so I didn’t get the whole of the speech.
They shoot two episodes at a time and that saves them about $50,000 per episode. This is largely possible because they can reuse the sets and the wardrobe tends to stay the same. I’m thinking that Lost could get away with that pretty easily as well… but there aren’t many others. I think it might be a good idea to keep this in mind when creating a show that has to come in with a very small budget- $50,000 here and $50,000 there… it adds up.
Watch the show and see how whenever someone is going anywhere they give them what Jon calls a “magic bag” to carry when they go out the door. They don’t do an insert shot of what is in the bag, and with the undisclosed contents they can pull whatever they need out of the bag as unforeseen circumstances dictate. Do they need a laptop computer for this scene? Well, the bag was carrying that all along. Yes it was.
For the large part, the show is written on the fly and they never know when a character will strike a cord with the writers. A security guard with only one line of dialog could end up running through three episodes as Jack’s sidekick so everyone has to be able to act. He says that this makes it tough to cast smaller parts.
The writers are usually only two episodes ahead of the airing episode and they are tweaking right up to the last minute. They have to do rewrites and re-shoots for almost every episode when they find that something needs more backstory or propping up moments that turned out to be a little weak. Fox lets them spend about a day of reshoots for every episode.
They tend to cut things down quite a lot from what was shot. “Joel has ADD so he is always cutting scenes when they start to drag.”
The show is very story and writer driven and they tend to hire friends who are very experienced. This year three of the writers have been show runners in their own right and last year it was four. The show is very hard to write for and the few scripts that don’t go to the staff writers have gone to their assistants. It is very insular and if you want to work in this business then you’d better be working in this business – at any job you can get.
“Jack Bauer will have to die, his story has to be complete.”

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