Music for Screenwriters, or How I Walk The Line

On impulse yesterday I bought a New Order CD. They have a new Singles collection out here in Canada. Roughly the nineteenth one they've put out. I thought I'd grok onto hearing the old faves I remember, but the thing really left me cold.

The seventeen year old self, the one with way more arrogance and way, way, way more hair -- would doubtless sneer at this, but I realized that somewhere along the line to becoming a screenwriter, I also became a country music fan.

Now, let's not go crazy. I don't like Garth Brooks or anything. Kenny Chesney -- in fact, hell, most of what passes for popular country today, I despise. You can take your redneck women and your dime store patriotic pablum and ride it straight to hell. But around the edges, I notice that most of what I listen to has got that "Americana" or "alt.country" twang to it.

Steve Earle. Lucinda Williams. Dwight Yoakam. Ryan Adams. Whiskeytown. Kathleen Edwards. Pernice Brothers. Wilco. Lyle Lovett. Rodney Crowell. Shelby Lynne. Iron & Wine. Calexico.

Last week I went to a show at Massey Hall that was just Lyle Lovett, Guy Clark, John Hiatt, and Joe Ely sitting around singing songs on the guitar. It was magic. I was transported.

And Thursday, cause KCRW pre-empted the schedule, I got to listen to a few hours of Johnny Cash -- this is after seeing the excellent film Walk the Line last weekend.

What's struck me is this: country and country-influenced stuff is storytelling music. And that's what I crave now. Sure, I'm still susceptible to hooks and buzz bands like Arcade Fire -- but these days the music I'm most attracted to are the story songs. And country is all over that shit.

It's not just country, of course -- Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan -- all rely on story songs as a big part of their repetoire.

It's just funny that my musical taste has shifted so far without me really thinking too much about it. Weird.

So there it is. Throw it open for the big thread: let's call it Music for Screenwriters. I want to know your picks. All of 'em, till my comment box runneth over.

If you're a storyteller, who should you be listening to?

Happy Yanksgiving

To all my American readers. Please remember the following:

Wait 15 minutes before seconds. Seriously. Digest a bit first.

It's never a good idea to drink and carve.

Grandma was young once, too.

Just because Billy says he's gay, doesn't mean you love him any less. The Pilgrims were pretty fruity, too. Mayflower? Hello?

In The Future, All TV's will be triangular...

Deep in the depths of the early 1990's, before I turned to writing full time, I was a producer on a show called media television.

media television was fairly revolutionary for its time. How revolutionary? In the second program, the show profiled the first issue of a brand-new magazine called WIRED. We were (arguably) one of the first programs to regularly display our email address at the end of the show. mediatv was slugged "the modern art & science of persuasion." We covered the intersection of advertising, modern television and emerging new media. This is back in the day when everyone called it "the information superhighway."

For whatever reason, Toronto's always been a hotbed for the whole "prognostication on the future of media" industry. We had Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan. We also had Citytv, which, along with shows like media television was the brainchild of a Canadian media shaman and raconteur named Moses Znaimer. Once upon a time, Citytv was a mind-blower of a local station. In shows like The New Music, it did MTV before MTV was even a wisp. It went to an all videotape newscast while other stations were intoning, "film at 11..." It also got those newscasters out from behind the desk. Today, if you watch Citytv, it's a pale shadow of its former self -- like everything else in media, it's chasing the same trends and dollars, and is now in the pleasing shareholders business -- but once upon a time, it was a weird, wonderful, and mind expanding place to be.

What working on media television gave me was a front seat for the rise of the first internet hype bubble. Over a period of four years, I interviewed all manner of futurists, visionaries, prognosticators and analysts -- along with a passel of twenty-one year old geniuses who were burning through millions in venture capital, but who giggled any time you said, "how are you eventually going to make money at this?"

Well, we know pretty much how that ended now, don't we?

I look back on my experience at media television as kind of the geek equivalent of the journey Cameron Crowe's eponymous narrator goes through in Almost Famous. I can tell you what I saw at the revolution. But in the end, what it mostly added up to was bullshit.

I've been mostly inoculated against the "where things are going" virus since. Especially on the internet, it seems, any discussion of changes in distribution models seem to be driven by people with a very shaky understanding of consumer behavior, economics, psychology, business, and techology...take your pick, really... William Goldman famously opined that "Nobody Knows Anything." And when it comes to the changing nature of how TV will be distributed, he couldn't be more right.

Not that it stops people from trying.

In New York, a writer I quite like, Adam Sternbergh, tackles the implications of subscription TV, and how TV on the Ipod might spin out and change the distribution model of TV. Read it here.

Sternbergh makes some interesting points, but he also falls pretty far down that prognostication well. Over at Brollywood, John Sullivan points out the major flaw in Sternbergh's argument: what he calls, "The Josh Paradox."

Basically, it's all well and good to say that advertising is irrelevant, and that the Joss Whedons of the world can cut out networks and sell directly to consumers -- but that belies the fact that no one is going to pre-buy from someone they don't know. So you need the reputation first. And how do you build that reputation without big media companies and their promotional push behind you?

This is exactly the same argument as "artists don't need labels anymore." No. Madonna doesn't need them. Elton John doesn't need them. If you're a young band just starting out, sure, you can post your album on your website. Like 2 million other bands. Now. What do you do next?

I know that this is not hard and fast. I recognize comics like Dane Cook have been able to leverage the 'net to bypass some of the traditional routes to success. And yes, the Nobody Knows Everything dictum applies to the gatekeepers and big companies, too: FOX did cancel Family Guy, then reverse themselves. DVD sales are changing how success is measured, and definitely have affected how serialized you can make your stories -- but the problem with predicting how things will play out down the road is that you can never, ever take into account all the variables in all the right proportions -- never mind account for the "X Factor" -- that nebulous accident that could change everything.

What do I find interesting in media trends? Well, I think that the product placement thing will probably continue and increase. Hopefully, it'll be subtle, like Ford's alliance with 24. But maybe not. I also think the recent trend of single sponsors for shows may continue, and increase. And how interesting is that? That part of the solution to TV's future may come from its past -- the single sponsor show. In a world where everybody has PVR's, maybe breaking into the program for ads six times doesn't make sense.

I think DVD sales will continue to change what gets greenlit, and how long things run.

I think networks and production companies probably will sell reruns at low price points. You will never have to miss LOST again (as I did last night...I'm in Canada, so I can't download it legally from Itunes, but if I could, I'd be there, boom, no problem.)

But if the history of media teaches us anything, it's that things don't get destroyed by technological change. TV did not destroy radio. TV did not destroy movies. Neither did the VCR. To say that we're moving toward a "viewer buys from program maker" model ignores the example of that recent Internet boom: eventually, everyone decided that what they wanted most was entertainment and info from the same sources they got them from before. Big companies had the pockets, and they still had the edge. Maybe it wasn't quite the 100 percent stranglehold it used to be. Maybe it was just...90 percent.

If you were a 500 pound gorilla in the old order, you had a great chance of being one in the new order. Not to say that there wasn't a chance for a new monkey to come along and grab some love, but people still prefer the New York Times to Bennie's Spokane News Hut.

After I moved on from media television, I started working at Canada's version of the Sci-Fi channel. What I noticed there is this: people talk about how they want things first. And some do. Some people probably will pay top dollar. But the other side of that argument is this: no matter how long they've been available on DVD, no matter how many times they've been rerun'ed -- every time we took a show off the air, somewhere, somehow, viewers complained. There is always an audience. There is always someone new to reach. There's always a different way to get to them.

The audience is not monolithic. It's a big tent, and the lesson is that there's no one way that audiences want to consume their entertainment anymore.

So if you're a creative person, what should you make of all these emerging trends?

Well, honestly? I think the only thing you can do is hone what it is you have to offer, and not worry about it. Work on the creative side. I am nowhere near as interested in the idea of how someone will watch TV on an Ipod as I am, for instance, in the fact that in the upcoming King Kong game, we now take for granted that you can "play as Kong, or play as a human." That has way greater implications for people who are trying to create compelling stories than 99 cent downloads from Itunes.

Back in the mediatv days, the big thing was going to be interactive tv. The idea that the videogame would take over the narrative arts. Then you had people like Penn Jillette, who dared to call "bullshit." I'm paraphrasing here, but he said something to the effect that, even 2000 years ago, sitting round the campfire, a storyteller could weave a tale and then stop and ask you, "okay, what happens next?" And you wouldn't care. Because that sucks. What you want is a good story.

And let's face it: everybody thinks they can write. Fans on TV Without Pity will always say that if only those stupid program makers had listened to the fans, the show would have been better. I have one cab driver a week who thinks he could come up with way better stories than what's on tv right now.

Okay. Great.

But they don't do it, do they? And that, my chickens, is the key. Worrying about how the distribution model is changing and 'what that means' is just one more excuse for anyone trying to be creative, not to buckle down and do the really hard thing, which is to get your ass in the seat and get to work.

So by all means, if you're creative and you want to write or create, keep abreast of how things are changing. But don't believe for a second that there's some great egalitarian future out there where you can directly reach out and pluck your audience.

You will always have to deal with the Man.

The trick is to do it in such a way that you don't become the Man.

Because the Man can talk all he likes about how this model or that is going to go...
But yesterday I sat in a room with three writers for six hours, and at the end of it we had two broken out half hour episodes. Funny episodes, where in the morning we had nothing.

And that's the thing that has real value. The rest is just prognostication. Leave that for the pointy heads and MBA's. Work on the stuff that actually matters. And when people tell you how the future is going to be, nod politely and remember that anyone can predict what comes next. Especially if you don't mind being wrong.

But if you can face down the blank page, well, then that's the wine, my friends. The rest is just arguing over the shape of the bottle, and the color of the label.

I'd rather talk about the wine.

You're making it too hard.

So there I am, trying to come up with fiction. And silliness. And comedy. Yet in the last 48 hours, we have the leader of the world getting flummoxed by a door, the right screaming that some TD's lineup gaffe is evidence of the antichrist, reports that the U.S. planned to BOMB A TELEVISION STATION and what passes for normal -- the further fallout of a 37 year old military vet being called a coward.

Oh, and some more US soldiers died. And the bird flu's still coming.

And FEMA won't talk to New Orleans.

Would you %#$@ers please, please, please give me a break? There is NO WAY I can try to manufacture absurdity in a climate like this. Seriously.

Remember when everyone talked about the death of irony after 9/11?

Can we go back to that? Seriously?

You're salting Daddy's game, here.

Back to the Room

Gonna be a little light here over the next couple of days. I'm back in a room breaking story for a friend's project.

I'll just leave you with this:

3-D is not ready for prime time. And Medium is still a ridiculous show. How ridiculous? It makes me miss what's-his-name- the-husband's role on The Mind of the Married Man. Serious.

I try to watch every show at least once, but seriously dude, you couldn't get me to watch Medium again with a mallet. Ghost Whisperer, I'm talking to you, too. Feh.

No Way in Hell

...are you going to get me to say a word about the Gemini Awards. (Canada's Emmyhahahhheee heh hhhee heee hhee ho ha...damnit. Really thought I'd get through that without laughing.)

Nope. Not a word.

For that you have to buy me beer.

The Office & Earl

I have no idea if it'll stick around much longer, but after an extended PVR clean off, I've got to say that the American iteration of The Office has completely won me over.

There were glimpses of possibility last season. I thought the episode that dealt with the racism training was incredibly, almost absurdly subversive, and packed a much deeper punch than the equivalent episode of the original BBC series. (Which is entirely appropriate, considering that issues of race are a third rail in the United States -- far more in-your-face than they are even in vaguely xenophobic Great Britain.)

But with the season 2 run of episodes, some interesting things have started to happen. First, the American show has, I think, now produced more episodes than the show that spawned it. Second, the growth in the American characters has finally reached a tipping point for me where I'm no longer missing the UK versions. Pam is at least as engaging and funny as Dawn. (Interestingly, I think they've also made the character smarter.) The Tim/Jim character in the US version is not as self-loathing and ambivalent about his job as his UK counterpart, which is an interesting, and I think very American change. I always thought that Rainn Wilson was gifted enough to make his charcter work, even though you'd never forget or stop missing the glorious Gareth, but in the last couple of episodes, Wilson's deadpan delivery has just slayed me.

Then there's Steve Carell. No, he's no David Brent. He's a particularly American slice of self-absorbed. It's amazing how if you tweak a few traits, a character can be so completely different in the ensembe. The one thing that worried me most about the American Office was that Michael Scott just didn't have anything like the bubbling under, "he's so sad" cluelessness that made you feel a strange, sick sympathy for Ricky Gervais' David Brent.

But in the last few episodes, with the aborted romance with his superior, Michael Scott finally got some sympathy points. Grudging, horribly fought, and compromised as they were. It's a testimony to Carell that he can take this American boss -- who's so much less likable than the British model, and still make him riveting.

I'm not sure how the show played in the U.S. press when it premiered there, but here in Canada it was a pretty predictable backhand-slamming. It's undeserved. For my money, The Office is the most successful British import since probably Sanford and Son. It puts Queer as Folk and Cracker to shame.

What Greg Daniels did in adapting the show for the American market was recognize some very basic differences at the core of the psyche of the two countries. Michael Scott is such a product of the sunny, individual-first school of American mythmaking that he fits. Tim was likable because of his doubt and his self-lacerations. Jim is likable because, well, his decency. The interactions with the warehouse staff play on issues of hip hop and cultural difference, not class difference. It's obvious that Daniels really studied the British show, and then let it go.

Contrast that with the absolutely horrible American version of Coupling from a couple years back and the achievement becomes even more striking. I never knew how they were going to adapt Coupling. Each of the six main characters on that show seemed to me to embody a different, yet distinct slice of New British archtypes.

When the American version premiered, within five minutes it was painfully clear that nothing had been done to find the corresponding American types. Patrick, Tory that he was; Jeff, a very British eccentric, even the particular brittleness of Sally -- none of the Americans looked in any way like actual in-your-30's types you'd find hanging out in an American city. They were too good looking, and too bland by half.

Greg Daniels learned the lessons of Coupling well. I, for one, hope that Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant enjoy their creator royalties for some time to come. The Office is sophisticated, heartfelt, true -- and American to the core.

I also have caught two or three more episodes of My Name is Earl. Initially, I thought that the whole show pretty much rested on Jason Lee's shoulders. But in the recent episodes, they've really done quite a bit to spread the comedy around, with deft turns from both Ethan Supplee as the brother, and Jaime Pressly as Joy. I think Earl is great, good natured fun. I would probably spec it if I needed a half hour sample.

Both these shows, I think, prove that just like the box-office slump story of 2005, the "comedy on American TV is dead" story is seriously overblown.

Now if we could just get a few more comedies on the air in Canada...

UPDATE: With the November 22, 2005 show (Michael at Improv class, Dwight's Office Romance, and Jim's Karaoke Party) The American Office has achieved a wicked pinnacle. The secondary characters are as interesting as the British ones were; the world is more fleshed out, Jim's fundamental decency is stronger and clearer than ever -- the introduction of the Camera as character is a stylistic step forward from the original...In other words, the child has definitely grown up. The show stands on its own comic feet. As well cast, as well observed, and as funny as the original ever was. As David Brent would say: Fact.

*okay, they still haven't done anything as funny as the David Brent "If You Don't Know Me By Now" video -- but give them time.