Paul Gross Says What You Can't

THE CALGARY HERALD, of all places, came up with a very trenchant quote from Paul Gross on the current vogue of Canadian-made shows now (or soon-to-be) exporting to the USA, in Eric Volmer's article from the Banff TV Festival.

Context here: Gross, being as he is the bankable 800 lb. Gorilla of Canadian production, (He's soon to be seen in Eastwick, a U.S. network show, and his production shingle, Whizbang Films, is healthy with lots in the hopper) gets to say the things about the downside of this arrangement that many producers (and writers, and various others) don't have the guts to say:

Actor and producer Paul Gross, whose show Due South was among the first Canadian-made shows to win a prime-time time slot on a major U. S. network after it was picked up by CBS, says the Canadian industry should be careful about making this a model for their future, suggesting there is a danger of our industry becoming an "assembly branch plant" for the U. S. networks.

"The difficulty with the Canadian companies that are engaging in these is that if it's not a hit, then what do you do?" says Gross. "You suddenly have this big fallout of the financing of the show. It's a dangerous model to pursue exclusively. And it's completely outside of your control. You might be putting in the lion's share of the money, but you do not control the fate of the production. But it's extraordinarily attractive. You get big exposure in a way you can't generate out of Canada alone. It certainly helps with foreign sales to have ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox behind it. But it does bring some handcuffs that aren't all that attractive, creatively and for broadcasters."

On Mops and Pails and Snarls and Multitudes

OH DEAR. I really tried taking the high road yesterday with my response to Doyle's writer on writer violence in yesterday's Mop & Pail. (WoW Violence; I can see a couple of my friends shaking their heads and saying, "first world problem...") But seeing as my Guild's President, Rebecca Schechter weighs in in a letter to the editor today, maybe we should print that:

John Doyle returned from Buenos Aires in the spirit of a soccer hooligan, taking a swipe at the biggest fans of Canadian television: Canadian TV writers (TV Writers - Study The Leamington Big Tomato - Review, June 11). Mr. Doyle cuts a wide swath for sins of snobbery he admits apply only "to a few."

I've never met anyone interested in making TV that no one wants to watch. Mr. Doyle knows this - he was in that airless CRTC room last year when the Writers Guild of Canada and four screenwriters fought against the proposal to split the Canadian Television Fund into commercial and cultural streams. It was Canadian TV writers who argued that the two can't be separated.

What we should be worried about isn't snobbish Canadian writers, it's a push with the new funding model - in which U.S. networks bulk up their prime-time skeds with programs bought cheaply in Canada - to spend CTF money on stories written for generic Anytown-USA productions. The CTF is a limited fund and meant to support stories written by Canadians aimed at Canadians. "Canadian and commercial" are as synonymous as "American and commercial," and every Canadian screenwriter knows it.

Hoo boy, though -- knowing that Doyle is a card-carrying Irishman, and how much my ancestral people love taking the piss, a tea leaf read of MisterJohnDoyle's Twittering reveals himself may just be in this game for the sport of it:

Currently v. amused by defensive, kneejerk snarling from TV writers. At least they're not stabbing each other with their pencils todayabout 17 hours ago from web

Which is weird, since I thought I was kind of conciliatory to his Doyleness yesterday. And the column he wrote only had like, oh, two comments. So, what's this snarling he's talking about?

Maybe he IS just funning. Hmm. In that spirit of puckishness, it's probably not wise to try and refute the trickster meself. I'll need someone far more credible. Someone he'll respect and listen to. Where could I find such a beast? Ah. Wait. I know.

What I'm wondering is this: Where are the Canadian cultural warriors ready, willing and able to articulate why we need Canadian-made television?...Perhaps those who actually make Canadian TV are cowering in fear. Perhaps they are afraid of the cable companies. If so, they should be ashamed of themselves. Soon, it will be too late and the question will be this: Who speaks for the dead?

John Doyle, Globe & Mail, Feb 15, 2007.

So. Um. Fight for what's right and stand up for yourself... Just don't criticize the producer of a CTV Globemedia property when she says something dumb to the New York Times. Got it. I wonder if there's any other rules I should know?

You know, on further reflection, maybe it's not a sense of puckishness at work here. Maybe it's just fatigue. You know how sometimes you come back from vacation tired instead of refreshed? Maybe he's just tired. After all, Doyle has a history of coming back to the job grumpy. Maybe that's why Canadian writers complaining about lack of promotion and stuff make him so... what? What's that?

While I was away - I came back grumpy, obviously - an issue blew up. Chris Haddock, creator of Da Vinci's Inquest and Intelligence, complained - during an interview with a reporter - about CBC's lack of promotion for Intelligence. He had a point. In a response, a CBC spokeschappy took this condescending view: "We have not yet made a decision as to whether we'll continue with the show; when we do, Chris will be the first to know...Spokeschappy also tut-tutted about Haddock's "attempts to negotiate through the media his relationship with the CBC."

Worse, the normally sensible Denis McGrath, a TV screenwriter of some note, tut-tutted in his blog, "I'm with the CBC on one thing on this: This is not something that should be playing out in the media."

What utter nonsense. The Canadian TV racket suffers from enough don't-quote-me wussiness as it is. There is so much fear of angering some self-aggrandizing TV exec that hardly anyone speaks the truth, out loud, to the press... Another TV writer going all meek and mousy on the subject is disheartening. I really hate that.

John Doyle, Globe & Mail, December 18, 2007.

So...uh... If you speak out and defend Chris Haddock, you're golden. If you defend writers in general, you're...um...wait. I'm starting to lose the plot on this. You know what? Maybe the problem is something else entirely. Maybe the problem is that, well, we're all just a little too...Canadian...

It's part of the national character, I think. We're not abusive, as American complainers sometimes are. And we don't believe in organizing a mass-action complaint, as Americans do. We get indignant. Then the person receiving the complaint gets really indignant in response.

John Doyle, Globe & Mail, Nov 25, 2003

See, people? The cycle of writer on writer violence continues, all because we're locked into being Canadian. Well, I for one will have none of it. I love you, John Doyle. All of yous. The soccer partisan and the TV theorist and the industry defender and the TV Racket nose tweaker.

As I used to say every time one of Doyle's escalating slams of The Border wafted through the story department... "Did he mention the show? And get the time right? Then we're good."

Last night I said on Facebook "not taking the bait." Yet here we are. He's a wily and provocative one, that Doyle. I guess in the end, maybe we both should fall back on a better writer than both of us:

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then, I contradict myself.

I am large, I contain multitudes.

Walt Whitman, Song of Myself.

Oh, snap.

The Corners You Know & The Corners You Show

A LITTLE LESS than two months ago, just before I left Toronto, I sat in a club in the west end and watched three Canadian TV writers pay tribute to a friend.  

This was at the WGC Screenwriting Awards, a fete that's known for having the fastest, no B.S. show on the block.  In fact, once upon a time (before my time) I have it on good authority that the "winners" used to be chosen by throwing a dart at a dart board. Or something like that.

Anyway, on this night, Malcolm MacRury (ZoS, and the upcoming Crash & Burn (formerly Lawyers, Guns & Money,) Peter Mohan, (Blood Ties, Mutant X, The Bridge) and Peter Mitchell (Cold Squad, Traders & too many other shows to count) stood up and feted David Cole with a rather unusual tribute: Two grand (which they raised themselves) that would go to one of the night's winners. It was meant to be "mad money" -- to be spent not on research, or on a computer -- but on something impractical or fun; something that made life better.

This was meant in tribute to Cole, a longtime Canadian TV scribe who died last year.  Famous for his sense of humor, Cole had a long and sometimes bumpy career.  Like a lot of us, he had his share of troubles, but everyone who knew him spoke of his laugh and his sense of humor as his most enduring quality.

I met Cole only briefly, toward the end of his life, when we worked together on an animated series. I freelanced a few episodes, and he story edited -- taking the brunt of the contradictory notes from three different international broadcasters. Such is the gig.

On one of those afternoons, Cole and I got talking about the other thing that we had in common.  I had replaced him on a show a couple of years before.  This show, a sci-fi drama that shot in South Africa, had had a famously tempestuous development history, which resulted in the departure of the entire first writing team.  As one of the replacements, I went on to see a bunch of craziness, and learn an awful lot. After freelancing for years, this had been my first steady gig.

That day, Cole and I swapped stories about the show -- I heard about the insanity that preceded my arrival, and caught him up a bit on what followed his departure.  We shared a bunch of good natured laughs about it all.

What I didn't tell him; what, in fact, I never told anybody up til now (and you'll keep it to yourself, won't you, gentle reader?) was that part of what had gotten me through that experience, and part of what shaped the way I framed and learned from that experience, was David Cole.

See, when I went to Cape Town, I didn't just take over Cole's job (though at a much lower level; I was green as hell,) I took over his flat.  

Amidst the flat owner's many books and sundries, there were a couple of things that Cole had left behind.  One of those things was a yellow legal pad.

The pad wasn't full; there were only about fifteen pages there.  A few were filled with an unfinished, unaddressed letter. It was personal;  I gave it a cursory glance and threw it away.  But next, there were a series of notes -- notes that detailed his growing frustration with the show and the process that would eventually cause him to leave.  These notes were hilarious, and scabrous, and though they didn't really reflect the show that I'd eventually help to shape and craft -- they did presage an experience I'd have on another show a couple years later.

The notes came from a place of a writer who was frustrated and at the end of his rope by being boxed in, let down, and punk'd about by a creative process that divorced the decision-making from the creative.  It was a series of jots that I never forgot. And it was my introduction to the way that Canadian TV of the time sometimes went wrong.

Because it was so hard to finance, the producers of Canadian fare wielded tremendous power. Unlike the U.S. system of TV, you didn't rise through the ranks of the writing department to assume control of the creative enterprise.  In in its simplest form, the person who filled out the forms and got the financing called the shots.  Many of these producers cut their teeth as line producers, often on U.S. service fare that shot in Canada.  And eventually they grew tired of this; constantly having to take orders from Americans. Couldn't they call the shots, finally? Couldn't they be the creative force?  

So came the rise of the Canadian "Creative Producer." 

Now, to be fair, some of these creative producers were creative and collaborative. But most of them weren't writers, and didn't have that skillset. So they hired writers. And, not to put too fine a point on roughly a jillion stories I've heard over the last few years -- but often, they abused them.  There was resentment, maybe, because they couldn't do what the writer could. There was entitlement, surely. They thought nothing of engaging a "word slave" whose job it was to take poorly ordered cocktail napkins and wild whims and "write them up," as if it was as easy and as dull an endeavour as cleaning out a closet. 

More often than not, this resulted in a terrible disconnect. Writers that did well did so because they were "easy to work with" and not "good." Writers who were good, and who fought for a creative vision, were tagged as difficult, and became stressed out and miserable because they weren't having a good time writing, and found themselves having to take marching orders from people who didn't understand story, the process, or even how to talk to writers.

And hanging over it all was the peculiar Canadian siren song, that others would repeat almost constantly: "if you were really any good, why don't you go to the United States?"

Over the last few years, there's been a hard, long process of trying to make the case of the need for the person with the "Creative Vision" to be the writer; and for that writer to have access to the decision-making, the levers of power and also, too, the networks. The gatekeepers. The people who gave notes.  In the past, the idea was to keep the writer as far away from that as possible here.  

But for better or worse, many people started to realize that the "word slaves" approach wasn't the right one.  More frequent story rooms, showrunners -- writers who could execute a creative vision needed to have the space to do that, or the shows would forever suck.

Every gain in this area has been hard won. And not to sound like a broken record, but the shows that have been our greatest successes, whether you measure that by critical or ratings success -- Slings & Arrows, Corner Gas, Durham County, DaVinci's Inquest, Intelligence -- have come from having empowered writers.

There's been pushback along the way, of course.  It's very popular these days to pair with new or inexperienced writers,  the thought being that they're less likely to be "difficult" (ie: to know how to, or even think of pushing for a certain creative vision.)  A lot of times this backfires, because all it means is that you have writers who don't have the experience to fix something, and producers who value their control more highly than quality execution.)

I've said this before, and I'll say it again here.  Writers are no picnic.  We can be prickly and needy. We have huge egos, (not actor-sized, but still) and can sometimes spend a lot of time inside our heads. Anybody who's married or dating a writer, I give you full props. It's not easy.

Because part of the job is to be very serious about what you do, even if the thing you're doing isn't very serious at all. I was fortunate enough to spend a little bit of time a couple days back with Kari Lizer, who's the Showrunner and Creator of The New Adventures of Old Christine. She was full of stories of her time on Will & Grace, and the ups and downs of her own show.  She was warm and open hearted, and talked of a lot of hurtful lessons learned only through fighting for it.   Ron Moore, too, who dazzled so many of us with his re-interpretation of Battlestar Galactica, told several stories that mainly pointed to the need to stick up for yourself, and maintain your creative integrity, even if that means walking away at the hardest possible time.

It's strange to think of things this way, but here goes: the process of making a Friday Night Lights, or The Wire, or The Shield, is exactly the same process that results in Being Erica.  It's just as much work to conceive of, break story for, and execute a little confection like Ugly Betty or Reaper or Cupid as it is to make The West Wing.  You have to commit to it. And that requires a singular level of attention, and craft, and vision.

Awhile back, on Karen Walton's inkcanada discussion board, there was a thread about Great Canadian Television characters.  Someone brought up the character of Olivia on Street Legal, a CBC legal drama that ran to critical derision and great ratings in the late 80's, early 90's.  Olivia was a character who was nowhere on Canadian TV (arguably not really on American TV at the time, either) -- a tough, unapologetic, empowered working woman who wasn't afraid to use her looks or any advantage to get what she wanted -- but could just as easily get it another way.  Street Legal was fun, but it was by no means a great show. Yet that indelible character (which put Cynthia Dale on the Canadian showbiz map) shook up the show, knocked it on its ass, and made it memorable. It was great hearing comments in the thread from one of the people who'd brought that character to life; (David Cole had a hand in that, too) how she reflected in some ways the women they saw around them (these were all young lions, then) but didn't see on TV.  

It's through swapping these stories, stories of how stuff goes down, how it comes to be, that TV writers learn their true craft.  It's part of the reason I write this blog; it's the reason why people like me and Karen Walton, and many others try so hard to get writers together; to forge a community.

That's the framing with which I approached the entry I wrote over the weekend, where I took exception at a Canadian producer's comments on finding writers for Flashpoint.

Well, today in the Globe & Mail, freshly returned soccer cum TV scribe John Doyle takes exception to my comments, and rushes to the producer's defence.

That's all well and good.  Doyle's a fine writer.  I was singing his praises not two nights ago in Banff, at the St. James Gate pub, as a guy who got the value of making the cultural case for a homegrown industry.  The guy I was talking to grimaced.  No fan of the Doyle was he, but I grudgingly got him to admit in the end that the man was right more often than wrong.

But the thing is, being "right" has an awful lot to do with where you shine the spotlight, and how you choose to frame the discussion.  I know there are producers in Canada who probably hate my guts because of the way I write on this blog sometimes, and I know there are others who're just fine with me, because they, like me, think the quality of the product is the most important thing.  And who define quality the same way I do:  not "HBO" necessarily, but the best execution of whatever the thing is supposed to be) Creative relationships are hard to maintain at the best of times.  But there are many Producers and Writers who are close; who work well together even here.

Doyle chooses to shine his spotlight one way; categorizing the Banff TV festival as an example of the lofty writers with pretensions all getting together. So far as I know, the last time that Doyle and I were at the Fest, it was two years ago. There was indeed a contingent of Canadian TV writers there, which at the time was actually unusual.  See, Banff has, in the past, been that wonderfully Canadian creation: a place where everybody (being network types, sales people, producers) talks creativity, while the creative people are nowhere to be seen. 

I'm not going to say that producing isn't a creative act. I've learned otherwise, through the wise counsel (and example) of several good producers. But Doyle's spotlight fails to illuminate the -- let's call it infiltration of Banff -- as part of the long fight to get TV writers in this country above the level of the word slave.

That's fine.  Everybody's allowed their contradictions.  Doyle points to Flashpoint as a critical success because it's commercial.   Yet his haranguing of the last show I worked on, The Border, has verged on the operatic; and that's a show that I always described as "a good cheeseburger" to anybody who asked.  He's also poked Being Erica quite a few times for being light and airy.

Doyle is not above playing his favorites, whether they be certain writers or certain shows.  Any longtime reader will know of his great admiration of Chris Haddock, or Mike Clattenburg of the Trailer Park Boys.  People at CBC are convinced he's out to get them.  Others have intimated darkly about some connection to CTV Globemedia influencing his reviews.  And to every single one of those people I say:  don't be an idiot.  Tom Shales might have been one of the best TV critics that ever wrote a word, and his prickliness makes Doyle look like a piker. 

If I wanted to, I could easily cherry pick certain examples from my own experiences and make Doyle's case for the majority of Canadian TV writers being full of themselves and pretentious.   

I've gotten angry emails over a blog entry where I contrasted a couple of shows.

I've had people send me emails talking about "we" when, far as I could tell, they were referring only to themselves.  

I've had people quote their New York Times reviews at me to refute something I wrote.

I had a crazy person rant at me for fifteen minutes a few months ago because I was somehow responsible for counselling, or promoting the death of art on TV. Or something like that.  I'm not sure.  I have a witness, though. 

I even have had the experience of the full-0f-themselves writer who took a mild joke I made about screenwriters in general, and used it to stir up trouble for me with some professional colleagues. It happens. 

But I choose to see these incidents, and others like them, as not representative of the whole of the experience, and the attitude, of the Canadian TV scribe.  There's plenty more stuff I could say on the subject, but that's all Inside Baseball, and despite what some people think, there's a whole heckuva lot that I *don't* talk about here.

Nope. No.  In the end, I choose to look into the corners I know, and show the spirit of what caused those three friends to get up and give away two grand to some other writer in tribute, because they know how hard it's been, and how hard it will continue to be, to maintain a sunny disposition and sense of humour in the face of the challenges of creation in this country.  A little mad money helps.  And so does a little community. That's the corner I choose to show.

My friend Mark (who co-created Flashpoint) came to Banff this year to do a panel talk on that show's success with an exec from CBS and his wife (and co-creator) Stephanie Morgenstern. He said before the panel, "Sometimes it's nice to come out and get a little pat on the head."

And it's true.  Mark and Steph have high powered agents with CAA now, and so have a little more than that head pat to help them through, but if there aren't always others to give that little pat, maybe it's up to us to give it to each other a little more.  That's the corner I choose to show. 

After four days in a mostly stuffy room, listening to speaker after speaker, a woman of my acquaintance (and fellow showrunner program participant) asked me last night at the Gate, "So are you going to Los Angeles?" And I shrugged.  Cause, man, all I know is that in five years, working in this job has taken me from Vancouver to St. John's to South Africa and back -- a crazy journey. So who knows, really?  I'd like to think that what we're fighting for here is the chance to play our craft as writers and not have to go to the USA. But maybe that's still a naive proposition. Still. That's the corner I choose to show.

Oh, and that guy who grimaced when I big-upped Doyle? You know how I got him to turn his opinion around?   I smiled and said, "come on, the guy's taken shots at me, too, and I'm still reading him."

And the guy smiled, nodded, and conceded the point. 

I'm pretty confident about the corners I know, and the corners I show -- to writer peeps and fellow travellers.  I loves me my cheeseburger shows and my lofty HBO shows. (And even my cheeseburger HBO shows...ahem True Blood ahem...)

I guess that's gotta be enough.

Shmanff

SO MUCH TO process here in the Canwest Showrunner Program at Banff.  Much good, much notso. We had a great day today with Rene Balcer, the showrunner for Law & Order.  The ep that I watched today, as well as a few others I've seen recently, were a bit revelatory for me because the show seemed different, and much fresher than I remembered.

Balcer filled in the blanks:  he came in with a mandate to "dirty the frame a bit" which means that they shoot in a looser, more naturalistic style -- which also has implications for lighting.

But there's also a big difference -- though subtle -- in the way they tell their stories. They spend way longer in the teaser, getting to know the people who wind up being the victims.  (HOUSE is probably the vanguard of this trend, still, it's an interesting and profound change to a format that we all probably think of as set in stone; not so...) I was also interested in how they eliminated a few scenes toward the end -- instead of catching a suspect, they cut straight to him in interrogation and merely talked about how he was caught.

Now a lot of the time that would maybe seem like a lame "Canadian style" dramatic compromise. But Balcer argued it was the right scene to cut first, since it's in the home stretch when the ending is in sight, and people are on a tack of figuring out, not needing to see the action. I thought that was a very different way to look at it.  

The pacing was also very different. Not your father's Law & Order.  

Also spent a great hour and change with The New Adventure of Old Christine's creator and showrunner Kari Lizer, who's as warm, funny, present and normal as you'd ever want from someone in this sometimes crazy business.  

Most of the 'wisdom imparted' in these sessions is in camera and off the record sort of stuff, but it was extemely heartening to see and hear workaday knowledge from two people who manage to maintain both their sense of joy and sense of humanity in the business. Inspiring.

Then it was the St. James' Gate after an extended Disco Nap, and various and sundry wonderfuls.  Good to catch up with Maureen Parker,  and KL Ashton, J.J. Johnson, Children's Producer Extraordinaire, making the jump to drama for us old kids; the mighty Will Pascoe, Mike Kiss of the golden voice, writer/performer and bon vivant (and brand new Jeans wearer) Tracy Dawson, Montreal writer Cynthia Knight and the Heroic Film Company's secret weapon Jennifer Morrisette. 

And I talked to a real live CRTC guy too...but that, my friends, was just between us girls.   Still, an interesting exchange of viewpoints and passions and concerns and perspectives...smart people in a room -- you can never go wrong.  Well. Sometimes with booze. But not tonight.

The trend at Banff this year?  Cheap.  Crackers and cheese at receptions.  The Banff Bag looks more like a recycled cat.  You can't find a coffee anywhere. And today, we were reduced to scarfing saltines at 4pm for some sustenance.   It's kind of like "Survivor" but without the challenges.

Oh and there were awards too. 

Tomorrow is a session with BSG's Ron Moore.  Must set my geek to "low."

For more Banff Insight, check out Will Dixon's post here.   

Guest Post: Careful What You Wish For

TODAY'S GUEST POST comes courtesy of the inimitable Daegan Fryklind, Vancouver-based scribe of J-POD and Robson Arms fame. It's another great writer's life post. Oh, and Daegan's right, BTW. She is cute.

* * *

TIME WAS, WE WERE in a certain bar in Toronto, and I’d reached that point on a series. That point comes somewhere between episodes seven and eight -- the bloom is off the development rose, the machine is in full swing, and there are still sixish episodes to be broken. And you think: we’ve squeezed the lemon so hard to get to this point, how are we going to come up with anything other than pulp for the remainder. At that point, you take solace in the crafty table. You start to stack the iPod with “go get ‘em” music. You rally your inner troops. And then sometimes, when the façade fails, you find yourself sitting around a table in a certain bar with a klatch of Toronto writers, and you might declare something like: “oh god, I just want to get knocked up.”

Sidebar: A friend once told me this story -- he was walking home late one night in a hookerish part of Vancouver (careful -- I know what you’re thinking and yes, there are non-hookerish parts of my fine city) and was nearly struck down by a slow-driving John. It was his “I’m walking here” moment, though immediately afterward he realized if he’d just let the John hit him, he could have settled out of court, or even right there on the sidewalk, for a cool grand.

Thing is, sometimes you’re in it so deep you’re desperate for some way out. When you’re a gun for hire, you likey the writing, you needs the money, you takes the risk: there’s no guarantee you’re going to end up on the dream story department. And then you hit that point of the season and find yourself wanting to get knocked up or wishing you’d have just shut your mouth and continued into the path of moving traffic.

This is not the fault of the show. Honestly, you’ll want to blame the show. You’ll want to seethe and wish painful cancellation on the show. But friends, the problem isn’t the show.

What’s going on is a lack of balance. I’ll admit it -- I’ve done two series now where my balance was all outta whack, where evenings were spent on set (because a writer HAS to be there at all times, right?!) and where weekends were spent either sleeping or writing or sleepwriting or standing under a showerhead. And always, wishing for the show to be done.

I’m on the flip-side of that now. Show’s done. Work’s tight. I have all the time in the world for the things I missed when working. I went to Maui. I learned how to snorkel. I opened my eyes underwater for the first time and what I saw amazed me. I learned how to golf. I started trail running. I have more time for friends and family. Along the way, I believe I’ve smelt a rose or two. And it’s been great, but you know what’s next. The coffee shop + the declaration of “oh god, I just want a looming production deadline” = careful what you wish for.

Well, okay, I’m not knocked up so there’s that, and really, we all know writers who went to full-term on a series, so it’s not like that’s an out. But I gotta say, work and “real life” usually went together like this:

there were two sets of footprints in the sand, and then when there was only one set, it was because work shiv’d “real life” and left it back there to bleed out.

So I’ll admit that I haven’t mastered balance yet, but I’ve worked with people who have so I know it’s possible -- showrunners who manage to oversee 13 episodes and also have time to exercise in the mornings before call, get to the Gulf Islands or Muskoka on weekends with their families, see movies in the theatre (rather than internet rips watched in bed at 3 in the morning during anxiety attacks). There are people who do this. They have amazing families. They are steadfast showrunners. They are what FOX NEWS promises to be but isn’t: fair and balanced.

Those of you who are in the throes of pre-prep, or being cacked out the tail end of production will probably shake your head and say “oh Fryklind, you’re so cute with your West Coast flakey mumbo jumbo.” And you’re right. I am cute. But I also know that there’s a way to do this in which you maintain both sides, in which you come out the other end of five or seven months and don’t feel like you need to get your “real life” back, because it has run alongside of production the whole time.

That’s not something we should wish for. It’s something we should strive for. Otherwise we become the lemons reduced to pulp.

Hugs!

daegan

Guest Post: Banff 2009: For those left behind…

THIS GUEST POST comes courtesy of Playwright and TV writer Mike McPhaden, who besides being a talented writer is a most excellent affable chap. Which makes the seething jealousy of this post all the more delicious. Like a chicken wing somehow dusted with bacon.

[Reader Advisory: The following post contains references of an Inside Baseball nature. The references could be medically harmful and are not necessarily healthy, safe, or suggested.]

* * *

We are the many, the not chosen.

Whether it’s because we’re too busy, too broke, or the Friday Night Lights spec in our Global Writers Apprentice application just didn’t reach John Callaghan-esque levels of raw humanity, the result is the same:

We are not going to Banff this year.

We will not see the mountain dawn. We will not breathe the mountain air. We will not walk the mountain sidewalks.

We will not enjoy the meditative calm of waiting twenty-five minutes to take a four-minute cab ride. Twice a day.

We will not listen eagerly as U.S. showrunners, brave-faced in these hard times, share their secrets for making a decent episode for only two million dollars.

We will not gape at the cavernous beauty of the Van Horne Delegate Lounge, wishing we’d been way, way more specific about where we’d meet our ten o’clock.

We will not get to make that little “meep” sound when someone casually spoils the finale of the series we’re secretly a season behind on.

We will not taste the delicious awkwardness of having Lunch With A Decision Maker, peopled by 1) a bleary-eyed exec, 2) a guy who’s annoyed he didn’t get a seat with an American decision maker, and 3) and actor in full costume, mumbling the lines to her “Sex and the City in the olden days” pitch.

We will not feel the sting of shame when we hear ourselves try too hard to sound worldly: “ABC? Which one?”

We will not savour the secret that our “big meeting” at 5:30 is actually a yummy nap and some Maury.

We will not gather every night at the St. James Gate, we will not breathe its beery air, we will not brag and glad-hand amid the clamour of obscure TV references. Mutey the Mailman. Robot Santa. After M.A.S.H.

We will not feel the heart clogging ache that only comes from eating Alberta Beef four meals a day, a sensation the locals call “aortal sex.”

We will not get the satisfaction of crashing the Oasis/Blueprint party by arriving late and telling security, "I'm Tecca's ride."

We will not drag our tired, partied-out bodies into Wednesday’s 9am session on “Maximizing Ancillary Revenue Streams,” but then again, neither will anyone in Banff.

No, we will be staying home. And when those who went return, with their stories of meals and deals in Beautiful Banff, where the mountains touch the sky and the streets were named by babies, what will we do?

We will lie, and say we missed them.