Flame On!

So, it’s just shy of two months since I signed off this blog.  So why something new now?

Well the main reason is that it’s August 19^th.  So today marks five years since the first entry I made on Dead Things ON Sticks. 

I was not a young man when I started blogging, by any means.  But boy, I was naïve.  Through the ride, and now with a bit of time away from it, I realize that what I miss the most is talking about the flame.

So, to celebrate the 5^th anniversary of my leap into the blogosphere, I’m not going to take the bait on stupid stories about the CRTC or the continued craven doings of TV, Canadian style… let’s crack off one more good-old fashioned craft post about the joy of discovery and how the flame you protect leads to great television.

Right now it’s pitching season down here in L.A.  People are out honing their ideas and their concepts to try and sell.  I’m working stuff up,  others I know are working stuff up, the guy who delivered the Orange Chicken for lunch is working stuff up.

Here’s a return to the old, “where do you get your ideas?” question.  The hardest thing for civilians (TV viewers) and new writers (the ones who are afraid that the staff of so-and-so-show might steal your genius spec idea) to get straight is that your best ideas are not unique & beautiful flowers.

This all has to do with the odd & unique position TV occupies in the world of creative products. It comes into your home. You don’t have to go out to get it.  That creates a different, hazier vibe around “what works for tv.”  TV works best not when it’s completely different and original; TV works best when it’s a combination of original and familiar.  It’s new wine in old bottles.  The idea is not nearly as important as the execution of same.  In TV, writers make big money because of their ability to execute.

For all the praise The Sopranos got, the idea of the mobster with analysis and anxiety issues is – exactly the same as Analyze This – which was out at the same time.   Same basic idea. Different executions.  Alias. Covert Affairs. Same idea. Different executions.

In every show that works, there is a flame. There’s something about it that lights the way toward the most effective execution of the idea.   A nice little flame leads to a show that works. And if you don’t have the flame clear in your mind, and you don’t nurse it…no matter how good a writer you are, no matter how hard you work – the show’s not going to work, because you don’t know what people are supposed to be excited about.

Good writers are the people who can identify the flame and nurture it through development (or who can inspire their room to do the same.)

 It’s not to say the writers are the only ones who can find the flame, it’s just that, like truffle-locating pigs, we're the ones most likely to find it. If you let us.  Mmm. Truffles.

(And if you don’t let us – you could have 19 writers in a room for eight months, and you’re not gonna come up with a show that people love.  Sorry Chester.)

So sometimes when they do these remake shows that someone somewhere thinks are a slam dunk,  (Bionic Woman? Knight Rider?) and they arrive inert, it’s because that flame isn’t there. 

By all accounts, the Hawaii 5-0 pilot is great. When it airs in a couple weeks, watch it and ask yourself: what does this show have that Bionic Woman didn’t?

You may not like the show, you may not think it’s the best thing ever – but as another for instance: Rookie Blue. The flame on that show from the beginning, before there even was a finished script was: Grey’s Anatomy (the old bottle) but with cops. (New wine.)

I didn’t say it had to be, you know, expensive wine.  But there you go.

The nice thing about recognizing that flame is that it allows for cross-pollination.

I’m not the biggest Doctor Who fan in the world, but one of the reasons that everyone agrees with (and which is clear everytime you read Russell T. Davies’ interviews about the subject) is that Davies recognized the flame in Doctor Who – which is what allowed him to smartly update it & spark a new franchise.

Which brings me to my most joyous viewing discovery of late. 

From the pilot, I was a huge fan of HOUSE.  And the flame that everybody saw in that – the brilliant, acerbic Doctor…the male camaraderie, the mystery element – clearly burned brightly. 

And it was clearly familiar.

The flame, of course, was from Sherlock Holmes.   HOUSE had a huge debt (lovingly acknowledged) to Conan Doyle. (Holmes/Watson – House/Wilson etc.) 

Well, the BBC has gone and giddily gone back to the source, with SHERLOCK.  Sherlock Holmes is a consulting detective in Scotland Yard, with his good friend Watson, a Doctor back from Afghanistan.  Sherlock is acerbic, brilliant, viewed as a freak by the perplexed police that he helps.  He also sends texts, and uses all the 21^st century trappings of communication. 

It’s SHOCKING, if you grew up with the original stories and the Victorian settings of the old movies, to see how well this works.  Cross-pollination from Holmes to House, and now House has returned the favor by showing a way back to beloved characters seen fresh (and more natural to my eye than the Downey Jr. film).

In the same way, Sherlock creator  Stephen Moffat was able to recognize the flame in Friends and do a British version, COUPLING, that is arguably one of the only Friends-like shows that ever worked. Because he found something in the Friends formula and married it to British sensibilities seen in edgier sketch comedy shows, where the characters were just MAD.  The characters were recognizably, reliably British types.

(Come to think of it, Moffat took over from Davies this year on Doctor Who. Maybe people should just go talk to Stephen Moffat more.)

Interestingly enough, when they imported Coupling back across the pond, it was a flop because it was, to put it kindly, flameless. The characters who were funny in the British version didn’t have any verve in their American counterparts.  They didn’t bother to find plausible equivalents.

On the other hand, the American OFFICE succeeded because they found the American equivalent of the British characters.  It took a while, but they did it.  (Go back and watch the British show again, and it’s amazing how different Jim is from Tim, Pam from Dawn, and Michael from David).

If you’re not practiced in seeing the flame – looking at these few remakes and pollinations can help.  When it works, and when it’s missing.

And it’s not just a British-American thing either.

Canadian series Slings & Arrows was licensed for Brazil, in a Portuguese language version.  When it premiered, it got something like 18 million viewers.

One more thing.  Another British show, starring Idris Elba, is bananas.  LUTHER.  Oh man.  It’s just…great. 

Anyway, that’s my disjointed, running to the room, sunburned thoughts on the anniversary. Keep the flame burning in your scripts.  Don’t let it get noted or developed out of you. And don’t let people snuff that flame.  Or you’re not gonna have no fun and your show won’t work anyhow.

Let’s see…what else… oh yeah, in INCEPTION, the top totally stops spinning just after the cut to black.

Don’t get used to this, kittens. But hope you’re all well.

Now. Gotta go attend to the flame.  

Hopefully I'll see you before the next Friedman.

There is Wisdom In Brunch

THE SCENE: A sunny Sunday morning in pre-G20, soon-to-be-fortress-Toronto.  A circled table, light streaming in through huge windows. The sound of easy laughter & whispered confidences; a bit of gossip, some eggs, a couple of killer beignes and coffee for miles.

Six TV writers -- all Canadian.  All, strangely, working right now.  From far flung Nova Scotian comedies to single girl in the city shows,  to new plans & destinations & adventures and maybe even a little bit of Prairie heart.

The question is raised:  "What's the single best bit of career advice that you'd give to a noob? We're talking the knowledge hardest won... not "advice on writing" or "how to write" or "process advice."  Everybody's got that and you can find it everywhere you look if you take the time to Google.

More like, "what's the thing you know now you wish you knew then?"  Some thoughtful chewing, and many nods, before the torrent starts:

"When you're young, you're not as good as you think you are.  When you get old, you're not as bad as you think you are."

Nods & chirps; dark rumblings of, "Hey, I resemble that remark." But we're just getting started.

"I don't think I knew how important tenacity was.  There were people in University who were way more talented than me.  They were better writers. But I kept at it.  I'm better than they were then -- now -- but that's cause I kept going. Eventually you outlast people, if you stay focused.  Keep showing up."

An insanely juicy piece of gossip squeaks out.  A quick check to confirm for one and all that we are "under the dome."  Ah yes. The dome of silence.

"Keep your mouth shut."

Everybody laughs.

Someone quotes a personal mentor: "So-and-so's line was always, 'never repay petty with more petty.'"

The group takes stock, mentally flicking through the cards --  instances where pettiness was met; the scorecard of how often it was repaid, and how often one managed to rise above.

"Your best writing will never make it to the screen."  Nods all around.  And, "the market has nothing do you with your talent."

A few nods, a few quizzical glances, "I'm just saying that process is more important than product.  For all we do, to stay focused always on the commercial success, to fixate on that is ultimately meaningless.  All this, 'will the show go?'  It's more like, "How am I going to have a good day this week?"

"Having a show go doesn't excuse, condone, or ameliorate a situation if you're hating every minute, feeling abused, marginalized, belittled, ignored.  The writing can't be a chore; you have to enjoy the process. You have to have quality of life." 

After all, "it's just TV."

Sigh. Yes it is.  Oh, TV. Bitch mistress to us all. 

"Make friends with frustration.  It's the precursor to change. Frustration shouldn't make you give up -- your dissatisfaction is telling you something.  Keep at it and the breakthrough comes."

Sip of OJ.  Crunch of toast.  A slug of a mimosa.  I pipe in with my contribution, "Learn to write fast. There's no sense spending six months working on that spec script if the job is how much can you rewrite on the fly.  If you want to staff, you have to be able to crank pages out."

I get ragged, that's writing advice. I've broken my own rule.  A heaving sigh.  It's true. Too much blogging, I guess. The teat is dry.

A slide into shop talk.

"Isn't it fun to get premise-challenging notes at Blue?" Yes. Yes it is.

Everybody agrees that you get to a point where the "no asshole" rule is inviolable.  It doesn't matter how talented someone is if they're a jerk. It sucks all the goodwill out of the room.

But there will be idiots. Oh yes. They're everywhere.  Oh, the difficulties. The hours spent trying to keep your disbelief in check.  What about getting through that?  "You will survive the network executive who is making your life hell."

But how? How do you do all this? Stay tenacious, make friends with frustration, live through the assholes when they come, embrace process...never be petty -- it sounds great, but how? HOW? How do you do all this?

A beat.  Then,

"Remember that everyone was an itty bitty baby once, that their Mama loved.  If you can remember that, you can find the way to be kind."

Silence.  Just so.

The check comes.  Cash & the three credit card split. We write out the amounts to try and help the waiter.  Tally -- the tip is generous.  Deep down, we're service industry too. We know.






The sun's brighter now, even higher in the sky. It's going to scorch.  Hugs & Last glances;  stumble out into the day -- "Remind me of that TED talk you liked again?" And "How badly is the core fenced in?" And "how many more days you got?"  And as the group breaks up, brunched, sated, talked out, happy -- one final riposte, tossed over the shoulder as we depart:

"Never, ever, ever admit your real age."


W. Profound thanks & respeck to badlady, Clooney, KMac, Escog, and Whitey McLegs4days.

Oy Vey.

I HAD TO laugh at Jaime Weinman's latest article about the strange zombie-like existence of Til Death (with a tip to a linked article by Todd Vanderwerff, who's almost as astute an observer of the TV as Weinman.)

As VanDerWerff notes, It wasn’t exactly good, but it was some of the strangest material we’ve seen on prime-time TV in the past year, a testament to the weirdness that can arise when the writers have no audience, no job security and nothing to lose.

Yet more proof, Canadian creatives, that WE JUST AREN'T TRYING HARD ENOUGH!

Actually, after reading Vanderwerff's article again, I'm pretty sure that he's stumbled upon a pretty accurate description of what it would feel like to be in TV Writer Hell.

POVTV

SERIOCITY'S Kay Reindl has some crunchy crafty goodness with a big bright post about POV -- and especially how POV relates to LOST.  There is a definite chill every writer feels when it comes to storytelling POV... you have tremendous pressure to make the character's choices understandable at every single juncture.

And yet from The Sopranos, to Six Feet Under, to LOST, to The Shield -- many of the most compelling shows with the greatest characters don't bother with that fooferaw.

Both Lost and Twin Peaks had ensembles that were heavily into their own points-of-view. I think the shows that try to ape this success, like FlashForward, do so with the typical omniscient TeeVee point-of-view. And just before some of you wiseacres think I'm saying that ensemble shows are character-driven while single-lead shows aren't, that ain't the case. THINK ABOUT THIS. In most TeeVee shows, you're watching a chosen point-of-view. It's safe; there may be character or plot surprises, but you know that what you're seeing is what's happened. Stuff may get held back, but you watch because you know that the omniscient friend with which you've made a pact will faithfully reveal the truth to you at some pre-designated point in the future (end of episode, two-parter, episode arc, season).

Lost didn't make that pact with people. Now, if you went into the show expecting the answers that you get from other shows, then yeah. You'll be disappointed. And maybe that kind of storytelling just isn't your cup of tea. Doesn't mean it's wrong.

You know what other show does this? Damages. And I dig that show. Except for season two. But one and three? Fantastic.

In the great unfortunate battle between creators & that one vocal nitpick section of the audience, more ammo.  Go read Kay.

Not So Glee-ful Anymore

AWASH IN SERIES finale nostalgia, what I think of as the most dramatic story of the 2009-2010 U.S. Television season has gotten a little lost: and that is the bizarre flameout of GLEE as an original, creative force.

I'm certainly not the first to lament about the decline of Glee since it returned for the second half of its first season. Not since first-season O.C. has a guilty pleasure series flamed out so fast. One of the best critiques I've seen (and I can't remember where I saw it now; if you know, please let me know the link in comments) is about the "two Glees." One is the show that's smart, with heart & surprising & interesting characters & situations and the other is the post-Success, Madonna-themed, shoehorn in as many numbers as possible Glee.

(EDIT: an enterprising reader emailed me the link. Of course the two Glees came from the excellent Maureen Ryan at the Chicago Tribune.)

Though the latter version is still capable of moments of beauty & pathos -- like the great sequence where Artie imagines rising from his chair to do "The Safety Dance" (like all things Gleek, it sounds ridiculous when you type it out loud) it seems like increasingly, the only thing keeping me watching is this:



And Brittany bon mots, as unexpected & wonderful & lovely as they are, aren't enough to keep me in the Glee camp.  Not by themselves.

Add to that this speech. I can't figure out if it's sublime, or just overwritten. I'm a little thrilled to see this on network TV, but at the same time, it feels a bit ABC Afterschool special. But man, does Mike O'Malley  sell it. Two snaps up for the Emmy bait.


Glee? Yay or Nay? Have at it below in the comments.

Events Occur in Real Time? Not Any Real Time I Recognize.

NOT MUCH TO say about the 24 finale, save for the fact that I really was rooting for Jack to die. The tribute to Chloe was nice; it was great to see President Logan eat a bullet, finally.  (And whack a guy.  Seriously. WTF?)  And it was fun seeing Nazneen Contractor in there, too.

I smell spinoff! "Totally Chloe!" Wacky office comedy with Guns!

But you know how in horror movies & suspense movies now they have to do that thing to get rid of the cellphone?

I'm glad they saved that whole "Rewind the tape on the Predator, and then dispatch it immediately, and then have it make a direct microwave call" thing til the series finale, cause -- Dude! -- that is some SERIOUS FUCKING DEUS EX MACHINA.

Seriously? Is this the same CTU that had a mole every season and never once successfully set up a perimeter in EIGHT YEARS?

I'd like to see the writing room come up with Day 9 after you've pulled THAT Shit.

Anyway, Dink, Dink, Dink, Dink we hardly knew you.  There was lots of quiet/loud Jack Bauer yelling, which is always good times.

But beyond that? Ehhhh.

Maybe it's best to just go back to sunnier, more innocent times, and remember and ruminate one more time on How 24 Changed Everything for writers.

Was Blind, But Now I See.

THE SHORT VERSION?  I liked it. A lot.

In retrospect, maybe this promo shot shoulda been a clue.

I liked it because the final LOST gave me the moments I'd always loved about the show: memorable, emotional, wrenching scenes between characters I cared about.  And because those characters, to a one, demonstrated in the final episode how they changed completely in their time on the island: Jack found humility and completed his transformation to man of faith -- after being unlikable for a while, and mired in self-pity, he became worthy of the mantle of the hero. (And his eulogy/upbraiding of his enemy for disrespecting John Locke was incredibly moving.) Hurley found a strength to lead. Ben found validation & forgiveness. Kate proved herself as the person you wanted most in the clutch. Sawyer's strength & decency (tipped this whole season, imperilled by the flirtation with Locke) was confirmed.  Claire got her second chance. 

In the end, I liked that there were no do-overs, and that what happened, happened.  The 'sideways' world wasn't a cosmic do-over.  The bomb didn't split the universe. Actions had consequences.  LOST flirted with that trope for a very long time, and I'm glad in the end they came down firmly on the side of the immutable.  See, because it's the very idea that there's only once choice that makes faith so important. Anyway... that's what I believe.

I think that has a lot to do with how one reads the final LOST.

If you forgive me for a moment, I'm going to veer off for a second in my post about a show that millions of people watched religiously (and a show where millions more lost their religion for the thing along the way) to talk a bit about a show that I worked on that almost nobody saw.

In 2004, I went to South Africa to work on a show called Charlie Jade. The show was this crazy Canada-South Africa co-production that had a famously troubled run.  (It was contracted for 22 episodes, delivered 20. 'Nuff said.)

The show was an overstuffed burrito of narrative hoo-ha.  Sci-fi magicks embracing parallel universes, environmentalism and a whole bunch of other isms, hero & villain tropes, tattoos, dystopian futurism, corporate responsibility, flashforwards, backs, dream sequences, X-Files style paranoia, film noir...I'm surprised there wasn't a unicorn in there.  I was part of a complete reboot of the writing staff, about halfway through the run of the show.  (This is where I met my good friend Alex Epstein.)

Of the many flaws of Charlie Jade, (and they were legion) one of the biggest challenges we faced was a whole bag of mythological ideas that had been thrown at the wall in a slightly ADHD way, and didn't really add up.  There was no plan. (Well, that's not true, there had been a plan in the deep longago, including a series bible conceived by the Executive Producer with some help from Sci Fi writer Robert J. Sawyer... but that had effectively slipped between the couch cushions.)  By the time we hit the ground  they were halfway through shooting, and the new writing staff had to figure out a way to try to tie the disparate threads of story continuity & myth together, and work toward a new end point.

At the same time, there were some truly perplexing characters who didn't act in ways that made sense, and we had to try to iron out a character arc, too.

(This kind of chaos still happens far too often on Canadian TV series. It's happening on a couple of shows right now.  It's not just a Canadian disease, but it is endemic of a system of TV production where you don't have writers riding point on story -- but that's a story for another time. Or, um, five years worth of blog.)

What put me in mind of Charlie Jade watching the LOST finale was the particulars of the big island solve.

The following is sort of a spoiler alert, but, uh, not really. And if you didn't watch LOST, it can probably be more accurately described as a "glad I didn't waste six seasons on this" alert:

So there's a giant butt plug in the island's heinie.  Desmond takes out the butt plug, and instead of cool flowing water, and golden light....there's nasty fire & rocks start falling all over the place, and steam shoots out and things get very very dire.  What can I say? The Island likes its butt plug.  Jack puts the butt plug back in though, and the island calms down.  But Jack is kind of covered in golden light water & nasty steam & island spit up & other...juices...and, uh, he's got a stab wound so he's all septic & stuff and he wanders off into the jungle and dies of a staph infection.

In retrospect, maybe going for a pacifier metaphor might have been better.  Oh well. Moving on.

Now for people wanting answers about Jacob & the Man In Black and the Smoke & what kind of energy and just what the $#@ is the island, anyway? I imagine this is just going to be a TOTALLY...ENRAGING... DEVELOPMENT!!!!

And yet, watching it all unfold, I couldn't care less.

Back in 2004, on Charlie Jade, we'd promised some sort of resolution that involved parallel universes. They had spent a jillion dollars on the first three episodes.  Now it was the end of the series, and instead of spectacular, spectacular, we had about three carrots, a Springbok & a package of biltong to throw at the screen.

So what the story department came up with was an impressionistic ending that pitted the two main characters against each other in a battle of wills, in a dreamscape that was a place between three parallel universes.

After bible fulls of plane theory and advanced scientific quantum explanations of how one universe would collapse upon another and all matter of hoofera, the final test of the two main characters came down to trying one another for their actions and intentions -- and the objective correlative of the struggle became three melting blocks of ice.  The two characters -- evil but complicated & good but complicated, finally worked together to unite the universes in a stable way that removed the threat of annihilation.

You know how they did it?

The ice from the symbolic blocks dripped into a glass. And they both drank from it.  And lo, they redeemed the universes.

Did I mention I'm Catholic?

Here's a clip from the finale. I'm telling you right now -- if you haven't seen the show (which includes the vast, vast majority of you -- you're gonna find it incomprehensible.) The drinking comes about 3/4 of the way through.



Charlie Jade was a rough ride, but I think we got out with an emotionally satisfying finale.  We scrambled toward that together -- the writers, the Creator/Executive Producer, the crew, the actors...But the only way we could do that was by letting go of the nitpicks and the how-this's and delivering emotionally resonant satisfying conclusions.  Which always come down to sacrifice.

But come on. They drank the kool aid? That's the big problem solve? Are you freaking kidding me?

Uh, no.  I wish we'd thought of the big old butt plug. But that's why the LOST guys are geniuses. Heh.

I firmly believe that they delivered a great finale because they focused on the right things.  We had to scramble to do that on our show.  They got to work toward it. And the resonance was much the greater for it.

Practically Perfect in Every Way

ONE OF THE most common questions any professional TV writer ever gets is, "what shows should I spec?" It's literally asked multiple times in any talk or career day or meetup you ever do. Agents get the question.  Writers get the question. I'm pretty sure studio executives' dogs get the question.

A couple of weeks back I did a one-day workshop in Winnipeg sponsored by Film Training Manitoba & the CFC (and I'm pretty sure there might be another organization in there too, I'm sorry if I'm leaving you out.  There seems to be a good bit of government support for the Film Industry in Manitoba. Coming from Ontario, where they've starved the OMDC for years, it was weird.)  Anyway, that's a digression.

What I did at that workshop is what I always do. I asked people what their favorite shows were, and what they were thinking of speccing. This is always a trick question. We got several Californications, a Dexter or two, a bunch of Breaking Bads, Sons of Anarchy, True Blood...one brave soul stuck up for Being Erica.  I think there might have been a Flashpoint.

But the point was that about 80% of the room wanted to do a cable show. That's natural.  Writers or would be writers are attracted to good writing and sometimes that means investing in a show that is more of a cult thing.

But every slice of the pie that grows smaller means less of a chance of connecting with a show that your reader knows.  And that's why new writers looking to make a mark with their first specs ignore network shows at their peril.

Announcing itself in the poster.

The L.A. Times today has an article about Modern Family & The Good Wife, where the critic calls them nearly perfect shows.  They have their reasons -- well and thoughtfully laid out. I tend to agree with most of them.

The most important thing is to like the show you're speccing. If you don't, that will show. But I defy anybody who really wants to write professionally to watch a few episodes of either Modern Family or The Good Wife and not appreciate the deep and solid craft at work in these shows.  Both programs, now wrapping up their first seasons, have managed to maintain a consistent, superior quality that connects to a network sized audience each week.   Now, true, that is a slice that's getting smaller by the year, but it's still the most significant slice.

It's a hard thing to have to explain the ropes to somebody that really, really wants to write an episode of an obscure cable drama that might or might not see another season.  There are plenty of people who are working who should know better. There are people working on Canadian network shows that don't count a single network hit among their likes and influences, and I think it shows in their work.  Californication is not an example of anything except maybe a male writer's Arrested Development.

(Arrested Development was a bad spec back in the day. And 30 Rock's not as great as you think it is, either.  Better to do a good, solid Big Bang Theory.)

The Best Character on TV Right Now

There are other questions, like "when should I spec a show?"  And to this I usually say, "second season, when you know its place is secure."  But such is the strength of both Modern Family & Good Wife that I think there's no doubt that these two, comedy & drama, are the specs you should be working now.

(As an aside, another thing to keep in mind for next season: pay attention to the first positioning spots the Network does in print and on TV during the summer: they are the clearest indicators of how they see the show, and how they'll try to position it. Half the time, the poster announces the theme of the show.)

There will be time to build your portfolio with other colours, other paints -- maybe something with a more cable feel. But take a look at the article linked above, and ask why tens of millions of viewers agree with it each week.  That is the business you're in, my friend.

This is a populist medium.  It's okay if you admire The Wire. We all do. But if you've got talent, a solid The Good Wife will get you more work in a month of Sundays.  You don't get points for being an auteur in this game. You get points for writing good, accessible stuff -- and writing it fast.  Surprise the audience, yes, but also give them something familiar and relatable.  Save the cable spec til later.  Stalk the big game first.

For what it's worth, that's my thinking.  Maybe now I can punt on the question for awhile. :)

Justified Craft, Breaking Away, & Car Living

MEANWHILE, BACK IN the subject of TeeVee...

The Globe has a nice profile today by Stephen Cole of Elmore Leonard where he rhapsodizes about how thrilled he is with what Graham Yost has done with the character of Raylan Givens in Justified.

The trick to storytelling, Leonard believes, “is leaving out the parts readers skip.” That’s something Justified, which airs in Canada on Super Channel Monday nights, manages with economy and wit, he says. The story of U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, a Stetson-wearing lawman who returns to Harlan County to deal with a messy past, manages to pass Leonard’s creative checklist.
“Last night’s show was terrific,” the writer says. “Action all the way, good story, suspense .... The funny stuff was funny.”

“I got a whole bunch of his paperbacks and handed them out to writers,” Toronto-born Yost says. “We wanted everyone to get the rhythm and feel of Elmore Leonard.”
Yost literally handcuffed writers to Leonard by having inspirational bracelets made up that read WWED – “What would Elmore do?”
“I gave ’em to my kids and grandkids,” Leonard laughs, adding that whatever Yost did, his actors captured Leonard’s sound.

Part of what I love about Justified is that it manages to create its world so effortlessly & instantly, but then goes around and breaks all the rules of what you're supposed to do to establish a TV series.   They go to L.A. in the 3rd episode.  L.A.!  I mean, who does that? Changes locale in ep 3?

They also did a nice slow burn building up the Daddy character as a formidable foe, then introduced him as a character who seemed weak and past his prime (though still capable of some real kicks.)

I am completely addicted to this show, which makes up for...


Breaking Bad.  I know, I know, I read the tweets & the interviews saying that the show is bananas now, but, as suspected, losing all sympathy for Walt just sort of drained my desire to watch the series. Something's gotta go.  While I like my antiheroes, I guess I just don't like things quite so nihilistic.  Hey, if I want nihilism, I look in the mirror.


I will also say with some relief that I screened the first episode of HBO Canada's's new show from George F. Walker, "Living in Your Car," (which Canadians can watch online here) and enjoyed it -- with a couple of lingering questions.  I was not a big fan of either This is Wonderland or (especially) The Line, so I'm delighted to say that the pilot for LIYC is brisk & snappy.  It's actually a pretty textbook example of how to introduce a lot of backstory in a smart & funny, breezy way. 

The lead, John Ralston, is enjoyable and charismatic.  I don't know what kind of pop new Walker collaborator Joseph Kay (who created the show with Walker & Dani Romain) brought to the table, but the feel of this show is much more current than the last couple.  I just am not sure, like Breaking Bad, if it's going to be a series with the kind of legs to keep me hooked.  As played in the pilot, the Ralston character is charismatic but not a bit sympathetic. I'm going to need a reason to care about him in subsequent episodes. Still, it's another strong case in the argument that Canada's premium pay services are following their American counterparts by churning out the most consistently engaging and interesting homegrown shows.

I just hope we're not treated to a scene of a woman in a slip in a motel having a long argument with somebody anytime soon.

No Book Learnin In the Library

THANKS TO EVERYONE who came out to the College Street Public Library for Elize Morgan & Karen Walton's PWYC screenwriting sessions.  I managed to slip in to catch the end of the session with Walton & Semi Chellas on adaptations, and learned more in five minutes than I did my last year of Ryerson.

Okay that's a bit of hypberbole. (I'm fragile and I've only had one coffee.)  But it was pretty interesting.

I was extremely lucky to be on a panel about showrunning & show creation with two colleagues who I've learned a lot from -- Graeme Manson (The Bridge, Flashpoint, Rent-A-Goalie) and the great Peter Mohan. (Mutant X, Blood Ties, The Bridge.) Peter's in production right now on Lost Girl, but he's such a mensch that he still took time out of his Saturday.

I hope we gave good info -- it's always hard to tell at these things. I'm fairly sure we could have gone another hour.

And it was nice to see Peter Mitchell -- the WGC Showrunner of the Year -- winner of the Alex Barris Mentorship Award at the 2010 Canadian Screenwriting Awards --in the house, too.  Another strong proponent of the kind of mentorship that makes writers into better writers, and probably better people, too.

Wish I could have been there the whole day.  If you were at the conf, and want to share the best insights gleaned from the day of panels, I hand the mike to you now. Comments are open.

Freelancing for SGU: Ya Gotta Have Faith

I WILL ALWAYS remember my day in the SGU writers' room, because it started with me in my hotel room, looking out over a beautiful, crisp & clear Vancouver day, watching Barack Obama take the oath of office to become the 44th President of the United States.

I will say that watching the new President's inaugural address (made possible by the 3 hour time difference) was a considerably less stressful occurrence than the last time history bumped up against my career.  That time, I had to finish up a half-hour comedy script and get it in by five p.m. on the afternoon of September 11, 2001.  I made my deadline.  I don't remember the script. I'm gonna go out on a limb & say that the legacy of Gleason is probably safe.

But back to that date in January, 2009.  The reason I was sitting there waiting for transport to pick me up at the Sutton Place in Vancouver was due to a phone pitch I'd done a few weeks before Christmas. My agent had arranged for me to pitch the new Stargate show.   I'd gotten a copy of the premiere episode of SGU -- watermarked with my name -- very fancy -- and read it and gotten excited.  It really did seem like a show that was going to take the best of a loved franchise & take it in a new direction.  The character of Rush seemed like a wonderful antihero, and Eli got some great lines.  Along with the script, I'd been given a few pages that described the other stories that were already being written. The object was to come up with pitches for new episodes.

This is harder than it sounds -- especially when you're doing it for a show that has all that Stargate backstory...terrible baggage for a freelancer.  After a while your success starts to handcuff you.  How do you not repeat a story in a franchise that's done hundreds of episodes?  Star Trek showed the danger of the law of diminishing returns there. How many stories were they recycling by the end of Voyager? Never mind Enterprise. Oy.

In my case, I took the brief about the characters of SGU and how they were new in the situation, and also that they were going for something grounded in reality. So I noodled around with issues of science & astronomy.  I have a friend who's an astrophysicist with the National Research Council in Victoria, and when he was doing his doctoral thesis & post grad work, it was in the new and emerging field of Exoplanets.  I'd always been interested in that, though my science is limited to 10th Grade biology & screenings of From the Earth to the Moon.

That led to the mystery hook at the heart of the pitch SGU eventually bought.  (I don't even remember the other two I came up with.  The mind tries to protect itself.)  I decided it would be cool if the Destiny came out of FTL, and the Stargate didn't fire up and nobody could figure out why they'd stopped -- except there was this funny planet there that wasn't on the charts.  And the planet was green & perfect for life -- except it shouldn't be there; the star's age & the planet's age didn't match --

-- Whatever did it all mean?

Bad Mercer! Bad!

IT'S NOT SO funny when you see the other side now, is it?

You may have heard what happened to ACORN, a controversial national anti-poverty organization with a chapter in Arkansas that lost its funding after a video seemed to depict some of its employees advising undercover filmmakers on running a child prostitution ring. The recent release of the unedited footage paints a different picture - the filmmakers obviously spliced and diced the video to promote exaggerations and falsehoods. But the firestorm had already forced ACORN to shut its doors.

It recalls memories of an experience I had in the late 1990s, when I was a naive ex-newspaperman working on Huckabee's communications staff. One day, a Canadian film crew arrived at the door and made a vague request for a quote from the governor congratulating their country about some igloo that had been found there. I assumed it was an important archaeological discovery and, trying to be accommodating, notified the governor, who agreed to make a quick comment on his way out the door. And that's what happened.

Only it's not all that happened. It turned out that the nice reporter actually was Rick Mercer, host of "This Hour Has 22 Minutes," which fills up part of that 22 minutes by ridiculing Americans for their lack of knowledge about Canada, much to the delight of Canadians.

The article gets more interesting from there.

For my part, I remember clearly the Canada Day Globe & Mail story from about three years ago where they showed that only 65% of Canadians could identify a picture of Sir John A. MacDonald.

Americans, by contrast, recognized George Washington 95% of the time.

It's a terrible thing when you seek out only the information that speaks to your biases.  That's why it concerns me when I see the reality that Republicans now largely refuse to do critical interviews -- Rachel Maddow has a litany of names that she asked to appear but declined; they prefer to only do the interviews on FOX 'News' where they know they'll only get softballs.

The direct result of that is no-nothings like Sarah Palin becoming national figures with ... credibility.

That's why things like blocking Ann Coulter when she comes to Ottawa is so spectacularly wrongheaded. The antidote to speech that's outrageous or inaccurate is more speech.

And writers who tackle a subject, or a theme, should never be afraid to really explore both sides. Don't put your finger on the scale.  If your cause is just, let people make up their own minds.

After all, you should be focusing on the story anyway, right?

Everything & The Kitchen Sink

MY SISTER TRISH was the first person to say it.  We were talking for some reason about renting vs. buying, and  I had to admit that I kind of didn't want to buy a house because I was paralyzed by the thought of having to learn to fix anything.  She fixed me with a steely eye and said, "Denis, you are NOT handy." 

Ouch. Such wisdom from one so young.  But it's true. I'm not.  I've had plenty of friends buy homes in the last little while. I've heard their stories of fighting contractors, or the joy of learning to grout a bathtub.  I think these people are secretly from space.  But you get this kind of thing regularly in Toronto, since I remember reading somewhere that we have the oldest housing stock in North America. 

Which brings me to my kitchen. 

The kitchen sink has got a real attitude problem. It's been building for awhile now.  You turn the faucet on and the spray goes everywhere. It leaks from the base, and shoots out and gets everything wet.

Except.

There's this trick.  If you just open it up, forcefully, hard to hot and cold, full tilt -- there's no leak. Taking half steps gets you wet. Going full bore gets you water to do with as you see fit.

See where I'm going here?

The knocks we so often get with material in this country is that it starts slow, or it pulls punches, or it doesn't take characters to the extremes.  When it does take characters to the extremes, it isn't earned because there's a level of emotional inertness because we haven't pushed THAT to the extreme.

It's hard. Canadians can be a reticent and subdued people. Unless they're watching a hockey game.

But the only way you get the water is to make that faucet your bitch.

I got to talk to another couple of wonderful, positive, optimistic groups recently -- last night at the CFC Prime Time info session and over the weekend at the Toronto Screenwriting Conference.

I wish I'd told them about the faucet.

Interrogation Goodness

I SAW THIS a week or so ago but didn't have time to look into it in detail. Now I've gone back and I'm glad I did. 

One of the staples for any screenwriter or TV writer working in the mystery or police drama is the "interrogation scene."  You've seen a million of them; you know why they're there.  They're easy to shoot so they can eat up a lot of pages & be shot quickly. They're a good way to get out all the things that you need to get out -- exposition (pipe), character revelation, plot advancement, and in the hands of the right actors they can even be elevated to something greater: great drama.  A good Two handed interrogation scene can be some of the most memorable things in a show.

Programs like The Shield, NYPD Blue, and especially the wonderful and underrated Homicide: Life on the Street, used the interrogation to incredible effect.  In my two years on The Border, I tried to always make sure that my interrogation scenes had something going on in them other than the surface obviousness.  I did a better job with that in some places than others, and overall, it's one of the areas where I always wished that show was a little better.

The other thing about an interrogation scene is that it's familiar.  You know the format, and the stakes, and how it works.  Information that comes out this way is information easily processed by an audience, even if you do manage to dress it up with great character involvement, a la Criminal Intent, or subtext a la Homicide, or simply just through bravura performance, as in Prime Suspect or Homicide.  (Interestingly enough, though it was one of my fave Canadian shows, I sometimes think that Intelligence suffered because it didn't use this trope enough.  Overhearing actuality doesn't give you the same clear expositional stake as interrogation does -- and for some people that made it hard to follow.)

Canadians who follow the news might vaguely remember the Liberal Party's sponsorship scandal of a few years ago.  It's a tale of payoffs in the Quebec wing of the party that severely damaged that wing, and led to the Liberals' fall from government to Minority party in the last few Canadian elections.

Last week the Globe & Mail released tapes, and did a story on the sponsorship scandal and how the RCMP brought in one of their most skilled interrogators to get the key confession that would provide the proof to prove the conspiracy. 

The story of Corporal Greg Bishop's interrogation is a great primer for the real-life in the interrogation game:

The signs were homemade – six large computer printouts bearing the RCMP logo next to a picture of the federal Parliament building. Each sheet was labelled “sponsorship scandal – corruption unit” but had been given a different heading: analysis; police shadowing; investigations; co-ordination; proceeds of crimes; evidence.
It was Sept. 14, 2007, and props were needed to make an impression three days later when a man accused of defrauding the Liberal Party of more than $100,000 and accepting a $50,000 bribe would walk through the Montreal office of the Mounties’ commercial-crimes unit en route to his interrogation.
The goal was to be sure that Benoît Corbeil, former director-general of the federal Liberals’ Quebec wing, knew just how thorough the investigation into the sponsorship scandal had been and how serious the accusations he faced really were.
And the stage was set for Greg Bishop, the big, sympathetic corporal whose abilities are legendary within the force. “He looks like Yogi the Bear,” according to one insider, “but he is a formidable interrogator.”
Years of legwork had brought them to a critical point in “an exceptional case.” Now “a superior level of competence is required” to close the trap on the only Liberal Party official they felt they could prove had accepted money in exchange for a political favour.
They got their wish.

But even better than the story linked above, is the fact that the Globe & Mail has posted the tapes.  They're in French, but subtitled, so you can see how a superior interrogator actually manipulated a suspect into a confession. It's fascinating viewing for any screenwriter. 

The RCMP Interrogation tapes:

Part 2 - The Introduction
Part 3 - The Watergate analogy.
Part 4 - The Bad Cop
Part 5 - The Confession
Part 6 - The Second Confession
Part 7 - The Hug

For my part, it's that last part -- the hug -- that I find most interesting and compelling. All the histrionics we've seen in interrogation scenes, and we forget that sometimes the reality is a subtle, human need.  Keep that in mind next time you have to go into "The Box" in your script...

Notes From a Screeny Weekend

THINGS GLEANED from a couple of solid days & one wonderful, lingering dinner with screenwriters & smartypants at the 2010 Toronto Screenwriting Conference.

1)  Ted Danson is apparently a Mensch.

2)  According to the Simpsons' Tim Long, who hails from the fine Ontario town of Exeter -- "the rule of thumb about how stupid Homer can be is that Homer Simpson should never be dumber than a dog, and cannot forget his own name."

Long also sounds like he's scored a coup with the opening episode of the Fall 2010 Simpsons' -- a musical ep featuring Flight of the Conchords & the cast of Glee; and he proved that in a wingman situation, he can get one about 40% of the way there without even breaking a sweat. The follow through, alas... is up to you.

And the Magazine geek in me will be forever in awe of Long just because he worked for a time at the great, storied, legendary SPY Magazine.

3) Rhett Reese understands EXACTLY how lucky he is that he and his writing partner Paul Wernick (who he's known since high school) were with Zombieland.  The movie started life as a TV pilot.  The first half of the movie is basically the TV pilot. The movie changed very, very little from their initial draft, except when it walked over from Sony DVD/TV Movie land to Sony Pictures (and when does THAT happen?) the director suggested the amusement park ending, now that they had a bigger budget.

Oh and apparently the scene that was written most was the Bill Murray scene -- for Patrick Swayze, Jean Claude Van Damme, The Rock, and about seven other people. And in the end, at the last minute... they come up with Bill Murray.

Ladies and gentlemen, THAT is lucky.

4) My interview with Robert Zotnowski (fmr. Sr. VP of CBS Drama Series Development, now Head of Development at Stars Road Entertainment (with Josh Donen & Sam Raimi) revealed much wisdom for the aspiring writer about how to effectively manage your relationship with the network.  When it comes to notes, always remember to "take the spirit of the note," and remember that your biggest friend is, "we'll take a look at it."  The sweet spot for getting your pilot script into the network isn't Thanksgiving, and isn't to play the "get in late after New Years'" game (by then you better have sheer genius, cause there's no time to fix anything.)   But I think one of the best things he had to say was about how a writer needs to approach that pilot script. “A pilot is not a show – is is an opportunity to have a show." he said. “The pilot process should be looked at as an audition for the people we are going to want to work with on a series.” 

How often writers forget that the first product they're trying to sell...is themselves! Oh, and one more from Mr. Zotnowski:  "the best series bible in the world won't help a weak pilot script get made."

Polish Notes

POL-ish, like what you do to scripts & furniture, not Polish, like Pope John Paul II or Lech Walesa.

Doing it now on the script, and I am reminded of a tic & a solve from mi Amigo Shelley Eriksen --

Go through your dialogue.  Take out the 'just'-s. 

If you have this tic, (and I do) it's a humbling exercise.

And The Great LOST Battle Royal Continues...

P.D. Days for Scribes: The 2010 Toronto Screenwriting Conference

WHEN I WAS but a wee snapper in grade school, I remember vividly being of two minds about what they called "P.D. Days."  P.D. stood for "Professional Development." Teachers would huddle in conference rooms (I suppose, I was never really sure) and we'd get an extra day off for fun and frolic.  There were a lot of P.D. days in the winter, it seemed, and they all involved tobogganing and snow down your snowpants.  I'm kidding. I was too cool for snowpants.  Not too cool for pneumonia, though.

 Sometimes I'd imagine the teachers and what they were doing.  At first I pictured them with a whole different set of kids -- rough kids, like crash test dummy kids, and their job was to learn'em. They'd learn to appreciate us more.  Then I got a little older and I just figured they went skiing or something.  Man, I hope they didn't have to play that trust exercise where they close their eyes and fall back and expect people to catch them. That one always creeped me out.

Professional development is important in any job.  You always want to be learning new and better ways to do what you do, to unlock unrealized potential, or shake off old patterns that might prevent you from stretching yourself, and doing better.

When I got older I'd hear talk of my corporate friends going to retreats at places like Deerhurst Inn where they hit each other with pillows and did the falling back thing.  It all seemed rather odd and exotic. And a little bit gay.

I don't mean that as a pejorative. I really mean "gay." If our culture has taught me anything, it's that adult pillow fights inevitably lead to same sex hookups. Not that there's anything wrong with that. That's what she said.

Alright. The point is, for writers, professional development is much like the profession itself -- solitary, and haphazard.  You're always looking for inspiration, and most of what training you get is from soaking up the world around you, and occasionally reading books.

Add to this: most writers are self-taught.  I don't mean that they don't take a course now and then, but the only way you really ever get good at writing is to be bad at writing, by yourself, for years, getting slowly better until you're not bad anymore and then you show selected people what you've done, and hopefully build from there.

What's interesting with that is that there are probably as many systems or tricks or tips or processes for being a writer as there are writers. And we rarely, if ever, get to peel back the curtain and see how someone else gets it done.  Maybe a stray quote in an article might hint at something, but you can't really follow up, ask for clarification, or just look the person in the eye and say, "Really? Ginger Ale, Oprah, and Animal Crackers?"

It's in this spirit that my agent, Glenn Cockburn, organized his first Toronto Screenwriting Conference, happening this weekend, Saturday, April 10 and Sunday, April 11th.

"I am so excited to be a part of this event," says Cockburn. "I have found over the years there exists a large gap in the entertainment education and event market for experienced writers to continue to master their craft.  In starting the Toronto Screenwriting Conference the idea was to create a new annual event where experienced writers could come and share their expertise with working writers and the people who work with them like producers, directors, and network executives."

"Have a Take. Don't Suck"

YOUR WRITER CRACK of the day comes courtesy of Emily Nussbaum's excellent New York Magazine profile of David Simon (The Wire, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Corner, the upcoming Treme)

A tiny taste:

Simon and I sit on the bench outside, as he sips an orange juice and vodka. His cold has gotten worse. (Earlier, I’d heard him moan to Lippman on the phone, “God, don’t even talk about lung cancer while I have this cough.”)

As a vendor shills barbecue, Simon tells me about other projects: a film about the Lincoln assassination he’s writing with Tom Fontana, a book about the drug trade, an HBO series about the CIA. He reminisces again about his years as a reporter, peppering a corrupt politician with questions. The guy derided Simon from the assembly floor, announcing, “This little person came up to me … ”

He loves the punch line, the politico privately telling him, “Thank you, Mr. Simon, for being fair.”

We discuss Lippman’s website the Memory Project, on which readers share childhood stories. Simon has long had a love-hate relationship with the Internet, that prime suspect in the death of newspapers. When I’d asked Simon how much he read comments online, he said he read sparingly: “It’s your job not to listen.” (Then I interviewed, separately, Overmyer and Treme producer Nina Noble. “I don’t read at all, and he reads everything,” Overmyer said, gesturing down the street at Simon. “Somewhat,” Noble said. “But not as obsessively as he does,” shooting Simon a glance.)

But lately, he’s been thinking about ways he can turn the web to his advantage.

“Fuck the exposition,” he says gleefully as we go back into the bar. “Just be. The exposition can come later.” He describes a theory of television narrative. “If I can make you curious enough, there’s this thing called Google. If you’re curious about the New Orleans Indians, or ‘second-line’ musicians—you can look it up.” The Internet, he suggests, can provide its own creative freedom, releasing writers from having to overexplain, allowing history to light the characters from within.

"Pugnacious D" is available online here.

Hipped to me once again by the vivacious Karen "Thrillkill" Hill.

Toronto Screenwriting Conference News

SO THEN, I might have mentioned that I'm moderating a Q&A at the Toronto Screenwriting Conference this weekend.  It's a very craft-oriented, nitty-gritty kind of conference. Less war stories than process stuff. Should be gold for writers. I'll have more up about it tomorrow.

But this afternoon I'm actually doing my pre-interview.  My session's going to be with a longtime, well-respected Drama development, current and production executive.  I've got a good handle on how I'm going to go in -- but if you have anything you've ever wanted to ask a Network exec about pitching, managing the relationship with the network, what makes a good meeting or a bad meeting, or anything else crafty that you'd like to get in there, leave it in the comments below. 

And like I said, I'll have more on the conference & its lineup tomorrow.