WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, in order to form a perfect union, establish justice; ensure domestic tranquility; provide for the common defense; promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.
That's the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. I just typed it from memory.
I learned it from Television.
I learned it from the same place that taught me that 3 was a magic number, and that conjunctions joined up words and picked up clauses.
Schoolhouse Rock.
I learned an awful lot of other things from TV, too, when I was a kid and a teenager. Some good, some bad, some indifferent. The point was that TV was always there and it was always giving out information. Rare was the stuff I learned on TV -- is the stuff that I learn by watching the News. No. It was St. Elsewhere that first taught me that the Homeless were people other than bums. It was TV that taught me, when I lived in the South, as a matter of fact -- the long, tortured family story of Alex Haley and his ancestor Kunta Kinte, and sparked my exploration through books and other sources, America's tortured history of slavery. TV taught me about the Korean War through M*A*S*H, it taught me about class through All in the Family and The Jeffersons and Upstairs, Downstairs, and it even inspired my future career choices through the views of Minneapolis Newsroom WJM, and a radio station called WKRP.
Rick Mercer had a rant on his show this week that was angrier than usual, but also pretty trenchant:
What does that have to do with what I wrote above?
Everything.
Like it or not, TV is the major window on the world for millions of people. That is just the way it is. And of those millions, most won't pick up a newspaper or watch a nightly newscast. What they will see is stories. Those stories on TV in whatever form help shape what people think about.
So while there may be a lot of bleating from Alberta or from Little Green Footballs, Red Meat Eating Paleocons screaming about Liberal bias on the CBC news, the fact is that far more people are learning about the law, medicine, social policy, and yeah, politics -- from TV dramas and comedies than they ever learn from a "news" source. I don't say that's the way that it should be. I say that's the way it is.
No wonder Canadians were confused. Most of them haven't heard a peep about the Canadian Parliamentary system since they struggled through their last high school history class.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., a show about the inner workings of the U.S. Government ran seven seasons. In the UK, they've had two or three shows about how their Parliament works -- most of them comedies.
You sell your airwaves completely to U.S. programming, and it comes with a cost. And though Canwest and CTV might bitch about how that cost affects their bottom line, the truth is the cost to our bottom line as Canadian citizens is far greater. We've been on the spike to another countries' values for a long time now. Those values are similar more often than not. But similar is not the same.
The people who hold the airwaves in trust for you, and the people who oversee them, for you, have gamed Canadian viewpoints out of that arena for a long time.
That comes with a cost. There's just no way around that. Having a climate where even when you do get something on the air, you can't really make it too local because you can't screw up that U.S. sale with talk of proroguing or Parliament or anything that might seem....not American, well....that's the greater sin, isn't it? What a small price to pay -- all we have to do is deny the entire populace any chance to learn anything by osmosis that isn't about Hockey or Tim Horton's.
I'm as angry as Rick, and I was as disgusted as he was when I saw all that crap go down before Christmas. In fact, I heard so much stupid, misinformed stuff coming out of people's mouths, people with no idea how their government worked, that it made me want to punch somebody. For which I probably would have gotten arrested. But at least if that happened, I would hope I was lucky enough not to try and take the fifth on the stand, because of course, I know that under the Canadian system of law there is no inherent right you can invoke against self-incrimination.
Think most Canadians would know that? I'm not so sure. There sure are a lot of Law & Order repeats on the air.
David Milgaard was a miscarriage of justice. How many people know that from the news, and how many from the TV Movie? How many people learned about Tommy Douglas from The Greatest Canadian, or Prairie Giant?
You give away your culture, you give away your soul. And then, really, what does it matter that you don't know how the nuts and bolts of government work?
Pssssst. It's all. the. same. thing.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
The Plane's Not Coming
SERIOUSLY DOOD, first McGoohan, and now this?
Sci fi fanboys all over the planet are donning the black crepe. That's a lot of black crepe. Who's next? Cheetah?
And yet George Lucas still walks around, figuring out how to screw up our memories further. Life is not fair.
Okay. Deep breath. Let's all say it together, now, sadly, for what may be the last time:
KHHAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
Bye bye Rico. You were sure Suave. (photo from trekcore.com)
Ricardo Montalban, the suave leading man who was one of the first Mexican-born actors to make it big in Hollywood and who was best known for his role as Mr. Roarke on ABC's "Fantasy Island," has died. He was 88.
Within the entertainment industry, Montalban was widely respected for his efforts to create opportunities for Latinos, although he and others believed that his activism hurt his career. In 1970, he founded the nonprofit Nosotros Foundation to improve the image and increase employment of Latinos in Hollywood.
"He paved the way for being outspoken about the images and roles that Latinos were playing in movies," said Luis Reyes, author of "Hispanics in Hollywood" (2000).
Sci fi fanboys all over the planet are donning the black crepe. That's a lot of black crepe. Who's next? Cheetah?
And yet George Lucas still walks around, figuring out how to screw up our memories further. Life is not fair.
Okay. Deep breath. Let's all say it together, now, sadly, for what may be the last time:
KHHAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
Bye bye Rico. You were sure Suave. (photo from trekcore.com)
Wilted Roses & Bouncing Erica
THIS IS THE kind of thing that Bill Brioux usually does, but he's being all upfronty this week so I'm guessing he won't get to it.It's still too early to call a trend, but based on two weeks of evidence the CBC's freshman Canadian dramas could be going in opposite directions.
Being Erica, the Erin Karpluk 'don't call it scifi-ish' chicktv crama [that's my word people. I don't do 'dramedy' and I find 'comedy-drama' or 'dramatic-comedy' awkward. To me, they're cramas, pure and simple] built on good word of mouth to a better showing on Monday night -- 656, 000 viewers, which is about what its timeslot predescessor, The Border, did back in the fall. (I didn't get the 18-49 or 25-54 breakdown, so I don't know how many of the coveted 'youngies' were in the audience.) Erica also built on its lead in, Sophie, considerably, with the latter down to 200 000 viewers,
coast-to-coast. Ouch. Somebody needs to designate lead Natalie Brown a national heritage protected site, because my guess is that she won't be on this show much longer, and losing her to the USA right now is a cold thing too awful to contemplate.Erica's performance is also remarkable considering that it got the head-to-head matchup The Border always feared and never had to face: it was up against the second night of FOX's 2 hour 24 premiere. (24 easily won the slot with 1.4 million viewers, but hey, Jack Bauer also has a brand and a serious weapons of mass promotion advantage.)
I thought the 2nd Erica episode was weaker than the pilot, owing to a strange kickoff plot, which had Erica regretting the fact that she never joined a secret society in University. (Um. Secret society, like Skull & Bones? Ew. I thought we were supposed to like her.)
Still, some nice arc work around the brother...a strong eyecandy addition to the cast for the ladies (Tyron Leitso from Wonderfalls) and a fun turn from Frantic Dan Redican. I also think the Being Erica credits sequence explains the show better than any CBC promo did. So, in short -- room to grow, but positve steps forward.
The second night of Wild Roses proved nettlesome, though. The Calgary-set soaper managed only 453 000 viewers in its second night out. Now - here's the caveat...just like many think that Erica's premiere numbers were hurt by the Junior Hockey Final on TSN last week, which delivered, I don't know, 23 million viewers or something ridiculous like that) -- last night's Roses also went head to head with the return of American Idol. You can bet that CBC will be watching those numbers closely last week. Personally, I found myself flipping around a lot during Roses' -- not really pulled in too heavily. But then again, I'm not the audience. But I'm not sure I'll be going back, for one very serious reason -- I don't want to be, or have a beer with, any of the dudes on the show. (Though Steve Byers is better than I thought he'd be.) And the sister-stuff doesn't pull me in. And back in the day I had a girlfriend that actually made me watch Sisters.
I'm sorry Wild Rosians - you are no Sela Ward...but don't feel bad, not even Natalie Brown can get me to watch Sophie. And I suspect I'd rob a liquor store if she told me to.
I'm going to ahead and tag this article with some other promotional-like news, bits and pieces of which I picked up via email while I was in Vegas. Just like
Rumplestiltskin, it looks like the Canadian TV promotion racket has woken up from its traditional two-years-behind slumber and started trying some different ways to reach people. I was happy to see that both Being Erica and Wild Roses episodes were FREE downloads on the Canadian Itunes store the week after their premieres. Being Erica also held a premiere screening event in the Toronto CBC atrium last week, and blanketed morning commuters at the city's Union Station with flyers advertising the show, handed out by fresh young things in crisp and colourful T-shirts.Add to that the ZOS premiere on Air Canada flights, and this latest news -- that long-expected The Listener will premiere overseas, and you have to admit that they're trying some different stuff. (Still pondering that last one though. When it comes to The Listener, is that a vote of confidence, or something else?)
If you want them to watch, you got to let them know. It's all steps in the right direction, says I.
ZOS kickoff w. Crafty
ALEX EPSTEIN, PROVING once again that he goes batshit insane if he's not working on three things every second of every moment of every day, has already transcribed his interview with ZOS' Showrunner Malcolm MacRury. It's well worth a read.
I'll get to it. I'll get to it.
SPEEDO BOY!
He Was a Free Man
GOODBYE, NUMBER SIX. And thanks for all those endless trippy conversations about what your show meant, and for those hangover dreams of being chased by a big white ball.
Patrick McGoohan, The Prisoner, dies at 80.
McGoohan, who was born in New York but raised in England and Ireland, came to screen prominence in ITV's early 1960s drama series Danger Man, in which he played a secret agent.
He was also considered for the lead role in the first James Bond movie, Dr No, before Sean Connery was cast.
However, it was The Prisoner, which aired originally on ITV between 1967 and 1968, with which he was chiefly associated, writing some of the episodes himself under a different name.
His character, Number Six, spent the entire time attempting to escape from a prison – which was disguised as a holiday camp – and trying to find out the identity of his captor, the elusive Number One. He repeatedly declared: "I am not a number - I am a free man!"
Puts a bit of a bittersweet torque on this, doesn't it?
Freezelancing
CAN I JUST get a "hell yeah" from all the freelancers working from home in Toronto today?Holy Jebus.
Anyhow, today is a "reading day" wherein I catch up on scripts that I have to read to keep my toe in professionally and some that I have to read for potential work.
If I have a little time I might take a dive into my interviews for ZOS, the Canadian Peacekeeper show that bows on TMN and Movie Central Monday night. I went through all eight episodes over Christmas like they were sprinkled with chocolate-covered crack. And yesterday in the very chi-chi Corus offices, I met and interviewed the wonderfully self-effacing Enrico Colatoni and Rick Roberts, as well as the primary writer and creator of ZOS, Malcolm MacRury.
MacRury and his story team - Jason Sherman, Pete Mitchell, and John Krizanc, have come up with an amazing series. With this and Durham County, TMN/Movie Central are definitely on a roll. So I hope I get a chance to get into this stuff and get it up before the weekend. For now, all I will say is this:
All hail Speedo boy.
Got some good news on something very promising that's going to take me to Vancouver early next week. Gotta be all cagey for now, but I'm pretty psyched.
And best of all, as I read off my laptop, I have the "Jazz Icons" set on the DVD player just out of my field of vision. Listening/Watching Coltrane now, on my way to Bill Evans next. Espresso machine's humming. And laundry's getting done too.
It's amazing how much more productive one gets when one is dead sure one is not missing anything.
I don't know how Will Dixon lives. I really don't. Regina? Jebus.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Roses are Wild
MY WELL-UPHOLSTERED behind hasn't even sunk into the leather before Amy Cameron fires off her first question:
"I have to ask you something right off the bat..."
Cameron is Wild Roses' co-creator. And right now she's hitting me with her best journo-stare. You can see those ink stained wretch bonafides bubbling to the surface like Alberta crude. I swallow, suddenly cotton mouthed.
Cameron's had quite a year, transiting from a career in print journalism by developing CBC's new chick-friendly "Don't call it Dallas" Tuesday night soaper with her sister Tassie, (Would Be Kings, Flashpoint) one of Canada's most sought after television writers. There's also the matter of the birth of her first child, which fell smack dab in the middle of pre-production for the show that became Wild Roses. Any number of writers will joke comparing the birth process to the process of birthing a series. If they did that in Cameron's presence, I imagine they'd get much the same kind of stare that I'm getting right now.
"I know how you felt about Cowgirls. [The show's title through pre-production and most of filming.] How do you feel about 'Wild Roses?'
Curses. She's read the blog. Time for the fateful choice. Canadian-friendly or Yankee-no-guff?
"I'm not crazy about it." (What can I say? I yam what I yam.)
She laughs. "Oh My God, you're impossible."
So. It's gonna be one of those interviews.
I kid. But there's definitely something odd in the air in this particular publicity session, conducted in the gallery of a chi-chi private club that couldn't be further from Wild Roses' Alberta vistas. It's more than two months before the show's January premiere. Cameron sits on a couch to my right. To my left, feet tucked up under her (in shoes that look like they cost more than my laptop) is Miranda de Pencier, Executive Producer of the show. Minutes before I sat down, two Media Profile publicists took pains to remind me that de Pencier is the co-creator of the show. Apparently there's a mistake in the kits. Okey dokey. Noted. Rounding out the group are Tom Cox, and Jordy Randall, the Alberta producers who already have a superficially similar show on CBC -- the Sunday night family drama Heartland. (Not to mention Tom Stone (Stone Undercover in syndication), a Calgary set show both were involved with way back in the early days of the decade)
We're all here to wrestle the spin on this Tuesday night show. Not an easy thing to do at the best of times, and not the smoothest tasks when it comes to Roses. First, there's the network's other "girls and horses" show. Then there seems to be a battle of the metaphors. In its releases, CBC plays up the show's "Shakesperean themes," which as far as I can tell spring from the fact that it's about two families...kind of like Romeo & Juliet. (Note to self: the more populist your show wants to be, the less you should compare it to Shakespeare.) Yet the one obvious comparison - Dallas - seems to elicit a gunshy response, almost like everybody's been coached to stay away from it. In subsequent interviews, Cameron will give up altogehter, telling Canwest News Service, "Hell, if it's anywhere close to being as successful as Dallas, I'm all for it. Call it the new Dallas -- I have no problem with that.''
The show's press release describes the show this way:
Part of the tension in the air might be the troubled development history of the program. The original pilot was extensively reshot, and a revolving door of writers and showrunners came and went through production. Production shutdowns, frantic last-minute rewrites and personnel changes -- this show had it all. Not to mention a -- dare I say it -- almost Shakespearean number of speaking parts.
de Pencier smiles and nods agreement -- the show was definitely a challenge. "I would say the biggest thing that we discovered is that we have a really big cast. We have eight leads and twenty, twenty-five..it's an awfully big show. We thought about getting rid of a few but we decided we wanted to give them all life."
Cameron adds, "At the beginning of the season, you're trying to add all these characters to your audience. And the first few scripts were tough. But now, writing the end of the season, we don't feel that way anymore, because we feel that some characters can step forward and take the lead, and then step back in the next episode. So now there's more of a flow."
To some extent, though, that huge cast really is inevitable, just a normal outgrowth of the scope of the program. "You've got rural and urban, the downtown landscape of urban Calgary," says Cox. "And you have to make sure that we're servicing both those characters." Randall agrees, "That's the dynamic at the heart of the show."
"We are shooting all over the place," says dePencier. "We have these two ranches, we are spread out. We're running around a lot every episode."
Though it complicated the production considerably, Cameron thinks that ultimately, the broadening of the show has helped it. "I think initially it was a bit more focused on the ranching side of things. There was a bit more of that wish-fulfillment thing of gorgeous women on horses and, you know, imagining what it would be like if I was a Cowgirl. And then realizing that we wanted to tap into that boomtown idea, and the characters dipping in and out of Calgary -- and then in the research of it we discovered that the world of Calgary was as interesting, if not more interesting than the world I created with Cowgirls. It was tricky. You can bite off more than you can chew But I think we've sort of figured it out."
Speaking of tricky -- how do you work in a maternity leave in the middle of getting a series going, anyway?
"It was really, really, really hard. It was not fun. I went back to work officially two months after having the baby. I will never forget this. I went into a CBC meeting ten days after having a C-section and was breastfeeding in the middle of the meeting. And I remember thinking, "I'm sure it's important that I'm here, but I gotta go home." Ultimately, I knew that was going to happen, the timing was really really terrible, but I wrote a detailed bible, and spent a lot of time telling everybody who would listen what I thought, and then the baby came and I said, "okay, it's yours!" and then I came back two months later and it was kind of fun to have people say, "okay, we think this might happen."
But was it a relief in some ways?
Cameron nods. "It's so nice when you've got these characters in your head for two years to be able to give that up and say, "okay, this can be somebody else's responsibility for a while because I'm going to go something a bit more important. I think in retrospect, the one thing I would have changed is I would not have named one of the characters the same name as I named my son. That I find confusing. And a little bit of a mindfuck."
"We were all there in the mucky muck, from the early days," says dePencier. "The bible was really solid, and we hired other writers and tried to keep the organic centre of it."
"We never would have planned it that way," says Randall, "but in a way, it's like the three of us got to adopt it. It happened at a natural time, when you're bringing in writers, you're bringing in Directors, and designers -- all these other voices are being added. And the process is speeding up exponentially. But I never got the sense that Amy was out of it."
And of course, at a certain point, the navel gazing of development has to give through to the shakedown of production anyway. "The actors and writers feed off each other," says Cox, "And the directors pick up on that."
Cameron thinks ultimately, the humor is the thing that's going to sell the show, especially when it comes to the show's n'er do well brother, Peter McGregor (Adam MacDonald), "In some ways, the looser it becomes, the better Adam becomes. That's the kind of thing that could slip easily away when you're doing a soap opera. It could go the way of the dodo bird. But luckily, we kept the humor. We kept the sense of fun."
After a solid premiere, which drew 627 000 viewers, retained most of its lead in and bested timeslot competitor 90210 on Global, it's possible that the ranch hands will be taking their shirts off on this one for sometime to come. Let's hope those numbers aren't as volatile as Calgary's oil prices.
Wild Roses airs Tuesdays at 9pm on CBC
"I have to ask you something right off the bat..."
Cameron is Wild Roses' co-creator. And right now she's hitting me with her best journo-stare. You can see those ink stained wretch bonafides bubbling to the surface like Alberta crude. I swallow, suddenly cotton mouthed.
Cameron's had quite a year, transiting from a career in print journalism by developing CBC's new chick-friendly "Don't call it Dallas" Tuesday night soaper with her sister Tassie, (Would Be Kings, Flashpoint) one of Canada's most sought after television writers. There's also the matter of the birth of her first child, which fell smack dab in the middle of pre-production for the show that became Wild Roses. Any number of writers will joke comparing the birth process to the process of birthing a series. If they did that in Cameron's presence, I imagine they'd get much the same kind of stare that I'm getting right now.
"I know how you felt about Cowgirls. [The show's title through pre-production and most of filming.] How do you feel about 'Wild Roses?'
Curses. She's read the blog. Time for the fateful choice. Canadian-friendly or Yankee-no-guff?
"I'm not crazy about it." (What can I say? I yam what I yam.)
She laughs. "Oh My God, you're impossible."
So. It's gonna be one of those interviews.
I kid. But there's definitely something odd in the air in this particular publicity session, conducted in the gallery of a chi-chi private club that couldn't be further from Wild Roses' Alberta vistas. It's more than two months before the show's January premiere. Cameron sits on a couch to my right. To my left, feet tucked up under her (in shoes that look like they cost more than my laptop) is Miranda de Pencier, Executive Producer of the show. Minutes before I sat down, two Media Profile publicists took pains to remind me that de Pencier is the co-creator of the show. Apparently there's a mistake in the kits. Okey dokey. Noted. Rounding out the group are Tom Cox, and Jordy Randall, the Alberta producers who already have a superficially similar show on CBC -- the Sunday night family drama Heartland. (Not to mention Tom Stone (Stone Undercover in syndication), a Calgary set show both were involved with way back in the early days of the decade)We're all here to wrestle the spin on this Tuesday night show. Not an easy thing to do at the best of times, and not the smoothest tasks when it comes to Roses. First, there's the network's other "girls and horses" show. Then there seems to be a battle of the metaphors. In its releases, CBC plays up the show's "Shakesperean themes," which as far as I can tell spring from the fact that it's about two families...kind of like Romeo & Juliet. (Note to self: the more populist your show wants to be, the less you should compare it to Shakespeare.) Yet the one obvious comparison - Dallas - seems to elicit a gunshy response, almost like everybody's been coached to stay away from it. In subsequent interviews, Cameron will give up altogehter, telling Canwest News Service, "Hell, if it's anywhere close to being as successful as Dallas, I'm all for it. Call it the new Dallas -- I have no problem with that.''
The show's press release describes the show this way:
Growing up on the idyllic Rivercross ranch, sisters Lucy (Sarah Power, Random Passage, American Pie: Beta House) and Kate Henry (Michelle Harrison, Paycheck, Traveling) may not have agreed on everything, but neither could imagine a more beautiful place to live. When David McGregor (Gary Hudson, Dynasty, Smallville), cutthroat CEO of oil exploration company McGregor Strategic, decides Rivercross is his for the taking, Lucy and Kate will have to overcome a fierce family feud and an entire corporate empire just to keep their home.So ... families, oil, horses, and skullduggery. May or may not be Shakesperean. Got it. So why is the vibe in the room so funky?
Part of the tension in the air might be the troubled development history of the program. The original pilot was extensively reshot, and a revolving door of writers and showrunners came and went through production. Production shutdowns, frantic last-minute rewrites and personnel changes -- this show had it all. Not to mention a -- dare I say it -- almost Shakespearean number of speaking parts.
de Pencier smiles and nods agreement -- the show was definitely a challenge. "I would say the biggest thing that we discovered is that we have a really big cast. We have eight leads and twenty, twenty-five..it's an awfully big show. We thought about getting rid of a few but we decided we wanted to give them all life."
Cameron adds, "At the beginning of the season, you're trying to add all these characters to your audience. And the first few scripts were tough. But now, writing the end of the season, we don't feel that way anymore, because we feel that some characters can step forward and take the lead, and then step back in the next episode. So now there's more of a flow."
To some extent, though, that huge cast really is inevitable, just a normal outgrowth of the scope of the program. "You've got rural and urban, the downtown landscape of urban Calgary," says Cox. "And you have to make sure that we're servicing both those characters." Randall agrees, "That's the dynamic at the heart of the show."
"We are shooting all over the place," says dePencier. "We have these two ranches, we are spread out. We're running around a lot every episode."
Though it complicated the production considerably, Cameron thinks that ultimately, the broadening of the show has helped it. "I think initially it was a bit more focused on the ranching side of things. There was a bit more of that wish-fulfillment thing of gorgeous women on horses and, you know, imagining what it would be like if I was a Cowgirl. And then realizing that we wanted to tap into that boomtown idea, and the characters dipping in and out of Calgary -- and then in the research of it we discovered that the world of Calgary was as interesting, if not more interesting than the world I created with Cowgirls. It was tricky. You can bite off more than you can chew But I think we've sort of figured it out."
Speaking of tricky -- how do you work in a maternity leave in the middle of getting a series going, anyway?
"It was really, really, really hard. It was not fun. I went back to work officially two months after having the baby. I will never forget this. I went into a CBC meeting ten days after having a C-section and was breastfeeding in the middle of the meeting. And I remember thinking, "I'm sure it's important that I'm here, but I gotta go home." Ultimately, I knew that was going to happen, the timing was really really terrible, but I wrote a detailed bible, and spent a lot of time telling everybody who would listen what I thought, and then the baby came and I said, "okay, it's yours!" and then I came back two months later and it was kind of fun to have people say, "okay, we think this might happen."
But was it a relief in some ways?
Cameron nods. "It's so nice when you've got these characters in your head for two years to be able to give that up and say, "okay, this can be somebody else's responsibility for a while because I'm going to go something a bit more important. I think in retrospect, the one thing I would have changed is I would not have named one of the characters the same name as I named my son. That I find confusing. And a little bit of a mindfuck."
"We were all there in the mucky muck, from the early days," says dePencier. "The bible was really solid, and we hired other writers and tried to keep the organic centre of it."
"We never would have planned it that way," says Randall, "but in a way, it's like the three of us got to adopt it. It happened at a natural time, when you're bringing in writers, you're bringing in Directors, and designers -- all these other voices are being added. And the process is speeding up exponentially. But I never got the sense that Amy was out of it."
And of course, at a certain point, the navel gazing of development has to give through to the shakedown of production anyway. "The actors and writers feed off each other," says Cox, "And the directors pick up on that."
Cameron thinks ultimately, the humor is the thing that's going to sell the show, especially when it comes to the show's n'er do well brother, Peter McGregor (Adam MacDonald), "In some ways, the looser it becomes, the better Adam becomes. That's the kind of thing that could slip easily away when you're doing a soap opera. It could go the way of the dodo bird. But luckily, we kept the humor. We kept the sense of fun."
After a solid premiere, which drew 627 000 viewers, retained most of its lead in and bested timeslot competitor 90210 on Global, it's possible that the ranch hands will be taking their shirts off on this one for sometime to come. Let's hope those numbers aren't as volatile as Calgary's oil prices.
Wild Roses airs Tuesdays at 9pm on CBC
Meet Michel Arpin, Arbiter of Our Future
I STARTED MY term as a member of the WGC's governing council in May 2008. I was elected to serve the Central Region, which is effectively Ontario -- one of three councillors from the province where the majority of members in the Writers Guild of Canada reside. The council is essentially like the Board of Directors. Several times a year the council meets to approve the workings of the union representing 1900 Canadian screenwriters. We hear about arbitrations, issues related to industrial policy, and also issues of regulatory policy.
I try to make sure I'm up to date with whatever other writers are going through. Because nothing happens in a vacuum, too, that means I have to be aware and conversant with the larger issues that are going on out in the broadcast industry. Anything that affects the health of the industry, affects the viability of future work for writers. Regulation can be dry, and boring, and it's always a matter of balancing out certain self-interested groups. But in the end if the system is going to function, you can't have blinders on and argue for your partisan needs, or exclusively from your point of view. Sometimes the good of all means seeing the other guy's problem, and sometimes it might even mean partnering up with stakeholders you don't always agree with.
That's how I approach things as a councillor. But what follows doesn't reflect the views of the WGC. This is the purview of one hard-working, pissed off working writer, taxpayer, and Canadian.
The basic philosophy behind the CRTC is that the airwaves are owned by Canadians, and held in trust by the CRTC for Canadians. Companies who want the privelege of using them have to promise certain things ("promises of performance.")
On their web page, they describe their role thusly:
Back in 1999, the CRTC decided that for the moment that it wasn't going to exercise any regulatory authority over Canadian internet providers. But this year there will be hearings to see if the purposes of the Broadcasting Act should be extended into the new media realm. It's a very complicated process, and it will require a lot of counsel, consultation and listening to balance out all the competing interests and come to a decision that's best for Canadians.
The CRTC hearings and decisions are presided over by a group of commissioners. Each one kind of does a similar job to what I do on the WGC council, except of course the issues they preside over are way more far-ranging. Because of that, they try to balance the commission with people who have different areas of expertise. Some might know something about engineering aspects of how the technology works; some will come from the telecommunications or cable sectors. Still others will be from a public policy background. You can read about the current commissioners and where they came from here.
Michel Arpin is kind of like a super-commissioner. He's currently one of the commissions' Vice Chairs, which means he's just below the Chairman, Konrad von Finckenstein. The commission has two Vice Chairs, one for the Telecommunications side of things, and one for Broadcasting. Arpin represents the latter.
But that doesn't exactly fully explain the degree of his power and influence. See, Arpin has served as interim chairman of the entire commission in the past. He's also been a broadcasting executive in his career, and has done long stints at the CRTC before, from 1971 to 1979. He's also served as Chair of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters.
That's a lot of industry experience. Which makes this interview he gave to Playback Magazine a little shocking and a lot disappointing. (The full article from the December 15, 2008 Playback is probably behind their firewall, but I'll reproduce the relevant bits below.)
In what was a year-in-review and next-year-preview piece, Arpin was asked, and answered the following two questions:
[Emphasis added by me.]
Now. Let's let that sit there for a second.
Are you outraged?
If not, can I ask, "why not?"
See, the problem is, remember how I wrote where the commission tries to balance areas of expertise? Well, Arpin is the Broadcasting guy. If you look over the other commissioners, this is the guy who's supposed to be speaking for you if you work in the creative end of the industry. He's also speaking for you as a consumer of TV. Remember that -- their words -- "the primary objective of the Broadcasting Act is to ensure that all Canadians have access to a wide variety of high quality Canadian programming." [Again, emphasis mine.]
Have I missed something here? Does primary mean something different than I think it does? Does 'high quality Canadian programming' mean something different than I think it does?
If not, then is it possible...nay, even probable... that the person serving in that position, charged with upholding the Broadcasting Act -- simply doesn't know or care about the very regulation he's supposed to be upholding?
I wasn't being solipsistic when I recounted my short WGC council experience at the top of this piece. I was laying down my personal philosophy. I think it's important that if you're asked to represent people and do a job, that you are prepared both temperamentally and philosophically to do that job. You don't get to pick and choose. I don't get to say, "I'm an adult hour long drama TV writer, so I don't really care what's going on for people who write animation, or children's, or features."
And so Monsieur Arpin shouldn't get to pick and choose which stakeholders he gets to represent on the CRTC.
Over the last couple of years, we've asked people to write interventions to the CRTC. We've asked people to go to rallies. We've asked people to try and exchange information, to work to make the products we do better. We've seen Canadian shows make inroads with audiences. We've seen culture become an election issue which may have cost the Conservatives a majority in Quebec.
But these are still all baby steps, and they don't add up to a warm bucket of spit if the gatekeeper doesn't understand, and doesn't care to understand, what the hell all the fuss we're making is about.
In essence, by his own admission, what we have with Michel Arpin on the CRTC is the equivalent of a judge of a literary award who's illiterate. It's like installing a guy to oversee Public Transit who's never taken the subway. It's like asking a high school dropout to oversee the redesign of the educational system. Or it's very much like putting people who don't believe in regulating and overseeing the financial markets in charge of regulating the markets.
And how did that work out again?
It's possible that, even with all those shortcomings, that a candidate could still be well suited to serve. All it takes is for the person involved to be truly comitted to compensating for some of their deficits. If you're not versed in an area, you take counsel from others who are. I wouldn't think of asking Michel Arpin to start watching more scripted TV or go to movies, if that's not what he wants to do. But by virtue of his responsibility and his position, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that somehow they find a way to correct this deficit.
See, when we as creatives talk about the CTF and the need for funding for development, and support of the industry, I try not to get too upset when some uninformed people come back with the usual canard of, "If they want to do programs, they should try to stand on their own, and not look for a handout." I don't get upset about this because I don't expect the layman to understand how it all fits together -- that, in fact, none of the cogs in the wheel of the broadcasting system in this country "stand on their own." (And that a whole mess o'other industries get government support, too.) The people who whine about every dollar that goes to the CBC may conveniently forget that the private networks get a huge winfall when it comes to that protectionist "signal substitution;" that Cable co's are protected from foreign ownership, and given near-monopoly status to keep out predatory competition.
I don't mind, because I expect the professional overseers, the CRTC commisioners, to have a more comprehensive view; to understand that things like how CanCon requirements work as a counterbalance to the huge disincentive to produce homegrown shows on Private networks caused by the policy of signal substitution. Let's face it, we all know Canadian channels wouldn't air a minute of Canadian programming if they could get away with it because the U.S. dramas and comedies are cheaper, and allow them to slap their commercials over U.S. broadcasts, getting two bangs for every buck.
But what that interview segment above, when combined with Arpin's conduct on the commisison in the last while, proves is that he isn't thinking of creatives. He can't wait to dismiss us. He is not engaged on our issues, he doesn't care about our arguments, and he goes through the motions to appear like he's doing his job, when really, the fix is in from the beginning on every issue.
So it doesn't matter that there was all that hard work done to show that splitting the CTF in two was a bad idea: Arpin listens to broadcasters and cable types -- not creative types.
Occasionally, even the constituencies he cares about go too far, like asking for carriage fees, and he may rear up and speak out about that...but it doesn't change the fact that basically -- he's completely unwilling to look beyond his personal biases. Now you start to understand why everyone on the commission talks about strengthening local news, but not about drama or comedy. Arpin wants to control the remote for you - and serve up the kind of stuff he wants to watch!
If you are a cultural worker, or simply one of the millions of people who do like to watch TV or go to movies, Arpin doesn't really care what you think, or what you want.
As Vice Chair, Arpin has a lot of influence in shaping the way the public consultation process works. If you read that response above in its proper context, you can see how things start to go. It's why the Cable companies and the Broadcasters went first at the last set of Broadcasting hearings, and why the Creative Unions were shunted to a day after the cameras were gone. And it explains and contextualizes further the bizarre dismissive tone Arpin took when the WGC had individual screenwriters tell their stories.
This is a man who isn't even pretending anymore. He feels so above us all as to be able to openly show contempt for the people he's supposed to serve.
This is where it gets tricky.
Arpin's term as a commissioner doesn't expire until 2010. By then, many of the decisions that will determine where the industry goes will be made. In 1999, they relaxed CanCon rules and it killed the scripted programming game for years, and drove many out of the business. When I sit in on my Council meetings, it's with the knowledge that by the time my term expires, I should have a pretty good idea about what my choices will be. Those choices? Stay in the business and move south. Get out of the business and do something else. Or stay in the business here -- but only if there's a business to stay in.
I brooded on that Arpin interview all through Christmas. I kept expecting somebody to pick up on it. A guy who's in charge of protecting Canadian programming who freely admits he'd rather read novels? Who dismisses every other genre but news? I mean, surely someone would write about that, right?
But no journalist, to date, has picked up on it. Playback let it lie there. So I guess, again, it's up to us. If you're a fan of television and would like the chance to see a bit more diversity through some more quality Canadian shows...if you're one of the millions who watched Flashpoint or Corner Gas or Being Erica or Wild Roses, or Mercer or Trailer Park Boys... then what can you do?
This is a nice, clear, very specific issue. It's the kind of thing that could make a good question in Question Period. Contact your MP, talk to them about the CRTC and ask why Canadians have to put up with a man with the power to decide what they see on TV and in the movies who admits he doesn't care about either?
Here is a list of MP's office phone numbers and addresses. Make an appointment, drop by, or write your MP and ask them to raise this issue in Question Period.
They are public servants. Now that Arpin's interview has opened the door, wouldn't it be interesting to know who, in fact, watches what? Is there anyone on the commission familiar with Canadian TV and film?
Write the CRTC:
By mail:
CRTC
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada, K1A 0N2
By courier:
Les Terrasses de la Chaudière
Central Building
1 Promenade du Portage
Gatineau, Quebec J8X 4B1
By fax:
819-994-0218
CRTC Commissioners:
Write at the address above or phone:
Chairman, Konrad von Finckenstein 819-997-3430
Vice-Chairman, Broadcasting, Michel Arpin 819-997-8766
Vice-Chairman, Telecommunications, Len Katz 819-997-8766
Commissioner, Michel Morin 819-953-4375
Commissioner, Marc Patrone 819-953-9958
Commissioner, Timothy Denton 819-953-5388
Commissioner, Louise Poirier 819-953-0435
Part-time Commissioner, Peter Menzies 819-953-5241
Commissioner, Elizabeth A. Duncan
(Atlantic) 819-997-4764
902-426-2644
Commissioner, Suzanne Lamarre
(Quebec) 819-934-6347
514-496-2370
Commissioner, Rita Cugini
(Ontario) 819-997-2431
416-954-6269
Commissioner, Vacant
(Alberta/NWT) 819-997-3917
604-666-2914
Commissioner, Candice J. Molnar
(Manitoba/Saskatchewan) 819-997-4485
306-780-3423
Commissioner, Stephen B. Simpson
(B.C./Yukon) 819-953-6026
604-666-2914
Express that you have concerns that Michel Arpin is not working in the best interests of Canadians, or the primary goal of the CRTC as laid out in the Broadcasting Act. Suggest that the Chairman request Arpin recuse himself from any hearings that have to do with Canadian programming or that might affect Canadian Content provisions, until such time as he shows a willingness to become conversant with the products and stories made by Canadians.
The Chairman of the CRTC can be reached via email:
konrad.vonfinckenstein@crtc.gc.ca
Impress upon Monsieur Arpin that you are a Canadian citizen, that you do watch TV and Film and enjoy them both. Ask why you should be confident that Monsieur Arpin will protect the position of high quality Canadian programming when he freely admits he doesn't personally care about any of it?
While you're at it, you might want to ask why he seems to show such contempt for the Creative Unions every time they appear before him. Maybe we've got all this wrong. Did a writer kill his pet hamster or something?
Remember -- be nice and respectful. The guy has had a long career and there are lots of people who respect him. If he has become arrogant enough to think that he isn't responsible to anybody, then being ostreperous right back isn't going to do anything to disabuse him of that notion.
Those are the sticks. How about we try one tiny little carrot?
There's that old axiom about being able to get more flies with honey than with vinegar.
For this next step, then, you can help me if you're a producer, or if you're involved with a Canadian Film or Television Program.
One of the most wonderful things that's been done in the last little while for the arts in Canada is a one-man crusade by Man Booker Prize winner Yann Martel (Life of Pi) to try and bring Prime Minister Stephen Harper "stillness" by sending him books. The eclectic and interesting list of the books that he's sent since 2007 can be read here.
I'm proposing we do the same thing for Monsieur Arpin with Canadian Film and TV shows.
After all, it's a lot of work to try and get into something. And maybe we'd have more luck changing Monsieur Arpin's mind if he had some material to work with. The trick, though, is not to bombard him with a bunch of stuff all at once. That's just going to be an annoyance for the poor staffers.
What I propose is this: if you have a DVD box set of a recent Canadian TV show or Film you'd like to have considered for inclusion in Mr. Arpin's library, contact me at heywriterboy@hotmail.com.
Once a month for the next year, I'll pick a program set and send it off to Monsieur Arpin c/o the CRTC, with a letter explaining the show and what people like about it. If you'd like to join in the discussion of what shows/films should be sent, come join a group of engaged Canadian Writers & Creative types over at Ink Canada on Facebook.
Maybe Monsieur Arpin won't watch all these shows...maybe he won't watch any of them...but you know, there are a whole bunch of overworked staffers at the CRTC, and maybe we can win their hearts and minds, bit by little bit. I'm sure things get slow in Gatineau now and again. You know what they say...be nice to the assistants!
If nothing else, maybe Arpin can leverage his box sets for a borrow of one of the PM's novels!
For the first send, I'm going to start this up simply by sending a copy of the Season 1 DVD box set of THE BORDER, the show I just finished working on. (Hint to Arpin: Stockwell Day's a fan...maybe you can get him to ask Steve if you can get the really good novels Yann sent.)
Finally, dear reader, you can try to make a difference by forwarding this to anybody you might think would be interested.
And any journalists or radio types, I'd be more than willing to talk about this initiative to you.
Hopefully, by casting light on one powerful man's biases, calling him out, and making sure that one high-placed guy has access to a wide variety of high quality Canadian programming, we can get back to a place where we all have that opportunity.
I try to make sure I'm up to date with whatever other writers are going through. Because nothing happens in a vacuum, too, that means I have to be aware and conversant with the larger issues that are going on out in the broadcast industry. Anything that affects the health of the industry, affects the viability of future work for writers. Regulation can be dry, and boring, and it's always a matter of balancing out certain self-interested groups. But in the end if the system is going to function, you can't have blinders on and argue for your partisan needs, or exclusively from your point of view. Sometimes the good of all means seeing the other guy's problem, and sometimes it might even mean partnering up with stakeholders you don't always agree with.
That's how I approach things as a councillor. But what follows doesn't reflect the views of the WGC. This is the purview of one hard-working, pissed off working writer, taxpayer, and Canadian.
MEET THE CRTCMost Canadians don't think about the CRTC very much at all. Or if they do, it's once a year when they tune in the Super Bowl and find out that, yes, again, we don't get to see the nifty big-budget American ads. (The CRTC gets so many calls about that they have a separate information page about it.) The CRTC was established in 1968, and its full name: Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, demonstrates the breadth of its mandate. It oversees all the regulation for Cable and Satellite TV, Broadcast TV, radio, and anything to do with telephones, both cellular and land-based. The CRTC determines what rates the cable companies can set (because they're regulated monopolies) and telephone rates, and also arbites issues of Cancon, and anything to do with foreign ownership, etc.
The basic philosophy behind the CRTC is that the airwaves are owned by Canadians, and held in trust by the CRTC for Canadians. Companies who want the privelege of using them have to promise certain things ("promises of performance.")
On their web page, they describe their role thusly:
Over the next couple years, the CRTC will be holding a number of important hearings and making a number of decisions on your behalf that will affect what you hear on radio, see on TV, and maybe even how your internet service works.The primary objective of the Broadcasting Act is to ensure that all Canadians have access to a wide variety of high quality Canadian programming.
The main objective of the Telecommunications Act is to ensure that Canadians have access to reliable telephone and other telecommunications services at affordable prices.
Not only must we comply with these Acts, but we also report to Parliament through the Minister of Canadian Heritage and are subject to orders from Cabinet. In addition, we must take into account the wants and needs of Canadian citizens, industries, and various interest groups.
Generally, our role is to maintain a delicate balance-in the public interest-between the cultural, social and economic goals of the legislation on broadcasting and telecommunications.
Our mandate is to ensure that programming in the Canadian broadcasting system reflects Canadian creativity and talent, our linguistic duality, our multicultural diversity, the special place of aboriginal people within our society and our social values. At the same time, we must ensure that Canadians have access to reasonably priced, high-quality, varied and innovative communications services that are competitive nationally as well as internationally.
Back in 1999, the CRTC decided that for the moment that it wasn't going to exercise any regulatory authority over Canadian internet providers. But this year there will be hearings to see if the purposes of the Broadcasting Act should be extended into the new media realm. It's a very complicated process, and it will require a lot of counsel, consultation and listening to balance out all the competing interests and come to a decision that's best for Canadians.
The CRTC hearings and decisions are presided over by a group of commissioners. Each one kind of does a similar job to what I do on the WGC council, except of course the issues they preside over are way more far-ranging. Because of that, they try to balance the commission with people who have different areas of expertise. Some might know something about engineering aspects of how the technology works; some will come from the telecommunications or cable sectors. Still others will be from a public policy background. You can read about the current commissioners and where they came from here.
MICHEL ARPIN and HIS PLAYBACK INTERVIEW
Michel Arpin is kind of like a super-commissioner. He's currently one of the commissions' Vice Chairs, which means he's just below the Chairman, Konrad von Finckenstein. The commission has two Vice Chairs, one for the Telecommunications side of things, and one for Broadcasting. Arpin represents the latter.But that doesn't exactly fully explain the degree of his power and influence. See, Arpin has served as interim chairman of the entire commission in the past. He's also been a broadcasting executive in his career, and has done long stints at the CRTC before, from 1971 to 1979. He's also served as Chair of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters.
That's a lot of industry experience. Which makes this interview he gave to Playback Magazine a little shocking and a lot disappointing. (The full article from the December 15, 2008 Playback is probably behind their firewall, but I'll reproduce the relevant bits below.)
In what was a year-in-review and next-year-preview piece, Arpin was asked, and answered the following two questions:
Will Canadian drama on our television screens be an issue again at hearings in 2009?
The decline in Canadian drama is an issue that the unions regularly put on the table. It's documented. I'm sure they will bring it to the top of the pile at the hearings.
What are your favorite television programs?
I'm a news and documentary consumer. I'm not that interested in televised fiction or even feature films. I would prefer to read a novel.
[Emphasis added by me.]
Now. Let's let that sit there for a second.
Are you outraged?
If not, can I ask, "why not?"
See, the problem is, remember how I wrote where the commission tries to balance areas of expertise? Well, Arpin is the Broadcasting guy. If you look over the other commissioners, this is the guy who's supposed to be speaking for you if you work in the creative end of the industry. He's also speaking for you as a consumer of TV. Remember that -- their words -- "the primary objective of the Broadcasting Act is to ensure that all Canadians have access to a wide variety of high quality Canadian programming." [Again, emphasis mine.]
Have I missed something here? Does primary mean something different than I think it does? Does 'high quality Canadian programming' mean something different than I think it does?
If not, then is it possible...nay, even probable... that the person serving in that position, charged with upholding the Broadcasting Act -- simply doesn't know or care about the very regulation he's supposed to be upholding?
I wasn't being solipsistic when I recounted my short WGC council experience at the top of this piece. I was laying down my personal philosophy. I think it's important that if you're asked to represent people and do a job, that you are prepared both temperamentally and philosophically to do that job. You don't get to pick and choose. I don't get to say, "I'm an adult hour long drama TV writer, so I don't really care what's going on for people who write animation, or children's, or features."
And so Monsieur Arpin shouldn't get to pick and choose which stakeholders he gets to represent on the CRTC.
Over the last couple of years, we've asked people to write interventions to the CRTC. We've asked people to go to rallies. We've asked people to try and exchange information, to work to make the products we do better. We've seen Canadian shows make inroads with audiences. We've seen culture become an election issue which may have cost the Conservatives a majority in Quebec.
But these are still all baby steps, and they don't add up to a warm bucket of spit if the gatekeeper doesn't understand, and doesn't care to understand, what the hell all the fuss we're making is about.
In essence, by his own admission, what we have with Michel Arpin on the CRTC is the equivalent of a judge of a literary award who's illiterate. It's like installing a guy to oversee Public Transit who's never taken the subway. It's like asking a high school dropout to oversee the redesign of the educational system. Or it's very much like putting people who don't believe in regulating and overseeing the financial markets in charge of regulating the markets.
And how did that work out again?
It's possible that, even with all those shortcomings, that a candidate could still be well suited to serve. All it takes is for the person involved to be truly comitted to compensating for some of their deficits. If you're not versed in an area, you take counsel from others who are. I wouldn't think of asking Michel Arpin to start watching more scripted TV or go to movies, if that's not what he wants to do. But by virtue of his responsibility and his position, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that somehow they find a way to correct this deficit.
See, when we as creatives talk about the CTF and the need for funding for development, and support of the industry, I try not to get too upset when some uninformed people come back with the usual canard of, "If they want to do programs, they should try to stand on their own, and not look for a handout." I don't get upset about this because I don't expect the layman to understand how it all fits together -- that, in fact, none of the cogs in the wheel of the broadcasting system in this country "stand on their own." (And that a whole mess o'other industries get government support, too.) The people who whine about every dollar that goes to the CBC may conveniently forget that the private networks get a huge winfall when it comes to that protectionist "signal substitution;" that Cable co's are protected from foreign ownership, and given near-monopoly status to keep out predatory competition.
I don't mind, because I expect the professional overseers, the CRTC commisioners, to have a more comprehensive view; to understand that things like how CanCon requirements work as a counterbalance to the huge disincentive to produce homegrown shows on Private networks caused by the policy of signal substitution. Let's face it, we all know Canadian channels wouldn't air a minute of Canadian programming if they could get away with it because the U.S. dramas and comedies are cheaper, and allow them to slap their commercials over U.S. broadcasts, getting two bangs for every buck.
But what that interview segment above, when combined with Arpin's conduct on the commisison in the last while, proves is that he isn't thinking of creatives. He can't wait to dismiss us. He is not engaged on our issues, he doesn't care about our arguments, and he goes through the motions to appear like he's doing his job, when really, the fix is in from the beginning on every issue.
So it doesn't matter that there was all that hard work done to show that splitting the CTF in two was a bad idea: Arpin listens to broadcasters and cable types -- not creative types.
Occasionally, even the constituencies he cares about go too far, like asking for carriage fees, and he may rear up and speak out about that...but it doesn't change the fact that basically -- he's completely unwilling to look beyond his personal biases. Now you start to understand why everyone on the commission talks about strengthening local news, but not about drama or comedy. Arpin wants to control the remote for you - and serve up the kind of stuff he wants to watch!
If you are a cultural worker, or simply one of the millions of people who do like to watch TV or go to movies, Arpin doesn't really care what you think, or what you want.
As Vice Chair, Arpin has a lot of influence in shaping the way the public consultation process works. If you read that response above in its proper context, you can see how things start to go. It's why the Cable companies and the Broadcasters went first at the last set of Broadcasting hearings, and why the Creative Unions were shunted to a day after the cameras were gone. And it explains and contextualizes further the bizarre dismissive tone Arpin took when the WGC had individual screenwriters tell their stories.
This is a man who isn't even pretending anymore. He feels so above us all as to be able to openly show contempt for the people he's supposed to serve.
WHAT TO DO?
This is where it gets tricky.
Arpin's term as a commissioner doesn't expire until 2010. By then, many of the decisions that will determine where the industry goes will be made. In 1999, they relaxed CanCon rules and it killed the scripted programming game for years, and drove many out of the business. When I sit in on my Council meetings, it's with the knowledge that by the time my term expires, I should have a pretty good idea about what my choices will be. Those choices? Stay in the business and move south. Get out of the business and do something else. Or stay in the business here -- but only if there's a business to stay in.
I brooded on that Arpin interview all through Christmas. I kept expecting somebody to pick up on it. A guy who's in charge of protecting Canadian programming who freely admits he'd rather read novels? Who dismisses every other genre but news? I mean, surely someone would write about that, right?
But no journalist, to date, has picked up on it. Playback let it lie there. So I guess, again, it's up to us. If you're a fan of television and would like the chance to see a bit more diversity through some more quality Canadian shows...if you're one of the millions who watched Flashpoint or Corner Gas or Being Erica or Wild Roses, or Mercer or Trailer Park Boys... then what can you do?
1) Contact or Write Your MP
This is a nice, clear, very specific issue. It's the kind of thing that could make a good question in Question Period. Contact your MP, talk to them about the CRTC and ask why Canadians have to put up with a man with the power to decide what they see on TV and in the movies who admits he doesn't care about either?
Here is a list of MP's office phone numbers and addresses. Make an appointment, drop by, or write your MP and ask them to raise this issue in Question Period.
2) Contact the Commissioners of the CRTC.
They are public servants. Now that Arpin's interview has opened the door, wouldn't it be interesting to know who, in fact, watches what? Is there anyone on the commission familiar with Canadian TV and film?
Write the CRTC:
By mail:
CRTC
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada, K1A 0N2
By courier:
Les Terrasses de la Chaudière
Central Building
1 Promenade du Portage
Gatineau, Quebec J8X 4B1
By fax:
819-994-0218
Write at the address above or phone:
Chairman, Konrad von Finckenstein 819-997-3430
Vice-Chairman, Broadcasting, Michel Arpin 819-997-8766
Vice-Chairman, Telecommunications, Len Katz 819-997-8766
Commissioner, Michel Morin 819-953-4375
Commissioner, Marc Patrone 819-953-9958
Commissioner, Timothy Denton 819-953-5388
Commissioner, Louise Poirier 819-953-0435
Part-time Commissioner, Peter Menzies 819-953-5241
Commissioner, Elizabeth A. Duncan
(Atlantic) 819-997-4764
902-426-2644
Commissioner, Suzanne Lamarre
(Quebec) 819-934-6347
514-496-2370
Commissioner, Rita Cugini
(Ontario) 819-997-2431
416-954-6269
Commissioner, Vacant
(Alberta/NWT) 819-997-3917
604-666-2914
Commissioner, Candice J. Molnar
(Manitoba/Saskatchewan) 819-997-4485
306-780-3423
Commissioner, Stephen B. Simpson
(B.C./Yukon) 819-953-6026
604-666-2914
3) Write the Chairman of the CRTC.
Express that you have concerns that Michel Arpin is not working in the best interests of Canadians, or the primary goal of the CRTC as laid out in the Broadcasting Act. Suggest that the Chairman request Arpin recuse himself from any hearings that have to do with Canadian programming or that might affect Canadian Content provisions, until such time as he shows a willingness to become conversant with the products and stories made by Canadians.
The Chairman of the CRTC can be reached via email:
konrad.vonfinckenstein@crtc.gc.ca
4) Contact Michel Arpin's office:
Impress upon Monsieur Arpin that you are a Canadian citizen, that you do watch TV and Film and enjoy them both. Ask why you should be confident that Monsieur Arpin will protect the position of high quality Canadian programming when he freely admits he doesn't personally care about any of it?
While you're at it, you might want to ask why he seems to show such contempt for the Creative Unions every time they appear before him. Maybe we've got all this wrong. Did a writer kill his pet hamster or something?
Remember -- be nice and respectful. The guy has had a long career and there are lots of people who respect him. If he has become arrogant enough to think that he isn't responsible to anybody, then being ostreperous right back isn't going to do anything to disabuse him of that notion.
Those are the sticks. How about we try one tiny little carrot?
5) Hearts and Minds, Hopefully With Popcorn
There's that old axiom about being able to get more flies with honey than with vinegar.
For this next step, then, you can help me if you're a producer, or if you're involved with a Canadian Film or Television Program.
One of the most wonderful things that's been done in the last little while for the arts in Canada is a one-man crusade by Man Booker Prize winner Yann Martel (Life of Pi) to try and bring Prime Minister Stephen Harper "stillness" by sending him books. The eclectic and interesting list of the books that he's sent since 2007 can be read here.
I'm proposing we do the same thing for Monsieur Arpin with Canadian Film and TV shows.
After all, it's a lot of work to try and get into something. And maybe we'd have more luck changing Monsieur Arpin's mind if he had some material to work with. The trick, though, is not to bombard him with a bunch of stuff all at once. That's just going to be an annoyance for the poor staffers.
What I propose is this: if you have a DVD box set of a recent Canadian TV show or Film you'd like to have considered for inclusion in Mr. Arpin's library, contact me at heywriterboy@hotmail.com.
Once a month for the next year, I'll pick a program set and send it off to Monsieur Arpin c/o the CRTC, with a letter explaining the show and what people like about it. If you'd like to join in the discussion of what shows/films should be sent, come join a group of engaged Canadian Writers & Creative types over at Ink Canada on Facebook.
Maybe Monsieur Arpin won't watch all these shows...maybe he won't watch any of them...but you know, there are a whole bunch of overworked staffers at the CRTC, and maybe we can win their hearts and minds, bit by little bit. I'm sure things get slow in Gatineau now and again. You know what they say...be nice to the assistants!
If nothing else, maybe Arpin can leverage his box sets for a borrow of one of the PM's novels!
For the first send, I'm going to start this up simply by sending a copy of the Season 1 DVD box set of THE BORDER, the show I just finished working on. (Hint to Arpin: Stockwell Day's a fan...maybe you can get him to ask Steve if you can get the really good novels Yann sent.)
Finally, dear reader, you can try to make a difference by forwarding this to anybody you might think would be interested.
And any journalists or radio types, I'd be more than willing to talk about this initiative to you.
Hopefully, by casting light on one powerful man's biases, calling him out, and making sure that one high-placed guy has access to a wide variety of high quality Canadian programming, we can get back to a place where we all have that opportunity.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Mad, I Tell You...
YOU KNOW HOW it sucks like, when a TV series ends, and you've got to wait all those months til it comes back again and you can go back into that world? Did all those Golden Globes for Mad Men just leave you pining for more?
Sorted.
If you go on Twitter, you may have missed your window to follow Don Draper (poor lamb seems he might be too busy to continue.) But no matter, his lovely wife Betty seems to be picking up the slack. And young Sally, their daughter, might become quite a tweeter herself, if Betty doesn't kill her when she finds out about the smoking. Bobby's getting into it, too.
There are clients of Sterling Cooper on the Twitter, too. Let's see, there's comedian and Utz snacks pitchman Jimmy Barret!
Sterling Cooper itself has gotten way into the whole spirit of things, too. You've got the old man, Paul Kinsey, Ken Cosgrove, Harry Crane, Joan Holloway, Roger Sterling, Sal Romano, that hottie-totty Jane Siegel, poor old Freddy Rumsen, even Hildy and her boss, that weasel Pete Campbell.
Some are more active than others, you know? Like Duck Philips hasn't said much for awhile. Not going to speculate on why...cough...rubber arm...cough.... And I'm also afraid the pressure might have taken a toll on dear Peggy Olson. Her personality seems to have split into two. Just like The Three Faces of Eve! I hope she has the strength to talk to that nice Father Gill about it.
And of course, like in any firm if you really want to know what's going on, talk to the girls on the switchboard, or better yet, hang out at the photocopier!
Now can someone explain something to me? Who the hell is this Dick Whitman guy?
You dig a bit further into this tale, and there's a story as interesting and as unlikely as any you're likely to see on the TV. What started as fanfic 2.0, caught AMC's ire, and then came back. Curious, this age we live in? Facebook, are you listening?
(I know that I'm terribly late coming to this by digerati terms, but hey, I'm not the only guy who just got on Twitter in the last month.)
Here's the strange thing. Even though I'm pretty out on a limb as not digging fanfiction...this...this I think is ... cool. And groundbreaking and fun, and I don't have a problem with it at all. I'm not even sure I can express why, exactly. And that's why this age is just so ... endlessly surprising.
So check out the Mad Tweets, if you have a chance. And while you're at it, take a look at Betty Draper's blog.
Gosh, something tells me she just isn't very happy there in Upstate NY in 1962.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Skins-tastrophe
WHOA. THIS IS more of Jaime Weinman's usual beat, but I just happened to be doing a flip around and caught part of the last episode of season 2 of Skins on Super Channel. I'm going to assume that they didn't do a different master version for Canada, so I'm guessing this applies for the United States as well.
One of the best parts of Skins, of course, was the music -- an incredibly lovingly-hand picked mix of the eclectic and trippy. Old school reggae, modern British house, weird folk, instrumental, industrial -- it ran the gamut.
But the finale was something different again. The final song playing as Sid scours Times Square for Cassie, is MGMT's Time to Pretend. You can see the scene as originally intended on YouTube (embedding is disabled but click the link) One look at the lyrics, and you'll see how the song kind of perfectly summed up the attitude through two seasons of Skins.
You know, I'm starting to think Needle Drop isn't worth it. Not if some fucking lawyer can just go in there and bung up the ENDING TO YOUR SERIES. Gaaah!
Don't buy the Skins DVD. Stay ah-wayyyy.
One of the best parts of Skins, of course, was the music -- an incredibly lovingly-hand picked mix of the eclectic and trippy. Old school reggae, modern British house, weird folk, instrumental, industrial -- it ran the gamut.
But the finale was something different again. The final song playing as Sid scours Times Square for Cassie, is MGMT's Time to Pretend. You can see the scene as originally intended on YouTube (embedding is disabled but click the link) One look at the lyrics, and you'll see how the song kind of perfectly summed up the attitude through two seasons of Skins.
I'm Feelin rough I'm Feelin raw I'm in the prime of my life.Harsh, melodramatic, kind of like, you know, being a teenager. The song that replaced it on the DVD and North American broadcast version is so anemic, so terrible, that it robs the scene of all its impact.
Let's make some music make some money find some models for wives.
I'll move to Paris, shoot some heroin and fuck with the stars.
You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars.
This is our decision to live fast and die young.
We've got the vision, now let's have some fun.
Yeah it's overwhelming, but what else can we do?
Get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning commute?
Forget about our mothers and our friends.
We were fated to pretend.
I'll miss the playgrounds and the animals and digging up worms.
I'll miss the comfort of my mother and the weight of the world.
I'll miss my sister, miss my father, miss my dog and my home.
Yeah I'll miss the boredom and the freedom and the time spent alone.
But there is really nothing, nothing we can do.
Love must be forgotten. Life can always start up anew.
The models will have children, we'll get a divorce,
we'll find some more models, Everything must run its course.
We'll choke on our vomit and that will be the end.
We were fated to pretend.
You know, I'm starting to think Needle Drop isn't worth it. Not if some fucking lawyer can just go in there and bung up the ENDING TO YOUR SERIES. Gaaah!
Don't buy the Skins DVD. Stay ah-wayyyy.
Up Is Down and Black Is White
MYTHS ESSPLODED in this Toronto Star article about CanCon animated show "Total Drama Island." (The second season of which, entitled "Total Drama Action," premieres tonight at 6:30 on Teletoon:
1) Canadians don't watch Canadian shows.
2) Americans won't watch Canadian shows if they have Canadian references.
3) The U.S. gets everything first; Canadian TV is way worse.
4) If you're doing a show for the U.S. market you better strip out all the Canadianisms.
5) Knowing your audience better doesn't help your show become more successful.
6) We can't do high concept.
7) Teens have been trained to hate homegrown Canadian shows just like older Canadians.
In the eyes of the many tween American fans of the Total Drama Island animated series, Canada sucks.
First off, there's obvious jealousy over this locally created series. The second season of the series, now titled Total Drama Action, debuts at 6:30 on Teletoon tonight, a good six months before the hit cartoon reality show – created by Liberty Village-based Fresh TV – returns to Cartoon Network in the U.S.
"If you go on the blogs of the American viewers, there is a kind of jealousy there. It's like, `Oh, those Canadians, they get to see everything first. We have to watch it on BitTorrent or YouTube chunks before it gets pulled off.' So it's this whole kind of subversive thing for them to see it early," says creator and executive producer Tom McGillis.
"It's a really fun thing that Canadians get this really sought-after show well in advance."
The first season of the series featured 22 teenagers at a fictional camp in Muskoka. Each character is a teen version of reality-show stereotypes: there's Owen, the happy-go-lucky fat guy; Leshawna, the homegirl; Beth, the wannabe sycophant; and Lindsay, the princess. The show mixes in elements from Survivor, Fear Factor and The Amazing Race. There are challenges, and, obviously, the voting off of a character until there is a winner. Like most "real" reality shows, this one is serialized, which – considering it airs later in the U.S. – initially posed a problem.
"When we sold the show to Cartoon Network, one of the first things that the head of programming said to me was `Tom, I just Googled your show, and I know who wins. What are you going to do about this?' And I was like, 'I don't know.' So I went through this ridiculous process trying to shut down the Wikipedia site and the spoilers, which were all over the place. And I failed. Luckily, the U.S. audience didn't mind so much."
That's a bit of an understatement. The first season just ended in the U.S. with incredible ratings, dominating with under-14-year-olds, and in some ages groups showing a 500 per cent ratings increase in the time slot. The show is just as popular with the tween set in Canada, and is unabashedly and proudly Canadian in its references. As such, tonight's premiere of Total Drama Action (the series plans to change the third word in the title as it progresses) is hotly anticipated.
Why is there no adult-oriented animation coming out of Canada?
Why do we continue to coddle the "if it's Canadian it must suck" crowd?
Why do we not hear about these successful shows so often?
All great questions. I don't have answers for them. That's up to you, I guess.
The Following Takes Place Between Me Being Really Really Psyched and Really, Really Bored
[SLIGHT 24 SPOILERS]
THE GOOD NEWS: Cherry Jones makes an awesome alt-world Hillary. Colm Feore, Janene Garafolo and Annie Wersching are solid additions to 24 lore.
THE BETTER NEWS: There's an early twist that makes for some great 24 goodness.
THE BAD NEWS: It doesn't happen til 10:17:36 -- well into Hour 3.
THE GOOD NEWS: Cherry Jones makes an awesome alt-world Hillary. Colm Feore, Janene Garafolo and Annie Wersching are solid additions to 24 lore.
THE BETTER NEWS: There's an early twist that makes for some great 24 goodness.
THE BAD NEWS: It doesn't happen til 10:17:36 -- well into Hour 3.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
BSGooooood
So, um. About the Battlestar Galactica final set-o-episodes kickoff next Friday night? Um, you should read this:
Squeeeeeal.
Ghosts Love SWAT Cops
MARC BERNAN at MediaWeek has the skinny on the "Second Season Premiere" of Flashpoint.
There's always a good argument here about what constitutes a "season." I'm of the opinion that a season is as the creators intended it to be...so if you had a 13 episode season when it was written and conceived, that's the season. Broadcast Networks, of course, get to promote it however they want. (Lifetime chose to call eps 13-22 of Blood Ties "season 2" -- which kind of confused some fans, and sort of bunged up the continuity we had going for the season long arcs, bu whatever.) There might be handwringing on the creative end when you realize they're rolling out 4 eps that were meant to be 10-13 as 1-4, but there's nothing to do about it. What do you think? Does the fact that they're calling Episode 10 of Season One of Flashpoint the 2nd season premiere matter? I guess the real answer is: only if it tanks.
And it didn't.
Over to Bernan:
So I guess expect some knocks. I'm not exactly happy about this, to tell you the truth. The problems creatives are fighting here -- for creative control, recognition of the showrunner, etc, etc, aren't going to be helped with all the pressure now to find a U.S. shotgun sugar daddy. "Pretty good" is the enemy of "great." And I'm firmly of the opinion that while you may be able to kludge a good show together if everything goes your way, unless the person calling the shots is a writer who understands the vision at that basic DNA level -- it's never going to be great. And no manner of sales Stateside is going to make the material better. Especially when grasping ego issues make the "sale" itself secondary to the access.
It's a dangerous thing when you give someone who's only giving you 2 or 300 K an episode carte blanche creative control. It's a small investment for them, but it's everything to you.
Then again -- the scuttlebut I've heard from people who have worked on both Flashpoint and The Listener (upcoming on NBC...sometime...) is that the U.S. network notes are sharp, and on-the-money. Wouldn't it be something if U.S. networks wound up forcing Canadian networks to raise their game in the provision of notes? Hmmm.
In any case, congratulations to Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern, and their hardworking fellow writers, including the Season 1 head writer Tassie Cameron. They don't get enough credit for the success of Flashpoint.
Now wouldn't it be interesting if the next time a U.S. net came knocking, they picked a show with an actual writer-showrunner?
Maybe Lee Goldberg should come up here and do his Germany talk. Not to the writers, Lee. To these guys.
There's always a good argument here about what constitutes a "season." I'm of the opinion that a season is as the creators intended it to be...so if you had a 13 episode season when it was written and conceived, that's the season. Broadcast Networks, of course, get to promote it however they want. (Lifetime chose to call eps 13-22 of Blood Ties "season 2" -- which kind of confused some fans, and sort of bunged up the continuity we had going for the season long arcs, bu whatever.) There might be handwringing on the creative end when you realize they're rolling out 4 eps that were meant to be 10-13 as 1-4, but there's nothing to do about it. What do you think? Does the fact that they're calling Episode 10 of Season One of Flashpoint the 2nd season premiere matter? I guess the real answer is: only if it tanks.
And it didn't.
Over to Bernan:
It was a clean sweep for CBS on this second Friday of January 2009 with its combination of Ghost Whisperer (Viewers: 10.63 million; A18-49: 2.5 rating/8 share), the second season-premiere of Flashpoint (Viewers: 10.06 million; A18-49: 2.2/ 6) and Numb3rs (Viewers: 10.08 million; A18-49: 2.4/ 7). The positive news for Flashpoint, of course, was retention out of Ghost Whisperer of 95 percent in total viewers and 88 percent in the demo. In these tough economic times, it pays to shop around for quality Canadian programming. There is plenty of it.
So I guess expect some knocks. I'm not exactly happy about this, to tell you the truth. The problems creatives are fighting here -- for creative control, recognition of the showrunner, etc, etc, aren't going to be helped with all the pressure now to find a U.S. shotgun sugar daddy. "Pretty good" is the enemy of "great." And I'm firmly of the opinion that while you may be able to kludge a good show together if everything goes your way, unless the person calling the shots is a writer who understands the vision at that basic DNA level -- it's never going to be great. And no manner of sales Stateside is going to make the material better. Especially when grasping ego issues make the "sale" itself secondary to the access.
It's a dangerous thing when you give someone who's only giving you 2 or 300 K an episode carte blanche creative control. It's a small investment for them, but it's everything to you.
Then again -- the scuttlebut I've heard from people who have worked on both Flashpoint and The Listener (upcoming on NBC...sometime...) is that the U.S. network notes are sharp, and on-the-money. Wouldn't it be something if U.S. networks wound up forcing Canadian networks to raise their game in the provision of notes? Hmmm.
In any case, congratulations to Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern, and their hardworking fellow writers, including the Season 1 head writer Tassie Cameron. They don't get enough credit for the success of Flashpoint.
Now wouldn't it be interesting if the next time a U.S. net came knocking, they picked a show with an actual writer-showrunner?
Maybe Lee Goldberg should come up here and do his Germany talk. Not to the writers, Lee. To these guys.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Nailed It!
IT'S BEEN A pretty good couple of years for TV writers and politics. First you had the final season of the West Wing eerily mirroring the two-years off Presidential race. (Which caused a sensation when it finally ran in the UK, because, well, it's eerie.) Then there was the strange serendipitous turn that the most colorful VP candidate ever just happened to be a doppelganger for one of the sharpest minds in comedy. Then there's the other former SNL comedian & writer who apparently just got elected Senator from Minnesota. And now, damn you HuffPo's Jason Linkins, you beat me to it:Old Impeached Blago just got up and totally went Clay Davis on our ass.
For those of you who didn't see that memorable scene from THE WIRE, well...here you go:
Now take a look at this:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Man o Man. All I can say is...
"That is some shameful SHEEEEE-yit."
Moncton!
I CREDIT WEINMAN for spotting one from Earl Pomerantz first, but it's still a pretty good one.
And in a weird bit of serendipity, I just got finished writing the non-funny version of that anecdote for a funding agency. Sigh. The things you do to try and get your shekels.
And in a weird bit of serendipity, I just got finished writing the non-funny version of that anecdote for a funding agency. Sigh. The things you do to try and get your shekels.
Ink Stained Sympathies...
TO THE NERVOUS scribes & others at Toronto paper the Globe & Mail , who are going to be losing 10% of their workforce.
Flashpoint Back
REMEMBER THAT FLASHPOINT returns tonight @ 9pm on CBS/CTV.
And if you'd like to follow some behind the scenes action, one of the co-creators of the show is now offering 140 character tidbits of golden goodness on Twitter.
They've started shooting Season 2, though the episode that airs tonight is one of the four left over from the first season of 13 eps. Still, it's got CanCon heavy hitters, far as they go. Colm Feore plays a big industrialist, and Wendy Crewson is his wife who winds up with a bomb around her neck that they threaten to detonate if she speaks at the ACTRA rally again.
...kidding.
Or am I?
And if you'd like to follow some behind the scenes action, one of the co-creators of the show is now offering 140 character tidbits of golden goodness on Twitter.
They've started shooting Season 2, though the episode that airs tonight is one of the four left over from the first season of 13 eps. Still, it's got CanCon heavy hitters, far as they go. Colm Feore plays a big industrialist, and Wendy Crewson is his wife who winds up with a bomb around her neck that they threaten to detonate if she speaks at the ACTRA rally again.
...kidding.
Or am I?
On Being Erica
THE VIVACIOUS ERIN KARPLUK, (don't you love it; see, Canadians are so laid back they don't even think of going with stage names. Dollars to donuts if she was 'Murrican that would have been Erin Karmichael, like, five years ago) was a guest on CBC's Q yesterday. Listen to the podcast here.
Conversations with Writers, Part XXXV: Why Why Why?
NOT A LOT of blogging time today -- I have to bounce between jetlag and pitch-shaping. But I've had two separate conversations this morning with writers complaining that they've reached the "why why why" notes part of their development projects. A little serendipitous considering the repost I chose to go with the other day.
One other thing to come out of these discussions has to do with story real estate.
In the world of the 20 minute half hour and the 40 minute hour the problem with the "Why" obsession is that when execs insist too much on the explanation, the time you have to spend on that explanation is robbing time from the entertainment value of the show. (Oddly, film has the opposite story real estate problem. Because running time isn't finite, and it's Director-driven, and Directors are deferred to in a way that writers usually aren't, today you have comedies that should be 90 mins regularly clocking in at 2:10. Think about it. When was the last time you saw a movie that wasn't too long?)
The only alternative to robbing entertainment to explain 'why' is to make the 'Why' intrinsically hilarious or compelling on its own. But of course, the 'why' rarely is. Which is why you want to spend your time on the 'What happens next.'
Last time we got hung up a bit on concrete examples, which is why one of my conversationalists this A.M. really hit on something. The example is Groundhog Day.
If you think of Groundhog Day -- the only 'why's' that are ever explored is the 'why's' behind the individual choices Bill Murray makes during his endlessly repeating day. What you are NOT ever given the 'why' answer to is:
Why did this start? Is it God? Why did he pick Bill Murray? Why this particular Groundhog Day? In other words, Danny Rubin & Harold Ramis do not bog you down in any of the metaphysical questions of how this world came to be or why this is happening to Bill Murray because they know it doesn't matter; what people want to see -- what they will enjoy, is seeing what happens next: why Bill Murray makes the choices he does, and eventually, how he comes to see the world differently.
Well, wait, when he sees the world differently, why does the day move on?
Because it does.
But why?
I don't know. Why do you think?
And that's the movie, and the audience's experience of it.
Now a more recent example of the other way to go - Ghost Town. In this movie, Ricky Gervais' character suddenly starts seeing and being able to talk to dead people. Why? Well, in this case, the explanation of the 'why' IS inherently entertaining. It leads to a great little scene where Gervais slowly pulls the fact that he died for seven minutes while under general anaesthetic out of his reluctant Doctor and a hospital laywer. The scene doesn't particularly move the plot along, but it is entertaining, and helps to reveal Gervais' character a little bit -- you see how impatient he is.
So there you see, the difference in two films where a big "Why" is left unanswered, and where it is answered. And the difference between them is entertainment value. If you can answer the "Why" in an entertaining and inventive way that the audience will enjoy, then do it. But if you can't, it's probably better not to shoehorn in an explanation that may add a scene to a schedule and rob you of a minute of time that could be better spent on making the funny, or deepening the stakes or suspense -- whatever genre you're in. Remember that the total audience you're writing for is not the Simpsons' Comic Book Guy, who are specifically looking for any little thing they can pick apart so they have something to say on Television Without Pity. Civilians just want to be entertained.
In TV, the "Why" argument can go on and on for years. There are lots of people out there who want to say that the pain in his leg is the reason HOUSE is the way he is, even though the show has gone to great pains to suggest here and there that he was completely the same even before the thing with the leg. So why is he that way?
I don't know. Why do you think?
Though I'm a big believer in trying to accomodate notes whenever you can, the tyranny of the 'why' can be particularly destructive. Because it forces you to spend brain real estate on something that doesn't make the story better. If there is not an entertaining answer to your 'big why' question, then it doesn't belong in the picture, and this one of those cases where you might have to take a stand.
So, with that in mind: here's your homework: Besides Groundhog Day, can you name other comedy or dramas where a big "Why this Happened" went unanswered and worked -- where, in fact, an explanation of the 'why' would have ruined it.
(Which I firmly believe about Groundhog Day, BTW.)
One other thing to come out of these discussions has to do with story real estate.
In the world of the 20 minute half hour and the 40 minute hour the problem with the "Why" obsession is that when execs insist too much on the explanation, the time you have to spend on that explanation is robbing time from the entertainment value of the show. (Oddly, film has the opposite story real estate problem. Because running time isn't finite, and it's Director-driven, and Directors are deferred to in a way that writers usually aren't, today you have comedies that should be 90 mins regularly clocking in at 2:10. Think about it. When was the last time you saw a movie that wasn't too long?)
The only alternative to robbing entertainment to explain 'why' is to make the 'Why' intrinsically hilarious or compelling on its own. But of course, the 'why' rarely is. Which is why you want to spend your time on the 'What happens next.'
Last time we got hung up a bit on concrete examples, which is why one of my conversationalists this A.M. really hit on something. The example is Groundhog Day.
If you think of Groundhog Day -- the only 'why's' that are ever explored is the 'why's' behind the individual choices Bill Murray makes during his endlessly repeating day. What you are NOT ever given the 'why' answer to is:
Why did this start? Is it God? Why did he pick Bill Murray? Why this particular Groundhog Day? In other words, Danny Rubin & Harold Ramis do not bog you down in any of the metaphysical questions of how this world came to be or why this is happening to Bill Murray because they know it doesn't matter; what people want to see -- what they will enjoy, is seeing what happens next: why Bill Murray makes the choices he does, and eventually, how he comes to see the world differently.
Well, wait, when he sees the world differently, why does the day move on?
Because it does.
But why?
I don't know. Why do you think?
And that's the movie, and the audience's experience of it.
Now a more recent example of the other way to go - Ghost Town. In this movie, Ricky Gervais' character suddenly starts seeing and being able to talk to dead people. Why? Well, in this case, the explanation of the 'why' IS inherently entertaining. It leads to a great little scene where Gervais slowly pulls the fact that he died for seven minutes while under general anaesthetic out of his reluctant Doctor and a hospital laywer. The scene doesn't particularly move the plot along, but it is entertaining, and helps to reveal Gervais' character a little bit -- you see how impatient he is.
So there you see, the difference in two films where a big "Why" is left unanswered, and where it is answered. And the difference between them is entertainment value. If you can answer the "Why" in an entertaining and inventive way that the audience will enjoy, then do it. But if you can't, it's probably better not to shoehorn in an explanation that may add a scene to a schedule and rob you of a minute of time that could be better spent on making the funny, or deepening the stakes or suspense -- whatever genre you're in. Remember that the total audience you're writing for is not the Simpsons' Comic Book Guy, who are specifically looking for any little thing they can pick apart so they have something to say on Television Without Pity. Civilians just want to be entertained.
In TV, the "Why" argument can go on and on for years. There are lots of people out there who want to say that the pain in his leg is the reason HOUSE is the way he is, even though the show has gone to great pains to suggest here and there that he was completely the same even before the thing with the leg. So why is he that way?
I don't know. Why do you think?
Though I'm a big believer in trying to accomodate notes whenever you can, the tyranny of the 'why' can be particularly destructive. Because it forces you to spend brain real estate on something that doesn't make the story better. If there is not an entertaining answer to your 'big why' question, then it doesn't belong in the picture, and this one of those cases where you might have to take a stand.
So, with that in mind: here's your homework: Besides Groundhog Day, can you name other comedy or dramas where a big "Why this Happened" went unanswered and worked -- where, in fact, an explanation of the 'why' would have ruined it.
(Which I firmly believe about Groundhog Day, BTW.)
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Night Moves
I'M BACK. And what's more, I'll be on CBC Radio's Q tomorrow talking late night tv.
First hour, about halfway through.
First hour, about halfway through.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)