Tweets Have Consequences

CANADIAN HERITAGE MINISTER James Moore likes to call himself "the iPod Minister."  He's "hip," and plugged into new technologies, and is the guy pushing the CMF to get all jiggy with that online content creation that hasn't made anybody any money yet.

And yet...

I was very surprised when waiting for a plane to find he'd tweeted this yesterday:

Now, on the one hand, it's almost a funny.  I wouldn't have minded the evocation of the 2nd iteration of the Alberta wingers who took over the Conservative party a while back, but Moore is a politician -- and words, whether they're calling a constituent a 'bigot' or choosing a team in a match -- have impact.

Yes. I know.  Moore is from Vancouver. He should be expected to root for the Canucks.  He could have said any version of, "My team in this playoffs is the Canucks," he could have said, "West Coast Rules! Vancouver!" or anything similar, and we would have taken it in that spirit.  But that's not what he wrote.

"The Canucks are Canada's Team in these playoffs."

What does that mean, exactly?  Well, to an eye practiced in the art of discerning & interpreting Conservative Party spin -- a task that most of us have grown to learn since they took the reins of power four years ago -- it is the same old thing of splitting apart into an us or them.  Us doesn't include the CBC, artistic elites, union people, city dwellers -- and Quebec.   In a fractious, minority parliament situation, divide & conquer, shore up your base & cherry pick some ridings here and there might be the only way toward stability. But it's killing the country. Killing it.

Sports is a special metaphor for everything. People invest so much because, in the end, it's not as gnarly & real a thing as your pension, or your employer maybe shutting up shop, or the fact that you're not sure you'll be able to pay your mortgage in three years.  Sports is freighted with an emotion greater than its actual, real-life importance.  Someone in the political class surely knows that.

Now let's talk Hockey.  84% of the country watched the Gold Medal Canada Hockey game.  The Hockey Playoffs are routinely the highest rated shows of the year in this country.  Moore's party knows that -- they even changed the Citizenship guide so that immigrants would know how important the sport was to this country.

Which is why Moore's comment -- coming on the heels of one of the most stunning comebacks by a team that a whole lot of "Canadiens" think of as "Canada's team" goes beyond tone deafness, into a very much darker corner of the current political climate.

By circumstance, I happened to be in Montreal the night the Canadiens walopped the Capitals, and did the unthinkable -- advance to the 2nd round of the playoffs by beating the best team in the game. 

It was unlikely. It was surprising, and it was joyous.  The bar I was in erupted.  The man beside me, a 72 year old in an old style Habs sweater, let loose a strain of joyous French invective that sounded like Jacques Brel coughing.  He told me later that he'd seen his first game at the Forum in 1946.  

To my right there were three businessmen from Cincinatti.  One was a Penguins fan, but said that "tonight I'm rooting for MONNNtreal."  These were nice, decent guys -- and the convo only got dicey a couple times when they started talking about Barack HUSSEIN Obama -- and the heart of division came back to the fore.  I subtly indicated that, in fact, I was Team Obama, and a remarkable thing happened.  We sort of, by covenant or mutual agreement, agreed to let it go. We were tired, and in a fun place. We agreed that maybe the sides working together a bit more was important.  They said that they loved coming to Montreal because it was so different that it gave them a totally different perspective on the world.  "That's why I like it too," I said. 

Another beer, another story, good natured -- about the Democrat friend one of the guys always gives a hard time to.  And he gives it right back.  "I'd like to see what he did to Hannity if he got a shot."  Still neighbours. Still friends.  The war in the media doesn't have to hit main street after all.  By the time they left, I had a standing invitation to visit Cincinatti. And Patrick to my left had regaled me with the stories of the three times he'd met The Rocket.

Outside in the streets, up on Ste. Catherine, the flags were waving and the kids were screaming.  Anglo & French, songs shouted together.  A legacy shared across a language barrier.  If nothing else, that's why the Canadiens win was important.  More important, in fact, because of how unexpected and unlikely it was.

That's what Sports is good for too, Minister Moore.  Crafting the unlikely metaphor for life, that if you listen and live it, just might transfer a bit of hope to other areas, too.

We're so tired of everyone in Ottawa acting like a bunch of two year olds.  Your party's default position of blaming everything on the other -- liberal plots, the CBC, bias from the civil service -- doesn't cut it anymore. You've been running the country for years now. Whatever's wrong -- you own it. We don't want to hear whose fault you think it is. We want you to fix it. You have a minority government.  That means you need help.  Start looking for help and stop looking for who to blame.

And while you're at it, next time you're in an unfriendly (read: Non-Conservative) part of the country, may I gently suggest you take the iPod earbuds out of the ear and listen for a moment?  My specialty is the cultural sector, and I know from listening to you & reading your tweets for a year or so now, that gosh, you get an awful lot wrong.  I can't believe that's not true in some of the other areas of your stewardship.

It's ironic that a party that takes so much of its energy from regional, Western disaffection concentrates so much of the power in one man's office, and refuses to accept outside ideas or advice -- even from within the party.  Perhaps you tweet & twitter so much because the PMO's door is closed to you, too. I don't know.

What I do know is this: there are many of us out here that yearn for a Canada where the first thing you don't hear from a Vancouverite is how much they hate Toronto; where you can enjoy the beauty of an Alberta trail without getting into an argument; and maybe where the spirit of those anglo kids & French kids shouting for joy in the streets can be marshalled for something other than the most unlikely of hockey wins.

I did a quick in-and-out trip to Winnipeg in the last couple days for a seminar.  I met some great people, had wonderful conversations.  On the flight there, I watched Defendor, the Woody Harrelson, Hamilton-shot movie written & directed by an Actor I first met when he was in my Miniseries Across The River to Motor City, Peter Stebbings.  It was great.  A wonderful movie about personal responsibility & heroism & about how ordinary people can do extraordinary things.  On the way back I saw a funny, scabrous dirty heist movie, The High Life -- about four hapless guys trying to pull a bank heist. It was like a rougher Canadian Guy Ritchie movie.  And it was based on a play that I remember seeing in Toronto several years ago.  Yes. That's right. A movie based on a Canadian PLAY.

Accessible, entertaining, Canadian. Made for us. Made by us.  Not the slightest bit elitist.  I also, as I do a lot, flipped through the TV section, lingering over the French language episodes of Les Boys & a Patrick Huard comedy special. I keep hoping one of these days I'm going to see these available on the inflight entertainment system with English subtitles.  I'm curious. I'd like to see what Quebec is watching, too.  And right now my French isn't good enough to follow it. I hope one day to fix that, too.  Because I think that's kind of one of the cool things about Canada.

When you take the iPod buds out of your ears to face a non-Conservative audience, it's amazing the things you'll hear.  You won't like some of it.  But I'm confident you might hear one or two things that could change your perspective a little.

I guess the question is, what's more important to you?  Serving the great nation that Canada is? Or working relentlessly to make it over in the Conservative ideology you support?

There are two Canadian teams in these playoffs, Minister Moore.  You're from Vancouver, and we'll give you a pass for rooting for the Canucks.  But don't tell us who's more Canadian. 

That is not, and will never be your call to make.  If you don't get that, then there's something in your ears besides earbuds.

UPDATE: I stipulate that the "iPod Minister" thing probably came from the Press, not the Honourable MP himself.  Quick on the uptake, if not the accepting of responsibility.  "Lighten up," of course is the familiar riposte of anyone who's ever been taken to task for telling a sexist joke or making an off-colour remark.  I learned from personal experience years ago that "lighten up," is about the worst answer you can make in about 99% of these circumstances.  But it heartens me to think that we won't see any kind of puffed-up or manufactured outrage coming from the Minister the next time a Liberal MP makes a bad joke, or if somebody on a CBC Panel tweeks the government.  It's clearly a new day dawning, where we'll all be able to "lighten up." I salute the brave Minister for choosing to lead the charge.  Follow through, and you'll be a better man than I, Gunga Din.

AND YET ANOTHER UPDATE 05/03: 


A commenter, "Red Snapper" below points out another excellent take on the subtext of this article:

I also question his increasing use of the "block" function. He's actively shunning cultural organizations he's supposed to be standing up for as well as taxpayers who are so outrageous as to now [sic, he means 'not'] fawn over him 24/7.

That's a great point. The Minister got Pissed off at ACTRA a few weeks ago and blocked them, so that he doesn't have to read their responses, and they can't "follow" him.  This is a regular thing now with the Minister.  If you're not in step with his worldview, he does the digerati equivalent of putting hands over ears and petulantly shouting, "naah naah nahh can't hear you!"

You know, part of the rumbles over the Gordon Brown gaffe last week (separate & apart from the debate over whether the woman he spoke to was actually a bigot or not) comes from the fact that deep down, this is what a lot of us fear about politicians -- especially in a Parliamentary system where they're supposed to be more loyal to the party than their constituents -- when the doors are closed, they barely pay lip service to other people's opinions.  We're not naive.  We saw the result of George W. Bush's government shutting out any and all advisors that didn't conform to their worldview:  it transformed government into a purely political apparatus, with disastrous effects for the United States, and the world.  (In contrast, if you'll remember, to the Clinton years, when Republicans had to worry and harrumph over stained dresses because any of their good ideas were actually, you know, embraced by Clinton)

Blocking contrary voices on Twitter just proves that the guy is really, really interested in saying how great he is going around handing out money -- serving his portfolio? Not so much.

We Were Happy To Be Served

AW.  TURNS OUT Leslie Buck has died. It's okay if you have no idea who he was.  Neither did I. But thanks to the eagle-eyes of sometime guest-Stickser Mike McPhaden and Tv-eh's redoubtable Diane Wild, we learn that the man who gave New York its iconic coffee cup has gone to that great steaming lunch counter in the sky.

It was for decades the most enduring piece of ephemera in New York City and is still among the most recognizable. Trim, blue and white, it fits neatly in the hand, sized so its contents can be downed in a New York minute. It is as vivid an emblem of the city as the Statue of Liberty, beloved of property masters who need to evoke Gotham at a glance in films and on television.

It is, of course, the Anthora, the cardboard cup of Grecian design that has held New Yorkers’ coffee securely for nearly half a century. Introduced in the 1960s, the Anthora was long made by the hundreds of millions annually, nearly every cup destined for the New York area.

A pop-cultural totem, the Anthora has been enshrined in museums; its likeness has adorned tourist memorabilia like T-shirts and ceramic mugs. Like many once-celebrated artifacts, though, the cup may now be endangered, the victim of urban gentrification.

Of course, if you're a longtime Sticks reader, this cup might have done more than simply keep your hot beverage warm on that trip to New York.  It might just have made you a better writer.

I'm off this morning to do a workshop on spec writing in a very Grey Winnipeg.  I am reliably informed that all the rain will be creating the standing pools of water that make the bugs so bitchin' in about a week or so.  I am glad I'm on a flight out tonight.

Come up and say 'hi' at the workshop. Hope they get something out of it.

The Power of Self Immolation

IF YOU HAVEN'T seen this piece of tape yet, watch.  It is incredibly painful -- and the reaction is human and instructive. Mortification in action.

In Canada right now we're dealing with a Prime Minister who the majority of the country thinks hides his real views in a similar way.  He's at war with every aspect of the civil service. He's concentrated all the power in the PMO, and gone on the hunt for "enemies of conservatism." Today it's the CBC, but it will be someone else tomorrow.

Oh for one open microphone to catch that slipping mask.

Drama & politics -- it's all about the sudden turn, innit?

Bloody Nice, That.

I'M ONE OF those who thought that the last season of True Blood spun into the dirt a little bit (too much time in the Vampire Hotel & the INTERMINABLE Marianne orgy subplot that packed about three episodes of story into seven episodes... ) but I'd be lying if I said this didn't get my blood going.  Ah.  Fangtastic.

Black Veil in the White Room.

SOMETIMES WHEN YOU find yourself in a hotel room in a strange city looking to do your work, you find they have a pretty kickass stereo but no Ipod input.

And since you don't travel with CD's anymore, you find yourself poring through a strange list of CD's available at the Front Desk.

This can get into odd philosophical territory, as you realize, "oh my God, how many albums has Bublé put out?" And then there's the dagger in the heart that is every single Diana Krall title.  But eventually you make your choices. And sometimes, shamefully, it's a CD you yourself own but have long since forgotten about.

And that's how I came to marvel at the wonder of the Chieftains' 1995 duets album, "The Long Black Veil."

Where to start on this 15 year old wonder?  Mo Ghile Mear (Our Hero) -- maybe the last non-bullshit song Sting ever recorded?  Tom Jones' reading of Tennessee Waltz?  Mick Jagger on Long Black Veil, Sinéad O'Connor on The Foggy Dew?  And on and on, for nearly 59 minutes.  A revelation.

If you don't have it, I suggest clicking above & buying it.  That is all.

Au Revoir (For the Moment)

GONNA TURTLE a bit for a couple days, trying to get some work done & inspiration in one of my favorite cities, Montreal.

Looking forward to a confab tonight at Réservoir Brasserie Artisanale (9 avenue Duluth Est), graciously organized by my friend Alex Epstein.  Hoping to meet a few Montreal writer types I haven't had the pleasure of meeting before.

If Doug Taylor's not surrounded by many women, I will be disappointed.

See y'all later.

Community TV & The CRTC

I'LL BE POPPING up in a number of CBC Morning shows this morning, talking about the CRTC hearings on Community Television & the failure of the cable companies' to provide it over the last twenty years.


To anybody following the saga of the CRTC & its abrogation of responsibility to Canadian citizens, this could seem like one more sordid story of the fixed game & how the regulator favors corporate interests over its watchdog role for Canadians, but even by those lax standards, this story's a bit sordid.


I'll be updating this story throughout the morning in between short hits on the morning shows in Gander, Sudbury, Corner Brook, Yellowknife, Victoria, Calgary, Whitehorse and Vancouver.


* * *


So the story goes like this: once upon a time, Canada helped pioneer the whole idea of "community access tv."  Canadians took to cable tv early, as a way to get those precious U.S. stations in crystal-clear.  This made Canadians very early adopters in the world of cable-delivered television. Even today, the number of homes that subscribe to Cable or satellite is higher, by percentage, than it is in, say, the United States.


As part of the deal to defray the cost-intensive investment of putting in the cable lines in communities across Canada, cable co's were given strong regional monopolies.  In exchange, they were heavily regulated under the Broadcast Act -- rates and conditions of license were set.


One of the most notable of these conditions of license was the rule establishing Community Access TV.  Every cable company with a subscriber base of greater than 20 000 customers was required to pay a levy of 2% of gross revenues, that would go into the maintenance & production of local cable stations. Those local cable stations were to broadcast 30% of programs of local interest, generated by the community. In this way, community tv was supposed to be the third tier of broadcasting in our country -- after public (The CBC, local educational stations like TVO, etc.) and private (CTV, Global.)


A generation of people working in TV got their first start at this community level, receiving their first training as camerapeople, sound people, editors, producers or on air hosts.  I did a movie review show on a suburban Ontario local station when I was in university, and many of the people I met at Ryerson University first cut their teeth on their local community stations.


The mythology of the cable channel went far beyond that.  Viewers in Ottawa first got exposed to shock comic Tom Green through his hilarious and odd local show -- which predated the shock comic's 90's program on MTV.   And anyone familiar with Mike Myers' Wayne Campbell "Wayne's World" SNL sketches & eventual movies know that character was the host of his own Cable show, and the character was based on Myers' own experiences volunteering at his local Scarborough Cable 10 channel.


Where things started to change was 1997. That's when cable was deregulated in this country. Suddenly, the restrictions about cable rates were taken off the local cableco's, and ownership provisions were relaxed.  This triggered a consolidation spree in the industry.   Where there were once dozens of cable companies across the country, slowly bigger players like Shaw, Rogers, and Cogeco gobbled them all up.   This led to a consolidation at the community station level, too.


It might not have been so easy to see in a big city like Toronto, (though what was once Etobicoke Cable 10, Scarborough, North York 10, etc. became one-city wide "community station")  in smaller communities, the "local" programming once made by neighbours started to fade in favour of programs made hundreds of km's away. The local flavour was lost.


Around the same time, the cable companies started to shift their focus away from even trying to fulfill that 30% "access" mandate, and programs on the community channels became more "professional", produced by in house staff.


Incredibly, not once in that entire time did the overseer, the CRTC, ask to review or see any of the cable company's records to make sure they were fulfilling their obligations to Canadians.  So what started as small abuses grew and grew and grew.  When the CRTC did limited reviews in 2002, and 2005 of selected channels, they found so many violations in terms of missing logs, no backups, etc, that a picture of the system was impossible to construct.


What did become clear, through the spin and haze of the community cable debacle, was that the spirit of the enterprise had become entirely compromised. In many cases, cable companies were counting as "access programming," "programs" that were nothing more than barker reels and shills for cable services.   MTV promos were counted as "community programming," and audits revealed that the cable companies ran far more commercials & promos for themselves than they were allowed to by law in any local programs they did run.


In essence, a winfall of over $100 million (2008 numbers) a year that was supposed to provide Canadians' access to the airwaves was being used by the cable co's to underwrite their businesses.  We're talking about $680 million since 2002.




Now think about the fight over "Local TV" and the "TV Tax."  Puts a different spin on it, doesn't it?

No Book Learnin In the Library

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

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

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

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

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

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

Numbers Are For Mugs, See?

EARLIER THIS WEEK, I sat in a sunlit boardroom on the 32nd floor of the Toronto Four Seasons hotel and held my fate in my hands.  It was black, very light, just a couple of ounces, really... and you could slide it into a slot on this device that looked like a card shoe and it made a satisfying "thunk."

That "thunk" was the sound of perceptions changing.  And though it scared me a little, there was also a certain comfort in it.

Ratings are always a fraught subject for anyone who works in Television -- but even moreso in Canada, because the distorted way in which they are used.

In the U.S., ratings data serves a simple purpose -- measuring audiences in order to be able to ascertain how valuable the ad space around those shows is.  That's it.  You know who's watching, when they're watching, and for how long -- and you can turn that information into money.

In the haggling around the money we've come to some interesting accomodations & conclusions in the last little while -- and exploded some myths.  First, despite the hype, way more people are watching shows off air than you'd think.  PVR's have not swallowed viewing altogether.  Also, people watching playback off a PVR usually watch the same night -- and lo and behold -- watch a surprising number of the commercials.  "The Sky is Falling" makes a very dramatic article lede in a newspaper, but the prognostications of imminent network death are a bit premature.  Yes, the model is breaking down. Yes, something else is eventually going to replace it.  But no, we're not talking weeks, months, or even a couple years here.   This system might hang on for another decade, for all we know.

Stretch it to fifteen, and I'm out of the business, most likely, so I'm not quite as down with the abject panic as I might have been last year at this time.

In Canada, however, the ratings data takes on another dimension, because it gets wrapped up in politics.

There's the amusing side -- CTV & Global regularly fire out releases trumpeting the triumph of this show or that show they run; and inevitably they're U.S. programs that they had no hand in making.

Over the last couple years we had the hopeful sign of a couple releases going out to trumpet the premiere numbers of Canadian shows.  Global was thrilled about those premiere numbers for The Guard -- until they settled.   Which is the more relevant number? The 2 Million who tuned in for Little Mosque on the Prairie's premiere? Or the 4 to 500 000 left watching now in Season 4?

Where things get complicated in Canada is ratings data being used to prove a political point. The numbers get poured into all sorts of containers that weren't designed to hold them.

CBC tries to point to their ratings as being way up from a few years back to prove that they're serving Canadians and are more relevant than they've been for years -- and critics of the CBC point to an individual show's (or group of shows) performance against House to try and prove that nobody watches CBC.  CBC is up in viewers.  CBC is losing, and can only draw 600 000 or 700 000 against 3 million on CTV and therefore should be taken out behind the barn and Old Yeller'd or something.

Private stations take the tack of deliberately burying shows in bad timeslots with no promotion so that they can take that lack of ratings gusto and use it to prove to the CRTC that 'nobody wants to watch Canadian shows.'

Nobody's immune from this kind of gaming -- certainly not Creatives.  You have people regularly patting themselves on the back for "huge season average numbers" based on a couple of huge numbers with great lead-ins and a collapsing back half.  You can trumpet your numbers all you want, but if you lose 65% of your lead in, isn't something up?

Not if nobody points it out, there isn't.  You're a success -- and the numbers prove it!

Jim MacLeod, the President of BBM Canada, very graciously walked us through the new methodology of the PPM and how it works earlier this week.  A lot of it has been reported elsewhere before:  the new devices are individual & passive, meaning instead of having to enter in a code to record what you're watching, you just wear it.  It also operates by picking up a code embedded in the audio signal of a program every four seconds. The signal's just outside the range of human hearing.  This change of methodology has, since the rollout last year, resulted in some surprising gains in TV viewing numbers.    Co-Viewing is way up.  You have adults watching a lot more children's programming with their kids, and shows that appeal to a family audience, like Heartland, have seen their numbers go through the roof.

The nice thing about the audio code thing is that it makes it easier to track all sorts of things -- when you played back a recorded show, if you watched the commercials, and even if the show you were watching was from your local feed, or a timeshifted earlier station.  (And the implication is also a window into Bit Torrent use...I imagine if your PPM 'hears' you watching a recording of House from Denver when you're in, say, Nepean, and it knows some kind of chicanery was going down.)

It also allows them to better track and record at-work and out-of-home TV viewing.  At work? Surprisingly high.  Also, out of home viewing tracking is why the numbers for things like Idol & big live sports games are so steroid pumped.

The final numbers on the U.S.-Canada Olympic Hockey Final, by the way?  84% of Canadians watched.  Eighty-four.  That's just crazy.

BBM provides its data to subscribers on a daily basis, with final reports issued periodically. To the public, it issues a list of the Top 30 programs of the week, just like in the U.S.  You can see that data here.

The problem with that list, of course, is that because of the nature of our colonized broadcast landscape, it's mostly U.S. shows.  You're very rarely going to find any Canadian shows in the Top 30, and most of the time if you do, it's reality, news, or sports.

Forever Starts Tonight.

Oh Yes, bitches. Just TRY to unsee it.

Housekeeping/Commenting note

WHEN I SWITCHED over the template, I somehow inadvertently changed the commenting options to narrow the range of people that could comment.

The settings are now back to where they should be, ie: anyone with an Open ID.  Their site explains it better...but if you use any of the following services, you might already have an Open ID, or get one easily:

Google, Blogger, Yahoo!, Flickr, Livejournal, Myspace, Wordpress, AOL and many more.  Sorry for the mixup.  Sign in and comment away.

July 25, 2010.

THAT'S ALL YOU NEED to know.

But How Was It, Really?

YOU CAN READ all about the winners of the 2010 Canadian Screenwriting Awards here, but c'mon... how was the party? 

Packed in like newts, nobody shut up til Peter Mitchell quieted them down with a hilarious & digified speech, and host Deb Digiovanni hosted like a champ.   Oh and I finally got to talk to (sigh) Geri Hall.

But never mind me. What did y'all think?

Great Event. What I liked: a) Amazing food, thank god, due to (b) Awesome open bar that (c) Stayed open/free after the ceremony. Loved Shelley Eriksen's speech about Peter Mitchell [Where she explained that "he does not hate you, he is just socially awkward"]- very lovely, not to mention Emmy/Oscar-worthy. My only complaint was the volume - it was almost impossible to hear anybody, but hey, that's apparently what the kids like. I just think next time it should maybe be held in a forest.   ANNE FENN

Thought the show was terrific, even though longer than it has been.  But that was our fault, we wrote too much.  Deborah de Giovanni was killer.  So much energy!  Lowlight -- still how much people talk during the awards.  Highlight -- John Krizanc.  His acceptance speech nailed the irreverence (how's that for Canadian understatement?) we aimed for when these awards were first created.   CHARLES LAZER

It is great just to be nominated, but it is a little disappointing not to win.  I always seek comfort in quantum physics which posits that, in a parallel universe, I did win, while in another parallel universe I was too busy defending the princess against an invading army of nazi dinosaurs to even worry about it.  DENNIS HEATON

Who dosed John Krizanc with sodium pentathol before he got to the podium? God damn Miss Eriksen gives good speech and congrats to Pete Mitchell - so deserved that award.  MATT MACLENNAN 

Highlight:  discovering that @wcdixon doesn’t just live between the bits and bytes of the Internet Lowlight:  discovering that not everyone thought ‘and the minister tweets’ was as funny as I did KELLY LYNNE ASHTON (WGC Director of Policy) 

It's clear the recession has still got its hold on writers, judging by the number of people cadging cigarettes last night instead of carrying their own. And I have to say I miss the good old days when there JUST WEREN'T THAT MANY PEOPLE.  Are we all really competing with THAT MANY PEOPLE?  That being said, I thought the cheers for nominated writers were heartfelt and heartwarming.  Great to hear our own applauding our own.  And hey, brave of Shelley Scarrow to admit to all our fears when she accepted her award.  Highlight for me, though, had to be Pete Mitchell getting the mentorship award.  Long overdue - even if the award's only lasted a few years.  SHELLEY ERIKSEN


Heather Conkie wins Showrunner of the Year– first woman to win ever!  She was Dear Aunt Agnes!! (the 3 people I was standing with didn’t know what that was, but some random guy at the bar said, “yes! I loved that show!) ALEX HOUSE


Among many, some highlights include Heather Conkie taking home the Showrunner Award  [For Heartland, a show that in its 4th season pulls close to 2 million viewers every Sunday night on CBC] Shelley Scarrow's speech and dress, Debra DiGiovanni's hosting and material co-written by Steve and Daniel Shehori, Shelley Eriksen's introduction to Pete Mitchell, and Pete Mitchell's advice on managing a writing staff and, inadvertently, marriage: give [them] space [to do their thing].

Lowlight: it's the same drill every year but so many writers talking through the awards to honor writers in an industry where we complain about our voices not being heard.  I kept this short because you asked for 25 words or less (as if!) but I could go on. The biggest highlight is and always will be connecting with writers I mostly only see on these occasions unless I'm fortunate enough to be working with them.  KAREN McCLELLAN

From Peter Mitchell to Heather Conkie's exceptionally graceful speeches about how much they've learned from the writers they've worked with, the importance of mentorship in this industry is something that can easily be glossed over, so it was brilliant to see it celebrated. Oh, and the cupcakes and free booze were nice.  ELIZE MORGAN


Once again I had a blast. The WGC National Forum and Writers Guild Awards party was like my Martin Blank high school reunion in Gross Pointe, but without the awkward and messy pen kill by the lockers...though I was tempted to take out Mitchell just for being so awesome. And I learned to accept 'Hey I know you from the internet!' as my thang. And was really happy to see Rob Cooper win for his Stargate Universe script. Congrats and cheers to all. WILL DIXON

Lowlight -- I didn't get to chat with you. Shithead.  CYNTHIA KNIGHT 


Alrigthy then.  That's a wrap.  Feel free to continue it in the comments below. 





  

Of Awards & Big Breaks & Hard Work

SECOND DAY TODAY of the WGC National Forum.  This is an initiative every year where the Writer's Guild reports to its members by selecting representatives from across the country to get together & discuss pressing industry & craft issues.  As is usual in these events, the best conversations you have are the in-betweeners over coffee & at lunch; a chance to take the temperature of how things are going other places in the country. The short answer: things are tough all over -- but somehow the Quebecers manage to take the "things are tough all over" & torque it with a little more elan.

Beyond that there's not a lot I can say because it's made very clear that the sessions are in camera & a "tweet free" zone. 

I'm bending that here for just one reason. There's a  little bit of a stately & sombre pall over the proceedings this year because it also marks the last meeting with Rebecca Schechter as WGC President. 

Rebecca has served ably for the last several years, during a period of both growth & maturity for the Guild.  Her measured, calm demeanor in the face of some truly stunning industry developments has made the Writers Guild of Canada a leading voice in the fight for culture. 

One of the things that Rebecca and Maureen Parker, the Guild's Executive Director, have done over the years is go to meetings of international Writers groups.  Would it surprise you to know that after the WGA, the WGC is the largest and strongest creative guild in that coalition?  That's testimony to the work Parker and Schechter & those who preceded them have done all along.

The other thing that comes out of forum is a chance to see just how hard the staff of the Guild works.  They're capable people, and many of them could perhaps earn more money working somewhere else -- but they continue to fight the good fight for writers in this country.

Tonight's the WGC Screenwriting Awards.  During the (awesomely short!) awards, I'm reasonably sure Rebecca will be mentioned - but if you're attending, try to find a moment to thank her, and the incredible WGC Staff -- who all work to bring the awards together too.

I'm going to shift gears here for a second, and I hope the why will become self-evident.  One of the big things I'm always asked by students & new writers is a version of "how do I break in?" and I give the answer that I've always given... the answer that was given me -- there's no one way, everyone has to find their way in, it helps to have luck but you make your own luck, etc.  The truth is that tenacity & perseverance always play a major role.  So it is that I was gladdened to open up my email this morning and get this from my agent:

In case you are unaware today is Chris Pozzebon’s last day here at Meridian as my assistant.

I can’t say enough about how grateful I have been to have Chris as my right-hand-man since 2008.   Through thick and thin Chris has been the bedrock that kept Meridian on course day to day.   Numerous times I have leaned on him more than the job called for and he delivered to Meridian and our clients more than he as required to.    As an employer I try to make the office a good place to come to work every day and since his first day Chris has help set that tone with his insight, sense of humour and generosity.   Week to week he has been a good friend to everyone who has come through the door be it intern, employee or client and I am sad to be losing his daily presence in our lives.

That said, that while we are losing Chris today as an assistant I am happy to announce that we are gaining him as a client.   While working hard every day at Meridian Chris has been equally diligent in his free time having written a great new pilot and a How I Met Your Mother spec (in addition to directing a short and producing another!).   While we are unsure exactly where Chris’s first gig will be, I can assure you it will not be too long a wait as he has demonstrated tremendous talent and work ethic while he is here and I don’t see him slowing down now that he has his days free.

See? You make your own luck & you find your way.  So I gotta find Chris tonight and buy him a drink, and hopefully some time very soon the WGC will welcome a new member & that, my friends, is just how it goes.

Finally -- here's an obituary from the L.A. Times you all should read.  

Dede Allen, the film editor whose seminal work on Robert Rossen's "The Hustler" in 1961 and especially on Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde" in 1967 brought a startling new approach to imagery, sound and pace in American movies, died Saturday. She was 86.

Allen, who was nominated for Academy Awards for "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975), "Reds" (1981) and "Wonder Boys" (2000), died at her Los Angeles home days after having a stroke, said her son, Tom Fleischman.

Allen was the first film editor -- male or female -- to receive sole credit on a movie for her work. The honor came with "Bonnie and Clyde," a film in which Allen raised the level of her craft to an art form that was as seriously discussed as cinematography or even directing.

It's generally assumed whenever the tiresome subject of the "posessory credit" comes up (ie: "A Film By,") that it's just an ego fight between big headed writers and wannabe auteur directory types. But this speaks to the heart of the issue from a craft point of view. 

It takes a lot of people to make a film or a TV show.  Editing is generally acknowledged as the third time you get to write a filmed work.  The script is the first time, shooting it is the second -- and then editing.  The collaborative nature of the business is what makes it so rewarding and exciting and frequently so heartbreaking. And it's when you read of the contributions of a woman like Dede Allen that you realize how hollow "A Film By" really is.  We really should know Michael Bay's name more than hers?

In TV, part of the nice thing about the Showrunner position is that it's acknowledged as the person who runs things, but it's a labor or craft -- not a credited -- distinction.  The Showrunner might be the Executive Producer, but they are rarely the only Executive Producer.  Everybody knows that the Director runs the set, and runs the show.  To take it beyond that is just ... unseemly.

And it doesn't take account of the Dede's out there.

So maybe if there's a theme in this ramble of a post, it's this: today, if you're at the awards tonight, if you're trying to figure out your way in, or whereever you are -- make today a day to celebrate the value of hard work from those who rarely get their due.  The people who just quietly get it done and make us all better.  We all stand on their shoulders.  They may not all be giants -- but they certainly help us  walk a little bit taller.

A Sher Thing.

IT'S  A FUNNY thing when you're sitting there in your WGC meeting, hearing the latest sturm and drang, and the vibrating of your iPad alerts you to a happy little story like this in the Hollywood Reporter.

Rob Sheridan lands Warner Bros. TV pilot deal

Lands blind pilot script deal for a six-figure package

By Etan Vlessing

April 16, 2010, 11:23 AM ET

TORONTO -- Canadian screenwriter Rob Sheridan is partnering with Warner Bros. Television to develop a comedy.

The blind pilot script deal will see Toronto-based Sheridan, whose writer, story editor and producer credits include HBO Canada's "Less Than Kind," the CBC's "Little Mosque on the Prairie," and CTV's "Corner Gas," land a six-figure package and move to Los Angeles this summer to start developing a half-hour comedy series.

"WBTV have produced some of my favorite television comedies and I think together we'll be able to create something special," Sheridan said.

Rob is one of my bestest writer peeps. We met at the Canadian Film Centre about -- oh my God it's nearly ten years ago now.  (He was 14.  You're welcome, Sheridan.)  Rob is a meticulous & dedicated comedy writer, and above-average commiserator.  His dedication to his craft is unparalleled. He's very funny.  He's exactly the guy that should have a six figure blind script deal.

So, further to a column by Jim Henshaw here, and my own recent lament here, I ask you, gentle reader, what does it say that while Rob was being written up in the Hollywood Reporter, I was hearing about the new "Canadian Content" on CTV -- The Borgias, follow up to The Tudors, about an Italian noble family.  (No Canadian writers.)  or CBC's upcoming Camelot. (No Canadian writers.)

These shows will get tax credits because maybe there's a few Canadian actors in supporting roles, and they manage to satisfy the co-production treaty requirements by doing post here, for instance.

But let's not kid ourselves. 

I've worked with Rob on a couple of his development projects.  They were funny.  They didn't go. I've read his spec scripts. Hilarious.  He won a Screenwriting award for a Corner Gas he co-wrote a couple years back.

I can tell you with all authority that Rob, while hilarious and morose and yes, single, ladies, I'm just saying -- is no funnier today than he was yesterday.  Yet today I know in my heart he is more desirable to Canadian producers or Canadian networks, because he's going away.  Probably for good.

And that's fucked.

Rob never got a blind pilot deal here, though you'd have had to be blind not to see the guy had chops.

In fact, he'd probably be the first to tell you that he's sure that half the producers in this country would never have heard of him.

Well, Rob, your friends -- over 57 of them at last count had posted bittersweet congratulations on his Facebook page in just a few hours -- we always knew you had the funny in you.  We'll be sad to see you go -- but happy that your talent is getting its due. May it be the start of great things.

Now if you don't mind, I think I'm going to go somewhere and get me a nice glass of bourbon.

UPDATE:  It has been pointed out to me that Rob DID get a blind pilot deal -- from a very, very, aggressive and interesting prodco that's part Just For Laughs, Part Muse.  Kudos for them, -- but hardly surprising as they operate in Quebec, where they respect talent.   And no uptake from Cdn nets.  But I did not in anyway mean to diminish their effort.  More of that, not less, and with timely intent, keeps talent here.

But whatever. I still feel like King Canute ordering the sea to turn back.

Freelancing for SGU: Ya Gotta Have Faith

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- Whatever did it all mean?

Smartypants Has Act Two Problems

SOME DAYS, WHEN you're a screenwriter, you just need an extra lift to keep going.  Like, oh, I don't know ... how about this nifty Salon article on the unproduced screenplays of famous intellectuals?

It's actually courtesy of two of my favorite reads that I don't have time for: The Believer magazine, and the always amusant McSweeney's. (Now available in an iPhone app!)

Vladimir Nabokov
As a struggling young writer in Berlin, Vladimir Nabokov once wrote a phenomenally depressing screenplay titled "The Love of a Dwarf" (1924). The protagonist, a sexually frustrated London circus dwarf, has a one-night stand with the depressed, childless wife of a circus magician. The dwarf quits the circus and retires to a small northern town, waiting vainly for the magician’s wife to join him. Eight years later, she turns up on his doorstep, announces that he has a son, and rushes away. The dwarf pursues her, but dies of a heart attack at her feet. To the gathering onlookers, the magician’s wife announces that her son died a few days ago. In 1939, Esquire printed a short-story version of "The Love of a Dwarf," titled "The Potato Elf": it was Nabokov’s first American publication.

Read more at Salon.

Fantastic. Now If It's Not Too Much Trouble...

COULD YOU ALL START spending some fucking dosh on Canadian development, please?   You know? The thing you're supposed to give back to the system? The money you haven't been spending for the last year or more?

Corus Declares Canadian Ad Recession Over.

TORONTO -- Canadian broadcaster Corus Entertainment says the country's deep advertising slump is in the rear view mirror.

etc. etc.

Don't mean to pick on Corus alone -- everybody clanged that handbag shut. And I'm really, really glad they're making money, and talking about Advertising coming back.   Chop chop, though.  People are dyin' out here.

Bad Mercer! Bad!

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

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

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

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

The article gets more interesting from there.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everything & The Kitchen Sink

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

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

Which brings me to my kitchen. 

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

Except.

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

See where I'm going here?

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

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

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

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

I wish I'd told them about the faucet.

Interrogation Goodness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The RCMP Interrogation tapes:

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

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

Do You Like Gladiator Movies, Billy? Or... a bit of experimentation.

STILL KICKING THE tires a bit on this new Blogger in Draft thing.  I know I tend to sometimes write long entries, and so I've been experimenting the last few with the new create a 'jump' feature.  This allows more entries on the main page, and means less scrolling for the casual browser, but means you have to click to read the full article.  Just like in Newspaper sites. Opinions? Yes/No? 

Domestic Partnerships are Nifty!

LIKE MANY PEOPLE living in Canada, I've been looking at this photo on and off for the last 24 Hours.

Have You Heard the News? There's Good Rockin' Tonight!

That's Chad Kroeger, the lead singer of arguably the most hated band in the world, Nickelback, with the Prime Minister of Canada  Stephen "Don't call me Steve" Harper, at the door of the Prime Ministerial residence, 24 Sussex Drive.

I don't quite know where to begin with all the things that are wrong, so very, very, very wrong with this picture. The one armed half-hug.  The pink shirt. (For those not in the Canadian know, the PM is the type of guy who buys his blue shirts & leaves the hanger in when he wears them.) During the last campaign, they put him in a warm and fuzzy sweater in front of a fireplace, and kittens everywhere started to explode.  This guy's about as warm and fuzzy as a glass of orange juice poured onto a canker.

Notes From a Screeny Weekend

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

1)  Ted Danson is apparently a Mensch.

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

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

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

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

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

Ladies and gentlemen, THAT is lucky.

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

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

Stargatin!

VERY COOL.  One of the best things for me, personally, to come out of the Toronto Screenwriting Conference this past weekend was a quick chance to chat with Robert C. Cooper, one of the co-Creators & Executive Producers of SGU Stargate Universe.

I was lucky enough to freelance an episode of this show early last year, and it finally airs this Friday on Syfy in the USA (Space in Canada).  Here's the promo for FAITH:




I've really been enjoying SGU, especially as it's gone on and the characters deepened. The last two shows, culminating with "Divided" last week, really shows the political complications of this group of people out there on this ship all alone.

As a freelancer, of course, my script was heavily rewritten, first by Carl Binder, and then I'm guessing by Cooper & Brad Wright -- but I was very pleased to see when I read the final script that my story survived, except, of course, everybody had made it MUCH MORE AWESOME.

I'll have more to say about the funny world of the freelancer later in the week -- but for now the best news was Cooper telling me that the show turned out REALLY, REALLY WELL.  I'm psyched to see it!

One other massive piece of trivia that came out of Cooper's Q&A with Karen Hill yesterday -- did you know that Stargate, after 15 years and 3 shows, has just about hit the milestone of generating a BILLION DOLLARS for the Canadian economy?

That's billion with a B.

Wow.

That and the Blue Jays home opener tonight = good mood for Daddy.

Welcome Back, Coco.

IF TBS starts outdrawing NBC, there's gonna be blood.

Treme & What It Means

THERE IS A moment of delicate, incredibly uncommon beauty that arrives near the end of the premiere episode of Treme, (HBO, 10pm) David Simon & Eric Overmyer's unabashed love letter to the damaged & ravaged city of New Orleans.
Clarke Peters, (so memorable as Lester Freamon in The Wire) plays a Mardi Gras Indian named Albert, who returns to the city as soon as he can after Katrina. His house is wrecked. His daughter, and later his son have shown up to try to convince him that there's nothing to return to, that his tribe is scattered to the four winds. They can't understand why he's being so stubborn. He asks for help and support but others won't help him, "You're not even in my tribe," says one sympathetic, but unyielding associate.
And then, out of pitch darkness, emerges Albert, moving slowly, ritually, with the chant full in his throat. He is decked out in his full outfit -- a stunning white Indian headdress. It makes the argument -- the plea for help, that New Orleans couldn't make itself using logic, or words, or economic models -- about why an impractical and ruined city below sea level must come back.
You're forgiven if there's much in the previous two paragraphs you don't understand. The opening song provides a map to the answer -- "Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?"

Polish Notes

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

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

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

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

It's Foggy Anyway.

SO WHY NOT a little abject depression with your coffee?

Why are creatives alternately depressed & pissed off right now?  Well, let Will Dixon tell you.

And then there's the fact that the only place that IS actually spending money on Cancon just basically absorbed a cut that equals, oh, one series.

And The Great LOST Battle Royal Continues...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Have a Take. Don't Suck"

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

A tiny taste:

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Pugnacious D" is available online here.

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

Toronto Screenwriting Conference News

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

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

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

One Small Multitouch For a Man....

ALRIGHT, SO HERE I am sitting in the Orlando airport, waiting for my flight home to Toronto. I've launched Pages for the first time, and I've got the case set up on the angle to provide a platform to type.

My first blog on the IPad.

The keyboard isn't quite big enough to touch type but with predictive text and two blazing fingers of hunt and peck I'd say. I'm capable of about fifty words a minute which isn't bad.

for all the fooferal about the lack of multitasking what they haven't said is that it's third party apps. I can listen to music as I type. I'm doing that now. I can also download in the background. Switching between apps is blazing. my battery last night lasted about 13 hours.

I downloaded two books from the bookstore. Beautiful. Crisp and clear. The Amazon kindle book app is outstanding. They were ready. my favorite game is Scrabble. they did a great job on it.

judging by the ABC app, which I'll probably lose access to when I hit Canada, it kicks flashes ass. Hulu where I was staying was choppy. This is smooth as hell.

Did I mention it was fast?

This is easier to use than an iPhone. I'm as suspicious of hype as anyone else. But this really feels Star Trek to me.

More later.

Bodice Ripping Weekend fun

FOR THE RELIGIOUS this weekend has one meaning. For some it's just a long weekend.  For me, a lapsed Catholic, it means that I won't go to church (not with all that boy-touching all over the news) but I won't eat meat today (As I had a character say once in a script, "just because I don't believe in God doesn't mean I don't fear him. That's just common sense.")  Oh, and I'll spend most of the day thinking about the iPad I'm going to pick up tomorrow, so I guess, what, that counts as worshipping Mammon or something. 

Yeah. I'm probably screwed.

But hey, if you happen to be by your TeeVee on Easter Sunday night, you get a great old fashioned yarn done new with blood & guts and stuff -- complete with some fine Canadian artists working on it.  (Not writers, but hey, we'll work on that later.)


As the release put it:

BEN HUR is a gut-wrenching, action-packed drama about the struggle between the Roman Empire and its rebellious conquest Judaea, and two best friends caught in a terrible moment in history. This brand new, Canadian co-produced, two-part miniseries premieres on CBC Television on Easter Sunday, April 4 at 8 p.m. and concludes on Sunday, April 11 at 8 p.m.

Joseph Morgan (Alexander, Master and Commander) stars as Judah Ben Hur and Stephen Campbell Moore (Amazing Grace, The History Boys) is Octavius Messala, life-long friends on the opposite sides of a war for Judaea’s national identity that tests their characters to the maximum.

The stellar international cast also includes Emily VanCamp (Brothers & Sisters, Everwood) as Esther, Hugh Bonneville (Notting Hill, Mansfield Park) as Pontius Pilate,
Ray Winstone (Beowulf, The Departed) as Quintus Arrius, James Faulkner (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Good Shepherd) as Marcellus Agrippa, Alex Kingston (ER, Law & Order: SUV) as Ruth, Kristin Kreuk (Smallville) as Tirzah, Lucia Jimenez (Butterflies and Lightning) as Athene, Ben Cross (Star Trek, Chariots of Fire) as Emperor Tiberius and Kris Holden-Reid (The Tudors, Waking Up Wally: The Walter Gretzky Story) as Gaius.

 This is going to air in the USA too, but not til Christmas.  So Canada for once gets a show first!

Integration Evil

LAST NIGHT's IPAD integrated "Ipad" storyline on MODERN FAMILY made for the unfunniest episode of the season thus far.


And paradoxically, it made me want one EVEN MORE.


Sometimes I hate my gadgety weakness.


Oooh, and now there are reviews. Reviews! I say, and they're rapturous!


Shiny. Shiny. Shiny.


Two more sleeps.

Round Two on the CRTC's TV Policy

IT'S CALLED THE "kick it to the curb" hour -- where you announce stuff that's going to be unpopular just before the weekend, especially before a long weekend, and this is one they're really going to want to kick to the curb.

The CRTC's decision over the new TV policy continues to cause ripples a week later.  Jim Henshaw has his own patented (and pessimistic) view of the proceedings here.

One of the less talked about provisions in the new policy is the idea that Canadian broadcasters will now be able to demand blackouts on U.S. nets for programs where they own the Canadian rights, if they're not able to show in simulcast. This creates somewhat of a technological problem for the cable and satellite companies, who'd need to hire more people just to keep track of the blue bars all over the schedule.

Simultaneous substitution, of course, is the thing that the Canadian private networks built their fortunes on -- being able to piggyback on U.S. net publicity and show their bought & borrowed shows on two channels at once.

Well, in the spirit of last year's duelling commercials fight, Canada's top two cablers aren't going to make it that easy.  They're set to announce by end of business that they're pulling all U.S. network feeds from the cable packages in sixty days.  This will predictably cause outrage and hate from customers, which the companies will blame entirely on the networks, saying that pulling the U.S. signals was the only way that they could keep people's bills by going up by more than 10 bucks a month.  

"Don't blame us, blame the networks" is going to be the new mantra.

This pretty scorched earth policy was made clear in a press release that leaked a little early over Canada Newswire this morning.

The networks aren't down and out themselves, either.  The WGC is apparently learning that petitions to the CMF and the CRTC will seek to re-define as CanCon any program in which somebody tells somebody else "I'm sorry."

What a stupid fucking industry.

The Border Says Goodbye

LAST NIGHT IN Toronto, a group of cast & crew from THE BORDER gathered for a sort of informal celebration & wake for the CBC series, which was canceled earlier this month after three seasons.

The cancellation hadn't been too much of a surprise, as the series had spent its last season as cannon fodder in the extremely competitive spot of Thursday at 9pm, up against Grey's Anatomy, CSI and The Office.

I wasn't able to attend the soiree since I'm still on vacation in Florida, but send out a bunch of good wishes to my friends & former colleagues.

A couple weeks back I ran into series lead James McGowan (Major Mike Kessler) at a local restaurant and we shared a drink and a wistful toast to the show.

Good people & and good work.

This morning, series Executive Producer Peter Raymont sent out the following email:

It was heartwarming to share a drink and a hug with so many cast and crew members at last evening's Border get-together at C'est What. What a wonderful family.

When listing the 25 countries around the world that are now broadcasting The Border in 11 languages, I neglected to mention the many nominations and awards our series has received:

19 Gemini nominations and 2 awards for Seasons One and Two, and likely many more to come for Season Three;

4 DGC nominations and 1 award;

An award at The Banff TV Festival;

8 nominations at the prestigious Monte Carlo Television Awards.

Stephanie Gorin also calculated that she has cast 217 visible minority actors in The Border, some of whom were getting their first opportunity to perform on television. This is wonderful. The Border reflects Canada's great cultural and ethnic diversity more effectively than any other TV show.

Millions of Border fans around the world will be enjoying our series for many years to come.

Lindalee always envisioned a family of like-minded artists who'd bring all their diverse skills and passions together to create The Border. I am delighted that we fulfilled her dream.

The 38 episodes of The Border stand as an extraordinary achievement in creativity and excellence. I hope you feel great pride in what we accomplished.

We look forward to working with you all again soon on a new drama series.

I left The Border at the end of Season 2 on my own terms, having learned much & had a whole lot of laughs.  I was more than pleased to see the show continue in Season 3 with many top flight episodes.

On the surface, The Border's passing really does seem to fit into a larger narrative... born in an immediate post-9/11 world, the show occupied a similar if not the same place as 24 in terms of what it was and what it represented.

Except that at its best, the show was also more than that.  Not a day goes by when I walk down the street in the city I call home where I'm not reminded that the borderless, globalized world is alive and well in Toronto.  Interracial couples kiss & hold hands and no one blinks, beautiful children with mixed features beam out from every school photo; a pass through the downtown Dundas Square will net you snatches of conversations in dozens of languages.

That brings challenges to a society, to be sure... and unlike 24, where minorities often filled only the role of faceless threat, The Border brought you into family units under pressure, trying to find their way in a new world.

Hating on Toronto is a national pastime in Canada.  But I have to say that one of the things that makes me proudest, and that makes me uncomfortable when I go to some other places in Canada -- is the loss of the teeming rainbow of faces I take for granted.  I'm a city person; a New Yorker by birth, a Torontonian by habit.  Homogeneity scares me a little bit.  It's ironic that a show about Borders came closest to showing the world I live in, where the real barriers may still be invisible, but the borders are wide open.

R.I.P. David Mills

SO LONG,  Undercover Black Man.  You'll be missed, and admired forever.  Alan Sepinwall has the most appropriate and heartfelt eulogy here.

Somebody Always Finds a Way

WAY TOO MUCH sunshine to waste. So today let me just share a thought.  When I saw "Unforgiven" I thought, "clearly nobody is ever going to be able to make a Western that's any good ever again."  And then Milch made Deadwood. And I thought, "Okay, now everything's gonna be a retread." And then Graham Yost channels Elmore Leonard and comes up with Justified.

Similarly, I thought when I saw "Shaun of the Dead" that that had to be the last zombie movie ever.  Cue  Zombieland.  And I hadn't even read World War Z yet.  Now AMC's got a new series coming up called Walking Dead from Frank Darabont (based on a graphic novel, I know.)

Vampires were utterly played out for me, especially the My-Little-Pony-Tweelight kind, and then I saw Let the Right One In.

Whether it's modern dress Shakespeare, or a teen romcom or a costume drama or vampires or a buddy picture, just because 90% of everything is derivative, and just because most of the time knockoffs suck, doesn't mean there's no way to do something with a fresh take. There's always a way.

So...are you going to find that way? Or settle for being a hack?