A couple of interesting stories yesterday with special interest for anyone in Canadian TV.
First, in the ongoing saga of "what's going to happen with CBC, anyway?," they hired a new head of Arts yesterday.
Fred Fuchs sounds to be an intriguing choice. Besides the "marquee value" (Oh man, he worked with Coppola!) he's got a lot of what will make CBC'ers and other Cantypes swoon: he's had a career in the States, he comes out of line producing to creative, so he actually has a good handle on both the economics and the creative side of things. And did we mention Coppola? (Actually, Virgin Suicides wasn't that bad either.)
Basically, what this means is that Fred Fuchs will be the guy who develops, and previously announced VP Kirstine Leyfield will program and oversee the whole schedule.
For my money, the most interesting thing about Fuchs is that he moved back to Canada to be with his wife, who's from Toronto. He quit California to come here and has been making it as an independent producer. And he thinks -- as I do -- that the future of storytelling in Canada is in TV not film. He's got a foot in both worlds, and that, to me, is the key to telling Canadian stories in the future. We are a nation concerned with the world, not ourselves -- and there's no one we're concerned with more than the U.S. A bit of a shakeup to the system is just what's needed.
So my quiet optimism continues. I think he's in for a shock when he sees what the culture of the CBC is like inside -- but as an outsider himself, he's not tied to the same old people who bring the same old programs. The next three months should be pretty interesting.
It's certainly better than the other piece of news CBC got yesterday. The giant headquarters on Front Street, christened "Fort Dork" during the Lockout, was originally developed in the 1980's and early 90's so that CBC could have a unified production presence downtown, instead of being spread over 80 buildings in downtown Toronto, as it used to be. A few years ago, the brain trust decided that they could make money by renting a floor to tenants. Then, post lockout, the big idea was to squeeze the people making programs into even smaller spaces so they could pimp out more of the "broadcast centre." Well, the City of Toronto yesterday told them they were not interested in that idea at all. That was their big money making idea. Renting out the extra rooms.
Hoo-boy.
Meanwhile, my whole past talk about private TV networks here congratulating themselves for being great shoppers is now out in the zeitgeist with a nifty figure to back it up. A study released yesterday showed that Canadian private networks spend almost five times the amount of money on buying U.S. programs as they do producing Canadian ones. The full story is here. Even if you don't give a fig about TV drama, you gotta admit, the optics on that don't look great.
Hopefully, that might dull -- just a bit -- the preening and self-congratulatory sense of self-importance of some of the acquisition-types swanning around Toronto. What a kick it would be if occasionally, that bubble got pierced with a "Good for you. You can shop. But can you make hits?"
After all, it may be fun, but I don't think American Idol's doing much for Canadian Culture.
Though I still think we need a few new standard bearers for the cause. It's time that the press stopped trotting out ACTRA spokespeople and Ian Morrison from Friends of Canadian Broadcasting every time a story like this gets published. I mean, do they even bother to get new quotes? Or do they just rewrite the old ones?
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
And then the lightning bolt hit him...
George W. Bush on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez:
"Hi Pot? It's Kettle..."
I hate to quote Friends, but y'know, since it's nominally a TV writing blog and all.
"I judge the president based upon his honoring of the institutions that make democracy sound in Venezuela ... And it's very important for leaders throughout the hemisphere, whether they agree with America or not, to honor the tenets of democracy. And to the extent he doesn't do that, then I believe he should be subject to criticism."
"Hi Pot? It's Kettle..."
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
A little Ipecac for Cana'jun TeeVee Scribes.
Kelly J. Compeau alerted me to this post from TVwriter.com when she reposted it in a comment over on Alex's blog. I don't check out tvwriter.com too much, but I have a friend, a working writer, who swears that Larry Brody's insights helped him a lot. The full discussion is here.
Here, to me anyway, are the most relevant parts:
But the thing is, I can't really fault much of what's said there.
Now, I can quibble -- especially with the part about Canadian directors. For every Jeremy Podeswa who finds his way directing U.S. TV, there are other Canadians who are used to being auteurs in our small film industry, who misunderstand the role of the director on the TV series, and who fail horribly. There are horror stories that people in the know have heard about big-time (such as it is) Canadian directors who have screwed up series because they didn't follow the template or "make the show." These are things whispered in confidence, not usually shouted. Nor shall they be here.
There's also a reciprocal element that might not be familiar to American readers, but that I'm sure any Canadian, UK, Irish, Australian or French readers will understand (okay, maybe not the French) -- and that is the rule of nationalistic mediocrity.
That rule can be boiled down to this: If they work in the U.S., they must be better. This rule has allowed many people to get away with murder in Canada. It doesn't matter what the relative quality of the U.S. credits were -- merely that they had them. Agin. No names.
But what of the central point, here? The idea that
It's depressing. But back when I was reading scripts for cash, I was dismayed to see several high profile projects that were on their way into production where the plot took forever to get going, and where things were hopelessly muddled.
There's a lot of reasons that could be behind this. One is a lack of opportunity and mentorship for beginning writers. As I've said here many times before, fewer shows and fewer episode orders mean a dearth of opportunity for new writers to get better by learning from experienced showrunners and moving up the ladder. In the U.S., you move up the ladder, taking on more and more responsibility (and greater skill) as you go. Here, often the only way to break in is to create your own show...sometimes long before you're ready, or even have that much TV experience. And unlike the UK, there isn't great support for playwriting here, so that you can matriculate in the theatre, and move to television as an accomplished writer in another medium.
Then there's the problem of lack of opportunity. It enforces a sort of clubby nepotism, at best, or outright cronyism at worst -- where the same people keep getting projects because they have gotten "into the club." I would never, ever point fingers at any show or writer in specifics -- because TV, like all art, is subjective. What I consider genius might leave you cold. (I will also delete anyone slagging off any particular writer or show in the comments below...this is no place to settle scores.)
I do think it's pretty telling that in Canada, I'm considered to be a "young writer," when in L.A., I'd be considered practically geriatric.
Another reason for the problems of slowness and pacing could be the fact that there are a lot of non-writers creating shows here. A deal is so hard to put together, and in many cases, the person with final say isn't necessarily a gifted writing showrunner. They could be a very fine producer, or salesperson, but not so much with the writing. The writer's voice is marginalized or ignored, or treated as a voice in the chorus, no more influential or meaningful than any other.
Or they're hired too late in the process. The desire to pinch pennies and maximize budget means that once a show gets out of development and gets greenlit, the writers they hire don't have too much lead time before shooting (to save on weekly salaries.) That's penny wise and pound foolish, nine times out of ten.
"Head Writer" is a term that you see used in Canada for series all the time. In the United States, you don't see that credit except on panel or sketch shows like Letterman, or The Daily Show or SNL. You certainly don't see it on drama series. To Americans used to the progressing (writer-based) titles of Staff Writer, Story Editor, Executive Story Editor, Co-Producer, Producer, Supervising Producer, Co-Executive Producer, Executive Producer it's going to be pretty puzzling, too. The head writer is different than the US system because whatever influence they have is really at the discretion of the Producer (who doesn't write.) They could have a lot of influence. They could have none. Trust me, to those of us concerned with improving our craft through steady work and learning, it's a little frustrating, because there's no way to know what kind of situation you're going to be in until you're in it. In TV, if the writing is not respected and given its due, then only three things can replace it: the ascendency of the actors (which comes with its own set of problems) or directors (who will always favor their particular episode over what's good for the series as a whole) or, more likely, the power will rest with a non-writing producer (who have the production on their mind, and who may, or may not, have good story sense. If you come from a writing background, you can get very quickly when something's up or wrong with the script. If you don't...it's a crapshoot.)
Of course, the best non-writing producers are the ones who do listen to their writers. The ones who will allow a case to be made for why it needs to be this way, not that way, and, when the case makes sense, nod their heads and go, "yup." Not decide out of ego -- I'm in charge so what I say goes -- but "I'm in charge and the most important thing is the show, so I don't care if your idea is better than my idea so long as it's the right idea for the show."
I've worked for those people, too. And all it means is an extra step. The job still gets done. Those showrunners are golden, even if they don't write. Because in the writing room, the best idea wins -- so if you internalize that skill, you're halfway there. It's not that the Head Writer concept can't work. It plainly can -- but it takes a very special kind of producer, with a very special kind of ego. It's just a general indication that the idea of writers as essential parts of the process is somewhat debased in the Canadian system (unless they've worked in L.A.!) Most of the time, the deal takes precedencce over the art.
What else could result in the categorization above? Well, until recently, getting a show on the air in Canada meant getting it through CTF and Telefilm, too, the quasi-governmental agencies that help fund TV in Canada. That meant guessing what the funders would go for -- which weren't always the most commercial, grabby ideas. That's starting to change with the new funding system, thank heaven. Broadcasters now have a little more power to greenlight shows that they think are good -- not ones they think can get through the process.
Then there's development. Slow-pacing and muddled scenes can often come from an over-development process that leads to scenes that are supposed to be about "character" that stop the story dead in its tracks, rather than weave that character info with a crackerjack, exciting, speedily moving story.
Sadly, sometimes, I have been asked in notes to back away from big act outs. I've been told to take longer setting something up when my every instinct is telling me to get to the point. I've heard horror stories of much, much worse from other writers. In fact, touch wood, except for a very few cases, I've had a pretty charmed experience with development people. I count myself lucky on that score.
Some of the most refreshing work I've done lately is in animation, a genre to which I'm still a little new. The nice thing about animation is sitting in a meeting with a good story editor and hearing, "that idea's great, but we need to get to it by the end of the teaser." This is when it was pitched as the Act One out. Nine times out of ten, that's way better than the reverse.
"Don't rush through this" is a crippling note you get a lot in Canada.
I want to say whenever I get that note, "can't we rush through it, but have the impact weigh larger? In other words, can't we do two things at once, here?"
It's not always the case, but often, the idea to keep shit moving -- and moving fast -- is not a bad one. I look at the act outs on 24, Prison Break, LOST, House -- and I think, "is it just me that knows that even if your show isn't action based, even if it's emotional and interior a lot of the time, then your act out has to have the emotional-interior equivalent bomb for one of the characters -- in other words, the emotional equivalent of a great Jack Bauer double cross on 24?"
Anyway. The bottom line is that I know personally, and have met, and have read, LOTS of Canadian writers who are willing and able to scrub down, wash off, and change this categorization of our talents, given the opportunity and the freedom to actually do it, and take the risk, and not have our ideas committeed, overdeveloped, pounded to pulp and squeezed out --
--but at the same time, I also hear the other side of the story.
It seems like I've been making a lot of excuses here, right? Spinning plates and vamping and explaining why it's not the Canadian writers' fault. And every example I've given above is true. It does happen. But there's another reason.
As Pogo said, "I have seen the enemy, and he is us."
Sometimes, we do suck. I'm not saying this with classic Canadian defeatism, but in the spirit of honest, forthright, and needed self-criticism.
I've met and spoken to a lot of well-meaning producers looking to employ Canadian writers, who get scripts from Canadian literary agencies where there are typos and grammatical errors on every page. This happens more than you think.
I've read writing samples, sent out to try to get work - that were boring.
Boring! How can your sample be boring?
I know a kindred spirit when I meet one, because they'll be familiar with every new show that's out there. They will have seen at least part of an episode. They know what's on the air, they know what's doing well, they know what's coming up. Why? That's the price of being a professional. You'd be surprised how many writers working in Toronto, or Montreal, or Vancouver aren't really that familiar with what's new, and what's out there. I've even met writers in Toronto who want to write for television who say that they hate television. That depresses me no end.
As much as we all may carp about the lack of opportunities and all the rest of it, we must not shirk from the criticism implied in the above post, either. There is definitely a bit of Cassius going on here. You remember what Cassius said, don't you? In Julius Caesar.
Here, to me anyway, are the most relevant parts:
Canadian productions generally do not want Canadian Writers. They want U.S. Writers...It does read rather harshly, doesn't it?
Sounds strange, doesn't it? And it doesn't apply to Canadian Directors. Just Canadian Writers.
When it's the point system, Canadian co-productions will trade the Canadian Writers for Canadian Directors in order to secure U.S. Writers. Canadian Directors, in fact, have done very well in the U.S., but no one in the U.S. is talking about those Canadian Writers.
When it's French/Canadian, many times they will hire Canadian "Writers" but, in fact, have a staff of U.S. Writers writing without credit (amazingly enough, sometimes with their offices in Los Angeles).
When it's a purely Canadian production, they will look for U.S. Writers who have landed immigrant status in Canada.
The reasons for this aren't going to be something that is easy to say or easy to hear. It's going to be upsetting, especially for Canadian Writers. And it is this: Canadian Writers are generally regarded as not very good. Their story plotting is slow, their characters are confusing and/or shallow, their logic is flawed and the products aren't very exciting. Please keep in mind, I'm giving you the general prejudice, not saying that I agree with it or would feel right applying such a generality to a specific person.
But, in fact, this is true with almost all other foriegn productions, they all prefer U.S. Writers. In this perception, U.S. Writers reign supreme. We could get into a long discussion as to why (personal belief is that the U.S., after WW II, basically recreated the world according to U.S. Standards and TV was the major emerging techology at that time). But even the French had to enact laws to prevent U.S. Television product from overwhelming their airwaves.
But the thing is, I can't really fault much of what's said there.
Now, I can quibble -- especially with the part about Canadian directors. For every Jeremy Podeswa who finds his way directing U.S. TV, there are other Canadians who are used to being auteurs in our small film industry, who misunderstand the role of the director on the TV series, and who fail horribly. There are horror stories that people in the know have heard about big-time (such as it is) Canadian directors who have screwed up series because they didn't follow the template or "make the show." These are things whispered in confidence, not usually shouted. Nor shall they be here.
There's also a reciprocal element that might not be familiar to American readers, but that I'm sure any Canadian, UK, Irish, Australian or French readers will understand (okay, maybe not the French) -- and that is the rule of nationalistic mediocrity.
That rule can be boiled down to this: If they work in the U.S., they must be better. This rule has allowed many people to get away with murder in Canada. It doesn't matter what the relative quality of the U.S. credits were -- merely that they had them. Agin. No names.
But what of the central point, here? The idea that
Their story plotting is slow, their characters are confusing and/or shallow, their logic is flawed and the products aren't very exciting.Well. Honestly, I have to say that in many cases, not all, but many -- this is deadly true.
It's depressing. But back when I was reading scripts for cash, I was dismayed to see several high profile projects that were on their way into production where the plot took forever to get going, and where things were hopelessly muddled.
There's a lot of reasons that could be behind this. One is a lack of opportunity and mentorship for beginning writers. As I've said here many times before, fewer shows and fewer episode orders mean a dearth of opportunity for new writers to get better by learning from experienced showrunners and moving up the ladder. In the U.S., you move up the ladder, taking on more and more responsibility (and greater skill) as you go. Here, often the only way to break in is to create your own show...sometimes long before you're ready, or even have that much TV experience. And unlike the UK, there isn't great support for playwriting here, so that you can matriculate in the theatre, and move to television as an accomplished writer in another medium.
Then there's the problem of lack of opportunity. It enforces a sort of clubby nepotism, at best, or outright cronyism at worst -- where the same people keep getting projects because they have gotten "into the club." I would never, ever point fingers at any show or writer in specifics -- because TV, like all art, is subjective. What I consider genius might leave you cold. (I will also delete anyone slagging off any particular writer or show in the comments below...this is no place to settle scores.)
I do think it's pretty telling that in Canada, I'm considered to be a "young writer," when in L.A., I'd be considered practically geriatric.
Another reason for the problems of slowness and pacing could be the fact that there are a lot of non-writers creating shows here. A deal is so hard to put together, and in many cases, the person with final say isn't necessarily a gifted writing showrunner. They could be a very fine producer, or salesperson, but not so much with the writing. The writer's voice is marginalized or ignored, or treated as a voice in the chorus, no more influential or meaningful than any other.
Or they're hired too late in the process. The desire to pinch pennies and maximize budget means that once a show gets out of development and gets greenlit, the writers they hire don't have too much lead time before shooting (to save on weekly salaries.) That's penny wise and pound foolish, nine times out of ten.
"Head Writer" is a term that you see used in Canada for series all the time. In the United States, you don't see that credit except on panel or sketch shows like Letterman, or The Daily Show or SNL. You certainly don't see it on drama series. To Americans used to the progressing (writer-based) titles of Staff Writer, Story Editor, Executive Story Editor, Co-Producer, Producer, Supervising Producer, Co-Executive Producer, Executive Producer it's going to be pretty puzzling, too. The head writer is different than the US system because whatever influence they have is really at the discretion of the Producer (who doesn't write.) They could have a lot of influence. They could have none. Trust me, to those of us concerned with improving our craft through steady work and learning, it's a little frustrating, because there's no way to know what kind of situation you're going to be in until you're in it. In TV, if the writing is not respected and given its due, then only three things can replace it: the ascendency of the actors (which comes with its own set of problems) or directors (who will always favor their particular episode over what's good for the series as a whole) or, more likely, the power will rest with a non-writing producer (who have the production on their mind, and who may, or may not, have good story sense. If you come from a writing background, you can get very quickly when something's up or wrong with the script. If you don't...it's a crapshoot.)
Of course, the best non-writing producers are the ones who do listen to their writers. The ones who will allow a case to be made for why it needs to be this way, not that way, and, when the case makes sense, nod their heads and go, "yup." Not decide out of ego -- I'm in charge so what I say goes -- but "I'm in charge and the most important thing is the show, so I don't care if your idea is better than my idea so long as it's the right idea for the show."
I've worked for those people, too. And all it means is an extra step. The job still gets done. Those showrunners are golden, even if they don't write. Because in the writing room, the best idea wins -- so if you internalize that skill, you're halfway there. It's not that the Head Writer concept can't work. It plainly can -- but it takes a very special kind of producer, with a very special kind of ego. It's just a general indication that the idea of writers as essential parts of the process is somewhat debased in the Canadian system (unless they've worked in L.A.!) Most of the time, the deal takes precedencce over the art.
What else could result in the categorization above? Well, until recently, getting a show on the air in Canada meant getting it through CTF and Telefilm, too, the quasi-governmental agencies that help fund TV in Canada. That meant guessing what the funders would go for -- which weren't always the most commercial, grabby ideas. That's starting to change with the new funding system, thank heaven. Broadcasters now have a little more power to greenlight shows that they think are good -- not ones they think can get through the process.
Then there's development. Slow-pacing and muddled scenes can often come from an over-development process that leads to scenes that are supposed to be about "character" that stop the story dead in its tracks, rather than weave that character info with a crackerjack, exciting, speedily moving story.
Sadly, sometimes, I have been asked in notes to back away from big act outs. I've been told to take longer setting something up when my every instinct is telling me to get to the point. I've heard horror stories of much, much worse from other writers. In fact, touch wood, except for a very few cases, I've had a pretty charmed experience with development people. I count myself lucky on that score.
Some of the most refreshing work I've done lately is in animation, a genre to which I'm still a little new. The nice thing about animation is sitting in a meeting with a good story editor and hearing, "that idea's great, but we need to get to it by the end of the teaser." This is when it was pitched as the Act One out. Nine times out of ten, that's way better than the reverse.
"Don't rush through this" is a crippling note you get a lot in Canada.
I want to say whenever I get that note, "can't we rush through it, but have the impact weigh larger? In other words, can't we do two things at once, here?"
It's not always the case, but often, the idea to keep shit moving -- and moving fast -- is not a bad one. I look at the act outs on 24, Prison Break, LOST, House -- and I think, "is it just me that knows that even if your show isn't action based, even if it's emotional and interior a lot of the time, then your act out has to have the emotional-interior equivalent bomb for one of the characters -- in other words, the emotional equivalent of a great Jack Bauer double cross on 24?"
Anyway. The bottom line is that I know personally, and have met, and have read, LOTS of Canadian writers who are willing and able to scrub down, wash off, and change this categorization of our talents, given the opportunity and the freedom to actually do it, and take the risk, and not have our ideas committeed, overdeveloped, pounded to pulp and squeezed out --
--but at the same time, I also hear the other side of the story.
It seems like I've been making a lot of excuses here, right? Spinning plates and vamping and explaining why it's not the Canadian writers' fault. And every example I've given above is true. It does happen. But there's another reason.
As Pogo said, "I have seen the enemy, and he is us."
Sometimes, we do suck. I'm not saying this with classic Canadian defeatism, but in the spirit of honest, forthright, and needed self-criticism.
I've met and spoken to a lot of well-meaning producers looking to employ Canadian writers, who get scripts from Canadian literary agencies where there are typos and grammatical errors on every page. This happens more than you think.
I've read writing samples, sent out to try to get work - that were boring.
Boring! How can your sample be boring?
I know a kindred spirit when I meet one, because they'll be familiar with every new show that's out there. They will have seen at least part of an episode. They know what's on the air, they know what's doing well, they know what's coming up. Why? That's the price of being a professional. You'd be surprised how many writers working in Toronto, or Montreal, or Vancouver aren't really that familiar with what's new, and what's out there. I've even met writers in Toronto who want to write for television who say that they hate television. That depresses me no end.
As much as we all may carp about the lack of opportunities and all the rest of it, we must not shirk from the criticism implied in the above post, either. There is definitely a bit of Cassius going on here. You remember what Cassius said, don't you? In Julius Caesar.
The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in our selves -- that we are underlings.
Bill's Shine
Well, if you're looking to the guy from Toronto for L.A. based news then clearly there's a disconnect, but just in case you don't frequent the fine watering hole put up by one Bill Cunningham, but you are going to be in and around L.A., be advised that he's doing a panel at the Screenwriter's Showcase at the Universal Sheraton in early April.
Bill's side of the business -- D2DVD -- is the one that's NOT currently tanking. So if you want to know from DVD extras, well...take up his offer to chat him up in the bar.
Details on his site here.
Bill's side of the business -- D2DVD -- is the one that's NOT currently tanking. So if you want to know from DVD extras, well...take up his offer to chat him up in the bar.
Details on his site here.
How I Met Your Mother (Redux)
So people kept talking about it. I kept hearing that it was good. And I am no head in the sand ostrich. So over the last couple of days I've watched back a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother.
I think it's found its feet. It's actually kind of funny. I still think it's nowhere near as ambitious as where the sitcom needs to go, and both Alyson Hannigan and the guy from Freaks and Geeks could have sharper lines written for them -- but the performances are engaging, the plots are good, and the lead guy has grown on me. And Neil Patrick Harris is actually a treat.
Anyway. My bad. Sometimes (most of the time) new shows take a while to find their way. This one has. How I Met Your Mother works.
Look at those Cavemen Go!
Here's some news....courtesy C21 Media...
While this is good news for UK Prodco Kudos, I'm not sure it's great news for the viewers. This particular series works in its original version because it's a fanciful concept treated completely seriously. Kelley's penchant for ... well ... making David Kelley shows might not serve the material that well.
And if it holds up screening the original or a DVD release on these shores, well, that kind of blows, too.
And they're cramping my wheelhouse, too.
No sir. Don't like it.
But, they're in the best selling show.
I wonder what lame song they'll use instead of Life On Mars? Probably something by the goddamn Eagles.
(thanks to Big Bald Marvin for the tip)
UPDATE: Well, they're not happy about this over at the Mad Pulp Bastard's digs, either. But the comments there made me realize something truly horrifying.
Does this mean that instead of that creepy English test pattern girl he's going to be guided in the dead of night by a stereotypical Native Indian in full head dress?
There's gonna be letters...
Popular BBC1 drama series Life on Mars is being remade in the US by the producer behind Ally McBeal, marking UK indie Kudos's first format deal.
David Kelley (Ally McBeal, Picket Fences) has nabbed format rights to the series and is grooming Life on Mars as a one-hour drama for fall 2007 at US network ABC. According to US reports, Kelley will write and executive produce a pilot through his overall production deal at 20th Century Fox TV.
While this is good news for UK Prodco Kudos, I'm not sure it's great news for the viewers. This particular series works in its original version because it's a fanciful concept treated completely seriously. Kelley's penchant for ... well ... making David Kelley shows might not serve the material that well.
And if it holds up screening the original or a DVD release on these shores, well, that kind of blows, too.
And they're cramping my wheelhouse, too.
No sir. Don't like it.
But, they're in the best selling show.
I wonder what lame song they'll use instead of Life On Mars? Probably something by the goddamn Eagles.
(thanks to Big Bald Marvin for the tip)
UPDATE: Well, they're not happy about this over at the Mad Pulp Bastard's digs, either. But the comments there made me realize something truly horrifying.
Does this mean that instead of that creepy English test pattern girl he's going to be guided in the dead of night by a stereotypical Native Indian in full head dress?
There's gonna be letters...
Monday, March 27, 2006
Jane Eyre pages Doctor Cameron, Whacks Writerboy
A few weeks back, well in my cups at The Spoke Club with a group of smartypants writer types, the subject turned to novels, or adaptations of novels, and, you know, Pride and Prejudice came up.
And I quickly went off the rails. Amidst the swooning over Mr. Darcy that every man has endured for probably, I don't know, the last two hundred years, I may have made the egregious error of pooh-poohing Jane Austen. In fact, if my wine-addled-mind serves, Austen might not have been the only one in the crosshairs. I think I took out the Brontes, too. All of them.
Many're the men who've been bored to tears hearing of Pride and Prejudice, and Jane Eyre, and the like. We try to deflect -- bringing up a Great Expecations, or even downshifting into Sense & Sensibility, or (if it's going really badly) Emma...but alas, this evening it was not to be.
I even did the ultimate dumb guy thing: directed a woman to read Nick Hornby for a view of how men view romance.
I know. Sometimes I'm so middlebrow I horrify even myself.
Anyhow, it's with great amusement, and with no shortage of humility, that I direct you to this insightful little character sketch in Sunday's New York Times.
It's an appreciation of Dr. Cameron, Dr. House's sparring partner on that eponymously-named medical mystery series.
After reading the article, to my everlasting shame, not only do I realize that the writer is completely right about the gothic nature of the Cameron-House relationship, but I have to admit that this is probably my favorite thing about the show.
All Apologies. Better go dig out those Bronte sisters and moldy Austens.
Damnit.
And I quickly went off the rails. Amidst the swooning over Mr. Darcy that every man has endured for probably, I don't know, the last two hundred years, I may have made the egregious error of pooh-poohing Jane Austen. In fact, if my wine-addled-mind serves, Austen might not have been the only one in the crosshairs. I think I took out the Brontes, too. All of them.
Many're the men who've been bored to tears hearing of Pride and Prejudice, and Jane Eyre, and the like. We try to deflect -- bringing up a Great Expecations, or even downshifting into Sense & Sensibility, or (if it's going really badly) Emma...but alas, this evening it was not to be.
I even did the ultimate dumb guy thing: directed a woman to read Nick Hornby for a view of how men view romance.
I know. Sometimes I'm so middlebrow I horrify even myself.
Anyhow, it's with great amusement, and with no shortage of humility, that I direct you to this insightful little character sketch in Sunday's New York Times.
It's an appreciation of Dr. Cameron, Dr. House's sparring partner on that eponymously-named medical mystery series.
After reading the article, to my everlasting shame, not only do I realize that the writer is completely right about the gothic nature of the Cameron-House relationship, but I have to admit that this is probably my favorite thing about the show.
All Apologies. Better go dig out those Bronte sisters and moldy Austens.
Damnit.
Well Gollum-gee!
The other thing that happened in Toronto this weekend, of course, was the opening of the musical stage version of Lord of the Rings.
Most of the critics weren't too kind.
To most arts-people in Toronto, this wasn't really a surprise. After nearly two months of previews, the buzz had been pretty negative.
What gets me, reading between the lines of the various reviews, is how the show failed.
It seems like just about everyone praises the stagecraft. There are rotating stage pieces, big sets, rising and falling platforms -- all manner of excellent hoo-hah and spectacle.
It's just that the songs, and the story weren't very good. A pretty key omission.
Amidst all the outscaled elements, somehow they lost the human (hobbit?) story of Sam and Frodo, and the fellowship, and the quest. The book lurches from place to place without cohesion -- all sturm and drang, no heart.
One of the reviews, and I forget which one described the musical score thusly -- and I'm paraphrasing here: they said it was like someone went into the world music section of a record store and scooped up a bunch of CD's at random.
I was a little worried about exactly that when I heard the four or five names of people who were working on the music. There didn't seem to be any connection or cohesive vision to it. Many of the reviews called out this one, incongruous Celine Dion-like belter, an 11'o'clock number that you know's supposed to be the breakout hit, but which, like most of the show, simply doesn't fit.
What struck me about Lord of the Rings and the reaction to it was that all of this seemed very, very familiar. In the Canadian film and tv industry, we have crews now who've been trained by the golden years of American service productions to be very, very good. The cliche used to be that Canadian shows had a "look" to them, which meant that they looked cheap. But now, if it looks cheap, it's cause not enough money was spent.
If they have the money to spend, Canadian stuff can look beautiful.
But we still have not licked the problem of story. (I know that LOTR is a big UK co-pro, so it's not entirely Canadian, but still, it was birthed here.)
Vision is something that gets talked a lot about here. Telefilm talks about it, CBC Presidents and VPs talk about it. Filmmakers talk about it all the time.
But in another, more real way, vision and story is just the little cat-toy that the fourteen people around the table in the big meeting toss around. People that have vision don't get to see it get to screen supported -- they see it committeed out of them...and people who can talk to Telefilm or please the mandarins get to scoop up money and accolades, even though they miss the point that the real story is about two innocent travellers, and their quest to do the right thing and stay true to themselves and their friendship.
Reading the bad reviews for Lord of the Rings gave me the opposite feeling from schadenfreude. (Is there a word for that? Sympathetic Pain, perhaps? Toxic Empathy?) Toronto desperately needs the tourism injection a long-running show like this would provide. The producers of the show are already saying that the reviews don't matter. I gather Les Miz and many other hit musicals had anemic reviews at first (though they didn't come of age in the blog and net age, when that bad mojo is always just a couple of keystrokes away.)
But the reaction of the producers, and the subtle shift to how they're trying to critic-proof the show now, smacks of something I remember from my theater history.
The shift now is toward describing the show as "a spectacle." It's not a play, it's not a musical...it's a spectacle.
Well. After Shakespeare died, the theater in England generally went out of fashion for awhile. Instead, the courtiers and the wealthy turned back to giant, opulent masques. People would dress up, and recreate a static scene, down to minute detail. And people would ooh and ah and clap. No story. No challenge. No vision. Just...pretty.
Sounds pretty horrible to me.
Most of the critics weren't too kind.
To most arts-people in Toronto, this wasn't really a surprise. After nearly two months of previews, the buzz had been pretty negative.
What gets me, reading between the lines of the various reviews, is how the show failed.
It seems like just about everyone praises the stagecraft. There are rotating stage pieces, big sets, rising and falling platforms -- all manner of excellent hoo-hah and spectacle.
It's just that the songs, and the story weren't very good. A pretty key omission.
Amidst all the outscaled elements, somehow they lost the human (hobbit?) story of Sam and Frodo, and the fellowship, and the quest. The book lurches from place to place without cohesion -- all sturm and drang, no heart.
One of the reviews, and I forget which one described the musical score thusly -- and I'm paraphrasing here: they said it was like someone went into the world music section of a record store and scooped up a bunch of CD's at random.
I was a little worried about exactly that when I heard the four or five names of people who were working on the music. There didn't seem to be any connection or cohesive vision to it. Many of the reviews called out this one, incongruous Celine Dion-like belter, an 11'o'clock number that you know's supposed to be the breakout hit, but which, like most of the show, simply doesn't fit.
What struck me about Lord of the Rings and the reaction to it was that all of this seemed very, very familiar. In the Canadian film and tv industry, we have crews now who've been trained by the golden years of American service productions to be very, very good. The cliche used to be that Canadian shows had a "look" to them, which meant that they looked cheap. But now, if it looks cheap, it's cause not enough money was spent.
If they have the money to spend, Canadian stuff can look beautiful.
But we still have not licked the problem of story. (I know that LOTR is a big UK co-pro, so it's not entirely Canadian, but still, it was birthed here.)
Vision is something that gets talked a lot about here. Telefilm talks about it, CBC Presidents and VPs talk about it. Filmmakers talk about it all the time.
But in another, more real way, vision and story is just the little cat-toy that the fourteen people around the table in the big meeting toss around. People that have vision don't get to see it get to screen supported -- they see it committeed out of them...and people who can talk to Telefilm or please the mandarins get to scoop up money and accolades, even though they miss the point that the real story is about two innocent travellers, and their quest to do the right thing and stay true to themselves and their friendship.
Reading the bad reviews for Lord of the Rings gave me the opposite feeling from schadenfreude. (Is there a word for that? Sympathetic Pain, perhaps? Toxic Empathy?) Toronto desperately needs the tourism injection a long-running show like this would provide. The producers of the show are already saying that the reviews don't matter. I gather Les Miz and many other hit musicals had anemic reviews at first (though they didn't come of age in the blog and net age, when that bad mojo is always just a couple of keystrokes away.)
But the reaction of the producers, and the subtle shift to how they're trying to critic-proof the show now, smacks of something I remember from my theater history.
The shift now is toward describing the show as "a spectacle." It's not a play, it's not a musical...it's a spectacle.
Well. After Shakespeare died, the theater in England generally went out of fashion for awhile. Instead, the courtiers and the wealthy turned back to giant, opulent masques. People would dress up, and recreate a static scene, down to minute detail. And people would ooh and ah and clap. No story. No challenge. No vision. Just...pretty.
Sounds pretty horrible to me.
Weekend Reading
As I said last week, I took a few days away from the blog because I had nothing to say and I felt I needed a little break. Truth be told, I've been working flat-out for a while now and I probably need more than a blog-break -- but schedule and finances and other committments just made it unworkable.
I have high hopes for the end of April.
After a great spate of work last week, I also needed some creative recharging. So that's what I spent the weekend doing, more or less.
Norah Vincent's Self Made Man was one of the things I turned to. I wrote a bit about Vincent's book before. But that was based on the one chapter I'd read, a newspaper excerpt of an account of her months bowling in an all-male league. Now I've dipped farther into the book, and I can tell you that the insights keep coming. They're fresh and ever-surprising.
As a longtime lover (and dater) of women, I found the chapter on Dating to be fairly revelatory. She says something along the lines of, "women who date only men tend to put a lot of the bad things done to them down to men," then suggests that as a lesbian, once you date a few women, you come to have a different view. What's amazing about this chapter is how her POV keeps switching from female to male -- and how her sympathies shift too. She knows that there's something fundamentally deceiving in what she's doing, which is why if the dates go more than a couple of times, there's a confession. This is a longtime trope in the book -- it's very effective, because the post-confession conversations are invariably more interesting and even surprising.
Vincent is a sensitive, very expressive writer. And her fearless reportage of what she finds makes this a page turner. Another standout chapter is when she goes to a Catholic monastery, and experiences firsthand a lot of the male socialization rituals she finds most puzzling.
This seems like a weird book to read for fun, but it really isn't. A couple of my key projects right now involve male-female relationships: father-daughter, mother-son, two women in the workplace. As a never-married male, I've got a limited insight pool to bring to bear on some of these situations, and a burning desire to dramatize them correctly. I have my friends, and a few relatives -- though most of them are too far away to prove too useful. What gets me about Self Made Man, and the reason why I think it's ultimately a very useful book for all writers -- is that it plumbs the world underneath. It's about conflicts under the surface that no one talks about, contradictions in self and in identity that make otherwise inexplicable actions seem logical, nuanced, and natural.
People often say, when they read this script or that, that they were disappointed because nothing the character did surprised them. I'm starting to think that surprise is the wrong word. True surprise usually comes from an external source. What I think people are really missing is revelation. They miss actions taken by a main character that may seem surprising at the time, but that in context, when one considers this evidence or that, or when one gains this piece of the puzzle or that one -- actually seem like a natural, and eminently explicable reaction.
Ultimately, the reason why I'm enjoying Self Made Man so much is because there's revelation at every turn. It's one long-character reveal. Not only does the reader gain insight into Ned (Norah Vincent's "male" incarnation,) but Norah herself, and the many people she meets, and women and men generally.
It's a great book.
I have high hopes for the end of April.
After a great spate of work last week, I also needed some creative recharging. So that's what I spent the weekend doing, more or less.
Norah Vincent's Self Made Man was one of the things I turned to. I wrote a bit about Vincent's book before. But that was based on the one chapter I'd read, a newspaper excerpt of an account of her months bowling in an all-male league. Now I've dipped farther into the book, and I can tell you that the insights keep coming. They're fresh and ever-surprising.
As a longtime lover (and dater) of women, I found the chapter on Dating to be fairly revelatory. She says something along the lines of, "women who date only men tend to put a lot of the bad things done to them down to men," then suggests that as a lesbian, once you date a few women, you come to have a different view. What's amazing about this chapter is how her POV keeps switching from female to male -- and how her sympathies shift too. She knows that there's something fundamentally deceiving in what she's doing, which is why if the dates go more than a couple of times, there's a confession. This is a longtime trope in the book -- it's very effective, because the post-confession conversations are invariably more interesting and even surprising.
Vincent is a sensitive, very expressive writer. And her fearless reportage of what she finds makes this a page turner. Another standout chapter is when she goes to a Catholic monastery, and experiences firsthand a lot of the male socialization rituals she finds most puzzling.
This seems like a weird book to read for fun, but it really isn't. A couple of my key projects right now involve male-female relationships: father-daughter, mother-son, two women in the workplace. As a never-married male, I've got a limited insight pool to bring to bear on some of these situations, and a burning desire to dramatize them correctly. I have my friends, and a few relatives -- though most of them are too far away to prove too useful. What gets me about Self Made Man, and the reason why I think it's ultimately a very useful book for all writers -- is that it plumbs the world underneath. It's about conflicts under the surface that no one talks about, contradictions in self and in identity that make otherwise inexplicable actions seem logical, nuanced, and natural.
People often say, when they read this script or that, that they were disappointed because nothing the character did surprised them. I'm starting to think that surprise is the wrong word. True surprise usually comes from an external source. What I think people are really missing is revelation. They miss actions taken by a main character that may seem surprising at the time, but that in context, when one considers this evidence or that, or when one gains this piece of the puzzle or that one -- actually seem like a natural, and eminently explicable reaction.
Ultimately, the reason why I'm enjoying Self Made Man so much is because there's revelation at every turn. It's one long-character reveal. Not only does the reader gain insight into Ned (Norah Vincent's "male" incarnation,) but Norah herself, and the many people she meets, and women and men generally.
It's a great book.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Dead Things Stick-Fu
It's my fervent hope that I'm going to take a break for a few days. And when I say, "break," I mean "Blog break." Plenty of work still to do here in the shire.
I would like to thank the management of my condo building, who've been testing the fire alarm for the last two days, just as I had to burn ass churning out a script.
I would even more like to thank the dude who, when kibitzing on the emergency mic in the building during the alarm today, let slip just off mic, "No Luke, I am your father." Seriously dude. I plotzed.
The following is a list of some of my favorite blog topics on and about the whole thing when it comes to writing and the hey hey and the stuff like that. M'Kay?
Don't forget to tip your waitresses.
Seriously, buy me an Itunes certificate or something. Why should nubile hot co-eds get all the wishlists? I'm not Alex. I can't just tell you to buy my $#@!$ing book.
Writing Nitty & Gritty:
Preparing to write a spec script. Part One. Two. & Three.
And don't go crazy with the continuity.
How 24 Changed Everything
Protagonist or Hero?
What happens when you go up against bitter, bitter LOST fanboys? Well, it looks a lot like this or this.
What the hell's wrong with Canadian Television?
Or the CBC, for that matter?
Or Cancon?
Bottle shows and why you should love them.
US vs. Canadian vs. British TV
What the @%#$% is the Objective Correlative?
How men watch TV.
Those wacky sci-fi fans.
Should I include music cues in my script?
So why do I need a story room, anyway?
What if they won't pay me to write TV?
What does it take to be a Writer? HINT: It's kind of a lot like coming out.
Recently I've been working on a few new pilots. Which brings on the occasional bouts of sturm and drang.
On Comedy:
One
Two
Three
Conversations with Family
Logrolling and Admiration:
Sons & Daughters
The Unit
Checkin out Robert Towne.
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Charlie Jade
Profit
Commander in Chief
What I dug in 2005.
The E-book Valuable Lessons.
What's the future of TV? Beats me.
Important things I've learned from Drunks:
Really.
I would like to thank the management of my condo building, who've been testing the fire alarm for the last two days, just as I had to burn ass churning out a script.
I would even more like to thank the dude who, when kibitzing on the emergency mic in the building during the alarm today, let slip just off mic, "No Luke, I am your father." Seriously dude. I plotzed.
The following is a list of some of my favorite blog topics on and about the whole thing when it comes to writing and the hey hey and the stuff like that. M'Kay?
Don't forget to tip your waitresses.
Seriously, buy me an Itunes certificate or something. Why should nubile hot co-eds get all the wishlists? I'm not Alex. I can't just tell you to buy my $#@!$ing book.
Writing Nitty & Gritty:
Preparing to write a spec script. Part One. Two. & Three.
And don't go crazy with the continuity.
How 24 Changed Everything
Protagonist or Hero?
What happens when you go up against bitter, bitter LOST fanboys? Well, it looks a lot like this or this.
What the hell's wrong with Canadian Television?
Or the CBC, for that matter?
Or Cancon?
Bottle shows and why you should love them.
US vs. Canadian vs. British TV
What the @%#$% is the Objective Correlative?
How men watch TV.
Those wacky sci-fi fans.
Should I include music cues in my script?
So why do I need a story room, anyway?
What if they won't pay me to write TV?
What does it take to be a Writer? HINT: It's kind of a lot like coming out.
Recently I've been working on a few new pilots. Which brings on the occasional bouts of sturm and drang.
On Comedy:
One
Two
Three
Conversations with Family
Logrolling and Admiration:
Sons & Daughters
The Unit
Checkin out Robert Towne.
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Charlie Jade
Profit
Commander in Chief
What I dug in 2005.
The E-book Valuable Lessons.
What's the future of TV? Beats me.
Important things I've learned from Drunks:
Really.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Fact vs. Fiction on "Arrested"
The Hollywood Reporter has a great dash of cold water/warm water on the "Showtime picks up Arrested Development" rumors.
Bottom line makes it sound like it's up to creator Mitch Hurwitz. And the deadline is June. I'm not entirely sure about either of those things, either. But that's the way the Reporter makes it sound.
Bottom line makes it sound like it's up to creator Mitch Hurwitz. And the deadline is June. I'm not entirely sure about either of those things, either. But that's the way the Reporter makes it sound.
I Want My MTV?
The moon man lands today at 6pm ET.
MTV is finally launching in Canada, after a short, half-hearted and aborted attempt a couple of years ago on a couple of digi-channels, Canadian network Behemoth CTV is going to bring the venerable brand north.
Americans and people in other countries may be surprised to know that MTV isn't in Canada yet, mostly since it certainly seems to be everywhere else.
The MTV incursion was headed off for years by the fact that we in Canada had our own Music Video channel, Muchmusic. Though Muchmusic started three years after MTV, it came out of a tradition of music programming that had started on sister channels like Citytv -- whose New Music was one of, if not the first, program to bring journalist chops to music reportage. If you were a teen in Canada in the late 70's or early 1980's, you probably heard about Talking Heads, The Police, Elvis Costello, and any number of other bands from The New Music, and later, Much.
(Full disclosure here: for years I worked for CHUM, the parent company of Muchmusic, though except for a couple of small projects here and there, I never worked for Much directly.)
In its time, Muchmusic was pretty innovative. From the beginning, and especially after their 1986 move to their current digs on Queen Street West, Much was about interacting with the street. MTV VJ's did their links in a canned, empty studio. Much cameras would wander outside the building and up the block, and there was always something going on in the "environment."
Much presented Concerts in their environment, and people and fans piled in and asked questions. Much presented election coverage aimed at youth -- and believe me, there was no more arresting image than seeing a VJ like Master T bull his way into a scrum with the then-current Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney, and ask, "Yo Brian, what's up?"
In short, while MTV was exporting its brand around the world, scrappy Muchmusic was bending the rules as best it could, on a dollar-and-a-half budget and with a lot of heart.
Inevitably, things change. MTV started with the Real World, and slowly discovered its niche was lifestyle, not videos. Much was a little slower off that mark. Then again, MTV also looked north to its cousin and saw some things it liked, too. Total Request Live is, and was, an MTV response to the vibrancy and audience interaction Muchmusic brought to the airwaves every day.
What changed so much wasn't MTV, or Much, but the idea of who you were supposed to cater to, and how you were going to get them.
When MTV and Much first came on the scene, they were different because youth viewers weren't in the bullseye. I remember that time very well -- it wasn't too long ago when it was only the baby boomers who were in the demographic bullseye. Everything catered to the boomers. If you were young and you wanted to see yourself, or people like you, Much or MTV was the only place to do it.
Once the culture shifted, and everyone started chasing the youth brand, two things happened: the loyalty that initial generation had to Much and MTV was replaced by fickleness: when you have a host of choices, you don't feel the passionate connection to a channel as the only place to see your culture...and the channels themselves needed to change.
We know what happened to MTV...they deemphasized the M and got heavy into reality. Some shows changed the landscape, some dumb-downed the culture, and others just became crummy, comfort food fun.
Much tried to get bigger and slicker. There's nothing weirder now than tuning in and seeing the current "Much On Demand" show that airs daily -- mainly because it's a weird photocopy of Total Request Live. So, yeah -- Much is now doing a photocopy of the MTV photocopy of the format they invented.
Shows like the Muchmusic Video Awards tried to get bigger and better. The concerts aren't in the environment anymore, they're in the parking lot and they're huge. Oh, and they don't call it the environment, either.
The goofiness of years gone by is gone. No more do they pull stunts like the annual Christmas Tree Toss, where they set the Christmas tree on fire and chuck it off the roof into a dumpster, all to fake sports commentary ... nope, now Much is very much the slick, forced hip reflection of youth culture that you see everywhere else.
The problem with this is that Much never really could compete on that level. It doesn't really have the money. Not when stacked against CTV and MTV. CTV's launch plans for MTV include a programming block on the main network, an on-demand channel, and what sounds like a fairly major, major online venture where you can basically create your own MTV, MTV Overdrive. Eep. That's a lot of money right there.
Interestingly enough, in the battle for eyeballs and cultural touchstones that's about to take place, belatedly, in Canada, I find myself thinking of a little channel I saw in South Africa.
It's called GO. And it's a youth-branded station on the satellite there. They air MTV shows, but also youth targeted dramas like The O.C. (I still have one of their cheeky promo postcards: how's this for a tagline: what do these kids do for fun after school? Each other. Now that's funny.)
GO goes into malls, and runs testimonials from kids from all over South Africa. The ad campaigns they run are colorful and wacky, and very cheeky. The graphics, the approach, the schedule choice: everything about it says, "this is YOUR channel."
I found it recognisable. Familiar and comforting. Because that's what I remember youth TV being - a refuge from the larger culture where nobody cared about you. And I guess to an extent, the culture is still a little like that in South Africa.
Now that MTV and Much are going to battle it out on Canadian turf, head to head, I'm hoping the competition will be good for both. It's a chance for Much to step up and innovate again. MTV the channel here is saddled with a regulatory Talk-TV format which hopefully means it won't be able to horn in too much on Much's musical bonafides. In a culture where you're the only youth alternative, I'm not sure there's room for both, because one has to be the destination.
But now there is no one destination. There's VOD and Cell Phones and XBox and Broadband and as long as you're all chasing the same demographic, then I guess there's plenty of room in the tent.
I just can't help but feel that today's young people are missing something. If you're constantly being catered to, how do you ever discover anything outside your comfort zone?
Maybe you don't.
That's sad.
JAM article about the changeover is available here.
MTV is finally launching in Canada, after a short, half-hearted and aborted attempt a couple of years ago on a couple of digi-channels, Canadian network Behemoth CTV is going to bring the venerable brand north.
Americans and people in other countries may be surprised to know that MTV isn't in Canada yet, mostly since it certainly seems to be everywhere else.
The MTV incursion was headed off for years by the fact that we in Canada had our own Music Video channel, Muchmusic. Though Muchmusic started three years after MTV, it came out of a tradition of music programming that had started on sister channels like Citytv -- whose New Music was one of, if not the first, program to bring journalist chops to music reportage. If you were a teen in Canada in the late 70's or early 1980's, you probably heard about Talking Heads, The Police, Elvis Costello, and any number of other bands from The New Music, and later, Much.
(Full disclosure here: for years I worked for CHUM, the parent company of Muchmusic, though except for a couple of small projects here and there, I never worked for Much directly.)
In its time, Muchmusic was pretty innovative. From the beginning, and especially after their 1986 move to their current digs on Queen Street West, Much was about interacting with the street. MTV VJ's did their links in a canned, empty studio. Much cameras would wander outside the building and up the block, and there was always something going on in the "environment."
Much presented Concerts in their environment, and people and fans piled in and asked questions. Much presented election coverage aimed at youth -- and believe me, there was no more arresting image than seeing a VJ like Master T bull his way into a scrum with the then-current Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney, and ask, "Yo Brian, what's up?"
In short, while MTV was exporting its brand around the world, scrappy Muchmusic was bending the rules as best it could, on a dollar-and-a-half budget and with a lot of heart.
Inevitably, things change. MTV started with the Real World, and slowly discovered its niche was lifestyle, not videos. Much was a little slower off that mark. Then again, MTV also looked north to its cousin and saw some things it liked, too. Total Request Live is, and was, an MTV response to the vibrancy and audience interaction Muchmusic brought to the airwaves every day.
What changed so much wasn't MTV, or Much, but the idea of who you were supposed to cater to, and how you were going to get them.
When MTV and Much first came on the scene, they were different because youth viewers weren't in the bullseye. I remember that time very well -- it wasn't too long ago when it was only the baby boomers who were in the demographic bullseye. Everything catered to the boomers. If you were young and you wanted to see yourself, or people like you, Much or MTV was the only place to do it.
Once the culture shifted, and everyone started chasing the youth brand, two things happened: the loyalty that initial generation had to Much and MTV was replaced by fickleness: when you have a host of choices, you don't feel the passionate connection to a channel as the only place to see your culture...and the channels themselves needed to change.
We know what happened to MTV...they deemphasized the M and got heavy into reality. Some shows changed the landscape, some dumb-downed the culture, and others just became crummy, comfort food fun.
Much tried to get bigger and slicker. There's nothing weirder now than tuning in and seeing the current "Much On Demand" show that airs daily -- mainly because it's a weird photocopy of Total Request Live. So, yeah -- Much is now doing a photocopy of the MTV photocopy of the format they invented.
Shows like the Muchmusic Video Awards tried to get bigger and better. The concerts aren't in the environment anymore, they're in the parking lot and they're huge. Oh, and they don't call it the environment, either.
The goofiness of years gone by is gone. No more do they pull stunts like the annual Christmas Tree Toss, where they set the Christmas tree on fire and chuck it off the roof into a dumpster, all to fake sports commentary ... nope, now Much is very much the slick, forced hip reflection of youth culture that you see everywhere else.
The problem with this is that Much never really could compete on that level. It doesn't really have the money. Not when stacked against CTV and MTV. CTV's launch plans for MTV include a programming block on the main network, an on-demand channel, and what sounds like a fairly major, major online venture where you can basically create your own MTV, MTV Overdrive. Eep. That's a lot of money right there.
Interestingly enough, in the battle for eyeballs and cultural touchstones that's about to take place, belatedly, in Canada, I find myself thinking of a little channel I saw in South Africa.
It's called GO. And it's a youth-branded station on the satellite there. They air MTV shows, but also youth targeted dramas like The O.C. (I still have one of their cheeky promo postcards: how's this for a tagline: what do these kids do for fun after school? Each other. Now that's funny.)
GO goes into malls, and runs testimonials from kids from all over South Africa. The ad campaigns they run are colorful and wacky, and very cheeky. The graphics, the approach, the schedule choice: everything about it says, "this is YOUR channel."
I found it recognisable. Familiar and comforting. Because that's what I remember youth TV being - a refuge from the larger culture where nobody cared about you. And I guess to an extent, the culture is still a little like that in South Africa.
Now that MTV and Much are going to battle it out on Canadian turf, head to head, I'm hoping the competition will be good for both. It's a chance for Much to step up and innovate again. MTV the channel here is saddled with a regulatory Talk-TV format which hopefully means it won't be able to horn in too much on Much's musical bonafides. In a culture where you're the only youth alternative, I'm not sure there's room for both, because one has to be the destination.
But now there is no one destination. There's VOD and Cell Phones and XBox and Broadband and as long as you're all chasing the same demographic, then I guess there's plenty of room in the tent.
I just can't help but feel that today's young people are missing something. If you're constantly being catered to, how do you ever discover anything outside your comfort zone?
Maybe you don't.
That's sad.
JAM article about the changeover is available here.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Grey's Anatomy is Starting to Bug Me a Little.
Seriously. What's that about?
Nice character reveal on the Chief there. And Sandra Oh really does have the role of a career there. But...
...it's starting to feel a little paint-by-the-numbers, isn't it? Or is that just me.
Though Shonda Rhimes really does sound like the kind of lovable lunatic I love to work for.
No. I'm not kidding.
Lovable lunatics rule.
Nice character reveal on the Chief there. And Sandra Oh really does have the role of a career there. But...
...it's starting to feel a little paint-by-the-numbers, isn't it? Or is that just me.
Though Shonda Rhimes really does sound like the kind of lovable lunatic I love to work for.
No. I'm not kidding.
Lovable lunatics rule.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Sons & Daughters & Blogs
Sons & Daughters Executive Producer, Co-Creator and Star Fred Goss is blogging about the experience of his show over at the ABC site.
There's a lot of great stuff in there -- entries on what it's like going to the upfronts, meeting with Lorne Michaels and what have you. There's also a bit more info on just what's improvised on the show.
After seeing four eps of Sons & Daughters, I'm a little depressed. I'm depressed because the format does seem to work pretty well. So long as you cast right and work out the story clearly, the improvised dialogue does keep everything very fresh.
I'm depressed because, as you can see in the blog, the self-righteous "Everything has to be suitable for fucking children" brigade are all over Goss. Five years, guys. Five years more of this and you Yankees won't be able to put anything on the air that isn't suitable viewing for a nine year old. And none of you seem to care too much about that. So, from where I sit, you sort of deserve what's coming.
I'm depressed because he already seems to be giving into defeatist thinking. You can read it in his entries. He's trying to be positive, but I think he thinks the die is already cast. And I do too.
There are probably dumber things done in the name of network TV than scheduling Scrubs and Sons & Daughters, two of the only intelligent comedies on TV, opposite each other. I just can't think of it right now.
Anyway, go read Fred Goss's blog. It's great and heartfelt and it makes me a wee bit sad.
And tell someone to watch Sons & Daughters, wouldja?
There's a lot of great stuff in there -- entries on what it's like going to the upfronts, meeting with Lorne Michaels and what have you. There's also a bit more info on just what's improvised on the show.
After seeing four eps of Sons & Daughters, I'm a little depressed. I'm depressed because the format does seem to work pretty well. So long as you cast right and work out the story clearly, the improvised dialogue does keep everything very fresh.
I'm depressed because, as you can see in the blog, the self-righteous "Everything has to be suitable for fucking children" brigade are all over Goss. Five years, guys. Five years more of this and you Yankees won't be able to put anything on the air that isn't suitable viewing for a nine year old. And none of you seem to care too much about that. So, from where I sit, you sort of deserve what's coming.I'm depressed because he already seems to be giving into defeatist thinking. You can read it in his entries. He's trying to be positive, but I think he thinks the die is already cast. And I do too.
The numbers were OK but not great. Now we're looking at two weeks opposite American Idol. Sweet. My feeling is that no matter what the promos or the good reviews...it just doesn't matter at this point. Unless the 8.5 million viewers who caught the first two episodes go out and tell two friends, and they tell two friends and so on...we're not going to get a bigger audience unless the audience itself decides it's going to get bigger. I think there are about 300 million people in the U.S. We need about 10 or 12 million of those people to feel the same way about the show as we do. I love everyone who sent his or her best wishes and praise for the show to this site. I can't say that I love the people who responded negatively, but I defend your right to dislike the show, probably more than you defend my right to make a show that you feel is too offensive to be on Network TV.
There are probably dumber things done in the name of network TV than scheduling Scrubs and Sons & Daughters, two of the only intelligent comedies on TV, opposite each other. I just can't think of it right now.
Anyway, go read Fred Goss's blog. It's great and heartfelt and it makes me a wee bit sad.
And tell someone to watch Sons & Daughters, wouldja?
Friday, March 17, 2006
Help You to Help Me.
Well, today is about writing up the outline to Episode 3 of the first season of Across The River To Motor City.
It's a crucial script (I know, I know, they all are) because this marks the halfway point in our mystery story. Months ago, we broke a period story that was kind of interesting, a good little investigation for our main character to go through in 1964 Detroit and Windsor.
But in development, as sometimes happens, other elements in the contemporary narrative start to change. So when it came time to weave together the contemporary and period story, the beats of the former didn't really fit the latter. So, to the well of despair with me.
No. I'm on track now, thankfully. But it's a slow slog. And the script deadline approaches next week.
In fact, this weekend, partly due to this script, and partly due to family obligations, I will be missing out on a fabulous cottage weekend with my Agent and his posse of boy-writers. No cards for me. No steaks. No drinks. Just....typing. Sad.
Anyway...
A while back I printed some links to some unusual words from other languages. Everybody knows schaedenfreude, of course. But there were some other juicy ones.
This is not that.
This morning, I got up and turned on the XM and I was a little weighted down by everything I had to do today, and I was feeling a little harried and maybe a trifle put upon, and then a song came on. (It was actually Sting's Brand New Day...ugh. I know.) And the song was treacly and full of bullshit greeting card bromides and empty feel good promises that should not pierce the cynical sheen of my dark and steely heart, but damnit if by the end of the song didn't I feel better anyway. Shamelessly manipulated, and a little sickly about it, but nevertheless, artificially shluffed into a better headspace.
Someone needs to come up for a word for this feeling. It doesn't need to be German.
For further study and reflection: this word could also be used to describe the feeling one gets as an adult, walking around Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom.
Go to it in the comments below. You're doing the Prophet's work.
It's a crucial script (I know, I know, they all are) because this marks the halfway point in our mystery story. Months ago, we broke a period story that was kind of interesting, a good little investigation for our main character to go through in 1964 Detroit and Windsor.
But in development, as sometimes happens, other elements in the contemporary narrative start to change. So when it came time to weave together the contemporary and period story, the beats of the former didn't really fit the latter. So, to the well of despair with me.
No. I'm on track now, thankfully. But it's a slow slog. And the script deadline approaches next week.
In fact, this weekend, partly due to this script, and partly due to family obligations, I will be missing out on a fabulous cottage weekend with my Agent and his posse of boy-writers. No cards for me. No steaks. No drinks. Just....typing. Sad.
Anyway...
A while back I printed some links to some unusual words from other languages. Everybody knows schaedenfreude, of course. But there were some other juicy ones.
This is not that.
This morning, I got up and turned on the XM and I was a little weighted down by everything I had to do today, and I was feeling a little harried and maybe a trifle put upon, and then a song came on. (It was actually Sting's Brand New Day...ugh. I know.) And the song was treacly and full of bullshit greeting card bromides and empty feel good promises that should not pierce the cynical sheen of my dark and steely heart, but damnit if by the end of the song didn't I feel better anyway. Shamelessly manipulated, and a little sickly about it, but nevertheless, artificially shluffed into a better headspace.
Someone needs to come up for a word for this feeling. It doesn't need to be German.
For further study and reflection: this word could also be used to describe the feeling one gets as an adult, walking around Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom.
Go to it in the comments below. You're doing the Prophet's work.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
I heart Kirstine Layfield?
Just to prove -- to prove -- that I'm not anti-CBC (and lordyloo I'm not, despite what that dick at the bar I ran into last night says) Here's some quotes from an article on new CBC programming head Kirstine Layfield, from Playback.
She's new in the job. She comes from a successful tenure somewhere else (unlike VP Richard Stursberg, for instance...) and she's saying the right things. I have fingers crossed. She really does have the power to make a difference. And she sounds like she knows exactly what the task is.
Let's see.
She says the oft-sluggish CBC executives will be expected to greenlight projects faster and will be more direct and open when communicating what they want from producers - reversing the previous party line that Canadians would know CBC shows when they see them.
"We have to work with the production community - tell them we have the knowledge of how to get to the viewers, and it's their business to create the programming to reach the viewers," she says....
Layfield plans to hit the ground running, possibly by holding a national road show to explain the CBC's new programming strategy and its execution to producers. She started a similar series of gatherings while at AAC.
"We have to climb down from the ivory tower and become the Tower of Babel, talk more about what we want, more about what we know and the shows we want to air," Layfield explains. "We need to draw a picture of what success looks like. One million viewers is a lot less than Desperate Housewives' [viewership]."...Layflied insists her strong card is that she is not in the pocket of independent producers who have been long allied with the CBC. She wants to give a chance to next-generation producers...Recalling the media furor over the recent cancellations, Layfield also dismisses the suggestion that dramas should be immune from cancellations or audience targets...."If a beautiful tree fell in the forest, and no one was there to watch it, how beautiful was it?" she asks.
She's new in the job. She comes from a successful tenure somewhere else (unlike VP Richard Stursberg, for instance...) and she's saying the right things. I have fingers crossed. She really does have the power to make a difference. And she sounds like she knows exactly what the task is.
Let's see.
You Yankees down there....
For Pity's sake, when are you going to take care of this?
The Robots at the American Family Association are organized, and ready, and making phone calls the moment anyone says something other than "Oh My Heck!"
What good is it having freedom of speech if you can't say anything that wouldn't offend a Sunday school teacher.
There are less of them than there are you!
Grow. Some. Balls.
The Robots at the American Family Association are organized, and ready, and making phone calls the moment anyone says something other than "Oh My Heck!"
What good is it having freedom of speech if you can't say anything that wouldn't offend a Sunday school teacher.
There are less of them than there are you!
Grow. Some. Balls.
The Fan Who Came In From The Cold
I know, I've given fans a lot of grief over the blog-year I've been doing this. Most of it was deserved, especially the pesky, airborne-mutated strain of 'hater' fan that breeds like kudzu on the internet. But it's worth remembering, and stating that every single person who got into this business did so because they were a fan. Of something.
The first thing I remember being a fan of was Snoopy. All of Peanuts, actually. I bought all the books, I watched the specials whenever they were on TV. (this was Pre-VCR. Oh, uh, a VCR was this thing that was like a TiVo but it...oh never mind, go ask your grandparents.) I loved Charlie Brown and Snoopy, and vowed to become a cartoonist. (This was an ambition of mine right up until I was about 13.)
After a brief detour into Evel Knievel, I found Steve Austin and The Six Million Dollar Man, and also the Bionic Woman (who may just have been my first object of unfocused, free-floating, I- don't -really -know -what -I'm -feeling -here lust. Don't kid yourselves. Boys start early.)
Anyway, I guess all you gangstas out there are really ripping it up now. Yesirree. The 70's was a far more innocent time. I spent some of that time in Florida, so I had an unfortunate dalliance with all things Disney. That didn't survive my move to Toronto.
But something else did. One weekend in May, about three weeks before we moved to Canada, my Dad took me to a movie. It was a movie that I'd heard about, and everyone else my age had heard about, but no adults seemed to know about. It was called Star Wars, and everything from that point on was different.
I'm hardly the first to remark on how Star Wars changed the landscape. And I know Star Trek was there first. But I was just young enough that Star Trek was something that older kids were into. Star Wars was mine. I wouldn't become a Trek fan until shortly before the movie came out in 1979. But I did have the "placeholder package" -- the promissory empty box that they put on sale before they put out the first Star Wars action figures. Yup. I was hardcore.
I loved Battlestar Galactica, too, of course. Though even then I got tired of the same three cylon raider shots played over and over and over. I also remember thinking how odd it was that the pilot had been released in movie theatres here in Canada -- but not in the USA. Yes, I was destined to go into television, parsing as I was the intricacies of foreign territory marketing at the age of nine.
Galactica also marked a turn for me toward a more critical eye toward the things I loved. Because much as I did love it, I found myself disappointed later in the season, because they stopped "telling cool stories." I sensed that somehow, the concept was cooler than the stories they were telling within that world. Then came Galactica 1980, and I had my first writer-reaction. I didn't have the vocabulary for it then, but if I had, I would have said in my prepubescent alto, "Fucking studio notes."
I guess, looking back, I got slotted into my path naturally, and gradually. I read voraciously. My father went through a period where he went to war with me over MAD Magazine, which I loved and he didn't want me reading. (He didn't appreciate the development of my sarcasm.)
(I can remember being traumatized a little because one time when we were back visiting relatives in New York, we had to take the subway, and he bought me a MAD and said, "read it and don't look at anybody." The fact that he bought it willingly terrified me. It meant the subway was even more dangerous than I thought it was. And seeing as this was the Son of Sam Summer of '77 -- he probably was right.)
My Dad need'nt have worried. I read everything. I sucked it all up -- by High School I became a fan of something else, when I discovered how much I loved Shakespeare. There were high school teachers who encouraged me to act and write: Ms Atkinson, Jim Hunt, Mrs. Salgo. By the time I went to university, it was a woman named Dr. Naomi Diamond and the great Dr. Bob Gardner, along with a kind and decent man named Clive Vanderburgh, who encouraged my talent. I picked up a couple of writing awards. And then I lost my way for a few years, losing nerve, spending time as a TV producer.
It was playwriting for Fringe Festivals that got me back on the horse. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I'd stayed the course and had the courage of my convictions at twenty-one. But then again, I probably wouldn't have made anything of it then, because I was a real asshole at twenty-one. (Seriously.)
Why am I thinking about all this now? It's not just cause of the series I have to write now. (Although Episode 3 is looming above me right now like a great, unbroken, looming, looming looming-thing. With teeth. And fur. Damn Story. I'll kill you, I will. You will be broken before me and I will hear the lamentations of the...)
Sorry. Where was I?
No. Okay. Here's why I started thinking about this.
It's a link to a Video Dog clip on Salon. It's a Star Wars fan film. A lightsaber duel. It's incredibly well done.
I've been aware of fan films before, of course. I think Troops is probably one of the funniest things I've ever seen. But there's still something humbling in seeing that something that made me slack-jawed with wonder when I was eight, is something you can do on a Mac today.
But as cool as that fan film is, or as cool as Troops was, it's still a derivative work. And that's why I feel really blessed to be in the position I'm in today.
Because I have friends whose fandom took them a different way. A couple of friends of mine took their high-school interest in horror and gore and became very adept Special FX and Prosthetic makeup artists. They've worked on most of the big shows that have come through Toronto. Lots of Zombie films and the like. Horror, Sci-fi, what have you...
There's only one problem: what they do is going away. The Star Wars kids with the Macs are, with every passing day, shrinking the need and window by which these guys can make a living doing practical effects. It's an intractible problem, and it makes me a little sad -- because nothing bores me more than those moments in the new trilogy of Star Wars films where you're watching one set of pixels fight another set of pixels for twenty minutes.
But writing, you see, is not a special effect. It's not something that goes away, despite Hollywood's attempts to try and prove otherwise. Sure, you can get directors to plan six big action sequences, and then try to get a writer to write around them (basically, how Robert Towne worked on MI:2) but that doesn't mean it's going to be any good.
Fan fiction, and the fan impulse to "fix" stories when they don't like where they're going, is something that's of endless fascination to me. Because the solutions fans come up with are inevitably so very much worse.
What we do -- what writers do -- is a rare commodity. And it's not going anywhere. And if you can actually do this thing we do, long after the executives lose their jobs, and the distribution model changes and the focus groups go home, and the bold new Presidents with a plan have taken their golden parachutes and skedaddled, you will still be there.
And damnit, that makes me feel lucky.
The first thing I remember being a fan of was Snoopy. All of Peanuts, actually. I bought all the books, I watched the specials whenever they were on TV. (this was Pre-VCR. Oh, uh, a VCR was this thing that was like a TiVo but it...oh never mind, go ask your grandparents.) I loved Charlie Brown and Snoopy, and vowed to become a cartoonist. (This was an ambition of mine right up until I was about 13.)
After a brief detour into Evel Knievel, I found Steve Austin and The Six Million Dollar Man, and also the Bionic Woman (who may just have been my first object of unfocused, free-floating, I- don't -really -know -what -I'm -feeling -here lust. Don't kid yourselves. Boys start early.)
Anyway, I guess all you gangstas out there are really ripping it up now. Yesirree. The 70's was a far more innocent time. I spent some of that time in Florida, so I had an unfortunate dalliance with all things Disney. That didn't survive my move to Toronto.
But something else did. One weekend in May, about three weeks before we moved to Canada, my Dad took me to a movie. It was a movie that I'd heard about, and everyone else my age had heard about, but no adults seemed to know about. It was called Star Wars, and everything from that point on was different.
I'm hardly the first to remark on how Star Wars changed the landscape. And I know Star Trek was there first. But I was just young enough that Star Trek was something that older kids were into. Star Wars was mine. I wouldn't become a Trek fan until shortly before the movie came out in 1979. But I did have the "placeholder package" -- the promissory empty box that they put on sale before they put out the first Star Wars action figures. Yup. I was hardcore.
I loved Battlestar Galactica, too, of course. Though even then I got tired of the same three cylon raider shots played over and over and over. I also remember thinking how odd it was that the pilot had been released in movie theatres here in Canada -- but not in the USA. Yes, I was destined to go into television, parsing as I was the intricacies of foreign territory marketing at the age of nine.
Galactica also marked a turn for me toward a more critical eye toward the things I loved. Because much as I did love it, I found myself disappointed later in the season, because they stopped "telling cool stories." I sensed that somehow, the concept was cooler than the stories they were telling within that world. Then came Galactica 1980, and I had my first writer-reaction. I didn't have the vocabulary for it then, but if I had, I would have said in my prepubescent alto, "Fucking studio notes."
I guess, looking back, I got slotted into my path naturally, and gradually. I read voraciously. My father went through a period where he went to war with me over MAD Magazine, which I loved and he didn't want me reading. (He didn't appreciate the development of my sarcasm.)
(I can remember being traumatized a little because one time when we were back visiting relatives in New York, we had to take the subway, and he bought me a MAD and said, "read it and don't look at anybody." The fact that he bought it willingly terrified me. It meant the subway was even more dangerous than I thought it was. And seeing as this was the Son of Sam Summer of '77 -- he probably was right.)
My Dad need'nt have worried. I read everything. I sucked it all up -- by High School I became a fan of something else, when I discovered how much I loved Shakespeare. There were high school teachers who encouraged me to act and write: Ms Atkinson, Jim Hunt, Mrs. Salgo. By the time I went to university, it was a woman named Dr. Naomi Diamond and the great Dr. Bob Gardner, along with a kind and decent man named Clive Vanderburgh, who encouraged my talent. I picked up a couple of writing awards. And then I lost my way for a few years, losing nerve, spending time as a TV producer.
It was playwriting for Fringe Festivals that got me back on the horse. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I'd stayed the course and had the courage of my convictions at twenty-one. But then again, I probably wouldn't have made anything of it then, because I was a real asshole at twenty-one. (Seriously.)
Why am I thinking about all this now? It's not just cause of the series I have to write now. (Although Episode 3 is looming above me right now like a great, unbroken, looming, looming looming-thing. With teeth. And fur. Damn Story. I'll kill you, I will. You will be broken before me and I will hear the lamentations of the...)
Sorry. Where was I?
No. Okay. Here's why I started thinking about this.
It's a link to a Video Dog clip on Salon. It's a Star Wars fan film. A lightsaber duel. It's incredibly well done.
I've been aware of fan films before, of course. I think Troops is probably one of the funniest things I've ever seen. But there's still something humbling in seeing that something that made me slack-jawed with wonder when I was eight, is something you can do on a Mac today.
But as cool as that fan film is, or as cool as Troops was, it's still a derivative work. And that's why I feel really blessed to be in the position I'm in today.
Because I have friends whose fandom took them a different way. A couple of friends of mine took their high-school interest in horror and gore and became very adept Special FX and Prosthetic makeup artists. They've worked on most of the big shows that have come through Toronto. Lots of Zombie films and the like. Horror, Sci-fi, what have you...
There's only one problem: what they do is going away. The Star Wars kids with the Macs are, with every passing day, shrinking the need and window by which these guys can make a living doing practical effects. It's an intractible problem, and it makes me a little sad -- because nothing bores me more than those moments in the new trilogy of Star Wars films where you're watching one set of pixels fight another set of pixels for twenty minutes.
But writing, you see, is not a special effect. It's not something that goes away, despite Hollywood's attempts to try and prove otherwise. Sure, you can get directors to plan six big action sequences, and then try to get a writer to write around them (basically, how Robert Towne worked on MI:2) but that doesn't mean it's going to be any good.
Fan fiction, and the fan impulse to "fix" stories when they don't like where they're going, is something that's of endless fascination to me. Because the solutions fans come up with are inevitably so very much worse.
What we do -- what writers do -- is a rare commodity. And it's not going anywhere. And if you can actually do this thing we do, long after the executives lose their jobs, and the distribution model changes and the focus groups go home, and the bold new Presidents with a plan have taken their golden parachutes and skedaddled, you will still be there.
And damnit, that makes me feel lucky.
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