Sad News from ZA

From Dennis Venter, one of our South African writers for Charlie Jade, comes this very sad news:

Brett Goldin, the guy who played (the O.T.T.) Terry Schachter in CJ, was murdered yesterday. It’s sad, he was a talented actor and a decent guy.

I only met Brett a couple of times in the production office for CJ, but he was definitely one of South Africa's most gifted comic actors. He took a one or two scene part in CJ and parked it. So much so that we made him up different and brought him back to play a different character a few episodes later. (as an alternate-universe, very unlikely club bouncer.)

While we were in Cape Town, he had a run of a very successful play, Bad Apple, that satirized a lot of different South African school types. I didn't go because of work, but everybody who saw it said it was a tour de force.

Brett was one of a group of actors who created a series of shorts -- "Crazy Monkey" -- that satirized the extreme/Jackass phenomenon. The spots caught on and played not just in South Africa, but on other MTV stations worldwide. They even spun them out into a movie.

It's a shocking thing when someone, anyone is murdered. And for a country still so haunted by a violent past, it's an even more bitter pill. I'm enough of a Locke guy to think that anyone we lose diminishes us all -- but when we lose someone who makes us laugh, I think the world is even poorer for it. We all need to laugh more.

You can see a memorial page to Brett Goldin by his friends in Crazy Monkey here.

Billable Hours & The Carmela Problem

Billable Hours is a new SHOWCASE series that premiered in Canada on Sunday night. It's set in a law firm, and concerns the neo-leisure (ie: slacking) pursuits of young lawyers in a firm. So, yeah, it's The Office meets Ally McBeal minus the cases in Ally McBeal.

The show stars co-creator Fab Filippo, (Queer As Folk, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) Jennifer Baxter and Brandon Firla -- two faces very familiar to Canadian viewers because they do a ton of commercials -- and Dov Tiefenbach, who was, and is, the titular star of CBC's troubled yet-still-active This Space For Rent.

I won't really say too much about the content here -- I'd love to hear from any Canadians who saw it. What I will say is that I thought the Act-Outs were weak, there were plot turns (and turns back) that didn't really progress so much as come out of nowhere, and the main A-Plot was resolved through coincidence, and not any concerted effort by the main character. Reviews have ranged from Canadian-kind to middling. I think the setting is fine. The story area is as good as any other, but the scripts are not as strong as they need to be and I'm not sure they've nailed tone. In the office sitcom genre, 21st century style, there's the anarchic tone of Andy Richter's failed (but still sorely missed) Andy Richter Controls The Universe, or the more painful, small, and well-observed minutae of The Office. I'm not sure Billable Hours knows its tone yet.

Seeing Tiefenbach show up in the show, though, was the more distracting thing for me. One of the problems of doing such short orders of series is that the actors don't work for very long, so they're both free to take other series work, and pretty much have to do so because they haven't made enough money to survive for the year.

In Tiefenbach and This Space For Rent's case, it's a double whammy. Not only is Dov one of the ensemble of Billable Hours, but his castmate Rainbow Sun Francks is on Stargate: Atlantis. So there's Tiefenbach, a regular on one show while a second CBC venture goes for two more pilots (for a total development time of two or three years? I don't blame the guy for taking other work.)

Last year, CTV ran a comedy-drama in an apartment block called Robson Arms. One by one, every member of the Corner Gas cast showed up.

The woman who played Reena, one of the main characters in Charlie Jade, was also a lesbian bartender on Showcase's Naked Josh.

And just recently, CHUM picked up Murdoch Mysteries for a series. When they did it as a series of movies, Peter Outerbridge was the star. They're probably going to have to recast the role for the series. Why? Because Outerbridge is the main character on Re:Genesis.

Then there's former Kid in the Hall Mark McKinney...you could break your TiVo trying to keep track of the Canadian series he's in: Slings & Arrows, Hatching, Matching & Dispatching, Robson Arms, and Corner Gas (and that's just 2005!)

I think this kind of thing is a pretty intractible problem in the Canadian industry. It's tempting to put it down to lazy casting agents, and I'm sure that's part of it...you can't tell me that the same twelve people do all the commercials in Canada because there's only twelve good actors...but I don't think you can put it all down to them, either.

If you're doing short episode runs, and you're available, and you have to work, then why wouldn't you work? And actors also (rightly) fear becoming too identified with one role. So you can't blame the actors. And budgets are so tight that you can't really do more than 6 or 8 or 13 a season, so you can't blame the Producers for going with someone who they know can deliver.

But the net result is: it's impossible to build a show's identity in people's minds. How can you get a show to stand out if it stars the same people as all the other shows? Guest leads, episodic leads, sure -- but series leads? The same faces from show, to show, to show? How can that not dilute the product?

The Trailer Park Boys guys don't pop up in every other show -- and that's why they hold some sort of mystique. (their premiere, by the way, was hilarious, as usual.)

If Edie Falco showed up playing someone other than Carmela in a series, it would be promoted as a special deal -- a cool appearance...but what if she was on SVU, CSI, LOST, and BOSTON LEGAL all in a four month period? What would that do to how you saw Carmela?

Of course, she won't. Because they pay her very well to be Carmela, so she doesn't have to take everything that's offered.

Like I said -- I'm honestly not sure that there's a solution to this. I just feel in my bones it's yet another of the daunting problems we face in trying to create Canadian TV.

What about the UK, where they do lots of 6-8 ep runs. Do actors show up in shows over and over? And is that a problem for audiences trying to keep them straight?

Canada-Russia 72 Ratings

So the ratings came in. CBC's miniseries about the legendary 1972 Summit series drew 814 000 viewers on its first, Sunday night outing and 772 000 viewers the next night for part two.

The Toronto Sun's Bill Brioux, who really does have a hate-on for the CBC (Despite a couple of Fort-Dork driven emails stating the contrary, I really don't) crows about how low those numbers are. I'm not so sure. The second number is about what Prairie Giant, the Tommy Douglas movie scored on its second night, which means that though the hockey movie had fewer initial viewers, it kept a higher percentage of them from night to night.

And in a land where 1.5 million is a top rating, and where CBC has said they're shooting for a million viewers plus -- that's certainly in the ballpark -- especially for a movie that has a very skewed male appeal. (Remember, there are way more female TV viewers out there -- even in Canada.)

I think it's something for CBC to build on. I hope they keep calm and move on, rather than reverting to Chicken Little mode.

The Importance of Knowing Your Franchise

A new 1/2 hour Canadian series, Billable Hours, premiered last night, along with the new season of Trailer Park Boys. I haven't seen them yet, but I will later and let's see if there's something to say.

The other premiere last night was What About Brian? A show that I found odd and off-putting. I have some theories as to why. There's another ep on tonight, so I'll watch that and then see if I can articulate what's so...odd...about Brian.

Last week I was in a room for a series that's plotting out its second season. What amazed me, off the top, was how clearly they knew their characters and franchise -- what stories worked, what it was about, how to complicate the plots, etc.

This show was a comedy. I flip back and forth in my career between comedy and drama. (I meant in the shows I write, but now that I think about it, that phrase could actually just as cleanly refer to the actual state of my career.)

The first lesson I took out of the room was this: how to use coincidence.

One of the notes you're going to get from execs all the time in Canada (maybe everywhere) is isn't that coincidental?

If you go through comedy, you're going to find a lot of coincidence. It's one of the shorthands you simply need to make plots work. And out of the discussions in this room came what I call the coincidence rule: In comedy, coincidence can always kick off a plot. It can sometimes complicate a plot. But it can never provide the solution to a plot.

If you employ coincidence as your solution, you're going to leave the audience unsatisfied -- and it's going to smack of deus ex machina -- which hasn't worked too well since the Greeks leaned on it so heavily back in the day.

The temptation to use coincidence to solve your problem can be strong. Because on first blush, it seems like a great, neat, all items tied in a bow thing. I give you Escape: The Pina Colada Song. Go. Google the lyrics. I'll wait. Now, that seems tied up nice and neat, doesn't it? But really, admit it, deep down in your bones, doesn't it suck? Just a bit? It's glib and trite, isn't it?

To put it another way:

Frasier and Niles can run into their fencing instructor who terrorized them as children in Cafe Nervosa. That's a coincidence, but it's doable. The Fencing instructor can be married to the woman who runs the publishing house where Frasier's trying to get a book published. That's fine. But Niles can't come in at the end of an episode where he's been challenged to a duel and say it's no problem because he just happened to run into their old fencing instructor, and he told Niles what he and Frasier have been doing wrong in their fencing technique all these years, so now Niles has the confidence to win the duel. Or...even better -- the fencing instructor will stand in for him in the duel.

That would suck. But...if the fencing instructor shows up and finds out that Niles' opponent has engaged a second, and the second is the Fencing Instructor's Fencing Instructor -- well...that's not solving the problem, it's a big coincidence -- but it still plays. See? Because the solution is what comes next, and involves Frasier and Niles getting out of the mess they've gotten into.

As I said, this is comedy. I think Drama is a lot less tolerant of coincidence. Even if you pile tons of them on top of each other and pretend like you're making it all a deep allegory. (Yes, Best Picture 2005, I'm looking at you.)

The other thing that I learned in this room is that there's two ways to come up with a plot. Because I'm a drama writer, too -- I tend to try to come up with a workable structure and story and then try to make it funny. That can sometimes work, especially in comedy/drama hybrids.

Far more effective, however, is to try to come up with plots and situations that are inherently funny in and of themselves. Story funny. That way, you're not working hard to hang jokes on a plot -- you're laughing because the situation or dilemna your characters are in is funny even before you come up with dialogue. Again, sounds simple... in practice, sometimes, not so much.

What doing it this way also gives you is it probably makes you aware of mining that which is unique about your franchise. This is a drama example, but I thought the nadir of the post-Aaron Sorkin West Wing era was the episode where "there's a bomb in the White House..." just because I'd seen that plot on E.R., or any other John Wells show. If the plot you're working could graft just as easily into any other show, you're probably going to have to work really hard to make it funny/interesting, and about your characters.

When you're trying to come up with a new show, or even a unique spec idea for an existing show, it really helps to try and come up with the thing that could only happen to your characters, or someone in their specific situation. That is your franchise.

And if you figure that out quickly, you can save a lot of heartache.

Finally, one other thing I learned, or at least heard said very well, last week. This was said at the University class I spoke to by one of my fellow panelists, a successful Canadian animation, children's, and comedy TV writer. On the subject of having your characters change and grow:

"Comedy characters can't grow the same way characters in a drama can..the kind of growth a character on a comedy will go through in five or six years is about the same as one season of Desperate Housewives or Grey's Anatomy."

Like I said, I'm aware of that sentiment, and have had painful meetings where I tried to explain it to people who were hell-bent on killing the comedy by having the character "learn something," but I just think that's a very elegant way to lay it out.

The Weekend Off That Wasn't.

Thursday was a hard day. There was a doctor's appointment, which wasn't that hard in and of itself. But then traffic was a bummer. Then there was a long bank line. And then a conference call basically imploded a script I worked very hard on.

These are the things that happen; nothing to be done about them. But part of working for yourself and largely by yourself is listening to the rhythms of your heart and body and mind, and following them.

Knowing that next week's plate involved a fairly major rethink and reimagining, I decided that this long weekend would be about servicing the other tendrils of my life. My parents have returned from their Snowbird perch in Florida, so Easter Sunday will be built around dinner there. It's also Little Sister Number One's birthday, so familial celebrations abound.

The rest is reading and grocery shopping and trying to free my mind (so my ass can follow.)

There's also a comical cat-and-mouse game that involves dodging emails and calls from my partner in the above-mentioned project. "I need not to think about this this weekend" should be a clear enough request -- but it isn't. If I do manage to keep my vow and not work this weekend, it'll be only the third weekend in two years I haven't worked. There's always pressure to keep working. And when you know you need a break, sometimes the only thing to do is unplug the phone and ignore the email.

(Aside: I remember so well the first apartment I had without roommates, the first time I ever lived alone. For about two months I'd get home from work and sit down on the couch and just marvel at the fact that if I didn't want to see anyone or talk to anyone, I didn't have to. And I'm an extrovert. Or I mostly am. But maybe even then I was a writer.)

I do all these thigns knowing that they are, in a sense, doomed to fail. Because amidst the not-thinking-about it and ignoring the hectoring emails and phone calls, there are things that creep in, unbidden. There's the start awake at three a.m. where you realize you're thinking about your characters. There's the moment watching Red Eye -- a movie that could not be further away from the genre and story that I'm working on, where I realize I need to rewind the DVD because something got sparked and I've gone somewhere else for two minutes: thinking about story.

I call this churn. Churn is the thing that all writers have to endure and embrace in loving and loathing moments. It's the thing that gets you over the hump, and it's the thing that makes taking the weekend off well nigh impossible.

Churn has ruined relationships. It's made me seem distant and disinterested. There's time when I think Churn is almost a low grade mental illness. But it's not. It's simply process. But try explaining to your spouse or lover that that faraway look in your eyes is just you working when you're not working. Writers who are in happy, functioning relationships fascinate me. They really do. I can't help but feel that half the day I walk around with this look on my face like a toddler who's making dookie. I know. Nice image. Pretty hot.

Anyway, amidst the not-thinking-about- writing, there's the oh- God-you-haven't- started-your-taxes (April 30 is the magic day in Canada.) Then there's little other things like the paper. I had a funny thought reading the Arts Section in the Globe & Mail today. It was very unsatisfying -- it has been the last three weeks running... and it occurred to me why.

Flipping through, every article in the Globe Review is about the Establishment. The Canadian Establishment. There's Atom Egoyan. There's Don McKellar. Another profile on Bonnie Fuller -- Jesus. (Nice language for Easter, I know, but c'mon.) When I read the NY Times Arts & Leisure section on Sunday, there's always a profile of someone interesting who's unknown to me. An up-and-comer. I read The Playlist and learn about musicians I haven't heard. I read a profile of a writer I don't know. I don't know why the Times can do it, but Canada's National Newspaper can't. Maybe because they're too busy taking articles from the New York Times. Sigh.

Anyway -- the coffee is gone. The paper is dull. The sun is shining and it's a beautiful clear day, so it's probably time to get out and not work some more.

One other thing happened this week. And this one was pretty good. I was on a panel at a University writing class. The three of us (another writer, and an agent) were critiquing the graduating students' writing project, which was a bible and scripts for an original series. There were about five groups, and they all had strengths and weaknesses in their work. But as the class was coming to a close, I said something to them that I really believe. I told them that as writers, the one thing that they had to offer was whatever made them unique. It wasn't knowing about pop culture. It wasn't being clever or funny or even a good writer -- though all those help. I said that the thing that mattered most was that they looked at the world like no one else. And so the best thing they could do was go out and live an interesting life; to get outside their wheelhouse and comfort zone, go places you never thought you would go, listen to music that you've never heard before. Read books blindly. And love the same way.

After the class was over, a couple of students came up and thanked me and asked if I knew that this was their last class. I shook my head 'no.' And one of them, kinda choked up, said that that advice was the last thing they learned in University.

That was pretty cool. Now I guess I gotta get out of this condo, and practice what I preach.

Hope you're enjoying your weekend. Happy Easter, Happy Passover, Happy Spring to all.

Fred Goss Speaks! Re: Sons & Daughters

But not to me.

Diane Kristine is the kind of fan you want to have. Her blog, Unified Theory of Nothing Much (it's in the sidebar) is a consistently good read by a sometime writer, journalist and fan. Diane is a self-admitted House obsessive, and her posts on each episode are invariably entertaining -- a superior mix of practical analysis and sheer delighted crushing.

She also shows the gumption to go out there and get the kind of interviews that might seem self serving if she was a baby writer or screenwriting aspirant. I learn a lot from these periodic interviews and I'm sure you will too.

Her latest is with Fred Goss, co-creator and star of Sons & Daughters. There's some great insight into how the show works, where he comes from (he's an editor; I knew it!) and a few choice thoughts about the show's reception and future. He sounds like an extraordinarily evenhanded bloke. I hope his show gets another shot.

Diane has generously and lovingly posted the full Fred Goss interview here.

You may notice I've been jazz-handsing the last few days. It's been extremely busy. I'm juggling the work on my new show, ATR, as well as doing a writing room on another project (which was loads of fun! Seriously!) and today, I spoke as part of a panel to a very fresh-faced, kind, and remarkably frightened-looking group of graduating University TV writing students.

I hope once I get tomorrow's banking, conference call, doctor's appointment and errands out of the way, I'll regroup and have more to say. As me Ga once said, "all in good time."

I know someone else said that first -- but she's the one who said it to me.

Sons & Daughters: Another View from South Dakota Dark

I've been reading and enjoying Todd's blog, South Dakota Dark for a while now. He thinks a lot about TV. There should be more of us who do that. Check out these thoughts on Sons & Daughters. His thoughts about the use of improv in the show, and how it may have been ill-served by ABC's promo department are right on the money.

Canada-Russia '72

To any Canadian alive at the time, it's as iconic (and a lot more pleasurable) as "where were you when Kennedy was shot?" Here the question is "Where were you when Paul Henderson scored against the Red Army team in Game 8 in Moscow?"

Okay, not as catchy. But it's a revelatory moment in Canadian history and nationhood, believe it or not. As well as one of the few common touchstones to span about three generations.

There have been documentaries galore on the Summit series of 1972, which pitted Canadian-born NHL all stars like Phil Esposito, Bobby Clarke, Henderson, Ken Dryden et al vs the Russian national team -- but there has never been a movie or miniseries on the event.

It's a daunting prospect, to be sure. You're venturing into the land of cherished myth. There are people who obsess over what the sticks and the skates look like, what every play looked like. The DVD of all 7 games, in their grainy videotape glory, is a top seller here in Canada. (I even got it for my birthday last year.)

So? How'd it do?

Pretty good, all told. Canada-Russia '72, which aired Sunday and Monday nights on CBC in Canada, took a fly-on-the-wall documentary style to explore the background and foreground stories of the 8 game series that shook up sleepy Canada and the Soviet behemoth. The details were right, and the drama was there. Surprisingly -- for a story where everyone knows how it's going to turn out -- the whole thing was tense.

Plus, the series (and the series) reveals to me something profound about the Canadian character that screenwriters here ignore at their peril.

In the series in 1972, as the series shows, the Canadian team went in heavily favored, and was quickly shocked and humbled by the speed, seriousness, and skill of the Russian players. The first few games in Canada went so roughly that by the time the team stepped on the ice in Vancouver for the last game, the mostly-Canadian crowd cheered the Soviets and booed the Canadians.

The Americans reading this just went, "wha?" That's right. They booed the home team.

It's only in Russia, when the Canadian squad became the underdogs, that Canadians rallied 'round the squad, as they went on to win the last three games straight, despite constant bad talk, and worse officiating.

Being the underdog is an essential component of Canadian storytelling. Canadians tend to despise people who make too much of themselves, who talk too loud and claim too much. Canadians are far more fond of Conrad Black now that he's disgraced than they ever were of him at his peak of power. The series also subtly makes the point that hockey is working class: the middle class, one character says, will never forgive the Canadians if they win -- because they're loutish and rough in play. But the working class -- that's another story.

We don't talk a lot about class in Canada. Mainly, I think, because those of us who are in the media elite certainly aspire to, if not always achieve -- a kind of bourgeois membership in the club. And that's where our disconnect comes.

A cherished part of American myth -- and sadly, it seems more and more of a myth these days -- is that anyone can make it. Americans venerate and lionize the little guy who works himself up, who never gives up and thinks he can get to the top. But Canadians have always been more pessimistic. That's why they got behind nationalized health care. The mentality here is more accurately: sometimes the deck is stacked against you and you can't win, and the real victory is to survive and provide for yourself and your family while maintaining your dignity. (Peace order & Good Government vs. Life, Liberty & the pursuit of happiness.)

Geopolitically, that kind of reflects the relative positions of the two countries next to each other. Besides the excitement of the story, Canada - Russia '72 ultimately worked, I think, because it understood that. It got something about the character of Canadians that the rich kids and middle class types trying to make Canadian stories don't always get.

It's no surprise to me. One of the creative forces behind the miniseries, Barrie Dunn, is also one of the leading lights behind Trailer Park Boys -- another shaggy Canadian hit that celebrates working class people. Corner Gas, too, when you think about it, has very little highfalutin content or character.

I haven't seen any overnight ratings for the miniseries, which makes me worry that it didn't do too well. I hope that's not the case. I think there's a lesson to be learned from this miniseries: not just by CBC who paid for it and showed it, but by all who try to create cultural products in this country.

CBC's two for two in their recent miniseries: Tommy Douglas and Hockey. Who says national mythologies can't sell?

Damnit.

A whole post on Canada-Russia '72 -- the miniseries, didn't get posted.
Blogger, you suck.

Hopefully it's on my other computer and I'll try to get it up later.

In the meantime, anyone have a good recipe they'd like to share?

You know what else?

Getting up in the morning sucks.

Dead Things Blind Item

Guess what? Your intrepid Stickster has some good news. I have, through that long and winding, thorny, professional road, been privileged to watch almost the entire first season of a new Canadian TV show that will hit air this fall.

It's good. Actually, it's pretty great.

Add to that a couple of shows that I've read scripts for, or helped out on. One's on the verge of a pickup, (C'mon already. Brilliance is like a flower...water it with your greenlight!) and the other's in active development. All three are actually no-bullshit, promise ya, cross my heart and hope to spit laugh out loud funny.)

In other words, there is the potential for at least three -- count'em -- three good original comedies on Canadian airwaves later in 2006 or 2007.

Could it be so? Could it be?

Does Scrubs Point The Way?

Interesting article by Joe Rhodes in Sunday's New York Times about Scrubs.

A few edited excerpts:

"In the beginning we felt a lot of pressure to seek out mass appeal, which was tough," Mr. Lawrence said,...
"This year we decided to stop obsessing about how we can bring new people to the show," he continued. "We decided that this year, we'd just do what we wanted and hoped we would at least be proud of it, even if it never saw the light of day." ... The result is that "Scrubs," always a schizophrenic mix of cartoonish jokes, surrealist fantasy sequences and genuinely poignant life-or-death moments, has become even weirder, thick with inside jokes, psychotic monologues, a cappella singing in the elevator, bizarre secondary characters like the High-Fiving Surgeon, the Sweaty Lawyer and the Absent-Minded Morgue Attendant, and the continuing adventures of a megalomaniacal maintenance man who has crowned himself the King of Janitoria...

"Rather than trying to seek out new viewers, our survival technique was to try and hold on to the old ones," Mr. Lawrence said, acknowledging that the sudden switches from Looney Tunes to pathos can be jarring. "So now we do stuff that we know will make real fans of the show laugh, assuming they can find us. We're like 'The Simpsons' in that every episode has jokes that are only going to be funny to people that have watched at least 20 or 30 episodes of the show. We aren't writing for people that have turned this show on for the first time."

Curiously, this strategy appears to have brought in new viewers. After being held out of the NBC fall lineup (in spite of its four Emmy nominations last year), "Scrubs" returned in January, and in its first weeks had some of its highest ratings, averaging nearly 8 million viewers on Tuesday nights. And now against the daunting challenge of "American Idol," it has managed to maintain numbers comparable to last season.

The article goes on to point out that Scrubs is an anomaly for another reason: since the relaxing of rules about Networks owning part of shows on their own networks, (Another gift from the U.S. government to big media companies... Gee swell, thanks guys) Scrubs is one of the few shows on NBC that NBC doesn't have a stake in: it's made by ABC, which means ABC reaps DVD sales money and NBC only makes money off ads.

Scrubs would probably be canceled except for two things: it does well in 18-49 viewers, and NBC is dead last (which is why they're taking chances on shows like Earl and The Office.)

The continued, unlikely-as-it-is tenacity of Scrubs raises, at least to me, a tantalizing possibility: have we seen the end of the search for the broad-based comedy? Are even Networks like ABC, NBC, and CBS going to start putting up shows that are designed to draw loyal and intense viewers rather than lots of eyeyballs?

Comedy has always been the hardest genre to sell to a wide audience, and these days it's well nigh impossible, because the fractionilaztion and fragmentation of culture means no one is playing with a common cultural mindset anymore.

Meanwhile, in Canada, we're trying (and failing) to capture that big broad-based comedy flag.

The question is -- is it a completely quixotic quest? Are we all seeking out the wrong thing, and chasing a model that no longer exists? Something to chew on, certainly.

On Finishing: Or, Taking the Crunchy With The Smooth

It's been said (by people way smarter than me) that the difference between writers and wannabe writers is finishing.

That's not to say that professional writers don't have have unfinished scripts sitting in a drawer somewhere. But I've found in my own career, and in an informal poll of other writers I know, that you can track your progress toward a full career by how you handle your less than stellar ideas.

I know lots of part-time or aspiring writers who have a ton of half finished screenplays, or novels, or plays. Their attitude toward that project may be tinged with frustration, or regret, or usually guilt ("Oh God I have to get back to that...")

But most of my professional writer friends fill that drawer with finished but bad spec first drafts that will probably never go to second draft. But bottom line, they got done. And in most cases, we're fine with it.

The difference is finishing. Finishing offers closure. There have been a couple of pilots and series that I've developed over the last few months that came back as "no." Both those projects are probably dead. I certainly wouldn't spend a lot of time trying to ressurect them. If something comes, it comes, and if (as is infinitely more likely) something doesn't, then fine -- I took a shot. The point is, emotionally, when I'm done I'm done -- and ready to move on to the next thing. Finishing helps you to feel accomplishment, and the accomplishment lets you feel dispassionate and detached enough to let go.

I think if you're going to be an effective professional writer, you have to be that way. Just last week, I was talking to a friend of mine who works in the business, but isn't a writer. And I was bitching a bit about a script that I absolutely, positively drop had-to get into the network by the end of the week -- and he asked me how far along I was, and I didn't lose a beat when I said, "Oh. I haven't started yet."

To be more precise, he gabbled about 50 -60 mL of perfectly good Guinness.

It wasn't exactly true. I hadn't started revising, but I had been rolling it over in my brain, cogitating and making plans of how to proceed. I broke it down by math: "I've got X days. Which means I need to get Y done by Wednesday night, Z by Thursday noon, and Q by Friday morning."

He looked at me like I had two heads. "What if you get blocked?"

I stared back. "It's a rewrite. I'm not going to get blocked."

"But what if you do?"

The truth is, it's a calculus I simply don't understand. I think that comes from having been in that production trench and having to deliver to deadline. Writer's block is a very precious concept, but it's really something you can't afford if it means you're going to keep a hundred and fifty people waiting and cost the production a hundred thousand dollars.

Once you've faced down that fear, making a development deadline is infinitely smaller potatoes.

The other dirty little secret about being a pro is that it feels good to finish. Really good. Like, four beers good. The sense of accomplishment you feel is its own carrot. Even if you know the draft isn't perfect. Especially if you know it isn't perfect.

One of the hardest things I had to get over in the jump from aspirant to pro was the anxiety of crafting the first draft. If you go in thinking that your first draft needs to be perfect, it's much easier to become paralyzed. Now, when I write a first draft, I know that there are going to be what I call "the crunchy pages."

The crunchy pages are the things that work, but not as well as you like. (You try not to hand in anything that you think flat out doesn't work. Because what if the network notices? Or... (and can you guess what's coming next?.....) What if they don't?

By making peace with the crunchy pages, knowing that you have another draft to fix and expand and go further -- well, that means you get to that feeling of finishing faster.

(You also stamp out bad habits, like starting each day by going back to the beginning of the script and going through the whole thing...which is just a demoralizing waste of time. The other trick is to make sure the first thing you write each morning is something easy or fun to do. Never start with a scene that's hard to write, or where you're not sure of your way through. You also don't want to end on those scenes. I tend to leave them to midday, just before lunch. That way, you have yet another carrot to push through -- never underestimate the power of a nice ham and cheese sandwich.)

I always reward myself upon finishing a draft. It may be with a movie, or buying a CD, or going out and having an actual, blissful night of fun where I turn the writer brain off. (Something that I probably should learn to do more often.) The main reward, though, is always the same. When I finish a draft, I'm finished for the day. Finito. If I type "End of Show" at 10:30 a.m., that's it -- I'm done for the day.

I like to have a 'soft finish' too. If I'm supposed to submit a draft by noon Friday, I like to time it so I finish sometime Thursday, celebrate the finish of the draft, and then take one final looksee in the morning before hitting "send."

I admire the old school Mamet-and-Goldman types who write on typewriters or longhand, but I'm definitely a computer guy. When I first started out, I had to deliver a few times in hard copy, and there was something satisfying about printing out that document and sending it off. These days it's all PDF and send -- and the romance is gone a little.

But finishing still rocks. Hard.

You just have to always remember that the feeling of finishing is meant to be fleeting. There's always a new draft, a new project, a new story to break or polish or write. The War of Art is ongoing. Part of the art of celebrating the finish is to acknowledge the Sisyphusean task that lies ahead:

Starting something new.

Which is why when someone tells me they just finished a spec script, my answer's always the same:

Great. Good for you! What are you going to write next?

Then, based on their immediate facial reaction, I usually make a snap judgement about their character and level of professionalism.

I know. I know. Aint I a stinker?

United 93? End of innocence? Really?

So apparently in movie theaters all over the United States, people are freaking out at this trailer for United 93.

The tarp of bullshit that's stretched over the American people is so thin and threadbare right now, that even a movie trailer can cause a twitterpation.

It must be hard to keep the hounds of reality at bay. Kiboshing the shots of flag-draped coffins was one thing. Abu Ghirab was pretty hard...there were certainly cracks there, too. But Americans as a people have been so good these last three years at denying the truth, ignoring the facts, and retreating into comfortable, unquestioned tropes of American goodness, might, and rectitude. As a Yankee abroad, it's almost unbearably poignant to me that all of that could be pierced by a piece of art. Scratch that...an advertisement for a piece of art.

Because the problem with maintaining a fiction is you have to ignore all that churning, building dissonance. And a stark story like United 93, amidst the cartoon blowup flotsam of MI:3 and the like, well - that's about as dissonant as you get. No wonder people are sobbing and freaking out into their popcorn.

I saw "The Day After Tomorrow" on one of those little screens on a plane. I didn't enjoy it. I didn't see War of the Worlds, either. Somehow, for me, all that blowing up the White House or Eiffel Tower or levelling New York -- you know...none of that is escapist entertainment for me anymore.

But then again, I've been following everything that's happened since United 93 went down that day in the field in P.A.

If you've bought into the layers and layers of fictions -- the simple view -- you probably spend a whole lot of time trying to service that tarp of bullshit that's stretched so thinly above you. And along comes Paul Greengrass, and his little movie, and it rips the cover off.

Trailers about the Rwandan genocide? A-ok. Flight 93, not ok? Would someone hurry up and make a Darfur trailer already? Maybe if they stuck it after The Benchwarmers, somebody might work up enough outrage to complain to the manager. Maybe you'll get a free movie out of the deal.

If you saw Bloody Sunday, you know what's coming from Greengrass on this one. I'm sure the movie will be hard to watch.

But then again, Americans have done entirely enough looking away over the last five years. The anger you felt that day, the trauma -- it led you to allow your government to do some pretty amazing things in your name. We can exploit for drama all the tragedies of others, but we cannot face our own? We can cause misery, but we can't revisit our own -- and maybe this time see it in the context of people who actually did a righteous thing, instead of people who have relentlessly exploited it to do the wrong things -- things that you've been complicit in ever since? I call bullshit. Sit still. Shutup. Watch the trailer.

Then read a goddamn newspaper -- preferably one that doesn't have their heads planted firmly in the sand.

Or, you know, keep watching FOX News. Your call. But don't ask me to feel bad for you crying into your popcorn.

And by the way, if you want to tell me that I hate America, my only request is that you email me, we arrange to meet, and you say it to my face, so we can sort it out proper.

This is kind of neat

And in another, realer way, it's also a little bit retarded.

Call it a coincidental sign of our digital times or a reason to stay up late and stare at the clock. Either way, early Wednesday morning the time and date will be 01-02-03-04-05-06.

Yes, Europe. We know. You're different. That's why we fought a war to be free of you.

Well, some of us did. Others of us just confederated. Whatever that means. Sounds a little pervy to me.

The Bouncy Bouncy Sex Problem

Good article on Slate today from freelance writer Kate Aurthur

From "Do It Already!":

When did these stunted relationships become so prevalent? Did the trend begin with M*A*S*H, which featured derisive repartee between Hawkeye and Hot Lips? Did the respectful but playful dynamic between Mrs. Peel and John Steed of The Avengers pave the way for Mulder and Scully? Cheers was one of the first comedy programs to make sexual tension its central premise. Sam and Diane's love-hate relationship drove the show during its Shelley Long years, and made a serial out of a sitcom. The couple's power struggle had more in common with Dallas than it did with Happy Days, All in the Family, or any other successful sitcom that came before it—Friends would not have existed if Cheers hadn't.

I pretty much agree with her timeline and provenance: this all does go back to Moonlighting. I always liked that quote I read somewhere about Steed and Mrs. Peel, where one of the creators thought that those two had gotten their affair out of the way years ago -- that it was in the past.

What I wonder is, will the reality-tv, faux Bachelor-like coupling at work in new reality shows, plus the internet screaming fanfic demanding all possible couples couple now! now! now! ever evolve into a shift away from the dominant "unconsummated" trope at work in all these shows today? In a world or a generation where "hooking up" is no big deal, is that engine still going to be the thing that drives series? Or are we coming to the end of the Maddie-David-Moonlighting era?

The Learnin' Problem

Alex pointed out this article about an L.A. Showrunner's class. It's a good read -- pay special attention to the section about how to handle "room-killing" behavior.

What struck me most reading this article was how opposite the Canadian experience has been, traditionally.

I'm not surprised that the scribes in this room were most bowled over by the budgeting procedure. I sweat just thinking about that stuff, too.

Here in Canada, most of the people who run shows actually come up through line producing, not writing. Many have worked their way up by working on U.S. service productions, or what we called "industrial" series back in the 80's or 90's (shows like Relic Hunter, The Lost World, First Wave -- stuff meant mainly for syndication.) So they've got a great grounding in the business end. Especially since the business end is so complex here -- the soup of tax credits, government money, broadcaster money and foreign sales you have to navigate to raise your budget is daunting at best.

But that stuff is all boring. So naturally, many of these business-savvy people would rather be involved in creative. Who wouldn't? Problem being: they don't have the background, the grounding, or the experience in writing. But writing is one of those things that everyone thinks they can do, right?

The things that writers whisper about most often here is the tortured experiences they've had trying to get story points and dramatic development across to one producer or another. There are some producers who just want to rip off whatever movie they've just seen; others who inject their own experiences so far into the process that it seems more like therapy than creative alchemy; still others who refuse to see -- or who are unable to see -- when a scene needs to accomplish more than one thing. (The no one will get that defense.)

One writer I know told me that once she turned in her scripts, and knew the non-writing producer with the tin ear was going to be re-writing her, she would go home and cry, throw up, and drink -- in that order.

I've said before that if you're not willing to be rewritten, do not go into TV. It happens. And sometimes the people rewriting you -- producers, network execs, actors, directors -- don't know as well as you do, and don't come up with better solutions. In the U.S., where the buck stops with a writer, you're insulated against the worst sins that can arise from this situation. Here, where the writer is more marginalized, that can sometimes be trouble. Then there's the series here that are written entirely freelance, with no staff componet whatsoever. But that's another tale entirely.

Neither situation is perfect, and the article does a great job of showing the potential problems of letting writers run the roost. ($150 000 A DAY? GULP.) But I wonder, in the end, is it easier to teach a weird creative person how to read a budget? Or make a creative writer out of a producer?

I don't have the answer to that. What I do know is that in the U.K., they manage to have a higher quality threshold in a system where a lot of the producers don't write. So...what's the difference? Is it respect for the Writer? What?

Writers in a Room: What Kind of Whine To Serve?

So last night in Toronto there was a little get together pre-national forum of the Writers Guild of Canada.

It's not the big-writer hoo-ha get together: that happens at the end of this month at the Canadian Screenwriting Awards. This was just a small pub thing to, I don't know, canvas the membership.

Get a bunch of writers in a room and some surprising things happen. You learn some stuff.

I learned, for instance, that my irrational attachment and feeling that Veronica Mars has managed to crack the standalone vs. arc problem is not a unique view.

I learned, once again, that get-togethers are very different when there's not forty actors in the middle of the room doing the "please look at me! me! me!" dance.

I learned that I have a certain fond affection for the writer's version of that dance: "please don't look at me under any circumstances, but damnit, listen to what I'm telling you."

I continued my strange tradition of having conversations about Stephen Sondheim when it's least expected.

I learned that translation work is not as well-regulated as it should be, which is odd for a country that purportedly has two official national languages.

I learned that I'm not alone in wishing for a network executive who will just stand up, lay it on the line, and say, "This is my Lost, my Office, my Seinfeld...I will spend my capital on this. I believe in this show and I will stand behind it and fight for it."

I learned that when you've had nothing but whisky and Guinness and one Yogurt all day, finger foods are clearly awesome.

I learned that I probably have to shut up about the goddamn CBC.

I learned that yes, writers are witty and fun, and wicked and scabrous and incredibly intelligent. And that none of that matters because noone listens to a damn thing we say. Ever.

And then someone stole my coat. So you know, if you were at the Bedford Academy last night and you walked off with a grey sort of sportscoat that clearly wasn't yours, I wish you bird flu.

So there. I learned I would like the power to smite people.

I should have known that about myself before.

Speak, Writers, Speak.

Sometimes I try to explain to people a little younger to me what it used to be like to be interested in TV on a professional level in the pre-Entertainment Weekly, pre-E.T., pre-Internet days.

It's usually a lost cause -- like trying to explain to University Arts undergrads how there's more to "researching" than "Googling."

Time was, if you wanted to learn about how a show was really put together, you had to buy screenwriting magazines, or attend sessions or talks -- which pretty much put you S.O.L. if you lived in Des Moines instead of L.A.

Even today, with "extended content" and "exclusive behind the scenes" stuff emerging as the newest carrot for promotion, the balance is tipped more toward the breathy B.S. that we've all seen and read before: interviews with Actors talking about "their characters." Such insight. Woo.

Anyway, that being said there are a number of places you can turn now if you really want insight into the actual creation of TV shows on a regular basis. Some I've mentioned before here, some not. Some are revealing, some are fluff. (Actually, I've tried to weed out the fluff, but don't quote me on that.)

The Gold Standard is probably Battlestar Galactica. Ronald D. Moore is more candid on his weekly podcasts for the show than just about any writer-producer I've ever heard. I think it helps that the commentaries are recorded soon after the episodes are completed, before they're aired. There's a very different quality to his insights, fresh out of the trenches. Normal commentaries are recorded for the DVD release months or years after the show was produced, and it often seems like the person trying to recall the distant memory of what it was like to work on the episode. (Trust me, when you're in production, anything other than two episodes ago is ancient history.)

Moore is more than generous in his insights -- and the nice thing is that most of his comments really do surround the construction of story, and why scenes are the way they are.

The crazed fans of the old-series, for whom the new BSG can do no right, will no doubt view these commentaries as Moore's attempts to justify himself. Looking at it with a more professional eye, I think it's just a case of Moore being relieved to finally get to steer the show, and have it recieved so well. I get the impression that his years toiling within the Star Trek straitjacket have left Moore so thrilled about getting to do things his way, that he wants to share his enthusiasm.

And his comments aren't a wank. In fact, some of the most effective commentaries are on episodes that Moore admits are subpar. His deconstruction of what went wrong, and why the episodes (specifically, "Black Market") don't work, is, if anything, more illuminating than the comments on the shows that sing. (You always learn more from failure than success.)

Moore cagily knows that this level of interaction can help cement loyalty to a show. But as a peek into the process for new or working writers, it's invaluable.

What prompted this post is a brand new post, available on the SciFi Channel Site or on Itunes, that takes you inside the writers' room. I haven't listened to all of it yet, and I doubt with the tape rolling that it will be the free-for-all that you sometimes get, but it's appointment listening nonetheless. Moore and BSG continue to blaze the way toward making the process of crafting a TV show more transparent. (Note to Canadian Readers: this Podcast discusses an episode that won't air on SPACE for another couple of weeks, so if you don't want to be spoiled, wait.)

LOST has run some interesting podcasts. Again, there's some actor stuff in there, too. But if you search you can find some gold.

I like Fred Goss's blog for Sons & Daughters because amidst the actor praise, it shows you the psyche and a bit of the experience of a writer working for a network. Yes. Writers are all this neurotic. So could you cut us a %@$ing break people? We're delicate artistes, too.

Commander In Chief is also doing a podcast, though their stuff features a bit too much Actor-gab for me. The conversation between two writers with differing political views is interesting, though.

Scrubs offers a mixed bag -- some actor stuff, but there's some writer insight there too. I've enjoyed quite a bit of it.

The Grey's Anatomy Grey's Writers site is a bit chatty cathy, and more gossipy than analytical, but there are good lessons there about theme and how they fit together, and some insight into showrunning, and why writers make the character choices they do.

If anyone has any other suggestions for good, writer-based show blogs or podcasts, leave 'em below in the comments.

And don't forget to tip your waitresses.

Fox Confessions from Neko Case

I've been feeling rather poorly these last few days -- and don't ask me with what - it's low grade but unpleasant.

Anyway, I got it together for a few hours to go see a concert last night.

NEKO CASE has been plying her trade for a number of years now. She's one of the voices in the alt.group New Pornographers, and she can often be found palling around with friends The Sadies and Calexico. Or maybe you caught the weird fooferal a few years back when Playboy named her its sexiest indie artist (or something like that.)

Anyway, Case is famous for her brilliant red hair and supple, clear, and bone-chillingly pure torchy voice. Like a lot of artists who don't quite fit in the box, it's been hard to know where to slot her. This is complicated somewhat by the fact that, up til now, her songwriting hasn't always met the challenge posed by that sing-it-to-the-rafters voice. Her most successful album to date, I believe, was a live EP she released last year with the Sadies backing her. That CD, "The Tigers Have Spoken" showed some of why she's so prized as a live performer, and featured a few covers as well as some of the songs she wrote with The Sadies.

Last night, Toronto's refurbished (if still unfinished) Danforth Music Hall played host to the second date of her tour for her new album Fox Confessor Brings The Flood. I was excited to see this show because the album has been blowing me (and a lot of critics) away.

Neko acknowledged during the show how much working and writing with The Sadies has helped and changed her ("they built me from the ground up," she said.) The songs on the new album are haunting, bloody, visceral sketches that plumb the dark territories of the human heart. If you're singing around a campfire singing a bunch of murder ballads in the middle of the desert at night, well, you kind of want Neko Case and her singing "mate" Kelly Hogan there.

The interplay between Case and Hogan's vocals have always been a high point of their live shows. (I had a chance to see them sing The Band's "Evangeline" with The Sadies and Garth Hudson on Keyboards last month in a small Toronto club. Yes. It was as good as it sounds.)


After getting off to a slow start (the mix was muddy for the first few songs) the evening settled into an arresting, if odd, vibe. Neko said the Danforth Hall was a little "spooky," which works with the new material on the album just fine. We all know the drill by now: the new songs are the stick on every tour, til you get to the carrot of the old favorites. Not so this time. This was one of those few shows where the new songs were the highlight. They served to underline just how strong that new material is. These are the songs that have garnered her the best reviews and acclaim of her career, along with a recent appearance on the Tonight Show.

Then she sneaks up on you with something like her lovely cover of Bob Dylan's "Buckets of Rain."

I remember being fascinated and energized by the inspiration that Paul Thomas Anderson took from the songs of Aimee Mann when he crafted Magnolia. To me, Neko Case is that kind of inspirational artist. I put on her CD and drive the dusty byways of songs about dirty knives and coming in at three a.m. "Alone, Thank God," and I imagine the time when I can lovingly edit a scene of one of my shows around those rapturous vocals. I want to hear her sing Leonard Cohen. I want to write a Magnolia to Neko.