Canadian Screenwriting Awards Finalist Announcement

The Writers Guild of Canada has announced the finalists for the 2007 Canadian Screenwriting Awards.

Here they are:

CHILDREN & PRESCHOOL

If the World Were a Village
Written by Kate Barris

Jane and the Dragon “A Dragon’s Tail”
Written by Simon Racioppa & Richard Elliott

The Big Comfy Couch “Clown in the Round”
Written by Bill Murtagh

COMEDY & VARIETY

Corner Gas “Blog River”
Written by Paul Mather

Corner Gas “Outside Joke”
Written by Brent Butt & Kevin White

The Jane Show “All About Steve”
Written by Teresa Pavlinek

The Jane Show “Should Have Said”
Written by Ralph Chapman & Teresa Pavlinek

DOCUMENTARY

Medicare Schmedicare
Written by Robert Duncan

The Bomber’s Dream
Written by Barry Stevens

Turning Points of History “Return to Saigon”
Written by Dugald Maudsley

DRAMA SERIES (1/2 Hour)

11 Cameras “Episode 7”
Written by Jason Sherman

Naked Josh “Beating the Wrap”
Written by Laura Kosterski

Naked Josh “Footprints”
Written by Robert Sheridan

DRAMA SERIES (1 HOUR)

Godiva’s “Out the Door”
Written by Michael MacLennan

Intelligence “Love and War”
Written by Chris Haddock

Slings & Arrows “That Way Madness Lies”
Written by Susan Coyne, Bob Martin, Mark McKinney

FEATURE FILM

Almost Heaven
Written by Shel Piercy & Richard Beattie

Away From Her
Written by Sarah Polley

Fido
Written by Robert Chomiak & Andrew Currie & Dennis Heaton

MOW & MINISERIES

Above and Beyond
Written by John W. Doyle and Lisa Porter

Eight Days to Live
Written by David Fraser and Peter Smith & Greg Spottiswood

One Dead Indian
Written by Andrew Wreggitt and Hugh Graham

RADIO DRAMA

Afghanada “Episode 4”
Written by Andrew Moodie, Greg Nelson, Adam Pettle and Jason Sherman

A Stone’s Throw
Written by Jason Sherman

It Came From Beyond
Written by Beverley Cooper

YOUTH

Degrassi: The Next Generation “Our Lips Are Sealed – Part 2”
Story by Avra Fein & James Hurst: Teleplay by James Hurst & Alexandra Zarowny

Naturally Sadie “Rashomon”
Written by Brent Piaskoski

renegadepress.com “The Rez”
Written by Jordan Wheeler

renegadepress.com “This is Your Brain on Love”
Written by Sara Snow


Congrats to all the nominees, but especially to friends, colleagues, and acquaintances I've worked with, laughed with, drank with, and admired from afar and aclose: Rob Sheridan, Kevin White, Kate Barris, Dennis Heaton, Simon Racioppa, Jason Sherman, and Paul Mather.

Good luck to all the nominees. Hope to raise a glass with you at the Awards in Toronto in April; where surviving this business is always the greatest prize.

Peter Mohan on Blood Ties, Part 2!

The good folks at Geek Monthly have posted the second part of their interview with Blood Ties Creator & Showrunner Peter Mohan. In part two he discusses more of the real writing challenges of the show, alludes to some plot developments and character arcs and posits why Vampires are just so damn cool.

A short bit:

GEEKMONTHLY.COM: Not to be crass here, but is this a fiscally challenged show? It doesn’t feel like a giant budget and I wonder if it’s a tough show to produce.

PETER MOHAN: It is very tough to do. The budget is very… miniscule. But the thing is, it’s not a show that essentially lives on its visual effects. Although once you see them in their complete form, they do look pretty great, but it’s a show that lives on those relationships and that’s what the show’s strength is, I think. We have great actors who give great, solid performances.

The rest of the interview is here.

Remember, Yankees: you get to see it first: Sunday, March 11th at 9pm ET on Lifetime.

Blood Ties in the UK

Looks like those of you across the pond may very well see my work on Blood Ties before Canadians do.

Oh so typical. From C21:

Virgin Media TV's Living channel has acquired a new supernatural crime thriller from ContentFilm distributor Fireworks International for launch in summer 2007 in primetime.

What is LIVING, anyway? And is anyone else grokking on the irony with me that a series featuring an Undead guy is airing on "Living" and "Lifetime?"

Anyone?

Bueller?

Jebus!

That March really does sneak up on ya, don't it?

Celebration Libations and Motor City Waitin'

These days, when Daddy finishes a hard-fought first draft, (in this case Ep. 21 of Blood Ties) that was giving him trouble, the reward is crystal clear:

Redbreast, of course, is the 12 year old Pure Pot Still Irish Whiskey in the Jameson's family, from the good people at Pernod Ricard. It is very pleasing. If there is a heaven, this is undoubtedly the bar brand. If you see me out somewhere and buy me one, I will allow you to rub the bald spot on the top of my head and grant you a wish.

So, surfing around, I came across a couple more nifty Motor City photos on photographer Russ Martin's Site:


Above, this is young Ben Ford and Katie Wilton, c. 1963.


Oooh. Ladies, look at Sasha Roiz. (Young Ben Ford) Seriously, isn't this guy a goddamn movie star?

Revel in that old-fashioned noir smolder. Seriously. You're gonna love this guy.

See, Ladies? He hurts. He hurts so damn much.

Across The River To Motor City airs on CHUM stations (far as I know) Fall 2007.

The Manatee Has become the Mentos

Seriously, why the hell aren't you people watching this show?

It Doesn't Matter What It Is! Kill It! Kill It!

Then there's this post from Craig at Artful Writer.

Seriously. Kill it.

Gobbling Advils Like Tic Tacs

Some very, very intense writing the last couple days boys and girls, so no time for blogging. But of course, even though I've put in two 12+ hour days, that doesn't mean you don't build in the procrasto-time. Since my brain's too fried to actually write anything original, how about this...three of the big things I surfed to today.

You're welcome.

First, if you saw Children of Men, you must have been mesmerised by the rich visual texture of all the screens and moving ads. Way more subtly and interestingly executed than the cynical product placement in Minority Report. Well, now the agency that did them, Foreign Office, is giving you a closer look. Neat. I wonder how much of this was scripted and how much was their own initiative?

Then there was the case of the Oscar sound-mixer smackdown. Boo-yaka, bitch, hear my snark! (Cause it's so crystal clear and well-mixed!)

Finally, it's not that this SNL Digital Short is even that funny. (They're starting to hit the law of diminshing returns.) It's just that I think I'm physically compelled to find anything Rainn Wilson or Will Forte does funny.

Blood Ties Interview with Peter Mohan!

While I toil trying to pump out that elusive first draft of the next-to-last episode in Blood Ties' first season, showrunner and show creator Peter Mohan talks about discovering the Tanya Huff novels, and the core of what makes Blood Ties so special.

This is the first part of a two part Geek Love interview from GeekMonthly.com!


An excerpt:

GEEKMONTHLY.COM: How did you get involved with the project in the first place?

PETER MOHAN: I’ve got kind of a long history with it, because I’d read the novels years ago. I saw them prominently displayed at a bookstore because they’d just been published. They talked about this female P.I. working the streets of Toronto with her partner who’s a vampire. I thought, “Okay, I’m in.” I read them, liked them and thought it would be a great thing to turn into a show, but didn’t have the time or the wherewithal to do it. Suddenly these guys called me about three years ago and said, “We’ve got a show about a female P.I. who works with a vampire,” and I said, “Oh my God, you’ve got the Vicki Nelson novels. I’ve got to be involved.” We went on from there.

Read the rest here.

Also, apparently there's a couple of blurbs in the next issue of the U.S. TVGuide, including a nice mention in the magazine's HOT LIST: 21 shows you've gotta see.

Blood Ties 2 hour premiere airs on Lifetime in the USA on Sunday, March 11, 9PM ET.

Lest We Forget Robson Arms...

Canadians, you have a chance to see Robson Arms, sprung for this one week from its Saturday night Gulag to follow that horrible song show with the warbling people and the mean man.

The episode showing tonight also features SCTV demigod Joe Flaherty. But really, how many reasons to watch do you need?

This show falls squarely into the, "shows that people don't watch that prove the whole Canadians don't make good shows thing is bullshit."

9:30 p.m. Please do give it a go. Don't wait til it's sold to the USA three years from now to decide that, hey, you know what? It's good.

NOT Magically Delicious

I watched EZ Streets.
I loved EZ Streets.
Black Donnellys? You are no EZ Streets.

See what I did there? I used a cliche to intro this post. The cliche springs from the October 5, 1988 Amerian Vice Presidential Debate, where then-Republican Veep candidate Dan Quayle had the temerity to compare himself to Jack Kennedy, as he'd been doing in his stump speech for months. Democrat Lloyd Bentsen responded with the famous quip:

Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy: I knew Jack Kennedy; Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.

A pretty devastating comeback, to be sure. It almost obscures the fact, that Dan Quayle did go on to become Vice President for four years, where he managed to use his time attacking fictional television characters. An undeserved pirohuette in the spotlight, to be sure. But one that in short order has been reduced to its essence: the quip above and a few half-remembered punchlines about the man's haplessness and his wife's hair. The judgment of history, when it comes, tends to cut to the quick.

Today, any construction based on Bentsen's remark is a cliche because the rhythm is so well-known, and has been used so many times, that it's a go-to. It's been drained and separated from its original impact through re-use. You use cliches because they work, but every time you use one, it's like rubbing the foot of a lucky statue. The gold gets burnished a little more. A little more rubs off til all you're left with is a pile of lead.

Kind of like The Black Donnellys.

Jack Kennedy and Lloyd Bentsen are both dead now, of course. Which at least means they don't have to suffer through this horrible, hackneyed, completely unbelievable exercise in Emperor's New Clothes Wankery. (or as John Doyle called it, "paddywhackery.")

You have the unreliable narrator.
You have the girl next door.
You have the Irish guy who owns a bar.
You have the dead dad who was a union leader.
You have the family secret motivation.
You have the Michael Corleone good boy turned reluctant gangster.

I was writing someone during the show last night complaining that all that was missing was the gaelic singing just as the gaelic singing started. (During a loving, mournful period of violence, natch.)

This is the kind of show where you try to take the stink off the fact that you're putting out a bilious cliche by having a character comment on it. A line about how Irish Americans despise having themselves portrayed as a bunch of brawling drunks is followed by a bar fight. All of about three minutes into the show.

Remember when Tommy Gavin went across the table to go at his brother cause he found out he was sleeping with his wife, Janet? Yeah. Uh. This is not that.

Start to finish, the story of how good boy Tommy goes to the path of darkness is paint-by-numbers predictable. The only scene they skipped was talking to the parish priest in the confessional. Maybe they decided to save that for Episode Two.

How you could be Irish, watch this, and not want to throw a rigidly-upper bodied Irish dancer through Paul Haggis' window is totally beyond me.

The show's ostensibly set in Hell's Kitchen, but seems strangely devoid of time or place -- which is not surprising considering Hell's Kitchen was long-ago supplanted by trendy Clifton, the latest NY 'hood where lofts and condos tempt the young professional to debt and domesticity.

In essaying his view of an Italian-American crime family, David Chase heard complaints from the segment of the Italian community who always complain any time Italians are portrayed as gangsters. Not only has he integrated that criticism into his show, he's managed to turn the critique into something of an inner-show dialogue that's spawned some memorable plot turns and discussions among the characters.

I don't think The Black Donnellys has anywhere near that level of ambition. In fact, it seems to me that Haggis, after pouring heart and soul into the "magnificent failure" of EZ Streets, is looking to try and do something a little less challenging in order to pull in the eyeballs. He's succeeded. All those failed shows from the fall: Daybreak, The Nine, Six Degrees, Vanished, Smith, Kidnapped -- Donnellys is less ambitious than every one of them.

If you, like me, were a Crash hater, you have no need for this show. It's not Haggis at his finest, it's Haggis at his worst and his laziest. I hope he takes a crack (or is that craic?) at TV again soon, because I don't think any of us are going to be talking about the Donnelly's come St. Patrick's Day.

And hopefully, when the judgment of history comes, it won't spare a lot of ink for these Donnellys. If you want an Irish fix, both Rescue Me and Brotherhood portray some of the cultural quirks of the Irish family experience with verve and authenticity. If you want a story of Irish gangters, try Phil Joanou's first film, State of Grace, starring Sean Penn, Ed Harris, and a wonderful turn by Gary Oldman as a very Donnelly-like brother in the actual Hell's Kitchen. Or hell, rent The Departed. Nicholson's got nothing to do with being Irish, but his Irish gangster is at least fun to watch.

As for the Black Donnellys? Well, it's one begorrah away from being a joke. And all the people giving it good reviews? Well, y'all can kiss my royal Irish...

...wait. Never mind. Ending on something like that would be a terrible cliche.

Must See TV

By now, maybe this is old news. I don't know. I heard about it, and just caught up with this today. Further to the point I made below about serious authors having to do comedy shows to get the word on their books out, here comes Craig Ferguson.

Now, sadly, I'm an old man now and the days of me staying up to watch 12:30 tv is long gone. But now that I'm out in Vancouver with timeshifting, there's a possibility that I can maybe start catching The Late Late Show at the unlate time of 9:30 p.m. some nights. I think I will. Cause this is one of the most remarkable things I've seen on TV in a long while. Take the time and watch both clips.

Schlameeted Scenes

Sepinwall, in the Star-Ledger today writes about the deleted scene and how it's changing (or not) the audience's relationship with the TV show.

A couple of points of particular note:

• Greg Daniels (The Office) recently relegated a scene where Andy (Ed Helms) was ordered to take anger management, to a deleted web-only scene. He wanted to see if that piece of info would disseminate from the online fans (who watch the scenes) to casual fans (show only.) It didn't, which is why they snuck in a line last week about it.

This is what I've always suspected about online/deleted stuff -- that you can't count on it and, contrary to what they will insist, over and over quite obsessively on their little boards -- the television audience without the hookup is much greater, they approach the show quite differently, and one can't assume that what the online fans are getting translates to the fanbase at large. I think you follow that strategy at your peril. (I also think that the online audience is concerned about different things, and is tilted more toward being overly critical when compared to the average viewer, but your mileage may vary on that one.)

That being said, another interesting nugget mined from the article: Office writers treat stuff that was in deleted scenes as explained -- even if it was cut from the show. So a character like Creed has backstory jokes in there that refer to a plot point that was never in the show (but was on the website deleted scene.)

I think that's a pretty interesting strategy. It's certainly easier than trying to remember what was in and what was out ten episodes ago. Which I guess puts the "Andy experiment" in its proper focus -- how far can you actually go with that? Having a character disappear offscreen and having the only explanation for that disappearance in the delete bin is probably too far.

• Battlestar Galactica does indeed sneak deleted scenes for abandoned plots occasionally into the "previously ons" -- so the "previously ons" sometimes contain material that was never on the show, but that will help you understand the episode you're about to watch. All the more reason to watch'em.

• Both The Office and Battlestar Galactica regularly come in 15 minutes over on their first cuts. Which results in a lot of trimming back. With most Canadian shows I've been on, they try to aim for only 6 to 8 over. And sometimes not even that, if you're stretching the budget. It strikes me that pinching those pennies so you don't shoot long may be one of the factors that leads to the prevailing problem of slower pace in Canadian shows -- less choice, less you're trying to fit in, more padding = slower pace.
  

Anyway, food for thought.

Shilling on the NPR of TV

There's a fascinating story in today's NY Times about how serious authors and serious books are finding the best outlet for their tomes is The Daily Show and Colbert:

Part of the surprise, publishers said, is that the Comedy Central audience is more serious than its reputation allows. The public may still think of the “Daily Show” and “Colbert Report” audience as a group of sardonic slackers, Gen-Y college students who prefer YouTube to print. But publishers say it’s a much more diverse demographic — and more important, a book-buying audience.

“It’s the television equivalent of NPR,” Ms. Levin, of Free Press, said. “You have a very savvy, interested audience who are book buyers, people who do go into bookstores, people who are actually interested in books.”

What goes unsaid in the article is, I think, the more important context. We are at a place in our culture where the traditional news outlets have been so devalued that Stewart isn't just the home of fake news with more content than the real news, it's now one of the only places on TV where you can get a dose of serious thought.

The evolution of the narrative on this has been fascinating. We've gone from "isn't it a problem that kids get their news from fake news like Stewart," (the drumbeat of which finally quieted after that study came out showing that there was as much news content in Stewart's shows than the news, and his viewers had a better grasp on the issues,) to "if you want to talk about serious stuff, you have to do the comedy show."

And just like Bill O'Reilly bloviating about Stewart's audience not being serious people, FOX News proves once again that they really don't understand what's going on in the culture, well, at all:

“The 1/2 Hour News Hour” on Fox, the conservative answer to the Comedy Central shows, had its premiere with 1.5 million viewers last Sunday but does not plan to do author interviews, a Fox spokeswoman said.

What I Learned Today

Courtesy of This American Life.

In Chicago, bridges sometimes smell like chocolate, because of a chocolate factory on the City's west side that's been making chocolate there since 1939.

Of course, as is inevitable in this day and age, someone complained, and the EPA went to check it out and announced that they were spewing too much cocoa into the air. So they had to install scrubbers or something and now there's less chocolate smell.

Meanwhile, the many coal plants in the area spew toxic dust some 200 times a year into the air, but because they only exceed the guidelines for a few minutes at a time and are mostly in compliance, that's okay.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the way of our world.

***

I have to work today because I didn't "earn my Saturday" by getting far enough into my script. I have also been enjoying my week of positivity, and my layoff from Canadian TV moaning. Early next week I'll be back in the fray with a two part post: Tours & Talks are Nice But Jobs Are Better, and The Solution to the Canadian TV Game That Will Never Ever Happen. See y'all soon.

Oy, Jan.

She's no Tina Fey, but Melora Hardin, as Jan Levinson on The Office gains points for the awkward, vulnerable, laugh out loud line of the week.

And extra points for finally making an oveused, never funny Michael Scott phrase freaking hilarious.

On why she's gone public with her relationship with Michael Scott:

"I am taking a calculated risk. What's the upside? I overcome my nausea, fall deeply in love, babies, normalcy, no more self-loathing. Downside, I, uh, date Michael Scott publicly and collapse in on myself like a dying star. Why is this so hard? That's what she said. Oh my God, what am I saying?"

Between that and the stunt directing (J.J. Abrams this week, Joss Whedon last week) you'd be forgiven for thinking this was the hottest comedy on TV right now.

To some of us it is is, no doubt, but then again, the list of comedies breaking my heart in the last few years is too painful to mention.

When It Clicks

Today I'm not making the drive out to Maple Ridge. I'm going to be sitting at my living room table in the East End of Vancouver, doing my best to pound out the penultimate episode of the first season of Blood Ties.

Somebody once said that when you're doing TV, six is a mint; thirteen is a stretch; twenty-two is a war. Blood Ties' showrunner, Peter Mohan, told us a story yesterday of an old show where he had to deliver twenty-six episodes. And it was a difficult series with a lot of problems. I have to hold my head just thinking of it.

Meanwhile, I don't happen to think that six is anything to sneeze at, having just written the bulk of a six-pack myself -- a process that necessitated the loss of much of the remaining hair I have left.

Six is also the number of weeks that I've been on this show. So I'm new and fresh-faced, but I'm already tired. In a sense, I guess that's because the time that everybody else got to take off at Christmas I spent finishing work, prepping to come out to Vancouver, boning up on this show and actually starting work. When this gig's over, the first thing I'm going to do is put on a snorkel and some flippers.

I can't commit to going somewhere where I can use them, yet, of course. One step at a time.

Six weeks is long enough to discover something else, though. And it's this:

This is a great movie.

Every movie has its own set of problems, to be sure. But when I compare the look-around I have now to some of the projects I've worked in the past, there's an inescapable conclusion: Blood Ties is a wonderful place to work.

Why? Well, let's break it down. There's laughter in production meetings. Lots of it. When the producer walks in to a meeting, there's usually a bit of banter, not scowls and hushes. People give the production designer a bit of stick -- and he takes it and laughs it off. The writers laugh their heads off every day.

For the first time in my life, I'm working with another Dennis. And you think it would be confusing, and sometimes it is. Denis/Dennis isn't one of those names that you get a lot, so you don't get used to people calling it out and not meaning you.

Then there's Denise, who runs the office. I had the sublime pleasure of getting an envelope with a contract in it yesterday marked, "To Dennis and Denis from Denise." That's poetry, man. You can't make that shit up.

Just so the confusion doesn't run too much toward French farce, the two Den(n)ises have fallen into a shorthand. There's "Good Denis" and "Bad Dennis." It may surprise some people who know me well to know that I am actually the Good Denis.

Then again, you've never met Dennis. Dennis has a black, black heart, my friend. Where the joke ends for you, it starts for him. This is the part, the joy of being a professional writer, that's just impossible to convey to you spec monkeys out there. Often, the best part of finally clawing your way in is not in benefits or payments or production fees or onscreen credits -- (though don't get me wrong, those are all nice things) it's the simple joy of this: being able to work and interact with smart people who just make you laugh.

Put the Good and the Bad with the Pretty, our fearless Story Coordinator, Travis, (who's getting his big first produced writing credits on this show) And you've got a great team. I met Travis when he went to the Film Centre. And I must admit when I met him I never guessed how good he would be at taking the merciless hazing that we throw at him. Course, he may yet kill us. I think maybe I caught him yesterday measuring my head for a box. Time will tell.

It's a dog friendly office, too. I'm a sucker for that. Most days you can see one of a few pooches wandering around. I was stuck on some really rough bit, sitting in my windowless, pea-soup yellow office, and this little terrier wandered in, sniffed the boxes in the corner, gave me a look that seemed to say "can't you throw those out already?", turned around three times, cocked his head and walked out. Amidst my broad smile -- there it was. The answer. I had solved my logic problem.

I'm not giving the dog a co-write.

Somebody - it may have been my father - said years ago that one of the best ways to gauge the quality of a work experience is: Am I still learning? And the answer here is definitely, absolutely, yes.

First, let me tell you what I've learned from the actors. We've got a core cast that is so committed and professional that it makes me give my head a shake. It's like winning the lottery.

Writers carry plenty of cliches about actors, not always undeserved. There's often a lot of eye-rolling when a version of, "but my character wouldn't say that" gets busted out. Now I'm not saying there aren't egomaniacs out there, and difficult actors -- just like there's difficult people everywhere. But when you have professional actors, who really read the script, try to work their way through it and are trying to work with you to make it better, here is the single greatest thing they do:

They never let you get away with anything.

I'm serious. You fanboys and fangirls out there tracking continuity errors or logic errors -- I'm not saying that actors solve the problems (the last thing we need is more people thinking that actors just make up all their lines and deserve even more of the glory than they already get,) but sometimes, an actor bump, just like a network bump -- is exactly the thing you need to Get you right with God on your script, and stop trying to paper over something that shouldn't be papered over.

My first script for the show finished shooting yesterday. A week ago, at the read-through, the lead balked at an action that she was supposed to take in the last act that she needed to take for story's sake, that maybe didn't 100% make sense. In the back of my mind I knew this, but I quieted the voice that said, "uh uh," because every solution I came up with seemed to unnecessarily complicate the story at the end -- right at the point where you're trying to bring everything into port and end the show quickly. Endings have their own momentum, and the last thing you want to do is shoehorn in another beat. To do so can throw off that race to the finish and murder the pace of the show at exactly the point it needs to be tightest.

So you gulp your apple juice and write the scene and cross your fingers and hope that nobody asks.

Actors -- good actors -- always ask.

In the end, the solution to the problem flipped the end scene a bit, and opened up an opportunity to bring back some mythology from the backstory. That solution, though, created a logic problem for another character. That objection led to a two-line on-the-day rewrite that added a whole other layer to the scene - all without slowing up momentum.

And NONE OF THIS would have happened if the actors weren't doing their jobs above and beyond saying their lines, and selling the drama. Good questions bring great solutions. And you see, again, just how the collaborative process is supposed to work.

Then there was the case of the other lead. I sat in the showrunner's office yesterday and studied this actor's face as he tried to work through what was definitely a difficult, challenging scene for him. It's a scene where the actor has to play two very specific things -- and those things are fighting within him, both bubbling up. And he was having trouble with the dialogue getting him there.

And you know what the solution was? Cutting two lines. Because they were head lines, at a moment where the reaction needed to be all heart.

Actors are cool.

Now, let's talk about the people actually making the movie.

The Director of my script, Andy, came up to me several times this week and just ran blocking by me. In every case his blocking was spot on; he and the actors discovered a way to stage the scene in a way that exactly communicated my intent in the scene -- even though -- and this is important to note -- it often deviated from what I had down on the page.

In the majority of cases I've had up til now, I've gotten used to "The Trade." The Trade is where you look at the scene as it was shot and you suss out what was gained and what was lost. If you're lucky, you can make peace with what the director added and paper over or accept what was lost.

Where you get into trouble is where the thing that was lost was supposed to presage or tip something that was coming down the line. Because the problem with series, of course, is that one ep is only part of a whole. Writers often have to change direction for a million different reasons: you cast an actor as a love interest or nemesis and it doesn't work, so you have to switch gears. That's the nature of the game.

But it's hard -- really hard -- when you work on something, and you lay something into a scene because you want it to have a build that may not pay off for another three episodes, and the director just summarily decides not to shoot it. Up to now, my mantra has always been, "it doesn't matter if you don't do exactly what's there, so long as you add something to replace it." The beat has to be there.

I'll give you an example of a case that didn't work, that always bothered me. On a show I wrote, I wanted to play a moment between two characters. Here's the situation: they've just slept together. It's the morning after. What I don't want to have is the standard, "it's not you baby, it's me..." conversation. But our hero can't commit and the woman playing opposite him is supposed to be tough, but someone who's just opened up and gotten it thrown back in her face.

So in the script, I busted out our old friend the objective correlative. I set it in the kitchen. She's made breakfast. He enters the kitchen. She serves it -- with all the hope and the vulnerability of someone saying, "is this something?" "is this going somewhere?" And our hero, bastard that he is (at this point, I must qualify,) starts in on his variation of "it's not you, it's me." And our she, she's so clever, and she's been here so many times before that she gets it even before he's said it -- she takes the plate of eggs off the table, and walks over, and dumps them into the garbage. All without a word. Then she turns and plays the rest of the scene -- but you get it already, right? From that action you get what she's going through.

Except the director didn't shoot it. She just takes the eggs and puts them on a counter -- not that you really even see her do that, because that's not focused on, even in a glancing way.

Maybe they couldn't find exactly the right garbage can. I have no idea. But the result was a flat, flat, flat scene like a scene we've seen a million times before, where her character just stood there and had nothing to do. She didn't reveal that she knew it was coming, she didn't anticipate, she didn't show her anger or her strength with one motion, and there was no object, no objective correlative of the subtext underpinning the scene.

It played like a scene where she cooked some eggs.

Now contrast to that to the experience I had this week. This week I learned that you can get most of what your intent was in the scene -- AND have the Director make it way, way, way better. You can preserve the arcs and beats you have in your head for down the road -- and still add to the whole scene. You don't have to accept the trade.

I mean -- this is the way it's supposed to work. I am over. the. moon.

I've only been to set a few times. I still think a writer on set is kind of like a fish with an Indy car...you don't have a job and you just get in the way. But when you go to set, what you see is a crew doing their best to keep upbeat, do their work. The director calls for something, and people haul ass. They come together on other things, too. They've worked on someone's music video on the weekends. There are signs up for birthday parties.

It's hard to say this, being Toronto-based, and with Toronto taking a hit now because of the ACTRA strike and all, but to my eyes, you can really see the difference that TV series culture has wrought here. This is not a show with all the money in the world. Yet it's definitely the most professional set I've ever been on -- and that includes all the sets -- some of them big shows, that I visited as a journalist before I started writing professionally. The last time I was on a set in Vancouver, it was as a journalist, and it was about nine years ago. And it was...um...not like our set. Thank You, X-Files. Again.

I overheard someone say yesterday that there's thirty days left in the shoot. I'm the new guy, the interloper -- and I spend most of my time upstairs anyway, but there's no denying that this group is something special; and I hope that the show hits and shoots right through to a second season, because when you get a group working this well together, breaking them up and apart seems a colossal waste.

On that score... we've started to see more and more of the cuts come through. We're seeing the work, and it's good. I think we've done it. I think this is actually a fresh, fun, sharp spin on the vampire story. There's humor, there's pathos, there's comedy, there's spookiness and scariness. It's good!

And in just under three weeks, Americans will get to see it on Lifetime. (I am sorry, my fellow Canadians, you will have to wait till the fall. But look at it this way: maybe you'll know if you're committing to a series that's going to continue by then.)

Oh, are my fingers crossed. People working at the top of their game have made something special here. I can't wait for you to see it.

And I feel very lucky being six weeks on something that other people have slaved away on for months.

We have one more story to break -- a story that will end the first season and reshuffle the deck and scream out for more stories of Mike Celluci, Vicki Nelson, and Henry Fitzroy.

As Lifetime's slogan goes: A detective to keep her cool. A vampire to keep her warm. Some women have it all.

So do some shows. When it clicks, it's like no other job in the world, people. It really is.

EDIT: I actually have been reminded, much to my embarrassment, that I have worked with a Dennis before. In South Africa. I guess we didn't really play the confusion beat too much though because he had that plummy accent and I was a bloody Yank. Still, I'm red faced. Sorry Mr. Venter. Mea Culpa.

Some of My Favorite Words All in a Row

These things are starting to become a YouTube cliche. But damn if I didn't really enjoy this one. For those of you with those things they call "jobs," in the lingo of the day, this is so totally Not Safe for F***ing Work.

Props

Versions of this have been floating around YouTube for weeks. But this one's probably the tightest edited one I've seen.

Look. We all use props. Actors love 'em. It lets them focus all their feeling on something external. It's a trick that many like to use.

Writers use props too. We talk in shorthand in the room. We have jargon. We do things like cut to the chase and say, "it's a Frankenstein story" or "we got a High Noon showdown here." We may even think of certain plot turns or reveals that it's good to use and reuse, because they always work. We call them go-tos. Or we talk about something hacky and say, "we'll do the good version of that" and then somehow run out of time and leave it.

Directors have the lenses they love to shoot with. They have their pet visual tricks, their flash, their ways of working entirely inside their comfort zone.

Props can be very useful. The only problem with using props is that it's so easy -- too easy -- to become utterly dependent on them. And one of the downsides of the watching-tv-on-DVD revolution is it makes it easier to spot the pattern, see the seams in the storytelling, or the same old, same old choices of the actors.

It becomes easier to see the props. And when you do, you say, well, then what happens?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you David Caruso's Sunglasses. Oh Lordy loo, them be a warning to us all.

Character Study: Why I Love Big, Gay, and Orange

Oh boy. What kind of blog traffic am I going to get with THAT post title?

The New York Times does this every once in a while, and I thought I'd do it too because it's a format I really like. I was watching old eps of How I Met Your Mother on DVD the other week, and it really struck me how at sea that show would be without Barney. Neil Patrick Harris really does sell that character so well. It's a perfect blending of character and scripting, probably the best I've seen since early O.C. Seth Cohen.
But there's another set of characters that have kind of stolen my heart.

Why do Steve and Brian, (Steve Agee and Brian Posehn) Sarah Silverman's "neighbors" on her eponymously-titled program, work so well?

Well, there's the obvious. On a simply visual level, these guys as gay men are just funny. The way Silverman describes them in the first episode of The Sarah Silverman Program (and which I cribbed for my post title above) perfectly encapsulates the base, grade school reaction one has when you see them together. I read my Dan Savage. I know all about bears, and obviously the prevailing gay esthetic of chiseled and super-buff isn't any more representative than trussing up supermodels to play the girl-next-door -- but you never see that on TV except as a punchline to what is inevitably a somewhat homophobic joke.

To see these two on screen together just puts you in a good mood. Because they fit. They do. I totally buy these two as a couple. They seem real. The way they act, and especially the way they bicker with affection.

I love the way Steve busts Brian for saying he's "bi" when he isn't, and the hilarious sight gag of Steve getting repeatedly knocked around while his karate-knowing BF stands by -- it works. It works so much better than it would if these two were your standard TV gay men.

It's worth noting, too, that though it's safe to assume that Sarah Silverman wouldn't go conventional with anything -- one of the most subversive things about Steve and Brian is that they're part of the ensemble at all. You can have the gay best friend on a sitcom, of course...that's been okay for years. But like the magic black person, there are rules -- time honored rules, for deploying them. Woe betide you if you violate those rules.

(Hint: the rules have to do with them being sexless so you never have to contemplate one of those icky man kisses. Corollary to this rule: Lesbian kisses are A-OK, but only if your characters look like Mischa Barton.)

Silverman just bruises right past all of that. You have a pairing here of two guys who have a good energy, and the status of their "relationship" is never a major point. Who cares? It's just woven as part of the fabric. If you believe the press, the two actors didn't even know they were supposed to be a gay couple until after they were cast. Whether or not that's true, the fact of the matter is, that's how it's played.

If you're agitating for gay acceptance, I say you surf the big gay orange wave coming through on Comedy Central each week. (In Canada, The Sarah Silverman Program starts on The Comedy Network in a few weeks. It has already been picked up for a 2nd season by Comedy Central.)

On the performer front, it helps that Agee (big, glasses, orange, and ...um...hair) wrote for Kimmel and Posehn (big, glasses, orange, balding) was part of the much-missed Mr. Show with Bob and David, but mostly, the thing I like about these guys is just that: I like these guys. I would love to hang out with them. You know you could have a great conversation with them. They're not stereotypes of anything. They are big, gay, and orange. Hear them roar.

What characters are doing it for you right now, and why? Let have it in the posts below.