ANYONE GOING to the Jewison CFC fete in L.A. today that wants to drop me a line about the event and what transpired, I'm more than happy to pass it along, all anonymous-like.
Interesting on the heels of this news. From the Hollywood Reporter:
TORONTO -- NBC Universal is getting into business with Norman Jewison's Canadian Film Center in to find the next, best TV concept from the Great White North.
The NBC Uni content creator program, to launch in the fall in Toronto, will see Jewison's film and TV school sort through innovative ideas from Canadian TV producers, presenting the best of the lot for possible development.
"We welcome this promising opportunity to work with the CFC to open new horizons for our Canadian partners and create viable original content," said Angela Bromstad, president of primetime entertainment at NBC and Universal Media Studios.
NBC Uni executives said the studio will cast a wide net initially for half-hour and hourlong scripted and unscripted programming from Canadian producers. Eventually, the partnership could encompass ideas for feature films.
THE EVENT IS this Monday, April 20th. Online sales are available at the WGC Site til Sunday, midnight (if it doesn't sell out first.) Any remaining tickets, if there are any, will be at the Door at Maro on Monday -- but the price jump is steep -- 75 at the door for members, 100 for non-members. You should take advantage of the in-advance pricing while you can.
HEY, HERE'S A nifty little blog interview of Skins co-creator Jamie Brittain (he created the show with his Dad) by Arestia Dehmassi .
(I've never heard of this portal/site anevibe. Looks neat. Anybody have more info?)
The nice thing about the interview, conducted over MSN, apparently -- very Skins... is she focuses on the writing:
Dehmassi: When you were writing the 3rd series did you plan to make it a little different than the past series?
Brittain: It's more of an episode to episode thing than a series thing in my opinion. Each writer is pretty much allowed to write whatever they want, and that means that the tone can swing quite violently between episodes, which I think is essentially a good thing; you never quite know what you're getting with an episode of Skins. However, we always want to tell a different story each year, and in the telling of that story we employ a variety of different styles, which means that each series is, yes, different.
Dehmassi: Can you tell us a little about the writing process, from how you choose the writers to how you all work together?
Brittain: We generally employ playwrights as writers, who we find all over the place in London's huge theatre scene. They tend to be emerging talents, having had one or two professional productions of their stuff, or a couple of radio plays, which are numerous and very popular in theUK. That method means we often find ourselves with young writers who have never written for television before, but are full of ideas and are not jaded by years of working in what can often be a thankless industry. We also use writers from our contributors, who are young people brought in to help us out. After a couple of years in the writers’ room, they're pretty well trained, and, with a bit of help, have produced some of the best episodes we've ever done.
In terms of how we work together, we all just sit in a big room a couple of times a week and argue for a few hours. It takes a long time, but eventually we come up with the goods.
We're all mates as well, so we support and help each other loads.
Dunno how I feel about that Americanized Skins, though. What's the point? They'll never allow it to be as in your face and edgy as the British version. The Americanized Skins was called The O.C. or 90210, right? I mean, if they can't make a show as edgy as Degrassi for heaven's sake, what hope do they have of pulling off Skins?
Also, if you want to follow Jamie Brittain on Twitter, his handle is belchingdevil.
When it comes to the unadorned, unvarnished, unspun truth about the broken, teeny, cereal-box toy that is the homegrown Canadian TeeVee biz, talk to the writers.
It's not hard to see why. See, Networks get to have lots of lobbying sessions. The Cablers hobnob with their friends in the Government. Directors and Actors and Producers can all hope that even if CanCon goes away entirely, they may pick up scraps from U.S. or foreign service productions that film here.
The writers fight because we have none of those assurances. There is no service work for writers. Time and experience has shown that if they can trade away the Canadian writer's involvement, they will. When the rules changed in 1999, and the nets started being able to count magazine shows as priority programming? Canadian dramas dropped from about 12 or 13 to 2 within a year or two. Some of those crews scrambled onto other shows. Actors might have found less work overall, but there were still auditions. Directors got by on service work. The writers took the full hit...many got bum-rushed out of the biz altogether. Others entered the long darkness as the Canary in the Coalmine of the coming drought in production -- a drought that only really hit the service sector a few years later.
We've spent a long, long decade trying to build back from that disastrous rule change. And now here we are. Again. New decade. Same Sky falling.
In Greek myth, Cassandra was the prophet who was cursed to speak the truth and never be believed. Writers have a bit of Cassandra in them; always have. That makes us scrappy. At least it should.
I was disappointed to hear that the piece I wrote in the Star the other day generated a few grumbles. Not because of the grumbles, you see. I love grumbles. I embrace grumbles with an open heart and a basso-rumble of my own. A good Grumble can generate a discussion, and a discussion can lead to new synthesis. Synthesis is good. It's how ideas are honed, theories developed...it's how things get better.
But, you see, except for one exception, noneof these grumblescame to me. And that's the Canadian way too. When somebody has a problem, nobody talks directly to each other. Oh no, no, heavens no. That wouldn't be passive aggressive.
So people get to nurse their grumbles, but not share them. No chance for synthesis. No new ideas. No way to move forward. Sigh.
Anyway, thank the stars that the Writers Guild of Canada is NOT a passive aggressive organization. They go out there, time and time again, and say the things that need to be said to the committees and the commissions. And they release clear eyed statements like the one below. That's why I'm proud to be a member, and proud to do the Guild's work.
Read this, and remember -- this is an industrial issue as much as a cultural one. There are people inside all of these networks, executives, etc, that want to have a couple of homegrown hits. Why wouldn't you want that? You know that Canwest would love to have their own Corner Gas. They did a bunch of pilots recently -- some that I've read, that you know what? Some of these give Global a shot at that very thing. Say what you will, but damn, Global's actually developed some great stuff lately.
But all that seems so out of reach when you're forced to play the game.
And remember, even if it does affect your livelihood, it is a game, Cassandra.
Does this release make you grumble a bit? It should, man. It should.
Canadian private broadcasters are currently bending the ears of government in hope for a bailout package of taxpayer dollars. With the recent release of figures from Canwest Global’s last quarter, the Writers Guild of Canada urges the government of Canada to approach any talk of broadcaster bailout with extreme skepticism. These are still profitable businesses.
The broadcasting arm of Canwest Global turned in an operating profit of $32 million (a 60 percent increase from a year earlier). In fact, the broadcasting operations’ most recent revenue of $234 million matched the same quarter a year earlier. Canwest’s conventional TV ad revenue was down 4%, but this was offset with 4% growth in specialty-channel advertising and a 5% increase in subscriber revenue. It seems when Canwest reports to its shareholders, it’s an integrated business – but when they talk to government it’s all about the hardships of over-the-air.
Though comparable figures for CTV are unavailable, its dominance of the Canadian market would suggest that things should be even brighter on their side of the industry.
“How can the broadcasters ask for a taxpayer bailout when broadcasting remains profitable?” asks Maureen Parker, Executive Director, Writers Guild of Canada. “The creative community has been living in a recessionary economy for the last ten years as broadcasters have year by year spent less on quality Canadian programming and more and more to buy U.S. shows. There was no bailout for screenwriters, actors, producers and directors.”
Parker added, “Broadcasters also have the audacity to request relief in the form of reductions in Canadian content expenditure and exhibition requirements. So after many years of enjoying stable profits and the support of public policy, these newly integrated businesses are petitioning for relief from the very thing that should give them purpose: providing Canadian programming to Canadian audiences. The answer should be a resounding ‘NO.’”
With Canwest’s recent quarter as an example, we have clear evidence that the Canadian broadcasting business remains profitable. Canwest’s problems relate to debt (about $4.1 billion) from business decisions made in recent years, including the $3.2 billion newspaper acquisition which still accounts for a large share of its debt burden. The company reported a net loss of $1.44 billion in its latest quarter, including a $1.19 billion writedown of assets, mostly in its newspaper operations. Do broadcasters deserve ‘relief’ for failures in other areas of their businesses? Should Canadian taxpayers and television viewers be asked to pay the price for this?
The WGC says ‘no’ to a broadcaster bailout, and ‘no’ to asking Canadians to give up Canadian programming.
Right on. Now. Are you going to grumble a bit? Or are you going to swallow those grumbles and let the WGC play Cassandra out there on its own?
AMANDA T. scored her free DTOS WGC Screenwriting Awards ticket by being drawn at random from all of the entries...but that's not to say I don't like it a bunch, cause I do. And can I just say, driving a polar bear in the Santa Claus parade sounds pretty rad.
6:00am- Rise for a job as a float painter with the Santa Claus Parade- circa 2005. Some days are wonderful- like the day I get to steer a tractor trailer sized polar bear for 20 seconds, but mostly I paper mache and become one of those people commuters assign a 3 metre radius. On the upshot, my two-hour commute from the Beaches to an industrial park allows me time to write while peeling the glue off my flesh in a Zen-like fashion.
7:00am- Rise for a job doing data entry in the fraud department of a major bank- circa 2006. Learn life lessons like why you should NEVER use INTERAC in a gas station. I don’t care how badly you want a Powerade with your gas purchase, you’re better off affixing your debit card to your back with scotch tape along with a giant iron-on of your pin number.
8:00am- Leave for Film and TV production classes at Humber circa 2002-2005. I can’t write on the bus because I’m locked in a Kama Sutra pose with the driver and 106 other people. Thanks to the 191, if I had a child during this period it would require several paternity tests.
9:00am- Watch Maury.** Only applicable when sick/post invasive procedures. The screaming is a soothing balm.
9:00am-6:00pm- Variable between 2006 and 2009. Incredibly variable. Reception. House painting. Gift wrapping. Video editing. (I needed smelling salts for my diploma after landing a real-live industry contract that pays in real dollars and not 'portfolio' dollars. Sadly landlords do not accept portfolio dollars, but media grads everywhere are daydreaming of new legislation.)
LUNCH- Time to write- regardless of my job. In coffee shops, food courts, the giant turtle rock in Yorkville- it becomes my time to be myself. Along the way I write some shorts, sketches and spec ideas while simultaneously avoiding painfully awkward conversations about working out, salads, which salads to eat before working out, GO trains and the 401.
6:00pm- Quitting time, or for a period in 2006, starting time. 80 horse races until 3am in a dark windowless room with six exhausted souls. I begin to imagine skylights...the smell of fresh cut grass...the sweet caress of vitamin D...ponies leaping magesti-...no not ponies anything but ponies... Bengal tigers. Yes Bengal tigers. Bengal tigers fighting over the unrequited love of a velvety gray pony. DAMMIT.
7:00pm- A dinner that ranges from homemade sweet potato soup and bruschetta when I'm feeling fancy, to a hot dog in a bowl during a particularly stressful deadline. I should have washed a plate. The bowl makes me feel cheap and dirty.
8:00pm- Flip open my notebook. This isn't my beautiful notebook. This isn't my beautiful stick man drawing with a nonsensical quote that I don't remember writing... "his hand bursts into fingers of fire"? This seems gothier than usual. A livejournal level of gothy.
9:00pm- Cast a wistful gaze at the 1st season of Maude that I've borrowed. I've got so much writing to do...
10:00pm- Decide that the secret to Maude's power is in her flowing knee-length vests. Google image search ahoy!!!
11:00pm- Adorn my love doodle of Norman Lear with Sandylion stickers. Oh man if he was a vampire, I'd totally-
12:00am- Adrienne Barbeau felt objectified during the show's run?? I just thought she was well dressed, sassy and proud! Does this mean future generations will look back on Britney Spears as a glamorous sexpot? That the "fallen" women of today become the box sets of tomorrow? I need Fuzzy Peaches.
1:00am- I realize this is not a classic essay. My aversion to hamburger paragraphs led me to pursue film school over university in the first place. Well that and the allure of 30 people in my class as opposed to 400.
1:15am- I do not want to get up in a few hours. I am angry. In a best-case scenario equation: anger + desperation x job instability= creativity. I've never had the chance to get comfortable because every single day job I've ever had has been a contract. As a result, I've never stopped trying. A friend once advised me that a little bit of hunger is good. Too much can make you give up, but too little can lead to complacency. As I get to the point where people I know are going back to school for other professions, I realize he's right and start typing. I write because it's what I love to do. I write because I feel guilty if I don't. Most importantly, I write because I have a strict "one horrific student debt at a time" policy.
2amish- BEDTIME (regardless of my morning schedule). I'm sorry Mom. I'm sorry 34th Yahoo-published study on sleep-deprivation ranking 2nd only to genocide in the number of deaths it causes...
CATHLEEN M., who dazzles and delights with her treatise on a secret weapon in a writer meeting... sometimes process must give way for moments of blind luck...
MEETINGS AND PROPER UNDERWEAR
When I was a wisp of a girl I found, in my grandmother’s bookcase, a worn little paperback with a title that went something like, ‘Proper Attire for the Career Girl’. It was a terse guide to the conventional dress and good grooming for your typical secretary of the 1950’s. I opened it to a black and white drawing of a prim lady with a flipped up hair-do and a high collared blouse. Paragraphs warned of the career killing perils of chipped fingernails and unpolished shoes. Then there was the chapter on undergarments. I winced at the illustrations of stocky forms entombed in torso length girdles and harness-like bras. The chapter expounded on the arsenal of underwear that would not betray its wearer with bulges or panty lines. I, in my grass stained jeans, wind tossed mane, and bare feet, wondered at these horrors. I relegated that book to a back shelf, never to give it another thought until …
The Monday morning meeting.
The day had begun with me standing at my closet deliberating over ‘the look’. I was to meet with a coven of executives who were buying my television show. I anticipated the usual tug of war would ensue – me wanting more money and control of ancillary rights and they wanting everything for nothing.
I surveyed my wardrobe and weighed the pros and cons of the ‘financial-producer look’. I considered the risk of evoking a banker who is creatively challenged and wondered if I could soften it with accessories. Nah. I’d look like a real estate agent. Alternatively I could go for the ‘creative-producer look’ but not too creative lest they think I’m not business minded. I settled on a simple suit.
It so happened this particular Monday morning followed the weekend of the broken washing machine. I was reminded of this when I opened my underwear drawer.
Good God. All I had left were a couple of thongs and a strapless thing I had worn once under a cocktail dress. In my Sunday frenzy of hand washing my kid’s school clothes, I had neglected all else.
Walking into the meeting, I was determined to maintain a good impression. I made the professional gesture of standing to the side while my hosts found their seats around the boardroom table. Then I, not once turning my back, stepped to my seat. In truth, I did not want to have to explain the wedgie created by the thong that had gripped the back of my pantyhose and skirt and held it like some weird bunny tail. It conjured the memory of that little book with its sage advice on proper undergarments. Had it been written fifty years later, it might have cautioned on the dangers of wearing a thong beneath a business suit.
My most urgent concern was to liberate myself from the ersatz bunny tail. While the executives threw demands, I sat back in my chair in such a way to unlock the thong’s grip. The maneuver worked. For a moment, I basked in the calm of my freedom. That’s when my opponents exchanged furtive whispers, then turned to me and moderated their ultimatums. Had they read something into my composure?
As the meeting wore on, the executives slumped in their chairs and leaned on their elbows. I meanwhile, sat straight and poised. For my exemplary posture I could thank the strapless bra. The engineering that goes into a typical bra is truly astounding. There are more stress points than on the Montreal Olympic Stadium’s roof. Consider then, how a strapless number stays up. It’s a marvel that involves wires, a few shakes of pixie dust, and – most important - the ability to maintain one’s ribs at a slightly elevated position. It was that little rib trick that gave me the air of self-assurance.
The meeting ended with me getting a decent budget and keeping ancillary rights. I like to think it was my negotiating skills that won the day. However, I must also give credit to the little book that so repelled me on the subject of proper underwear, I was willing to throw caution to the wind and redefine the meaning of ‘dress for success’.
Congrats Cathleen, and a big 'Thank You' to everyone who entered. The I.D. and essay of our other ticket recipient will be revealed tomorrow.
That this book turns out to be less gimmicky and brainless (no pun intended) and more a funny, skillfully executed parody is, I suspect, due largely to the fact that Grahame-Smith's version hews very close to the original material, in tone, syntax and plot. In fact, according to Grahame-Smith himself, a whopping 85 percent of the content is Austen's; her collaborator deftly inserted his zombie-flavored 15 percent at key junctures, including the ball at Netherfield (where Mr. Bingley and his family have recently come to stay), various quasi-romantic meetings between a dagger-wielding, zombie-dispatching Elizabeth and Darcy and, of course, the standoff between Elizabeth and the imperious Lady Catherine (recast here as a world-class Ninja. Naturally.). The result is an improbably seamless blend of 19th Century comedy of manners and feminist zombie butt-kicking.
SO TOMORROW NIGHT is the last episode ever of Corner Gas. Interesting timing, seeing as Brent Butt's little show resurrected the hopes of a generation of homegrown screenwriters.
Corner Gas was run like an American show. They set up a story room where writers broke stories and polished scripts, as a group. The star had input, but writers kept the tone consistent. Executive producers Virginia Thompson and David Storey engaged a showrunner – a senior writer whose creative vision trackedthe show through the process, as a production partner – not merely a peon.
This represented a sea change from the usual Canadian method, where non-writing producers and directors would routinely change and tinker with scripts so that by the time they were shot, they wound up looking like any other piece of art made by committee – drab and unfocused.
On Gas, the writers' work was respected, and that attracted the finest comedy writers in the country. The jokes were slightly absurd, sharp but never mean. The characters were pleasingly self-deprecating and not too full of themselves. Canadians recognized themselves in them.
At industry events, the anti-Corner Gas chatter soon faded to whispers, and stopped. It's hard to argue with success.
In the end, credit goes as much to its audience as to Brent Butt or CTV or the show's producers and writers. The audience found the show, stuck with it, and made it a hit. It may not have been the thing people were talking about in the ivory towers of Toronto – it has always done better outside of Canada's cities – but the rest of the country knew what they liked.
Now, Corner Gas is part of the national conversation. When people want to knock the CBC, they repeat the story that the public broadcaster passed on the show. (Not true.) It's held up as a successful export; an exemplar of Canadian values. The show's filming locale, Rouleau, Sask., has even become a minor tourist attraction.
The effect of Corner Gas writers on current comedy in Canada cannot be overstated. Canadian creators may still have to fight for their share of the airwaves. But now we have an example that proves that a homegrown hit is indeed possible.
And I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that appended to every one of those stories is a small minded, typical internet troll whinge about tx dolllrrrrss and nobodylikesittttt and so on and so on -- the bane of the Canadian Cultural philistine, the boulder that we who toil in cultural industries have to roll up the hill every day. (They're also known as Albertans. Ah, just kidding. Not really. No really. But really not.)
No matter. That two year old post is still generating comments here on this site, I'm going to quote from another one I got just the other day. Take away the toxic politics behind any show's creation in Canada, and hear the words of somebody without a dog in the hunt -- a guy who stopped by from Akron, Ohio (that's prime new product testing country, folks!)
I'm a huge Corner Gas fan here in the states - after stumbling upon it on WGN America one late night.
Unfortunately, WGN appears not to be interested in airing the final season, so I've gotten the show "other ways". It appears that CTV has made a recent decision to allow streaming CG from its website outside of Canada, which is great.
Now, I know I'm a "Canadaphile" and even have a CBC Radio widget on my desktop (!), but whether the snobs admit to it or not...CG is a well-produced, well-written, well-crafted show. Brent Butt is a funny writer and comedian, the entire cast is talented as heck, and the show is on a par production-value wise with any show down here.
With no offense to the late Don Adams, CG is no clone of "Check It Out!", which we Americans got on cable a long time ago.
And anyone who would rather watch "According to Jim"...the mere thought makes me shudder.
You can like or not like Corner Gas. But it is not the same kind of sitcom claptrap we produce here in the States, and that your networks (such as CTV and Global) ship back to you in a closed feed.
There are few things as completely juvenile and ribsplittingly hilarious than when one part of the culture (the hip, uh, sexslang contingent) meets the other (inchoate Republican tax-rage.) But if you haven't seen it yet, check out Anamaria Cox nearly destroying Rachel Maddow over the Conservative movement's sudden interest in, uh...teabagging.
Seriously, I haven't laughed that much since the reaction to the dood who unwittingly published the web book with the cover that is a dead ringer for an internet meme that's soNSFW that I won't even link to the Wikipedia entry about it. If you know what I'm talking about, you know what I'm talking about. And hey, if you don't, I've just spared you a half hour of staring blankly into space wishing you could unsee something. So, like, you're welcome.
SHORT HIT for this new ABC Drama. I'm of the opinion these days that it takes a big gimmick to give another cop show a shot. The genre has been on fumes since NYPD Blue and especially The Wire and The Shield. The Shield, in fact, is in danger of being the Cop show's version of Unforgiven. I remember when I saw that Clint Eastwoodtour de force I couldn't look at a western for two years -- not even the classic ones. It just seemed like it put an exclamation point on the entire genre, and closed the book for good.
So while those promos for Southland push all the right emotional buttons, I find myself thinking, first, "I really don't want to watch another cop show," and second, "Oh God I really, really, really don't want to watch another cop show set in L.A."
Because, let's face it, as far as L.A. cop shows goes, we had our ambitious try, rather recently, with Boomtown -- the Graham Yost copper that employed the multiple perspective gimmick.
And there it is again...the gimmick. When you're treading such well trod-earth, you need one. Some sort of hook to erase all those years of every other cop show you've ever seen.
I bought the pilot for The Unusuals, but just barely. In my estimation, here's what it had going for it.
Appealing Cast:
Amber Tamblyn gets to grow up from Joan of Arcadia days. She's still pretty, but not "no way she'd ever be a cop" pretty. A nice, self-deprecating air about her, but a couple of interesting scenes in the pilot to both set up her toughness and vulnerability.
Surrounding her is one of the most appealing supporting casts I've seen for awhile. Terry Kinney as the world weary head of the precinct, Harold Perrineau, Adam Goldberg, and a guy named Jeremy Renner as her partner.
New York Tax Credits:
A LOT of on the street shooting. This show gets NY in a way that NYPD Blue didn't, with its 'few trips to NY every year' shooting. The authenticity and feel of the locations really shines through. You are transported to somewhere else.
Nice setup, cleanly presented. A cop who was dirty is murdered. Through the hour we find out that he was surprisingly decent for a dirty cop, but he had a file on all the other cops. New girl (Tamblyn) is from a rich, rich family (a premise that was being floated recently for a Canadian cop show -- be interesting to see if that sticks now) and so is brought in by Captain to "keep an eye on" and report on the other cops -- who we are starting to realize, all have secrets. One of those cops, (Goldberg) has a brain tumor -- he won't tell anybody, but somehow he experiences two miraculous events in a day that save his life. The focus of Tamblyn's explorations, revealed only at the end: her new partner, who apparently was a first baseman for the Yankees at one point before becoming a cop.
Jeremy Renner and Tamblyn are in interesting pairing. Renner gets to state the theme of the show: Cops are defined by their secrets. At the end of the pilot, he gets a moving speech about his dead partner's badge number -- how it was passed down from cop, to cop, to cop -- until someone dies on the job, then the badge is retired. You pass down the badge till it kills you. A little maudlin, but surprisingly effective.
The numbers weren't great for the premiere, so it might not stick around. But there was definitely a kick or two left there in the premise. I'll watch it again.
I'd love to tell you more about Southland but I fell asleep about ten minutes in. Take that as you will.
ENTRIES ARE COMING in at a steady clip for the Dead Things ON Sticks WGC Screenwriting Awards Ticket giveaway. Remember, you have until 5pm tomorrow to enter -- details here.
THERE ARE, I think, certain clarity moments in the culture. Especially when you make culture (ugh, that sounds pretentious, let's say, if you make "cultural products") you have to try and figure out ahead of time, where people's heads are going to be at. There's a lag between when you make something and when it gets exposed to the audience. An artist creating a painting or sculpture, a playwright preparing a theatre piece, or a writer crafting a TV show or a film screenplay are obviously on very different timetables.
The lag for screenplays and TV series means you're taking a gamble on what people are going to be in the mood to see when it finally gets made, and ordered and on the air. In the USA, with pilot season, that can mean a matter of months. In Canada more often it can be a year or more. With screenplays it can be years and years.
Below we see one of the effects of the current economic times...suddenly everybody's trying to move toward comedy. That extends to the projects I'm developing and that I see other people developing. It's like no one can bear to come up with the same perilous, down, damaged or downbeat concepts about crime or strife. Everybody wants something escapist or redemptive. And you know what? Trying to write something like that actually lifts your spirits, too.
At the same time, I think we've come to a sort of ending, or a pause, at least, in our TMZeedy consumption of celebutardism. The Bale/Joaquin/BillyBob stuff comes down the pike so often these days that we're fully desensitized. A year ago, I could still summon up some outrage toward Kim Kardashian and wonder why on earth anyone expected me to care about her. Now, the UK, who always was better at this kind of weird celebrity just for celebrity's sake thing than we in North America were (I mean, Page 3 girl is a career there. The Girl in the WonderBra ad got to have her own press agent!) have gone through their first reality show burial. We are, in essence, at the end of the snark, I think.
It's not to say that the snark will stop, or even that it should. But really, Billy Bob Thornton can go beep beep beep and fireman carry one of Angelina's 11 babies down the field and spike it in the endzone, and...uh.... nope. Don't really care anymore. I mean, O.J.'s finally in jail. It's a whole new world.
So I look for the redemptive message or story in life, and in art. I hope that despite the current government's determination to hobble the CBC, there will be a way found to preserve that which needs preserving. Yeah, the dice is stacked against creatives getting anything made in Canada. But yet people get stuff made. And some of it is actually quite delightful.
A final aside. Probably the only time you'll ever see a link back to this site from Sticksville. There's this blog about the CBC that was started in the wake of the 2005 CBC Lockout by a Manager inside the building. It chugged along for a couple years as a quixotic but occasionally informative organ of dissent and tough love for the vagaries of the CBC. Awhile ago, that manager stepped back and handed over the reins of the place to a group of dyspeptic, antisocial wingnuts. They claim to be the "loyal opposition" and to be doing all they do from a position of "love for the CBC," but whenever I see a link back to something I've written here, or other media sites, it's an inevitable gainsaying criticism of CBC. The Corp, to these guys, can do nothing right. At a time when the place is fractious, bleeding, and in real trouble, there is nothing weirder than a bunch of idiot contrarians claiming to know better, showing with every post that they don't understand anything about a) broadcasting b) management c) dealing with people d) business e) ratings f) journalism g) ...and so on and so on.
So why talk about them here? Because I am weeeak, chickens. Heh heh. Nah. Because every once in a while you get the perfect example, the absolute embodiment of what is wrong with something. And here it is. From the self-appointed "loyal opposition" to the CBC:
WHEW! WHAT A DAY. Meeting after meeting after meeting.
Just a reminder that the Dead Things ON Sticks WGC Screenwriting Awards contest is still on. You could go for free to the awards in Toronto on April 20. Click here for details.
Of 71 scripted pilots in contention for slots at the five networks, 33 are half-hour comedies and 19 of those are multi-camera formats -- shows taped before a live audience, and sometimes enhanced by laugh tracks. Today, only CBS airs multi-cam sitcoms.
The multi-cam sitcom, such as legendary hits "I Love Lucy" and "Cheers," was once the dominant format in which to televise comedies, as much for conveying a theater-like intimacy to home audiences as for its relatively cheap production costs. But within the last decade, multi-cam sitcoms began to disappear, while single-camera comedies like "30 Rock" and "The Office," with its movie-like freedom, started to rise in prominence.
"The industry had been moving away from multi-cameras out of a sense that other formats offer more creative freedom," said Jamie Erlicht, president of programming at Sony Pictures Television. "But there's room for both and there's a real appetite in these economic times for the tried and true multi-camera format."
Sony, which produces the multi-cam "Rules of Engagement" for CBS, is also behind 10 of the comedies under consideration this pilot season. A year ago, Sony commissioned a study to determine how a change in government or the economy could affect television habits. Its conclusion was that this pendulum would swing away from dramas. Six of the shows on Sony's slate are traditional sitcoms, including "AB FAB," a remake of the popular British series "Absolutely Fabulous" for Fox.
While Fox has a healthy animation comedy block on Sunday nights, it has failed to successfully develop a live-action series for some time. Its pilot slate includes two multi-camera comedies, two single-cameras, one hybrid, and a one-hour comedy.
"Post-9/11, reality TV was very, very fresh to the audience and took up a lot of the space that comedies did," President of Entertainment Kevin Reilly said. "Right now, people are angry. That's where comedy historically has come into play -- when you need someone to voice something in a way that you can hear it."
So there it is. It'll be interesting to see -- if even ONE of the multicam comedies hits in any significant way, watch for all the "death of comedy" talk to simply disappear.
JAIME WEINMAN thinks he's the only guy in the world who cares about the cuts to music in TV shows that get released on DVD. He's not, of course. So far this year, I've not bought the DVD of the British show SKINS, which I otherwise would have grabbed, due to music substitution. There's a couple more, too, which I just can't remember right now. And don't even talk to me about WKRP.
Add to that list Andy Richter Controls the Universe, the engaging 2 season long show that shows in this YouTube clip, just how companies not wanting to pony-up for music rights completely pooches the show. Ugh. This is really, really painful to watch.
THE MORE I think about it the more this makes sense. The next logical step after suing your customers like the RIAA, and seeding malware or tracker torrents to combat piracy could just be ... self spoiling?
So I had a late meeting last night. Which means I wasn't home to watch HOUSE, which is one of the few network shows I watch every week. In fact, now that baseball's back, I can think of nothing more relaxing than flipping between HOUSE and four or five baseball games. Mmmm. Cool down the head at the end of day.
Now if you're a HOUSE person or a habitue´of the gossip rags, you'll know that there was a rather big and surprising happening on HOUSE last night. Which was spoiled for me at roughly 12:01 A.M. EST (or one MINUTE after the show ended on the west coast) in an email, and a Facebook message I got on my phone. Sigh. Perils of the modern world.
...Except...
What if it's not? What if this is a grand, concerted effort to make sure we all watch shows off air again?"The Only Way to Stay Safe From Spoilers -- Watch As It Happens!" I can see the Soviet style propaganda posters now.
I imagine squads of poorly paid peons dropping truth bombs from deep within the FOX complex in a bunker in Phoenix.
"Tivo THIS, you anti-market based hippie." Darth Vader = Luke's father. Ha ha ha hah ha!
FOR BRITISH TVPHILES, the news that Paul Abbot's excellent 2003 miniseries State of Play was being remade for American audiences came as a bit of a puzzler, mostly because it was being condensed in a two hour movie, and it was hard to imagine how that could work.
Having rewatched State of Play again recently on DVD I can tell you that it shares a flaw with more recent vintage short run series like Jekyl: it starts like gangbusters and kind of peters out at the end. So that, plus this article, gives me new hope that maybe the movie won't be so bad. Plus, hey...Helen Mirren.
Much harder was shrinking the story to two hours. Mr. Hauptman and Matthew Michael Carnahan, the film’s original writer (whose credits include “The Kingdom” and “Lions for Lambs”), mapped out the entire series and then began eliminating things that didn’t seem essential. They were encouraged by Paul Abbott, creator of the BBC’s “State of Play,” who told them the amount of new information added over the six hours wasn’t as much as they thought. “In some ways the series is just a great piece of six-hour tap dancing,” Mr. Macdonald said.
But Mr. Carnahan’s script was still very long, and when Mr. Macdonald (“The Last King of Scotland”) came on board, he hired two new writers, Tony Gilroy and Billy Ray, to simplify it.
Entire characters were dropped, like a brash young journalist with father-son issues, played by James McAvoy in the original. “That was gut-wrenching,” Mr. Hauptman said. And one of the last things to go was an affair between Cal McAffrey, the lead journalist and a friend of the accused member of Parliament, and the M.P.’s wife. It was probably the single strongest story line in the original, because of the way it moved some of the story’s larger themes into the bedroom. But in two hours, Mr. Macdonald said, there wasn’t room for it to be a believable relationship, so it became part of the back story instead, something that had happened in the past.
Eric Fellner, of Working Title Films, which co-produced the movie, also insisted that the resolution at the end be clearer. “You can have all sort of loose ends in a six-hour series that you can’t have in a movie,” he said. “Television and movies are ultimately very different. In TV it’s the beginning that counts. With movies it’s the last 15 minutes or so.”
IF YOU'RE HOME tonight and looking for something to watch, may I direct you to a "ripped from the headlines" TV movie written by the incomparable Shelley Eriksen? Playing for Keeps airs tonight at 8pm on CTV.
You can find out more about the show, and its lead actor, Jennifer Finnigin (Close to Home) in this Globe article.
The $4.7-million, two-hour film is based on the trials and tribulations of Kimberly Van De Perre, a sports groupie who had an affair - and a son, Elijah - with Vancouver Grizzlies basketball player Theodore (Blue) Edwards.
A vicious battle at the time, Canada's highest court eventually overturned a controversial Appeal Court decision that had ruled Elijah would be better off growing up in a black household, and had given custody of him to Edwards and his wife who were living in the southern United States.
In Shelley Eriksen's script, the names and some events have been fictionalized. The sports groupie is Nicole Alpern (Finnigan), who falls in love with pro basketball player Ty Rivers (24's Roger Cross). Alpern's lawyer Peter Marcheson is played by Doug Savant of Melrose Place and Desperate Housewives.
"The story we tell is not cliché at all," says Finnigan, who broke into acting at the age of 17 when she landed a part on the kids' show The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo in Montreal.
"We don't victimize my character too much, nor do we vilify the basketball player. We try to be respectful of all the points of view."
IN THE A&L section of today's New York Times, there's a couple of very different, and informative takes on comedy. First, Michael Cieply profiles Shawn Levy, the Director of the very-family friendly Night at the Museum, and its upcoming sequel, about mining the type of material that appeals to the widest possible audience:
And to talk with Mr. Levy and some of his allies is to realize that big, inclusive comedies — those with a real shot at universal appeal — are an exercise more complex than the arch humor of a “Superbad,” or the druggy in-jokes of a “Pineapple Express,” both of which reflect the hip but narrower approach of Hollywood’s reigning comic king, Judd Apatow.
The most successful in the genre, like “Home Alone,” “Meet the Fockers,” or “Ghostbusters” have wrapped occasionally sharp-edged physical humor, notable star performances and more than a few eye-catching special effects around a warm, forgiving approach to life and laughter. But it has been six years since a family comedy swept the Memorial Day box office, when “Bruce Almighty,” which starred Jim Carrey, did in 2003.
For more than a year Mr. Levy resisted entreaties to direct “Night at the Museum,” a project that Fox had owned for a decade, but finally agreed after reading a draft of the script that included some revisions by Scott Frank, now a regular collaborator. “He made me see that it was really a father-son story,” Mr. Levy said. “I saw the soft center.”
Certainly “Smithsonian” does not stray too far from a key element — basic human warmth — that the most successful comedies share. Cowboys and critters aside, the “Night at the Museum” movies are much the same. At bottom the first is about a divorced father (Ben Stiller) who wins back the respect of his doubting son. In the second Mr. Stiller’s character, with a hand from that son, must regain the trust of a museum full of creatures he abandoned in pursuit of material success. Among all the gags, one character after another does his bit to help the wayward father figure out what he truly loves in life, all of them.
But to deliver its lesson in a slick, funny package that plays to all ages and around the globe is a complicated bit of work.
That's the thing about comedy -- and why, more often than not, it ends up in an argument about subjective taste. So if you're not one of those people who likes the idea of "the soft centre," maybe Dave Itzkoff's profile of Jody Hill, the writer/director of Observe and Report is more your speed:
With the briefest of résumés he has already evolved a storytelling style predicated on awkward comic moments meant to provoke cringes as much as laughs, and offbeat, even unlikable protagonists.
“Observe and Report” stars Seth Rogen as a pathetic mall security guard who sees an opportunity for glory when his shopping center is besieged by a flasher. The film follows Mr. Hill’s independent debut, “The Foot Fist Way,” a comedy about an overweight, overconfident martial arts instructor, and his HBO series “Eastbound and Down,” about a relentlessly arrogant ex-major-league pitcher.
Mr. Hill does not deny that his characters are jerks, but they are his jerks.
“The average Joe doesn’t think of himself as an average Joe,” he said. “He thinks of himself as the star of his own movie.” He added: “I don’t find much in the comedies I’ve been seeing to get excited about. I’ll watch ‘City of God’ and laugh more.”
The profile doesn't back away from the fact that much of Hill's comic territory is mined from a place of anger. Depending on your taste, that might be the reason why the movie appeals to you -- but it also might be the reason why an Observe & Report will never do the business of a family-friendly film like Night at the Museum.
There's no right and wrong here. Both starting places -- warmth or anger -- are fine places to start your exploration of a comic theme. But they are different strands of the comedic DNA.
I've found a lot of the time, in development, screenplays get into trouble when they try to cross-pollinate those streams. This is where a knowledge of who your audience is and what they want isn't being a sellout, or writing for the market instead of yourself.
The market is an idiosynchratic place, and nowhere is this more so than with the comedy -- a form that has to fight cultural differences and reference points to translate. You can tell a lot about a culture by what they laugh at. The fact that both these forms -- the Family comedy and the darker, edgier Hill kind of show, or its prettier cousin: the attitude at the bottom of the well of the Apatow school (which also comes from anger,) both thrive in Hollywood just goes to show you how what a crossroads our culture finds itself at today.
The negotiations required to reach a mass audience aren't just complex: sometimes they're simply a bridge too far.
For a certain kind of viewer, the heart of darkness at the core of the comedy is the whole blessed point.
