Mad at 40 000 Feet

I KNOW THAT one of the things that makes humans prickly and maddening is the tendency to elevate anecdotal experiences to the level of something greater, more sweeping, and more important than the cold hard evidence might suggest.

So, uh...I hope you'll forgive me now for doing that very thing.

Last night I flew back from Calgary, where I spent the weekend visiting friends. These friends, very sweetly, had inquired on my behalf to see about getting AMC so I could watch Mad Men. No dice, of course. It's not offered on Bell Expressvu.

AMC in fact, is not available in a whole lot of the country. And no Canadian network saw fit to purchase the rights to Season 3 of Mad Men. CTV ran the first two seasons in a rather desultory fashion, but since the numbers weren't boffo out of the gate, passed on the 3rd season.

We've talked about some of the weird realities of TV in the midst of the great implosion before. But Mad Men is a particularly maddening fulcrum. It's an old-fashioned kind of show, paced and even shot in a style that's out of step with today's world. It's a show that bucks the prevailing trends in so many ways -- even down to the makeup of its writing staff.

It's a show that has a massive, much bigger impact on the culture than its numbers would normally suggest. It managed to establish -- instantly -- a strong brand identity for AMC that brought that channel firmly into the 21st century as a quality series destination. To watch the show on AMC is to understand, finally, the endgame of demographic targeting. The ads are all high end -- Lexuses, big brands -- Tiffany kind of stuff. Once upon a time these brands would spend freely and had enough clout to either advertise very selectively, or to scattershot everywhere. Nobody can afford that anymore. But advertising on a low-rated show is still cost effective if that small audience makes over 100K a year -- and that, my friends, is the Mad Men audience on AMC.

And just as the 3rd season starts, there are signs that the perennial low-rated tag -- the last slam against the show -- might be fading, too. Ratings for the premiere were up -- dramatically up. Close to 3 million may not seem like a lot, but there are shows that the American Networks are putting on now that are pulling close to that. For a cable channel to get that is ... well, still pretty astounding.

Here in Canada, of course, there is none of that, since nobody picked up the show. So what happens when unavailabilty meets a highly desirable audience?

Well, in a word -- weirdness. ITunes Canada announced earlier this week that it would be selling Mad Men immediately after its AMC broadcast. I checked at about 2AM ET Monday morning, and it wasn't yet up. But when I got up -- there it was. I dutifully slapped down my $2.49 (on my credit card,) downloaded it, and transferred it to my Ipod Touch.

American readers might be scratching their heads right now -- because none of this seems very unusual. Mad Men has always been available the next day on Itunes.

The point is that in Canada, it's a break in the dam of an artificially skewed and restricted market. Until recently, it wasn't uncommon for one of our broadcasters to buy a series just to keep on the shelf so that another broadcaster couldn't get it. Protected by regulation that allows them to selectively block U.S. signals when they're running the same show, Canadian channels have evolved to a place where they cherry pick the best of American network creati

vity, and slap it up on the air. It was literally a license to print money.

But now here comes Mad Men. A show that's of the moment, and might be catching fire. It's a brand establisher and a brand enhancer. Could this be the show that paves the way for paid downloading? That makes it palatable for the higher end of the audience segment? Because the people who buy Lexuses aren't, I believe, the people who'll spend a lot of time futzing with torrents and conversion programs, and what have you. Oh, and they're also the ones who'll probably be buying all those web-enabled TV's first -- so the whole "watching it on your computer" stigma's going to disappear, too.

You might laugh, but one of the odd things about the implosion of the music industry was the increase in the amount of quality music for the thirty to fortysomething market. It makes sense, when you think about it. We're the only ones still buying CD's.

Anyway, it's certainly too soon to tell. But there may just come a time where CTV or Global wishes they'd ponied up for that 3rd season, to delay the opening of Pandora's box.

Anyway, flash back to last night. I'm on Westjet Flight 158 to Toronto. I forego the seatback TV, take out my Ipod Touch, plug in the headphones, and settle in to watch the Mad Men season 3 premiere. I was glad to have spent the money, to have it to watch. I thoroughly enjoyed it -- propping up the 3 inch screen on top of the seat in front of me. After it ended, put the Ipod touch away, took out a book -- and switched the headphones to my other Ipod. (I know, I know -- shutup.)

A couple minutes later I felt a tap on my shoulder. A guy one row back had seen what I was watching. And he saw that I wasn't using the Ipod anymore.

"Uh," he said, feeling a little awkward, I guess, "Listen, is there anyway I could borrow it? I really, really want to see that premiere."

I smiled, said sure, and passed it over. The guy was so excited, he bought me a drink when the cart came around. Factor in the course of that inflight drink, and I have now, essentially, made a profit on my Itunes purchase of Mad Men.

I can safely say I've been flying with that Ipod for about two years now -- and nothing like that has ever even vaguely happened before. It made me feel like there is definitely something going on.

Flash to today, and the implications of this story (found via Jaime Weinman.)

Oscar winner Holly Hunter ("The Piano") has earned an Emmy nod for each of the first two seasons of "Saving Grace." But today, TNT announced that the crime drama will solve its last case next summer. The cable network will push back the previously announced winter run of the remaining six shows in Season 3 of "Saving Grace" and Fox will film just three more episodes to tie up loose ends. While TNT wanted to continue with "Saving Grace," Fox decided to end production on the show after disappointing overseas and DVD sales

The tail has begun to wag the dog.

All those American nets have their production companies, and the calculus of what makes a show a hit is completely off now. Friday Night Lights? Family Guy? What makes you continue a show? What makes you stop it?

It's fluid, and it's fast moving, and the Canadian networks are in no way prepared for any of it. Of course, neither are the producers, or anybody else.

DVD sets with features of Canadian shows are often poorly distributed afterthoughts. (Corner Gas and Trailer Park Boys are probably the best exceptions.) Most of the time, distribution -- both in DVD and film -- is a joke in this country. Itunes and VOD offer a possible way out of a historically Mickey Mouse approach. Does anyone have the guts to take the chance and step up?

It's generally acknowledged that the reason that 24 became a hit for FOX was because they brought out the first season in the summer before Season 2 started. People rented or bought, caught up, and by the time Season 2 premiered, the show came back a hit.

Contrast that with a worthy Canadian show like Intelligence. There's a show that could have really benefited by having a DVD in the pipeline before the second season. But it was not to be. They blew the release window, for whatever reason. Well, actually, wait a minute. Chris Haddock actually spelled out the reason in an interview with me:

We’ve been trying to get theAmerican distributor – we ‘ve got an American company that’s been putting the DaVinci show out on DVD and they look at Canada as a small market but we’ve been trying and just pushing, pushing to try and get them to make the investment in the first season. We won’t have it out when we hoped we’d have it out – this summer, because in their mind Canada’s just too small a market to put a rush on it. It’s a struggle. If we had the ability as CTV did to put a lot of coin behind it like Corner Gas, boom there they were with the set…it really does help. It’s a good support system. Unfortunately we don’t have the resources at the CBC to do that.

Haddock's as savvy a writer/producer as this country has. And the guy knows how to push. He knew the importance of timing the DVD set, but still couldn't get it done.

Now it's a couple years later -- the evidence is clear that you have got to have this stuff thought about upfront, and it's still not part of the calculus -- not really. The Canadian way of just doing everything to get the show made, and making the DVD an afterthought -- has to end. As the Saving Grace example proves -- it's not ancillary anymore. Everything's up for grabs.

Sure, there's still the catch 22 of you can't get anyone to buy something they haven't heard of, and they won't hear of it 'til it gets written about.

But it's not too much of a stretch to see a time when some enterprising American studio looks at a prestige product and does math and figures out that they can ride the hype and promo in the U.S.A. -- and maybe selling it to a foreign broadcaster isn't the most profitable route.

And then the networks here are screwed, because they have no Plan B.

Well, I suppose they could get serious about trying to make their own stuff -- and have their own quality shows to market. But that requires a culture where talent matters, and where you can recognize and develop quality material because you recognize what goes into it.

And we're pretty thin on the ground on that.

Anyway, again, I have no idea where any of this ends. And in the Canadian tradition, I'm sure there are a hundred people out there who could tell you how that would never work in Canada, and why they can't do it, and why nobody should ever even try. That is, after all, the Canadian way.

But the guy or girl who figures out a way to make it happen? The person who decides for one final moment, to be leading and not trailing edge -- who puts together a plan that combines all the things that are going on in the various rumbling, crumbling corners of the TV business -- That's the person who gets rich. Maybe a new media risk taker might save some old media dinosaur. Maybe not.

All I know is, looking down from 40 000 feet, and with all the bullshit that creatives have to face in this country, I have to say that I was so very relieved on one front: I'm glad I'm on my side of the line, and not theirs.

Cause there's turbulence ahead. Don't say nobody saw it coming.

Indians and Hispanics Don't Live in Scranton

WOW. I mean, just... Wow.

H/T @kazza323

Tv Series Scripting: Part Five: Production White & Beyond

Earlier posts in this series: Part One. Two. Three. Four.

RIGHT AROUND the time when the notes from the network come back on the 2nd draft, the writer/story department & showrunner have a “Come to Jesus” discussion with Producers, the AD department, and others about how this sucker is going to be prepped and shot.

The Director has also weighed in at this point – emphasizing the parts of the 2nd draft they really liked, and those that left them a little colder. They may pitch for scenes to be done a little differently, for the emphasis to be switched up, or any one of a hundred other things that they think will make the show sexier or cooler. In many cases, they’re right, and the writer dies a little inside. In a lot of cases, they’d get you a lot further down the road of “we can’t do this in eight days,” in which case the Producer puts on their best stern, “no no no” look.

Ideally, if you board the 2nd writers draft of a script, it should not….quite…fit. A board will show you a few days that are just ungettable. There are locations that just can’t really be accommodated. Maybe there are three stunts and they say, “choose two.” Maybe there’s a night lighting job that just is too extensive.

In any case, now the script process becomes about horsetrading, and the writer tends (with the showrunner’s blessing) to start making the changes that may not be ideal, but need to be made to make the show, and the board, work. In some cases this results in happy accidents that require a bit more work, but end up making the show way better. It’s a collaborative process, after all. In any case, from the 2nd draft, you hopefully find yourself, with the work and toil of the showrunner, the draft writer, the director and the AD, putting out the LOCKED PRODUCTION WHITE a day or two or three before the start of official prep. Generally, this represents the showrunner/head creative’s last pass on the script – it’s the practical blueprint for how you will work over the next eight days. The network continues to give notes, but they’re mostly line notes, and brief.

From here on in, changes to that locked WHITE script that generate coloured pages are driven almost entirely by production.

The main exception to this is dialogue changes that come from the read-through, which is the first chance for the story department to hear the story on its feet. Actors can sometimes drive a full pink simply by their read.

It’s possible that between WHITE and PINK and BLUE, props might disappear. You might lose a character or two. Maybe ACTOR lines will disappear. ACTION beats might be scrubbed. Bigger changes are usually as a result of a production problem: A location falls through, and needs to be re-imagined. A story beat has to be moved from a location day to a studio day. Actor availability problems force a rejuggling of lines or scenes, or a last minute re-configuration of a character for a different actor.

For most of this, the writer is now a surgeon who’s taking orders from the Director and the Producer and the AD's, (and in later years, the actors... yup, there's an old saying in TV -- first year the actors work for you, 2nd year you're working together, 3rd year you work for them, god love'em.)

It’s a general truism of production that the script on a TV series that gets shot is usually one draft past where it was best. I don’t know how true that is. I’m guessing if you’ve gone to DBL GREEN or TRIPLE BLUE, that’s probably true. In any case, the sides get made, the scenes get shot, a couple may get dropped and picked up later, or not – and the show passes from writing to shooting to editing, where it’s – in effect – written for the third and final time.

So that’s it. That’s the process. If you take anything away from this, let it be this: the idea that all first drafts and early drafts are trying to fix the creative, and are, yes, by their very nature, probably not shootable. It’s a process you have to go through to get you where you want to be.

Also, remember in film that these processes occur over years of development. Part of the juice that writers get from TV is that all this needs to happen quickly. Instinct drives so much of it, that flexibility and the ability to talk your way through change quickly become great advantages. It’s not about writing the absolute best script – it’s about writing the best script that can be shot. It’s not obsessing over commas.

It’s a high wire act. It might seem like the writer doesn’t take production concerns into account. (Every series I've been on, production and the story department start out a little wary of each other.) Believe me, we do take things into account. We just can’t really process and implement them, until such time as the story works.

And more or less, that's it -- from the writer's perspective, of how you get from start to finish. Thanks for reading.

Tv Series Scripting: Part Four: The Second Draft

Earlier in this series: Part One, Two, and Three.

THE AXIOM IS simple: writing is rewriting. It is in the 2nd draft that we see (hopefully) the creative direction of the script solidify. The second draft also represents the symbolic handover point of draft from a purely creative document to a practical production document.

The first draft is submitted to the network, and they come back with their notes.

Their notes rarely, if ever, take production considerations into account.

This is a bit of a flaw in the process of making TV in Canada – in the USA you’d get notes from both the studio and the network.

The network notes view everything through the prism of what they think their audience wants, and what will get them excited, and what will get them to NOT change the channel. That means they’ll talk demos and about their brand, and wonder if things are clear enough. Networks sometimes vacillate between giving the audience too much credit and not enough credit. My impression is that the audience is WAY smarter than the network gives them credit for most of the time, but that’s an argument that’s very difficult to win. Because if you’re right, you get a cooler show, but if they’re right, they lose a viewer and money. And they’d rather err on their side than on yours. Of course, you can make the case that being too obvious will lose them viewers too. Good luck with that argument.

But I digress.

What the studio (who in the U.S. system, is deficit financing the show) would generally come back with, besides creative notes, (everybody gives creative notes, because though few people can write, everybody feels they know why something is written badly,) is notes on shootability. This is where you would get the red flags of nervousness about those numbers of locations and extras, and the VFX you’re asking for, and the problem location that you’ve just written yourself into a corner and really, really need.

Here, we have to make do with the network notes, and trust the producers will catch the really problematic budgetary pitfalls that lurk on the way to the 2nd draft.

The network notes may be extensive. Usually they’re a mix of “make this clearer” or they may react viscerally to a character beat they don’t like or something they think will make the viewer change the channel. Sometimes the writer’s task is to figure out what the note is really saying. As I said above, everybody thinks they know why something is bad – but in actuality, most of the time they don’t. When networks offer solutions in their notes, it’s very rarely the best solution.

Sometimes you have to figure out what the real bump was for them.

Like radiated pain, or a medical condition that presents as a set of symptoms that may have little relation to the organ causing the problem, diagnosing what’s really wrong and what might fix it is a bit of a devilish, voodoo process. But seeing the networks’ reaction to the notes also serves the happy purpose of clarifying your reaction to the material, too.

By now, you’ve sat with that first draft for a week. You’ve thought about everybody’s notes in the story department a bit, and maybe you’ve even had a “are you fucking crazy?” discussion with the nervous producer.

You might have had time to count the day/night splits and realize that they’re unworkable. Maybe the AD is truly perverse, and boarded the 1st draft just for shits and giggles.

With the notes back from the network, generally the writer meets with, or hears the story department’s reaction to those notes, and comes up with a plan of action.

In any case, you go into writing the second draft with the determination to make the creative work. The object is to come out the other side with a script that, in a perfect world, you could shoot and have it be a well told, structured, and paced story.

It's a big amateur mistake to judge a script based on the first draft. (And I'm not talking about reading a first draft, restructuring or throwing out so much of it that it's barely recognizable and coming back with another draft. That's not really a second draft, so much as a second first draft.)

Experienced series writers and showrunners will judge a first draft by a different yardstick than many. What it comes down to, basically, is this: if I had to rewrite this sucker, could I do it fast? Would it mean just changing dialogue or shaping scenes, or is there major, major structural work to be done?

That's something that you only really learn as you go along.

But if you talk to a lot of experienced writers and directors, they will generally tell you that when the writer's on the ball, it's shocking how much the quality of a 2nd draft can come up from the first.

I first learned this lesson before I even really got into the business. I was teaching, and a student of mine had written a West Wing spec script. I'd written one myself the year before, and it was smoothing my transition into the business, so that combined with my love of American politics meant I gave this student a bit more time than I usually would.

Her first draft was not good. It was a very student-y script -- long dialogue without shape, but also a certain fuzziness on the workings of American government. The character voices were off, and it lacked the crisp details, the "aha" fun moments of wonkery and, of course, the flourishes of poetry and oratory that Aaron Sorkin brought to his best scripts for the show. (This was in the show's 2nd season, when it was arguably at its creative height.)

The student listened, and took copious notes, and went off. And I expected I'd get a script back that was slightly improved.

I was wrong. What I got back was frankly, a bit humbling. She'd listened and internalized all the notes. She'd researched, and fixed all her story problems. She'd filled in the political and personal motivations, sharpened the fuzziness, aligned the voices, and come up with ingenious and creative solutions that in many cases were far, far superior to the suggestions I'd proffered.

I was caught by surprise by the dramatic increase in quality from first to second draft.

I haven't been, since. It happens all the time.

So, on a series, besides swinging for the creative fences, and showing all the confidence the first draft lacked, tackling the 2nd draft also includes you seriously considering the impact of the script on production. As you worry less about whether people will get the story and be able to understand and enjoy it, that space is filled by anxiety that comes from worrying about how this sucker will be shot. The writer may find himself unable to meet the AD’s eyes. Maybe there’s been a preliminary scout and the writer knows that there’s simply no way that they’re going to get that abandoned amusement park or casino. Maybe a swingset in a playground or a VLT section at a bar might suffice?

The writer in the 2nd draft does their best to try to get close to shootable. Where they can eliminate a scene, they do. Where they can combine a scene, they do. Where they can eliminate or combine characters, ditto. Maybe the four beats in the action sequence only needs to be two. Yes, maybe most of Act 2 doesn’t need to be at night. Maybe Act 3 can be a new day. For the responsible TV writer, this is where you sharpen the creative as best you can, and you do your best to take every single Production suggestion you can comfortably accommodate and have the story still work.

In the WGC contract, a script payment covers two drafts and a “polish.” A dialogue polish is supposed to just be line changes, and not substantive changes in structure, and should comprise no more than 10% of the script. Because this is not generally the most useful thing to do at this stage, most productions tend to just eat the polish, pay out the writer on that, and keep moving. If the writer is on staff, that “polish” might wind up being yet another big rewrite to get you to the Production White draft.

When you submit the 2nd draft to the network, generally it’s assumed that the basic structure is sound and won’t change too much. The act outs are in the right places. The scenes are in the order, and in the ballpark, of how you’d like to shoot them. The showrunner might have taken a pass to better “voice” the show.

The notes from the network on the 2nd draft are generally -- but not always -- lighter. You might find out one or two things they’re being sticky about. But generally, it’s seen as the end of the road of putting the story needs first.

Next Time: Going White

Delay of Game

FURTHER TO THE FRUSTRATED rant I posted yesterday, David Kinahan of the Writers Guild of Canada sent out an email blast to members today (and most members probably ignored it. :)) that expresses the same issues in a clearer, and more evenhanded fashion.

There's still no way to categorize this as other than a farce. Fee For Carriage has now been discussed at the last three or four hearings. Fee for Carriage will do nothing to help you as consumers or TV viewers. It's corporate welfare -- and the fight over it is nothing but a fight between two spoiled interest groups who have made millions from CRTC protection. But the CRTC, it seems, does not work for you and me. I know it's supposed to, and all. But it doesn't.

Anyway, here's what the WGC had to say:

You have all heard by now that, in response to Bell’s filing to the Federal Court of Appeal over fee-for-carriage, the CRTC TV Policy Review has been postponed from September 29 to November 16. The CRTC notice of postponement noted that the re-scheduled hearing will now include, yet again, the issue of fee-for-carriage. With that, Bell has said it will now withdraw its Federal Court application.

The initial public notice for the hearing was issued in early July, giving us just one month to prepare our submission. This was an enormous amount of work, involving coordination with industry partners, numerous meetings, the hiring of outside consultants and lawyers, commissioning a research firm, and working through vacations. In smaller organizations like the WGC, preparations for hearings such as this are a tremendous drain on resources, human and financial, and to have it derailed like this at the last minute is extremely frustrating.

This is particularly so given the importance attached to this hearing and the length of time we have been waiting for it. This was to be the long overdue TV policy hearing that would chart the course of TV production in Canada for many years to come. It was at this hearing that the CRTC was to redress the drop in expenditures on Canadian drama through new policies and regulatory obligations concerning Canadian programming, framing the parameters within which the broadcasters will operate when they renew their licences next April.

Now that fee-for-carriage – a huge point of contention between the BDUs and the broadcasters – is once again part of the discussion, we are concerned that our issues about quality Canadian programming may be marginalized. Canadian creators and TV viewers are being caught between these warring factions.

The delay means everything remains for a while longer in a state of uncertainty. The September hearing was to decide about levels of Canadian drama, documentaries and children’s programming, and look at placing a brake on spending in Hollywood. Until we have those conversations and get clarity around broadcaster obligations, the situation remains precarious. And this delay surely will mean further delay down the line, pushing further out the ownership-group licence renewal hearings scheduled for April 2010. This will in turn affect the production cycle. It will also delay our collective bargaining process around our IPA agreement which expires at the end of this year – negotiations were to take place after the hearing.

There is very little we can do about this except be vigilant and, when the conversation is being dominated by the broadcasters and BDUs squabbling over revenues, remind them that providing Canadians with the ability to choose quality Canadian content is the sole reason they exist and their primary deliverable for the privilege of operating in a protected environment. So talk and Twitter, comment on online news articles, write letters to the editor – remind people not to forget about content.

We will of course keep you informed as things on this front develop. We will be posting our submission on (for now) September 14

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Storm in the USA

YOU KNOW WHAT I like about the United States? Sometimes when a stupid idea comes up, and everybody says it's stupid, people back down.

In Canada that takes months of parliamentary committees to achieve, and even then the next idea they come up with is usually worse.

Now, if you take a simple idea that works everywhere else, like, oh I don't know -- public run universal health care -- the U.S. is Hopeless at incorporating that. The downside of the "we're number one" myopia.

Killing the homegrown dumb ideas? Check. Implementing the best from elsewhere? No dice. And what about importing the really, really, really dumb ideas from elsewhere, like, you know, America's Got Talent and Authoritarian Fascism?

Jury's still out.

Hey, Now, what's that Sound?

IT'S YET ANOTHER crack in the musty, lazy old Canadian TV business model.

An exclusive deal between the show's Canadian distributor, Maple Pictures, and Apple iTunes Canada makes Mad Men the first top-rated TV show in history to bypass Canada's conventional TV protocols – pay TV, network television and/or syndication – as a paid digital download.

Of course, anedotally, let me just say this: people at CTV were quite surprised when it aired Mad Men last season and it didn't get big ratings. Why were they surprised that a show that draws 1.5 million viewers a week in the USA didn't get boffo ratings here?

Um, I don't know...

..they don't know their business very well?

Ya got me.

Still, this is a crack in the dam -- that's for sure. I'll be traveling this weekend, so they'll get my money for Ep 1, at least...

Tv Series Scripting: Part Three: The First Draft

Earlier in this series: Part One. Part Two.

UNLIKE THE OUTLINE, the first draft is an “expansive” document. The first attempt to dramatize the beats in the outline through action and character voices frequently results in a script document that is talky, and missing some of the ‘visual’ storytelling tropes that will be important to board and get in the final shooting script. Though television is less visual a medium than film, (Most of the time, if you turned off the vis, and just followed the dialogue and music and sound fx, you could follow the story like a good radio play) it’s generally more visual than the first draft would suggest.

This is because in the first draft the writer really is figuring out and test-driving the story. He or she might figure out that two or three beats that were in the outline can be combined in the same scene; at the same time, you might find them going on a tangent to explore something interesting in the character dynamic.

First drafts can be rambling, they can be sloppy, they can be repetitive, poorly paced, any number of things. You may find in the writing of a draft that a subplot needs to be more or less prominent. You may find that the act outs that you thought were so perfect in the outline can’t work the way they do without giving you a four minute Second or Third Act. You may find that there is not enough story to sustain, or that there is another twist needed. You may also find that you have too much story and you’re on page 32 and still in Act One, in which case you need to go back and simplify the beats.

There’s a weird thing that happens when the characters start talking to you. Sometimes you need to follow it a little, see where it leads. That might mean going off the beam of the outline a bit; that’s why you have a good outline, so that you can always haul yourself back in if you go too far.

Writing a first draft is a negotiation with yourself. The more economy and clarity and succinctness you can bring to the beats and the story you’re trying to serve, the more fun stuff you can seed in. At this stage, you may have a vague, vague sense of in and out of studio but you might not have a clear sense of day/night, and how many story days are in your script. It’s at this stage you take a stab at figuring this out, but it may not be perfect.

All first drafts, no matter how accomplished the writer, or the draft, suck. They are not clear. There are things in them that will not quite line up. You may have a bit of a hangover from all that handwaving you did in the outline. Things that you need to hit once, you may find that you’ve hit three and four times. You may find that you’ve written the same scene twice. Or three times, with little progression. The only way you spot all this is to go into analysis mode, which is different from the mode that allows you to write the script.

Generally, first drafts are tabled to the Story Department first. They go through and make suggestions as to things that can be fixed quickly; clarity points, readability issues, things that just don’t work at all. Often the notes the story department gives will be tiered: ie, they will tell the writer, “here’s what you should fix now,” and “here’s some stuff to think about when we hear from Network and go to the 2nd draft.” It’s not uncommon to have “big picture” notes overall, that don’t point to specific things or lines of dialogue, but are general impressions that inform the writing of the 2nd draft. Most of the time, the dialogue notes you give at the first draft stage are surgical, and designed to make the draft read better: spell something out, offer a riff or a joke that will make the thing enjoyable. But if it's an emotional scene or something, I tend to want to hold some of that suggestion off till the 2nd draft -- the writer might need to sit with it awhile, too.

Once again, the focus at this stage is largely creative. The first blush of getting the story on its feet is not always pretty. There may be parts where character voice is off. There may be sections where the dialogue is a little on the nose. There may be other places where it’s a little too obtuse. The first draft also tends to run long. Sometimes as much as 5 pages longer than what will be the eventual script length. Again, the primary audience for this draft is not production: it’s the network, and the rest of the story department, to get them both thinking about ways to sharpen, refine, and figure out the story.

The danger of circulating the first draft too widely cannot be overstated. No writer wants their first naked attempts to wrestle the story to the ground to get out there. There will be scenes, and stagings, and approaches that will not survive to the 2nd draft in any way, shape, or form – so you don’t want to let Directors to get the draft because the next thing you know the first blush, imperfect idea is boarded and thought about; when really it’s not fully cooked yet. Obviously there comes a time when you're so behind that you have to break this rule -- but better to give the Director something better conceived so they, too, are suggesting things out of excitement -- not confusion or panic.

It’s also generally accepted that the first draft is the “writer’s draft.” The showrunner/head creative rarely rewrites a 1st draft too heavily unless it’s acknowledged that the draft is seriously in trouble, in which case the writer doesn’t proceed and it turns into a page one rewrite.

The reason for this is entirely practical – even a passed-first draft is still a first draft. It will need to be rewritten again. If the writer of record is not allowed to continue on and write their second draft, you’re either going to have a writer who’s afraid to try stuff in the first draft – and a cautious first draft is a problem in any show – or you are going to have a writer who’s intimidated to change anything that’s been added by the showrunner/head creative…which means that their flexibility and utility in turning out a better working story is seriously compromised.

At its best, the first draft is a big step forward in the creative. It should deliver on the best promises of the outline, while identifying problem areas that need to be massaged. It suggests its own streamlining, when careful reading and consideration identifies potential problems in pacing.

In an early, early, early way it can also suggest red flags about sequences that may be too ambitious, a too-generous complement of characters and/or locations. It’s also the document that sharpens both the story department and the network for where the real creative work begins, and largely concludes.

Next time: The Second Draft

Keep Your Eye on the Fix

UNBELIEVABLE.

Ten years ago, the broadcasters went to the CRTC and whined that "priority programming" was too restrictive, and they wanted "relief" on their obligations -- allowing them to count things like reality and magazine shows as "priority" programming, not just that nasty expensive comedy and drama.

The WGC, among other unions, said that would devastate the Canadian industry -- that Canadian drama would disappear overnight. "Don't be silly," said the broadcasters. "Flexibility!" We need it!

The rules changed.

The WGC was right -- everything they said would happen, came true over the next few years. Within two years, the number of Canadian drama shows dropped from 12 to 2.

We've spent 10 years struggling up from that floor. In that time, Canadian consumers were so well served by the system that they had to suffer the indignity of some of their broadcasters buying shows NOT to show them -- but to keep them on the shelf, out of sight, so that the competition couldn't get them. (This happened ALL THE TIME.)

These same companies let their spend on U.S. programming grow exponentially, while gobbling each other up, reducing competition, and gutting local television stations across the country for some mythical 'synergy' that never came.

Then the recession hit and they turned around and everything became about a fight between the rich cable and satellite companies -- the Bells, Rogers, Videotrons, Shaws, etc -- the top five so called BDU's that control about 80 percent of the Internet and TV distribution pipe in the country -- and the broadcasters, whose cushy regulatory pillows protected them from having to compete, and gave them nice fat profits from rebroadcasting American signals with little effort. "Give us free money!" The broadcasters cried. Later: "Give us free money or local news will die!"

The BDU's screamed back -- "It's a tax! A new Tax! And we'll pass it on to you! Yes, we have the one of the highest cost cell phone services in the world, with some of the worst service plans! Yes, our profits have been record breaking for years now! Yes, we're essentially protected monopolies! Yes, we charge you 15 cents a text for something that is essentially FREE to us, because of the way the technology works!"

And at every step, at every hearing, the WGC and the other creative unions traipse up and make their presentations and are treated like the annoying little children, and not the only people in the game who are, you know, trying to actually get all that stuff about the airwaves being owned by the people to be something other than a joke. And they fund studies, and commission reports, and prepare presentations -- and unlike the Bells and the Rogers who have phalanxes of lawyers and policy wonks, this involves a very few people toiling to make the deadlines.

And then what happens? Well, one group of millionaires sues another group of millionaires and suddenly the summer preparing for the big hearing is banged down into the fall.

Delay, slide, pay the lawyers, drag it out, sue the regulator, drag it down, wear out the people with the least reasources, and send the crazy artists away with a little old head pat.

Canadian TV's fate now delayed til November, or beyond.

I hope the CRTC's Commissioners are having a nice summer.

Cause the little folk are about to lose another whole season to the whims of the millionaires. A story now in its' 10th great year!

Corporate Capitalism triumphing over the good for the people is not a new story. But it's funny how in Canada, nobody even bothers to put a smiley face on it.

Eat it, Canadians. Eat it raw. In the end, you always do.

In the USA, where the media game is all about profit, at least everybody wants the same thing. The studios, the networks, the creative unions, the producers -- they all want hit shows -- because it makes them money. They might disagree about what a 'hit' is but, they're at least looking for the same thing.

In Canadian media, nobody wants the same thing. The BDU's want to perfect the game the broadcasters started -- they want to be able to charge you for pipe, take your money, own channels that get them free money, be able to prioritize their own stuff over anybody else's no matter how unfair it is, and no matter who tells them to stop -- and they want to do all this with all their myriad regulatory protections intact, without having to give anything back to you. Not money to support programming, not money to build an industry, not even an adequate service level for Canadians.

The broadcasters want free money to be able to buy cheap U.S. programming, and to be able to get away with funding as little domestic stuff as possible. They don't even care if it's particularly good.

Producers want to be able to make shows. Some of them want them to be good, some don't care, but pretty much all of them now have got it in their head that what they really need is a U.S. sale, so they want to be able to use their Canadian tax credits to hire American talent, because that's what they think will get them the sale.

Canadian writers want to work. They want to be able to create shows they can believe in, they can be proud of, that shows their best work, and speaks to an audience and entertains and tickles and amuses and maybe along the way says something true about people's lives that they recognize.

It's too bad nobody else really wants that.

What a crooked game it truly is.

Mad For The Ladies in the Room

WELL LOOKIE HERE, just the other day we were riffing on Seriocity's comments about female characters and how that is maybe influenced by women (or the lack thereof) in the writers room and along comes Mad Men. As Amy Chozik's Wall Street Journal Article points out -- Matthew Weiner's show about hard drinking sixties Ad Men has a writing staff that's mostly women -- a complete inversion of the industry norm. And how does that affect the storytelling? Read on:

On a Sunday afternoon the writing staff of hit drama “Mad Men” gathered in supervising producer Lisa Albert’s sunny dining room. Over homemade guacamole and a pitcher of mojitos, they debated whether Betty Draper, the fictional 1960s housewife of advertising executive Don Draper, should have a one-night-stand in a smoky Manhattan bar.

The men were against it. Betty would never compromise her integrity like that, consulting producer André Jacquemetton recalls saying. Most of the female writers disagreed. After all her husband’s infidelities, “how the hell is she going to take Don back if she doesn’t do this?” executive story editor Robin Veith argued.

Mr. Jacquemetton was outnumbered. From this discussion came a pivotal scene in the final episode of season two: Betty sleeps with the stranger. The writers will reveal what’s next for Betty when the show’s highly anticipated third season starts Sunday, Aug. 16 on AMC.

Behind the smooth-talking, chain-smoking, misogynist advertising executives on “Mad Men” is a group of women writers, a rarity in Hollywood television. Seven of the nine members of the writing team are women. Women directed five of the 13 episodes in the third season. The writers, led by the show’s creator Matthew Weiner, are drawing on their experiences and perspectives to create the show’s heady mix: a world where the men are in control and the women are more complex than they seem, or than the male characters realize.

Mr. Weiner says he didn’t set out to hire female writers. That said, he likes what he describes as the writers’ emotional honesty. It influences the freewheeling nature of the writers’ room, he says.

H/T to a few people, but Peter Rowley's the one I read it on first.

Meanwhile, just in case you're thinking "oh, how much has changed since those heady Mad Men days" -- uh... yeah. Right.

TV Series Scripting: Part Two: The Outline

FOR PART ONE in this series, click here.

AFTER THE PITCH to the network is approved, the outline is the first attempt by the writer to order the possible beats into a workable structure. The idea is to suggest locations, action and drama that will tell an interesting story, and also to hint at character beats that will tie into the series as a whole.

The outline is a reductive document, which is to say it tries to distill the many lofty ideas that might have come up or come out during the process of breaking the story and tie it down into a logical progression of beats. Rarely does this involve thinking in more than a cursory way about where those beats will be shot. The best you hope for when you write it up is to have a vague sense of whether you’re in the ballpark. Do you have a rough split of location/in studio sets shooting? Is there too much action? Not enough? Where does the pacing of the story lag or where might need the most work? Is the progression of the story logical? Is the emotional content of the scenes sustainable and workable? Do the act outs provide sufficient “oomph” to carry a viewer through two and one half minutes of selling soap?

At this point, the major audience and sales target for the document is not production: it’s the network. The idea is to get them into and enthusiastic about the upcoming story. Consequently, outlines sometimes have a more ‘sales-y’ than practical read to them. They will also include some bridge phrasing that papers over some stuff that still needs to be figured out. We call this ‘handwaving.’ The more handwaving there is in the document, the more the writer has to figure out in the first draft. (Which is why you don't want to fall to putting too much of that in: you'll pay for it later.)

There is extremely limited utility to other departments in reading the outline. It may give casting a rough idea of characters who may show up in the draft (though those characters are subject to great change and even excision;) props might get their first clue as to what sundries might be requested. Locations can get thinking about possible locales that might be called upon. But all of this is fluid and at such an early stage, with so many asterisks beside it, that you run a strong risk of doing a lot of thinking and planning for naught. With locations and props especially, everything is up for grabs until a later script stage. To the AD’s, an outline is practically useless, unless they enjoy feeling anxious.

Creatively, most writers try to keep their outlines free of dialogue (because if it’s in the outline, it will seem “tired” to the network by the time they read it for the third or fourth time in the production draft; conversely, they may get attached to some piece of “outline dialogue” that was obvious and never intended to survive. )

Writers often try to “undersell” the amount of action in the outline, because they know that it’s so fluid, and changeable, and subject to real-world concerns, that beats will probably be combined and eliminated, and you don’t want the network to get the sense that there are things they bought in the outline that are dropped for the draft. If you get the note, “what happened to XXX from the outline?” that is actually a pretty good indicator that you’ve overpromised in the outline.

Outlines can run for 10-15 pages for an hour, or they can run slightly more detailed at 20-25 pages, (though these are the outlines that are most likely to suffer from over-promising, and might challenge a writer trying to get the full story into the script at first draft stage.)

If you were to count the number of suggested scenes in an outline, it would likely give you a massive heart attack.

Next: the first draft

TV Series Scripting: Part One: Setting the Table

IN MANY WAYS, the process of writing specs and scripts to get you hired as a writer couldn't be more different than the actual process of production. It's a hard thing to get for the uninitiated. When you're trying to break in, you might spend months on your original pilot spec, or episodic spec, polishing it just so, getting it to the point where you feel you can submit.

The day-to-day reality of the job on an ongoing series is that you'll rarely have that kind of luxury. Which is why it appeals to a certain type of writer, and why development doesn't really prepare you for the production line that is series production.

In the traditional series production model used in the USA and Canada, one of the reasons you employ a writers' room is to be able to compensate for the short timeframe between greenlight and the start of production. (If you have a long, long timeframe, you could also develop all the scripts ahead of time, but that takes much longer, so it's generally not done.) It's like the difference between single processors and multiple, linked processors in supercomputers. If you have one story engine, coming up with stuff takes one amount of time -- if you have multiple engines, and the right person directing them, you can solve problems, and challenge concepts as you go along -- and what comes out the other end will be stronger, having been tested and challenged as part of the process.

What does this mean for you as a writer? It means that you have to be somebody who is comfortable defending your ideas. You have to be open to challenge in the story room, and flexible enough to incorporate and recognize good and bad suggestions. Ego and experience (as you gain it) help you to define and sort these choices as you roll along. It tells you when to incorporate and when to challenge. This is a sophisticated high-wire act -- and it's what we're really talking about when we say, "best idea wins." When you think about it, there's a lot that has to go into that phrase: 1) You have to be flexible about your idea. 2) You have to be able to incorporate changes that are good, and that make that idea stronger, even if it changes things about it that you were attached to. 3) You have to be able to recognize when the ideas of others are taking you down the wrong path. To some extent, as a writer, you're insulated from that last task by your showrunner -- but it's still a good sense to hone on your own. The closer you get to being able to take and incorporate room ideas while staying true to the core of the story you want to tell, the faster and more effective writer you will be.

The reason I keep saying "fast" is because it's important. Traditionally, there's an idea that you get two weeks to write a first draft. I can't remember the last time I've had that when I was in production. A week is more normal. [All of these timeframes I'm talking about are Canadian timeframes. U.S. series have more resources and are most likely quite different, though with every staff having shed one or two writers this year, they're starting to meet in the middle.]

I've also written a first draft in two or three days (from a really good outline -- and that's the key.) I've done page-one rewrites overnight. I've done "Frankenwrites" -- where you're writing Act One and Two, say, while another writer works on the back half simultaneously.

You might scratch your head and say one of the following:

"uh, that doesn't sound like much fun."

or

"Oh my God, how do you do that and not come up with a pile of crap?"

These are both good questions, and the answer to them both, though incomplete, hint at the challenge and the psychological makeup you need to be a good Television staff writer.

Because for most of us, having to work that fast -- though never the ideal, and never something that you can do for very long -- is incredibly exciting. We get juiced by it, and we miss it when we're not doing it -- in those long stretches in development. It's not like pondering over and turning over an idea for months; the exciting thing about it is that it's like very well paid improv or slam poetry or something -- at some level you're writing this from your gut. You know that it could change; and you write it from a place that keeps you loose, connected and immediate. You can be influenced by what's going on in your world, your life, your environment -- you bring the immediacy of life and the working environment to the work, which gives it zip and energy.

The second part is trickier. And if you're not as experienced, it might be more terrifying. But it comes from having seen the process work, and knowing how each piece results in the final product. If you take the burden on yourself of writing the perfect first draft, one that tells the story elegantly, is totally produceable within the schedule, balances the in/outs and locations and day/night splits and everything else, you're going to be on a stretcher to hinky town before you say, "boo."

But if you have a sense of which each stage is designed to accomplish, you can do what you need to do to accomplish any huge task: break it into manageable bits, so that you're always moving forward and never feel overwhelmed.

Now, what I'm going to be going over for the next several days is my impression of the scripting process -- from start to finish, on an ongoing television series -- and how and when the writer balances the concerns of production and the concerns of creative. This is subjective, my thoughts only, and should be read as such. I'll be more than happy to hear different impressions from fellow scribes below in the comments. Seriously. Have at it. Feel free to disagree with my categorizations and offer your own impressions.

First things first.

Every story starts with a card. An idea spun out, mulled over by the group. From that, the next step is the pitch. In most cases, the network gets to approve the idea before you go to outline. Sometimes this is done verbally in a phone call, sometimes the pitch will be delivered in the form of a one-pager -- a document that's got a lot of handwaving, but gives a general idea of the action and emotional action in the episode, maybe hints at twists and what's cool about the story, and gets you hyped to see how it will develop. You might have a couple of cool turns at this point, but the idea is still very fluid, because you don't want to invest too much time in it until you've got signoff. (This part of the process is very much the same when you're in development.)

Once the pitch is approved, you break the story and prepare the outline.

Which we'll talk about next time.

XX and XY on TV

KAY REINDL's Seriocity is always a good read, but she had a particularly sharp piece today on what's happened to the writing of female characters --

All I see on network are female characters created the way men think they are, rather than the way they really are. And it's not like I'm saying only women can create female characters. That's obviously bullshit. But why are so many of the female characters created by men just exactly the same? Where are the male writers who can create those wonderful female characters? And where are the FEMALE writers? Nobody seems able to grasp or understand the myriad internal lives of women. Instead, they graft quirks onto them, quirks that usually involve their wombs in some way, and always end with the unimpeachable fact that these women are FUCKING BEAUTIFUL. I just don't buy these women. At all. But the problem is that if you're pitching a realistic female character, you're talking to executives or producers who have come to believe in the quirky ball-buster who's just looking for the right guy. Women don't have to be whores or former strippers. Their hurdles don't all have to be sexual.

And because these people are the gatekeepers, a real, honest portrayal of a female character is going to have a tough time getting on TeeVee.

The whole piece is definitely worth a read, and a further muse. I've got an original sample for a series I had in development a few years back that I still send out with a young, female protagonist. I tried my damnedest at the time to make the character as complex and non-stereotypical as possible. At the time I guess I wasn't quite over my dating actresses phase, and suffered through a lot of moaning about "the wife and girlfriend parts."

Then I went and did Across The River To Motor City, whose central relationship was between a man and his adult daughter.

One of the pilots I have on the go right now features a female protagonist, who I'm really trying to invent out of whole cloth as a flawed construct that doesn't rely too heavily on traditional female tropes. I draw most of the time on the wealth of strong female role models I've seen up close -- sisters, my mother, grandmother, and several of the teachers I had along the way, too. And yeah, I shamelessly steal from female friends and former girlfriends -- I'd like to think only the good parts -- but it is a tightrope. And I definitely find myself writing those characters with more -- awareness -- than the instinctual way I write other kinds of stories.

This devolution of the female leading role is kind of puzzling, since, of course, during the same time frame the viewership of TV has continued to skew ever more female. It makes you wonder who these stock characters are trying to please. The female audience is the bedrock of TV. The data I've seen says they're more reliable than male viewers, more apt to try something new, and since they aren't afraid of scenes where two people have a conversation for thirty-two seconds without something blowing up, they tend to be more cost effective to reach, as well.

What's even more puzzling is the fact that here in Canada, we have female network executives at the top of all the networks and close at hand in all the commissioning suites, but I'm not sure we're doing any better creating vibrant, three-dimensional female characters or stories. And we certainly also suffer many of the same overarching prejudices about women in the writing room.

We also do the "false reverse" a lot. You know this -- it's when you just flip it, and make the woman the aggressor -- put her in the traditional "male" role in the scene. Flipping a stereotype papers it over -- it doesn't really solve anything. Giving the role of sexual aggressor, tough girl, what have you usually just buys you comparisons to the Magical Negro. It doesn't solve anything.

I've been watching back a bit of the last season of Battlestar Galactica on DVD, and for whatever reason, even before Kay's article, what's getting me this time is the interesting work from all the female performers -- the incomparable Mary McDonnell, of course, but also Katee Sackhoff's Starbuck, Grace Park's different iterations of Number Eight and the extremely welcome return of Kate Vernon as Ellen Tigh.

Then there's Stargate. Caught an old rerun of SG-1 the other day and there was Amanda Tapping, doing solid genre work that managed to never skimp on the heroics or the humanity. Why are our popcorn shows doing a better job of writing females than a lot of serious dramas or highbrow comedies? I mean, has a woman on Entourage ever had anything to do?

Makes you wonder what Ronald Moore has figured out that so many others don't.

Makes you wonder if we'll get over whatever it is before our audience leak turns into a deluge.

Of course, not to play Devil's Advocate or anything, but somebody's watching all those Lifetime Movies. And it aint me or the guys I play poker with.

No solutions here from me, necessarily. Just things that make you 'hmm' on a Monday morning.