Writing... pitching... Happy Holidays!

I've been hard at work these last few months, so, even though I vowed to keep blogging here, I've fallen off. Eek, please forgive me!

Right now I'm finishing up a TV pilot spec. That's all the rage right now for those of you out there trying to break into the TV business. The one I'm working on is a premium cable show idea and I'm planning to shop it directly once it's completed. The curse and the advantage of having been a producer is that I'm unwilling to hand it over and wait by the phone for someone else to figure out how to do the selling. :-)

I've learned quite a bit over the last year and half working on various TV projects (those that lived and those that didn't). Feel free to post questions in the comments and I will answer or get answers.

And Happy holidays!

No Good Deed....

I'm "segment producing" for a friend of mine for this little show that will air this fall. Nothing exciting (including my paycheck), but it has got me on the run. It started out as a 2-day favor that has morphed into me negotiating rights deals, booking crews and trying to get network exex to close talent deals. Ugh. This. Is. Why. I. Write. I miss my little dog. I miss my quiet little armchair. I miss my afternoons curled up at Starbucks, tapping away at my little scribblings.

Anyway, back to the grind. I'll keep you posted. Novel is/was going well. Trying to get some pages together for a reading in the Bay Area at the end of the year. The novel-writing group is getting some national coverage which is very gratifying. If only my book were finished, perhaps it would help me move ahead.... :-)

Keep on trucking, people.

Again with the Random Musings...

I've spent the last week or so figuring out what I'm going to do with myself if there is a strike. I have a few ideas for reality shows so I'm developing those and will see where that takes me if and when the time comes to put that iron in the fire. From what I understand networks will have banked enough episodes of things to get them through November sweeps, then it's winter hiatus, then back with some mid-season replacement stuff that is shooting as you read this and if there is no strike, back to business as usual, but if there is a strike it will be wall-to-wall reality. I think anyone working at those big reality production houses has their fingers crossed right now. I know most studios learned from their mistakes last time around (2001) and have plenty of options in case things get nuclear around here. Including putting executives on leave and not renewing contracts. I had a clause like that in my deal, but, fortunately, it never came to that.

Last time around, just like this time, agencies took advantage of the strike to trim their client lists and cut loose anyone who was under-performing or just plain troublesome. I had a few friends who were "fired" by their agencies and it has been a long road back. First the year of depression and humiliation, then the year of spec writing and humiliation and depression, then the year of the comeback, and bitterness and depression.... :-) Anyway, I credit that last major trimming with consolidating the position and power of managers in this town. There were tons of very talented people suddenly at loose ends, desperate to get back in the game, willing to write on spec who were accessible, some for probably the first time in a very long time.

I'm also developing a series of webisodes that a couple of girlfriends of mine and I have been kicking around since May. One of my friends recently landed at a new internet entertainment site and they are desperate for content. She is lucky enough to be hooked up at a place that is the daughter of a highly trafficked site so they need content more than anything right now. I doubt it would cover more than the cost of producing the actual work, but considering that we were going to do it all for free, this seems like a good way for me to get a little directing under my belt before I attack my short film.

If any of you (Will?) have suggestions for the approach one should use when shooting for the itty bitty screen I'd love to hear them. I read a post over at Complications Ensue about Mobisodes that really started me thinking about how to do this. We don't really envision this thing ever getting off the internet and onto a phone screen, but I am really concerned about the screen ratio of that YouTube box. I've shot some stuff for TV before (just news footage when I was a wee-little Diva still delusionally thinking I wanted to be a hard-hitting journo) and it seems to me that the "readable" portion of the screen is the same -- meaning lots of close-ups and medium shots. I actually like movies that take advantage of depth of field (I'm thinking about TOKYO STORY here), so I'm wondering if anyone has thoughts about that, specifically. I haven't seen too much stuff produced for the web that uses depth of field in any meaningful way and I'm not sure if that's the constraints of the medium (resolution and bandwidth interrupting the impact of long shots that rack focus and/or feature fore, mid and background action) or just that the medium hasn't matured enough for folks to be exploiting it that way yet.

Anyway, back to the reality stuff. I have a close friend who I kick ideas around with, talk story, gossip, etc. She and I have been trying to find a way to spend all of 2008 out of the country. Preferably not working, but we will take what we can get. I'll keep you posted. I still have to get to my cheese tour of England and France....

STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE!!

I'm not advocating that there be a strike or that there not be, but from everything I gather it really won't matter by the middle of September, most of the studios will have effectively committed all their development funds. This means: no spec sales unless you are A++ talent and ready to hit the set with the hot little pages in your hand; no work done on existing projects unless your executive is sleeping with the head of accounting, there will be no checks cut on steps not already commenced; no greenlights on anything not already greenlit; no new executive hires, but possibly some folks will get let go during this time (only if the strike actually starts though).

The town is on fire with folks working around-the-clock. LAT had an article about the number of permits FilmLA has issued in the last couple of months -- which doesn't even begin to guesstimate the amount of work going on out of town. My friends who work at agencies are telling me it is a frantic scramble to get clients on to jobs before there aren't any and my writer friends are telling me they are being told by their studio bosses that if the projects they turn in aren't greenlight-able there probably won't be another step for a while, if ever.

This is a good time to work on your spec material, save your money, and get ready for the post-strike glut when the studios have to prove to top talent that they have money -- the last time there was a near-miss, in 2001, the months preceding and immediately after the strike were ripe for spec writers. A lot of pitches were sold as well, but studios were eager to show that they had budgeted well and were still in business.

Anyway, it's also a good time to take that long vacation in the Andes you've always wanted, but couldn't ever find the time for. You've got about 8 weeks to plan it. :-)

MANAGER-AGENT ARTICLE

The WGA website has a great, lengthy article on the agent-manager thing. I recommend it for anyone trying to wrap their brains around the byzantine layers of representation in Hollywood. It's at least as good as the one I wrote way back when *snark*, but not as entertaining as John Rogers'.

Sorry I've been out of pocket. I took on a freelance gig and have to finish up the rewrite in the next week. I have a couple of posts I've been dawdling over that I hope to get out this week. One is about film commissions (and a belated h/t to Jim Henshaw for this information he gave me which I do not know how to post... maybe I'll ask Unk if he can host some pages for me?), and the other is about post-production since I'm due to see the second cut of the short film at some point this week. I'm really keen on empowering as many people to make their own films as possible -- that's the keystone of my evil plan -- so, I hope you all are being productive!

Agency Pitches

I'm back in Los Angeles after two weeks in Hawaii. I had a great time, got some writing done, browned a bit, ate a ton of tropical fruit, and started planning for my next big trip sometime this summer. Don't know where it will be, probably Italy since I haven't been there yet. ANYWAY....
I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and she mentioned attending an agency pitch session. Agency pitches are meetings in which executives and agents play speed dating with writer/director/actor careers. Basically, the agency comes over en masse to meet with all the executives at a network/studio and they "pitch" clients for various open assignments. These meetings typically take place monthly for film studios, and roughly quarterly for television.

In the case of a film studio (although it works exactly the same in television), the head of the studio and the head of the agency talk in advance about what projects are a priority. Then, the agents all come to the lot, sit down and pitch their clients. If an agency doesn't have a strong client list, then the meetings are icily polite. For the A-list agencies, the biggest agents don't typically show up with all the minnows, but they will send a number of senior level agents over to play footsie. When the agents come, they bring some kind of resume book with each client's credits and sometimes a short bio (especially for less established talent).

That part is pretty dry, but the real purpose of these meetings is to get good gossip: Who is dating whom, who just got divorced, which writers/directors/actors are recovering from drug addictions. Assignments do get filled this way, an executive makes a comment, an agent remembers a client's words in passing about a love of ballooning, or time spent as an arctic explorer and the next thing you know... summer home in Crete! A girl can dream....

Sorry for the sparse posting. I got back from Maui and have been immersed in putting together information for the short film I'm producing which is finally SHOOTING in two weeks. I can't wait!!! I'll blog about the process this month starting later today!

First post: herding cats aka how to get disparate folks on the same page during production. Mmm, producer fun.

It's Pilot Season!!!!!

I'm putting something up to let you all know that I'm still alive. Still pounding the pavement out here in LA. It's pilot season which means it's almost time to PUT YOUR PENCILS DOWN and TURN IN YOUR EXAMS! That's right, staffing season is starting up in a matter of weeks. Some shows are already lining up their senior writers, but for us baby writers trying to break in, this is our chance to polish things up one last time and hit the party circuit to get our little faces out there for jobs.

I've been reading every drama pilot I can get my hands on, and there are tons out there. I think I've read about 20 so far, and the competition is pretty stiff for shows this spring. Lots of good stuff, plenty of procedural-esque shows, but many many more soap opera type shows set against various backdrops. I'll check with my suppliers to see which scripts it is okay for me to talk about (i.e. the drafts aren't under wraps on pain of someone's death) and I'll blog an update. I'm happy to say I've read a bunch of shows I liked, last season I wasn't as impressed -- the writing was almost universally solid, but the show ideas were... eh. This year, I feel like the show concepts were interesting (minus the soap operas which aren't really my thing), but I'm withholding judgment on most of them until I see the casting choices because they could go either way.

There are a couple of very interesting sci fi/fantasy-type shows that I'm excited about, so I'm going to see if I can write about those first. I'm happy to say that no one has written anything even close to the spec pilot I'm polishing, I've still got two more networks worth of stuff to get through, but, so far, all clear. :-)

Another Heroes Post

I'm a big fan of directors. I spent the first part of my time in Hollywood working for a seven-figure earner, chatting up the A-list DPs he wrangled into working for him, and in general, geeking out over every aspect of the craft. So, a little shoptalk from Mr. Beeman's excellent HEROES blog. *****SPOILERS******* below. Nothing major, but if you are a diehard maybe read this one after the show.

GB: How does your personal visual style mesh with the HEROES style?

JS: Well, I’d like to think it does very much so. I prefer bold angles. Not boring, tepid over-the-shoulders. I hate to be at eye level.. Nate (the director of photography) said I fit in perfectly..


GB: Let’s talk about the Japanese sequence, with Hiro and his father. It fits into the HEROES “look” very well, yet it is also different.

JS: Nate, the D.P. is a real film buff, as am I. We had a lot of conversations about taking that sequence into a Kurasowa style. Meaning that we played with depth and composition. Besides being spoken in Japanese, the scenes had a very Japanese content and conflict. They were formal in nature with lots of changes in the power dynamics between characters. So, beyond the dialogue, Nate and I said, “let’s do a Kurasowa style.” A very full frame. Not much camera movement. Instead the characters walk into their close ups. People move within the frame as the power dynamics change. Whoever has the power in the scene in any moment is also the largest in the frame. As the dynamic switches the composition switches. Also we used a lot of negative space, meaning the space between the characters and to the left and right of the characters. Nate and I were both very versed in this film language. We discussed it in prep, and we had shorthand about it on the set. At the end of the day, I think the sequences work well because they are supported by the very Japanese theme.

GB: Very much so.

I'm still busting my tail on these scripts, but I will eventually start posting on the regular again. I promise.

Production

I started out my career working physical production. I like telling people what to do and how to do it, what can I say? :-)

Anyway, there aren't any blogs out there covering the logistics of making entertainment. The headaches, the joys, the way stuff can go right and the way it can go terribly, horribly, embarrassingly wrong, and then how you can pull it together anyway. Greg Beeman has a great one that covers the logistics of putting HEROES together. I've been reading it and having production flashbacks. In a good way. Most of the time.

I highly recommend it. It's a great read, very informative, it does have spoilers, but nothing too outrageous. If you haven't actually produced anything you are working on, or had your work produced, then think of this as a virtual reality machine. And then get out there and make it happen.

Hugh Laurie

I love Hugh Laurie. When I was in England last month I had a chance to watch some episodes of A Bit of Fry and Laurie and came to a new appreciation of him. In honor of his Golden Globe victory, here's a little snippet from the show.

Happy Belated Anniversary!

Last week marked my one year anniversary blogging. Thank you to everyone who visits on a regular basis, and to everyone who posts comments (it's better than getting snail mail!).

I've really enjoyed this experience and hope to find more and better topics to post about in the upcoming year.

I'm off to Europe and San Francisco for the next few weeks, trying to clear my head so I can finish some things up in time for TV season. If I can master the whole Internet cafe thing, I'll post about what I'm up to.

TV shows I'm following:

HEROES -- Against my will I enjoyed this week's show. My resistance is entirely related to the plot hinging on the cheerleader, when there are other, much more intriguing story lines. And what's up with the short chick's mutation being the power of persuasion? I mean, honestly, I get it's some kind of mind control, but the way it was played out, she just seemed really really convincing (like Bill Clinton with a pixie cut). Let's hope the Hottie Brothers get it together soon.

BSG -- Loved last week's show, but it felt like it was missing a subplot, and I'm not sure I believe Adama would believe he was personally responsible for provoking the Cylons. Anyway, hope they give Tahmoh some screen time in this week's boxing episode. :-)

Grey's -- I'm still watching, but not as avidly as last season. I guess I'm hoping they start taking the medicine seriously again. I always enjoyed the personal drama, but felt like it was made more realistic by the grounding in the medicine. Tough balance, but I'm hanging in there hoping the show finds it again.

Ugly Betty -- Needs to get funny again. Telenovelas always have a melodramatic story point in the middle of the season, but I feel like the strength of this show really is in the fish-out-of-water comedy of Betty in the magazine world, now that they seemed determined to make her the Magic Chicana who sees things clearly and can solve any problem, I'm getting nervous.

Dexter -- Who did not already guess that the sister's boyfriend was the Ice Truck Killer??? The show is still very good, and I love that they took his character to the next level, and hope that the flashbacks into his life reveal some good shit. Can't wait for the rest of the episodes.

DAYBREAK -- So, I dug last week's show. Was really excited about Taye Diggs, happy he found something that will position him with a different audience (males 18-25, as opposed to the over-25 females his last show targeted), and am looking forward to tonight's epi. This will really determine for me if the show's premise has enough room to allow for a full season (let alone multiple seasons).

THE UNIT -- I watch this show every week even though the dialogue is sometimes uneven (I imagine that's what happens when Shawn Ryan and David Mamet pass scripts back and forth).

I'm taping everything while I travel and when I return, plan to throw up the blackout curtains and burn my retinas out catching up.

What are you guys watching?

Digging You Taye Diggs

I'm digging DAYBREAK. I was worried that it would be terrible, that it would take the premise and mangle it, or worse, be a ham-fisted attempt at reimagining the concept.

Thank goodness I was wrong!! I'm excited about next week. I'm a little worried that my head won't be able to hang on to all of the alternate reality details, I'm loving that Hopper's body reflects the events as if they happened in linear time, and hopefully that they will keep the production values as high as they were tonight. ABC is doing a great job with this big act-outs. I barely had time to pop some corn for the second hour of the premiere and I wanted to make sure I didn't miss a minute. Pretty unusual for me since I have a dvr, but I didn't want to miss the "flow" of the story. I'm going to roll it back now and watch the bottom half of the first half hour -- I wasn't paying attention because I was skeptical!

Let's hope Deja Vu is as good, but in a totally different way. Coincidentally it's a Bruckheimer film whose film deal is at Disney which is also ABC... or is it? Hmm...

Draft Numero Dos

I'm working on the second draft of my spec pilot right now. I'm really pushing because last week I met a writer from a one-hour drama show (I actually know him from just being in Hollywood and going to parties, but we've never worked together), and he agreed to read my spec. He's shooting his episode right now, so I've got 10 days to get myself together and put my best foot forward. I feel very confident about this pilot, perhaps foolishly, but I've only done one full draft of it and it is popping. I'm working on backstory for all of my characters and trying to lay to rest all of the logic/plot questions brought up in my notes session last week.

All of which brings me to this question: What do you guys do to stay focused? I have wicked ADHD and I normally drink about 10 cups of coffee per day when I'm under the gun like this. I'm trying new and different things this year so I thought I'd reach out to you all. I never pulled an all-nighter in college, but I think I may have to break my perfect record if I don't drink up. This is one of those damned if I do, damned if I don't situations since the coffee makes me so dang jittery I'm walking around with a dry mouth, wide eyes, and a paranoid mentality. :-)

Also, I hope you all have been paying attention to all these articles about digital/web-movie making. I've been preaching this to everyone I've ever met with -- and you can ask any filmmaker, actor or aspirant who has ever taken a talent meeting with me -- get some $$$ and make a movie yourself, and then post a comment here so we can all go and see it.