Month: September 2013

munchman: Another Bad Film We’re Gonna Love

escape-from-tomorrow-article-tvwriter.com

Cuz I’m funny that way.

This one’s called ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW, and evidently it was a flash sensation at Sundance. Not on account of how good it looks, but because it was filmed in secret at Disneyland, the most heavily surveiled place on earth except for all our email accounts. read article

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 9/22/13

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are

And the deals we didn’t get keep pouring in! Check out how your friends – and enemies – are doing:

  • Neil LaBute (THE SHAPE OF THINGS) is writing an NBC pilot for HARMONY HOUSE, a comedy about a mental institution. (We ask only one thing of this project – that it be as horrifying as it is funny. Cuz – and we aren’t saying how we know – that would make it, ahem, real.)
  • Kay Canon (PITCH PERFECT) is writing THE RUNT, a CBS sitcom pilot about a, um, late bloomer and the effect her success has on family dynamics. (Cuz the ancient demographic that is the CBS audience is probably the only age group left that, you know, actually remembers what family is, let alone cares.)
  • Glenn Gordon Caron (MEDIUM) will write the pilot for THE MIDDLEMAN, a Fox crime drama set in the ’60s. (Cuz God knows nobody wants to see anything taking place in the treacherous here and now we all live in. What? You think we’re exaggerating? Let us tell you a few things about life in 2013, mister…)
  • Aseem Batra (ANIMAL PRACTICE) is writing the pilot for an unnamed NBC sitcom based on his life. (Cuz, hey, the life of a guy who wrote ANIMAL PRACTICE must be chock full of laughs, don’tcha know?)
  • Craig Gerard & Matthew Zinman (HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER) are writing SEASON TICKETS, another NBC comedy pilot about, um, a guy who has season tickets to the Kansas City Royals games. (Wow, this has “winner” written all over it, no? So what if 98.5% of the population of, well, Kansas City for one place, doesn’t even know what sport the Royals play.)

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 9/21/13

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are

  • Dylan Moran (Big Name Irish comic) has a deal to write an ABC sitcom. (That’s it. All the info we have. But this dude starred in and co-wrote one of the craziest Britcoms we’ve ever seen, BLACK’S BOOKS, so we’re looking forward to whatever emerges.)
  • Hank Nelken (SAVING SILVERMAN) is writing a CBS sitcom pilot called SISTER WHIPPED. (About, we assume, a nerd with sisters who’ve kept him from knowing what a, you know, guy should really be like. Anybody know if we’re in the ballpark here?)
  • Jim Agnew & Sean Keller (upcoming feature TOKAREV) are writing a pilot for THE THIRTEEN, which is described as “a contemporary drama [that] takes place in a world in which the colonies lost their bid for independence and [are] still fighting…for freedom.” (Whoa, a 250 year war? Those are some inept freedom fighters, no? Or are we going to see a bunch of Afghanistan metaphors?)
  • Greg Poirier (NATIONAL TREASURE 2) is writing the pilot for NBC’s WOLFE, a sort-of-a-spy-spoof about a fake CIA hero and the baddie who knows he’s a fraud. (We hope this gets on the air cuz we lurve, lurve, lurve to watch executive miscalculations that lead to new series that appear for 6 episodes and then vanish forever. Yeah, sure we do.)
  • Ken Biller (PERCEPTION) has a new overall deal with ABC Studios, under which he’ll continue as showrunner of PERCEPTION and also create tons of similar hits. (Or maybe not so similar, which to us chaos-loving types could be way better.)

Top TVWriter™ Posts for the Week Ending 9/20/13

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Here they are, the most viewed TVWriter™ posts for the past week:

2013 SPEC SCRIPTACULAR Winners read article

LB: What Everyone Can Learn From the 2013 People’s Pilot & Spec Scriptacular Competitions

ppsslogosby Larry Brody

How About Some Quick General Remarks for a Start?

Now that the Winners of the People’s Pilot and Spec Scriptacular Competitions have been announced, I’ve had a little time to reflect on both contests. Not a lot of time (because I’m working like mad to deliver all that Feedback I promised ASAP), but enough to notice a few things that made me – and I think will make you – smile.

  • The People’s Pilot had the largest number of entries in its 15 year history.
  • The Spec Scriptacular had the largest number of entries in its 13 year history.
  • Taken as a totality, the entries in both contests were better than ever. In all categories, the judges considered at least 2/3 of what they read to be of professional caliber. (And considering that none of the entrants was a professional TV or film writer that strikes me as, well, amazing.)
  • I’ve had good experiences with every entrant with whom I’ve corresponded this year. Everyone’s been upbeat and positive, expressing the kind of joy in the very act of writing that those already in the biz want to work with, and which fills me with an equal amount of delight.

Thanks, everyone, for all this good stuff. You make everything I try to do more than worthwhile.

What TVWriter™ Contest Entrants (and other writers) Should Know About These Contests

My purpose in holding the PP and SS all these years has always been to give new writers a chance to get their work out into the world and become better writers by seeing how other people – professionals, in the biz – react to it. read article