Month: April 2014

Julie Livingston: 3 Rules for Writing Workshop…And Life

NCIS-Gibbs-Rules

by Julie Livingston

So here I am. Finally settled in L.A.. Well, settled-ish anyway. I’m actually moving again in a couple weeks, but that decision was motivated more by my personal desire to live in a neighborhood where no one pees in the produce section of the super market than anything professional. Workwise, after the initial flurry of activity of having a manger and then not having one, things have been fairly quiet. Hollywood hasn’t exactly been beating a path to my door. The phone isn’t ringing off the hook with job offers and pilot deals. Fortunately, I’m not sitting around waiting for that to happen. I am doing what I always do when I’m not sure what else to do, I’m going to school.

A few weeks ago I started the UCLA Professional Program For Television Writing. It’s a year-long intensive in which students essentially get all the writing classes they’d get in the MFA program without all the theory. And so far, I have to say, it’s awesome. There is something truly exquisite about geeking out over the thing you love with other people who love it as geekishly as you do for six hours a week. I am impressed with how smart and experienced my fellow students are and inspired by the sacrifices everybody has made to be here, but the thing really solidified the belief that I am in the right place is the set of rules set out by my teacher, Rick Williams. No one is more surprised than I am that my favorite part of the program so far is the rules, but these rules are not about page counts or act breaks. They are instructions on how to be a person who creates and guidelines to becoming someone people want to work with, which makes me feel they are worth sharing outside the ivory tower.

Rule Number One:
Attendance Is Mandatory. You must be present, not just physically, but mentally too. Like everyone, I sometimes struggle to put away my cell phone and let go of the distractions of the day, but I know I owe it to my classmates to try. Television writing is, after all, essentially a team sport. I get that. But to be honest, my real motivation to follow rule number one is selfish. I generate more ideas, make better jokes and generally have more fun when I am fully engaged. So while I hope my classmates feel like it’s a benefit to get my full attention, truth is, I do it as much for myself as for them. read article

Peer Production: PIVOT POINT

Who says that the interwebs can’t take on traditional genres and do just as good (or bad?) a job as network TV? If you’re a cop procedural fan, then this is the series for you. Every beloved writing and directorial cliche, plus a dash of interweb tastelessness to add “realism.”

And you thought we automatically loved every web series. Ha!

Of course we could be wrong. Have a look for yourself and let us know whatcha think: read article

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 4/22/14

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are
by munchman

  • Frank Spotnitz (X FILES) & Nicholas Meyer (HOUDINI) have created the ultimate crime series: FREUD: THE SECRET CASEBOOK. (That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is that it’s being set up in the UK, which means that most likely the show will take its sweet time coming to where we in the U.S. can see it without doing something illegal.)
  • Pivot TV has announced a whole passel of new shows for, you know, “younger viewers,” as in the same obnoxious demo that all TV shows these days are made for but presented as though only Pivot is doing this. Yer Friendly Neighborhood munchman is especially interested in FORTITUDE, created and run by Simon Donald (LOW WINTER SUN). (Cuz it’s set in – get this – “the Arctic town of Fortitude…surrounded by the savage beauty of the polar landscape,” and if there’s one thing this munchy one loves its looking at barren wastelands for at least an hour a week.)
  • Speaking of barren wastelands, Pivot also has LEADER TOWN, an animated comedy about an American family trying to fit into a Russian town, created and showrun by THE SIMPSONS’ Jeff Westbrook. (Warning note: This particular wasteland is a moral-ethical one. The town is where “the world’s deposed ex-leaders…live out their lives in luxury using their ill-goten gains.” Oh well, if there’s one thing THE SIMPSONS writers know about it’s…yeah, you guessed it, moral-ethical dilemmas.)

Peggy Bechko: Character Motivation – The Wounds That Don’t Heal

motivationby Peggy Bechko

Have you considered what motivates your characters? What their background is? Whether it is your hero or a villain or some other character in the piece he or she has been affected by life. We’re all bombarded by tiny wounds, hurts and influences (sometimes large ones) throughout our lives. Your characters should be no different.

Think about it. Everything that happens, or we cause to happen defines us. Painful things even more so. They influence character. Whether focused on one ‘big one’ or a culmination of multiple lacerations (death by a thousand paper cuts) those things can chip away or blast away at a character’s self-worth, or can elevate it to the point of ego-mania.

So think about this; what kinds of events can come together to form this mudball of experience? read article

United State of TV: Binge watching brings us all together again

Binge watching as an activity that brings people together? When the reason certain of us here at TVWriter™ do it is cuz we can only enjoy ourselves…um, alone in the dark? Scary!

binge watchingby Doug McIntyre

Let me say upfront, I watch my share of television.

I’m not one of those people who shun the small screen for more exalted intellectual pursuits like re-reading the collected works of Flaubert or writing office emails in haiku. My television viewing habits are pedestrian and prolific. read article