POWER Showrunner Courtney Kemp Agboh on How She Got There

As the interviewer says, Courtney Kemp Agboh’s career path has been amazing. Noobs and olds can learn a lot from her rise to – can you stand it? – POWER!

by Libby Hill

Power showrunnerAs Power settles into its second season, the Starz show is amping up both the pace and tension, in an attempt to take the good thing it had in season one and make it great. Showrunner Courtney Kemp Agboh took time to sit down with Vulture at the Austin Television Festival to talk about the show — which was picked up for a third season today — why she doesn’t feel responsible for creating great female characters, and her disappointment at never taking overEntertainment Weekly.

Tell me all your things, because your career path is amazing.
So, my things: I went to graduate school for English literature. I thought I was going to be a professor, then I ran screaming from there into magazine journalism.
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Writer June Diane Raphael Knows Her Way Around Dialog

June Diane Raphael of GRACE AND FRANKIE makes this TVWriter™ minion feel…well, kinda terrible. She acts! She writes! She looks (and sounds) like Karen McCullah! While all I can manage to accomplish to wake up each morning. There oughtta be a law, you know?

by Patti Greco

The new Netflix comedy Grace and Frankie stars Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda as 70-something frenemies whose husbands (played by Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen, respectively) left their wives for each other. It’s a happy coming-out story on the one hand; a sad story of loss on the other. June Diane Raphael plays Brianna, the tell-it-like-it-is daughter of the wealthy, uptight Fonda-Sheen family. “She’s a nice window into what the audience might be thinking,” Raphael said on a visit to Cosmopolitan.com’s HQ this week. “She brings up a great point: This would be a different conversation if it were a woman [with whom her dad cheated]. We wouldn’t be celebrating and having dinner together — not a week later.”

Cosmopolitan.com spoke to Raphael — whom you might also know from her podcast How Did This Get Made with husband Paul Scheer or from her last movie, Ass Backwards, with writing partner Casey Wilson — about her new show, the limited roles for women in Hollywood, and her first job out of college: writing Bride Wars. read article

Peggy Bechko on How to NOT Sell Your Script or MS

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by Peggy Bechko

Most of us want to know how to do it, not how not to do it, but if you know the big DON’Ts you’re a whole lot more likely to get the DOs right.

We might as well admit it, we’re all ‘eager’ when it comes to finding a berth for our babies and selling our work. And, eager is okay, but top that with professionalism and now you’re going somewhere.

So what are the don’ts? For starters when you pitch don’t tell a movie producer the script should be a novel as well and don’t tell a publisher ‘my book should be a movie’. Don’t tell them the manuscript will result in a book that’s a bestseller or that the movie will be a blockbuster. No one can predict that outcome. Only result from such claims will be (if they’re polite) deeply patient sighs. Let’s face it, if someone could predict blockbusters and bestsellers they’d be a dime a dozen. You’re no more likely to predict it than they are. Good luck. So let’s just skip that one. read article

The WGA Wants Us to Listen to Its Podcasts

The Writers Guild of America, West, is going into the podcasting biz, which could be a huge helping hand to film and TV writers everywhere…or not.

Here’s how the Guild put it in an email sent to members and the press last Friday, June 11th:

wga podcast screen cap

IS COPYRIGHT LEGISLATION PUSHING PEOPLE TO “PIRACY?”

An interesting rebuttal to the anti-piracy arguments fostered by the TV, film, and music industry gatekeepers – put forth by no less than the European Commission. Certainly food for thought:

F25-bandanaby “Andy”

Speaking at Midem yesterday, Andrus Ansip of the European Commission shared his vision for the Digital Single Market. Noting that geo-blocking is bad for business, Ansip said that opening up content across borders and providing good legal options is the best way to tackle piracy. “Our legislation is pushing people to steal,” he said.

Last month the European Commission adopted a new Digital Single Market strategy with the aim of improving consumer access to digital goods and services. Among other things the Commission says it plans to end the “discriminatory practice” of “unjustified” geo-blocking. read article