The posts TVWriter™ visitors clicked on most during the past week were:
Month: July 2015
Troy Devolld on the War Between Scripted and Reality TV
by Troy Devolld
Aside from the legions of justifiably peeved comedy and drama writers displaced by Reality content’s encroachment onto their turf, many critics deride Reality TV as mind-numbing junk. In many cases, I agree with them — but I also believe that it’s wrong to assume that it’s all garbage.
What I personally find so amusing about the critics who compulsively tilt at Reality TV like Don Quixote to a windmill is the dual standard by which they judge Reality against other genres.
Some of them complain about Reality’s almost uniformly beautiful cast-members while simultaneously giving a pass to the gorgeous casts of shows like Friends or Gossip Girl. Others moan about the genre’s unbelievable situations and setups… you know, because a bunch of celebrities hosting a backyard talent show on The Surreal Life is so much more far-fetched than that Star Trek episode where The U.S.S. Enterprise finds itself awash in self-replicating, faceless, purring throw-pillows called “tribbles.”
9 Great YouTube Channels for Filmmakers
Why go to film school when you already have access to the greatest film makers and teachers in the world? Is there a YouTube University? Maybe not officially, but practically speaking YouTube is our film making oyster:
by Caleb Ward
Aside from simply going out and creating a film, one of the best ways you can get better as a filmmaker is to simplywatch YouTube tutorials about the craft. From pre-production to exporting, these 9 YouTube channels are a fantastic resource for you to take your filmmaking skills to the next level. If you know of any other awesome channels, we’d love to hear about the in the comments below. In the meantime, do yourself a favor and subscribe to all these channels. These truly are great YouTube channels for filmmakers.
1. Film Riot
Perfect for Indie Filmmakers
What’s not to love about Film Riot? With a fantastic mixture of comedy and informative information, Film Riot is hands down the best filmmaking channel on YouTube. Every Film Riot tutorial features helpful tips and tricks for you, the filmmaker. Plus the host, Ryan Connolly, is a great filmmaker with a proven track record, so you know you’re learning from a credible source.
Plot Formulas? Really? You’re Still Doing That?
As a Certified TVWriter™ minion, I spend most of my time looking for helpful articles about writing and then snatching them into my big net in the hope that they’ll be the kind of thing TVWriter™ visitors need and like. The other day I discovered this one, which certainly passes the test. Read and learn, as a certain LB might say. Read and learn:
by Mette Ivie Harrison
There is no formula to plot. The more I talk to writers I admire about writing, the more suspicious I am about books or formulas about how to plot anything “the right way.” As a reader/viewer myself, I can smell formula a mile away. Plot that feels imposed on characters can never satisfy. Let me give some examples of problems that I’ve seen in plot and I think you will agree. From there, I’ll talk about how to plot outside of the box in ways that will really surprise you and the most savvy consumers out there.
One of the most common plot devices is to kill a character near the end of a story in order to raise the final stakes at the climax of the book. The villain chooses a character to kill who is “really” important to the main character. This is also a character we consumers have fallen in love with. The writer(s) have done everything possible to make us care about the character in question, giving this character strengths and vulnerabilities, and even showing us a character arc in development. Often this is the “best” character, the one who is the kindest, the smartest, the cleanest (in terms of the consequences of the story arc that clings to the main character in particular). So when this character dies, we consumers feel really angry. We want to throw things at the screen or shout out loud. Yet this is all pre-determined. The writer(s) intend this very response and bank on it. And yet, precisely because it is so effective, it has become a shtick, predictable and, to me, annoying.
Peggy Bechko: Can We Keep The Book Alive?
by Peggy Bechko
Or is it dead?
When you speak to people do they admit to not having read a book from cover to cover in years? How about you? Oh, we read a lot. Things like tweets and Facebook posts, bits and pieces, here and there. But are we diving into story? And does it matter?
Yes, yes it does. Truly there would be something missing, a hole in our lives, if we all just decided not to read stories any more. Stories give us so much more than just the tale we read. It provides a sense of narrative and even puts our own lives into a kind of perspective wherein we realize that our own lives are stories, long narratives that extend from the past into the future creating an arc to our narrative that is much broader than a few witty (or annoying) tweets on Twitter.