Month: January 2016

Dennis O’Neil: The Pitch

a pitch you can't refuseby Dennis O’Neil

Long time ago, as I was coming out of one of those anonymous buildings that house the motion picture business, a lovely young woman smiled as though she recognized me. I didn’t recognize her, or almost anyone else in southern Califormia, so I had to assume that she had mistaken me for someone else: Director? Naw. Producer? Naw. Guy who changes the light bulbs? Maybe. Or did she perhaps think I was a writer? Well, as a matter of fact, that’s what I was. I had just been talking to an editor and a studio executive and been informed that a check would soon be forthcoming.

What I’d been doing there, that summer’s day in Hollywood, was pitching a story. My words were my pitch. Next part of the process would be a return to New York and the execution of a script. Now, I’d never before sold fiction to television, but the procedure I was involved in was pretty familiar. It was the procedure I’d followed in selling dozens of scripts to DC, Marvel, and Charlton, which were all comic book companies. Yep, the rituals for the initial contacts in the two businesses, comics and teevee, were virtually identical. (The monetary rewards, alas, were not, but that’s a lament for another occasion.)

That was then. This isn’t. My recent professional contacts with the funnybook dodge, over the last decade-plus, have been spotty, but all of them, with a single possible exception have involved my delivering a written pitch to an editor before beginning a script. The talking part of the editor-writer encounter seems to have vanished. Let us pause while we gnash our teeth, rub ashes into our sackcloth tunics, tear our hair (and good luck doing this to me) and then shrug and get on with our day. So the rules have changed. So what hasn’t? read article

Writers Guild of Great Britain Honors Russell T. Davies

Russell-T-Daviesby Team TVWriter™ Press Service

…As well it should, and not only because of his work bringing DOCTOR WHO back to our screens. Mr. Davies is one of TVWriter™’s major heroes. We stand in awe of his amazing career.

Here’s the story, direct from the WGGB:

Acclaimed writer and producer Russell T Davies was presented the coveted Outstanding Contribution to Writing Award at the annual Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Awards at RIBA, in London, on 18 January 2016. read article

John Ostrander: Back to the Beginning

by John Ostrander

Warp-Play-PosterWhen I get asked by earnest neophytes how to break into comics, my pat answer is “With a pick and a crowbar through the roof in the middle of a moonless night.”

Somewhat less than helpful, I know.

The truth is that I don’t know how to break into comics. I don’t think most of you can go the path I took. I had an old friend – Mike Gold, who you may have seen hereabouts – and he knew I loved comics and he had liked something I had written for the stage and offered me a chance. When Mike had first gone to NYC to work for DC Comics, I pressed on him a sample script I had written for Green Lantern. He dutifully did but the script didn’t go anywhere and it shouldn’t have. I was very keen but very raw in those days (although I did use elements of it eventually; writers are forever cannibalizing themselves). read article

Ageism and Showbiz – Oh Yeah, You Betcha, It’s There

Discrimination in showbiz has been a big deal of late, under a variety of terms and about a similar variety of targets. Here’s a group that no one’s brought up lately, and, in the name of diversifying our diversity, TVWriter™ encourages all our visitors to read on (and consider your own futures while you do so):

pic found on mayan.org
pic found on mayan.org

An Unpopular Reality
by Early Pomerantz

Is there ageism in show business?

In the literal sense, sure.  Just pop your head into any writers’ room and ask, “Anyone here get up in the middle of the night to pee?”  Or “Do you guys know any good plastic surgeons?”  And you are unlikely to get a response.  Beyond… read article

Big Deal TV Writers and Ratings Angst

Everybody knows TV ratings are inaccurate and obsolete and have been since the day they were introduced. But that doesn’t keep those whose careers depend on the TV shows they work on appearing to be huge successes from stressing out about them, even now, during our latest “Golden Age of Home Entertainment.” (Can we even call it “television” when the majority of the audience is watching on computers, cell phones, and tablets now?)

Cases in point:

30-ratings-anixety

Kurt Sutter, Adam Pally, and More Share Their TV-Ratings Anxiety
by Maria Elena Fernandez and Josef Adalian

…Liz Tigelaar, executive producer of Casual
There are a million wonderful things about writing for Casual on Hulu — the pedigree of the team involved, actors who are game to try anything and can do everything, creative support from our studio and network … and, for the first time, not worrying about ratings. Which, let’s face it, have become overrated. We no longer wake up the morning after we’ve aired frantically refreshing our browsers. We don’t utter the word demo or agonize over the Live+7’s. Gone is the arbitrary ratings roller coaster where a 1.8 means you’re a hit, a 1.6 means you’re on the bubble, and a 1.4 means the CW just put reruns of an unnamed show in your time slot (Hellcats). read article