Month: January 2016

Table for One: Cultivating Brilliance

eavesdropping

by Diana Black

Some writers are considered brilliant – born with a ‘creative spoon in their mouth’ – able to craft amazing stories with strong multi-dimensional plots, rich story-worlds and compelling characters lolling about on every fictitious street-corner. Their stories demand our attention from ‘Fade In’ to ‘Fade Out’ but let’s not sell these guys/gals short.

Celebrated writers tend to possess a strong mastery of their craft and able to work damn hard in a disciplined manner. While they may be gifted, they do have a ‘magic feather’….

Other writers, like you and I have to cultivate creative brilliance – and we can! Having a fire in the belly, that turns hours into minutes; with a gripping tale on paper to show for it – that’s often difficult; especially after a long, hard week at a shitty day job. So before we start turning a pale shade of green, or worse, giving up, let’s come up with a way to cultivate brilliance. read article

Cartoon: MY IDEAS

A little pen, a dab of ink, and the brilliance of Grant Snider:

ideascartoonThere’s more greatness where this came from. CLICK HERE!

Overplaying My Hand?

if it aint broke

by Larry Brody

As has been mentioned elsewhere on TVWriter™ earlier, yesterday I wrote about my experience over the last weekend at trying to cut the pay TV cord.

I wrote about it right here, actually, and will be glad to wait while you read that post if you haven’t already. (What? You haven’t already?)

The gist of what I said is that even though I didn’t get el cordo cut all the way through, I did achieve what I considered to be a pretty big victory: I got my DISH bill cut almost in half. read article

How GOTHAM Became the Series It Needed to Be

Yeah, that title’s a little awkward. We at TVWriter™ take all the blame and want to openly acknowledge that Marc Alan Fishman, the writer of this piece, got it way, way better:

gothamHow Gothan Got Great(ish)
by Mark Alan Fishman

The past Monday, Gotham had its fall finale. While the episode itself was a bit meh to not-bad, the show thus far this season has been darn good to dare I say great. Since I last wrote about James Gordon and friends, the show has really settled into a fantastic groove. It’s been so good, I’ve privately sang its graces enough to ComicMix‘s EIC, Mike Gold, such that he mentioned it on his rockin’ good radio show. When Mr. Gold recognizes your opinion asvalued, then you know something must be going right.

With the new season dubbed “Rise of the Villains,” Gotham has added a bit more serialization to its previously procedural format. We started with the entrance of the never-been-comic-booked nemesis Theo Galavan. Introduced as a scene chewing billionaire by day/evil criminal mastermind by night, Theo’s been mostly a high point to the proceedings. Especially when he flipped the script and murdered the Joker. OK, should I have said spoiler alert? Nah. read article

I-don’t-really-like-the-product-I-sell Department

Yesterday, our Beloved Leader Larry Brody wrote on this very site about his experience attempting to cut the, in his case satellite cord. And shortly after one of our stalwart minions saw that particular post, she found this view of the cord-cutting situation. So of course we just had to share:

Verizon Exec In Charge Of TV Services Admits She Cut The Cord
by Karl Bode

VZ_GOOGLE_ProPic_WhiteStrokeWhen the executive in charge of your company’s traditional television services publicly admits she’s a cord cutter who no longer watches traditional TV, it might be time to reconsider the future of pay television. By and large most cable and broadcast executives have responded to the cord cutting phenomenon by either denying it exists, claiming it’s the domain of losers, or insisting it’s a fad that will magically evaporate once more Millennials procreate. But at a recent TV industry conference, Verizon’s director of FiOS TV services, admitted she’s been a cord cutter for a while:

“Maitreyi Krishnaswamy, director of FiOS TV, has a confession, and it doesn’t bode well for the future of Verizon’s fixed-line video business. “I’ve pretty much cut the cord,” Krishnaswamy admitted on a panel at the TV of Tomorrow event in New York City. Krishnaswamy is bullish on Verizon’s new Go90 mobile video service, but she readily acknowledges there are major challenges in the traditional pay-TV business. read article