Month: August 2016

And You Think Your Family Has Problems?

Lew Ritter Reviews “Bloodline” Season Two
by Lew Ritter

Ah, to be a member of the Rayburn clan. They are rich and influential in their community. The family owns a popular bed and breakfast Inn in the sunniest, most romantic part of Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville, aka the Florida Keys. At one point, they were going to name a local landmark after the family. Yet like many families, the bright surface image rarely reflects the murky problems laying beneath the calm surface.

This spring saw the release of the second season of Netflix’s popular series Bloodline. It is the Family Noir drama created by Todd and Glenn Kessler and Daniel Zelman. They were the producers of the wonderful series Damages. Season One dealt with the arrival and dramatic departure of one of the most troubled member of the Rayburn clan.

The sudden arrival of Danny, the older brother and “black sheep” of the family, during the celebration of fifty years of the Inn signaled trouble in Paradise. His troubled past and engagement in low level drug dealing was a blight on the family’s reputation. He had become an outcast because he had caused the tragic drowning death of one of the younger siblings. Danny played with working class gusto by Ben Mendelson was sympathetic despite his criminal past. read article

Indie TV: “Back Stabber”

It ain’t easy, this being human thing. But all is takes is a couple of minutes with the trailer for the Amazon Prime series Back Stabber and you know that creator Ryan Zamo and company are really working their humanity for all that they – and humanity in general – have got.

The series is genuinely indie, through and through, and the signs are there – uneven sound levels, uneven acting, uneven focus – but in a world of superficial showbiz perfection, this TVWriter™ minion found that to be part of the charm.

As Zamo himself tells it over at Advocate: read article

What Fiction Writers Can Learn From A Child’s Mind

South African writing blog Writers Write is one of the most informative writing sites on the interwebs. Every time we think we know it all, we go there and, wham!, we learn something new:

What_Fiction_Writers_Can_Learn_From_A_Child

by John Cabrera

Stuck in a rut? Unable to get the next plot of your story together? All that might be missing is a little bit of creativity. read article

This is a Diagnostic, thanks for asking

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EDITOR’S NOTE: As we said yesterday, on a now-removed Test page that looked very similar to this one, TVWriter™ has been having a problem with its “Publicize” app recently. Today instead of checking on whether we’ve fixed it (because we haven’t) we are instead using another version of yesterday’s post for diagnostic reasons.

In other words, nothing to see here. Move along, move along. read article

Kelly Jo Brick – Women Who Run The Room

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Photo courtesy of the Writers Guild Foundation

by Kelly Jo Brick

The Writers Guild Foundation brought together The Women Who Run The Room, a panel of showrunners who discussed the ins and outs of running a television show. The evening highlighted their experiences through the years including the challenges they’ve faced, how they developed their management style and what they look for when building their rooms.

DEVELOPING A MANAGEMENT STYLE AS A SHOWRUNNER

I sort of climbed every rung so I’ve seen every level in the business, starting out as a PA and working my way up. I’ve worked with some remarkable showrunners and was most helped by the John Wells school of showrunning, having spent five years on ER. The way that he did it was a lot of delegating and trusting in your people and letting people experience and produce their episodes and be in editorial. I think that’s an effective way to get people to work all in, interested in learning and loyal to you. – Dee Johnson (ER, THE GOOD WIFE, NASHVILLE) read article