Month: April 2017

Life Scripts

Speaking of everything in TV being scripted, as we did the other day, the most excellent writer about a great many different things, including writing, Nathan Bradford makes a great case for our Very Own Actually Real Lives following a script as well, and how that affects us. (No, he isn’t saying that we aren’t real. He’s saying, well, you’ll see.)

by Nathan Bransford

Whether you realize it or not, you and I and everyone else walks around with scripts that we deploy in common social situations.

When someone dies, we express sympathy, and they say, “Thank you.” read article

Showbiz Mind Games

Say hi to the Id Monster

by Gerry Conway

LB’s NOTE: Convincing ourselves that whatever show or film etc. we’re making is worth all the time and effort we put in is a show business way of life. Writer-producer Gerry Conway, whom I’ve known since we both were wee tadpoles swimming in Harlan Ellison’s Wonderland pond, brilliantly puts it into real-world perspective:

Hollywood is a weird small town.

That’s hardly a new observation, but new or not, it’s true. And because Hollywood is a weird small town, that’s how I came to know and befriend the man who directed one of Steve Bannon’s alt-right documentaries. read article

Did You Know You Can Learn Screenwriting via YouTube?

Found on the interwebs last week:

These are just two of the helpful “hints” posted on YouTube’s “Lessons from the Screenplay” channel. There are lots more, and we surprised and delighted by what we saw there. You will be too.

The creator of this series is Michael Tucker, and if you like what you see here and on his channel, you should consider visiting his Patreon channel and helping him meet his modest goal so he can give us even more good writing tips. read article

All TV Shows Need Writers

TV reality is really fiction. Ain’t no such thing as wingin’ it before the cameras anymore. Case in point:

The Secrets of a TV Quiz Question Writer
by Siobhon Smith

Q: How do you write questions for some of TV’s hardest quizzes? read article

@Stareable – Yep, Pre-Production IS a Thing

So You Want To Make a Web Series – Step 7
by Bri Castellini

We’re almost there, folks. Almost to the actual shooting of your web series, with someone calling “action!” and “cut!” and good-looking people bringing your words to life. But we’ve got one more step: pulling together everything you’ve done and everything you’ve gotten during the first six steps of this process and making a plan of action. That’s right, it’s officially pre-production time.

Technically, most of what we’ve talked about so far in this column has been pre-production, since pre-production is literally everything that happens before a camera starts rolling. Semantics. Onward!

LOCATIONS read article