Month: January 2019

Kathryn Graham has a Conversation with Lindsay Ellis – Part I

by Kathryn Graham

Lindsay Ellis is an American video essayist and film critic with degrees in film from NYU and USC. She condenses complex critical thinking and academic theory into entertaining and humorous YouTube essays on everything from a Film Studies through the Lens of Transformers to Product Placement and Fair Use.  She is also the host and writer for PBS’s online short series It’s Lit! You can check out all of her content for free on YouTube!

Video essays. What are they and what are their strengths as opposed to written essays? read article

Coming Soon(ish) – Mickey Mouse and Batman will be Public Domain OMG!

It’s been a long, long time since characters with the following and impact of Disney’s mascot and DC’s biggest headliner became public domain, but in the next few years – even less time than we have to stop climate change – that’s a-gonna present a whole new (and theoretically much more fixable) entertainment world:

 by Timothy B. Lee

As the ball dropped over Times Square last night, all copyrighted works published in 1923 fell into the public domain (with a few exceptions). Everyone now has the right to republish them or adapt them for use in new works. read article

Advanced Screenplay Formatting Tips

Stuff we all should know:

Important info from Indy Mogul

Bill Bixby Remembered by Friends & Co-Workers – including Our Own LB

Back in the dim, dark 1970s, before most TVWriter™ visitors were even imagined, let alone born, our founder, Larry Brody, got his first TV writing staff job on a little-remembered series called The Magician.

At the beginning of the 2018 holiday season while Team TVWriter™ was beginning its vacation, LB was contacted by entertainment journalist Ed Gross and interviewed for a piece Ed was writing for Closer Weekly on the late Bill Bixby, star of The Incredible Hulk (where he shared the titular role with Lou Ferrigno), The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, My Favorite Martian, and several more series including, yep, that self-same The Magician.

Now completed, Ed’s perceptive view of Bixby’s life and work is available for your reading pleasure on the Closer Weekly site, and, thanks to Ed’s generosity, you can also read LB’s bit right here: read article

What Buyer & Agent Types Don’t Want from Writers

Ever notice how much clearer so many Industry pros are when they tell you what they don’t want than what they do? The fact is, that knowing what won’t work for you as a writer may well be even more important than knowing what does, which makes the following article worth its weight in gold:

by Lucy V Hay

What’s In the Spec Pile

Don’t know what to write? It can be difficult to understand what the industry wants, so sometimes it’s easier to work out what they DON’T want! read article