Author: LB

A legendary figure in the television writing and production world with a career going back to the late ’60s, Larry Brody has written and produced hundreds of hours of American and worldwide television and is a consultant to production companies and networks in the U.S. and abroad . Shows written or produced by Brody have won several awards including - yes, it's true - Emmys, Writers Guild Awards, and the Humanitas Award.

LB: TVWriter™ University Schedule Spring/Summer 2016


by Larry Brody

Sent this out to everyone on the TVWriter™ email list yesterday. But even if you haven’t signed up for all our newletters and announcement, I love ya. So here ’tis again:

Gang,

How things stand: read article

LB: TV Series I’ve Given Up On This Year

"Terrifyingly fascinating" Uncle Miltie plays with Lucy & Desi
“Terrifyingly engaging” Uncle Miltie plays with Lucy & Desi

by Larry Brody

I love TV.

I’ve loved it since the first moment I watched it, way back in 1948.

The show that captured me then was The Texaco Star Theater, starring – and all about, in every possible way – Milton Berle. To my pre-school self, Uncle Miltie was terrifyingly engaging. I couldn’t stop watching…until I discovered The Howdy Doody Show, starring Bob Smith and the puppet called “Howdy,” both of whom were engaging as hell, without the terrifying bits. read article

The Week at TVWriter™ – April 25, 2016

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In case you’ve missed what’s happening at TVWriter™, the most popular blog posts during the week ending yesterday were:

Kelly Jo Brick: The Write Path with Manager Zadoc Angell, Part 2 read article

TVWRITER™ NEWSLETTER – Spring 2016

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following went out to those on the TVWriter™ e-mail list yesterday. Here it is for those of you who – OMG! – haven’t signed up yet:

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A WORD FROM LB read article

Larry Brody has yet more to say about characterization

Did you know that John Huston called Jean-Paul Sartre "the ugliest man alive?"
Did you know that John Huston called Jean-Paul Sartre “the ugliest man alive?”

The TV Writer on TV Writing
Characterization Part 3
by Larry Brody

F. Scott Fitzgerald, not exactly known as an action writer, said it best: “In movies, characters are what they do, not what they say.” This is the most important thing you can keep in mind when writing any script for film or TV, and believe me I know how hard it is to remember. After all, we’re writers, aren’t we? Eschewers of the deed who live and die by the word.

In a novel, we get into our protagonist’s mind. We know his or her thoughts. In a stageplay, the flow of spoken dialog is designed to both propel the story forward and illuminate the psyches of the speakers. But in a teleplay or screenplay the only way we can know what a character is thinking is by how he behaves. We never hear his thoughts, and the only time we hear him talking is when he’s in conversation with other people, to whom he could easily be lying.

Action, then, is what gives us our characters’ states of mind. An angry character throws a chair, breaks a mirror. A loving character holds a dear one tenderly. A character who can’t face life literally turns away. Whether the action is large or small, it has to come from within, driven by the needs of the character and therefore illuminating them at the same time. read article