A TVWriter™ oldie but goodie. In 2019 we called this Stage32.Com post “the most open, honest, and absolutely essential article we’ve ever seen about how Hollywood show business really works.” Can you handle–
Bullshit Lies My Film Professor Taught Me About Hollywood
by Michael Tapia
I had a professor who worked on the show Prison Break and I went to visit him on the set one year. I was on the call sheet! Intern. First day of the shoot, my professor, the director of the episode that week, asked for me to get him a “coffee.”read article
Those of you who follow the reprints of my locally popular early 2000s newspaper column, Live! From Paradise! or have read my extremely unpopular book of poetry, Kid Hollywood and the Navajo Dog may be as interested as I am (okay, maybe almost as interested) in the picture above.
I found this on the website of a company called Dean & Tyler, which makes dog collars, harnesses, leashes, etc., while looking for a lightweight harness for our black Lab, Layla Her Supreme Majesty Just Ask Her, and was immediately struck by what appears to be a return to life of the dog who adopted me in Monument Valley, Utah and stayed at my side teaching me all about life (and magic) for almost two decades.
The Navajo Dog, AKA Dineh, started life as a feral dog, part red heeler and part coyote, on the Navajo Reservation, and until this picture I’d never seen another dog like her. Now that I have, I feel compelled to find the dog in the picture and know everything there is to know about it because, you know, I’m foolishly hoping the magic strikes again.read article
If you’re a showbiz superfan but don’t want your friends to perceive you that way, one of the best ways to learn more about what’s happening in the biz – including current trends and attitudes et al – the best way to do that is to subscribe to The Los Angeles Times.
No, I’m not going to make a snarky comment about the Times and its obsessions (unless this sentence counts as one). Instead I’m recommending this insider view, published today, in which journalist Randee Dawn brings us what currently Emmy nominated writers have to say about their nominated episodes.
This morning as I drank my morning coffee (I’m off breakfast for awhile because why not?), I read one of the most moving essays I’ve seen in years. The essay, by Mark Evanier (surely you already know who Mark is), has nothing to do with writing or showbiz (well, a little about showbiz, you’ll see), but it tells a wonderful story about my favorite subject – LIFE.
Here’s how Mark’s story starts:
This time out, I’m going to tell the story of two of the best laughs I ever got in my life, one at age ten and one at twelve. They were both with the same joke and the person who laughed at it twice was my Uncle Aaron. He was a nice man — my father’s sister’s husband — who looked enough like Art Carney to be occasionally mistaken for him.read article
…It’s also how you write. I truly believe – and my decades (yikes!) of experience bear me out, that the best way to break into the Industry is to write a script so powerful nobody can say “No.”
Of course it’ll help if at that point you can give it to your buddy/spouse/person who owes you money who also is the head of a studio or network or agency.read article
