Category: By Larry Brody

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

LB: The March-April TVWriter™ Advanced Workshop has 3 Openings

lbwriterbiggerA quick Word to the Wise that the 157th TVWriter™ Advanced Online TV & Film Writing Workshop will start in about a week and a half, on March 30, 2016.

As of this announcement I have room for a whole passel of students. Well, 3 more anyway, so if you’ve been thinking about joining us, or were in the Workshop but left and now want to come back, hey, now’s a good time.

This running of the Advanced Workshop costs $140 and meets every Wednesday night for 4 weeks. There’s probably a whole bunch more that you want to know, but I’m keeping this quick, so head on over to the Advanced Online Workshop Page or email me ASAP so we can clear up your questions.

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

LB Sees VINYL

The best thing about VINYL
The best thing about VINYL

by Larry Brody

THE GOOD:

  • Gotta love the look, filled with energy and chaos
  • The ’70s setting
  • The talent attached to the project – Mick Jagger! Martin Scorsese! Ray Romano! Olivia Wilde!

THE NOT SO GOOD:

  • The dated, bullshit rock ‘n’ roll cinematography that we’ve seen in every film – and terrible TV episode from the ’70s to today
  • The cliche that the ’70s have become
  • Mick Jagger! Martin Scorsese! Men of talent who stopped making anywhere near full use of that talent long ago

OVERALL: read article