Category: Opinion

Peggy Bechko on Dreams – Not the Night Time Kind

dreamcatcher800by Peggy Bechko

Do you have dreams? Not the kind you have at night while snoozing away, but real dreams. And I’m not talking about daydreams or fantasies. Not those thoughts about something you probably will never do or be like a multi-national CEO with a multi-million dollar golden parachute, or playing for a pro ball team, or being the first man/woman on Mars (though if those are your actual real goals and dreams, go for it!).

Most of us have those fantasies and far-away dreams at times.

But what I’m talking about is those dreams of how great life can be, dreams that keep you striving and moving forward. read article

Herbie J Pilato: Clarifying the Criteria for Classic TV Re-Imaginings

Which of us would you rather be saved by?
Which of us would you rather be saved by?

by Herbie J Pilato

It’s all over the recent Bionic press:

Mark Wahlberg will take the lead in The Six Billion Dollar Man, a theatrical motion picture based on the original 1973-1978 ABC-TV series, The Six Million Dollar Man, which featured Lee Majors as the super-human cyborg Col. Steve Austin.

In recent years, television remakes appeared on the big and small screens.  Reimaginings of Knight Rider, The Bionic Woman, The Munsters, and Ironside, among others, have failed to win-over home-viewers, while a new Wonder Woman did not make it past event the pilot stage.  At the movies, classic-TV-to-feature-film adaptations have done hit (Mission: Impossible, Charlie’s Angels, The Fugitive), and miss (The Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Lone Ranger, Dark Shadows, the latter two featuring Johnny Depp in heavy white-face make-up). read article

Is Content Still King for Media Owners?

“Is content still king for media owners?”  Interesting question, yeah? The view here at TVWriter™ is, “It damn well better be.”

However….

marcopoloby Dave Morgan

Ask media owners what business they’re in, and they’ll say the content business — that they are storytellers, and that their companies are well positioned for the future because “content is king” and there will always be demand for great content. read article

Entertainment Weekly’s disgraceful decision puts “prestige” over paying writers

When is interacting with viewers and readers “audience participation,” and when is it “Hey, let’s get the punters to do our writing work for us for nothing?” This Salon.Com writer has an interesting perspective on the situation. Sure hope he got paid for it:

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by Daniel D’Addario

Entertainment Weekly, the venerable consumer-friendly magazine about movies and TV and the like, is under the same crunch as the rest of the media industry; its parent company, Time Inc., has recently gone through a series of layoffs. But the manner in which the magazine is attempting to build out its brand is the absolute worst-case scenario — bad for authors and for readers.

Lucia Moses at Digiday reports that Entertainment Weekly is to launch an online “contributor network” that is to feature readers as writers, particularly on “TV and eventually other areas […] staff reporters don’t cover deeply.” In other words, anyone can now write for Entertainment Weekly, but they shouldn’t expect a check. Per Digiday: read article

Troy DeVolld Tells Us the Secret of Life (& Showbiz) Success

by Troy DeVolld

Last week, I spent a little time watching the Dodgers lose to the Mets with a couple of guys who are really at the top of their game.  One has had a show on the air for more than two decades, the other was a producer who’d had a great career and finally struck real gold on one of the most successful sitcoms of all time.

Neither one had a thing to prove to anyone. They’ve played the game and won it many times over — but if you subtracted their success, they’d probably still be the two most relaxed, genial guys in the room.

Here’s the takeaway: You’ve got to be that person now, on the way in and on the way up. read article