Category: Opinion

This Whole Copyright Thing is Driving Some People Crazy

The interwebs are filled with extremists. One of the most extreme sites is also one of our favorites. It’s called TorrentFreak, and its primary message is “Information and entertainment and every other damn thing creative (and non-creative) people create want to be free.”

Inasmuch as we’re all for sticking it to The Man, especially in his BigMedia guise, we’re presenting the following as a kind of public service. From one perspective, we agree with every word of it. From another, well, we still want to make sure we get paid for the films, videos, books, et al that we create. And this train of thought kind of, you know, screws us on the score.

What to do? What to do? read article

LB: What Everyone Can Learn From the 2013 People’s Pilot & Spec Scriptacular Competitions

ppsslogosby Larry Brody

How About Some Quick General Remarks for a Start?

Now that the Winners of the People’s Pilot and Spec Scriptacular Competitions have been announced, I’ve had a little time to reflect on both contests. Not a lot of time (because I’m working like mad to deliver all that Feedback I promised ASAP), but enough to notice a few things that made me – and I think will make you – smile.

  • The People’s Pilot had the largest number of entries in its 15 year history.
  • The Spec Scriptacular had the largest number of entries in its 13 year history.
  • Taken as a totality, the entries in both contests were better than ever. In all categories, the judges considered at least 2/3 of what they read to be of professional caliber. (And considering that none of the entrants was a professional TV or film writer that strikes me as, well, amazing.)
  • I’ve had good experiences with every entrant with whom I’ve corresponded this year. Everyone’s been upbeat and positive, expressing the kind of joy in the very act of writing that those already in the biz want to work with, and which fills me with an equal amount of delight.

Thanks, everyone, for all this good stuff. You make everything I try to do more than worthwhile.

What TVWriter™ Contest Entrants (and other writers) Should Know About These Contests

My purpose in holding the PP and SS all these years has always been to give new writers a chance to get their work out into the world and become better writers by seeing how other people – professionals, in the biz – react to it. read article

Why Broadcast TV Lost Its Edge After ‘NYPD Blue’

TVWriter™’s answer: Cuz it could.

Variety.Com, however, sees it a little differently. But only a little:

nypd-blue read article

Breaking Bad and Cliffhanger Structure

Now that BREAKING BAD is the King of Television, we can discuss it the way it deserves to be discussed. Oh, and dissect it too. Cuz that’s what writers do when they encounter brilliant writing:

by The Bitter Script Reader

cliffhanger-girl-tvwriter.com[Last] week’s Breaking Bad ended on a helluva cliffhanger.  After being betrayed by his former protegee, Walter White was led into a trap and finally arrested by his brother-in-law, DEA Agent Hank Schrader.  For a few moments, viewers dared to hope that the ending could be so bloodless.  Hank and his partner tricked Walt to leading them to where he’d buried millions in drug profits.  However, this happened to be out in the middle of nowhere and Hank hadn’t made this arrest an official DEA operation, so his own office had no idea where he was.

After savoring Walt’s arrest, Hank called his wife Marie and told her “I got him.”  It at last seemed over, and there was relief in his voice as he assured her everything was going to be okay now.  Before he hung up, he told her he loved her. read article

John Ostrander: Fashion Statements

by John Ostrander

supermaninatux John Ostrander: Fashion StatementsMy good friend Martha Thomases, as usual, wrote an interesting column this week on her way to the Baltimore Con. She wrote about choosing what to wear at the Con and that, in turn, set me to thinking and provided grist for my own essay mill. Some weeks I need a lot of grist.

Something that’s important in comics and too little discussed is the importance of clothes. The fashion choices made by a character says something about that character. What you wear makes a statement about who you are even if that statement is, “I don’t care.” As often as not, my criterion still is, “Is it clean? Is it clean-ish? Does it at least not smell? Does it not smell too badly?”

However, I can dress up. I clean up fairly well, to be honest. I’m not keen on wearing ties but I know how and when to do so. I like hats, especially fedoras, although the Irish cloth cap works well on me. One wonderful fan made me a beret like GrimJack wears and I like that a lot and can be seen at conventions with it. read article