With the holidays coming I’m thinking more in terms of curiosity and wonder than instruction. So I thought I’d write a bit about storytelling – it’s origins – what it all means. Uh, oh, I don’t think I’ll get philosophical, but well, you never know.
Storytelling comes in many forms. The written word (you know novels, articles, ‘fake’ news, short stories, all that) pictures (paintings, movies, photos, drawings, etc.) music, religion…they all tell stories.
A think piece that’s actually doing its job, AKA, the “vast wasteland” returns?
We are now walking through a media desert.
While access to content is astronomically high, the content that we read is dead, lifeless, and derivative. Yes, I see the irony in posting my criticism of the state of online media on, well, online media, but I want to explore how we got here and what we can do about it.
If you could follow the path and pick the brain of just one writer, who would it be? This TVWriter™ minion would go with Charlie Kaufman, writer of Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Adaptation over anybody else I can think of.
Here’s why:
Big gracias to BAFTA Guru for putting this on YouTube.
Charlie Chaplin supposedly once entered a Chaplin look-alike contest—and lost. Badly. Maybe he had a cold that day…
Last weekend I shared a coffee with my friend Jeff Paul, another L.A. writer. When conversation turned to current projects, I mentioned I had put aside my pilots to work on a spec. I’d stopped writing specs two years ago, thinking that fresh material was paramount for today’s market. Hell, I’d also just rather write my own stories than fit a chapter into someone else’s. Y’know?
Nevertheless, 2018 is fast approaching, and that means another year of fellowships and contests that all rely on a solid spec. So, Why not? An opportunity is an opportunity. Jeff sipped his coffee with a nod. “Specs are certainly easier to write than pilots,” he said. I agreed.
—SPOILER ALERT—SPOILER ALERT—SPOILER ALERT—
November 3, 2017, Marvel Entertainment released the third installment of the Thor series, Thor: Ragnarok. This film in the Thor saga follows our hero as he attempts to prevent the all-powerful Goddess of Death, Hela, (Cate Blanchett), from destroying his kingdom of Asgard.
THE GOOD: