Category: Resources

40 years worth of TV writing experience and info, yours for the taking.

Dawn McElligott: CSUN Says ‘Olé for Hollywood’

The MFA in Screenwriting Gang at CSUN. Scott Sturgeon is the gentleman in the blue shirt standing stage left.

by Dawn McElligott

As the competition for students can be like a bullfight, Cal State University Northridge, (CSUN), seeks to rival UCLA and USC as the best place to pursue a degree in the entertainment industry.  At the university whose mascot is “Matty the Matador,” Professor Scott Sturgeon agreed, “That’s where we want to go.”

Sturgeon explained that Professors Eric Edson and John Stahl had restructured the university’s film studies to be more competitive, resulting in part, in the Master of Fine Arts, Screenwriting Program, a division that Sturgeon now guides as an Associate Professor.

 The MFA Program in Screenwriting a 42-unit endeavor, which entails two feature length screenplays and two half-hour scripts.  Spec scripts and pilots are expected for both a one-hour show and half-hour shows. read article

Larry Brody’s 1st Episode of ‘Police Story’

by Larry Brody

Recently, while looking for elements to use in redesigning this site, I came across the following video on YouTube. None other than the first episode I ever wrote for the classic, multi-award winning NBC series Police Story.

I wrote the script for television’s only weekly police anthology series (different star cops every week with only the name of the police department, and the local bartender remaining the same, while I was freelancing back in the early 1970s. At that time drama shows didn’t have writers on staff. Not as writers anyway.

Story Editors, Story Consultants, even Executive Story Consultants, yes, and occasionally even Producers, but not as staff writers because that would have meant paying more than one or two writers per episode weekly minimums and, horror of horror, pension and health benefits per the WGA. read article

5 Things All Authors Need to Know about Their Rights

This TVWriter™ minion found the following information invaluable, which means it’s the kind of thing this site simply must pass along:

Know your rights as an author
by Nathan Bransford

Be careful out there. read article

LB: Untold Tales of the Animated SILVER SURFER TV Series Ep. 21

by Larry Brody

Over the past several weeks I’ve posted the scripts for Season 2 Episodes 1 through 7 of the FoxKids Network The Silver Surfer animated series I ran back in 1998 for those who wondered what all of us involved in the show had prepared for the world to see – if we hadn’t been cancelled.

Today it’s the turn of Season 2 Episode 8, Down to Earth: Part Three.  This one never got beyond “First Draft,” status because FoxKids and Saban had all but pulled the plug. They weren’t about to pay for any further development of the show and all of us were being moved to other projects or sent home.

This draft is dated May 29, 1998 and is the last work of any kind ever done for the series. The day I emailed this one to the company was a very unhappy one for me. Here’s hoping that the day you read The Silver Surfer, Down to Earth: Part Three is a much more joyful one for you. read article

Optioning My TV Series From Outside of L.A.

At last! The info all of us who haven’t yet been able to relocate to the “land of fruits and nuts,” AKA Los Angeles have been waiting for.

We know, we know. For two decades TVWriter™ has been saying, “Ya gotta live in L.A. if you want to make in showbiz.” And throughout those two decades new writers have been emailing us with the plea, “Say it ain’t so.”

Well, we aren’t going to go quite that far. You do need to be in L.A. in order to become the grand success we all dream of. But here’s a heartwarming video that gives some good news to those who are uprooting-challenged: There’s hope after all! read article