40 years worth of TV writing experience and info, yours for the taking.
YouTube is loaded with experts, some of whom actually know what they’re talking about. This week, we’ve found three YouTube videos about writing for animation that we think will genuinely help you if you’re a noob at the subject.
Are there conflicts between the approaches in these videos? You betcha. Because there really is no “right” way to write anything…just the way that will work for you.
You’re going to get sick of me saying this, but filmmaking is a collaborative process.
At this point in our “how-to” adventure together, you should have a script, a producer or two, a director, an organized script breakdown, and an idea of where you’re going to get the necessary cash. Now it’s time to build the rest of your team. This week, we’re talking how and who to hire for your crew.
Know how all the writing books (including LB’s own) tell you to create autobiographies for your characters so you know them inside and out before you start writing?
It’s a bitch, right? But here’s something that’ll help you. Writer Rebecca Sinclair has created a brilliant template that homes in on exactly what character aspects you need to know, and the good peeps at Eclectics have published it on their site.
We aren’t publishing it here out of consideration for Ms. Sinclair’s wishes, but we guarantee you that it’s worth a click. So, hey, you know what to do, CLICK HERE!
Our hats are off to the good folks at Vulture for putting together this most informative – and funny as hell – look into the humor of today!
The oldest joke on record, a Sumerian proverb, was first told all the way back in 1900 B.C. Yes, it was a fart joke: “Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap.” Don’t feel bad if you don’t get it — something was definitely lost in time and translation (you have to imagine it was the Mesopotamian equivalent of “Women be shopping”), but not before the joke helped pave the way for almost 4,000 years of toilet humor. It’s just a shame we’ll never know the name of the Sumerian genius to whom we owe Blazing Saddles. But with the rise of comedy as a commercial art form in the 20th century, and with advances in modern bookkeeping, it’s now much easier to assign credit for innovations in joke-telling, which is exactly what Vulture set out to do with this list of the 100 Jokes That Shaped Modern Comedy.
A few notes on our methodology: We’ve defined “joke” pretty broadly here. Yes, a joke can be a one-liner built from a setup and a punch line, but it can also be an act of physical comedy. Pretending to stick a needle in your eye, or pooping in the street while wearing a wedding dress: both jokes. A joke, as defined by this list, is a discrete moment of comedy, whether from stand-up, a sketch, an album, a movie, or a TV show.
Standard tropes for different folks – a lesson in TV writing that in its way makes way too much sense:
Spoilers ahead for season six, episode four of Girls.