The War Between TV and Film Writers and the Association of Talent Agents was scheduled to escalate at midnight, April 6th, but that’s on hold right now because – OMG! Be still our beating hearts! – further talks on what the Guild has named the “Agency Code of Contact” have been scheduled.
Here’s the latest letter of explanation from the Writers Guild of America West:
Happy Monday everybody!
Hope you’ve had a great weekend. Time now for TVWriter™’s latest look at our most popular blog posts and resource pages during the week ending yesterday. They are, in order:
This article fascinates us because it’s a look into the thinking of those responsible for a show that to those of us here at TVWriter™ may well have been the worst U.S. network adaptation of a UK hit ever.
The finale of the U.S. version put the final nail in the coffin, replacing the shaded, mysterious, semi-supernatural conclusion in the original with the absolutely most mundane, over-obvious explanation a show called Life on Mars could possibly have.
The fact that the guys in charge of the U.S. version, starting at the highest executive level and working down, are so proud of their take on it is proof, if any of you need it, that the pros ain’t necessarily any smarter or more talented than the rest of us. (Just richer, maybe.) Cast your jaundiced eyes here:
The way we see here at TVWriter™, anybody who tries is a winner, which means that having the courage to put yourself in a position where y’all can be cancelled makes you, yep, you guessed, WINNERS.
The Fire and Water Podcast Network opens up its Archives and lets you listen to the shows that didn’t make it. We have stringent standards, you know, and not everything makes it out of committee. Sometimes, we pitch something that gets voted down. Sometimes a pilot is green-lit but not picked up. We might even be a few episodes in before we give up on the idea. Take a peek behind the curtain of the Network and hopefully get some insight into what makes us tick!
Writing can be a long, rough, exasperating, never-ending, demanding, heartbreaking slog. Anyone who claims that they were an “overnight” success, ahem, I’d take that with a grain of Himalayan pink salt.
Writing is lonely. The only people speaking to you are the voices in your head. And if you don’t listen to them, man, do they get cross.
Writing is physically demanding. If you wait for inspiration to strike, you may end up as old as Methuselah. I have written through flu, sinus attacks, kidney stones, the kids throwing up in pots beside me, and other untold miseries and tragedies…you name it, I’ve done it, survived and even thrived. I’m not saying I’ve done it well or that it’s easy. That’s a story for another day.