Tag: Larry Brody

How TV Showrunners Work & Think

No, we aren’t going to bore you with a dissertation on the subject of writers supervising all the production elements of a television series. (Although we’re certainly glad it’s writers who usually get those gigs. Can you imagine what series run by directors would be like? Wait, you don’t have to imagine. Just look at any series produced by Steven Spielberg. Oy!)

Where were we? Oh, right. What we’re boring you with here today is how one specific showrunner works and thinks. Via an interview with Beau Willimon, Big Honcho of HOUSE OF CARDS. Brace yourselves:

Emmys__House_of_Cards__Beau Willimon read article

A Short Class in Making Stop Motion Puppets

Doctor Puppet Motion CaptureBecause sometimes you just can’t get the right full-sized actors/sets/props.

Or you’re totally inept at CGI animation.

Alisa Stern, creator of The Doctor Puppet, shows us how to get yourself out of those particular jams. read article

The Science of Breaking Out of Your Comfort Zone

We’d love to break out of our comfort zone and rock the creative life. But what do we do when even contemplating such a situation makes us feel so damn bad?

Fortunately, Alan Henry over at Lifehacker has been doing a lot of thought on this very subject. And he’s happy to share:

discomfortzoneby Alan Henry

You’ve seen inspirational quotes that encourage you to get out and do something strange—something you wouldn’t normally do—but getting out of your routine just takes so much work. There’s actually a lot of science that explains why it’s so hard to break out of your comfort zone, and why it’s good for you when you do it. With a little understanding and a few adjustments, you can break away from your routine and do great things. read article

LB: Ooh, Somebody Actually Noticed My Poetry!

I’m definitely loving on Examiner.Com:

TV writer goes wild with “Kid Hollywood and the Navajo Dog”
by Janet Arvia

Kid HollywoodAnyone who has worked with Final Draft is familiar with TV industry expert Larry Brody, whose morsels of advice appear on the screenwriting software. The Northwestern University alum worked on Ironside, Hawaii Five-O,The Streets of San Francisco and Police Story as well as creating the animated Silver Surfer TV program in 1998, before establishing the Cloud Creek Institute for the Arts and TVWriter.com to help aspiring writers.

Today, Brody is switching channels with the release of a Kindle edition of his book Kid Hollywood and the Navajo Dog which poetically traces his life as a TV writer and his time, away from Hollywood, in the mystic wilderness. “Everything that happens in this book did in fact happen,” says Brody. “Every event. Every emotion. Every sign/auger/omen.” read article

Peggy Bechko: Writers! Begin At The Beginning…And Know Where You’re Going

ABQ Bio Park RR 5 6-13by Peggy Bechko

Ah, the beginning, the blank page, the quiet keyboard, the notebook tossed aside. Every writer knows about the beginning. The idea. The rush.

But what about the rest?

The trick is, whether you’re writing a screen script or a novel or something else, you have to begin, but there’s also the need to have planned to finish and that means you kind of have to know where you’re going. read article