A Message for the Writing & Hollywood Communities & Americans Everywhere from the WGAW
Yours in solidarity, indeed.
Tag: online TV writing workshop
3 reasons it’s hard to end harassment in Hollywood
The subtitle of the article below is one of the most sadly meaningful sentences this TVWriter™ minion has ever read: The way the film and TV industries are structured makes them a breeding ground for abuse.
Time now for a few words about the most important conversation we’ve ever wished we didn’t need to have:
Charlie Kaufman’s Writing Advice
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.
Angelo Bell: For the Love of English
NOTE FROM LB: Angelo Bell is an indie filmmaker who in the past has contributed several articles to this site. (Past being mostly in 2014. If you’re in the mood and you have time, you should enjoy what you read by searching in the index on the righthand side of this page.
The other day, Angelo wrote me about a GoFundMe campaign he’d started and described the love story that inspired it. I thought he was telling me about his latest project, and I found the story deeply moving, so I said, “Hey, Angelo, write this up for TVWriter™ and we’ll post it and see if we can help you find some investors.”
A few minutes ago, he sent me the post below. Turns out he’s not trying to get a film going. It’s a real-life story about, well, about a couple he’s half of. This isn’t the kind of thing we’d normally publish here, but it’s wonderfully written and I’m hooked.
David Perlis: THE TROUBLE WITH SPECS
by David Perlis
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.