—SPOILER ALERT—SPOILER ALERT—SPOILER ALERT—
Last week, I watched The Founder, a film I found accidentally, through a friend. It follows the life story of Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton), who took a local fast food eatery owned by a couple of brothers and turned it into the world’s largest restaurant. (McDonald’s is a restaurant, isn’t it? Even though healthy eaters might not agree?)
THE GOOD:
NOTE FROM LB: Troy’s article today is on four key written elements in today’s “reality” TV world. (They’re also key elements in “fictional” TV shows, but most of the time the networks take them out of your hands, whether you want them to or not.) You may not know the following terms:
Superteasers. Teases. Next Ons. Prev Ons.
Look these up! Master them! I know people who’ve had huge careers based on their handling of what Troy’s talking about right HERE:
What do Kramer from ‘Seinfeld,’ Goren from ‘Law & Order: Criminal Intent,’ and Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren from ‘Orange is the New Black’ have in common?
All three are characters created with a little bit of crazy and a dollop of extreme.
Characters on TV are rarely like real people. If we wanted to watch real, we’d stare at our neighbors.
How’s this logline sound to you?
Jackson & Lewis, 2 contract killers, bring their newly hired camera man on a mission that doesn’t go over too well.
Why do two hitmen have a camera man? Because what they really want to do is…that’s right, you got it – make it in showbiz.
I doubt this one will be brief, but it will have to be quick, because I’m about four weeks behind on a deadline, and I thought writing something, anything, would be better than nothing. So I’m writing this. Single draft, quick bang, brain to screen, let’s do this.
Right now, this is me:
For four weeks this has been me. Writing, scrapping, starting over, writing, scrapping. I took a five hour drive up to Mountain View last week just to clear my head and see what the open road would do for me. Long drives always inspire me. This one was no exception. I probably had ten great ideas come to me, and they’ve each been scrapped for the subsequent better idea. Listening to writers online helps. It’s how the above clip made it onto this post, as I’ve been listening to a lot of Charlie Kaufman. I writer who says he knows nothing. And I believe him—yet he still makes it happen, and does it brilliantly.