In case you’ve missed what’s happening at TVWriter™, the most popular blog posts during the week ending yesterday were:
Kelly Jo Brick: The Write Path with Manager Zadoc Angell, Part 1
Tag: People’s Pilot Contest
Herbie J Pilato: How THAT GIRL Changed Everything
Contributing Editor Herbie J Pilato is busy these days with not only his own TV series but also writing regularly about classic TV for the TV Academy’s website, Emmys.Com. Here’s his latest, reminding us of what good television writing can be:
by Herbie J Pilato
The first frames of the opening credits of television’s legendaryThat Girl placed viewers in the front car of a train as it barreled into New York City.
That locomotive not only carried a young woman who was filled with dreams of independence, but it also brought television into a new era of enlightenment. A groundbreaking program teeming with wit, style and social consciousness, That Girl didn’t set out to change the world. But over the course of its celebrated five-year run, it did exactly that.
‘Empire’ Has Always Known What TV Is Just Figuring Out
The secret is out!
And we are sooo glad:
Black Culture is Mainstream Culture
by Lara Zarum
Empire co-creator Danny Strong has likened his show to Game of Thrones, remarking that the two hour-long dramas are both centered on “kingdoms at war.” The comparison feels particularly apt considering the colossal viewership of both series: Game of Thrones has famously become TV’s most pirated show, and HBO’s most-watched ever, while last year Empire knocked The Big Bang Theory off its throne to become broadcast television’s #1 rated series.
Just Start, Dammit!
Sure, planning is essential to creating your new life, business, screenplay, TV series. But when push comes to shove, actually doing it is the only way you’re gonna score! Don’t just stare at the blank page – fill the damn thing up with something!
by Jane Porter
For most of us, there is nothing more daunting than coming face-to-face with a blank page. Sure, a tabula rasa means you can take a project in any direction, but that boundlessness can quickly become overwhelming.
Sitting down to start a task that requires significant mental energy can often feel like the hardest part of the endeavor. But getting started is about understanding and overcoming the obstacles—be they mental, emotional, or physical—that hold us back from diving right in.
BATMAN v SUPERMAN vs GOOD WRITING
Gerry Conway, TV and film writer and producer, award-winning novelist and comic book writer, raconteur extraordinaire, and, as he says about himself on his Tumblr blog, Conway’s Corner, “minor pop culture icon'”, is, as far as we at TVWriter™ are concerned a very major creator with a soaring imagination.
He’s also been the very good friend of our Beloved Leader, Larry Brody, for about half a century, which makes us even more pleased – if that’s possible – to present Gerry’s insightful analysis of a film sorely in need of his magic touch:
by Gerry Conway
Rather than continue to lay fuel on the fire of whether or not “Batman vs Superman” is a good movie, I thought it might be useful to use the interest stirred up by the film to offer a few brief observations about narrative, story structure, and characterization for the would be writers among you. I’ll use the film and its characterization of Bruce Wayne/Batman to illustrate my points.