Tag: Spec Scriptacular Contest

Cargo 3120: The Making of a Sci-Fi Franchise #4

CARGO3120Entry 4 – The First Draft of CARGO

by Aaron Walker Sr.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: The Story So Far starts HERE)

Though I graduated in 2008, I didn’t write the first draft of Cargo until 2011. One thing that helped was having the source material from the class I took back in 2005. Note to all who are trying to develop a series: Work out your fiction before you start writing. One thing that impeded our progress back when we were teens was our failure to plan our story and develop our universe first. We talked about a lot of “cool scenes” but we never tied it together with a strong narrative. In short, world building and story planning is the very foundation of any science fiction endeavor.

Not knowing what I was doing, I turned to the internet to learn how to write a screenplay. Someone suggested planning your story out using index cards, so that’s exactly what I did. The result was a 117 page monstrosity that I absolutely loved and was proud of at the time. In my mind, I was ready for the competitions. So I entered the TVWriter.com 2011 People’s Pilot competition. read article

Leesa Dean: Adventures of a Web Series Newbie #81

Pay to Play?
by Leesa Dean

moneybag1So I was all set to go to the WGA East web series screening/networking event when…last minute they cancelled it. It’s supposed to be rescheduled but we’ll see when/if that happens.

So instead, I met up for cappuccino with Anne Flournoy, who had invited me to the event in the first place and we ended up chatting about our experiences as indie web producers and all that entails.

Anne has been in this game for a long time.  Her series, The Louise Log, jumped off in 2007 (which was right when I started learning how to animate!)  She’s now in Season 3.  The series is based on a film she wrote/directed that was in Sundance and has gotten critical acclaim, plus she was able to crowd fund Season 3, which is impressive (especially in today’s climate).  We don’t know each other very well, had met at a few web series networking events when Chilltown launched, she’s a big fan and we had been planning to get together to talk shop for about a year. read article

How Film (and TV) Audiences Have Changed in the Last 100 Years

Yesterday we published a post by TVWriter™ bud Angelo J. Bell in which he talked about the change in audience attention spans and referred to an article he’d read about the situation. So, ace investigators that we are, the TVWriter™ minions went to work tracking down that article. And, since there’s nothing we wouldn’t do for our beloved visitors (that’s you guys), here ’tis:

king-kong

Data From a Century of Cinema Reveals How Movies Have Evolved
by Greg Miller

As filmmaking technology has advanced, films have changed to take advantage of it. The 2005 version of King Kong looks and feels nothing like the 1933 version. The newer Kong appears in vivid color, and thanks to CGI he’s a convincingly lifelike beast. The original soundtrack is tinny and shrill; in the newer one, the great ape’s snorts and growls are deep and realistic.

Movies have changed in less obvious ways too, says James Cutting, a psychologist at Cornell University who’s been studying the evolution of cinema. Cutting presented some of his findings at a recent event here sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. “All these things are working to hold our attention better,” Cutting said. read article

Peer Production: ROBOT, NINJA & GAY GUY

robot-ninja-gay-guy-web-series

by Team TVWriter™ Press Service

TVWriter™’s pal Travis Richey, of COMMUNITY’s “The Inspector” fame has informed us that he and his cohorts (not mere “minions” cuz Travis is a much better guy to hang with than a certain LB is a firm believer in creative collaboration unlike some people we know) have begun pre-production of their hit web sitcom, ROBOT, NINJA & GAY GUY, for its second season, which will hit YouTube in 2015.

The series, created by Richey, along with Curtiss Frisle, is written by Eric Loya and Season 2 will be directed by Travis Oates and is a production of Siv-Art Productions. In RN&GG, a self-proclaimed “gay guy” struggles to live with his two unusual roommates: a curious robot and a gentle ninja.  In Season 1 Ryan Churchill played “Robot,” and for Season 2, Bryan Lovell (Hollywood Dram Role, General Hospital) will assume the role.   A talented musician and composer, Brian Giovanni, who composed the score and theme song for the show, stars as “Ninja.” “Gay Guy” is played by Travis Richey, (Sons of Tucson, The Event, and Pretty Little Liars, as well as recurring as Inspector Spacetime in Community. 

Season 2 will begin with three special bonus themed dream episodes, ”Robot’s Film Noir”, directed by Brian Finifter, and “Gay Guy’s Musical”, directed by Bryn Woznicki, which have already been shot and are in post-production, and “Ninja’s Japanese Monster Movie”, which will be in the style of Godzilla and helmed by Jared Hoy.  The post-production on the two in-the-can episodes and the budget to shoot the Ninja episode are being partially financed by a crowd-funding campaign launching October 23 on Indiegogo.com. read article

Herbie J Pilato: Colors are the vibrant fabric of your script

colorchart2011

by Herbie J Pilato

Back in the day, not only were TV characters very distinguishable from one another, but the colors of their wardrobe were also quite variant.

For example, let’s travel to “Gilligan’s Island,” created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz; not a show that many would consider “Masterpiece Theatre,” but in many quadrants of the industry, certainly to its millions of fans, the series is considered a masterpiece in its own way.

Firstly, no two characters are alike, in sight or sound:  Gilligan (played by Bob Denver) was slight and skinny and dressed in vibrant red); the Skipper (Alan Hale, Jr.) was hefty, and garbed in big blue.  The Professor (Russell Johnson) dressed in that cache beige; the brunette Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) in country-girl short-shorts; Ginger, the movie-star, a red-head, always dressed in elaborate gowns, etc. read article