Tag: Spec Scriptacular Contest

More People Subscribe to Broadband than to Cable TV

The future is now. Or to put it another way, cable TV is officially dying. We’re getting our entertainment via broadband now, kids, making TV in general sooo obsolete:

cable-installby David Lieberman

The trend lines have been headed toward each other for years and finally crossed in Q2: Cable companies had 49.915M broadband subs and 49.910M video ones at the end of June, Leichtman Research Group President Bruce Leichtman reports this morning. “With the addition of more than 30M broadband subscribers over the past decade, cable providers have clearly expanded well beyond their roots in cable TV service,” he says. The latest tally reflects cable’s loss of 509,954 video subs in the quarter that ended in June.

Cord cutting? read article

Leesa Dean: Adventures of a Web Series Newbie

Chapter 72 – Guerilla Filmmaking
by Leesa Dean

This week I had planned to attend two YouTube workshops and ended up blowing both of them off. Why? Instead, I took a 3 day, 21 hour online course with Ryan Connolly called Guerilla Filmmaking held by Creative Live. It was intense. And GREAT!guerilla

Ryan, for those who don’t know, is the guy behind the wildly successful web show Film Riot. He gives indie filmmakers tips, tools, strategies and opinions. It’s been going on since 2007 and it’s terrific.

The class covered everything from scripts, to coverage, cameras, motion, lighting, direction, SFX, tips, tricks and more. Hands down, it was the best camera/directing class I’ve taken and I bought it after so I could watch it over and over when I finally get my camera. read article

You Too Can Write About DOCTOR WHO

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No, we didn’t say “for,” unfortunately, although you never know. That would take is a lot of perseverance, talent, and, we’re thinking, an in with either Steven Moffat or Peter Capaldi.

But it turns out that the blog known as Life, Doctor Who and Combom, which TVWriter™’s opinion is the best of the myriad sites devoted to new, views, and overthink about DOCTOR WHO, is looking for new writers to bring their insight and sense of engagement to the Whoniverse’s discussion of the series. read article

Writing is Work! (Why didn’t somebody tell us sooner? $#@!)

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by Rita Karnopp

If you’re honest . . . you’ll agree . . . writing is hard work. If it was easy – everyone would be doing it.  Actually lately it seems everyone is.  The problem I’m seeing with that is those new authors think all there is to writing is to write.  For them writing is going to be a breeze.

There’s a lot more to writing than one would think.   There is plotting, dialog that’s exciting, pacing, internal and external conflict, character development, a beginning, middle, and an end?  Really?  Yep!

Wait ‘till you’ve been dragged down the bumpy road toward finding a publisher a few times.  It’s not easy at all.  You can’t get into the door – unless you write a good book.  They don’t expect it to be perfect, but they do expect you to know ‘basic writing skills.’ read article

Cara Winter: The Anglo Files 2

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MIRANDA
by Cara Winter

As we established in my last post, I am an unabashed Anglophile.

My friends, rather than shunning me, or trying to get me to watch LAW & ORDER: SVU, or finding me an A(ng)A meeting to attend… are full-onenablers.  Case in point:  on a recent trip to LA, my best friend (who long ago introduced me to BLACK ADDER) sat me down, and told me I was about to watch a show from the UK called MIRANDA.  It was February, 70’s and sunny in LA, I’d just left behind sub-zero temperatures behind in Chicago…  so naturally, instead of frolicking on a beach somewhere, I remained seated while she queued it up.

MIRANDA is a fantastically funny and gloriously absurd sitcom written, created by, and starring comedienne Miranda Hart.  Pretty much everything takes place in the title character’s tiny flat, and the joke shop she runs in the floor below. Miranda’s best friend Stevie (played by Sarah Hadland) helps her run the shop.  Occasionally they venture down the block to a restaurant where the chef is her other best friend, Gary (played by the dishy Tom Ellis) – who Miranda is secretly in love with (of course).  Within the first minute of S1 /Ep1, I felt something of a kinship with Hart – as would anyone who’s ever tripped over their own feet, passed gas at an inopportune time, or forgotten their underpants. read article