The Dark Side of Creativity

Creatives and their demons! Inseparable? Essential? A bullshit stereotype? Let’s see:

create your demonby Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

Few psychological traits are as desirable as creativity — the ability to come up with ideas that are both novel and useful. Yet it is also true that creativity has been associated with a wide range of counterproductive, rarely discussed qualities. Being aware of these tendencies is important for anyone trying to better understand their own creativity, or that of other people.

First, research has established a link between creativity and negative moods. You don’t have to be depressed to be creative — and it’s important to note that crippling depression is more destructive than generative — but it is true that there is some empirical backing for the stereotype that artists tend to be depressive or suffer from mood swings. As Nietzsche once noted: “One must have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.” On average, people who are very emotionally stable may be too happy to feel the need to create. After all, if the status quo is fine, why change it? read article

HOUSE Creator David Shore Explains Why TV Writing Is a “Magic Trick”

And you thought it was hard work, right? Silly humans!

by Etan Vlessing

david_shore_a_pHouse‘s David Shore has gone from a medical to a crime drama with his upcoming Fox supernatural series Houdini & Doyle.

That keeps the Emmy Award-winning showrunner on familiar ground with House, about the curmudgeonly Dr. Gregory House, a brilliant doctor solving medical mysteries. Houdini & Doyle, to debut on Fox in the U.S. and ITV Encore in the U.K. in spring 2016, features crusty Brit Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, played by Episodes star Stephen Mangan, grudgingly partnering with American and master escape artist Harry Houdini (Michael Weston) and New Scotland Yard to solve crimes with an unexplained supernatural slant. read article

Diana Vacc Sees HUNGER GAMES – MOCKINGJAY, PART 2

by Diana Vaccarelli

hbt11-198x300The finale of the Hunger Games Franchise starts right where we left off. Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is the leader of the rebellion against the oppressive Capitol of Panam. She has sustained major injuries at the hand of an ally the Capitol has corrupted. The rebellion is building and she has to lead in her persona of the Mockingjay, with everything Katniss loves hanging in the balance.

Gosh, it doesn’t get any more exciting than that, does it, revolution fans?

The Good: read article

Why Serialized TV is Bad for TV

Has TV really become too ambitious for its own good? There’s an argument to be made, and Sam Adams makes it well:

Visit Eat Your Serial. You'll like it!
Visit Eat Your Serial. You’ll like it!

by Sam Adams

The current era of Peak TV owes much of its existence to the increasing sway of serialized storytelling. The availability of TV seasons on DVD and then streaming allowed TV creators to think in seasons rather than seasons rather than episodes, putting their characters through genuine changes rather than hitting the reset button every time the end credits rolled.

But treating TV seasons as unified wholes has its drawbacks, too. As I wrote over the summer, the canard that TV has become more like novels allows writers and showrunners to gloss over a multitude of flaws on the episodic level, with the justification that it will all make sense in the end. Sure, it was manipulative to lead viewers of “The Walking Dead” on for an entire month with a phony death, but maybe the deception won’t seem so egregious when Glenn is stuck under that Dumpster for hours instead of weeks. For shows designed to be binge-watched, episodic divisions become almost irrelevant, mere mile-markers on the journey to the finish line. (I’d argue that binge-watch shows still need those mile-markers to give viewers the periodic dopamine hits of incremental progress, but that’s an essay for another time.) read article

“What I Learned About Writing in Acting School”

TV comedy writer par excellence Earl Pomerantz nails it for all us up-and-comers:

actingclass

by Earl Pomerantz

“My mind alights on the memory of Robert O’Neill, who taught at and ran the “Actors’ Workshop” which I attended when I lived in London during the 60’s, the “Actors’ Workshop” specializing in teaching the “Stanislavski Method” acting technique.

England is not the natural terrain for “Method Acting.”  That’s growing watermelons in Kansas.  In contrast to the “Method’s” introspective methodology, the English acting approach is traditionally of the “outside-inside” variety.  Slap on a mustache and you’re Hitler. read article