Please guys, stop scaring me!

Funny story. I’ve been getting a little blowback on my Producer Meltdown post. Apparently, a few folks think it hits too close to home. I’ve had some calls and e-mails. Scary lawyer letters might be next.

I think it’s all pretty humorous. Here’s my question to the people sending me the digital stink-eye: Guys, what makes you think I’m talking about you?

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Starbucks and Official Best of Fest will be sponsoring a screening of Full Disclosure and two other great films tonight at Seattle’s Roy Street Coffee (one of the Stealth Starbucks stores) at 8PM.  Not only can you watch some great films from OBOF, but you can also order a beer or wine in a Starbucks like you’re in Europe or something.  To top it off, I’ll be doing a little Q&A about the film.

Roy Street Coffee Co.  700 Broadway East (Broadway and Harvard on Capitol Hill), Seattle.

Official Best of Fest screening of Full Disclosure at Roy Street Coffee Co. 3/31/2010 8PM

I’m on a quick trip to Beijing for a commercial shoot.  I doubt I’ll be posting much for a few days.

Perfect conditions for my shoot in Beijing! (Photo from TIME Magazine.)

Check out these Chinese Sandstorms.

How important is formal structure (either beat points or acts) to a TV series set of scripts? In the ‘old days’ when we had ads predictably every 15min you had four very clear parts. Then this was changed of course to allow more regular TV advertising.  I’m working on a spec series and I’m wondering how much should we be looking to more formal structure?  It’s very difficult to obtain copies of scripts developed in Australia. So, I can’t even work back from the product and assess from that direction.

– Sue, Sydney

Television is probably the most rigorously structured narrative form after Kabuki. Structure is of paramount importance on any television project (both acts and beat points) whether comedy or drama, narrative or “reality” programming.  Feature films aim for a certain length, but the screen doesn’t usually go black if they go over by a few minutes or seconds.  In television, there are well defined segment breaks where the commercials need to go.  If they don’t get planned in the writing stage, they’ll be crammed in during the editing stage for certain.

Any given television series has very distinct structures that incorporate various interwoven storylines (A-, B-, C-stories etc.), characters, and running bits.  If you were to watch a season’s worth of episodes from a single show those tropes and patterns would leap out at you.  I’ve actually been doing exactly this all week for an interesting adaptation project (actually two seasons-worth) and I have a sneaking suspicion I could load up a few episodes to play simultaneously, and they would be in an uncanny sync throughout.  When I was writing on a network pilot recently, the segment breaks were dictated to us by the frame.  Of course those are segment lengths, not the structure of stuff that goes within each segment, but it reflects how very tight television tolerances are. (continue reading…)

Fantasy casting is a reality for almost any filmmaking.

I’ve never really understood the allure of fantasy football or baseball.  I think my friends who speak with great passion about “their” players, trades, stats, are a teensy bit bat-shit.  But that’s just me.  I’m luke warm about sports unless I’m either playing them or watching them right at that second.  However, the world of film has its own version of fantasy football: Casting. (continue reading…)