I took a Children’s Book Writing class at Gotham Writers Workshop, where I am an intern this term, and wrote about my experience! It was fun and inspiring, and if I ever get this writing thing off the ground, I could definitely see myself writing a children’s book (young reader/chapter books or maybe YA. Somewhere around the Harry Potter/Hunger Games reading age I suppose). Check out my post and show some support for our still developing intern blog over at Gotham.
Watch ‘Record/Play’ Now – Time-Bending Contender For Best Live-Action Short Film Oscar | Shadow and Act.
It’s very Afrofuturistic . I would love to think of and write something like this. I really have to start thinking shorter–not everything has to be full feature length (not that I’ve tried, but brief ideas come into my head and they never seem complex enough. Just stuff complex into a smaller package! One way to get started at least.) I love time travel and I think it had a pretty cool twist, especially in regards to him getting hurt in the past and it translating to the present day. I think I wish there’d been a little more with regards to his getting hurt–does it heal once he removes the tape pieces? I suppose that’s the case and it isnt strictly necessary (it would definitely bog down the storytelling), but just a brief thought I had.
It’s very brief, little words, but lots of thought, action, and even emotion. I really enjoyed this! I hope it gets the Oscar nomination. The article says it could even be adapted to feature length. This short piece seems about perfect, but a feature would be interesting, and I would need them to keep the PoCs in order for me to care (it’s a shame that it isn’t obvious that they would do so).
Today I finished Orange is the New Black, after starting the season yesterday midday during a sick day at home. Interesting show, great supporting characters, I’ve grown to dislike Piper more and more as the show progressed. Daya, Taystee, Poussey, and Black Cindy are some of my favorites characters. The pre-prison flashbacks were such a small taste of these characters and I really want more of how a lot of them got to prison and their normal lives.
I also watched: Whose Line is it Anyway? Brooklyn 99 – Hmm. Amusing new show. Enjoying the diversity (2 black people AND 2 hispanic characters). Mike Shur is a plus, as a big #Parks fan. I’ll keep this on my DVR. New Girl – So glad it’s back! It was sooo good and I LOVE Nick and Jess! and Winston was FANTASTIC and oh Schmidt. But the show has not lost it’s greatness over the summer. The Mindy Project – Well. There were some good moments, but as usual, you can’t air Mindy after New Girl, it’s not as funny and for me, constantly fails in comparison. Sorry Mindy. Also, I’m bored with James Franco. *rolls eyes* But welcome back, Mindy. The Daily Show The Colbert Report The Queen Latifah Show – I might check this out regularly. I don’t watch a lot of talk shows, but today’s interview with Will was funny of course and the segment with Will and Alex Trebek was inventive and fun. I still need to watch the rest of the episode though… A Different World – expect this to go on my daily list a lot, since I love it and it’s right there on my DVR.
[New segment I will do to help me write everyday/more often. As the Fall 2013 TV comes along, I will try to at the very least, post what I watched each day. If I’m feeling write-y, I will add opinions and such. Though it may only be: “I’m so excited for this episode!” (if written before) or “this episode was fantastic!” (when written after). Hope I can keep up and keep going with this blogging thing. =)]
“The thing that still is really completely out of whack is pilot season. I mean having gone through that and having six weeks from a green light to shooting the pilot, competing with 100 other shows for talent, it’s crazy. It just seems completely out of date in the current ecosphere of television.”
I definitely agree. And I think there needs to be more audience participation in pilot season. I get that some shows are dropped because of budget or actor reasons. But then come up with a bunch for each network that were greenlit, then get some more audience feedback. Put them on Hulu or Netflix or your network site. Give us more choices and start the buzz for each show even earlier. That way you’ll know before 2 episodes in in September that the show isn’t sitting with mass audiences. AND (reading the next but in the interview) you could advertise during all those pilots and people would watch them, sometimes more than once, to decide which ones they liked. Obviously that’s optimistic but they won’t know until they experiment with the model.
“They all watch it more than once. They watch it, and they live-tweet, and then the fans will watch it again and be like: I noticed this other thing.”
Yes, this is definitely true. People will watch your show more than once if they really enjoy it and that’s always good. Some writers dumb down their stories for the audience but if you raise the LCD and put smart stuff in your shows (great lines, little moments between characters, background events and easter eggs) and people rewatch a show, they’ll pick up more, they’ll pay closer next time and they’ll watch more than once. They might even watch it again on television on Hulu, where you can get some ad money from it.
“A show is much more like jazz than it is a symphony. It’s call and response, responding to what’s happening in front of you.”
“You can have a plan, but you have to be open and flexible to making that plan better if an idea evolves, or if you find yourself with an opportunity that if you don’t seize, you’re going to regret it.”
“Q: But, as he says, the writers will often put characters in a jam with no idea of how to get out of it. How close to his reality is yours?”
I love how Carlton Cuse (Co-exec on Lost) didn’t weigh in [in this excerpt] on this question. Because EVERYONE knows that that was how Lost operated. A lot of times to disastrous, unsatisfying results.
“We’ll have things planned, it’s just inevitably those plans get yanked away.”
That’s true and something we as audience members must keep in mind. It’s also important when thinking of specs, because you can’t write a guest in to a script because the idea is to act like it’s gonna be produced and you don’t know whether that actor will be available.
“The water cooler moment, what is that really? At its core, it’s people having a reason to have a conversation about a shared experience, but there’s a lot of ways to have a shared experience. That can be live-tweeting. That can be people that have binge-watched a season of something and told their friend, “You have to binge-watch it, so we can talk about it.” Then they have a conversation two weeks later that’s about an entire season. I just think the water cooler is expanding in concentric circles to allow for more experiences.”
Check out this NY Times article. I’ll be liveblogging/posting some quotes and my thoughts in the following posts.
“The world needs you, it needs me, to step up and give ourselves to it because somewhere there is someone who will be moved by what you’ve done enough to do it themselves. “
“The goal is never about the medium. It’s always about the next story.”
~@josswhedon
In this day and age, the word “television” doesn’t always mean “watching on a television set in the living room.” This quote speaks to the power of stories and, considering it’s Joss discussing SHIELD, the power of television stories, regardless of the device people are watching it on. We don’t care about network (except to think about the kind of shows they bring us), we care about the stories and characters. So Netflix can bring us new stories/characters, Hulu, YouTube, NBC, ABC (ugh I guess CBS too -__-). As long as we get continuous stories (which is what TV provides us that movies, books, and plays can’t to the same extent).
