Archive for February, 2007
Uninflected Action
When I was a Teaching Assistant for Screenwriting at UCLA, I showed the following clip from The Shield, “Extraction” written by Kurt Sutter, to my class and asked them to describe what they saw.
Download link
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Lucky for me, few of them watched The Shield and hadn’t seen the episode. The consensus was that the scene [...]
Posted: February 28th, 2007 under The Craft.
Comments: 2
The Big Bang Theory
One of the reasons why the Big Bang Theory remains controversial is that if you say the universe has a beginning, then you have to address what existed before the beginning. One theory is that existence is a series of stable constructs.
Imagine a reservoir filled with water behind a dam. Although the surface [...]
Posted: February 26th, 2007 under Commentary.
Comments: none
How Do You Spec a Serialized Drama?
Recently a friend of mine asked me how to spec a serialized drama. I was at a loss for an answer because the closest I had ever come to speculating a serialized drama was a second season spec of Alias. So I decided to take a closer look at Fox-TV’s 24.
Even though Alias [...]
Posted: February 23rd, 2007 under The Craft.
Comments: none
Random Quotes from Screenwriters
Choosing to show your script is a big decision. You can’t do it out of desperation.
– James L. Brooks
The Serious Business of Writing Comedy, January 7, 2007
The job of script reader shows you a script that either works or doesn’t. Hollywood is awash in “pretty good” scripts, B- to B+, that would be [...]
Posted: February 20th, 2007 under Commentary.
Comments: 1
Is Bill O’Reilly a Symptom or Victim of Corporate Synergy?
On Thursday, November 16, 2006 Bill O’Reilly reported on his show The O’Reilly Factor about the O.J. Simpson book and miniseries “If I Did It” and was genuinely (and rightly) outraged. He called to task Fox TV and ReganBooks, an imprint of HarperCollins, both subsidiaries of News Corp whose CEO is Rupert Murdoch.
Though O’Reilly was [...]
Posted: February 15th, 2007 under Commentary.
Comments: none
Author Unknown
Ken Levine has an hilarious post showing David Caruso’s acting tics and tells. While many acting teachers will assuage you from going this route, Caruso has parlayed it into international stardom.
The first time I was put on videotape in an acting class, I wanted to crawl under a rock. My performance was all about [...]
Posted: February 13th, 2007 under Reading Material, The Craft.
Comments: none
How much is my blog worth?
As if we weren’t insecure enough about our sense of self worth.
My blog is worth $1,129.08.
How much is your blog worth?
If I sold my body to science at $1.99 per pound, my blog would still be worth more than me.
Posted: February 12th, 2007 under Announcements.
Comments: none