QATAR SOLO! The 5 ‘Do’s & 10 ‘Don’ts of Script Notes… (Week 12)

Oh hello! I didn’t see you there, readers of this blog…

Isn’t this how we all dress when ready a hardcover?

I’m here to actually TALK about something screenwriting related this week! Huzzah! Go figure. And that something is Script Notes.

I’m not talking the “I just wrote a screenplay and I want notes from my friends/co-workers/family/anyone who put it in front of their eyeballs” kind of Notes…

What I’m talking about here is primarily my experience in giving and receiving notes in a professional environment – specifically as a staff writer on a TV show. It’s only an utter coincidence that this is just so happens to be the professional environment I find myself in while I write this post. Oh serendipity…

It was really embarrassing the first time I got that movie’s title wrong…

Now I haven’t had much experience with ‘Executives’ and the absurd kinds of Notes that supposedly come from them. This isn’t a blog about the ridiculous “But could your Space Whale fight a copy of the Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer auto-racing tour de force ‘Days of Thunder’ at the end of the film, instead of Dave Bautista? He’s doing Guardians Vol. 3 and we can’t secure him for shooting” kind of Notes. This is about the kind of feedback you get on the script you’re paid to write on someone elses show, where your job is dependent entirely on your ability to deliver what the show runner wants and is asking for.

This list is by no means exhaustive or hard & fast. It has not been approved by any screenwriting body, nor has it met the standards to qualify as a medical treatment (so all you anti-vaxxers can rest assured that this list WILL prevent your children from contracting the autism-polio in place of REAL medicine. We know the truth, don’t we? /WINK)

So without any further padding of my word count, here are the 5 Do’s and 10 Don’ts of giving and receiving Script Notes:

Always listen to a man who can hold up sunglasses with the power of a squint.

DO – Take Every Note Seriously

Unlike the mythical Executive who doesn’t feel satisfied unless their desire for the blood of virgins is sated through ritual sacrifice, your Head Writer and Showrunner aren’t giving you notes just to make themselves feel good. They’re giving you notes to push the envelope of what you’ve given them, to correct a perceived misstep or to make a change that they know is going to be needed. This is elementary stuff, so it might seem dumb to spell it out, but you’d be surprised how often folks don’t take these things seriously. “In the case of our Space-Chicken, can we make him Extra Crispy? Will that fly?” (…too… many… puns…)

Pictured: Original recipe Space-Chicken

It might seem dumb, you may not agree, but it’s not your job to agree. It’s your job to deliver what the Head Writer/Showrunner need, and if they’re giving you a note, it’s because something in the script isn’t sitting the way it needs to.

• DON’T: Push back needlessly. It’s your job to write. If they’re asking you to try something else, do it. If they want a damned extra crispy Space-Chicken, give them an extra crispy Space-Chicken. If it’s terrible and they don’t like it, let them cut it. It’s not your call, otherwise it would be your show. Remember that “Yes I can/Yes, and…” are the most powerful, future job generating phrases in the business. “No, because…” is not something the people above you want to hear in a creative environment.
• DON’T: Ignore a note if you don’t like it. If the Powers That Be (above) see you’ve moved on without actioning the note in any way they’ll think either you’re A) Not reading what they’re giving you, and thus a waste of their time or B) that you don’t think they’re input is worthwhile, which is an absolute death knell if you want to keep finding work as a screenwriter. IF there is a solid, valid reason that the note is off base, you need to approach it directly and respectfully. “I feel that making the Space-Chicken extra crispy severely undermines his integrity as a symbol to the mainstream. Many more people prefer original recipe over extra crispy and we risk diminishing our exposure to the heartland if we make him extra crispy. Of course, if you feel it’s the route we should take, extra crispy it is.”

Consider your white-bread, middle class arteries warned.

• FOR GOD’S SAKES DON’T:  Respond with informal slang and dismissal. “Nah homie, story don’t play that way.” May sound hilarious, but it is the HEIGHT of disrespect to the person giving you the note. There is no clearer way to say “I don’t think you know what you’re talking about” than responding this way. If you have no interest in ever being employed by this person again, fine, go for it. But remember: Everyone in the business talks, and most jobs come from word of mouth…

DO – READ THE NOTE BEHIND THE NOTE

Not every note is a directive to do a specific thing. “Great! Love it! Can we punch this up? Make it, you know ‘good’?” Is a note I’ve seen several times in this job. What’s being said here isn’t that what’ve you’ve done isn’t good (we writer’s need so much validation) What’s being said is that “You’re halfway there.” A request to be punched up is simply being asked to challenge yourself to come back for another pass and up the ante, the stakes. Set that plane on fire, make that newborn baby a serial killer, pee into the wind!

Chose a stock image ‘cuz some of the real ones are pretty horrifying…

This is the ‘Note Behind the Note’, because (big secret) sometimes the Head Writer/Showrunner don’t know exactly what they want. All they can tell is they want ‘something’ to change and improve, so they rely on ‘punch it up’ to convey their general sense of dissatisfaction. It becomes an important skill to recognize what’s being said without taking everything literally. (Unless the note is “No, seriously, Extra Crispy Space-Chicken, no question”.) Since most all of writing is re-writing, this shouldn’t be a problem. No one knocks it out of the park on the first try (not even you, Doug)

There was no appropriate picture, so I just chose a ‘Clone High’ screen grab I’ve always liked.

They might tell you to “Try making the racecar an octopus” or “What if the fire breather guy was a vegetarian?” They don’t know what the hell they want, they’re in entertainment after all. It’s not your job to read minds, but it IS your job to think on your feet.

So instead of making the racecar an octopus, you have the brilliant idea of setting the final, epic rally car race in the city of Atlantis. Instead of making the fire breather a vegetarian you force him to team up with a play’s-by-his-own-rules, jive-talking vegan Liger for the big assault on precinct √13. If the Powers That Be are asking for a change but aren’t exactly set on what that change is, it’s up to you to be as creative as you can in solving the problem.

Dibs on new show concept: Rizzoli & Liger – Vegan Attack!

• DON’T : Get Exasperated. You know, just throw whatever together, cut & paste and Ctrl-F search your way through a solution. “Okay, replacing all ‘racecar’s with ‘octopus’.” If you’re being paid as a screenwriter, it’s because you’re creative. The Powers That Be want you to use that creativity to solve a problem for them. That’s why you’re there. If it was a simple cut & paste job they could do it, and then they wouldn’t need you. This is the very nature of understanding the ‘Note behind the note’. It might seem a little counter-intuitive in some places, but if you’re good at what you do, your solution will be better than whatever their note was.
• DON’T: Be literal about things either. If they’re asking you to add more beats to a sequence, don’t throw in a few ‘BEAT’s or cut away and add in a few more ‘CUT TO’s & ‘EXT/INT’s. They asking you to adjust the flow so that more plotlines can run concurrently, or to add to or diminish tension. READ what you’ve written, what’s prompted the note, and use your creative brain power to find a solution.

Lookit that form!

DO – BE READY TO GET IT WRONG

Because genius, this WILL happen. You will read a note about Space Whales being out, so you try out your latest thing; Moon Rhino’s, and it will be a giant disaster. Just like taking notes is about listening to what’s being said, responding to them with solutions is about being flexible. Writing is re-writing after all. We said that above and we will say it again over and over and over because – you guessed it, we’re re-writing it! HA! (So terrible… I dare call myself a writer…) So many aspects of this job are about being resilient, and taking a note, implementing it and then hearing “Nah, that’s not what I wanted. Space-Penguins? Can we do that?” can crush the dreams of your own Moon Rhino space-opera if you let it.

Definitely as confused as you are. Thanks Google Image Search!

DO – ASK FOR HELP

One of the whole points of having a Writer’s Room is that there are MULTIPLE people there, multiple avenues to explore and utilize. If you get a note that you don’t understand or don’t know what to do with, ASK around. Find out from the other writer’s what they think. Guaranteed someone is going to have a difference perspective than you. Hell, if they’re available (and in a good, supportive, thus successful situation, they should be…) reach out to the Head Writer/Showrunner/Producer who gave you the note and pick their brain. As long as you aren’t asking them to solve the problem for you, this is a surefire way to reach the most effective solution quickly. Talking story issues out is one of the best ways to resolve them – and notes usually come written off the top of someone’s head as they read, so they aren’t actively engaging in a solution, they just know something needs to change.

You may try a dozen different iterations of a fix before one sticks. Don’t let this discourage you – it’s exactly what the job is. The joy of finding a solution is infinitely better than doing a half-assed job.

No real relevance, I just thought this was darkly hilarious.

 

• DON’T: Do a half-assed job. So the Head Writer hated your idea for a Moon Rhino episode. The worst solution to this issue is to simply say “Fine, no more Moon Rhino’s, and type in the easy out. It’s Good Enough.” “It’s Good Enough” is like saying “I don’t care.” and is another way to lose the respect of those around you. There are literally tens of thousands of people vying to be where you are, a staff writer on a TV show, and if you’re resorting to ‘Good Enough’ to get past a little butt-hurt about your solution not being great the first time, one of that horde of ten thousand will quickly take your place. In screenwriting, we all know that you can be wrong a million times and only be right once, so says the great philosopher Funky DL (as interpreted by Thomas Prime) but it’s that one time that matters. 
• DON’T: Close yourself off to solutions. Revising and fixing something that isn’t working is a vital skill to have, and the ability to wield that is an important part of your arsenal/toolbox. LISTEN to those around you and what their suggestions are. Your purpose is to make the best show/changes to a script that you can, and the best solution might come from outside you. Or another show. Or a book that you read. Or a meme that you saw in a Google Image search five minutes ago. This is where flexibility is your best ally. You’re being paid to come up with solutions, not to take things personally.

Which leads us into our last point:

DO – TAKE EVERY NOTE WITH A GRAIN OF SALT

Dating myself with this one I know…

There has been more than one occasion writing scripts out here where I’ve seen the seemingly callous note ‘Hate it. Let’s change…’ This doesn’t mean that you’re a terrible writer. It just means you’re generating a visceral reaction from the person who you’re writing for. Many times I have made changes, and when the scripts are passed to the higher ups, all goes well. Every once in a while though, you change something with the ‘Hate It’ sticker next to it, and when it comes back down the pipe from the Powers That Be you read something like “Not digging the Extra Crispy Space-Chicken, can we go back to the Original Recipe Space Chicken with his eleven friends & allies?”

The only authority on a show is the person who green lights the work, and your pay cheque. You work for them, and your purpose is to deliver what they need; scripts that fit the bill of what an episode is supposed to be and do. The Head Writer may have thought that Extra Crispy Space-Chicken was a surefire win, but the Showrunner and/or producers didn’t agree. That’s okay. Nobody is right all the time (except my wife) and even the people who are in charge of creativity can be off base.

Let us never forget that this was a thing.

• DON’T: Take notes personally. If there’s little Final Draft flags all over your script and it makes you want to die because you think everything you do is wrong, that’s probably not the case. Notes are about the story, not about the person who writes them (HR is for that). A note on a script you turned in isn’t reflective of you, not even necessarily of your ability as a writer. All it reflects is the one paramount issue, the needs of the show. I’ve personally been told that about 7/8ths of what I contribute doesn’t make any sense to the Head Writer, and it doesn’t bother me at all, because they still loved the 1/8th that was left over. So much creativity gets left on the proverbial cutting room floor that what’s left over has to shine (Just ask Terrence Malick)

“Who am I? What is this place?…”

• DON’T: Forget your place in all of this. Notes on a show are not about your preference of what you’d like to see. If a note says ‘More Cowbell’ and you absolutely cannot stand Cowbell – you think it is juvenile and vapid and completely below you, add more fucking Cowbell. The needs of the show are bigger than your ego. If it’s not your show, it’s not a judgement call on your part about what should or should not be included. If you read a note and it goes against your taste or preference, but it needs to be implemented, tough shit, you implement it. You don’t argue, you don’t fight. If you hate the material you work on so much, you need to find somewhere else to work. Ones ability to take and apply notes is not a reflection of ones tastes or interests. It’s a reflection of ones ability to do a good job in a complex and demanding atmosphere.
• DONT: Make multiple people give you the same note. More absolute death. If co-writers have given you a note, the Head Writer has given you the same note, and it STILL makes it all the way to the Showrunner without being changed, who then gives you the SAME note as both sources prior, you’ve really fucked up. In a ‘three strikes you’re out’ kind of way, when other writers see you haven’t taken a note seriously and it needs to be repeated by the Showrunner before you act, you’re essentially giving a middle finger to the people you’re supposed to be working with and supported by. Good luck getting the best out of them when you need it in the future. If you get the same note from two sources, there is 100% a reason for it because it’s being noticed by multiple perspectives. Chances are good if they see it, the Showrunner will too, and if something so obvious as to have been noticed by two other points of contact makes it to the Showrunner without a fix, it doesn’t show steadfast adherence to your integrity on story, it shows a disrespect to your fellow writers and the process. Writer’s rooms exist to solve problems, not to be ignored for the sake of ego.

I’m going to be learning far more lessons than this as I go, but I can tell you picking up on these tips and running with them has been a huge learning curve for me. I can’t tell anyone how to do what they do, but I can pass on what I’ve learned and hope it makes the journey that much easier for someone else when it comes their turn to get their first set of script notes – notes that make them want to cry.

One day, the time will be ours, Moon Rhino…

QATAR SOLO! Where Conflict is King – Week 6

With deepest respects to Bill Waterson, but when that title image is literally the FIRST thing to come up when I Google ‘Conflict’ I can’t pass it up. (Not to worry Mr. Watterson, I’m quite certain I’m not making any money off this particular post – but I would happily accept the opportunity for someone to make a liar out of me…)

And yes todays title is a riff on the ‘STAR TREK: Discovery’ episode 4 title “Context is for Kings” but I will save what I have to say about DIS for my long awaited treatise on the new show to be published tomorrow. We’ll talk all about screenwriting again today, or at least as much as we can before I realize I’ve run out of things to say. Maybe we’ll even tie in as many Calvin & Hobbes shout-outs as we can.

Going out today to buy a clear plastic binder to use for turning in my new episode.

There’s always a bunch of lessons screenwriting books and online tutorials and quick-reference cheat-sheets want to teach you – and I’m going to repeat one of those now myself! Drama is conflict. Conflict is story. Story is what you do, so you’d better be comfortable mastering ‘conflict’ in your scenes if you want to be any good at this. “Well no shit dude, that’s like literally screenwriting 101.” you say to yourself as you stop reading my blog post. Fine, go ahead. Leave. Whatever. I don’t need you. I’m gonna write about ‘Trek tomorrow and get a million views and spend the rest of the week arguing with other nerds about whether or not Klingon’s shaving their heads is canon.

If you ARE still here though – well damn, now I gotta actually try and be insightful and entertaining all at the same time. Ooof. Okay – CONFLICT! Yes, drama is conflict, and conflict is what makes things interesting, otherwise the tales you tell are just people sitting around agreeing all the time and that’s not interesting at all (in this day and age it also seems a little like science fiction – people AGREEING with each other? I don’t even know what that looks like anymore…)

Across dramatic mediums there are plenty of ways to approach confict – since I’m a screenwriter we’re going to stick with that format today though, because I can speak with a touch of authority there.

This is not at all unlike the revelation that led me to decide screenwriting was a better career path than ‘History Teacher’.

I’ve filled this space before with reference to my conversation with another writer regarding drama and screenplays, where this ubiquitous Sorkin quote always emerges:

“Any time you get two people in a room who disagree about anything, the time of day, there is a scene to be written…”

And really, who am I to disagree with A-Sork? I won’t – but my classic counter to that quote is one I’m hoping will show up in a screenwriting text book one day:

“Sure, but then you take those two people, you put them in a plane and set the plane on fire and now you have a movie.” – me (I hope)

Not here to disagree with an Oscar/Emmy winning writer, but I think we both have valid points. Let’s try a different anecdote to put things in perspective. Working on the show out here we spend a great deal of time ‘breaking’ the outlines – figuring out where we need to get our characters by the end of the episode, what beats  they need to hit and what developments we need explore in order to push the plot forward. Difficult as it sounds that’s pretty much the easy part. Once we have those basic outlines we start moving off ‘story-arcs’ and into ‘scene breakdowns’ where we figure out how each little bit proceeds into the next. Yes, essentially every TV writers room works like this, and there’s a reason for it…

Because as writer’s we’re lazy, lazy mofo’s…

This process lets you see where everything is progressing, and shines a light on the most important part of your story – the conflict.

“Okay, so in the outline we have our characters find the giant space-whale and climb in his mouth so they can travel to the glass palace on the moon. Check!” *

“Is that like it though? They just climb into the whale and head to the moon?”

“Yeah, that’s where we need them to be for the ACT V out. I mean dude, did you miss the part where I said IT’S A SPACE WHALE THAT FLIES TO THE MOON? Isn’t that ENOUGH for you, sinister task-master?”

“It just feels kind weak is all. Like can one of them NOT want to get into the whale, and then the others have to convince them? Maybe he’s afraid of whales because his Father used to read him ‘Moby Dick’ as a bedtime story while dressed like Pennywise?”

Boom! All of the sudden you’ve taken your boring ‘space whale’ development and made it more interesting by finding the conflict among characters. Even the most wicked-cool developments need some drama in order to be compelling, otherwise they become nothing more than cool concepts/images on screen, rather than an actual story.

See how Watterson just made conflict out of nothing? Genius.

It happens every time we reach a scene where the conclusion arrived at is: “This isn’t working.” – “We’ve got our characters to the glass moon palace now, and they go inside and kill the fat, blue moon-wookie, but it’s just not landing. It feels too easy.”

“Maybe someone wants to side with the fat, blue moon-wookie, or thinks they shouldn’t kill him because he’s the last fat, blue moon-wookie of his kind.” If it doesn’t feel right, or if people aren’t engaged, look for conflict.

I have a kick-ass low budget indiefilm screenplay I’m working on about two loser best friends who make an ill timed trip from Northern BC down to Vancouver to see their favourite DJ, and the complications that ensue when everything that CAN go wrong for them DOES. Guess what though? In all of my re-drafting out here I’ve discovered that when I’m not throwing obstacle after obstacle in front of this dynamic duo, the scenes I have of them interacting are a little flat. Sure they share rapid fire, witty dialogue back and forth like I’m trying ‘out-Smith’ Kevin Smith, but there’s nothing substantial which drives the plot between THEM. As fun as it would be to watch these two bounce witticisms about the meaning of life off each other, it makes for poor drama.

So I went back to my deepest influences to learn how you put sweet, dear best friends in constant conflict with each other:

Exhibit: Calvin

There is no question in anyone’s mind that Calvin & Hobbes are the very best of friends – yet they agree on almost nothing and spend most of their time antagonizing each other. This is how good drama NEEDS to work, and it’s something I’m paying more and more attention to.

There’s another example we can use:

Two Jokers, both wild…

The Straight Man & the Jester

I should really start using references that aren’t 30/40 yrs old…

Anyone who’s visited my site (Thanks to both of you) knows M*A*S*H still has a huge influence on me today. When talking about ‘conflict’ it’s rife with excellent examples of both good ways to achieve it, and places where they missed the mark. In the early seasons we had Hawkeye & Trapper, two nut-jobs doing their best to combat horror with comedy. Their interplay was hilarious, but they were very much ‘two peas in a pod’, both madmen on the brink. The primary conflict came from their interactions with the characters around them. Once Trapper left (to star in his own short lived TV show…) Dr. BJ Hunnicut arrived and the Hawkeye + sidekick dynamic changed. BJ was still an irreverant jokester for sure, but he was far more ‘moral’ and grounded than Trapper ever was.

What had been two frat boys making a mockery of those around them turned into a deeply satisfying comedy routine, with BJ playing the ‘straight man’ to Hawkeye’s antics. The difference in their characters, the conflict created by Hawkeye’s brand of nihilism-lite contrasted to BJ’s ‘family values’ elevated the drama and discourse of the show in a way the Hawkeye/Trapper dynamic never could. It was rare that Hawkeye & BJ were ever in direct opposition, but having two differing points of view strengthened the comedy and gave the show more to talk about.

There is strength in opposition. Our show is very ‘plot driven’ – there’s a great deal of exploring to be done in the mythology of the real world and the ‘otherworld’ where half the story takes place. It’s tempting to simply create situations where we move characters from one experience to the other, illustrating to the audience how life works in one world versus the next. If, however, that was ALL we did, take the audience by the hand on a tour of an unfamiliar world, they would change their Netflix choice pretty quickly because amazing vista’s and fascinating history work in a documentary, not a fast-paced action/drama. We are given a wealth of characters to work with and we need to find compelling reasons for them to disagree and oppose each other whenever possible.

Maybe we can try some other examples…

Don’t worry, I’m using it as a ‘bad’ example…

Everyone who knows me, knows that McG’s ‘Charlie’s Angels’ is in my top 3 favourite movies. I won’t waste space here explaining why (that fact isn’t relavent to the article) but I will use it to point out a failing in conflict. The movie itself has villains and antagonists, plenty of conflict, problems to solve and obstacles to overcome, but one thing it lacks is conflict among its three leads. When Natalie, Dylan & Alex are together, the story clips along but there isn’t much that’s exciting about what they do – they are always in agreement and super supportive of each other, so while they have an objective, such as try and beat the shit out of Crispin Glover, they don’t drive the drama themselves. I know they are a team, and a desire to depict three cooperative women who back each other up rather than feed the cheap stereotype of ‘back-stabbing bitches’ is a key element here, so it functions as it should, but it still leaves the story a little flat.

As opposed to this masterpiece:

If you haven’t seen it yet something is wrong with you.

Where even the characters who are on the same side, characters who are freakin’ FAMILY, have conflict. Baby lives with his deaf step-father (I think that’s how that works) and drives getaway to not only pay back his criminal debts but also support them, and they are STILL in conflict with each other. His step-father wants him to leave the life of crime, so much so that they argue (in ASL) about it and it drives a wedge between them, and these are two characters who love and care for each other. There is conflict between each character in this film; between crime boss Kevin Spacey and those criminals he employs, between Baby and Debra (in the form of Baby’s evasion and lies) even between Buddy and Darling, the psuedo-married couple who serve as muscle for Kevin Spacey.

Making one character or another an objectionable human being is a good start, but this isn’t something that can be sustained without decent character development. Remember the dramatic triangle in ‘LOST’? Jack vs Kate vs Sawyer –

Look! They’re even forming a ‘triangle’…

 

Here were three characters, none of them ‘objectionable’ (Okay Sawyer was a charming prick in the beginning, but again that was the point) who very often stood in opposition to each other due to their motivations and backstories. For 3 years (at least, some of us poor saps stayed for all 6…) we were captivated by their interactions and machinations against each other while having a hard time picking who among them was the ‘right’ one. We couldn’t because the conflicts they shared were not clear cut matters of black & white. Forget ‘The Hatch’, ‘The Swan’, ‘The Looking Glass’ or ‘The Others’ – it was the characters on ‘LOST’ that kept us watching because every week we got to see how three different personalities would approach the same obstacle with a unique perspective. For a while, it was brilliant.

Okay seriously, you want something current? Fine:

 

I struggled for MINUTES trying to find an appropriate ‘All In the Family’, ‘Family Matters’ ‘The Brothers McCocaine’ joke and nothing was landing…

Netflix’ ‘Narcos’ does the same thing with incredible results, and I’ll use examples from season 3. (If you’re worried about spoilers, the show is based on history – Escobar isn’t in the third season, SHOCKER!) Taking cues from the ‘The Wire’ a decade previous ‘Narcos’ dramatizes actual events by adapting real life people into characters on a spectrum of gray, then forcing them to deal with each other. It’s easy to say that the Orejuela brothers are villains, ‘cuz sometimes they sure as shit act like it, but the DEA agents they have pursuing them are often depicted as being just as untrustworthy or incompetent as one might expect from a traditional foil. Furthermore the character Jorge Salcedo is depicted as one of the most moralistic of all the characters, and he’s the cartels head of security. The conflict doesn’t emerge just from the ‘good cops trying to catch bad guys’ angle – it is cultivated inside the Cali cartel itself, between the brothers, their muscle, their chief of security and their competing interests. If it was just about the cops trying to stop the drug lords the show would proceed along a rather stale A to B line, a documentary tour through facts that is as exciting to watch as ‘Ken Burns: The Drug War’… (Actually I would totally watch that – I want to hear Keith David’s smooth tones narrating a police statement about how the cartels removed peoples heads with chainsaws played over the slow pan across black & white photo’s…)

 

This explains what the other writers tend to think of my contributions…

Whenever you’re looking at your work and wondering why it doesn’t land, why people are falling asleep during your readings and/or on their phones instead, or you’ve been a victim of the ‘silent pass’ yet again after sending in your screenplay, go back in and look for conflict. If everything is clipping along fine and everyone is getting along, you have a problem. Your well oiled team of professionals needs to be pulled apart and set against each other in some way. Your uber-tight best of friends need to be set at odds by the simplest of factors. You don’t need to sow dischord where there is meant to be happiness, but you need to have a reason that two characters want different things, and let that build the drama that will make your work worth reading .

Moving the audience through your plot is one thing, and it’s important. Making them care about why they are there is the real trick. You can guide anyone from one place to another by the hand and show them pretty pictures along the way, but having them invest in the characters by forcing them to have an opinion about what one character is saying/doing in opposition to the other is the real trick. When an audience has to actively think about what is being presented to them because the characters are not all in agreeance, they are entertained. That’s your job after all, to entertain.

(* Bonus blog-points to anyone who can identify the source material for the moon whale, glass palace and fat, blue moon-wookie.)

 

QATAR SOLO! – Moonbase 2029 – Week 2

Greetings readers! Steve reporting from moonbase 2029 here (an ambitious goal, a base on the moon by 2029? I know, but if Pumpkin-McLadygrab can become president with fewer votes than his opponent then anything is possible…)

“Don’t mess with us Steve” I imagine I hear you all saying. ( “You’re in Qatar, not on the moon. It even says so in the blog title.”) Sure, ‘MOON SOLO’ doesn’t carry the same wicked connotations of Edward Van Halen on the six strings, but I have an explanation. I always have an explanation.

I refer the jury to exhibit E, an image of Dr. Van Halen at work…

I’ve come to the conclusion that the writer’s on our lovely project out here are the perfect case study for living on a future moonbase/space station. Forget those wacky Russian’s in Siberia training in a replica space capsule for a roundtrip to Mars. Writing on a Qatari TV show is a true experience in environmental isolation and long distance travel.

“S’plain how!” You demand. Okay, but why so aggressive? You can just ask nicely. There are several days every week where I never leave the safe, climate controlled confines of Moonbase Wyndham. The environmental conditions are simply too extreme outside to permit it. I would melt faster than a chocolate you forgot in the front pocket of your new white pants.

Atrociously harsh conditions.

IF I do dare venture outside, it must be done either in excursions short enough to be supported by a severe change in wardrobe (Eddie Bauer wicking travel shirts? Buy stock. Immediately) or in the Uber or Taxi class travel pods which are readily available. There are no locations nearby that are suitable to visit without the technological support of a fully equipped environment suit, so if you want to leave the confines of moonbase Wyndham you are only heading to OTHER artificial environments with appropriate climate controls (and ample shopping.)

True pioneers are prepared to make do with only the barest of resources.

As lovely an experience as this all is, for a simple man from Earth who considers anything within an hours range on foot ‘walking distance’ it is quite a shock to the system. I see the my headphones sitting there, wondering why I keep them locked away in the safe all day. “What did we do to you?” They plead in the tinny voice that headphones have. “Why have you forsaken us? Are our lows not deep enough, our hi-hats not crisp enough?”

Truly a walkers best friend.

Seriously, BEST (reasonably affordable) HEADPHONES EVER.

No headphones; I love you like I love my wife, my dog, usually my cat and last but of course not least, the ‘Trek. But there is so little opportunity for me to use you here because it is physically not possible to pack enough shirts to wear on a long enough walk where your beautiful tones will be useful. (Note: distances here are measured in how many shirts I will sweat through to reach a desired destination. Headphones are really only applicable to a minimum two shirt walk, and once you get into any really suitable distance – say a four shirt walk, you’re just packing too much cotton fibre with you for the exertion to enjoyment ratio to balance out. MATH!)

Apparently when the Earth tilts just a *tiny* bit more to the north, the unending, blaring heat of the savage day-star will abate enough to permit travel outside in the three-to-five shirt radius, but we are not there yet, and I am skeptical at best.

So inside we sit, and inside we stay. The spa here is wonderful, (wait, a spa? With a sauna? Yes. For some bizarre reason I choose to stay inside sheltered from the heat yet spend some of my time sealed in a little wooden box that gets infinitely hotter – actually reality is it probably gets JUST as hot as outside – and sweat for fun. Explanation? I have none.)

Here at the Angsana spa, you don’t have to go outsdoors. You can trap yourself in a tiny replication of it!

…and I haven’t yet tired of the expansive breakfast buffet – shout out to Jamal and Mary Jane – Holla! – the lovely foreign workers who seem to run the buffet, at least everytime I’m down there. I’m sure they read my blog. Who doesn’t?

Nobody asks you, people who don’t read my blog.

We pass the day arguing about how a team of fictional characters would go about joining a terrorist cell (“Dude, I get the impression you have NO CLUE how to go about joining ISIS. Maybe you should go read twitter and we can reconvene when you’ve had some experience!” – Not a REAL conversation we’ve had, yet… But close.) and discussing which North American food chain we should hit up for dinner. We watch Game of Thrones for examples on how to keep a multi-layered story full of characters whose names we can never keep straight progressing forward, and we make each other watch movies that one person loves and the others have never seen.

Made my compatriots watch ‘Human Traffic’ last night.

Yeah the quotes are in French. Gotta respect both official languages…

I presented it as a glimpse into a period of my life from 19-24 that had a huge effect shaping the person I would become. After watching it I regretted exposing them to such wanton hedonism and actually feared somewhat for my own soul. I still LOVE the damn film, but man does it not-really-go-anwhere. One of those films that’s more experience than cinematic masterpiece. I digress…

That soundtrack though…

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, moonbases and shit. Today we ventured off-base to fulfill a screenwriting stereotype; writing on laptops in a Starbucks. It was a welcome change of pace mostly, but I’m a little weary of the folks around us wondering what the hell was wrong with the white people who seemed to be arguing real hard about just how you would leverage making someone dig their own grave as a form of interrogation. But these are the kinds of things you need to make believable if you want viewers to come back week after week to watch your show. Accuracy in interrogation and torture. If you can’t get it right, what’s the point?

See? We’ve obviously failed ‘cuz he’s enjoying this too much.

Saw a film in theatre’s here earlier this (last?) week – truth is I can barely remember what day it is anymore and I have several devices literally connected to satellites, atomic clocks and calendars to tell exactly what time it is. We saw ‘IT’ in a local megamall, and I can definitely say its worth seeing, all 90% of it that we witnessed. No, we didn’t walk out because we were scared (we all agreed that was our story and we’ll take the truth to our graves) but it was pretty obvious that the film had been ‘edited for content’ based on cultural sensitivities..

It’s been explained to me that Qatar itself doesn’t censor movies and TV, however they do not have their own distribution infrastructure so all of the media they receive comes from other sources in the surrounding territories, and I’m not sure if everyone is aware, but some countries in this neck of the globe have some curious ideas about what is acceptable viewing and what is not. **SPOILERS KIND OF** A seven year old kid having his arm bit off by a demon clown? Sounds good. Two fourteen year old kids kissing? UNACCEPTABLE! Also, apparenlty there was a Jewish kid in this movie. If anyone can tell me what his story was it would be appreciated, because he was essentially removed entirely from what we saw. Child murder = still fine. Jewish kid = not existant. Yeah I know there are some places over here that equate those two things, but to quote the eloquent ‘Million Ants’..

“Hey, you do you. I’m not touching this.”

The concensus is we’re not sure we’re going to spent more money on seeing movies in the theatre until we return. The edits were so obvious and jarring it made us wonder if locals actually knew EXACTLY what missing, and had become skilled at filling in the blanks themselves. “Hey, there’s a giant rocket ship shaped hole cut out in that thing. I wonder if I’m missing a slice of pie?”

To all those executives/directors/layman who think that screenwriting is a cinch because anyone can do it – HAHAHHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH! You fools. Not to type about how awesome I am, but I can say with 100% certainty that screen/teleplay writing is MOST DEFINITELY harder than brain science/rocket surgery, climbing Everest and passing a kidney stone all at once. (Note: not currently prepared to test my certainly not inaccurate claims.) I don’t know how sitting or walking around a room for eight-ten hours a day, thinking up wicked cool things to say and do, and then writing them down can be so perpetually exhausting, but it is. I’m running off a costant drip of adrenaline and utter fear-of-failure as we speak, punctuated by brief moments of hallucination and psychedelic lucidity.

Marty! I dreamt I saw Denny Crane kicking me in the face and I fell into a pool of lava while John Laroquette watched!

I had a dream the other night that I was back at home, and the fact that I didn’t remember getting there was because I’d had a stroke and suffered brain damage. My subconscious is finding new and innovative ways to seriously fuck with me because until I woke there was NOTHING in the dream that the stroke couldn’t explain away, to betray I was dreaming. It’s hard to get used to the idea of living your life with nothing making sense, and then waking up again only to find that things only make so-so sense. Like I’d been playing ‘ROY’ too long and no one bothered to to tell me Blips & Chitz had closed for renovations.

I got my high score by burning down the carpet store for the insurance money.

Needless to say this extended experiment in creative isolation is both taking a toll and inspiring me to new heights. For those who were there for the read, they’ll be happy to know I’ve entered ‘Diesel Wars’ into two pilot competitions, TWO!, so within the next several months I should be a pretty big deal because I mean seriously, two competitions? C’mon that’s practically a lock. In between fits of blending arabic mysticism with cutting edge Sci-Fi I’m finding time to read some work and sort out my own, so there’s always an up side even when things seem a little rough.

More reports from moonbase 2029 to follow in the near future. Until then keep watching the SKIII’S!

Google has never let me down.