Writing 02 14 2013 Some Key Concepts For Life For Your Education The Golden Rule of Work GROW And sometimes life GROWL o Someone hires you to make their life easier o State exactly what you want to do for them in cover letter GROW L When you re applying for a job you need to clearly and directly show how you will that person s life easier When you re doing your job you need to keep doing so Personal adage a manager spends 90 of their time managing If you re not making their life easier you re in trouble If you re making their life tougher you re in real trouble problems with 10 of their staff If God Has Spoken To You Rule While You re in School If God or your muse has spoken to and those words when from you ears to your word processor or camera and editing equipment and it is therefore perfect o Don t bring it to class where the idea is to workshop it and make it better o Directly product it and collect your Emmy and Oscar Realize that this is the last time someone is being paid to teach you how to make your work better Later on if you want some feedback on a script or film or video you ve created you ll be asking someone for a favor If you work is not very good those people will not do you another favor and look at your next script film video So use feedback and notes to make your work the best it can be before asking people for the favor of reading watching In the Real World Studios and producers have databases where they enter their comments about you your writing your acting ETC So if you get a script read or as an actor have an audition you d better be read and be good because comments will be added to the database about you You may not get another read or audition based on those comments And if you do your work may be viewed through less than positive lenses Film means actual film not necessarily the medium PART TWO OF THE COURSE This is where we ll examine the people and processes that lead to the creation of what you see on your TV and theatrical film screens It All Begins With the Writing Until there are word on the page nothing happens When it has to decide final writing credits on a rewritten script the WGA always gives at least partial credit to the original writer because what got the whole project going is what s he wrote after the words fade in on page one Taking the money out o Moving location but saying it is the original location because of tax credits o Director does not get writing credit for this It takes the pages of a script to eventually attract stars directors studios and money to produce the script o As long as people were hired to work the movie was a success even if the movie was not a success Lowell Ganz s agent comment after his 2nd movie didn t do well the 3rd film Splash got even more money because Ganz and partner Babaloo Mandel had done their jobs as writers they twice wrote pages that led to 2 films being produced Writing Credits When you see ampersand between two writers names it means they worked together as a team later When you see and it means these other writers were brought in So Lowell Ganz Babaloo Mandel are a team who worked together Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel would mean they worked separately with Mandel working after Ganz on Ganz s original idea Theatrical Film TV Comparison Both begin with the writer But then who has the most creative control o In general theatrical film is a director s medium o TV is a writer s medium With film a studio producer is buying the pages o There will almost be rewrites by the original writer s and or other writers o The original writer can literally be dead and have a script sold because they are buying the pages that are already written o When they buy your script that doesn t mean they will produce the movie It is easier to buy it just to avoid litigation to keep it off the market In TV they are buying the writer and the pages s he may write in the future It is prospective Can you come up with 13 22 34 episodes in a ear that are on time budget and are good examples of that series JJ Abrams started in TBV and now is doing Star Trek and Star Wars movies o He uses a writers room at least on Start Trek and has about six writers there o He also goes to the set sometimes along with other writer s and does rewrites on the set In general film writing is an individual or 2 person writing team effort TV series are almost always group rewritten and sometimes group written the writers room Showrunners However the TV model is being used by film producers directors who started out in TV Tent pole having an opening date for a movie years in advance o I dare you to open the same weekend as me o We own this date In TV the show s creator writer is usually its showrunner In the past showrunners stayed with a show a few seasons then left to create showruner other series Replacement showrunners are brought in The original showerunner may still have final decision making on series s he is no longer running day to day In the US the original showrunners seldom stay with a long running series until the end In the Britain when a show creator no longer wants to write more episodes the series usually ends The Office had 13 episodes in Britain will have 200 in US This past year or so a major change has been the firing of showrunners by the studios and networks o Walking Dead fired original and replacement showrunner o Smash fired its creator showrunner o Community creator showrunner Dan Harmon fired by Sony Showrunners usually have the title of executive producer and when there are multiple executive producers their credit is often the last one in opening credits and the first one in end credits They may also have created by credit Their duties included final say on o Casting both initially for the series and for each episode o Writing staff freelance writer hiring o Writing season series arcs story lines for each episode notes of every draft of the script often final polish of each script TV o Editing approves all edits including the final one o Can be overridden by the studio or network Who Has Final Say Whoever is writing the checks o TV studio o Film studio o TV network Who Is Paying For What In TV Networks always are licensing programs i e they re paying x to have usually 2 runs of an episode …
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