Film and Television
Writers Write
James Reasoner is one of the most prolific authors that I know…he's had hundreds of books published, mostly in the western genre. And yet very few people know who he is. Why? Because the majority of those books don't have his name on them (they were written under "house names" owned by the publisher or a literary estate).
For a lot of authors, the most important thing to them is seeing their name on the cover. But for James (pictured on the left hard at work), the most important thing is to make a living writing, something he loves to do and is very good at:
At one point in my career, I had published more than eighty books, only one of which (TEXAS WIND) had my name on it. People used to ask me how I could write a book knowing that my name wouldn’t be on it, and my stock answer was “I don’t care if my name is on the book as long as it’s on the check.”
Of course, that’s not exactly true now and wasn’t then. I’d love to be able to just write what I want, sell it, and have my name on it. But being able to keep writing, period, is more important to me.
It's a refreshing…and dare I say it, professional…attitude that you don't find much today. So many aspiring writers rush to self-publishing companies simply because they want the experience of seeing their name on a book cover, even if they have to spend thousands of dollars to do it. But James is different. He's a real writer and a true professional. I wish there were more like him:
There are dozens of books out there now with my name on them, and I’m thankful for
each and every one of them. I hope there’ll be more in the future. But as long as I can keep writing, one way or the other, I’ll be okay. That’s just me. I don’t really think that’s the only way to carve out a career – I’m sure every author has a different approach – but I feel like I’ve played the cards that were dealt to me and won more than I’ve lost.
I know how he feels. I think I may have told this story here before, but…a couple of years ago, it was down to Bill Rabkin & me against one other candidate for the co-exec producer job on a major hit series. The showrunner couldn't choose between the us and the other guy. So we met with the studio chief, who would be deciding who ultimately got the job. The interview was going great, and I was feeling real good about our chances, until the studio chief said:
"I only have on reservation about you two. Why don't you have sexier credits?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Why haven't you ever worked on Law and Order or CSI?"
"Because we never had the opportunity, either because we were working on something else when they had openings or they weren't interested in hiring us when we were available," I said. "In the course of our career, we didn't have the luxury of picking and choosing our jobs as much as we would have liked. We have families and had to make a living so we took what came along and what interested us. But if you like us, our writing, our producing philosophy, and the way we tell stories, what difference does it make whether we worked on CSI or Diagnosis Murder?"
We might also have mentioned that our friend Terry Winter was working on SISTER SISTER when he got hired on the SOPRANOS, where he won Emmys and WGA Awards. His previous credits include THE NEW ADVENTURES OF FLIPPER and XENA. Not exactly the sexiest credits.
Well, it goes without saying that we didn't get the job. They hired someone with sexier credits. And fired him thirteen episodes later.
I like seeing my name in print and on the TV screen, but I consider myself first and foremost a working, professional writer. I write because I love it, but I also write to earn a living. Sometimes my creative or personal desires have to take a backseat to simply having a job. I don't think that Terry or I wrote for FLIPPER because we had a burning need to tells stories about a clever dolphin. We did it because writing is what we do and how we pay our bills.
UPDATE 12-20-2008: Bill Crider reviews James Reasoner's latest LONGARM novel (written under the house name "Tabor Evans.") And here's a Saddlebums review of one of Reasoner's 2007 LONGARM tales and an interview they did with him.
The Backlot
I've been surprised this season by how often shows are using the studio backlots instead of going on location. The familiar Warner Brothers backlot, and studio office buildings, show up frequently on TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES and THE MENTALIST. I haven't seen this much backlot shooting since the days of MANNIX and IT TAKES A THIEF. I wonder if this has something to do with the studio mandated budget cuts that are being impossed on showrunners. Then again, it can be cheaper sometimes to shoot on a city street than pay the studio overhead to use the backlot…
Original, Unaired Gilligan’s Island Pilot
Here’s the original, unaired “Gilligan’s Island” pilot with a very different cast and theme song.
Are Canadian Showrunners an Endangered Species?
A bunch of Canadian showrunners sat down with the Globe & Mail newspaper and shared their worry that they are becoming a dying breed in the TV biz in the Great White North:
They see production companies and network executives interfering endlessly and pointlessly in the direction of certain shows. They say that a series might begin as a drama with occasional moments of comedy, and then, thanks to battles and conniptions in distant offices, by the fifth episode the series has morphed into a comedy.
They worry that hardly anybody in the industry, apart from themselves, understands what the term "showrunner" means (a senior writer with some executive responsibilities). They point out that the best television in recent years – The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Mad Men, The Shield and, in Canada, Intelligence, have been driven by writers who control almost every aspect of a production, but in Canada a writer is almost never allowed to follow through on a storytelling vision.
That may be why so much Canadian TV is — to be blunt — plodding and dull. Or, as a Canadian commentator put it back in 2003…
Why can't Canadians make a decent cop show? It's not as if they don't have examples to copy. You can't turn on the television without finding a cop show on somewhere. […]Like most Canadian TV dramas, Cold Squad is directed as if it were a stage play. The actors emote as if they were trying to make sure buddy in the back row can follow the play. To buddy on the couch, though, the overacting is just annoying.
[On Canadian cop shows] the characters are usually less than persuasive, for example. The characters on Blue Murder articulate as if they were playing Shakespeare.
[…]The actors of course are not helped by scripts which often seem to have been written by people who've been living in monasteries since birth – monasteries with vows of silence, too. The dialogue and situations are often artificial and beyond any help the actors can give them. Canadian scripts also tend to be short on action and plot twists, preferring long, long over-explained scenes.
I couldn't agree more, at least based on the Canadian dramas that I've seen.
I've produced two U.S. series in Canada — COBRA in Vancouver and MISSING in Toronto — so I've watched a lot of Canadian TV while looking for directors, production designers, and actors. It's no secret why Canadian TV series aren't as marketable or popular worldwide as U.S. or U.K. crime dramas. It's because they are bland, devoid of strong conflicts, sharply-drawn characters and compelling narrative drive. They just can't compete against U.S. or U.K. drama on any level.
I know that's a broad and very unfair generalization, and that there may be Canadian shows that are terrific…but I haven't seen one yet. On the other hand, I've seen a LOT of fantastic British crime dramas, though. It's not that Canada doesn't have the writing talent…it does…but I suspect that their best TV writers head to the U.S. as soon as they possibly can (at least that's what I've been told by my friends toiling in Canadian TV). The Globe & Mail worries about that, too:
What I take away is that they want to stay, to live and write on the
West Coast, and tell their stories there. Given their worries and
horror stories, I fear that, sooner rather than later many will be in
on the West Coast, but in Los Angeles, and they won't be telling
Canadian stories.
Back when I was a writer on MURPHY'S LAW, which we shot up in Vancouver in 1989, I endured some episodes of STREET LEGAL, a wanna-be L.A. LAW that was the "crown jewel" of Canadian TV at the time. It was a series that seemed utterly devoid of conflict. There were shampoo commercials with more gripping storylines and more at stake for their characters. I couldn't understand how anyone could write a TV show that was so bland…or why anyone would want to watch it.
NIGHT HEAT, made around the same time, managed to make TJ HOOKER look like NYPD BLUE by comparison. MOM PI, TRADERS, DANGER BAY, NEON RIDER, NORTH OF 60, ENG, and DIAMONDS, while not all cop shows, I recall as being mind-numbingly dull.
I've been told many times that DAVINCI'S INQUEST is the best cop show ever made on Canadian TV. I've only seen some early episodes of the series, and one episode of the DAVINCI'S CITY HALL sequel series, and if that is the crown jewel of Canadian crime drama today, it's not saying much for the genre up there.
More recent Canadian cop shows like BLUE MURDER and COLD SQUAD were unbearably ponderous, musty and flat, not even remotely in the same league as U.S. or U.K. dramas. Simply compare COLD SQUAD to the similarly-themed U.S. series COLD CASE or the U.K's WAKING THE DEAD and you'll see what I mean…or compare the Canadian MURDOCK MYSTERIES to the U.K.'s INSPECTOR MORSE, REBUS, or LEWIS. The Canadian stuff feels desaturated, sanitized of color, emotion, drama and energy.
To be fair, I haven't seen INTELLIGENCE, FLASHPOINT or THE BORDER — but I have heard
very good things about them. They may represent a significant
turning point in Canadian episodic crime dramas. I certainly hope so.
Perhaps the problems with Canadian episodic drama all comes down an unwillingness by Canadian networks to commit to the showrunner system, to allow writers with a strong, consistent, artistic vision to run their series. If so, it's a damn shame.
Best Crime Movie in Ages
Add me to the chorus of people who are raving about THE LAST LULLABY, a terrific, l0w-budget indie crime movie directed by Jeffrey Goodman and starring Tom Sizemore as an insomniac hitman on his last assignment. It's based the novel THE LAST QUARRY by Max Alan Collins, who co-wrote the script with Peter Biegen. It isn't yet another in a seemingly endless spew of pop-culture-referencing, amped-up, martial-arts, dizzyingly-edited action montages masquarading as movies. This is the real deal, a genuine, character-based noir tale that packs a surprising punch. No bells and whistles. No CGI. No explosions. But plenty of mood, atmosphere, emotion and startling, unromanticized violence. And a touch of romance, too. This is a crime movie for adults who don't have A.D.D. Goodman says:
"I guess Lullaby is a smattering of things I like," explains its director Jeffrey Goodman. "If I have combined them in a way that feels fresh I will be happy. There's a dose of playfulness from the French New Wave, a bit of slowness of some art films, the naturalistic style of early seventies American film, and a strong commitment to narrative taken from film noir. Yet, in all honesty, more than anything, I just wanted to get away from irony and cynicism and try to put something on screen that was sincere."
He succeeded. Brilliantly. I loved it. Best indie crime movie I've seen since, oh, DIAMOND MEN.
Putting on your Comedy Hat
Earl Pomerantz has posted another wonderful anecdote from his days writing and producing Major Dad.
I meet with McRaney and his manager to discuss the problems McRaney’s having with the scripts. At some point in the discussion, McRaney’s manager, coincidentally a former Marine, says, “Now, putting on my ‘comedy hat’….”
I, internally, hit the roof, and bang my head against it a few hundred times. I’m not a Marine. I don’t claim, and never have claimed, to have a “Marine hat.” McRaney’s manager had never been involved in a comedy. Where the heck did he get a “comedy hat”!?
If you love tv, you should be reading Earl's blog.