Television

How do I become a television writer if I don’t have any contacts?

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I get asked this question a lot…but it’s disingenuous, since I’m a
TV writer/producer and whoever is asking me that is really asking me to either read
their script or to invite them in to pitch. So, theoretically, they already
know somebody in the business.
 
They’re luckier than I was when I got started. I didn’t know
anybody in the TV industry. But I got in. How did I do it? Everybody’s story is
unique. Most of those stories, however, share one common element. You have to
put yourself in the right place to get your lucky break. And it’s easier than
you think. 

The first thing you have to do is learn your craft. Take
classes, preferably taught by people who have had some success as TV writers.
There’s no point taking a class from someone who isn’t an experienced TV writer
themselves. 

You’d think that would be common sense, but you’d be
astonished how many TV courses are taught by people who don’t know the first
thing about writing for television or who, through a fluke, sold a story to Manimal twenty years ago and think that
qualifies them to take your hundred bucks. Even more surprising is how many
desperate people shell out money to take courses from instructors who should be
taking TV writing courses themselves.

There’s another reason to take a TV writing course besides
learning the basics of the craft. If you’re the least bit likeable, you’ll make
a few friends among the other classmates. This is good, because you’ll have
other people you can show your work to. This is also good because somebody in
the class may sell his or her first script before you do… and suddenly you’ll
have a friend in the business. 

Many of my writer/producer friends today are writers I knew
back when I was in college, when we were all dreaming of breaking into TV some
day. 

A writer we hired on staff on the first season of Missing was in a Santa Monica screenwriters group… and was the
first member of her class to get a paying writing gig. Now her friends in the
class suddenly had a friend on a network TV show who could share her knowledge,
give them practical advice and even recommend them to her new agent and the
writer/producers she was working with.

Another route is to try and get a job as a writer/producer’s
assistant on an hour-long drama. Now only will you get a meager salary, but you
will see how a show works from the inside. You’ll read lots of scripts and
revisions and, simply by observation, get a graduate course in TV writing. More
important, you’ll establish relationships with the writers on the show and the
freelancers who come through the door. Many of today’s top TV producers were writer/producer
assistants once. All of the assistants I’ve had have gone on to become working
TV writers themselves… and not because I gave them a script assignment or
recommended them for one. I didn’t do either.

 The first step towards getting into pitch a TV producer for
an episodic writing assignment is to write an episodic teleplay on spec.

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The NBC Mystery Movie Channel

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The Futon Critic reports that NBC/Universal is launching a digital/high-def cable channel called Sleuth that will air "classic" Universal detective shows and movies 24 hours a day. We’re talking shows like COLUMBO, BANACEK, KNIGHTRIDER, IT TAKES A THIEF, HEC RAMSEY, DRAGNET,  ADAM-12, McMILLAN AND WIFE, NAME OF THE GAME, MIAMI VICE and GRIFF, to name a few. The channel will launch in January on the Time Warner cable system.

Mid-Season Replacements

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I got this email today:

I was hoping you could answer a few really quick questions about mid-season
replacements for me…

How do the networks regard these shows? Are they
second string that didn’t make the first cut? Or pinch hitters that the network
has been waiting to air? If the latter, why do they hold onto them until
mid-season? What is the strategy behind this?

The fact is, most shows fail. The networks go into the fall season
knowing that it’s very likely that virtually all their new series will not
survive. They need replacements to immediately fill the slots vacated by
low-performing shows that they are forced to cancel. That doesn’t mean
mid-season shows are lesser, second string programming… but, in some cases,
they are riskier/specialized/quirky fare that need special promotional and
scheduling attention that isn’t possible while launching & advertising an
entire fall schedule.  Remember, many hit shows began as midseason programs…
SEINFELD and GREY’S ANATOMY, for example.

Auto-Pilot

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TV writer Paul Guyot continues his unflinchingly honest and informative chronicle on the development and production of  the pilot he wrote for TNT. The network subsequently brought in a big-name showrunner and Paul found himself relegated to the sidelines (despite assurances to the contrary). Sadly, this happens all the time in our business and Paul, being a pro, knows that. Even so, it still hurts when it happens.   

What has been the hardest thing for me to deal with is that the network has
completely supported the showrunner and his "tweaking" of my script. My story.
My setting. My characters. After telling me (in the beginning), that they wanted
something unique and edgy (sic), what they now have that they so dearly
love, is the very thing they told me specifically they didn’t want… a typical
TV show. And not a conference call goes by that someone doesn’t rave about how
much better the script is now.

Hey look, it may be better. The
guy has Emmys and I don’t. I just wish the network had given me a shot to do
this other version, and then brought in their high-priced Showrunner.

It’s like this – the network wanted me to hit a home run. So in my first
at-bat, I hit a double to left. But instead of getting another swing, they bring
in another guy and he hits a double to right, and they all cheer and say,
"That’s just what we wanted! A double to right!"

But again, nature of
the beast, folks. Don’t feel sorry for me – I already took care of that. No need
to post comments about how much they suck or whatever. This is TV. Ask Lee.
Happens all the time. As I said earlier – you have two choices in these matters
– quit or ride it out. I chose to ride it out. Though it’s being done
differently than how I’d do it, and I’m being basically ignored throughout the
entire process, I’m holding on. I want to feed my kids. I don’t have the luxury
of conviction. And someone much smarter than me once warned about the paralysis
of conviction. Especially when it wasn’t your story to begin with.

Bring Back Those Precocious Kids

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Remember when all the kid characters on TV were smart-ass and wise-beyond-their years? It got to be really irritating…but it was a hell of a lot easier to take than the kids on TV today. They are all  insufferable morons. Take, for example, the two imbeciles on SURFACE who are raising an alien monster in their bathtub…and let it endanger the lives of family and friends. We are supposed to find them wacky and endearing. I just want to kick in the T.V.  Or how about that  whiny teenage girl on COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF who resents her Mom for being President of the United States? She’s upset she has to attend events like, oh, her mother’s swearing in as President or a reception for the Russian President instead of hanging out with her friends ("Other kids don’t have to go to their parents’ business dinners!"). This is supposed to make us relate to the First Family as being people like us. Yeah, right. Me, and the rest of America,  fast-forward through those scenes to the next shot of Donald Sutherlands sneering and twirling his mustache (yes, I know he doesn’t have a mustache…but it’s there, it’s just invisible).

Bring back those precocious kids of yesteryear. Please. I’m begging you.

Coming to a Computer Near You

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Back in 2001, Andre Morgan announced production of a 22-episode, hour-long  TV series shot in Shanghai called FLATLAND, starring Dennis Hopper (what, you thought E-RING was his first TV series? Don’t believe everything you read). Morgan didn’t have a buyer or distributor for the project at the time but claimed to be in discussions with several networks. Now, four years later,  the show may finally be premiering…on a cell phone or computer near you. Variety reports the show is being shopped at Cannes, where it’s being sold in groups of
50 two-minute episodes by Intl. Program Consultants for broadcast on mobile phones and over the Internet.

"Exotic locations, elaborate CGI and high-definition technologies will
generate literally hundreds of … serial episodes," said exec producers Ruddy
and Morgan.

IPC topper
Russell Kagan added: "RMO, a leading independent company in TV and film
ventures, now will be one of the first leaders in mobile and broadband
video."

The Brits Spin-Off

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A few years ago, there was a series in England called TAGGART about a detective named Taggart (and I remember not being able to understand a word he said). When the actor playing Taggart died, they continued the series without him…and didn’t bother changing the name of the show. They are getting a little more savvy about spin-offs now. The great INSPECTOR MORSE series starring John Thaw as the title character, and Kevin Whately as  his partner Lewis, ended with the death of Morse (followed, sadly, a year or so later by the real-life death of Thaw). Now they are continuing the series with Lewis but have wisely decided to abandon their original title, AFTER MORSE, in favor of, simply, LEWIS. I wonder if they toyed with calling it TAGGART first, just for the hell of it.

Speaking of British spin-offs, forty years (or is it fifty?) after the premiere of DR. WHO, one of the UK’s longest running (and most re-cast) series, comes news of a spin-off called TORCHWOOD, featuring some character named Captain Jack. I don’t watch the show, so I have no idea what the hell they are talking about. But I wonder why they waited to long to capitalize on the show’s success.

The DR. WHO news reminds me of GUNSMOKE…they waited 19 years after the show’s premiere, and well past it’s ratings heyday,  to finally attempt a spin-off, a lame comedy called DIRTY SALLY. It lasted less than a season, cancelled shortly before GUNSMOKE itself the following year.