Welcome to Fantasy Island

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039_27037Today, I received this email:

I would like to Email Mr. Wolf about an idea…If anyone knows his email address are a way I can get in contacted with please email me at StreetRacerBW@yahoo.com. Thank you, Victoria.

My reply: If you’ve paid any attention to Dick Wolf’s shows, you’ll notice they all have one thing in common. They were all created by Dick Wolf. Why would he want your idea? He’s making hundreds of millions of dollars off his own. But setting that obvious fact aside for a moment, do you really think emailing him an idea is going to work? Do you think he’ll read your email,  send a limo to your house, bring you over to the studio, and offer you a box of cash? I only have four words for you, Victoria:  Welcome to Fantasy Island!

Blog Blowback for Lori Prokop

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I’m not the only one amused by Lori Prokop and her ridiculous BookMillionaire reality show scam. Other blogs are having fun with it, too. For example,  Richard Cobbett took a look at the requirements to be one of the "contestants" on the informercial:

Onephoto_1You can apply if you meet any one of the following criteria:

You don’t need to have written your book or manuscript but you have an idea you feel would be a good book, or…

You may have been told by people that you should write a book, or…

You have a desire to become published and to live the incredible lifestyle of a rich, famous author, or…

You may have started writing your book, but it is not completed yet, or…

You may have your book written. It is completed but not published, or…

You may have published your book, but it has not sold like you wanted.

In
other words, you don’t need to write, you don’t need to have written,
you don’t need to know what you’d like to write, and a pulse would seem
entirely optional. According to the infamous host Lori Prokop – whose
name is an anagram of OIL PORK PRO – only about 5% of writing involves
writing, while the other 95% is buying her self-help books-oops, sorry,
business and marketing.

Applying to be a contestant also gets you on Lori’s coveted email list, as SeaWhyspers says.

Then you’ll be subscribed (forever) to the newsletter
which will solve ALL of your problems with writing: Become Best Seller
(does anyone else already feel nauseous over the pathetic grammer used
on this site?). I can’t say ANY of those bulleted items sounds remotely
like writing to me (scamming, sure), but what do I know? I’m not a Best
Seller, and I’m absolutely SURE it’s because I’m not getting this
newsletter.

 

For someone who thinks of herself as a marketing genius, she sure screwed up this campaign. Perhaps she’d have better luck targeting chiropractors again instead of writers.  If you’d like to add Lori to your own "Get Rich Quick" mailing list, her  oh-so-subtle, loaded-with-integrity, email address is: Cash@megabestseller.com.

(Click here and scroll down the page to hear  Lori pitch some of her get-rich-quick schemes as a tease for her presentation at the "Internet Gravy Train to Riches" conference that was held in 2003.)

EBooks & CGI Covers

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HecallsherjasmineI was reading my sister-in-law Wendy’s blog and noticed she’s reading "Heather’s Gift," an e-book from ebook publisher Ellora’s Cave, which seems to specialize in erotic romance.  DamonBut just because a book is published "electronically," do the covers also have to be CGI as well? Without reading a word, the covers imply that the writing will be as synthetic as the "people" on the covers. Fb2themanwithinThere’s something very unappealing about reading books about CGI characters having CGI sex…sort of the literary equivalent of an x-rated computer game.

Now to be fair to Ellora and her cave, I haven’t read any of the books and there are some covers that use actual models, or have artwork that actually resemble genuine human beings…Honoringsean

(Click on the covers for larger images).

The Drool Doesn’t Go Both Ways

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Networks and studios always drool over big-name screenwriters and dangle pilot deals in front of them…then, inevitably, pair them with experienced showrunners if the pilot goes to series. Veteran showrunner, and now Oscar-nominee, Paul Haggis is finding the drool doesn’t go both ways. Movie studios don’t clamor for TV writers.
 

Take the case of "Million Dollar Baby" writer Paul Haggis and his new film "Crash," which debuted in U.S. theaters on Friday.

Haggis,
a veteran television writer, saw his screenplay for "Million Dollar
Baby" turned into Oscar’s best film of 2004 by Clint Eastwood. It
earned three other Oscars: best director for Eastwood, actress for
Hilary Swank and supporting actor for Morgan Freeman.

But when it
came to "Crash" — a film he wrote and directed that looks at race and
class among Americans in Los Angeles — he said no major studio would
give him the money to shoot it because, among other things, Hollywood
saw him as a TV guy.

"The stigma is still there. No matter how
many times someone breaks through, they still think that is the one
exception," Haggis said, referring to studio executives.

I wonder why that is?

Randall Wallace went from moderate success in TV ("Sonny Spoon," "JJ Starbuck," etc.) to much bigger success in film ("Braveheart," "We Were Soldiers," "Pearl Harbor" etc.) And, of course, there are TV writers like Paddy Chayefsky, Reginald Rose, Rod Serling, Alvin Sargent and other folks from TV’s so-called "Golden Age" who went on to big careers in film.  On the other hand, TV heavyweight David E. Kelley’s two forays into film have been big duds. And neither Steve Bochco nor Steve Cannell have been able to get a major studio film off the ground.

Can you think of anyone recently who has been a success in TV and who has earned equal success in film? Some guys, like Terry Winter (Sopranos) and Paul Bernbaum (A-Team) are poised for it with upcoming films…

Pilot Tape Crackdown

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The networks announce their fall schedules in a week or two and, usually, around this time tapes of the various pilots under consideration start floating around town. But this season, that has changed. Variety reports that studios are cracking down on the practice. The studios are getting so tight with tapes, even the producers of the pilots have a hard time getting screeners of their own shows.

"It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen," said one insider at a major
tenpercentery. "You hear rumors of execs telling assistants they could go to
jail if they leak something out."

Another said he can’t even get his hands on his own network’s tapes, at least
prior to the pilot’s official screening.  Studios and nets always make noises about not wanting tapes to be traded with
other studios or nets. So why are the rules actually being enforced this year?

Some trace it back to a dictate from top brass at 20th Century Fox TV, who
laid down the law last month when early copies of a couple of the studio’s
pilots started floating around town — even before the networks where the shows
are set up had had a chance to formally screen them.  Others speculate that Leslie Moonves’ control of Paramount Television has
further restricted the free flow of tapes. Moonves insists on a strict cone of
silence surrounding the development process at his units.

As frustrating as the crackdown has been for some, one studio exec said it’s
necessary in a world where "there’s a tremendous incentive for agents to try to
create a bad buzz" about projects with which they’re not associated.

"When you have people who’ve seen tapes calling network execs and saying, ‘Do
you really like that?,’ it starts to have an impact on your project," the
exec said.

One agent admitted he’s guilty of spreading bad buzz. "Everyone talks shit
about everyone’s pilot," he said.

I wonder if the crackdown will be as strongly enforced after the schedules are announced. Usually, tapes of  busted pilots start floating around town during the summer and you get a chance to see what didn’t  make the schedule and why. 

Last season, I was eager to get my hands on the Lost in Space pilot directed by John Woo and had a hell of a time tracking down a tape through my usual sources (When you’ve written a book on unsold pilots, and filmed two TV specials about’em, you have lots of sources). But once I did get the tape and put it in the VCR I could see why WB wanted to bury it.  It was horrendous, misguided, and stupid.  (I’m still trying to get a copy of The Time Tunnel revival pilot).

Many years ago, I really wanted to see the Stephen J. Cannell-produced  Hawaii Five-O  pilot starring Gary Busey and Russell Wong. But it was done for CBS, and Moonves is notorious about keeping his busted pilot under lock-and-key.  It took me a year or so, but I finally scored a tape from someone who made me promise not to tell anyone where I got it for fear that Moonves would crush him. It wasn’t so bad…but it wasn’t so good, either.

Perdue vs. Brown

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The lawsuit against Dan Brown, filed by author Lewis Perdue (my old journalism advisor at UCLA), is moving forward. The New York Times reports that the judge in the copyright infringement case is reading Brown’s THE DAVINCI CODE and Lew’s  DAUGHTER OF GOD and THE DAVINCI LEGACY to
determine if they are "substantially similar" and if the suit should be allowed to proceed.

Judge George B. Daniels, of the United States District Court for the Southern
District of New York, gave himself the assignment after lawyers representing Mr.
Brown and Mr. Perdue urged him to read the entire works rather than rely on the
excerpts in their court filings, which detail scores of similarities and
differences between the books. Judge Daniels said he would make a decision on
the suit in 30 to 60 days.

Shortly after "The Da Vinci Code" was published in early 2003, Mr. Perdue
asserted that the novel improperly drew on two of his earlier novels, "Daughter
of God," published in 2000, and "The Da Vinci Legacy," published in 1983 and
released in a new paperback edition last year.

Although Mr. Perdue had threatened to sue then, Mr. Brown and Random House,
the parent of Doubleday, the publisher of "The Da Vinci Code," first filed suit
over the matter. Last September, they asked the federal court in Manhattan for a
declaratory judgment that Mr. Brown’s book did not infringe on Mr. Perdue’s
copyright.

Mr. Perdue countersued, charging Mr. Brown and Random House with copyright
infringement and adding as parties to the suit the Sony Pictures and Columbia
Pictures divisions that are producing a film of "The Da Vinci Code." Mr.
Perdue’s court filings state that he has suffered damages "believed to be in
excess of $150 million."

Lew talks about the ruling (and charts the entire legal process as it goes on) on his DaVinci Crock blog. His observations include:

The most significant missed story in court on May 6, was the Random House
attorney’s concession — for the sake of the arguments in this case — that Dan
Brown had access to my works.  They have consistently argued that access
was lacking, that Dan Brown never heard of me or my books

Expect a ruling in the next month or two.

The Strangest Fanfic Obsession of All

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"
Hello, and welcome to my homepage. My name is Ulrich Haarbürste and I like to write stories
about Roy Orbison being wrapped up in cling-film. If you have written any stories about Roy
being completely wrapped in clingfilm please send them to me and I may put them up on the site.
If you have a site with stories about other pop stars being wrapped in cling-film mail me and we
can exchange links."

How many people could there be writing about pop stars wrapped in cling-film? It’s too frightening to contemplate.  Somebody has put one of Ulrich’s stories to music and it’s
hilarious…whether it’s meant to be or not, that’s another story.
Here’s the link.

(For more on this, see my brother Tod’s post here in January.)

Stop Looking For A Short Cut

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I received a reply from the guy with the great idea for a TV show who needed someone with "industry credibility" to team up with.

Feel the need to vent?  No problem!  Since we don’t each other, it can’t be
personal.  A simple, "not interested" would have done the trick though. 
The television saying you mentioned….we say that same thing in
marketing and advertising!  Since I’m a professional in my chosen field too
(no, really), I receive numerous offers to partner from people looking to break
in.  Though it almost never goes anywhere, I usually offer some slight
encouragement.  The upside is so much greater than the downside and the cost to
let it play out is so insignificant…..so why not?

Instead of offering encouragement, I offer honesty and reality. Obviously, you didn’t want to hear either. You can’t expect to scrawl a drawing of a car on a napkin and sell it to Ford… why should you expect it to happen with a TV series idea? The way to break in is not to look for shortcuts, for a way to start at the top…which is what you are trying to do.  The way to break in is to write a terrific script, get hired as a freelancer on a show, get picked up on staff, then work your way up the writer/producer ladder until you reach the point in your career when someone from a studio or network calls and says "Hey, got any ideas for a series?"

As for the networks buying years of
experience and a track record……I sincerely hope that is true (means better
television).  The jury seems to be out though:  Overnight
successes…..Schwartz, who at 27 created The O.C….Trey Parker and Matt Stone
created South Park while they were still in college.

I figured that’s where you were coming from.  You didn’t do your homework.  Josh Schwartz worked on other shows and wrote other pilots before THE OC.  Parker and Stone made a short animated film, THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS,  that wowed the industry. That short film proved their skill as animators/writers/performers and  they got a series… based on that short film. They weren’t car salesmen from Topeka with a really great idea for an animated TV series.

What must I have been thinking when I contacted
you?  I mean…how on earth could a professional television writer really be
interested in what someone from outside the industry has to offer? 
". CSI, the No. 1 show was created by relative newcomer, Anthony
E. Zuiker…. CBS hired experienced writer-producers Carol Mendelsohn and Ann
Donahue to run the show…"

Again, you aren’t doing your homework. Zuiker didn’t sell his idea by emailing producers with a come-on saying he had a great idea for a show and he just needed someone with "industry credibility" to sell it for him.  He wrote a script.  From the CSI Files Website:

Zuiker himself got his start when childhood friend Dustin Lee Abraham, now a CSI scribe but then an actor, would get Zuiker to
write him monologues for auditions. "I wrote a speech about a man, mentally
retarded, watching his wife give birth. He’s a degenerate gambler, and he went
into an announcing [mode, a play by play]," Zuiker says of the monologue that
got him attention in Hollywood. The speech was turned into a movie, The
Runner, which was made for seven million dollars. It turned out to be
Zuiker’s gateway to Hollywood.

You’re wowed by what you think are strike-it-big-in-Hollywood-quick stories that really aren’t.  Stop looking for a short-cut.  The best way to sell a series is to write some great scripts. Don’t look for someone with "industry credibility," earn some of your own instead.

Someone Like Me

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A friend of mine asked if I knew of any other TV writer/producers who wrote tie-ins based on series they’ve worked on (as I do with DIAGNOSIS MURDER and MONK). I know of one: Ian Kennedy Martin, who wrote original novels based on the terrific UK cop show THE SWEENEY, a series he also created. I think Joe Straczynski may have written some original BABYLON 5 novels (based on the series he created). And, if I recall, one of the STAR TREK VOYAGER producers wrote a novelization of one of her episodes, but I don’t think she wrote an original tie-in. I can’t think of any others… can you?

Xerox’s Vanity

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It looks like Xerox is getting into the vanity-press business and using a contest to lure in customers:

Dust off the manuscript that’s hiding under your bed and enter the Xerox
Aspiring Authors Contest. The company is on a nationwide search for the best
work of unpublished fiction to demonstrate the power of digital print-on-demand
as a smart alternative to traditional publishing.

The grand prize winner gets $5000 and a 100 copies of their own book.  (Thanks to Michael Bracken for the heads-up).