I’m in the process of diving down the rabbit hole of Better Call Saul, finally. Just like Breaking Bad actually, I didn’t really watch it until after a season or two was in the hole — though with BB I caught on much quick, before it became the gold standard. Why I am so late to the party on BCS, I have no idea. But anyways, it’s brilliant in its own regard and absolutely stands on its own two legs. I recently came across a (rare) Final Draft article about it which sums up why. The most distinctive point, for me, is that it takes its time. It makes serious sacrifices with its real estate to allow for cinematic moments — silent, drawn out, suspense-building and ultimately extremely telling. They somehow ensure that these moments are always worth their weight in salt. To me, it is wizardry. I’ll hope to learn how someday, and in the meantime will keep watching.
The Better "Succession"
I may be verging on the point of obsession by posting a third (fourth?) time about the HBO show Succession but it is only so far as to say, I’ve found a superior alternative. It’s a book called Dunbar by Edward St. Aubyn — in conjunction with the publisher, Hogarth Shakespeare, St. Aubyn has adapted King Lear to novel form, and set it in present day. Not just present day, but within the skeleton of a multi-billion dollar media empire. Dunbar is the head, his two eldest daughters have gotten in cahoots with the family doctor to make Dunbar (temporarily?) insane - and committed, so they can take over the business amidst some serious corporate turmoil. It’s more or less the same exact world and tone of Succession but, well, I like it more. There’s more character depth, more shocking “battles”, the humor is multi-leveled and the tragedy absolutely real. Because there’s an internal existence to these characters, they’re not just caricatures of various forms of greed. Some of them in the novel are surely over the top, but even that heightened quality serves a purpose. And at the end of the day, isn’t Succession basically just an American version of King Lear anyways? I say go straight to the source, but with a twist, instead.
Update: Best-Laid Plans of Mice and Men"
Just a quick update (mostly to my future self to look back on): you made a whole schedule for writing different projects at different times. Yet, lo and behold, I’ve spent entire day trying to crack the Dracula video essay — haven’t been able to switch gears for a moment… Perhaps the scheduling process itself is cathartic but it doesn’t hold up well it seems.
"That Feeling" and, Attempted Writing Schedule: Diversity of Projects
I've been getting that classic nagging feeling that (I imagine) all writers get, in some sort of patterned recurrence -- like a toxic circadian rhythm. A dread sinusoidal schedule. That feeling that sneaks up on you after blocks of productivity have passed and you've just been idly enjoying our life. That feeling: you're not writing enough, you're not thinking enough, not noticing enough. It's the sort of insecurity that can always feel true, regardless of how busy or idle you really are -- but currently, I'm trying to harness the feeling as a catalyst to fill my schedule with new projects rather than just freeze me up. It's true that my schedule is more wide open than it has been in a long time. I wrapped my work as writers' assistant on the Netflix limited, UNBELIEVABLE, and got married and went on my honeymoon. I finished co-writing a feature with a friend which, after three revisions, is finally being taken out this week. I developed a scripted series for a digital company that is not moving forward with it. So, it's a lot of things that have tidily wrapped up one way or another. I'm searching and applying for new writers' assistant work but my hope is that the particular showrunner I know that I want to work for will have her new show greenlit soon - she said she'd hire mire as WA. So really, a lot of things don't require active energy (unless things get desperate and the new show falls off the horizon) -- otherwise, it's an open slate for writing these days. My goal to fill it as much as I can, and currently I'm feeling that a diversity of projects of different mediums will be more fun and more productive. There's a sociology theorist and economist whose name I'm forgetting (was it Keynes?) who asserted that people couldn't successfully work on the exact same task all day long, their brains wouldn't allow the focus. Ideal work needed to be broken up with breaks of course, but also with a variety of jobs. Now, technically if you're writing all day then you're sort of rebelling against this theory -- but the stages of writing can be different enough (research, character backstory and brainstorming, drafting, editing, etc.) that perhaps it'll work. My current thought: (early AM) write website post, (AM) research/draft video essay texts (need to prioritize the one upfront paid gig ;), (early PM) work on series document for BIG SKY COUNTRY, (late PM) work on novel (a new idea that I've just started drafting). We'll see how it goes...
Homesick For Another World
Adding to the 2018 list of fiction that has influenced me: Ottessa Moshfegh's Homesick For Another World. The NYT described it as, "Dark, confident, prickling" writing and I would agree with that. She has a way of creating these incredibly sad or disturbed insular characters -- who are painfully aware of some of their deepest flaws yet painfully unaware of others. They're crazy, but she keeps it equal parts enlightening and disturbing in how relatable they continue to be. On a subtler level, I also really appreciate how she sets each story in a very different city (in America, in China, in unnamed "exotic" locales). Lastly, it's impressive how short she keeps her stories -- it speaks to a real and internalized discipline. Highly recommend!
Meandering Thought: Emotions as Profession
It occurred to me that a writer has to experience the emotions of the characters fully, but inwardly, and then transfer that to the page.
Whereas the actor obviously experiences the emotions outwardly. They're opposite sides of the same coin.
The director is some amorphous in-between, perhaps in the analogy they are the coin themselves. They have to translate the emotion from inward to outward and also create a conducive world wherein the emotion feels conducive and real.
Maisel/Binge Experience Follow Up Thoughts
We continued watching it yesterday, after having just watched several episodes, and it was interesting - for me as a viewer, some of the enjoyment factor went down. I started to fixate on the aspects of the show I didn't like (the music choices, moments of editing -- all very subjective things) but it was the sort of bumping I never have when I watch a show over a longer period of time (1x a day sort of thing). I wonder, as current viewing trends continue, do people who binge their shows become more or less scrutinizing? Do showrunners need to adjust for this? When it's one episode a day at maximum then the plot becomes the central focus, things perhaps remain a bit more surprising, and so does this mean the standard goes down? Or is it that you shut yourself off to many aspects of the show, consciously, when you binge because they becomes like second-nature and assumed over an inundation of viewing?
Viewing Time to Audience Commitment Ratio
I recently started watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon) with my wife and we did the viewing her way, which is to do about the first three episodes in a row in one sitting. To be honest, I think this is how most people watch TV nowadays. I tend to space episodes out, not more than one in a day -- it's how I best absorb it. But anyways, I was pretty much head over heels hooked by the end of the third episode. Whereas, as you'd guess, there are plenty of shows with which I watch just the pilot and decide promptly at the end of it that, well, it was interesting maybe but definitely not worth another minute.
And I realized something in this Maisel experience. It's not because I felt like I'd dedicated so much time to the show that I had to keep watching. It's not even that I needed to know what'd happen by the end of the season (an extremely reasonable 8 episodes). It's that I felt immersed and comforted by the atmosphere, style, and movement of the Maisel world. I knew what to expect and enjoy, and more so than that, I think the 3 episode immersion had conditioned me to it. The effect of the binge wasn't to hook me with twists, or even increase the magnetic pull of the actors/their characters, but to start thinking like the show. And when you get to that point, it's not work to keep watching anymore. You don't have to decode the world because you've been inoculated on a basic level. Granted, this show is less outwardly challenging to the audience than many dramas. It's incredibly comedic, and the setting is lush, and obviously it's helmed by a veteran showrunner and brilliant writer (Amy Sherman-Palladino) -- and she's not the Pizzolato type, she's not trying to reinvent the wheel and laugh in your face as you catch up. She's executing the perfection of her style of craft, with immense amounts of humor, and yet still real and subtle character drama in every scene. It's really impressive in its own right, which may be why it had the effect on me that I described. But nonetheless, I think I just felt it more strongly than other binge-worthy shows. The rules apply elsewhere. And I think three episodes is more than enough to hook someone on this multi-faceted level -- and that seems to be the norm with which people experience a new, hyped-up show.
Picking Your Projects
One issue I'm realizing will be a constant of the screenwriting profession (or any writing profession, probably) is that you have to decide between which sorts of projects to pursue -- on top of the ones you need to focus on that are paying your bills.
There are the extension types of projects. Like writing a series document for a pilot, when in theory all you need is the pilot... but it may or may not help with the pitch. Or there's the feature screenplay with renewed interest from the producer, is it worth the free rewrite if you think it'll get something real to happen? Or there's the more basic recurring question: what's the best sort of wholly new and original project for me to write? Screenplay or pilot? Or something else entirely? There's the idea itself and what medium it lends itself best to, and there's the commercial question. All of these come back to the horrible speculative bet of what you think will actually get made, get eyes on it. It's good to be fully aware of this question as you think about every potential project. But perhaps it's just the one you're most excited about, can passionately (and quickly) write the best.
My next round of digital video essays
(my first one, about Hellboy, will go up in October)
Dracula: How the Immortal Vampire Has Aged: From his inception in 1897 in Bram Stoker’s novel to over 63 film adaptations and recreations, Count Dracula is clearly here to stay. But what does this literal immortal character’s progression say about us – his adoring fans? Are we becoming more bloodthirsty, or less? Do our vampire ideals reflect the shallowness of our society – or show we’re looking for something deeper?
Lone Wolf & Cub: the Recreation of an Era: Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima’s magnum opus has reached an international audience, affected countless writers & filmmakers, and spawned a manga genre unto itself. This essay seeks to break down how the creators, both through literary devices and visual techniques, recreated an entire historical time period: the Tokugawa era of Japan, with breathtaking detail. From the clans and ninjas to codes of bushido, the essay will discuss how the historical details become essential and thrilling elements of the character’s story.
Age of the Retired Badass: Bruce Willis. Liam Neeson. Denzel Washington. These are some of the frontrunners of the old-guy-bad-ass pantheon. Tom Cruise & Keanu Reeves are fast-approaching on their heels. Compare their filmography and screen-presence to new action heroes – where are they? And the few that exist – do they even compete? Are we losing new action talent to the comic book franchises? And if so, where does that leave us with the retirees? This essay will examine the unlikely rise of the Retired Badass.