The Art of the Email

My main mode of professional contact is email. Sure, social gatherings are important and nothing quite beats the intimacy of getting a cup of coffee and/or vodka with someone to win them over. But that’s a luxury few can afford in a world where most people are far too busy to waste time doing silly things like sitting and drinking something.

Which means that for communication, email is king.

I recently (yesterday) accidentally sent an email invitation to “See My Photos on Facebook!” to hundreds of people who had ever received or sent an email to me. And while I pondered how many penis-related mailing lists I accidentally signed myself up for with that action, I stumbled upon the thought of how important email really is. And not just email itself but the art of the email.

There are hundreds of books that try and teach you to be charming, hilarious, attractive and socially capable — but none (and I say that with the full power of no research at my back) talk about how to be all those things over email. See, the thing with email is that, unlike meeting someone in person, people can completely ignore your emails. “Hey, want to meet for lunch?” you ask someone — and, in six months, they respond, “Sorry, just got this. Nope.”

Luckily, I’m a neurotic writer, email (there it goes again) fits my personality quite well. I have even arrogantly decided that, throughout the years, I’ve developed my email writing skills enough to declare myself a professional emailer.

Below is a list of tips that I have gone a long way in helping me further my career and, in the process, develop a few new friendships. So, without further ado, here we go…

Leave a Personality Hook

Emails should be professional, yes, but professionals get professional emails all the time. Hundreds of them. It’s dull and it means these people — who are, in fact, people and not corporate drones — have to be their boring, professional selves all day. Even in writing. Even in an art form. So, bring themselves out of themsselves — give them what I always (just thought of this) call, “the personality hook.”

Let’s say you’ve been introduced to someone who can theoretically help you. An agent, the head of a production company, someone you need in short. You send them a professional email, the body of which thanks them for their time, introduces you to them, and generally asks for whatever you were going to ask for. Here’s where the hook comes into play, are you ready? Are you taking notes? Are you rolling your eyes? Okay, good.

After your main paragraph, throw in one quick sentence that’s a very casual joke. It can be about the person who introduced you, it can be about… anything. Self-effacing, poking fun at the topic, whatever it is, just give them a little something. The key is that it should be a comment that begs for a response. An amusing question, perhaps, but it should lure them into biting.

They are the fish, you are the fisherman — what you’re doing is seeing what kind of bait they’re into.

The hope is this: once they read your email, they’ll not only respond to the body but make a joke back. Then, you’re in. What starts happening, if you’re good, funny and can pick up on their sense of humor, is that before you know it, your emails are less professional and more jokey. That seems backwards but it isn’t — people won’t help Random Guy Who Needs My Help as much as they’ll help Guy I Can Joke Around With.

I know this sounds absolutely ridiculous, mildly manipulative and kind of dumb, but in a world where we’re constantly answering emails, it’s how friendships are made. It’s how you can break someone out of their auto-response and get their personality involved.

Brevity is the Soul of Wit

You know who said that? God. No, that’s not true, it was Shakespeare — but it may as well have been God. Don’t expound. Don’t send a 30 page letter from the war. Just write what you need, keep it fast, keep it fun, keep it easy, and send it off. Trust me, you’ll be doing everyone a favor.

Don’t Write Like An Idiot

Remember all those lessons from school? Like how “u” actually has three letters in it? It’s time to use those. It doesn’t matter who you’re emailing, start getting in the habit of spelling correctly and using proper grammar. Sending a poorly written email to a higher-up is a lot like calling them a racial epitaph in person (it’s true), so take some time, proofread, and make sure you don’t write like an idiot.

This also helps for love letters, by the way. “I luv u” is all fine and dandy if you’re 14 and texting, but it’s no way to electronically please a lady.

Gmail, Gmail, Gmail

You know how getting to know someone is important? Gchat is just perfect for it. I love when I email someone I need to meet and they have Gmail. It’s the easiest thing to add them  and, after some time, shoot them a quick comment on Gchat. If they bite, you start a conversation. You can really draw someone out, connect, and do the whole personality hook much quicker.

I loves me some Gmail.

Respond a Day Later

Sometimes, really busy people take an irritatingly long time to get back to you. Don’t rush in emailing them back — every email is a reminder to them that they have to get back to you. If you email them three reminders, you get really irritating. So, say they respond to you with, “We’ll get back to you in a couple of days!” Wait a day, maybe even two, and respond to them saying, “Great! Looking forward to it.” Or something in that vein. It’s a reminder camouflaged in a simple response.

Follow-Up, But Don’t Be a Douche

My “Don’t Be a Douch Rule” stretches out to not just email but every facet of life. Yes, follow-up after a week. Yes, check-in. No, don’t bother them. No, don’t expect a response. No, don’t be a douche about it. If they’re not responding, they’re not interested — give it a month, give it a couple of check-ins, if there’s nothing, well then, you don’t need them and they don’t need you.

Chill The Mailing List out

If I emailed you, it doesn’t mean I want to forever be on your mailing list. Please leave me alone, you’re becoming comparable to the guy that keeps talking about my “love hammer.”

Don’t Invite 500 of Them to Your Facebook

It struck me that while I did it by accident, I can see people doing this purposefully. It’s probably not worth it. Partly because it’s really annoying, and partly because you probably don’t want anyone who can maybe hire you in the future to see the photos of you with that prostitute that your friends thought would be totally funny to tag you in.

Finally, Don’t Be A Douche

I’d like to reiterate this. Don’t make friends so that those friends can help you. Don’t email people and play nice until you get ahead — let’s not continue to make the entertainment business a place of faux relationships and backstabbery. Don’t be a douche and good things will happen, really.

That’s all for my email tips. Feel free to add your own to the comments! I’d love to hear your own tips and tricks!

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and So on

I absolutely love this time of year.

You see, in the cold Communist stronghold where I was born — the USSR — we weren’t allowed to celebrate any kind of religious holiday. So, what they did was celebrate New Year exactly like you Christian-types celebrate Christmas — we had a New Year tree, Santa Claus (or, as we called him, “Grandfather Frost” — who had his assistant, Snow Girl, which was generally an excuse for a Russian girl to wear a short red miniskirt with white fuzzy trim), presents, songs — everything you guys have, without the messy Jesus thing.

And then we fled Kiev as Jewish refugees (we did! Take THAT, Communists!) came here, and continued to celebrate New Year up until I was 13 or 14. My mom would love getting a tree while my dad absolutely hated it. We’d be that family that would have the tree until July, until my dad got tired of it and threw it out the window.

Like I said, I loved the music, the coziness, the general warmth of it. Plus, since it was 6 days after Christmas, it was far cheaper to buy gifts.

At some point, my mom started reading more about Judaism and became very much into it — realizing that New Year was, in fact, Christmas, and that we were, in fact, more or less, celebrating a Christian holiday. So, we decided to move our festivities to September, for Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year… or Jew Year). But there is no tree, or Grandfather Frost, and we lose out on the warmth that Christmas with it brings.

Ironically, my dad now says how much he misses New Year.

I don’t mind the change — it seemed appropriate somehow. We weren’t really allowed to be Jews in the USSR, so it seems right to throw off the reminder of that oppression. Still, I love the season, I love the music and, thanks to my friends, I get to vicariously celebrate through them.

This unnecessary long post is leading to this: Happy Christmas, New Year or whatever else it is you celebrate. Be happy, be merry, be joyful and relax.

And, as my gift to you, I offer a video that we posted a while ago with two characters from Break a Leg: Tahko and Mint. Who happen to have a band, called: Mint’s Mint Condition Cover Band. Who happen to want to wish you a happy holidays.

Enjoy:

Happy Holidays!

Lessons Learned Living Life in the Entertainment Industry

The last few years have been a bizarro in-between world for me. On one hand, I’m not deeply embedded in the LA entertainment industry, I don’t get paid millions of dollars, I don’t go to seventeen lunches a day and I don’t drive a hovercar. On the other hand, I’ve met with several networks, I’ve been inside the sexy onyx black cave that is the NBC Universal Film offices, I’ve pitched show ideas and I’ve had thousands of meetings that went nowhere.

So, I’m in a funny in-between place. I’ve licked the pole that is… no, bad analogy. I’ve tasted the sweet juices (okay, better) of the show business nectarine but I have not devoured the…

I’m not rich and famous yet, is what I’m saying.

But I’ve learned a lot. I’ve done things I never imagined I would and I am slowly, slowly pushing through the solid iron wall of douche toward success. I hope. The lessons I’ve learned are the lessons of someone fighting, scratching, punching at that wall — of someone not from LA, of someone taking a unique approach to film and television, of someone who doesn’t have rich parents or connections.

Of someone like most of you.

And so, without further ado, the things I’ve learned…

Set Your Sights

What do you want to do? “I’m sort of interested in editing” is not the correct answer. You need to figure out what you’re good at and what you enjoy the most and pursue it. The key is to know your own strengths well enough to make a good decision.

I absolutely adore acting (as my dad says — “You’re a writer, but if someone offered you an acting part, you’d drop everything to do it” — and he’s right), I’ve done it for years and I yearn for it. I miss it when I don’t do it for a while and it was the reason I even went into this field.

I started as an artist. I’ve taken art classes since I was 6 or 7, I’ve drawn and painted, I was an old high school friend away from going to Academy of Art College and majoring in computer animation. I love art, it’s what I wanted to do since I was a kid.

I started writing in college — and while I’ve had a decent amount of, “hey you’re pretty good”-comments toward my art and acting, I could immediately tell that writing was where my skill was. Don’t get me wrong — I’d explode if I couldn’t write, it really is one of my favorite things to do. But it came late and happened to be the thing I was not only good at, but, I thought, competitive in. In other words, I think there are plenty of actors and artists who are far more talented than I am, but I think as a writer, I can compete with professionals — which isn’t to say I don’t have a whole, whole, whole lot to learn and get better.

So, I’m a writer — and because I seem to be pretty good at organizing and getting stuff done, I’m a producer. It’s what I’m good at, it’s what I think I have the best chance of breaking into the industry with, and it’s what I had the most luck with.

Find your strength, your best skill — we all want to be Spielberg and Al Pacino, but if you’re a fantastic editor, that’s your way in.

Then, when you’re in, Spielberg it up.

Listen to People, But Also Don’t

Since I was a kid, I’ve often been told that this is how you do things. That this is the way, that you go down this path if you want A and you go down this path if you want B. To clarify — my parents never told me that — it was just a lot of other people.

And I hated it. Because, when I stubbornly refused to listen, I started realizing that generally, everyone is wrong. People tell you what they know from their experiences, but you’re not these people and your experiences will be significantly different. To be fortune cookie about it, there isn’t one path to success, everyone carves their own way. Your lucky numbers are 29, 20, 33, 29, and 9.

To break in as a writer in LA, I was always told you have to: write two spec scripts, send them to an agent, wait 7 to 10 years before an agent returns your email or letter (with a response that says, “Send me your samples” — and then it’s another 7 to 10 years, BUT STAY IN THERE!) and then wait as he tries to get you a third show that matches your strengths. At which point, if you’re lucky and better than the billions of other writers out there, you get a staff writing position on Moesha and in 20 years get a chance to pitch a script that you head write.

Okay, so, maybe I’m exaggerating — but that’s how it always sounded to me. I decided from the beginning that I wasn’t going to do that, I’m far too impatient and it just.. it wasn’t the way I wanted to take. So, we made Break a Leg when no one except The Burg was making web shows and now I’m here. Which, by the way, when we were making Break a Leg, everyone said, YOUR EPISODES ARE TOO LONG, NO ONE WATCHES ANYTHING ABOVE 115 SECONDS (oh yes, they counted in seconds) — but we ignored them. Average length now? 8-12 minutes. Which was our length.

Eat it, People Who Ran What Are Now Failed Video Sites!

That said, completely ignoring what professionals say is silly too. It’s a careful line to tread. Personally, I try to listen to what everyone says and then mangle it into what works for me. It’s like learning film structure — once you’re an expert in what a script is supposed to feel like, you can start twisting it and turning it in your own unique way.

So, listen, learn, and then do it your way — it’s the only way to succeed past “meh” and achieve the great heights of, “hey!”

Don’t Be A Douche

I know that everyone seems like a douche when you’re in LA. And they are. But you know what I noticed? Almost everyone I met who was higher — for example, the NBC executives — were like the nicest people ever. They were friendly, funny, helpful, easy to talk to and felt like real humans.

This leads me to believe, perhaps wrongly, two things:

1. While you can succeed as a douche, you can also succeed as a good person. The latter’s ladder seems more enjoyable to climb.

2. That these people in charge who I met got there because they were good people. And, since one of them helps run the comedy department and NBC Universal and the other one is charged with finding talent for NBC Universal’s film department, I feel like if I follow in their nice footsteps I’ll eventually get a nice job.

Quick story: the last douchey ‘higher-up’ I talked to was someone important at HBO Interactive. Half the conversation was him talking in a very self-important voice about what he did and what he was in charge of — a month later they closed HBO Interactive.

Don’t be a douche, it’s just so much better that way.

Don’t Wait For People To Do It For You

That seems like fortune cookie wisdom also, but this is something I really learned in the last few years. With Break a Leg, we waited for the marketing company we worked with to do something, after Break a Leg we waited on our “sort of manager, mostly friend” to get us jobs — and while both helped, nothing started happening quite as much as when I started doing it myself.

The same goes for agents, managers, friends who promise you things — whatever. The way I see it? Anyone who wants to help is completely welcome to help — but you should be working your ass off trying to push yourself further. My most recent approach has been to really follow-up on any quick ideas I have (hey, I should email this guy, why not?) and throw everything I’ve got at the proverbial wall to see what proverbially sticks.

Since I decided to do that in June or so, we’ve gotten a network deal, four or five production jobs (with plenty more coming), a blog that people read and sometimes like (hi people!), and a new show in the works that I have really high hopes for. I’m not bragging, I’m really not (I’d have to have a bank account that didn’t make African children laugh to brag), I’m just saying — the hard work is slowly paying off. I hope.

So, stop waiting for everyone, just get it done.

Periodically Leave Your Artistic Circle

Here’s what I mean — LA is bizarro world. I’m not sure if people living in it understand that and just adapt, or they think it’s like that everywhere, but I promise you, it’s bizarro world. Likewise, the web community is bizarro in its own way. The problem with constantly being surrounded by the same artistic community is you get insulated from the real world. You start forgetting what real people like, what real people look for, how real people talk. Forget the fact that it affects how you view and portray the world as an artist (our job is to show the real world, not the bizarro land in which we all live), it also starts forcing you to take the same paths as everyone else. For example, everyone is making a 3 minute web show? I’ll make a 3 minute web show! Everyone is succeeding by doing X? I’ll do X!

It hampers ideas and creative thought. So take a step back, hang out with a few normies, and then see what that does for you.

Have a Sense of Humor

Especially about yourself, your work and what you do. As soon as you start taking yourself too seriously, you’ve started becoming the douche of which we spoke of earlier.

Help Others

Not because there’s a chance they’ll get famous and help you (but who knows?!) — but because of all the people who have helped you along the way. If you’ve had the bizarre experience of having fans follow your work — answer their questions, talk to them, talk to everyone, help anyone you can within the best of your abilities. I don’t mean to be San Francisco about it, but, good karma is like totally worth it, man.

Struggling in this business creates a very jungle, everyone-for-themselves environment and it’s very easy to be selfish. Very easy to help only when it helps you. Fight that urge, selflessness never killed anyone.

…unless you selflessly lose your life for someone… Just shut up and be nice.

Know Your Own Skill

It’s easy to be arrogant. It’s easy to doubt yourself. It’s easy to constantly evaluate yourself in one extreme or the other. That doesn’t help. If you can’t tell that your work is worse than other people’s and don’t try to get better, you’re not getting anywhere. If you’re too down on yourself to try and reach for the stars, the same goes for you.

Know your skill, but don’t, again, be a douche about it. Know what your truly capable of — only then can you actually get better.

Actually Talk To People

You remember what talking is like? It’s not waiting for them to finish so you can tell them about your movie idea. It’s not telling people about your successes while they struggle to stay away. It’s not even begging them to read your script. It’s actual, like, talking to people. Listen to what they say, respond in kind, show interest (and actually be interested) in their lives. Joke around, have fun, we’re all people here, we’re not just evil suits, flakey agents or insane artists — we’ve got similar motivations, similar struggles and we’re all worried that when we talk to people, they use their laser sight to note all of our imperfections.

So, just talk to people.

And don’t be a douche.

–

That, for now, is it! I’d love to hear all of the lessons you all have learned from your experiences! Share, please, please share!

Tags: advice, entertainment industry, hollywood, how-to, yuri baranovsky

The Greatest Channukah Video You Will Ever See

Okay, so I like grand titles.

To those of you who aren’t Jews — today is the first day of Channukah. You’ve heard of it before — it’s that one that lasts 8 days, has candles and is killing Christmas.

Anyway! In celebration of the first day, I have decided to post a video we did for Channukah a few years back that takes place in the Break a Leg world. This was a favorite among our fans at the time and one of our favorites as well. Ironically, it kind of fits the writing blog below (or at least the one about being a bad writer), so, check it out and happy candle-lighting!

Pass it on!

Oh, and by the way guys — feel free to follow me on Twitter (@YuriBaranovsky) — it’s where I update everyone about new blogs and try to be very funny about things in my life. Very, very funny.

Goodnight!

Tags: break a leg, channukah, comedy, funny, video, yuri baranovsky

The Greatest Scriptwriting Tips You Will Ever Read

So, you’ve bought all of your How-To books, you’ve structured your idea, you’ve consumed thousands of cups of coffee while busily writing your notes and now… now you have to write a script.

So, it’s probably time to give up.

The fact is, the hardest part about writing is the writing part. Anyone can lay out a strong structure for a script — but it takes talent, patience and a little bit of insanity to actually write something good.

It also takes time. You have to learn through trial and error, and you have to figure out what tricks work for you. I’ve been doing this whole writing thing for a while now, and while I don’t pretend to be any kind of writing guru, I am trying to get my writing guru license.

Which is why I have compiled a list of writing tips that I have known to be right and true. I have, because I am, like a writing Buddhist monk, humble, I have titled it simply:  The Greatest Scriptwriting Tips You Will Ever Read.

Here we go.

1. Write. A lot.

This one seems simple, but it isn’t — fact is, much like most art, you need to be in a mood to write and sometimes these moods are few and far apart. This, however, is no excuse.

You should write every single day – it can be the script you’re working on, it can be other scripts, it can even be fan fiction for your favorite romance novel (“She ran her fingers through his sensually curled chest hair…”) but you need to write at least a page a day. Why? Because writing is a lot like playing a sport. If you play every day, you’re going to get better, you’re going to have the rhythm and timing of the game become reflexive so you can play it at its highest level without thinking. Writing is similar. You want to get into a rhythm, a frame of mind, you want your brain to be ready to open the creative gates and let the writing flow.

So write, write, and write again — it’s what writers do.

2. Don’t Edit Yourself.

I mean this in two very important ways.

The first: It’s very easy to imagine your mother or father watching the production of your script and recoiling in terror at the sexual innuendo and nude scenes that you’ve stuffed in there for plot development (and to see your actors naked). It’s even easier to imagine your friends all hating you when they recognize your characters’ odd ticks as being their own — but don’t. In fact, stop caring right now. Art can’t be censored, and if what you’re writing is good you have to be faithful to the work and ignore the consequences of it. Frankly, if you want to be a writer, the work is what’s important, and once the work is finished, then you can deal with your parents asking you why it was necessary to title your script, The Penis.

The second: My brother is a great writer — but it can take him a week to write two pages because he tries to craft the perfect script page by page by page. A lot of good writers do that, and it not only kills any love you have for the idea, it also is about as fun as chewing out your own veins. Finish your script then edit. Life is so much easier when you’ve got a beginning, middle and end. It can be awful, it can be the worst thing you’ve ever read — but you’ve got something to work with and it’s much easier to mold awful into amazing when you at least have awful.

As I would say if I was a sassy black woman — baby, if you start with nothin’, you ain’t gonna have nothin’ to work with.

So finish, then mold.

3. Torture Your Characters.

A script is the time in a character’s life when something extraordinary happens. It’s the part in their life when they say, “Everything was normal until…” A script is also a time in a character’s life where they learn something, something that changes everything. How do you do this? You torture the hell out of your characters. As long as it matches your plot and idea, there’s no limit to the awful things that you can’t have happen to them. Beat them down, beat them until they’re lost, beat them until they’ve given up, beat them until every decision they make is about life or death (either literally or just to them) — beat them until they are forced to grow and change and struggle and finally, in the end, grow to a point where they can defeat Darth Vader.

4. Find a Writing Space.

Every writing book mentions this and I used to think it was one of those silly suggestions that they all have, like, “Write a note to yourself saying how proud you are of your own script!” …but finding a writing space is really good advice.  I write best when it’s raining, jazz is playing and I have a cup of coffee sitting proudly in my Break a Leg mug.  I also write well in coffee shops, but they have to be a particular kind of coffee shop — brick walls, good music, a generally cozy feeling. I learned to write from Neil Simon, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, et cetera — so, that might be the reason why my brain begs me to recreate New York in the winter time for the perfect writing environment.

Whatever space makes you feel writer-ey try to recreate it. It seems like fluff advice, but it makes a huge difference. It’s like you’re giving your brain a comfortable therapist chair where it can safely tell you all of its crazy.

5. Don’t Be Afraid to Kill Your Babies.

This isn’t so much writing advice as it is an important life lesson… kill your babies.

Hear me out.

When I wrote my first full-length play, I put it up at my college and my drama teacher (not Carla Zilbersmith, but a gruff, old man who everyone worshipped but who I thought was a terrible, terrible director) gave me the only good piece of advice he ever gave: “Don’t be afraid to kill your babies.” Just smash their skulls against a rock.

What he meant was, don’t fall in love with your jokes, your precious moments, your plot points — anything (at least I assume that’s what he meant, he could’ve just thought I’d have ugly babies). I’ve found myself thinking of ways to wrap my script around a single scene that I love — only to find out that the script was in fact far stronger when that scene was cut. I’ve written around jokes because I thought they were too brilliant to get rid of. I’ve stuck with a plot point because I thought it was perfect only to realize that, in the end, it was the main problem with the script. Every time I have stubbornly fallen in love with a piece of my own writing at the sake of the rest of the story, I’ve been shown the error of my ways. Namely, the script is far weaker because of it.

Just remember: There’s no joke that is too funny to cut. There’s no moment too good that you can’t find a better one. There’s no line too powerful that it’s worth hurting your script for.

Kill your babies.

6. When Creativity Fails, Get Life’s Help.

Life tends to be way more interesting than art — if your brain freezes, look at life for help. Read stories, talk to friends, randomly Wikipedia things, go out and watch people. Let your brain wander and look for motivation and ideas in life — it is, after all, your muse.

7. Talk it Out.

If you’re stuck, talk to someone you trust about the script. I tend to go to my brother when I’m stuck on a script point — there are very few things that he and I can’t brainstorm through. Sometimes, you get stuck in your own brain and it becomes increasingly hard to solve a problem in there. Talk it out. Even if it’s telling people who could care less — it might get your brain working. I find homeless people are perfect for this — they’ll tell you about ‘Nam, you tell them that you’re not sure how to get the two lovers together, and somewhere in the middle, you’ll both figure out the answer to your questions. Which will generally be, “We need more crack.”

8. Know When To Give Up.

You should never give up… on writing. But, sometimes, your idea is just… well, bad. You think it’s great, you think that it’s going to change the world and you’ve already imagined the flock of women/men surrounding your limo, begging for you to sign their breast/testicle — but, somewhere in the middle you may realize that, no… your idea is just terrible.

Don’t give up immediately of course. Write different drafts, show it around, try and change what you’re writing, shake up the story, whatever. Try everything. But in the end, if nothing works — stop. Just… stop.

There are bad ideas. Not all art is art, some art is garbage (and not in that artistic way that people use garbage). So, trash the idea and start over. Perhaps, the genius moments in this script will be even better if used in a new idea, a new concept, a new page. Or maybe not.

If you’ve learned how to kill your babies, you should also learn to drown your full-sized children.

But don’t actually do any of that because it would be murder and stuff.

9. Don’t Edit Forever, Know When To End.

Because brevity is the soul of wit, because you can tinker with a script forever, because it’s only appropriate that I end this article with this simple idea:

Know when to end.

Fin.

Blackout.

Fade Out.

Whatever.

(…if you have any questions, email me or leave a comment, I’ll gladly answer!)

The Temp Life: Ep. 401, 402

Hey, guys!

So, I swear, I’ll have a post that isn’t a video or a non-sensical rant really, really soon. I’m working on a few but we’ve been busy with some actual paid gigs and I’ve been running around trying to get everything done.

Not that I put you, my dear readers, last on my list of priorities, it’s just that I put you, my dear readers, last on my list of priorities. I joke, I joke — I mostly love each and every one of you. I just don’t have any time, never any time!

That aside — Temp Life, the show I wrote along with Wilson Cleveland, has released the first two episodes of its latest season run.

So, without further ado, here it is:

and..

There’s a line in one of the videos (I won’t tell you what) — that’s almost directly from Break a Leg. Who can find it?

Enjoy! Let me know what you guys think!

Dear FOX, NBC, CBS, ABC, HBO, FX, Showtime, IFC, TBS and the Rest

Pioneers? Or just amazingly good looking people? You decide.

Sometimes, the true pioneers aren’t the creators but the people in power who decide to take a chance.

Sometimes, someone decides to roll the dice — and these aren’t regular dice, they’re special, fate-changing golden dice  — and do something against the norm. They do it because they like the high risk, high return investment. They do it because the word “no” is the coal that fuels their internal, “I told you so” fire. They do it because like Antonio Banderas in a Robert Rodriguez film, they’re so badass that they snort risk for breakfast.

That’s what we need from you, network people. We need you to start snorting risk.

Look, I get you. I do. I understand that the way things have been done — and I’m speaking specifically about television –  have been done for a long while now and are proven to work.  I also understand that in a time when the economy is doing a tap dance on a rickety bridge over a river of very hungry sharks, it’s not exactly fun to try out new steps. I even have admitted publicly to absolutely loving many of the products you put out.

But here’s the thing — no matter how you cut it, TV isn’t doing great and, despite the ra-ra of the loud happy voices, the web series genre isn’t either.

Thing is, though, we — the web series people — have an advantage over you TV guys. Namely: we’re a large demographic, we’re ever evolving and we’re just getting started. My little-over-year old niece walks like a drunk holding two teddy bears in her hug-ready arms — but soon, she’ll be able to run and destroy just about everything in my brother’s house. That’s the web series. We fall over backwards more often than we’d like but give us a little bit more time and our stumbles will turn into running that’ll turn into the winning goal of our junior soccer league that… I’ve lost the metaphor.

My point is, we’re growing and we’ll do amazing things yet.

The problem with TV, however, is that you’re stuck in your ways and you refuse to change them. Right now, to get a show on TV, a writer needs to jump through hoop after hoop after hoop after hoop. You’ll hire “proven commodities” to run your shows even if those “proven commodities” aren’t talented. ‘Cause boy, those failed TV credits must surely mean they know something.

So you hire them because you’re afraid to take a risk and because, in the end, you’re one big college drama club — working, laughing and sleeping with one another all over Hollywood. Bringing anyone new is like tearing out teeth with your bare hands and it’s made you smash head first into the wall of the changing medium.

So, again — TV is hurting right now and the web series needs a helping hand to give it a boost up.

And here’s how we shake things up.

We need you, network people, to take a chance, take a chance, take a chance, chance, chance. Look, I am fully aware that most web show creators are terrible. I love my colleagues and I think there are plenty of shows that are good, but many of them — most of them — couldn’t hold a light up to a TV show in quality… you know it, we know it, and even people yelling angrily at me from their Tumblr accounts (see, Barrett Garise? I’m nothing if not loyal!) know it — and yet, the solution to both of our problem is you, network person.

Because, here’s the thing. Amongst the awful — and it’s not just web shows, every art has its large group of awful, otherwise it wouldn’t be art — amongst the awful there are brilliant people, talented people who could do fantastic things if you backed them. And I’m saying actually backed them, not, “here’s a few thousand dollars, let’s see if you can make this web show popular without us helping you at all” — I’m saying, actual support, budget, talent, art direction, whatever — back them, help them, create a show that’ll strike a chord with audiences (think It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and you’ll be endlessly rewarded.

See, as creators, we get interactivity. We get entertainment. We get technology. We get what audiences want. We have our metaphoric hand on the metaphoric pumping heart that bangs out the beat of the metaphoric pulse of society. We know what people want — we need the tools to give it to them.

Don’t treat us like lower class citizens. Don’t think we’re useless and don’t you dare ignore this little genre of ours. It’s growing, it’s getting bigger and we’re innovating the hell out of entertainment. So, give us your hand — not to pull us out of the water but to work with us. To help us so that we can help you.

You can save the web series and we can save TV.

I think it’s a fair deal.

My email is yuribaranovsky@gmail.com — let’s start there.

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Blog originally written for the Web Series Network — great source for web series-related news!

Tags: ABC, CBS, entertainment, FOX, FX, HBO, IFC, NBC, Showtime, TBS, tv, web series

The Web Series is a Blooming Sunshine Flower of Love

Tags: barrett garese, blip.tv, online entertainment, web series

Waxing Websodic: Everything’s Fine, Nothing is Working

A couple of days ago I posted an article on my blog (a blogticle?) about the “death of the web series genre as we know it.”

There were some great comments and one, especially, caught my eye because, well, it was on the front page of NewTeeVee (I’m exaggerating, of course, they only have one page — but such is the curse of the blogticle) written by one Liz Shannon Miller.

I had my point, she had her counter-point, so now I have to have a counter-counter-point.

Let me start by quoting Liz’s premise:

“To be blunt, it sounds like Baranovsky doesn’t get out much. If he did, he’d be in touch with the new generation of web series creators, who are playing with their cameras, trying new things and making new deals.”

I’m on Twitter, I’m on Facebook, I’m on MySpace, and I even have Friendster. I might even possibly have a LiveJournal account somewhere. I take a daily stroll through the Internet and breathe that sweet, electronicky air. So, I’m pretty sure I get out. Or get out in the way Liz says I don’t.

Though, it is true that I haven’t left my house in forty-three weeks.

Liz is celebrating the idea of what web series, as a genre, offers. She’s celebrating that people are going out there and creating content — I think that’s phenomenal, but it’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about creating successful content — successful monetarily and artistically.
There are a whole lot of people in this business who are struggling right now. As an example: Two friends of mine are signed with CAA, did a show for WB and manage to get into meetings with big studios — I can vouch for their talent and wit, and I judge them not against other web shows but against top-notch professional talent.

Right now, they’re thinking about moving back to New York because they’re having trouble finding any work in LA. These are established creators with talent oozing out of their bloodshot, tired eyes. They have more connections than most people and I think they’d be hard-pressed to share Liz’s enthusiasm about the business.

Liz’s entire post is a prime example of everything I’ve had a problem with in my original blogticle (it sounds like candy, doesn’t it?):

Niche is good. Is it? What about thinking of a way to cater to mainstream?  I’m glad that Mormons will have something to watch and there will always be niche creators for niche markets — that’s all well and good. But, I’m going to take a wild guess here and say that the majority of creators don’t want to be niche. I’m going to say that a lot of us are filmmakers who want our work to be seen not by large Mormon populations but by everyone.

The idea that the only way to succeed is by going to a small but loud market (i.e., the Guild and gamers) feels a lot like giving up to me.

You haven’t heard of it, so you don’t know what’s out there. Liz makes a point to name 10 indie web shows that she believes are great and that I haven’t heard of. Why haven’t I heard of them? Is it because I’m not a good enough web series detective or is it because it’s damn near impossible to wrap your brain around the millions of shows that are now out there? And more importantly — is it my problem, or is that the problem of the people covering the web series genre?
Drew Lanning wrote that this whole medium is one big circle jerk — I can’t help but agree. If those 10 quality indie shows are being watched only by hardcore web series fans, then they’re going to have a helluva time dropping that “indie” label.

Why hasn’t NewTeeVee, Tubefilter or Tilzy created a, say, Top 20 web series list? It can be changed monthly — and if a show–even with only two viewers–is shot, acted and written better than the Guild, then it should be on top. It shouldn’t be about numbers or what’s popular, but quality. Quality as compared to TV, not to “Fred.” It’s a simple idea, but at least it gives us a cohesive place to look for top shows. It also gives smaller shows something to work for (getting on the list).

I’m a creator — I badly need your help. I need people like you, journalists who know this business, to help me reach people who aren’t on the circle jerk email list.

Web Series shouldn’t aim to be the minor leagues of TV. You know, I fully agree. That was a false argument on my part and went against my main premise — that I want web series to match TV in quality and not give passes to people who don’t at least try. So, you’re absolutely right.

That said, I think it’s insulting to say…

Everything is Fine. It really, really isn’t. Your examples just prove that it isn’t. I’m not saying no one succeeds — but the people you list mostly either, A. succeeded a long time ago when the genre was new and the pickin’s were slim, or B. built a brand over a wealth of time and only now managed to push through (Dan Harmon, CollegeHumor, etc).

Were you aware that, currently, to get an advertiser to advertise on your show, you generally have to either, A. have a celebrity, or B. be established and popular? A ain’t easy and B is the hardest it has ever been.

Companies are tired of losing money, see? No one wants to invest in anything that isn’t proven to succeed — and we just aren’t succeeding. Yet.

It’s frustrating for creators to hear those covering the genre wax heroic on how everything is going great and we’re just getting started. If you admit that the 10 shows you listed will not find a large audience, how can you call that success? How can you possibly use that as defense that nothing needs changing? Do you understand what these creators go through to make these shows? Do you understand that that sentence you wrote is the absolute last thing they want to hear… especially from someone who is supposed to be championing them?

In the end, we’re all on the same team — I just think that the team needs to change its strategy or it’s going to keep losing. Yes, we win a few games here and there, but there ain’t no way we’re bringing home a trophy.

Every great artist needs to be pushed down and criticized. Every genre needs failure to succeed. Every medium needs to grow and get better instead of ignore the problems and keep blindly moving ahead. We need to push one another, demand change, expect nothing less than a large, mainstream following for every high-quality show.

Right now, it’s impossible. So, how do we change that?

Let’s Save the Web Series

The web series genre, as we know it, is dying.

There, I said it.

I know that The Guild just got an article written about it in the Wall Street Journal and I know I just announced that Break a Leg got a network deal — but, as a whole, the web series genre is laying in its hospital bed and watching its life ebb quietly away. It lays there and it remembers what once was — it remembers the fetal kicking of The Burg, it remembers the crowning head of Break a Leg, and it remembers the bursting forth of LonelyGirl15 out of its vagina.

And now it stares listlessly into space as the nurses give it a periodic injection of The Guild, Season 3 or a short-lived, celebrity-laden web series that prolongs its life by just a few more months.

The web series is dying, but I’m hopeful.

Do you know why I’m hopeful?

Because I’ve periodically, in articles, blogs and to drunk people around me, muttered bitterly about the fact that the genre just isn’t working. We as a community have often celebrated the wrong successes (oh, wow, “Fred” the high-pitched talking 16 year old got a network deal?! There is a chance for high-quality content to succeed after all! Write more about it, NewTeeVee! Everyone must know of his genius!) and stopped short of fostering the talent that could’ve pushed us forward.

In general, we’ve treated one another as star performers in the Special Olympics — yay, you made a video! You’re so good! Instead of critically judging one another, we’ve set the bar so incredibly low that a show with a few marginal actors and one or two laughs is sheer genius. We also, as I wrote in my article from a year ago, celebrated the low-budget show — the show with non-actors, non-writers, non-filmmakers — as if we were talentless hippie San Francisco artists desperately hoping to be artists in our failure to do art (sorry, San Francisco hippies — you’re not all like that, but I live here, I’ve been to art shows and plays — it’s not pretty).

I’m hopeful because it seems to me that we’ve finally dropped the act and now just think that the whole damn genre is failing. But that’s okay. Bitterness passes and I desperately hope that it will open into a debate, an open forum where we can think of ideas to recreate prior successes and build something much bigger, much more potent than anything we had before.

That said — I’ve decided to start the discussion that will, because I’m eternally optimistic, change entertainment. Okay? Okay.

So, here are four of my own suggestions to remake the web series genre:

1. Let’s stop bashing TV and figure out a way to work with networks. The fact is, unless it’s a network-funded show, very few web shows can compete with TV shows, and I’m talking about in everything — writing, visuals, acting and so on. Network TV is hurting though, and aside from maybe the Colbert Report, none of them really know how to utilize the web to increase viewership. Not only that, but most of them refuse to even think outside the box to attempt new media-style marketing.

My solution? We need to get to a place where web shows are like the minor leagues to TV’s major leagues.

We need network people to step up and start working with prominent web creators and people in the space. People like Quincy Smith from CBS Interactive (who I hear is quitting the network… fantastic) have the power to, say, create a site that would specifically focus on finding the best of the best web shows and both shop them to networks while helping them gain a following.

People like Felicia Day, Kent Nichols, the Big Fantastic guys and hell, even me and my crew, can work together to create and help others create content that isn’t good for the web but just good.

2. Tilzy.tv, Tubefilter.tv and NewTeeVee.com should not only review shows and throw them into their ever-growing mammoth collection of web series but also focus on finding the cream of the crop. As journalists, it’s their job to find the little nuggets of gold — shows that perhaps no one is watching — and not only review them, but champion them. The Guild, Dr. Horrible, any show with a celebrity — these will always get constant write-ups. And I can’t complain, because that’s mostly the same thing with Break a Leg, the Burg, and the other bigger shows — but I have yet to see them really push a show I’ve never heard of to the mass public.

Tim Goodman of the SF Chronicle was a huge supporter of Arrested Development and one of the reasons that helped them continue production. Yes, it’s the SF Chronicle — but I know the guys at Tilzy, Tubefilter and NewTeeVee — all are extremely talented journalists and I think if they tried hard, they could really help propel shows forward.

3. The Streamys were a genius way to give the genre credibility. On this next go around, it has to get bigger, better, flashier. It has to feel professional. Every joke has to hit — Lisa Kudrow, while brilliant, should not out-perform every presenter by messing up on the teleprompter. It should be a show that not only YouTube-dwellers want to watch, but people who’ve never watched a web show in their life would want to watch. The Streamys have so much potential that if we all work together and nail it, it could be a huge help to the entire genre.

4. I’m fully embracing branded entertainment. What I don’t understand is how bigger companies haven’t picked out a high-quality show, funded a season and asked them to, say, create a few shorts that both advertise their show and the product. Then what you end up having is a running internet show and ready-to-air commercials that can have the whole, “See more at: www.blahblah.tv” slate at the end. $100,000 isn’t that much money for someone like Proctor & Gamble — but it can create them a full web series and a buncha TV commercials. It would also drive traffic to the site and market itself circularly.

How is this not happening yet? How many Burger King burgers does David Penn have to eat?

Right now, the web series is dying — and maybe, just maybe, we can replace some of its limbs with bionic body parts and help create a super hero.

These are just some of my ideas — they could all potentially be awful and bankrupt the entire world (who knows these days?!) — so, let’s hear yours and let’s fix this damn thing.