Posted by Yuri Baranovsky on Dec 24, 2009 in video, web series
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.
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.
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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!
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.
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: TheGreatest 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, ThePenis.
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!)
Around four or five years ago, I wrote an article for a website called Devlib.org which suggested various amusing ways to survive Black Friday. The article was linked on MSNBC and now, every year, it pops up on a blog or two.
So, since it’s a holiday and I’ve already pumped you full of all kinds of blogs, I’m going to leave the week with one final one. My article, reposted from years past, on Black Friday.
I know it has nothing to do with film or being a web celebrity but, what the hell? I think it’s fun.
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There’s a reason the day after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday — it isn’t because it’s the day that retailers move out of the red and into the black, and it’s not because there have actually been casualties in the rush-to-shop that overtakes normal people and changes them into sale-loving-Zombies (the worst kind of Zombies.)
The real reason — and you’re hearing this here first — is that the Friday after every Thanksgiving sees so many people hit the stores that it actually shifts the Space-Time Continuum just a little. Scientists believe that this will eventually open a black hole (see where we’re going with this?) and send the Earth into another dimension, a strange dimension, perpetually in-between Holidays — where people are always in the midst of digesting a turkey while wondering what terrible sweater to buy a loved one… thus, Black Friday.
Below is a Top 10 list of what you should know and do that fateful day. We have spent the last fifteen years carefully studying and testing each one of the suggestions below. This is, without a doubt, the most decisive Black Friday Survival Guide you will ever read.
Are you ready? Here we go…
10. Don’t Wear Anything You Wouldn’t Wear In a Mexican Mosh Pit
Sure, most of the world is going to be in the same store as you, and yes, you’re probably going to bump into at least one person from your past who you’ve at one point or another slept with. But let us put it into perspective — and we’re talking to the women right now since, for most men, dressing up means wearing the slightly darker jeans and buttoning up that shirt.
Ladies — imagine giving birth for ten hours while your husband/boyfriend/children stand at your side and say, “Can we go? Are you done yet? Seriously, are you done? Okay, I’m actually serious now, are you done? Do we need that? We don’t need that. Don’t get that. Seriously, why do you need that? Put that down. Fine, get it, but I don’t think we need it. Are you done? Can we go? Seriously. Okay, I’m waiting in the car.” Oh, you’re also doing this while thousands of people are trying to buy your doctor at 30% off.
And that’s kind of like dressing up for Black Friday.
Our advice? Wear sweat pants, wear pajamas, wear slippers if you have to, just don’t wear anything that you wouldn’t wear to a mosh pit in Mexico.
9. Keep Hydrated – Passing Out Will Not Get You 30% Off On Pants
Yes, most malls have drinks readily available, but considering the sheer amount of people that will be flooding the stores, we highly suggest either grabbing a bottle of water or wearing one of those beer hats (you may or may not fill it with beer – just not enough to projectile vomit on other customers.)
Another good reason for bringing your own water is that it ensures that you never have to leave a purchase line – and since you’ll be in those lines for quite some time, we’d suggest bringing a picnic basket and a bathroom while you’re at it.
So, bring water, bring juice, bring anything that’ll keep you awake and focused – you’ve got a slightly less expensive shirt to buy.
8. Taking Your Lover Is Like Taking A Walking Argument – Just Don’t.
Shopping and love hardly ever mix – a man can only stand looking at Victoria Secret mannequins for so long, eventually, he’ll realize they’re not real. And there’s a limit to the length of time a woman can watch a man get excited over video games/sports paraphernalia/mannequins,
If you are going with your significant other – make a battle plan. The battle plan should include two things – one, how to avoid each other, and two – how to find each other when you’ve both maxed out your credit cards. Luckily, in this world of cell phones and other gadgetry, number two is as easy as picking up the phone and moving desperately through throngs of people to try and catch a signal. Number one is a little harder – but if you each stay to your allotted stores, taking care to avoid each other like you might do in your own house – it becomes a little easier.
So, leave them at home, leave them at work, leave them in another store – just leave them when you’re shopping or you’re going to leave them altogether.
7. Don’t Tell Your Liberal-Fur-Is-Murder-Almost-Socialist Friends Where You’re Going, They Will Judge You
In a world where injustice has free rein and corruption rules, consumerism is often frowned upon by anyone wearing Birkenstocks. We all have a social activist friend – we all love that person dearly and wish we could be like them, its just there’s a sale and everything is almost half-off and won’t the world’s starving kids be there the next day?
They will, won’t they?
Well, the sale won’t.
So unless you want to be barraged by pictures of children starving and people dying (the key here is to not, in your enthusiasm for Black Friday, ask if the kids are on sale) – tell your friend you’re going to a Free Tibet/Malaysia/Africa/Dolphin meeting that’s invite-only and go buy yourself a cheap pair of pants.
Yes, you’ll feel guilty. Yes, you’ll feel a little bit like a consumer whore. Yes, God would probably give you that patronizing – “Is that how it is, then?” look – but come on – a computer for $400 dollars? Even God can’t pass that up.
6. The Early Bird Gets The 10% Off Worm – Wake Up Early, But Not Too Early.
There’s a careful line here – on one hand, the people surrounding the doors before the stores open are a little creepy in their zombie-like eagerness to buy things. On the other, “the early bird gets the worm” as the more wiser, well-adjusted birds tell their children – so, its really a toss-up.
Here’s our advice – get there early, but not too early. Wake up in the morning, get dressed, put on your beer hat, get some coffee and slowly make your way to the store. Don’t get there when the doors have yet to be opened because getting trampled in a primarily overweight country isn’t going to help you get that worm everyone keeps talking about.
Get there within an hour of opening – that way, the crowds have moved inside but are still deciding whether those blue pants make them look fat or not (they do) and you still have time to get some of the good stuff.
So, wake up, eat a nice breakfast, and patiently rush to the store – get there early, but not too early, walk there fast, but not too fast – save all of your extremes for the shopping.
5. The Thing That Separates Us From The Living Dead Is A Shopping List
Shopping, especially on Black Friday, is like going into a War Zone. If you don’t have a plan, you’re going to be brutally injured, left behind enemy lines, and then saved by your dedicated friends who intend to go above and beyond the call of duty to get you back.
Last year, we spent seven hours shopping for a new computer — we didn’t buy one, hell, we didn’t really need one — but a sale is a sale, and who can refuse looking at slightly cheaper prices and thinking, “Mmm, still not low enough” for hours on end?
Here’s the point – we didn’t have a plan, so we spent hours aimlessly wandering around, store to store, gripping our credit cards, foaming at the mouth – eagerly wanting to buy everything but having the same thought in our heads – “This is nice, but I bet I’ll find something nicer…” until the stores closed and we went home and slept on our salty, tear-drenched pillows, dreaming of what could have been.
So, make a list of what you want, what you need, and what you’re willing to spend – you might seem like an over-obsessed shopper taking your preoccupation with buying things on sale a little too far – but hey, you’re going shopping on Black Friday, you’re already there.
4. Kids and Shopping Go Together Like Kids and Opened Bottles Of Hydrochloric Acid – Don’t Take Them.
We know they’re cute – we know their doe-y eyes and froggy gurgles draw you in like some sort of Cobra – but like a Cobra, children will, once you get too close, strike and kill with deadly accuracy. Just don’t do it, don’t take your kids shopping on the busiest day of the year.
If they can’t talk, the realization that they’re going to be in a stuffy mall filled with people and other, hateful children will sink in at about the second hour. This is when the loud, screaming protests will start, in fact, we have been told that many people suffered their first traumatizing moments on Black Friday as children – remembering it as the first time they realized their parents were addicts and needed to be institutionalized. Kids are surprisingly aware.
So, just don’t. Get a babysitter, get an aunt, get a grandmother, get a cage – just don’t take your child on a ten-hour shopping trip with you – they’d rather be in that cage.
3. Style and Pride Can Go To Hell; Get Yourself A Fanny Pack
Yes, we realize that Black Friday doesn’t take place in an Italian train station – still, crowded places are good pickings for thieves and tiny children employed by said thieves. So, either put special attention on your wallet and/or purse, or get a fanny pack.
Here’s the thing with fanny packs – they’re terrifyingly ugly. Really, anything that has the word “fanny” in it immediately loses all respect from its potential wearers. But it is in our opinion that if you’re good-looking enough, you can make a fanny pack stylish, and if you aren’t – then you’ve got other things to worry about.
Besides, the beer hat and sweat pants aren’t exactly going to make you look like nobility, so just suck it up and go all the way with it – buy a neon pink fanny pack, look the world in the eye and tell them there’s a new style in town – and it’s got the word fanny in it.
2. Bring a Carefully Selected Like-Minded Friend Less Pretty Than You
As we mentioned earlier, bringing a lover just doesn’t work unless you’re eerily like-minded, which only happens in the first few months of a relationship anyway, so just don’t bother testing one another. Still, it’s tough shopping by yourself without having a second opinion, and as this is payday for most store employees – they’re not exactly going to give you an unbiased opinion.
The solution? Think of it as one of those Desert Island games – only in reverse. Who would you spend the whole day with in an overcrowded, over-heated, sensory-overloaded jail of a place without strangling them with a surprisingly cheap scarf? Have someone in mind? Okay, now make sure they’re less pretty than you are.
Think about it — the chances of running into someone attractive on Black Friday is likely – old crushes, new crushes, ex-crushes – they’re all there, waiting, watching, looking surprisingly attractive wearing their fanny packs. So, obviously, you want your friend to provide a good contrast for them.
Let their ugly extenuate your pretty, let their Birkenstocks extenuate your beautiful, golden slippers, let their troll-like face put emphasis on the fact that you not only look nothing like a troll, but are a good person for taking your troll friend to a place where people might congregate and stare.
After all, it’s Black Friday — anything goes.
1. And Finally… Stay Home, Get Naked and Buy Online
Now hear us out. We realize that it’s a little silly to create a top ten list giving Black Friday advice and then finish off by telling you to scrap the whole thing altogether – its confusing to us too. But it’s because we care and know a better way.
It’s called the Internet. “What the hell is the Internet?!” you might be wondering.
Okay, so – you can actually buy most of the things you want online for roughly the same price as they would be when they’re on sale. Hell, you can even buy these things at the stores that you would have gone too if you had gone to the mall that day.
We know, its like we make it our job to blow your minds.
Shopping on the Internet assures you that, for one, you won’t have thousands of people trying desperately to buy your keyboard. Secondly, you don’t need to wear that fanny pack.
And finally – you can shop naked. That’s right – get naked, buy a cigar (even if you don’t smoke, just by the damn cigar), and browse until your eyes are slowly tumbling down the sides of your face with joy and a certain amount of weariness.
Why? Because it’s the future, and in the future that’s how we roll.
I feel like the more social networks there are, the more the world becomes like one gigantic, awful family. The main reason I think that is because on Thanksgiving, instead of being confined to the thankfulness of my family, I am instead exposed to the very important thankfulness of everyone I have ever met, talked to, or accidentally added on Facebook.
However, I feel like, for me, it’s not enough to be thankful for one thing at roughly 140 characters. So, I’ve compiled a list of the 20 top things I am thankful for. So that everyone I have ever met, talked to, or begged to add me on their Facebook because their profile picture was pretty/vaguely familiar/vaguely whorish will know how I feel about life and everything.
So, without further ado, my thankful list:
1. I am thankful for never appearing on the front page of CNN.com because I ate another human being.
2. I am thankful for having never seen two inside out lovers slow dance to Hopelessly Devoted by Olivia Newton John.
3. I am thankful that I am not allergic to pie.
4. I am also thankful that I am not allergic to air or women.
5. I am thankful that I am white and have a smaller chance of being charged for a crime.
6. I am thankful that I am Jewish and due to past persecutions, can safely make racial jokes.
7. I am thankful that Asians are good at math and eating rice at wild speeds.
8. I am thankful that I have never had to eat my way out of a cage made out of pork.
9. I am thankful for being a foreigner, because when America does something stupid I can shrug helplessly and say, “Hey, it’s your country.” But when they accidentally do something right I can proudly nod my head and say, “Hey, that’s my country.”
10. I am thankful that the only affordable healthcare for me is the kind that the healthcare administrative person described as, “If something really horrible happens to you”-healthcare — because I like to live dangerously and hate freedom.
11. I am thankful that, because of the Internet, our lexicon has expanded to cover words that sound like something a baby would name a blue dragon but are, in fact, names for dotcoms.
12. I am thankful that the American Indians are the only group of people who get a whole holiday dedicated to their kindness and inevitable slaughter.
13. I am thankful that, while the future looks bleak, we’ll always have John Cusack to the guide the way.
14. I am thankful for people on TV, because without them, I wouldn’t know what to believe in.
15. I am thankful for our education system, because it did really good stuff for me; [sometimes]?
16. I am thankful for art, because it’s the thing that makes the world go round.
17. I am thankful for love, because it’s the thing that makes art go round.
18. I am thankful for family, because it’s what taught me what goes round.
19. I am thankful for you, for reading this blog.
20. I am thankful to minorities for not beating me up about that white comment earlier. I was joking. I’d be so much cooler if I was black.
A little while ago I wrote about my college drama teacher, Carla Zilbersmith — a brilliant, hilarious and outrageously talented actor, musician and ne’er-do-well who was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gherig’s Disease) and who has less than a year to live.
Carla’s talents and sense of humor attracted Academy Award-winning director John Zaritsky to make a film about her called, LEAVE THEM LAUGHING.
I had the privilege to see the early screening on Friday and — it’s fantastic. The film is… touching, hilarious, and inspiring. I wish I could think of better buzzwords but those buzz the loudest and are just plain true.
Here’s a description of the film:
Once a nationally-known performer of ballads, skits and self-parody, now fated by Lou Gehrig’s Disease to perish within months, the remarkable Carla Zilbersmith was diagnosed in 2007 and given less than four years to live. She will leave a teen-aged son, a few fans and students who adore her, and this 90-minute pre-mortem retrospective of a life lived fully, but far too fast.
The sad fact is that the production still needs $150,000 to finish the film. They’ve submitted it to major film festivals (you can do that) and now they’re desperately trying to get the rest of the funding.
Which is where I, and coincidentally all of you you, come in. I’ve told the Producer, Montana Berg, that I’d see if there was anything I could do to help her raise the money. I’ll tell you why I said that — because I thought of the community in which I live, work, and sometimes blog-spar with and I thought — if these brilliant, technologically-forward, artistically-minded geniuses can’t help me raise a meager $150,000 for a film that’s not only incredibly important, uplifting and life-altering, but for a woman who is a fellow artist, musician and creator — then no one can (look at that run-on sentence! See how inspired I am?!).
So, here’s what I ask you, online community that sometimes reads my blog, how can Leave Them Laughing not only raise $150,000, but raise it fast? I need your brains.
Oh, and if you’re an investor or want to donate — please let me know that too.
I’ve decided to do a series of posts that will cover the entire span of making a web series. A lot of this advice will go a long way in helping you create an independent film as well, so, enjoy and hopefully it’s helpful!
Today’s topic: The Script.
The web series, much like a film or TV show, starts with a story idea.
THE STORY
The story idea has to be many things. It has to be interesting, it has to be sellable and it should be easily said in one sentence.
Interesting: Always ask yourself — okay, but why would someone watch that? Not would you personally watch it (though that’s important too) — but would others? Would your target audience like it (again, think of the target audience as someone other than you)?
For example: a story idea about a guy who’s in love with a girl and then he like, can’t get her, so then he like, sends her letters and tries and then stuff happens. Okay. But why do we care? Because (this is a freebie, you can all take this one), the girl is an alien and holds inside her the key to the universe (her ovaries). See? Easy. I also find that adding minorities helps.
Sellable: Internet video is like a wildly disorganized pile of 3rd grade arts and crafts projects. Somewhere in the stack, a few creepy genius kids have created brilliance — but you’ve really got to sort through the other work. And there’s a lot of other work. And it’s just so, so bad. How do you make yours stand out? Look at what you’re trying to do and find professional high-caliber shows. What do they do? How do they stand apart? Think like an agency or a marketing team. It’s really, really hard to market a show about someone who kills puppies with hammers unless you’ve got Will Smith starring, and even then, it’s risky. What makes your fruit shinier than the others?
One Sentence Description: If you can’t describe it in one sentence, it’s probably too complicated. “A boy goes back in time to save his friend.” Good. “A boy goes back in time to save his friend because his friend just invented a time machine but then gets shot and so now the boy has to use the time machine to help his friend but it accidentally sends him further back than he intended and he has to figure out a way to return. It’s really really good, please watch it.” Bad.
THE OUTLINE
My brother and I tend to structure a season like we’d structure a film script — into three acts. In fact, the three act structure can and should be applied to everything: a scene, an act (three acts in an act, baby!), a full episode, a full season.
Using Break a Leg as an example, we originally intended it to be 22 episodes (hiiigh hopes, we had, hiiiigh hopes). Episodes 1-7 were going to be Act I: where David Penn attempts to make his show despite a thousand setbacks. Episodes 8-16 were going to be Act II: David Penn making his sitcom and dealing with fame. Episodes 17-22 were Act III: The plot introduced in Episode 1 — with David Penn going to die — is brought back, with the last few episodes dealing with all the things related to his death.
We never did Act II and III — but Act I is basically Break a Leg, Season 1.
Aside from structuring your season, get to know your characters. Write out a description of your leads, figure out where their lives start in Episode 1 and where they end up in the finale. Remember, every character (like every episode and every season) should have an arc. They should not be the same from Point A to Point B unless they’re boring or their stagnation is on purpose.
THE SCRIPT
I’ll try to keep this short.
A three-act structure works like this:
The Central Question: You have a central question that asks a yes or no answer — this is the entire idea of your show/screenplay/whatever. Will the boy be able to come back from the past (Back to the Future)? Will Will Smith & Co. stop the alien invasion (Independence Day)? Will sporty Asian people successfully drift (Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift)?
The central question is key to your script. Everything in your script should be about solving that question, or leading us closer to the answer. It’s what your show/film is about and it should be something you should always keep in mind as you write.
The Beginning: In a screenplay, it’s the first 10-pages. In a 30-minute show, it’s the first 3-5, in a 5 minute webshow? I don’t know. The first 30 seconds. The beginning of a script needs to do a few things: set-up the world, introduce the characters and immediately hook us into the show. Often, the first frame of a film will be an iconic image, other times it’ll be starting right in the action. Whatever it is, your first frame is a little microcosm of your entire film.
Act I: In a film script, Act I is usually page 1-35 or 45 (depending on how long your screenplay is — brevity, however, is the soul of wit. So, you know. Be witty.) In a TV script, it varies (some TV scripts are only two-acts, some are three), in a web series.. I guess the first 2 pages? (If you think about it in percentages, Act I is 30%, Act II is 50%, Act III is 20%, as far as length goes).
Act I has to set up your characters, set up your world further, set up the scenario and end with a turning point.
Act I Turning Point: The Act I turning point happens at the end of Act I and does a few things: reiterates the problem in the central question, changes the action in a different direction, raises the stakes for the character.
Act II: Now that Act I is over and has raised your delicious stakes, Act II is the journey. It’s the development of the main problem, it’s the journey to Mordor, the getting back to the future, the main part of your story. This is also why it’s the longest act.
Act II ends with…
Act II Turning Point: The Act II turning point usually comes in two beats. First, the complete failure of your heroes quest. It’s the moment when all seems lost until… until… the second beat. The last ditch effort. Maybe this will work… It also does the same thing as the Act I turning point — raises the stakes, reminds us of the central question, changes the action into a different direction and sends us flying into Act III.
Act III: The big showdown. The climax. Our heroes going to Mordor and then fighting off the evil flaming eye to finally throw the ring into the lava pit (oh why, oh why didn’t the giant bird just fly them there in the beginning?!) The third act is big, it’s punchy and it’s where you can easily win or lose your audience.
Conclusion: Unless you’re writing Lord of the Rings or AI, you only have one conclusion — the last few pages. Where you tie it all together and leave your characters either happy, sad, or dead.
And that — in a longer blog post — is how you write a script.
Feel free to ask me any questions about this. I was a screenplay reader for 2 years and this was generally my job. If I amass a few questions, I’ll write a blog post answering them, so, comment and ask away! And happy writing!
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?
Last month I mentioned that I was writing a script for the show Temp Life. Temp Life was created very early on in the history of the web series and was also one of the very first shows to actually be sponsored and make money. That wasn’t only something new and different then, it’s kind of something new and different now.
The latest episode (or series of episodes, or really, miniseries) of Temp Life is the bridge to their next season, which, if all goes well and Mr. Wilson Cleveland wishes it so, I will be writing (along with him) as well. The miniseries is shot by the guys who did the Hayley Project and features numerous guest stars (even Mr. Thom Woodley, creator of The Burg — which means you can now play 7 degrees of web show separation when you and your friends are really, really, really, really bored.)
So, without further ado, the trailer for the miniseries of Temp Life:
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, 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.
I’ve decided to do a series of posts that will cover the entire span of making a web series. A lot of this advice will go a long way in helping you create an independent film as well, so, enjoy and hopefully it’s helpful!