The Toronto Screenwriting Conference - Spend a weekend with the creators of the Simpsons, Arrested Development, How I met Your Mother, etc.

The TORONTO SCREENWRITING CONFERENCE 2010

April 10th and 11th (This weekend!!!)
The Ted Rogers School of Management
55 Dundas Street W.
Toronto

More information at their website.


A good friend has organized this sucker and if anyone is interested in pro writing it's worth a look. It's the first one but they didn't do much advance advertising so I'm sure there is still room.


The Guest Speaker List (with a focus on Q&A's) is pretty awesome and there are some great genre names! These are great people to get in front of:


Rhett Reese (Monsters Inc. Zombieland, Deadpool, Earth vs Moon, G.I. Joe 2)

Tim Long (The Simpsons, The Late Show with David Letterman)

Chuck Tatham (Arrested Development, Andy Barker P.I., How I Met YourMother, Shrek 3 and sadly, punch up work on Wild hogs - a thankless task if ever there was one.)

Robert Cooper (PSI Factor, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate Universe and the only guy in my film class years ago that you could actually point to and say he'd be successful. How I hate him!)

Rob Zotnowski (Sam Raimi's producing partner and head of Drama Development for CBS, who recently helped open the door for Canadian shows in US prime time. He's the guy who helped bring us all the CSI's, NCIS: Los Angeles, The Good Wife, Criminal Minds, The Mentalist, Flashpoint, Ghost Whisperer, Everybody Loves Raymond and Two and a Half Men)

Sheldon Bull (Old School creator with a ton of experience like Coach, Newhart and er, Sabrina the Teenage Witch)

Ellen Sandler (Coach, Everybody Loves Raymond and the book The TV Writer's Workbook)

Rounding out the event are some high-profile working script consultants and authors.

Jump in while it's hot!

Live the adventure!

The Perils Of Screenwriting: A century later, Jack London's thoughts on screenwriting still resonate

"I have written some novels of adventure in my time, but never, in all of the many of them, have I perpetrated a totality of action equal to what is contained in 'Hearts of Three'." - Jack London.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

In looking through Jack London's writings on a recent research jaunt I happened upon the forward for his escapist, Indiana Jones-esque adventure, Hearts Of Three. In it, Jack, with comic deliberation, discusses the various strengths and weakness between authors of literary fiction such as himself and those upstart scenario writers for that newfangled silent film phenomenon taking the planet by storm.

According to London, the 'scenario writers' bring to the table relentless speed and breathless excitement, whereas he brings only deliberate pacing and unhelpful things such as description and fullness of character. Such speed and deft illogic of plotting was necessary since the relentless grind of cinema was chewing through the world's entire history of plots at a brakneck pace and must be continually fed like a steam engine hungry for coal.

According to London, Hearts Of Three was a collaboration between himself and one of the early writing superstars of the cinema, none other than Charles Goddard. Goddard was a noted playwright who adapted many of his works for the new medium but will forever be remembered as the writer, er, scenarist, of The Perils of Pauline. Goddard also gets props from me for penning the plays that Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis' funny Scared Stiff and Bob Hope's The Ghost Breakers were based on.

London's hilarious description of how he wrestled with the demands of the two mediums to produce an imminently filmable novel is a joy to read, even today.

If only it still didn't resonate so painfully!

I HOPE the reader will forgive me for beginning this foreword with a brag. In truth, this yarn is a celebration. By its completion I celebrate my fortieth birthday, my fiftieth book, my sixteenth year in the writing game, and a new departure. " Hearts of Three " is a new departure. I have certainly never done anything like it before; I am pretty certain never to do anything like it again. And I haven't the least bit of reticence in proclaiming my pride in having done it. And now, for the reader who likes action, I advise him to skip the rest of this brag and foreword, and plunge into the narrative, and tell me if it just doesn't read along.

For the more curious let me explain a bit further. With the rise of moving pictures into the overwhelmingly most popular form of amusement in the entire world, the stock of plots and stories in the world's fiction fund began rapidly to be exhausted. In a year a single producing company, with a score of directors, is capable of filming the entire literary output of the entire lives of Shakespeare, Balzac, Dickens, Scott, Zola, Tolstoy, and of dozens of less voluminous writers. And since there are hundreds of moving pictures producing companies, it can be readily grasped how quickly they found themselves face to face with a shortage of the raw material of which moving pictures are fashioned.

The film rights in all novels, short stories, and plays that were still covered by copyright, were bought or contracted for, while all similar raw material on which copyright had expiredwas being screened as swiftly as sailors on a placer beach would pick up nuggets. Thousands of scenario writers literally tens of thousands, for no man, nor woman, nor child was too mean not to write scenarios tens of thousands of scenario writers pirated through all literature (copyright or otherwise), and snatched the magazines hot from the press to steal any new scene or plot or story hit upon by their writing brethren.

In passing, it is only fair to point out that, though only the other day, it was in the days ere scenario writers became respectable, in the days when they worked overtime for rough-neck directors for fifteen and twenty a week or freelanced their wares for from ten to twenty dollars per scenario and half the time were beaten out of the due payment, or had their stolen goods stolen from them by their equally graceless and shameless fellows who slaved by the week. But to-day, which is only a day since the other day, I know scenario writers who keep their three. machines, their two chauffeurs, send their children to the most exclusive prep schools, and maintain an unwavering solvency.

It was largely because of the shortage in raw material that scenario writers appreciated in value and esteem. They found themselves in demand, treated with respect, better remunerated, and, in return, expected to deliver a higher grade of commodity. One phase of this new quest for material was the attempt to enlist Jmown authors in the work. But because a man had written a score of novels was no guarantee that he could write a good scenario. Quite to the contrary, it was quickly discovered that the surest guarantee of failure was a previous record of success in novel writing.

But the moving pictures producers were not to be denied. Division of labor was the thing. Allying themselves with powerful newspaper organisations, or, in the case of "Hearts of Three," the very reverse, they had highly-skilled writers of scenario (who couldn't write novels to save themselves) make scenarios, which, in turn, were translated into novels by novel-writers (who couldn't, to save themselves, write scenarios).

Comes now Mr. Charles Goddard to one, Jack London, saying: " The time, the place, and the men are met; the moving pictures producers, the newspapers, and the capital, are ready: let us get together." And we got "Hearts of Three." When I state that Mr. Goddard has been responsible for " The Perils of Pauline," " The Exploits of Elaine," " The Goddess," the " Get Rich Quick Wallingford " series, etc., no question of his skilled fitness can be raised. Also, the name of the present heroine, Leoncia, is of his own devising.



On the ranch, in the Valley of the Moon, he wrote his first several episodes. But he wrote faster than I, and was done with his fifteen episodes weeks ahead of me. Do not be misled by the word " episode." The first episode covers three thousand feet of film. The succeeding fourteen episodes cover each two thousand feet of film. And each episode contains about ninety scenes, which makes a total of some thirteen hundred scenes. Nevertheless, we worked simultaneously at our respective tasks. I could not build for what was going to happen next or a dozen chapters away, because I did not know. Neither did Mr. Goddard know. The inevitable result was that "Hearts of Three" may not be very vertebrate, although it is certainly consecutive.

Imagine my surprise, down here in Hawaii and toiling at the novelization of the tenth episode, to receive by mail from Mr. Goddard in New York the scenario of the fourteenth episode, and glancing therein, to find my hero married to the wrong woman! and with only one more episode in which to get rid of the wrong woman and duly tie my hero up with the right and only woman. For all of wilich (sic) please see last chapter of fifteenth episode. Trust Mr. Goddard to show me how.

For Mr. Goddard is the master of action and lord of speed. Action doesn't bother him at all. " Register," he calmly says in a film direction to the moving picture actor. Evidently the actor registers, for Mr. Goddard goes right on with more action. " Register grief," he commands, or “sorrow," or " anger," or " melting sympathy," or “homicidal intent," or "suicidal tendency." That's all. It has to be all, or how else would he ever accomplish the whole thirteen hundred scenes?

But imagine the poor devil of a me, who can't utter the talismanic " register " but who must describe, and at some length inevitably, these moods and modes so airily created in passing by Mr. Goddard ! Why, Dickens thought nothing of consuming a thousand words or so in describing and subtly characterizing the particular grief of a particular person. But Mr. Goddard says, " Register," and the slaves of the camera obey.

And action! I have written some novels of adventure in my time, but never, in all of the many of them, have I perpetrated a totality of action equal to what is contained in "Hearts of Three." But I know, now, why moving pictures are popular. I know, now, why Messrs. "Barnes of New York" and "Potter of Texas" sold by the millions of copies. I know, now, why one stump speech of high-falutin' is a more efficient vote-getter than a finest and highest act or thought of statesmanship. It has been an interesting experience, this novelization by me of Mr. Goddard's scenario; and it has been instructive. It has given me high lights, foundation lines, cross-bearings, and illumination on my anciently founded sociological generalizations. I have come, by this adventure in writing, to understand the mass mind of the people more thoroughly than I thought I had understood it before, and to realize, more fully than ever, the graphic entertainment delivered by the demagogue who wins the vote of the mass out of his mastery of its mind. I should be surprised if this book does not have a large sale. (" Register surprise," Mr. Goddard would say; or " Register large sale ").

If this adventure of " Hearts of Three " be collaboration, I am transported by it. But alack ! I fear me Mr. Goddard must then be the one collaborator in a million. We have never had a word, an argument, nor a discussion. But then, I must be a jewel of a collaborator myself. Have I not, without whisper or whimper of complaint, let him " register " through fifteen episodes of scenario, through thirteen hundred scenes and thirty-one thousand feet of film, through one hundred and eleven thousand words of novelization? Just the same, having completed the task, I wish I'd never written it for the reason that I'd like to read it myself to see if it reads along. I am curious to know. I am curious to know.

JACK LONDON.

Waikiki, Hawaii,

March 23, 1916.


MILLS & BOON, LIMITED
49 RUPERT STREET
LONDON, W.

Copyright in the United States of America by Jack London.

Live the adventure.

The Chosen One - Homemade Flash Feature Inspires DIY Rules

I've seen too many bad, low-budget indie films and shorts lately that have everything going for them but are ruined by eager creators who can't recognize they need to step up and really look at what they're inflicting on us. So it's with relief that I found a fun, homemade animated film by creators who seem to get it. And they're getting lots of attention at Festivals, Ain't It Cool News and positive reviews from sites like Joblo.com.

I just finished ordering my copy of The Chosen One, a home-made, Flash animated feature by Chris Lackey and Chad Fifer, which was picked up by producer Andreas Olavarria. I believe that much of the work was done on their own but homemade may be a bit of an exaggeration. These guys are working writers and filmmakers and have a few key contacts.

Still, they spent their money on the right things; top notch voice talent and sound and a funny script that worked toward their strengths as animators. When you don't have the Disney or Pixar budget and can't make it smooth and realistic, follow South Park's lead and make it funny.

Here's the theatrical trailer from their The Chosen One Youtube page (There's a longer, more leisurely paced one for the Festival circuit).



All of the Do-It-Yourself hype around the movie makes it clear the script is what sold the talent and the buyers on it. What are the lessons for people considering making their own productions, whether live action or animated, webisode or straight to DVD, for Festival screens or Cellphone screens? Since there is a DIY wave washing over writers eager to get their work out over the net, may I suggest a few basic rules to consider before you start?

One. I'm talking about basic rules like be honest with yourself. Are you really a good director? If not, find someone you admire and trust. The flip side is, don't be afraid to speak up if you know you can improve something or direct it well yourself.

Two. If you do direct, listen to the input from those around you, consider it and take what you need. You can't see everything or consider every possible solution to a challenge without help.

Third, write a script based on what you have and can get. Don't be calling for a Bond-villain style set if all you've got is a bachelor apartment to shoot in.

Fourth, write a little beyond what you have or can get. I know, it's kind of bending rule number
three a little. Good1 That rule needs to be bent just a bit. You always need to be reaching a little higher than you expect to go, or it's all gonna be crap.

Fifth, don't scrimp on sound recording and mixing. Clear, clean sound well -mixed is a key to audience enjoyments. Even a crappy looking film can be helped by good sound. But your beautiful cinematography and clever script will seem horrible if the tinny dialogue and messy mix is giving the viewer a migraine.

Six. Seriously, don't scrimp on sound, man. Are you even listening to me?

Seven, always remember you want an audience to see your work. So step back and make it as polished as possible and don't assume they will get all your in-jokes and somehow know the convoluted backstory that's whipping around inside your brain but is nowhere on the screen.

Eight. Cast actual, bonafide actors. They're worth the money. Sure, it's hard to talk their language and you're not used to dealing with actual, you know, people. But they will bring your work to life and add elements to your work you never even knew where there. And if it really, really works, audiences will quote them. People will never remember you wrote it. Sorry. It's a sad fact. But they may remember your vivid character and the lines they spouted, or the moments they experienced with them. And they'll share them with their family and buddiss for the rest of their lives. That's IF your actor is good and not just one your drinking buddies from the indoor soccer team.

All these things make a difference if you want half a chance at actually making money. But you have to aim beyond scoring a few Youtube hits.

Nine. Find the story behind your film and why it was worth spending so much time and effort on it. you want your achievement to become part of the legend behind the film.That gets people interested and gets them talking.

Ten, go out and talk up your film yourself. The personal is the only way to get it to rise above the dreck everyone else is producing. Better still, you want to rise above the GOOD STUFF other people are putting out there!

Eleven, keep working to pay those bills. Everything stops if you're being evicted.

Eleven and a half. Ego can be useful but stow it when you're working. There's a time and place for it. You need everyone onside in the trenches and humbly is the way to call in favours. Do bring the ego out when you need to inspire those around you, overcome criticism and work through bullshit. You want to harness the power of ego, not let it control you.

Twelve. Soak up the glory when you finish and send your work into the world, everywhere you can. People will get to know you through your work and will watch for you again, hopefuly to embrace your next production and not to avoid the moron who ignored all of these rules.

Finally, it lives or dies on the writing man. you can save yourself a lot of headaches with a well-written and thought out script. Then all you have to do is make every stage that follows live up to and elevate it.

I'm curious to see what Lackey and Fifer accomplished. I'm curious to see what you and I accomplish too.

Live the adventure.

The Blind Date Tightrope - It's worth spending time in awkward moments to reveal and develop characters

I like the fact that in ancient Chinese art the great painters always included a deliberate flaw in their work: human creation is never perfect. – Madeleine L’Engle

Fourteenth century Friar and logician William of Occam’s Razor advises simplicity in attempting to explain any phenomenon. But simplicity is deceptive. It does not mean, as some espouse (especially in mystery shows and police procedurals), “the simplest theory is the correct one”. It means the working theory should make as few assumptions as possible and any elements that shed no real light on the observable predications of the hypothesis should be eliminated from the theory.

As writers we are often going through our scripts shaving out dialogue or cutting scenes that don’t push our plot forward or somehow set up some revelation or twist that will appear later. We’re trying to make a lean, mean script that builds it momentum and carries our viewers to the emotional place we went them to end up at. We want them to have laughed out loud and been surprised, discovered whodunit was the one they never suspected or want them relived after watching our thriller on the edge of their seat, And ultimately, we want to leave them wanting more.

But often when we strip down our scripts to their essential elements only we can lose the things that make it watchable or readable; those quirky character moments that let people get to know a character, that panning vista that really tells us the kind of world our characters are coming from, or just spending time in an environment to let people immerse themselves in our world. We’ve all reached the moment when we’ve taken out everything that seems unimportant and read through the script, only to discover it reads as perfunctory, unrealistic and, gasp, dull.

I recently attended writer and actress Rebecca Northan’s brilliant, partially improvised play, Blind Date, at Harbourfront Centre and experienced the other side of this approach.

Northan’s moving, fascinating play could teach a lot of writers a lesson in where truly compelling drama and humour comes from. It’s messy and tense and delightful and surprising as two people fish for what they need in an encounter with another human being. I won’t even get into the questions it raises about the nature of the audience and viewing, and reality versus committing to a fantasy under unclear rules, et al. That will have to wait for me to start my psychotherapy blog, MindPhuque.com. In essence, Blind Date is all about the things we might be tempted to cut out of our scripts in an effort to streamline and drop anything that feels potentially extraneous.

First of all, I should point out that improvisation and Writing are two very different animals. I spent the first fifteen years of my career doing live improv and though you are trying to explore character and narrative, the experience is very much communal. Rough patches, awkwardness and mistakes are forgiven because the audience is a part of the ride. You’re using their suggestions, building on their lives and sometimes actually bringing one up on stage to perform with you. The tightrope walk makes it okay.

In a scripted show you have to take responsibility for the writing. When there’s a wonky bit of dialogue or a scene that just doesn’t seem to work, it’s on us. You’re presenting something to the audience and they will let you know if they do not like. The forgiveness factor of improv isn’t there. Your script is the only net and you better weave it well.

That said, Northan’s hybrid play reminded me of the power to harnessed by embracing those awkward true moments we find so often in life and in people. In Blind Date Northan plays (and play is the key word here) Mimi, a Parisian clown who has just been stood up for a Blind Date and so she goes into the audience and chooses an unsuspecting male to be her blind date for the evening… on stage… for ninety minutes.

Blind Date is everything a real blind date is; awkward, full of shifts and turns and misunderstandings as two people to try to get to know each other and connect in a very short time. It soon became apparent, that much like real life, trying to make up interesting things about yourself is far less interesting than the truths. I hope I keep that in mind the next time I want to make a character who belongs in an insurance company cubicle into a Fashion Magazine editor simply because it seems more interesting.

After a drink date filled with pauses and moments of connection (Northan and the audience guide the “date” on being honest through coaching sessions and positive reinforcement like cheering and applause), Northan takes the date back to her “apartment” and then jumps forward in time to show the developing relationship. By this time most of her “dates’ have caught and reveal surprising things about themselves, often learning things even they were unaware of.

The fact that a person can be thrust into a situation they are completely unfamiliar with and discover things about themselves and hidden reserves is just the kind of thing we try to capture in our scripts. But the only way for the character, and for us as writers, to uncover those things is to explore unexpected moments and tangents. It’s amazing how much depth they can bring to the viewing experience.

Think of some of cinema’s most amazing moments and you’ll find examples of we can achieve by not struggling to be interesting, but rather embracing the discomfiting inelegance of real behaviour…


"I engage you a character? Exactly how do I engage
you? I engage you like a funny clown maybe?"

The seduction scene in the Graduate is compelling because of Dustin Hoffman’s sputtering, overwhelmed performance. And it’s played so well against Anne Bancroft’s hard-edged, weary woman so unhappy in a dead-end marriage she’s willing tii seduce her daughter’s fiancé.

Diane Keaton and Woody Allen on the deck of his apartment, first getting to know each other in Annie Hall. Magical awkwardness used to be Allen’s stock in trade. And the growing attraction between the characters is as apparent as the intellectual divide that will eventually break-them up again.

I have to agree with TV Guide on this. There’s no better blend of humour and menace than Joe Pesci turning on Ray Liotta after telling a joke in a restaurant. People still drop into his “How am I funny? I amuse you?” speech at the drop of a hat. It’s uncomfortable, disturbing and riveting cinema.

Let’s call it the Blind Date Tightrope.

Our script is the audience’s blind date with all of our characters and the only way to get them interested is to find the truth of our characters, including the awkwardness, nervousness and self-image issues we all work through as we get to know the people in our lives.

Blind Date creator/performer Rebecca Northan.

It's interesting that most reviews for the show refer to it as unreviewable because it depends so much on who Northan chooses. The truth is, it will work almost every time, because she has done some writing in creating an adaptable framework to keep her partner's safe in that she's there to help them, but she's also there to keep them riding the edge, always forcing him to make choices. Sounds like great way to build a character.

Northan's own philosophy is summed up in this interview for the show in Calgary's Fast Forward Weekly.

I think an unsuccessful show is one where the audience leaves and goes, ‘meh, that was alright.’ If someone leaves the theatre and goes, ‘I loved that! I never thought of things that way!’ or ‘Oh my God, that really upset me, and I'm going to be fucked up for three days,’ or ‘I'm outraged! I'm politically outraged by what I saw!’ — that's all great. But if you leave the theatre the same as when you entered it, that's a failure. Otherwise, why tell the story?”

Rebecca Northan’s Blind Date will be remounted in Harbourfront’s Fall Season.

My next script will on your desk days before the deadline so we can go over some initial notes.

Live the adventure.