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Posts published in November 2008

Why TV is where you must be

Why TV is where you must be

Showrunners and TV writers have never been more talked about than this past year.
The writers’ strike showed the world how vital writers are to the entertainment industry, especially TV.

In TV, writers have control.
In a world were creator-owned content will soon become the norm, having control over one’s creation from beginning to end is important.

Showrunners have become an intricate part of the entertainment industry, multi-tasking in every direction.
Writers have now become prominent A-list figures.

Television is where everything happens.

Nothing is more symbolic of that than the other face of TV: actors.
How many big names have made the jump to TV?
How many no-names became A-listers by doing TV?
Is Jon Hamm on his way to become the next Clooney?

Sure, there isn’t that much money to be made on TV (unless your name is J.J. Abrams or Dick Wolf); especially now that everything is converging into the Internet.
But chances are you’re in this not for the money but for the passion.
You want to make groundbreaking stories.
You want to impact people.
You want to write your vision.

TV has never been as much on the forefront of our society as it is now.
Although total medium convergence is inevitable, for now original Internet content is either taken from TV or at least inspired by TV. And Strike.TV is no different.
The Internet is on its way to produce major content and, yes, 5-10 years from now most people will work in some form on the Internet. But for now, it just doesn’t have the professional clout that TV has.
The content is not yet creator-financed and creator-owned in TV, but it is a medium that uses all the new technology and expands on it: interactive convergence.
Write for the future, not for the past.
But don’t be like Tim Kring who described faithful Heroes TV viewers as “saps” and “dipshits”.
Embrace technology. Humbly.

TV is also the leading writer-based industry.
Don’t take my word for it.
Ask the guy who wrote Story.
Robert McKee himself declared the other day in Paris that Hollywood films are “the death rattle of a dying industry.”
The film industry is probably not going to die tomorrow of course, but still.

Academy Award-winner Alan Ball went to TV after American Beauty because of all the projects that were rejected by movie studios.
He then made Six Feet Under.

Creativeness is nurtured in TV.
New channels are growing every second, producing more and more shows, taking chances on something that only yesterday was thought to be crazy by many networks.
Opportunities are created every second in TV.

Who would have thought 2 years ago that a small basic-cable movie channel was going to make not only one but two innovative shows, let alone one that wins Best Drama?

Television is continuing its momentum thanks to exceptional writing talents.

And this is why Television is where you must be.

Spec Flashpoint – Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts

What we have done here is barely touching the surface of what could be done around Flashpoint.
It’s easy to talk all day about the show but if you don’t write that spec, it’s pointless.
The hardest step is to finish that first draft, so just do it!

Ideas for your Flashpoint spec can be found anywhere. The show is often based on real-life cases.
For instance the pilot episode was inspired by an ETF sniper shooting.

I would probably avoid however basic hostage situations as it has been done and redone on the show.

The teaser is a crucial part of the show and its structure. It must hook the reader/viewer.
Someone holding someone else at gunpoint also has been quite done on FP so be careful on not recycling stories.

The most important part of the story are the characters.
Linking the story to them and making the audience care is a crucial part.
As seen previously, the background of the SRU members has been well developed, so you can maybe tap into that for your spec.
Choose wisely the SRU member you want to center on. The whole thing must make sense (at the very least thematically).
Create interesting antagonists that we will root for or against.

Don’t make a happy ending for the sake of it, but don’t kill everyone in a big atomic explosion.
Everything must happen for a reason.

For more info on the show you should also look for interviews with the writers.
Jill Gollick has several of those around the creation of the show.
Actually, she even made a much better breakdown of the pilot episode than mine (with character beats et al.). So definitely check that out.

Why not as well go on fan forums and official boards (such as CTV’s) to garner even more info (from the fans’ POV).

The series is fresh enough that you can get away with almost any storyline for the moment, as long as the characters and their actions are believable and interesting.

Trust yourself, trust your writing, and write it.

Good luck!