facebook_pixel Press "Enter" to skip to content

Looking to start your TV writing journey?

Posts tagged as “Books”

Seven Years of Featured Posts

Seven Years of Featured Posts

Let’s begin the celebration of seven years with some of our classic TV Calling featured posts.

It used to be you’d pin a post to the top of your blog, and call it featured. Well–
“Featured Post” is somewhat of an outdated concept with this site, especially since we’ve never really had a slider to begin with (*shudder*). TV Calling has been a mostly linear design, with a few in-depth articles highlighted occasionally. And since I now only post worthwhile content, everything is highlighted (i.e. everything is a de-facto featured post).

We’ll take a closer look at the TV writing and TV business sides in more details (starting tomorrow), but in the meantime, I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight a few forgotten gems from our earlier days.

Our very first featured post was, unsurprisingly, a crazy rant of mine on why I hate French “television”.
Although the French TV industry still has a lot of catching up to do, it’s refreshing to see the amount of progress from 2008. In fact, I’m writing this very post from Paris (not the one in Texas) so I’m getting to see a few recent French TV shows. Not the worst.
It’s also funny to see that a few French shows have even made waves in the US (namely Les revenants).
I also attended last October at the Writers Guild Theater the second edition of “Direct to Series”, a “showcase dedicated to French television series”. No, I didn’t bawl my eyes out.
Speaking of International fanfare, a few of my other earlier featured posts were about visa/green card issues. We’ll get back to those when I post about “Seven Years of My Life 101 (or Life of Alex)” on Saturday.

When it comes to story issues, I wrote back in 2008 about mythic structures and hero psychology.
The instigating post was mainly focused on The Dark Knight (I had just seen it), in relation to the concept of flawed (super)heroes.
The second one, still an off-shoot about hero psychology, was on Joseph Campbell’s books–and how others have tackled a variety of issues through the prism of screenwriting.

Vices, virtues and dilemmas should also not be forgotten in the world of screenwriting. Identifying the “moral premise” behind a story is essential to understanding why this particular story touches us, affects us. It is also what will ultimately give dimension and consistency to a great story. Few books deal with this in direct correlation with screenwriting. The Moral Premise by Stanley D Williams appears to be right on target by clearly and easily linking past and present stories, both in theory and practice.

On the other side of mythical stories and structures we have what is inside the character’s head, the character’s psychology. A lot of books have been written on the subject but few aimed at screenwriters. William Indick’s Psychology for Screenwriters seems to be one of the only books I have come across dealing exclusively with this. Comprehending the psyche of your characters can only benefit your writing and your story, especially in the television medium where characters are the medium.

Deep stuff.

As pointed out previously, the concept of “featured post” has been phased out, with most articles now relating to TV writing or the TV business. We did have occasional floaters to mark events.

In 2009, Lordy had a series of very interesting guest posts on unsung artists (at the time): Don Bluth and Craig Ferguson. Of course, Craig Ferguson has since become more well-known, but Lordy’s posts are still worth the read.

I talked about technology, with the iPhone, the iPad, and the future of eBook readers.
I had a one-off interview with CSI:NY’s Hill Harper. Because why not.
I ranted about the unsavory televised spectacle that was Michael Jackson’s funeral.

During the first year of TV Calling, I wrote 11 movie reviews (8 based off of the screenplay).
My most popular was The Cabin in the Woods, which finally came out in theaters over three years after my article.
Others include The Box, Watchmen, Star Trek (the reboot), Inglorious Basterds (Cannes 2009 version), Buried, Prisoners (four years before it came out), Orbit (still waiting on production), Unknown White Male (two years before release), MacGruber, and Paul.

Movie talk still continued after. In the days of Ed Norton’s Bruce Banner, I took a look at “The latest about Marvel and DC Movies” and I brought up “five under-the-radar movies you should watch.” (A few of those have since gained notoriety.)
Given Hollywood’s fascination with IP, I had a talk about “Hollywood’s Trivial Pursuit of Games” (get it?), and most recently how “You die a brand or live long enough to become an IP“.
I also wrote about the advent of 3D (and Avatar) in a big way with three dedicated posts on the issue.

And, for some reason, there were these two amazing posts about: the Weinstein Company being on the verge of bankruptcy while doing a movie adaptation of the 1970 Broadway musical Pippin (“Pippin my studio: The Weinstein way of dealing with problems“); and Taylor Lautner trying to be Stretch Armstrong (“Taylor Lautner: Badder, Bulkier, and Sparklier“).

Good times. I can’t wait for the TV writing advice.

Update One

What a break.
You can pretty much skip to the end if you don’t care about my miserable existence.
Come to think of it, I might skip this too.

So where were we? Oh right, Paris.
Following a brief (2 days) stint in NYC, I headed to Los Angeles in the hopes of having a star on the walk of fame getting a job.

Before dreams of glory could be had, I needed to deal with the real-world and all of its complexity.
Starting with housing.
Thanks to the amazing power of Craigslist, I found a studio-apartment in less than four days. All hail technology!
Which brings me to my move last week.
I was very surprised at how…dirty and empty the studio was. No sheets, no pillows, no towels, no microwave, no cookware, no nothing. Suffice it to say the first night was rough.
I didn’t expect to buy in three days so many household items. Bed, Bath and Beyond is a life-saver on that end.
On the brighter side of things, that means my next apartment won’t be that empty.
It also turns out that the previous tenants never cleaned the place. Not to go into gory details but I need to deal with clothes moths now…

Yes, I’m slowly discovering the real American way of life.

So after spending well over a grand I didn’t have on everything from pans to trashcans, pillows and iron steamer, I decided it was time to buy some more stuff, like books.
In case you haven’t heard, the Book Soup is pretty great. They even had Bozo the Clown the other day promoting his new book. (I’m not making this stuff up)

In the past three weeks, I did get to see three movies: Middle Men, Cyrus, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.
Middle Men was quite nice though unfortunately visually hectic. Cyrus was very funny and heartfelt. Much more than Step Brothers actually, which was positively surprising.
And last but not least, Scott Pilgrim. I am kind of torn between two positions on this flick. On the one hand, it was entertaining, so I guess mission accomplished. Though on the other hand, I didn’t feel that much of a development regarding the characters, as if all of this was a mere pretext for having epic arcade-style fighting on the big screen.

I still have no television, which means the few shows I get to watch are through the wonderful world of the Internet. And the crappy Wi-Fi of my neighbor. Welcome to the 21st century.

Last night was the ‘Writing for Genre Television’ panel at Meltdown Comics. It was, as expected, awesome. I know that a few of you peeps out there weren’t able to make it, so there’s going to be more on that tomorrow right here.

And now you are all caught up on the past month.
I’m off to see back-to-back two of the greatest films ever made at the New Beverly Cinema:
Night of the Hunter and M.
Sounds fun.

Tomorrow’s program: review of the ‘Writing for Genre Television’ round-table, including awesome writing advice.
I promise.

The Future of eBook Readers

The Future of eBook Readers

Today I went to the 2010 French Book Fair in Paris which usually has great debates dedicated to new problems relating to e-publishing and eBooks.
This year was no exception with an incredible array of talks on the future of publishing (one even about Augmented Reality).
I went to a few, though the one that caught my eye and found most interesting was the last:
E-Readers, where are we now?
The panel was comprised of Jacques Angelé (Nemoptic Vice-President), Pierre Geslot (Head of E-paper and Digitization projects at Orange), Alex Henzen (R&D Vice-President at iRex Technologies), and Anthony Slack (Commercial Development Vice-President at Liquavista).
As you’d expect, it was mainly about the future of e-Readers, and as a matter of fact, not only were we able to see with our very eyes amazing prototypes (pictures below), but a couple of announcements were made.
I will go over what was discussed in a minute, but first, let’s check up on some basics.

What is not an eBook E-Reader?
I’m sorry to break it to you, but first and foremost, the iPad, and all other tablets of its kind, are not e-Readers (more on that later).
Neither is your iPhone for that matter.
If they were, then your current computer, or even your TV, would be considered eBook Readers.
The truth is they do not contain the one key component to it all: e-paper.

What is e-paper?
As the name implies, it’s basically a display imitating to the fullest and ordinary piece of paper (with ink).
That also means it does not use backlight (unlike, say, LCD/LED screens). Given that, it doesn’t strain the eye.
E-papers actually act like a normal piece of paper, meaning they reflect ambient light.
In addition, once an e-page has been set, it remains static and can’t be changed, simply because it does not at this point need any electricity to sustain (it’s in stasis).
You could set your e-Reader on a specific book page and theoretically leave it like this for months (years?), and it wouldn’t switch off.
This of course sharply contrasts with any other battery-based devices that barely can stand a day without a charge.
The only time a Reader needs electricity is when it needs to change the screen (like when you turn the page), but even then, you’d have to do about two weeks of continuous change for the battery to drain.

It might shock you to learn that not all e-papers are using E Ink (yes, it’s a brand).
Different technologies are used, each with their advantages, and disadvantages.
In fact, although last year it controlled about 90% of all sold e-Readers, it is expected that, by the end of 2011, E Ink will only be carried on 50% of displays.
As for the actual technology involved, I won’t bore you with how this stuff works, as it has been detailed much better elsewhere.


Suffice it to say that E Ink is part of a bigger group named Electrophoretic Display, or EPD. Such displays use charged pigment particles (pixels) that get rearranged based on an electric field: black or white.
The two main problems with E Ink are its response time, and its lack of color.
Ironically, E Ink was originally tested using other bi-colored pigments:

Constant R&D is able to increase each year the E Ink refresh rate by about 30%.
As for the color, that’s a different problem entirely.
iRex‘s Hanzen did however announce that colored E Ink would be arriving later this year (albeit at a different company).
For now, it’s not in their priority as colors on E Ink are simply not that efficient at the moment.
At best, you would get a sombre screen, since brightness would be limited. RGB additive color uses a third of the available pixel space, so you would only get a ninth of available brightness for “true white”.
Reflectivity would also be pretty limited.

Nemoptic presented prototypes of its BiNem (Bistable Nematic) Displays (manufacturing starts at around end of 2011):


Display size: 6.1 inches (73 x 107 mm)
Resolution: 300 x 400 x RGBW (QSVGA), 100 ppi
Color depth: From top to bottom, 16 colors, and 32,768 colors (32K for real)
Contrast: 12:1

Perhaps the most promising new tech are what’s called Electrowetting Displays (EWD), represented at the panel by Liquavista.
Like E Ink, it works via electric fields. However, instead of pigment particles, it uses colored oil and water. The liquid therefore becomes wettable.
EWD has been described as “the most versatile,” with multiple use going from reflective applications to transmissive and transflective ones.
The tech can also go from low refresh rates (less than one frame per second) to super-high ones like 200 frames per second!

Liquavista presented three of these EWDs.
One was B&W:


Display size: 6 inches (92 x 123 mm)
Resolution: 800 x 600, 166 ppi
Grey levels: 16
Brightness: 60% higher than standard EPD
Contrast ratio: 2 times higher than standard EPD

The other was color:


Display size: 6 inches (92 x 123 mm)
Resolution: 800 x 600, 166 ppi
Color levels: 4,096; 30% more reflective than standard EPD

They were both announced as being released in Late May/Early June of this year (no price tag yet), and named Liquavista Pebble.

We also did get to see a prototype of a functioning touch-screen colored EWD, with such a high-refresh rate it could do video (let alone be able to handle an iPod Touch-type interface).
Although still a prototype, Liquavista‘s Anthony Slack did say the touchscreen could be compatible to both Projected Capacitive Touch (fingers) and Resistive Touch (stylus).
By June, the prototype should achieve at least a 24-bit color depth.
Later this year, manufacturing will be announced, with a release date slated around mid-2011.
The presentation on the touchscreen e-Reader was not unlike the one used here (right-side; the one on the left is Sony’s PRS-600BC).

When talking about the (currently) sole competitor in the color e-Reader market (Fujitsu‘s newly-released FLEPia), all the panel guests unanimously bashed the Reader, stating it was “too slow” and had “washed colors.”

The panel then shifted to the iPad, discussing if it was going to be a big e-Reader competitor.
This is when Orange‘s Geslot stepped in.
He talked a bit about several focus groups his company had recently made around the iPad.
The tablet had been pitted against major e-Readers (Kindle, Nook, etc.), not for a spec comparison, rather to see which one the various users (of all ages) would feel more comfortable reading books on.
He disclosed the results which were, as he puts it, “surprising.”
The focus groups revealed that two core opposing sides were emerging:
– Half the people loved the idea of a multimedia platform that could also let you read while still being connected (therefore preferring the iPad)
– The other half, in total opposition, considered that reading was sacred and a private journey that shouldn’t be interrupted by ringtones, pop-ups, or IMs (therefore preferring a dedicated e-Reader)
Geslot was keen to point out that the latter group actually wasn’t made up of only seniors but actually youngsters too.

At the end of it all, the panel agreed that there would probably be two kinds of usage that would call for two different devices.
A dedicated e-Reader, that has perfected its sole function, will be preferred for heavy-reading. Multimedia tablets (with or without e-paper), will offer more flexible use than their counterpart, but will only be used for quick reads here and there.

The moderator concluded by asking the guests what they thought an e-Reader will be like in ten years.
One jokingly replied: “I’m betting on a flexible 3-D e-paper display that can play Avatar.”
James Cameron would be so proud.