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Posts tagged as “Technology and Art”

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.

Mark my words

Mark my words

Sound was introduced in 1927.
Color was introduced in 1938.
3-D will be introduced in 2009.

I know what you’re about to say.
Sure, 3-D has been around for some time now, but it’s still only a gimmick.
Current “3-D movies” are not movies made in 3-D, there are movies made for/with 3-D.
If you’ve ever been to Disneyland’s Honey, I Shrunk The Audience, or, hell, even any 3-D IMAX movie, you know what I’m talking about.
Also, sound in movies already existed prior to The Jazz Singer, same goes for color with the Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind.
So when the technique was first used/invented doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Avatar isn’t “gimmicking” its way into 3-D.
It is thought, made, shot, edited, and shown in 3-D.

“What has that gotta do with us?” you may ask dear wannabe screenwriter.
Well it probably for now won’t change anything script-wise, but just think about it.
IMAX didn’t change the way people write scripts, when 8mm became 16mm and then transformed into 35mm and 70mm (28K next?), that didn’t change the way people write scripts.
Before sound there were no dialogues in scripts.
Before color there wasn’t any real vivid description in scripts.

I am talking about real, profound, no-way-back changes here.

True 3-D movies have to be thought and created in 3-D.
Again, you can’t just “gimmick-up” standard movies.
Disney is going to do that with all the Toy Stories (and now Beauty and the Beast), but you and I both know those are not true 3-D movies.
If they were, something huge would have been missing from the first time we laid eyes on them.

A real 3-D movie must be thought out from the beginning in 3-D, and that means from the script.

3rd Rock from the Sun, Medium, and now Chuck, proved that 3-D could be successfully shown on TV.

Now think about where we will be 20-30 years from now in the entertainment industry.
No-glasses 3-D TVs are being made as you’re reading this.

It’s just a matter of time.
3-D will catch on as did sound and color before it.
Even on TV.

Obama made American history, Avatar will make entertainment and cinematic history.

OMFG

Let’s start with 2 strange pick-ups from the last couple of days.

HBO has ordered a series adaptation (as in real series, not mini) of George R.R. Martin’s 7-book “A Song of Fire & Ice”, titled “Game of Thrones”.
Each season would represent a book, so it could go on for about 7 seasons, if it is picked up that is.
Did I forget to mention that “Game of Thrones” is in fact a fantasy series?
As in, magic and dragons.
On HBO.
In primetime.

Ridley Scott on the other hand is going to direct a movie adaptation of…wait for it…Monopoly.
The script is going to be penned by Corpse Bride/Monster House‘s Pamela Pettler and should be reminiscent of Blade Runner with its futuristic feel.

Meanwhile, Fox just ditched MadTV and NBC has canceled My Worst Enemy and Lipstick Jungle.
But no real surprise there.

Did you guys also hear?
The war in Iraq has ended, says the New York Times.


Oh but wait…
It’s a hoax.

And just because I’m a sucker for technology, and “the future is now”:
RED just announced today its massive new line of product and accessories, including the awesome $55,000 EPIC 617 Mysterium Monstro camera.
Just how awesome is it?
28k awesome.
That means it shoots at 25FPS images with a res of 28 000 x 9 334.
With the ability to also shoot 3-D.
Yeah, you read that correctly.

Sure, it’s only going to arrive in like 2 years, but who cares.
It’s revolutionary.