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Posts tagged as “Tips”

Mad MIP

Mad Men is for drama what The Office is for comedy: the show everyone is speccing right now.
I’m probably the only one out there not really interested in speccing a Mad Men but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in the show itself, far from it.
Actually I found out a couple of articles that could interest people currently “researching” so to speak around the ad business.
One of them is an interview conducted by Wired with Benjamin Palmer, who is the co-founder and CEO of an award-winning interactive marketing agency (The Barbarian Group). In this interview, Palmer discusses “the show’s realism and relevance to the advertising industry today”.

Wired.com: Things aren’t going so well with Betty. Is Don Draper’s life bound to fall apart?
Palmer: The failure for him is when the nobility of commerce goes away. Back then, it was noble to own things. When you saved up enough to get a car, it meant something. It was part of the machine of American progress.
Wired.com: So he’s doomed to fail?
Palmer: Yup. His kind will go away. He’s going to become extinct. His brand of person doesn’t exist anymore.

It could be an interesting idea to deal with Draper and Sterling Cooper with a more “contemporary” look at things, but what do I know.

Anyway, other interesting articles I found around Mad Men were mainly article written by “real” ad men, like those two. Pretty interesting stuff if you ask me.

Also, don’t forget that Monday begins over in Cannes the annual MIPCOM and MIPTV, which is the place of business regarding trends in television and new media (especially this year where we have YouTube and Tudou people over there).
For the people who don’t know what the hell just is this MIPthingy, Wikipedia says it all:

It is essentially a content event for co-producing, buying, selling, financing and distributing entertainment content. It provides the people involved in the TV, film, digital and audiovisual content, production and distribution industry a market conference and networking forum to discover future trends and trade content rights on a global level.

The Hollywood Reporter usually has good reports of what happens there if you’re interested, which you should be if you intend to work in the industry.

Faking the UTA

One of the many ways to find an assistant job in H-Wood is via the UTA Job List (UTA being United Talent Agency).
This list is published on a weekly basis and lists the assistant-level jobs available in Hollywood.

Now, unfortunately, you’ll only be able to get it if you are:
a) working at UTA
b) too high up to even care about the list
or
c) know someone who knows Pikachu and can get you the list and/or get you on the e-mail list and/or give you a Pokéball

Don’t bother calling UTA, they’ll deny its mere existence. Or is it their own existence? I forget.

And for you dreamers out there, you can check out this UTA Job List blog.
(Depressing) Spoiler alert: It’s a fake.

There’s also a
d) google the list for yourself.

TV Books are back from the future (and the past)

TV Books are back from the future (and the past)

Following on the steps of previous book posts, it seems that everyday I discover more and more books about screenwriting and especially, surprinsingly, TV writing.

On television writing I have found several other books that, according to the Amazon peeps’ reviews, seem worthwhile:

Marilyn Webber‘s Gardner’s Guide to Television Scriptwriting. Webber has written other writing books on other specific subjects (such as Sitcom writing, TV Animation, Feature Animation, etc). The book seems to be hands-on although not updated in its examples (West Wing, 24, and Gilmore Girls among others).

Martie Cook’s Write to TV: Out of Your Head and onto the Screen. Cook has dedicated writing sections for each of the areas of TV shows (Comedy, Prime-time Drama, TV-Movies, Reality TV and even TV News Magazines Shows and Kid Shows). The book also contains sections on writing characters, dialogs, pilots, as well as tons of pitch/business advices. An extended preview of the book can be found here.

Ellen Sandler‘s The TV Writer’s Workbook. Sandler has written for shows such as Everybody Loves Raymond (where she was co-exec). Her TV writing book is therefore more focused on sitcom writing, although still touches on drama writing as well as networking.

Also, just for giggles, I’ve found out that there’s a TV Writing book that came out way back in…1990. Notice the high-tech computer on the cover.
The accuracy of the information provided in this bok vis-à-vis contemporary television landscape cannot be guaranteed.

Last but not least, there’s a “how-to” television writing book with the brits in mind. That’s right, a book that covers everything you need to know if you want to write for the BBC. It was written by William Smethurst. And let’s not forget that the BBC is probably the only “serious” television option opened to anyone.

More and more TV Writing books seem to come out every year, which begs the question: Is television writing becoming popular and hype?