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Posts tagged as “Trips”

Scribosphere Carnival #1 – Time Capsule

Scribosphere Carnival #1 – Time Capsule

The Scribosphere Carnival is a weekly discussion from a variety of screenwriting blogs around a rotating theme.

And this is our first edition! Yay!

Instigated by Shawna over at Shouting in the Wind, this week’s topic is:

TIME CAPSULE — This topic is actually a 3-parter. First, recount your journey in screenwriting up to this point in time. Second, tell us where you are on your journey now. Finally, for the really fun, creative part — blog as if it is one year from today. What has the past year of your journey been like? What has changed? Be as realistic or not as you like — it’s your time capsule! One year from now, we will revisit our time capsules to see how we did with our predictions… Your post can be as long or as short as you like — the most important thing is to have fun with it!

My travels have been well-documented on this blog, so I’ll just give you a TL;DR version.
I created A TV Calling over five years ago to chronicle both my love for and odyssey towards television writing.
In 2010, I was finally able to move across the world, to Los Angeles (from a little town called Paris). That is, after winning the green card lottery (Serendipity? Fate? Who the hell knows). It is true that in the months following my arrival, I wasn’t able to blog as much as I used to. I went from pretty much a post a day to less than one a month. Fortunately, I’ve jumped back on the horse this year. I’ve also been working on my own writing (of course). As you saw last week, I’ve even decided to experiment with distributing some of that work online (through Star Trek: Terran).

In the few years I’ve been here, my professional experience, like anyone’s in Hollywood, has been full of ups and downs. One thing did not lead to another.
For me, “looking back” on such a short and recent period of time (in the grander scheme) seems hard to do without seeming pompous (rather than reflective), so I won’t expand. It has been frustrating at times, to say the least, but also rewarding, thanks in large part to the friends I’ve made along the way. We’re all our own worst critics, and measuring what I’ve accomplished to what I want(ed) to accomplish is more than a difficult task.

So, where to next?
Simply put: A writers’ assistant position on a show within the year; AKA the most coveted job in TV land.
(By the way, if you’re in a sharing mood and have potential leads, you should totally contact me! ;) ).
At the end of the day, this is an ongoing adventure. A journey. I could make another trite analogy–something about a race and marathon–but we all know the point already. When it comes to this industry, there’s only one quote that sums everything up: “Never give up, never surrender.”

A TV Calling blog entry from an alternate future: September 24, 2014

It has been ten years since Oceanic Flight 815 crashed and I’m still stuck on this goddamn island!
As I’m typing this, I’m wearing my Memoto camera. It’s awesome living in the future, where I have the technology to log my life. If only we had ways to transcribe, status-update, or even tweet about it in the days of yore. We were just a bunch of cavemen back then.

I miss Breaking Bad, but I’m glad I’ve found a worthy replacement in the fresh NBC series, Cop M.D.
A ground-breaking criminal/medical procedural featuring Christian Slater as a cop who goes undercover as a surgeon in a Boston hospital to root out a secret drug-trafficking operation. He also struggles with alcoholism, has a shaved head and scruffy beard, so you know he means business. Literally. They created his character to fit the network’s larger business plan of bringing the edgiest characters from five years ago. Classic NBC.
I’m glad they picked this over that Wizard of Oz-inspired drama (not that one, the other one. No, the other other one).
Now that I think about it, I don’t even know why I’m writing about this show since everyone has seen all the amazing ads that aired during the August Emmys.
In fact, I’m sure Cop M.D. will get the post-Super Bowl spot in February. They know people will chime in for this stuff.

Where was I? Oh, my life.
Good time were had by some.
Being in the room = best thing ever. Just being able to sit there and observe the process from the inside is, well, amazing. And, yes, everyone is still impressed with how fast I type things. What can I say, I’m like a writing machine. Tom Jones is on the verge of making a song about me.
I’ve had a good run with my spec, in that it didn’t make it into any of the fellowships (0.40% chance of that happening anyway).
I’ve begun work on an epic adventure feature involving space and time. But I’ve had this idea for a really cool pilot, so I may put both projects on hold and write a one-act play instead. Looks like I’ll be creatively busy for the foreseeable future.

Write on.

Scribosphere blogs also on the topic:

Shouting in the Wind | Red Right Hand | Jonathan Hardesty | Bamboo Killers

Tips and stories from around the Web: Comic-Con 2011 Edition

We might be bitching about the ridiculous price of the tickets (especially next year’s) or the hotels, but Comic-Con is ultimately a celebration of — well, I’d say comics but we both know that’s not true anymore, so, let’s just say, a celebration of pop-culture mostly for the fans (and the pros).

As this will be my first trip to the Con, I did a bit of research to find some tips and guides.
Needless to say, I found several very interesting ones:
– Kotaku ran an article last year not necessarily on tips about the con itself, rather tips about travelling to it (and in it). Still a very interesting read.
– Another “Top 10” list to mention is the POVonline convention guide.
– If you’re a Flash fan, then you must know Speed Force. What you may not be aware of is that they published amazing suggestions “for making the most of comic conventions.” It’s all based on personal experience from the author and it has a lot of handy nuggets of information.
– I can’t list great Comic-Con guides without mentioning Shouting in the Wind’s own post. It pretty much answers most of the questions anyone has about attending the con. There’s usually an update every year, though I’m linking last year’s guide since, as you can guess, sadly no ’11 update has been made for now.

A lot of these tips may seem a tad redundant, but it’s pretty clear you can’t go to Comic-Con unprepared.
Three key suggestions seem to emerge:
Pack for the day with food and water, be ready to walk/stand in line with comfy shoes, and, perhaps most of all, have a hand sanitizer. I know I will.

With all of that said, I must also talk about one extremely exhaustive guide/tip-list stands out above all the rest.
I am of course referring to The Comics Reporter‘s own 150+ Tips For Attending San Diego’s CCI 2011.
That’s right, the website has over 150 tips, and these are definitely not one-liners. Warning: given its extensiveness, the page is pretty long.
This is clearly a must-read for any attendee, especially the first-timers.

I also thought it’d be a good idea to link in this post several other websites which are great source of intel about the convention.
– First up is SDCC Blog, an unofficial SDCC blog self-described as “the ultimate source for all things SDCC.” Although it’s not as “ultimate” as they seem to think, it is still pretty comprehensive. The most notable part of the site is its dedicated off-site events page.
– A great “counter-point” to this website is Comic-Con Geek, which also provides news on the subject, often more extensively.
– Finally, we have The Beat which has a dedicated Comic-Con section and often brings amazing insight into the con and news around it.

You should also know that the official San Diego Comic-Con website is full of amazing guides, from maps of the convention floor and shuttle information, to exhibitor listings and schedules.

If you’re interested in what my panel schedule will look like (I know I am), here’s a link to MySched–or what’s left of it.
Some panels still interlap as I’ll probably be deciding last-minute for those.
Obviously, it’s mostly a wish-list, since you can never tell how everything is going to go down.

I’m also hoping for some kind of ‘LA TV Writers’ meet-up to be organized.
And if yourself are attending the Con, you can always shoot me an e-mail!
If nothing is ultimately planned, I’ll probably tweet up something around Saturday, maybe a screening of a crappy pilot — or an impromptu get-together…
After all, isn’t that the point of a convention?

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.