Michael Shurtleff meets the Captain

Yesterday, I told you all to read a book by Michael Shurtleff, my favorite acting coach. I find the book even more useful now that I'm a writer. One might assume a book called Audition is about neat tricks to use when you don't have time to study the freakin' lines. Yet Michael's approach is remarkably text-based – possibly the most text-based acting approach floating around our Method-loving world. And as the people writing the text... seriously, read the book.

Shurtleff tells us to imbue each character's choices with life or death importance. It was his Prime Directive, if you will. That might seem a bit extreme. Not every scene is Hamlet, surely. But here's a stunning example of how well this works, even with truly dopey material.

In a recent GQ interview with Andrew Corsello, William Shatner explains his take on the Priceline Negotiator's unique motivation:

When they were writing it, they didn't quite know how to handle this new campaign they were doing... Then I realized: The Negotiator is insane! ... His very life depends on his ability to convince you that you ... have to get this bargain!
(my emphasis)

This is why there is and will always be, only one Captain for me.

This message brought to you by America's Next Crazy Model

It is impossible to step out of the box.

You must leap out of the box. You must run headlong out of the box. You must launch yourself so far past the edges of the box into far, far away crazy land that the area between you and the box starts to look normal – even though it's still out of the box.

My favorite acting coach, Michael Shurtleff (if you haven't read his book, Audition: Everything an Actor Needs to Know to Get the Part
and you are remotely involved in story creation, stop reading my blog and go read his book) used to call this "making a horse's ass of yourself." His theory: if you do something so stupid right off the top that you have no hope of being "right" or "safe" or "what they're looking for" or any of those other timid terms, you leave fear behind. And fear is the death of all things great. And great is what they're looking for.

A spectacular example of this went on display in this week's America's Next Top Model (season 14, episode 5). At the top of the episode, model wannabe Jessica told the camera that she wanted to get "out of the box." Isn't that sweet? They always say that, and they never do. They make some teeny-weeny little step that isn't even visible from my couch and – boom – off the show!

But Jessica went for it. Her nightmarish 2-minute "let's get nekkid" tram trip with prim photographer Nigel Barker was such a jaw-dropping episode of horse's assitude that it ran in the trailers all week. It was honestly a little hard to watch. One clucked and shook one's head and assumed the idiot child was not long for the competition.

Ha. Jessica won the next two challenges in a walk. Fearlessly. She'd already embarrassed herself on network television; what the h*ll else did she have to lose?

I hear you clucking and shaking your head. You don't have to be an idiot in public to be fearless! Ha, again, I say.

Here's an example that even Shurtleff didn't get at the time. Michael was a casting director. He finished off a lecture once by telling us all the things we actors must never, never do in a casting session. The worst example of all was some dingbat "committed" actor who read for a serial killer role and never once broke character. The fool even pulled a knife and leaped across the table to threaten the casting assistant. Michael didn't need to tell us this was a terribly stupid thing to do. We clucked. We shook our heads in amazement. And then a tiny voice piped up from the back of the room, "Did he get the part?"

You know the answer.

I'm not encouraging anyone to pull a knife during an audition. Please, please don't – especially now that I'm on the other side of that table. But if you hear any timid "rights" and "what they're looking fors" creeping into your vocabulary, get yourself the h*ll out of your box. If that means not listening to me, do that too.

Speaking of the other side of the table, this advice applies to writers. If I'm stuck at any point in my writing I pull out a fresh sheet of paper, scribble "No Idea Too Stupid" at the top and let fly. Aliens. Witches. Time Travel. Evil Twins. Everything is fair game, and bigger is better. Those first few ideas don't have to be good, they have to get you out of the box. Once you're out there floating free – usually about halfway down the page – something wonderful will happen.

A voice from the past

Dear Jane Espenson,

It's good to have you back!

Good book

I just finished reading Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, the founders of software company 37signals. I highly recommend the book, and the company's blog, if you're planning to start your own business, work for someone else's business, or just get up in the morning and do stuff. It's that good.

I thought that even before I reached the awesome wonderful fabulous chapter, Hire Great Writers. Here's an excerpt:

If you are trying to decide among a few people to fill a position, hire the best writer. It doesn't matter if that person is a marketer, salesperson, designer, programmer, or whatever; their writing skills will pay off.

That's because being a good writer is about more than writing. Clear writing is a sign of clear thinking.

Would you believe that holds true even if you want to hire... a writer?

I sound like I'm joking, but I'm not. I work as an agency reader. It's a big name agency, so the scripts I read have cleared a high Hollywood hurdle. Yet most of them are terribly written. I know it's not my job to correct grammar. I know that poor sentence structure will never show up onscreen. Surely compelling stories and imagination should trump mere spelling and grammar?

Absolutely.

And yet... they never do. The ability to put together a good sentence has proved a spot on indicator of the ability to put together a good story – and vice versa. As the book says, clear writing is a sign of clear thinking. You might not need grammar and spelling to construct a dramatic story in a visual medium, but you still need thought.

The opposite of irony

For about two hours, I was unable to research my script about a worldwide data center snafu... because of a worldwide data center snafu.

The flip book movie of your life

I've been playing with the new features in iPhoto '09. (Instead of polishing the latest draft of something else, I know.)

When you drag the cursor across one of the images on the Face cork board, it flips through the tagged photos in date order. If you've taken a lot of pictures, this flip sequence makes a little movie of your life.

It's particularly fun with kids. I just watched a flip book movie of Precious Nephew changing from tiny baby to gawky five-year old. Cool. For me, anyway.

In years to come, the parents of kids who grew up with digital photos will be able to massively embarrass their kids not with a few snaps, but with a flip book record of their precious darling's baby face gettin' older and older and older -- complete with bad haircuts and facial hair and wrinkles and everything. Hee-hee.

Past and future imperfect

Enjoyable article in Slate yesterday. It's always fun to look back and cluck at how wrong we were fifteen years ago about technology advances today. Of course, "we" fifteen years ago are also "we" today. It's likely that I'm missing retrospectively-obvious game changers in my current fiction. Uncomfortable thought, that.

The immediate past can be a problem, too. One link in the Slate article threw me for a loop: YouTube has only been around for five years. How is that possible? I remember five years ago. It all seemed so normal. And yet... jeez, how did I manage without YouTube?

This kind of myopia for the last decade must drive the production designer of Lost nuts. The flash sideways episodes are set in 2004, near enough to seem perfectly normal. And yet, I noticed flash sideways Jack Shephard had one of those ancient flip phones. Apparently, ancient = FIVE YEARS AGO. In my mind those phones seem decades old. But of course, five years ago I had a honking great computer sitting on my desk. With a monitor. Remember those???

Nope.

The library elves head up the Amazon with lots of paddles

I'm a big fan of the Los Angeles Public Library online catalog. I order books and the library elves race around this enormous city picking them up. The whole passel gets delivered to my local library and all I have to do is stroll in and check them out. It's so civilized!

I noticed this week that the catalog has a new addition. Each book's listing now includes a link to that book's Amazon reader reviews. Interesting...

I know there are those who consider Internet phenomena like Amazon reader reviews, Wikipedia and the dreaded news blogs bad things, dismissing them as "group think" that stifles "real" creativity. They claim the reviews and blogs offer dangerously unsanctioned opinions and should be avoided. I am not one of those people. I was a history major in college, with a special focus on the seventeenth-century -- the Golden Age of the Pamphlet. Every loon with a few pence got a printing press and went nuts on a street corner, passing around copies of whatever crackpot idea struck his, and occasionally her, fancy. As with today's blogs, some of those loons really were loons, and some of those crackpot ideas really were crackpot. But other crackpot ideas seem less cracked today: democracy, religious freedom, stuff like that. Dangerously unsanctioned ideas can be a very good thing. You never know who's doing the sanctioning.

Anyway... I asked the LAPL Webmaster when they made the addition and what kind of discussion they had on the subject. Here's the reply.

"We added this feature in October of last year. We did have discussions about it, and while some possible concerns were raised, in the end we felt the benefit to our patrons was the most important thing."

That's a politic reply, and I don't blame him. But wouldn't you love to hear some of those discussions and concerns in dirty detail? The next paragraph was more interesting...

"The system uses the ISBN number to make a request to an Amazon server for reviews. If there are none, the patron is invited to make one when they click the link. If there are, the last 5 are brought back from the server when the patron clicks the link, and another link is created to link back to all the reviews. It is using an API Amazon makes available to other web sites."

The entity driving this rather remarkable change is Amazon itself. One might think Amazon and libraries are natural enemies in the world of book delivery, but of course, they aren't. I often buy a book on Amazon after reading the library copy. And if the library system now takes me directly to Amazon, and shows me a bunch of reader reviews, it's even more likely I'll simply buy the book in the first place. The library elves are fast, but Amazon Prime's free two-day delivery is even faster! Plus, I can sell the book -- again on Amazon -- when I no longer need it.

Dang, that's one smart company.

I'm on a horse

The Old Spice Superbowl commercial is wonderful. This is even more wonderful -- an interview with the ad's creators describing how the seamless transitions were produced. It's a longish video, but worth watching.

I draw two major conclusions:

1. I just love in-camera effects. And apparently, other people do too!

2. There are many wonderful, awesomely talented people on the technical end of things without whose efforts a bunch of silly words on paper are just a bunch of silly words on paper. And I say that as someone with deep respect for silly words on paper.

A picture is worth how much?

Even brilliantly written scripts can stand to lose a line or two once they're on film -- was anyone feeling peckish before reading the sign?

Nepotism

One last Precious Nephew post... 'cause it's a good one.

Precious Nephew loves the appalling plastic Gormiti figurines -- but the Italian toys have disappointingly little accompanying narrative video. Yesterday, Precious Nephew interrupted my sister and me to describe the convoluted plot to a Gormiti movie. I assumed this was a real movie, like the Transformers and Bionicle movies he spends hours describing. But no. My sister informed me that there is no movie containing the plot elements he was describing. Intrigued, I asked Precious Nephew if he was writing the movie and he said, "Yes. I am the author." I asked him if he wanted to be a screenwriter -- a person who writes movies -- when he grows up. And he said, "Yes. I will be a screenwriter. I will write all the movies."

He's four now. Considering he's already asked how to make Youtube videos, in a few short years, this kid might be writing all the movies. I'm looking at some kick-ass nepotism from Generation Underpants. Bring on the (literal) baby writers!

Sorry Michael and George, but I call the franchise

The latest narrative gem from Precious Nephew:

"A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, the evil Transformers sent a bad guy to earth and his name was... Hitler."

Where does he get this stuff? Oh, wait. I remember -- EVERYWHERE.

From the mouths of not-so-little babes

I visited Disneyland yesterday with Precious Nephew. He is four and Space Mountain was the only ride he requested by name -- which says something about the marvelous ubiquity of Disney marketing. How does a four-year old who lives in Virginia know about Space Mountain in Anaheim??

We thought the roller coaster might be a bit much for him -- he's tall and made the height requirement, but was clearly the youngest kid in line. But Precious Nephew insisted: Space Mountain or bust. We briefly tried to convince him that the rocket ship kiddie ride in front of Space Mountain was Space Mountain. He laughed at our foolishness, "That's not a mountain."

In the end, we needn't have worried. Precious Nephew clutched his mommy the whole way, but I screamed more than he did. I think next year we may need to up the thrills and visit Six Flags. Yikes.

Anyhow... here's a bit of marketing insight for anyone questioning the wisdom of Disney's Marvel purchase. As we left the park, Precious Nephew caught sight of the Lilo & Stitch image on a plastic ray gun. He turned to us and declared, "I used to love Disney Features... when I was little. Not any more."

Quick -- somebody buy that kid a comic book franchise!

A summer secret

Now that it's officially fall - too late for anyone to profit from this little nugget - I want to share a piece of wisdom from my current job. Submit your spec scripts to agencies in the summer. Yes, it is true that nearly everyone is on vacation in the summer. That person who isn't on vacation? That would be the lowly script reader.

During the fall, winter and spring, agency readers are busy, busy, busy with piles of lovely submissions. In the summer, not so much. But we still need something to read. So the agencies, bless them, put out the nets and find scripts somewhere. And a lot of those scripts are (saying this gently) not very good. And it is just barely possible that - in the face of all that not very good - a normally critical reader's standards could slip. A script that might otherwise get a "no" gets a "maybe," and a "maybe" gets a "yes," and a script that's actually good gets a reader singing and dancing down the halls demanding that somebody make that sucker right now!

I exaggerate. A little.

Still, if you've only got one person you can strong-arm into giving you an agency recommendation to get your precious, precious baby over the transom and into my bin - consider doing it in the summer. If you write that script in readable English, I will love you. In the fall, I make no promises.

Branding is your friend

I had a good meeting with a television literary agent last month. We talked about what the business is currently looking for in a new writer. Which is not what we're taught to expect.

I think we all know by now that original material is gold. Maybe you need a series spec to get in the door, but after that, it's all about your personal voice. So you write that spec pilot. Great. Fabulous. Then what -- another spec pilot? Sure, why not. And since last time you wrote, say, a procedural, this time you're going to write a high school comedy, or maybe a sudsy drama, or a sci-fi actioner. Gotta show range. We've all heard horror stories about writers getting pigeonholed at the start of their careers and nobody wants that to happen. Right?

Wrong.

As far as this agent is concerned, don't think of it so much as a pigeonhole as a BRAND. And yes, you DO want a brand. You want to be a salable, marketable, instantly recognizable entity: this is what I write; this is what I will bring into your writing room and produce, reliably, again and again and again. Don't worry too much about pigeons and holes -- once the industry loves you, there will be plenty of time to show them that you can do sudsy high school procedurals in space just as well.

Okay. So this is one agent's opinion, right? Weeeeell -- this is also the message I got from the Disney/ABC Writing Fellowship interviews. Every question they asked came back to: who are you as a writer, what is your singular voice and what can a room rely on you to provide. Every question. For three days of interviews.

It took me three days to figure out the answer. I didn't get the Fellowship (SO close - agh!) Learn from my mistake. Know your brand.