Tag: tv writing

Time Out! (Our Creepshow Episode)

Last fall, Paul and I got to write a segment for CREEPSHOW on AMC’s Shudder.

We knew the Season 3 was happening, but didn’t know exactly when our segment would air, so it was fun when Paul walked in and read me an excerpt from a review at BloodyDisgusting.com. Yes—we were Episode 5, which dropped today!

Barrington Smith and Paul Seetachitt’s story is a wistful one. There are no tangible monsters here, nor is there a character covering up a misdeed. The misguided Tim simply wants to honor his father, whose own time was cut short. This tale is not hard to connect to on an emotional level; everyone knows someone who worked themselves to death and was consequently deprived of life’s joys. “Time Out” is simple and direct, but it is also incredibly effective

Kind words. BloodyDisgusting.com gave us four skulls, which is the highest rating of any of the episodes so far in the season.

HorrorObsessive.com also did a recap that was less effusive but still complimented the writing.

For those unfamiliar, Creepshow is an anthology series — kind of like Twilight Zone — but with a horror bent. Each episode is divided into two stories. Our story “Time Out,” got paired up with “The Things In Oakwood’s Past” which was cool segment because it was their first foray into animated story-telling and because it featured Mark Hamill, who not everyone realizes is gifted voice actor for animation. My first L.A. job way back in the day was on a live action video game called Wing Commander IV, and Mark Hamill was in the cast. At that time, he was collecting some kind of toys that came in McDonald’s Happy Meals, and because he couldn’t leave the set, I got to bring him a Happy Meal with a toy on a couple of occasions, and he was always incredible friendly and nice!

So this was exciting because it is our first actual produced TV credit! They say you are supposed to celebrate your victories, so I had imagined inviting a few people over, serving some snacks, etc., but the reality is that Paul and I just watched it with our housemate. It was still fun.

And lest anyone think my life is now too glamorous, the other big “happening” at our house is that I have a colonoscopy tomorrow morning, and I just started doing the prep. 🙄

Brain Cram

I want to learn new skills.

That’s not exactly true. I want to have new skills.  If I could get them injected directly into my brain with a big syringe, I would do it. Although it seem like it might hurt. How much pain would you suffer for an hour in order to acquire a completely new skill set–like a language or downhill skiing or French cuisine-making, or internet marketing? I’d like to think that I would be brave about it.

injection-brain
Apparently,  I am not the only one to have imagined this…

I digress.  Big syringe is not an option. (But it would be awesome, wouldn’t it? I mean, except for the pain?) To acquire new skills, one has to learn them.

It takes a time to learn new skills.But I don’t have much time. This is  frustrating. Occasionally,  I look back at my life and wonder if I regret spending so much time to learning a skill that I never use anymore, like massage therapy or swing dancing or playing the piano or algebra.  For reasons it would take too long to explore here, I don’t think I do regret. Also, I don’t look back much, lately, because time is moving forward!  There are skills to be learned!

I haven’t taken the time to rank desired skills, but here are some that are near the top of my list:  I want to learn Spanish. And French. This is for my trip to Switzerland in three weeks.  Do you think it’s possible I can be fluent by then? Just kidding.

Also, I recently shot some video footage for a short film.  I want  to edit it. Using AVID software. So I want to learn how to edit using AVID.

And I want to learn HTML in order to make a website for our film and to make this website less like some kid’s who doesn’t have any coding classes at school. Probably my 13-year old nephew could make a better website than this, if he wasn’t playing Minecraft instead.  (I also want to learn Minecraft–because it must be addictive and cool, but it’s not a top, priority. If I ever break a leg, in between episodes of the last three seasons of Downton Abbey, I plan to learn Minecraft.)

(It just occurred to me that I could learn how to make more money, and then I could pay someone to do the HTML… Nah. HTML is just more me, don’t ya think?)

Probably at the very top of my list is learning how to write a bible/pitch document for a hit-TV series. By next week would be good. This is hard, because there’s not really a set format for a series bible, so far as I can tell. There are no books on topic (Oh, wait–is there a book on this topic?? Let me check Amazon. Okay. No. Whew.). From reading some bibles that are out there (Battlestar Galactica, Rectify, Lost, Extant to name a few) I can see that there’s a set of functions that the document must perform.  It needs to give the reader the flavor of the series, what it’s going to feel like and look like, its tone and its pace.  It needs to give the reader a sense of what’s going to drive the series episode to episode and what’s going to happen over time. It needs to convey what the series is about, thematically (That’s a good one a friend just pointed out to me, even though it should have been obvious. House of Cards is about “the use and abuse of power.” What’s my series about? …. ?????)  And it would be good if the bible could make the reader feel confident that the bible’s author knows how to write the series.

Also, it would be great if I already knew how to write a TV series.

Where’s a big syringe when you need one?