Cable Movie
The thing about tv is the blistering speed. You've heard that making a film is like getting troops into battle and waging a war against the clock. If a writing life could be oranized with that in mind, writing for tv should be required the way boot camp is for soldiers. You have to perform, under absurd deadlines, and if you live, you're a lot stronger.
That happened to me over the last two months. Three drafts, that were turned around in three weeks, two and then one, respectively.
And we go into production on July 19th.
I learned some interesting things, and got some very funny notes. I love the difference between creative notes and production notes. Creative note: "I don't feelt the main character would do this." Production note: - "You wrote a scene for 30 national guardsman, but we can only afford six." What do you do with that? You have to do the scene, how to play it? The other guys were sick? The rest of the National Guard are in Iraq...?
That happened to me over the last two months. Three drafts, that were turned around in three weeks, two and then one, respectively.
And we go into production on July 19th.
I learned some interesting things, and got some very funny notes. I love the difference between creative notes and production notes. Creative note: "I don't feelt the main character would do this." Production note: - "You wrote a scene for 30 national guardsman, but we can only afford six." What do you do with that? You have to do the scene, how to play it? The other guys were sick? The rest of the National Guard are in Iraq...?
posted by Phil | 10:06 AM
7 Comments:
Commanding Officer
Seargeant, get thirty of your best men and take that hill!
SGT
Sir, we only have five. Six, if you go with us.
Commanding Officer
Sorry Seargeant but I have to go into town. Okay, make it happen with the five. Goddamn budget cuts!
LOL.
I hear ya...
Unk
Yes! Actually the choice became one where a politician character in town was trying to block the action of the 'good' guys, so made a viable force one that merely became a token and therefore useless. It was an interesting way to go...
Welcome back, Phill. Can't wait to hear what insights you've gleamed from the past couple of months.
Good on ya for coming back. Looking forward to what you have to say. (Hell, I can't even manage a blog, let alone a TV script.)
Can't afford 30 uniformed extras?
Is the production budget getting sucked into an invisible vortex?
You probably have too many producers on the show! Fire one! Two is even better! Then watch production value magically return!
It didn't take ten producers to make "Rockford Files" or "Flipper" - and their ratings are unreachable in today's world.
Because if "Flipper" had 10 producers it would have ended up being a show about a waterproof hand-puppet.
Is it better to produce a show/pilot that's boring and visually uninteresting because it's staggering under the budgetary weight of producer salaries?
No invisible vortex, cable movies are just cheap and you have limited time and resources regardless of your story. So creative as you get, production realities will then rear their fiscally bound hands and you just have to deal with it.
Roger Corman did something similar:
He was supposed to have 200 Roman soldiers for an 'epic' he was shooting in Italy (or possibly Greece)- but he only had 50.
So he set the shots up where they would march past camera in step, going around behind camera and swapping columns.
You saw the same troops every time but the faces were different because the column of men nearest camera were changed around each time.
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