Writing a Screenplay

This is the second in a series of three blog posts that are based on a class I was asked to attend for a friend of mine at New York Film Academy on playwriting versus screenwriting versus TV writing. This isn't an excerpt from a lecture that I'll be giving, but more of a riff on the subject. I wanted to jot down some notes to get me thinking about what I could possibly say about how I approach writing screenplays. I already wrote about playwriting and the next subject is TV writing. I feel I'm discovering a little bit about my process through writing about it.

So here it goes.  Round Two…

I haven't written many full length screenplays in my life. It's probably the form of dramatic writing I'm least familiar with. And when I sat down to work on this latest screenplay, I was worried that I had forgotten how to do it. Fortunately, I have been writing TV pilots so I understood the kind of structure that needed to happen. And I was about to write more visually because I have added some visual elements to my TV pilots.

What makes something a film versus something else?

I'm not the action writing type. So explosions are one way to differentiate oneself. The screenplay I wrote is really a coming of age story and it referenced other films. So I guess that's why it seemed more adaptable to a screenplay. But for me, screenplays rely the least on dialogue. It really is about the action and the visual. Although I love talky movies too.

Screenplays are close-ended stories that are more visual. Maybe that's my answer. With screenplays, things need to happen at certain markers. Act One is pages 1-30 (maybe 1-20ish if you're writing a 90 minute movie). Act Two is 31-90. And Act Three is 91-120. No one I know really writes 120 page screenplays. There's a lot of talk about the inciding incident, the event that kicks off the film. Act One is the set up and the build up to the premise of the film. Act Two is where things get wicked complicated and the winner almost loses. And Act Three is the redemption or resolution.  Plays aren't structured that way in the modern sense.  And with TV, there's a greater story you're telling.

I suppose screenplays can be bigger in scope. Although this screenplay I just finished wasn't. But it didn't necessarily feel like a continuing story either.  But I had a clear story I wanted to tell with a set beginning, middle and end. I suppose I felt that this story was best told in a visual way because it referenced other films. I do have to say that I enjoyed writing this screenplay, which ended up being 94 pages. The story and plot seem to be king in screenplays. Everything moves swiftly and sometimes there are scenes that play without words and are told purely visually.

I have to say that when I looked back at the first ten pages of this screenplay, instinctually, it really hit those marks of introducing my characters and the central question of the piece.  There was an event that set everything off and running. And even with going further and figuring out the event that sets Act One into Act Two, it seemed like everything hit its mark.

I do outline with screenplays and with TV shows as well. I felt like I had a good story that could be told with many characters. Plays seem to be a little more self contained. The last three plays I wrote had either 3 or 4 actors. But for me, the visual aspect of screenwriting is the most fun. It's great to tell a story through visuals instead of through language.  I like to imagine certain shots and  try to write in a way that's aware of what's being seen and less about what's being said. But again, I'm a fan of Woody Allen's films and Richard Linklater's films as well. And those can be very talky. Yet the location is just as much of a character as any of the written characters are.

Maybe that's the difference.

Why I Love Documentaries

People talking.

That's why I love documentaries.

I love to hear people talk to each other.  I love to hear the sound of actual speaking.
As I child, I used to love hearing the sound of the rain and the shower.
Water hitting the ground.
I used to love hearing people talking in the background,
overhearing the adult conversations
at parties my parents used to go to.
Or when they would make us go to bed early as kids,
I used to love to image what was going on
downstairs.
I love talk radio.
I love talking.

So documentaries are people in real time,
in real space,
who are living their lives unfiltered.
I suppose that's what I want to do
as a narrative storyteller,
as a writer of fiction.

Why not just make documentaries?

I love to control the elements too much.
And I love to make up the words
that sound real.
I couldn't make people talk the way
I want to.
That's spontaneous.
More to the point, it comes
from them.
That's what I like about it.
It is entirely theirs.
I can't interfere with that and be effective.
But I can control
what other people say
so that it comes from me.
I like it when the words
come from someone, uninterrupted.
Even in a documentary, because I would be framing it,
I would want to control it.
So that's why real sounding fiction is better.

But I could watch documentaries for hours and hours on end.
That's because they are just information and I am not
trying to edit or look for story problems.
I am just enjoying.

I'm interested in stories.
Pure stories.
There are films and TV shows that take me out of my head, but
usually they firmly plant me in my head
because I'm thinking about what
I would say differently
or what I would do differently.
It's too hard to just watch something
for enjoyment.

Documentaries are a chance for me to just
get out and go somewhere else.
I don't have to pay attention in a critical way.

Maybe the reason I don't want to make documentaries
is that if I made documentaries then
I wouldn't enjoy them anymore.

I am grateful for documentaries of all kinds.
I am grateful for Netflix.
I am grateful for HBO Go.
I am grateful for information to enter my brain.
I am grateful for inspiration.
I am grateful that I am learning patience.

Revising the Message

My friend Jenn asked me to do a guest blog on her website.  She was an undergrad at NYU while I was a grad student there.  She remembered me as a go-getter and a networker.  So she asked if I would write up my Top Five Networking Tips for Writers.  I thought it was so sweet that she asked, so I said yes.  I wrote up the following, but then she told me it needed to be 300 words or less.  I wrote 3500 words.

So I sat down with the task of writing 300 words of less of advice.  I did several drafts.  Then I stopped. What I wanted to write was different than what she wanted me to write.  She really wanted a short summary.  I wanted to write a novel and I wanted to give some context to my advice.  Then I realized I was tripping up on the word "tips."  After sleeping on it, I wrote something completely different that was really about what to do if you don't like talking about yourself.  That will be on her site at some point soon, after I look it over and send it to her.  But I thought I would include what I originally wrote here, complete with some stories to illustrate my five points.  

Through writing this, I realized that I'm not the same person I was all of those years ago.  I'm glad she remembers me so fondly, but I was a little relentless.  What I wrote below is a lot more warm and fuzzy than I would have written ten years ago.  And what I'm giving Jenn will be softer as well, but we live in a world where we need "tips."  I get it.  Shortcuts.  Maybe this will seem long-winded and you'll be begging for my tips.  Just the tips.

When people talk about breaking into the TV writing business, they often say that there’s no one way to break in.  And that’s true.  They also say that it’s all about the work and if you’re talented, the powers that be will find you.  “Cream rises to the top.”  That’s true as well. 

But you’re interested in any sort of dramatic writing, you write so that your words can be heard and your stories can be seen.  It’s a public art form.  And at a certain point, you have to get off your behind and toot your own horn.  If this isn’t your natural inclination, I have two things to say:

First, the writing gene and the self-promoting gene are not related.  As all writers know, we’ve observers.  We like to hide behind our words and comment on the things around us.  We don’t like to be directly involved in the action.  So don’t beat yourself up because talking about yourself doesn’t come naturally.  The important thing is that you come across as a) knowledgeable and b) completely yourself.

Secondly, you need to get over it.  Networking is necessary.  You need to people to get to know who you are as a person and then as a writer.  You don’t need to be the person in the room demanding everyone’s attention--unless that’s honestly who you are.  Authenticity is important in your daily life, in your writing and it’s important when you’re presenting yourself to people.  Your primary goal should be to meet new people and have a nice conversation.  Then the business can be a happy byproduct of an honest connection. 

Listen, when I was in my twenties and early thirties I was definitely the kind of person who would make my agenda crystal clear.  And I think sometimes I came off as overbearing.  I masked that by being funny and entertaining, but I think that could have come across as trying too hard.  You should have an agenda and these conversations are business conversations.  You can’t run away from those facts.  But coming off as a used car salesman doesn’t prove how ambitious you are.  It just proves that you’re good at the hard sell.  And usually, the hard sell means that you’re overcompensating for some sort of flaw or insecurity.  At least, it can come across that way.

With that being said, here are my Five Top Networking Tips for Writers. 

1)   Find your Network.  Networking tips are great coming from some know-it-all writer, but what first you have to acknowledge that you even have a network to begin with.   You may be thinking, “Who do I know?”  Either you’re outside of New York or LA or you’re just out of school or you’re not even doing anything that’s related to the entertainment industry.  So start with that question: “Who Do I Know?”  And make a list.  If you’re a student, start with your professors.  Did you cultivate relationships while you were in school?  Did you go in during office hours to chat with your professors about your classwork or anything under the sun?  Does anyone know you beyond just being a hard-working student?  And if you weren’t a hard-worker then you should just stop reading now.  Because no one’s going to root for you or put in a good word for you if they think you’re lazy or have a bad attitude.  I’m assuming if you’re looking for advice, you’re already amazing and talented and special.

When you’re just starting out—young or older and switching gears—it’s hard to realize that you have people you can reach out to.  But this is the first task of networking.  Find Your Network.  Who can help you?  And it can be your brother or your cousin’s barber’s niece’s gardener’s fiance’s father-in-law.  It is better if the connection is as close in proximity as possible.  But a connection is a connection.  And that’s how you start building your network.  Also, this is the perfect set up to use tips 2-5.

2)   Don’t Be Shy.  Okay, so you have your list and you’re ready to reach out to people.  OR you’re at a party and you’re thinking about how it’s going to come off if you just walk up to someone cold and introduce yourself.  But you’re thinking that you don’t want to appear too desperate.  Or you think that you’re not very interesting.  Or you don’t know what to say.  Or you don’t even have the courage to walk up to someone and say hello or to send an email to your cousin’s barber’s niece’s gardener’s fiance’s father-in-law. 

You can’t be shy about these things.  I know it’s hard.  But think about what you want: an agent, a writing job, an interview…an opportunity.  You’ll never get there alone.  And you need someone to feel like they should help you out.  You need to give them a reason to.  And you can’t give them a reason if they don’t even get the chance to discover what a sweet/ funny/ interesting/ charming/ goofy person you are.  You want to endear yourself to them. 

Along with Don’t Be Shy goes Don’t Be Intimidated.  Because that’s why we’re often hesitant, right?  Listen, if this person chooses to be a jerk to you, then that’s about them and not about you.  I remember I was with a friend at the Palm Springs International Film Festival back when I was in graduate school.  And I was standing at a buffet next to M. Night Shamalyan.  So I went up to him and said that I was a fan of his (even though I hadn’t seen The Sixth Sense…btw, this isn’t a story encouraging you to lie).  I knew that he had gone to NYU, so I mentioned that I was in graduate school.  And he gave me some advice: It’s going to be a lot of hard work, so just be prepared.  Okay, maybe not the most profound advice.  But here was a guy who had become successful and had a vision for himself.  He worked hard and it paid off.  He was an accomplished filmmaker and I was just a young graduate student.  I thought he might have some advice for me, so I walked up to him.  I knew the NYU thing was a good in.  It meant that I was smart and talented and not just a loon.  But I could have just as easily just let him walk away.  And that advice has served me.  It also gave me the encouragement to walk up to more people that I might be shy about approaching.

3)   Don’t Be Sad (or Uncertain…or a Know-It-All).  So once you have the courage to send that email or walk up to that famous film director, remember one thing: Don’t Do Anything that Cuts Off the Conversation Too Soon.   I know that as writers we can be hard on ourselves.  We keep writing that script 17 times (and counting) because it’s just not perfect yet.  We don’t start that script yet because we’ve still got research to do, even though we’ve been researching for the past six months and have checked out every book in the library and read every article on the subject online.  Or we finally hand that special contact the script we said we’d send over.  And we say something we think it humble:  “It’s not very good.”  WTF? So you’ve worked hard to write a list of the people you know with connections to the industry, you’ve summoned up the courage to get an email or a meeting or you’ve decided to walk up cold and introduce yourself and you have the chutzpah to open your mouth only to shoot yourself in the foot?

It’s not humble to tell everyone what a schmuck you think you are.  It’s not a good idea to lower expectations.  I know I said earlier that you shouldn’t work the hard sell, but there is a happy medium somewhere.  Whether you’re meeting someone at your best friend’s wedding, at a bar, at the gym or in a meeting, remember this: No One Wants to Talk to the Sad Guy.  Don’t be sad.  Don’t be hard on yourself.  Don’t sell yourself short.  You worked your ass off on that script you wrote.  You want people to get excited about you. 

And you want to be sure of yourself.  Here’s another story about the time Vince Vaughn…okay, these are not all celebrity stories.  There’s a reason I’m telling these stories and it’s not just to brag about meeting celebrities.  But it illustrates that I have put myself in the position of being in the right place at the right time.  My best friend was doing a movie with Vince Vaughn before Swingers hit.  I was just fresh out of college.  So this was before Vince Vaughn was a celebrity.  He asked me what I did.  “I’m a writer,” I said.  “But not a writer like you’re an actor.  You’re on set.  You’re acting.  You’re making it happen.”  He looked at me: “Do you write?”  I nodded.  “Then you’re a writer.”  And from that point on, I stopped putting myself down in front of people who could be helpful.  Thankfully, Vince just saw my sad sack attitude as me being young.  But that’s the sort of thing that can make people walk away.  If you’re uncertain about you, I have no reason to be certain about you. 

And on the flip of that, don’t be a know it all.  Because if you’ve got it all together, you don’t need my help.  You have to invite people in to want to help you.  Here’s an example of something I figured out recently.  I think I’m a confident, intelligent and interesting person.  I think I follow all of these tips and I think that it has worked out for me.  But I started realizing that I was pursuing people a lot more than they were pursuing me.  The point of networking is to pursue people.  I know that.  But it felt like other people around me were getting producers, writers and other industry folks to help them out.  I had a little bit of a “Why Not Me” moment about it.  Then I had a realization.

I come in guns blazing, ready to impress.  I talk about my accomplishments.  I listen.  I engage.  I seem like I have it all together.  And that’s the problem.  I’m not saying that you should be a mess so that people take pity on you.  But if the other person sees an opportunity where they can be of use to someone who is confident, intelligent and interesting, but still could use some assistance, they’re going to reach out.  If there isn’t an opening for them to do so, they’re not.  People want to be a part of your success.  They want to feel like they’re doing something useful.  Or they want to know that maybe you’re someone who can help them out in the future, so they’ll put in a little investment so they can ask for a favor down the line. 

4)   Don’t Waste Anyone’s Time.  This is a lesson I learned when I was working for a well-known TV literary manager.  I would have people who would call me all of the time, wanting advice or wanting information about where to send a query letter.  If it was clear that the caller hadn’t taken the time to research who we were or what kind of material we would respond to, I got them off the phone in 45 seconds or less.  But if that person had informed questions, I could be on the phone for 20 minutes.  If you’re asking inane questions, 45 seconds or less is a huge waste of my time.  If you’re respectful of my time, 20 minutes is no problem. 

You have to be aware of who you are speaking to and you have to have some sort of goal.  You can’t just talk someone’s ear off for the sake of talking their ear off.  I remember recently I was at a networking event for students of mine in LA.  Being an alumnus of the same university, one of my students suggested I show up, even though most of the alums at the party were much younger than me.  I was introduced to a producer who was being bombarded by students and alums who just wanted to talk to him, but had no focus to their conversations.  I had no intention of really networking, since I was there to answer some questions, and I knew the event was really geared towards recent grads.  But we started talking and sharing our experiences.  He mentioned that he was looking for a new project, so we exchanged information.  But in the meantime, we talked about my teaching experiences because he was interested in teaching as well.  We had a valuable, worthwhile conversation that was about our love of TV, our passion for share our experiences and that led to what I was working on, which fortunately sounded interesting to him.

The important thing to remember is that you need to have an appropriate answer to certain basic questions, including some of the following:
What are you watching? 
What films/TV shows do you like? 
What’s your story? 
What inspires you?

I often talk to writers who say, “I don’t like talking about myself.”  It’s this false humility thing. “The work speaks for itself.”  But it doesn’t.  It needs a context.  We need to know how the story of your play/movie/TV pilot connects to you.  We need to know why you’re the only person who could write this story.  Talking about yourself is just a way of connecting to your material.  If you want to communicate through your work, you need to learn to communicate about your work. 

The other thing that people do to waste their time and to waste the time of the person they’re speaking to is related to Tip #3.  It’s putting yourself down.  If someone is looking to hire you or to put you in contact with someone who could hire you, you should never admit to anything that makes you appear to be less than the Hardest Working Person in Showbiz.

I worked for two producers who would always come back from their staffing meetings (where they interviewed writers to hire them on their staff) and would tell me what never to do.  And although, I would never think I would be guilty of any of the sins they had heard, I listened with great attention.  But the biggest faux pas people committed (on all levels, not just Staff Writer candidates) was that they admitted to not working hard.  They admitted to not finishing drafts very fast.  They admitted to not always having a ton of ideas.  They admitted to not liking outlines.  What my bosses got from that was that they were going to be a huge pain in the ass because they didn’t work fast and hard.  Given the pace of television, there’s just no time for that. 

You can’t tell someone that you have a hard time writing.  Or that you only write a script every year or two.  I know that you think that tells people how serious you are about your writing and that you don’t want to rush something good.  But all they want to know is that you’re brilliant and fast.  You have to be both.  You have to be prolific and a genius.  You need to “hit it out of the park.”  Another favorite term of agents and managers.  Yes, it’s an impossible ideal, but you have to perpetuate that idea that you are Superman or Wonder Woman.  They don’t want to hear your problems.  It doesn’t make you more serious in their eyes.  It just means that you’re too precious or too lazy.  And it’s a waste of time.

5)   Do Follow Up/Share.  Take the card.  Give them yours.  And follow up.  If you say you’re sending a script, do it ASAP (within a few days of being given the permission to send a script). 

If you sent a script, give them 3-4 weeks to read it.  They will most likely take 3-4 months, but don’t follow up a week later.  Unless they tell you to.  But if they’re as important and busy as they say they are, they’ve got a lot to read.  Then follow up every 3-4 weeks. 

Re: Being Annoying – You can’t worry about it.  Use some common sense and judgment.  Think about what it would feel like if someone emailed you every week: “Did you read it?  Did you read it?  Did you read it?”  Annoying.  But what’s annoying to one person, won’t be annoying to everyone.  And I’m talking about them, not you.  If you’re annoying, in most cases you have a sense of that. I know that some people have no idea when they’re being annoying, so if that’s the case, you’ll read this sentence and you won’t think it applies to you.  Emailing to follow up is always better than calling.

Be sure to share when good things are happening.  If you’ve got a show coming up, use that as an excuse to send an email to remind a producer who has had your script for six months to read it.  My friend Susan has an email list of contacts and she bcc’s them as a group (very important – don’t give away other people’s emails or privacy) whenever she’s got an event or a play reading or production.  She’s the queen of sharing.  She Facebooks and uses Twitter to share when good things have happened.  It lets people know that she’s working hard.

I Facebook and Tweet about writing.  I send links to my blog.  I announce when I have a writing day.  I tweet about how many pages I’ve written.  And that could border on being annoying.  That’s why I didn’t do it for so long.  I didn’t want people to think I was bragging.  I didn’t want people to think I was showing off.  But then I realized that all I was saying was that writing is a daily practice.  Maybe it’ll help me get a job indirectly one day.  Maybe it won’t.  At the very least, it keeps me accountable.  At the very most, it lets influential people know that I am committed to my craft every day.  I have the courage to stare at the blank page every single day.  And I write a lot: pilots, plays, blogs, posts.  And I’m funny.  And self-depricating (but not in a downer way).  They get to know my personality.  And they’re reminded that I’m out there.  I’m fresh in their mind.

That’s how I got my teaching job.  My job had just ended.  I was taking some time off because my father had just gotten sick.  I had time on my hands, but I wanted to be productive.  So I reached out to a bunch of different folk.  But one of the emails I sent was to a former professor and the head of the Theatre department at my alma mater.  I told her that I was available and would be more than happy to offer some workshops to students on either the Business of Writing or a master class in Playwriting.  She got back to me within days, calling me to tell me that the Playwriting professor had to take a day off in October and if I was interested, they’d fly me up and put me up in a hotel to sub in for him.  That sounded awesome.  More than I expected.  Then two weeks later, she called me again and told me he needed to take the entire term off unexpectedly and asked if I would be interested in teaching his Intro to Playwriting class.  I jumped at the chance.  I always wanted to see if I could teach on the University level.  And that happened just because I reached out.  So don’t be afraid to reach out to your network.

BONUS: Don’t Network Without a Good Reason.  This last bonus tip is about one simple thing: have material or have a reason to reach out.  If you’re a writer, make sure you’ve got a lot of material that is consistent with the type of writer you are, that tells the story of who you are, and that is varied enough that it doesn’t seem like the same story over and over again.  Networking is important.  But if you’re just schmoozing and you don’t have the material to back it up, it’s a wasted opportunity.  That seems like an obvious tip.  Hell, maybe all of these seem obvious. But we all need to be reminded of stuff that we already know, things that we think we’re already doing.  I hope this has been helpful to you on some level.  I’m just sharing what I’ve learned and what I have observed. 

Like anything, take what you need and leave what you don’t.

My First, My Last, My Everything

Sometimes I have to go back to the source of inspiration.

As a baby artiste, I remember watching the Truth or Dare documentary six times.  I kept going back and watching it over and over again.  I had to absorb everything.  This was a cultural moment.  I knew it from when I was a kid.  Here was a pop artist at the apex of her powers and popularity.  I would argue that Madonna has done things that have been way more artistic since.  And way more popular before in terms of how commercial and thoughtless her work was.  Some people still prefer "old Madonna."  I take that to mean everything before Like a Prayer. 

It kind of reminds me of this project I'm working on that revolves around the work of Robert Altman.  Actually, that's my take on it.  The theatre's take is that it concerns Nashville.  But to me, that would be like taking Like A Prayer as a source of inspiration.  But to get to Like a Prayer, you should look at Madonna with "Burning Up," "Lucky Star", and "Borderline."  Then you get to the next wave of popularity and one of the best sophomore albums ever with Like a Virgin.  You've got the title track, "Material Girl", "Angel", "Dress You Up."  And Nile Rodgers.  Then you have True Blue where she took another step forward with "Papa Don't Preach", "Open Your Heart", "La Isla Bonita."  She cut all of her hair off.  Then she got married, got divorced and came back darker.  And decided for the first time to confront her iconography.  She was never a "prayer" or a "virgin."  But she was an assimilation of one.  She wanted to take the concept of "virgin" with the sexual images and then look at the religious  iconography and came up with what is my all time favorite album of hers.  It's because it's a reawakening.  It's a breakthrough.  Like a Prayer.  Every track was stunning.  I think a review said at the time that it was as close to art as pop music gets.  And that's taking into consideration the Beatles and Bowie and Patti Smith.  It's taking into consideration a lot of things.

But she knew who she was and she showed it off.  From that high point, she released her best dance track of all time "Vogue", a song that seemed timeless, referential and like the future all at once.  To a very impressionable budding gay person and artist, this just seemed like where I wanted to be.  I invested deeply in pop culture.   The seed for my art was born there.  I loved art.  I loved reading. I loved looking at the past.  I loved being ahead of the curve.  I felt like Madonna embodied that for me.

I guess most people had playwrights like Mamet, Kushner, Albee and Ibsen as their inspiration.  My inspiration was Madonna.  I felt like it was pop art in written form.  That's what I was creating.  I cared about social issues.  But I also was an entertainer.  I loved experimenting and playing with form.  I loved dance.  I loved music.

I just watched the MDNA tour DVD.  And all of that came up for me again.  It's inspiring that someone who is in her 50s can continue to evolve and create.  But that's what the example of Madonna has always been.  She broke through barriers and expectations.  The expectation of a global pop star.  The expectation of women.  And now the expectation that we're done when we get older.  She was drenched in the fountain of youth up on stage in the best way.

Then she had Erotica, which was a step towards a darker kind of sexuality.  She kind of suggested things before, but this felt like she was just challenging people to challenge her on her use of sex.  Then we had the Sex book, which was a part of this whole era.  The music was all right.  It didn't feel as artistic, but it felt like it was trying to make a deliberate statement.  Madonna was now working full-time as an artist and sometimes she took steps that were purely about being defiant.  But even though there were dark gems like "Erotica", "Thief of Hearts", and "Deeper and Deeper", there were also moments of pure beauty like "Rain."  This was followed up by Bedtime Stories, which was kind of a gentler Madonna who was trying to make sense of 90s R&B.  A better album musically, but still her identity had shifted and it felt like Madonna the game changer was gone.  Although "Bedtime Story" spoke of something to come.  And it came like a Ray of Light.  This album was the game changer and a move towards a more spiritual Madonna.  It felt like the provocateur of that early era finished with her growing pains from the previous two albums.  And here was another brilliant artistic statement wrapped in an electronica blanket.  So many tracks on this album were brilliant and it was our introduction to serious, spiritual Madonna who now found another important taboo subject to take on: spirituality and enlightenment.  Music brought us back to the dance floor in a more lighthearted way.  Then American Life came in like gangbusters and broke down the door.  Madonna was getting political.  I loved this album personally, but I felt like the remix album was a bit of a cop out.  No apologies.  "Hollywood", "Nobody Knows Me" and "Mother and Father" were a couple of highlights.  After the serious backlash she got for that album, she got frivolous and stayed there for the next two albums which were heavily influenced by dance music of the 70s and 80s.  Confessions on a Dance Floor was just all right to me and I'm in the minority.  I liked Hard Candy more because it was fun.  It was a better decade for her to take on hip hop because the sound was a lot more fun.  She went back to black on this one with Pharell, Kanye and Timbaland.  It also sounded a lot like the old stuff, which interestingly enough wasn't enough to interest a bunch of folks.  And now we have MDNA, which I sincerely love.  I think people are getting a little fatigued by a woman who keeps going and keeps reinventing and keeps turning out successful, fun, listenable music.

NOTE: I did a lecture on the spirituality of Madonna and reinvention when I was in college.  This is an interesting parallel for me when I look at the work of Robert Altman because they are both artists who do not apologize.  And their most special and well-received work just came from them working at it.  I think Like a Prayer is Madonna's Nashville in that it was a turning point for her and influenced everything after it, while not trying to recreate its magic.

That's the funny thing about influences.  They don't have to look anything like each other.  As human beings we can like things that don't seem to go together.  And that's the wonderful cross-pollination that becomes art.

The Greatest Moments in Television History

Last night was the Breaking Bad finale and I have to confess that I'm only three episodes in on the entire series.  My boyfriend has been trying to get me into it since he started binge watching a year ago. I have this superstitious thing that I don't like to watch a lot of scripted TV while I'm writing something.  And since I haven't been writing anything that is as dark as Breaking Bad, I have been putting it off.  I only watched the pilot and two episodes at his insistence last month.  Needless to say, I need to catch up on the show.

I am missing out on all of these conversations about whether the finale lived up to expectations.  I stopped watching Dexter three seasons ago, so I didn't mind clicking on the Entertainment Weekly website to read the recap of the series finale.  Seems like most people hated it.

I loved The Shield finale with Vic confined to a desk.  I thought it was a perfect ending and an example of ending on a whimper instead of a bang.  Yet it worked.  I had the advantage of seeing the finale in a theatre with a bunch of executives and with Shawn Ryan, the creator of the show because I used to work for his manager.  I had mixed feelings about 30 Rock.  I loved the ending of Sex and the City, where Carrie talks about the most important relationship being the one you have with yourself.  And that's the real ending for me with those characters, not the films.

I also really dug The Sopranos ending.  Crickets.

So I have been around for some of the Greatest Moments in Television History. I can feel a part of some cultural conversation.  However, recently I have a problem.  There's too much to watch.  I am missing out on other great moments.

Here's where I start my confession.

I have never seen an episode of Mad Men.
Or Walking Dead.  Or  The Wire.

Should I go on?  Or is my credibility just shot at this point?

I'm not watching Scandal.  I have not started watching any Netflix shows, including House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Derek or Arrested Development.  

The last show I binge watched was David Chang's The Mind of a Chef and that's because I'm writing a script about chefs.  I do watch a lot of Netflix shows about cooking.

The last scripted show I binge watched was Downton Abbey.  But that's the problem.  I stopped doing everything for the weekend I was watching Downton. I didn't sleep.  I didn't eat.  I certainly didn't write or have sex with my boyfriend.  I think he was out of town.  I was too focused.

And that's what happens to me with everything.  If I devote time to anything, it gets my full attention.  And I'm afraid to lose that much time.  A good friend of mine suggested that I get into Ray Donovan.  We don't have Showtime right now, but I was dogsitting for some friends and they have Showtime on Demand.  But the service was down because of internet issues.  So my friend Amanda, who had made the suggestion, came over and got on the phone with Direct TV so that my friend Emily and I, who had also been beaten down to watch the show, could start watching it.

We started out with the pilot.  Okay...interesting set up of this fixer in Hollywood. But it seemed kind of cliche to me in a way.  It's about this Irish thug with a thick accent like a New Yorker in Scorese's 70s Manhattan.  The acting is great.  I love Jon Voight.  But it all seems a little too stereotypical gangster for me.  We watched episode two and then episode three.  It's a good show.  But nothing about it made me feel like I had to catch up before the season finale.   So we stopped watching after three episodes.  I'll probably go back and check it out at some point.  It's well done.  But it's not in my queue.

My queue.  Here's what's on it:
http://creativityinrealtime.blogspot.com/2013/09/my-netflix-queue.html

TV is so competitive these days because there's so much you can watch--old or new--at any time.  And now that a lot of the entire history of TV is available at a moment's notice, a new show has to be faster, shinier, darker, funnier, more everything than ever.

But it does give me anxiety.  Am I just missing out on the Greatest Moments in TV History?  I still never finished watching The Comeback.  It's scary that we used to do this with books.  But who really reads anymore?  I try to.  There's a stack of books that I have on my shelf that I need to get to.  I was visiting my friends Drew and Tim a few weeks ago.  They just moved into a new place.  And they had books everywhere.  They're theatre dudes, so they also had plays, which are thinner.  And books.  And anthologies.  Just laid out everywhere.  Imagine if everything that was on my queue was a DVD?  I would have to have a separate closet just for the films and TV shows I haven't watched it.  The same thing goes with music and CDs.  If things weren't digital, do you think we'd accumulate and over stuff our queues the way we have?

My computer has a lot of virtual clutter.  But what does that even mean?  Is it like the concept of a higher power?  It's all around and it takes a lot of space, but it's easy to ignore it.  It's easy to question its existence.  I'm sure studies will come out soon about how all of this accumilation is making us anxious. More anxious than ever.

We are in a supposed Golden Age of TV.  That makes sense since we have entire encyclopedias of information and research at our finger tips.  We can reference what came before in great detail and improve upon it.  This Golden Age is a great example of how important it is to know your history.  Now if I could just get back to those books and plays I should be reading, maybe I could make a dent in working on a couple of other potential Golden Ages.

My Netflix Queue

Here's what I'm saving for later:

• Portlandia - I didn't love Seasons One and Two.  I liked them for sure.  I thought it was clever.  I'm writing something with my best friend that we came up with because she started out a conversation with, "I was watching Portlandia the other night and thought of you..."  Then Season Three came on Netflix and I was hooked.  This was the last thing I binge watched.  But I'm not counting it as new because I started checking it out a while back.  Love Chloe Sevengy.  Love the nod to French New Wave.  Love, love, love.
• Derek - I love the bad hair and the sweater on the cover.  I love that it's a new Netflix show.  I hear they're supposed to be great, which is why I keep saving them on my queue.  I love that it's a less arch show supposedly than the other shows he has done.  It's a recent addition, which means that it has a snowball's change in hell of getting watched any time soon.
• Breaking Bad - I know!  It's over now.  I need to get beyond the three episodes I've watched.  It looks great.  I'm intrigued.  It's a bit dark for me.  But I keep waiting for a free month.  Or an illness.  I'm not really waiting for an illness.  I shouldn't have said that.  And I'm not waiting for a free month.  That would mean that I wouldn't have work or money or ideas coming in.  That's not a good thing.  So I'm not going to watch it any time soon?  Even though I should?  
• House of Cards - Everyone I know is raving!  I'm an asshole for not watching.  Yet another reason for self-loathing. It's smart.  It's created by Beau Willimon.  It has staff of playwrights.  But I feel again like I need to devote a binge watching session to it and there never seems to be enough time.
• Orange is the New Black - Same issue.  And I was told I'd like this more than House of Cards.  But I still can't forgive Jenji Kohan for the last few seasons of Weeds.  Although, I did skip around and graze binge watch (that's a new term I'm coining...to graze binge watch is to skip around a bunch of episodes just to get the gist or to catch up) the last season of Weeds.  It means you're half committed.  Is that like being semi-erect?  It's exactly like being semi-erect.
• Mad Men - Probably the travesty of all time, along with never watching The Wire.  That's on HBO Go, which is another drug of choice.  But this post would be five years long if I took time to talk about what I'm watching or not watching on HBO Go.  I could devote a whole post just on my love of HBO Go.  It's like a fever dream.   
• Back to Mad Men - I need to watch it.  I've never seen an episode.  I'm afraid I'm going to love it too much, stop bathing, shit myself and then feed off of my own arms because I'll be so glued to the screen.  One day...one day it will happen.  I have that to look forward to.
• David Chang: The Mind of a Chef - I keep this guy around because I love him.  I've binge watched him twice.  Is that like gang banging someone twice?  It's exactly like gang banging someone twice.  I love cooking and I love Asian revolutionaries.  Nuff said.
• Top of the Lake - I impulse purchased this one.  Although, it's not a purchase.  The service is already paid for.  But it has pedigree and it sounds interesting.  And I feel like I want to reject Elisabeth Moss twice since I'm not watching her on Mad Men.  I'm afraid to commit to Elisabeth Moss.  That's the real confession here. And clearly I have chosen sides because I'm watching Portlandia.
• Scandal - I can't get past the pilot, but everyone says it gets better.  And hey, it worked for me being gay.  So maybe Scandal Gets Better too.  That seems to be the word on the street.  Eventually I came out and things worked out on the other side.  I just need to give Scandal a shot.  For that reason, maybe it should move to the top of my queue.
• Drive - Is this the first movie on here?  I love Gosling and I hear great word of mouth.  And I don't want to think up a joke here because I've got too many things to get to on my queue.  Or on my list talking about what's on my queue.
• Freaks and Geeks - I've seen it.  I keep it around like the Bible.  It makes me feel safe and secure.  Because it existed that means there is hope in the world.
• Manhattan - Same as above.  But the movie version.  It's got style.  It's got panache and flair.  And those are things that should never be underrated.
• Jiro Dreams of Sushi - I have started it.  Because of the chef pilot I'm writing, people have been suggesting it to me.  I'll get to it.  Or it will sit on my queue, half eaten, for another few months.  Hope it doesn't get moldy.  Food joke!
• Luther - Peer pressure.  People say I should.  And Idris Elba is sexy.  I loved him on The Office.  I wonder if it's like that.  I seriously know nothing about this show.
• The House of Cards Trilogy (original BBC) - If I'm not watching the newer, longer, sexier more American star-studded version, do you think I'm going to make time for this.  Well, one thing I heard was that it's better.  But I feel like I need to binge watch these two together, which is another reason why it's taking me so long to watch either one.  Does size matter?  We'll see.
• A Place at the Table - I'm a sucker for documentaries.  And I'm a bigger sucker for food documentaries.  This will probably get watched before much else, along with Jiro Dreams of Sushi and my third binge watching session of David Chang: The Mind of a Chef.
• The Trip - I rented this at my local library once.  I watched a bit of it.  But as discussed, I love food and talking about food and humor.  So this might get watched on a binge eating/binge watching weekend.  Oh...that's a great theme.
• Jean Michele Basquiat/Basquiat - I'm pairing these both together because one is the documentary and one is the film with Geoffrey Wright that I saw a long time ago.  I'll probably watch both together because I love art as much as I love food.  And anything that talks about art, I'll watch.  And as I've already mentioned, documentaries place higher on my priority list because I don't have to think when I watch them.  I can enjoy them more than scripted shows because I like to poke holes in scripted shows.  It's part of my process.
• Hit & Miss - It's the Chloe Sevengy show where she places a transgender hit person.  A hit man with boobs.  It sounds like an outrageous idea, exactly the sort of thing I'd watch.  Yet I'm not watching.  I'm intrigued by boobs and balls.  I hope there are lots of those kinds of quality jokes in this show.
• The Art of the Steal - An art heist documentary.  Done.
• Political Animals -  I've already seen it, but I'm writing a soap and I liked how soapy and fun this was while also trying to be serious and political.  It has its bad moments, but it has Sigourney Weaver and it's really smart in places too.  This is when I'm bored and I want to watch something I've already seen and I don't want to invest in something new.  It's like going back to an old lover.
• America in Primetime - it's a learning tool.  A four part series on certain archetypes in TV.  I've watched them all at least once.  I've watched the one on the independent woman four or five times.
• Valentino: The Last Emperor -  I also love fashion documentaries in addition to food and art documentaries.  And this is one of the best because these two old queens know how to serve decrepit, bitter realness.
• The Conversation - Because I should see it.
• Beautiful Losers - I don't remember why it's on here.  But it expires tomorrow.  So I'll just let it die, like the butterfly on the cover.
• Big Night - Saw it years ago, writing a show about chefs...thought I'd use it for reference.  Haven't touched it.
• Terms of Endearment - I used it for research for a sketch I'm writing.  I watched it last night.
• The Long Goodbye - I'm writing something that involves Altman.  It's on my queue because it's a great film and I'll go back to it as I continue writing my play.
• 8 1/2 - I've watched parts of it.  I need to get back.  Mastrianni keeps staring at me.  I need to watch it.  It'll take away the bad taste in my mouth that was the film version of Nine.
• Step Up to the Plate - It's a documentary about a father who's trying to retire and surrender his restaurant to his son.  It's great.  I've watched it once.  It's for research.  I'll watch it again.  I could watch people talk about food for days.  I could even read the subtitles about them talking about food for days.  That's how much I love food.  And films and TV about food or about process.  I love hearing about process.  And I love family dynamics.  This has it all.  This is a recommendation to put on your queue because you probably wouldn't know about it other wise.  Then you can also let it sit there for a few months before you finally watch it..
• Punch Drunk Love - Because I started watching Magnolia again recently and I like P.T. Anderson and I never caught this film the first time around.  This is another of those "I should watch this" films that I might never get to. 
• Style Wars - a graffiti documentary for 1983.  I need to watch this!  I'm working on a musical project and this might be helpful as research.  Actually, speaking of queues...the musical project has been on my queue for years and this documentary might suffer the same fate.  But both will be great when I finally get to them.  I know it!
• Stolen - Another art heist documentary.  I'll probably choose one and get rid of the other because this queue is getting too long.  This list of what's on my queue is too long too!  I'm wrapping it up...soon.
• The Pitch - Watching Season Two now.  It's on my DVR queue.  Boring.  I realized that Season One was on here because it was a recommendation while I was putting other things on my queue.  The pilot is probably the best episode.  So treat it like it's an hour long documentary and just watch that.  Maybe it'll get you hooked.  But if it doesn't, this pilot is enough.
• Two in the Wave - It's a doc about Goddard and Truffaut.  Yeah...I know I need to make time.
• The Turning Point - I've never seen it!  And it's about dance...yet another thing I'm obsessed with after food and art and fashion.  It's on here because it was recommended once I saved Terms onto my queue.  And that's another thing: the queue is now called My List.  Is that because not enough people know what a queue is?  Get those dummies off of Netflix.  They don't deserve to be here.
• Young @ Heart - I saw the trailer for this film years ago.  I watched another documentary a year ago about senior citizens in a hip hop dance troupe.  Hopefully I won't be a senior citizen by the time I get to this.
• Just for Kicks - a documentary about sneakers.  Sure.  I'll watch it...just for kicks!  Ha! 

And...scene.

Back to The Company

I love how the film begins on the beginning of a performance and ends at the end of a performance.

I want this play to almost work as an outline.  As a piece of choreographed notation. 

Here are the things that are supposed to happen right now.

The following pieces of dialogue should happen simultaneously.  Here’s the transcript of what the actors are saying, but when you see it, you wont hear everything upon first hearing.

Of course there are scenes that happen in a normal way. But this is about the creative process.  And sometimes that creative process happens all at once.