A Writer's Life

Don't Miss UNDERFUNDED

The Hollywood Reporter gave a deservedly rave review to my friend David Breckman's hilarious pilot UNDERFUNDED, which the USA Network is quietly burning off tonight at 8 pm.  It's about a spy for the Canadian Secret Service and it's great fun, closer to THE ROCKFORD FILES than GET SMART.

Why is it that nothing about Canada can be taken seriously? Is it the speech pattern that ends everything in "Eh"? The fact that the populace seems so sweetly guileless and lily-white? The complete lack of pretension? Whatever the case, the Great White North takes one on the chin again in this lighthearted and surprisingly entertaining subtle procedural spoof, a rare TV movie that plays it all for laughs.

"Underfunded" is a production freak of nature: a movie filmed in Canada (Vancouver) that's actually about Canada, featuring no name stars and a scrappy, unassuming, take-nothing-seriously tone that proves mostly endearing. Kudos to USA for greenlighting something this far outside the telepic norm.

Now if only USA would greenlight the series...

Another Clueless Moron

This advertisement was in Variety yesterday (click on it for a larger image): 

All Nick has really done with his $5000 is announce that he's a clueless moron to all the entertainment industry executives enjoying their morning bowel movement.

But in his own way, he has performed a public service. His advertisement is actually a primer on how NOT to sell your novel, TV series, movie, game show, photography, music, or 1997 Honda Civic to Hollywood.

(Oh, and here's a helpful hint to all the future Spielbergs, Camerons, Eastwoods and Nicks out there -- before you set out to write your next book, TV series, movie, game show, song, or ad in Variety, you should know that an apostrophe S doesn't make something plural).

I couldn't resist checking out his site. Among his projects for future Spielbergs, Camerons and Eastwoods is a treatment for THE RETURN FOR MAGNUM PI, which he registered with the WGA in 1994 despite the fact he doesn't own the underlying rights.  Since then, he's apparently changed his name from Nick Oliva to Nick Bold, perhaps to embrace the new boldness of his writing. I also read the first five pages of his important new book. Here's one of my favorite passages (the italics are his):

I felt my heart pounding in an uncontrollable tidal surge of affection as we sat and laced up our skates.

And this:

She embraced herself and gracefully slid her hands down opposite arms, creating bountiful cleavage that she stared into before looking over to me, offering herself with an outward shrug of her right shoulder much the way a cat lifts its bottom.

He's threatening to give this novel away free, but I think even that is charging too much. I wonder if Nick is a member of the Colonial Fan Force? If not, he should be.

She'll Be Back

Variety reports that Lena Headey has been cast in the title role of THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES, the Fox pilot based on the TERMINATOR movies. I've never heard of her, have you? Headey takes over the role from Linda Hamilton, who I had an enormous crush on as a kid.  David Nutter is directing the pilot, and he has an unbroken record of success, so it's a safe bet you'll see this on the air in the fall. Josh Friedman wrote the script, and he's no slouch, either.

Without a Tie-in

I was part of a panel discussion yesterday at the Writers Guild with Jan Nash, executive producer of WITHOUT A TRACE. In the midst of the discussion, she mentioned how difficult it has been coming up with tie-in novels for her show. Her frustration, she said, was that none of the books have been able to capture the highly-visual nature of the franchise...and that in prose, the books come across as simply "a flat missing persons story" that doesn't feel at all like WITHOUT A TRACE. The problem, she said, has been coming up with a way to make the books as distinctive as the series, to find a story-telling frame-work that matches the unique flashback gimmick of the show. I don't know if her creative frustration with the books has anything to do with the rumored licensing problems between Warner Brothers Television and Warner Books, which recently shelved the three completed tie-in novels that they commissioned and were planning to release in 2007.

I understand what Jan is talking about. I faced the same issue when I tackled the MONK books. How could I convey the humor and the melodrama when so much of what makes Monk work is visual? I think that I solved the problem by telling the stories first-person from the point-of-view of Natalie, Monk's assistant. That gave me a framing device that allowed me to "observe" Monk from a distance and, at the same time, add a level of intimacy with the characters that isn't possible on television. So while my books don't mimic the experience of watching MONK, they have their own unique voice that offers a fresh experience for fans of the show and one that makes stories stand apart from other mysteries. At least that was my goal.

Hasselhoffed

My boxed set of the real first season episodes of BAYWATCH arrived from the UK this weekend. I'd forgotten how good the production values were and how truly awful the writing was (and yes, I am talking about my own scripts). The theme song from the first season was Peter Cetera's "Save Me," and the title sequence was carefully cut to match the song. Cetera's song is gone and some awful crap by Kim Carnes has been slapped on in its place.  The problem isn't so much the song, but the fact that the moves in the song don't match the edits in the main title sequence so it feels out-of-sync, like dubbed dialgoue that doesn't follow the movements of the actors' lips. What I don't get is why they couldn't substitute "Save Me" with the "I'll Be There" theme from the syndicated seasons...

TV Main Title of the Week

Hanging with the Sisters

I am off to the Writers Guild this morning to host a panel at a day-long Sisters in Crime seminar for published authors on writing television mysteries and adapting books to film. The authors in attendance are curious about how mysteries are written for TV,  how to get their books optioned, and why books often get changed so much in adaptation. My fellow panelists are writer/producers Paul Levine (JAG etc), Jeff Melvoin (ALIAS etc), Javier Grillo Marxuach (LOST etc), Matt Witten (HOUSE etc) and Jan Nash (WITHOUT A TRACE etc). Paul, Matt and I are also published authors, so we know a little something about what the authors in the audience are feeling. It should be a very interesting day.

UPDATE: I just got back and I had a wonderful time. Our panel followed one that included such luminaries as screenwriters Ron Bass and Bryce Zabel (with whom I just spent a week in Germany). My fellow panelists were witty and wise, providing insights, knowledge, advice and plenty of laughter. I also got a chance to meet folks like Anne Perry, Marcia Talley, Libby Hellman, Carolyn Hart and Sujata Massey and see old friends like Rhys Bowen, Robin Burcell and Rochelle Krich. I don't know about the attendees, but I certainly had a wonderful time.

Gorman Returns

Author Ed Gorman is blogging again. Brace yourselves.

Sales Echo Short Film

The LA Times reports today about novelist/screenwriter Terrill Lee Lankford's short film based on the first chapter of his buddy Michael Connelly's new novel ECHO PARK. The film has been posted on YouTube and Connelly credits it with giving him his best first-week sales numbers yet.

"I do believe this was a tool in getting people excited," said Connelly, a former reporter at The Times. "It was on the Internet, it was on YouTube, before the book was out. It sharpened excitement. So when the book came out, they were ready to buy it. "

The short film features my friend novelist Gar Anthony Haywood in his first acting role... he proves to be a natural at it, easily out-shining the professionals in the cast with his quiet, self-assured performance. Note to Gar: get a theatrical agent pronto. 

I've got to go now. I'm rushing over to deepdiscountdvd.com to get myself a copy of Lee's HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS.  I wonder why, in all the years I've known him, Lee has never mentioned that film before...

TV Writers Abroad

I just got back from Germany, and part of my trip there was devoted to teaching the principles of American TV writing & producing to German writer/producers and network executives with my friend Bryce Zabel. Today on his blog, Bryce sums up the experience perfectly:

The work was very fun, working for a company that facilitates interaction between U.S. writers and international clients. The idea here was to share some of the tricks of the trade the U.S. television industry has learned in order to crank out orders of 22 episodes a season at a factory-like pace. More on that in future posts, I'd imagine. Let me just say that if anything is holding back German television it's not the energy, creativity or ideas of their writers but the structure of their system which doesn't allow them to work together often enough to achieve the greatness they're capable of. That seems to be changing. Everybody I met was extremely bright, talented and motivated to make a better product so the chances are they will, soon.

 

Bloodsucking Lesbians

Author Bill Crider clued me in to AfterEllen's list of the ten best lesbian vampire movies...essential knowledge for every American.

Yes, there is a problematic relationship between sexuality and violence in these movies, and many lesbian vampire flicks are nothing more than vehicles for the male desire to see hot women biting each other [...]the lesbian vampire is campy good fun for dykes, complete with plenty of heaving bosoms framed by low-cut gowns held up by, apparently, the sheer force of evil.

                  

No Complaints

You don't see me whine and complain much here, and author John Connolly knows why:

There are good things and bad things about being a writer. In truth, the good things far outweigh the bad, and the bad are generally things about which it is churlish to complain.

He's right. This was the lead-up to him telling the tale of having to fly from South Africa to L.A. to interview Stephen King in New York in front of hundreds of fans and publishing execs.

True, perhaps I tried too hard with some of my questions, and I am still kicking myself 24 hours later over the fact that I confused the words "ambiguous" and "ambivalent" in one of my interrogations (I plead nerves), an error that King corrected without comment. Yet all through the interview, and for some time afterwards, a small voice in my head reminded me that this was probably as good as it was going to get. I was interviewing a writer whom I had long admired, and whom I had long wanted to interview, in front of a sympathetic audience. This was a writer whose work I had begun reading before I even entered my teens, and my boyhood self could never have imagined that, one day, he would be sharing a stage with this man.

I know exactly how he feels. I feel that way every day, especially when I am in the company of people like David Morrell, Steve Cannell, Stuart Kaminsky, Ken Levine, Janet Evanovich, Michael Gleason, Robert Parker, Donald Westlake, Sue Grafton, Michael Connelly, William Link...the list goes on and on and on. Half the time I am with these writers I've admired for so long, many of whom I now count as friends, I am struck by how unbelievably fortunate and privileged I am.

Scrap Tales

For some time now, Alan Barer has been sharing memories on his blog about our family and his life selling scrap metal with my grandfather Dave in Walla Walla, Washington. Although he's talking about my family and not yours, I think you'll enjoy the rememberances as much as I do...and agree that he's a natural-born storyteller.

One thing Frank did do for me was to advise me never to eat food at the home of one of our clients who lived at and operated the city dump in a small eastern Oregon town.

I arrived there late in the afternoon. The table was set with stew, milk, etc. My host invited me to join for dinner. Hungry as I was I declined. The next morning when I arrived to load, the same food was sitting on the table at room temperature. I also declined the invitation to breakfast.

The A Team

Sarah Weinman reports that my friends Stephen J. Cannell and Janet Evanovich have signed a "major deal" to co-write a new, hardcover adventure series for Warner Books.  I'm having lunch with Steve tomorrow and will try to coerce him into giving me all the details.

Serial Killers

The big media story lately is the death of all the new serialized dramas the networks have launched over the past two years in an attempt to captue the success of LOST, DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES and 24.  Basically, nobody seems to have the time, energy, or trust to commit to a deep, lasting and meantingful relationship with more than one or two of these series. After the death of shows like SURFACE, KIDNAPPED, REUNION, THIEF, INVASION, SMITH, and the anemic ratings of VANISHED, THREE DEGREES and THE NINE, The New York Times reports that the networks are finally getting the hint:

In every television season some new lesson about the American audience is imparted. This season’s lesson was clear within the first weeks of the fall: you can ask people to commit only so many hours to intense, dark, intricately constructed serialized dramas, to sign huge chunks of their lives away to follow every minuscule plot development and character tic both on the air and on Internet sites crowded with similarly addicted fanatics.

“The message we received was that people have strains on their lives,” said Kevin Reilly, the president of NBC Entertainment. “People are saying, ‘I’ve got my handful of shows like this, and I don’t want more.’ ”

[...]Dana Walden, president of the 20th Century Fox Television studio, said: “What the audience seems to be saying is: ‘Enough. We can’t get involved with more of these.’ ”

Logically this result should have been expected. But logic often runs aground in the offices of television executives who endlessly try to anticipate the future by repeating the past. Or, as Preston Beckman, executive vice president for entertainment for the Fox network, put it, “In this business we always overcompensate.”

 

Even LOST is feeling the heat. The Los Angeles Times notes that CRIMINAL MINDS, which is in the same time slot, is drawing almost as may viewers these days.

...conventional wisdom would dictate that "Criminal Minds," now in its second season, should be moldering on TV's rubbish heap.  So why is the series growing into a bona-fide hit that last week delivered its most-watched episode ever, with 16.8 million total viewers, just a shade behind the still-formidable "Lost" (17.1 million), according to Nielsen Media Research?

"This was the year of serialized dramas trying to recapture lightning in a bottle the way that 'Desperate Housewives,' 'Lost,' '24' and 'Grey's Anatomy' did," said John Rash, director of broadcast negotiations for Minneapolis-based ad firm Campbell-Mithun. "But almost all of them were rejected by the audience."

The growth of "Criminal Minds" is maybe the most convincing proof that not everyone wants to be chained to a dense, character-packed drama that unspools like a Dickensian novel. And even those who do have their limits. There is a reason why formula sells, why genres become generic in the first place.

Baywatch Confusion

All 22 episodes of the original, first season of BAYWATCH, which aired on NBC, is coming out on DVD on Monday  in England. A first season boxed set of BAYWATCH episodes is also coming out on the same day on these shores... only they are entirely different episodes. Confused? I know I was.

The first season that's coming out on DVD here is actually season two, the first syndicated season of the show. The U.S. boxed set reportedly has two episodes from the real first season, which they are calling "the lost pilot season." If that wasn't bad enough, the episodes in the U.S. are also missing the original score. What were they thinking? The only reason I care at all about this debacle is because I wrote a bunch of first season BAYWATCH episodes on NBC and, as bad as they were, I wouldn't mind having them on DVD... so I had to shell out $65 to get the Brit version which, by the way, will only work on a multi-standard player or on your computer.

Persuaders still Persuasive

Way back in June 2005, it was announced that Ben Stiller and British comic Steve Coogan were teaming up for a feature film revival of the flop 70s TV series THE PERSUADERS. Apparently, that project has dissolved, because this week Variety reports that the project is now being developed by producer Ashok Amritraj and ANGER MANAGEMENT screenwriter David Dorfman. There was no mention of either Stiller or Coogan's involvement. If they are gone, it makes the reasoning behind mounting this TV revival a real head-scratcher.

THE PERSUADERS starred Roger Moore and Tony Curtis as two fun-loving playboys in Europe who were drafted by a retired judge to solve crimes. The series was produced in England and only lasted a season. But the reruns have a cult following in the UK and France which, apparently, Amritraj thinks is enough to prop up a "tent pole action comedy."  But does anyone besides me and a handful of other TV geek still remember the show?

Speaking of main titles...

...Andrew Dignan analyzes in minute detail the main sequence of THE WIRE, which changes every season.

The Wire's opening credits are not an ordinary credits sequence, but a series of four short films that distill each season's themes, goals, and motifs.

I Should Kill More Critics

I killed Chadwick Saxelid in the latest DIAGNOSIS MURDER novel, but that didn't stop him from giving THE DOUBLE LIFE a great review.

For the seventh book in his series of Diagnosis Murder tie-ins, author Lee Goldberg has concocted a mystery concept so unnerving, it would even give veteran medical thriller writer Robin Cook the willies.

[...] mixing an emotionally nuanced character study (of Steve Sloan, this time around) with an intricate puzzle of a mystery, where finding out howdunit is just as essential, and entertaining, as finding out whodunit.  Like the best of series fiction, The Double Life both satisfies and leaves the reader hungry for more.

TV Main Title of the Week

I'm out-of-town, so here's a second main title for your pleasure...action as only Robert Stack can deliiver it.

Brilliance

What would happen if Aaron  Sorkin wrote a series about baseball? Emmy-winning writer  Ken Levine gives you a brilliant example.

EXT. KAUFMAN STADIUM -- NIGHT

THE MANAGER, LEO, TROTS OUT TO THE MOUND TO TALK TO BELEAGURED PITCHER, DANNY (THERE’S ALWAYS A DANNY). THE BASES ARE LOADED. THE CROWD IS GOING NUTS. IT’S GAME SEVEN OF THE WORLD SERIES.

LEO
You can’t get a good lobster in this town.

DANNY
Last I checked we were in Kansas City.

LEO
4.6 billion pork ribs sold every year and 18.9 tons of beef consumed annually since 1997 –

DANNY
They like their beef, what can I tell ya?

LEO
But you’d think just for variety’s sake.

DANNY
I can still throw my curve.

LEO
For strikes?

DANNY
I’m not throwing enough?

LEO
I’ve seen more lobsters.

There's more... much much more...and it's hilarious.