Doctors and nurses hustle through the surgery tent. The charismatic doctors deliver deadpan one-liners while digging through the young men torn up by battle. A young man walks into this whirlwind of activity.
“Radar, put a mask on,” one of the doctors yells.
“I have a message,” the young man says, faltingly. “Col. Henry Potter's plane...was shot down over the Sea of Japan, it spun and...there were no survivors...”
The doctors all fall quiet. Just the clank of scalpels dropping on metal trays.
From the Associated Press: Harry Morgan, who died Dec. 7 at age 96 after having pneumonia, was in the top ranks of actors who could take a small role, or a small scene, and bring it deftly alive. He added richness to any comedy or drama smart enough to call on him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY4qSh3UWIU
I always loved M*A*S*H and wanted to give Morgan a send-off that Henry Blake had.
Even as a kid, I liked how that show could go from goofy to serious and then back again. The seriousness made the goofiness that much more important and the goofiness made the serious parts all the more real.
What I Learned: If you want to balance comedy and drama, it starts with the characters. They have to be funny because they are reacting to the sad parts. The two feelings go hand in hand.
I always check the publisher of the books my daughter brings home from the library. “When a Dragon Moves In” was published by FlashLight Press. (http://www.flashlightpress.com/index.html) I had never heard of them before. I assumed it was an imprint of a larger, impenetrable publishing company.
I was pleasantly surprised that it was its own company. A little bit of research showed they were owned by a company that published adult books, but it was still small. It was still approachable.
Which means it's approached by EVERYONE.
Their submission guidelines had changed in that they only respond if they really like it. They said it was because they got way too many submissions, and they couldn't respond to them all.
That's the way it is with us writers: Once the door opens a crack, we all rush toward it so the door cracks off its hinges.
There are so few publishing companies out there that actually accept unsolicited submissions that those who do get swamped very quickly. I only hope that my submission stands out from the herd.
What I Learned: There's huge competition even at the little publishers. The same rules apply: Make it your best effort, and make your book stand out. (This is better than the big ones, in which you can't even enter the competition.)
Don't abuse the little publisher that could. They're nice enough to offer you chances to have your work published. The least you can do is buy their books and keep that door open.
I wrote a short story for a client, and it turned out really good. Then, after all was said and done, my client mentioned he stole the idea from the Internet.
If all you need to do is right-click on something, why be original? Creativity isn't rewarded, it's just copied. People who want to copy something because they like it, but don't realize there's a value there.
There's an assumption that if it's online, it should be free. If this was the case, no one would be making any money off their creations and you'd see much less of it online.
Anything can be ripped off. That's why it's even more important to be 100 percent original. Don't fall into the easy trap of generating content mashed up from other people's ideas. You won't stand out. You'll be exactly like everyone else who is doing it.
We don't revere people like Steve Jobs because he copied other people. He got the respect he did because he created something new.
When anything can be copied off the internet the only thing I have is originality. People want original content, not the same old thing. That's why, for instance, Charlie Sheen jokes got old very quickly.
My writing might not be much, but at least it's my own.
Here's my YouTube channel. You'll find some bizarre but funny and very nsfw material:
An animator I've been working with asked me to come up with some R-rated jokes to animate. He wants to sync into the popularity that comes from Family Guy and especially Seth McFarlane's private channel.
I already created a character who plays movie-based video games and makes fun of them. So, all right. He wants adult humor. Fine. What terrible movie should become a video game?
“2 Girls, 1 Cup.”
Yes, the 4-year-old Internet meme that won't die...it just keeps on going...If you haven't watched it already, don't. Seriously. It's disgusting. This isn't reverse psychology.
So, I came up with a few jokes and wrote it. It took me an hour, probably. I figured the idea was worth an hour. I have a college degree. I've been a professional writer for about 10 years. I didn't want to spend any more time on this than I had to.
Then came the actual production. It takes a lot longer to animate, and the back-and-forth e-mails as we narrowed stuff down took quite a long time. We had to agree on character and background designs, an intro to the series, and I did the voice acting.
End result: NINE hours to create this video. And that's just my half.
So, watch the video. Let me know if it was time well spent.
When something as popular as Twilight invades pop culture the way it has, it's not hard to write about it with at least a passing knowledge.
I recently wrote a parody of it for an animated sketch. Here's the video. I hope you like it. But you should be warned there's some disturbing footage in here:
When I wrote this parody, there were certain truths I kept to:
1. It's about the characters. A lot of people rip on Twilight because of the drama. However, the drama is what drew fans to the series. Critics whine that vampires and werewolves should be more visceral, not lingering in love triangles. So I played on that.
My parody is about a Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn video game. So I made the first part of the gameplay about relationships, which I see as the strength (not the weakness) of the books.
2. Take it too far. Parodies work if you take it just far enough outside of the spectrum of what's acceptable in the book's real world. The second act of the video you'll see just how far I pushed it.
3. Prey upon people's preconceived notions. The interaction between Edward Cullen and Jacob at the end is based upon what pretty much every guy thinks Twilight is. It's an easy joke, and I'm not proud.
4. End with a 180 degree change. The problem with some parodies is that they just keep doing the same joke over and over. So, I wanted to make sure the last thing my protagonist says is a surprise.
Megan McCafferty, an of young adult novels, was speaking today to students at Central Regional High School, where she graduated. She said that she came up with what she thought was a great idea for a picture book.
Her agent declined it because there wasn't enough potential for a stuffed animal to come out of it.
“Wow,” said English teacher behind me, sadly.
Christopher Nolan was told by the film studio to make his Batman movies more “Toyetic.” Now, I suppose, books need to be.
This should come as no great shock, really. Everything is merchandised.
But two things make this worse. The first is that here's this New York Times bestselling novelist, and she doesn't have the muscle to get a non-toy book published. Secondly, marketing toys to children when you're trying to get them to read is a downward slope. Reading should open doors to more reading, not to buying commercial products.
My wife and I were in Toys R Us and were surprised to see Fancy Nancy and Pinkalicious dolls. Reading is a very private thing, most of the time. And despite the popularity of these series, we just never thought of the idea that hundreds of thousands of kids read them. Hundreds of thousands of potential customers.
I saw a Splat the Cat at Barnes and Noble. I almost got it, but I didn't because:
I'm cheap
My daughter has enough stuffed animals already
I don't think she'd play with him the way she'd play with her other toys. Maybe I'm wrong about this.
This is depressing. But I guess you have to think of it in terms of children's TV shows. There isn't any children's program on TV right now that isn't trying to sell you something. Except maybe the public broadcasting shows. But if Sesame Street is any indication, with Elmo's face on everything, the other shows will have marketing potential too. A quick Google turned up Word Girl (My favorite PBS show) costumes.
So, I guess we just have to live with it. Books aren't just for education or entertainment anymore. The main thing they teach us is how to be a consumer.
I had the good fortune to interview Vlas and Charley Parlapanides, screenwriters for “The Immortals,” last week in advance of their movie.
They said something that struck me, and I want to share it here. They said that in Hollywood, scriptwriting still has a meritocracy.
“If you have a good script, “ it can get made, Charley Parlapanides said.
“If you do have a big idea, they don't care who you are,” Vlas Parlapanides said.
This is wonderful news to budding screenwriters. It means that if you have a good idea, you can make it work, providing you can get it into the right hands.
More or less.
They also said that you have to work your ass off and that you usually write 5 movies before your sixth one is sold. And then, there's no guarantee it will be made into a movie.
Also, they said you are only as good as your last one. So, if it doesn't make money, no one cares.
What I Learned: It's not as much who you know. Not when it comes to this. Sure, maybe more people will look at your movie if you are famous, or have some kind of connection. But you don't have to be anyone to start.
But you have to make yourself someone to keep going.
I'm not proud. In fact, it helps to own up to your stupidity outright. Let me give you an example. I was sitting in a car, when a friend came up to the side to ask me a question. I stuck my head out and bonked it right on the window.
“Did you just hit your head on the window?” he said, laughing.
“Yeah.”
He laughed some more, and that was the end of it. If I had denied it, he'd still be busting on me to this day.
So, to that end, here are three things most people wouldn't admit:
3. Stuck between a fork and a hard place
You know when a drawer won't close because a utensil gets wedged in there real good? The handle is stuck on the bottom somewhere and the top gets propped up against the underside of the cabinet?
Well, imagine instead that it was a fork getting crammed between the utensil holder and my middle finger.
I was pulling out a spoon for my daughter to stir her chocolate milk. She was talking and I was paying more attention to her than what I was doing. I pushed the drawer closed with my hip as my hand was over the forks.
Here's a nice little video that shows the damage:
2. The builders are coming!
Growing up in the New Jersey suburbs, there were always houses being built. They were a beacon to neighborhood kids. We climbed all over them, imagining what the rooms would be like, what the people would be like.
When I was in third grade I was venturing into one such house. And then I heard “The builders are coming!” My exploration partner sighted the worker van coming down the street. I leaped off the first floor.
But it was built on an incline. In the back of the house, the first floor was about five feet off the ground. At least, that's what I guess it was now, looking back. It could have been three.
I remember just lying on my back on a slab of wood. I didn't move and I felt like I couldn't and I didn't know why. Then my friend grabbed my hand and pulled me up. My neck hurt instantly. We ran. It turned out it wasn't the builders, just a similar-looking van.
For the rest of the week, I couldn't move my neck without pain. My teacher told me to keep moving my neck little by little until it felt better. It did, eventually. My parents said I never complained and they never knew. I was a quiet kid, but I still can't figure out how this got missed. Anyway, it was probably whiplash, the reason I have scoliosis and regular headaches to this day.
1. The Kazoo
I used to keep a kazoo in my car at all times. It's a good idea. You never know when you're going to need a kazoo.
My car had a perfect place for it – a small cutout to the left of the steering wheel. In a more expensive model, some wonderful feature was probably supposed to go there – like a chocolate dispenser or a flux capacitor. As I got the bottom line model, it was just a hole. The older man who sold it to me told me twice “You can put your McDonald's hamburgers in there.” Instead, I kept a kazoo there, with almost half of it sticking out.
It had rained while I was at work, and there was a big puddle by the driver's side door. I reached over the puddle and opened the door. I judged the distance and guessed I could jump over the puddle into my car.
Somehow my legs went wild and my knee scraped against the kazoo. The cheap plastic mouthpiece scraped the first few layers of skin off my knee.
At first, I was too shocked to know what happened. Then, the blood seeped up from the wound. It ran down my leg and soaked my sock on the ride home.
Again, I tell people these things because it's not good to hide stupid things you've done. You should share them and let everyone in on the joke.
Besides, I already told one person and he tells everyone so there's no keeping it a secret!
I was trying to read while my wife watched the 2010 version of “Alice in Wonderland.” I kept getting distracted away from the page by the amazing visuals. Then, I'd hear a sentence of dialog and think “God, this is stupid,” and go back to my book.
The visual effects were stunning, and I found myself checking every nook and cranny on the screen to find little details. It's a shame the same amount of care wasn't given to the script. A-list actors, top notch computer animators, and a legendary story and this is the end product?
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