Stop Making Sense

From their first moments of preparation for the profession, screenwriters are ingrained with the imperative that they need to be smarter than anybody else on the project. Not more intelligent, or more knowledgeable with respect to all of the talents that must be gathered and exercised to execute their vision. But smarter in the context of knowing every beat of their screenplay backwards.

A good screenwriter makes certain that all the loose plot threads are neatly tied before the final frame. He or she knows what motivates each and every one of the characters, their back story and why they behave the way they do. No matter what twists and turns take place during the story, they all must have a basis in the internal logic of the piece.

When a script works, it purrs like a finely tuned Jaguar, effortlessly taking the reader (and eventually the viewer) on a smooth and exhilarating ride, where they never feel a single pebble on the road and are barely aware of the G-forces while gliding through the turns or accelerating along the final straight.

To this end, the writer is often assisted by others connected to the project, the development execs, a caring producer and energetic director, a cast anxious to breath life into the personalities that will enact the story, a conscientious crew ensuring that nothing intrudes on the manufactured reality.

The point of this entire, often lengthy and expensive process is to both ensure that the set never stalls or the audience never disrupts their suspension of disbelief to utter, “Hey, wait a minute, how does he know that, why is she acting so strange or that doesn’t work”.

As veteran screenwriter Frank Pierson observed in a famous lecture on adaptation, “Novelists can lie. Screenwriters have no such luxury.”

Yes, we writers are the guardians of “the word”. No film could be a success without our dedication to our craft…

And…

…what a load of shit!

You want to make a film a success? Blow something up and make it seem important.

This weekend, I went to a warehouse sale where the DVDs were 6 for $10. It wasn’t some pirate outfit. It was a guy who buys up the shelves of mom and pop video stores that have gone broke, manufacturers overstock and the like. Sorting through massive piles of films I’ve never even heard of was a humbling experience.

There’s so much out there that people sweated over, agonized to realize and struggled to make logical and understandable and --- perfect. And amid such an abundance of unfathomable effort were also titles that had made a boat load of money. Among these were two that eventually comprised the program of my semi-regular Sunday night double feature -- “Miami Vice – The Unrated Director’s Edition” and “Transformers”.

“Transformers” first.

Sometimes, I don’t get the point of something --- ukulele music, #followfriday, the Snuggie…

And. I. Just. Will. Never. Get. Michael. Bay. Hollywood’s Summer Blockbuster security blanket.

Michael Bay movies are mostly incoherent. They’re sprawling and stupid and don’t follow even their own fractured internal logic. There’s no character development. No story. Nothing to care about. Nothing to attach to --- because it’s all just eventually going to blow up. Loudly.

Need a character to do something completely out of character, the characters in Michael Bay films just do whatever comes into his head. Plot getting too convoluted to understand, ignore it and move on. Special effect not working, just interrupt it with a close-up of a simpering star (male or female) and keep going. Flow and transition don’t matter, just keeping throwing shit at the screen until you can’t make head or tail of anything because so much has already been irrationally stuck onto so much else.

Bay’s are movies that communicate one message – stop caring. Give yourself over to the kind of rush you can have without also expecting to feel something.

But no matter the utter pointlessness, “Transformers” earned just under $1 Billion at the box office, as did “Transformers 2” which will surpass the original’s take when it’s released on DVD shortly. That’s five times what each of the movies cost to make, meaning a third, fourth and fifth instalment are a foregone conclusion.

In other words, films that break all the rules of the filmmakers art will earn many times more than most of the most successful movies in history. And an easy Billion apiece more than all the films produced in Canada this year will show as profit.

Hell, Bay’s studio will make more money from posters featuring Megan Fox’s ass than the total that Telefilm will realize for investing in Canadian movies.

What does this tell us?

Well, it pretty much proves that this whole “develop to perfection” process we’ve evolved is one grand waste of time as far as a significant portion of the ticket buying audience is concerned.

They simply don’t care that a large number of people, who work for studios, production companies, agencies and the like, are charged with the responsibility of finding good and/or marketable material that will be what the audience wants to see in six months, nine months, one year or even two years time.

These execs flood out of Yale and Harvard and the film departments of USC and UCLA with degrees in literature and commerce and course credits for semiotics and Late 20th Century Romanian film. These are really, really intelligent people, the kind of people who can hear ten words of your pitch and know it’s a rework of a never published Danish folk-tale or a subject tackled better in a masterpiece by some obscure Russian Auteur.

If they like your idea, they know how to perfectly pitch it up the ladder to the next level of executives and the level above that and the one even further above that. And once an idea is sold, they may or may not be among the vast cc: list that will then append notes, rethink plot points, spit-ball casting and do all of the other things that comprise the ascending levels of Development Hell.

Draped in the finery sold by Fred Segal and Barney’s, they book tables for breakfast, lunch and dinner in every trendy cafe from Santa Monica to Burbank, massively fuelling the local economy.

And Michael Bay renders all that they do pointless.

He knows that the secret is to stop making sense, to set aside the intellectual games and just blast whatever is in front of the camera to smithereens.

In “Adventures in the Screen Trade”, writer William Goldman suspects that no studio executive ever goes home and says “Guess what, Honey, we decided to make ‘Mega Force’!”. Yet somewhere in LA, there always seems to be a guy ecstatically screaming “We hired Michael Bay!” through his Bluetooth.

And if you don’t think the studios haven’t finally realized the secret to his Midas touch, take a gander at what’s on the production slates for next summer and beyond. Back in July, Universal won a FOUR STUDIO BIDDING WAR for the rights to the Atari video game “Asteroids”. You remember Asteroids, the only thing that happened during the entire game was --- shit blew up.

Also looking for writers who couldn’t give a crap about character, plot or nuance are: “Mechwarrior”, “Shadow of the Colossus”, “World of Warcraft”, “Infamous” and “Diablo” --- games that are repetitive and predictable and don’t do much but make stuff explode. 

Seeking an antidote to the nihilistic future predicted for my profession by “Transformers”, I plugged the “Miami Vice” disk in the player. I’d seen the movie in a theatre and had liked it, adored the score and had been enthralled by Michael Mann’s always muscular imagery.

Michael Mann has produced and/or directed and/or written some of the finest films I’ve had the pleasure to experience, from “Thief” to “Manhunter” to “Last of the Mohicans” to “The Insider” to “Collateral” to his masterpiece “Heat”. They just don’t come any better and brighter than Michael Mann.

So I figured, “Hey, you’ve already seen the movie, switch on the director’s commentary and get some insight into the kind of genius that might save us from an endless parade of Michael Bays”. So I switched on the commentary. And I listened. And I was amazed --- in a kind of “You must be fucking kidding me” way.

For as the movie rolled, Michael Mann talks not about filmmaking, but about hardware. He goes on and on about the engineering genius of those who build “Go-fast” boats or one of a kind airplanes, while practically disassembling and putting back together every piece of weaponry that appears on camera.

He prattles on about how this actor is a genius and that one’s brilliant, in the process suggesting that, for the most part, fairly stock performances have a special quality because the actress is really British but you can’t tell or only speaks Mandarin so she had to learn her role phonetically or absolutely floored him with their performance in some arcane Bolivian art film.

He details the back stories he constructed for many of the characters, how their parents were Cuban doctors who fought in Angola for example, when that information has nothing to do with any scene in the film and is never reflected in anything the actor is doing either. Instead of revealing character through what they say, do or by what others say or do about them, Mann just spins off on fantasies that suggest he has a whole house full of imaginary friends.

Mann describes having his actors spend weeks with undercover drug squads, even participating in drug deals and drug busts to learn what it’s really like to be undercover, how they spent endless hours in SWAT training so they hold their guns perfectly and are aware of what the rest of the actors playing cops would be doing in the tactical situation being portrayed.

You almost wanted to scream at the screen, “They’re doing the same thing you can see any actor do who’s watched an episode of the original “Miami Vice” TV show!” while also wondering if having the actors follow Drug Bust Scenario # 23 saved him the trouble of actually having to block the scene.

Things began spiraling out of control as I realized Mann was not going to explain why the first two set pieces of the film, the opening boat race and following nightclub scene had virtually nothing to do with what followed beyond revealing that Crockett and Tubbs like women and driving fast.

He ignores major inconsistencies like how does Colin Farrell suddenly have a grenade after three guys just frisked him by concentrating instead on how the set was painted. And, perhaps worst of all, despite his apparent desire for absolute verisimilitude, he ignores the central story of Crockett breaking the cardinal rule of undercover and sleeping with the enemy. In fact, in the scene where that occurs, he launches into a lengthy history of Cuban Salsa.

By the time Mann went into detail about the dangers and difficulties of shooting location footage in Paraguay, which, beyond a stock shot of the Iguazu Falls, could have been a backlot in Culver City, I was wondering if his primary talent was spewing the kind of bullshit he’d obviously used to convince some dumb studio exec to pay for such a ridiculous additional expense.

And when he began painstakingly detailing the SWAT tactic strategy of the final gun battle with actors following a classic “L” shape attack plan, and all he’d learned from the neurosurgeons who’d been technical advisors on a brain surgery scene, I finally lost it.

Somehow a shipyard shootout as old as an episode of “Naked City” was being prettied up as something of major cinematic significance while also regurgitating medical mumbo-jumbo that had nothing to do with the 30 second hospital scene he’d actually shot.

The producer part of me considered how much it must have cost to insure Colin Farrell so he could go along on a drug bust and how much had been frankly wasted trucking a crew to Paraguay and the Dominican Republic and elsewhere for footage he once created for the original TV series without leaving Dade County.

Meanwhile, my writer incarnation was growing more confused by the mounds of research Mann had obviously acquired and then clearly not bothered to use in any way that might benefit his audience.

I’m sure the man is wonderful company over dinner and fills his production with fun toys and field trips. But none of that was making the movie richer for anybody watching it.

And I started to wonder if all of those honorable traits we screenwriters hold dear and the level of craft we sacrifice our personal lives and sanity to maintain really matter.

Maybe we need to just blow stuff up and bullshit about the rest of it. God knows it seems to be what really makes a movie successful.

Tuesday Treasures~

I got this wooden corner shelf for only $2... I don't need it, but for $2 bucks I had to have it~these two metal thingies..for $1 each... These two ornate gold plastic frames.... .50cents each.I also picked up this sit & stand stroller at a yard sale for $15... (this photo is from a baby website) It is a Joovy Caboose stroller and sells new for $200! The one I got was red & black--- I took all of the fabric off so I could give it a good cleaning.... stay tuned for the reupholstering job I'm going to give it! hmmm this makes 4 strollers I have at my house-- and only 2 grandkids!
Head on over to Diane's blog to see more Tuesday Treasures on her linky for "2nd Time Around Tuesday" Also.... if your wanting to see even more treasures stop over at Rhoda's blog "Southern Hospitality" If you have linked to my blog and wish to view more.... you can click here

Lazy Sunday # 86: Nick Vujicic

Wow! 86 of these Sunday things. I wonder if it’s time for a new act?

Rather than wasting all that time and energy trying to find something that isn’t already viral on the Internet, maybe it’s time to move on.

Y’see in American slang “86” means to get rid of something.

The term apparently comes from the New York State Liquor Code, Article 86 of which describes the circumstances whereby a patron can be refused service and/or “removed from the premises”.

And you can’t spend a day on any film set without hearing somebody say something like “86 the apple boxes” or “86 the talent”, meaning “Get ‘em out of here”.

There are some who believe “86” garnered its association with moving something along because it describes the dimensions of a traditionally dug grave, eight feet long and six feet deep.

Whatever the derivation, the intent is the same. 86 symbolizes that something needs to be gone.

Sometimes that’s the annoying drunk at the end of the bar or the leading lady when insert shots are taking up the rest of the day. Sometimes its your dreams and your desire to keep pursuing them. 86 some of those big plans you had and life does get a whole lot easier to live.

And a whole lot less interesting.

One night in a club, I heard a punk band introduce a song called “Life’s tough. It’s tougher if you’re stupid”. And that’s, of course, true. Life’s also tough if you have dreams nobody else believes in.

Or were born like Nick Vujicic.

But Nick’s a guy who never quits. Somebody who never stops believing anything is possible. He has one mantra we should all live by…

Never give up!

And enjoy your Sunday.

Mixed Media Monday~

This weeks challenge was: Music.
I like love to hear birds whistling~ music in its purest form if you ask me. So here is a little altered/assembled piece that represents the music I love. Here is a close-up....Here is the complete piece...You can view more art pieces by checking out the weekly challenge site for mixed media art here---> Mixed Media Blog. If you have linked to my blog and wish to view more you can click on this link right ---> here.

Keeping busy~

I picked up this lacing toy for my 2 1/2 year old grandson recently and personalized it for him..... He is over the moon for cars, so I used some Disney Car stickers as the centerpiece of each lacing shape. I just painted on a clear finish over the top to keep each sticker from being easily picked off--another one of his favorite things to do. He is so helpful~

Paper mache pumpkin

Over at the blog "Expressly Corgi" they are hosting a "Get 'er done Friday" linky party...go check it out!
Well...I've always wanted one of those vintage paper mache pumpkins, but geeze, they want a small fortune for them. Sooooo I made my own, here is one I whipped up rather fast, just to see if it would work. I think it turned out alright.... I even gave it a lid. I used wire for the handle, some vintage black ribbon and of course I just had to glue some leaves and berries to it as well. I've already started making a few more... they are easy-peasy. I would like to find some websites to get cuter faces to select from, this was the first one I saw, and now that I see it painted on my pumpkin-- I don't care for it to much~ Isn't that how it always goes?

Relentless

I did a couple of things that were out of character for me this summer. One was conscious, the other --- not so much.

The conscious decision was taking a University course on Hannibal. Ever since I was a kid and saw the absolutely terrible movie version of Hannibal’s war with Rome, starring Victor Mature, I’ve had a fascination with the subject.

A couple of times I’ve tried to envision it as a script but couldn’t figure out how to make it matter for a modern audience. Now, I know how to do that – and I’ve got a course credit from a prestigious American University to boot.

A couple hundred more of those and we’ll be checking off that salutation box marked “Doctor”!

I’m saving most of what I learned about Hannibal for some upcoming posts on the CRTC, my own personal version of the corrupt Roman Empire. If you see a herd of elephants crossing the Laurentians this Fall and converging on Gatineau --- that’ll be me.

The not as conscious element of my summer was that I started watching Fox News.

The first couple of weeks of that were kinda out of my hands. I was just somewhere where it was the TV news people put on in the evening. But soon I became fascinated by what I saw unfolding in front of me and kept watching.

And in an odd way, Hannibal and Fox News have quite a few things in common.

Now let me start by saying, I don’t think Fox News is any more “fair and balanced” (their motto) than any other news outlet. And I don’t put much more credence to their coverage of “The News” than I do anybody else’s reportage.

An objective who, what, where, when and why may not be impossible to find in contemporary journalism, but we certainly don’t live in a world where many of the major news services aren’t regularly caught with their biases showing.

And is any of that really bias, or is it just a natural reflection of the ideologies of those in charge of the final message? Nobody is objective. Nobody is without an agenda. And most of us are mostly full of shit when we claim that we have neither.

Now, before this summer, Fox News was just some guy yelling in the background as far as I was concerned. The few times I sampled their wares, it felt like the parent network’s original ratings staple “When Animals Attack” given a shave and a thousand dollar suit. The talking heads all seemed to be channelling rabid evangelical preachers while simultaneously unable to keep their cameras off as much cleavage as possible.

It was all just so shrill and tacky.

And that was when the Republican Party they so clearly supported was completely in charge. Any half sane person had to assume this was the lunatic fringe and worry about what would happen if these people were ever taken seriously.

Following the election of Barack Obama and a general House and Senate cleaning in Washington, most political pundits were not only predicting the disappearance of the Republican Party but a dramatic shift away from the Neo-Con agenda and outfits such as Fox News.

Like Hannibal, left sitting on a North African beach with his defeated father after Rome had tossed Carthage out of Sicily, it looked like the game was over.

But then something happened.

Much as I cheered President Obama’s election and the promise it held, I got a couple of twinges early on when I heard respected journalists talk about getting an exciting tingle up their leg when they thought about the new President or that they now felt it was their job to help him succeed.

Really? Is that the media’s job? What about those old tenets of the Fourth Estate, that the primary job of the Press was to keep those in power honest?

Hannibal, like all good Generals, instinctively knew that politicians can never be fully trusted. No matter how much you may admire them or their policies. Maybe he’d read Sun Tsu’s “The Art of War”, written 300 years before his own time, which contains the warning “When bureaucrats prosper, the people are harmed.”

I have a feeling a wily old newshound (or maybe just crafty corporate General) like Rupert Murdoch also noticed that other journalists were leaving the field and suddenly saw an advantage. One that has been employed with stunning success.

I first came to Fox News this summer as the US embarked on its great Health Care debate. Having lived under the Canadian system, I know there’s really nothing to fear about Socialized medicine – beyond having to acquire a bit of a tax fetish to pay for it.

But like many, I was surprised by the force of the Fox News attack on the policy, figuring it probably threatened the glut of pharmaceutical commercials that seem to fuel the newscasts over there.

But then, I became equally stunned by something else. When Congressmen and Senators were questioned about the bill, most admitted that they hadn’t read it.

And not long after, when their own constituents asked the same questions, they still hadn’t read it.

And even after those Town Hall meetings had degenerated into each side calling the other “Nazis” and it was becoming clear the original bill was in jeopardy, politician after politician made it clear they still didn’t know what was in the bill.

Now, Americans shouldn’t think this is unusual behavior. Members of all four Canadian parties passed a tax bill last spring (C-10) which mapped out censorship of the Arts – and it turned out that none of them had read that part before voting in favor.

Our tax dollars at work – and a valuable insight into those politicians Hannibal knew better than to trust.

Like most Canadian artists in the C-10 debacle, many Americans began asking what else their politicians (from both sides of the floor) weren’t paying attention to. But most of the main stream media didn’t seem interested in investigating that story either.

Much like Hannibal noticing that Rome never thought any Army might try crossing the Alps, Fox News realized it had the story to itself. And maybe it had stumbled on something more.

Fox News’ flagship show is “The O’Reilly Factor”, and it’s always been a ratings winner. Part of the reason for that is the gruff charm of host Bill O’Reilly, who constantly refers to his viewers as “The folks”. Whether his act is sincere or contrived doesn’t matter. Because in television terms, “It works.”.

Surrounded by a rep company of correspondents and commentators ranging from a body language expert who goes over video to determine if the subject is hiding something to comedian Dennis Miller, O’Reilly engages his audience in a nightly discussion of the news of the day that simply isn’t available anywhere else.

And most of the time, that interplay belies all of those myths that the audience for Fox News is Redneck, Racist, Ill-informed and – well – not as smart as the people who get their news from other sources. Most often, the discussion makes its ideological points subtly in the midst of a conversation that wouldn’t seem out of place anywhere.

But in relentlessly questioning “What’s really in the Health Care Bill?”, O’Reilly began drawing a massive audience, tripling and quadrupling those who were getting their information from CNN or MSNBC.

Imperceptibly at first, then more openly, he also began lumping Republican and Democratic politicians together. It was clear his audience didn’t trust either side that much. They’d voted out the former and now were having second thoughts about the latter.

One night, in mapping the audience response to one of his monologues, a red line marking Republican approval and a green one the democrats, O’Reilly had realized that “the folks” didn’t want partisan babbling. They just wanted the straight answers nobody else was even trying to give them.

Via O’Reilly, the Fox News question soon expanded from Health Care to “What’s up with the bailout, cap and trade, cash-for-clunkers, Acorn and all these Czars?” Basically instilling in its audience the feeling that maybe this new President and his closest allies didn’t really know what they were doing or couldn’t be trusted. After all, after an ever-lengthening summer away from the office, they still hadn’t read that damn Health Care bill.

The electorate were fed up with the politics of politics.

It was the same way Hannibal built his army, by convincing a thousand disparate tribes that Rome couldn’t be trusted and didn’t have their best interests at heart.

Now, the Administration and the rest of the media could’ve probably nipped all of this in the bud by openly responding to the concerns the Public expressed or the many ways Fox News stretched the facts to connect their dots. But they didn’t.

Why not? Was it hubris? A belief that Summer was a slow news period and it would all eventually go away? A dismissal of Fox News and their viewers as members of that lunatic fringe?

I don’t know. But I do know that Fox didn’t wait to open a second front.

Late afternoon host, Glenn Beck, a former stand-up comic, Rock DJ and CNN correspondent who describes himself as “A Rodeo Clown”, latched onto the zeitgeist of discontent and distrust and dug in his spurs. Over three months, his own ratings tripled and he turned into a national phenomenon, watched by more people than every other competing news service combined.

What Beck does brilliantly is play the role of a guy out of his depth and struggling to understand. He evokes sympathy by appearing just as confused by what’s happening to his country as many of those who watch him. Again, whether that’s cynical or dishonest doesn’t matter. “It works.”

Beck decided to go after the people Obama embraced as his inner circle, echoing the mantra most of us heard from our moms, “If you want to know what somebody is like, look at their friends.”

So he attacked those closest to the President, in the same way that Hannibal made a point of personally dispatching the generals sent against him.

After one battle, he sent 200 hundred blood-stained gold rings back to the Roman Senate. They had been taken from the dead hands of the cream of Roman Knighthood. A message that he would decimate the ruling class rather than ever come to terms with them.

A typical Beck program often includes a segment with Beck at a blackboard trying to figure out something like this…

A guy missing his tinfoil hat? Somebody looking for fire where there isn’t even smoke? Wouldn’t it be helpful if a real journalist delved into all this?

But all summer long, none did, insisting on taking pot shots at the messenger instead.

Meanwhile, Fox News found endless new ways of hammering the Administration. Was MSNBC silent because CEO Jeffrey Imelt needed the Cap and Trade bill to pass for the sake of GE’s bottom line? Could there be any other logical explanation for Obama dolls being sold in the NBC store?

During the Cash for Clunkers program, Fox found mechanics going broke because people were trading in their old cars instead of fixing them and a dour lady from a Kidney charity that was struggling because the government was paying for junkers people would otherwise have donated to her group.

Blow after blow sent the message that the Administration agenda was hurting the little guy and looking after somebody else.

During each program, Beck pleads for people to help him save the country, to send him intel, to be whistleblowers. Maybe it’s just the modern TV version of offering Captain Midnight’s Secret Decoder Ring.

But --- “It Works”.

If only 1% of Beck’s audience is doing what he asks, that amounts to about 10,000 true believers on the lookout in every single state in the Union.

It took him weeks of going after Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones, to end that man’s political career; a campaign completely ignored in the main stream press.

The New York Times, in its first report of the scandal, on the day Jones resigned, attributed his fall to an old video where he referred to Republicans as “Assholes”. The truth is, it was a long list of videos repeatedly shown on Beck’s program, including one where Jones, speaking to an inner city audience, affirms that White environmentalists are specifically choosing to dump dangerous materials in Black neighborhoods.

Minutes after claiming Jones’ scalp, Beck was twittering his followers with a list of who he wanted information on next. In an era where every newspaper editor knows the term “citizen journalist” Beck was actually making use of them.

Within days, he had forced the reassignment of the head of the National Endowment of the Arts over a demand that Artists who wanted grants sign on to the President’s agenda first.

And then he scored a major coup, presenting incredible hidden camera video shot inside Acorn, filmed by a pair of neophytes, that caused the Census Department to bar the community organizer from leading the next Census and the Senate to cease funding the group.

Since many on the Right had worried Acorn might skew the Census to change the boundaries of Congressional Districts to favor the Left, this could translate to a stunning reversal of electoral fortunes.

And it was a bloodless coup accomplished by complete amateurs and so revealing of the silence of the main stream media that it had “Daily Show” host John Stewart staring blankly into camera and asking American journalists, “I’m a fake journalist and I’m embarrassed. Where the fuck were the rest of you guys?”

And that’s what this is all really about.

At a time when TV news is struggling to survive, where things are so screwed up that Katie Couric earns more money for reading the news than NPR has to fund all of its news programming, Fox News saw a vacuum, moved in and filled it.

And still --- nobody else seems to have the stomach to take them on. Like the Romans, they seem content to hunker within their city walls while Hannibal pillages the countryside.

After decades of plundering Rome, Hannibal was finally defeated by Scipio Africanus, a Roman General who simply copied his tactics and used them against him.

And that is the only strategy that might also save the other news channels and network news departments who are watching their ratings plummet while Fox News increases its numbers by thousands of new viewers every night.

This is a revolution in television news that has gone virtually unchallenged by the the media establishment.

If Fox News really is being disingenuous about the American President’s agenda and the complicity of the Press, then other journalists need to get to work and get to the truth.

Otherwise, these guys are going to dictate the public mood and control the political agenda for a very long time.

Again, I want to be clear, that this isn’t really about politics, your own perspectives or what you think the right direction for society might be. It’s an example of how somebody determined to succeed can quickly gain the upper hand and change the game.

It’s an illustration of the way power and influence works and how to make your agenda the one which gets adopted.

You need to be relentless. You need to find the weakness in every single decision your opponent makes and refuse to accept anything less than what you want.

After 10 years of watching Canadian television decline, while we have tugged our forelocks and spoken politely with the CRTC, it’s clear that conciliation and polite debate do not work. It’s time for us to start going after those who refuse to hear our voices, to force them on pain of their own survival to finally act in our interests.

What Hannibal knew instinctively, Machiavelli, voiced very succinctly, “Don’t stand around too long with the knife in your hands.”

You find the opening and you strike.

Now excuse me while I go find some elephants.

Halloween spell books~

I've made some halloween spell books...I think they turned out super caute! Here is how I made them it if anyone is interested:
Rip/tear off covers from old books that you think are kinda spooky looking. The ones I've chosen are slightly embossed. You'll be using these as the covers to your book of spells.I found an old recipe book with old, yellowed torn pages for the innards of my spell books for the huge sum of .10cents. I could have used the original book pages, but I wanted an old, well used look to my little spell books. I used a grommet punch and made some holes in the books covers. If you squeeze and wiggle the punch at the same time it will eventually poke through the covers. (you can also drill through them) I placed the newly torn off covers on top of the pages of the old recipe book to get an idea of how much to cut off of the pages. I cut the pages larger than I needed so that the worn edges of the pages could be seen easily. After cutting a stack of pages, I stapled them together and glued them into the covers of the new book. Then I laced up the sides of the book. Once the book was put back together... I needed to put the new title of the books on the covers. I printed out the words "Spells" and "Love" onto cardstock. I covered the printed words with some packing tape and used a blade to cut out the letters. With the stencils made I simply put my finger into the embossing ink and smeared it into the stencil opening, then I just applied embossing powder and heated it up and.... taaaaaaaaaaa daaaaaaaaaa! A silver embossed title on the book of spells~ easy-peasy!Here are the two books again...I lurve them, cute & spooky!Kim from "Today's Creative Blog" is hosting a Get your craft on Party... go check out all the creative fun ideas on her blog. Also, over at the blog "Twice Remembered" Kim is hosting a "Make your Monday" linky party... go check out everyones great ideas. If you have linked to this blog and wish to view more, you can click here to view more.

We Don’t Do Period

It seems we’ll be back into the never ending Canadian TV Regulation Wars in the coming weeks, with the CRTC now announcing two (“Count ‘em, two!”) sets of Fall hearings on the state of the industry. How often do these guys need to make the same decision, anyway? Is it a Best of Five series? Seven?

However, I have to say the field has become more interesting with the arrival of a new player, the Harper Government, who seems to be giving the Commission’s leash a yank in an attempt to get them to remember they’re supposed to be a consumer watchdog rather than broadcaster lap hound. Details from Grant Robertson, the busiest journalist in Canadian Show business – or maybe just the only guy at the Globe & Mail who couldn’t score any TIFF passes.

As always, the just concluded Toronto International Film Festival was less about movies than the parties. That forces even guys like me to hang up the “quiet loner” mantle and slip into something elegant. Or as elegant as necessary to hang with barely working Canadian writers, actors and filmmakers.

I usually explain my non-attendance at industry events with the “Because they don’t let me bring a shotgun!” excuse. But lately, I’m thinking the real danger of packing heat would be wrestling it from the grip of so many in a mood to cram the barrel in their own mouths.

For what seems to be happening in our country is that we’re building a creative community with nowhere to create.

It’s all well and good that several levels of government used TIFF to announce $7 Million in new funding for the Canadian Film Centre and $10 Million more to complete a permanent Festival complex. But you gotta wonder if there will be any production for those CFC kids to work on once they graduate and if the grand Festival theatres will have Canadian films in a sufficient number to raise their own screen content above the 2% level our cinematic output accounts for in the rest of the country.

Shouldn’t we have our own industry before we spend so much public money on training and exhibition?  Especially when those trained and the places where our films are exhibited will both have to depend heavily on the kindness of foreigners to survive.

But then, that’s always been one of the places where our National Psyche misfires. We crave acceptance at all cost, wanting to be internationally regarded as the wonderfully extra-special people we all know we are. And somehow artists approved by association with the Ivy League cache of their Alma Mater or inviting people to watch movies in a jewel box setting is supposed to accomplish that.

The fact that others not burdened by such a lack of self-esteem pay more attention to the content on screen isn’t a concept those so blinkered will ever be able to get their heads around.

But let’s get back to those struggling to make an industry here.

Somebody twittered the warning “It’s become ‘Lord of the Flies’ in here.” from one party I attended, perfectly capturing (as talented writers are wont to do) the rudderless chaos of so much creative energy unable to find normal release and degenerating into something else. 

You hear many excuses for the reduced markets for Canadian work. The need of some local buyers to have guaranteed financing or foreign sales before they’ll commit to development, for example, or the desire for the concept to copy a current American model or success.

One of our nets won’t consider any drama submissions that aren’t budgeted in the $2 Mil/episode range, which must mark the first time any network anywhere hasn’t been all over a producer to “make it cheaper”.

It’s also a business model that flies in the face of every recent Canadian TV success from “Corner Gas” to “Trailer Park Boys” to “Being Erica” while making the break even point for investors almost impossible to reach in the current economy. And given our private networks public pleas of poverty it makes even less sense.

However, one of the most prescient clues to what the real problem is came from a writer friend who’s trying to sell a Period piece. 

Canadian nets are notoriously loathe to shoot anything where the actors can’t be dressed off the rack. Shortly after “Mad Men” debuted, a local development exec let me know they were in the market for a period drama. I offered a couple of ideas, to which she responded, “We weren’t thinking of going back that far.”

In other words, they really wanted something from the 60’s, like “Mad Men”. If you signed with a US network first. And had foreign sales.

One of these network geniuses had listened to my friend’s pitch and worried aloud about becoming known for doing Period.

Shouldn’t the concern have been, “How can this idea make us money? How can the stories we do here resonate with a modern audience? How can this series make us the place where viewers know they can find something different?”

But network executives apparently don’t think that way. Canadian ones in particular seem to eschew the opportunity to break new ground in favor of re-tooling or simply replicating what can be found pretty much anywhere else.

Perhaps that’s a safe choice when it comes to personal job-security. But when iTunes is your company’s only option at securing future profits, you’d think you wouldn’t want a little more than your version of “So You Think You Can Dance” competing with somebody else’s copy.

When you’re stuck in a falling box, your only salvation is beginning to think outside it.

But, in the same way they don’t embrace the story potential, visual freedom and imagination sparking ability of Science Fiction, Canadian TV Execs are loathe to program much that’s set in the past, preferring to till a narrow segment of human history (the Present) as it is seen through the eyes of endless incarnations of cops, doctors, lawyers and young singles.

I started wondering why they’re so afraid of a tapestry of human experience so diverse you could program a different era and/or culture (as well as all it had/has to offer) in every available prime time slot for decades without repeating yourself. And unfortunately, I think I found the answer.

Teachers.

I’ve written about how stupid our audience is being made before, much of that process the result of an education system too lazy or too disinterested in our kids to even teach them how to read.

And while the Nation’s movers and shakers were craning their necks to see if Megan Fox was as hot in person as she was in “Transformers 2”, the Canadian Council on Learning published a study showing that 48% of Canadian adults operate at a literacy level below the minimum required to cope in a knowledge based economy.

To make it simple – half of us can’t comprehend a newspaper anymore, let alone begin to deal with a novel.

The CCL included a map with their study showing the national scope of the problem. Green and Yellow sections denote a lower proportion of adult illiterates, orange and red indicate illiteracy at levels up to 69%.

As a Western Canadian with an admitted Conservative bias, I hope some of you notice the corollary between literacy and the Nation’s voting patterns.

Just Sayin’…

Anyway – we already can’t read. And now it appears not learning History is next.

The UK has a whole lot of History, so much that PBS wouldn’t have much programming without it and CBC wouldn’t have as many shows they can pretend are actually Canadian.

But there’s a movement afoot over there to stop teaching History because they now have so many kids in school who were born elsewhere that some in Education are asserting that those children feel left out, don’t relate to what’s being taught and therefore fail.

The fact that there are still a lot of indigenous kids who might like to know where they come from and that it might not harm the imports to get up to date on how their new home got this way seems to escape Educational Bureaucrats.

It makes you wonder how many culture clashes could be avoided if teachers were working at making everybody a little clearer on how the people they don’t fully understand came to be the way they are.

In my part of the World, where one School Board has already banned “To Kill A Mockingbird” in a misguided attempt to reduce racial sensitivities; it’s come to light that School Boards are encouraging teachers to augment their classes with a field trip to the nearest “Medieval Times” outlet for “A History Lesson Your Child Will Never Forget! @ $40 bucks a head.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a Medieval Times performance. It’s an extension on the Dinner Theatre concept which grew out of the “watching something while you eat” TV Dinner Concept. In this case, it’s basically “Chuck E. Cheese” with horses.

The audience is herded into an arena and treated to mock jousting while wearing paper crowns and eating with their hands, constantly being assured what they’re experiencing is an accurate portrayal of life in a Medieval Castle.

It’s not.

It’s a Vegas style concept so dependent on school shows for its corporate survival that they’ve developed a whole “educational” package to encourage school attendance. This includes a handout on dramatic acting educating the kids on arcane theatrical terms like ACTRA and AFTRA as well as such definition gems as “Background Performer: …Extra” and “Extra: …Background Performer”.

The Medieval Menu for school matinees features:

Garlic Bread

Oven-Roasted Chicken Quarter

Sweet Corn Cobette

Herb-Roasted Potato

Freshly-Baked Chocolate Chip Cookie

Bottled Spring Water

(Gluten and Dairy free options available)

Those of you with a literacy level high enough to get you this far down the page should also be able to discern how many of those products were actually available during the Middle Ages.

Passing this off as History is right up there with what passes for History on Canada’s History Channel. You might as well show “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” in class (somehow I’m sure The History Channel already has) or simply take the kids to Vegas where they can climb the Eiffel Tower, take a Gondola through Venice and meet direct descendants of Al Capone in one very “educational” afternoon.

And while they’re there, maybe somebody can teach them how to play Poker, because it might be their only shot at earning a living after graduation.

What this laziness and lack of imagination in the education community breeds is -- well, the very same thing -- in everybody they were supposed to teach. And it’s clearly starting to affect what gets offered as television fare.

When kids can’t read and therefore have fewer options, they’ll start to see the degradation of “Bromance” or “Rock of Love” as their only chance to be somebody. They’ll believe the abusive atmosphere of “Hell’s Kitchen” is what they have to put up with in the workplace or that there’s a Millionaire “Bachelor” who’ll marry you after one night in a hot tub.

And the ratings hungry people who run television will be more than happy to oblige.

Making room for fewer dramas -- and even fewer Period pieces that might coax them to stretch their understanding of the world.

To put it simply -- Nobody is taught enough History anymore to be able to follow a Period piece without being in a constant state of confusion.

“Why doesn’t he use his cell phone? Whaddya mean they didn’t have ‘em back then?”

“Why is she taking a train if she’s in a hurry? That’ll take forever!”

“No clues! Are they nuts? Where’s the CSI guys?”

“Did that Atticus guy use the ‘N’ word? I thought we were supposed to like him!”

Having lived through the 1960’s, I’m frankly stunned by the vast number of mass media journalists who filed miles of copy prior to this season’s launch wondering at the differences between the sexes displayed in “Mad Men”. Even if these people are waaaaay younger than me, didn’t they have parents? Didn’t anybody ever tell them that things have changed a little in the last few decades? Don’t they know that iPods aren’t magic, they evolved from what preceded them?

Apparently not.

And they’re the ones who know how to read!

I’m sure there’s an argument to be made that television is a struggling medium right now and we’ll get back to more diverse programming once the “New Media” business models are perfected. But I look at how many of last night’s Emmy Awards were carted away by “Mad Men”, “Grey Gardens”, “Little Dorrit” and “House of Saddam” and I realize that producing in the Period genre might be one of those models.

Maybe the problem is bigger than teachers.

Maybe the Canadian TV mantra isn’t “We don’t do Period.” It’s --- We don’t do. Period.

Tuesday Treasures~

I had a wonderful time hitting yard sales this past weekend, it seems like there was treasures to be had everywhere. Here is some of my new loot~ A bunch of buttons, all this for $5.Two little peat pot baskets .25cents each.Three gold-toned bathroom thingies. The two tissue holders were .50cents each bought from the same yard sale. The little jewelry box was .50cents found later the same day clear across town.A stack of cooking books for .50cents each. (under the bowlie of buttons)Three seashells-- .50cents, 4 hankies for .25cents each and an old metal tin for .50cents. Two pinkeeps for .50cents.This rectangle glass and metal pedestal thingie was $3. It is a curious piece isn't it?And finally.... this fabulous vintage bird cage for the mere sum of $15 buckeroos~ She had originally said $25 bucks... and I went and sulked while looking through her boxes of books... I overheard her tell one of her family members "Oh, I'll just sell if for $15, just to get rid of it"...gasp.... I yelled from across the yard, "I'll take it for $15" and now its mine, all mine!Here is a photo of the base...caute!Head on over to Diane's blog to see more Tuesday Treasures on her linky for "2nd Time Around Tuesday" If you have linked to my blog and wish to view more.... you can click here. I've been busy making Halloween decorations for my home...fun stuff!~

Mixed Media Monday~

This weeks challenge was: metal.I've added some faux metal pieces to these glass jars that will be part of my Witches spice cabinet that I'm making. I am loving the look of these, heaven help me...that only means everything is going to get the metal treatment until I've tired of it! Here is a close-up of the black widow spider in the metal band around this old glass bottle~ You can read more about the little glass jars with the skulls on them here. This metal looking band was made using tape, a plastic spider and some paint.You can view more art pieces by checking out the weekly challenge site for mixed media art here---> Mixed Media Blog.

National Sewing Month~

September is National Sewing month....who knew? okokok The Faerie Wysperer knew-- thats how I know~ The Awtemnymf is having a give away on her blog to be drawn on September the 24th if anyone is interested in joining in. Three things have to be completed first... blog about the giveaway and link to The Faerie Wysperer and write something that you love about pumpkins... My favorite thing about pumpkins? Why pumpkin cookies of course. Here is the pumpkin recipe that is a MUST TRY-- seriously, you'll thank me-- your family & friends will thank me... generations for years to come will thank me! It is that good...trust me!

Lazy Sunday # 85: Capturing Television

The Emmy Awards will be handed out this evening, celebrating the best the last American TV season had to offer. Some of your favorite shows will be honored. Some of them will be robbed. And twenty years from now, the ones that mattered to you will still hold a special place in your heart.

What we watch and why we watch it is always ethereal, always changing. But what remains constant is the drive to communicate, to engage and to bring something special to the screen that abides in those who make television.

Finding a new idea or a fresh take on the oldest one there is and then feeding the voracious machine that churns out the shows millions want to make a part of their lives is a daunting task. And despite what “TMZ” and “Access Hollywood” might lead you to believe, that task is accomplished by intelligent, thoughtful and courageous men and women, who find a vision, follow it and make it real for the rest of us.

Many of these people have been gathered together by those who hand out the Emmys, The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, at a very special site still in Beta called  the “Archive of American Television” at www.emmytvlegends.org.

Stamped with the mandate of “Capturing Television, One Voice at a Time”, the Archive offers hundreds of in-depth video interviews with the legends and pioneers of television – formatted for easy searches by person, show, topic or profession.

Some of these interviews are hours in length, as several generations of the industry explore television from its first days to its current transitions to other media platforms. From writers, actors and directors on the creative side, through the crews and technicians who contributed to and executed the vision to the network presidents and programmers who built and sustained the delivery system for all that creativity, the business of making television has never been so thoroughly examined.

Here you’ll be able to see Elma Farnsworth, widow of Philo Farnsworth, television’s inventor, describe the night her husband showed her the first images ever seen on a cathode ray tube and then sent a telegram to the backers reading: “Well, the damn thing works.”

You’ll listen to James Arness detail the rehearsal process of “Gunsmoke” as the production worked to transform the TV Western from a diversion for kids into an adult drama that would be a ratings leader for 20 years, the longest primetime run in US history.

There’s Walter Cronkite talking about the one and only commercial he did for Winston cigarettes.

Jay Sandrich recalling the 119 episodes of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” that he directed.

Larry Gelbart repeats his favorite line from “M*A*S*H”, The one where Father Mulcahy describes doctors warming their hands over open wounds.

And all of this is mixed with clips and historical footage and anecdotes to die for. It’s the kind of emersion into what it really takes to make great television that no University or Film School can ever hope to provide. All for free and totalling more hours than you’ve probably already spent in front of a television set.

Before you enjoy the glamor and glitter of the Emmys, learn what it really took to get there.

And Enjoy your Sunday.

Goofing around~

I am still working in my yard like a crazy person, so much so that I totally forgot about getting my entry form submitted to my local fair to enter all the things I've been making this past year. *gasp* all that hard work for not.... oh well, I'll box the stuff up I've made and enter it next year for sure!

In between working in the yard and watching my grandkids I've been playing around making some Halloween decorations for my home. I've been wanting to make a spooky spice cabinet... and tonight I started working on it. I picked up this shadow box this past summer and pulled out all the decorations that were inside...

Here it is with a new paint job. The antique gold/yellow is so bright in this photo, but in person it looks like its rusty! A perfect beginning for my spooky spice cabinet~I took three small jars and added some skulls to the lids using e6000 glue. The skulls were once plastic rings, I just cut the ring parts off and glued them in place.Once the glue had set up a little bit...I spray painted them with some textured spray paint. I think it made the lids look like rusty metal.I added some black paint to age them up a bit and added some red rhinestone eyes to the skulls. I also dripped some black paint down the sides of the jars. I hear witches are a messy-lot~ Now I just need to fill them with some fun spooky stuff and add some labels.

The cabinet is off to a good start~