Farewell Paul

Most people will know writer, songwriter, screenwriter, and musician Paul Quarrington through his exceptional novels. I knew him as a fellow screenwriter--far more active and successful than me--but while I could never write a novel like he could I hoped I could be as good a screenwriter.

I'd read his novels but I first read his screenwriting work when I was on the WGC Council. We had to choose the winners of the Canadian Screenwriting Awards, or the WGC Top Ten as they were called then and I ended up championing a script Paul had written for a Canadian TV series. I also got to present his award at the ceremony held in Toronto which was a great pleasure.

He told me about acting in a TV show once and realizing that it was a great job for a writer. All the waiting around in your little trailer gave you time to write on someone else's dime.

Until a few years ago, I saw him often when we worked out at the Metro Central YMCA Men's Health Club in Toronto. I'd kid him at industry events when someone was in earshot about seeing him naked.

The last time I saw Paul was at the wrap party of the Reel Canada film series for high schools a couple of years ago. He'd just wrapped the TV series Moose TV which he scripted, he'd met a nice lady on the shoot and was enjoying being in his prime as a writer. I'm glad that's my last memory of him.

He left us today and I will miss him.

Thanks and Merry Christmas

I've been putting out messages onto the internet for a while through this blog and I hope that you enjoy them. Thanks for reading them and have a Merry Christmas and joyous New Year.

Hans Rosling demos Story and Performance at TED India

He didn't intend to, but medical researcher and speaker Hans Rosling electrified the audience at the TED India conference with this presentation. Writers take note about structure. Actors take note about performance.

Writing what you know works

One of the most satisfying experiences for me as a screenwriting instructor took place last week when a student who'd been writing derivative, and ultimately dishonest Law and Order wannabe type scripts finally listened to me and instead of aping what others do better, wrote a short about something that happened to him--being racially profiled by a bunch of Toronto police. It was vivid, moving and totally honest and took me inside what it must have felt like for him.

When I returned it to him I told him that it was great and that I was glad he finally arrived. He knew what I meant.

Another appearance on Little Mosque

I make another appearance on this season of CBC TV's Little Mosque on the Prairie on Monday November 28. It's usually on at 8 PM in most parts of Canada. But it looks like they're repeating a holiday special episode followed at 8:30 by the new one that I'm in.

After watching The Border

It's always an interesting experience watching myself on TV or film. I can't help but recall how we shot the scene on the day and then how they ended up editing it.

So often, TV editors, especially, seldom use the actor's best performances, but rather focus on "getting the lines" and often let matching go out the window. (By matching, i mean that if one actor's head is tilted left in one angle, but tilted right in the other--it causes a jump cut, which makes me crazy because it kicks me out of getting caught up in the story.) Film editors are much more careful when it comes to this and usually have more takes of material to work with.

Last Thursday I watched myself on The Border and didn't cringe. The character is so far removed from who and how I am in real life, it was interesting to see if I could actually buy into believing it wasn't me. Well, I didn't of course, but it was fun trying. I sometimes wish I could redo a line or wish they'd used a better take, but the actor is powerless in what becomes an editor's medium. That's why I try to ensure that my takes are bulletproof as much as possible. Matching matters to me, so that it becomes easier for the editor to pick a good performance IF he's paying attention to matching.

Of course, it would have been nice to score a head credit for my guest star part, but CBC tends to be very arbitrary with credits for their non-star guest roles. Despite having more dialogue than anyone but the guest lead, I didn't score a head credit, while actors with less screen time did. Go figure. (I realize this might seem petty, but head credits are a way of raising profile for future work.)

I'm on The Border this Thursday

Check me out in the trailer.

Annoyed at the fence sitting

If you read today's editorial in Canada's self-styled national paper, I hope you get as annoyed as I did. Isn't an editorial supposed to be an opinion? I have no idea what the Globe's opinion on the "great TV debate" actually is. Could it be they are afraid to alienate BOTH the cable and satellite companies who have been purchasing full page ads in the Globe to trumpet their cause as well as the TV networks who have also been purchasing full page ads?

The editorial pays lip service to the concerns of the creative community, including the WGC who have been quietly, (we don't have the money to buy full page ads) complaining that all this is a big distraction from what really matters--getting Canadian airwaves to broadcast Canadian programs.

It's disappointing to see a respected paper like the Globe sell itself out like this. Check out my previous blog entry for the WGC's short video that clarifies the situation for the rest of us, (who aren't shareholders in BDU's or TV networks.)

Stop the whinging!

Canada's cable and satellite companies have been fighting Canada's private TV networks for your money. If they spent the same amount of money supporting Canadian programming--because they clearly have the money to waste--entire channels worth of shows could have been made.

Instead, writers, actors and directors twist in the wind while the above's executives figure out what to put in their latest full page newspaper ads and hokey TV commercials.

For a fresh and refreshing perspective on all this nonsense, check out a new video from the Writers Guild of Canada, the guild of professional screenwriters.



There. Doesn't that make sense?

Structureless Films

The writer I suggested do a beat sheet countered that a couple of fave movies, Lost in Translation and Sideways, didn't have stories so what's the big deal?

She HAD to love a couple of movies that I abhor for their lack of story and in the case of Lost in Translation, a film I also find racist, or at least a movie that yet again elevates the problems of white people in another culture, while turning the members of that culture into extras in their own country.

First, the lack of story in both Lost in Translation and Sideways is fashionable. My concern is with trying to learn screenwriting from those scripts. Lost In Translation cheats the audience out of the most important moment in the story, such as it is: what exactly did Bill Murray whisper to Scarlett Johansen? But seriously, who cares? Here's a movie that shows Japanese people as either ranting idiots--the Japanese commercial director--or prostitutes--the prostitute. Are there any other Japanese characters these self-absorbed white people ever meet, interact with, care about or know in their time in Tokyo? This is a movie where nothing happens, not even a romance between the leads, (as yucky as that probably would have been), and they don't even get out of the damn hotel long enough to discover anything about one of the most amazing cities in the world.

Sideways has great performances going for it and four really terrific characters, (that is good writing), but I don't think it has anything to teach about structure, especially given the completely unearned payoff at the end the Paul Giamatti character receives.

So if you love those films, you are NOT responding to strong structure. Indeed, Lost in Translation is a classic episodic plot. The episodes could be reordered in almost any fashion without any damage. Aristotle claimed audiences of drama didn't cotton on to episodic plots and I agree.

I guess the best I could say about both films, is that they are exceptions to screenwriting being fundamentally about structure. They may have many pleasure, like mood, dialogue, character, but structure is not their strong suit. So if the writer I attempted to counsel prefers those films to ones with a strong story, I understand. But it's not where I come from and from what I can tell, what most successful screenplays generally contain at their core, viz. a strong structure.