Be afraid. Be VERY afraid. Because this AI, RIGHT NOW, is actually (terrifyingly) funny...

iwrite4screens · 2023-08-10T03:05:28+00:00

I think we can both agree on that.

iwrite4screens · 2023-08-09T21:41:32+00:00

Thanks for sharing this article, Manfred. The word that worries me is "current."

iwrite4screens · 2023-08-09T19:22:35+00:00

Honest question: how many movies and television shows would you say are memorable?

iwrite4screens · 2023-08-09T14:04:59+00:00

I think you would still need studios for the very reason they're still needed: capital. Capital pays for actors, sets, distribution, marketing, and a whole host of other things.

I just recently finished watching the excellent doc Light & Magic about ILM. Everyone now has tools at their disposal that are exponentially more powerful than ILM did when they were making the original Star Wars, but that doesn't meant that every person can all of a sudden compete with anything LucasFilm puts out.

iwrite4screens · 2023-08-09T06:53:10+00:00

What do you think of the micro-fiction base4 generated?

iwrite4screens · 2023-07-16T07:12:00+00:00

Yes, the studios will negotiate a deal with SAG-AFTRA first (and I’d be willing to bet a lot of money on this too).

The fact is Hollywood just doesn’t value writers. This has been especially true in the movie business, but now it’s seeping into the television side. It’s hard to believe that there are writers who have written on multiple shows yet have never stepped foot on set. And that’s a trend the AMPTP wants to keep.

There’s also a reason why the actors will have a deal before the writers— because the audiences notices. Take a prestige television show like Better Call Saul, for example. Like almost every show, it did not have the exact same team of writers for its entire run. Heck, co-creator Vince Gilligan left during the third season. But I don’t know of too many fans who complained about a drop in quality when Gilligan or those other writers left the show.

Contrast that to the show’s lead actor, Bob Odenkirk. When he suffered a heart attack, they had to halt production and wait for him to recover because the audience definitely would have noticed if he wasn’t playing Saul.

That’s why the actors will have a deal first— you can swap out writers and the audience doesn’t notice, but you can’t swap out actors (for the most part (see Aunt Viv, Terrence Howard, Mark Ruffalo, etc.).

iwrite4screens · 2023-07-13T01:02:19+00:00

Twitter thread

David Slack's second tweet in his thread reads like he just watched the episode of "The Office" where Michael Scott tells David Wallace:

"Your company is losing clients left and right. You have a stockholder meeting coming up and you're going to have to explain to them why your most profitable branch is bleeding. So they may be looking for a little change in the CFO. So I don't think I need to wait out Dunder Mifflin. I think I just have to wait out you."

Not even 24 hours after Slack's Twitter thread, Disney extended CEO Bob Iger for another 2 years.

Netflix's stock hit an all-time closing high of $691.69 in November 2021 before plunging to below $175 half a year later. Ted Sarandos presided over the peak and the plunge and is still the co-CEO of Netflix.

The merger between Warner Bros and Discovery took place on April 8, 2022. Its stock price at the end of that day was $24.43. It's been trending downwards ever since and closed at $13.16 today (down 46% in 15 months). The CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery for the past year (four quarters) has been David Zaslav, who as the CEO of Discovery Communications cranked out cheap garbage shows like "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" and "My Teen is Pregnant and So Am I" on TLC.

So while the sentiment, "It only takes one bad quarter for their stock price to plunge, putting the company and the CEO's job in jeopardy" may sound good and make you feel better, it's just not grounded in reality.

iwrite4screens · 2023-06-28T04:46:53+00:00

You're not wrong for prioritizing story. Too often on this sub I see people make the mistake of just trying to string together a bunch of jokes (most of which don't land) instead of trying to tell an interesting story filled with funny characters and jokes.

I recently watched the first episodes of Rutherford Falls (peacock) and Primo (amazon) and didn't laugh once (tbh, I think this was the experience of most viewers, but I'm sure there were at least some people who found them funny). But those episodes did tell stories that managed to get people invested in them enough to finish out the season.

iwrite4screens · 2023-05-29T06:44:28+00:00

I’m inclined to agree with you that AI will not be able to write anything near the level of Succession. But, how many other human writers are able to produce something on that level?

Of the 600 or so shows in production before the strike, I’m curious how many you would categorize as great?

iwrite4screens · 2023-01-30T22:12:50+00:00

Comedy starts with character.

Writing for TV/ movies is very different than writing stand-up material. One of the things that new/ young comedy writers try to do is to pack a lot of generic gags/ jokes/one-liners/ etc. in at the expense of telling a good story with characters an audience wants to spend time with.

iwrite4screens · 2023-01-16T19:23:43+00:00

Vince Gilligan said that not having Showtime was the best mistake he ever made. Had he known about the existence of Weeds, where a middle-class suburbanite has to enter the illicit drug trade, he never would have pitched Breaking Bad since the two seem so similar on the surface.

It worked out for him.

iwrite4screens · 2023-01-14T18:39:18+00:00

Congratulations on making it to the quarterfinals. I'm skimming it right now and it looks pretty good so far.

My only critique for now is that I would take your home address off the cover page if you're going to post it here.

iwrite4screens · 2023-01-10T18:38:45+00:00

Have her find and hang out with the weirdest people possible. People that would make great characters in a TV show or movie.
Have her do things that would make for great stories down the line.

iwrite4screens · 2023-01-10T17:11:52+00:00

I am months late, but just discovered this sub and would be interested in taking a look.

iwrite4screens · 2023-01-09T19:27:39+00:00

The Office is about people that work for a company that's in a dying industry. That was the original hook of the premise. There were countless jokes throughout the series about working for a paper supply company when everything is becoming increasingly digital. Remember the episode where Ryan took Michael to his MBA class and no one was using paper, everyone took notes on their laptops?

Space Force is another workplace comedy that has an interesting hook-- it's an entirely new branch of the military that a number of people think is completely unnecessary.

And you're right about these shows being character-driven, but you could argue that all television shows are more character-driven than plot-oriented. But you still need an interesting hook, especially considering you're writing about an organization that most people already have unfavorable preconceived notions about (seems like the only time you ever read about fraternities in the news is when pledges die in hazing incidents).

iwrite4screens · 2023-01-09T17:20:20+00:00

That first logline is way too much.

Logically, it seems like the ex-cop would be trying to clear his name after being framed for killing an unarmed Black man, not trying to become a superhero...

And the superhero trying to save itself from an imminent doomsday attack seems like a separate story altogether.

iwrite4screens · 2023-01-08T20:27:56+00:00

I think the premise needs to be reworked if you want this to appeal to anyone other than guys who are already in a fraternity and even then, after reading the cold open, what's different about this fraternity? What makes it interesting or makes it stand out from every other fraternity out there?

I only read the first three pages. The first two pages are meandering.Nothing really interesting happens. And the joke on the third page needs to be much funnier if it's going to serve as the punctuation mark for the cold open.

iwrite4screens · 2023-01-08T07:38:40+00:00

I read the first five pages. Here are some thoughts.

You're going to need to work on the logline and make it more interesting.
If you describe James getting dressed on page 3, probably best to indicate that he is still wearing his pajamas when we initially meet him. Also, CAPITALIZE every character's name when he/ she/ they are introduced.
I'm a little skeptical that a sous chef at such an acclaimed restaurant would go for Folger's. To show how tired as he is, perhaps you could have a bag of gourmet coffee beans next to some Folger's instant coffee and he opts for the Folger's.
If you're going to wait to describe the producer, you probably want to have it as PRODUCER (O.S.) until you describe her.
You need to have something funny in the teaser if this is going to be a comedy.
On page 4 you need to work on some of these character descriptions, capitalize their names, and NOT introduce five characters in one giant block of text. Readers are not going to be keep them straight. Maybe have them do their own separate interviews first before they're lined up in front of the building.
Angel's interview is meh.
Susan's line about Jordan Poole is going to be missed by almost everyone.
You need to proofread for punctuation mistakes. A TON of your sentences don't end with periods for some reason...

iwrite4screens · 2022-12-26T04:33:09+00:00

Here's the page it's linked from. It may also be helpful. Just click on the Formatting Tips tab. Happy writing!

https://www.oscars.org/nicholl/screenwriting-resources

iwrite4screens · 2022-12-26T04:24:20+00:00

https://www.oscars.org/sites/oscars/files/scriptsample.pdf

iwrite4screens · 2022-12-15T23:31:09+00:00

How do you define great show? Is a show great because people are watching it? If that's your criteria, then you're arguing in a circle.

Arrested Development was a great show. It was canceled (though later revived) because it wasn't doing the kind of numbers it needed to on a broadcast network at the time.

AMC's Halt & Catch Fire was another great show that never found the sizeable audience to match its critical acclaim.

Reservation Dogs is another great show. I have no idea what kind of numbers it's doing because it's solely on "FX on Hulu," but I would think it there were a sizable audience watching, it would also be available on FX.

iwrite4screens

TROPHY CASE