Don’t Change Your Credit Sequence

Whenever there’s a need to change the sets, the location or most damning of all, the opening credits, you know a show is in mid flight over Shamu in the Sea World’s Center Tank. Change the credits and you damn the show. There have been several examples. Like when they moved Bob and Emily from their then-current apartment to their new swanky 1970′s penthouse in The Bob Newhart Show and the producers changed the opening credits to match, giving the once-wry opening a newer, funkier, almost disco-ish sound

Monk lost its freshness just about the time Randy Newman came to town.

And now, most glaringly, Big Love.

For the first three seasons, BL was an intriguing if not voyeuristic examination of ordinary family life as lived by polygamists in Utah. Barely any cussing and a big focus on the recipe that bakes us as a society: working at the office, dating, high school, and dysfunctional relatives mixed together with a generous amount of graphic sex and sparingly covered with insights into a uniquely American faith.

The characters were real and textured with both likable values and unlikable shortcomings: Bill Paxton as Bill the Patriarch who tried to bring his faith into the 21st century; Jeanne Tripplehorn as Barb, the first wife who battled her family’s new priorities while trying to cling to her Mormon roots; Ginnifer Goodwin as Margene, the third wife who was fresh, sexy but naive and finally Chloe Sevigny as the stoic, mechanically inclined second wife Nikki, who compensated for her lack of intimacy by purchasing every retail object in sight.

The characters and their struggles were organic and realistically drove the plot. Their credits were imaginative, incorporating the natural beauty of Utah to represent the seeming perfection of your typical happy family that just happens to have three wives. There’s the developing fissure in the iced over lake all the characters skate upon suggesting the struggle and tension that was simmering just beneath the cool, icy surface. Everything was perfect as long as there wasn’t too much pressure.

But season four is a disaster. It’s still required viewing if for only watching how quickly and steeply a show can fall from its lofty perch. What’s the problem? There are several issues:

1. The tone is off– way off. You get the feeling you’re watching a comedy half of the time, and that’s during the serious moments (like any scene involving Matt Ross as the sexually masquerading leader of the Compound or Douglas Smith as the worst Christian Rock musician ever)
2. There’s too much going on at once. Bill runs for Senate so he can out the family on his own terms. Bill and the Tribe open a family friendly casino on the reservation. Margene shows affection for her “son” Benny, then marries the fiance of Bill’s one-time fourth wife so he can stay in the country. (Someone write a part for The Ropers. This is way too Three’s Company.) Barb runs the casino and her husband’s campaign while fighting off threats from a lobbyist/consultant (Sissy Spacek, who’s very good) and the smoldering affections of one of the casino partners. Then there’s a whole bunch of other stuff like arranged marriage, murder, homosexual affairs and illegal birds. Golly.
3. HBO should syndicate this season on Soap Network. The drama has been cranked up to “eleven” creating a jarring, low-calorie decaffeinated melodrama that not only doesn’t satisfy, but leaves an annoying after taste. The characters no longer drive the plot. They are simply place holders, avatars (yeah, that’s right) whose only reasons for existence are to drive the plot. That’s okay when you’re making a ninety minute thriller, not so effective when you’re extending the life of an insightful drama

As a result, the producers decided to spend their extra budget on a new credit sequence that lost the subtlety and metaphor of the original and replaced it with one that hits us over the head with the theme of this season: everything is fragile and can easily fall apart. Thanks to the over ninety seconds of watching the leads fall through the black emptiness in billowy outfits, I get it.

don’t you make my brown eyes blu-ray

(I’m sure this opinion is hardly late-breaking, but it’s been bugging me.)

So had the Samsung Blu-ray disc player hooked up to the LCD for over a year now.

The picture? Awesome.

Otherwise? Not so impressed. Here’s what needs to be fixed if Blu is ever going to catch on:

1. Resolve the hardware issues; this thing loads data as quiet as a garbage truck careening down the one-way alley behind your cramped, under-insulated studio apartment
2. Fix the usability in the software. I hate having to reload all the data and then w-a-i-t through all the user menus.Yes I know the Feds are watching me. Yes I can’t wait to see that next Jerry Bruckheimer experience. Wow that menu moves really cool, but I STILL have to start it over and THEN forward back to the place I left off?I seem to recall that on my super-efficient Sony DVD upscale, I could just take the DVD out, use it as a a coaster for a couple of days and then put it back in the player and never have to search for the place I left off. This certainly puts a crimp in my efforts to relieve my hydration efforts while catching up on Lost.
3. Price. Price. Price. Thirty dollars for a copy of 40 Year Old Virgin? Really? I know I can get it unrated and in 1080p, but it’s also on every single cable network and it’s old. Thirty for a classic Criterion reissue seems justifiable, but not for Click. Until these babies are about $12 (and $9.99 on Amazon) I’m enjoying my 1080p through Netflix.

next?

When I decided I wanted to be a writer to pursue writing, I knew I’d have to spend a considerable amount of time focusing on my craft. I was always good at putting strong copy together quickly, but fleshing out a multi-scene story with several characters and motivations is a different challenge. With copy it’s over fairly quickly if not painfully. Like having a tooth pulled. By your dad. With a pair of rusty pliers (and yes, this has happened to me).

Writing a story (feature length script, short, whatever) is more like a kidney stone. You think you may have passed it after the first draft, but you haven’t. It takes frequent revisions to pass these stones.

And because of this pain and time involved, you become very particular about your next project.

It has to be something your passionate about. Something you’re willing to spend time with in exchange for going outside, having drinks with friends, spending time with your family and watching Mad Men. (Okay, okay I still make time for a lot of these things, but your priorities WILL shift.)

In fact, you start to believe you have to find the perfect idea. The perfect project. But there is no such thing. Every idea has detrimental flaws if you think about it long enough. You can always find a reason not to move forward, but ultimately that’s an option that keeps you loving in your grandma’s basement, not being successful in your career.

So I guess that’s where I am now– forming another stone.

another (nbc/)universal excuse

Reasons I’m not working on my next script:

1. The economy
2. Am I hungry?
3. Gotta check Variety
4. I didn’t get my workout in this morning
5. My 21-month-old daughter only sleeps for an hour and a half
6. I’ve been sick
7. That great idea I had last night? Not so great
8. GE is going to sell NBC/U to Comcast
9. I’m writing this list
10. My mouth tastes like procrastination

So that’s where I start. People wonder why us writers are so prickly and prone to pickling. It’s this: there are a million different reasons why I shouldn’t write that idea. And they’re all in my head. I have to battle through my perceptions about why you won’t like it. And if you do like it– I’ll think you’re just being polite. Or worse. Lying.

Once I finally get the idea, then I have to flesh it out. So far I have four ideas at the front of the line.

They’ve stood the test of my inner torture: where I remind myself that the idea has been done before and better. And it’s now a boring idea. (But maybe it’s boring now and won’t be by the time I get it finished. Hmmmm.)

They’ve stood the four wine/two vodka test. That’s where you and I are having adult beverages somewhere and I float the idea by you. You, being as socially lubricated as I am, concur that it does sound like a good idea. (Or at least I HEAR you saying that– sometimes I have to listen between your words to hear what I want you to say.)

They’ve stood the white board test. That’s where I write down the barest scrape of the idea on a white board and if it lasts longer than my ability to erase it (because the erasable ink has stained the board), then maybe I have something.

They’ve stood the Log It and Pitch It Test: where I, in total desperation to have something for me and my director to pitch in a meeting, scrape up something about which I could bare to write a descriptive paragraph.

And what are these ideas? None of your damn business. I don’t trust you people as far as I could throw you. And I have skinny arms, a flabby core and skinny legs.

prologue

So this is it. My first post. My first foray into self-importance.

Really this is cathartic. And a blatant chance to show potential clients that I understand “social media.”

There are two driving forces in my life: film (and TV and all that stuff) and being a husband/father.  This blog is for the former. I’ll try to keep these posts film/TV/content specific. If you’re interested in how poorly I’m raising my awesome daughter, click on over to this other blog.

Wow starting two blogs at once. Maybe I should cut down on the Zoloft Martinis.