John August

Broadway

From book to movie to musical to commercial

Big Fish, Broadway

My college professors will be happy to know that roughly 20 years after getting my advertising degree, I finally wrote a television commercial. This 15-second Big Fish spot is airing in Chicago now:

To be fair, I didn’t write those words as advertising copy — they’re actually from the script. Our hard-working marketing team put it all together, using music from Andrew Lippa’s amazing score and voiceover by Bobby Steggert, who plays Will.

Reminder that if you’re coming to see Big Fish in Chicago — on any night in the run — [tweet me](http://twitter.com/johnaugust) or [email me](mailto:ask@johnaugust.com) your date and seat. I will endevour to come by and say hello.

Performances begin April 2nd. As of this morning, there are still some of the [special $26 balcony seats](http://johnaugust.com/2013/big-fish-previews-and-special-unlock-code) available for the first four shows.

Sprints, marathons and migrations

Broadway, Psych 101, Television

This week, I’ve been working on a feature, a TV pilot and the stage musical of Big Fish. It’s gotten me thinking about the nature of different forms of dramatic writing.

Writing a TV pilot is a **sprint**. It’s only about sixty pages. You can easily write an act a day. Sure, there are outlines and notes and rewrites, but everything happens incredibly quickly, and if you can’t write fast you shouldn’t write TV at all.

Writing a feature is a **marathon**. You might have a few sprints along the way — the first act, those last ten pages — but it’s ultimately a bit of a slog. Like a long-distance runner, you have to pace yourself and accept the page-after-page, scene-after-scene grind. When it come time to actually make the movie, it’s the same experience: seemingly endless, but the finish line finally comes. Just like many sprinters can’t run a marathon, many TV writers struggle when facing a feature.

Writing a stage musical is a **migration**. Race analogies fail. You’re covering distance, but there’s no real finish line. Like pioneers crossing the plains, you may have a destination in mind (Broadway), but you’ll be making many stops during the trip, setting up camps that may turn into towns, before eventually hitting the trail again. Along the way, people will come and go from your little community. And if you finally reach your original destination, that’s still not the end of the journey. You’ll go back on the road with other stagings of the show. As a writer, you have to make peace with the unfinishability of a musical.

As I mentioned on the podcast, one of the goals for this year is to accept that I’ll probably be writing some form of Big Fish for the rest of my life.

I suspect other art forms have a similar sprint/marathon/migration triad:

* You can sprint through a short story, while a novel is a marathon, and a franchise like Harry Potter is a migration.
* “Rapper’s Delight” is a sprint, *Paul’s Boutique* is a marathon, and hip hop is a migration.
* One painting is a sprint, a gallery exhibition is a marathon, and cubism is a migration.
* In coding, perhaps that Flash game is a sprint, Karateka is a marathon and building Gmail is a migration.

If you think of others, by all means [tweet ’em](https://twitter.com/johnaugust).

Roaring, just a little more quietly

Broadway

The long-running Broadway production of The Lion King put on a special matinee for [autistic children and their families](http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/03/parents-and-kids-say-they-appreciated-autism-friendly-lion-king-matinee/?hpw):

> The company of “The Lion King” and a panel of autism experts collaborated on ways to slightly modify the show to make sure autistic children did not have negative reactions to loud or sudden sound or light cues. The volume in the opening number and other scenes, including the sound of a roar, was turned down. All strobe lights and lighting that panned into the house were cut. The sound and light reductions were done electronically so that neither the actors nor the orchestra had to tone down their performances.

> […]

> Off stage, there were small activity and quiet areas were set up in the lobby for children who needed a break from the show. Volunteers from local autism organizations were on hand to offer assistance. Victor Irving, the Minskoff’s house manager, said he asked the pedicab drivers who park outside the Minskoff to refrain from ringing their bike bells.

Such a good idea.

(/via [Lazy Reviewer](http://lazybookreviews.tumblr.com/))

Writing and decision fatigue

Big Fish, Broadway, Psych 101

This past weekend consisted of three long days of meetings and work sessions for the Big Fish musical; Sunday went fourteen hours. I had a hunch that late in the day wasn’t the best time to introduce a new song, and now [science has my back](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer-from-decision-fatigue.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all):

> No matter how rational and high-minded you try to be, you can’t make decision after decision without paying a biological price. It’s different from ordinary physical fatigue — you’re not consciously aware of being tired — but you’re low on mental energy. The more choices you make throughout the day, the harder each one becomes for your brain, and eventually it looks for shortcuts, usually in either of two very different ways. One shortcut is to become reckless: to act impulsively instead of expending the energy to first think through the consequences. (Sure, tweet that photo! What could go wrong?) The other shortcut is the ultimate energy saver: do nothing. Instead of agonizing over decisions, avoid any choice. Ducking a decision often creates bigger problems in the long run, but for the moment, it eases the mental strain.

Writing involves a dozen choices every sentence, a thousand every scene.

Discussing material with producers and a director means understanding and deciding between myriad possible options — and the more people in the conversation, the more choices to consider.

And casting? Exhausting. It feels like it should be one of the easiest parts of production — you’re not *doing* anything, just sitting there and listening — but it wears you out. I’ve been through casting on five projects, and each time I’m amazed how tough it is. You’re trying to compare the actor you just saw versus the actor you saw yesterday versus the actor who won’t audition.

The article explains that sugar (glucose) is one of the quickest ways to restock your willpower supply. That’s why writers get fat.

(link via [@mjeppsen](http://twitter.com/mjeppsen))