John August

QandA

Kim Manners

News, Television

Director Kim Manners passed away on Sunday. He was a staggeringly prolific television director and producer, whose many credits included Supernatural, The X Files and the original Charlie’s Angels. He also directed the pilot for Alaska, which is how I met him. I liked him instantly. He felt like a cowboy, which made him the perfect guy to shoot a show about the wild frontier.

“Two cameras, no waiting!” he’d holler with delight as he found a spot to grab a simultaneous close-up. After a take, he’d glance over at me. Did I want another take? I could always find something I’d tweak, but Kim was smart enough to understand that TV doesn’t dick around getting everything just so. You make your days so you can make your show.

The series didn’t get picked up, and everyone went their separate ways. Yet of all the directors I’ve sat next to, I probably learned the most from him over those twelve cold days and nights in Vancouver. I regret not having the chance to tell him that.

By the accounts I’ve read, he was doing what he loved quite close to the end. That’s something we should all get. My sympathies go out to his family and the folks at Supernatural.

Preacher

Adaptation, Preacher, Projects

[Other places](http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117998904.html?categoryid=13&cs=1) are suddenly reporting it, so I might as well confirm the news: I’m writing a big-screen version of Preacher,
an adaptation of the acclaimed graphic novel series by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon. Sam Mendes is attached to direct. Neal Moritz is producing for Sony Pictures.

To answer your first four questions: there’s no release date, no cast, no locations, no nothing. I’m writing a script which could become a movie if everything lines up correctly. So here’s hoping. It’s a terrific project that I’m excited to be writing.

Presidential punctuation

Rave, Words on the page

Over the weekend, while my daughter slept in her stroller, I read the text of an Obama speech on my iPhone. I was struck by how clearly I could hear his voice in my head and predict where he would have put his stresses. Even after eight years of George W. Bush, I couldn’t anticipate his speaking rhythms, except to observe that he finished every sentence with either grim conviction or a wary half-smile, regardless of the content.

Obama’s inauguration speech this morning was deliberately sober, with none of the call-and-response cadence we heard on the campaign trail. It was the right choice both tonally and logistically — given the time delay to reach the back of the massive crowd, any audience chanting would have resulted in chaos.

Looking at the [full text](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/inauguration_obama_text) of the speech, I’m struck by something else: the punctuation.

> To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

Yes, a semicolon.

Best known to most Americans as half of a winking emoticon, this elite and misunderstood conjoiner has a friend in Obama. Yes, he’s using it as more of an oratorial pause than a semantic adhesive. And yes, this sentence likely went through several writers before its debut. But the fact our new President feels confident using it is another small cause for celebration on this very happy day.

Slumdog Coincidentalist

Follow Up, QandA

A reader writes in requesting a reexamination of my post [“The Perils of Coincidence”](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/perils-of-coincidence) in light of an acclaimed movie which is already a screenwriting award contender:

questionmarkThis weekend, I saw Slumdog Millionaire, a story that is succinctly described by the equation: “I knew the answer to this obscure question because this farfetched event happened to me once. And repeat.”

Is coincidence good now?

— Andre Gayle
London

I would argue that Jamal’s knowing the right answers falls into my category of a Premise Coincidence, much the same way that in Die Hard, John McClane just happens to be in the building when the villains attack, or in the original Spider-Man, Peter Parker just happens to get bitten by the radioactive spider.

In each of these cases, the coincidence is the reason why the story is happening.

But I can see why Andre is bristling. In my original post, I single out luck and chance as being particularly flimsy pegs upon which to hang a story, and there are a couple of answers in Slumdog that seem arbitrary or tangential (the cricketeer comes to mind). ((A reader points out that the cricket question is actually an answer that’s handled mostly in the present-day story.)) However, the overall flashback structure sets a rule and sticks by it: every time we jump back, we’ll see how he got the answer.

I addressed this in my original post, calling it correlation:

> Rather than ask an audience to swallow a bunch of little implausibilities, try bundling them together.

> In Heroes, imagine if each character had a completely unique origin story: Claire got her powers from a shaman; Sylar is an alien; Peter has a magic ring. You’d get frustrated pretty quickly, because a lot of screen time would go towards explaining why and how. Instead, the creators wisely decided the characters all had some mysterious gene mutation activated by an environmental change. The audience is willing to make that one big leap, because they’re not asked to make similar leaps each time a new character is introduced.

In fact, the biggest coincidence in Slumdog would have to be that the answers Jamal needs just happen to be found chronologically in his life story. That’s something you buy or you don’t. It didn’t bother me.