Burn one minute and twenty-seven seconds with this nice motion graphic by Ryan Perera.
Psych 101
What it’s like when your show gets cancelled
Over at The Bygone Bureau, Lauren Bagby offers an office PA’s perspective how it feels when your [show gets cancelled](http://bygonebureau.com/2012/01/13/when-your-tv-show-gets-cancelled/):
> And then the other shoe drops. Silence in the bullpen as the higher ups take the call. Your supervisor tiptoes over to brace her palms and right ear against the ominous, closed door. Moments later, downcast eyes and the shake of a head confirms what everyone already suspects.
Whether it’s after one episode or seven seasons, every TV show ends. While the timing may be a surprise, the fact that *this all could stop* shouldn’t be.
In Hollywood, we’re all hopping from assignment to assignment. Each job is like a semester spent at a different college, with new roommates and professors and drinking games. We’re happy to get our papers turned in, but sad to leave behind friends.
One under-appreciated aspect of production is how standardized and tidy wrap has become:
> Various art departments turn in their binders — photographic records of every costume, hair or makeup style for each scene of every episode — with the intention that if the show were ever “un-benched” a new crew would be able to pick up the reluctant pieces. Your formerly newbie self wants to believe this is possible, but you’ve wised up by now and know your meticulous filing and boxing of their contents will only collect dust.
> Coworkers in different departments finish their last days, and you hug goodbye knowing that as part of the production office you’ll still be here for weeks after they are gone, burying the skeletons of a promising and well-but-not-widely liked show.
My friend Alexa is a production accountant, and often serves on shows months after almost everyone else is gone. It’s a strange life tying up all the loose ends.
Lauren Bagby is on Twitter: [@elletothebee](http://twitter.com/elletothebee)
Unprecedented, just like last year
Over at Tom the Dancing Bug, Ruben Bolling looks at how journalists have a faulty memory when it comes to [past award seasons](http://gocomics.typepad.com/tomthedancingbugblog/2012/01/oscar-oscar-oscar.html):
> I don’t remember where or when, but years ago, I read an amazing article showing how one particular entertainment writer would keep writing, year after year, that THIS year’s “Best Picture” Oscar race was particularly wide open, as opposed to previous years when it was absolutely clear which movie was going to win, or which couple of movies would contend.
> And the next year he’d write exactly the same thing.
To demonstrate, Bolling does some targeted Googling of Michael Cieply’s annual observations.
I think this kind of revisionism is largely accidental. As Daniel Kahneman explains at length in [Thinking Fast and Slow](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0374275637/?tag=johnaugustcom-20), people are terrible at remembering past mental states. Not only do we change our minds, we change our minds about what we used to think.
But the internet never forgets.
Pitching a show
I’d missed this article from November, in which Jesse Lasky describes his first experience [pitching a TV show](http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-ca-tv-pitch-20111120,0,7487218.story):
> “We want you to come in and pitch it.” Hold up. This was just an idea I had. Not even an idea — a seed of an idea! And now they wanted me to come in with a fully grown flower? In less than a week. […]
> Normally, only 10% of the writing process is actual writing. The other 90% is a subtle mix of procrastination and self-doubt. But there was no time for any of that. I had to outline the premise. Figure out plot points. Who are my characters? I don’t know!
Often, the most panic-inducing moments are when things go unexpectedly well.