John August

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The TV spec of the season

Television

Veteran TV writer Ken Levine, whose [blog](http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/) was recently added to the list on the right-hand side, has a post up about [which TV shows would be best to spec](http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2005/12/my-spec-is-earl.html) this season.

For readers unfamiliar with how TV staffing works, here’s the rundown.

Writers hoping to get staffed on a given show (or frankly, any show — it’s a tough business), write sample scripts of shows currently on the air. So, if you’re looking to get a job writing on a show like CSI, you’d write a sample (spec) episode of a one-hour crime drama. You wouldn’t necessarily write a CSI, but rather a newer show that people like. Maybe Numbers. Or Numb3rs.

God, I hate what Se7en hath wrought.

The goal is to write an episode of a show that most everyone likes, _but isn’t sick of yet._ Ken suggests “My Name is Earl.” For me, the choice would have to be “The Office.” My assistant Chad and his writing partner, who hope to staff on a sitcom this year, wrote a terrific Office spec that should serve them well.

Sadly, I’ve read two or three spec episodes of “D.C.,” the failed drama I created at WB. For a brief time, it was considered a good spec because of the challenging structure (five main characters, at work and at home) and opportunity for comedy.

Trust me: write a show that lasts more than seven episodes.

Readers write in: Don’t put gum behind your ear

First Person

envelopeDear John,

I am a big fan, since GO. We finally got a DVD of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and showed it at my 8/9 year old daughter’s birthday sleepover. Great movie, great time. When the time comes for your baby to have a sleepover don’t fret it. It was fully successful and not bad at all. Remember this in eight years or so and email me for pointers.

A few days later when the _real_ birthday arrived, we took our three daughters (5,7,9) to dinner and then went to have our nine-year old’s ears pierced. Before getting her ears pierced, the birthday girl took some of her birthday money and bought her sisters gumballs (one of those nice gestures that you love to see your kids do. Just wait. It makes the other miseries of parenthood worth it).

The ear piercing went well. Little apparent pain. No tears. Because we live in Michigan and it is miserable cold, I went and got the car so I could pick-up my women at the door.

When they got in the car, our youngest, Mika, was crying and my wife looked harassed. Mika had gum in her hair. When we asked why, she told us that she was trying to be like Violet and put the gum behind her ear.

violet beauregardI wish I could say that I was completely calm and sensitive, but mostly I kept barking at her not to play with it and not to lean back into her car seat, and that I would take care of it when we got home. She whined and cried the whole way (one of the terrible things of being a parent that make you wish that those _gumball gift_ moments came more often).

About an hour later, after ice, peanut butter, one ruined fine-toothed comb, much crying and my reluctant use of scissors, the gum was gone. She also has a bald spot behind her right ear. We hope it won’t be as obvious as her self-cut bangs that just now are growing out enough to make her no longer look like Twiggy/Stevie Nicks/Mia Farrow as Rosemary.

In the shower when I was washing the remaining peanut butter and little strings of gum out of her hair, I asked her if she learned anything. She said yes: Don’t put gum behind your ear. A good parent would have been happy with this, but I am not a good parent. I want more. I want bigger lessons. I suggested that the other lesson is: Just because you see someone do something in a movie this does not mean that you can do it in real life.

Anyhow, I know you didn’t create the gum-behind-the-ear schtick that Violet does in the movie, but boy was I cursing you during the car ride home. On reflection, I am grateful. I would rather have Mika learn to suspect the world of fiction after emulating Violet and having a bad experience with gum behind her ear than learn that lesson at 21 after a bad experience emulating the behavior of any of the characters in GO.

Because I read your blog, I feel like I know you, which is a little weird. If I were to see you in the Farmer Jacks (grocery store in Michigan) I would probably walk right up and start talking as if we were friends. I imagine this is the thing that (other more visible?) celebrities find unsettling.

Have a great day.

— Fred

Two sides to the story

Ops

Right now, we’re starting casting for Ops, the Fox pilot we’ll hopefully shoot after the holidays. Since most readers out there have never been through network casting — or any casting — I thought I’d talk you through the process. Or at least, the start of the process.

The first thing we had to do was hire a casting director. That was easy; I picked [Robert Ulrich](http://imdb.com/name/nm0880697/), who did the casting for my last pilot. He put together a master list of every name-brand actor to consider for the two lead roles.

Last week, we had a “casting concept” meeting with the network and the studio (both Fox, but different divisions), and talked through the list. I’m always amazed at (a) how many of the names I recognize, and (b) how few of the shows I’ve even heard of.

  • THEM
  • Tom Cavanagh is unavailable. He’s a series regular on Love Monkey.
  • ME
  • What the hell is ‘Love Monkey?’
  • THEM
  • It’s on CBS.
  • ME
  • Is it on now?
  • THEM
  • Maybe?

So, barring unforeseen circumstances, don’t count on [Tom Cavanagh](http://imdb.com/name/nm0146915/) being in the show. (Although he is apparently in [How to Eat Fried Worms](http://imdb.com/title/tt0462346/), which was one of my [old projects](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2005/where-ive-been-hiding). God bless you, [IMDb](http://imdb.com/).)

The two lead roles in the show are Joe McGinty and Theo Vanowen. Ideally, one or both roles would go to bigger name actors who are “offer only.” That means that they don’t audition. You call their agents and ask, “Hey, does [fill in the name] want to be in the show?” If they say yes, boom, you’re done.

At the casting concept meeting, we decided to go after one actor who was offer-only. We also talked through all of the actors with which Fox has special holding deals. That’s the dream: you have the guys you want, and you haven’t gone through a lot of auditions/meetings/aggravation to get there.

But in case it doesn’t happen so easily, we decided to begin auditions.

The first step is sending out the breakdown, which describes the roles that are up for audition. The form itself is copyrighted; a company called [Breakdown Services](http://www.breakdownexpress.com/) handles the process, and given how often they mark “CONFIDENTIAL” on everything, I won’t include the real form so as to avoid pissing them off.

But here’s what we wrote about the characters in the script:

  • The driver is an American: THEO VANOWEN (mid-30’s to 40’s). Effortlessly intimidating, he’s fought on four continents and killed many men — but not one more than he had to. He keeps both eyes scanning the road.
  • …
  • His business partner, JOE MCGINTY (late 20’s to 30’s), is more MBA than Marine. Much better with words than weapons, he’s an expert negotiator who could talk his way past St. Peter. Both men wear body armor.

Both roles are marked “PLEASE SUBMIT ALL ETHNICITIES.” From experience, I can tell you that if you don’t do that, you only end up with white people.

Once a part hits Breakdown, every talent agent in Los Angeles, New York and elsewhere has access to the information. A related service called [Screenplay Online](http://www.screenplayonline.com/) lets actors, agents and managers download .pdf versions of the script, along with the sides.

Ah, the sides.

First, a definition: “Sides” are the scenes from the script that actors read for their auditions. It’s up to the showrunners (me and Jordan) to pick which scenes we want to hear read. For Ops, we’re focussing on casting the two lead roles, so we picked scenes that have both guys in them, and showed a range of emotions, from jovial to pissed off. (That’s pretty much the full range of emotion for this particular show.)

When picking the sides, you want to pick your best scenes, since these are the moments that the studio, the network, and everyone else will see when they watch casting tapes. Every time they hear your clever dialogue, you want them to fall more and more in love with your show, so they’ll give it a plum spot on the fall schedule.

But in many ways, you really don’t want to use your best scenes in the sides, because of one horrible truth: you will hear the exact same scene 5,000 times. You will hear it read by great actors, decent actors, and people you can’t believe have the nerve to call themselves actors. The words will blur together into a meaningless mush.

You will hate these scenes so much that you will rewrite them before you shoot the actual show, just so you can stand to hear them.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The first casting session is tomorrow. The actors will be talented. The words will be fresh. And casting will proceed apace.

Does Corpse Bride have a happy ending?

Corpse Bride

Corpse BrideI know you were brought in late on [Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride](http://imdb.com/title/tt0121164/)
and from what I gather, weren’t responsible for much
of the story, but I’m curious about your thoughts on
one particular story element.

Is the ending a happy one for Victor?

The way it plays, it seems as though it is intended to
be a happy ending for him when he winds up with
Victoria, but from the audience’s perspective, I’m not
sure we see evidence that he would be happier with
Victoria than he’d be with the Corpse Bride. The
inclusion of the scene where Victor connects with the
Corpse Bride while playing piano with her is of course
necessary to propagate the plot, but seems to indicate
that he’d be just as content living among the dead as
he would be with Victoria.

— Rob
Los Angeles

You point out one of the real challenges with Corpse Bride. Generally in a fairy tale like this, you’d be really clear about which woman the hero is “supposed to” be married to at the end.

At the start of the movie, it seems pretty straightforward: Victor meets Victoria, and both of them are surprised how much they like each other. Corpse Bride seems like a monster when she first appears, but is quickly revealed to be funny and sweet. She’s rotting, but not rotten.

As we worked on the story, Corpse Bride kept becoming more and more likable, to the point where we started to wonder exactly the question you ask, “Shouldn’t, maybe, Victor end up with Corpse Bride?”

The solution wasn’t to diminish Corpse Bride, but rather to beef up Victoria. Over the drafts, we made sure to give her more initiative (such as escaping the mansion to plead for the Pastor’s help) and make her situation more dire (the wedding to Barkis was a surprisingly late addition).

Through it all, we never wanted to back away from what was unusual about the story: it’s a love triangle in a kid’s film, and you’re sort of rooting for all three characters.

Corpse Bride’s decision to stop Victor from drinking the Wine of Ages (added in the last draft) is less about saving his life (after all, death isn’t so bad) and more about seeing herself in Victoria. It goes back to want-versus-need. Corpse Bride wants to be married, but what she needs is to free herself from her self-imposed curse. While we’re deliberately unclear about the exact cosmology of the afterlife, the Land of the Dead seems to be a kind of goofy Purgatory. Her transformation at the end would seem to be the next step in the process of life.

But is it a little wistful? Yeah.

And I wonder if that lack of clearly happy ending limited the upside to the film — which I have to say, performed much better than any movie called “Corpse Bride” could be expected.

But I wouldn’t change it. To me, it’s nice to be able to show kids a movie where everything resolves well but not perfectly. I think it’s more honest to show that you can be happy and sad at the same time.