A Busy Four Months. 


Remember when I said I wouldn't let my blog go for that long again? 

Yeah, well I guess I lied. At least the delay is work-related this time.

In my last blog entry, I mentioned a show called "Interns". The series started at the beginning of November -- 13 episodes for a fledgling cable channel called "The 'N'". Never heard of it? Most people haven't. The show itself was really good, and the music concept (as I mentioned last time) was based on Lily Allen -- lots of fun. The producers of the show were also the creators and writers, and that, I was to discover over the ensuing months, could be a little less than fun. Not a lot of people know this, but until a few years ago, writers weren't allowed on set... ever. There's a reason for this: A writer's job is one of the most creative in the industry -- dreaming up characters and weaving a plotline -- and more than anything, their job involves visualisation. The number one rule of screenwriting is to know your characters. (Rule number two is something about how if you want to get a script made, sell out and write shlock... can't remember exactly.) The thing is that after going through that process, writers have very specific ideas... on everything. These characters have lived in a writer's head for months, possibly even years. A writer can tell you what his character had for breakfast, what their favourite TV shows are, and where they buy their clothes. There's an immense amount of character development that may never even be alluded to in a script or a film, but it's all part of knowing who your character is. This is why a writer can be a terrible thing to have on a set (where the director is king).

... but what if the writer is also the producer?

Two quick notes:

1) In TV, it's the producer who's king. Directors are mainly hired hands and are "cut loose" after editing... sometimes earlier. This is pretty different to film where executive producers oversee projects, but the end product is largely in the director's hands. In my nearly 20 year career as a composer, I've only ever talked with one TV director... once.

2) The screenwriting process can be summed up with one word: re-writes. A film script or TV episode goes through so many different drafts and revisions that it's hard to keep up. That's just how it is, and writers know and accept that (as far as I can tell, anyway).

Okay... so again, what if the writer is also the producer?

To date, I have scored over 600 TV episodes, and in that time, I've perhaps had a dozen re-writes.... 20, tops. In the first episode of this series, I had more than I've had in my entire career... in just the first episode! In fact, when I got back from L.A. after Christmas and New Year's, I was still working on that first episode! Two months on one episode! Are you grasping just how unbelievable that is from my extensive use of exclamation marks?! It's unheard of! By I'd finished, I'd re-written some cues as many as four times!

Okay, so I started the show at the beginning of November and was still working on the first episode at Christmas. Let's continue chronologically...

Christmas in L.A.:

Although I'd been down to L.A. a few times since moving up here, I had always gone alone. This time, it was the whole family. We arrived in L.A. on December 17th which was the two year anniversary of us arriving in Spruce Grove. That means that my kids, who were born in California, had spent the majority of their lives up in Alberta. (Fortunately, they haven't started saying things like "git 'er done" or "that's a gooder" quite yet.) Also, it means that my parents really hadn't had the chance to spend any relaxed, day-to-day time with their grandkids -- them coming up here just isn't the same. My brother, who lives in the guest house next to my parents' place, very kindly offered to move into the guest room in the main house so we could have a place to ourselves. It was absolutely perfect. I got to see friends I'd missed terribly and even got to meet one of the producers of "The Assistants" (as "Interns" had, by that time, been renamed). I was a bit reluctant to get together with him simply because I was on vacation and didn't want to deal with anything show-related. As it turned out, he's a terrific guy, and we hardly talked about the show at all... just had lunch and talked about music, film, TV, and how we both came to know our mutual friend, Tommy Lynch.

Of course, we had to take the kids to Disneyland while we were down there. I grew up going to Disneyland at least two or three times a year because we always had relatives visiting from the U.K. and, as I got older, the appeal had really faded. I hate to sound like a curmudgeon, but somehow, standing in line for an hour to go on a ride that's three minutes long is far less appealing when you're 35 than when you're five. I've also had a bit of an issue with the whole Disney, white-bread (white bred?), life's a fairy tale thing. (Okay, so I am a curmudgeon.) Well all of that changes when your kids meet Mickey Mouse for the first time and stand there, completely awe-struck, mouths agape, and can talk about nothing else for days afterwards. I don't care what anyone thinks about Disney, they do what they do far better than anyone else. The kids had a blast. My parents had a blast. Everyone had a blast. Even I had a blast. Disneyland was great, but overall, it was an incredible, wonderful two and a half weeks with my parents and brother, and I hope we get to do it again soon.

During the trip, I got together with Kurt Voss, the co-producer and director of "Ghost on the Highway". We had decided to do a run of 1,000 DVDs and sell them through the internet. I outlined my plans for "Due North", and he got kind of excited about the whole internet idea, too. The DVD went on sale on March 1st, sold about 100 in the first week, and since then, sales have all but flat-lined. So has Kurt's enthusiasm for the internet. More on that later. To continue chronologically...

When I got back to Spruce Grove, as I mentioned, I was facing more re-writes on the first episode of "The Assistants". Sorry, but it's time for a little more clarification/background:

Usually, a show is made by a production company where you have an executive producer (more often than not, also the show creator) who's basically concerned with creative matters, and on the practical end, there's what I've been calling a "supervising producer" (I don't think that's the right term, though... executive in charge of production?) who deals with finance and scheduling issues. "The Assistants" was different because it was created by two independent writer/producers who had taken the show to the Tom Lynch Company. Tommy had decided to give them complete creative control (which explained the vast number of notes and re-writes I was getting), but it wouldn't be until the middle of February until I fully understood the implications of that.

I had had a conversation with the "supervising producer" (or whatever his title is) while I was in L.A., and we'd both decided that when I got back home, we'd start doing a show a week. This meant the series would be finished sometime towards the end of March. Of course, a-show-a-week went out of the window in the first week as I was still fairly flooded with notes and re-writes. In fact, by the end of January, I still had ten episodes to write. I would talk to the producers, we'd change mix dates, and everything was fine... until the middle of February.

There was a fairly hairy patch in the schedule: seven shows to be delivered over nine days. Obviously, I had to get pretty far ahead to make that happen. (A show usually takes between two or four days to write, and that doesn't include re-writes.) At that point, I think I still had seven episodes to write. Anyway, I called the producer and talked about pushing one of the mixes into March. Not a problem. There were two episodes slated to mix in the middle of March already, so I didn't think it would be an issue but just to be on the safe side, I decided to call the Supervising Producer to run it by him.

Not only was he not okay with moving the mix, he apparently had never authorised the two mixes in March -- the show, he said, had to be finished by the end of February. I was already working 16 hour days, so I ended the show working 20 hour days for two and a half weeks... four hours of sleep from between about 9am and 1pm, and nothing but work all night (and more or less all day, too). It was brutal. That's why there hasn't been a blog entry in awhile.

Much to everyone's amazement, I actually made all of the deadlines. The producers were thrilled with the music. All-in-all, it was a great experience. The producers really are great guys and, despite the process they like to go through, I thoroughly enjoyed working with them. So... that was "The Assistants"! It's not slated to air until October, so I'll keep you posted. It's certainly one of the better shows I've worked on, though. Unfortunately, because the air date is so far away, the second season isn't expected to go into production until the spring of 2009. If anyone reading this is looking for a composer, I've got good references!

Before I finished "The Assistants", I had to put together a website for "Ghost on the Highway". (March 1st release, remember.) I ended up spending three days on the site and am actually quite proud of it -- I think it's one of the better sites I've designed. You can find it at http://www.ghostonthehighway.com. We're selling the DVD there, and you can find a couple of clips from the film and also the trailer I cut and scored. The film just received a fairly glowing review in the biggest rock magazine in Europe and the U.K., Mojo Magazine (a full-page review, too!), so I'm hoping that sales pick up when it hits the newsstands in a couple of weeks. 'Til then, I'll settle for lots of hits on YouTube. (The clips are linked to the film's YouTube site.) Please feel free to go to the website and click and watch... and click and watch again... and click and watch often! If we get enough YouTube hits, maybe that'll get us into the "featured" or "most viewed" category, drawing more hits to the website, and selling more DVDs. It would be nice for the film to get the exposure it deserves. (I don't know if I mentioned it, but I'm really proud of the film.)

... and speaking of YouTube...

... I finally decided to put "Quitters" up online! For those who don't know, "Quitters" is an AWARD-WINNING short film I wrote/directed/edited/scored a few years ago. (Yes, we won "best short film"!) You can find more info about the film (and the trailer) at http://www.powellfactoryfilms.com/quitters. In fact, Powell Factory Films has its own YouTube "channel", now. "Quitters" is the only thing on there, but once I get my hands on a camera, there will be a lot more stuff going up. (Just an aside, here: Remember that HD camera I mentioned in my last entry four months ago? ... the one that had been back ordered for two months? Yeah... still back ordered.) So here's the deal:

The plan is to shoot "Due North" and put it up online. If we get lots and lots of hits, there are apparently agencies we can take our stats (hit count) to that will find us sponsorship. All of this is just theory so far (and of course, there's no "Due North" yet). I've never really posted anything... never tried to get hits... so I'm starting a "viral campaign" right now! No, that doesn't mean your computer's been infected with a virus while you were reading this blog. A viral campaign is the internet version of word-of-mouth. The idea is that you, my faithful blog readers, go and check out the film. If you like it, tell someone... tell EVERYONE! Mass e-mails are the cornerstone of any successful viral campaign. E-mail everyone in your address book and tell them to check it out 'cause you think it's worth a look, and then encourage them to tell everyone they know and to encourage everyone they know to tell everyone they know... and so on... just like that Faberge shampoo ad in the 80's. ("... and she told two friends, and she told two friends...") The way it seems to me, there are just three ways that entertainment is viable on the internet:

1) You make DVDs and sell them. Let's call this the "Ghost on the Highway model" -- so far, not a raging success.
2) You charge per episode or for the run of a "season". Ricky Gervais did this with his podcast, the most successful podcast ever. He's made millions, and it's a great success story. Two things about the "Ricky Gervais model", though: a) he gave the first season away and b) he's a huge celebrity. This probably isn't a very practical model for me to follow.
3) You start a viral campaign and try to get lots of hits, and then you go and get sponsors who put banner ads up on your site. The "sponsorship" model has one main advantage: it's free for the viewer! That's partly why I want to try that one first: I'd rather make money from people trying to sell stuff to my friends and family and friends of friends and family than to be trying to make money, myself, from friends and family and friends of friends and family. (I hope that made some kind of sense.)

... so tell your friends! I can't stress this enough: it will live or die based on your participation in spreading the word. "Quitters" is really just a test, though. I'm afraid it's not suitable for kids. (Profanity and drug use would easily get it an "R" rating.) I also don't know that "Quitters" has the mass appeal that something like "Due North" is meant to have. Still, the people who have seen "Quitters" really seemed to like it, so I thought it was time to put it up online and see what happened...

... so tell your friends!

Okay. Enough of that. Here are the important URLs:

"Quitters":

I had to break the film into two parts (there's a ten minute limit on YouTube, and "Quitters" is 15 minutes long).

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPJNu5Iq3A0
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niWik_x-fB4

The main Powell Factory Films YouTube site is here:

http://www.youtube.com/powellfactoryfilms

"Ghost on the Highway":

http://www.ghostonthehighway.com
http://www.youtube.com/ghostonthehighway

Unfortunately, the quality of the video on YouTube still isn't great, and when they compress videos, they reduce the audio to mono. Still, it's probably the best way to stream content online. It's also the biggest video site (which is why I chose it).

So that's what's been happening these last four months. Beginning next week, I'm going to dive back into editing my book ("Sixty-three Sixty" is the title, by the way) and have my fingers crossed that I might have a camera by the time I'm finished with that. If not, I've got an idea for a series that I might just shoot on the camera I have now. (It's about as simple an idea as you can have.)

Of course, as always, I'll keep you posted.

... and don't forget: ... tell your friends!

Okay... enough of that.


 

Posted: Fri - March 14, 2008 at 08:43 AM          

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