NOTE: This episode was recorded prior to the WGA going on strike. From their unusual start from a Twitter feed that became “S**t my dad says,” show runners Patrick Schumacker and Justin Halpern are celebrating the success of their shows “Abbott Elementary” and “Harley Quinn.” We discuss their unique start, juggling show running duties on two shows and what the future holds.
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“Blindspotting” creator/writer/producer/director/actor Rafael Casal (Miles) talks about how touring with his music and poetry transformed into telling stories about his community in Oakland, CA in the award-winning Starz series.
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It’s been a rough few weeks across Hollywood at studios such as Warner Brothers, Cartoon Network, G4 and others. From layoffs to total shutdowns, we take a look at recent turmoil and how it might affect writers. SHOW NOTES:
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With shorter and shorter seasons, accelerated by streamers with big budget, high-quality event shows, has the era of 24 episode season containing the inevitable filler episode come to an end? And how would this change impact writers?
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We interview Kelley Carter, the Sr. Entertainment Reporter for ESPN’s “The Undefeated,” about her career, starting from her days at Michigan State University, to the Detroit Free Press and USA Today and now creating a scripted drama for Showtime.
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American movies and TV shows are watched around the world, but to others, we do some weird stuff. For this lighter session, we analyze the depiction of Americans in entertainment based on the Buzzfeed list “37 Things Americans Do In Movies/TV Shows That Truly Confuse Non-American.”
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In this session, we interview Aron Coleite, the Executive Producer and writer of Netflix’s new apocalyptic show “Daybreak.” We also discuss how streamers are taking films from theaters and how that impacts writers, Tom’s latest Masterclass update, film festival fiascos and how to avoid them, and fellowship deadline changes of which you should be aware.
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Tom and Rachanee take a writer’s high-level look at the 2019 pilot season to see how diversity is doing, what’s trending, what’s not, and what’s new again.
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With studios more risk adverse to original ideas and seemingly rebooting anything under the sun, should you write a reboot?
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It’s not everyday that a TV show makes it to four seasons, let alone seven, or 10, or even, as record holder The Simpsons currently stands, 30. In this session, we discuss what makes a show go the distance. Why doesn’t it “jump the shark”?
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