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I hear your gasps of surprise. No, it didn't premiere HERE yet. It premiered in England. It won't officially start on BBC America until the 17th. I assume that's because they have to put that film on a boat and bring it over. No wait -- it already exists in DivX form. Fucking idiots. There's absolutely NO reason for the delay and acting like the show needs to be physically transported via tramp steamer is just fucking lying to the audience. Gee, why do people pirate television? Anyway, I won't talk about it until after its official airing. Spoilers!
Now. Try this for a scenario. You're a professional TeeVee writer, on staff on a big network show. You're in the room all the time, working your story off, eating Red Vines and chocolate because ONCE AGAIN, someone overruled CPK for Ribs USA or the skanky dollar Thai place. You've already started shooting and have to scale back all the scripts written so far to accommodate the budget. The network blew up a script and a story and the room HAS to produce SOMETHING so production doesn't grind to a halt. Weekends aren't yours. You're coming up with stories, rewriting, writing, breaking. Then Monday comes, and what do you find on your desk? A memo, in ALL CAPS, from the self-identified genius who also happens to be the creator of the show.
The memo is all about HOW TO WRITE. While the Genius does take some shots at executives, essentially the memo is him talking down to the writers. See, HE IS GENIUS. HE WILL TEACH. What the Genius has forgotten is that the writers who were hired to actually do all the WORK on his show are already professional writers. And the last thing they need is to be lectured about how to do their jobs.
I don't know how the writers on The Unit responded when they got this memo from David Mamet but I know how I would have reacted. There's enough bullshit in this business without getting a lecture from a playwright, especially when it's a memo with RULES in it. I mean, rules?? Seriously? Who are you, Syd Field? This bad boy hit the Internet a week or so ago and reactions have been wildly different. Most people seem to bow down to Mamet's LESSONS OF WRITING. How often do you get advice from a genius? But some people (I'd put myself in this category) are annoyed. If I'm already working my ass off on a show and the Genius in the Ivory Tower decides to LECTURE me about how to tell a story, I'm gonna be a little frosted. Look, either trust that you've hired professionals, or fuck off. I might've taken this bullshit from Arthur Miller or Clifford Odets, but even Odets has some horseshit on his resume.
So lemme ask -- how would people have responded if this was an anonymous screed? What if all you knew was that it was written by someone who'd created a show, but not who? Or suppose you did know who wrote it but it wasn't DAVID FUCKING MAMET. Instead, it was written by Joe Showrunner, a journeyman who hasn't had the foresight to work in other, more respected media? Would you want to slap him or her? Of course you would. And you would also want to murder him for screaming at you in all caps. "But that's just what Mamet does," people say admirably. Yeah? Well, David Caruso won't cross a threshold. Just because someone with a name does it doesn't mean it's acceptable. It's not.
Look, as far as I'm concerned, there's only one true rule of showrunning: PROTECT YOUR WRITING STAFF. But now I'm going to add another one: DON'T LECTURE TO PROFESSIONALS, OR DO IT ALL YOUR OWN DAMNED SELF. Trust and protect your staff. Keep the show running. Don't think you can control people by making them scared of you, and don't think that lecturing them is going to get their best work. And yes, I chose the caps because I am yelling at David Mamet.
Maybe this comes from having worked for some of the best people in the business. See, I know it's possible for a show to be run in a healthy way. And having spent time in a protective environment, I just think there's no excuse for behaving any other way.
In other news, ABC head Steve McPherson talked about trying to replace "Lost" in the latest Entertainment Weakly. He said this: "We're not focused on finding the next Lost. We're looking for the next great, groundbreaking, game-changing idea." This seems to be at odds with what ABC put on last fall -- "FlashForward" and "V," two shows the seemed like an obvious attempt to clone "Lost." The network seems to be more focused on premise-driven shows and the tricky thing about "Lost" is that at its heart, it's a character-driven show. Based on ABC's pilots for the fall, they're going back to the standard cop/lawyer/doctor shows. The one show that could be of interest to genre fans is "No Ordinary Family," from Jon Feldman, Greg Berlanti and David Semel, that's about a family who develops superpowers. I haven't read it yet, but this show could be the kind of marriage between character and premise that ABC's been searching for.
A few comments...
Tanya:
did you watch justified? i enjoyed it. for some odd reason it reminded me of the south as portrayed in True Blood (raw and real but without vamps).
I did watch it but I couldn't get into it. I know everybody says it's the best TeeVee show EVAR and I think it's well cast and well made, but I'm getting a little tired of shows with trashy, stupid women. Yes, that's a character choice but it's not one I make when I'm watching shows. And I like True Blood IN SPITE of the trashy, stupid women!!
medrawt:
I'm certainly not a snob about books vs. filmed media, and don't have much patience for people who are. I do, however, believe that each medium has its own distinct strengths, which is why I find the process of turning novels into movies baffling (short stories make much more sense as source material, in my opinion).
Except in the case of Philip K. Dick! the problem with his short stories is that there's just too much story to fill in and I don't think the writers who've adapted him and the directors who've directed those films, has gotten into the mind of PKD. The aforementioned Justified is based on an Elmore Leonard short story. A TeeVee series based on a short story? Well, it makes sense in this case. They saw the engine of the show. And most of the time I don't think the people who option material (mostly producers) see that engine, whether it be for TeeVee or film. The weirdest adaptation, for me, is I Robot, which isn't at all an adaptation of Asimov's short story collection. No, I Robot is a rip-off of his robot novels. But the producers didn't have the rights to those books so they kind of snuck around them.
Lee:
I've heard from other tie-in writers that our experiences are more the norm than the exception. It seems to me that, more often than not, these TV tie-in novels are treated almost like freelance episode of the show by the showrunners.
I'm very happy to hear that. Especially in this era of multi-platforms. Why shouldn't the different platforms all work together? I'd like to see more of it, frankly. And thanks for posting that link to Tod's article. Very illuminating.
hilleviw:
And doesn't Umberto Eco get some credit for the Knights Templar thrillers? Name of the Rose, and Foucault's Pendulum both count I think, though they were not nearly as shlocky as their successors.
I highly doubt that Steve Berry, Dan Brown and the rest of them read Eco and decided to do that. Eco's FAR too literary. I think it's more about the way Dan Brown ripped off Holy Blood Holy Grail than anything else. Because if you're shlocky and you're already ripping off shlock... well, I don't know the math behind it but I think it approaches uber-shlock.
And that's all she wrote for this week. Somewhat shorter, right?
13 comments:
Oh man, got to admit I did use the Mamet memo to remind me of some things lacking in two of my current scripts. (Even though I don't like a lot of his writing.)
It wasn't so much that a Theatre God wrote it and I thought "I must obey." Just that it had some useful reminders I needed at that moment. And yeah, his name on it probably helped penetrate the clutter of the million things I read every day.
But I can see why someone already busily at work in the craft would take offense.
You know what, though? In a similar way, I was offended by another sensational writing memo that circulated the intertubes last year.
The whole "I won't read your fucking script" meme. For someone like me, that equally reeked of a condescending, hubristic attitude.
I mean, I got it - successful people have jerks bugging them all the time. There are a bunch of people whose fucking script I wouldn't want to read. But that didn't make the execution of those comments less obnoxious.
I'll tell you how I'd react to said memo: not well.
In fact, having in fact just been fired for my reaction (I may have said something to the effect of, "I'm not a glorified typist. You hired me to write this story, if you wanted it your way, you should write it." I think though, I wasn't so polite, and I'm actually simplifying the situation--it was much more complicated) to a similar situation...
I know I should've been grateful for the opportunity (it is after all a really tight job market these days), but a story vision is on thing, setting "rules" is totally something else.
Life is too short to be unhappy working for a "genius."
I showed my writers that memo. The consensus was that they were "things we already know but forgot about when doing the actual writing".
Do we writes scenes where we lay pipe by getting two people to explain what a third person is doing? Yes. Is it wrong to remind ourselves we shouldn't do that? Probably not.
I read his memo as the off-the-cuff rantings of a frustrated producer who knows his staff should be doing better but isn't. I assumed it was a private internal memo that somehow got leaked years after it was original published. Doesn't make what he wrote untrue, though.
I both respect Mamet and he really pisses me off sometimes (having crossed paths and/or worked with or around him in theatre for all these years). Someday, at the track, we'll swap Mamet stories. I often like what he has to say about writing. But yeah, that was way out of line. Either trust your staff or write it yourself. I wonder if he's frustrated that he's NOT writing it all himself, and feels like it's being written by committee? Still, there was a better way to handle it, and yes, I totally agree that it's important to protect one's staff. Because if you throw them under the bus, they will get up and walk away. As they should. And they won't be there the next time you need them, sparsity of jobs or no.
Arthur Miller gave me some of the best advice ever when I was just starting out. Wish I'd listened then, and not waited! ;)
Wasn't Zenyatta glorious yesterday?
In addition to the cash bet, I actually have a bet going with a friend - if Zenyatta lost, I'd have to watch DAMNATION ALLEY -- because I'm not a fan of either post-apocalyptic films or people-eating cockroaches. so I'm glad, on many levels, that she won.
And I won, and my collection -- well, let's just say it's not something I can publicly post! ;)
Have you taken a look at Eskenderya in the Wood? Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. And I love the way he and Johnny are partnering. I love the colt's size and the way he moves and the way he's learned from race to race.
I can't believe the Derby's coming around again so soon.
Whoa, Nelly! I saw the Mamet thing quoted, and filed it away as "annoyingly framed but potentially useful to those for whom the content isn't already bloody obvious."
That was when I thought it was from a blog or interview or something. It was a memo? To staff writers??? Ye gods.
Bless you. I've had that memo waved in my face by friends and fellow screenwriters as evidence of what a righteous badass David Mamet is. But, like you, the first place my head went when I read it is, "What must it have felt like to be on the receiving end of this?" There are a few decent reminders buried beneath the flashy, hectoring self-aggrandizement...but when you imagine the context of a writers room, and the likelihood that that memo was directed at some ill-favored staffers over others, and the likelihood that he either pissed off or severely depressed a handful of people who had been working their asses off for him...the whole thing seems like the exact opposite of valiant. So yeah, I basically have nothing to contribute to your point except that I agree and feel validated/vindicated by your argument.
Oh, and regarding his coda: IT IS NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO KNOW THE ANSWERS, BUT IT IS YOUR, AND MY, RESPONSIBILITY TO KNOW AND TO ASK THE RIGHT Questions OVER AND OVER. UNTIL IT BECOMES SECOND NATURE.
Ugh. Imagine working for a guy who THINKS HE'S FUCKING SOCRATES!
There's no excusing the Caps, that's for sure, and it's hard for me to take Mamet seriously after reading the random-as-fuck ode to Vermont that is South of the Northeast Kingdom, but was Mamet ever sole showrunner? I'm fairly sure Shawn Ryan was co-showrunner the whole time. So maybe it was a case of good cop/crotchety-before-his-time cop.
I like Flashforward, but only in the sense that I like Glee. They both have some excellent set pieces but miss the big picture. No-one seems to have sat down and thought about how people would react to Puck joining the club, or the vice-president dying. They both have great music too.
Mamet said almost the exact thing in On Directing. He also included parts of these ideas in other books like Uses of the Knife and articles on theater in general and acting in particular.
Nothing new to me.
Would I take offense? Naw.
The boss is the boss, and it's always good when he spells out exactly what he wants. Better than having to guess, which sucks.
You might argue that you already know how to write, you don't need a drama king to tell you. Of course you know how to write, but do you know how to write for Mamet? Or for Shonda Rhimes? Or for, I dunno, Brenda Hampton? They all have different sensibilities.
I see my job as writing the script exactly as the showrunner would write it if she had time and energy.
Not that I don't see how somebody could get their feelings hurt, but I always appreciate it when the person signing my check tells me exactly what he wants.
I winced when I read the Mamet memo. Thought it was just me.
I loved the JUSTIFIED pilot/first episode but over the first three shows I've watched it pee its energy out. Numbers are falling and that's probably why.
At first it seemed faithful to the Elmore Leonard approach; he typically gives you a flawed good guy and a formidable-but-human bad guy and circles them around each other until they finally meet in a showdown.
But the show's moving more toward a routine procedural. The episode I saw last night didn't even give the hero a decent scene until the end of act one.
I don't think the Mamet memo was out of line in the least.
You selectively ignored the fact that Mamet began by laying the blame for his memo on studio suits who ask for lots of exposition and demand that everything be made CLEARER. IMO, he was protecting his writing staff by framing things in that way.
There are also plenty of jokes peppered in there about living in Bel Air or whatever to cue people in that he's still trying to have a sense of humor about things.
I'd love to feel morally superior to Mamet, but this just doesn't allow me to do so.
Holy Crap! Haunted is out on DVD. $15 at Spark-Mart. Someone needs to tell me these things.
BTW, on the Haunted subject, were the 12th and 13th episodes ever shot and sent to post?
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