(no subject)

[shadowkat]

Kevine Levine, writer of MASH, Cheers, and Fraiser - does a great post on what actors hate in scripts. For fun see how many of these items or mistakes your favorite tv writers/tv shows have made.

http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2008/08/what-actors-hate-besides-other-actors.html

Comments

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

That reminded me of some praise I read (I think it was Kevin Spacey) for Danny Strong's writing for 'Recount': all the exposition was hidden into conversations between people who needed information and were exchanging what they knew... AND every character was doing what they thought was right (with clear justifications for their actions). A lot of people didn't watch the show because they thought it would be anti-Republican, or that it would be dull, but in fact it was very suspenseful and very sympathetic to everyone's individual POV.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I've heard great things about that made for HBO or was it Showtime? flick. Didn't see it myself, because I don't have either at the moment.

If you want to see unhappy actors - rewatch S7 of Buffy and most procedurals.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

Recount was on HBO, and I went to a friend's house who gets that...
but it is out on DVD now!

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks for the heads-up, adding to my netflix queue.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Sigh, another movie with an extreemly long wait. That's three now - Miss Pettigrew, Dexter, and Recount. By the time they are available - I'll be knee deep in the fall tv season and won't care.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Oh forgot to state...actors often write and direct for actors better than other people do. They have more respect for the profession. Writers who don't act have a notoriously LOW opinion of most actors. (Whedon didn't think much of theater actors for example...and Levine rips into them all the time. But there are exceptions - Doris Egan and Jane Espenson speak highly of actors.) Directors who haven't acted - also have notoriously low opinion - George Lucas is a perfect example.

Can't say I blame them - relying on other people to say and do what you write the way you see it in your head is really hard. Never quite works. Because they can't read your mind of course and even if they could, they'd probably like their idea better.

Working in TV sounds very frustrating. Even more frustrating than what I do for a living...which at times doesn't seem possible, but is very reassuring. Misery loving company and all that.;-)
(I'm joking, while my job is frustrating at times, I still don't mind it all that much. They probably say the same thing...there's always pluses and minuses...trick is to focus on the pluses.)