Girl Meets Geekdom

This morning, I finished my first feature length screenplay. It was 102 pages long. I printed it out, hole punched it, placed brads in the top, bottom (but not middle) holes, and turned it in.

It was satisfying. So satisfying I almost want to change the font of this website to 12pt courier. Almost.

In having finished my first one, I already want to start my next. I know I should be revising the one I just wrote or something, but in all likelihood, that screenplay would never be made into a film so forget the follow through.

My screenplay is called Written on Water. It’s loosely based on the life of Eileen Chang. Very loosely. If it ever got made into a film, fans of Eileen Chang would be screaming injustice.

I don’t know what I was thinking when I began writing. It was a hard first project. I should’ve done something I knew more about. Let it be a project for developing my voice as a writer rather than telling the story.

Like all art, one has to start with technique, then find their identity and define their content. I skipped right to the content. But who cares, really? I have a 102 page screenplay and it was damn satisfying.

Today in screenwriting class we had video conferences with two TV network presidents, Kevin Reilly, the president of NBC, and Steve McPherson the president of ABC. Both were Cornell graduates who, incidentally, not only knew each other before they both went to Hollywood but also were in the same fraternity while they were at Cornell. Both of them look too young to have so much control over the television shows America watches.

We began our video conference with Kevin Reilly, a charismatic man who showed up with a can of red bull, which he jokingly claimed to be the drink of network presidents. After some quick introductions, our professor informed him of some sort of an implicit confidentiality agreement…which means I’m not going to go into any details, not that there’s anything particularly juicy anyway.

I asked him why American television shows do not follow models common with Asian television, where the show has a finite run and the story contains a distinct beginning, middle, and end. His response was that the better question is, why they do not follow the American model. Apparently it costs a lot more to do it the American way, and countries in Asia and Europe do not have an entertainment machine to match that of the US. He described the American system as being more evolved. In the States, even though some shows can really benefit from a beginning, middle, and end, they just run it indefinitely because that’s the way the television economy here works. I never had a chance for a follow-up, but I really don’t see why cheaper production cost is a problem. I mean, a finite-run show could attract bigger stars to television, so if a finite show costs less and still has the same audience potential, isn’t that a good thing? Frankly, I find comfort know that my story is going somewhere. If American television series had a beginning, middle, and end, I might watch more television shows.

So after talking to two presidents of major TV networks what are my general impressions on the television industry? Money plays a bigger role in TV. I guess that no-brainer anyway, but it plays a much bigger role than even I expected. I mean, even the most business conscious of film executives talk about how they look for good characters and strong voices in their scripts, with television, they’re more willing to admit to the impact of viewership.