Stoner Vamp ,'Lessons'
[NAFDA] "There will be an occasional happy, so that it might be crushed under the boot of the writer." From Zorro to Angel (including Wonderfalls and The Inside), this is where Buffistas come to anoint themselves in the bloodbath.
John Rogers on fourth generation media.
Something that stuck out:
To stay on the air, in order to generate enough perceived value for advertisers (for the network) and syndicates (for the studio), a show needs, regularly, ten million consumers a week. Five or seven on a smaller network.
In order for a show to create a profit on DVD (the fat pipe model of the present), it needs one million consumers.
Even goofy reality shows can have redemptive moments, or surprise you. Viz: [link] , which is an indie rocker/music critic's (favorable) impression of Hit Me Baby One More Time, or indeed America's Next Top Model, which in its sheer divaness helped me and my cousin laugh through a difficult time.
If I ran the networks, there'd be room for both the abyss and the dancing on the edge of it.
Which makes me wonder what the problem is. Why do so few smart, well-crafted shows survive?
I look at the differences between me and a friend. If all the fluffy crap were gone tommorrow, I wouldn't care. I'll turn on the iTunes while I clean the living room. My friend would gladly see 'The Inside', 'Lost', 'Veronica Mars', etc. thrown to the flames so long as 'Laguna Beach' and 'The Real World' weren't going anywhere.
People watch television for different reasons, one of which is mindless escapism. And that's not so much a negative thing.
I understand that, it's just that I have little tolerance for all the reality based, call-in to vote type shows. I enjoy stories and there doesn't seem to be much of a plot.
But that's not 'appointment' tv. It's more like background music to me,
I can understand this too.
My perspective is this: I watch very little television. There are only a few shows that make time to watch (Lost, Medium, The Inside, Alias). Because of how little I watch I want what I see to be thought-provoking while fun (or thrilling). I have very little patience for the antics of people who are trying on their 15 minutes of fame.
The contracts for minis could be structured such that if a mini did very well, the talent would be obligated to continue into a regular 22 episode/season series.
I think that makes scheduling too complicated -- by the time it airs, everyone's already gone off to other things. And if you're going to pay them to sit around, you might as well go ahead and film 22 episodes from the start. But I think that shorter runs would alleviate a lot of the contract issues. Right now you're trying to guarantee your cast will be available for 5 years, just in case the show is a success, because you don't want someone to hold the show hostage. You've also got to pay them more from the start because their availability for any other work is pretty severely limited.
If you're doing 10-13 episodes instead of 22, and most/all of it is written before production, the actors are there for 3 or 4 months, not 9 or 10. So if six months later you want to do another dozen episodes, you aren't making the same demands on their time.
At least, that's how it works in my head.
In order for a show to create a profit on DVD (the fat pipe model of the present), it needs one million consumers.I wish he'd been more specific about that. In that scenario I want to know how much the show cost to make, and how much the DVDs sell for. I don't think people will pay $100 for a 30 minute recording of Strega's sock-puppet theater. The miserly jerks.
I wish he'd been more specific about that.
Go ask! He's pretty good about responding to comments.
The escape of the Global Frequency pilot seems to really have shaken his world, despite him being up on things like save our show campaigns, and Joss's ability to make Serenity despite the Firefly cancellation.
In discussions like these, I always go back to tomatoes.
I loathe tomatoes. Can't stand their smell, let alone their flavor. If I have to slice them, for some poor lost soul who likes them, I have to scrub my hands later until no trace of the scent is left. If by accident a piece finds its way to my mouth, I may go as far as throwing up. I really hate tomatoes.
Which is why I can never realize how anybody would like them. And yet, plenty of people can't imagine their salads without them. People with good taste, people with whom I share lots of tastes myself. I can't wrap my brain around this, but, well, there it is. Some people like tomatoes, no matter how disgusting they may be to me.
So whenever I face some feature of human taste I can't understand, I just have to remind myself that, well, it's impossible to actually understand taste - some people like tomatoes.
[Edit: this post made much more sense in my head before I actually wrote it. Oops. Sorry.]
Ah, Nilly, my tomato hating sister.
Makes perfect sense to me
(TOMATO HATER!!!)
Tomato haters unite!