JaneEspenson.com

We’re getting down to the wire here, gentle ABC/Disney applicants, so it’s time to start thinking about all those last-minute details. Here’s a little checklist:

1. Reread the application details. Do you understand the rules of when the material has to be mailed? Do you have all the required parts of the application ready to go?

2. Have someone else proofread everything you’re sending for typos and missing words.

3. Check your presentation. Does everything look clean and professional? Nice dark print? Good strong brads?

4. Reread that script. Your subconscious mind knows which parts are bothering you. Listen to it. Don’t just keep rereading the bits that you like. Instead, look at the pages that your eyes want to rush over. Don’t be afraid to tackle a large change at the last minute, either. Just make a new file and try something drastic if you want. If it doesn’t work, you’ve still got the other version.

5. Mail it, don’t look back, and start writing your next thing. Something with your own original characters. The best way not to worry about the thing you just wrote is to worry about the thing after that.

Lunch: chicken dumpling soup and a spinach-bagel

Well, for those of you keeping score, I made it to Dallas and back home again. Many thanks to the kind people of Equality Now and all the Browncoats who were so great to me there!

I returned to find an intriguing piece of mail from reader John in Albany. It’s a great piece of mail, too, printed on thick creamy stationary with the kind of law firm letterhead that makes your pulse speed up because it looks like you’re getting sued.

John has (with a writing partner) written a spec half-hour comedy pilot. And he has filmed it. Whoa. He asks: “…are there any real advantages to actually shooting/making the TV pilot?” He adds, “I’ve even heard that this is detrimental because the ‘idea’ is always much better than the execution.”

My first instinct is to point at that last sentence and say, “yup.” One of the things I love about scripts – all scripts – is that they are creatures of perfect potential, always well-acted and well-produced in the reader’s brain. If I set something on an “abandoned pier lying still between the dark sky and darker sea” then that’s what the reader sees, not a redressed hotel loading-dock being splashed from off-screen by my friends who own buckets. Unless you have lots of money and some pretty advanced skills, it’s going to be very hard to make an amateur production good enough to come up to the level of the production that the reader’s brain is able to muster. And quality acting is, of course, even more crucial and hard to find than friends with buckets.

So, in general, I think it’s going to be easier, cheaper and more effective to try to use a script to break into the business than a produced sample. However, we live in strange times. If you have managed to put together something great, John in Albany, well, then let’s see how far you can ride it. Maybe you can submit it to film festivals, or slap it up on YouTube, or have friends link to it on their blogs… If it’s great and people find it, you might create a sensation and be treated like one of those film school phenoms who make a stir now and then. You might have just created a new way to go about this whole crazy endeavor. It’s a long shot, but since you’ve apparently already shot it… why not?! This is a business that is about creativity, and applying creativity to your way in might not always be a bad thing.

Lunch: heirloom tomatoes and burrata from the “nice side” of the Universal Cafeteria. Mm. Love those heirloom tomatoes.

Update from LAX! I’m trying to get to the book signing, gentle readers, but my airplane broke. I won’t be landing in Texas until *after* the scheduled start of the signing… so adjust accordingly! Thank you!

Special for the gentle readers of Texas: I will be signing copies of “Finding Serenity” tomorrow night in Arlington at the Border’s Books. I’m doing this in conjunction with the Can’t Stop the Serenity Event being put together by the amazing people of Equality Now. Please stop by the store and say Hi!

I’m home sick today, gentle readers. I have myself a bit of a cold. But I don’t stop working for you just because I’m full of New Daytime Tylenol for Chest Congestion. In fact, I’ve been applying myself to that little problem of clam rehabilitation from yesterday. Here, then, might be a slightly fresher pay-off for that “I thought you said you…” set-up. Let’s see how this hits you:

MAN
I thought you said you could drive!

WOMAN
Really? That’s interesting. Because I thought you said you could avoid getting us chased down a poorly-maintained access-road by a crazed interstate trucker!

(Imagine it all read with a sense of escalating panic, optimally, by the cast of Moonlighting.) Now, I haven’t invented something new here. Jokes of this structure are around already, but since the punchline involves a restatement of the plot, it’s going to look different in each new incarnation, which will help it feel fresher. And a lot of the joy of this one is going to lie in the wording of the plot-recap. Length, awkwardness and over-precision will probably work to your advantage in this kind of joke.

The point of all of this? Keep looking. Just because you’re certain you’ve exhausted every way to pay off a set-up, doesn’t mean there isn’t one more that just hasn’t occurred to you yet.

Lunch: Sourdough bread, cheddar cheese, sweet pickles

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