A GREAT writing (and acting) exercise

Hey they, scribes, do you sometimes have scenes that don’t work and you’re not sure why?  Or scenes that feel too long or unfocused?  There's a great exercise that will help solve these problems.  

It's actually an improv exercise.  Andy Goldberg in his improvisation workshop had us do this last night and my first thought was, as helpful as this is to actors it's even more helpful to writers. 

Here's how it works:  Two or three actors do a scene.  And then repeat it.  Two more times. The first time the scene is a minute long. The second time the exact same scene is thirty seconds. And the third time the exact same scene is ten seconds.

The exercise forces you to edit and ultimately distill the scene down to its very basic objective. Now, I’m not saying all scenes need to be less than a minute. You want the jokes and interaction and great character moments. But you also have to determine what’s really needed. And it’s amazing how you can always find trims.

For purposes of demonstration, I’ve taken a scene from the “Room Service” episode of FRASIER that David Isaacs and I wrote. Applying this exercise I’ve written three versions.

(In the story, Frasier has discovered that Niles has slept with Lilith. He runs out of the hotel room but returns. The point of the scene is that since all three are psychiatrists, they all have different psychological explanations based on their individual philosophies)

HERE’S THE ORIGINAL VERSION: 

THERE’S A KNOCK AT THE DOOR. LILITH OPENS IT AND FRASIER COMES BACK INTO THE HOTEL ROOM.

NILES: I knew you couldn’t stay mad at us.

FRASIER: I’m in a bathrobe, you jackass.

FRASIER BEGINS COLLECTING HIS CLOTHES AS SOMETHING DAWNS ON LILITH.

LILITH: I can understand your shock and – believe me, if I could erase everything that happened last night I would. But if you look at this rationally for a moment, we didn’t technically do anything wrong.

FRASIER: What?! You didn’t do anything wrong?

NILES: I’m a little unclear on that myself but I’m willing to go along with it.

LILITH: You and I are no longer married. Neither is Niles. I won’t say this is my shining hour but we’re not responsible to you or anyone else for our actions.

FRASIER: I can’t believe this! You’re actually defending what you did?

LILITH: Just listen. The past few days have been the worst of my life. I’ve never felt less self-assured, more in need of validation, both as a person and as a woman. And Niles was feeling the same thing.

NILES: Exactly. (realizing) Wait a minute.

LILITH: (to Frasier) Our physical reaction to each other was nothing more than a desperate attempt to reaffirm our own worth.

FRASIER: Very impressive, Lilith. But I happen to be a psychiatrist too. Let me tell you what really transpired. This is a passive-aggressive manifestation of the deep resentments that you both have toward me. You were punishing me for my notoriety. My successful adjustment after our marriage. It is this shared bond that brought you two to your palace of sweet revenge.

LILITH: Allow me to rebut: What a crock.

FRASIER: It is not!

LILITH: This is yet another example of your complete self-absorption and the reason we could not stay together in the first place.

FRASIER: I think I have a right to -- why am I defending myself?

NILES: If you ask me, you’re both off the mark. Last night was all about two people ruled by very strong superegos, tortured by them, who had a chance, however misguided, to break through and rediscover their ids together. Call me an old softy, but that’s how I see it.

FRASIER: (a beat, then) Okay, then… the three of us have certainly analyzed the crap out of this.

HERE’S THE MODIFIED VERSION:

THERE’S A KNOCK AT THE DOOR. LILITH OPENS IT AND FRASIER COMES BACK INTO THE HOTEL ROOM.

LILITH: Look, Frasier, you and I are no longer married. Neither is Niles. I won’t say this is my shining hour but we’re not responsible to you or anyone else for our actions.

FRASIER: You’re actually defending what you did?

LILITH: The past few days have been the worst of my life. I’ve never felt less self-assured, more in need of validation, both as a person and as a woman. Our physical reaction to each other was nothing more than a desperate attempt to reaffirm our own worth.

FRASIER: No, this is a passive-aggressive manifestation of the deep resentments that you both have toward me. It is this shared bond that brought you two to your palace of sweet revenge.

NILES: If you ask me, last night was all about two people ruled by very strong superegos, who had a chance to rediscover their ids together. Call me an old softy, but that’s how I see it.

FRASIER: (a beat, then) Okay, then… the three of us have certainly analyzed the crap out of this.

AND FINALLY, THE TEN SECOND VERSION:

THERE’S A KNOCK AT THE DOOR. LILITH OPENS IT AND FRASIER COMES BACK INTO THE HOTEL ROOM.

LILITH: Frasier, the sex was just a desperate attempt to reaffirm our own worth.

FRASIER: No, it was a passive-aggressive manifestation of your shared resentment toward me.

NILES: No, it was two people with strong superegos rediscovering their ids.

FRASIER: (a beat, then) Okay, then… the three of us have certainly analyzed the crap out of this.

What you're essentially doing is finding the spine of your scene.  Or realizing you don't have one.   Try it.  You'll thank me (well... you'll thank Andy Goldberg).  Probably three times. 

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Your agent questions, my answers

I thought I’d follow up on yesterday’s post about CAA vs UTA. Got a number of questions about Hollywood agencies.  Here are my answers:

Matt asked:

"Outraged CAA executives call this a “lawless midnight raid.” Uh… isn’t that how they started? Same with Endeavor. That’s how it works in the piranha tank. "

For those of us who are not industry insiders, can you explain this a little?

They need copies of their deal memos, contracts, client information, their Rolodex (an antiquated term for contact information), development status reports, maybe inner office memos and emails, etc. Restaurant menus. At one time – Laker tickets.

30 wonders:

Can you explain a little about with a basic contract between an agent and talent is? What exactly are you agreeing to, to give 10% of any work the agent gets you? What if you find a job yourself without the agent's help? Still goodbye to 10%? Can you change agents readily or does 10% still go to the old agent for the contract term whether he's used or not? Can you have multiple agents in the same field? How tied is an individual agent to their agency? What's their freedom of movement? And so on...

If your agent covers that aspect of your career then yes, you’re obligated to give him 10%, even if you got the job yourself (e.g. your friend is a showrunner and over a couple of beers one night he decides to hire you). But if you’re represented as a writer and you get a gig as an actor on a show (e.g. many beers that night with the showrunner) that’s not commissionable.

You can leave your agency but they retain commissions on any contracts they negotiated while you were with them. You, as the client, are only obligated to give 10% total. It’s not like the new agent can also call for 10% commission on an existing contract.

So why would an agency take on a new client who let’s say is on staff of a show and figures to be there for several years thus paying commissions to someone else? Two reasons: The agency is making an investment in you. They figure that when the deal is up you’ll be a hot commodity and they can cash in then. And the other reason is this happens all the time so the new agency might not receive commissions from you on one project and they are still receiving commissions on another project from a client who left them.  It sort of evens out.

You generally have one agent for TV representation and one for features or theatrical, but it depends on the agency. Some have “team” structures. You could have several TV agents. Or your TV agent could be your point man and gets involved with your feature career as well. When agents package – in theory -- if you’re with an agency it’s easier to get access to actors who are also with that agency. Your rep and the actor’s rep both work on your behalf – again, in theory.

Agents will often accompany you to network pitch meetings. When we were with CAA they would send agents we had never met or seen, nor would we ever see again.

As for how tied an agent is to his agency, that’s a contractual issue and I’m sure it varies from case to case. Are there “no compete” clauses? Is the agent a partner? It can get sticky… and litigious.

One way an agency makes a bundle is by putting together package deals for TV series. If you create a show that becomes a series they take a percentage of the profits. But that also means they are not allowed to take commissions from any of their clients on shows in which they have package deals. Otherwise, it’s double-dipping. That made CHEERS an even better deal for us. We were with the agency that had the package deal on CHEERS, so for all the years we worked on it we never paid a cent of commission. 

And lastly, agents are not entitled to commissions on any residuals.

From Jerry Sayles:

How exactly is being a Hollywood agent any different than being a pimp? Is it just a better wardrobe?

No. Agents serve a very necessary function and a good one can enhance your career far beyond what you could do in that regard.

Finding work and creating work are generally two very different skill sets. As a creative person (I hate the term “artist”) breaking in I don’t know producers, network executives, studio executives. No one will take my call or read my unsolicited script. I don’t know what new trends are emerging or what new companies or platforms are about to be launched. Agents have information and access.

I always joke that when agents are courting you they always say, “Why aren’t you in a room with Steven Spielberg?” But the truth is, the right agent can get me into that room (in my case, unfortunately, that would be the restroom in the Staples Center).

A good agent can steer you to good opportunities and warn you off of bad ones. He can put together a long range plan for your career and take you down that path.  They can lobby networks.  They can broker deals, exploit leverage, etc.   Perception is reality in Hollywood and agents can create perception.

And if they’re good negotiators they can get you a lot more money than you could get yourself. And they could put clauses in the contract to protect you from any studio or network shenanigans.

Look, corporations are run by killers. I’m not a killer. I dream up funny stories. You need a killer to represent your best interests. A good agent is a godsend. And I don’t even resent that he dresses way better than me.

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CAA vs. UTA -- Hollywood's REAL game of thrones

The town is abuzz with the juicy story that many top agents have fled CAA for UTA, taking with them somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 clients.

The first thing ANYONE in Hollywood does when he hears such news is say, “How does this affect ME?” In my case, I’m already at UTA. It means the few times I go there it might be harder to park. (Former Hollywood exec/journalist Peter Bart suggested – hopefully in jest – that some clients are moving to UTA because there is more parking and the art on the walls is more people friendly).

I'm quite happy where I am.  Both my TV and theatrical agent are terrific. 

Next question we in the industry ask is “Which side am I rooting for?” Me? UTA. Not just because they’re my agency, but because in all the years I’ve been in the business, clearly the worst representation I’ve ever had was my one horrible year with CAA.

Agents are supposed to help you shape the career you desire. CAA decides how best you could suit their plans and steers you only in that direction. And often those plans are to benefit another more important client, not you. You need an agent to protect you from your real agent. You are merely a commodity to be packaged at their whim. Oh, and their parking is really shitty.

CAA is outraged by this UTA poaching and have reacted with a flurry of lawsuits. This tells me they’re really pissed, which only fuels the citywide schadenfreude. Outraged CAA executives call this a “lawless midnight raid.” Uh… isn’t that how they started? Same with Endeavor. That’s how it works in the piranha tank.

Obviously, CAA’s policies have been met with some disagreement among its “foot soldiers” (that’s how one-time CAA chief Mike Ovitz referred to his highly valued agents – foot soldiers).  Agents rarely change tenpercenteries based on artwork. 

What’s tough is if you’re a client of one of these defecting agents. Especially if you have two agents – one for TV and one for film. Do you go with the departing agent or stay with the remaining agent? First of all, most clients are initially pissed. Why? They hear about the upheaval after the fact, usually via the media. So they’re completely blindsided.

But agents need to be very stealth and letting one client know, even in secrecy, invariably leads to the lead story on that night’s ET.

So once the word is on the street then it’s the mad scramble of agents trying to persuade their clients to follow them or stay put. For that five second window the client is in a position of power. The agents court and promise the moon. Once the client makes his decision and signs, the promises are all forgotten or ignored, but the client has to be an idiot to believe the promises in the first place.

Adding to the complications, clients have histories with agencies. They may have left for CAA because they were unhappy with UTA. And now they’re asked to go back.  Really big promises that won't be kept need to be made.   I feel bad for Mindy Kaling. She just left UTA for CAA a month ago. Now her new agent has gone to UTA.  ("Mindy, baby, sign with us and I'll get you a five year renewal on your show... and how'd you like to be next year's Rose Bowl Queen?") 

What will the end result be to viewers and moviegoers? Nothing. Hollywood weathers these seismic changes every few years. Agencies merge, split off, have coups, but it’s the same pieces just repositioned on the same chessboard.

For now though, CAA (also known affectionately as the Death Star) is reeling. Yes, they’re still making billions in profits but not as many. But in the backrooms I’m sure the CAA top brass are plotting their next movw. “Who can we get to break into UTA and steal their artwork?”

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Opening Day

For baseball fans, this is the greatest day of the year. OPENING DAY – when hope burns eternal, even for the Phillies. It's especially meaningful this year.  After such a harsh winter in the Midwest and East, baseball means spring is here in only three more months.

There’s always great pomp and circumstance and the stadium is always filled. For some teams it’s the only time that happens all year. If they had “Free Car Night” in Tampa I don’t think they could sell out a game in May.

For many years I would always go to opening day at Dodger Stadium. And then of course, as a broadcaster, whatever team I was working for generally insisted I be there.

My biggest opening day thrill was calling the first game ever at Jacobs Field in Cleveland. I was doing the radio for Seattle, describing all the ceremonies (Clinton throwing out the first pitch and 102 year-old Bob Feller throwing with more velocity) and unbeknownst to me at the time, the CBS radio network picked up our feed and I was broadcasting all around the world. I'm so glad I didn't know.

My first year with Baltimore, Vice President Dan Quayle came in the booth and I interviewed him my first inning. Not a lot of comedy there. It was like playing tennis against a blanket.

My first year in Seattle the team was down 9-0 by the time I made my debut in the third inning. Since no one gave a shit about the game at that point I spent the inning discussing the stupidest ROCKY movie.

The next year we opened on the road and by the time we returned to Seattle we were 1-5 so that was a festive home opener.

Now that I’m no longer with a team my great joy is not going to opening day. Along with the tradition comes massive traffic congestion, long lines at the concession stands, and idiots who are smashed by the national anthem. As an LA fan, I now much prefer to sit home and watch the great Vin Scully call it on television.

A couple of years ago he had a bad cold and missed opening day. You would have thought the city suffered an 8.5 earthquake. There was near panic and crying in the streets. Good luck to the guy who replaces Vin Scully.

The important thing, whether you’re there or not, is that baseball is back. And not just for seven episodes like MAD MEN. It’s back every day for the next six months. There will be amazing highlights, spectacular fielding plays, one of your favorite players busted for PED’s, unlikely heroes, no-hitters, bench clearing brawls, bobbleheads, controversy, a blizzard of statistics, blockbuster trades, two managers fired, thirty pitchers needing Tommy John surgery, and some stupid Alex Rodriguez distraction.

PLAY BALL.

This post is dedicated to Lon Simmons, the longtime play-by-play voice of both the Giants and the A's who passed away yesterday.  He was 91.  Not only was he a great announcer with a spectacular voice, he was wickedly funny.  No one could make me laugh... or boo like Lon Simmons (I was a Dodger fan remember).  He is deservedly in the Hall-of-Fame. 

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What Easter means to me

Easter is not one of my big holidays. I’ve never gone to the Hollywood Bowl for the Sunrise Service. The closest I’ve come was the Universal Amphitheater for a production of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR.

In grade school we used to paint hardboiled eggs. But who could we give them to? What kid ate hardboiled eggs? We might as well have painted prunes.

And I never got the point of an Easter Egg hunt. When I was a disc jockey at WDRQ in Detroit we had an Easter Egg hunt at a big local park and there were five stabbings.

What Easter meant to me was candy – the good and the bad.

The good was Yellow Peeps. These were chick shaped marshmallows covered in some yellow sticky crusty sugar coating. I have no idea what I was eating. But I loved them. It’s been years since I sampled a Peep. I wonder what I would think today. My guess – I’d gag at how sweet the first bite was… then finish the whole thing.

The bad candy was the chocolate bunnies. Sometimes solid but most of the time these too were marshmallows coated in chocolate. Except it wasn’t chocolate. It was wax. Even at six years-old I thought they were disgusting.

My guess is there are enough preservatives in Easter candy to last until the next century. After all, starting tomorrow all stores carrying Easter candy will sweep it out and get ready for Halloween. What happens to all those leftover Peeps and bunnies? Are they just going to be thrown out? What do you think?

I suspect they go back to the warehouse and wait until next year. Or the year after.  Or the year after that. 

It’s possible an Ed Snowden will reveal the company making those chocolate bunnies went out of business in 1956 and this is just the unsold inventory. In another 34 years we’ll see the last of the brown wax bunnies.

But for those of you who do celebrate Easter, have a wonderful day.   Stay out of Detroit parks, set your alarm for 4:00 AM, use the chocolate bunny as a hood ornament, and save me a Peep. 

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One of the great high school reunion pranks ever

This ties in with two posts from earlier this week -- my April Fool's joke and the B100 reunion.    One of my USC students, Andrea Wachner, pulled an inspired prank.  She hired a stripper to pose as her for her 10 year high school reunion.  And it gets more elaborate than that.   Andrea filmed the whole thing and made a movie of it.  Here's the short version.  Check it out.  You will love it.

Andrea, you are a disturbed individual. And I admire you for it.

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Good Friday Questions

Here are Good Friday Questions.

Dan Ball starts us off:

After your epic tirade against ONE BIG HAPPY, how pissed and/or disillusioned are you that TV comedies haven't evolved more in the years since MASH, CHEERS, and FRASIER? I know a lot of show business is about getting lucky with the right audience among other things, but do you get frustrated that making good TV is just a vicious cycle of discovery and ignorance instead of just steady evolution--like science or technology? We know you get bummed as a viewer, but as a person who's contributed to the betterment/evolution of good TV, what are your thoughts on this matter? How do you explain/reconcile it?

I wouldn’t say I’m pissed or disillusioned; just annoyed maybe.

In general I don’t think art evolves. It advances in spurts. There are periods of progress when the planets come together and then there are dry spells. TV comedy had a golden age in the ‘70s and by the early ‘80s people were predicting that sitcoms were dead.

But contributing to today’s comedy malaise, I think there are several factors. Broadcasters aren’t making television shows anymore. Mega corporations are. Same with the film industry. Gone are showmen like Darryl F. Zanuck and Louis B. Mayer, replaced by Fortune 500 companies only concerned with the bottom line. I get no sense of love and pride for making good entertainment.

When William Paley owned CBS it was called “the Tiffany Network.” The same network that gave us THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, MASH, ALL IN THE FAMILY, THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, and THE BOB NEWHART SHOW now airs 2 BROKE GIRLS. And NBC’s Must-See-TV line up of shows like CHEERS, FRASIER, and SEINFELD has given way to ONE BIG HAPPY. Character, depth, and wit has been replaced by crass vagina jokes.

There’s no one at the top saying, “We can’t put that shit on the air. We’re the National Broadcasting Company for Godsakes!”

Also, networks now chase young audiences exclusively. Those classic “Must-See-TV” shows probably wouldn’t get on the air today. Certainly not with casts all in their 30s or older. And certainly not with sophisticated storylines and references to literature instead of pop culture.

I also worry that many of today’s showrunners aren’t experienced enough. I don’t think they receive the mentoring that we fortunately did and at times it feels like they’re trying to reinvent the wheel. I certainly believe today’s young writers are the ones who should be writing most of the network pilots, but they need to be ready.

At some point this will change and comedy will have a renaissance. I just hope it’s soon.

From Matt:

I attended the CHEERS filming of "Dinner at Eight-ish," and when they finished they announced that audience members were welcome to stay while they filmed scenes from an episode they started the prior week. We were shown a rough cut of the first half of "One Last Fling," and then they filmed the remaining scenes. Was this a common practice? I figured they were trying to shorten the production schedule and saw the logic in it as those scenes were all bar/office with no costume changes and went pretty quickly.

There are several reasons for doing that. Sometimes we went back and re-shot scenes that didn’t work. Other times we tried to get ahead.

In season three Shelley Long was pregnant. To avoid having Diane pregnant we planned that she and Frasier go off to Europe for vacation. We filmed those scenes before Shelley was showing. Generally, we did one a week on top of the episode we shot. Once Shelley started showing we inserted them into the episodes to keep her in the show.

On TAXI one season they did a two-parter where the cab company went under and each cabbie had to get another job. Those individual scenes were filmed after shows. It saved the production company two full weeks.  And were two great episodes. 

cd1515 asks:

It always strikes me as lame when on a TV show, there's about 5-6 people standing there when one says to another "we need to talk privately," and then they step 18 inches to the right where EVERYONE COULD STILL EASILY HEAR THEM.

is that a blocking thing, like is it too hard to get those 2 people further away?

Ah, the dreaded “cone of silence” – a creative license staple of multi-camera shows. The sets aren’t very large and it takes too much time for people to cross into an office. So the compromise is taking someone off to the side. A smart director will stage it so that those five or six extras are not in the shot.

But this isn’t an exclusive convention to TV. I’ve seen this on the stage where the two actors step off a few steps and the other actors are still quite visible. But like I said, it’s creative license. Just like there always being parking spaces right in front of the building and window tables at restaurants.

And finally, a couple of quickies from Michael:

M*A*S*H and CHEERS both had significant cast changes over the years. Which characters do you think were truly irreplaceable - just Hawkeye and Sam?

Yep. Maybe include Eddie on FRASIER.

Especially interested if you think M*A*S*H could have survived the loss of Hot Lips?

Yes. Nothing against Loretta Swit, who was terrific, but you could find other nurses. Personally, I think the show sacrificed a lot of the fun of the character once she slept with Hawkeye. But that’s me.

What’s your Friday Question?

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