Elise Allen's Blog, page 12

Industry Scoop: Will Work for Free???

There's a lot on my plate right now… and a good chunk of it is work I'm doing for free.

This isn't as crazy as it sounds.  My computer is full of projects into which I poured free work: one middle grades manuscript; two feature specs; several TV show specs and pilots; and countless mini bibles and pitches for shows.

When I first moved to L.A., I leaped at free work.  Anytime anyone approached me with a cool idea, I'd dive in, imagining it would lead to The Big Break.  None of those early projects did, but they were valuable learning experiences.

Yet at a certain point, I felt like I'd learned plenty.  I got all riled up about the horrors of free work, and promised myself I wouldn't do anymore.

That lasted about a minute.  The truth is that in any creative industry, you're going to have to do some free work.  The key is being selective, and doing free work that has potential to become paid work down the line.  Any free work I do today falls into three categories:

1) My own passion projects.  These include book manuscripts (or treatments for manuscripts) and screenplays that I know would have a better chance of selling once they're down on paper, rather than as a pitch.  Actually, even if I want to sell off a pitch, a lot of free work goes into crafting that pitch, so that counts too.

2) Other people's projects that meet the following criteria:

a) I love it.

b) I feel it has real potential to sell.

c) It's already attached to players (such as a producer or production company) that can make something happen.

This kind of thing is like a pre-development deal, where all parties put in a certain amount of work to get a project ready to sell, then we go in guns blazing and do it.

3) Promotional work: blogging, keeping this site and Populazzi.com updated, doing guest posts, appearing at Book Fairs (I'll be at the West Hollywood Book Fair this Sunday October 2, at the teen stage between 12:20 and 12:40 — come join me!!!)… they're all fun things to do, so they don't feel particularly "work-y," but they take time, so they count.

At the moment I have things bubbling in all three categories, plus the paid work, so it all keeps me happily busy.

How about you?  Do you have a slate of free work?  What are your criteria to throw yourself into an unpaid (ideally unpaid-for-the-moment) project?

 

Fit'n'Food Scoop: Bring on the Apples Dipped in Honey!!!

Happy Jewish New Year, everyone!!!

Or at least, as of sundown.

We're celebrating Rosh HaShana with a big family meal, and while my husband's brisket is the delicious centerpiece, my favorite part of the meal is much simpler: apples dipped in honey for a sweet new year.

(Yeah, I know I could have that anytime, but I find it generally hard to rationalize adding empty calories to a perfectly sweet piece of fruit.  Yet for Rosh, it's tradition!  I hear the cast of Fiddler on the Roof in my ear and I dip!)

If you're celebrating the holiday, does your family serve an annual dish you love?  If you're not celebrating, and you've never done the apples-in-honey thing, give it a try and let me know what you think!

 

Family Scoop: An Open Love Letter to the Cast and Crew of Shake It Up

You might recall awhile back I posted about Miss M's birthday, and the trip we were going to take to the Shake It Up set to see a run-through.

I had to follow it up, because I've worked on many a TV show set, and I'm not sure I've ever seen one as kind and considerate this one.

It started in the writers' room, where head writer saw Miss M and I dallying in the hall and invited us in.  He chatted up Miss M, wished her happy birthday, read the fan letter she had written to Bella and Zendaya (her very first fan letter), complimented her on her outfit (which happened to be from Target's Shake It Up collection), and generally made her feel like a superstar.

From there we met up with my friend , a super-fab writer who took us down to the set, where Miss M nearly froze in shocked delight.

There was Bella Thorne.

And when David introduced Miss M to Bella and said it was Miss M's birthday, Bella wrapped her up in a HUGE hug… at which point I immediately became Bella Thorne's biggest fan.

It only got better from there.  David told everyone on the set it was Miss M's birthday, and everyone said happy birthday to her and made her feel at home.  They let her stand front and center to watch each scene, and between scenes she got to chat with every single cast member.  She got huge hugs from Zendaya, Roshon Fegan (Ty), Kenton Duty (Gunter), and Caroline Sunshine (Tinka).  Adam Irigoyen (Deuce) must have gotten ten or fifteen hugs from Miss M, since she kept racing off and reporting back that she'd hugged him again.  The only she didn't hug was Davis Cleveland (Flynn), and that's only because he's actually in her age range and the minute she saw him in person she developed a crush.

What most impressed me was post-run-through, when Bella and Zendaya had to race off.  I asked Miss M if she wanted to say goodbye, and she ran to both girls, throwing herself into their arms for a final hug.

Here's the thing — Bella and Zendaya weren't on set to do an appearance.  They were there to work, they were on a tight schedule, and they didn't plan to have a seven-year-old missile slam into them as they were racing for the door.  But did they flinch?  No they did not.  They each returned Miss M's giant hug, thanked her for coming, gave her extra birthday wishes, and only then left the set.

Miss M was aglow… but the fun wasn't over.

The amazingly gracious , Costume Designer for the show, took Miss M on a tour of the wardrobe department, which pretty much looks like Miss M's dream closet come to life.  From there my friend David took Miss M on a full tour of the set — she walked through Cece's house, the restaurant, the school… we even got a picture of her on the Shake It Up Chicago set, posing by the giant sign.

I've been out here for many years now, and I've been on a lot of TV show sets.  I'm a little jaded when it comes to the behind-the-scenes of a show in which I'm not directly involved.  But seeing Shake It Up through Miss M's eyes was absolutely magical, and I'm so, so thankful to everyone who made it happen.

Have you ever gotten to peek behind the scenes of a show you loved?  What was it like?  And if you haven't, what show's set would you most like to visit?  It 's okay if it's impossible, as it would be for me — I'd love the chance to see my all time favorite show, Moonlighting.  What about you?

 

 

Book Scoop: MY BOOK WAS OPTIONED!!!!!

Huge, fabulous news to share… POPULAZZI WAS OPTIONED AS A FILM!!!!

Okay, despite the all-caps, I recognize that's kind of nebulous to anyone who doesn't know what exactly an "option" entails… which included me, several months ago.  Basically, it means that a wise and wonderful production company — in this case the fabulous Wind Dancer Films — read Populazzi and thought, "Hey, this would make a great movie.  In fact, we love it so much that we're going to buy the right to put all the pieces together and get a studio on board so we can make that movie!"

Which is what they did.  What I did was a giant Happy Dance around the room, pausing only to type out this blog post and squeal with delight at the below:

"The book is hilarious — the perfect mix of darkly twisted, sexy, and gut wrenchingly real," said Dete Meserve, President of Wind Dancer. "We were immediately drawn to it, and couldn't stop flipping pages. We knew right away we wanted to bring it to the screen."

YAY!!!  Gotta do another Happy Dance lap.  (As opposed to a Happy Lap Dance, which would be most different indeed.)

For all the option-riffic details, click here for the official press release!

Scoop Soup — It's Miss M's Birthday!!!!

Short post today — it's Miss M's birthday, we're playing hooky from school, and I got her the coolest gift ever… we're going to visit the set of her favorite show, Shake It Up!

We'll be taking off in a couple hours, but in the meantime we've been playing like wild with another present: Glee Karaoke for the Wii.  It is hard-core awesome.  Miss M nailed "Rain On My Parade," and I have to say I do a pretty mean "Bust a Move."

I'm hoping Miss M has a day she'll love and will always remember… which leads me to a question:

What was your favorite birthday as a kid?  What did you do that made it so special?

Gotta run — we're having brunch in bed while watching Sponge Bob.

Birthdays rock.

Industry Scoop: "Hey, I Never Knew You Could Write!"

When we last left our Industry Scoop heroes (a.k.a. last week's post), I was on my way to a meeting.  It went fabulously well, and we are indeed moving forward on a spectacular project that I hope gets to the point where I can share it with you.

That, however, is not today's story.  Today's story is what the exec at the meeting — a very good friend of mine — said.  She had just finished reading Populazzi, and had an excited glow on her face as she gushed, "I never knew you could write!"

I laughed out loud… because I've been writing for her for approximately ten years.

I knew what she meant though (and in case you're reading this, I swear I'm not giving you a hard time — it was funny!).  A novel is a very different animal from a TV script, and it doesn't necessarily follow that if you write one well, you can do the other just as well.  Many do: Suzanne Collins used to write for .  Adriana Trigiani .  Living in L.A., I know many writers who bounce between books and scripts; but I know other novelists who have no interest in that at all.

Personally, I've always enjoyed bouncing between disciplines, genres, target audiences… if I can tell a story, I'm happy.  I'll tell that story as a TV show, a feature, a book… heck, I've even written the lyrics for a couple of songs (this one's called On My Way — the amazing Megan Cavallari wrote the music).  That's fun to me, and it keeps the process constantly interesting and challenging.

Writers out there, do you like bouncing between disciplines, or do you prefer specializing in one and sticking to it?  If you do try different writing formats, do you prefer one over the others, or do you enjoy them all for different reasons?

 

Fit'n'Food Scoop: Food and Fitness Logs — The Road to Sanity, or a Sign of Obsession?

I'm not proud to admit it, but I'm one of those women who has always grappled with food and body issues.  As a general rule, I feel like I'm healthier about it now than ever.  I like to work out five to seven days a week, and while I'd be lying if I said it had nothing to do with aesthetics, it's just as much about being strong and fit.  I'm proud when I can knock out thirteen to twenty-six miles and feel great; I'm ecstatic when I have the energy to carry my over-fifty-pound daughter on my back for the last steep uphill mile of a hike; and I crow to the world when I win a medal for slogging through a muddy obstacle course.

As for food, it's been a very long time since I've downed an entire box of cereal, or a family-sized  bag of baked chips, or the frozen top of my wedding cake ("Gee, honey, I'm pretty sure it was that small when we put it in there.  You must be remembering it wrong.").  Instead, I tend to eat five small meals a day, heavy on the lean protein, fruit, and veggies; light on the gluten, dairy, sugar, and refined flour.

That said, much as I respect the work of Geneen Roth, I don't follow her guidelines exactly.  I don't let go and just let my eating habits flow from how my body feels.  I pay attention to make sure I eat those small meals at regularly scheduled intervals; I choose my foods carefully; I log my food and exercise on my iPhone with MyFitnessPal so I don't over- or underestimate.

So I'm torn.  On the one hand I feel like I'm in a really healthy place.  I don't feel like I diet, I just concentrate on choices that make my body feel healthy and satisfied.  On the other hand, I worry that if I'm paying so much attention to food and fitness, maybe I'm not so healthy after all.  Then on the other hand (I keep extra hands around for just this purpose), the relatively small time I spend logging replaces a much larger chunk of time I used to spend neurotically freaking out.  Plus, the crutch of logging keeps me on an even enough keel mentally so that when I do over-indulge, it's not that big a deal.

Overall, I feel generally great about where I am on the whole food-body journey, but I still have questions… which is why I want to toss it out there to you.  Do any of you have food/body issues?  If so, how do you handle them?  Have you gone the Geneen Roth route and freed yourself from judgments stemming from food and body image?  Do you concentrate on fitness?  Do you follow diet plans?  Do you keep food or fitness journals?  What works best for you?

 

 

 

Family Scoop: A Bad Parent, but a GREAT Football Fan!

Football Sundays are hard on Miss M.

I get it.  I remember when I was a kid, before I saw the light and understood football for the thing of near-heavenly beauty that it is.  Sundays pained me.  I didn't understand football, so it was three hours of meaningless television blather that sucked everyone's attention from far more entertaining things like… you know… me.

I started converting to the religion of NFL in middle school, and by college my whole week was ruined if the Philadelphia Eagles lost on Sunday.  When I landed my first job in the entertainment industry, I handled the phones on a TV show.  One of the stars' brothers was Mike Golic.  Mike played for the Eagles at the time, and I wouldn't let the poor man through to his brother until he'd tell me how things were gelling for next week's game.

Still, I remember those pre-conversion days, and I know it can be insufferably dull for Miss M to hang with me during the game.  She could go out with my husband, but she's very mommy-oriented (which is delicious), and would rather hang with me, so I try to make the games fun for her.  I explain the plays, I urge her to do elaborate boos or cheers, I pick her up and twirl her like a madwoman on good plays.

This past Sunday though, I had another idea.  As the game started, she asked for candy.  We're on the west coast, so it was only ten o'clock in the morning.  I said no.  When she asked again, I still said no… but when she asked the third time, I said, "Tell you what — if the Eagles score a touchdown, you can have candy."

I have never seen the girl root harder for our team.  By the end of the game, the Eagles had scored four touchdowns.  Miss M and I were both very happy.

Am I the only one being a bad parent this way?  Have you ever bribed your kids to get them into something you really enjoy?  If so, please share!

Book Scoop: Call of the Wild

How has it been a month and a half since Populazzi's release, and I still haven't offered up a contest???

It's a major oversight on my part, and all I can do is cry summer vacation, but it's time to rectify things!  For the next week, until the next Book Scoop, if you send me a pic of Populazzi in the wild, you'll be entered in a random drawing to win a signed copy of Populazzi.  I'll sign it to whomever you want, so even if you already have it (and thank you if you do), you can make the signed copy a gift to someone else!

Now let me define "in the wild."  To enter, you can send me a picture of Populazzi either A) on the shelves at a bookstore, or B) in the hands of someone out in the world reading it.  If someone's reading it on a Kindle, Nook, iPad, or other electronic reader, that counts too.  Just send me a pic that shows the book on the screen.

Here's a form to send in your pics — you can include your name, email address, and a description of what you're sending.

I Spy Populazzi




Name*FirstLastEmail*CommentsFile

I look forward to your entries — good luck!

Oh, also — you might notice I updated all my old posts so they fit into the new Scoop of the Day categories, so feel free to scroll around and see if there's anything interesting in the archives.  If you find anything you particularly like, please let me know!

 

Scoop Soup: Up With Pixar

Yes, yes, I know taking a stand pro-Pixar is like taking a stand pro-breathing, but I just saw Up for the first time last night, and it was spectacular.  I bawled for the first ten minutes (silently, because I was watching it with Miss M, who has seen the movie before, knows all the funny parts, and was barely paying attention to the "boring" prologue), and spent the rest of the movie laughing until I snarfed… or bawling again and again and again.

Up is now officially my favorite Pixar movie, which leads me to wonder… what's yours?