Joseph Mallozzi's Blog, page 263

Hoowee!

This, is exhausting.

I spend all day in the writers’ room, breaking episodes, then come home at night to flesh out the stories so that I can deliver outlines in the morning.  I know, I know, this isn’t how it’s done.  But, in all fairness, it saves so much time in the long run, allowing all of the writers to weigh in so that we can, ultimately, end up with a (hopefully) bulletproof outline ready to go to script.  And once this room is over and we give the writers the green light, those scripts are going to be coming fast and furious come November.  The plan is to have all ten scripts in play in October, and all final drafts in place by January.  The only variance I’m willing to brook is a possible delay on the finale – only insofar as a later version can be informed by any production developments.

Anyway, I’m off to complete tonight’s outline.

Tonight, I leave you with the insane medley of desserts we’ve been enjoying in the room including Italian cookies, fancy donuts, decadent chocolate chip cookies, custard-filled almond pastries, egg tarts, Akemi’s rum cake, Ivon’s brownies, and Sam’s grandmother’s honey cake (sadly, not all pictured, but believe me when I say they were all deeeeeelicious!)…

 

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Garlic and Chocolate!

Two of my favorite things.

On Sunday, we hit the Toronto Garlic Festival, THE place to go if you’re looking to stock up on garlic – fresh, powdered, pickled, and in ice cream or popsicle form.

There were fewer vendors and food options this year, but we made the best of things, sampling some Syrian eats and Trinidanian doubles…

I’m as big a fan of spicy as Akemi is not, so I asked for a 50/50 split on the doubles – half with ghost chili pepper sauce, the other half mild.  Interestingly, Akemi found her mild side crazy spicy while I found the entire dish not all that spicy at all.  I wonder if my general insensitivity has extended to chili peppers now.

The haul: assorted garlic, black garlic, hot sauces, jellies, jams, and spreads.  Enough to tide us over to November!

Then, for dessert, we happened by a chocolate-themed pop-up by Cove Crafted, a collaboration between B.C.’s Cove Cannabis and Beta 5 Chocolates.  The chocolates on display were non-infused, no cannabis was on sale on-site, but there was plenty of chocolate to be had…

You have your choice of three blunts: 66% dark chocolate with cocoa beans, milk chocolate and lavender, and, surprisingly my favorite, white chocolate with matcha and green mango.

Adam Chandler, the chocolatier behind Vancouver’s award-winning Beta 5 Chocolates.  I miss this place.

A peek inside Akemi’s emergency chocolate drawer.

Alright.  Off to work on an outline.  But, before I do, some shout-outs to a few blog regulars.  Sending best wishes to MaggieMayDay, positive thoughts to Hilda for a speedy recovery, and Happy Birthday tidings to gforce!

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Meanwhile, back on the home front…

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Writers’ Rooms!

Over the course of my almost 12 years of blogging, I’ve often made references to “the writers’ room” as it’s a crucial part of the production process.  But what, you may ask, is the purpose of “the writers’ room”?  What goes on in this storied chamber?

Well, simply put, “the writers’ room” is a gathering of a show’s writers, brought together to brainstorm the narrative elements of the upcoming season. Depending on how much development has taken place going in, participants in the room may be tasked with anything from world building to coming up with every beat of every episode planned.

The process can be alternately fun and frustrating, sad yet satisfying, exhilarating and exhausting.  It really depends on what you need to get done and who you’re getting it done with.

Student Bodies

Back on Student Bodies, the first live-action series my then writing partner, Paul Mullie, and I ever worked on, WE were the room.  We pitched ideas to the show’s producers, then retired to our shared office (a carpeted classroom in the abandoned high school where we shot the show) and simply broke the story ourselves.  And by “broke”, I mean we broke down the episode into acts, broke down those acts into scenes, and broke down those scenes into key beats.  What happens here?  What do these characters do?  What do they say?  And, most importantly, why?  Each scene builds on the one preceding it and, before you know it, you have yourself a rough outline which will eventually become a full outline, then a revised outline, after which it will be used as a blueprint for a first draft.

Post- Student  Bodies

By the time we graduated from Student Bodies to one hour action adventure, Paul and I had a pretty good system when it came to breaking episodes.  We would always start with the general idea (What happens in this episode?), then work towards our designated act breaks, those mini in-episode cliffhangers just before the commercial break.  Unfortunately, one of the first one hour shows we landed on took a completely different approach.  It was more freestyle, eschewing targeted act breaks for a more free-wheeling approach.  We would start with our first scene then roll into the next, and then the one after that, and so on.  On the surface, it seemed like a perfectly logical approach but, in practice, it was like being caught offshore during a sudden rainstorm and madly rowing for land only to realize, after the storm clouds lift, that you’ve actually taken yourself out to sea. And such was the case on this series when, after a long day of breaking a story, the showrunner suddenly realized everything we had spun wasn’t going to work and would have to be thrown out so we could start over again in the morning.

Stargate

On Stargate, the writers’ room was very different, no  doubt owing to the fact that most of us in that room were defecto showrunners.  Yes, lots of great ideas but, admittedly, a lot of clashing egos as well.  It wasn’t always pretty (see “The Great Sam vs. Cam SG-1 Leadership Debate”), but we got it done – and we got it done fast.  And, by fast, I mean we would often break a story in a day, maybe two tops!  And this was in addition to our other writing and producing duties on a 20 episode series (40 episodes for a couple of years when SG-1 and Atlantis aired back to back).  To an outsider, this may not seem that impressive, but consider that many network shows take months to break a season.  That’s the norm.

Unfortunately, for much of my career, I haven’t had the luxury of “the norm”.  I mean, in a perfect world of a perfect production with unlimited time and budget, I’d love to spend months on end nailing down every little detail and dialogue exchange but, realistically, those ideal situations rarely present themselves.

Dark Matter

In preparation for Dark Matter‘s first season, I convened a tiny but efficient writers’ room made up of Paul, Martin Gero, and myself.  We broke the show’s first season, all thirteen episodes, in two and a half weeks!  Season 2, we expanded the writers’ room, bringing in a couple of new voices – yet only managed to break nine episodes in three weeks.  In the lead-up to our third season, we were five in the room and only managed to break seven episodes in three weeks.

The Un-Named Awesome Series

On this new series, we have five weeks to world build and break as much of our ten episode first season as possible – and we’ll be doing so with eleven writers in the room (although we lose two after our second week, and another one at the end of our fourth).  Having more voices in the room offers up a wonderful array of ideas, but it can also slow down the process considerably.  Surprisingly, that hasn’t been the case here.  We spent the first week world building, as planned, and are now poised to start our story breaking.  I’ll be very interested to see what kind of a pace we set with our first episode.

Ideally, we average an episode every two days and get all ten episodes done by end of day Friday, October 12th.  In a less ideal but altogether acceptable alternate scenario, we get nine episodes broken, leaving me to break the season finale later, at a time when the creative can be directed by some of the production developments (ie. A breakout performance by an Android character far surpasses my initial plans for her, inspiring me to build up her role and pay off her arc).

Those are the options.

I mean, it could very well be that we spend a week on the pilot episode, laying all the groundwork, and then positively fly through the rest of the season.  Sure, that’s possible.  And I’ll reassure myself with this thought if things don’t move…quite as quickly as I’d hoped.  But I’m heading into Monday feeling pretty damn confident.

As confident as I felt last weekend when I played the New Orleans defense at home against the lowly Tampa Bay Buccaneers in my fantasy league.  And we all know how that turned out.

Note: I did not turn out well.

Stay tuned for Tuesday’s update!

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Week #1 Complete!

That’s a wrap on our first week of the writers’ room for this new sci-fi series and I do love the way thing are coming along.  We’ve completed our world building discussions and characters arcs and can now look forward to four weeks of spinning and breaking.  I’m curious to see how quickly things move from here.

Now it’s been suggested that I complain too much about lunch so I’d like to switch things up today by being positive.  If you love steamed cauliflower, you would have liked today’s lunch offering.  The same goes for all you corn and tomato salad fans out there.  As for the rest of us, it was Burgers Priest on me!

Well, as expected, my reading has really suffered of late.  Between this job and my continued commitment to fantasy football, I’ve only been able to finish a mere three books this week.  Shameful.

Oh, speaking of fantasy football, you’ll be pleased to hear my Snow Monkeys won out in Week 1 and are presently undefeated across both League of Accommodation and A League of Our Own as we head into Week 2.

Yeah, that’s the stuff!

 

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Dinner with the Writers!

Last night, we took a break from the pitching and spinning and spitballing and hatching and devising and scheming and planning and plotting and complaining about lunch to go out for a nice dinner compliments of our hosts (and series Execs) Andrea and Ashley.

I have to admit, I was a little…concerned going into the writers’ room for this show considering the number of voices and the fact that many of them were strangers to me, but I have to admit I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how well it’s all working out.  It’s a room full of diverse voices with very different, equally wonderful ideas, all very collaborative and easy to work with.  We’ve barely finished our first week together and I already know I’m going to miss each and every one of them.  Except, perhaps, for Ivon who I’ll still see on weekends because he has NFL RedZone.

A great time was had by all.  Maybe a little too great because more than a few of us were pretty damn exhausted by the time 4:30 p.m. rolled around.  Still, it was another amazing  day that saw us continue our world building,  break down a couple of our main character arcs, and still find time for cookies and donuts.  Talk about multi-tasking!

Following up on Ivon’s recent issues with the guy across the hall (see Monday’s blog entry – #LiquidAss).  Ivon is undecided as to whether or not he should press charges.  He’s leaning towards NOT pressing charges and simply putting up with this weirdo while  I believe he SHOULD press charges – or give Shitty McStinkerson the option of moving out.  What do you think Ivon should do?

Take Our Poll

P.S. I was stung by a wasp.  Please post your thoughts and sympathies in the comments section below.

 

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Week’s Best Comic Book Covers!

These were my favorites…

Li’L Gotham Batman Day 2018 #1 (cover art by Dustin Nguyen)

Batman: White Knight – Batman Day 2018 #1 (cover art by Sean Murphy)

Domino #6 (cover art by Greg Land)

House of Whispers #1 (cover art by Sean A. Murray)

Orcs & Goblins vol. 3 Gri’im (cover art by Stephane Crety)

Volition #2 (cover art by Omar Francia)

Wasted Space #5 (cover art by Hayden Sherman)

So, which were your faves?

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September 12, 2018: Week’s Best Comic Book Covers!

These were my favorites…

Li’L Gotham Batman Day 2018 #1 (cover art by Dustin Nguyen)

Batman: White Knight – Batman Day 2018 #1 (cover art by Sean Murphy)

Domino #6 (cover art by Greg Land)

House of Whispers #1 (cover art by Sean A. Murray)

Orcs & Goblins vol. 3 Gri’im (cover art by Stephane Crety)

Volition #2 (cover art by Omar Francia)

Wasted Space #5 (cover art by Hayden Sherman)

So, which were your faves?

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The World’s Saddest Sandwich!

Today was the second day of the UF Writer’s Room and I’m pleased to report things are coming along nicely.  So far as the show’s creative is concerned anyways.  Lunches, on the other hand, are a work in progress.

While I appreciate the sentiment of catered lunches (“Ooooh, catered lunches!”), I am forced to point out that, for the most part, they range from mediocre to just downright disappointing.  It’s always: the sandwich tray, the salad, the other salad, the fruit and cheese plate.  Unfortunately, they’re usually the type of sandwiches one might find at a retirement home or in a hospital lobby’s vending machine.  The flavor profile is is always the same: ennui, malaise and processed cheese.

But today’s sad sandwich offering was truly the saddest of them all.  Feast your eyes on this culinary marvel –

I mean, technically, yes, it is a sandwich in so far as it IS a couple of things sandwiched between some bread, but I feel it’s not really a sandwich in spirit.  I could almost imagine the caterer muttering: “Fuck these guys!” as he slapped it together this morning, an undeniable message of utter scorn and contempt to be delivered between noon and 1 p.m., pre-wrapped and cut in half for sharing.

I can’t help but see this sorrowful offering as a desperate cry for help from someone who has clearly hit rock-bottom, a perhaps once vibrant chef now wallowing in the monochrome misery of angst and utter hopelessness, their somber existence reduced to one paper thin slice of tomato, two sprigs of limpid greens, and soggy focaccia.

On the bright side, Akemi made brownies for the room – but kept all the end pieces for herself as she can’t fathom westerners them.

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Day #1 of the UF Writers’ Room!

Day #1 of the UF Writers’ Room is complete, and what a day it was.

THIS was the view out the boardroom window when I got in this morning following a brisk 30 minutes walk from my place.  Between home and work, my royal blue suit had transformed to a deep ocean blue.  Was this a bad omen?  Was worse to come?

Thankfully, no.  It was one hell of a writers’ room, with some 13 diverse voices in all.  Over the course of our first day, we focused on world building, covering everything from the city’s history to The Exemplar – factionalism and populism, the anachronistic and the futuristic, technology and chaos.

Off to a terrific start.  Tomorrow, we continue our general discussion, break down some big ideas, and lay the groundwork for Episode 1.

On an unrelated front, I am a witness to a criminal investigation.  The other day, I was at my buddy Ivon’s place when I was overwhelmed by a noxious stench.  No, as it turns out, it wasn’t Ivon but something else entirely.  Or should I say someone else entirely.  Just prior to the offending odor, I heard someone walk by in the corridor so I immediately suspected foul play – specifically, someone who had taken exception to Ivon leaving his door ajar for ventilation purposes was subjecting him to chemical attack.

I know, I know.  Sounds crazy.  But Ivon went down and complained to the concierge who reviewed the surveillance tapes and – Yes!  Crazy as it sounds, one of Ivon’s neighbors was caught on video doing just that, walking by his open door and spraying some sort of funky concoction into his apartment.  According to the concierge, building management could only give this individual a warning UNLESS Ivon got the police involved.

Which he did.  So I’m waiting for the call to go down and offer my firsthand account so we can nail this bastard.

Will keep you posted!

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