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SWE4: Special Guest - Joss Whedon |
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Written by Clint Johnson
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Saturday, 12 November 2005 |
It seems like Screenwriting Expo 4 suddenly got a couple hundred more
attendees than it had an hour ago and I think it might have something
to do with the young ladies waking around in the “I Belong to
Joss” t-shirts. Yes people, it is time for the Joss to speak.
I'll argue that the man has created the best that television has to
offer but I just don't have the groupie mentality needed to worship the
man... so I didn't bring my copy of the Once More With Feeling script
to be signed. And unless Mutant Enemy is signing my checks I don't
belong to Joss. Okay, so if I could afford it I would pay to work with
him... he still doesn’t own me. So I guess that means he can
rent me or have free use of me... but he doesn't own me. I am
no man's buttmonkey.
That said, I really like that a writer is getting this kind of respect.
Some people get it.
I don't know how early they started camping in front of the
doors but they were about fifty people deep by the time I show up. This
means that I end up sitting about a hundred feet back from the stage.
You combine the distance and the fact that they have dimmed the lights,
and you get a complete lack of blurry pictures or grainy video that
were the highlight of my report
on the session with Tim Minear.
Oh stop your whining, isn't it enough that you get my scintillating
writing?
Don't answer that.
No, seriously, don’t answer that.
Hey, Captain
Tightpants came in with Joss... and he takes the stage.
“I'm very glad to be here in front of you... potential
employees.” Don't worry Nathan, I figure you won't be hurting
for work. Despite what some people were expecting, I don't think the
school of Joss will turn out many Zierings. Even though MSN flags David
Boreanaz with a three Ziering
rating, ‘Bones’ is doing alright. I think
that the “untalented” part is where they got it
wrong.
Back to Nathan and it turns out that he is here to present Joss with
the Science Fiction Writer of the Year award from Creative
Screenwriting Magazine. If he is his own speech writer than Nathan is a
funny man even when Joss isn't putting words in there for him.
So Joss takes the stage to a standing ovation... except for one guy off
to my left who defiantly stays in his seat. That is one brave man, to
tempt the wrath of the Whedon Acolytes. I vow to come to his defense if
he is attacked. Not that I agree with him or anything... just a matter
of principal and defending the freedom of expression. I am a First
Amendment absolutist after all... which you may find odd in a Canadian
but it is a matter of principal and what is right, not what chunk of
dirt I call home.
Joss thanks Nathan for the speech and then complains about Nathan being
funny as well as pretty. It is okay for him to be good looking since
that is expected of leading men, but Joss feels it isn't fair that he
is smart and funny as well.
Joss goes on to talk about getting into the television writing business
and finding that it was “More fun than anything I'd ever
done... and I'd done a lot of drugs.”
He reiterated that he didn't study writing, he studied film. He
dissected them, discussed them and immersed himself in them.
“Genre mixing has always been there, my work is genre
salad.”
Joss talks about how he did a spec for Rosanne and got on Rosanne. He
then tells of the man who told him “It never works to write a
spec for the show you wanted to apply to... except it did work for
me.” So let's see, last night Tim Minear said how his X-Files
script got him working on X-Files and tonight Joss says how he got on
Rosanne with a Rosanne spec... and that they guy who told him not to do
it got his start that way as well. That is a lot of exceptions to the
rule. But maybe it only works with writers of the Tim and Joss caliber.
I don’t think I’m quite there yet.
“Television is a question while film is an answer.”
“I knew they weren't going to keep Firefly on the air... you
have Fastlane, you don't need me! I'll never tire of making fun of
Fastlane - I wake up at two in the morning and do it.” This
gets a laugh and a round of clapping. “This is why I come to
writers conferences, you get applause for bitterness.”
“Once you get something on the air, with your voice, make it
matter... let it mean something.”
He wanted Angel to be stand alone episodes - “Touched by an
Equalizer”. He couldn't write that and “Went to a
soap opera with monsters and vampires.” I personally have
trouble seeing “soap opera” as anything but bad,
the only thing that I associate with soap opera is a shooting schedule
that doesn't allow anyone to do a good job. The writers have to use the
first draft of a rushed script, the actors don't have time to do
anything but regurgitate the words, the director has to accept the
first take where the actors regurgitate without mistakes and the
editors have to shove the episode out the door as soon as it is even
marginally watchable. Soap opera doesn't mean serialized or
melodramatic to me, it means too rushed to be good. Its redeeming
quality may be that it is a brutal training ground for everyone
involved... if you can deliver five episodes a week, one episode a week
would be luxurious.
“Nathan is at ease with his good looks and talent. Me... not
so much. I hate that man... and yet still want him to hold me and
comfort me.”
“David Greenwalt is more responsible for Buffy than anyone
who isn't say... me.”
On building a staff of writers. “The best writers were the
best people... the most decent, caring people.”
“What I look for in a writer is a personal connection. The
script has to have an emotional core that they get.”
On connecting with writers - “Marti - click, Doug Petrie -
click, anyone named Drew.” Hmmm, now I'm wondering on the
hassle involved in legally changing my name? John Clinton Ralph Drew
Johnson... as I always say, can never have to many aliases.
“Tim Minear was the best pitch but I didn't hire him because
he was so full of rage. But then I meet other writers from X-Files and
understood.”
“Tim Minear's episodes for Firefly were dark, dark,
dark.”
On facing down the network. Network - “If Zoe and Wash aren't
married we'll pick up the show.” Joss - “Okay, I'm
fine with that, I'm not making Melrose Space.”
“The most difficult transition from the small screen to the
big screen? Nathan's nostrils... we had to CGI them smaller.”
“On the totem pole of film, the writer is the piece of the
pole that they stick in the ground to hold the pole up. You will be
treated to an unbelievable amount of shit.”
“Tearing my hair out during the shooting of Buffy because of
certain Donald Sutherlands rewriting the script to make no sense
whatsoever.”
“Faster would be better.” That was Nathan's ad lib
contribution to the Serenity script.
“I direct it while I write it. I want the writing of the
script to be like watching the show.”
He hates jokey asides in the script and feels that it takes you right
out of the show. You should write like an actor and mouth the dialog so
that everything is something that can actually come out of a human
mouth.
On Wonder Woman - “The invisible jet will be in my movie, I
promise that.”
“My greatest dream is to do Hamlet.”
On Tim's embarrassing story from last night. - “Let me make
one thing perfectly clear... I made love to the couch. I made it
breakfast afterwards.”
“Fall in love with the moments, not the moves.” He
feels that shows are built around the moments that make you feel and
that cool action moves often got in the way. Moments = situations that
make you feel. Movement = how you get to those moments.
“I left Rosanne because they didn't use any of my scripts. I
wrote six episodes and they used nothing.”
“Shows are run by writers. There are shows run by
their stars... stay away, stay away, stay away from them!”
“There's nobody out there making these little indie genre
shows.” Well, yes we are Joss... my pilot is
exactly what you lament the lack of... but then I'm thinking that you
also expect a certain level of quality as well. Picky bastard.
On his half hour presentation for Buffy - “I had a terribly
crew. It was my first time and I was allowed to be awful, they were
experienced.” Does that mean I was allowed to be awful on my
first shoot? Sweet relief.
“Every episode has a unique meaning that isn't in any other
episode. They might be little things... the only reason may be to get
Willow into an Eskimo outfit and have Oz fall in love with
her.”
After the talk is over, I wanted to go up and tell him that there are
people out here making those little genre shows but there were so many
people crowding around and the organizers were trying to clear the room
for the next event.
Joss gives good speech. While I've already read most of what he said,
it was still interesting to hear it from the man himself. If you are so
inclined, they have a DVD
available and I figure it would be worth it. Hell, I was
there and I'm putting an order in for the DVD.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 24 May 2006 )
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