Day 1: Job Hunt

As you may have seen on my Twitter feed, I’m now in Los Angeles, throwing my job net over the metropolis known as L.A., and all I’ve caught are crabs… wait a second… In the weeks leading up to moving, I began to realize my resume sucked, so I had been desperately re-tuning it to showcase my abilities. If anything positive comes out of job hunting, it’s that you spend hours pouring over 2-sheets of papers and over analyzing whether every word conveys who you are, so eventually you’re able to summarize your accomplishments pretty well.

Yahoo recently posted an article of 5 steps to help your job hunt. Of course it would be more helpful if they were new suggestions I hadn’t already seen. But what’s interesting to note was the large percent of people who said they’re unhappy with their new job. Bad sign for a lot of companies once the economy turns around.

I’m glad I’m beginning my job search before college seniors graduate in the spring, although it may not make that much of a difference. With a recent job I applied for, I went through the interview process and found out later who I was up against — people with years and years of experience, and they were all fighting me over a part time job. It’s brutal out there.

With all that said, I just have to keep at it. I spent several hours today calling production offices, searching online sites, and contacting recruiters. We’ll see where all these roads lead.

RIP Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien

And just like that, he’s gone. It’s been an interesting few weeks with all the back and forth negotiations between NBC and Conan, with Leno and Letterman stirred in. There was always a small hope of mine that perhaps they could figure out some alternative plan and keep Conan around, but apparently it wasn’t in the cards. I’m glad I was able to at least participate in history, as one of the first audience members to ever see his show, and now a small group who ever attended during its brief run. Perhaps now my Tonight Show hat and ticket are worth something.

For those who haven’t watched the final episode, small spoiler alert — Will Ferrell sings a cover of Free Bird with one of the ZZ Tops, Beck, and Ben Harper, along with Conan and the tonight show band. I thought it was an appropriate song, especially since it belongs to Lynyrd Skynyrd, who only got to experience a few years of success before a horrible plane crash that killed several members.

Part of Conans downfall that caused him to bleed viewers was that he abandoned his form — what made his success. He hardly brought any of the characters or skits with him to LA. He felt that those wouldn’t be kosher during an 11:30 time slot, but what only ended up happening was he alienated himself from his fan base and made a generic late night show for the Leno audience. Problem is his humor doesn’t appeal to the Leno audience. Even Conan toned down, they still aren’t into him. Perhaps he’ll be better suited on another network though, and be able to return to what made him a success — random, ridiculous skits that don’t attempt to be anything but funny.

De-constructing Comedy

Today when I tried to access my admin controls for the blog, I forgot the login information. Perhaps that’s a sign it’s been too long? Nevertheless, I thought I’d discuss learning and writing comedy.

After reading articles/books, watching lots of films, and working on my own scripts, I would think it would be easy to understand that ‘main stream’ jokes don’t work for me. As amusing as a typical Two and a Half men episode may be, I know at least half the punch lines before they even say them. I think half the jokes of a sitcom are going to contain the ’structure’ of the same joke you’ve heard a million times before. That’s why whether or not your joke succeeds, you also need to write for characters that the audience cares about, so they care to see what happens to them during the story.

Over the last year or two, whenever I hear a joke/situation that catches me off guard, I’ll write it down, and deconstruct it. What was funny about it? Was it the content of the joke or just how it was said? Having the right delivery is a huge component of selling the joke or letting it fail. By keeping track of these, I’ll eventually internalize the structure and apply them to jokes I write without even thinking about it.

Getting back to the topic of jokes that don’t work for me, it’s not that they aren’t funny, it’s just amusing. I know the jokes there, but it doesn’t surprise me. When Conan O’Brien was on ‘Inside the Actor’s Studio’ he talked about this. He’d be in the writer’s room, and a fellow writer would be pitching his joke or skit, and with a dead pan face, Conan would tell him that’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard.

But Conan also touched on another thing, improv. He feels that even the most brilliant thing written and planned out ahead of time won’t get as many laughs as something that’s in the moment.

I had never thought of it that way but I can see his point. As you watch something unexpectedly unfold, it catches you off guard. It’s like when you’re hanging out with your buddies, and somebody cracks a joke and everybody gets a huge laugh. If you go home and write that situation out on paper, it’s probably not that funny, which confuses people because they figure if they’re funny in person, they can write funny too.

My LA Visit

This last week I spent some time in LA/Hollywood/Burbank to do some sight seeing with friends and meet with some people. My blog has been a bit neglected, but my Twitter is always busy with updates. This trip also gave me a chance to begin to familiarize myself with the town, figure out my next step, all of that. I’ve never been a fan of California; I think the con’s far outweigh the pro’s. BUT, and it’s a huge but, it’s where the film/tv industry is, and suffering through the living conditions is worth pursuing work that I’m passionate about.

On Monday we attended Conan O’Brien’s very first taping for the Tonight Show. It was fun being part of history and getting a nice souvenir hat. That being said, I didn’t realize how much waiting was involved, between arriving & the taping started we were waiting for 4 hours. Not to mention we were by far not the first ones to arrive. Too much standing around to do it often, but for a once in a lifetime opportunity… it was worth it.

Blog Upkeep

Who would have known how much work it is to keep a blog going? It’s like when you start a script, but you keep putting it off, first by days, then weeks, and you just feel guilty the whole time. I think the Spammers now officially visit my blog more often than I do, lucky for me the Spam filter is my trusty bodyguard.

Twitter really does seem like the new ‘it’ thing. Before it was building your own web page, then blogs, and now Twitter. Unfortunately Twitter still has a ways to go with dealing with the growing pains that other similar services have fought, that is, poor content and spammers. But the people who stick it out and continue to be active will make visiting the site worthwhile.

Later this month I’ll be traveling to LA for some sight seeing as well as begin to figure out my plans for moving, but in the mean time I’ll see about putting up some more content on this site.

An Open Challenge

I’d like to issue a challenge to screenwriters who pen teen comedies. Push yourself. Try to do more than dick and fart jokes. I know it’s difficult, give it a shot.

I watched a trailer for another cookie cutter teen comedy, I Love You Beth Cooper. I had a couple ‘heh’s, but that’s about it. The whole shock humor genre is on its way out, and some recent teen flops (Sex Drive, College) are the flare. I think American Pie really led the charge, which was released 10 years ago! Although to give it credit, the story/characters were much more interesting and genuine then the million imitations we’ve come to see since it’s release.

You can tell the comedy tide is shifting, when Judd Apatow’s latest film is not like anything he’s done. He’s already been there, done that with 40 Year Old Virgin/Knocked Up/Superbad. It’s time to no longer only appeal to the lowest common denominator. Judd has been somewhat of a trend leader with the resurgence of R-rated comedies, so it’s interesting to see him lead off in a different way.

Just my two cents on it all; I’m sick of seeing movies greenlit who’s plot is as paper thin as its characters with jokes that were written by 8-year-olds, for 8-year-olds.

Adventureland: The Review

I’ll say this right up front: Miramax had no freaking clue how to market this film. While it’s from Greg Mottola, director of Superbad, it doesn’t have the vulgar insults and laughs that film had. It’s instead a more sincere coming of age story, but what you’ll think watching the trailer — especially the Redband one — is that its just like his former movie, and there lies the disappointment.

Another minor complaint I had was with the lead actor, Jesse Eisenberg. It felt like he was trying to perform in a role that Michael Cera practically invented — and had the charisma of a wet mop for the first half of the film. He let people kick him in the balls, no retaliation, and seemed like he was on prozac the whole time… just floating along.

That’s with the entire film does — just floats along. It’s not a bad film and I don’t regret watching it, but there are no big twists and it sticks pretty close to the predictable formula. When you see the ads on TV for this ‘comedy’, just remember, they’re using the Greek definition: a story with a happy or cheerful ending.

Inside An Unfamiliar World

Last week I went and saw I Love You, Man for a second time. Since I had only seen it a month prior, I knew all the punches, turns, etc, so as I watched it I looked at different things. How they set up shots, the structure of the film, and the character arcs.

One thing I was reminded of by the film is how many successful movies give the audience a glimpse into a foreign world. In the film, Paul Rudd is a real estate agent, as well as a huge ‘Rush’ fan, which is a passion he shares with Jason Segel. These details aren’t thrown in for the sake of it, but instead played upon and paid off later while also making the characters stand out.

Whether it’s a foreign ‘world’ to us, or we just learn new and interesting things, it’s always nice to have some details in a movie to give it a unique flare.

Hollywood's Big Six & The Future

I just finished reading Time magazines article on “The End of Excess,” and one part that particularly struck me was that during the 70’s, a time of renewed entrepreneurship and creative thinkers, Microsoft and Apple were formed. So I began to think, how can a business today do things in a fresh and more efficient way than it’s already being done?

For starters, I think it’s time for a period of selling off. I’m talking about the big six. When people talk about Hollywood Studios, they’re more often referring to Warner Bros., Fox, Disney, Sony, Paramount and Universal. What’s happened is studios are now owned by huge conglomerates. Universal/NBC is owned by GE, Fox by News Corp, Sony… duh, Disney… double duh, Paramount owned by Viacom, and Warner Bros. by Time Warner.

Your asking, so what, why does it matter they’re owned by a bigger company, more exposure right? Well lets look at it this way. When GE sees profits shrink up in their Aviation/Industrial/Railway division (pick one), they need to divert funds from other segments of their company to help things out. As a result, Universal is forced to layoff. This doesn’t only occur at Universal as you can imagine. Not only do people lose their jobs, but fewer projects are getting the green light as they make cut backs. Variety has reported that 2011 will see a cutback of films being released. Granted, the credit crisis is one factor in the equation, but doesn’t help nonethless.

In my opinion, I think it would be better if the studios went back to being independently owned. Despite the economic recession, box office sales are doing just as good as any other recent year, so why not take advantage of the market? Allowing a company to be judged solely on the performance of its executives/talent/products is the only way to do business, instead of just lumping it together with the other unrelated (losing) branches.

Twitter: The New Blog

I’ve been trying to figure out what the draw is to people using Twitter. I like to think of it as a blog for the “txt mssge” generation. The people who typically operate blogs (like myself), and people who are big into text messaging (the tweens), are not that far off in age, but Twitter provides another venue for people to share their views without having to write several paragraphs. After all, people are reading far less these days, and short and lean is always favored over long winded (Sorry Faulkner). Throughout the day I’ve got funny ideas or things happen to me that aren’t very blog worthy, but it’ll make the cut for twitter!

Of course there’s a downside to twitter. I do not care what you had for any meals, if you are going #1 or #2, or anything extremely trivial. Anything that every person on earth does every day is not news worthy.

It’ll be interesting to see if the site becomes stronger or if it becomes a fad/novelty of the 2000’s.