New Internet Radio Show About Screenwriting...Your thoughts?

[stlpixurs]

Hello all you AWers...

I've thought about starting an internet radio show and I wanted to get this communities thoughts on it because the central theme of the show is screenwriting. Below are all the details:

The Ultimate in Screenwriting Collaboration

Script Session, hosted by writer/director/producer Travis Hill, is an internet radio show that will be broadcast live and archived in podcast form using the broadcasting service www.nowlive.com (http://www.nowlive.com). The service allows the host to broadcast live, take calls and boasts an integrated chat room for live discussion.

The format of the show seems simple enough...the host interacts with callers and the chat room in the creation of a short screenplay. During each 2 hour episode, everyone will have a chance to throw their ideas out there and help brainstorm on an idea in a pre-determined genre. At the end of the show, the host will give one of the participants the script notes and they will be charged with writing the short!

I am also looking into finding sponsors for the show, which could eventually lead to the scripts being read by industry professionals and/or put into production.

Thoughts, ideas, suggestions, questions, criticisms?

Post them here or email me at thill@stlpixurs.com.

[Plot Device]

Are you able top earn any sort of a profit from it for yourself? Internet ads maybe? Radio ads during the podcast?

[stlpixurs]

Are you able top earn any sort of a profit from it for yourself? Internet ads maybe? Radio ads during the podcast?

Using the nowlive.com service, no. They see themselves kind of like Myspace, only with the ability to host live radio shows.

There is, however, another service which is working on setting up an ad revenue-sharing system. I currently use this service for my other internet radio show, but it isn't as user-friendly as nowlive.com is.

[gp101]

Even though most screenplays eventually become collaborative works before they get produced, most collaborative writing outside of a "system" usually fails badly. Too many egos, too many opinions, too much BS. Especially amongst strangers, especially if the strangers are newbies.

The "system" of collaborative writing works (well, sometimes) because you have one person (usually) writing the original script, another person(s) doing the rewrite for the studio, and perhaps the director changing it further. But in each step forward, the person who did the last rewrite has little or no say in the new revision. But if you throw all these people in the same room with the same say, and you'll be lucky to get a finished script out. And these are pros. Newbies will rip each other's eyes out.

Good luck anyway.

[stlpixurs]

I don't disagree with you at all GP...

I wonder if you misinterpreted what will take place during each episode.

We won't be doing any script writing during the show. It will be a brainstorming session, where each involved member can throw out ideas about plot, characters, settings, etc. All of that will be collected and then I, the moderator, will designate 1 person to actually do the writing. They will take what they need and discard the rest.

In subsequent episodes, each draft will then reviewed by the group, criticism given, and the writer will go back and do a rewrite. After a third rewrite, then we will see if there is anyone interested in producing it. Simple enough really.

But again, I do agree that a group of strangers attempting to actually write a screenplay could be a sticky situation. And that is why I didn't go that way.

Travis

[gp101]

Travis, I do wish you luck.

Here is what I see might happen:

Travis asks Linda, Tom, Dick, and Harry for suggestions on character developments, plots, etc. Travis takes the suggestions he likes and assigns Linda to write the script. Linda comes back with said script for Tom, Dick, and Harry to opine on. Tom wonders where the fight scene came from--that was never discussed before. Dick wonders what happened to the sex scene he feels needs to be included but is now missing. Harry thinks Linda screwed it up, and he should rewrite it.

Did you watch On The Lot? The reality show for film makers? When they had challenges that forced them to work together in groups on a single scene, there was always tension, usually because there was one dominant (or more than one) artist in each group. THE LEADER mentality, the alpha male. Same thing happens on Survivor, and even in the American Idol show during the early stages when the finalists are grouped into teams and forced to perform together. Rarely do you see a happy group with good manners.

You'd be better off to take peoples' suggestions, put together an outline yourself, then maybe take it back to group for more opinions and then write the script yourself. There's little room for democracy when creating art, IMO. You must be the benevolant dictator. Find out what the people want, give them some say, then do it yourself. Otherwise, you may have a revolution on your hands.

Good luck with your show.

[Mac H.]

I've gotta admit the show isn't grabbing my attention.

The first thing the blurb mentions is the name of the writer/producer/director who is hosting it, so I guess he must be pretty famous ... but I can't find anything he's written/produced/directed in IMDB.

If the host isn't a big drawcard for this show, then it might be better to not to mention it at the very top.

Also - how many callers would you need for this process to work? A recent example of an online chat event which gave the chance to get tips from a well known and incredibly prolific writer/producer only got perhaps 15-20 participants ... and not all of them would be able to hang around for two hours to contribute, let alone make phone calls in to contribute audio for the radio bit of the show. You may find the show has only about 10 callers over the 2 hours ... about one every 12 minutes.

There again .. since it is 100% free to run and participate, why shouldn't a few hobbyists get together to do this?

Good luck,

Mac

[nmstevens]

Even though most screenplays eventually become collaborative works before they get produced, most collaborative writing outside of a "system" usually fails badly. Too many egos, too many opinions, too much BS. Especially amongst strangers, especially if the strangers are newbies.

The "system" of collaborative writing works (well, sometimes) because you have one person (usually) writing the original script, another person(s) doing the rewrite for the studio, and perhaps the director changing it further. But in each step forward, the person who did the last rewrite has little or no say in the new revision. But if you throw all these people in the same room with the same say, and you'll be lucky to get a finished script out. And these are pros. Newbies will rip each other's eyes out.

Good luck anyway.

Well, there are other systems in which collaborative writing works. Certainly there are writing partnerships that have been very successful. But in those cases, you're only dealing with a couple of people, as a rule, and the responsibilities are parsed out -- who does what, how decisions are made, how "ties" are broken in the case of disagreements.

Also, in TV writing, you have staffs of writers in which stories are presented at open meetings and input is received from a number of people before one individual goes off to write -- sometimes one writer will end up with story credit, another writer, or two writers will end up with teleplay credit -- depending on who ultimately did what.

But in that case, you have a showrunner who controls all of that and makes the final determination of what ideas get picked, who does what, how it all shakes out.

The question that occurs to me is - what is the end result intended to be?

When I write a screenplay, that's not the end result. That's really just the beginning. My goal is to come up with something that I can take out and sell.

What would be the point of this screenplay written by dozens of different people? Who would own it? Who would have rights to it? How could you ever sell it, presuming by some miracle that it was good enough to try to sell?

And I think that anyone who's ever tried one of those "you start a story" and it sort of goes around a table -- it always degenerates into a pointless mess after a handful of people. It just gets tugged this way and that way -- nobody really wants to think in large scale story terms. It's just one dumb thing happening after another until somebody gets bored and says, "And then they all shot one another, the end."

And that's always the problem without one person, or a couple of people with a shared vision of what the story is, what the tone is, what the style is, where it's all going.

Without that leading the process, saying yes, no, and scram to all of the stuff coming in -- I just don't see how it's all going to work.

And even then, I don't know how interesting it's going to be.

I mean -- writing a screenplay, however you cut it and slice it, is a process that consists, largely -- of writing.

If you want to try to somehow do it by way of improvising it on-air, you're doing something more akin to an improvisational theatre piece.

Which is fine, I guess -- but it's not writing.

NMS

[NikeeGoddess]

you want to hear some great podcasts on screenwriters with real working screenwriters for free - go here: http://www.creativescreenwriting.com/podcasts/instr.html