Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Hey, Is That Where Google Got Its Name?

Been working on developing a pilot for a new history/anthropology show for a few days straight now and my brain’s starting to get googly.

As I’ve posted about before, this is where the creation of a TV show gets difficult: when you need to create a verbal pitch and written documents that quickly and clearly illustrate that it’s not just a cool idea, but a compelling, fresh television show that’s easy to visualize from start to finish -– and will last multiple seasons, constantly building ratings and staying relevant and on-brand, in an increasingly fickle world. Oh, and be producible for essentially no money. And we can start yesterday, if you just sign here.

Which is very wiggly work. It, like any good storytelling, is taking something as ephemeral and formless as an idea and turning it into something that exists without you. And I mean without you. Tricky. Lots of mind-wrangling and idea-surfing. Grinding your skateboard of creativity on the handrail of the staircase connecting thought to reality. (As if that staircase exists, says Buddha, chuckling…)

I don’t know what any of that means. But you can see, after you work on it for a while, your brain gets googly.

Great googly moogly even.

So I’m taking a break. Focus on something else for a moment. Allow a fresh perspective to creep in. Free your mind and all that.

So I’ll spend a couple minutes telling you about a little forum we had last night.

In conjunction with the ONFilm festival sponsored by Old Dominion University, the Hampton Roads Film Office set up a panel of independent filmmakers in the area to talk after a showing of Oscar-nominated shorts at the coolest arthouse theater in the area, the Naro (www.narocinema.com).

There were five of us who spoke and took questions about all aspects of making indy movies. It was great to get together with like-minded folks who are navigating some of the same waters, share ideas, horror stories, failures and successes.

In fact, afterwards I proposed doing so on a regular basis. My wife is in a book club and a women investors club. I have friends who are in writer’s groups. AA seems to help an awful lot of people.

There’s no doubting the importance of community, and this is true in the independent film world, too. While reading the blogs of writers and producers is helpful, think how much better it would be if everyone were in the same room.

Which would be easy to do in LA or New York.

But I think we can pull it off in VA, too.

I’ll let you know if it happens, and if it works.

Back to work, googly or no…

1 comment:

glassblowerscat said...

This is why I miss Greg (my own personal AA). And of course, there's his lovely middle-finger personality.