Showbiz Wednesday
I heard today that the Aquaman TV series, called Mercy Reef, was not picked up by the network. I haven’t heard the reasons why, but there was so much talk about it before hand and then the casting to finally get to pilot and not have it picked up has to be a disappointment to not only everyone involved, but to a lot of the comic fans. Aquaman has never gotten the respect that other characters his age have earned. Heck, I even had to look up the name of the characters creator: Paul Norris.
This shows how fickle the TV industry can be. Would the show have made it if the WB and UPN hadn’t merged? I don’t know. There are now less hours of network programming needed with the merger so maybe. But then again, if the pilot wasn’t good enough to make it on its own, would we want it on the air if it was just ‘the best of the worst’? I’m hoping that the pilot will be ‘leaked’ or maybe the series could go to syndication… but with the budget that would be needed for the series I would doubt it.
I follow Warren Ellis’ comments that he mails out every day or so. He’s talking about two different television projects he’s involved in. One seems close to a done deal, the other he’s less optimistic about… but since both are still in the early stages, and after seeing what happened with Global Frequencies, I would think Warren would be pessimistic about everything having to do with television until the show actually aired. I finally sat down and read the Global Frequencies mini-series yesterday… can’t believe that it didn’t work as a TV series.
I have a television concept of my own that we’re about to start pitching around to the studios or whomever we pitch them to. Television is a completely new industry for me so I’m just doing whatever my manager suggests and keeping my fingers crossed. He told me that having a completed pilot script would help us so I sat down and wrote one. That was an interesting experience. It’s a lot different than writing a comic. In a comic you tell the artist what you want to see in each panel and basically direct the shot and the artist comes in and films it. In television, you set up where they are, what time of day and an occasional movement, other than that it’s all dialogue. That really takes some getting used to. Also, there is a very standard format for writing a screenplay in. Luckily programs like Final Draft make the formatting easier.
I think the thing I enjoyed the most about working on a screenplay was casting the characters in my head. Sometimes it’s important to hear how the dialogue would sound and the easiest way to do that is to put someone you know (personally or on the screen) into the character and visualize the scene with them in it. I ended up with a very odd mix of people playing out the show in my head. John Laroquette, D B Sweeny, and ex-girlfriend and my grandmother… like those four people would ever be in a room together in real life.
I heard today that the Aquaman TV series, called Mercy Reef, was not picked up by the network. I haven’t heard the reasons why, but there was so much talk about it before hand and then the casting to finally get to pilot and not have it picked up has to be a disappointment to not only everyone involved, but to a lot of the comic fans. Aquaman has never gotten the respect that other characters his age have earned. Heck, I even had to look up the name of the characters creator: Paul Norris.
This shows how fickle the TV industry can be. Would the show have made it if the WB and UPN hadn’t merged? I don’t know. There are now less hours of network programming needed with the merger so maybe. But then again, if the pilot wasn’t good enough to make it on its own, would we want it on the air if it was just ‘the best of the worst’? I’m hoping that the pilot will be ‘leaked’ or maybe the series could go to syndication… but with the budget that would be needed for the series I would doubt it.
I follow Warren Ellis’ comments that he mails out every day or so. He’s talking about two different television projects he’s involved in. One seems close to a done deal, the other he’s less optimistic about… but since both are still in the early stages, and after seeing what happened with Global Frequencies, I would think Warren would be pessimistic about everything having to do with television until the show actually aired. I finally sat down and read the Global Frequencies mini-series yesterday… can’t believe that it didn’t work as a TV series.
I have a television concept of my own that we’re about to start pitching around to the studios or whomever we pitch them to. Television is a completely new industry for me so I’m just doing whatever my manager suggests and keeping my fingers crossed. He told me that having a completed pilot script would help us so I sat down and wrote one. That was an interesting experience. It’s a lot different than writing a comic. In a comic you tell the artist what you want to see in each panel and basically direct the shot and the artist comes in and films it. In television, you set up where they are, what time of day and an occasional movement, other than that it’s all dialogue. That really takes some getting used to. Also, there is a very standard format for writing a screenplay in. Luckily programs like Final Draft make the formatting easier.
I think the thing I enjoyed the most about working on a screenplay was casting the characters in my head. Sometimes it’s important to hear how the dialogue would sound and the easiest way to do that is to put someone you know (personally or on the screen) into the character and visualize the scene with them in it. I ended up with a very odd mix of people playing out the show in my head. John Laroquette, D B Sweeny, and ex-girlfriend and my grandmother… like those four people would ever be in a room together in real life.
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