"We're in their homes and in their heads..."

I did coverage notes for a script a few days ago and caught myself starting to write, "This would be fine for TV but it just isn't quite a movie."  I immediately switched courses but it got me to thinking about why I might consider something to be fine for one medium and not for the other.  (The script was well written, it just didn't have the emotional depth or plot to justify a $15 ticket.)

Why are our standards lower for TV than the movies?  Or aren't they?  “Airwolf” vs. “Firebirds” is a dead heat and “MacGyver” copied movie plots for the first season (even using movie footage).

There is clearly a difference in production quality and the amount of money spent per hour.  And, until recently, when a movie was finished the story was finished too, whereas with TV it just sort of kept going as long as advertisers would still pay for it.  And if you were a film actor you didn't do TV -- until about 1998.  So if film is so much better, why even bother with TV?

You could argue availability -- even with videotapes there wasn't exactly an endless supply of new content.  But now there is.  I could log into Netflix and watch a different movie every night for the rest of my life.  Most of them are awful, but I could.  Which brings up the question, if those movies really are awful, why bother with them at all instead of just watching…TV?

I've been reading pundits who argue that TV is now the superior format because you can address more characters with more depth and run a longer plot arc -- (“24”, “Lost”, and “Breaking Bad” all support this thesis).  Others point to CGI tentpoles like “Ironman 3” and say, "As good as ‘Agents of Shield’ is, it's still television.”

I think it depends on the show and the movie.  Any Bruce Lee movie is going to be better than an episode of “The Master.”  By the same token, any episode of “Arrested Development” is going to be funnier than a movie with John Candy in it.  And it won't take nearly as long to get there.

But maybe not.  Maybe what we see is that there are two different ways to tell stories.  “Firefly” was a popular show, but not popular enough.  Yet the movie “Serenity” was a huge hit for a larger audience.  It was a story better suited to film.  Most folks are done with zombies by the end of “Last Man Standing”, but they'll tune in season after season for “The Walking Dead.”

I guess it comes down to the fact that if you pick the right format, you've got a winner.  Pick the wrong one and my Netflix slush pile expands with content that sounds good, but isn’t ever quite good enough for me to get to.

"There's a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff."

So on the coldest day yet this century, indeed, this millennium, my train was switched to the track opposite the station.  To add frostbite to exposure, it was 10 minutes late.  I put my hands on my ears when I got into the train just to warm them up and had to stop because it was making my hands too cold.

Yes, I should have had a hat.  I actually had one with me.  But my hair is too long to wear a hat and not have to fix it again and...

I started reading the script for "Double Indemnity" on the ride home last night.  It was really good, hooked me straight away.  I had my wife put it on our queue.  It was streamable so last night after a few thousand Russian swings at the gym, we watched it.

It's a 1944 thriller starting Fred MacMurray and that dame, Barbra Stanwick.  Two things really stood out from the picture show, the first was that it was a swell movie, even 70 years into it.  The second was that watching it immediately after reading the script was the cat’s meow.  I kept telling my wife what was about to happen -- just enough in advance to show off (think George Costanza and Jeopardy) but not ruin the story.  I had to stop though.  It was annoying.  Just like my attempt at 1940s slang in this post.

I noted several places where scenes were slightly changed or cut -- but also where it played exactly like it was written.  I felt like somebody raised the blinds in the room I've been writing screenplays in.  The direct comparison was enlightening.  Enriching.

The script had several sections of voice over which were written side-by-side with the action sequences they went with.  It was very good at showing the pacing, but harder to read than the modern style of breaking up the narration text.  But it works.  I think that if I were to write a period piece, I’d write the script using that format.

The dialogue is fantastic, short and choppy, filled with innuendo (the rules of decency required that certain words and topics never be discussed) that conveyed tremendous meaning to an adult paying attention but would have slipped over the heads of any young tykes watching from the back of the Plymouth at the drive-in.

The characters were well drawn.  I especially liked Keyes.  If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend the film.  It's in black and white, has been reformatted to fit your television screen, and doesn't contain a single profanity.  I dare say it is superior to "The Maltese Falcon."

If you want a copy of the script, send me an email and I'll share my PDF with you.

" Gee whiz, Professor!"

Have you ever wondered how long it took Gilligan to get the Minnow completely lost?  Sure, we all know it was a three hour tour, but how long is that, really?

I'll tell you.  It's the amount of time it takes to travel 8 miles on I-95.

Am I suggesting that they were wrecked a mere 8 miles from where they were supposed to be?  You tell me... I don't know what traffic is like in Hawaii.  But something tells me I'd like to find out.  They aren't being sucked into the Polar Vortex of Doom like the rest of the country.

Speaking of Vortexes of Doom, I am getting a bit impatient for my next "acceptance letter."  This is taking a bit too long to transition from polite rejection to "here's some cash for your train ticket."  I currently have 7 or 8 pieces out for consideration.  I'm actually sort of thrilled that I don't recall the exact count without checking my roster.  A good friend put me on to the philosophy of a very successful and prolific author whose mantra was, "If I'm in the mail, I'm alive."

Of course, with lots of stuff in the mail, you have to track it.  Most editors don't like you to send the same story to more than one market at a time and none of them like to see the same story more than once -- without explicit invitation -- so it's vitally important that you remember where your pieces are and who has already seen them.

I use Excel for that.  I created the spreadsheet in Quattro Pro back in 2001 or 2002, and then converted it around 2004.  Back then it only had about 10 markets and a half dozen stories.  I would mark the grid with the date I sent the story to a specific market and color code it pending.  When the rejection came back I'd mark it... rejected.  When I had the one acceptance I marked that too, but since it was the only one for a decade, that was sort me being a bit, um, you know the word.

Now the spreadsheet has grown to a score of markets and an equal number of stories.  I've added markings for the markets that allow multiple submissions and another for rejections that were accompanied by comments.  It's getting a little convoluted.

I'm also a data hound.  I love data.  Can't get enough of it.  I look for trends in everything and while my desk may not be the most orderly (it isn't messy, exactly), I'm obsessive about organizing data.  I'm going to have to convert my roster to Access so that I can track more data points but still keep it organized.

Then, when I don't feel like writing prose, I can write queries that will tell me all sorts of statistics about my submission history and pretend that the insight is going to make me a better author.