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In honor of tomorrow, 'Weird Al' Yankovic's "Eat It" for Due South
YouTube ^

Posted on 11/22/2017 10:35:20 AM PST by mairdie

Another "Eat It" for Man from Uncle. And if you're still hungry, Weird Al's "Lasagna" for Starsky and Hutch.


TOPICS: Music/Entertainment; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: fanvid; musicvideo
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To: mairdie

William Christopher was a fine choice to play Mulcahy, such a good and decent person and it carried over to his acting.

I didn’t know there was a rock version of Metropolis, I’ll have to look for it. Good Bonnie Tyler song, too, hadn’t heard it before now.

Birdhouse looks like fun, beats my old treehouses. Though I’d be careful of walking under it; I can barely handle pigeon droppings.

Learned how to write in the dark in film school. Editing - the physical part - is a lot easier in the digital age. If you haven’t seen it yet this is a great documentary on film editing:
“The Cutting Edge”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U76MBDKQe8s

And here’s a snippet from a Youtube vid showing how the “round up the usual suspects” ending scene in “Casablanca” was edited so it would work best.
http://bit.ly/2B6nEln

Dialogue can be tough, depending on the story. Generally it’s about 1 page per minute. But when writing for something such as the 80s “Moonlighting” series, where the dialogue was quick and sometimes ran over other character’s lines, the 1 page per/min rule of thumb gets thrown out the window.


21 posted on 11/22/2017 5:43:00 PM PST by LouieFisk
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To: LouieFisk
>>Dialogue can be tough, depending on the story. Generally it's about 1 page per minute. But when writing for something such as the 80s "Moonlighting" series, where the dialogue was quick and sometimes ran over other character's lines, the 1 page per/min rule of thumb gets thrown out the window.

I had two movie screenplays being sent around in Hollywood. After the class I sent out query letters and had 17 agents ask to read. 7 offered representation and I went with John Grisham's NYC book agent for a 2 year/no way out contract. They subbed me out to Writers & Artists. But one of the agents I turned down offered to get a script to the producer of Forever Knight with my agent's permission, so I studied dialog for the show by transcribing half a dozen episodes and comparing that with the purchased scripts so that I knew how the actors preferred to say the lines. Then I got my lengths by getting max and min for the commercial break sections. Bryan mailed on Tuesday and James Parriott called him on Thursday asking about my credits. I didn't have any and he wanted a Canadian writer. But it was glorious.

Forever Knight: Good Night, Sweet Prince
22 posted on 11/22/2017 5:56:55 PM PST by mairdie
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To: mairdie

“so I studied dialog for the show by transcribing half a dozen episodes and comparing that with the purchased scripts so that I knew how the actors preferred to say the lines.”

That’s really an excellent idea to get a handle on what’s needed. Writing for performance can be quite tough - there are so many variables, so it’s great to able to have some examples to serve as a reference-guideline.

Carl Reiner wrote a book & made a film about his getting into entertainment. He titled it “Enter Laughing”. In his inexperience when he first tried out for a part, he read the stage direction out loud (”enter laughing”) as his first line.

I would usually catch Forever Knight, Dark Justice and the other “Crimetime After Primetime” late eve offerings. Good watchin’.


23 posted on 11/22/2017 6:29:24 PM PST by LouieFisk
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To: mairdie

Adam Sandler - The Thanksgiving Song
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=47e91Nc0Mag


24 posted on 11/22/2017 6:34:41 PM PST by moviefan8
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To: LouieFisk

>>”Crimetime After Primetime”

Forgot all about that! Loved it!

I really didn’t believe the screenwriting teacher about dialog being mostly partial sentences, so I started typing up conversations I was having with people. Luckily I’m a speed typist. That turned out to be another great learning device.

One trick the teacher taught was finding an image of your character in a magazine, cutting it out and putting it over your keyboard. Then when you wrote, you kept glancing at the image to keep consistency with that particular character.

Another thing I do when I’m writing and I need to hold a mood is put a piece of music on infinite repeat and use that to smooth out my mood.


25 posted on 11/22/2017 6:37:45 PM PST by mairdie
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To: moviefan8

Totally, completely, absolutely BIZARRE! Never seen that.


26 posted on 11/22/2017 6:41:45 PM PST by mairdie
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To: mairdie

I think “Dark Justice” was my fave of the revolving shows. Mostly the first year with Ramy Zada playing the judge.

Yeah, I expect writing out full sentences works primarily for books - except for parts containing dialogue. We usually don’t talk back & forth in the same way we write. The “screwball comedies” of the 30s were full of the ping-pong interruptions.

One of my favorite examples of both good dialogue interaction and clever editing is this quick bit from the Universal classic “Dracula”. Immedialtely after the character Jonathon asks Professor Van Helsing what could have caused “those marks” on Mina’s neck, the female house servant announces a visitor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTr8dXob7YI

I wish I had your keyboard skills. I’m a two-fingered wonder who has to go at it with pen and paper before a thought is gone. But, yeah, there are some fine mental prompts and tricks that help to get the creative juices pumping. I imagine just about every writer has his favorite devices.


27 posted on 11/22/2017 7:07:21 PM PST by LouieFisk
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To: mairdie

It is different.

He sang a couple of other songs and will look for them either tomorrow or Friday.


28 posted on 11/22/2017 7:24:23 PM PST by moviefan8
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To: LouieFisk

I had to fight for my keyboard skills. In my high school I was in the college track so no one would let me take typing. I knew it would be as fundamental for me as the alphabet, so I went to the public school every summer and took it there. It was possible to avoid mistakes, but at great emotional cost. The teacher would stand at my desk and tell me that it was OK to mistype something. Then I practiced constantly. I fell asleep typing my thoughts on the covers and, when I was with someone, I’d type our conversation on my lap. I’ll still occasionally find myself typing my thoughts on a table.


29 posted on 11/22/2017 7:28:17 PM PST by mairdie
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To: mairdie

Wow. I could never work myself up to that level of commitment to learn typing. To me it’s a necessary evil. But I do pretty well picking away with 2 to 4 digits. Good for you, tho.


30 posted on 11/22/2017 7:55:40 PM PST by LouieFisk
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To: LouieFisk

No virtue to it. Simple compulsive. But it’s been a useful character trait. Got a lot more done in my life due to being compulsive and to having the best husband in the world supporting whatever I’m doing. He’s a brilliant programmer and still uses your typing style. It gets the job done.


31 posted on 11/22/2017 8:06:07 PM PST by mairdie
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To: mairdie

Adam Sandler- Chanukah Song
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IQY9z4Ko3FE


32 posted on 11/23/2017 9:39:34 AM PST by moviefan8
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