New stuff.

On The Tragically Hip and How we still need our public broadcaster. 

A Blast From The Past, & Notes from a Canadian TV Libel

Out of mothballs, for one entry only...


So I’ve been libelled by FRANK magazine again.  For those of you who don’t know FRANK, it’s a satire magazine that was briefly-relevant in the early nineties. About a year ago, a much-diminished zombie version lurched to life once more.

The whole thing keys off a relapsing, silly donnybrook between me and a newspaper critic at a certain paper who loves, loves, loves REPUBLIC OF DOYLE. Fair enough.  To each his own, right?

In March 2013, in a shot against the brand-new Canadian Screen Awards, said columnist  suggested the CSA’s were “crooked” because the only nomination REPUBLIC OF DOYLE received that year was for a Guest Starring role by Gordon Pinsent. The writer felt this showed bias against Newfoundland, or the star of the show, or joy, or something.

FRANK picked up on the newspaper story, presumably operating on some inside grumbling, and named me as a person who apparently had the power to keep the show from getting nominated.  The motive, according to FRANK, was bad blood because I was “fired” from Doyle. 

FRANK got just about everything wrong. I’m going to set things straight. But we need a bit of background first.

Back in 2010, I was still blogging about Canadian TV. I’d gotten more careful over the years, and yet I started hearing that people were getting mad at me for “things I’d written.” Only problem was, a lot of the time, these “things I’d written,” I hadn’t written. 

An example: in one story room a writer dissed me to someone they didn’t realize was my friend, claiming I’d written a bunch of terrible things about Republic of Doyle. My friend, who knew I had not written a negative word about RoD since I’d left the show, challenged her to find the blog entry. She instantly backtracked to, “Well, I didn’t read it myself, someone told me…” My friend called up the entry she referenced and read it out loud, pointing out that it didn’t say what she claimed. She changed the subject.

Then, the critic who’d once described me as “thoughtful, learned and provocative about creating Canadian TV” started taking shots at me in print. My little sideline had become a liability. It was time to quit.

Instead, I became much more involved with the Writers Guild of Canada. (I should point out what I write here is speaking for myself, and not on behalf of the WGC.) 

It’s through the WGC that I became briefly involved with the Canadian Screen Awards.

In 2011, Martin Katz and Helga Stephenson took over the award shows presented by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. They were in dire shape.

Under the old system, each award had a chair who would assemble that award’s jury. Since the jury’s vote counted for something like 70% of the final result,  the chair could effectively stack the jury and decide the award depending on who they selected.

Helga and Marty cleaned house, brought in a new Board and created an advisory committee on the new “merged” awards. I represented the WGC on that committee.

We pared down some awards categories. We established a “Best International Series” award.

We also revised the jury system. The juries still selected the nominees, but their votes for the winner only counted for 50%, with the other half being decided by the General Membership. Finally, the juries all prepared and watched the materials on their own time, then met as a group to deliberate. For the first time, all the juries met and decided on nominees on the same weekend. If there was any kind of collusion or horse-trading before, that opportunity was now gone. It was a much fairer system.

As a show of confidence, I agreed to be a juror for the Dramatic Series Writing category for the first ever Canadian Screen Awards. (I hadn’t entered, so I wasn’t in a conflict.) I got a bunch of DVD’s to watch. There were eight people on the jury, and each submitted episode went to at least three. From there we pared down the lists of our favourites and came in to compare and select the nominees.

In my package there was one episode of Republic of Doyle. Because of my unhappy labor history with the show, I immediately contacted Louis Calabro at the Academy and told him that I had a conflict. They shuffled that episode to someone else.

Now back to the FRANK article, which claims that somehow, despite the new rules, the simultaneous jury deliberations, and the dozens of other people involved, I was able to wield immense power which allowed me to deny Republic of Doyle its rightful nominations.

Well, let’s take a look at the one jury decision I actually did have a hand in — the Best Dramatic Writing award.  It’s a drag to open the kimono on this, but if the alternative is allowing a bunch of people to continue to lie, that’s not cool. So here’s what happened.

The actual jury debate was a great success and a pleasant surprise. We all had an interesting and cordial debate about what five nominees we should put forward. People advocated. Some were swayed, and some were not. I went in with a list of my top five and was convinced by the debate and the arguments of other jury members to change two of them.

What I remember of the jury: it was about a fifty-fifty gender split.  I knew two people relatively well, had worked with one, had met maybe two more. The rest were strangers. 

Oh, and one more thing: not one of the eight of us had Republic of Doyle on our shortlist.  Not even the writer from Newfoundland.

We were one of the last juries to finish that day, having discussed the work passionately for almost two hours. Getting down to five nominees was really difficult. I think we would have liked to put forward seven or eight. It was creatively very exciting. It made me feel hopeful about the whole industry. (The show that won the category, a Flashpoint episode, I think is probably my favourite of the series.)

Looking back, one of the scripts I wish we could have nominated was a wonderful Murdoch Mysteries called “Dead End Street.” It was a tight little mystery about a murder that had taken place during a parade, and the key came down to a mute, autistic savant witness played wordlessly by Liisa Repo-Martell.  It was unpredictable, ingenious, and spare. A perfect example of a series that is sadly too often underestimated. If only I actually possessed the power some think I do, it might have been nominated. But the other work was too good that year. Champagne problems.

So…at no time was Republic of Doyle talked about by anyone as being in their Top Five. Even if we had been able to nominate eight shows, Doyle wouldn’t have made the cut. It simply wasn’t in the running.  I only have knowledge of the jury I served on, but the buzz among all the people gathered in the atrium after the awards suggested that our jury experience wasn’t unique. There was a lot of good work that year. Canadian TV had stepped up its game.

Once the first FRANK libel came out last November, I was surprised the Academy didn’t do more to defend the integrity of the system they’d worked so hard to fix, let alone defend me.  I still don’t know why they chose not to. It was pretty disheartening to volunteer all that time and get slimed for it. So I asked to be replaced on the advisory council and as it happens, haven’t attended or had anything to do with the Awards since.

So. That’s the story. A few things I’d like you to consider:

Republic of Doyle was nominated for Best Series in 2010. Indeed, it has not won any major awards since. Gordon Pinsent won the CSA for that guest starring role.  But neither the star, nor the series, nor the writing has been nominated. All that’s true.  As far as I know, the show has never been nominated for a Canadian Screenwriting Award. In fact, I don’t even know if they submit. I don’t judge those awards because I usually have a script in there myself.

I did have one opportunity to wield immense power over denying recognition to Republic of Doyle, during a quarterly story meeting for the Writers Guild magazine, Canadian Screenwriter. Here’s the problem, though. Just a few months before my supposed mustachio-twirling foiling of the show’s CSA chances, I, and the rest of the board, signed off on an article on the show written by Philip Moscovitch for CS’s Summer 2012 issue.  The Creator of RoD was quoted wall-to-wall. So I can spike the punch at the Canadian Screen Awards, but not in the magazine where I’m the Chair of the Editorial Board? In the story room, we call that kind of logic “a bit sweaty.”

It seems ludicrous to have to say this, but I have not, in fact, done anything to prevent the glory due to Republic of Doyle from happening. I quit the show (Oh yes, FRANK got that part wrong too) OVER FIVE YEARS AGO. 

Get over it, b’ys. 

This week, after six seasons, Republic of Doyle will air its last episode. They did wonderful things for the City of St. John’s. They celebrated many Newfoundland and Labrador-born actors by repatriating them for juicy guest starring roles. Their fans include a couple of the top newspaper writers in the country, and some of the online generation of journalists, too. RoD’s producers and creator made sackloads of cash, and got to buy houses. So many achievements worth celebrating.  Isn’t it a little bit weird that that’s not enough?

During the three months I worked on the show, we talked a lot about TV: what worked, what didn’t, what was good, and what was bad, and I have to say this:

What I remember most strongly from the principals involved was the constant derision they expressed for most Canadian shows, and the people who made them. They seemingly had nothing good to say about anybody except Paul Gross.  They roundly dissed the very show with which they would later do a crossover.

Does that have anything to do with not having huge swaths of support come awards time? I couldn’t say. But I think it’s a lot more plausible than the McGrath-is-Gandalf theory.

Anyway, thanks for reading. I’m sorry this was so long, but libel really sucks. A special thanks to all the people volunteering on CSA juries this weekend.  Good to see that people will still volunteer time to celebrate their colleagues, not just themselves.  If you care to, do watch the series finale of Republic of Doyle this week on CBC. 

I hope the ratings are good. I really do. Because I like to see the Canadian TV glass as half full.

Erratta.

You don't know what out of order is? I'd show you, but I'm too old, I'm too tired, I'm too fuckin' blind. If I were the man I was five years ago, I'd take a FLAMETHROWER to this place! Out of order? Who the hell do you think you're talkin' to? I've been around, you know? There was a time I could see. And I have seen. Boys like these, younger than these, their arms torn out, their legs ripped off. But there isn't nothin' like the sight of an amputated spirit. There is no prosthetic for that.

"The Light Has Gone Out of My Life."

I POSTED THIS on Facebook a few days ago, & people seemed to like it.  But...it's actually 128 years ago TODAY that a young man, stricken with grief, wrote something extraordinarily crazy in his diary. When I encountered those words a little over a century later, they shook me hard because  I had a context that young man didn't.  Feel free to share this. Be good to each other.  
DMc


***

On February 14, 1884, a young man wrote in his diary, "The light has gone out of my life."  

It was an understandable moment of despair. He was just 26 years old, and his beloved wife of four years had just died in his arms, leaving him a single father to a one day old baby girl. His beloved mother had died earlier in that same day, so at once he'd become an orphan and a widower and a single parent.

It was two days before he could write again. In his next entry he detailed the courtship of his wife, and the christening of his daughter, and on the 17th he detailed the burying of his wife and mother. "For joy or for sorrow," he wrote, "my life has now been lived out."

Except...He was wrong.

 

Two years later he would marry again. He would have more children. He'd go on to become a cattle rustler on the Badlands. When he returned to New York, he'd take up a job as Police Commissioner, cleaning up the corrupt force. When the Spanish American War broke out, he'd lead a cavalry brigade in Cuba called The Rough Riders.

Two years later, he became Governor of New York. Less than two years later, Vice President of the United States. And then, eight months after that, upon the assassination of  William McKinley,  Theodore Roosevelt became the 26th President of the United States.

He was 42 years old -- the youngest President ever to assume office.  Roosevelt went on to help to create the National Park system, oversee construction of the Panama Canal, take on the Trusts and reform capitalism in the United States. He won the Nobel Peace Prize. They put his face on a mountain. He's universally considered to be one of the United States' Greatest Presidents.

 

And that daughter, Alice, grew up to be the toast of Washington and live a life full of scandal and going her own way. She outlived all his other children.

A few years ago now, I was lucky enough to be doing a story at the Library of Congress just as they were digitizing pages from this diary. I put on white gloves and was able to hold the book in my hands and stare at those words. "For joy or for sorrow, my life has now been lived out."  I was pretty unhappy at that time. I wanted to sob. It was so human and almost unbearable.

But I think of it every year. And for a lot of years I thought of it alone. No more for me. I'm as happy as I'll probably ever be and that is indeed a good thing.  

So if you'll indulge me, please let me say to you that today, you may feel like there's no light in your life. But never forget that your life, for better or for worse, is not "lived out."  If a bull headed Type A guy like Teddy Roosevelt can be wrong about such things, well, then, I trust you'll see that maybe your troubles aren't so special, nor so vast that they can't be overcome.

CBC Drama Gets It Right

Wrote this on FACEBOOK this morning and it got shared around. The completist in me wanted to post it here. One time only thing. Comments are disabled since I don't really do this thing anymore. If you want to send me a Tweet on Twitter, I'm at @heywriterboy


WRITERS LIKE TO complain. That's our lot. But if you're of the Canadian lot, you should be taking a closer look at the CBC this January -- specifically their drama department. There's good news there.

 The CBC premiered a show called ARCTIC AIR a few weeks ago. It's about pilots flying in the North, very much an offshoot of (and produced by the same company as) ICE PILOTS, a popular reality show. The show was the highest premiere on CBC in twenty years. But the real story is not getting a big number for a first show -- lots of Canadian programs manage that. (Which says to me that Canadians are perfectly willing to sample homegrown fare, contra to the naysayers; they simply won't watch if they don't like what they see. Which should be, you know, the point.) The real story of Arctic Air is that they stayed. They like what they see. Three weeks in and the show is still over a million viewers. What's more -- I've heard that it's also very solidly PVR'd -- with final numbers adding sometimes 20 or 30% to the final viewer tally. That's not supposed to happen with CBC shows. The audience is older and conventional wisdom says that they don't use PVR's. Except that's not what's happening. ARCTIC AIR is winning its timeslot -- and it's being PVR'ed for later.

 Beyond that one show you have REPUBLIC OF DOYLE consistently pulling in over a million in their 3rd season. It's not just a Russell Crowe guest shot. I personally don't think the stories are as good as they could be (but full disclosure, I worked on the show for 10 minutes in Season 1, so I would think that.) I raise that point because what the show does have is specificity -- it's utterly unlike anything you'd see on private nets in Canada..it's firmly rooted to place and people like it enough that they hang in through the loopy plotting. That's a win and I'm happy for it.

 Beyond that you have an aged Warhorse in HEARTLAND, a show that rates consistently huge for a family audience, up near 2 million some weeks, with Christmas movies also pulling in great numbers. 

CBC just wrapped up the last season of BEING ERICA. Though the numbers slipped as the show went on, I talk to women I know in their 30's and there's a definite chord that was struck there. It connected emotionally. And it also managed format sales -- when was the last time a Canadian TV drama did that? 

I've heard encouraging things about the upcoming pilots CBC has in the pipeline. I'm just at the beginning of developing something with them, and find the executives engaged and passionate about story. You always have to worry about bureaucracy at a place like CBC - it's a crown corporation, after all. But the point is - on CBC, Canadian drama is actually CANADIAN drama. It doesn't disguise locations. It doesn't get shuffled off to summer or bounced around the schedule.

 Nothing's perfect. ARCTIC AIR has been promoted, and it paid off. But the CBC buried its excellent movie on John A. MacDonald...a movie that MACLEANS said might have been the best Canadian historical drama ever. I watched it and it reminded me of I CLAUDIUS...low budget and you didn't care because the characters and the meat were so good. They also mishandled the promo for MICHAEL: TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS, which at least partially led to that show's disappointing ratings. But the critical reception was almost universally positive.

So they're doing dramas that win timeslots -- in winter, when the competition is tougher -- and dramas that get populist love and critical acclaim.

 People, that's firing on all cylinders.

 Brits are rightly proud of stuff like SHERLOCK or LUTHER or LIFE ON MARS or ABFAB or DOCTOR WHO...where's the chorus of people going, "hey, you know what, for my $30 bucks a year CBC's actually giving me some pretty good stuff?"

There's a lot of layers at CBC and much opportunity for second guessing, and that's something they have to continue to be vigilant about. But there's a core there that's not flailing -- they're actually blooming. 

Considering how much of the time people just want to bash the CBC for ideological reasons, and the number of people who want to complain about the CBC cancelling INTELLIGENCE like, 6 years later, I believe only for the sake of decency maybe it's time to acknowledge that something pretty spectacular is happening over there.

They're doing shows that Canadians want to watch. Not all of them, no... and yes, the sample size is very low compared to your average U.S. network...but really, look at how many shows they do total, and how many are connecting with audiences, and the conclusion has to be that they're doing something right -- unless you're being churlish, I mean.

If you're a creative and you've been wary of developing with CBC in the past, I think it's time to recognize that the team there is getting things right, finally. May the corporation have the wisdom to keep them moving onward and upward with great Canadian shows rooted in place, inventive in tone, that Canadians continue to embrace the way they're embracing them now.

 And wouldn't it be wonderful if some journalist wrote THAT for a change?

Blog Fallowing Writing Advice for Screenwriters from Sticksville

These pieces last updated August 2011. If you have a suggestion for other past pieces to include, let me know in comments. thanks.


 The "Big Ones" (Pieces that got me noticed.)
10 Things That Would Make Canadian TV Better.  4 years old, and still relevant.
How Corner Gas Ruined Everything
(taken together, those two posts are the closest thing this blog gets to a "blogafesto.")
Notes on a Frog (this is also linked below but it's one of my favourite posts ever.)

How to Write A Spec:
Part 1: Prep,
Part 2: Research,
Part 3: Breaking The Story
Specs: an addendum

Writing The Television Series:
Part 1: Setting the Table,
Part 2: The Outline,
Part 3: The First Draft,
Part 4: The Second Draft,
Part 5: Production White & Beyond
Being a Freelancer (My episode of Stargate: Universe) 
The Importance of The Takeaway 
What is the "Objective Correlative?"

The Economics of Freelancing in Canada:
Part 1
Part 2

The 'Notes' Process & Prep:
How to Give Notes
Prep: Day 1
Prep: Days 2, 3, and 4
Prep: As Prep Continues
Notes on a Frog

Development & Writing Pilots:
Beware 'the napkin'
Avoiding 'backstory fatigue.'
Don't get caught up in "The Tyranny of Why."
Coincidence, & Knowing your Franchise
The Second Episode Problem
The Fresh, The Familiar & The Impossible Trick.
Hero, or Protagonist?
The Limits of worrying about "Fridge Logic."
How Much Research to Do? Just enough to deliver "The Takeaway." (features Burn Notice)

And when all else fails:

Employing 'The Snooki Principle.'

Writer Time Management:
Pomodoro
Writing at Night is Bullshit.
If you HAVE to Procrastinate...

Breaking In:
What to do before nobody will read you.
Why you should work on your Story Literacy
Co-Writing & Gang Breaking
How becoming a Writer is kind of like "Coming Out."
Take the damn job
Acing the Meeting
Defending Josh Olson
Writers talk: There is Wisdom in Brunch

Misc
The Difference Between an 'Original Work Inspired By' and a 'Derivative' Work -- With Stunning Real Life Examples!

Loving the Bottle Show

The Eyeballs of Men

Writer on the Set

How Interrogation works, really.

Creator Interviews/Talks:

Greg Daniels from "The Office" -- Part 1 and Part 2

Paul Abbot (Shameless, State of Play)

Robert Towne (Godfather, Chinatown)

The Creators/Exec Producers of "Being Erica"

I talk about how I didn't really like "Twitch City" and creator/star Don McKellar takes me to the woodshed (but we part friends. Aw.)

One more for a Good Cause: Why Censoring Summerworks Means No More Flashpoints.

HI.  HOW ARE YOU?  Great, Great. Oh, Good, Good. You know, working and stuff. Same old same old. 


Buncha stuff, really. Ah, too much to go into, and you don't wanna hear about that.  So, one might say, why have I busted out of blogtirement (which I've been enjoying immensely, thanks much) after all this time?


Well friends, let me tell you a little story.

About fifteen years ago, I was a frustrated, unchallenged segment producer at CityTV.  My job was fun, but unfulfilling, because I knew what I really wanted to do was write.  But before I could take the ridiculous leap of quitting my job and going to write full time, I had to build up confidence.  So I wrote a one-act play. 


That play was called "Press'd." It was a little media-savvy potboiler about an fragile actor hot on the heels of a painful breakup, manipulated by his agent into doing a day of Press Junketry.  During the course of a day of canned interviews, he takes a grasping journalist and her idealistic cameraman hostage. And then, this being show business, everyone immediately starts working the situation to their advantage.


It was fun. It spoke to my world and experience.  It drew wonderful, large, enthusiastic crowds.  One of the best nights was when my then-boss, the irrepressible Moses Znaimer showed up.  That caused a bit of a ripple.


More importantly, I got to sit at the back of the theatre, and hear the jokes land. I got to hear people laugh where I wanted them to laugh -- "get" what I wanted them to get; gasp at turns they didn't see coming until I wanted them to.  

Long story short, it allowed me to see my work up "on its feet" in front of an audience, on a stage.  It gave me the confidence to think, "Maybe I'm not crazy with this writing thing."  It would be another few years before I quit that job, but the groundwork was laid. That show created my next career.


That groundwork, in fact, was laid for a lot less money that it otherwise could have cost me.  Because that first play of mine was presented under the auspices of a new theater festival called Summerworks.


Thanks to Summerworks, my cost to get that play up and running was only about $2000.  We made our money back at the gate, and even extended for a short run with another play that did well at the same festival, by a wonderful Toronto writer named David Widdicombe.


My play, Press'd, along with David's River Lady, (which was recently revived in Toronto) played into September from their launching pad at the Summerworks Festival.  And it was at that remount, the stars of both my play and David's met.


Mark Ellis & Stephanie Morgenstern were both working actors at the time -- Stephanie had been working as an actor for more than 15 years at the time, and had written and co-directed a short film.  From the moment they met, Steph & Mark clearly were destined for more than artistic collaboration.


Flash ahead to 2011, and Mark & Stephanie are the co-creators of Flashpoint, now finishing its fourth season, and one of Canadian TV's greatest success stories.

Summerworks went on to greater things as well. Over the years I would see many new works, and see new, exciting emerging voices there.  It was at Summerworks where I first saw Poochwater, an amazing play by Mike McPhaden, who I'd later practically DEMAND start writing TV.  He won the Dora Award for that show, too. It was a revelation. I'm sure McPhaden would credit a lot of his start to Summerworks.   There's also Chris Leavins -- Cute With Chris internet star, who wrote one of the sharpest faux memoir pieces I've ever seen. And Sean Reycraft's One Good Marriage was a fantastic, macabre story.  Sean's gone on to write many TV shows in both the USA and Canada, including Degrassi, The Vampire Diaries, 90210, and many others.


Summerworks, too, focused itself, becoming an important venue for new Canadian work -- for new generations of playwrights and actors to cut their teeth. The ten day festival and the shared-costs of presenting that many shows kept costs low enough for new writers to afford the fees and get that first chance to put themselves out there for an audience.  


I simply can't stress how influential, and how important, that Festival has been for the development of new voices in the Canadian Film, Theatre, and Television community.


Mark Ellis tweeted today, "NO Summerworks, NO Flashpoint..." -- and it's hard to dispute the fact. 


So now here's where the story gets ugly:


In the 2010 Festival, a play called Homegrown was presented. It concerned a woman's relationship with one of the "Toronto18."  


The Sun newspaper chain  (no link, cause really, fuck them)  ginned up a bunch of controversy -- without ever seeing the play in question -- by saying it "glorified terrorism."


It didn't matter that the work, flawed, naive, unpolished maybe -- as are many of the works presented at a festival like Summerworks -- really did nothing of the sort.  The narrative caught fire. It became more tinder in the fight to export U.S. style culture wars north.


(If you're curious to read what the play was actually like -- including some very fair criticism of it -- here's a link to a review.)


Flash ahead to today -- it's 39 days before the next Summerworks Festival.  
And this morning, the Department of Heritage cut 20% of their budget.  


Read the article about the cut and draw your own conclusions, but to me this feeds into a nice long narrative about what the Conservative Government does to organizations that espouse (or whom they say espouse) points of view that don't gibe with the good Conservative mindset.


What's lost in this -- in the noise from the Sun and elsewhere - is the good that Summerworks does.  Flashpoint alone has generated millions of dollars to the artistic economy.  Its early encouragement of me has taken me from a frustrated salary-worker to a freelancer who paid a whole stinking load of taxes last year, and for several years before that.  Many of us can tell that same story.  It, in fact, has invested in not just the cultural life of the country -- it's driven and sparked the careers of those who continue to create jobs, and wealth, as well as ideas and culture in this country. It is more than a good investment. It's low cost seed money for an entire industry.


It's a cause worth supporting, which is why I donated $1000 this morning to try and help Summerworks make up its $45 000.00 shortfall this year.


Don't let the playing of cynical politics be the last word.  Take a stand for artistic freedom, freedom of expression and the right to say things that maybe might not make a Conservative happy, but are things that are legitimate and absolutely essential if our country is going to remain a democracy where different points of view can be respected, and debated.


You don't have to kick in a grand, but can you afford $100? What about $50? $25 even?


Art creates wealth.
Art creates debate.
Art creates society.


Don't let creeping parochialism win.  Help save Summerworks.


Click here to make a donation.  (It's a charitable donation, which means you'll get a tax receipt back.)


Thanks for reading.  Oh and if you want to buy tickets to shows this year, that link is here. Please do both.  By investing in the shows, you might be investing in the next Flashpoint. And by helping the Fest, you'll give those artists somewhere to learn their craft, so that someday they may entertain you, spark your fancy or pique, or enrich your life.


Now, it's back to the shadows with me. Hope you're having a nice summer. I'm off to L.A. tomorrow, thanks for asking. That's another story, of course -- and, I'm happy to say, one that I'll be telling only in person at pubs and at parties. I remain, gleefully retired from the soapbox business.  


For now, anyway.