Just listened to this week’ pod including the Joss Whedon commentary. As a fan of Buffy, Angel & most particularly Firefly I take the position that as much of a pig as Joss Whedon may be, a bully, dickhead and borderline predator, for me it doesn’t take away from the brilliance of those shows. He’s an incredible screenwriter, his dialogue was a particular favourite of mine, his facility with language, even the Shakespearian cowboy twists & turns of Firefly is unsurpassed in modern television, he made you work for it, follow it closely or miss the joke. And he didn’t make those series alone, the performances of the various casts & crews were at least if not more responsible for the success of those shows. Why would I take away from their fine work & disparage that work just because of the very flawed human who headed them up. Can’t do it. Michael Jackson was a very broken human but he was a musical phenomenon, go figure.
Alyssa is so learned. What she said was fascinating, and it sounded like years of serious scholarship of the Shakespeare Wars. I'm definitely going to rewatch it now.
That Vulture article is definitive about what a Hackworthy Hack Wedon is. As a fellow magician (writer) who knows how to pull the rabbit out of the hat, it has always driven me nuts that this talentless hack has gotten where he has. What part of 'don't tell us - show us" did he fail to get? I used to tell young wannabe screenwriters that if they wanted to be successful, they should buy a camera and learn photography and how to take good photos - what a "good shot" is. Then learn to describe that "good shot" in a sentence that puts that picture in the reader's mind. And then tell the story that way. "Movies" is short for "moving pictures," the method by which a story in a movie is told. Failure to understand this, to learn a "visual sense" is why most screenwriters fail. it's not the words that matter!!!! I once had a very well-known actor read a script of mine, and she asked me to remove at least a third of her dialogue (and at the time I was known for writing "spare dialogue"), and then tell the story. I did it, and she was right. That's what is sooooo bad about Whedon and several other "Geniuses" I won't name. They're in love with their words, while working in a business where they should be 'killing their babies." (Needless to say, I am not at all popular in the Wanker's Guild of America, west, Inc., for saying such heresies against the Writing Gods).
How Disastrous Was Joss Whedon's NY Mag Interview?
Just listened to this week’ pod including the Joss Whedon commentary. As a fan of Buffy, Angel & most particularly Firefly I take the position that as much of a pig as Joss Whedon may be, a bully, dickhead and borderline predator, for me it doesn’t take away from the brilliance of those shows. He’s an incredible screenwriter, his dialogue was a particular favourite of mine, his facility with language, even the Shakespearian cowboy twists & turns of Firefly is unsurpassed in modern television, he made you work for it, follow it closely or miss the joke. And he didn’t make those series alone, the performances of the various casts & crews were at least if not more responsible for the success of those shows. Why would I take away from their fine work & disparage that work just because of the very flawed human who headed them up. Can’t do it. Michael Jackson was a very broken human but he was a musical phenomenon, go figure.
Alyssa is so learned. What she said was fascinating, and it sounded like years of serious scholarship of the Shakespeare Wars. I'm definitely going to rewatch it now.
That Vulture article is definitive about what a Hackworthy Hack Wedon is. As a fellow magician (writer) who knows how to pull the rabbit out of the hat, it has always driven me nuts that this talentless hack has gotten where he has. What part of 'don't tell us - show us" did he fail to get? I used to tell young wannabe screenwriters that if they wanted to be successful, they should buy a camera and learn photography and how to take good photos - what a "good shot" is. Then learn to describe that "good shot" in a sentence that puts that picture in the reader's mind. And then tell the story that way. "Movies" is short for "moving pictures," the method by which a story in a movie is told. Failure to understand this, to learn a "visual sense" is why most screenwriters fail. it's not the words that matter!!!! I once had a very well-known actor read a script of mine, and she asked me to remove at least a third of her dialogue (and at the time I was known for writing "spare dialogue"), and then tell the story. I did it, and she was right. That's what is sooooo bad about Whedon and several other "Geniuses" I won't name. They're in love with their words, while working in a business where they should be 'killing their babies." (Needless to say, I am not at all popular in the Wanker's Guild of America, west, Inc., for saying such heresies against the Writing Gods).