Jody Hadlock's Lounge Discussions

Makes sense, Amanda. Thanks for the response and information. I'd love to learn more about those tracking groups, too. I also forgot to ask in class when she said she sold a show, what that means exactly. Did she sell the option to develop a show? Did she sell a pilot or a series? There are many aspects to sales as I know you understand, too, but which might be helpful to specify as what is involved and what one expects to receive for them varies with each.

It was great! I like the focus on tapping into our creativity. I went to bed with my notebook and pen, and wrote the first thing that came to mind when I woke up. I wrote about the ocean and realized that this is the first summer in a lot of years that I didn't spend time at my second home on an island beach with my cousins. I shoved my sadness about missing it, somewhere in my emotional closet. Thank you for suggesting that we journal when we wake up. I'm excited to see what comes up next. I can't wait for our next class.

Wonderful first session! Greatly looking forward to meeting Raquelle and everyone else over the next two weeks.

Warmest thanks to Raquelle and Amanda. It was great meeting all of you. I hope we can keep in touch. Wishing you all the very best with your creative careers!

Hi Raquelle David's TV Development Lab!

Whew, that's a mouthful! I finally found our lounge. Where is everyone? Okay, better late than never. Basil, were you listed under a different Zoom acct. name, I don't remember seeing your name? That happened to me in another workshop. I forgot to change from my previous administrator's name.

This was an exceptional development lab. I learned so much. I've been busy streamlining my loglines for my four pilot ideas. I'm doing my character sketches, fleshing out the world, researching...all that good stuff.

I have heard a beat descibed as an interaction between 2 characters where the value of the interaction changes from positive to negative, to negative to positive in a conflictual bit of dialogue.

Yes certainly a beat is a part of a scene with conflict or sometimes an entire scene. Long scenes can have several different "beats." Don't overthink this! It's for you to be able to plot out your pilot. If I can understand what's happening and the structure of your pilot, that's what's important. If you go into too much detail, you might have done more work than needed, but no harm done. If you don't do enough, I will probably end up asking you to elaborate on what exactly happens - and the outline won't be quite as helpful to you. But there's no magic formula you have to obey.

Ricki - It doesn't have to be two characters though. A person eating oatmeal is not a beat, but if they start choking on it, then it becomes a beat.

Thanks to Anna and Michael for your replies.

I don't have a link for our 1-on-1 meeting. Please advise?

Several:

Discussion of Tone and importance of pacing, distinct visual and sound style

Establish the story engine, the unresolvable conflict early in Act I.

Key for conveying non-dialog emotion: give a character business, like pounding meat

Thanks, Anna

For me, the importance of focusing on character vs plot. Very useful to know esp since I'm writing something based on true events and I tend to get really caught up in the facts. I will take Anna's advice: do the research then throw it out the window!

Anna is an awesome instructor. I went from knowing zero about TV pilots to mach 1 in these 2 hours. Anna answered 2 of my burning questions I have wondered about for a long time. How can we be mentored by her! The other question I had was: when a writer submits a pilot but doesn't live in LA,, how does that work--can the writer write future episodes remotely, or does the writer generally turn over the bible of episodes and others write the episodes. What happens to us non-LA writers on a show for which we wrote the pilot and concept of the seasons?

P.S. That was awesome about dealing with a true story turned into a TV show (or even feature). Since I have true story scripts, I always wondered how much to keep to every event and how much leeway to dramatize and add fictional characters and dialogue for dramatic effect. Anna's answer was a breath of fresh air to relieve worries on this point!

I definitely look at how my character descriptions and actions reveal who they are based on the webinar.