- Age and I went toe-to-toe a couple of weeks ago.
-
- The battlefield was a writing workshop here at Cloud
Creek Ranch. Back in the day, I was a television writer and producer on
such series as "Star Trek: Voyager," "Walker, Texas Ranger,"
"Diagnosis Murder," "Mike Hammer," "The Fall Guy"
and many more.
-
- It was a good ride until Hollywood's refusal to never
go below the surface of anything got me so far down that I didn't even
know there was an up anymore.
-
- In the name of leading lives that felt real through and
through, my wife Gwen the Beautiful and I moved from the hills of Malibu
to the hills of the Ozarks. But I haven't left showbiz completely behind.
-
- Through Cloud Creek Institute For The Arts, I do my best
to give back the help I got when I first started by teaching new writers
and film and video makers all I know about the craft. And trying to throw
in a more humanistic perspective so this new generation will judge itself
by more than the size of its houses and the make of its cars.
-
- Although I do most of my teaching online, this year Gwen
and I decided to have a workshop right here, in Paradise.
-
- I planned "Secrets of the Writers Room" as
a three-day weekend that would simulate the hard-driving, stressful, but
often wonderfully creative daily activity of writers working in television.
The idea was to prepare six new writers so that when they got their chance
at the real thing they'd be able to rise to the occasion instead of being
overwhelmed.
-
- Demand for the workshop was so great that we ended up
with 13 students and, instead of staying for three days, several of them
stayed for six. A few spent their nights at the nearby Paradise Motel,
but most slept in one of the three beds in the trailer we call the Annex,
or on its living room floor. One student even brought a tent to pitch outside.
-
- Before they got here, I gave the young men and women
the basic premise for a Web-TV series and planned on acclimating them to
the job by taking them through the twists and turns of meetings, creating
bogus crises and, in general, being as arbitrary and capricious as possible
- just like most of the TV execs I've known.
-
- But the students were, in a word, glorious. By the time
they arrived, they'd already put so much work into the project that I could
only gape in awe. They'd shown my concept so much respect that the only
way I could respond was by respecting them.
-
- Instead of making a game of the weekend, I picked up
on the idealism and dedication I felt all around me, and we knuckled down
to the true task - coming up with 12 episodes that would be better than
anything we'd ever seen before on the tube.
-
- We worked from breakfast through lunch and dinner to
whenever everyone crashed off to sleep. Together, we came up with ideas
none of us could've thought of alone, and by time everyone left, the entire
show was planned in detail and the students already had finished five
scripts.
-
- When I ran TV shows for a living, 12-hour workdays and
seven-day workweeks were my norm. And every morning, I awoke bright and
ready for more. This time around, after the last student left, I could
barely raise my chin off the ground. Instead of talking, I stuttered. Instead
of reading, I stared at blurred pages. The clean-up felt like a nightmare.
I'm sure I did the whole thing in my sleep.
-
- I'm more aware of my passing years than ever before,
and that leaves me only one option. To hurry and schedule another of these
monsters before it's too late.
-
- Because the way I see it, Hollywood and Paradise came
together and made the best of all possible worlds. I learned as much as
I taught and felt inspired the whole time.
-
- And life wouldn't be worth living if I couldn't look
forward to doing just that all over again.
-
-
- Copyright C 2007 by Larry Brody. All rights reserved.
-
- Author Larry Brody's weekly column, LIVE! FROM PARADISE!
appears on his website, www.larrybrody.com. He has written thousands of
hours of network television, and is the author of "Television Writing
from the Inside Out" and "Turning Points in Television."
Brody is Creative Director of The Cloud Creek Institute for the Arts, the
world's first in-residence media colony. More about his activities can
be seen on www.tvwriter.com and www.cloudcreek.org. He welcomes your comments
and feedback at <mailto:LarryBrody@cloudcreek.org>LarryBrody@cloudcreek.org.
Brody, his wife and their dogs, cats, horses and chickens live in Marion
County, Arkansas. The other residents of the mythical town of Paradise
reside in his imagination.
|
