Contour At The Movies

The final two days of shooting for season 2 of OVERRULED are upon us!  If all goes according to plan, Thursday, April 23 wraps production of these 13 episodes.  After that, it’s back to the normal grind of juggling many balls.

It’s been a great shoot so far, made even more exciting by having caught some promos for the series on Family Channel.  We’re told that season 1 will air either in the summer or the fall.

So…what have I learned from the experience this time around? Firstly, I think that I’ve improved my 1/2 hour comedy writing.  I used to take more time setting up a joke, now I fish for the joke in almost every line.  I’m not sure this is the right pace for features, but for 21 minutes and 5 seconds of tween television, it’s what the genre demands.

Secondly, I’ve learned what the big hole in my skillset is.  I’m awful at the politics of this business.  Not the politics of getting a show made, but the politics of knowing what I want and not making people feel off-put because of it.  

I grew up in this business thinking that people like clarity and decisiveness.  You don’t want a director, executive producer, or showrunner who dithers.  However in the hands of some people, clarity and decisiveness come off as strident.  I may be one of those people.  My enormous certainty (not to mention ego) is an acquired taste.

But what can I do?  Without falling victim to delusions of grandeur, I can look back on my career and empirically say that the greatest successes I’ve had have been when I’ve followed my own lead.

I’m reminded of that scene in BROADCAST NEWS (written by James L. Brooks) between Holly Hunter as the news producer and her boss.  Holly’s character, JANE, is relentlessly pushing her vision for how a time-critical news segment should be produced.  Her boss, PAUL, disagrees with her but SHE WON’T LET IT GO.  Finally, he looks at her and says, sarcastically “It must be nice to always believe you know better, to always think you’re the smartest person in the room.”  Jane looks at him, ready to cry, and says from the bottom of her heart and totally in earnest the following:

“No. It’s awful.”

– Jeffrey Alan Schechter

Right around that time I moved to LA in the mid-1980’s an upstart computer store opened with a crazy idea: cater just to the film and television community.  I gave it six months to a year before it folded in the shadow of Computerland.  Well, Computerland is gone, but THE WRITERS STORE is still there, and over the years Jesse Douma and his family developed their store into a mecca of merchandise and advice for writers, producers, and directors.

As Contour for Windows 1.0  joins Contour for Mac 1.1  in release, I just wanted to thank Jesse and the gang at The Writers Store for their support of Contour in general and me in particular.   Jesse will be the first to tell you that I can be a huge pain in the backside when it comes to being passionate about what I do, but (I hope!) he’d also be the first to tell you that my heart’s in the right place in my concern for writers.

Anyway, kudos to you, my TWS friends.  Your store is a class act and greatly appreciated.

– Jeffrey Alan Schechter