2009 Disney-ABC application almost out...

I've locked down my Pushing Daisies spec, finished up my Disney-ABC application materials, and will be putting it in the mail tomorrow. I'd like to give shout outs to Beckylooo, Emily, Isabel, Kari, Liz, Michael, Rob, and TheWife for all their feedback at various stages in the process. Your input (especially the beatdown *someone* gave a draft I thought was *good*) helped make this as good as it is.

I'm pretty damn happy with it, and it wouldn't be near as good if it weren't for all y'all.

I've included a scene I'm quite fond of below. And yes, I know. My action lines are still too long. I'm working on it. My next spec will be a marvel in adjective- and adverb-free writing, I swear.

Oh, and Scribd can suck my cock. I looked, but I see no copyright options other than Creative Commons. In general, I support CC licensing. Not for this, thanks. Of course, it's already been registered with the WGA-W, so it doesn't really matter, but that still pisses me off. They need to allow for licensing other than CC.

There's a PDF plugin below, FeedReader.

Pushing Daisies scene - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: Pushing Daisies scene

Wiping my hands of my first draft

Well. About a day behind where I wanted to be, I finished the first draft of my Pushing Daisies spec on Friday afternoon. Sent it over to TheWife for her first blush take and her comments weren't too devastating. I failed to capture the Narrator's unique voice and didn't push the more colorful of the guest characters to a great enough extreme for PD.

I put it aside for a day. Veg'd last night, prepped my Charlie Jade recap for Monday night, and just hung out with TheWife and the dogs.

Finished my first light readthrough of it a few minutes ago and...I failed to capture the Narrator's unique voice and didn't push the more colorful of the guest characters enough. So a) good that I don't think it's worse than TheWife does and b) super-happy I don't have structural problems. Phew!

So, tomorrow...I think I'll start out with a mini-marathon of PD. First I'll re-read the scripts I have, then I'll watch another two or three episodes. Try to get a better feel for Jim Dale's cadences. Then...rewriting.

I'm actually really happy. Other than these niggling problems (alright, blowing the Narrator on PD is not exactly "niggling") this is a solid screenplay. I'm going to be happy to send this out later in the week for initial feedback and think I'm going to be proud as a new poppa to submit this for ABC-Disney.

Who knows? Maybe this'll be the year I can take a massive cut in pay for the Fellowship!

Pushing Daisies "Pielette" script

Received a happy package in the mail yesterday - two Dexter and two Pushing Daisies scripts. I read through "Pielette" and loved it as much as expected, though I'm glad a few things were changed by the time they shot, particularly the visible countdown clock every time Ned brought someone back to life. That would have really changed the overall tone

It was structured as six acts (which I'd heard, but seeing it on the page is a bit more definitive) with the first being ~18 pages and the other five being ~8 each. No teaser, no tag. For a non-shooting script, it had more shot descriptions than I'm used to seeing for TV, but they were used brilliantly, smoothing the segues between many of the scenes. I'm interested to see if that same style was used in "Dummy", particularly since Bryan Fuller didn't write that one (though who knows how much of a pass he gave it.)

The other interesting thing I took away from the script is that only a small bit of the humor comes directly from Ned and Chuck. I remember Chuck being funnier than she's reading here, and Ned getting more choice lines, but on the page they come off more cute than funny. Nice jobs from Anna Friel and Lee Pace to really flesh out their characters and give them obvious humor as part of their charms.

I'll read "Dummy" tonight, and then start breaking these bitches down. Scene counts, line counts per scene, types of act-outs, etc. I've got an interesting idea for an episode; now I just have to figure out how to make it come to life.

Oh, and because I thought of this a few minutes ago, here are short character descriptions that I think are apt:

• Chuck is the sweet, juicy, ripe fruit brought back to life to fill the pie.
• Ned is the bottom crust. Protected by a layer of caramelized sugar, he holds Chuck close, but never comes in contact. The browned sugar also adds a sweet bite to his plain nature.
• Emerson is the top crust. He's crusty, ya know? Plus, the man knit himself gun cozies. He's a little flaky.
• Olive is ice cream on the side. Sweet and rich, always yearning to be part *of* the pie.
• Aunt Vivian is whipped cream. Airy, ephemeral, fragile.
• Aunt Lily is a fork. Sharp, rigid, pointed.
  
• The Narrator is the plate on which everything else rests. He is stability. He's also got a picture of a dog chasing its own tail and a big chip on the rim. He's one-of-a-kind and just a little bit off.
  

The Jarlsberg is on the table

Good golly! So far, so good. My face aches watching this show. Aches from smiling from ear to ear for a full hour. Actually, I think this episode was better than the "Pie-lette". So good, all I can do is spot check some of the greatness. And trust me, this will be incoherent unless you watched. You are watching, right??!?!

• small cheese box
• skeletons in the closet
• Emerson's knit gun cozies
  
• "Her information was valuable and the price was...pie."
• "You love secrets. You want to marry secrets and have little half-secret, half-human babies."
• Professor Landry and his batty rant about ritalin and botany
  
• Kissing through body bags while Emerson knits an escape
• Landry driving an Earth-killing Hummer
• "...and Digby considered how much he liked salt."
• plus, Glinda and Digby sang a duet while Manuel polished the floors!