Emmy Predictions

The Primetime Emmy Awards predictions are pouring in and I'm not going to miss my chance to put my predictions in print. Anyone who knows me, knows I'm a self-professed Gleek. If it was up to me, they'd win in every category. Even though I am far from the only Gleek out there, everything I've read on Twitter, blogs and trade articles indicate to me that there aren't a whole lot of Gleeks in Hollywood.

Hollywood loves Modern Family. I like Modern Family enough, but I personally believe that the stakes aren't high enough in that show. It's funny, but the plot doesn't drive me through the commercial break and I often lose interest when I watch it live. However, I and my fellow Gleeks are not voters in the Academy.

That brings me to the issue I approached in an earlier blog about the Emmys. I'm not saying Hollywood is out of touch with the rest of America, I'm just saying Hollywood uses a different ruler to gauge quality. I don't think that's a bad thing. If it was up to the people, Jersey Shore would sweep.

So, my predictions look like this:

Drama Series: True Blood

Damages, Breaking Bad and Mad Men have all done well in this category. Theoretically, any of the three of these could still win, but True Blood is gaining Hollywood and regular people traction, so I think Hollywood might lean towards True Blood.

Comedy Series: Modern Family

Miniseries: The Pacific

I've never seen it, but Hollywood can't stop talking about it so they obviously think it's good.

Made-for-TV movie: You Don't Know Jack.

Jack Kevorkian played by Al Pacino. 'Nuff said.

Actor, Drama: Michael C. Hall, Dexter

Hollywood loves Dexter and he had cancer this season. His colleagues will be rooting for him.

Actress, Drama: Julianna Marguiles, The Good Wife

Hollywood and regular people are eating this show up. Hollywood likes it when regular people like quality shows. Glenn Close keeps winning for Damages; it's someone else's turn.

Supporting Actor, Drama: Michael Emerson, Lost

Everyone loves Lost, it was the last season, and Hollywood respects his dichotomous performance.

Supporting Actress, Drama: Anyone but Rose Byrne

Though Hollywood loves Damages, Rose Byrne can't act. The fact that there are two nominees from Mad Men and The Good Wife make it difficult for actresses to win from either of those shows, so Sharon Gless from Burn Notice might win by default. If I was forced to, I'd guess Elizabeth Moss from Mad Men.

Actor, Comedy: Steve Carrell, The Office

Everyone loves him, Alec Baldwin has won enough times, and next season will be Carrell's last at The Office.

Actress, Comedy: Toni Collette, United States of Tara

Collette plays multiple personalities and Hollywood loves her. Tina Fey has enough Emmys and Amy Poehler's role in Parks and Recreation splits voters over the two of them. I wouldn't be surprised if Edie Falco won for her role in Nurse Jackie; Hollywood loves her too.

Supporting Actor, Comedy: Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother

Everyone loves Barney and NPH is hot. Last year, he was hot as the host of the Tonys and in his musical villain role in Joss Whedon's online miniseries, and he had a great guest appearance in Glee this season, directed by Joss Whedon. The vote will split among the three nominees for Modern Family, Chris Colfer is not a Glee star, and there's too much drama on Two and Half Men right now for a win for Jon Cryer.

Supporting Actress, Comedy: Jane Lynch, Glee

Hollywood is madly in love with her right now. If you talk to anyone in the industry about Glee, she is who they rave about. Plus, she will no longer be on Party Down because it was cancelled and Hollywood loved on that show, too. In a side note, it appears insiders were the only ones who loved Party Down, and I'm guessing it's because they were the only ones who could really appreciate it.

Guest Actor, Drama: John Lithgow, Dexter

I have not seen any episodes of the shows nominated in this category because I don't have a DVR and none of these shows are available free online. John Lithgow's performance was the only one I've ever read about and I've read good things.

Guest Actress, Drama: Lily Tomlin, Damages

I haven't seen any of these episodes either, I'm just banking on Damages' appeal and Lily Tomlin's star power.

Guest Actor, Comedy: Neil Patrick Harris, Glee

For the same reasons as above.

Guest Actress, Comedy: Betty White, SNL

In my opinion, all would be right with the world if Kristin Chenowith received it for her role in Glee. It was a killer performance and how can anyone not love her? She's amazing. When reality kicks in, I know that Betty White is riding a wave a fire right now and it doesn't look like it's fizzling out anytime soon.

Reality Competition Program: The Amazing Race

It wins every year. If voters decided to stop voting for this show, I'm guessing they'd vote for Top Chef. Hollywood loves food porn.

Reality Series: Kathy Griffin, My Life on the D-List

Hollywood voters voting about a show about clout in Hollywood. Plus, she loves gay people. I say her chances are GREAT.

Variety, Music or Comedy Series: Conan O'Brien, The Tonight Show

There's a whole movement around Conan's short stint as host of The Tonight Show. I doubt Hollywood would pass up their chance to give him a major award to commemorate it.

The rest of the categories are so obscure, I couldn't have begun to contribute worthwhile hypotheses. Besides, I don't want this to be the never-ending blog post. Pull this blog up when the Emmys air, you can get a chance to see if I am crazy off-base or spot-on.

Change Will Do Me Good

So, the big decision is that I have decided to move to LA. Though I have announced it all over the place, my actual moving day is going to be a big question. I am putting my condo on the market in August and moving day will totally depending on my place selling. Right now, I'm working on cleaning it, fixing it and getting it pretty for showing.

I'd like to move in October, but my mom is getting married on 10/10/10, at 10:10am (awesome, right?) which makes things a little complicated. The big plan is to fly in to look for a place, come back for my mom's wedding and drive back with some stuff. I'll keep everyone posted on that process.

The icing on my cake is that I am now happily engaged. Everyone loves icing, right? I've got a place in mind, but we decided to figure out the date once we move to LA so that we can see what our money situations look like. We are both taking a huge leap by moving to LA without jobs, we're definitely stepping out on faith. We feel super positive about the decision and our happy to have the moral support of our friends and families as we make this step. Thank you all!

I'm back!!

For a minute there, it looked like I wasn't coming back. Everything was amazing. I learned a lot, met a lot of great people and was even invited out for coffee by the VP of Current Programming at CBS! I had amazing day at the Pitchfest. I pitched my scripts and myself to 19 different production companies. I got a lot of positive feedback and one script in particular was requested by about 10 different companies. Though that sounds like good news, it's just the beginning. Here's the life of a pitched script:

At a development company, the process starts with someone reading it and deciding if they like it or not. If they do, they ask for a rewrite. After 2 or 3 rewrites, the person pitches it to their boss. If their boss likes it, more notes and more rewrites are done. Once everyone thinks the script is perfect, they try to sell it.

If a production company likes it, they don't have to worry about selling it, they are the ones deciding if they want to buy it. I've only got one production company interested and it's in Canada. That company is in the process of pitching the idea to the people in charge to decide if they want to read it at all.

So for the places that actually requested scripts for me, I decided that I should get them professionally polished. These script ideas are the first screenplays I've ever written. In fact, the most popular idea was the first idea I wrote. Most people say that screenwriters don't produce quality work until their fifth or sixth idea. So, based on notes from a professional, I'll do some rewrites and send my final drafts out in a few weeks.

The best news of trip was a development assistant who said he'd go to bat for me for a production assistant job, but I'd have to start next week. Every single executive I spoke to said that if I want to break into the field, I need to work as an intern for free. The fact that I had an opportunity to interview for a job that actually paid something made me feel like I should take it. I probably dragged my feet a little too long though, because I haven't heard back from them.

I've made some definitive decisions and I will be sharing them in the next post. Don't turn that dial, we'll be right back :-)

Writing Projects

As an admissions counselor, June and July leave me with the most free time of the year because most people don't look for college during these months. Theoretically, it is the time that I get to have normal social and fitness schedules and plan vacations.

I made the decision to cram as much writing as I can in June and relax in July. Because of the Pitchfest and some contest deadlines, this seemed like a good idea. Initially, I planned to write a spec script for Glee, work on preparing pitches for my feature scripts and work on revisions for all of my completed drafts throughout the month.

Then, I learned of a new contest to write an original half-hour pilot for a contest for Spike TV. Out of the blue, I was invited to participate in a secret writing project through a website that reviewed my earlier contest submissions and decided that I was a good writer. I felt like I couldn't pass up that honor, so I wrote new content for that contest.

When researching companies that are going to be at the Pitchfest at the end of this month, I learned that Agape Media is going to participate. Agape is a mega-church in LA that is rooted in New Thought. My spiritual center is closely aligned with Agape and one of my screenplays has some strong New Thought elements. In addition, they are probably the only the production company in the world that actually accepts submissions. Therefore, the screenplay I'd like to pitch to them must be a lot tighter than it is now.

Based on new work and information, I have decided to give my pitches and screenplay revisions top priority for the remaining 15 days in the month of June. After starting my spec for Glee, it felt like an incredibly daunting task to have a good draft by June 30 for a contest deadline. I will be taking a television writing class at Columbia this fall, so I will write that script during the fall semester.

I will spend July on the pilot for Spike and on the relaxation that I promised to myself all year. Within the last year, I have taken two screenwriting classes, a television class, several writing workshops and bootcamps and a spiritual foundations class all while balancing extra work, family, community and volunteer commitments. I think I deserve July.

I'll be taking the bus to Memphis to meet my girlfriend's family during the July 4th holiday and I'll be spending a long weekend in Lake Geneva with my family shortly afterward. I plan to watch at least one full season of the television shows Breaking Bad, Party Down, The Guild, Battlestar Galactica, Damages and Six Feet Under. I heard they're good, and I will be posting my opinions about them as the excitement unfolds.

The next post will include more information about my finished projects. I should have contest results from my secret writing project very soon and I will certainly provide updates about the Pitchfest. Stay tuned!

Network Bidding for the Emmys

So I know I promised I'd share more about my writing projects in this post, but right now, I don't feel like talking about them so I'm going to go on a new rant about the Emmys. Right now, the networks aren't really feeling the Emmys. They have to pay licensing fees and production costs and the benefit doesn't feel worth the expense (Hollywood Reporter).

The intended benefit of the Emmys are to bring more attention to the networks' shows, but the Emmys haven't improved the ratings for recent winners. Looking at Emmy-nominated shows, it is easy to understand why.

I'm not saying the shows suck, they're awesome. However, Americans don't like awesome television. Americans really like crap. There's a reason that the MTV Movie Awards exist and that they're talked about amongst regular people far more than the Oscars. MTV is fun and features movies and actors that people actually know and like. If MTV had a television award show, I'm sure it would be the same way.

The show would actually be entertaining, including skits featuring the Jersey Shore cast, America's Top Model judges and other stars and cast-offs from crappy reality shows, and feature characters from shows the 18-49 crowd watches, like Grey's Anatomy, How I Met Your Mother and Glee.

Granted, Glee can currently change things in the world of the Emmys next year. Critics and regular people like it, so if there's some good stuff from Glee, the show's ratings will probably benefit. But my point is that the Emmys are suffering from the same disconnection with the people that the Oscars are. Until the networks start producing fictional programming that attracts the 18-49 crowd and the Emmys become just as fun as the programs themselves, it's going to continue to go down the toilet.

Even if the Emmys were highlighting shows that the American public was actually watching, the award's show format is pretty boring. I feel like it's essentially the same format since the inception of awards shows. MTV award shows work because they constantly have to switch things up to get the attention of their demographic. I'm not saying that Jon Hamm should fall naked from the ceiling onto Charlie Sheen, I'm just saying the Emmys could stand to mix things up a little. Have Beyonce perform with the Glee kids. Or better yet, just invite Kanye and have him present an Emmy to Courtney Cox after beating out Tina Fey and see what happens.

Screenplay

So the story begins when I started my job at Columbia College Chicago. I was working downtown and needed to take public transportation to work every day. Though I have tons of music on my iPod, I was getting bored and had an idea to start downloading the podcasts. After doing a search for "television", I found Pilar Alessandra's "On The Page" podcast.

At first, I just downloaded the episodes that featured guests that we television writers and executives. I found the podcast relevant, informative and entertaining so I downloaded more. Through the podcast, I learned that the lines between television and film writing are quite blurred. She had guests that were television and screenwriters who were writing for the Hallmark Channel, ABC Family and Disney.

After listening to these podcasts, I was inspired. I didn't have an idea for a screenplay, but I decided I would write one. Over time, an idea came to me. One day, I sat down and wrote it. I wrote an entire screenplay in one day. But I didn't know what to do with it. I decided to register for a screenwriting class at Columbia, since I have such a handy dandy discount.

I wanted to use the screenplay I had already written, but the teacher said we needed to start with a brand new idea. My first assignment was to write six loglines for a script I might like to write and that sparked a brand new idea. This screenplay was much more difficult for me to write and ended up taking me the entire semester, as opposed to one day.

Close to the end of completion of my screenplay, I had the opportunity to take a rewriting workshop, held at Columbia, by the one and only, Pilar Alessandra. I was so excited to meet her. The workshop was super helpful and I was lucky enough to horn in on her plans to meet some other people at a bar. While talking about my screenplay idea, she suggested that I go the Pitchfest this summer because my idea was so timely.

So here I am, getting ready for the Pitchfest in three weeks. I have a lot of other writing projects to complete before the end of the month that interfere with my preparation process. I'll be ready to share more about those in my next post. Stay tuned.

Welcome

I have always loved television. I love it so much that in high school, I made a decision to pursue it professionally. At the time, I didn't know anything about television, other than the fact that I liked to watch it. To learn more, I took a class in high school at Columbia College Chicago, I browsed the internet and read anything I can find about the subject at Borders.

At the time, my resources were limited. The internet was still a baby and no one had even heard of Google. Domain names came a dime a dozen. I didn't know anyone in the industry and I didn't know anyone who knew anyone in the industry. I made the decision to study media at Northern Illinois because it was cheap, far enough away from home but close enough to visit and cable television was included with my dorm room. Cable TV was especially important to me because my mother had never allowed me to have it and as a TV-phile, I didn't want to live another moment without it.

When I graduated from college in 2003, I had no idea how much I didn't know. I was a bright-eyed, arrogant Master's degree-holder with a great apartment and a job at a TV station in Des Moines. So for the last seven years, I have had a number of different jobs in and out of the industry that have taught me how ignorant I am. Worst of all, everything I'm learning now, is a part of the regular curriculum for Columbia College Chicago, a school that now acts as my employer. My job is to speak to students about how fabulous the college is, which serves as a constant reminder of the decision I should have made so many years ago.

My various jobs, articles, books, podcasts, on and off-line social networking groups, classes, workshops and conferences all make me feel better prepared to really break into the world of television. My next step involves a trip to Los Angeles next month to pitch two screenplays I wrote over the course of this year.

One may ask, if I'm so interested in breaking through the small screen, why am I writing for the big one. The answer to that question comes in the next blog post.