Yes, Uncle Dave is, among other things, an aspiring science fiction screenwriter. So, I traveled to LA to attend a screenwriters conference to try to sell the screenplay I’ve been working on off and on for eight years. So if any of you know someone in the biz who knows someone who can buy it, I won’t object if you want to let them know. [wink, wink, nudge, nudge…]
Anyway, a part of these conferences are the guest speakers. One today was Oliver Stone (top pic) who mostly talked about his latest film, World Trade Center, and the issues and emotional hurdles dealing with a subject like that. Another had Ronald D. Moore (bottom pic), former Star Trek writer and now, producer and head writer for the brilliant Battlestar Galactica, one of the best shows (alternating with Lost) on TV. Sharing the stage with him was science fiction legend, Harlan Ellison (middle pic), who would give Dvorak a run for his money in a curmudgeon death match.
Best question of the day from the audience went to Moore about Galactica: Q: Will Baltar ever have an episode where doesn’t whine and moan? A: Oddly enough, yes. Soon.
Earlier today I was in one of the seminars presented by Rockne S. O’ Bannon. Science fiction/fantasy fans will know him as the creator of one of my-time favorite shows, Farscape, and the writer of Alien Nation (the movie, not the TV show). He was talking about how he writes and works with a team of writers on a TV show and his secrets to writing. As Spock would say, fascinating!
On Sunday I’ll be seeing William Goldman who wrote Butch Cassidy, Princess Bride and many others, and who is kind of the father of modern screenwriting.
[Sorry about the blurry Stone pic. I was too far in back. BTW, Ellison was signing copies of a book about the making of his award winning Star Trek episode. It was a running joke throughout that his wife (standing behind him) had copies she was selling afterwards. Here’s the signed copy geeky me bought.]
Um, certainly I recognize you from the blog here, but are we supposed to know which one is you? Or are you not in any of these? Harlan Ellison and Ronald Moore are definitely two people (geeky me) that I would make an effort to be in a picture with.
And Harlan looks positively antediluvian. I look forward to being even older.
Total envy. In another life, RBG 5.2, I was actually a Reader for a big production company in LA. It was a great education and I became a very brutal script analyzer. Often you could tell if the writers knew what they were doing even before opening the cover. And while I hoped-upon-hope that I would discover a great script, I never did, though lots of promising writers.
I don’t know if he is still doing it, but Robert McKee’s Story Structure course is worth the $.
Good luck.
RBG
“Yes, Uncle Dave is, among other things, an aspiring science fiction screenwriter.” …. hmmm… why doesn’t this surprise me???
Ellison is brilliant. City on the Edge of Forever has been recognized as one of the 10 best television episodes of all time. About.com had some interesting trivia about the episode and how Ellison and Roddenberry had a falling out over Roddenberry’s final version of the episode. After listening to Ellison talk about his original ending of the story, I think his version would have made an already great episode even better.
http://experts.about.com/e/t/th/The_City_on_the_Edge_of_Forever.htm
Every time I see something or hear something from Harlen Ellison, it’s almost ALWAYS about how brilliant he is and how much better the ending to City on the Edge of Forever was better than what they filmed.
Also, why are we getting this “Kind-a-Captcha” thing here at Dvorak.org now? Anyone else find this totally annoying?
Ellison and Roddenberry had a falling out over Roddenberry’s final version of the episode. After listening to Ellison talk about his original ending of the story, I think his version would have made an already great episode even better.
For those interested in the Harlan Ellison version of the screenplay, there was (dunno if it’s still in print) a paperback book (at least the version I have) called SIX SCIENCE FICTION PLAYS, ed. Roger Ellwood.
Published by Washington Square Press/Pocket Books (c) 1976.
Also, more recently available the screenplay for Ellison’s adaptation of the I, Robot stories by Isaac Asimov, NO relation to the Will Smith movie of the same name – it follows Asimov’s stories instead of having one plotline.
Actually, it also takes me back to ‘college days’ in the ’70’s when Harlan spoke to my screenwriting class… on commenting (my memory that far back is a bit ‘iffy’, but…)that he would/might malign Jesus in his speech, someone in the audience/class yelled out something along the lines of ‘go for it’ – which rather caught Mr. Ellison off guard.
J/P=?
Paint me green wirh envy.
#1, there’s a picture of Uncle Dave holding up the Tower of Pisa on an exceptional column by Dvorak in PC Magazine a couple of issues ago.
Congratulations, Uncle Dave, BTW. I’ve thought about screen writing too, mostly because the payoff is tremendou$
Ever been w/i earshot of Ellison after being introduced as a ‘science fiction’ author? Sorry, John stays down in the third in a deathmatch …
Reviewing the fantasy fiction short How’s the Night Life on Cissalda? to my classmates in ’78 earned several friends, and more than several faculity ‘guidence’ counselor sessions.
I wish the media never existed. That way there would be no more famous people making propaganda.
Trust me people, I am anything but photogenic these days. I try to stay out of pictures if I can.
#4: Falling out might be a mild way of putting it. His string of invectives in describing Roddenberry was simply stunning. And Moore didn’t lift a finger to correct him, and might have been nodding while Ellison was spewing them.
#8: If I was, John’s been doing some Photoshoping.
Dave just remember in Hollywood nobody reads over 4 paragaphs of anything.
I’d also put in 2 votes for Ellison’s “City” book and his screenplay for ‘I, Robot”. Very cool, must read SciFi stuff.
8. My grandmother wants to write scripts. When I was reading, the company had a large room where two walls were covered from bottom to top with scripts. Those were the unread ones.
There is a story, which may or may not be apocryphal, that a reporter once walked along Sunset Blvd in LA randomly asking people how their screenplay was coming along and all of them were able to respond in detail.
RBG
#14, It’s like in nyc where all the waiters and waitresses are aspiring actors. I once took a writing class but after I wrote a ten page short story that everyone read including the teacher, the instructor ripped it apart in his critique. He said I was an asshole, the writing was shitty, that I was an American Indian who hated White people, called me a jerk and a meandering chauvinist loaf. I was devastated after that, and haven’t written since.
Battlestar Galactica a great show??? Ha! All I see is people bitching at each other for power and the Cylons act like apathetic skinny boyish looking bishounen trash that japanese schoolgirls love so much.
All the while in the backgorund there a woman singing “waaaoooowaoowaooo” when someone tells one of the regular characters that something went wrong even if it’s something as plains as there’s no more chocolate ice cream.
I want Sci-fi, not “days of our lives in space.”
And don’t get me started on Lost… The only decent thing that came out of them is that they didn’t killed the asian characters in the first 15 minutes of the first season.
Angel, how do you know they haven’t killed off the asian characters? You don’t watch it do you? Or are you one of those people that want to complain about something and hate it, yet keep watching it!
And 0113addiv – maybe follow the instructors advice and never write anything again…including posts to this blog? Just a thought?
16 & 17: Them’s fightin’ words, y’all.
You’re dissing my horse opera in space.
Seriously, though; you’re clearly a person of wit and I’m glad to know it isn’t universally appealing in such that it instantly transmutes every bright spark with a taste for science fiction into a blithering fan-boy, erm, person.
But BSG was always a soap opera, even when Glen Larson helmed it.
I have all kinds of crappy tastes. But they’re still my tastes. And I’m very happy with the re-make of my soap. Sci-Fi has rooked me into three hours of TV a week and subsequent watching of the equivalent number of commercials (which never persuade me to buy their products, I buy someone else’s, instead). Thus far, the thing seems to be working, and James Olmos has apparently become convinced that he’s a suitable replacement for Lorne Greene, so I have no complaints.
And 18 is right: they’ve killed the asian repeatedly — a plot contrivance allows them to keep killing the same one over and over, in fact the asian is arguably one of the better characters and they keep doing all kinds of awful stuff to her. But making the audience like someone and then doing something awful to them seems to be pretty much their formula.
#18
Saw enough of Lost to find it nauseating.
Max:
Yep, the “new” BSG it is a much serious version of the previous one, I just hope that when in this one they reach Earth it won’t turn into an extra campy thing.
“And 18 is right: they’ve killed the asian repeatedly ” Looks like the favourite past time of a marine in the 70s.
And I don’t mind a cowpoke in ST: Enterprise. BUT, I do mind if they use an actor that looks *very* similar in appeareance to George W. Bush.
I just couldn’t stand seeing a smart character with Bush’s face.
Don’t get me wrong I do love Sci-fi. I’m just dissapointed at what has been shown recently.
Angel:
No, I understand where you’re coming from; truly. Parts of it might be easier for me to take than you, which is what, to me, makes it good writing. It forces me to re-assess where I’m coming from. It’d be nice if it had the same effect on others, but I could care less, given it’s effect on me.
I was toilet trained by an ex-jungle Sargent from the 70’s; he pointed to the mess in my pants and asked how I’d like to eat it for dinner. I knew right away that the real problem was that I was creating a burden for other people; that was the end of it. I know he was a rarity; I own a hedgehog and refer to it as a hajii. I also understand why we have guys in Iraq leaving calling cards like keep turning up as atrocities on CNN. Terry’s (the guy who toilet trained me) philosophy of war, “get stoned and hide”, doesn’t hold up so good when it involves all-you-can eat speed and sitting in an unarmored humvee waiting for an IED.
Makes sense to me that the most intelligent question would involve when Baltar stops whining, and that Ellison would be selling autographed scripts out of his trunk to wanna-bes. I have an unsigned letter from Harlan Ellison encouraging me not to sell out, and an anecdote from Ron Moore about his own experience with same on his blog, in which he was kind enough to answer my question about whether the series would be informed by Larson’s attempt to inject religion into the plot without providing any spoilers.
But I’m telling you, you’re missing a great show if it’s just too hard to take. One, it really shouldn’t be and two, it’s not like you have good guys and bad guys. On one hand, you’ve got a bunch of xenophobes who think they’re the be-all and end-all of sapient life and on the other you’ve got a relative handful of people with serious envy issues who have no hope of being recognized by the former.
That it’s a soap or that it draws too heavily on current events notwithstanding, I’ll forgive the obvious parallels and contrivances so long as it continues to split up the stupidity and failure between both sides. That’s just how it should be.
Dave your the man!
but where are the screenwriter babe pix?
http://www.tcf.net/digitallife.html
MAX:
I know it’s a good show, I just find the acting level of some of the characters as flat and bland as Haiden Christiansen’s, or in the best case a car dealer commercial.
Oh, yeah, Jamie Bamber… Fortunately, the show’s really not about him.D
Personally I love BSG. I think both the writing and acting are great.
Fascinating stuff.