Producing Writing

The 11 Laws of Showrunning by Javier Grillo-Marxuach

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

One of the nice outputs of reading Maureen Ryan’s Burn it Down, that I referenced last week, was to learn about Javier Grillo-Marxuach’s guide “Eleven Laws of Showrunning.” (PDF link) This guide was mentioned in the context of needing good management. So many showrunners are writers who have created the ideas of the show and are expert at both writing and solving writing problems, but they so often have zero managerial experience. Not only that,…

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Acting Producing Writing

Have We Tried Burning it All Down?

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

While I was covering the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes last year, an obvious question for a follow-up was what the future of Hollywood would be. While there’s certainly been a lot of pieces since the end of the strikes, one of the conversations I found that touched on this was with Adam Conover on his Factually podcast. It’s from August of last year, arguably during the height of the strikes. I actually linked to it…

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Various and Sundry

Finding the Right Routine

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I really should have posted this back in January when New Year’s Resolutions were top of mind… or perhaps when, here in the States, we sprung forward for Daylight Saving Time. However, whether or not our collection of Mason jars in the cupboard can successfully store daylight, having routines is a good idea… and certainly we’ve all heard about the importance of morning routines. In fact, go-getters who manage their extroversion without caffeine can be…

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Producing

“…Maybe the Industry Deserves to Die.”

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I’ve been working on additional film industry posts, but in the meantime, this brief article about an adjacent industry caught my eye. Video games are a huge business — and from talking with some industry folks here and there, they experience some of the same bull that the film industry rank and file experience, so I read this piece by Lauren Morton for PC Gamer with that in mind.

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Various and Sundry

Different Proportional Voting Options

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Okay, so the general election here in the States is many moons away, but anytime’s a good time to talk about the importance of voting, right? As some readers may recall, I’ve made several votes over the years regarding dealing with gerrymandering and the promise of ranked choice voting. The folks over at Vox have put together a video that explains how other countries tackle elections over and beyond the possibilities of ranked choice voting.…

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Various and Sundry

The Blob Opera Endures

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

In clearing out some old emails and other materials dating back to the height of the pandemic, when we were looking for so many distractions, I came across my sharing of this machine-learning curiosity, which is not only still functioning, it seems like it may be enhanced. So launch up your favorite browser and enjoy. Considering the recent departure of two folks who contributed much to world silliness, re-introducing this bit of silliness seems appropriate…

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Producing Various and Sundry Writing

Star Trek’s Mission Log: 58 Years & Counting

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

The beginning of the end of Star Trek: Discovery‘s five-year mission streams this Thursday, April 4th. Originally, this fifth season of Discovery was apparently not intended to be the final one, which has caused all kinds of rampant speculation online. However, Trek overall, is not only not going anywhere, the powers that be want to maintain what isn’t just a franchise, but a veritable Intellectual Property (IP) empire. In a longform cover story for Variety,…

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Various and Sundry

Them’s Fighting Films!

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

With films and film history very much on the mind from my post earlier this week, I was delighted to stumble (pratfall?) across this list from Vulture about the 100 Fights that Shaped Action Cinema. The work of multiple writers (and presumed cinemaniacs), this list goes back to the earliest moving pictures to the present day (it came out earlier this month). I not only appreciate it for its exhaustive scope, I’m very thankful that…

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Producing Various and Sundry Writing

Alternate Hollywoods

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I’ve had the chance to catch up on a lot of Scriptnotes episodes over the past few weeks, which is always a good thing. Scriptnotes is a weekly podcast hosted by screenwriters John August and Craig Mazin which has been going on for over a decade and continues to have things about and interesting to screenwriters. As I’ve been meaning to do some posts about the future of Hollywood following last year’s strikes and the…

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Various and Sundry

Farscape at 25

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I’ve mentioned before how much I like the now firmly cult show Farscape and I see no reason to stop now, especially as its vision of a galaxy full of wonders and nightmares is a clear influence on the upcoming seasons of my own space opera. At 25, its best episodes still pack a punch and aren’t shy about embracing the weird. So if it’s checking out this retrospective by Ryan Britt for Inverse, backing…

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