Category: hollywood

Pitching over Zoom? Try using an external camera to improve the image quality

On By Eric BuchmanIn cable, hollywood, Misc., tech, televisionLeave a comment

I first planned to write about using tech to improve your TV/movie pitches over Zoom back in May, but then I asked myself “how useful will this post be in a month?” and I didn’t wind up writing it. Now here we are in July and, well…I should’ve written it then.

So here’s the basic gist — I actually don’t think you should be relying too much on technical gimmickry to gussy up your pitches. You don’t need on-screen graphics or green screen effects in a Zoom pitch any more than you need them in an in-person pitch, and the more tech you incorporate, the more things can go wrong. What you do want: The best possible presentation of you and your voice.

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L.A. Writing Spot Review #5: THE BEST WRITING SPOT YOU REFUSE TO GO TO

On By Eric BuchmanIn hollywood, Misc., ReviewLeave a comment

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A few months ago the Corner Bakery Cafe in the Beverly Connection underwent a drastic renovation — so drastic they actually moved the entire restaurant 150 feet.

The new location is surprisingly well thought out for laptop users.  The whole restaurant is lined with intimate, two-person booths, all equipped with power outlets (and there’s a bar with outlets, too).  It’s spacious enough that even during the lunch rush, seating is easy to be found.  The wi-fi is decent.  And the menu has recently been given a once-over (and much improved in my opinion).  If you’re not in the mood for a meal, the staff doesn’t mind if you just buy a drink and set-up shop either.

If you’re near the border of Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, you could do a lot worse than the new Corner Bakery.  It’s one of my go-to spots now.

LA WRITING SPOT REVIEW #3: The Larchmont Coffee Bean

On By Eric BuchmanIn hollywood, ReviewLeave a comment

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This one will be short, as this location can be summed up quite easily: Small.

Location:  135 N. Larchmont Blvd, between Beverly Blvd and 1st Street.

Parking:  Metered on the street, but if you’re willing to walk a couple blocks, Larchmont Blvd. has free 2 hour parking on the other side of 1st Street.

Ambiance:  Quaint. Feels like a Coffee Bean you might find in a mall or airport.  It’s standing room only on the inside, and not because it’s busy, but because there are no seats of any kind.  If you want to see one of the many famous people who live in the neighborhood (or those working at the nearby Paramount Lot), you’re better off going to the Starbucks or Peet’s across the street. (If you care about such things, which you totally shouldn’t.)

Seating Inside: Zero.

Seating Outside:  Seating for 10 — 5 tables with 2 chairs each.

Amenities: No outlets to speak of.  No bathroom.

Wifi: Even with no one else apparently using it, it’s a rather mediocre 1.83Mbps downstream and 0.41Mbps upstream.  Servicable for reading most websites, but if you need to download/upload a big file, it’s not the best.

Music: Can’t hear what’s currently playing inside.

Ability to do work here:  Not bad if you’ve got plenty of battery power, a healthy bladder, and the weather is decent.  Before coming here, I went by the neighborhood’s Starbucks and Peet’s first, which are larger with more seating (especially inside), but both were packed.  If one of them had inside seating available, I’d be there right now.   In a pinch, though, it’ll do, as it is for me right now.

L.A. WRITING SPOT REVIEW #1: The 90210 Coffee Bean

On By Eric BuchmanIn hollywood, Review1 Comment

One of the perks of being a (mostly) freelance writer — always a change of scenery.  I do a lot of my work out-and-about, at various places on the Westside of Los Angeles.  My writer-friends are always asking me what I think of certain spots so I figured, what the heck, why I don’t just review them all?  First up is the Coffee Bean on North Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills, which is not to be confused with the Coffee Bean on South Beverly Drive (just a few blocks away) or the one on Beverly Blvd (about a mile away).

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Location:  Heart of “downtown” Beverly Hills on the corner of N. Beverly Dr. and Little Santa Monica Blvd. (Do people still call it Little Santa Monica? Or is just South Santa Monica now, which is confusing because it runs parallel to North Santa Monica?)

Parking:  It’s near two city-run garages that offer free parking for up to 2 hours before 6pm. Nice.

Seating: By my count, at least 20+ inside.  Another 10+ outside.  In total, 8 two-tops, two “lounge-y” areas with more plush seating, one larger table that three or four people could sit around, and two bars.   One is a communal “power bar” that seats 7 with individual outlets for every seated patron.  There’s also a slimmer bar against the wall that sits another half-dozen people who don’t care about power (or having their backs stared at by people waiting for their drinks).

Food & Drink:   Same selection as any other Coffee Bean as far as I could tell.

Typical Customer:  Appears to be mostly people who don’t want to wait in line at the more crowded Starbucks across the street.  The power bar attracts laptop wielders willing to sacrifice space for some much needed juice.

Amenities: Public bathroom.  Lots of the aforementioned electrical sockets.

Wifi:  Typical Coffee Bean wifi (i.e. requires a passcode that is readily visible on their infotainment screen).  At 11:50am on a Monday, with two laptop users, a guy on an iPad, and a couple smartphones appearing to be on the network, the download speed was 4.38Mbps.  I haven’t run this official speed test anywhere else yet, but based on personal experience, I have a feeling it’ll beat the other coffeehouses in the neighborhood (two Starbucks, a Peet’s, and another Coffee Bean).  The upload was a dismal 0.51Mbps.  So don’t plan on Skyping, but you know what?  You should never Skype at a coffeehouse anyway.  It’s tacky and hogs the bandwidth.  Also worth mentioning:  My Dropbox folder had no trouble syncing over the wifi, but my Google Drive folder was “unable to connect.”

Music:  Currently playing “Dig A Little Deeper” by Peter Bjorn and John.

Distinguishing Trait:  The gas fireplace fully encased in glass that produces no heat.  Any perceived warmth comes from the emptiness of your soul (or the people sitting around you, as around it are the most popular places to sit).

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Ability to do work here:  Pretty good, actually.  There’s almost always seating, and because it’s never all that crowded, it’s never all that loud.  If you have a meeting anywhere in Beverly Hills and want to get some work done before or after, this is an excellent choice.

Film Review: DON OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

On By Eric BuchmanIn hollywood, movies, ReviewLeave a comment

Don of the Planet of the Apes
No matter how much he begs you, do NOT take your helper monkey to see this movie.

Studio:  20th Century Fox
Director: Matt Reeves
Writers: Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver and Mark Bomback, based on characters by Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver and Matthew Weiner

As both a follow-up to 2011’s Rise of Planet of the Apes and spin-off of AMC’s Mad Men, this hybrid sequel/prequel/reboot/off-shoot is as loud as it is contemplative.  Initial fears of Apes franchise fans (“Apies” as they like to be called) that the inclusion of Don Draper was nothing more than a crass attempt by cynical Hollywood execs to appeal to the Asian youth market prove to be unfounded.  The story of a group of primates who team up with a legendary ad man to subjugate the remnants of humanity is a universal tale that, much like the titular Don, transcends time and space.  Director Reeves deftly melds the two juggernaut franchises into a singular epic so seamless, you will shit your pants.  Domestic returns should be strong and Jon Hamm’s immense popularity among North Korean adolescents should only bolster the film’s international box office to boot.

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How to be a kick-ass writers’ assistant

On By Eric BuchmanIn hollywood, television14 Comments

It’s June, which means TV writers’ rooms for the next season are opening for business.  Most of the people in those rooms are veteran writers who (hopefully) need no advice.  A lucky few are first-time writers who will need a lot of advice, but they’ll get none from me.  (Y’all are on your own.*)  No, this post is for the other people who make their living in a TV writers’ room; the true, unsung heroes of television. The Writers’ Assistants.

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Do you like to use ellipses in your film and TV scripts? Here’s a trick you’ll want to know.

On By Eric BuchmanIn hollywood1 Comment

Okay, it’s a less a “trick” than a standard feature of Mac computers (and I’m assuming PCs as well), but it’s something most people don’t know about.

First off, you shouldn’t rely too heavily on ellipses in general, but they have their purpose.  The problem is that a single ellipsis adds three characters to the last word in your sentence, and three characters is sometimes one or two too many, creating “orphan words” that push into the next line.

Continue reading “Do you like to use ellipses in your film and TV scripts? Here’s a trick you’ll want to know.” →

Anatomy of a TV Writers’ Room

On By Eric BuchmanIn hollywood, Misc., television2 Comments

449A4438One unexpected fruit of the internet: a million blogs dedicated to recapping every episode of every TV show currently on the air. Throw in all the people devoting their free time/lives to reexamining old episodes of Buffy, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Doctor Who, and you’ve got approximately 1 trillion web pages all devoted to one thing: Telling People What They Already Saw.

The AVClub, HitFix, TelevisionWithoutPity, and Entertainment Weekly — among countless other sites — have all figured out how to monetize the desperate need for TV addicts to have their opinions verified through consensus. No show is too small to be covered, no detail is too small to be obsessed over.  Thanks to the explosion of the TV echo-chamber, never before has so much attention been given to the process of making television.

And never before have so many people gotten it so wrong.

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There. I fixed it.

On By Eric BuchmanIn moviesLeave a comment

WookieMistakeAll around L.A. are billboards and posters for the new Ice Cube/Kevin Hart movie “Ride Along.” It looks like it could be pretty funny, but I just can’t get past the tagline the marketers chose: “Propose to this cop’s sister? Rookie mistake.”

Henceforth, I vow that whenever I see a movie poster with the word “rookie” on it, I’ll change it to wookie and alter the cast accordingly.