Jack Carroll on Britain's Got Talent.

Here's one more reason to like Britain's Got Talent. The 14 year old teenager with cerebral palsy surprises everyone with his sense of humour.

Talk about being an underdog. How can you not like this kid?

Now, based on his audition one might think that all the jokes would be about his physical handicap and that his act would wear quickly thin.

Thankfully, during the semi-finals, Jack Carroll's performance was..



 ..hilarious! Can't wait too see him in the finals! (June 8th)

Modern Family's 4th season finale.

I know I've written too much about Modern Family lately, but in my opinion the 4th season finale is, I think, the best finale that the show has had. 4x24, 'Goodnight, Gracie' is also one of the best episodes of the series.

Now, when I'm saying that 'Goodnight Gracie' is a really good episode, I think it also suffers from having too many storylines in it, just like the great 'Moon Landing', from season one. 

I mean, there's Cam socializing with seniors, Haley & Alex together, Jay and his 'first time', Mitchell defending Gloria in a courtroom and Phil trying to make her late mother's last wish come true. That's five storylines.

I don't know about you, but for me it's difficult to process that much information. Five storylines in twenty-one minutes means that you have only four minutes for each storyline on average.

I honestly don't think that's enough and there's no way that the stuff you see on screen is really going to 'breathe'. There's just too much happening at the same time in order to make it elegant.

Having said that, I did like the storylines. Starting with Phil trying to make her mom's last wish come true, I liked that I was able to see Phil show his more serious side. Even though the storyline was a bit rushed, the last scene was really well written and beautifully acted.

I also liked that we finally got to hear more about Jay's Vietnam experience. I thoroughly enjoyed the storyline and Ed O'Neill again gives a fantastic couch interview, just like he did last season with his 'I hope it's a boy'.

Furthermore, I did like the Mitchell & Gloria storyline. Mitchell doing courtroom stuff is something that I did in my spec script. The storyline was professionally written and worked rather well.

Still, I guess in a way I can't help but to think that perhaps someone from the show got the idea of Mitchell becoming a trial lawyer from me. I mean, it is a generic idea, but at the same time, it kinda isn't.

But anyway, there was also good stuff about Cameron not wanting to stir things up. The boys, Luke and Manny we're pretty funny too, and at the end of the episode, we finally got a voice-over that was sweet and actually made sense.

What can we expect from 'The Crazy Ones'?

I don't really know what to think about David Kelley's single camera sitcom The Crazy Ones that just got picked up by CBS.

Yes, Kelley, the 10 time Emmy winner behind shows like Ally Mcbeal and The Practice is going to be in charge of producing a half hour comedy this fall.

The first question that comes to mind is, of course, can this show be any good? Is there any chance that this tv series could provide us quality entertainment?

Naturally, in order to make an educated guess, we have to pay attention to at least three things:

1) what is the premise?

2) who are the characters?

3) what are the storylines about?

The premise: according to a press release, this show is "a father-daughter workplace comedy set in the world of advertising". Not necessarily an original one, we have seen it before (Just Shoot Me).

The characters: The father, apparently a rather 'crazy' Robin Williams playing the ad agency owner. The daughter, the co-owner played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, who is trying to see that her dad doesn't do anything stupid.

The storylines: let's watch the trailer for this show first:

Looks like the show's first episode is going to be about the father making some kind of a comeback. In that sense I guess he's supposed to be some kind of an underdog. That's always a good thing.

There's also a celebrity cameo by Kelly Clarkson. Seems like an interesting, likable, real person. ('Stronger' is a wonderful song)

However, the important thing to notice is that the first episode is about doing an ad for the hamburger chain Mcdonald's. This tells me that the show is trying to be relevant by having actual existing products and trademarks on the show.

Of course the big question is to what extent you're allowed to criticize these companies and how much you're allowed to make fun of the absurdity known as 'marketing'.

If Crazy Ones can take an honest look at the industry, then I guess it could become a real hit. That is that the show would have something to say about our way of life and how we just keep consuming.

Anyway, let's get back to this show once it airs.

How not to write a show: Modern Family episode 4x22.

This was a boo boo that I didn't really expect too see on a show like Modern Family. I'm talking about the episode 4x22 'My Hero'.

I mean, I guess it started okay. We (Cam and Mitch) meet a person who turns out was Mitch's ex-partner. He invites them to a some sort of a fundraiser.

They say yes.

Still good. 'Something's going to happen'. A good way to start telling your story.

But when they get to the event..

..it turns out that this ex-partner Teddy who we had never heard about before.. ..is a close family friend of the Dunphys.

He's apparently friends even with Alex and Haley.

I was like.. what the..

Everyone in the Dunphy family knows this guy..  .. but I don't.

The last four years I've lived with these people and yet I had no idea this guy existed.

If this character really did exist in the Modern Family universe, we would have seen him already - many many many times.

That makes me wonder..

What else do I not know about my favorite family?

Are there other important characters on this show that I haven't heard about before?

Based on this episode, I guess anything is possible.

I mean, they might even have a kid in the household that we simply haven't seen yet.

Could it be that they're not even a real family?

What if..

Phil is really a space alien?

Obviously this is not how you're supposed to write a show.

Storytelling tips for sitcom writers (Modern Family).

I guess pretty much everyone knows that storytelling isn't easy at all - because it's really difficult. Yet, at the same time I don't see why anyone should make it seem any harder than it really is.

One of the things that makes sitcom writing seem so hard is that there are concepts out there that are not that clear or easy to understand. For example if you take a look at the standard list of plot elements, it consists of terms like:

1. Introduction.

2. Conflict.

3. Complication.

4. Climax.

5. Resolution.

In theory that's how it's supposed to be done. You come up with an introduction, then there's a conflict or conflicts, then you complicate the whole thing, then there's the climax and finally you try to find a resolution to your storyline.

 

Yet, I think this is not necessarily the right way to do it when it comes to sitcoms. The list above is ideal for plotting an episode for a show like Macgyver or House where you can bet your... house ..that you're going to have complications.

But it doesn't necessarily work that well in sitcoms. Words like conflict, complication and climax are pretty big, abstract and confusing. They are also pretty cold and negative terms too in my opinion.

For some reason most sitcom books that I have read include this five point list. What is worse is that this list is almost the only thing these books have to say about storytelling. (would you feel confident about writing scripts after reading that list?)

From my own experience I can say that these lists never gave me the courage or the confidence to write. I was never able to come up with anything that made sense or anything that was 'organic'.

In my opinion, it's much easier and much more character-based to come up first with stuff based on the following structure:

1. Something (like an event) is about to happen.

2. Something happens.

3. Reaction to something that happened.

This approach helps you to create storylines without making the process seem too difficult. It's relatively simple and for a reason. No need to immediately think about conflict which usually would mean 'mindless arguing' or complication which too many times turns out to be just a contrived cliche.

If you pay attention to the episodes of Modern Family, a lot of the storylines follow this formula. That is that something is about to happen, then something happens - it might be unexpected - and then there's a reaction to what happened.

If you analyze the show and think about its storylines, it becomes pretty clear that there aren't necessarily always big conflicts, complications or climaxes - even though you might think there would be - based on the standard formula.

Truth is that the more conflicts and complications you have in your script, the more negative and forced the episode is probably going to be.

Another thing is that the episodes only last 21 minutes, which means that you have to keep the storylines pretty straight. The simpler your structure is, the better your script probably is too.

So simple works and simple is good. If you worry too much about the big words like 'conflict' and 'complication', you'll never get started and you'll never finish your script.

Writing another Modern Family script: writing the script.

I did some actual writing this and last week and managed to write my third Modern Family spec script. Like I did with my second script for this show, my writing routine consisted of writing two pages a day, and that was basically it.

So, when I last time wrote here about writing this script, I thought about the storylines. However, I didn't really come up with any beats then. I had some ideas for the first two storylines but I was pretty much clueless about the third one. This meant that I had to do some serious thinking.

Not surprisingly, I feel that my third storyline is probably the weakest. The idea is about Cameron having a bathroom accident which leads to Jay and Phil coming to the rescue - kinda. This storyline wasn't easy to write but perhaps it taught me the most. I had to try to make the implausible somehow plausible.

Nevertheless, the first storyline was about Claire and Mitchell going to Sun Valley with Lily to figure skate. There they introduce Lily to the wonderful world of skating. They also manage to meet Brian Boitano - the olympic gold medalist (and an Emmy winner).

For some reason Boitano recognizes Claire and Mitch from their 'fire & nice' days and they decide to go for a lunch together. What happens is that this storyline culminates in Brian being disappointed with his life - or at least he's having a sad emotional day. This was for the sake of the story of course.

This storyline wouldn't really have been relevant without referencing the song 'What Would Brian Boitano Do?'. I just had to do it and Cameron gets the honor to sing the song over the phone, which hopefully helps to make this episode funny.

The third storyline was about Luke having a date. This was a good idea but I didn't initially have enough material to make it meaningful or emotional. That is before I came up with the idea that Alex is seemingly the only one who doesn't know.

So the way it goes is that Luke has a date, Alex is trying to figure out what's going on, then she's told she's pretty much the only one who doesn't know, then she confronts Luke about it and finally gets to know the reason why he didn't tell her - which makes her like him even more than she used to.

Those are basically the three storylines and I have to say that I was pretty afraid of writing this script. It's not easy to write when you have set the bar too high for yourself. Thankfully, I managed to write it and now I can finally do something else.

How much does money mean to you?

 

If someone gave you ten million bucks, would you quit writing?

I personally don't think I would and I bet most writers wouldn't quit either.

I mean, I'd be set for life and I'd be able to pay more attention to writing scripts.

But what if someone gave you 500 million dollars on one condition - that you could never write again?

I know the question is absurd - but let's speculate. How many writers would quit?

I'd think that almost everyone would take the money and run.

Would I do the same?

I mean, I'm not sure I really care about being rich. Money doesn't necessarily buy happiness.

In many ways I think that writing scripts is the best thing that has happened to me - the best thing that could ever happen. 

So I mean...

But what if you could save the world by never writing again?

Tough call.