at last... pictures! (but no title)

Chalk this one up to the fact that I'm learning as I go...

In my last post [which was well over a week ago - so, no, you didn't misunderstand the English, Nico, but perhaps I need a refresher course... ;-)] I confidently announced that we'd have a title for the show in about a week. Well, as you may have guessed, that week has come and gone... without a title. We've had many discussions about possible titles and the network is in the process of clearing a few of them with their legal department, but the choosing-the-title process is a bit more complicated than I realized. And it's not necessarily done once a particular title has been cleared and selected. Apparently, until the network really begins to market a show, they can still modify the title... and sometimes do, depending on their needs. That said, I'll still let you know when we have a title - but don't get too excited about it until you start seeing the posters, billboards, or magazine ads... ;-)

But I do have something that you CAN get excited about... that's right, folks... I have pictures!

First, let me introduce you to the Loft Building - it's one of the three MTV buildings in Santa Monica. Our offices are on the first floor, which looks like this:

You can't see it very well, but my office is along that hallway in the center of the photo... the last green door on the left. Billy's is next to mine and Lee's is next to his. As before, we're all in a row.


You'll notice that the walls aren't pink and purple down here on the first floor. Only the lucky folks on the second floor (where our offices were before) get the pink and purple walls. Now we get pressed wood walls with lots of posters on them - as you can see from the U2 and Hives posters in the picture. I haven't decided which is cooler: pink and purple walls or pressed wood walls. If you have an opinion, feel free to share it... but please keep in mind that we're not moving back up to the second floor anytime soon, so if you think the pink and purple walls are cooler then I'll just feel bad. But don't let that influence you at all. ;-)

As I mentioned above, there are posters all over the walls on the first floor... and yes, there's also one on the wall just outside my office:

I'd like to think that having this right outside my office door makes me cool... but I could be wrong.





But I'm not wrong about the foosball table! Now this IS cool... and it's right outside our row of offices. In case you're not familiar with foosball, I took a photo of the table too!

The aforementioned U2 poster is on the wall behind it.







And now, for my actual office. Please keep in mind that since we've just moved in (and since Billy and I still spend a lot of time at Good Earth, so we're not in the office that often), this is the "undecorated" version:
Unless, of course, you consider a whiteboard with a calendar on it to be "decoration." Which I don't...





And last, but certainly not least, a special photo-explanation for Francyne, who has been patiently reading all about my vanilla coffee creamer triumphs and woes - without any idea what vanilla coffee creamer actually is.

Well, Francyne, vanilla coffee creamer is kind of like 1/2 and 1/2 - but it doesn't actually have any dairy in it. It's basically a bunch of chemicals made to taste like vanilla and you add it to your coffee and it tastes oh-so-good. The kind you can buy in the grocery store must be kept in the refrigerator... but the kind they have in the MTV kitchens are in little plastic packages that come out of a box with no refrigeration necessary (I know that should scare me, but it doesn't).

When I was in the offices yesterday, I discovered - to my utter horror - that the kitchen only had regular Coffee Mate and not the vanilla kind that makes me smile... I was disappointed. And as you can see from the photo, even the Coffee Mate itself was disappointed at being the "regular" flavor and not the "vanilla" flavor...


Oh well.







And now that I've spent waaaay too much time posting photos, it's time for me to get back to work. We're in the process of "breaking" the second episode right now - which means we're taking the characters' storylines for that episode and weaving them together into scenes. No dialogue at this point... just a bullet-point list of what happens with each character in each scene in each act. I love this stuff!

synopses, bios, and... a title!

Television is an interesting world. Getting the "greenlight" to do a show is one thing... telling the world that you've gotten a "greenlight" is another thing.

In our case, we got the "greenlight" weeks ago, but the network hasn't officially announced our show in the press yet. There are a million factors that determine how/when a network will make such an announcement (most of which involve timing and getting the most possible attention for the show and the network). So while Billy and I have been off working on story ideas and character arcs, LOGO has been figuring out those million factors - both for our show and for the other shows they're picking up.

And the good news is, we're about to be officially official!

Of course, before we can be officially official, someone has to write the press release... and before that someone can write the press release, he/she needs three key pieces of information:
-- A synopsis of the show
-- Bios of the key people involved in the show
-- A title for the show

The first two were relatively easy to deliver. The third, however, has been quite a process...

We can't use the same title for the show as I'd used for the short film ("The Ten Rules: A Lesbian Survival Guide.") because then we'd be limiting the entire show to just ten rules... and that would be boring. We also can't use the logical variation of that title, "The Rules," for legal reasons. So, we've had to start from scratch to come up with a brand new title.

Billy and I have submitted at least 25 different possible titles to the network (we've come up with many more that we didn't submit). These proposed titles are making the rounds of our show executives as well as a number of other high-level creative executives at LOGO. There's a veritable executive pow-wow going on behind the scenes right now... meetings, emails, discussions, points, counterpoints, etc. And sometime next week, we'll get on the phone with our execs and discuss the titles they like, the titles we like, and together we'll all figure out a name for our show.

So be sure to check back here next week to find out what it is (I'm excited to find out too!). I'll also post a link to the official press release once it's sent out... :-)

back to the office

I guess the folks at the Good Earth restaurant finally got sick of us hogging their tables for hours on end and asked the powers-that-be at LOGO/MTV to give us our offices back... because we're moving over to the pink and purple walled building tomorrow!

Personally, I haven't minded working from restaurants, coffeeshops, and home... and I may even miss those 6 1/2 hour marathon sessions over breakfast and lunch at the Good Earth (no, I'm not joking - that's how long Billy and I were there today)... but it will be nice to be back in the office again. There's something official-feeling about having the badge, the parking access, and the never-ending stash of vanilla coffee creamer. :-)

Of course, the change in location won't affect the day-to-day work we're doing. We'll still be up to our eyeballs in story. It's been great! A lot of long, hard work... but this is the kind of work that will make the script-writing process faster and smoother. We've already figured out the basic character arcs for the first season, so now we're working on the broad strokes of each character's storylines for each episode. One of our meetings tomorrow is with the execs so they can give us their feedback on the character storylines we've already turned in (the other meeting is with a few of the people who will be doing the day-to-day production work for the show). Once we get the execs' feedback on our stories, we'll make any necessary changes, get their approval, and then launch into the detailed outlines for each episode. We're making progress!

So please keep checking back here for updates... I'm having a blast with this entire process and I can't wait to write more! Perhaps I can even be persuaded to send pictures of the pink and purple walls... ;-)