Whedonesque : Comments on 10859 : A review of "Crafty Writing: Thinking inside the Box".

This site will work and look better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device.

July 17 2006

A review of "Crafty Writing: Thinking inside the Box". Joss is mentioned as having given a "supporting opinion" on how to write for TV.

teachndoc | Printed matter | 06:02 CET | 6 comments total | tags:

I went to Amazon and did a quick search 'inside this book' - and found numerous mentions including the de rigeur description of Firefly's renewed life on the big screen, a mention of Buffy episodes "Hush" and "The body," as well as a few other quotes and references.

The comments are all quite complimentary - and the book does appear well written and interesting - but don't look here for extensive text from Joss about his master craft.

peacemonger | July 17, 08:19 CET

Are these comments from Joss new or merely taken from existing interviews?

Simon | July 17, 12:08 CET

This book is written by Alex Epstein, the fellow whose blog (Complications Ensue) entry about "why Serenity failed at the box office" we discussed the other day.

billz | July 17, 14:59 CET

Most of the comments are about Joss. The scant few that are from him appear to be from existing interviews.

peacemonger | July 17, 18:02 CET

The book is actually called "Crafty TV Writing" - distinguishing it from his other book, "Crafty Screenwriting," about movies.

And he posted a follow-up to his original Serenity post, continuing the perennial debate. Apparently his comment section on that post got deluged, surprise surprise.

Scotto | July 17, 20:12 CET

Thanks for the update Scotto. I still don't buy his argument that the marketing was not the main problem on Serenity mostly because of my own experience. I could not get mainstream people to go see it because they had never heard of it, seen a poster for it, noticed an ad on TV etc. By the time I could tell them that it had gotten the mainstream stamp of approval, two thumbs up, it was almost out of the theaters. As I have said before, I never saw a poster even in one of the movie theaters I went to see it in.

Other movie ads that did not use big name recognition caught my attention that month and other movie ads started using their reviews as soon as they were out. I did not even notice Serenity's ads when they were on TV until they were half way over. If that was the case, why would they catch the attention of someone who was not looking for them?

But enough. It will be interesting to see how it does when it hits TV and whether the cable stations try to market it differently.

newcj | July 17, 23:14 CET

You need to log in to be able to post comments.
About membership.

« Older Adventures in Font Matching. | (SPOILER) Spike: Asylum #1- 5 page preview. Newer »