Welcome to another episode of Breakin’ In! This week, Cheryl and I chat about being patient in Hollywood and just because, Cheryl get a couple of minutes at the end to bitch about the government shutdown and Obamacare.
It’s totally worth the listen. Which is why we should just get to it!
till next week…
Breakin' In! 
“PROCRASTURBATION”
Another great podcast! And I can really relate to what Manny said as I (in addition to the screenplays I completed a while back) I currently have three partially complete (at least 30 pages each) screenplays, as well as several paragraph descriptions (including cool titles) for at least three more! I’ve promised myself I’m going to finish the one I’m currently working on before going back to any of the others (or, heaven forbid, starting any more)!
Regarding Cheryl’s preference to “blah”-ing in Word rather than feel intimated (at least, that’s the way it was for me) by the formality of writing in FD (which makes the structure look so good that one worries someone might actually read it [even though it’s just a “vomit draft”]), you might try this trick that I used a lot years ago (and sometimes still feel the need for). In word (or anything; I was actually using an old DOS editor) just massage your ramblings with this much structure:
—-
JOHN
John’s (or whatever the name of the character is) dialog. Can be as long as you want just so long as there is no blank line. And then be sure to leave one blank line before the next character name or description.
JANE
Jane’s dialog. (Again, as long as you like, so long as there is no blank line.) Continue with characters speaking as much as you want, or put in line of action whenever you want, such as the following.
Jane pulls a knife. (Make as long as you like.) (Can even have a change of scene; just describe without using official int/ext slug line format.)
————–
Okay, so once you’ve written (or slightly massaged) your rough word ramblings into this “format” (characters in all caps on own line, followed by dialog with no blank lines within), all you have to do is cut and paste the whole file (or as much as you want) into FD (after starting a file with FADE IN: and the opening slug line) or MM and it will AUTOMATICALLY put it in the correct format for you! (At least MM does; I haven’t actually tried it with FD yet but I imagine it does.)
Then all you have to do is put in the slug lines at the beginning of each scene and you automatically have a rough draft of the screenplay (or at least the scenes you’ve written so far)! (And no having to make, or wait for, Manny to do it for you.)
By the way, “procrasturbation” is one of the many accidental — but often very humorous and insightful! — word mash-ups spoken by the character played by Martha Plimpton on “Raising Hope”. (I wish I could remember what episode it was; it [“Stop procrasturbating and get to work…”] would be a great clip to have the computer play when it senses I’m avoiding writing!)
NIELSEN BOXES
Funny you mentioned Nielsen ratings, and those boxes they’ve traditionally used (as well as the less reliable diaries kept by far more families), for lately I’ve been wondering if Comcast (for instance) keeps track of what channel the box is tuned to!
It seems like it would be easy enough because most of the boxes (except perhaps for the simplest ones for basic users like me who only get local over-the-air channels and C-SPAN) have two-way communication in order to facilitate on-demand viewing.
So perhaps the cable companies constantly monitor and store what channel the viewer is watching… and perhaps sell this information to Neilson to augment and check against their other data (from their Nielson boxes and diaries). Back in the days when most people watched TV over-the-air there would have been no way to do this (which is why they had to provide a special box that the Neilson family would, I imagine, change the channel using; I’m guessing the TV was always set to channel 3).
The only “gotcha” would be the modern cable box wouldn’t necessarily know if the TV was on (much less if someone was really paying attention). Still… I can’t help wondering if most cable viewers are being monitored. Anyone out there know?
I was going to comment on some other things you mentioned that I appreciated and agreed with (such as Cheryl’s assertion that MASH couldn’t be done these days and her slap at Glee), but I think it’s time for me to stop procrasturbating and get back to my screenplay!