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CANADIAN CANADA $7 SPRING 2016 VOL.18, NO.2 SCREENWRITER FILM | TELEVISION | RADIO | DIGITAL MEDIA Writing For Reality TV, A Real Thing Letterkenny Problems = Jared Keeso’s Opportunity A Novel Solution Chris Haddock “…No Ambition Beyond Churning Out The Best” PM40011669 TSC-2016-WGC-Ad-final.pdf 1 2016-02-09 5:45 PM C M Y CM MY CY CMY K CANADIAN SCREENWRITER The journal of the Writers Guild of Canada Vol. 18 No. 2 Spring 2016 Contents ISSN 1481-6253 Features Publication Mail Agreement Number Chris Haddock: Back With CBC 400-11669 In The Romeo Section 6 Publisher Maureen Parker A Canadian spy series from the mind that Editor Tom Villemaire gave viewers Intelligence. [email protected] By Diane Wild Director of Communications Li Robbins Editorial Advisory Board Writing For Reality TV 12 Denis McGrath (Chair) Who writes unscripted television? It appears a lot of Michael MacLennan people do. We talk to them about the ins and outs. Susin Nielsen By Matthew Hays Simon Racioppa President Jill Golick (Central) Novel-Writing Screenwriters 18 Councillors Some screenwriters yearn for new challenges, Michael Amo (Atlantic) want something, some freedom, they can’t get from Mark Ellis (Central) screenwriting and look for that something in novel Dennis Heaton (Pacific) writing. What do they find and why do they seek it? Denis McGrath (Central) By Mark Dillon Anne-Marie Perrotta (Quebec) Andrew Wreggitt (Western) From YouTube Sensation To Art Direction Studio Ours Something You Can CraveTV 26 Printing Ironstone Media Letterkenny Problems started off as a bit of Twitter fun Cover Photo: Jeff Weddell for Jared Keeso and a pal from southwestern Ontario. Canadian Screenwriter is He tried it as a YouTube channel and it caught on. published three times a year by Now you can find out about darts and hockey players. the Writers Guild of Canada (WGC). By Katherine Brodsky 366 Adelaide Street West, Suite 401 Toronto, Ontario M5V 1R9 TEL: (416) 979-7907 FAX: (416) 979-9273 WEBSITE: www.wgc.ca W-Files Subscriptions: WGC members receive a Rachel Langer — By Greg David 29 subscription as part of their membership. Fiona Highet — By Cameron Archer 31 Non-member subscriptions: $20 for three issues. Advertising policy: Readers should not Columns assume that any products or services From the Editor/Contributors 2 advertised in Canadian Screenwriter are Inside/Out — Jill Golick 3 endorsed by the WGC. “Oh Great Scribe...” — Advice for Editorial Policy: The WGC neither implicitly nor explicitly endorses opinions or attitudes the Scriptlorn 36 expressed in Canadian Screenwriter. Submissions are subject to editing for News length, style and content. Beat Sheet 4 Advertising Sales: Spotlight 28 Visit www.wgc.ca or contact Li Robbins at [email protected] New Members 34 Letters to the editor are subject to editing Money for Missing Writers 35 for length. Not all letters are published. FROM THE EDITOR CONTRIBUTORS The Paths We Take Spring 2015 There’s a cost for just about everything. Cameron Archer runs the That’s pretty clear when you look at life – Canadian television/media especially when you face a decision between doing something you like website Gloryosky (http://www. and getting paid. sweetposer.com/), and is also a While those two things aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, if it were easy to get paid well for doing something you like, there freelance arts writer. He currently would be a lot of vacancies in jobs no one other than the odd fetishist lives in Eastern Ontario. would enjoy. So, many people are forced to work in jobs that pay just because A freelance arts and they pay. Given the choice, screenwriters (like many people) might want to entertainment writer, Katherine run free, physically and in the imaginary sense. Brodsky has written for If they have hair, they want the wind blowing through it. God Variety, Entertainment Weekly, bless ‘em. USA Weekend, Mashable, This is not to say it’s wrong to enjoy writing within someone else’s vision for a show. Elle Canada, MovieMaker But if you want to push that audio-visual envelope or even just Magazine, The Independent, write what you want to write, it’s hard to find people who will give you Stage Directions, and many complete freedom and who are willing to pay you for that. There are others. She has interviewed constraints. There are notes. There are rejections. On the other hand, it’s a free world, so you can write what you a diverse range of intriguing want. Of course, it being a free world, no one is obliged to pay you for it. personalities, including Oscar, But, if it turns out that you do write something people want, you Emmy, Grammy, Tony, and can (hopefully) make some money from it. Pulitzer winners. In her spare As we see in the feature we have on screenwriters who have turned to novel writing, that risk can bring rewards. time she wears sunglasses at Of course, in TV, the hard part is convincing people with money night and runs her own cult, to take a chance on your creative vision. Nothing is a hit until, well, it is. Katherineology. Follow her on Given how impossible that is to predict, and given the amounts of money Twitter @mysteriouskat at stake on any given project, perhaps it’s not surprising people would rather go the safe route. Even so, earning a living by writing is pretty sweet. Mark Dillon is a Toronto-based I’m not saying it’s easy. But before I started earning regular money freelance journalist and former as a writer/editor almost 35 years ago, I had tried 23 other jobs. editor of Playback magazine. He For example, I drove transport trucks, moved furniture, museum exhibits and oil patch equipment, guarded a brewery, ran a golf course, is author of the award-winning set up gear in a recording studio, built displays at a Sears store, salvaged Fifty Sides of The Beach Boys. burned out businesses, demolished structures, bounced at a nightclub, at various times was a day labourer on farms, roofer, industrial painter, Matthew Hays is a Montreal- furniture maker, woodworker, survey technician and cab driver, built stone fences, stocked huge bags of sugar and flour in a warehouse, and based writer, author, and took cars apart at a wrecking yard to name a few. Some were fun, some university and college instructor. were horrible. His articles have appeared in One thing I learned was sometimes there is just not enough money The Globe and Mail, The New to do some things and other times you can’t believe you’re getting paid for what you’re doing. York Times, The Guardian, Even as a writer/editor, that is still true. In this issue we hear from Vice, Maclean’s, The Walrus, screenwriters who explore the avenue of novels as a creative outlet Cineaste, POV, and The Toronto which appears to provide pay and challenge to scratch that itch. Star. He teaches courses in film — Tom Villemaire studies at Marianopolis College 2 INSIDE/OUT The Guild Is At Your Side and Concordia University. His book, The View from Here: Conversations with Gay and I’ve never been big on the status quo. In university, I stuffed student Lesbian Filmmakers (Arsenal mailboxes with flyers from the Student Committee for Action on Pulp), won a 2008 Lambda Education and was in the front row for every protest outside the Literary Award and he received administration building. the Concordia President’s A little more than 25 years ago, when writers started talking about breaking away from the mother guild we shared with actors, I Award for Teaching Excellence was in. I baked cookies for meetings and coordinated phone trees. An for 2013-14. organization for writers created and run by writers!? Who wouldn’t jump on board? After completing a commercial Never mind that the ship we were jumping from was an estab- lished, financially-secure guild with tens of thousands of members to arts program in college, our measly… 1,000? And that was only if every ACTRA writer agreed specifically taken for developing to come with us. his photography, Jeff I was a newish member back then and young as writers go. Even Weddell began working as a though I’d already served a term on the council of the ACTRA Writers Guild, I had no clue what we were getting into. photographer over 30 years ago, Thank God for Pete White. In the early days of the WGC, Pete covering all aspects of the field, had a vision for what the Guild could become and he knew how to from commercial, advertising, build an organization. He and I didn’t always get along. Pete could be corporate portraiture and fine cantankerous and authoritative and we’ve already established that I’m not good with authority. But Pete was a true leader. He put the current arts. Jeff also works in film and guild structure in place and taught me just about everything I know television capturing production about bargaining. stills, as well as gallery portraits Looking back on 25 years of the Writers Guild of Canada, I’m for networks and studios from in awe of the organization writers built for themselves. We’re 2,200 members strong now and have welcomed story editors, animation around the globe. writers and digital writers into the fold. We’ve got solid collective agreements that keep getting better, a glossy magazine, the best Diane Wild is a Vancouver- awards show in the country (perhaps, the world), a collection society based writer and editor who that has collected $11 million for writers, and a respected voice that’s heard throughout the industry and in the halls of government.