Martini Shot

By KCRWArts

Martini Shot episodes

April 30, 2009 Dials Up
Do me a favor: for the next four minutes, pretend you have a small computer mouse-shaped thing in your hand, and pretend there's a dial attached to the thing. Now, mentally, because I know a lot of you are driving, when you're enjoying what you're hearing, turn the dial up, that's clockwise. And when you're not, turn it down, counterclockwise...

5 min
April 23, 2009 The Grey
When I was a kid, in the late 1970's – yeah, I said it. That's how old I am. I was a kid in the late 1970's. You want more detailed math, you're going to have to wait for my obituary. Anyway, when I was a kid in the late 1970's, one of the most popular shows on the air was Happy Days...
5 min
April 16, 2009 It's a Privilege
The test of any good writer is how well he complains. Some writers are great with dialogue, some are great with story, some can create electric, three-dimensional characters out of thin air – good writers are good at different stuff. But all writers, if they're any good, must be able to complain...

5 min
April 09, 2009 The Vanishing
Childbirth, like producing a hit TV pilot, is painful, takes too long, requires muscle relaxants and ultimately involves more people than is strictly efficient. And also afterwards, the brain tends to forget all about the struggle. That's so you'll want to do it again...
5 min
April 02, 2009 Guess Who?
A friend of mine tells this story about a pilot he did years ago. It was a pretty simple premise – single dad raising a kid; kid's smart; dad's weirded out by getting into the dating world; you know, that show – and the network was pressuring him to cast a certain actor in the lead role, an actor who was really hot at that moment, who was a major star on Broadway...
5 min
March 26, 2009 The Gates
The first time you drive onto a studio lot, the first time the gate lifts and you glide your car into the little fortress of money and cool and casual assurance, you feel like you've...won.
5 min
March 19, 2009 No TV on Your TV
Boxee allows the user to recreate the Hulu experience on the television. And that is a sentence that would make no sense to anyone three
or four years ago. Maybe even one year ago. And maybe it makes no sense
to most people right now.
6 min
March 12, 2009 The Tweet
There’s an old story about former NBC chief Brandon Tartikoff. While he was running the network in the early 1980’s, he was on the phone in his office, talking to somebody about something, and he suddenly had a flash of inspiration – totally unrelated to the conversation he was having...
6 min
March 05, 2009 Positive Rob
Not too long ago, I had a meeting with a couple of writers who had
written an excellent pilot. They were experienced, smart guys – they'd
been on lots of shows before, never quite at the top of the pyramid,
but close enough – but for some reason, the network that bought the
pilot wanted to add one more element, what's called in the business a
"show-runner"...
5 min
February 26, 2009 The Check
A few years ago, I had dinner with an actor and
his manager. I was trying to woo this actor to take the lead role in a pilot I
was producing. He liked the part, liked
the script, but was a little hesitant about signing what was, essentially, a six-year commitment. In success, that is. The truth is that television pilots have
about a ninety-eight percent failure rate, and of the successful pilots that go
on to series, those have about a ninety-five percent failure rate...
5 min