Today’s day was extra long.

That’s because after my 1-4 pm class, my film group held their auditions for the one speaking role in our film, the narrator.

I enjoyed being back in the saddle re : auditioning people. It’s something I find inherently cheerful. All these bright young people doing their best. Plus, I like greeting them with warmth and, god willin’, a little laughter too.

So that was nice. But I would have had a lot more fun if I had been in charge. Our director is, in my opinion, too timid for the job. We barely worked the actors at all. I mean, I wasn’t looking for a marathon or anything, but I would have gotten different takes from the auditioning actors and thrown in some oddball requests to see how good they are at taking direction, as well as how they handle the unexpected.

As is, it was as diffident and timid and lazy as I have come to expect. The voice of the control freak part of my mind gets louder every day. Everything would be so much better if you took over, it says. Since when do you meekly accept the role you are given? Rise above it, take over,  and make it all better!

And one of these days. I might just do it. Make a play for leadership. Maybe sell it as merely taking a few menial tasks off the director’s hands. After all, they are doing so much work. I could help!

But always remember, kids. Real leadership has nothing to do with who is at the top of the org chart and everything to do with who people look to when a decision needs to be made.

My latent Machiavellianism aside, I did talk to the instructor of the course about my concerns today, and that helped me to calm down a little. He told me I should look around for a job nobody is doing, like researching film festivals and other venues for short films.

And lo and behold! That’s the job I ended up with today. Our final assignment for this part of the Production for Writers course is due next Tuesday, and that means I have to come up with five minutes of content about festivals, contests, and so on.

Should not be a problem. I’ll just make a video. I am way better at those than I am with PowerPoint and it gives me a chance to show off my other skills.

Especially that “making goofy ass videos” skill.

And five minutes might seem like a lot of time, but I know from experience that talking takes up way more time than you think it does. It will, most certainly,. be a matter of choosing what goes in, not frantically looking for enough content to fill the time.

It will not be the first thing I work on, though. Under the “due first, done first” rule, tomorrow’s main task will be to come up with a second draft of the outline for the first two episodes of my show.

I have lots of stuff to add and change, and fingers crossed, I have not somehow magically misplaced all the notes I took like last time.

All I had to base my first outline on were the changes I remembered from the workshopping session. And as you all know so well, relying on my memory is an extremely iffy proposition.

So hopefully the second draft will be a whole lot better.

I tried asking my teacher about how to handle the outline for a very dialogue heavy episode. She said to go to what people’s intentions are in the scene.  I do not find this to be helpful advice.

For example, I want to do an episode in the principal’s office as Sam and his best friend Edgar try to talk their way out of trouble with a tough no-nonsense principal.

But here’s what that outline would look like :

INT. PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE – DAY

Sam and his best friend Edgar try to talk their way out of trouble with a tough no-nonsense principal and eventually succeed.

That’s it. That’s the entire outline. For an entire 11.5 minute episode.

The problem is that comedy does not have to be driven by plot. It just has to be funny. And a lot of that humour is going to reside in non-story dialogue.

The plot itself is not going to be all that funny. Especially not in the sort of comedy I write. I don’t really do wacky situations or hilarious coincidences or such.

Nobody would get a truckload of manure dumped on them in a movie I wrote.  Unless it completed a truly epic pun or other kind of joke.

And even then, I would really think it over first. Run it past a few friends.

But no, what I write, especially for this show I am developing, it sitcom humour, and sitcoms are mostly funny dialogue. They sometimes also have wacky situations (that’s the sit in sitcom, after all) but I have never been fond of that kind of thing.

Oh no, someone overheard something and misinterpreted it and now they are defying all reason by concocting a crazy scheme involving several felonies and getting into crazy kind of trouble rather than just talking to the fucking person.

Nuh uh. Not me. Not if I am calling the shots. I would, of course, write reams of that crapola if someone was paying me, but that would never happen with Sam, my baby.

I would never say this in a pitch meeting, but deep down, I would rather make one season of a truly excellent series than umpteen seasons of crap.

I would be just fine with creating that quirky little show with a passionate cult following. Maybe that particular cult would be enough to crowd-fund more episodes. Maybe not.

All I can do as an artist is make good art. The market decides the rests.

Again, I will write whatever I get paid to write.

But my creations will always be awesome.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.