This Savage Art

You might have noticed a Short Ends post on the sidebar a while back announcing the newly offered Television Writing Intensive at Columbia University this summer. Well, I took the plunge and enrolled.  It was kind of impulsive but not a decision I will soon regret. It wasn’t part of my original plan of developing a screenplay through a variety of online offerings but I’ve come to realize at this point that most endeavors get diverted and that’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes you just need to go with it.

No one can deny that television has come a long way. The writing is savvier, wittier and more ambitious. In a lot of ways it has surpassed current popular film. Storylines can be expanded. Character depths can be explored over multiple seasons. I never had a desire to write for television but that was before The Sopranos came along. It single handedly leveled the television landscape by utilizing jumpy story throughlines and dark, dark humor to unravel its current interpretation of the American Family (I have to add that Twin Peaks is the modern blueprint for this current wave of television, David Chase admired it greatly.) It was followed by other groundbreaking shows like The Wire, Deadwood and my current on-hiatus favorite, Mad Men. Television is…respectable.

The course is six weeks of two six hour days and one three hour day for guest lecturers. The instructor, Frank Pugliese, is one of the main reasons I took the course. Playwright, screenwriter, director, WGA East member and award winner, he will steer the boat. It’s not an intensive for nothin’. Here’s the course info.

It starts May 23rd and at some point when I come up for air I’ll share.