First off, let me answer the question on everyone's mind right now: "Do these writers seriously have nothing better to do than blog about writing the show? You know, like writing the show?" You know what? Screw you, you're fired. We do lots of other things. This weekend, I gleefully enjoyed the fourth installment of everyone's favorite horror genre Saw, started into the Half-Life2 expansions (Episodes 1 & 2), confirmed my suspicions that Casey Affleck, star of stars in Gone Baby Gone, is in fact the moral compass of America.
I also reminded myself that you can't get a good Guinness in the States. Not at Bennigans, not at Lion & Rose, nowhere. And here's why: instead of using normal ingredients, like barley, hops, and so forth, they use grade-A American-grown horse manure to ferment their brews. Meanwhile, Miller Lite becomes beverage of choice for people who, despite alarming differences in color, cannot tell the difference between water and beer. (Seriously, I should market "Mike's Hard H2O" for huge profit.)
The real answer is that we love working on this show. We love it. I don't think a single writers' meeting has come close even once to finishing on time. In case you didn't know it, we meet about twice as often as the group at large, because without us, they've got nothing to talk about but wishes and dreams. My advice is to never get involved in a project like this unless you could just stay up all night planning, joking, scheming and plotting. I love working with Brendan and Nick; really, nothing beats working with people who just reflect the enthusiasm you feel back at you. And you sit there and write for three hours about this episode, the next episode, the rest of the season, and then someone says, "Hey! You know what else we could do?!" And of course, they're right, and it's amazing.
We're cooking up some backstory to go to tide people over while they wait for the first episode to air (which has almost finished shooting if I'm not terribly mistaken). I'm trying to berate our editor Chris Nixon into sending me awesome production stills for our bare-bones website. I've dropped his name deliberately (and a link to his e-mail) in hopes that you will berate him too. Nick just sent me the first item that will go in this new part of the website, just as soon as that new part of the website comes into existence. The point is, the creative genius there is outstanding. It's deliciously rife with hints and spoilers that are almost impossible to pick out. I love it. And him.
And speaking of the website, it will be expanding soon, hopefully moving to that new domain Nick mentioned in his blog. I have to say that I have kind of a big crush on this website. As with the writing, it's an example of us having the creative freedom to do what we want, and then looking at the finished product and being wowed by what you've accomplished. I get that feeling a lot with 'Found'. If it came to an end tomorrow, I'd still be amazed by what we've done.
And yet, there's more and better yet to come. My pitch for episode two was received pretty well, but it does seem like we're trying to get a lot done in it. We're in talks with the network about expanding the length of each episode. What this means is, we think we're just gonna make longer episodes. What's the Communcation department going to tell us? "Sorry guys, the two hours worth of programming we make each week just fills our schedule right up, no can do with the extension." Seems likely. This new episode deals with Chastity and Natasha, who are my favorite characters (hearts to Kaitlyn and Heather), so the only problem I'll have writing it is knowing when to stop.
I know that this entry has run on for an extraordinary length, but I want to say one final thing. I don't think many people realize just how much time goes into taking the words we write on the page into actual footage. I was at the shoot this Saturday for about an hour, and I want to give a big round of applause to all the crew who went down there and made it happen (full credit list to come soon).