I have long been decrying the gross expansion of commercials in both news and entertainment programming. It's bad enough you have to endure them, but they keep increasing the frequency and duration. Much of this grumbling ended when I got TiVo. Now I skip the commercials and I can watch my show uninterrupted and get on with my life. David Kelley, of LA Law and The Practice fame is clamoring about the same thing: News: "Kelley said that when he worked on 'L.A. Law,' there were 48 minutes of show. That has been reduced over the years to a little more than 41 minutes."
He proposes corporate sponsorship of the entire program which may allow them to increase showtime to a whopping 43 minutes. Please. Product placement is a far less obtrusive way to advertise with fewer commerical breaks. Fox has been at the forefront with Ford commercials built into both ALIAS and 24. They ran a short filmlet/commercial about the F-150 ahead of the season premiere last year and it was quite good as far as commercials go. ALIAS was more embedded by showing both a Ford Focus and F-150 in a chase scene and prominantly mentioning the name and showing the badges of the cars. Not subtle but certainly better than a commercial.
Get wise Hollywood. Your blockbusters are a thing of the past and we have TiVo now. Either ake every show a subscription or embed your commericals. I suspect you'll do the former and end up doing the latter. Wise is he who creates a show that generates a buzz and then moves the whole thing to DVD for 2nd season and beyond.
While we're at it. Here's another suggestion. Adapt a book into a series instead of a movie. Ringworld, for example, could easily be a series that would span several seasons. Condense it into a mini-series and you lose so many story elements it would be unwatchable.
Get Stephen King to agree to make The Dark Tower series into an Anime series or even features. You would make a zillion dollars. The books are also unadaptable to the big screen. I don't say that lightly especially considering the miracle that Peter Jackson pulled off.
Lastly: No more Star Trek for a while. You can't miss something if it won't go away. No series, no movies. Take a few years off and come back when you have a decent script.
He proposes corporate sponsorship of the entire program which may allow them to increase showtime to a whopping 43 minutes. Please. Product placement is a far less obtrusive way to advertise with fewer commerical breaks. Fox has been at the forefront with Ford commercials built into both ALIAS and 24. They ran a short filmlet/commercial about the F-150 ahead of the season premiere last year and it was quite good as far as commercials go. ALIAS was more embedded by showing both a Ford Focus and F-150 in a chase scene and prominantly mentioning the name and showing the badges of the cars. Not subtle but certainly better than a commercial.
Get wise Hollywood. Your blockbusters are a thing of the past and we have TiVo now. Either ake every show a subscription or embed your commericals. I suspect you'll do the former and end up doing the latter. Wise is he who creates a show that generates a buzz and then moves the whole thing to DVD for 2nd season and beyond.
While we're at it. Here's another suggestion. Adapt a book into a series instead of a movie. Ringworld, for example, could easily be a series that would span several seasons. Condense it into a mini-series and you lose so many story elements it would be unwatchable.
Get Stephen King to agree to make The Dark Tower series into an Anime series or even features. You would make a zillion dollars. The books are also unadaptable to the big screen. I don't say that lightly especially considering the miracle that Peter Jackson pulled off.
Lastly: No more Star Trek for a while. You can't miss something if it won't go away. No series, no movies. Take a few years off and come back when you have a decent script.
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