Genre TV Writers: They Like Tacos! And Battlestar Galactica!
Reason #476 to love living in Los Angeles: Getting to go to dirt-cheap events like the Focus on Writing for Genre Television Panel held at Meltdown Comics this past Friday night.
And when I say dirt-cheap, I mean dirt-cheap – the cost of admission was just $5, and it earned you not only a chance to listen to top science fiction television writers talk about their work for two hours, but also all the free beer you could drink, which, in my case, equaled about three Miller High Lifes before the event closed.
Here’s the rundown of television writers I got to listen to while sucking down my sweet, sweet Miller Highs:
Javier Grillo-Marxauch (Lost, Middlemen, Medium)
Ashley Miller (Fringe, Thor, X-Men: First Class)
Benjamin Rabb and Deric Hughes (Warehouse 13)
Josh Friedman (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)
Laura Valdiva (Outerspace Astronauts, MadTV)*
*I thought it was cool that there would be two sci-fi ladies on the panel, but it turned out Ashley was (and presumably, still is) a dude. So Laura Valdiva had to represent all us XXers in the room, and represent she did.
Panelists being panel-y. From left: Hosts Tim Powers and Sax Carr, Ashley Miller, Javier Grillo-Marxauch, Laura Valdiva
I’d like to post all the awesome conversations that were held at the panel, which touched on the importance of humor in genre television, inspirations in the industry, the challenge/blessing of writing for certain actors, the challenge/blessing of being a woman in the writers’ room, the awesomeness of Battlestar Galactica, etc., but that would take forever. And, quite frankly, I have a hard time believing most of my readers (i.e. my mom) have even gotten this far. So, here’s some quick, quote-y highlights:
“If you’re a writer, you’re a writer. You write.” – Josh Friedman
“I thought, you can get paid for making shit up all day? I want to do this.” – Deric Hughes on why he became a TV writer.
“Sometimes you have to write a character off a show because the actor is rat-fuck insane.” – Javier Grillo-Marxauch on sudden character deaths.
“We considered killing almost every person on that show.” – Josh Friedman, referring to The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
“If I have to apologize to someone for working in genre, then fuck them, I don’t want to know them.” – Ashley Miller, discussing whether or not writing genre and sci-fi in general is still something you still have to be ashamed of.
And, as a follow-up, “It’s a TV-specific problem. No one’s gonna ask Chris Nolan whether he’s writing genre.” – Josh Friedman. Word.
Also, FOOD TRUCK!
Ooh, Heaven is a place on Earth
Price: A cool $5
