Second life for Quarterlife due to writers' strike

[Sylph]

Second life for Quarterlife due to writers' strike

By Alex Woodson and Nellie Andreeva


In a bit of an irony since squabbles over Web content are at the heart of the writers strike, an Internet series might be used by a broadcast network as strike-contingency programming.

Sources said Thursday that NBC is in talks to acquire Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz's high-profile Web offering "Quarterlife" ahead of its Sunday debut on MySpace.

NBC and MySpace declined comment.

Meanwhile, it was business as usual on the Los Angeles-area picket lines and studio lots on the fourth day of the strike, with high-profile supporters including the cast of "Everybody Loves Raymond" and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, minor disruptions of series production and more layoffs.

One of the most discussed issues by showrunners on the picket lines Thursday was the breach-of-contact letters sent Wednesday by CBS Paramount Network TV to its multihyphenates. Unlike the suspension or default letters sent out by other studios, notifying writers and nonwriting producers that their pay is being suspended, CBS Par's breach-of-contract memos featured stronger language, saying that the studio reserves the right to take action if they don't return to work to perform their duties as producers.

"They basically told him that if he didn't go to work yesterday, they were going to charge him with the cost of the production of his own show -- millions of millions of dollars -- and believe me, he was quaking with fear," "Private Practice" showrunner Marti Noxon said Thursday morning on KPCC-FM, referring to a writer who received a breach-of-contract letter.

Despite the letters, sources indicated that CBS Par showrunners by and large didn't go to work Thursday. Production on the CBS Par series that still are filming continued as scheduled.

ABC Studios and Universal Media Studios on Thursday joined 20th Century Fox TV in notifying assistants that they are being let go. The move affects assistants to writers and nonwriting producers who already had received suspension letters from the studios. The laid-off employees at ABC Studios reportedly are being paid through the end of this month and are getting severance packages.

Meanwhile, picketers interfered with another location shoot Thursday, this time one for NBC's comedy "Scrubs," which was filming in a park near their stage. The schedule was changed, and production was moved inside.

"Quarterlife," an ensemble show about a group of twentysomethings originally developed as a pilot for ABC three years ago, is rumored to launch on NBC as soon as February if the strike continues.

As of Thursday, though, News Corp.'s MySpace was still promoting the Sunday debut of the series, set to run for 36 eight-minute episodes.

A spokeswoman for Zwick and Herskovitz said the show is proceeding with its premiere on MySpace and on quarterlife.com as scheduled.

When the series was announced in September, Herskovitz stressed that the duo were not contractually obligated to MySpace beyond the first four hours, and he expressed a desire for the show to be seen on other platforms.

Last week, he told The Hollywood Reporter that the Web could open up new channels for guild writers if there were a protracted strike (HR 11/2).

There was a mini-"Raymond" reunion outside the Paramount lot on Thursday morning as Phil Rosenthal, Ray Romano and Patricia Heaton walked the picket line.

After bringing the picketers bagels and orange juice, the "Raymond" crew joined their march outside the Melrose gate of the L.A. studio.

"I won't cross the picket line," said Romano, a WGA member. "I was in the writers room every day for nine years (on 'Raymond'). ... Without the writers, (co-star) Brad (Garrett) and I would have been sitting on the couch looking at our feet for 22 minutes."

"Raymond" creator Rosenthal added that if the strike goes on long enough to force scripted TV shows into reruns, he hopes viewers "understand that it will be temporary."

"And if people are upset, they should write to the studios and networks and ask them to do the right thing," Rosenthal said. "It's all about fairness, not greed. Ray and I don't need the money, but we want (a contract that is) fair for everybody else."

Jackson also caused a commotion with his appearance at the studio, where he walked the picket line arm in arm with WGA West president Patric Verrone.

"You're fighting for the dignity of the American worker," Jackson said. "You're fighting for the American dream, and that dream is worth fighting for."

Jackson expressed a desire to meet with the networks and studios.

"I also would ask the governor and mayor to use their offices to help convene forces," he said. "This strike will eventually impact and hurt everybody," with the effects trickling down even to people in non-industry jobs, he added.

Outside the Fox studio gate in Century City, striking "My Name Is Earl" writer Hunter Covington said he was looking for someone to be broke with when he came up with the idea for a "picket line for singles."

"I'm looking for a low-maintenance female who doesn't enjoy the finer things in life, he joked Thursday.

In another ironic twist, NBC said Thursday that "Saturday Night Live" hit season-high ratings in 18-49 last week for what could be the late-night show's last original episode in a long, long time.

Alex Woodson reported from New York; Nellie Andreeva reported from Los Angeles. Kimberly Nordyke and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

[Sylph]

Posted on Mon, Nov. 12, 2007

New series — 'quarterlife' — on Web

BY FRAZIER MOORE

In a 15-year period on broadcast television, the producing team of Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick dramatized three decades of the modern human life span.

Age-signifying thirtysomething premiered in 1987, followed by My So-Called Life (short-lived yet culturally enduring for its grasp of teenhood), followed by Once and Again (which dared to showcase people in their 40s).

Now a new series is here to fill a gap in the continuum.

On quarterlife, friends co-exist in their 20s, an anxious realm where your whole life isn't ahead of you anymore, but one-quarter over (give or take). Artistic urges unite them (the guys are budding filmmakers; one of the gals is a would-be actress), along with their camaraderie, rivalries and a shared belief ably expressed by Dylan, the insecure writer, on her video blog.

"A sad truth about my generation," she declares, "is that we were all geniuses in elementary school -- but apparently the people who deal with us never got our transcripts, because they don't seem to be aware of it."

Can Dylan and her friends break through? That's a central issue of quarterlife, and viewers should find the mad scramble entertaining, even more so as it triggers pangs of recognition.

But they won't find this show on their TV screens. Befitting the Net-centric generation it explores, quarterlife will live online.

It premiered Sunday on the MySpaceTV website. It has its own website, quarterlife.com.

Two chapters (each about eight minutes long) will debut each week. Thirty-six chapters have been shot thus far, with more envisioned.

Besides the series, quarterlife.com will host social networking for the creatively inclined -- an artists' colony in cyberspace.

"The members of this generation see themselves as creative people more than anybody, ever," says Herskovitz, "and not just those who want to be artists as a career. It's how they look at life."

The website, which he hopes to be both a forum and an information wellspring, will probe "what it means to be a creative person -- what are your aspirations and how can you get to the next level?"

All in all, this is quite the departure for Herskovitz, a 55-year-old veteran of broadcast television as well as feature films (including Blood Diamond and Traffic ). The Emmy and Humanitas Prize winner began plotting it out after his original quarterlife pilot was turned down by ABC three years ago.

Still fascinated by the 20-something experiences of the young people working in his production office, he decided to take another stab at a script. ' He rewrote quarterlife from scratch with a new approach and different story.

Meanwhile, he realized that the Internet, not television, was the proper outlet.

The TV business has changed, says Herskovitz, and the kind of storytelling he and Zwick are known for "doesn't really have a place on network television anymore. We don't have car chases, or make a habit of life-and-death situations. Our particular penchant for telling stories truthfully about relationships isn't necessarily compatible with the texture of television today."

He spent what he says is "an enormous amount of my own money" while he sought advertisers and forged the deal with MySpace owner News Corp.

He looked for ways to retain TV-caliber production values while trimming costs, resulting in "a hybrid model that's way more expensive than anything that's ever been done on the Internet" -- more than $400,000 per hour, he says -- "and way cheaper than anything currently being done on TV," where per-episode budgets can exceed $3 million.

He signed an impressive cast of relative unknowns including Bitsie Tulloch, Maite Schwartz, Scott Michael Foster, David Walton, Michelle Lombardo, Kevin Christy and Barrett Swatek -- "wonderful actors," he says, who, committing to a speculative project for modest pay, seem in tune with the spirit of the characters they play.

And in a few days he will throw the door open to viewers of all ages, including fans of Herskovitz and Zwick's TV work who might not otherwise turn to the Internet for drama -- especially a drama about twentysomething angst.

"But plenty of grown-ups watched My So-Called Life and were moved by it," notes Herskovitz. "I can't imagine that just because you're in your 50s you wouldn't find things in this story that are stimulating."

Clearly, Herskovitz does.

"That period in my life was extremely important to me, very formative," he says, sounding psyched. . "It makes me feel invigorated and young!"


© 2007 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com

[EricMontreal22]

I liked the first two chapters but not loved... I think I read the original pilot script too many times and prefered that (things liek one of the characters being straight now, etc). Still, by the end of the second segment it definetly showed promise and had me interested to see the next episode. What do others on here think so far?

[JackPeyton]

uhhh...

thats what i think about it.

it almost comes off as trying to hard to be honest.

i wanna love it - but dont.

[JamesF]

Checked it out as a rabid H&Z fan and I was sorta underwhelmed. The first episode was stronger in some ways and I particularly liked the final scene. The second just sort of passed me by.

What it has made me do is seek out O&A on YouTube as I only ever got to see the first season. And I'm more in love with that show than ever.

[Sylph]

November 15, 2007

Web Review

Sad Truths and Sad Lives of Generation Blog

By GINIA BELLAFANTE

There is no one working in television today who has so effectively monopolized a genre as the team of Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz. They have owned the world of ruminative soap opera, the way Ford once owned Detroit. As producers they have evoked the anxieties of nearly every life phase: in “Thirtysomething,” the marriage and childbearing years; in “My So-Called Life,” adolescence; in “Once and Again,” the 40s and divorce. “Quarterlife,” the team’s first venture into Web TV, examines what it is like to be 25 in the privacy-obstructing age of the Internet, but it bears not a fraction of the thoughtfulness that distinguishes nearly everything else on their joint résumé.

“Quarterlife” unfolds in eight-minute episodes that go up on Myspacetv.com every Sunday and Thursday night. Central to the mood of the series is the notion that the emergence of new media has made it harder to be young than it once was. The trouble with this premise is that it feels like an effort at a big idea conjured to suit the show’s format.

Unless you find yourself working as an assistant to a junior buyer at Staples, while, let’s say, your college roommate is running Google out of Beijing, it is unclear how Internet culture has intervened in a profound way to alter the essential challenges of nascent adulthood. And Mr. Zwick and Mr. Herskovitz don’t do much to help us understand. There is the vague sense on “Quarterlife” that blogging corrodes confidences, but gossip exchanged over watered-down keg beer in noisy bars has, since the beginning of time, managed to do the same thing.

The chief role of blogging on “Quarterlife” is to advance the character of Dylan Krieger (Bitsie Tulloch), a pretty editorial assistant who keeps an online video diary about her life, her friends, her disillusionments. It is called “Quarterlife,” and much to her surprise people seem to watch it.

Dylan blogs because her dull job at a magazine called Women’s Attitude doesn’t provide her with the creative outlet she needs to reflect on the distinctiveness of her peer set. “The sad truth about my generation,” Dylan tells the camera, “is that we were all geniuses in elementary school, but apparently the people who deal with us never got our transcripts because they don’t seem to be aware of it.”

The vulnerability that comes with realizing that the world might not share your generous view of the talents the gods gave you never seems to strike Dylan and her friends. They all seem to be geniuses waiting for a reversal of public opinion, and none of the actors are able to display a believable moment of insecurity even when called upon to do so.

Mr. Zwick and Mr. Herskovitz have considered the postcollege years before, with much greater warmth and authenticity in their short-lived series “Relativity” a decade ago. There we were shown the difficulties of growing up through the chronicling of a relationship that rubbed against the expectations of the young heroine’s family. “Quarterlife” upends the writer’s code: It tells but it never shows, and what it tells us over and over is that it is awfully hard to know who and how to be. To feel innovative, Web TV is going to have to do a lot better than that.

[Sylph]

Webisodes
quarterlife
(Web serial -- MySpaceTV.com; Nov. 11)
By BRIAN LOWRY


Producers, Marshall Herskovitz, Edward Zwick, Josh Gummersall; directors, Herskovitz, Eric Stoltz, John Sacret Young, Catherine Jelski; writers, Herskovitz, Devon Gummersall, Lucy Teitler.

Dylan - Bitsie Tulloch
Lisa - Maite Schwartz
Jed - Scott Michael Foster
Danny - David Walton
Debra - Michelle Lombardo
Andy - Kevin Christy
Brittany - Barrett Swatek




Adapted from a passed-over ABC pilot by the producers of "thirtysomething," "quarterlife" is one of those rare original web productions that doesn't look as if it were shot for 20 bucks by film students featuring their classmates as stars. Yes, it focuses on twentysomethings and employs the tired device of a character speaking to the camera, producing a video blog about herself and her equally self-obsessed friends. Yet the segments -- diced into 36 eight-minute installments -- are well done and watchable, certainly comparable with some of the better angst-ridden "College is over, what do I do now?" dramas.

At the core is Dylan (Bitsie Tulloch), who's working for a magazine but spends her spare time video-blogging about her friends and roommates, who are engaged in a "Friends"-like web of interlocking relationships/hopeless crushes/meaningless sex to forget about the hopeless crushes.

Aspiring filmmaker Danny (David Walton) is dating Debra (Michelle Lombardo), who Danny's professional partner and pal Jed (Scott Michael Foster) stares at longingly. Meanwhile, wannabe actress Lisa (Maite Schwartz) capitalizes on her looks as she tends bar and sleeps around, but receives abuse from her acting professor (a cameo by producer Marshall Herskovitz).

Based on the six segments previewed, it's all pretty familiar, been-there, logged-onto-that territory, but Herskovitz, partner Edward Zwick and their various associates -- including the young cast -- exhibit an admirable facility for zeroing in on the awkwardness of relationships, whether it's the problems of teens ("My So-Called Life") or young marrieds ("thirtysomething"). Here, it's the twilight zone in-between, where Dylan can haltingly tell the camera, "I'm scared to say how I really feel" and the line resonates with recognition.

Everyone is waiting to see when the web will become a viable venue for original production (as opposed to short-form hit-in-the-crotch shots and busted-pilot theater). Fearnet's "Buried Alive" -- one of those aforementioned student-looking efforts, with kids locked in a coffin -- also made its debut this month.

Against that backdrop, "quarterlife" marks a more ambitious step, though like its confused protagonists, the business model is presently surrounded by vexing questions and uncertainty: Can advertising alone support it? Will people block out eight minutes (an eternity in web time) to watch? And even if it does succeed, what then -- other than perhaps birthing an afterlife on stale old TV?

The future remains murky, but if MySpace and its creative partners can make people ignore such matters and concentrate rather on whether Dylan will find happiness or Jed will resolve his issues with Danny, that would certainly be a big step for the really small screen.

[Toups]

I'm going to wait until it airs on NBC this February. It would be so cool if it became a hit and NBC picked it up for next season.

[EricMontreal22]

I wonder what they'll do to the swearing on NBC? I also think that as it's written it plays bette ron the web than on TV but we'll see...

Regardless as of last nite the full "first episode" (in 6 parts" is finally up on quarterlife.com I still miss aspects of the original pilot's sc ript I read but am starting to really look forward to each week--but watching it as the full intended first ep (and it was shot this way apparantly even tho only two parts come out each week) it does have a lot more thamtic balance and a better arch than just watching in installments

James you really need to check out all of Once and Again--it only got better in the second and third seasons (that third season DVD needs a release NOW)

[JackPeyton]

i just dont feel anything for this show.

thirtysomething. great.

my so-called life. brilliant.

once & again. perfection.

but this? fail.

[EricMontreal22]

I agree with your assessments of theit past shows (not sure where I'd place relativity) but a fail on ONE episode (which is what the first 6 parts are)? No room to grow? Have you recently rewatched the first 6 or so thirtysomethign eps? they're REALLY obnoxious--I now see why many critics hated the show when it started and by seasons end picked it as best. I dunno, I see glimmers of good stuff in this, I think they're trying to adjust to the new medium (ironic now that NBC wants t air it) and i'm giving it a chance--partly cuz I trust these guys so much and partly cuz there is some good stuff there. My main worry is, as I said, the orgiinal 2004 filmed ABC pilot was *much* better I think and some of that best stuff has been dropped (so far anyway...)

[JackPeyton]

i dont mean to be harsh but...

i went off 6 episodes, not one. i dont care if it was once epiosde cut down - it was 6 episodes and they all failed. it was no better all together in one episode either. i actually watched thritysomething for the first time not that long ago and loved it. the first epiosde was okay, as it is for any episode, but after that i loved it. i dont see anything good or possably good in this show. i couldnt even tell you one char's name because its sooo painfuly borring and lacks any emotion and feeling and depth at all.

i do think they are tryinjg to adjust and i give them that - but i dont feel they should have done this then. they should have adjusted and play around with things and got it then went forward with this.

im sure if it was in its original idea and format it would be great. but im not judging on the pilot or anythign else except these episode(s) i have watched. and from that yes i do give them a fail. i did watch the pilot and it was great - but this? no.

[EricMontreal22]

HAHA fair enough. I don't agree--I do agree it's not as promising as their past work--but I didn't expect it to be cuz of the circumstances and I already personally see a lot I like and can relate to in it. So I'm on the fence but in the positive camp

[JamesF]

I've been on it. Thankfully some kind soul YouTubed every episode so I'm just starting the third season. God it's good.

I'm going to dip back into Quarterlife now all of this NBC stuff has kicked off so I'll report back with less inane comments when I get the chance.

[EricMontreal22]

Do it