Complications Ensue: The Crafty TV and Screenwriting Blog

Production Integration

2012-02-26T10:05:00.002-05:00

I've been relearning Movie Magic Scheduling. Lisa and I are applying for production financing for a dark drama of ours with the federal and provincial agencies, and our line producer needs to know how much time we're shooting in each location. So I'm trying to work up a budget.

This is really another post about Movie Magic Screenwriter vs. Final Draft. I've always preferred Final Draft. It works intuitively on a Mac. I've always found Movie Magic Screenwriter to behave like a PC program ported over to the Mac. The reason people keep telling me to use Screenwriter is that production managers like the way it integrates with Scheduling.

Guess what? It doesn't. When I try to import my MMSW file into MMS, very little information makes it through, and a lot of that is wrong. For example, if I have a slugline like NOVAK HOUSE - FRONT ENTRY, it will only import the NOVAK HOUSE part. For example, if a character is mentioned in the action, it assumes that character is actually in the scene. Often, they are not. So I just spent a day going through manually entering all the missing data into Scheduling.

Moreover, Scheduling now imports from Final Draft files. So there is no reason to suffer with Screenwriter if you prefer Final Draft.

Festina Lente

2012-02-14T15:29:00.003-05:00

I'm working on my fifth screenplay and while I am still improving as a writer, the pace with which I write is too slow. I want to crank out three perfect spec pages every day, but it takes me all day just to write two pages and many times I get stuck. I tend to get bogged down trying to make the right choices. I could never write for TV with its fast pace. Could you shed some light on how you improved as a writer over time in quality but also in speed? Thanks!

I'd love to help, but I was always fast. If anything, I'd say I've had to learn to slow down.

I think I write fast mostly because I plan ahead, and then I don't overthink.

Planning ahead means making sure in advance that I know what the scene has to do. I have a beat sheet that tells me what has to happen by the end of the scene. So the only hard part about writing the scene from the outline is figuring out how to get into the scene.

Not overthinking it means I am not trying to write three perfect pages a day. If I'm writing a feature, I am trying to write at least five pages a day, and on a good day, maybe up to twelve. If I'm writing TV, I could easily hit fifteen pages a day, and I've written an entire half hour script in a day. (TV is faster because I know the characters and the template; there's less to invent.) Some of those pages may be what I hoped for. Some may not. But I'm probably not going to go back and even read them until I've written the whole script. Once I've written a scene, I won't go back and fuss with it unless something I write down the road specifically makes me think I need to add something.

I think it's inefficient to rewrite pages before you've written the whole script. Only once you've written the whole script do you know how the pieces fit. You may realize that a scene that was just not working is just not working because of something you didn't do right earlier. Or you may realize you don't actually need that scene. Why fuss with it until you can see it in context?

I would say that probably the shortest period of time I spend writing a script is writing the first draft. I spend more time thinking up the concept and creating the outline. And then I tweak.

Stop worrying and just write.

This Is You In Shorts

2012-02-13T15:02:00.003-05:00

Congrats to Charles Hall, whose short film script, CIGAR STORE INDIAN, my buddy Maarten Kroonenburg just finished.

Maarten is looking for a new short film script, 4-6 pages. If you've got one, and you are Canadian, please contact his assistant, Patrick Greatbatch, at greatbatchmtl@gmail.com.

Thanks!

A Few More Words About Queries

2012-02-12T15:05:00.003-05:00

A reader asked me to evaluate her query letter, a service I sometimes provide. A couple of general thoughts:

I've said repeatedly that queries should be short. People nonetheless ask me to evaluate their page-long or two-page query letters.

An exec is going to make a decision based on the first three sentences of your query letter. If that decision is "no," then she's not going to read the rest of the query. If the decision is "yes," why would you give her more data? You can't improve on "yes." All you can do is change her mind.

The point of a query letter is to get the exec to read your stuff. The actual development conversation starts once they read your material. You want to minimize friction in between these two steps.

This particular query letter asked if the exec wanted to read a book the person had optioned. The querier said the adaptation could go in several directions.

Never be wishy-washy. If you're not sure which direction to go creatively, then figure it out before you send a query letter.

It's almost impossible to get an exec to take on a book project, unless you happen to have the rights to the next John Grisham novel. Why option a story when people send you dozens of finished screenplays every week? Adapting a book is a huge chore. (I know, I've done it.) It's only worth it if the project is truly unique, and if the exec is buying a built-in audience.

If I were querying, I'd do it by email, not by letter. Why waste all that paper and postage? Just make sure you have your hook in the subject line, not "Do you want to read my--" .

When you state your hook, do so in terms of story structure: who is the hero? what does he or she want to do? why can't they? What will they win if they succeed? What could they lose? Answer ALL these questions in a few words, implicitly or explicitly, and your query has done its job.

Two For the Price of One

2012-02-06T13:39:00.002-05:00

The IPA minimums describe two team writers sharing one script fee. Why is that? When a team writer goes to a gas station or store, does he or she fill half a tank of gas? [Snip.]

What about teams with multiple writers?

Producers are getting the benefits of two writers for the price of one. Why not pay each writer a full script fee?

With a team, a producer gets the work of two writers simultaneously, with faster delivery of a script, story editing, etc.

Bottom line, each writer whether single or in a team should have the right to earn a reasonable fee for a decent living, right?

Nobody has the right to earn a living writing. Earning a living by writing is an enormous privilege that you earn through getting results.

So, working in a writing team is the writer's choice. It's not a right. If you can make it work for you, the results can be excellent, but it's not the producer's or the Guild's responsibility to make sure you get paid as much as you would if you were writing on your own. You have to earn it by being better in a writing team than you are on your own.

Writing teams aren't necessarily faster than single writers. They can be. They can also be much, much slower. I worked with another writer who questioned every creative decision. We had to analyze and discuss everything, endlessly. Hopefully the result was better scripts. But they weren't faster. They were slower.

On the other hand, I would guess that Lisa and I write about three times as fast as we would write on our own, because we have the other partner to break creative logjams. I couldn't put a number on how much better the scripts are, but oh, let's suppose that Alex & Lisa are two to three times better than Alex or Lisa. So we get many more jobs than she and I would get on our own. On a series, we could take on more episodes. We also have more flexibility. If one of us is staffing a show, or shooting, the other can take point on a screenplay that must be delivered by a certain deadline.

Typically comedy writers often work in writing teams (or "writhing teams" as they're almost never known) because writing teams are much, much better at generating jokes and evaluating them.

If your writing team really is better, you will get paid, overall, more. But it's not the individual producer's responsibility to pay you more. He's only getting one script. Why should he care how many of you there are? He's only getting one script to shoot.

Realistically, if producers had to pay a writing team $100,000 to write a script instead of $50,000, they would just never, ever hire a writing team (except if the writing team was as good as a 100% overscale writer).

I'm not really sure why writing teams get only one story editing salary, but that's the way it's always been.

As for multiple writer teams -- I've never heard of those. Two's a writing team. Three's a mess.

Non Signatory Agents

2012-02-04T10:06:00.003-05:00

Q. You were saying that any "agent" that is not WGA signatory can't help you and that they may hurt you.

Can you tell me how is it that they can hurt you?

First of all, an agent who isn't signatory with the Guild is likely an agent no one in showbiz has ever heard of. That means producers are likely to be uninterested in reading material from them.

Second, the WGA has a slew of rules about what agents can and can't do, like charge for coverage. (The State of California has other rules about what agents can and can't do, like produce.) If this non-WGA agent isn't willing to sign with the Guild, then I have to wonder: exactly what is it they want to do to you that the Guild agreement wouldn't let them do?

Thank You For the Resumes

2012-02-03T11:50:00.001-05:00

Thanks for the great applications. I've found my Montreal intern.

Breaking Glass

2012-02-01T20:59:00.004-05:00

I listened to Fresh Air's podcast of Ira Glass's interview of Philip Glass. 3 great takeaways.

1. Philip Glass's dad Ben Glass owned a record store. They could return up to 5% of the records for breakage. Philip Glass's first job was jumping up and down on records, breaking them so they could be returned.

2. Ben Glass started as an auto mechanic. So, he had to learn to fix radios. Then he got rid of the cars and fixed radios. Then someone suggested he sell records in the radio store. Eventually he wound up with a record store with a bench in back for fixing radios.

3. Ben Glass would take home the records he could sell (and Philip couldn't break, I guess) and listen to them very carefully to try to figure out what was wrong with them. Soon he found he really rather liked Shostakovich. He wound up becoming a champion for difficult classical music, convincing his customers that they should like Shostakovich, too. It's not hard to see how hearing a lot of ground-breaking music -- and a convincing explanation -- allowed Glass to make ground-breaking music himself.

Special Tech for the Tech Challenged Exec

2012-01-29T19:25:00.002-05:00

Aaron Klein proposes special tech to help Hollywood Execs understand why SOPA was bad:

Before you can do a Google search, you have to sit through five minutes of ads for Google Chrome, Chromebooks by Samsung, Android Phones by Motorola, and that amazing straight-to-video blockbuster, Google+. And oh yeah, don’t even think about trying to skip the ads. A cute little red “X” appears in the corner of your screen if you try to do that.
If you fly off to your vacation home in the south of France, your Mac won’t boot up at all. Remember, it’s your fault for traveling – just buy another one with the right “region code.”

It has always bothered me that I can't skip the screen that tells me it's against the law to pirate movies. After all, if I'm watching that screen, it means I bought or rented the movie legally. Why are you stealing precious minutes of my life? I bet I can skip that screen on pirated movies, hey?

KRAFTY ON KINDLE!

2012-01-29T17:44:00.003-05:00

I see that CRAFTY TV WRITING: THINKING INSIDE THE BOX is now available in a Kindle edition!

The CBC: An Intervention

2012-01-28T11:20:00.001-05:00

Diane Wild polls assorted Canadian writers, including Yours Truly, about what's up at the CBC. Check it out.

Why Haven't I Hit Yet?

2012-01-27T22:31:00.004-05:00

Q. I have great ideas but it seems like others get these things done before me. For example, etc. etc.

A couple of possibilities.

One, maybe you're on the right track. You're writing scripts about the right sort of things. Personally, I wrote a Pretty Boy Floyd movie, and then Larry McMurtry wrote a Pretty Boy Floyd movie, and which do you think got into development? And I wrote a hacker movie and then that Sandra Bullock thing came out. I had an idea for a movie inspired by Paul Reubens, and then Paul Reubens put a biopic of himself into development. It tells me I'm in the right territory.

Two, the odds of any movie getting made are low. I've written 36 feature scripts. About two dozen of them I was either paid to write, or I optioned to someone after writing. I have three feature credits, and a few uncredited rewrites. Most people consider me a fairly successful screenwriter. Most screenwriters' careers resemble icebergs: 9/10 of their work is unseen. Maybe you just need to get more material out there, and be patient.

Three, are you sure your hooks are sharp enough? Are you mining territory that is too obvious, that other writers are bound to get to as well? Someone will probably beat you to the screen. Simon Beaufoy, who wrote THE FULL MONTY, was not on obvious territory. Maybe you should be thinking up the next JUNO or LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE or BEING JOHN MALKOVICH or ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND.

Four, are you sending your scripts out before they're as good as you can make them? Do they fall apart in the third act, or are they just goddamn brilliant all the way through. Maybe you need to raise your standards on your own work.

I wouldn't say "don't give up," because if you're a real writer you won't give up regardless what I say. But without reading your stuff, my bet is one of these apply.

The General Election: A Preview

2012-01-27T15:39:00.004-05:00

[POLITICAL THEATRE] This video has been circulating a lot on Facebook:

I think this is exactly where I'd want the President's rhetoric. The President can't run on cutting taxes; everyone knows the Republicans will do more tax cutting than anyone else. He has to make the case for taxes. So he does.

Notice how he jumps almost immediately to "strong military." In the past this has been a Republican talking point. Obama's stealing it. He makes the point that you can't cut taxes, cut the deficit, and have a strong military.

At the end he makes the Elizabeth Warren argument. You're going to be hearing it a lot more this year. No one ever got rich on their own.

You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did.
“Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

Unsuccessful Democratic candidates apologize for the social contract, I think; successful ones (Bill Clinton, Obama) embrace it.

The smart money seems to be 50-50 on Obama getting another four years. Based on this speech, and the most recent economic numbers, I'd put it a bit higher.

(But I wouldn't bet $10,000 on it.)

In memoriam: Nicol Williamson

2012-01-25T15:30:00.004-05:00

Nicol Williamson has died. I'll remember him always as the brilliant, tricksy, wise Merlin in John Boorman's wonderful EXCALIBUR.

I once visited Boorman at The Glebe, his place in Ireland. He told me that Williamson hadn't been able to make sense of his character until the costume designer made his odd little silver skullcap. Then the whole character came to him.

And Laurence Olivier never felt he had a character until he'd designed the right nose.

Goodbye, old wizard. May She treat you well in the Summerlands.

Need Someone Who Can Read...!

2012-01-25T15:09:00.001-05:00

I'm auditioning actors tomorrow in Montreal for my cheese videos. I'm looking for someone who might have three hours tomorrow to volunteer to read with the auditioning actors... know anyone?

Letters to Young Filmmakers

2012-01-24T07:04:00.004-05:00

Howard Suber was one of my professors when I was at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television; for years he team-taught alongside studio head Peter Guber in the Producers Program. His 2006 book, THE POWER OF FILM, talked about what makes a film great. He's just come out with a new book, LETTERS TO YOUNG FILMMAKERS, which is a sort of FAQ from his years of giving wise advice to people coming through the UCLA film program. The book is a series of brief letters answering questions about topics like inspiration, pitching, developing your writing, optioning your material, and why, if the screenplay is so important, Hollywood treats screenwriters like crap ... many of the same topics you may be interested in. Maybe he's got a letter for you.

Henry Ford Probably Didn't Say...

2012-01-19T23:06:00.003-05:00

According to Steve Jobs, as quoted in Walter Isaacson's excellent book, Henry Ford once said, "If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they'd have told me, 'A faster horse!'" Jobs' point was that his goal at Apple was to give customers what they didn't know they wanted: a personal computer, a graphic user interface, an iPod, an iPhone, an iPad.

This is essentially the job of the screenwriter. You have to give producers what they didn't know they wanted. Chasing what producers think they want is usually a waste of energy. What they say they want today, they won't want by the time you write a script. Likewise, when networks give you notes, they don't want to have to solve problems for you. You're supposed to solve the problem for them.

You have to be aware of the market, but not chase the trends of the market. You have to write to please yourself, because if you don't please yourself, you'll write crap no one wants. Of course you can't sell something that no one wants. But sometimes your gamble that people don't know they want your crazy creative idea -- yet -- pays off better than the familiar thing that everyone else is working on.

(I doubt the quote, because Ford wasn't the first to build a car. He was the first to build a modern assembly line.)

Read the book, by the way, it's pretty cool.

One potato, two potato

2012-01-18T09:39:00.003-05:00

Q. I'm kind of confused by 4, 5, and 6 acts in TV nowadays. Do you know of any resources where I could study the act breakdowns of TV shows?

Read produced TV scripts, and make notes about the act breaks. Watch TV, and stop the show at the act break, and write down what sort of act break it was. (On your digital video recorder. You do have one, right? It's a professional tool you must have.)

I've never seen a crystallization of 5 or 6 act structure the way there was sort of a standard format for 4 acts. (Act One out: it's not going to be easy. Act Two out turns the story on its head. Act Three out: highest jeopardy.) Faithful Readers: have you?

Okay, I Give Up

2012-01-17T12:23:00.004-05:00

We watched the "bitcoin" episode of THE GOOD WIFE. I'm about ready to give up on this show.

When we started watching, THE GOOD WIFE was a sharply written character-based drama about a woman who'd been betrayed, torn between her untrustworthy husband and her boss. There was a procedural element, but we watched the show for the human drama. Which was was Alicia going to jump? Was she going to make it on her own? How would she raise her kids under all that pressure? Could she ever trust her husband again? Did she want to?

Now it seems as if it's become almost a pure procedural. Most of the bitcoin episode was a series of investigations about who Mr. Bitcoin might be. Sure, Bitcoin is interesting territory. But I'm not watching the show to watch about cryptographic currency.

The B story was an incredibly lame runner in which Alicia warns her son not to get too involved with his incredibly cute and polite girlfriend, because she heard him say "I love you." This was manufactured drama. Most parents know better than to tell their teenager not to date someone -- assuming you can affect the relationship at all, which is unlikely, you'll just drive your teenager into rebellion or deceit. ("Okay, fine, I won't bring her over. I'll just leave home and never come back!") And why would she object to the girlfriend, who's apparently a smart, hard-working, straight-A student? It rings false.

Somewhere along the line, it seems that the writers of THE GOOD WIFE forgot what was interesting about their main character. They had her ditch her husband permanently, sleep with the boss, and then ditch him too. She has no stakes in the episodes any more. There is no real jeopardy for her. All she seems to want is "to be a good lawyer." All the interesting plotlines go to Kalinda, who has some tough choices to make.

In general, they seem to have forgotten a lot about their characters. There was an episode where Diane Lockhart has to tell Eli Gold to make friends in the law firm. Eli Gold, of course, is a political fixer who knows everyone in Chicago. Nobody should need to tell him he needs allies.

Ah, well. Let me know if it gets better, would you?

A synopsis is not a synopsis

2012-01-16T12:22:00.004-05:00

From time to time, funding programs (Canada) and producers (the US) will ask you for a synopsis.

A synopsis is "An outline of the plot of a play, film, or book," right? It recounts what happens.

Technically, yeah. A secret that took me years to find out is: when they ask for a synopsis, always send a pitch.

When you turn in a synopsis, you want the reader to get excited about your project. Your goal is to get them to read your script if they haven't. If they have, and they're going through a big pile of synopses, your goal is to remind them of why your script is the best one, and possibly even get them to think your script is more exciting than they did when they read it.

A good pitch recounts your plot, yes. But more importantly, it hypes the elements of your story. It sells what your main character wants, why he or she can't get it, and why we care. It is long on the jeopardy, the stakes, the obstacles, the antagonist, and the personality of the main character. It is short on details. It contains details, yes, but primarily details that are revelatory of character, or clever, or funny, or thrilling, or fresh.

Generally, the best way to write a pitch is to do it off the top of your head, as if you were writing a letter to a friend in the business, or a friendly producer. You will often reduce the amount of cutting back and forth between storylines that you do in the script. Sometimes you have to double back to mention something that wasn't worth mentioning earlier. You have no obligation to match the pitch story to the actual plot. Who cares if it doesn't match exactly? They'll only find out when they read the script, and that's all you wanted them to do in the first place.

The worst way to write a synopsis for submission is to go through the script and write down what happens. That's how you get "an outline of the plot." You'll wind up with a series of events that lack a strong through line.

It is very, very hard to read a real synopsis. They tend to lack nuance, gusto, and fun. A pitch should be fun to read. It should make us see the movie.

In fact, as you write a pitch, you'll often feel inclined to change your story. Go for it. Changes you make when you're selling your concept are often changes in the direction of a stronger story.

Of course, a beat sheet that you write for yourself is another beast entirely. Then you do want to go into detail about what happens. But a beat sheet doesn't have to communicate the story; it's just a reminder of what your story is.

Accomplishments vs. Relationships

2012-01-15T15:33:00.001-05:00

Lindsay Doran featured in a Times article about what makes movies successful:

“Audiences don’t care about an accomplishment unless it’s shared with someone else. What makes an audience happy is not the moment of victory but the moment afterwards when the winners shares that victory with someone they love.” So she mentally rewound the concluding scenes of these “accomplishment” films. Ms. Grey leaps into the arms of Patrick Swayze at the end of “Dirty Dancing,” and after that she reconciles with her father. Jaden Smith performs that impossible kick at the end of “The Karate Kid,” but afterward makes peace with his opponent and shares the moment with his mother and trainer. Colin Firth conquers his stammer at the end of “The King’s Speech,” and then shares his victory with his wife, daughters and the crowds cheering outside the palace. The film closes with a title card that reads that the king and his speech therapist remained friends for the rest of their lives.

Discuss.

Great Expectations

2012-01-12T15:30:00.001-05:00

Faithful Readers Claude and Kimshum tip me off to this excellent post by John Rogers:

Those types of shows are essentially shows about emotions. People in conflict, or breaking down. End of day -- as Wells et al have nimbly shown -- you can drop a conflicted group of humans into any high-stakes setting and reap the entertainment crop of angst. Breaking Bad is about temptation and sin -- Walter didn't have to make Meth. But the drug world is a great, high-conflict/high-risk crucible for an amazing staff of writers to use to show what happens, how a man breaks bad. Joss Whedon's shows are about identity, responsibility, family and failure -- it doesn't matter what setting he's in, it's just that sci-fi allows one to create extreme circumstances so to best draw out extreme choices and extreme consequences.

And then there are shows about systems. Specifically, systems in conflict, or breaking down. Law & Order is the platonic example, although most mainstream crime procedurals live somewhere in here. Disorder has come, sickness has come, corruption has come, and we crave the system to be set right. We are there for the riddle, the puzzle, the "click" of the solve. "Ahh, that's the solution." "Ah, clever."

Interesting, huh? Also, this:

All criticisms are products of unmet expectations.

Go and learn...

Friends Don't Let Friends Ghost

2012-01-12T14:19:00.008-05:00

Q. So when you say, "First of all, ghostwriting is forbidden under the rules of the Writer's Guild of America, the WGC and probably every other screenwriting guild on the planet.. If the WGA finds out that someone put his name on someone else's writing, he's in trouble.” Are you referring to someone who steals a script and puts their name on it? The term “ghostwriting” by its very nature as far as I know means that the ghostwriter agrees not to make any claim on the property, so if him and I have a “write for hire” agreement ahead of time, the WGA won’t care who did most of the writing, would they? The person who hired the writer paid him for doing the writing.

In publishing, it is considered okay for a celebrity, say, to hire someone else to write a book for them, and put his name on the book. (Though, usually, these days, the real writer's name goes somewhere, in an "As Told To" or "With" sort of byline.)

In movies and TV, however, it is NOT okay for someone to put his name on something he did not write, EVEN IF he paid for the privilege. Otherwise every producer would do that all the time. The Writers Guild of America was founded to put a stop to producers and their nephews from getting credit for things that were written by hard-working screenwriters.

If you take credit for someone eles's writing, you'll get an ugly reputation in show business when the word gets out, and it will. If you're in the WGA you might get kicked out permanently, and then you won't be able to work as a writer, or even pretend to work as a writer.

If you ghostwrite for someone else, you are screwing your fellow writers, and screwing yourself. I'm not sure whether the WGA would ever let you in, but if you're a member already, they can fine you the entire amount you got paid. Also, you'll hate yourself. No one should do it, ever.

"Writer for hire" just means that the writer doesn't get copyright, the company does. Thass different. The writer still gets credit.

Credits are the most important thing in a writer's career. They are her reputation. She has them for the whole duration of her career, unlike the money. They are the hard-earned gift that keeps on giving. If you spend a year ghostwriting, you have lost a year of your life.

Of course writers don't always get credit for rewriting a script. Carrie Fisher, for example (yes, that Carrie Fisher) is a big deal script doctor who comes in at the last minute to punch up scripts. However you generally don't get a credit for punching up dialog and characters. But that is a question of awarding the original, legitimate writer more credit than he possibly deserves. The WGA tends to lean in the direction of giving the original writer more credit, so if a highly paid script doctor doesn't demand all the credit she deserves, they're probably not going to fuss about that. But Carrie Fisher's contract gives her right to ask for a credit arbitration if she feels like it. Thass different, too.

The only time ghostwriting was acceptable was during the McCarthy period, when banned screenwriters such as Dalton Trumbo had to write under pseudonyms, or use a "front," in order to stay alive.

Seriously, why would you hire a ghost writer? If you want to produce, produce. No one cares if you hire a writer and then put your name on the script as its producer. But taking credit for someone else's script is -- well, the nicest thing I can say about is, don't ever do it.

Skype Writing Group?

2012-01-12T09:32:00.000-05:00

I'm a young writer from India and don't really have any friends who write. I wanted to experiment with writing rooms, but I don't know where to start. Do you have any idea where creative people who'd be open to Skypeing flock to on the internet?

Readers, what do you say?

12 Ways to Say I'm Sorry

2012-01-11T20:23:00.003-05:00

At last on the small screen, my 2007 short "12 Ways to Say I'm Sorry," in which we examine what Canadians mean by the expression, "I'm sorry."

Guess what it doesn't mean?