CONSULTANT SERVICES

I have heard this said of a consultant:  "A consultant is an expert from out of town with a briefcase."

Well, I don't own a briefcase, but I sure do enjoy going out of town.  

And I have become something of an expert, at least in my narrowly defined world of international script and programming development. 

I have mentored writers in Managua.

Developed film scripts in Oslo.

Lectured on story structure in Kuala Lumpur.

Consulted on a Chinese-Australian-American co-production.

Taught comedy in Germany. 

And many other strange and wonderful things you'll find boiled down to their essence on my resume.

And yes, there have been cultural hurdles.  I constantly have to guard against imposing my American cultural assumptions on writers and their works in other places, while at the same time scrambling to fill in the gaps (by guess or by study) in my awareness of another country's culture.

But I've been at this game for ten years now, and I've learned something about culture: It's more important to recognize that  television and film gets created within a cultural context than it is to know the specifics of that context.  In other words, if I can effectively train writers to use their culture in their work, then I really don't need to know everything about the culture they use.

My goal as a consultant, in any case, is not to teach "the American model" (even if I knew what that was).  I teach story structure.  I teach rigorous development.  I teach writing from the heart because I believe in it, and also because I believe it makes the best television and film.  But mostly what I do is solve problems.

How can we make a sitcom that will appeal to every man, woman and child in this country?

How can we learn to write hard conflict if we've been taught from birth to avoid conflict?

How can we move television network executives off their assumptions of what works and what doesn't?

How can we meet the demands of writing sketch comedy for television without going mad or slitting our wrists?

How can we make this darn script work?

Those kind of problems.  Interesting and compelling problems.  Maybe you have a problem like this that needs solving.  If so, please send up a signal flare.  

It has been my honor and great pleasure to contribute to the development of television and film projects worldwide.  It would be my honor and great pleasure to contribute to the development of your project too.