Ben Myers: The website

Ben Myers is a writer and communicator in Toronto. This is a collection of the things that I care about, work on, and find extremely funny. Learn more about me.

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Ooh! At first glance, I thought these were real vintage ads from the 70s/early 80s. But no, they’re brand new ads for Daft Punk merchandise.

They’re not conceptually great, but they’re wonderful in terms of their spot-on mimicry of retro design and badvertising.

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I made this ad for AndroidTO and I'm super proud of it.

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This is the first video I edited for Furever.ca

Rob was kind enough to give us lots of footage of his dogs. The stuff he shot at the beach is beautiful!

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It's been a lot of this for me recently.

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I made this last week for a possible upcoming project. I haven't used photoshop in a little bit, so I'm happy with how it turned out. Using CS6 was very familiar too.

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And there's a storyboard that we more or less followed for Pitch Please!

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If there's one thing I've learned about making a TV show, it's all of these things simultaneously.

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Starlight TV decision has little to do with potential viewers

At the recent CMPA Primetime in Ottawa convention in early March, I had the opportunity to chat with one of the promoters (let’s call her Red) of the proposed Starlight all-Canadian feature film channel. Though Red and I were face-to-face for several minutes in a heated discussion, I don’t think we were speaking the same language.

She said that the CRTC should accept Starlight’s application for mandatory carriage (hearings begin on April 23). I argued that Starlight was destined to fail because of changing viewer habits. I think we were both correct in our arguments.

Clash of the titans

Starlight is asking the CRTC to force all cable subscribers (regardless of whether they use Bell or Rogers or... wait, that’s all of them) to fork over 45 cents per month and force the channel into every cable package, as well as indirectly support new Canadian features through a fund created by the channel. Dinsmore and Rogers oppose the application saying that Canadians have access to hundreds of Canadian feature films through Rogers On Demand.

Inside baseball

If they were politicians, Parliament Hill journalists would have called the Lantos-Dinsmore panel ‘inside baseball’; a discussion that has little meaning, relevance, or impact on a person who can’t directly benefit from the outcome of the debate. In other words, a conversation solely for telecom policy nerds.

Back to my conversation: We weren’t speaking the same language because I was measuring the channel’s success in terms of viewers, while Red’s measure of success didn’t go any further than government approval. And that’s the end of the debate.

All Starlight has to do is convince the government to force Rogers and Bell to mandate that customers pay for its channel. Then, it would get its funding ($40-million per year) and Canadians would have access to Canadian feature films around the clock – whether they want it or not.

Red said that 45 cents wasn’t very much to ask consumers. I agreed. I asserted that viewers are moving to convenient Netflix, iTunes, and forms of on-demand content. Appointment-viewing (watching shows that begin at a particular time) was going the way of the dodo and a channel that launches in 2013 needs to anticipate changing viewer habits and be a part of the new wave, not the old one.

How many people will watch?

The sad fact is that Starlight’s success has everything to do with the CRTC and Rogers and Bell and very little to do with how many people find this (mandated and prepaid) service useful after the closed-door decision is made.

It’s hard to fault Starlight for the path they have chosen. In the Canadian telecom landscape, the only way around (in other words “to coerce”) Rogers and Bell is through the CRTC (just ask SUN TV who are asking for 18 cents per month per subscriber). That’s the only way that Starlight could exist as a TV channel, and that’s the only way Canadians could access their homegrown feature films.

I think that Starlight would do better partnering with Netflix, or as a subsidized iTunes subscription, or a similar online package. Red thought $5.40 per year wasn’t too much to ask consumers to bring them Canadian content that they don’t yet know they want.

What do consumers think? A token CRTC feedback process was closed in late February. Ultimately, it will come down to Lantos vs Dinsmore Round 2, and that’s better Canadian drama than you would find on Rogers On Demand most nights. Would Canadians watch that feature? Neither Red, Lantos nor Dinsmore need worry about that part.

If you’re a fan of Starlight’s concept, use their site to send an email to the Minister of Heritage.

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I just did a mock-up of a possible cover for my original series bible. Obviously, the show is called Temps. What do you think?

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While in Toronto a couple weeks ago, I was able to attend a WGC event about running a webseries at the Lightbox Theatre. The event was recorded to be part of one of my favourite podcasts, Writers Talking TV. Prominent Canadian writers and showrunners talking about how their shows work and how they managed to get them on the air in the first place.

So far, I've listened to Martin Gero talk about The LA Complex, Simon Barry discuss Continuum and Bob Martin lecture about Michael: Tuesdays & Thursdays. Each one has had insightful bits about how Canadian TV gets made from the pitching to the production.

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Quick notes on Toronto trip

The Pitch Trip (#pitchplease) was a gigantic success. Learned so much about what sorts of Canadian TV shows work for broadcasters and what they're looking for in the future. I'll put down the easy-to-digest notes here:

Writing for demographics and particular markets (duh). Most important for children's TV shows.

Lack of TV stars demands concise story and character objectives.

Some broadcasters looking for half-hour shows and others looking for hour-long.

Consider whether the single-cam comedy can work as multi-cam.

32 is a magical age for characters. 20-somethings can relate to the age, while 35+ can look back with good humour.

Most broadcasters looking for episodic shows; HBO is 100% serialized.

Pitching is always better when you know the show and can tell them about it without the pauses and hesitation of memorizing a speech. Know the pitch, the strengths of the show, the episodes.

More to come.

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So good. Can't wait for the new season.

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That's the plan, Ron.

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Some great Canadian shows featured at CMPA Primetime today. 

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The World Today and my time in TO

I spent a week in Toronto with Hisham Kelati (pictured) and the QB Kids Productions crew. I co-wrote the script for The World Today (Feb. 22, 2013) and shot a sketch that I conceived and wrote a couple months ago.

So what did we learn? 

It takes a long time to come up with jokes. You have to examine these news items from every angle.

Even for a very straight-forward format, editing is a big part of the comedy. Just selecting which take to go with, picking music, and cutting away has an impact on the show.

I had to fight for a couple of jokes, namely the Die Hard and Kareem ones. Totally worth it.

Thanks to Hisham, I learned a lot about annotations and tagging youtube videos.

I actually like Toronto now.

180 views on the youtube vid so far. Hopefully the momentum keeps up. It was a great experience and I can't wait to do it again (maybe in the summer?!)

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This is the The World Today episode that I wrote, along with great help from Matt Dodge and Hisham Kelati. I'm really happy with how it ultimately turned out, and the process of putting it together was a ton of fun too.