counting at war (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kerpingtack) wrote2008-04-30 09:33 pm
kerpingtack) wrote2008-04-30 09:33 pm
Entry tags:
give my regards
K got back from the BJ Novak talk, which was an hour-long Q&A session. He was so so nice, like seriously. At about 5 minutes till the end there were still tons of people raising their hands to ask questions so he said if the Campus Events Commission people still had the room, he could stay overtime, and he could hang around after and answer questions one-on-one. Plus the moderator kept interrupting him but he was super polite and nice and would finish what he was saying and respond to the mod at the end. He was hella gracious!
He was also smoking hot, for seriously. He looked really really good. It was awesome. Like. Yeah. BJ Novak, if you were in one of my classes, I would totally stare at you creepily and stalk you across campus. He was also really articulate and funny and clear and it was just really cool to listen to him.
Whot he talked about (this is so out of order it's not even funny and also I got like all the details wrong and I forgot A LOOOOOT):
- career path: Ever since he was little, he wanted to be a writer but he didn't know what kind. Later he says that he knew he wanted to be a FAMOUS kind of writer; his dad is/was a ghostwriter for political/celebrity biographies and stuff and he would be credited as "with William(?) Novak," so he was all "I kind of wanted to avenge the family name." In Harvard he wrote for the Harvard Lampoon, knowing that a lot of people went onto Hollywood from there. He wrote a parody of Full House with his friend (Dan something? I think? Question mark?) and Bob Saget saw it and etc etc he got hired as a writer for a sitcom starring M. Saget at age 21. He hated the experience, started writing in jokes they could never use, also started telling those jokes on open mike stand-up every night, and bombed every night.
- some pieces of advice he is confident about giving without feeling presumptuous/thinking he's so great and wise:
--> Write for the person next to you, not what you think is going to get you hired. (Write something that you like and would impress your friends, etc.)
--> (from his dad) Write only what you like, keep only what they like.
- Related to the advice: he would sometimes go out w/ material that he thought the audience would like and when it bombed he'd be all, "Fuck you guys, I didn't think it was funny either!" Anyway what's the point of doing this if you don't ~believe~ in it, or if you don't think it's good?
- Two sets of advice for how to break into the business: creative and professional. He thinks the professional is overemphasized. Generally the way to get noticed is to write a great script. People genuinely want good writers. If it's a pretty good one, keep working on it until it's great. Also do not underestimate messing around on the internet or whatever to make your friends laugh. But he knows how hard it is to be patient. During the year and a half when he was doing stand-up and bombing, he would be so bored that when he got stuck in traffic, he'd be all, "Yes! Traffic!" He had something to do!
- At the beginning of the season the writers get together for two months and throw out about a bagizillion (/thousands) ideas that they write down on index cards. The ones they keep are the ones they can't stop talking about, and the ones that get made are the dozen or so that Greg Daniels picks.
- His favorite episodes that he's written are the earlier ones, Diversity Day and Sexual Harassment. He loooves Diversity Day. He likes Sexual Harassment because it was where "that's what she said" originates and it features one of his favorite side characters, the lawyer P.L. Beanie (he is proud of coming up w/ that name).
- He thinks every ten years or so there's a new movie/TV show that really captures how people are actually talking, because up until then there's a run of movies imitating a movie imitating a movie imitating a movie, etc. He thinks that quality explains the success of Judd Apatow movies.
- Relatedly his dream is to make a definitive cult movie that everyone quotes until their dying day, etc. He'd be happy with that one movie.
- some jokes from his stand-up that he really loved but no one ever laughed at:
"The other day I saw a guy drinking water, with frozen water in it. I thought, that guy sure likes his water."
"The saddest idiot savant is the one who is a savant at self-awareness" (ugh I butchered this one so badly, but the punchline is there)
SIGH! Nursing my crush on BJ Novak foreverrrr now kthx.
He was also smoking hot, for seriously. He looked really really good. It was awesome. Like. Yeah. BJ Novak, if you were in one of my classes, I would totally stare at you creepily and stalk you across campus. He was also really articulate and funny and clear and it was just really cool to listen to him.
Whot he talked about (this is so out of order it's not even funny and also I got like all the details wrong and I forgot A LOOOOOT):
- career path: Ever since he was little, he wanted to be a writer but he didn't know what kind. Later he says that he knew he wanted to be a FAMOUS kind of writer; his dad is/was a ghostwriter for political/celebrity biographies and stuff and he would be credited as "with William(?) Novak," so he was all "I kind of wanted to avenge the family name." In Harvard he wrote for the Harvard Lampoon, knowing that a lot of people went onto Hollywood from there. He wrote a parody of Full House with his friend (Dan something? I think? Question mark?) and Bob Saget saw it and etc etc he got hired as a writer for a sitcom starring M. Saget at age 21. He hated the experience, started writing in jokes they could never use, also started telling those jokes on open mike stand-up every night, and bombed every night.
- some pieces of advice he is confident about giving without feeling presumptuous/thinking he's so great and wise:
--> Write for the person next to you, not what you think is going to get you hired. (Write something that you like and would impress your friends, etc.)
--> (from his dad) Write only what you like, keep only what they like.
- Related to the advice: he would sometimes go out w/ material that he thought the audience would like and when it bombed he'd be all, "Fuck you guys, I didn't think it was funny either!" Anyway what's the point of doing this if you don't ~believe~ in it, or if you don't think it's good?
- Two sets of advice for how to break into the business: creative and professional. He thinks the professional is overemphasized. Generally the way to get noticed is to write a great script. People genuinely want good writers. If it's a pretty good one, keep working on it until it's great. Also do not underestimate messing around on the internet or whatever to make your friends laugh. But he knows how hard it is to be patient. During the year and a half when he was doing stand-up and bombing, he would be so bored that when he got stuck in traffic, he'd be all, "Yes! Traffic!" He had something to do!
- At the beginning of the season the writers get together for two months and throw out about a bagizillion (/thousands) ideas that they write down on index cards. The ones they keep are the ones they can't stop talking about, and the ones that get made are the dozen or so that Greg Daniels picks.
- His favorite episodes that he's written are the earlier ones, Diversity Day and Sexual Harassment. He loooves Diversity Day. He likes Sexual Harassment because it was where "that's what she said" originates and it features one of his favorite side characters, the lawyer P.L. Beanie (he is proud of coming up w/ that name).
- He thinks every ten years or so there's a new movie/TV show that really captures how people are actually talking, because up until then there's a run of movies imitating a movie imitating a movie imitating a movie, etc. He thinks that quality explains the success of Judd Apatow movies.
- Relatedly his dream is to make a definitive cult movie that everyone quotes until their dying day, etc. He'd be happy with that one movie.
- some jokes from his stand-up that he really loved but no one ever laughed at:
"The other day I saw a guy drinking water, with frozen water in it. I thought, that guy sure likes his water."
"The saddest idiot savant is the one who is a savant at self-awareness" (ugh I butchered this one so badly, but the punchline is there)
SIGH! Nursing my crush on BJ Novak foreverrrr now kthx.