by Melinda Snodgrass | Sep 27, 2015 | Blog
The Pope’s visit has raised a lot of long buried ghosts. Memories of attending mass with my father. Kneeling with my shoulder pressed against him, the hardness of the wood of the kneelers barely disguised beneath the velvet, the smell of incense and dad’s aftershave, prismatic light pouring through the stained glass window, the music of the latin, and the music. When I was a child the congregation didn’t sing. Just the choir and what music they performed — Mozart...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Sep 21, 2015 | The Craft of Writing
There’s this concept in screenwriting that we call “hanging a lantern on it”. It basically means that we point out something before it can trip up an audience. By acknowledging that we are aware of the problem/issue we reassure the audience that we know what we’re doing and they can sit back, relax and take the ride with us. It came up in my spec Edge script. I had a beta reader point out that somewhere my Prometheus character has to point out that he will use any...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 31, 2015 | Blog
I wasn’t going to go to Spokane for the World Science Fiction Convention. I have a lot of work on my plate, a number of other trips so adding in Sasquan seemed like just too much. Then Puppies happened and I knew I had to go. My friend David Gerrold (the man responsible for Tribbles and defeating the Klingons with said aforementioned tribbles) was the guest of honor, and it seemed like there was a very good chance his moment in the sun was going to be spoiled by a food fight in...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 16, 2015 | TV & Movies
Let me stipulate right up front that I loved this movie. I want to see it again and that’s really rare for me. I went in torn between hope and trepidation. This was either going to be very good or a total train wreck. On the one hand you had Guy Ritchie directing. On the other it was based on the Man From U.N.C.L.E I loved the show as a little kid. I was madly in love with Illya Kuryakin. I even got to go on the set because of my father’s business partners in Los Angeles...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 14, 2015 | TV & Movies
I’ve spent a lot of time in Hollywood trying to sell various shows. Everything from a western set in NM in 1840 to contemporary thrillers, to shows about the army’s CID division. (Yes, I pitched that before NCIS went on the air, but I was a girl and the reaction in the room was “nobody’s interested in the military. *sigh*). I’ve also tried very had to sell science fiction shows. Even had a pilot shot of one of them. What I ran into over and over and over...
