WHEELS OFF THE WAGON

LegalDispatch 0.9

Well, I seem to have fallen behind with this newsletter, sadly…

It certainly didn’t help that this week deadlines on three projects (LA Law, PROJECT ARTERY and PROJECT SOLSTICE) converged.

So, I’ve been thinking about ways of making my writing of LegalDispatch a bit more efficient. To that end, I plan on being a bit less dogmatic in terms of content and format. The hope is this will encourage me to dash off shorter newsletters at a greater frequency.

We’ll see.

I’m still new at this.

Obviously.

A MILESTONE

Well how about that?

Yeah, 100 is a pretty paltry number, I know, but from such tiny acorns do mighty oaks grow.

Or something like that.

THIS PAST WEEK

As I mentioned above, I had a confluence of deadlines to contend with. One of which was the second issue of PROJECT SOLSTICE. I doubt I could have any more fun writing this project without it being illegal.

PROJECT ARTERY also got a pretty substantial rewrite based on [REDACTED]’s notes. His thoughts and ideas are always so additive. Even when the rationale for the changes doesn’t immediately seem apparent to me, executing them is always illuminating. It’s great fun to be inside [REDACTED]’s head for a little while.

As it turns out, I did some of the writing at the Parker Hotel in Palm Springs. To my amusement, the hotel shares the same carpeting with the Overlook Hotel from The Shining:

(Trollhunters fans may also recognize the same pattern in Toby’s sweater.)

Also, we announced that OG LA Lawyer Corbin Bernsen is coming back for our sequel series!

NEXT WEEK

Next week is all, all, all about finishing up revisions to PROJECT FROST. What’s PROJECT FROST? Not gonna tell you. Except to say it’s not a TV show, movie, or comic book.

Ooo. Mysterious.

Next week also sees the the broadcast of the 100th Episode (!!!) of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.

It’s a remarkably wonderful and weird thing to work on a show that makes it to 100 episodes. I remember when my very first professional gig, The Practice, hit 100. And when Law & Order hit 300. Pretty heady stuff.

For Legends, we didn’t shoot a traditional pilot. Instead, we scripted and filmed what we called a “promo” or what the studio and network called a “presentation.” For nostalgia’s sake, here are the first two pages of the script I wrote for that little endeavor:

My, how has this show changed…

Alrighty. That’s it from me for this week, with the promise of getting better at getting these out more regularly.

Be good to each other.

Best,

Marc

Encino, California

10.22.21