[B5JMS] Attn: JMS, Re: frustration?

[b5jms-admin at cs.columbia.edu]

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From: vonbruno at aol.com (Von Bruno)
Date: 13 Aug 2002 19:20:18 GMT
Lines: 23

Joe,

Do you ever get frustrated or discouraged over the seemingly never ending
hurdles of putting out a quality TV series with a memory and which builds upon
itself? How do you deal with it?

Your works are usually above the norm in terms of ambition and from B5: Crusade
(a show I loved) to Jeremiah (a series' I've yet to see since I don't subscribe
to Showtime) it seems the challenges they face are overwhelming (if not
insurmountable).

For me, it has gotten to the point where I generally avoid freshmen shows just
because I don't want to get hooked on them only to be "rewarded" by a story on
AP that they've been cancelled after 13 episodes. It gets quite disheartening
after so many years where it seems that networks give programs shorter and
shorter periods in which to prove themselves.

I realize your a professional and it is the nature of the beast, but doesn't it
bug or start to really churn your stomach after awhile? Or do you just develope
a thicker skin to it all?

-Von Bruno


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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: 15 Aug 2002 06:49:16 GMT
Lines: 39

>Do you ever get frustrated or discouraged over the seemingly never ending
>hurdles of putting out a quality TV series with a memory and which builds
>upon
>itself? How do you deal with it?

I don't.  Some days I just throw up my hands (or my lunch) and walk out of the
building and swear I'm getting out of TeeVee once and for all.  On one hand
it's a terrific business to be in...on the other hand, it's soul-killing if you
want to do anything other than walk the middle of the road.  More than once,
I've had to just go right to the wall, to say it's either this way or I
walk...and on many occasions, I've ended up doing just that, walking, because I
have only a few rules when I work, and the first one is "I never bluff.  Ever."

There are days -- lots of them -- when it's just a heartbreaker of a
profession.  But at the same time I have to keep it in perspective: I'm not
likely to get caught in a mine shaft collapse, or get hit by a falling house
frame, or endure the many hardships that people every day in far more important
jobs -- teaching, carpenting, construction -- the jobs that keep this country
moving ahead, have to endure.  It's all subcutaneous, neural, emotional,
creative, professional...but in ways that are designed to nibble away your
humanity and your compassion, to lead you to excess and arrogance and
indulgence.

There are days it drives me totally batshit.

But I tell stories, it's what I do, and television provides the biggest canvas
in human history, and I have no intention surrendering the field to the
visigoths.

 jms

(jmsatb5 at aol.com)
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permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine 
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