Words, Music & Pictures

Jeri Taylor, one of the people who literally changed my life, passed away this week. When I decided to transition from writing advertising to writing for film and television, my goal was to write for new show, Star Trek: The Next Generation.  As Supervising Producer for the show, Jeri was the first person in “the business” to whom my writing partner Jean Matthias and I pitched stories. Our first pitches were, maybe good ideas, but way overwritten – perhaps tediously overwritten as she stopped us midway through each of them, asking what else we had. The art of pitching stories was something that none of my instructors at UCLA Extension Writers Program had taught. We walked out of our pitch session thinking our writing careers were over and were stunned when our agent called us the next day and said that Jeri had actually asked us back.  Perhaps seeing our potential, Jeri was patient with us and instructed us in how to craft our ideas in the “broad brush strokes” of the concept – something I have passed along to my own writing students at UCLA after I became an instructor there. By our third pitch session, when we knew better how to present our stories, Jeri gave us our first produced credit on Star Trek with our episode “Imaginary Friend.” Many more episodes followed. Jeri was generous with her time in our story development sessions and helped me become a better writer than I could have become without her guidance. She was also a person who actually cared about the writers she hired – a rarity in the business. When our second episode "Schisms" was in process, the plan was that we would write both the story and teleplay (which is the actual script, and the preferred credit).  Unfortunately, the network bumped the episode forward in the schedule which meant that we, being freelancers, couldn’t be trusted to turn in the teleplay on time for the production deadline, so we were taken off the assignment. Rather than just give us the bad news and expect us to deal with it (which is the way of Hollywood) Jeri gave us a big lead. She told us that Michael Piller (the showrunner, and her boss) had an idea that Captain Picard might have an inter-office romance. She said that nobody on their staff had any ideas on how to do it. She asked us to see if we could do something with it. Her door was always open to us. That opportunity became the episode “Lessons” which was the first time we wrote both story and teleplay. It was a fantastic experience.  More on "Lessons" HERE.  We continued to work with Jeri on The Next Generation as well as the subsequent series Star Trek: Voyager and were disappointed when, after a few years, she announced her retirement from that show. Pitching Trek wasn’t the same without her, so I moved on to another part of sci-fi universe writing for Stargate SG-1. Jeri was a wonderful, caring person whose wisdom was reflected in her story craft and the careers of the many writers with whom she developed brilliant stories. I will always be grateful for having the opportunity to work with one of my mentors, Jeri Taylor.  10.28.24

In 1998 I was between writing gigs for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Voyager (Stargate SG-1 was two years off in my future) when I got a call from Alesis, the company founded by my old friend (and former boss at MXR Innovations) Keith Barr. Alesis, Keith's company, needed a presentation for the upcoming NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) trade show in Anaheim, CA to announce their new ADAT digital recorder, and I needed a gig. Having spent many of the previous years working in advertising, this was not an unusual request, so I set to work on a video. In meetings for the assignment, Alesis kept stressing the engineering aspects of their technology, so I came up with the idea of doing a video presentation using the most famous engineer I could think of to make the announcement. That engineer was, of course, Montgomery Scott, “Scotty” from the starship Enterprise. Would James Doohan reprise his old role for this commercial gig? I figured that if I made it worth doing (something that would fit his personality and be entertaining) that he might agree. I came up with the idea that this “Famous Engineer from the future” (we obviously couldn’t call him Scotty) would time travel back to educate clueless present-day stoner musicians on the technological benefits of the new ADAT. I wrote the script, and it was enthusiastically approved by “the powers that be” at Alesis. Next was the tough part -- getting James Doohan. It had been six years since he had done “Relics” that great episode on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Was he still even working? I tracked down his agent, sent him the script, and, amazingly, in a few days, the deal was set. We flew James (“call me Jimmy” was how he introduced himself to me) down to Los Angeles from his home in Washington state and over the next few days, I had the most fun I’d ever had directing a commercial gig. I’ve written more about working with Jimmy Doohan in the Tributes section of this web site, (click here) but I will say here that he was a joy to work with and everybody on the production had a great and memorable time. The video (click here) was made to be shown in two parts, the first played on the outside of the Alesis booth on a video wall. This led to a second video (mostly tech talk) that played inside the booth auditorium.  The Famous Engineer appears again at the end.  This video hasn’t been shown in over twenty years. I’m happy to post it here. Enjoy! 04.11.24

It was "United We Trek" day outside the Paramount Pictures studio where writers, actors and others who had worked for Star Trek were invited to attend and protest the current state of affairs in Hollywood. I’ve never been much of a joiner, and though I have issues with both Paramount and the Writers’ Guild I decided to join the throng.  No, I didn’t carry a picket sign, nor did I march the line. I mostly stayed in the shade of a friendly tree along the picket lines where I could greet others I knew from the show as well converse with some nice fans.  One of my neighbors when we lived in the hills of Sherman Oaks was Harlan Ellison, who wrote one of the best episodes of the original series, “City on the Edge of Forever.” But in spite of his history as an honored writer on the show, he had no love for Star Trek (I'm not sure exactly what his issue was, but it was intense), and to say the least he wasn’t impressed when I told him I wrote for Star Trek: The Next Generation.  He's gone now, but I thought of him today. I have my own issues with the show. Paramount took “Lower Decks” one of the episodes I wrote for Star Trek: The Next Generation and made a new series out of it without giving me a “created by” screen credit or even token royalties. There was an obscure paragraph in my (Writers Guild approved) contract that allowed them to do so. That’s show biz. So, I had every right to be bitter toward the show, as was Harlan Ellison. But I realized as I stood with the pickets today that many of those who had worked on Star Trek had also either been fired, or simply not rehired for the show as it moved on. They, too, had issues. And yet, there they were, marching down a hot sidewalk for the benefit of writers and actors on a show they had once loved, no matter how they themselves had been treated. I was glad to stand there with them, show my support, and at the very least honor Gene Roddenberry and the many artists and others who had followed his dream.   09.08.23