Instructor Biography:
Screenwriter; WGA and WGC member who won a WGA Award for 101 Best Written TV Series, including Barney Miller and Hill Street Blues. Mr. Taub has written for Magnum P.I, Newhart, In the Heat of the Night, among others, and created the award-winning web series The G Spot. He has written pilots for NBC, Columbia, Warner Bros, and Paramount.
To view Bill Taub’s WGA Panel entitled “Creating a Web Series” click here.
Also view the WGA Panel entitled “Toot Your Own Horn,” with Writers’ Program alum Zoanne Clack (Grey’s Anatomy), and moderated by Bill Taub, offering great insights into promoting yourself as a writer, click here.
Read Bill Taub’s article on Scripted Audio click here.
To Listen to Bill Taub’s WGA Seminar on Scripted Audio click here.
Instructor Statement:
The more I study the work of those I admire most, the one thing that becomes apparent is that they either didn’t know all the rules, or they ignored them. It’s their innocence, their originality, their freshness that have made their work such a tremendous success. Whether it’s the most recent work of David Kelley, David Milch, or Larry David (the confederacy of “Davids” as I call them), and now J. J. Abrams, they didn’t know what they weren’t supposed to do—didn’t know what they didn’t know. For me, the most fun I have writing, and the best chance I have of getting anything done or looked at, is trying to be as original as possible. It doesn’t have to be “high art”—I love experimenting with various genres and ways to execute the same idea, the same story, as in the movie Memento. So my mantra nowadays, which I keep on my wall and would like to impart to others is: The first rule is…there are no rules!
Our Students Say it Best!
“I particularly appreciated Bill’s can-do attitude. Nothing was out of bounds and he pushed us to just get in there and do it. There is a Woody Allen quote about 80% of success being just showing up—which I whole-heartedly believe—and I think both his book and input during class really drove that home and instilled a sense of optimism and ethos of constant effort towards improvement. His enthusiasm is totally catchy and his encouragement and generosity with feedback is much appreciated.” —Writers’ Program student