Side Story: Media & Television Broadcasting

Robert Ellis

(Note: I know that over the past two weeks we have been able to see the NFL for what it really is. A greed machine, so protective of its brand, so focused on doing whatever it takes to "get the money" that acting like a human being and doing the right thing doesn't mean much anymore. This post has nothing to do with the NFL. We'll save that for another day. Instead, this post is about something incredible that happened last Sunday during a game.)

I spend most of my time in the New York media market these days. This past Sunday I was watching a football game between the New York Giants and the Arizona Cardinals. The Giants aren't very good this year. The game was long and boring and one of the worst games I've ever seen in my life. When the ordeal was finally over, FOX cut to what was left of the game between the Cleveland Browns and the New Orleans Saints.

I was about to reach for the clicker when something remarkable happened.

Cleveland Browns First Energy Stadium

There was a glitch in the transfer to the Cleveland game. The picture came over, and so did the audio from the mikes on the field and in the stands. But the audio feed from the booth never made it. The announcers were gone!

The game was a shocker, the score, 24-23 in favor of New Orleans. Cleveland made a terrific play, and the ball was spotted within field goal range with 13 seconds to go. The reason I'm writing about this is that the story was being told with just pictures and the sound of the crowd. The drama was all amped up, I think, because we weren't being told what we were seeing. Instead, we were taking it in first hand as if we were actually in the stands. The truth is, it was better than being in the stands. We had close-up shots from every angle, and the director kept cutting from shot to shot.

Cleveland kicked the field goal and won. The stadium rocked. Sixty thousand people were going crazy.

When the camera cut to Cleveland's bench -- the players and coaches -- the looks on their faces, the disbelief, the shock and awe, the pure joy -- I'd never seen anything like it. The moment lasted for more than five minutes and still no one noticed that the announcers hadn't been wired in. It was the best five minutes in sports broadcasting that I've ever seen.

http://www.robertellis.net 

Starting Over Again

Robert Ellis

I forgot that starting to write a new novel means learning how to write all over again. You'd think after six books I would have remembered the fine print.

At first glance I was thinking to myself, hoping maybe, that this time the process would somehow be easier. A breeze with a few kinks to it, but still a breeze. A walk in the park with a few clouds in the sky, but still a pleasant day. Why does writing seem to get harder each time?

I remember writing my second novel THE DEAD ROOM and being so surprised, if not disappointed, that the voice that matches up to the words inside my head was exactly the same voice I'd heard when I wrote my first novel, ACCESS TO POWER. I felt like I had missed something. I felt like I had done something wrong. After all, this was a new story, an entirely different kind of story, a legal thriller instead of a political thriller. My voice should be way different. My voice should have changed. Somehow as an artist I should have grown.

 

I laugh now because it's my voice that's never supposed to change.

The more I write, the more lifelike my characters become. The more I write, the more my stories seem to pick up speed and impact others. But it's my voice that comes with my being. It can't be learned and it can't be taught. A writer's voice is a writer's voice. The only way to change a writer's voice is to change the person writing the novel. And when you spot a change of voice in a book by an author you love, it's always a real bad day!

http://www.robertellis.net

Skipping School: A Young Man's Visit to City Hall

Robert Ellis

While I enjoyed college very much and graduated summa cum laude, something about high school just didn't agree with me. Yes, I was one of a handful of students who wrote and edited our high school newspaper, but at the time my family life left a lot to be desired. One night I went with friends to see the movie FIVE EASY PIECES. (Curiously, in an earlier post I had said that I didn't think a film could move me to the point of personal change, yet here's one that actually did).

After watching FIVE EASY PIECES I was never the same. I went back the next night by myself. The film was even better a second time around. It's probably a safe bet that I saw something of myself and my circumstance in Jack Nicholson's portrayal of Robert Dupea. The existential man living in a world with no purpose, no meaning or hope.

Jack Nicholson in Bob Rafelson's FIVE EASY PIECES

I started reading Camus. I bought a movie camera and began making my own films. But even more, I started skipping school to go to movies in downtown Philadelphia. This went on for more than a year until one afternoon I realized I'd seen every movie playing in town. For whatever reason, somehow I ended up at City Hall. At the time, the Criminal Justice Center hadn't been built, and criminal and civil cases were tried in the courtrooms here at the hall. I sat through two murder trials before catching a train back to the suburbs. The first trial would have been horrific for anyone. But for a teenager on the run, it changed everything: a man had come home from work and caught his wife in bed with his best friend. He kept a shotgun in the closet. He surprised them. He shot both of them before they could even get out of bed. He shot them dead, and from the crime scene photos the prosecutor was showing the jury, there was blood everywhere.

I took a deep breath and settled back in my chair. I could see the murderer sitting at the table with his attorney right in front of me. He must have sensed that I was staring at him. He turned and our eyes met. This was real life, and not a movie. I was a seventeen-year-old boy. 

FIVE EASY PIECES (40th Anniversary Poster)

I went home, my mind reeling, and wrote a short story based on the trial. And then I made a huge mistake. I turned the story into my English teacher! Today, I would have been kicked out of school, and who knows what else would have happened? My teacher, a very gentle woman, read my story and gave it an A, but said that it would require a parent teacher visit. In fact, she had already made the arrangements, and would be stopping by the house that very night.

After an hour of listening to my teacher, and then my parents, all trying to figure out if I was okay or not, they reached a final judgment. I had been pronounced sound in body and mind. In the end I had to agree to stop skipping school. In turn, my teacher agreed to give my future stories an A, but said that it was unlikely she would ever read one again. After she left, my parents seemed to shake it off. They'd read the story I'd written, and thought it was good.

http://www.robertellis.net

Robert Ellis News

Robert Ellis

Great news for fans in Europe. The German language edition of THE DEAD ROOM has been completed and is now available for pre-order. The novel is entitled DIE LEICHEN KAMMER and will be released October 14, 2014.

 http://www.amazon.de/Die-Leichenkammer-Robert-Ellis-ebook/dp/B00MW8VL1A

I'm really jazzed about this because German translations of CITY OF FIRE and THE LOST WITNESS spent the better part of a year in the Top 10 List. But THE DEAD ROOM is the mother lode. A legal thriller about a young civil attorney who's just graduated law school and is forced by his new boss to represent someone accused of murdering an eighteen-year-old girl in a particularly horrific way. One savage killing begets another until the entire city of Philadelphia becomes terror-stricken.

 

Set in the city and suburbs where I grew up, THE DEAD ROOM is my most personal novel. With more than 400 FIVE Star reviews on Amazon, and the crown of being a No.1 Amazon.com Bestseller in the US and the UK, I can't imagine, and can't wait, to see how my friends overseas take to this unique and frightening tale.

Sleep loose, my friends. This one's scary.

http://www.robertellis.net