Julie Strassman-Cohn and Jill Golick, co-writers of the first Ruby Skye P.I. mystery The Spam Scam, talk about the role of the read-through in the scripting process.
Our first teaser, Ruby Skye P.I. and the Case of the Missing Brownies, was released Friday at noon Eastern. It gives you a little insight into Ruby’s personality from her sister, Hailey’s point of view. The accompanying website, Read My Sister’s Report Card, provides a peak into how her teacher’s see Ruby and what she’s like at school.
We wrote and shot the teaser before we had even cast Madison Cheeatow as Ruby. But we did have her sister, Hailey, played by Marlee Maslove. Hailey has a web series called Hailey Hacks, but until now, viewers and fans had no idea that she has a sister… or that they fight like cats and dogs.
The stormy sister relationship is an important part of The Spam Scam, the Ruby Skye P.I. mystery we are shooting now.
The report card was largely written by our wonderful friend Scott Albert of Gopher X, a.k.a Captain Euchre. Not only does Scott write, produce and star in Tights and Fights, he doubles as our go-to-guy for a great joke for any situation. He came up with most of the gags on Ruby’s report card. We did a quick in house pass to “Rub-ify” the very funny material he sent us and then we assigned grades.
Props to our amazing and forward-thinking sponsor, The Dragon Academy, for providing the report card template. The teacher’s names on Ruby’s report are NOT those of real teachers at The Dragon, but Dr. Meg Fox is indeed the principal.
What does little sister, Hailey, have to say about Ruby? Plenty.
Check out the Ruby Skye P.I. production blog for all the news.
The little web series we’re shooting now isn’t actually called Ruby Skye P.I. It’s called The Spam Scam. It is but a pin prick in the universe of Ruby Skye P.I. that I imagine.
Not only do I imagine Ruby Skye P.I. mysteries and stories playing out on multiple platforms, but I also imagine them playing out at different points in time and space.
This stuff isn’t sharply detailed in my mind yet, but there are vague shapes… outlines in the dark, shadows.
I can tell you the first platforms I’d like to play with. I want to do another web mystery pretty quickly and beginning to think about financing and story. I’m also thinking about my first Ruby Skye P.I. novel; I hope to get a couple of chapters and an outline on paper. I’m dying to do an iPad mystery that would be a little movie with interactive parts. That’s going to take a bit of a budget, but it’s definitely on my radar (any sugar daddies out there?). 
People keep asking me if this could be television and the answer is, of course, there’s definitely potential for Ruby Skye P.I., the TV series. Today, I had a good idea for an augmented reality app — kind of a no-brainer for a detective series.
As a story terrain, it’s amazingly cool to think about. Not every story or element in the universe has to be strictly Ruby-centric. Hailey Hacks is her sister’s web series. In fact, each other her friends might have a web series, why not? When we meet up with Ruby, she won’t always be the same age. That augmented reality app idea I mentioned in the last paragraph is a game that’s actually for preschoolers. Ruby would be 5 or 6 in it… and already curious and unstoppable. And what age will she be in the book? Maybe a little older, with some grittier problems.
I actually think my next big creative move might be to arc Ruby’s entire life.
Ruby Skye P.I. Executive Producer Karen Walton talks about producing transmedia during the cast read-thru the week before we went into production. The mini-documentary was made by Jennifer Liao of Believerville Productions.
The Facebook page defines Diginista as
Amazing, bold & bright women who play with pixels, mix it up with electricity, and get ‘er done in the digital realm.
It’s the creation Anthea Foyer — who fits that description to a tee. She’s using the space to profile other women… Diginista, if you will. Anthea has profiled a bunch of very interesting women (plus me), so check it out. Sign into Facebook to get to the page.
I’m doing most of my blogging these days over on the Ruby Skye P.I. temporary site where I have gone so far as to start a video blog. That is a bit of a horrifying experience. First, you have to stare at your own image on your computer screen while you’re recording the blog and then you have to put yourself online for everyone else to see. Thank god no one’s watching it. You’re not watching it, right?
The first day of principal photography is coming fast. Three days left of prep. I don’t have a single second in the day to write… or think. I don’t even know what I’m doing with my time but it is disappearing quickly. This morning, I made three trips to the bank before 10 am.
Can I tell you that there is a big difference between banks? I never realized it until recently. One of the banks I deal with is always incredibly difficult even though I have banked with them for a long time and have reasonably valuable holdings with them (for instance, my mortgage). The other bank is always cheerful and has a total “can do” attitude, even though I have several empty accounts with them. Based on my recent epiphany, this may change.
After the banking, I checked in on rehearsals. As a writer, story editor and creative producer, I’ve always seen a sharp border which I don’t like to cross. I’ve never talked to actors about scenes and characters — that’s not entirely true. As a story editor on a TV series, I have talked about some of those things with actors, not at rehearsals, but I’ve had actors come to my office to talk about their character and beg to have a scene changed. But mostly that is the director’s domain and I have tried not to trample on their territory. So, at a rehearsal I prefer to sit quietly and watch and listen. So imagine my surprise when director Kelly Harms not only wants me at rehearsals as much as possible, but wants me to discuss their characters with each actor.
I couldn’t spend a lot of time with the actors today, because I also had many things to talk to producer Kerry Young about…
I also had a long phone call to go over wire frames with Lucia Mancuso of The Blog Studio. What a web site we are going to have! Ambitious? I would say so. It is going to be just wonderful. I can’t wait.
I secured our final location. Yay. Went tech scouting with the crew. And spent a lot of time sending out emails inviting kids I know to be extras on the shoot.
We invented two extremely cool things today. The first was the Producers Meeting on Twitter. Kerry, Karen Walton and I barely have time to report to each other what we are each doing. So we decided to meet regularly on Twitter and share our meeting with the community at large. We have some kinks to work out of the process but people are interested in talking to us and we’re interested in sharing. Stay tuned for more @RubySkyePI Producers Tweet The Meets.
The second even cooler thing we came up with today involves our “backstage” shooting. We have involved quite a number of amazingly talented directors in the project, inviting them to shoot behind the scenes footage for our web site. Jennifer Liao has already spent a couple of days with us, shooting the cast read-thru, the tech scout, interviewing people and generally documenting pre-production. We should have some mini-docs from her soon to share with you.
Today, we started inviting some very young filmmakers to be part of this project. And when I say very young, I mean teenagers. We will have them on set, equip them with cameras and let them make films about the filming of Ruby Skye P.I.
So yeah, that’s what I did today. Come on over and hang out at the Ruby Skye P.I. temporary website to keep up to date on all the fun.
Anyone who’s been to Writers Watching TV sessions knows I have a little obsession with script stats. So here are the stats for Ruby Skye P.I. The Spam Scam, as of today’s White Production Draft:
Over on the Ruby Skye P.I. site, I’ve started video blogging — horror of horrors. I think it’s a little faster than writing, so I’ve had to get over my fear of seeing my own face on the screen. There have been some technical difficulties, as you will see if you take a look. But I’m getting better at it slowly but surely.
We also have a photo stream going on Flickr and our twitter feed is starting to come alive.
The Bechdel Test for women in movies is simply described in the video. I don’t think we have the same problem in television series (just sometimes in story rooms). Am I wrong?
We’ve had a great week and it’s only Wednesday.
The big news and really the most fun and most exciting event of the week was casting. We sent out our casting notice last Thursday. We posted on Casting workbook, Craig’s list, Mandy and the rubyskyepi.com. We also spread the word through our personal Twitter and Facebook feeds.
The response has been amazing. In fact the submissions are still pouring in. It took Kelly, Kerry and I ten or more hours to sort through them and then Kelly and Kerry had to call all the actors or their agents and set up times.
We got to Fraser Studios on the Danforth this morning at 9:00 to set up. Illia Srivsky joined us and ran the camera and Sarah Higgins, a lovely young actress for whom we don’t have a part, read with the auditioners. All of us were apprehensive.
We’d book a ton of people and very few breaks. We didn’t know what would happen.
You don’t know about a script till you hear it on its feet and casting is an extremely painful way to learn about your mistakes. You see an audition and you realize how horrifyingly bad a scene is… and then you have to sit and listen to it another 11 times. Ouch.
Then you worry that there won’t be any actors who match your vision or get what you’re trying to. Or that you and the rest of the team won’t agree on who would work in each role.
And certainly, you’re not looking forward to spending nine consecutive hours in a windowless room.
As it turned out, we had a great time and left at close to 6 pm in high spirits. The script sounded good if I do say so myself (all the funny stuff written by Julie). Kelly and I were absolutely agreed on every actor. But best of all, we saw amazing talent. People came in prepared and worked hard for us. It was so much fun… from our side of the table at least. Probably it was a lot more nerve wracking on the other side.
What a profession is acting. In order to get the gig, you must go and ply your trade in front of people like us; give us a sample or a preview. And we sit there, as if we’re at a buffet, looking at all the delightful choices, deciding which delicacies we’ll choose.
We have some great choices. But more importantly, our vision of what we are making became that more clear and we like it and are more and more confident that kids will too.
