Monday Musings: Rock Doc, Writing Ensemble Casts ✍️ , ‘Insecure’s’ New Home, Cruising For A Champagne Cocktail 🥂

A little amuse bouche for your Monday

Jul 03, 2023

‘Insecure' is now on Netflix! 📺

I highly recommend a watch of this series if you haven’t had a chance to dive into it yet. HBO is starting to ‘lease’ out some of its titles to bring in more 💰 and Insecure is the first to be shared — watch for Ballers and Six Feet Under coming to Netflix soon!

Insecure stars Issa Rae as Issa Dee and follows her awkward experiences in career, romance and friendships through Los Angeles. It’s a modern-day look into the lives of African-American women and it’s an absolute gem of a show! Every season is just filled with so much heart, laughter and SEX 🔥 ! Yes! If you’ve been missing the sex from Sex and the City — get it here, folks! Issa and her girlfriends are so likable and relatable, I just love them. The show is so real, down-to-earth, and funny and I find myself Shazam-ing like every song they play throughout the episodes. Please binge this series! I promise you will love it. 💗

The Best ‘Rock’ Doc I’ve Seen 🎥

I love watching a good celebrity documentary. Over the weekend, I streamed the documentary feature film Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed on MAX and it was fantastic. The lengths the filmmakers went to perfectly execute the story, weaving dialogue from his films into the telling of his life was quite incredible. It was beautifully done taking into account his rise to fame, his personal life that he was forced to keep secret, and how his death inspired action to save lives.

I can’t believe I’ve never seen the 1956 Rock Hudson film GIANT co-starring James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor. It’s going at the top of my list! Giant is currently not streaming, but available On Demand through Amazon Prime and Apple TV+.

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Tiffany’s Writing Corner ✍️ : Writing Ensemble Cast - The Bear vs. And Just Like That…

I’ve been thinking a lot about ensemble casts lately. While a big part of a successful ensemble cast in television has to do with casting, what it really comes down to is the writing. How do you get a bunch of characters in one room and write a scene where all of them not only contribute, but with their own unique voice?

The Bear (now streaming on Hulu) is, in my opinion, a well-crafted ensemble cast. I love how they found virtually unknown actors (sort of like the cast of Ted Lasso) and created a winning combination of superb acting and brilliant writing. Every character has their own voice, their own backstory and it bodes for richer scenes that are filled with so much depth and personality. What I love about the dialogue in this film is that it almost seems like it is without a script, the writing is so authentic and genuine. It also helps that the restaurant is also part of the ensemble cast much like New York City is a part of And Just Like That…

It’s no secret that many writers will tend to shy away from writing scenes where there is a large cast involved. It’s intimidating to put that many characters on a page (or on screen) where they all need to be equally involved, contributing, and more importantly having their own voice. Case in point — And Just Like That… In the first episode of this new season, pretty much the entire main cast was to attend the Met Ball together. I was actually looking forward to that scene, not just to see everyone together wearing their fabulous couture gowns, but for the cast to be together in the same place and have a conversation at an iconic event. That didn’t happen. The writer’s completely cut the episode off as Carrie was leaving her apartment to head to the Met. The two episodes that followed did the same thing — keeping characters separated from each other. So many new characters, each having their own scenes within their own lives rarely coming together make for extremely spread-out, thin storylines. I do miss the Sex and the City scenes where the girls were all together having brunch, sharing stories of the night before.

Tips for writing an ensemble scene ✍️

Give each of your characters a unique voice - pull from inside your character
Each character needs to have a specific goal for the scene, set clear intentions
Play off the relationships with each other - who clashes? who gels?
Contribution doesn’t have to be the loudest. Say more with little. Dialogue should have meaning. Body language speaks volumes. One line from one character or one shrug of a shoulder can add so much to an ensemble scene.

If you want to see great ensemble writing I highly recommend these currently streaming 📺 — The Bear (Hulu), Bad Sisters (Apple TV+), Ted Lasso (Apple TV+), Party Down (STARZ), The Great (Hulu), Yellowjackets (Showtime), Insecure (Now on Netflix!).

Happy Birthday Tom Cruise x Elderflower Champagne Cocktail 🥂

Whatever your personal opinions are of Tom Cruise, at one point in your life I’m sure you absolutely enjoyed going to his movies, and as a young girl who grew up during his prime, I loved going to see Tom Cruise films. Just realized he was in the film Born on the Fourth of July 🇺🇸 and he happens to be born on July 3. Hmmm… Anyways, one of my favorite cheesy Tom Cruise movies is Cocktail 🍸 where Cruise played an ambitious bartender who did really cool tricks with cocktail shakers. It also featured that catchy “Kokomo" song from The Beach Boys. 🏝️