The Playlist can't do everything by ourselves. We have many comrades, but the day-to-day can sometimes be a one or two-man operation depending on the day.
*Note: We run zero ads so we can't pay you, proceed no further if that's your endgame. If you are still interested, please read this entire post before emailing us.*
So yes, we need some contributors. So if you're seriously interested — and only seriously — please email us. Beggars cannot be choosers obviously, but we don't enjoy wasting our time and we've had many, many a flake-contributor stick around for two posts and then disappear entirely (bad form, yo).
Or worse, people writing us interested in contributing and then never following-up or responding once we write them back (Seriously, what sense does this make?). C'mon, you can do better!
We'd like to avoid that whenever possible and you can understand why. It actually takes time and effort to get people up to speed and we'd rather not waste that investment. We're looking for a decent time commitment of posting at least once a day or every other day (generally during the hours of 9am-7pm. EST). If you can't find that time, please spare us both the hassle. i.e., if you've already written in saying you can only contribute once a month, you're clearly not reading this email. :)
The key things are looking for in order of importance:
1. News writers in L.A., the U.K. or N.Y. (but see comments about non-location bias below, generally during the hours of 9am-7pm. EST) By "news writers" we mean those re-writing stories on the web and adding Playlist-centric commentary and flavor. If you can break your own stories, even better. Any writers keen on building on soundtracks and the movie-music arena that we have fallen behind on lately are preferred.
2. Copy-editors (generally during the hours of 9am-7pm. EST).
Less important, but would be cool:
3. A features writer (this is for those that can only write sporadically and certainly not within the hours of 9-5. note: we already have many people of this area of expertise, so unless you're contributing often you're not really needed).
Requirements:
1. You must know blogger, wordpress or some type of blog platform. Teaching people blogger has become far too time consuming. Unless you're a fantastic writer that can easily write 2-3 stories a day, this rule is hard and fast.
2. You're fast. If you're writing a longterm feature that's different, but if you're writing a regular news item it should take you know more than 30 minutes max to finish.
3. You follow movies news, you follow movie blogs, you follow related music news that applies to film. Chasing down news for writers is not ideal. Bring stories to the table.
4. "I don't know enough about this subject to write this." We routinely write about things we're not experts on. The Internet is full of information and anyone should be able to do a passable job that editors and other editors can help spruce up.
So again, what we're looking for: people to help cover and write every day news is always first and foremost (especially in the early mornings). This includes writing about posters, trailers, events in the news, following the culture discourse, etc. But whatever area of expertise yours is, is what you should be writing about preferably. That said, there's enough information available on the web that you should be able to write about any assignment you're given, even if you're not an expert (to reiterate obviously)
You are ideally detail-oriented, meticulous, thorough, include links to all your sources and have at least a basic understanding of blogger (again :). Quality writing, analysis and understanding of cinema and movie culture is key, but quickness and volume are certainly a bonus. If you can produce a lot, you will be favored. You also are quick enough to Google something when news breaks to see what the context of this is historically (i.e. a new story comes out about a Jonathan Lethem film adaptation with few details or zero context or, but a quick google search shows several Lethem novels have already been in the works — detailing which is excellent color to a piece).
Features writer/editor: We'd also love anyone who wants to do more evergreen, long-term feature-y type pieces where one looks back, for example, on a certain director's history with music or a certain old film that had many affiliations to music or genres, etc., etc. (we've done some stuff like that in the past, but never as often as we want — would love to have someone spearhead this front). Here's a recent example of a feature we wrote that I personally thought was excellent and would love to see more of. But generally they are not-so "long-termy" (I.e. Miramax falls apart and the next day, we banded together to write a greatest hits of Miramax's career). The expiration date on the interest of a story is quick these days, so features generally have to be turned around quickly.
We're also ideally looking for people in the U.K., New York and Los Angeles, San Francisco, ideally, but we're not location-biased. If you have expertise in conducting interviews, this is also a plus. We get invited to do a lot of interviews with directors, actors, etc., but rarely have the time to do so. If you live in one of these major cities, you could capitalize on these types of opportunities, plus many movie screenings as well. We also get a boat-load of scripts and would love to pass along to those wishing to write script reviews (but definitely a lesser need).
Before you write us though, please keep in mind: The Playlist is first and foremost a movies site with — obviously — a strong connection to music — but we don't just simply cover music news that has no tie-in to movies (and yes, conversely we will cover movie stories that aren't tethered to music because that's where our focus is primarily). That said, we've slipped with our music-movie coverage of late so if you'd like to pick up that ball and run with it as the New Music/Movies writer, we'd be more than happy to have you.
Also, we desperately need new copy-editors for the Playlist, lord knows our "sense of grammar," excessive typos and spelling mistakes could use some major assistance (yes, most of us juggle 10 other projects, we're acutely aware this is a deficit in our blogging, it's a compromise we unfortunately have to make; perhaps you can rectify it instead of bitching and be constructive for once). We'd love more assistance in this arena.
If you'd like to recommend suggestions for further installments of the Playlist Soundtrack series, we'd be down with that too. Thanks for your continued patronage of our site. Now that you've read all this, we haven't dissuaded you against the idea and you're still interested? Cool, now email us. Hopefully you've been reading us for a few months now and have a good understanding of what we do and our tone. Insightful and incisive humor that is not ad-hominem attacks or broad strokes is a strong plus. Basically we're looking for more allies. Got what it takes to join the gang?
Attention all never-nudes, banana stand employees, 'Poof!' magician subscribers and those who may or may not have committed light treason, the Bluth family might be returning for a big-screen version of the much-beloved and prematurely cancelled TV sitcom "Arrested Development."
Leading the charge for the big-screen reunion was lead actor Jason Bateman (Michael Bluthe) who confirmed to E!Online today that talks are indeed moving forward. "I can confirm that a round of sniffing has started," Bateman said. "Any talk is targeting a poststrike situation, of course. I think, as always, that it's a question of whether the people with the money are willing to give our leader, [series creator] Mitch Hurwitz, what he deserves for his participation. And I can speak for the cast when I say our fingers are crossed."
E! claims sources tell them that other cast members (who include among Michael Cera, Will Arnett, Portia de Rossi, and David Cross) have also been contacted about their interest in participating and that everyone seems to be excited and onboard.
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