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Wired is running a very interesting experiment where they’re blogging the process of the making of a magazine story. Specifically, a profile on Charlie Kaufman, screenwriter of movies like Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. There are already pitches, notes, videos, drafts, and emails running in a Wired blog section they’re calling The Storyboard. This sounds that it could get very sophomoric, with a “story of a story” grand view theme, but it’s just an honest “revealing” of the inner workings of how a magazine like Wired works -there’s no weird mental scene were Chris Anderson kills Kaufman because he doesn’t agree with his Long Tail theory. I believe this is something that would appeal more to creative types, specially writers. For example, I enjoyed reading this snippet:

But how to convince the editors that he’s Wired? I could point out that we’ve written about his previous collaborators, Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry, whose highest-profile work has been based on Kaufman’s scripts. His protagonists are all Wired types; vaguely Asperger-y, uncomfortable around women, living in their own minds. (By all accounts, Kaufman himself isn’t much different.) He’s a formal innovator, bringing an experimental intellectual spirit to filmmaking. Or hell, why not go for it: Kaufman can be seen as a modern-day Philip K. Dick [Ed note: Maybe a little much. Let’s discuss] 

It feels comforting that even professional writers want to do a little bit more than just be entertaining or informative, even journalist. The editorial “hold-your-horses” note made me grin. I’m curious if they will leave the Philip K. Dick comparison when the profile comes out in the November issue.