Transcript
BEST ADVICE
My response would be in terms of deciding which staff
job to take: As my first agent rightly said to me, go with
the material, not the money. If you can do well on the
first, the second will follow.
—Lydia Woodward
As you’re coming up through the ranks, remember that
your job is not to make the best TV you can but to
make your executive producer happy. Sometimes these
two goals are worlds apart. (Second-most useful advice:
If you’ve pitched it twice, and no one’s latched onto it,
LET IT GO.)
—Dan O’Shannon
My first real break in TV was when I got my first staff job
on Bay City Blues, Steven Bochco’s first show after Hill
Street Blues. I had just switched to a TV agent, who got
Bochco an old script I had written. He liked it and called
me in for a meeting. At the time, I blamed my unemployment on the fact that I didn’t look enough like a
writer, so I went out and bought some tortoise-shell
“writer” glasses. I wore them to the meeting, got hired
on staff…and ended up having to wear the stupid
glasses for the next six months.
—Joel Surnow
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BEST ADVICE
One of the first jobs that Chris and I received was a freelance
script for L.A. Law. A deal was prenegotiated for us to go on
staff, in the event David Kelley liked our script. He did like
our script, even though he substantially rewrote it. He gave
us a second assignment, which didn’t go quite as well.
Ultimately, the episode that aired bore almost no resemblance to anything we’d written. David was incredibly gracious. He told us he could put us on staff, but he’d probably
just end up rewriting us. He said we deserved to go on a
show where we could see our work actually produced. At
the time, this was a huge blow. But David’s advice turned
out to be a tremendous gift. We went on another show,
Sisters, where, frankly, we were needed more. We were able
to see our words on-air, which was an incredible learning
opportunity. We quickly saw where our writing was too
heavy-handed or too elevated. We saw when scenes
dragged or were too breezy. In short, we learned what
worked and what didn’t. We rose very quickly through the
ranks, from co-producers to co-executive producers,
because we were permitted hands-on experience that we
might never have gotten had we staffed on a show where
being rewritten was the order of the day. David’s was great
advice: Go where your writing is most likely to be needed
and appreciated.
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—Amy Lippman
MOST IMPORTANT ADVICE TO GIVE TO A SHOWRUNNER
Surround yourself with the most experienced people
you can find and listen to them. Taking their advice
and counsel won’t make you look weak; it’ll make you
look smart. Don’t be afraid to say “I have no idea, but I’ll
find somebody who can answer your question.”
—John Wells
Make out a schedule and stick to it. Be smart enough
with your time. You may find there are more than
enough hours in the day to run a show and have a life.
(Second-most important advice: If you follow every
note the network gives you and your show bombs, the
network will not remember or care that you followed
their notes. They only know your show bombed.)
—Dan O’Shannon
FIRST BREAK
I was hired off of some spec scripts to come onto a
small, short-term deal at Warner Bros. where I had the
great good fortune to work for a terrific writer with far
more experience than I had. His name was John Wirth,
and he was remarkably generous with his time and talents.
—John Wells
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WORST NOTES
When we had just started ER, someone at the network or studio asked: Does there have to be so much
medicine?
—Lydia Woodward
“Get rid of Anthony Edwards. He’s not a TV star.” This
was from CBS after they watched a pilot of mine. Six
months later, Anthony was doing ER. Meanwhile, my
show (with Anthony’s replacement) was canceled after
five episodes.
—Dan O’Shannon
(Regarding Everybody Loves Raymond): “The show
should be ‘hip and edgy.’” “Less of that scary brother.”
—Phil Rosenthal
An executive once said to me, “When you take a comedy and remove the humor, what remains should still
be funny.”
—Al Jean
THE MOST IMPORTANT ADVICE FOR A FIRST-TIME
SHOWRUNNER
You’ll think that everyone but you is an idiot. Most of
the time you’re right.
—Al Jean
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BEST ADVICE
The advice came from another showrunner, Ed.
Weinberger, who said, “Do the show you want to do
because in the end they’re going to cancel you anyway.”
—Phil Rosenthal
If you want to be a TV writer, just remember that your
job is to sell Buicks and make America feel cozy. Always
remember this and, if you’ve got any integrity at all, hate
yourself for it every minute of the day.
—Henry Bromell on David Chase
Whatever you write, don’t fake it. Find a way to mean it.
Advice on being staff: The person who created the show
has given you a template. Don’t resist that voice. Give in
to the idea that a huge part of your job is mimicry. Find a
way to insert your own idea’s voice within the laws of
that universe. Most of the advice I’ve gotten on writing
from the excellent showrunners I’ve worked with (Josh
Brand, David Chase) has been between the lines. Learn
to read between the lines. And the best between-thelines advice I’ve ever gotten was: Be fearless. And don’t
think of the audience as “the other.” You are the audience. Impress and entertain yourself.
—Barbara Hall
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WORST NOTES
I was on a network notes call for so long that the current executive from the studio who was listening in literally fell asleep. At first we thought there was static
on the line, then realized he was asleep on his speaker
phone.
—Carlton Cuse
When we went to get the notes after screening the
pilot of ER, the network never came. After keeping us
waiting for over an hour, one of the more junior executives came out and told us they weren’t going to give
us notes because they hated it, it would never make it
on the air, and they didn’t want to waste our time.
Thank god they went ahead and did some audience
testing and the audiences loved it.
—John Wells
MOST DIFFICULT SITUATION ENCOUNTERED
AS A PRODUCER
The day an actor refused to take his meds and tried to
kill me, first by throwing a huge crystal ashtray at me
from three feet away, and then by trying to stab me
with a steak knife. Homicide, Baltimore, 1994.
—Henry Bromell
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WORST NOTE SESSION
The time Josh Brand hated a Northern Exposure script I
wrote so much that he didn’t GIVE me a note session,
just hid from me and asked Jeff Melvoin to rewrite the
script, which Jeff did, and well, too… God bless the lad.
—Henry Bromell
Stupid note sessions are not worth worrying about,
though I’ll include a funny one. When I was pitching
Joan of Arcadia, a studio executive asked me if Joan
would be “heroic” in nature. I said, “No, she’s a teenager, so she’s narcissistic, sulky, self-obsessed.” The executive said, “Well, I’m having trouble finding the good guy
in all this,” to which I replied, “Well, God is going to be
pretty good.”
—Barbara Hall
MOST DIFFICULT SITUATION ENCOUNTERED
AS A PRODUCER
When anyone starts to challenge you on your vision,
never explain and never complain. Insist on trust. No
show can succeed without it.
—Barbara Hall
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MOST IMPORTANT ADVICE FOR A FIRST-TIME SHOWRUNNER:
This is complicated. Making the transition is difficult, which
is why it’s so hard for great writers to become great showrunners. You have to acknowledge the transition you’ve
made, and in the process you have to throw out 90 percent of what you’ve learned to be or do as a writer. (The 10
percent you hold onto has to do with trusting your vision
and your voice.) But now you have crossed over into the
business of maintaining a show. You have to stop seeing
the people around you as adversaries and you must start
seeing them as partners. This includes everyone from the
prop guy to the network. Everyone is trying to help you
realize your position—give on this, take that. Nothing good
comes from standing firm on every point. The director isn’t
there to hurt you—he or she is there to serve you. The network isn’t trying to denude your vision—they are trying to
platform it. Know that you have entered into this strange
marriage of art and commerce. Don’t resist it; instead,
attempt to understand it. Being able to distinguish big battles from small ones is the challenge of anyone in a leadership position. The hardest thing for a writer who is suddenly a showrunner to realize is that you’ve necessarily
entered into this strange relationship. Stop trying to get a
divorce. Figure out how to make it work.
—Barbara Hall
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ABOUT STAFF WORK:
1. Never take a job working for people whose work you
don’t respect.
2. Never work on a show you don’t love.
3. Never take a job “just for the money” – you’ll pay for it
later.
It should also be noted that when we went to New York to
do The Sopranos, it was a clear case (since it involved a huge
pay cut ‘cause there were only 13 episodes instead of the
normal 22-25) of following our hearts to do something we
really wanted to do and work with someone we deeply
respected. Of course, it worked out in the end because the
show was such a hit. But even if it hadn’t hit, it would’ve
been worth it because it was such a great creative experience and just so damn much fun.
—Robin Green & Mitch Burgess