Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show E-Book

Tara Bennett

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Every television show has a creative voice who guides it to screen. The industry calls them the showrunners. Impresarios of the small screen, their function to write, manage, facilitate, and execute the idea has long been taken for granted by audiences...but not anymore. In this official companion book to the documentary Showrunners, you'll get an insider's guide to creating, writing, and running a scripted television series in today's Golden Age of Television, in the words of some of the biggest talents of the industry. Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show expands on the interviews featured in the acclaimed documentary, and includes exclusive conversations covering every facet of the business, from getting your first break to running multiple series. Featuring such celebrated and popular showrunners as: Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Dollhouse) Damon Lindelof (Lost) Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica) Terence Winter (Boardwalk Empire) Bill Prady (The Big Bang Theory) Shawn Ryan (The Shield, The Unit) David Shore (House) Jane Espenson (Caprica, Husbands) Plus a foreword by Hart Hanson (Bones).

Leseprobe

SHOWRUNNERSPrint edition ISBN: 9781783293575E-book edition ISBN: 9781783297122

Published by Titan BooksA division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: September 20141 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Copyright © 2014 Black Sheep Productions.All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

The views and opinions expressed in this book are not necessarily those of the publisher or makers of the documentary film, and the publisher and documentary makers accept no responsibility for inaccuracies or omissions, and the publisher and documentary makers specifically disclaim any liability, loss, or risk, whether personal, financial, or otherwise, that is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, from the contents of this book.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE

Birth of the Showrunner

Showrunner 101

What Makes a Good Showrunner

Not All Writers Are Good Showrunners

The Co-Showrunning Paradigm

When Conflict Creates Disharmony

What a Network and Studio Expect

How the Showrunner Job Has Gotten More Complex

IN DEPTH:

WGA Showrunners Training program

CHAPTER TWO

The Script is King

Pilot Season 101

Basic TV Act Structure

Comedy vs. Dramas and Serialized vs. Procedural

Staffing a TV Series Writers’ Room

Working with Writers

Lessons in Practice

IN DEPTH:

Coming Up The Sopranos Way with Terence Winter

CHAPTER THREE

Starting Out

IN DEPTH:

Women and Minority Showrunners

CHAPTER FOUR

The Politics of Making Television

The Perception of Broadcast vs. Cable

Is Premium the Gold Standard

Stuck in the Middle

IN DEPTH:

Original Voices in Cable

CHAPTER FIVE

Showrun-Yin and Yang

The Worst Parts of Showrunning

Long Hours? You Betcha!

The Care and Feeding of Your Actors

When Your Show Fails

IN DEPTH:

How Lost Changed Showrunning

CHAPTER SIX

Connecting to the Matrix

Fan Feedback

Showrunners as Celebs

Is Twitter a Writer’s Friend or Foe?

Ending a Series

The Future

Web Series

A Showrunner’s Path

The Crystal Ball

SHOWRUNNER BIOGRAPHIES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

TELEVISION AND WRITING RESOURCES

FOREWORD

By Hart Hanson (Showrunner of Bones, The Finder, Backstrom)

One summer morning, a couple of years ago, I came to work on the Fox lot to find that a documentary crew was waiting to interview me for a film called Showrunners. I had no memory of agreeing to do any such thing (I still don’t) but that is not odd for me. I agree to do things all the time—especially things that will happen more than two weeks in the future—because I know that day will never come.

But in this case the day had come and it was today. My intention was to blow them off. I had a rewrite to do on a Bones script, I was trying to get another Fox series called The Finder up and running, there was a sound mix, casting, and some sort of kerfuffle on set to do with how realistic a dead body looked—all in all a typical morning on a TV show for a showrunner and I hadn’t even had my coffee.

The mistake I made was to speak to the documentary film crew in person and look the director, Des Doyle, in the eyes. Des has warm and intelligent eyes. Then he told me about his film, told me how hard he was working to make that film, and he convinced me that he was actually fascinated by the process of making “American TV.” (Did I mention that Des and his crew are Irish? Like James Joyce Irish? Historically, these people survived a potato famine and the Troubles, so how the hell was I going to deny them because I hadn’t had my coffee?)

I suspect all the other showrunners that Des Doyle spoke with fell into the same warm pit and decided to cooperate even though they too lacked the time and/or inclination.

Des convinced me that if I told him the truth about showrunning then the other showrunners might do the same thing. That was intriguing to me because when it comes down to it, running an American TV show is like sex… no matter how much you ask around or how many courses you attend there’s no real preparation for the real thing. And when it finally happens for real you know in your heart that you’re doing it in a maladroit manner. Tragically, even years later, you may continue to believe that other people possess some secret knowledge which allows them to perform at a much higher level than you do. (Not just me. Other people too. Ask around.)

Another similarity between sex and showrunning (I have done both. Yes I have.) is that when you actually do see someone else doing it, it’s likely to be accidental and traumatic such as catching your Uncle Buzzy in the tool shed with the lady who cleans his teeth. (Not just me. Other people too. Ask around.)

I know what you’re thinking, “What about porn?” Let me tell you, porn isn’t necessarily a useful learning tool because porn results in self-loathing (I am not equipped like that) and inappropriate moves that have no place in real life (what the hell did you do that for?)

Well, thanks to Des Doyle and his committed group of Irish documentarian filmmakers, you don’t have to pick up your showrunning knowledge from the street or Uncle Buzzy. What they’ve done is make a delightful, suitable-for-work, non-pornographic film called Showrunners. This book is the official companion to that film.

Showrunners tend to be an interesting group of people even if you aren’t in the TV business—probably because they are forced to live in two worlds: the creative and the managerial. They must think equally with the left and right hemispheres of their brains. The technical term for this is “schizophrenia.” Some are witty, some are cranky, some semi-catatonic. Most, but not all, have terrible posture. Some are ineffably cool with tattoos while others are inescapably dorky—some are both at the same time. And now you can see them for yourself, in the film, and in this book.

Would you like to take a look behind closed doors? To get an inkling of something that is usually private? That is not porn? Well, if it’s between this and Uncle Buzzy, then I heartily recommend the book and the movie. You may never watch TV the same way again.

Hart Hanson, Los Angeles, May 2014

INTRODUCTION

By Des Doyle (Writer & Director of Showrunners)

If you’ve just picked up this book in a store, or are reading the sample pages online, the rule of publishing states I need a killer opening line to grab your attention so here’s my attempt—“It all started with Spock’s brain!”

Yes, this book and the documentary film from whose loins it springs both happened as a result of me watching the ‘Spock’s Brain’ episode of the original Star Trek series when I was about four years old. It’s my earliest memory of watching a TV show and I think I found it rather scary (as many Trek fans do, albeit for other reasons) but it made me want to watch more of that show.

In my early childhood and teenage years growing up in Dublin, Ireland, the TV networks we mainly had access to—RTE (the Irish national broadcaster) and the BBC and ITV in the UK—were showing a huge amount of imported American TV drama and comedy series. I was reared on re-runs of Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, The A-Team, Knight Rider (hmm, haven’t these all been rebooted?) and long-lost classics such as The Man From Atlantis and Automan (someone please reboot them!).

These shows, all starring impossibly beautiful people and filmed in eternal, effervescent sunlight (it rains a lot in Ireland) with amazing special FX and stunts, made an indelible imprint on me. They were recognisably, profoundly different to the kinds of shows that either RTE, the BBC, or ITV were making at the time, partly due to the budgets involved but also the degree of ambition and imagination employed.

Later in life, my love for TV and film led me to studying film production and entering the business of filmmaking professionally, primarily as part of the camera department because that was the one part of the process that was essential to everything. You can make a film without anything except a camera—and being behind a camera meant you were always there at the moment of “birth,” where all the director’s ideas, the words on the page, and the actors’ input melded into something new—something that had never existed before that moment, which was then immortalised.

After 12 years of working on all kinds of film, TV, and music projects with directors as diverse as Jim Sheridan, Barry Levinson, and Rob Bowman (yes, I asked him about The X-Files—a lot) I found myself getting a little creatively frustrated. Camera (unless you’re the Director of Photography) is primarily a technical department and I wanted to explore something a little different.

Throughout those 12 years my love for TV, especially American TV shows, never diminished, and was fueled by a number of shows such as Chris Carter’s The X-Files and Joss Whedon’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer. As my love for those shows grew, so did my desire to know more about the people making them. I had been hearing and seeing a certain word bandied about in relation to the shows I loved and the people who made them, and that word was “showrunner.” I became utterly fascinated with what exactly a showrunner was, and in particular, the people who were doing that job on my favorite shows, so I devoured every piece of information I could find about them.

In the 2000s I was watching David Chase’s The Sopranos, Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica, and David Milch’s Deadwood, feeling like there was a real gear shift happening in terms of the amazing writing being done on these shows. And then there was the one that, in a way, changed my whole life: Lost.

In the film, when I interviewed Damon Lindelof (the co-creator and co-showrunner of Lost), he told me that meeting J.J. Abrams and making that show had completely changed his destiny. Well, for me, devotedly watching Lost changed mine, slowly, over the years.

When Lost literally crashed onto our screens there was a never-before-seen level of interest from fans around the world who watched the show for every piece of subtext, searching for every Easter Egg and looking for clues. They demanded more information about the show to such a degree that ABC, who produced the series, put its showrunners, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, out front and centre in the public eye to answer the fans because they were the only ones who really could.

This grew into podcasts, vodcasts, worldwide press interviews, appearances on late-night talk shows and even Damon and Carlton presenting specials about the show on ABC—the showrunners on Lost had become as famous and important to the show and the fans as the actors starring in it.

With the continuing growth of the Internet and the arrival of social media, this level of fan devotion spread across a ton of shows. Suddenly these showrunners were in direct contact with their fans, and yet every day I would read comments and postings from fans who either didn’t understand what a showrunner did, or were badly misinformed about the job.

I waited diligently for a documentary to come along to explain to everyone exactly what a showrunner was and the intricacies of their job, but it never did. And that’s when I had that crazy, life-changing idea—well, maybe I could make one.

Cut to four years later and the film is finally finished and there’s also this official companion book which you’re reading right now (you kept reading, didn’t you?). The making of the Showrunners documentary has been the most difficult and challenging thing I have ever done, and the most rewarding. It has provided me with the opportunity to meet many of my heroes, and indeed, many of them are in the film. I’ve been given the chance to spend time in writers’ rooms on shows and watch that creative process unfold. We spent time on sets with the showrunners, watching them interact with their cast and crews, and even directing episodes of their shows. We were in editing suites with them, in production meetings, on red carpets, and in press rooms. We were given a VIP pass into the world of the showrunner, and I still can’t quite believe that happened. But it did, and I am very, very grateful for it.

If you’ve seen the film, you hopefully now understand their world a lot better. But as with all films, we couldn’t include everything in 90 minutes, and that is where this wonderful book comes in. Inside we’ve been able to go a little deeper, as well as include exclusive contributions from some gifted showrunners that we very unfortunately could not include in the film for various reasons.

All of the showrunners provide a great deal of wisdom and insight about what it takes to create, write, produce, and deliver a TV show in the current universe of broadcasting, as well as some thoughts on how to become a showrunner in the first place. For every showrunner it’s a fight to get on the air and then to stay on the air. They are remarkable people. And this is an expansion of our cinematic foray into their stories.

To all of the actors, writers, editors, producers, and network presidents who allowed us to be a part of their world for a little while—thank you so much! To everyone who helped me make the film—and there were so many amazing people who contributed to it—my heartfelt thanks. To the people who funded the film, both the Irish Film Board and our Kickstarter backers, thank you for believing in us! Thanks to my family for their tireless support of me and to my friends who have remained my friends despite not seeing me for the best part of four years! My thanks also to Titan Books and Tara Bennett for wanting to do this book—that’s two off my bucket list now!

Thanks also to the impossibly likeable Hart Hanson for providing us with a foreword and saying nice things about my eyes. To everyone who has watched the film or who has bought this book—thank you for your interest, I sincerely hope you enjoy it.

And last but most definitely not least—to every showrunner who took part in the film and the book, you have my eternal gratitude. I still can’t believe how kind and generous you have all been to us. I hope the book and film meet with your approval. After asking so many favors of you all for so long, I’m amazed that all of you still respond to my emails. Maybe it’s because you know I’m a genuine fan of what you do.

Des Doyle

Dublin, Ireland, May 2014

CHAPTER ONE

DEFINITION OF A SHOWRUNNER

BIRTH OF THE SHOWRUNNER

Television. For the better part of six decades, it was the square box that commanded our evening’s attention. Then it became the thin rectangle. Now television doesn’t have dimensions anymore, as our phones, tablets, and monitors are the conduits to our entertainment. As technology has whisked a generation of viewing habits away in a mere decade, so too has the content we watch outgrown the mundane labels of plain old sitcom and drama.

Scripted television content in the late 1940s came out of the gate with a flood of quality, ushering in the first “Golden Age” of teleplays, dramas, and episodic stories. In that era, viewers got lost in the novelty of the personalized melodrama, the actors, the dramatic tension, or comedic feats. But by program’s end, the box was powered down without viewers lingering much on the names who crafted the stories that captivated their imaginations.

As television evolved, great heights of storytelling were achieved from Roots to Star Trek, but we can all admit, a whole lot of mediocre material cropped up too. A vast percentage of programming leaned towards the comfort-food spectrum of entertainment, or providing vehicles for entertainers to become household names. Concentrated blocks of mesmerizing, scripted quality had its peak in the past.