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shadowkatJust finished watching the 2014 documentary film, Showrunners - the Art of Running a Television Series, which featured interviews with the show-runners from the following series: The Good Wife, The Shield, Terriers, Big Bang Theory, Men of a Certain Age, Revenge, Rizzoli & Isles, Fringe, Battlestar Galatica, Lost, Felicity, Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Dollhouse/Firefly/Angel/Marvel Agents of Shield, Spartacus, Leverage, House of Lies, Sons of Anarchy, Bones, Dirt, Husbands, Without a Trace, The Shield and Left-Overs. (Some of the show-runners interviewed included JJ Abrahams, Joss Whedon, Ron Moore, Mike Kelly, Damon Lindenoff, Jane Espenson, Mathew Cavannach, Shawn Murphy, and Michelle & Robert King.) They also interview the executives of TNT and Showtime. Also feature interviews with actors from Without a Trace and The Good Wife, although actors aren't as involved in the documentary.
It's good. And informative in places. A lot of the stuff they relate, I already knew from other things. (But I'm insanely well-versed in the topic, because I find it interesting. And have as a result watched and listened to lots of interviews and documentaries on it, also read lots of interviews. As one of the show-runners points out, the one from Bones, they aren't writing their shows for people like me, but for the folks who don't know how the soup is made, and there is about a 5% of the audience that thinks it knows how the soup is made and you ignore them. This explains why I disliked Bones, I prefer the shows by the showrunners that target folks like me -- the ones who are intelligent enough to know that the leads on Bones are just actors and can't come up with any of their lines on their own and this is just a television show written by writers who know zip about criminal procedure unless they did some research. I'm willing to handwave a lot, just not when it comes to procedurals.) What is interesting is DeKnight and few other show-runners point out how the procedural is often not as interesting as the serial, because you don't get to play with the characters in as much depth. Nor is it as good, but that an audience doesn't really care if it is one or the other, the network wants to put it in categories, but the audience just cares if it is good. Weirdly they put Hill Street Blues in the procedural category, and I'm not certain I'd have put it there.
Also, at one point, Anthony LaPaglia, who starred on Without a Trace, validated my low opinion of that series -- when he said that sometimes a show-runner's scripts are so poorly written that you just have to give them notes on it and interfere. And he didn't get along real well with the show-runner. Although he'd give the show-runner credit on Without a Trace, he was young, inexperienced, it was his first time doing it, and the best episodes written on it -- were by that show-runner. Well, I thought, that's why I couldn't watch Without a Trace -- it was horrible. (I know something about criminal procedure and it was obvious to me five minutes in that the writers didn't know a thing. People blame actors for not adding anything to a show -- but folks? An actor can't save poor writing and direction. And Without a Trace was unwatchable -- I tried to watch for James Marsters and kept going to sleep during it -- didn't hold my attention, and there were long speeches that went nowhere.) But, to give the writer credit -- you aren't taught how to be a show-runner. The writer left during the second season. He just couldn't hack it any longer and Anthony Lapaglia, the star, missed him. Because he was the best writer on it.
They also mention the pros and cons of network executive interference. Whedon states that if the only person in the room who knows how to fix it is the studio executive that you hate -- you really should listen to him. And how coming across as a Maverick and fighting the studio had put him in a bad light -- he didn't understand how it happened (FIREFLY and Dollhouse? Hello!), that he always saw himself as a Company Man and he's afraid of four year olds.. While the writer behind Dirt states that he should have known that was going to have a problem from the start, when the network insisted he change the lead to a woman and cast Courtney Cox in the role. He'd wanted to do something else, but went okay. Then whoa, the second season it was just note after note after note -- to the point that he still can't look at that season. It was crap in his opinion. And Ron Moore states how he let the series he'd been working on "Pern" die before it got out of the box when the network insisted he shoot a script he hated and felt was all wrong for the pilot. He loved the books it was adapted from and refused to go the network's route. The show never got past the planning stages as a result. The Leverage writers state that you have to pick your battles, if you fight all the time, they'll see you as difficult and you'll get nowhere.
From the network's perspective -- they have to get involved in some respects to ensure the show works. And Leverage writers state that the network is throwing a lot of money at a show, it's not the writers money or theirs, it's the networks, and it bodes well to listen to them, at the end of the day it is a business. Which is echoed by both David Nevins of Showtime, who states that he ensures that the series writers are on the same page he is, and they share the same vision, and the TNT/TBS executive who says he gets involved if it appears the show really isn't working.
They discuss pretty much the entire process, the pit-falls and highs and lows of what it is to be a television show-runner and how much it has changed over the years. Also the degrees to which network interference, fan interaction on social media, and ratings affect the process. The skinny? It's a mixed bag. And a lot of shows now are being presented on other platforms.
It's fascinating in places and if this topic interests you at all, I highly recommend.
That said, it also only has one black showrunner and two maybe three female show-runners featured, the rest are all white guys. This was filmed in 2010 and released in 2014, so things have changed a great deal since then. But, I couldn't help but wonder if they even considered approaching people like Marti Noxon, Shondra Rhimes, Amy Pallindino-Sherman, and a few others out there. It felt like the documentary filmmakers went after one small nitch group. So my quibble is that I found it limited in scope.
It's good. And informative in places. A lot of the stuff they relate, I already knew from other things. (But I'm insanely well-versed in the topic, because I find it interesting. And have as a result watched and listened to lots of interviews and documentaries on it, also read lots of interviews. As one of the show-runners points out, the one from Bones, they aren't writing their shows for people like me, but for the folks who don't know how the soup is made, and there is about a 5% of the audience that thinks it knows how the soup is made and you ignore them. This explains why I disliked Bones, I prefer the shows by the showrunners that target folks like me -- the ones who are intelligent enough to know that the leads on Bones are just actors and can't come up with any of their lines on their own and this is just a television show written by writers who know zip about criminal procedure unless they did some research. I'm willing to handwave a lot, just not when it comes to procedurals.) What is interesting is DeKnight and few other show-runners point out how the procedural is often not as interesting as the serial, because you don't get to play with the characters in as much depth. Nor is it as good, but that an audience doesn't really care if it is one or the other, the network wants to put it in categories, but the audience just cares if it is good. Weirdly they put Hill Street Blues in the procedural category, and I'm not certain I'd have put it there.
Also, at one point, Anthony LaPaglia, who starred on Without a Trace, validated my low opinion of that series -- when he said that sometimes a show-runner's scripts are so poorly written that you just have to give them notes on it and interfere. And he didn't get along real well with the show-runner. Although he'd give the show-runner credit on Without a Trace, he was young, inexperienced, it was his first time doing it, and the best episodes written on it -- were by that show-runner. Well, I thought, that's why I couldn't watch Without a Trace -- it was horrible. (I know something about criminal procedure and it was obvious to me five minutes in that the writers didn't know a thing. People blame actors for not adding anything to a show -- but folks? An actor can't save poor writing and direction. And Without a Trace was unwatchable -- I tried to watch for James Marsters and kept going to sleep during it -- didn't hold my attention, and there were long speeches that went nowhere.) But, to give the writer credit -- you aren't taught how to be a show-runner. The writer left during the second season. He just couldn't hack it any longer and Anthony Lapaglia, the star, missed him. Because he was the best writer on it.
They also mention the pros and cons of network executive interference. Whedon states that if the only person in the room who knows how to fix it is the studio executive that you hate -- you really should listen to him. And how coming across as a Maverick and fighting the studio had put him in a bad light -- he didn't understand how it happened (FIREFLY and Dollhouse? Hello!), that he always saw himself as a Company Man and he's afraid of four year olds.. While the writer behind Dirt states that he should have known that was going to have a problem from the start, when the network insisted he change the lead to a woman and cast Courtney Cox in the role. He'd wanted to do something else, but went okay. Then whoa, the second season it was just note after note after note -- to the point that he still can't look at that season. It was crap in his opinion. And Ron Moore states how he let the series he'd been working on "Pern" die before it got out of the box when the network insisted he shoot a script he hated and felt was all wrong for the pilot. He loved the books it was adapted from and refused to go the network's route. The show never got past the planning stages as a result. The Leverage writers state that you have to pick your battles, if you fight all the time, they'll see you as difficult and you'll get nowhere.
From the network's perspective -- they have to get involved in some respects to ensure the show works. And Leverage writers state that the network is throwing a lot of money at a show, it's not the writers money or theirs, it's the networks, and it bodes well to listen to them, at the end of the day it is a business. Which is echoed by both David Nevins of Showtime, who states that he ensures that the series writers are on the same page he is, and they share the same vision, and the TNT/TBS executive who says he gets involved if it appears the show really isn't working.
They discuss pretty much the entire process, the pit-falls and highs and lows of what it is to be a television show-runner and how much it has changed over the years. Also the degrees to which network interference, fan interaction on social media, and ratings affect the process. The skinny? It's a mixed bag. And a lot of shows now are being presented on other platforms.
It's fascinating in places and if this topic interests you at all, I highly recommend.
That said, it also only has one black showrunner and two maybe three female show-runners featured, the rest are all white guys. This was filmed in 2010 and released in 2014, so things have changed a great deal since then. But, I couldn't help but wonder if they even considered approaching people like Marti Noxon, Shondra Rhimes, Amy Pallindino-Sherman, and a few others out there. It felt like the documentary filmmakers went after one small nitch group. So my quibble is that I found it limited in scope.
no subject
Date: 2018-06-03 09:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-06-03 01:14 pm (UTC)Sort of thought the same thing. But the same could be said of The Outlander series. Pern is actually less ...problematic than Outlander. LOL! (Having read books in both series, I feel I can say that with some confidence.)
Although it does make me wonder about Ron Moore...he seems to like to pick content that is rather ...I'm not sure what the right word is? Depicts how horribly white men treat others? (Which to be fair to Moore is a realistic depiction of society. White men have treated others horrifically.)