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Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show Page #5
because your life does, in fact,
inform the kind of writing that you do.
This might be
much debated in this documentary,
but I do think that good
creative executives do make
an important creative contribution
to the successes of the show.
It's not about telling
somebody how to write it.
It's about giving them good counsel.
I tend to work very directly.
I have a lot of opinions
and feelings of what
I think is... is interesting,
what I think is boring,
what I think is, uh, fresh,
what I think has been done
before, and I communicate it.
I'm very clear.
It's their show,
and I tend to win the budget wars,
they win the creative wars.
There's no show that goes on our air
where we don't have
general consensus
between the writer, showrunner,
the lead actors, and the network.
When there's not consensus,
that's when you make
crappy television.
Action!
The thing we kind of
beat into the young writers
when they start is,
is this the hill you're gonna die on?
Because this argument
you have is the only one
you're ever gonna have
a shot at winning,
so make sure it's the one,
because after that, you know,
if you just start fighting 'em
you become the problem in the room.
And they write the checks
and they pay the bills.
And by the way,
sometimes there's no way
to get out of it.
Right.
And sometimes it is
the hill you wanna die on.
I mean, if that's really
what the episode is about,
and to take the note
is gonna undermine everything,
you know...
Don't not have a hill.
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you wanna have a hill.
You wanna have some integrity,
but make sure it's the hill, yeah.
Working on Dirt
was all kinds of things.
It was a difficult experience.
It was an enlightening experience
because Courtney's character
wasn't even in the script
when I wrote it.
a female-driven series
so I created this character
for Courtney.
Um... So in a way, my initial,
my original vision
was compromised
from the time I said okay.
Something as simple as going,
okay, I'll do that.
And from there, it deteriorated.
It was challenging and
John Landgraf and I, the head of FX,
we went at it.
We really struggled.
And it was... It was a really...
It was ultimately
an incredibly difficult
and really rewarding
creative process.
I feel like the pilot I got to
make was amazingly cool.
The first season
I got to make was really cool.
The second season, he just said
this is what we're gonna do.
And I felt like it wasn't so good.
I've never seen
uh, nor do I want to.
against the behavior
of the people
at the top in the networks
two or three times in my career,
and now I find recently
that I have a reputation.
I've gotten a little bit shirty
and I've gotten insistent
and I've drawn the line.
But the moment you forget that
the executive you can't stand
might be the only person in the room
who has the right idea
about how to fix something,
you're gonna lose.
I don't think you need to
treat anybody like your enemy
unless they are actively
trying to destroy you,
which occasionally does happen.
There are those kind
of people out there,
but there are not many.
I am and always have tried
to be a company man.
And yet, now I find that
I'm this hot-headed maverick.
Which is amazing, because, you know,
I'm afraid of four-year-olds.
Good morning.
Good morning.
is before you're on the air,
and everybody thinks they know
how the public is
going to react to a show.
Or if a show is doing
kind of middling well,
which is what Bones did, by the way.
It did middling well,
it was not a hit.
We were like a weed
that you couldn't kill,
and then we got a little love
and did quite well.
the director to give notes
on the script, um, and say what works
or doesn't work for him and her, so...
It's important for me too,
because I can have ideas in prep,
but I need to know that these guys...
that we're all in sync
as we push forward,
as we continue to prep, uh,
that these guys envision,
at the end of the day.
Uh, the script is currently 60 pages?
- 52.
- 52?
- 52 minutes.
- 52 minutes.
Oh, is it ready?
I wouldn't touch it.
I wouldn't go any shorter.
First of all, it's not...
so plot driven
that this, more than any we've had,
should not be trimmed that much.
I got two notes Friday
from the network
which I thought were really...
were good.
Um, and I don't mean
to sound surprised.
What takes a single
episode of network television
so long to get produced
is the meetings.
There's lots of meetings.
I've ever gotten was...
We were doing Everybody Hates Chris,
and we had an episode where
Chris had gotten a fever
and a flu or something.
It was at Christmas,
he was in the hospital,
and he was hallucinating
that he was talking to a guy
who was basically Santa Claus.
And the note came down
from the network,
"Does Santa Claus have to be so old?"
One of the
funnier notes I ever received
picked up Swingtown.
And I went to this meeting,
and Les, Les Moonves, um...
god help me, uh,
if he's watching this...
you know, he loves the show.
And we got almost through
the whole meeting.
He says, "I got one note."
I said, "What?"
And he goes,
"I don't think the neighbors
should sleep together."
I said,
"You don't think the neighbors
should sleep together?"
And he said, "No."
"Well, it's called Swingtown.
"It's about swingers in the '70s.
Like, what do you want them to do?"
He says,
"Well, that's why you're the writer."
I can't believe
You know, I have
a very dark sensibility.
Like, what I find acceptable,
90% of the populous
does not find acceptable.
And I've had to learn that
the hard way.
So I need somebody sometimes to say,
"Hey, dude, that's too much.
"Like, that's... That doesn't...
Not only doesn't that
serve the story,
but it's just too out there,"
So I can take a step back and go...
So it's not a reaction
like, "F*** you. That's my vision."
It's like I can then take
a step back and go, all right,
well, yeah, maybe...
maybe that is too much.
You know, maybe we don't
really need to see
the balls being hacked off the clown.
Perhaps we tell it on the face.
It was a huge disappointment
that that pilot didn't go.
And the script was very well received,
but the WB was very difficult.
There came this moment
where they wanted
a different version of the script.
And they had brought in
another writer over my objections,
which is...
In retrospect,
I can't even believe
I allowed that to happen.
But at that point, I was very young,
it was my first pilot.
And we were now
about a week away from shooting.
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"Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Aug. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/showrunners:_the_art_of_running_a_tv_show_18064>.
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