The Banff World Television Festival introduced a new programming stream to this year's 29th annual industry event called The Craft, workshop-type sessions breaking down the creative process. Included were two sessions by two writers with several high-profile series in their credits, who gave insight into how shows are assembled from concept to screen.
Comedy writer Jeff Greenstein, currently on Desperate Housewives and formerly with Will and Grace and Friends, talked about the craft largely from the big-picture perspective of the showrunner or creator, while drama writer David Hoselton of House delved into the nuts and bolts of writing an episode from one-line idea to shooting script.
Despite the fact that they were the most process-oriented, industry-insider sessions I attended in my three days there, they were also two of the most fun and informative for a television fan who's a bit of a process nerd and industry geek.
Know Your Show
"When you come up with a show, you have to be thinking in the 100 episode range," Greenstein said in his session, which he conducted with the assistance of legendary BBC producer Jon Plowman (A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Absolutely Fabulous, The Office, Extras, and pretty much every other BBC show ever made).
"The first thing you need to know in the making a successful series – and this is going to sound almost stupidly elemental – is what is it about? And when I say 'what is it about,' it's not 'it's about a Wall Street banker who goes to work in a fish market,' but what is it About with a capital A. What does it attempt to capture in the culture, what theme does it attempt to explore, what previously unseen aspect of contemporary life does it attempt to illuminate, what kind of character does it portray you haven't seen before?"
Greenstein gave the example of Friends, the pilot that tested poorly but launched a ten-year run. "There was a lot of cynicism in the American television press that this looks like a show that was assembled to order for Gen X, that this was a show designed by an audience research firm. And really, nothing could have been farther from the truth. That show was about the experience of Marta Kaufman and David Crane who created it, and the experience of those of us who worked on the show. It was about that experience of being in your late 20s and you've broken away from college and you've started to assert your independence from your family and yet you haven't really built a family of your own yet. Your friends are your family."
Article comments