[ 00:00:19 ] Hire really smart people.
[ 00:00:23 ] You know if you hire a good team it all comes together.
[ 00:00:26 ] So it’s about hiring the right show runners the right cast and then the right producers and then they put it together.
[ 00:00:39 ] Creatively it’s object he is the story teller is the master storyteller. He understands it better than anybody. I’m the guy walks in his office.
[ 00:00:46 ] Yeah well can we do it this way or can we do it that way and then we figure it out to go.
[ 00:00:57 ] I was a producer for many years and I started as a Directors Guild trainee in the early 80s for ending on the day and then the mood or the fire of the day sometimes every day is the last day you just got too many fires. I’m basically a fireman. I go out and deal with whatever challenges we have on one of our shows and then have to pray that God gives me some help and I figure out how to fix that problem or that issue or challenge the first thing you get is hiring the right people. And then the second thing is is.
[ 00:01:43 ] You got to work hard. You’ve got to want to work hard. You’ve got to want it to be as great as it can be every day. And Jeff inspires me to do that every day. And I challenge every band the team to make it better every day. And I think that’s the at the core of it is can we make it better. And sometimes it can be frustrating because you can always make it better. So we were always challenging what’s possible. And that’s what makes keeps it interesting.
[ 00:02:14 ] Over the course of my career I had a tremendous opportunity to work with many many many great producers directors show runners and filmmakers. So from each one of them I learned a little something and I’ve taken away those things so that when I’m challenged with. Well how do we do that if we don’t have enough money or how do we balance the money. I think back to what I learned from. One filmmaker or another filmmaker and how best to handle it. And then I just.
[ 00:02:40 ] Trust that it’s going to come. It’s not easy sometimes because a director has a strong point of view a showrunner has a strong point of view and there are budgetary limitations. But again our partnership is I go to him said going to spend this we don’t want to spend this here. The upside is the downside. And then we figure it out. But yeah it’s a lot more money than sort of what you’ve got. The evolution of television is.
[ 00:03:12 ] He went to work at Marvel and he asked me to come help out. And I said I. And then I came helped out and he sold a bunch of stuff and said figure out how to make it.
[ 00:03:21 ] And so off we went I don’t know that that’s sort of the evolution. And I don’t think we ever say no. I think we always come up with a way. So sometimes it’s pretty crazy. You know you guys are in a closet somewhere with a national rifle but you make it work. So we just figure it out. And I think at the heart of it if you have good storytelling everything else falls in line technically whether the key light is three inches higher or lower isn’t going to matter if you’re intrigued with what somebody is saying or doing an emotional thing that’s happening in front of the camera then it doesn’t matter. But if the script isn’t there then nothing else follows. I find that we spend more money on shows where the scripts is good because we want to make sure we get everything else right. I mean I think I think that becomes part of the challenges and so whether we’re spending. A million dollars an episode on visual effects or $2000000 never sold on the effects or $100000 and visual effects. It all starts with the storytelling and that’s where the writers of the show runners and that whole world has to be right. And when that’s right everything else falls in place.
[ 00:04:33 ] There’s two parts of the technology. There’s one part where we’ve simplified. Right. So now you’re using a sort of basic canon camera that I could buy for 15 grand. You’re not using a 5 d that I could buy for seven grand but you could it would probably give you the same result. So you made a choice as to how technical you want to be. You’re not shooting it on Irad or you know we can go the other or the archive.
[ 00:04:55 ] So. So the technology helps but it comes back to story. You can shoot it on any camera you want whether you shoot it on your iPhone and we have shots in our shows that were shot on iPhone and go frozen because it was more efficient or more effective. And that doesn’t really matter if the storytelling is there. So the technology helps because there’s more outlets. Nobody’s quite figured out how to make the digital marketplace work financially. So until they really get that figured out. Then there’ll be more film making. Right now there’s five hundred hours of television a year drama. That’s a lot. And I think it’s only going to grow. And I think most of the feature film talent recognizes that the writing is better in television now. So there’s no taboo like I used to be. Oh he’s a television guy or gal. I don’t think that matters. I think we have some of the greatest writers working for us now. And the reason we have that is because we’re telling really good stories based on really smart characters and ideas. It started with Jeff so that all came together. And that’s what makes it so that the technology helps. But that’s almost like. Shouldn’t be that shouldn’t be the focus when the technology takes over from the story telling the story telling fans.
[ 00:06:08 ] I remember in 79 when the first steady cam came out and Garrett Brown brought it to the set we could run up and down the stairs with a camera and everybody thought that was the coolest thing in the world.
[ 00:06:19 ] And then for a while. Right now for example directors are into drama. Every director comes I want to I just have to have a drone that’s technology. That should be incidental it shouldn’t be the thrust of if you care about the characters. If you want to come back every week or sit there Netflix says in 24 hours people watch their whole 13 episodes. You want to watch 13 episodes in 24 hours. It’s the story doesn’t matter whether it’s a drone. So the technology is important but it should be ancillary to certain.
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Backstage Conversations
Backstage Conversation Season: 2017