TheProcess.Ink

Tom Benedek talks the creative process with writers, showrunners, directors, producers, actors, executives, agents, managers and other cultivators of truth and beauty.

#1 – Brent Forrester (TV writer-showrunner) at Sony Studios

by

Brent Forrester (Love, The Office, The Simpsons, King of the Hill) talks about the TV comedy writers’ room, story development, and character and plot in comedy.

We talk about:

  • How to write a TV script in a writers room
  • Plot vs. plotlessness in TV comedy
  • Planning and writing the season’s scripts for Love
  • Differences between creating a series for Netflix vs. the networks
  • Working with Judd Apatow – The Apatow Touch
  • How Brent runs his writer’s room on Love
  • The writer’s room on The Simpsons
  • Writing comedy for emotion/behavior more than plot
  • Brainstorming episodes/breaking story

BRENT FORRESTER - SONY STUDIOS - LOVE OFFICE BW 1

Quotes:

“A really interesting element of this show, and part of the tone that people are responding to, is that we have prioritized authenticity of behavior over plot.”

“Emotion in performance is aided by slowing things down.”

“Carl Reiner would say to the writers, ‘I want you to tell me the situations you got into over the weekend. Where did you make a jackass out of yourself? That’s going to be our show.’”

Read More

#2 – Peter Tolan (TV writer-showrunner & screenwriter) in Santa Monica

by


Peter Tolan (Rescue Me, Outsiders, The Jim Gaffigan Show, Analyze This) talks TV pilots and his creative journey.

We talk about:

  • The central idea, the nugget, the central question of what a show is and writing to it
  • Mapping out the season/seasons of a series
  • Episode balance of comedy and drama on Rescue me
  • The Larry Sanders Show

Quotes from the show:

“You slowly put everything in place so you can get to that last moment. We knew what the last image of the first season of Rescue Me was so we could always write to it. We slowly could make our way towards that.”

“If you’re young and starting out,  you can shoot on your phone. Write something and make it. Put it on YouTube  and people will see it.”

“You write somebody who’s a dick – who has outrageous behavior, but then how do you have an audience empathize with that character, care about that character? So an essential character is not the dick, it’s the other guy.”

Read More

#3 – Janet Leahy (TV writer-showrunner) in Pacific Palisades

by

Janet Leahy (Mad Men, Gilmore Girls, Boston Legal, Roseanne, The Cosby Show) talks her creative journey and work experiences.

We talk about:

  • The Mad Men writers room
  • Women in TV writing
  • Developing characters
  • Creating episode stories
  • Worst fears
  • Transitioning from half-hour writing to one-hour
  • pitching
  • road trips

Janet Leahy for TheProcess.Ink_1

Quotes from the show:

“I pitch why it’s important, the characters,  the tone.”

“What’s the worst thing? What are you afraid of? What relationships in your life are you trying to resolve? Why can’t you resolve them?”

“It has to entertain the audience, move them, nourish them emotionally.”

“Family of characters… people bringing this family, these characters into their home. Because of the technology, they’re carrying them in their pocket now, too.”

“I try to clear my brain and then the ideas come. I let go of any notion that I’m going to control this thing and then the ideas come.”

Read More

#4 – David Kanter (film producer & manager) at Paramount Studios

by

David Kanter (producer: The End of the Tour, The Revenant & manager: Anonymous Content) talks developing scripts and producing films while separately managing writers and filmmakers.

We talk about:

  • Working at Anonymous Content
  • Growing up in Michigan
  • Making of ‘The End of the Tour’
  • Getting ‘The Revenant’ produced
  • A pilot, ten years in the making
  • The current state of the film and television industries
  • A kind of work ethic the yields success
  • Balancing life as a manager and a producer

kanter

Quotes from the show:

“The movie happened because it reflected for everyone who made it something that was essential to each of us.”

“All the things I aspired to do growing up with movies, I kind of transferred it over now to the world of television that I watch.”

“One of the nice things about being a manager as opposed to being an agent, it’s an unspoken but very powerfully interpreted rule that you don’t go and steal other people’s business. You just don’t do it.”

Read More

#5 – Joe Swanberg (writer-director-producer) from Chicago

by

Joe Swanberg (Drinking Buddies, Happy Christmas) discusses his new 8-episode series Easy for Netflix using the same improvisational style he developed to make his numerous indie features.

We talk about:

  • Writing, directing and producing Easy
  • Casting over Skype
  • Improvising vs. sticking to a script
  • Scheduling in movies vs. TV
  • Shooting in Chicago (as much as possible)
  • A typical day on a Swanberg set
  • Pitching an idea to Netflix
  • Post-production strategies

Quotes from the show:

“There was no rule book for how to do a show like this.”

“The characters are all coming from autobiographical places in terms of my connection to them.”

Read More

#6 – Rick Rosenthal (film director & TV producer) at White Water Films

by

Rick Rosenthal (Transparent, Bad Boys, Halloween II) discusses wearing multiple hats in both film and television, and the efforts of his production company, White Water Films.

We talk about:

  • Selling vs. Not Selling Scripts
  • Bonding in Television vs. Film
  • Producing vs. Directing in Television
  • Working on ‘Transparent’
  • Script Notes and Editing for the Long Haul in Television
  • Improvisation and Mapping Out Seasons in Television
  • “Is this Story a Movie or a Series?”
  • Today’s Movies and Budgets
  • Producing vs. Directing in Film
  • Investing in Productions and Setting Expectations
  • Balancing Film and TV Projects
  • Casting Big Names
  • Building and Maintaining Relationships

rick-rosenthal-whitewater-films-20162016-04-22-10-54-5510

Quotes from the show:

“You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make a duck wear a saddle. I thought that sort of summed up Hollywood well for me.”

“Television needs… to sort of look at the way novels are structured and layered, and [how] things are set up and developed over time. Most television hasn’t been like that.”

“Your role as a producer… is to make sure that the ship doesn’t hit the rocks, or at the very least, doesn’t hit the rocks under full steam. Yet, at the same time, you have to give a certain amount of creative freedom to get dangerously close to the rocks.”

Read More

#7 – Mark Stolaroff (indie film producer) in Hancock Park

by

Mark Stolaroff (DriverX, The House That Jack Built, Pig) discusses the ins and outs of independent feature filmmaking, his No Budget Film School workshops, and more…

We talk about:

  • Mark’s popular No Budget Film School workshops at Raleigh Studios
  • The producer-director collaboration in filmmaking
  • The real world inspiration for “DriverX” and working with Patrick Fabian
  • Funding and executing a DIY production
  • Major film festivals and the hybrid distribution approach
  • Connecting with viewers through social media campaigns
  • Marketing strategies and finding a niche audience
  • Casting actors to maximize foreign market value
  • Navigating the Sci-Fi and Fantasy genres in the festival circuit

Quotes from the show:

“I think it’s all about performance and story, and if you can get something that looks okay, you’re golden.”

“What happens in the Prius, stays in the Prius.”

“Your first festival makes a big difference on the festivals after that. If you get into a Sundance, your festival strategy completely changes.”

Read More

#8 – Stephen Nathan (TV writer-showrunner) in Santa Monica

by

Stephen Nathan (Bones, Joan of Arcadia, Family Law) discusses career in executive producing sit-coms and one-hour drama series and offers a detailed look into a ten-year run on the hit comedy-procedural Bones.

stephen-nathan-interview-santa-monica-2016

We talk about:

  • The future of consuming visual content
  • Writing and executive producing Bones for a decade
  • The special 200th “Hitchcock” episode of Bones in Technicolor
  • The evolution of two central characters
  • Balancing plot and character within episodes
  • Social media fan support — the positive and the negative
  • Transitioning from New York and the stage to LA and a role in Bonanza
  • The demanding schedule of a showrunner
  • Cross-training with playwriting

Quotes from the show:

“Ten years on one show… I could have become a doctor.”

“There are two characters; we pick them up at one part of their lives, and then, when the series ends, you leave them in another part of their lives.”

“The more controversial something is– or the more upset the audience was– the more they talked about it, and the more people wanted to see what they were talking about.”

Read More

#9 – Bec Smith (literary & indie film agent) at United Talent Agency

by

Bec Smith (United Talent Agency) discusses her work as both a literary agent and an independent film agent.

We talk about:

  • Growing up in Australia with movie maddness
  • A background in journalism, film criticism and development at Working Title
  • Producing and selling Animal Kingdom at Sundance
  • What it takes for a film to break through the noise, these days
  • How independent films get valued and how projects get made
  • American vs. foreign filmmaking and financing
  • Signing clients ( David Michod, James Ponsoldt, Garth Davis ) from the start

bec-smith-uta-beverly-hills-2016dsc05302-117

Quotes from the show:

“I think it’s an exciting and interesting time for feature filmmakers, but I also think it’s more challenging than it’s ever been.”

“You’ve got to have a reason for being, either in subject or in terms of the filmmaking.”

“I’m a firm believer that cream rises to the top, and I find my way to the things I’m meant to find my way to.”

Read More

 

#10 – Alexander Mirecki & Morgan Krantz (creators of Neurotica) at Atwater Village

by


Alexander Mirecki (All Together Now) & Morgan Krantz (Babysitter) talk about making indie features and creating a webseries, Neurotica, currently in its second season

We talk about:

  • The fundamentals of making a webseries
  • The importance of episode length
  • Deriving stories from real life
  • Translating ninety seconds into half an hour
  • Shifting storytelling from season to season

alexander-mirecki-dsc04723-115

Quotes from the show: 

“We’re building out a world where we want threads, but they can’t be relationships. It’s about lonliness, ultimately, the show.”

“We like to say (Neurotica) is like Seinfeld on acid.”

Read More