Billy Finkelstein (NYPD Blue, Law & Order, LA Law) discusses a career in writing and producing myriad legal dramas and police procedurals for television

We Talk About:

• The make-up of a writers’ room and what goes on in there
• Creating a legal drama for an international audience
• The difference between writing and producing (showrunning)
• Writing Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans for Werner Herzog
• Growing as a writer and learning from experience
• Creating the world of a television series in the pilot
• Fusing music in Cop Rock and understanding conflict in a scene

Quotes from the Show:

“The process of writing is where you discover, “Who is this character?” and you have ideas of who that character is, a sense of him or her, but I think sometimes that there’s, in an effort to explain the thing, or sell the thing, before you write the thing, you’re cut off from the actual learning curve that a writer goes through in developing a show and bringing it to life.”

“I don’t necessarily consciously think, “What is the conflict?” but I think you get so that you just sort of know that’s an intrinsic component of any kind of drama.”

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