Writing the TV Drama Series 3rd Edition: How to Succeed as a Professional Writer in TV (34 page)

If I could bless your early career I’d say: Be part of a staff where the show-runner is a great writer, because you’ll want to honor that experience in your craft anywhere you work ever after.

S
UMMARY
P
OINTS

•   Episodes of television series are created by writing staffs that collaborate under showrunners. Staffs may range from a few writer-producers to many writers, divided into levels.

•   If you join a staff, you will write your own episodes as well as participate in breaking stories and contributing to the work of other writers.

•   Freelance assignments are often audition scripts for writers who are not on staff.

•   Staff writer is the entry level on a show, and is an opportunity to learn from more experienced staff members.

•   Story editors are a step up the ladder. They rewrite scripts and write their own episodes.

•   Producers and supervising producers are senior writers who may also run the writers’ room.

•   The Executive Producer title may refer to the creator of the show or the showrunner, or might just be one of many senior writers on staff. The showrunner is a writer at the top of the ladder, and is in charge of all aspects of the series.

•   The traditional ladder has become flexible in certain venues that seek young talent or different perspectives.

S
POTLIGHT ON
“U
NSCRIPTED
/R
EALITY
” S
HOWS

“I can’t get no respect,” comedian Rodney Dangerfield used to complain. He was always answered with a sympathetic laugh because people believed he did deserve respect. Now the same line could be said about writers who work for so-called “Reality TV” shows — they can’t get no respect. But here’s the difference: some people don’t believe the writers deserve it. In fact, the staffers who create the stories, outline each beat, mold the characters, plan the relationships and interactions, and arrange the action to make viewers laugh, cry, feel suspense or get mad, and write every word the hosts say — those staffers don’t even deserve to be called writers, according to the Reality business. Instead, they are called segment producers, story editors, executives, or assistants — anything except “writers.”

You see, if they were, they’d deserve the respect of being credited and paid as writers. And that would be a disaster… for companies like Freemantle Media, one of the world’s largest conglomerates, which produces
American Idol
. Back in 2007 that one show made a profit of $200 million. Freemantle was sued for $250,000 in overtime wages. If the company paid the back wages to its writers, and even contributed to their healthcare, and also paid Simon Cowell his $50 million salary, their profit would be merely $199.5 million. That’s one hundred ninety-nine million, five hundred thousand dollars free and clear after all production costs. Obviously that’s not enough, so they can’t give their writers respect as writers.

Really, the problems of working in Reality TV go beyond the semantics of what makes someone a writer. In the United States and many other countries, workers in any occupation depend on certain humane conditions including adequate time to eat and sleep, and at least a small minimum wage. A study by Goodwin Simon Victoria Research, an independent company commissioned by the Writers Guild, found that Reality writers were routinely required to work more than 60 hours a week and told by their supervisor to turn in a timecard that says only “worked.” They did this work without breaks for food, sometimes without rest breaks, and with no overtime pay, netting incomes below the legal minimum hourly rate. So why would a college graduate with a film degree be willing to work under conditions worse than transient farm hands?

You know why. In fact, someone is probably reading this chapter to find out how to sign up. If you’re fresh out of film school with a camera and some editing skills, supported by your parents, no credits, no hope for credits, don’t think you need much sleep, survive on snack bars, and have no idea how else to break into the entertainment business, well, there’s a shark — I mean Reality producer — in Hollywood willing to eat — I mean meet — you.

Let’s get real about this. Most of what is on television (broadcast and basic cable) is not the kind of quality primetime drama featured in this book. Screen fiction that is written to be meaningful, insightful, revealing, intelligent, original, authentic, or that deals with life and relationships and the social fabric in any depth, together with shows that generate a good laugh or delight in creative storytelling — all of it together is maybe 25% of broadcast fare (though it’s most of premium cable). The rest can be grouped under the category of “Unscripted” television, especially when you include everything from talk shows and shopping to games, how-to-do-its, contests and “docu-soaps.”

This isn’t new. Back in the 1940s, radio had
Candid Microphone
, which evolved in the mid-20th century to TV’s
Candid Camera
. That was a template for plenty of shows with “real people” that followed. In each case, a celebrity host had scripted questions and looked for characters that were not professional actors, but were found by the casting personnel because certain kinds of responses were anticipated. Later their segments were shaped (edited) to deliver some kind of comedic or dramatic entertainment. Shows like
The Real World
and
People’s Court
continued the tradition, changing only the venue and the kinds of conflicts each show would develop. Consider: The Jerry Springer smackdown has prevailed for more than twenty years, and
Dancing with the Stars
is network TV’s top hit.

In his book,
Reality TV: An Insider’s Guide to TV’s Hottest Market
(Michael Wiese Productions, 2011), author and Reality Television producer Troy DeVolld argues, “Whether as the subject of ridicule or inspiration for more realistic dramas and comedies, Reality is now inextricably entwined with traditionally scripted made-for-TV programming and films.”

DeVolld relates a story John Wells (
ER, The West Wing, Southland
) shared with him: Wells said “As a younger man, he was fascinated by the gritty realism of Bochco’s police dramas until the boom in Reality TV. Suddenly, thanks to
COPS
, he would watch real police officers at work instead of fictional ones; and while his favorite police shows remained brilliantly executed classics, the shine of gritty authenticity they once wore was gone for him. With the dawn of contemporary Reality Television, John realized that scripted programming would have to work harder to emulate ‘Reality’ if viewers were to be expected to invest in it emotionally.

“That realization served him well just a short while later when he was asked to adapt a screenplay by Michael Crichton into a television pilot for Steven Spielberg. The long-running result,
ER
, a scripted, ultra-realistic medical drama set in a Chicago hospital’s emergency room, soon became an ideal case study in how modern Reality Television’s influence has permeated the sphere of traditionally scripted TV.”

Now, we need a reality check. John Wells, who was President of the Writers Guild of America West two times, does not endorse the mistreatment of writers on Reality TV shows (or anywhere else). Many creators of TV drama series (who are writers, themselves) use fact-based research as a springboard or inspiration for their fictional stories. David Simon relied on his background as a newspaper journalist for the kinds of characters, situations, and social issues he dramatized so brilliantly. But in
The Wire, Treme
, and other shows, Simon
dramatized
them using professional actors and filmmaking techniques, and everyone was appropriately credited. There’s a difference between having a healthy regard for underlying truths (reality) used as a basis for well-crafted stories, and, on the other hand, creating a pretend-reality while giving no credit to the people who write the pretense, and then trying to fool an audience that it is “real” and therefore unwritten.

Still, in real reality, people need to make a living, and some professional writers work both sides of television. Also, to be fair, some Reality shows do deal legitimately with writers by hiring professionals and observing union conditions. David Rupel, who wrote and produced on both fiction (
Homicide: Life on the Street
) and ‘non-fiction’ (
Big Brother, Temptation Island
), told
Written By
magazine, “Just like scripted television, writing and producing go hand in hand. The majority of my Reality credits are for producing, not writing, but I’m always using my skills as a storyteller. For example, when Monica and Chandler slept together on
Friends
, it was referred to as a ‘plot twist.’ When the tribes didn’t merge as expected on
Survivor
, it’s simply known as a ‘twist.’ The subtle language difference implies that somehow the twists in Reality magically happen on their own. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is every bit as much thought, debate and imagination behind every twist you see on Reality — both big and small.”

Networks, producers, and show creators are reaching for new branding that might work for their Reality franchises. Terms like “hybrid-sitcoms” and “docu-soaps” were used to pitch shows like
The Simple Life
and
Growing Up Gotti
. “Soft-scripted” is a term the networks use for shows like
The Hills
and
The Real Housewives of (Wherever)
. These label gyrations attempt to separate Reality programming from regular scripted shows. But the further the story development gets from actual reality, and the closer to tropes used in fictional drama and comedy, the less clear is the divide. Take a show like Larry David’s
Curb Your Enthusiasm
. It’s highly structured, but allows for some improvisation within scenes, as do the works of indie filmmakers like David Lynch. So exactly what is the “real” part here?

That’s easy. Money is what’s real. In “Making Your Own Reality,” an article published in
Written By
magazine, Robert J. Elisberg wrote, “Obviously, the corporations want to call game shows, comedy-variety programs and documentaries Reality TV because they can get around offering writers basic healthcare, giving lunch, paying overtime wages and paying taxes. Because this way they can get around the law… Society didn’t accept such conditions 100 years ago. There’s no reason to accept it today. We know better. So will the public and the city, county, state, and federal governments. That is what the issue of Reality TV is about.”

Keeping all this in mind, I went to interview Scott A. Stone, a successful producer of many “Unscripted” television shows. From my first glance into his offices on a studio lot in central Hollywood, I knew I was in an alternate universe. Posters on the lobby wall were for
Curl Girls, Gimme Sugar
, and
Curl Girls Miami
. I’d read that Stone was partnering with Levi Johnston (former fiancé of Bristol Palin) to pitch a reality show to the networks titled
Loving Levi: The Road to the Mayor’s Office
. According to
The Hollywood Reporter
, Johnston said “the mayoral run wasn’t originally his idea but was pitched to him” by Stone. So this was a different model for a television series.

With this context, I present our next Guest Speaker, Scott A. Stone.

G
UEST
S
PEAKER: SCOTT A. STONE

President of Stone & Co., with more than 25 years producing successful “Unscripted” TV series including
The Mole, The Man Show, Top Design
, and
The Joe Schmo Show
, Scott A. Stone revealed how so-called “Reality” shows are made, and the role of writers.

I asked, what’s the pull of shows like these? Why do people watch them?

Scott A. Stone:
The same reason they watch comedies and dramas. They want to see people going through the belly of the beast and coming out the other side.

Pamela Douglas:
So it’s the human drama.

SS:
It’s like all television, including game shows. You start at the beginning with nothing, you do all this hard work to get to the other side, and some people go home with nothing and others reign supreme. It’s dramatic structure. It’s exactly the same.

PD:
Can you walk me through the process of creating a “Reality” show, keeping in mind that the people who are reading this book are looking for ways to get into the business as writers or grow their careers as writers.

SS:
Reality covers many sub-genres, from classics like
New York Housewives
and shows like
Survivor
and
American Idol
, which are basically game shows, to shows like
Ice Road Truckers
that are more like documentaries, to daytime talk shows. So Reality crosses all genres.

They all come from the same place which is an idea. Somebody has an idea. It’s written on a piece of paper. And I have to tell you that in my four years in film school I did very little writing and now I write almost everything. I would say 60% of my time is writing or rewriting treatments. Across the board the whole idea of television is somebody’s vision — what’s the big idea. So from a writing standpoint it literally can start with somebody sitting around a table at lunch saying I have an idea for a show.