No Meaner Place

February 3, 2010

“Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged” – Samuel Johnson

Filed under: Conversations With, Goodloe, Pilots, Pilots not produced — Tags: , , , — Neely Swanson @ 10:25 am

The Associate by J. Mills Goodloe

What: Thom O’Daniel has just been accepted as an associate in the powerful DC law firm of Rittenhouse & Clover LLP.  All is not as it would appear.

Who: Fifteen years ago an innocent young man was sent to prison for a murder he didn’t commit.  An outsider at a prep school catering to the rich and powerful, Andy Linus was framed in the death of a female classmate during a raucous party at which he passed out.  By the time his case went to trial his alleged co-conspirator turned state’s evidence; Andy’s fingerprints and DNA were conspicuously at the scene of the crime; additional witnesses mysteriously appeared; his public defender gave up on him; and the judge sped through the trial eliminating most of Andy’s defense. Worse yet, as far as he was concerned, the letters he sent to his childhood sweetheart, Clara, all returned, unopened.  Angry, helpless and without protection Andy falls prey to guards and wardens intent on keeping him within their walls; but he remains determined to escape and clear his name, or at least discover who ruined his life.  Into his life and cell appears Milan Dotheo – a master of disguise and his future mentor.  Learning of Andy’s situation, Milan proposes an escape plan, predicated on Andy’s education.  Milan has kept a diary within his Bible, a diary that recounts his adventures and one that will reshape Andy into a brilliant man of the world.

Thom O’Daniel, Fulbright scholar, graduate of Stanford and Cambridge, with a three year stint in Paris at a law firm is the only associate candidate hired by Rittenhouse & Clover.  Step One of Thom’s plan has been set in motion, as he informs Gia, his young sister, partner and confidante, an expert in surveillance. At the law firm Thom insinuates himself onto the legal defense team of Gibson Logan, U.S. Congressman on trial for assault against a young female intern by pointing out that Logan is being defended by childhood friends, men whose familiarity with him might cause them to miss details. Thom quickly impresses the others with his preparation and knowledge. Working with the others on the team, Rex Filkins and Hutch Rittenhouse, son of the named partner and grandson of the founder, he observes that they begin to line up false witnesses beginning with a bartender who will testify that the girl had drunk 7 glasses of wine that evening.

Thom: Seven glasses of wine?

Hutch: …What?

Thom: I mean, at 110 pounds this girl would be unconscious.  Maybe the bartender should testify she had three, maybe four.  It’ll sound more plausible.

Rex thinks for a beat.

Rex: Re-interview the bartender. Have him testify the girl had four glasses of wine.

Thom and Gia’s carefully planted surveillance devices turn up the interesting detail that the law firm is on the Fed’s radar and that an FBI agent, Harold Jenkins, has been planted; more interesting is that the head of the firm is aware of it. In an “eerie” coincidence, Harold will later be killed in a convenience store robbery.

Relationships at the firm become more complicated when Preston Rittenhouse, name partner, anoints Rex as the next partner instead of his own son. Hutch had virtually guaranteed his beautiful wife that he was assured of this partnership.  Not only will this be devastatingly embarrassing for him but will cast a pall over the black-tie charity event they will be hosting that evening.

Thom is nearly undone when he is caught with a stolen file on Logan revealing Logan as the co-conspirator turned prosecution witness in a murder long ago, the murder for which Andy Linus was convicted.  Finessing the situation, Thom is able to use the file to uncover the nuances of the old case.

Thom: Andy Linus was convicted in a felony criminal case in which Gibson was originally included as a codefendant but later re-categorized a witness. So are you going to finally tell me what this is about?

Hutch: Andy Linus was a kid from school.  He was the son of an administrator, a kid from the wrong side of the tracks who we barely knew and who never fit in. One night, I guess something snapped – jealousy, envy, resentment.  Who knows what was going thru this guy’s head. He killed a fourteen year old girl and left her body under a bridge.

Thom: Did he confess to the crime?

Rex: He didn’t need to confess. His blood and fingerprints were all over the crime scene. He was convicted. He was sentenced. End of story.

Thom: Is there a chance this scumbag Linus might resurface? Because if he does, our defense will be blown to  hell.

Rex: You don’t have to worry about Andy Linus showing up.

Thom: How can you be so sure?

Rex: Because Andy Linus is dead.

Moving ahead with the defense, Rex has located a security tape from the garage on the night the assault allegedly took place and plans on asking for a dismissal based on the tape.  Hutch strenuously objects because it could backfire; they could win just on the elements.  Rex, the new partner, disdainfully dismisses his friend’s concerns, further exacerbating their rift. Thom, however, discovers that Rex had been looking at the tape from a different floor and that the real tape reveals the assault in gory detail.  He surreptitiously substitutes the tapes and assures jail time for the Congressman.  Step Two has been accomplished, but there are still many more steps to go in his pursuit of justice and retribution.  Step Three is set in motion on the night of the charity event when he “re”-introduces himself to the love of his life, Clara, now the wife of Hutch.

No Meaner Place: Legal shows are the fodder of TV land and this one breaks out by combining internal mystery and suspense with the legal workings of a law firm and the courtroom.  The suspense is not whether Andy/Thom will be caught, because therein lies the 100 stories, but how he will achieve his goals and how elegantly he will be able to do it.  This is surely not “convict a partner a week,” as we’d soon run out of stories, but it is a marvelous platform for unveiling and unraveling the corrupt practices of power in an extremely interesting venue – Washington.

An additional hook is in the flashback, a technique that I generally don’t enjoy, that would serve to fill in more of the interesting details of how Andy Linus became Thom O’Daniel – an “Educating Rita” with a sinister side.  There is actually no limit to the back story with its shady mentor, Milan Dotheo.  And think of the locations – prison, Switzerland, Paris, law school, Washington. Revenge, reward, adultery, closeted homosexuality, duplicity, family dysfunction, justice; what more could you ask for?  Network or cable, it fills a lot of gaps.  Once again – what am I missing here?

Life Lessons for Writers:  If it was yours to sell in the first place, sell it again. Someone out there is just waiting for the opportunity to prove that the last regime made the wrong choices.

Conversation with the Writer:

Mills: I hadn’t looked at this script in a really long time when I got word that you wanted to write about it. I think the dialogue could have been better and maybe I could have made it a bit less confusing, but overall I think there’s a great show in there. So thanks for making me revisit it and thanks for expressing such confidence in it.

Neely: How did this project come about?

Mills: I had pitched something to Fox Studios and they liked it; but when they took the pitch out it was passed on in record time by 3 networks.  Fox gave me a blind script as part of their commitment and I wrote “The Associate” for them. It never got off the ground but it will come back to me in April.

Neely: Maybe they were worried about the 100 stories.

Mills: Don’t know.  I only took it to the 4 broadcast networks.  I should have taken it to cable.  I sort of soured on the whole process and went back to the feature world that I understood better.

Neely: The bar for good legal shows (that was a terrible pun, wasn’t it?) is quite high and you jumped over it with this one.  I saw the influence of traditional legal shows as well as films like “The Usual Suspects” and “Inside Man.”  What inspired you to write this one?

Mills: I had done an adaptation of a non-legal John Grisham book – Bleachers – which, coincidentally had a character named Neely.

Neely: Let me guess.  It was a boy and his full name was Cornelius.

Mills: Right! Anyway, I wanted to know more about Grisham’s writing, so I started reading his legal thrillers. I thought The Firm captured lightning in a bottle. Why not do The Firm for television? Around that time I was also considering doing The Count of Monte Cristo as a feature, and that became my primary influence.  Structurally, “The Associate” is more like The Count of Monte Cristo than The Firm.  It’s about someone who’s one person and then he’s wronged and comes back as a different person to take revenge.  I also knew I had to add a procedural element.

Neely: Besides the partners, who else will Thom avenge?  After all, he can’t always undermine the firm’s cases.  I also loved the possibilities of uncovering the circumstances of the FBI agent’s death as well as the juicy details of what was being investigated.

Mills: Actually I had 70 people on a bulletin board that Andy had made while he was in prison – judges, DAs, cops, wardens, and then leading up to the clients of the firm in DC, all of whom were complicit in sending him up or keeping him there.  This law firm has files on everyone, much like the mob controlled law firm in The Firm.  Andy/Thom is a mole.  But there is ambiguity because a lot of the people he thinks were wrong, weren’t.  There are shades of gray.  He’s judge and executioner and sometimes the lines aren’t so clear cut.

The “A” story would be about The Firm; the “B” story would be The Count of Monte Cristo.

Neely: Who was this written for? Did you get any good notes?

Mills: As I mentioned, this was part of a blind script deal.  Their main edict was that it had to be procedural with soapy elements.  I wasn’t comfortable with some of the soapy elements, like the father/son conflict; the closeted homosexual; the home life difficulties. I would like to make it a cable show and pull back on some of the soap.

Neely: How close did this come?  Any thought on trying again with it or putting it into a different medium – mystery/thriller novel or even feature film (where the odds are just a slim if not more so than television)?

Mills: The networks passed on it very quickly.  I didn’t understand the process.  You just sit by the phone and wait to hear if they bought it; unlike in features where you have some interaction with the potential buyers.  I have thought of making it a feature.

Neely: But if you made it a feature you’d have to tell the story linearly and that would take away one of the most interesting elements – the back and forth between Andy’s ongoing learning process and the present day with Thom.  With a novel you could weave back and forth in time and be allowed a more expansive expository style.

Mills: That’s true, but I’d like to think I could sell it as a modern take on The Count of Monte Cristo. As for a novel, that would take at least three years, but, yes, there’s a lot I could do.  One thing that really annoyed me about television was the 6 act structure.  I was always being told that I needed to have a POW element before cutting to commercial.  It seems so arbitrary.

Neely: How did you get started?  I noticed that before this, your whole career had been in features, starting as Richard Donner’s assistant.  Let’s talk a bit about your beginnings in the industry.  What was the first job you got in the industry?

Mills: Working for Richard Donner was my first job.  In college, I went on an overseas program called “Semester at Sea.”  Chris Silbermann, now one of the heads of ICM, was a classmate and his dad, a senior marketing executive at Columbia, got me the interview.  I didn’t know anything about anything and started as Donner’s third assistant, eventually graduating to producing some of his films.  I left in 2000 because I had written and directed an Indie called “A Gentlemen’s Game.”  Richard was very helpful to me and I had learned as much as I could.  It was time for me to be my own man, which he encouraged.

Neely: Working as a director/producer’s assistant is usually more the path for a producer.  What did you do for him and how did that lead you to writing.

Mills: Writing was always my chosen profession.  Working with Richard brought me into contact with some really talented writers like Brian Helgeland, Channing Gibson, Al Gough and Miles Millar.  Brian wrote “Conspiracy Theory” and I was a producer on it.  Channing, Al and Miles wrote “Lethal Weapon 4.”  I learned from them.

Neely: It was quite a long apprenticeship.  How did that first screenplay assignment come about?

Mills: When I left Donner it was to direct a film, and the only way I would be allowed to direct was if I wrote the script.  I found a wonderful novel called A Gentlemen’s Game and that was the start of my writing. It was financed through private equity.  I raised the money and made the movie.  Then I wrote a second script called “August and Everything After” that was supposed to be my second film.  The script was very well received but I still haven’t found the funding.  I just haven’t been able to put the whole thing together.   Annette Benning and Pierce Brosnan were interested in starring.  In any case it helped me get my agents.  It’s also when I realized that I needed a career and was able to get some writing assignments.  The Grisham book, Bleachers, was my first assignment and then I was well on my way making a living as a writer.

Neely: I noticed that you have quite a few scripts in development.  How many are on the cusp of production and what is in development hell.

Mills: “Wonderful Tonight” is pretty active and so is “Playing for Pizza,” another Grisham adaptation.  “Bleachers” is stalled because it was with Revolution Studios and it took quite a while to extricate it.  Phoenix Pictures is now trying to put it together.

Neely: Are you still interested in developing for television?

Mills: Yes.  I’ll just have to approach it differently.  I’ll definitely jump in this year. I think my writing has definitely improved since I wrote that draft – or at least I’d like to think that my writing is taking that arc. I’m glad you prodded me into reading “The Associate” again.  I know just how to do it better this time.

Neely: How do you view the writing process overall?

Mills: I’ve had a good run and I hope it will keep going.  I have real hopes for getting “Wonderful Tonight” off the ground.  Christine Jeffs has come on board to direct and we’ve had some great meetings. She did “Sunshine Cleaning.” I’ve written 14 or 15 drafts of “Wonderful Tonight.” There are some scenes I’ve gone over hundreds of times. I really love this piece.

Neely: So are you still in touch with Chris Silbermann?

Mills: We fell out of touch over the years but we’re going to reconnect soon.  I just got an email from another friend from the “Semester at Sea” who has proposed a reunion.  So it’s going to happen.  I think of Chris’ father so often; he was such a talented and generous man.

Neely: Let me know how it goes. Maybe there’s a script in this reunion.

Tomorrow I will be posting an article on Baseline Studio System entitled “Women Can’t Create and White Men Can’t Jump.” This year’s pilot season has been horrible for women writers.  Please read and let me know what you think.

http://www.blssresearch.com/research-wrap?detail/C7/women_cant_create_and_white_men_cant_jump

neely@nomeanerplace.com

January 27, 2010

“Self-love is the instrument of our preservation.” Voltaire

Filed under: Conversations With, Feature Films, Lemmons — Tags: , , , , , — Neely Swanson @ 10:34 am

Eight Pieces for Josette by Kasi Lemmons

What: Saul Ressnicoff, one of the world’s great concert pianists led a conflicted life, one that his neglected but devoted daughter Edie challenges herself to unravel after his sudden death on stage during an encore at Carnegie Hall.

Who: Saul’s final choice of music for his encore at what would turn out to be his very last concert was a birthday present for his daughter and archivist Edie, 30.  Lyrical and sad, Edie is transported by a piece that she is unfamiliar with; she is unable to ask Saul about it for he has a heart attack on stage and dies.  At his funeral Edie spies a mysterious, beautiful black woman who disappears almost as quickly as she is noticed.  Soon after, Edie and her mother Lillian are informed by the family attorneys of a codicil to Saul’s will; a provision that bequeaths a set of music entitled “Eight Pieces for Josette” to a young woman, Sunday Eubanks, in New Orleans. This is a composition heretofore unknown by Edie and both the discovery of the music and the mystery of the bequest upsets Edie’s world enormously; as her father’s archivist, the only role in his life he allowed her, she had been certain that she knew all of his work. Upon further investigation, Edie discovers an unfinished letter among her father’s possessions:

Dear Sunny, we’ve come to a dangerous place.  I must put an end to this self-indulgent, wretched charade before it’s too late.  It’s not fair to you.  It’s not fair to my daughter.  Let me explain…

She also finds a handwritten manuscript entitled “The Josette Variations,” one of which she recognizes as the encore he was playing at the concert; wedged within the manuscript is a telegram and faded photograph. The photo is of a theatrically beautiful woman with dramatically white skin; the telegram reads:

Thursday the thirtieth – the evening bells – I’ll be waiting – Josette.

Edie sets out on a path of discovery and against all advice, she takes off for New Orleans to find out why her father would will something so valuable to the mysterious Sunday (Sunny) Eubanks, a woman she finds singing in a jazz club. Edie is determined both to discover her father’s relationship with Sunny and to prevent her from gaining control of the music manuscript.

Sunny, the mystery woman at the funeral, is no pushover and lets Edie know in no uncertain terms that she will fight.  Edie sends Sunny the manuscript, but also, discovering that her father had paid the rent on Sunny’s jazz club, immediately stops payment.  Still, Sunny will not give up and, upon Edie’s return trip to New Orleans, Edie discovers that, contrary to her previous belief, Sunny was not her father’s mistress; Edie decides she must dig deeper, gradually bonding with Sunny in the search for her connection to Saul and the elusive Josette; a trip that eventually takes them both to Paris.

No Meaner Place: In this feature film script, Lemmons has found a perfect mix of romanticism, character growth, and atmosphere traveling from the stage of Carnegie Hall to a sophisticated flat in Manhattan; from the French Quarter (written pre-Katrina) in New Orleans to Montmartre in Paris with classical music and jazz as a background.  Although it is apparent all too soon what the relationship between the girls is, it is the path of discovery that both travel that widens the sphere of this story and the layers of hardness and hurt that are gradually peeled revealing hidden beauty.  Their biological relationship is less important than the truths both eventually uncover about and within themselves.  The journey is the message and it is a journey well worth taking.

From a studio standpoint, and this was a script “in development” at Searchlight (where it should have found a perfect home if they had ever put it into active development) after being in turnaround from Warner Brothers, this is a small movie, very much an independent in a shrinking independent world.  Though the “independent” movie is becoming increasingly rare and a tough sell at a large or even midsize studio, this story has the possibility of expanding from the art house niche as it is both a self discovery “romance” and buddy road pic.  Lamentably it is a marketer’s world and this will hinge on the poster, but within the several themes, a strong “poster” and message will emerge.  Further, despite the locations, this would not be an expensive film to make, as I’m sure Lemmons has already outlined in her many dealings with both studios.  Her experience as writer/director on “Eve’s Bayou” and “Talk to Me” show that she is highly skilled at economically produced, well developed character films.

Life Lessons for Writers:  There is no expiration date in the features world, just a need for enormous patience and determination.

Conversation with the Writer:

Neely: I fell in love with your storytelling with “Eve’s Bayou” and have to admit that I’m slightly intimidated because there’s already a lot out there on you.  You started as an actress and have some impressive credits.  Do you still take acting jobs or are you now permanently behind the camera?

Kasi: I’m pretty much permanently behind the camera.  I’d take an acting job if a friend offered it or I was directing something and I thought I was perfect for the role.

Neely: Is there anything you would have liked to have done…a role that you’d like to have played?

Kasi: I don’t think about that anymore.  I just don’t think about being in front of the camera.  But I still act – I act out all the roles I write, I just act them out inside myself when I’m writing.  It’s part of my writing process.  Acting was my first love.  Now I get that emotional release when I’m writing characters.  As a director, I’m passionate about actors.

Neely: I was immediately intrigued when I saw that you were born in St. Louis, had roots in Louisiana and then moved to Boston.  We spent 10 years in St. Louis after college (Washington University) and my husband’s best friend Fred grew up in St. Louis and his wife, my best friend, had roots in Louisiana.  African American, they lived through segregation and desegregation in both locations.  As a child in St. Louis you would still have been living at the tail end of that era and moving to Boston wouldn’t have been a lot better because they had all those South Boston busing riots in the 70s.  What do you remember of your childhood in all three places?

Kasi: I feel as if I grew up in a place that would be called St. Louis Tuskegee, Alabama because I spent an extended amount of time with my grandmother in Alabama.  In St. Louis I was surrounded by black society and was really unaware of race in any distinct manner. My mother was a psychologist, she got her Master’s at Washington University, and my father was a biology teacher. That all changed when I moved to Boston with my mother after my parents’ divorce.  I remember the first time racism was mentioned was when my mother, who was going to Harvard for a PhD, tried to get an apartment in Boston and felt that they were using unfair housing practices to keep us out. I was the only black girl in my elementary school and it’s there that I had my first encounter with racism.  I had to fight it everyday. Going from no experience with racism in the cloistered St. Louis society to racism in Boston was shocking.  I ended up loving Boston, though, because my mother was much happier and I went to an incredible high school, Commonwealth, and made lots of life-long friends. I still feel very close to Boston; maybe because I had to fight so hard.

Neely: You discovered acting at the Boston Children’s Theater after moving to Boston.  Did it lead to a professional acting career or did that come later?

Kasi: I discovered a love of performing and became myself there.  My first job came about because of the Boston Children’s Theater when an agency called the theater on behalf of a local TV show.  They were looking for someone to play the first child to integrate a classroom in a daytime courtroom drama called “You’ve Got a Right.”  It was my first experience auditioning and I got the role.

Neely: You started out at NYU/Tisch and transferred to UCLA where you majored in history.  Has that background in history informed your work? Any particular time period of history?

Kasi: I left Tisch for UCLA because I wasn’t yet done with academics.  I was interested in history, which continues to inform my work as a writer.  I studied the French Revolution.  I was fascinated by the bloodiness of it; the storming of the Bastille; the massacres, the aftermath.  It wasn’t tidy.  There were waves of execution; it was horrible and bloody and righteous.  I then went back to New York on a grant to study at the Alvin Ailey School.  It was fabulous; I danced all day.  Ailey had a big impact on me.  I gained a huge appreciation for the aesthetics.  I was moved by the aspect of the beauty and the fleeting nature of it – using the body to make art; it truly shaped my aesthetic view of the world.

I continued acting in commercials and little theater before going back to school in film at the New School for Social Research.  I went there with an interest in directing and cinematography.  I was interested in the image.  I wanted to make documentaries but my first film broke the rules because I used a fictional voice-over.  This was the first time where I saw myself as a filmmaker, and so did others.  The Black Filmmaker Foundation gave me a screening of my first film.  I believe it was part of a series of shorts, and significant members of the film community attended.  Spike Lee was there.  After that, Spike would always ask me, “When are you going to do your your feature?”

All this time I continued acting to support myself and I started to get more important roles in television and the theater.  I got my supporting role in “Silence of the Lambs” when I was attending film school.

Neely: At what point did you start viewing yourself as a writer?

Kasi: I guess after film school.  I was writing the whole time. I wrote plays based on personal experience and I would write scenes for my friends to do in acting class.  A turning point occurred when I auditioned for the Cosby show. Boldly, I asked him to look at the film I had made.  He wasn’t interested but he did say he was looking for writers.  I immediately said “I’m a writer!” He gave me a week to write a scene between a married couple – he doesn’t want a kid; she does and she doesn’t know how to tell him she’s pregnant. Excited, I returned to give him my scene and he had completely forgotten about it, he wasn’t even there and had to be tracked down.  He told me to give it to his associate Matt Robinson who read it and recommended me.  On the basis of that scene I was hired by Cosby to work on a screenplay for him with two other playwrights, P.J. Gibson and Lee Harkens.  It was an incredible educational experience and Bill Cosby became a true mentor to me.

Neely: Were you tempted to act in “Eve’s Bayou?”  Which role would it have been?

Kasi: I wrote “Eve’s Bayou” for myself.  It was actually a combination of short stories that I had written that kind of coalesced into a story that kept telling itself in my head, complete with flashes of lightning.  When I started writing it, I didn’t know whether it was a novel, a play or a screenplay.  When I realized it was a screenplay, I realized I was writing the role of Mozelle for myself, figuring one day when I was old enough and my dresses were getting a little tight I’d be ready and I’d find someone to make the film and I’d play Mozelle.

Neely: How did you get the money for “Eve’s Bayou” and how long did it take – what was the process? Can that same process work for “Josette?”

Kasi: I wrote it and then showed it to Vondie (note: Kasi is married to the actor Vondie Curtis Hall) who was so moved that he insisted that I show it to my acting agent, who in turn gave it to Frank Wuliger who became my writing agent.  Frank thought it was doable so we started looking for a director to attach to it.  Frank also found me work as a writer and I wrote whole scripts in between my various writing jobs.  Then on the morning of my birthday I woke and I realized that I needed to direct it because I had written a delicate piece of material and the best way to protect it was to do it myself.

Once I decided to direct it, Frank hooked me up with Cotty Chubb (of the insurance family).  Cotty encouraged me to direct a short film called “Dr. Hugo” to show what I was trying to do, which he and Frank personally co-financed.  “Dr. Hugo” was festivaled and is on the DVD of “Eve’s Bayou.”  In “Dr. Hugo,” Vondie played a sexy doctor who pays a house call.  While a child waits outside, the doctor seduces the patient, the child’s mother. It functioned sort of like a pilot for “Eve’s Bayou” and was integral in getting me the directing job.  People really responded.  In going for financing we sent around a package that included the short film and the “Eve’s Bayou” script.  Sam Jackson read the script and wanted to be that sexy doctor.  When Sam came on board, he was the ammunition to get Tri Mark to make the film.

Neely: I ask because it seems as if the environment has changed considerably in the case of independent features.  “Eve’s Bayou” successfully crossed over to all audiences and age groups because of its universal family function/dysfunction dynamic. “Eight Pieces for Josette” is almost mainstream compared to the quasi spiritual voodoo that rests at the soul of “Eve’s Bayou,” and yet I suspect that finding the financing and distribution for this beautiful film has been more difficult.

Kasi: It has been really difficult.  It would take the right combination of actresses.  So many have expressed a deep love for the script but I still can’t get it made.  I wanted Halle Berry to do it.  I could also imagine Thandie (Newton) and Nicole Kidman; or Halle and Naomi Watts; Halle and Julianne Moore.  It was a reflection on a different time. I thought it would be interesting to have two women who were paralyzed by not knowing their parents’ history.  Josette is set in the present, but circumstances cause the two leads to reflect on the generation before, the generation of their parents, which at the time I wrote it was the late sixties. A very romantic era in Paris.  As time went by, I realized it would have to be the seventies.  That’s cool too.  I always imagined the actresses in their thirties, so that would work.  But if I don’t get the film made soon, then they’re going to be reflecting back on the eighties. I suppose the eighties in Paris were romantic…but it’s not the same.  So I need to get it made soon.

Neely: I loved your view of Paris.  I so love Paris, its history, its warmth, its people (yes, I did say that), its language, its everything.  I’d kill to work there on location someday.  You know the character of Coco de Crécy in “Eight Pieces for Josette” triggered memories.  There was a star dancer/singer in one of the famous Parisian music halls in the 70s who was called the “new Josephine Baker” and it drove me crazy trying to remember who she was.  I did everything I could think of; finally I emailed a French cousin and she did the research (because she couldn’t remember either) and came up with the name.  It was Lisette Malidor.  She was from Martinique and she was discovered selling programs at the Casino de Paris by the famous French choreographer Roland Petit.  He created the show at the Casino de Paris where his wife Zizi Jeanmaire, a famous ballerina, was headlining and he put Lisette in the chorus.  Within a couple of years she replaced Zizi and was the toast of Paris, eventually headlining also at the Moulin Rouge and the Folies Bergère.  Performing nude bothered her at the beginning but she eventually came to understand this quote from Josephine Baker, “I wasn’t really naked. I simply didn’t have any clothes on.”

Kasi: I had never heard of her until you sent me the information!

Neely: One of the things I like best about your stories is the palpable atmosphere.  In “Eve’s Bayou” one could feel the thickness and humidity.  In “Eight Pieces for Josette” it starts out chilly in the rarified and sterile air of an aesthete Manhattan contrasted with raucous, disheveled and smoky New Orleans, the contrast of black and white, so to speak; and ending with the freer, warmer, environment of Paris where it still seems as if all things are possible and accepted.  How do you do that?!

Kasi: I don’t know.  I’m very familiar with the three places.  It’s intentionally a very romantic view of Paris.  I compare the story to opening a beautiful box of old jewelry. I’ve written about twenty scripts, some more atmospheric than the others, but all share the theme of “crossed boundaries.” I like to write about the grey areas of humanity; no one’s all good or bad – not completely heroic and not completely villainous; good people behaving badly.  I’ve written only one totally villainous character because I couldn’t find any redeeming qualities – Bull Connor.

I recently spent 6 weeks in Paris working on the screenplay for a project called “Strangers in Paris” under the auspices of a program called “Autumn Stories” that was co-sponsored and co-financed by the WGA, SASEM and the Ile de France Film Commission.  They select four established writers with screenplays that take place in Ile de France and put us up in an Abbey outside of Paris and help us research our subjects.  My family was able to join me for the last week of my stay.  Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to work on “Eight Pieces for Josette” under the same circumstances.

Neely: You also directed and did a rewrite of “Talk to Me.”  What kind of changes did you make to the original script, or rather, where in the process did you enter? How much of your rewrite appears on screen and how did the final writing credits read?

Kasi: I came on first as a writer but didn’t receive screen credit.  The script was already well framed and I loved the project.  My entrée into the project was strictly as a writer.

Neely: Your talent for casting is amazing.  “Eve’s Bayou” is a veritable who’s who of African American actors.  In “Talk to Me” you had the incomparable Don Cheadle, but you also cast one of my very favorite under the radar great actors – Chiwetal Ejiofor.  How did that directing assignment come about?

Kasi: After I came on board as a writer and fell in love with the project, I fought for that directing assignment.  I love Chiwetal.  Another actor had been chosen for that part but he fell out because of the deal and then the movie fell apart.  Months later when Don was still on board, Chiwetal was on a short list to play Dewey Hughes.  We got a great call from his agent saying that Chiwetal, who was in New York, was willing to meet us on his way back to London.

Neely: Interesting sense of direction.

Kasi: I know.  So he came in and Don read with him on the spur of the moment.  The chemistry was instantaneous and that was it.  He was our Dewey!

Neely: Did you know that you had three Kelley series regular alums in “Talk to Me” – Don Cheadle (“Picket Fences”), Vondie Curtis Hall (“Chicago Hope”) and Taraji P. Henson (“Boston Legal”)?

Kasi: I’d never thought of it before.  All three are amazing.

Neely: Do you still write plays?

Kasi: Not in a long time, but I have an idea I’d like to pursue. I have lots more ideas than time.

Neely: We already spoke of casting hopes for “Eight Pieces for Josette”, which leads to a related question – do you ever write characters with certain actors in mind?

Kasi: As a final note on the casting of “Josette,” when I get it made it will depend on who will be the right age at the time. It’s age-specific.  Fox Searchlight came close to making it but now it’s mine again.  I will make it.

Neely: When I googled you one of the sites that came up was “Who is Kasi Lemmons dating?”  You’ll be happy to hear that the only picture that popped up was your husband Vondie Curtis Hall.  Both you and Vondie have cast each other in small roles in the films you’ve written and directed.  Who is he going to play in “Eight Pieces for Josette?”

Kasi: I need to correct you on that because I’ve given Vondie significant roles in my previous films. I’m not sure he’s in this one.  Maybe at the beginning he was Buzz.  We’ll see.

Neely: You were out scouting locations last week for your new directing project.  What is it and how far along are you?

Kasi: It was for an HBO film on the Duke Lacrosse case.  I’m directing it.  We’re at the point of making up lists of potential casting choices.  Filming will start in April if everything goes according to plan.

Neely: I can’t wait to see it and hope that I won’t have to wait much longer for “Eight Pieces for Josette”.

January 20, 2010

“It is no use saying, ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.” – Winston Churchill

Filed under: Conversations With, Palmer, Pilots, Pilots not produced, Writers — Tags: , , , — Neely Swanson @ 11:18 am

King of the Road by Michael Oates Palmer

What: Detroit is undergoing a retrenchment crisis and Baker Motors will go under if drastic measures aren’t taken.

Who: A cancer is growing in the Detroit headquarters of the nearly insolvent Baker Motors, aspirant to big three status.  When alcoholic reviled General Manager Ed Thornhill becomes road kill in an accident because of his abhorrence of seatbelts, the shambles of poor production, bad book keeping, cost overruns, labor unrest and general disharmony becomes undeniable and the Old Man, as the CEO is known,  appoints an outsider, the Ivy League-educated, Robert McNamara look-alike, Dick Pratt, appointed over pretty boy, company-culture drenched Baker Motors lifer Jack Mileski. Jack, the best cheerleader Baker Motors could ever hope for is blindsided by the Old Man’s disloyalty and will stop at nothing to undermine and destroy Pratt.  Pratt, an outsider in every manner of speaking, still clings to his intellectual life in Ann Arbor with his political activist wife and autistic son.  Jack, on the other hand, revels in the trappings of success with his big house, beautiful, bored wife and angry teenage son.  For trappings are what they are – symbols of success – to show off but not necessarily care for.  His celebration with the family at the local country club on the evening before Thornhill’s funeral was, to say the least, premature.  His solace is taken at the home of Cassie, the beautiful young African American Baker Motors cafeteria waitress.  There is a familiarity between them that speaks of a long term secret relationship involving a “love child.”  Ellen, Jack’s wife, bored out of her mind with Jack and her life in suburbia has her own extra-curricular activities with Cliff.  There “solace” is carried out in low rent hourly motel rooms – delicious, illicit sex and nothing but.

Jack’s true love is cars – Baker Motors’ cars and especially his new baby, the Mariah; and it’s all personal because he has already promised the assembly line that they will continue with its production and that production will be nowhere but in Detroit.  Dick Pratt, however, has other ideas and this is where a battle of Shakespearean proportions will play out between them because Dick Pratt is not a car person, he’s a money person and after going over the books, he realizes that the situation is worse than even he imagined. The sloppy bookkeeping reeks of fraud:

Pratt: You are the Vice President in charge of assembly.  How much did it cost to assemble each Renata coupe?

Humphries: How much do you want it to cost?

Pratt: I think you misunderstood.  I’m not talking about our goals for the future. I’m just asking what it’s cost in the past.

Humphries: And I’m saying to you. For the purposes of your accounting. You tell me how much you want it to have cost. And I’ll give you that number.

In order to right the company drastic measures will have to be taken and he may have to move operations out of Detroit, cut production, cut jobs, and certainly cut the Mariah.  Knowing that his pet project is on the line, Jack informs Cliff, his close friend and chief stylist of Baker Motors, that he must find a way to cut design costs on the Mariah. Cliff, believing that the company’s fortunes rest with designing a car similar to the VW Bug, resists until:

Jack: You’ve been sleeping with Ellen for ten months.

Cliff: You’re crazy.

Jack: Don’t do that. Give me a little credit. That I know what’s been going on. You’re wondering, how long has he known? Since it began.  Since you had the idea of it in a drunk daydream. I’ve let it go on as long as I have. Not for her sake. Or mine. But for yours.

Cliff: My sake?

Jack: I need you on top of your game. I know the women, they always help you with that. Remember the six months, years ago, when you got religion? When you didn’t drink? Didn’t screw? You turned in the worst work of your fucking career. (beat, then) You’ll never commit to any of them, buddy. I’d rather my wife be with you, than some guy who might actually try to take her away.

Jack walks over to Cliff.

Jack: The Mariah can save this company, Cliff.

Cliff, annihilated by this conversation, barely manages to speak.

Jack, looking for more angles, discovers that Dick’s departure from Ford was precipitated by mental issues and begins to look for ways to use this capital to his advantage beginning with undermining Dick’s fragile family.  At Jack’s urging, the Old Man forces Dick to move his family from their home and friends in Ann Arbor to the tony, acquisitive suburbs of Detroit; he then torpedoes Dick’s plans to scrap the Mariah and move part of production to Arkansas.  The only concession is that Dick will be allowed to consolidate production in Detroit, closing one plant and throwing hundreds out of work.  Jack has won this battle but the war is far from over as his lieutenants, tiring of his autocratic leadership, slowly start to defect to Dick.

A resonance with today’s difficulties in the automotive industry?  You betcha! Except this is 1966.

No Meaner Place: Is this Pulitzer Prize winning material?  No, of course not.  This is a great big juicy soap opera and what the world needs every so often is a great big juicy soap opera where everyone is sleeping with everyone else and tensions abound and villains wear black hats and the setting is something we all understand.  Although clearly influenced by the “Mad Men” phenomenon, which may have been viewed as an impediment, there should still be room for a period piece that has clear resonance to today’s troubled times in Detroit (or at least what’s left of it).

American Motors, troubled in the 60s, did last into the 70s with a car that saved it from the grim reaper for a few years – the Gremlin, a joke punch line that predated the move to compact cars at GM, Ford and Chrysler.  It would have been fun to follow the making of that car and the eventual dissolution of the company, again predating the troubles of today.

Where would this go?  Who cares?  The characters are fun, the setting is familiar and written in such a way as to limit production costs – hell, Michigan is looking to fund series and features that would come to Detroit and use the abandoned automotive facilities still standing. AH!  To return to an era of conspicuous consumption, haves and have-nots, hypocrisy, financial mayhem, creative accounting, war protests, campus unrest, labor union strife, and a president with a funny name who has a clear domestic agenda and a very flawed foreign policy.

Life Lessons for Writers:  Altogether now – NBC, a company living out its own soap opera.

Conversation with the Writer:

Neely: I’ve actually been aware of your writing since 2003 when I read your spec pilot entitled “Gracie Mansion” when you were a staff writer on “West Wing.”  I vaguely remember that one of the things you brought to the table was a background in politics.  Is that correct?

Michael: Yes.  It’s really a family background thing.  I was steeped in politics at an early age.  My maternal grandfather was president of a Teamsters’ Local in Philly; he was a dyed in the wool Democrat.  My paternal grandfather got involved with left-wing politics in California; I guess you could say he was something of a Socialist.  He went to Berkeley with the guys involved in the Manhattan Project; his degree was in engineering.  His Socialist background kept him off the oil rigs he was trained to work on because he couldn’t get a security clearance so he ended up working at a meat packing plant as a renderer – it was as bad as it sounds.  My mother dropped out of Penn to be a political reporter in the 60s at UPI.  After she left UPI she became the deputy press secretary to Eugene McCarthy during his ’68 Presidential campaign.  She met my dad at Berkeley when he was student body president from ’68-’69.  Later he was the head of another student organization that got him on Nixon’s Enemies List.  Dad went to Yale for law school and Mom went to Yale for Divinity School.  They were there with both Clintons – they were supposedly on the Clintons’ first double date — and I have this great picture of the four of them where you either go “Wow! Look at Bill Clinton’s hair!” or you go “Where on earth did your mom get those boots?”  My parents divorced in 1981, and they shared custody; it was all very civilized and everyone got along.  My mom married my stepdad, Bob Shrum, in 1987.  Bob had a big career in politics, first as a speechwriter for George McGovern and Ted Kennedy and then later as John Kerry’s chief strategist.

I never really wanted to get involved in politics because I’d already seen behind the curtain; I wanted to work in film and TV and went to AFI toward that goal.  But when I first tried to land a TV writing job in 2001, there was talk of a writers’ strike and all the jobs dried up. So I went back east to New York for a job as a speech writer for Mark Green who was running for mayor.  It was a great job for a writer.  I went from writing speeches about reforming trash collection, and then 9/11 happened, and suddenly I was writing a eulogy for the fire chaplain who was killed.  I came back to LA after Mark lost the election to Bloomberg and I landed a staff writing job on “The West Wing.”

Neely: You’ve come a long way as a writer as far as I’m concerned.  You’ve always leaned toward soap opera, first with “Gracie Mansion,” then with “Gonzo,” and now with “King of the Road.”  With each pilot you’ve dug deeper and fleshed out your characters more so that now you’ve reached a point where there is depth in both the situation and the characters.

Michael: Well, you always hope that’s the arc your writing will take.

Neely: I remember that Margaret Nagle was somewhat taken aback when I referred to “The Eastmans” as a soap opera, but quite honestly any character-based series with a serial thru-line is, at the root of it, a soap opera.  Any comments? Agree? Disagree?

Michael: Fundamentally, I guess I agree, although writers recoil from the term, because it brings to mind Linda Evans and Joan Collins in a cat fight.  I prefer the phrase “character-oriented drama.”  I always loved the work of Zwick/Herskovitz on “thirtysomething;” and Josh Brand and John Falsey’s shows “Northern Exposure” and “I’ll Fly Away.” “Homicide” was an ensemble show with serialized character arcs, so that was, in its own way, a soap opera, too.  They made me want to write for TV.  “The Sopranos,” “Six Feet Under,” “The Shield,” even, to a certain extent “The Wire” all fit into that rubric.

There’s an art to writing a good “Law and Order.”  Plot is hard and a good mystery plot is hardest. But I was a character writer who kept getting put on procedurals and it wasn’t a good fit.  In character dramas, you’re less interested in the process of the job, and more in how the job affects the characters and how the other characters affect the characters. Luckily things have opened up a bit since 2003 when it seemed like everything was a procedural.

When my producing partner on “King of the Road,” Laverne McKinnon, and I took it out there, eventually selling it to Showtime, we embraced the term soap opera.  We thought of it as a Trojan Horse – emphasize the salacious, sexy soap opera parts of the show to sell it, so that we could also explore themes that might at first glance seem more cerebral or intellectual. FX specializes in male-oriented soaps. The audience loves these shows as long as they are set in interesting surroundings.  You know, legal shows and medical shows don’t work if there’s not a courtroom or an ER.  There has to be a place for them to connect. I’ve always been drawn to ensembles.

Neely: Your rise has been steady since the “West Wing” with a heavy dose of legal – “Blind Justice” and “Shark” with a dose of whimsy in “Cupid.”

Michael: I feel as if there have been setbacks and strong years. But the biggest setbacks have led to even bigger opportunities.  I wrote “Gracie Mansion” as a spec after losing my job on “West Wing” when Aaron Sorkin left the show and the new regime arrived.  The first good thing that happened with that script is that it brought me new representation with Ann Blanchard and Lanny Noveck, then at William Morris.  I’d been unemployed for a year and they sent the script to Steven Bochco who hired me on his new show “Blind Justice.”

I liked working on my next show, “In Justice.” There are writers who do well when they are motivated by the fear of disappointing the angry parent.  I always did better wanting to please the good parent.  Every writer has been in the position of needing help in the beginning and it wasn’t until “In Justice” that someone took that kind of interest in me – Jeff Melvoin (“Picket Fences,” “Northern Exposure,” “Alias”) who was running the room on the show.  Also at about this time, Lanny knew I could use a big brother figure.  He said, “There’s a client of mine I’d like you to meet.” “Is he running a show?” I asked. “Not right now.  His name is Robert Nathan (“Law & Order,” “SVU,” “CI”).” He just thought we’d hit it off. Robert and I had lunch together – a lunch that went on for three hours; I felt I’d known him forever and realized I’d made a friend for life.  Both Robert and Jeff were and are so generous with their time and spirit, and were patient with a young writer’s arrogance and entitlement – it made a huge impact. I like meeting other writers with experience. I’m always going to do better with a grownup than a 32 year old comic book guy.

My next job was on “Shark,” but like most of the other procedurals, this one didn’t play to my strengths. Losing my job on “Shark” opened up the door to development and I sold three pilots in two years.  This led to my being considered for shows that were better fits.  I loved working on “Cupid,” Rob Thomas’s series where I also got to work with Jill Gordon (“The Wonder Years”), Cindy Chupack (“Sex and the City”) and Diane Ruggiero (“Veronica Mars”).  There is a quote by Tolstoy that reminds me of most writers’ rooms – “All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”  This was a happy writers’ room; no one on “Cupid” was Machiavellian; it was pretty douchebag-free.

Neely: You came close on your pilot called “Gonzo.”  Where did you shop this one and what kinds of comments did you get?

Michael: This was a pilot I wrote on spec at the end of “In Justice.”  It was a pilot about war correspondents in Central America in the early 80s that I did as a writing sample, but Ann and Lanny sent it to a couple of executives at two small production companies.  One of the companies had a deal with Touchstone so an executive named Dan Pipski at Live Planet, the Matt Damon/Ben Affleck company, sent it over to what’s now called ABC Studios.  But ABC Studios was developing a war correspondent pilot with Shonda Rhimes so they couldn’t do it.  It then went to Adelstein-Parouse, who sold it to 20th Century Fox’s television studio.  But 20th didn’t feel it could work on network television.  Meanwhile, Scott Pennington, another exec then at Touchstone, saw that AMC was doing the “Mad Men” pilot and out of the blue just sent it to Christina Wayne, then at AMC in New York.  She loved it and wanted to do it.  At that same time, 20th released “Gonzo,” turning their deal for it into a blind script deal, allowing “Gonzo” to go to AMC.  Unfortunately, a year later, there was a change in regime and the new execs didn’t respond to it.  “Gonzo” originally arriving at ABC Studios changed my career.  That Scott Pennington would like it enough to send it somewhere he thought it might fit, to an executive he’d never even met, still blows me away.  As an interesting side note, a few years later I was at ABC Family to meet with an exec who was unavailable so they asked if I might be able to talk to someone in her place.  That someone was Scott Pennington, and I finally got a chance to say thank you.

Neely: Why did this topic – Detroit and the automotive industry – resonate with you.  It must have taken a lot of research.

Michael: Research is the fun part. I was a history major at Brown, and my honors thesis was about Congress going after rock ‘n roll in the 50s. My thesis advisor, Howard Chudacoff, one of the great urban historians, was a great influence.  For me, the best part of development is reading books.  With “King of the Road,” I was totally into baseball until I was 13, then and ever after it was rock ‘n roll — I was never that guy with posters of cars on the wall.  But a few years ago I was watching Errol Morris’ documentary “The Fog of War” about Robert McNamara, who before he was Secretary of Defense was one of the “whiz kids” that saved Ford Motors. Here was a guy who thought he could solve and explain everything with numbers.  That was a character I wanted to delve into.  I wanted to explore an America that used to make things and how when we lost that, we lost something essential. I wanted to explore how men work together and how they fight.  And how the worst wars sometimes don’t have a single drop of blood shed.  This was an “art vs. commerce” story – there were men who were first and foremost about the cars, and there were men who were instead, like McNamara, all about the company.  We’d already seen so many shows and movies about the late 60s, all focusing on the counter culture.  I wanted to go from blue collar to elite, go from Johnson to Nixon. It was a fantastic sandbox to play in.

I spent a year researching King of the Road, in part because I had two other pilots that were both still alive at AMC and ABC.  Once the AMC one, “Gonzo,” died, Laverne McKinnon, who was working as the TV producer for director Mike Newell (”Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Donnie Brasco,” “Harry Potter 4″)  and I pitched it to FX, HBO, and Showtime.  FX liked it, but passed due to fear of “Mad Men” similarities; HBO passed; and Showtime bought it.

Showtime had a very high-class problem: all of their shows on the air were working for them. This meant they had little in the way of needs — as evidenced by their not ordering to series any of the four pilots they had produced in 2009, including projects with prominent talent involved (a Peter Tolan pilot starring Matthew Perry, another project produced by Jenji Kohan, and a pilot directed by Tim Robbins). Out of thirty or so pilot scripts, they ended up only ordering one to be produced, a half-hour about cancer with Laura Linney attached, which was recently ordered to series.  Gary Levine and Danielle Gelbar at Showtime were very supportive of our project and took a chance on it, but the concern that FX had proved to be the concern that Showtime had — even though we felt there were real differences between this and “Mad Men,” it was still a show about men doing business in the 1960s.

It also probably lacked enough of what has become Showtime’s brand in recent years — a high concept with a jaw-dropping twist.  ”Weeds” is about a soccer mom… who becomes a drug dealer.  ”Dexter” is about a serial killer… who works for the Miami police department.  ”Californication” is about a sex addict… who loves his wife. Laverne and I tried to frame “King of the Road” in a similar way — “it’s a show about war… in the battlefield of American business,” but in the end, it might have been a show better suited for HBO or FX.

Neely: Brands change and shows go off the air, so maybe there’s hope. You’re absolutely right about how interesting the history is and maybe someone will revisit. There was just so much to tap into.  While I was trying to fill in some of the gaps I discovered the blood bath in the Fifties between Hudson, Nash, Packard and Studebaker and that George W. Romney, the former presidential candidate’s father, headed Nash Studebaker before becoming Governor of Michigan – yet another confluence of the two eras.

Michael: Well, in a way it was also a family influence that led me to this story.  When I was a kid, my Grandfather Ray, the Teamster organizer, would drive me around the industrial part of Philly and show me all the boarded up warehouses and point to one of them and say “Dead;” then to another and say “dead; and so on, many many times. I remember going through Trenton, NJ and there was this big sign that said “Trenton Makes. America Takes.” That world doesn’t exist anymore.  First there was the manufacturing in the Rust Belt; then it was moved to the so-called “right-to-work” South; and then everything was moved overseas.  We no longer Make.

Neely: I noticed that you are now working on “Rubicon” for AMC.

Michael: “Rubicon” is the show that beat out “Gonzo” in the production derby.  I’m working with some great writers on that show and am looking forward to seeing how it all turns out.

Neely: I noticed that Henry Bromell, who worked for many years on one of your favorites, “Homicide,” is the showrunner.  Please say hello to him for me.

January 12, 2010

“In those big floppy shoes and baggy pants, Bongo really should have assumed running for safety was a long shot.” – Shayne-Michael.com

Filed under: Conversations With, Feature Films — Tags: , , , — Neely Swanson @ 10:55 am

Bullsh*t by Ben Murray

What: “Gorgeous” Gordon Lippick was the hottest commodity on the bull riding rodeo circuit until he rode “Furious George,” the biggest meanest ugliest bull and crashed out of the money.  Years later Gorgeous is an alcoholic foul-mouthed rodeo clown bent on revenging himself on the long missing Furious.

Who: Once the handsomest, sexiest, most talented bull rider in the world, Gorgeous Gordon Lippick is now no more than a joke; a foul-mouthed, foul smelling, dirt poor falling-down drunk rodeo clown.  His rung on the ladder is so low it’s subterranean. Still haunted by nightmares of his humiliating downfall on Furious George, the bull with only one cloven hoof, when he crashed into a fence and slashed his leg, he dreams of nothing but finding the bull and killing it.  Still all attempts at locating the bull have failed.  Miserable sod that he is, Gordon thinks nothing of screwing everyone in sight in order to get the information he wants.

A kid comes up to him.

Kid: Hey mister! Mister Gorgeous!

Gorgeous: Fuck you want?

Kid: I got you what you asked for.

He hands him a six pack of Genessee.

Gorgeous: Oh. Good work. You find the other thing?

Kid: Yup.

Gorgeous: Up front? You kidding?

The kid shakes his head, “no.” Gorgeous roots around in his pockets, comes out with a Band-aid, some Tums, a dollar and a mint.  He hands it to the kid.

Kid: That’s it?

Gorgeous: Actually I need the Tums.

Kid: A dollar?

Gorgeous: What are you, buying a Lexus?  You’ll get it. What do you got?

Kid: I saw it – a round hoof with no dent in it. My friend Joey showed me.

Gorgeous: Are you completely certain?

The kid nods and Gorgeous laboriously rises, favoring one leg.  He takes a blue pill, swallows it with beer.

Kid: Why is you leg hurt?  Did a bull stab you with its horn?

Gorgeous: No, it shot me with a crossbow, douchebag. Now c’mon, show me.

False trail, this time it was a horse, follows false trail, next time a droopy cow, all the while Gorgeous finds new ways to piss off everyone.

INT. THE RODEO RING –NIGHT

Gorgeous lurches forward wasted.  As he gets to the center, a bull and rider erupt from the chute and charge toward him…The bull…charges for Gorgeous, who runs for his life.  He barely escapes as the bull runs out.  Gorgeous pants, feels something rising in his gut.  He staggers to a barrel and PUKES into it in one great heave.  He stands up, relieved, and then another clown stands – the one in the barrel.

Gorgeous does, however, have one fan – “Tupelo” Tom Cody, a young wannabe cowboy who, despite the abuse, believes that Gorgeous can help him get a spot on the circuit.  Soon he has another one when he passes out in a corral.

He moves to get up and she grabs him by the arm to help.

Bobbie Joe: Easy. Just thought you might want a little help.

Gorgeous: Yeah well I don’t. I don’t need help from…

Bobbie Joe: Bobbie Joe Slayton.

Gorgeous: From you or any other lesbian, Bobbie Joe Slayton.  In fact, I’m tired of people offering me things. Next person offers me something, I’m going to tear out their goddam liver, take a big bite, then wipe my ass with the rest of it, got it?

Bobbie Joe: I just thought you might want these.

Gorgeous: What?

He looks around, realizes he’s in the corral for the children’s pony rides – in just his skivvies.  Around him is a ring of shocked parents and toddlers.

Gorgeous: Oh.

Bobbie Joe wants to break the barrier and become the first female bull rider and she needs Gorgeous’ help to do this.  In return she will help him locate Furious.  Progress is made.

No Meaner Place: “Bullsh*t” was Murray’s thesis script at the USC School of Cinema in the MFA writing program for which he received distinction from his thesis professor, Howard Rodman, a well respected screenwriter most recently nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for “Savage Grace.”  Murray was one of my students in “The Entertainment Industry Seminar” in 2008. Following the end of the semester I was approached by several of the students to read their scripts and give them notes, which I did for everyone…everyone but Ben.  I had no notes to give him.  I loved this story from the first page to the last.  Everytime it looked like this profane adventure was going to go in a conventional direction along came a twist and off it went in a different direction.  Every time it seemed that redemption was around the corner, Murray stayed true to his character’s nature.  Gorgeous is, for all practical purposes, unredeemable but not bad.  Certainly he’s no “hooker with a heart of gold,” but neither is he The Devil, just a devil.  Bad things have happened and been done to him.

Never has profanity been used more creatively and the situations are filled with pratfalls and slapstick although veering toward the violent but to hilarious effect yielding a true cinematic vision.  He has created three dimensional, delightfully down and dirty characters that any actor would relish.  Will Ferrell was born to play this derelict.

Amazingly, there has been very little interest in the screenplay.  It has been optioned by a small production company, for which he is very grateful; but this is a large summer-scale movie and deserves studio backing, as well as interest from a first tier agency.

Life Lessons for Writers:  Sometimes when you’re right you have to wait until they figure it out; and with features it’s all about the waiting.

Conversation with the Writer:

Neely: As previously noted, Ben was one of my students at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, and like all of his classmates was required to write either a feature or a pilot as his Masters Thesis project.  “Bullsh*t” was that thesis, receiving distinction from Howard Rodman.  What everyone needs to know about Ben is that he’s actually quite mild mannered, extremely polite, and quite deferential (or at least that’s how he is to his professors…).  He even warned me about the profanity before I read the script (so obviously he knows the real me as much as I know the real him).  So, Ben… Where the hell did this come from?

Ben: Well, from two different places, I guess.  I covered some rodeo for a tiny newspaper in Colorado.  They wanted a different angle and I decided to write about the bulls and the breeders as a way into the cowboys.  These are very small regional rodeos with cowboys hoping to move up to the bigger leagues.  Three are maybe a dozen competitors with an audience that numbers in the hundreds.  When it came to writing my script, I wanted to stick to something that would stand out in this crappy rodeo circuit.  Originally it was going to be the story of a girl making it in rodeo but then because of my own profane tendencies the story of the clown came in and then took over.  ‘What would be an obsession for the clown to have?’ and it developed into the idea of the clown assassinating a bull.

Neely: Like most of the MFA students you had a career before going back to school.  Please describe your trajectory from college to grad school.

Ben: I majored in journalism at a school no one has heard of called St. Michaels in Vermont because I thought it was one way to satisfy my need to travel.  Immediately after school I boarded a plane and got out in the town of Sitka, Alaska for a job that had already been set up for me.  It was actually more of an internship than a job covering community news – city council, school boards, fishing competitions, and bear stalkings – reports of bears stalking people in the woods.  Sitka was on an island of 10 miles of dead end roads that was over-populated with bears.  After 6 months I flew to Boston to work for monster.com which was quite hip at the time.  It drove me crazy for a year where I wrote articles about jobs and interviews.  But then I read this piece about someone working in Antarctica and I had to go.  I fought hard to get any kind of a job there and I ended up as a janitor at McMurto Station for 6 months. I tried to put some of those experiences in the pilot that you read; but I’ve tabled it for now. Then I came back and floated between Boston and Alaska before getting the job in Colorado.  Eventually I ended up with a job in Europe, primarily England and Germany, where I covered the U.S. military.  It was an amazing job, covering the military overseas which included a stint covering combat in Iraq for 7 weeks.

Neely: What was your impetus for going back to grad school?

Ben: I was stationed in Bavaria.  It was very isolated, very German and very depressing and I decided that maybe I should go back to school.  As I had flirted with film in college, applying to film school was the only thing I really wanted to try so I sent one application only (to USC) with the idea that if it hits, I’ll give it a ride.

Neely: You are at the beginning of your career, the first “breaking in” part, as Phoef Sutton might have described it.  What have you been doing since graduation?  How are you keeping a food on the table?

Ben: My day job is writing articles about social issues for the social-action website of Participant Media.  They were producers on “Good Night and Good Luck,” “Syriana,” and “An Inconvenient Truth.”  It’s not scintillating work but it keeps a roof over my head.

Neely: What kind of meetings did you get out of “Bullsh*t?  Anybody get offended?

Ben: Actually they’ve been few and far between, mainly with managers who liked the script and wanted a general meeting.  I sent it out a lot.  Some responded that “it was a bit strong for their taste,” but no one came out and said they were offended.  I got a couple of follow-up meetings but so far no real nibbles for representation.

Neely: How were you able to get it out there?

Ben: The big hook was the USC script list.  USC sends the list all over town and I got a lot of requests from that as well as requests from my meetings at “First Pitch.”  Howard Rodman was a big supporter and handed it to Stuart Cornfeld at Red Hour Films, and that led to an informal meeting on the set of his latest pilot.

Neely: Well, even though it didn’t go anywhere with him, you never know.  Everything in Hollywood has a long gestation period. I understand it’s been optioned by Andrew Lauren who produced the “Squid and the Whale.”  Any idea where he plans on taking it?

Ben: They do smaller financing but they’d like to step up a bit with a bigger budget.  They’d like to attach some actors before going out for more money.  They want to put together an attractive package before going to the next phase.

Neely: What has the development process been like?  What about the notes?

Ben: The option was predicated on their original notes which were some pretty good character notes.  They wanted to flesh out the villain so he wasn’t just a “black hat” and develop Gorgeous’ side kick a bit more, give them more dimension.  They also wanted more of a rooting interest for Gorgeous; to get the audience on his side quicker, which is tricky because you don’t want to make him really likable.  Since then it’s been variations on those scenes.  They wanted to eliminate the Gorgeous love story (note: this arc was not mentioned in the above synopsis) which, while psychologically difficult for me did end up opening up the room to further develop the other characters.

Neely: What about the development process when you were writing the script for class?

Ben: There was a scene that I absolutely loved that I had to drop.  I still think about it, it was so vivid and I was desperate to make it work.  This cowboy, one of the secondary villains, had a hormone condition that gave him absolutely perfect breasts and I had a sequence where Gorgeous was trying to deal with the cowboy while he was pumping his breasts.  I loved the imagery but sadly it’s for a different film.  It was way too over the top and I didn’t discover that until I did a cold read in class.  It was clear it didn’t fit.

Neely: How much of you is in Gorgeous and would your friends agree?

Ben: The language is me, well at least among my friends where I use the F-bomb quite liberally.  I can’t lay claim to a being a decade-long alcoholic at the bottom, but after a few beers I definitely sound like Gorgeous.  I just chose to apply my most vulgar self to the fiction.

Neely: What else are you working on?  How are you mining that diverse background of yours?

Ben: I’m part of a new program at the USC film school called “First Team.”  They try to pair someone from each discipline – writer, director and producer – to come up with a script, a budget and a marketing plan.  Then the film school sends it out to select agents and production companies.  It was by application open to any alumni and they took 30 from each discipline.  My feature is another R-rated comedy and it’s due in a couple of weeks; so we’ll see.

Neely: As one who is not from around these here parts, how are you adjusting?  Do you get restless to go back into the wilderness?

Ben: Only just so well.  It’s complicated.  LA is a real challenge and I’d rather be out in the nowhere doing something interesting day-to-day.  Covering the military was the highlight for me.  Here I’m writing so much it’s an isolating experience.  I was happier when I was adventuring in someway; it generated better stories.  Like Antarctica: there I worked 10-hour shifts cleaning hallways and then, later, driving buses in 24-hour daylight to airports made out of floating sea ice. Awesome. Do I get restless to go back to the wilderness? I would leave for Antarctica tomorrow if someone offered it. Really. Or Siberia, maybe, or Afghanistan to cover the troops.  L.A. – I just try to good naturedly hate it here.

Neely: I wish you well and hope that someone reading this will be in a position to help you get a good agent and push you in the direction you want to go.

January 6, 2010

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” – William Faulkner

Filed under: Conversations With, Cosin, Pilots, Pilots not produced, Writers — Tags: , , — Neely Swanson @ 9:57 am

“Chapel Hill” by Elizabeth Cosin

What: Lucy Remington Wright finds herself at age 38 back where she began so promisingly with a daughter to support, no education and on her own for the first time in fifteen years.

Who: Lucy Wright received a triple blow when she discovered that her husband, George, a newly appointed partner in Lucy’s father’s Manhattan law firm, had been cheating on her, that her father knew about it and that the SEC was closing in on George for investment fraud.  Soon to be divorced, Lucy, all of whose assets and property have been frozen by the SEC, packs up her rebellious 13 year old daughter Zoe and decides to move back to the one place where she had felt support, comfort and promise – “Chapel Hill”, NC.  She had left college to marry George and now feels an irresistible pull to start again where she left off.  Zoe, a child of Upper East Side privilege is very none too happy about this decision and begins plotting her return before they have even left the state. Already arguing about radio music on the drive out of the city – Lucy likes James Taylor, Zoe likes Eminem and there is no twain there:

Zoe: You kidnap me to Hicksville and I don’t even have my iPod anymore.  What’s the government want with it anyway?

Lucy: Probably for homeland security.  Spook the terrorists.

Zoe: It’s not funny.  I really love my iPod.  I need it.  Especially where we’re going.

Lucy: You know they have running water in “Chapel Hill”.  And electricity, too.

Zoe: If it was so great, why didn’t you stay?

Lucy: I dropped out of college to marry your father.  I guess right now that’s not looking like the smartest thing I ever did, huh?

Living arrangements in “Chapel Hill” are abysmal and Lucy’s work prospects are even worse until Garland Rucker, a friend from her past, offers her a receptionist job at his chaotic legal aid office.  Lucy immediately digs in and reaching out when she encounters the desperate mother of a Muslim student who has been expelled from the University because of a cheating scandal.  As the mother explains, her daughter, a star student and champion soccer player, couldn’t possibly done what the school alleges, but the daughter refuses to defend herself; Garland has closed the case because of the girl’s lack of cooperation.  A preliminary, off the books investigation leads Lucy to believe in the girl’s innocence and a possible conspiracy on the part of another student and a powerful faculty member.

Zoe has seemingly adjusted well at school, having attracted the attention of the popular girls.  Her comfort is short lived, however, when she participates in a hurtful scheme concocted by her new “friends.”  Zoe, alienated by her surroundings and feeling abandoned decides that she will return back to New York and live with her father.  Lucy, hurt by Zoe’s decision, supports it nonetheless, making sure that Zoe knows that she will always be there for her.

Zoe exits the First Avenue bus terminal.  She sees a man holding up a sign with her name on it.

Zoe: where’s my Dad?

Driver: He had to leave town for a few days.  Everything you need is at the apartment.

Zoe: When will he be back?

Driver: He didn’t say.

She soon returns to her mother, determined to make the best of what she still considers a pitiful situation.

No Meaner Place: Cosin has written a warm, interesting character piece that, in the best tradition of both comedy and drama, is essentially about a fish-out-of-water adjusting to a new, smaller aquarium.  The character of Lucy, though wounded, is a strong, resilient role model who decides that in order to move on with life she needs to start back at the point where she made her first missteps, as she realized almost immediately that leaving school and marrying George were colossal mistakes and that making the best of bad situations isn’t the same as moving in a positive direction.  Zoe is a marvelous depiction of a teenager with all the contradictions of personality that exist –petulant/enthusiastic, hateful/loving, rude/considerate.  As in all well-constructed pilots, we know who these characters are and eagerly await their growth and learning curves as they face new circumstances.

CBS commissioned this script in the 2005/2006 pilot season for possible launch in the 2006/2007 broadcast season but did not produce it to pilot.  I would still like to believe that it is unusual for something of this quality not to get a green light.  Researching that pilot season on Studio System I found that of the 121 scripts that CBS bought, 28 were produced – 12 dramas (among which was “Orpheus” by Nick Meyer), and 16 comedies. The shows that premiered in the 2006/2007 broadcast season were “Smith,” “Rules of Engagement,” “3 Lbs” (reshot from the previous pilot season), “The Class,” “Jericho,” and “Shark” – 4 dramas and 2 comedies, only one of which, “Rules of Engagement, may still be on the schedule.  Elizabeth was in excellent company as Ed Bernero, Denise Di Novi, Tim Kring, Barry Sonnenfeld,  Barry Schindel and Shane Black all wrote scripts that went unproduced.

The good news in this bad news situation is that since this very well written script was not produced, it will within a short time return to Cosin’s control; and as she writes of a universal situation, it does not have an expiration date.  More interesting, though, would be to try to interest the CW or a cable network such as Lifetime to take this to series.

Life Lessons for Writers:  If they don’t make it you’ll get it back. But better yet, if they don’t make it the first time, find a reason for them to make it the next time.

Conversation with the Writer:

Neely: Elizabeth, in the interest of full disclosure, everyone should know that we’ve been friends for a long time.  That being said, sending me your script was risky because I have always told you how I felt one way or the other – sometimes good, sometimes not.

Elizabeth: I’ve always respected your opinion and knew you’d be honest about it. I’m just glad you liked it.

Neely: You now live up in the Sonoma region.  What prompted the move?  Don’t you find it more difficult to maintain a footing as a working writer when you’re away from the scene? I’m sure that part of the incentive for living far from the maddening crowd (the actual expression is “Madding” but since that refers to sheep and you’re closer to sheep up there than you would be down here, I changed it) is the love of gastronomy you share with Ignacio, your partner.  I can envision the two of you giving Alice Waters a real run for her money.  What did you serve at your most recent dinner party?

Elizabeth: The main thing that prompted the move was worry about the real estate market and a possible writers strike. Both of us are freelancers and our income isn’t consistent so the prospect of facing a mortgage in uncertain times was daunting. We took a chance and put our Santa Monica house on the market and got a great offer. After that, it was deciding on where to go from there. We picked a small town in Sonoma where we’d vacationed a few times and think we’ve found our forever home.

While we adjusted to small town life very quickly, work-wise it’s been a lot of trial-and-error.  Early on, I probably didn’t get down to Los Angeles enough and then we had the strike and the only trips I made to L.A. were to walk the picket line. But I think it’s possible I needed the time away from the “big city’ to regroup and also to re-examine my creative life, to ask the tough questions of what I wanted to write and more important to finish projects that for one reason or another were gathering dust.

I started getting down to LA a lot last year and have a regular crash pad there which has made it easier to be consistent about going. I’m there for a week or two every few weeks and it’s worked out great. At first, I kept the move quiet but I’ve found it’s helped more than hurt. First, I’ve got way less stress in my life and second, people love the idea that I had the “guts” to make such a big move and to live in an idyllic place.  They have no idea how easy it is though – and it’s not like I’m that far from L.A. – six hours by car or an hour by plane.

Plus the one great thing about living away from L.A. is being away from the L.A. scene. It’s not only the various distractions, it’s the expectations that can really crush a writer’s spirit. Down in L.A. you’re always hearing about who did what when and everybody’s in the business and the pressure can get to you, no matter who you are.  Up here, the pace is slow and steady, people don’t care what you do for a living and there’s a great creative vibe that comes from people who work the land, or in kitchens or as artists. I’m sure that sounds like a cliché, but when I was living in L.A. I didn’t see how much I was caught up in stuff that doesn’t matter. I mean I take myself way less seriously up here. My friends and family count this as a good thing.

This year I rented a small office in town which has been a real godsend. It’s on the second floor of an old winery building – a small room with no windows to the outside, no phone. It’s a great environment for writing – I find there are days when I totally lose track of time.

When I’m not writing, I have this amazing landscape all around me. It’s like living in France or Italy – all these rolling hillsides and vistas that go on forever and the two-lanes that snake around past old farmhouses, giant oaks and of course acres of vineyards. That’s just what I see on a routine drive into town . It’s been more than three years now and I haven’t tired of it. I mean I love L.A. and I can see living there again, but it’s pretty amazing how much a little quiet, a lot of beauty and almost total lack of traffic does to lower your stress level and improve your general disposition. And even better, it makes you pay attention a lot more to the things around you. As a writer, that’s invaluable and I think maybe something I forgot to do when I was in the middle of the rat race.

Of course, the proximity to the land is part of the great adventure – exciting too because we’re practically at ground zero for this country’s burgeoning new fresh food movement. As you know we’ve been big fans of great food and there’s nothing like living practically on top of it. We buy almost everything at the source from meat to cheese to fruits and vegetables – it’s a rare meal where I don’t know exactly where my food came from or who grew and/or farmed it. Ignacio has flourished here too and has collected lots of fans among the locals, farmers and chefs included. Our last dinner party was Christmas Eve. We had broccoli and leek soup with foraged chanterelles, fresh pasta with hand-picked local crab and local rack of lamb marinated in garlic, olive oil and as Ignacio says “all the herbs the lamb eats”.

Neely: You’ve written a series of three mystery novels with a terrific protagonist – Zen Moses, a zaftig detective who is a lung cancer survivor – much like yourself.  I always thought it would be the perfect vehicle for Camryn Manheim.  I was disappointed that it never made it to series – again it was CBS that passed, but what about that third book?  (This has been an ongoing conversation between us for some time).

Elizabeth: I still think Zen would make a great TV series but we sold it at the wrong time. Former Paramount exec Stacey Adams  (now with CBS) and Kelly Edwards (who I think is also with CBS now) were the big fans of the project but I think CBS really wanted another procedural – and why not? They had so much success with the CSI franchise and shows like Without a Trace and Cold Case. Zen is really a character drama masquerading as a detective show – closer to, say Rockford Files than CSI and while I was willing to explore the potential of it as a procedural, I think everybody involved knew my heart wasn’t in it.

Neely: I look forward to reading a new version, one that stays closer to your vision.  It’s been my experience that passion projects that are “adapted” to a studio’s proposed need rather than the “need” of the work or the artist never turn out as intended by either party.  One can always insert a procedural element – which by any other phrase is just a mystery to be solved – in a work of detective fiction (for, after all, what is detective fiction but a mystery to be solved?).  I still believe that the audience is hungry for character.

Elizabeth: At the time, CBS wanted Zen to be a cop, partly because they were worried about where the cases would come from.  I understand a lot of this came from the trouble the networks have had in developing detective shows with female leads. Their ideas and choices were interesting and I tried to make them work but I think ultimately we just had different visions for the show. I’m not wed to Zen as written in the books – I realize I will have to make changes to adapt it to TV, but there’s one or two elements I just didn’t want to move off of and that was where we got stuck. I’m grateful that CBS believed in the project in the first place – maybe we’ll revisit together one day.  I’ve been working on a new version of the pilot, my update of and homage to the detective genre. I’ll let you know if I pull it off.

Neely: You have one of the most interesting backgrounds that I’ve encountered.  As I recall you were a sports writer.  How did that start and is it still ongoing?

Elizabeth: Sports writing was a job I sort of fell into but grew to love. I definitely learned more about writing well from sports writing than any other job I’ve had. The single most defining moment of my life (so far) was getting lung Cancer in my 20s. When I got sick I was writing for a metro newspaper covering business but when I came back, I was kind of casting about for a new direction.  The initial prognosis wasn’t good and there was a period there where I was forced to consider my own mortality. Nobody wants to have those thoughts ever but especially no one in their mid-20s and to say it rocked my world would be an obvious understatement. Those uncertain weeks really made me reconsider my place in the world, my future, my life and what I would do with myself if I didn’t have a lot of time left. One of the people who helped me through was the sports editor of my paper and he’s the one who convinced me to try writing sports – after all, I’ve always been a big fan. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done but I really learned about myself as a writer and was great training for my leap to fiction.

Neely: What an inspiring story, especially that you were nurtured at a time you needed it the most.  I’ve always followed sports writing because I’ve always considered it the best writing in the paper.  Historically some of our greatest American writers wrote for the Sports Pages – Ring Lardner (Chicago Tribune), Damon Runyon (New York American), both famous for their short stories; Jim Murray (Los Angeles Times) and Red Smith (New York Times) both of whom elevated sports writing to the art of the essayist; and Roger Angell (New Yorker) whose annual wrap-up of the baseball season is reason enough to subscribe to the magazine.  I have particularly liked the books on baseball and baseball figures written by David Halberstam and George Will.

As a journalist and professional writer, what do you think has been the impact of the internet on the business, in general, and on writers, in particular?

Elizabeth: Probably this is sacrilegious to say but I think the Internet has killed journalism. There’s just way too much emphasis on getting the story first and way too little on getting it right. Bloggers don’t have to follow any of the rules of reporting or sourcing and too many rumors and incorrect stories fly around the Net too fast to make proper corrections or for wronged parties to respond. It’s a mess.

For fiction writers, the Net has been great though. Especially for authors – bookstores, publishers and authors connect easily through sites like Twitter and Facebook and fan, retail and publisher sites. No genre author can or should embark on a publicity tour without getting a presence on the Internet.

Neely: Living in Sonoma, you must miss the sports action.  Who do you root for up there? You can’t still be a Clippers fan, can you?

Elizabeth: I’d be lost without my DirecTV.  I get to follow my favorite teams – the Mets, NY Giants and Knicks from the comfort of my living room.  We make occasional trips to see games in Oakland and San Francisco.

Neely: Let’s talk a bit about “Chapel Hill”.  Why Chapel Hill? What’s the connection?

Elizabeth: No connection at all. Except that when I first started as a sportswriter in Washington, DC, I covered the ACC conference in football and basketball and I used to drive down to the Raleigh-Durham area at least a couple of times a year. That sign in the pilot where the distance is replaced by a basketball score is real — I remember seeing it once on one of my trips.

“’Chapel Hill 15, Wake Forest 40’ Someone has scrawled out he mileage and replaced ‘15’ with ‘85’, so it reads like a lopsided basketball score.”

When I was thinking of a town, I wanted to use a place that had a liberal arts college and a varied population ethnic and class-wise — a spot that could be part small town, but burgeoning new city.

Neely: Was this an idea pitched to you or did you come up with the premise?

Elizabeth: It all started because I wanted to write something outside the procedural world where I’d been pigeon-holed – I mean I just came off a run of working for shows like Law & Order: Criminal Intent,  24 and Dragnet and while it was awesome and certainly paid the bills, I wanted to write something different, show my character chops. The original idea was pitched to me by Charles Segars who produces as well as runs development at Scripps Networks (Fine Living and such). He liked my work and I loved his sense of characters and situations (and loved working him) so we set out to try to come up with a pilot together. He had a grain of an idea, kind of a like a female version of the hero in The Paper Chase. I loved the concept but I knew I needed to make it personal to me to really get my head around it. Charles was really generous in allowing me to take the story where I felt it should go and I ended up writing a spec pilot we both were proud of. It’s not that much different from the CBS version,  a little more set-up and slightly more comedy.

We tried to sell it over two cycles but got no takers – probably because the original had almost no procedural elements at all.  As I talked about earlier, I had sold my detective novels to Paramount but we couldn’t agree on a tone or approach. I was trying to save my deal with them when I brought up “Chapel Hill” over lunch with execs at Paramount and CBS – all women. I actually pitched it on the fly with no preparation but it worked because I’d been living with it for so long, I knew the characters cold and I believed in them and I had a definite clear idea about what the show was about.

Lucky for me they loved the concept so we set about re-conceiving it for them. It’s often in vogue for writers to whine about development execs and notes from the suits, but developing “Chapel Hill” was a great experience all around. Kelly Edwards and Jonathan Axelrod were the producers and they never stopped believing in me and the trio of Julie McNamara, Leigh Redman and Stacey Adams at Paramount plus Laverne McKinnon at CBS were all very supportive of the project and gave awesome notes. In fact, a note Julie gave me was critical to making the end of the show work.

Martha Williamson came on to help guide and focus the story and she was a wonderful mentor throughout the process. She took the time to understand my vision and never once tried to impose hers on it. I remember going off to write feeling very confident I’d deliver a solid script.

If I learned anything developing this script it was the importance of getting your whole team to believe in your show and in you. The crucial part is selling both – you and your show. Or more precisely, that you are the person they need and can trust to deliver this show. Every successful show has a steady leader at the creative helm, someone who will not compromise on the singular vision of the series, someone to make sure all the varied moving parts adds up to one big idea. The clearer your vision, the easier it is to get everybody on the same page. “Chapel Hill” was a true collaborative process and throughout it, I never felt like the network or the studio didn’t believe in my vision for the show or tried to impose their own over it.

Neely: I know it had to be heartbreaking because it was one of your best scripts and telling 100 stories would have been easy.  Seems to be just another case of the right script at the wrong time.

Elizabeth: It was terribly heartbreaking I admit. Though when Nina Tassler called me personally to say CBS was passing, I also thought it was going to open some other doors into development. So I was feeling hopeful for my future anyway. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to find another pilot to work on together. I’m not sure who said it originally but I love the expression that Hollywood is a place where you can be encouraged to death.

Who knows why some shows get pick-ups and others don’t – mainly I imagine “Chapel Hill” wasn’t procedural enough (that’s a lot of what got added in the development process).  Still, I’m hopeful that shows like it will make it onto the air more now that we’ve seen successful character dramas. My favorite at the moment and the one I think that has a real kinship to “Chapel Hill” is “Friday Night Lights.”  It’s so brilliant, especially in the inter-relationships of its characters.

I love the way it investigates the deep inner world of small-town life and the people who live there, relying on emotional truths rather than familiar clichés. These are the places I would have wanted to explore in “Chapel Hill.” It was one of the rare scripts I’ve written where I can really say I know the characters, they’re based on real people I know. I mine a lot of true-life stuff for my Zen novels but those are fantasies. I mean I totally enjoy writing them but I felt “Chapel Hill” was going to give me a chance to create a rich landscape about a place and the characters that live there and the way their choices and mistakes weigh on themselves, their hopes and dreams and also about rising to the occasion when your life veers off course in ways you never expect. In a funny way, writing “Chapel Hill” made me a better novelist too.  My new novel is in some ways a connection to what I was trying to do with Lucy and Zoe – different characters and places but the emotions are very much of the same family tree. I’m not denigrating my Zen novels by any means – I’m really, really proud of Zen as a character but I grew up faster than she did I think and while I have every intention of returning to her adventures, I really needed to go to this other place in my writer’s heart first.  Who knows if I’ll make it work but then it’s supposed to be about the journey anyway, right?

Part of this has been theme and like almost all writers, I find I keep returning to the same themes over and over again. I don’t do it consciously, it sort of evolves on its own. “Chapel Hill” turned out to be about one of those themes, in this case it was the idea of starting over,  changing your life – making a big leap of faith into your future away from something comfortable and into some great unknown.  Of all the things I write about, this is among the most personal for me. I’ve uprooted my life more than once – moving out to L.A. from the East Coast was one of those times. First, the move was in part precipitated by surviving Cancer and wanting to make a big change in my life. I had a job waiting but I only knew one person in L.A. and didn’t even have a place to stay lined up past a week or two. The drive itself was an adventure – I had an idea of where I wanted to go but basically I just followed major roads and figured the route out as I went. To me it was a great new beginning, something I felt I had to do no matter what  — kind of like the kid in “Into the Wild.”  I considered for maybe 3 minutes that it might suck being far away from friends, family, living in a big, new city, etc. but I never once considered what the cost would be to those people. Here I am on my great adventure and my parents are sort of grieving over me moving 3,000 miles away – this mere months after almost losing me to Cancer. They never once told me not to go and have been great anchors for me along the way, but since I moved out to LA we see much less of each other. I think by now they know I made the right choice but there will always be a tiny bit of guilt that I wasn’t physically closer to them, no matter that we talk on the phone every other day.

What’s a writer to do with that kind of shit but to write about it and that’s where I started with Lucy. Sure, her motives are ultimately noble but what’s the affect on Zoe who has as many reasons to want to stay in New York as Lucy has to leave? It’s not a reach for her to feel she is being dragged along on someone else’s adventure.  In imagining the future of the series, I thought a lot about their relationship and especially how it’s Zoe who has made the biggest sacrifice. I was looking forward to exploring how this affected both Lucy and Zoe and what it would mean for their relationship. That’s why Lucy has that moment in the pilot where she lets Zoe go – it’s as much symbolic as it is literal. She has to do this, even though it goes against everything she feels is right and it’s at that moment when Lucy really understands the big responsibility she’s taken on – that it’s not just her journey alone. I love that scene when she meets Zoe at the bus station. Those are the moments writers live for.  I was really looking forward to seeing this relationship grow and change over the course of the series  – I know it would have been fun to write. As you can tell, I loved Zoe. She’s a perfect character because she’s an age where kids want can’t wait to grow up  but are still holding on to their last gasp of her childhood. Of course, like Lucy she has no idea she’s crossing a line. We hardly ever notice stuff like that until we’ve lived through it.

Neely: What about a different avenue?  Since CBS Studios is behind it, have they considered selling it elsewhere, or rolling it to next season?

Elizabeth: I think at this point, it’s back in my hands. I’d love to pitch it elsewhere – I have some ideas to update Lucy’s character vis-à-vis the recent financial crisis faced by the country. But I could easily see this on TNT – something to pair with the fabulous “Men of a Certain Age,” for example. And I’ve never given up hope that CBS will take another look at it – it’s really perfect for them and isn’t it true that “women of a certain age” (I won’t use THAT word) are in vogue these days? I’m so proud of that script.  I entered it into the WGA Writer Access Contest and won in the Diversity (women) division.

Neely: Congratulations.  But in some ways it is ironic…I never considered women, as a group, to be a minority.

Elizabeth: I know.  But if you look at the writing staffs of current programs you will find very few women. You’d be surprised how many shows don’t have any women on the writing staff.

Neely: What’s up next for you?  Have you been in town to pitch?

Elizabeth: I’ve got a new novel I’ve been working on. It’s not a Zen novel. The character is an LA cop on leave for a psychological problem and he ends up investigating a crime that forces him to confront his family’s past. I’m very excited about it and hope to have a publisher in early 2010. Then there’s the as-yet unpublished third Zen novel Zen Justice which may also see the light of day in the New Year.

I’ve done a lot of pitching the last couple of years – I’ve been out with two major projects in particular. One was a cop drama with a writing partner where we came this close to selling but I think in the end it was just too risky for most places.  I’ve got a new project with two young producers that I’ve excited about – a sort of character cop drama that takes place in another small southern town – which I’m just finishing a script for.

I also have a couple of spec pilots. One is a crazy cable drama in the vein of “Out of Sight” called “Small Crimes,” and the other is about a female cop who is haunted by her dead ex-partner called “Magic Hour”.

And finally, I’ve decided that 2010 is the year I will direct my first feature film. I’ve got a script I’m working on that I’m going to shoot on a shoe-string budget up here in wine country with an almost all local cast. It’s a story that I’ve wanted to tell for a long time and I can’t think of a better place to tell it than my little bucolic town.

Neely: All of that sounds fantastic and I can’t wait to see what happens.  Also, I still think there’s a home waiting for “Chapel Hill”.  I’m so happy to hear that you are pushing harder than ever.  As Phoef Sutton remarked in an earlier “conversation with”,

When I started, I knew it would be hard to break in; I didn’t realize that I’d have to continue to break in.

Please keep me posted and finish Zen Justice because I want more Zen Moses (and because I don’t think you’re done with her yet)!

As a parting note, I loved your “advice for young writers.” The following is an edited (for length) version:

It doesn’t matter what anybody says or how much work there is or who gets gigs on the Who You Know circuit or who the best unemployed writer or unpublished script is. It doesn’t matter. None of it does. What matters, what always will matter now and forever, is the work.

And not just any work but your work. What matters is if you are one of those people who are hard-wired to write then write you must do, no matter if it pays the bills or not. No matter what anyone tells you. No matter the prospects of getting paid or published or even printed on glossy white 3-hole punch paper. No matter what, period.

Because if you are one of those poor suckers, you already know the gospel by heart. You ain’t in it for the money. Only a fool becomes a writer to get rich. You’re in it because you’re in it and there’s no way out of it. You’re here because you have no choice, because there are forces at work well beyond your control that compel you to turn that glob of gray between your ears into words and sentences, paragraphs and chapters, dialogue, scenes, acts, to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard or blood to stone. Because you have no fucking choice.

If it’s in you, you know. And if you know, then you don’t need anybody to tell you that you’ve just turned on to an endless two-lane between the voices in your head and those voices on paper making any kind of sense, the latter so far out on the horizon, you can’t be sure if it’s home or a thousand-foot death drop off a cliff.

I’ll tell you what you say to that young kid just starting out or to the reflection in your mirror on those days when you’re certain you’ve either written your last good word or the last word of yours anybody will ever read. You remind that kid (and you) that nothing will ever matter more than the work, that on this crazy, winding, frightening, amazing, wondrous, magical and sometimes fucked up ride that for sure has been chosen for us and not vice versa, the only thing you’ll ever have any control over is your craft. And nobody can take that away from you. Not if you don’t let them.

Check out Elizabeth’s blog on photography –  www.shyonelung.blogspot.com

Neely Swanson

neely@nomeanerplace.com

December 14, 2009

“If you want to make a little money, write a book. If you want to make a lot of money, create a religion.” – L. Ron Hubbard

Filed under: Conversations With, Meyer, Pilots, Produced, Writers — Tags: , , , — Neely Swanson @ 5:09 pm

“I’ve been dead before”  – Spock  (”Star Trek VI”)

Orpheus by Nicholas Meyer

What: A college student, on a road trip to find himself, instead finds himself robbed of all possessions after an acid-laced rock concert and stranded in a small town in the middle of nowhere until he meets a mysterious girl who takes an intense interest in him.

Who: Guy Lawrence wakes up after a rock concert to find the field empty and all his possessions missing.  Making his way to a neighboring town, Guy meets the beautiful Sue Ellen, waitress at the local café, who kindly feeds and beds him.  He is entranced and decides to stay with Sue Ellen, abandoning the summer internship that had set up for him in Los Angeles prior to his return to Yale for his sophomore year.  Receiving word of his change in schedule worries his parents in New York.  Sue Ellen and Guy move to Seattle, where she begins to reveal her devotion to the “Temple of Grand Design” led by “Brother.”  Much of what Brother proselytizes makes a great deal of sense to Guy.

“There is no Grand Design – except the one you make of your own life.”

“There are no rules.  They’re just observations.  You either buy into them or you don’t.  It’s a free country – more or less.”

Although admonished to stay away from Galateans (the uninitiated), Sue Ellen is smitten and explains more of Grand Design to Guy.  Brother is known simply as Brother and Father, the leader, is known simply as Father; Grand Design is modeled on the idea of family.

Guy: This all sounds like…some kind of cult…

Sue Ellen: It’s a philosophy.  Anyway, what’s the difference between a cult and a religion…? I’ll tell you: numbers.  If twelve people believe something, they’re a cult; but if a hundred million believe the same thing, they’re a religion.

Guy: It just sounds so programmed…

Sue Ellen: We’re all programmed – from birth.  The trick is to write you own program.

Guy looks at her; she’s spoken the truth.

Or at least what the truth looks like to a 19 year old.  Recalled to NY on a ruse by his parents, Guy begins his year at Yale, but quits abruptly when he realizes that no one around him understands his new awareness.  His friend Barry who, in Guy’s view, had abandoned him during the summer picks up Guy’s copy of The Grand Design and begins to read.

Barry: “Nothing is important unless you SAY it’s important.”  What’s that supposed to mean?

Guy: You ever really watch TV?  It’s like a big mirror of the whole country.  We’re not citizens, we’re just consumers.  Our only culture is POP culture.  It’s all me-me-me-

Guy no longer sees himself in this Ivy League world and heads back to find Sue Ellen and join her at Grand Design.  As he attempts to make his way through the levels of GD consciousness, Sue Ellen’s rival, Karen, also has her eye on Guy; Brother turns on the charm and makes Guy a special project, advancing him quickly through several ranks.  Guy is being drawn further and further into the labyrinth. Guy’s brother Greg arrives to try to get him to return but their confrontation only serves to solidify Guy’s resolve even as he begins to have doubts.

No Meaner Place: “Orpheus” builds slowly, building character and background subtly and effectively.  In its way it is much like the celebrated but long forgotten short story by James Clavell entitled “The Children’s Story” in which a young teacher sent by the new Soviet captors has replaced the old classroom teacher and slowly but methodically, in the course of a very short morning, wins the hearts of her students and disables all their previously held, but not entirely understood, beliefs.  Vulnerability exists in all of us and within the right context our core beliefs can be shaken and sometimes dismantled.  This is the setting and premise of “Orpheus,” a thinly disguised Scientology society, but one that could be at the heart of any orthodoxy.

Guy is the perfect foil as he is intelligent, well-raised, thoughtful and at a stage in life where he questions everything. Meyer has set the stage for a “Manchurian Candidate” style brainwashing as Guy initially finds himself hungry, disoriented, abandoned, alone and in a strange place where he is seemingly offered unconditional love and comfort by a beautiful stranger.

There are so many possibilities here that the stories can go off in multiple directions. The philosophical basis of religion as personified by a society claiming to be anything but a religion and the hypocrisy of the leaders of this society that mirrors so many of the scandals of present day religious organizations will be microscopically examined.  Vulnerability, belief structure, rebellion, hypocrisy, roads taken and not taken – so many complex issues and so much to discover.

Alas, none of us will be able to discover any of these paths because this pilot was never picked up to series.  The filmed version, whether because of casting choices, directing choices, or network notes, was bland.  There was no edge, there was no sinister feeling, there was no tension; hence, there were no stakes and therefore very little story left.  Certainly the topic was always risky and the network should never have been in doubt about what the premise and long range plans were.  Something, however, happened along the way to make them lose faith in the intelligence of the project and the challenge to the audience – an audience that is almost always up for a challenge and hardly ever given one.  Meyer is such a gifted writer with such a diverse literary background that it is a major loss to have been denied his voice and vision.

Life Lessons for Writers:  As in polite society, stay away from religion and politics unless, of course, you’re writing a comedy, in which case stay away from religion and politics.  “Let them eat static” – Khan  (”Star Trek II”)

Conversation with Nick Meyer:

Neely: I’ve been a big fan of your work since seeing “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution,” the most interesting take on Sherlock Holmes yet produced; and I don’t expect the new version to overtake it, no matter what the hook.  You were the sole credited writer on your adaptation, with a director at the height of his career, Herbert Ross, and a cast that included Nicol Williamson, Robert Duvall, Laurence Olivier, Vanessa Redgrave and Alan Arkin as Freud.  I think there’s a good argument to be made that Nicol Williamson and Robert Duvall were the best pairing since Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. Did your involvement end with handing over the script or were you able to participate in the project once it started production?  Anyway you look at it, it was pretty heady stuff for someone so young.

Nick: It was like I was dreaming the whole time.  When Herbert Ross asked “what do you think of Olivier as Moriarity?” I had to sit and look normal. Olivier was my hero.  This is the only business where you get to shake hands with your dreams.  Six months later at Pinewood it all came to be.  I grew up idolizing him and seeing everything he had ever done.  In 1971, when I first came out to LA to try and write for a living, I saw the film he made of Chekov’s “Three Sisters”  and I wrote to him and told him how I much his work had meant to me over the years and to thank him for it. I offered to send him a copy of my forthcoming book (The Seven-Per-Cent Solution), quoting from The Taming of the Shrew, “too little payment for so great a debt.” I actually got a letter from him in return. I had the letter framed and still have it.  When I met him on set I reminded him of the letter but he didn’t remember.  I’ve found that it’s often more important to tell a person you admire them than for them to hear it.

I was invited to go to Pinewood and Vienna with the film.  I knew I wanted to direct and thought I’d learn by watching the production take shape.  Herb Ross was very courteous and gracious.  Because the dialogue of the script was so stylized and of the period Ross wanted me there for tweaks.  I watched everything and became a better screenwriter after I became a director.  I saw that “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution” movie had too many words and that, (to paraphrase Hilary Clinton, “knowing what I now know…”) I was in the editing room with Ross begging him to cut dialogue, which he wouldn’t do.  Can you imagine the writer begging the director to trim his script??

This was a very different situation than when I was working on “The Human Stain.”  I was completely shut out of the production.  Robert Benton, the director, didn’t want me there as he later explained, because he didn’t want to fight with me since he was making a different movie than the one I envisioned.

Neely: Following in the footsteps of other writers who wanted more control over their scripts, you were able to parlay your success into a writing/directing gig on the Sci Fi/Fantasy classic “Time After Time,” following it up by writing and directing what most people, myself included, consider to be the best Star Trek movie ever – “Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan.”  It’s another classic example of everything starts with a good script.  Can you give us some memorable details from that experience?  Actually, how did you get that assignment?

Nick: I’m really not a Sci/Fi fantasy guy but I have always been a fan of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.  Movies are eye candy that Sci Fi promotes and you have to remember that candy isn’t good for you so you need to provide some nourishment.  I got assigned to direct Star Trek II after I met with Harve Bennett.  Five different scripts had been turned in for a second Star Trek feature and none of them did the trick.  After reading all five, I felt that there were some good elements in each and offered to try to cobble something together taking the best, most workable parts from each.  Harve  and his partner Bob Sallin were very enthusiastic but worried that unless we had a script within 12 days, ILM (George Lucas’ special FX house contracted to manufacture shots for the film) couldn’t guarantee delivery of said shots in time to for the film’s June opening.  I was so naïve that I didn’t realize that movies that had yet to be produced might already have opening dates slotted.  Somehow I got it done and we got started.

Working on that script I was inspired by the C.S. Forester Captain Hornblower novels, which chronicled the picaresque adventures of British navy captain during the Napoleonic Wars.   This would be Hornblower in outer space.  It was decided that Spock would be killed but when Paramount realized that there might actually be more life in this series, they made us change the ending in order to allow for Spock’s return.  When it came time for “Star Trek III” I didn’t do it because I don’t know how to do resurrections.  Harve came to me for help on “Star Trek IV” and they were my friends so I agreed.  Again there were script problems and it was four weeks before prep was to start.  It was going to have a “Time After Time” feel to it so Harve wrote the space parts and I wrote the earth parts.  I was unavailable for “Star Trek V” but was willing to do VI, which remains my favorite.  Because I had had a bad experience on my previous film, “Company Business,” I wanted to go where I liked everyone and get the bad taste out of my mouth.  Besides, I was told VI was going to be the last they would ever produce with the original cast.

The Aero in Santa Monica recently showed “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” and I was asked to speak.  The theater was packed and you feel like you’re with kids who like to hear the same story told over and over. I joshed with them: – “I told you on the DVD! I told you on the Special Edition!  I’ve told you on the Blu-Ray!” Like a prisoner under hot lights, the temptation to invent stories is enormous at that point.  Because eye witnesses are the least reliable witnesses, (according to cops and lawyers), I’m always afraid I’m going to wander off into something like “Rashomon,” where the same event is embroidered from several differing points of view. After all those repetitions, the temptation to vary the facts as I recall them and start imagining things instead of remembering them is very great.

Neely: I’m especially intrigued by a Merchant Ivory picture that you directed entitled “The Deceivers,” one of Pierce Brosnan’s first post “Remington Steele” starring roles. I have to confess that I’d never heard of it and even more intriguing is that I was under the impression that the Merchant Ivory group kept everything in house – directing, writing and producing.  How did that come about and what happened to that film?

Nick: Most of the time they kept everything in house but “The Deceivers” was intended to help them branch out from the drawing room films they were famous for.  The book was by John Masters, considered the poet laureate of the Indian Army.  Masters took historical events and incidents and turned them into a series of novels about Anglo-India, among them Bhowani Junction (also filmed) and The Nightrunners of Bengal.  My agent got me the job and it was going to be India and a cavalry charge – how could I say no?  It’s about a man who goes searching for the worst thing in the world and discovers he’s actually carrying it in his back pack.  Pierce Brosnan gives a great self-effacing performance.  He was fabulous.  He played an Englishman trying to infiltrate the Thug (Deceiver) Cult.  The film came and went.  I don’t know why.  Sometimes it’s the lack of money, like in the case of “Elegy,” and sometimes they just fail.  It’s too easy to blame marketing every time your film tanks.

Neely: And of course those were some of your earliest films. You also have the distinction of writing and producing one of the last films starring the Governator, “Collateral Damage.”

Nick: This is an interesting story.  My closest friend and editor, Ronald Roose, came up with the idea and wrote a script called “Prey” about a computer scientist who goes to the airport to pick up his wife and daughter, only to discover that their plane had been bombed by terrorists.  When he realizes our government is going to do nothing, he turns himself from a mild computer geek (think Tom Hanks), into this lethal character and makes his way to Libya to avenge them.  When we pitched it we said, “Remember, this isn’t Arnold Schwarzenegger.”  Five years later…it was.

Neely: I find it especially interesting that your career started by adapting your own novel and then writing several original screenplays.  But throughout your career you have written some marvelous adaptations – “Sommersby” (from the French film “The Return of Martin Guerre”), and most recently “The Human Stain” and “Elegy” both based on Philip Roth novels.  I’m intrigued that you seem to have become the go-to guy for Philip Roth adaptations.  As a matter of fact, the evening before this interview (by phone while I was in New York), my husband and I were eating in a tiny Italian restaurant near our hotel and who should walk in but Philip Roth! I went to his booth (so uncool but irresistible since he was alone) and told him I was a fan and that I was interviewing you, the screenplay adapter of two of his more recent books, the next day.  He was very polite and we shook hands and he didn’t flee the restaurant, so I guess it might come under the category of the fan needing to say it more than the artist needing to hear it.  So how did these adaptations come up?

Nick: My former agent Gary Lucchesi is now at Lakeshore Entertainment and he thought of me when Tom Rosenberg, who owns Lakeshore, decided to do The Human Stain.  They loved the original script which bears little resemblance to the finished product by the way.  Tom also wanted to do The Dying Animal, which stayed much closer to the script.  Using my “Saturday date night” gauge I was pretty sure we weren’t going to draw a lot of couples to a movie called The Dying Animal and suggested we change the title to “Elegy.”

Neely: I just read Roth’s Indignation and it’s right up your alley.  It explores some of the same themes you explored in “Orpheus.”  It’s an absolute natural for you.  Is there a different skill set involved in adaptation?  Do you have a preference?

Nick:  It’s very rare that I get an original idea that I really like, although occasionally I do get one that’s a doozy.  I’ve discovered that I’m a born recycler, not just of paper and garbage.  I like working material like it’s a Rubik’s cube – reworking, rethinking, redoing.  It’s what you owe to a great novel, story or play.  It’s also interesting what you can do with a bad one where you owe much less.  Handel was once accused of stealing someone’s tune and his answer was, “It’s true; he did not know what to do with it; I showed him.” Adapting material is a vastly different mental and aesthetic procedure.  You need to end up with “cinema.”  You want the viewer to understand it without having already read the book.  Think of the first “Harry Potter” movie versus “The Manchurian Candidate.”  The first Potter film doesn’t really make sense if you haven’t read the book but Manchurian Candidate thrills those who have never read the Condon novel on which it is based.  It is the desideratum. I felt this way the first time I saw David Lean’s “Oliver Twist.”  I loved it and it made me want to read the book.

Neely: You have quite a few interesting projects in development.  Are they all in development hell or do some have a chance of being greenlit?  Which of those projects is closest to your heart and what is it about?

Nick: “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt” – Taylor Hackford has indicated an interest in directing it; also “Crook Factory” which was written for Johnny Depp; and a film about George Washington.  Unfortunately they’re about people and they’re dramas and the studios no longer do people and they don’t do dramas.  The business changed in 1974 with “The Godfather” and “Jaws.”  All of a sudden you could make huge profits from films and corporations began taking over the studios looking for those profits.  As the late Senator Everett Dirksen said, “A million here, a million there, and all of a sudden you’re talking real money”!

Neely: You have worked sporadically in television over the years, having done some MOWs and mini-series, including the iconic “The Day After.” But within the last few years you have written several scripts for series television, two of which were written for Scott Free, Ridley and Tony Scott’s company.  How did that collaboration come about?

Nick: I met David Zucker from Scott Free.  He’s absolutely brilliant at developing for television and we started working together.

Neely: I also noticed that of your four prospective series, three were about lawyers and the fourth, “Orpheus” has lawyers in the background, notably the family from whom Guy is trying to distance himself.  So what is it with all the lawyers?

Nick: Basically all one hour television is about cops, lawyers or doctors.  I couldn’t even begin to write about medicine but I thought I might be able to fake lawyering.

Neely: Which brings us to the topic at hand – “Orpheus.”  I fell in love with all the possibilities of what it could be, all the while recognizing how risky that would be.  Since this was under the “Scott Free” banner, how did they feel about the story and series possibilities?

Nick: Well, they got it.  We did a Bible of the story arcs and they commissioned me to write a second episode.  “Orpheus” was supposed to get stranger and more angular; instead it ended up very flat when filmed.  This was a cautionary tale of being careful of the directors you choose.  Being a good director isn’t the same as being congruent with the material.  I have enormous regard for the talent of Bruce Beresford, but like Benton, he didn’t get what I’d written (or intended).

Neely: Since Scott Free’s deal was with CBS, you were locked to that network.  Was there ever any consideration for taking it to cable?  Today it would seem to fit into what Showtime is trying to do.  What kind of notes did you get from CBS?

Nick: David (Zucker) still believes in it and is trying to sell it overseas or trying to find someone who’s interested enough to have it redone.  He’s never lost interest and still champions it.  I have to say that CBS was very supportive at the writing stage.  They saw it as a weird romantic story and they also wanted to do a story about a cult.  You mentioned Scientology in your analysis but this wasn’t intended to be any specific group or ideology.  I had read a book by Anthony Storr entitled Feet of Clay about gurus and guru worshippers and I was intrigued by the idea that when gurus end up leaving, it’s usually with a vengeance – think Freud and Jung or Jesus and Judas.

Neely: Do you think things would have turned out differently if you had directed it yourself?

Nick: I wanted to direct it but…would it have been more credible or successful?  Who knows?  I had stopped directing following the death of my wife in 1993.  I had small children to raise and could no longer direct because of being responsible for them.  When I was ready to go back, I’d been away too long.

Neely: As I said earlier, when I was reading the script again I was reminded of the recent Philip Roth novel entitled Indignation.  It’s about the choices made by a young man, the same age as Guy, (the central figure in “Orpheus”), and the consequences of those choices.  In some ways it’s also about the rigidity and righteousness of youth – something you hope your own kids will survive, as this rigidity, righteousness and the consequences are a rite of passage for all of us.  Guy has placed himself in a quagmire, vacillating between the hardness of a true believer and the doubts of a rational man.  What do you think happens to true believers who begin to doubt the organization that has “love bombed” them?  Do you know where Guy was ultimately headed?

Nick: Well, at the end of the pilot, Guy is being chased through the jungle by men with guns!

Neely: Are you definitively through with this project or could you reimagine it in either feature film or novel format?  It would make a hell of a read.

Nick: No, but I will now.

Neely: So what’s up next?

Nick: Six months from now?  Right now I’m working with some writers on a series based on “Time After Time;” and I’m thinking about The 7% Solution as a series; and there are other movie projects.

Neely: Any more novels?

Nick: Novel writing doesn’t pay the bills.  I wrote The Seven-Per-Cent Solution during the writers’ strike of 1972 and The View From the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood” during the WGA strike in January of 2009.

Neely: I just finished reading The View From the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood and highly recommend it to anyone interested in the film making process, “Star Trek” and your own voyage.  You’ve had a great career with more to come.  Any other thoughts?

Nick: Perseverance counts for a lot.  When people ask me for tips about penetrating this business I always tell them: Be prepared to put in a decade.  I am also reminded of a great Napoleon quote.  A general was once recommended to Napoleon who replied “I know he’s good, but is he lucky?”  I’ve also been lucky.

December 8, 2009

“You can’t go home again.” – Thomas Wolfe. “You can’t always get what you want.” – The Rolling Stones

Filed under: Conversations With, McLaughlin, Pilots, Pilots Spec Scripts, Writers — Tags: , — Neely Swanson @ 12:23 pm

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” – George Santayana.  Sometimes even those who do remember the past…

Hudson by Sarah McLaughlin

What: Anderson (f/k/a Andi) Barrett finds herself back home in small town Hudson, New York about to start a job as legal counsel to the Mayor’s office.  This is the place she where she was “…getting as far away from the boorish, unrefined, backward ass folk of Hudson as possible.”

Who: Anderson Barrett slinks back into her hometown after flaming out in Los Angeles where she was on the fast track to partnership in a prestigious law firm.  Very tight-lipped about her disaster in the big time, her former high school classmate Keira Smith, now her court-ordered rehab monitor, cajoles her into telling her story.

Keira: If you tell me I’ll tell you about my abortion in high school.

Anderson: Fine.  But no psycho-analyzing. I went to Vegas and gambled away twenty grand that belonged to a church I was doing pro-bono for.  In my defense I was so drunk I don’t remember anything except wearing a dress I knew my mother would disapprove of because she doesn’t think women over twenty-five should wear dresses above their knees.  Anyway, I got fired for breaking the law and avoided jail by going to rehab because I’m an alcoholic with a gambling addiction.   But the church choir is still getting their organ and jewel-toned robes because I volunteered to have my wages garnished until eternity. (beat) You had an abortion?

Keira: Oh, God no!  The only person who liked me in high school was Ms. Turk who coached field hockey.

Pulled into an emergency meeting on her first day at work, Anderson is brought in to help solve a public relations disaster that has befallen the Mayor.

Dennis: Good news, bad news.  Bad news first.  Stacey our town reporter will be running the following story in tomorrow’s paper:  “Ms. Tricia Pane was arrested Tuesday night in Hudson for possession of marijuana.  Blah blah blah, during a search of her vehicle, checks were found made out to cash from the mayor’s personal account.”…Tricia Pane is a hooker slash dominatrix, which leads me to believe Pane is not her real last name, although that would be pretty cool.  The checks are from before, during and after the cancer that killed the mayor’s wife.

Erika: Damn, the cancer had our favorables up to the highest any mayor this town has seen.

Dennis: Bye, bye old lady sympathy votes.

Erika: What’s the good news?

Dennis: Carolyn brought bagels.

Anderson advises the mayor to resign until she is informed that her job is through the mayor’s office and not the village, ergo the mayor is out, she’s out.  And add insult to injury, Anderson, ill informed and ill prepared, had argued the wrong side of a case in front of a judge that morning and referred to the party who filed the initial case as an idiot, not realizing that such “party” was the mayor.  One day in town and Anderson’s high school rival Duncan, Hudson’s Communications Director, has wagered fifty dollars that she’ll be gone by day’s end.

Au contraire, Anderson, with some able assistance from her new assistant (Duncan’s former assistant), uncovers the truth about the origins of the mayor’s checks (the origin of which goes under the category of no good deed goes unpunished) and finds a way that will allow him to clear his name, target the real culprit (his ne’er do well brother-in-law whom he had always protected at the behest of his beloved and now deceased wife), and help said brother-in-law back down the road to recovery; as well as finding a way to save the case she had tanked earlier in the day.  Reconnecting with family members and recognizing the renewing aspects of going home again put Anderson back on the slow road to recovery.

No Meaner Place: Sarah McLaughlin, a half hour comedy writer who has worked on  “What I Like About You” and “The 70’s Show,” has written a comedic character piece about being dragged kicking and screaming to a place she swore she would never return and gradually discovering its virtues.  This is not a particularly original theme, but the execution is very good and she finds ways of making the characters show more depth than would have been expected.  So much of this pilot, and presumably the future episodes, delve into the divergence of what we were versus what we now are – and all the insecurities associated therein.  McLaughlin has made the everlasting slings and arrows of high school into understandable angst and hilarity.

Sony was interested in the piece, but only if it could be turned into a half hour comedy with a star attached.

Life Lessons for Writers:  Write what you love, not what “they want” because “they” usually don’t know what they want.

Conversation with the Writer:

Neely: Sarah, you are a half hour writer at the beginning of your career and practically right out of the gate you come up with a terrific one hour comedy.  Where did this come from?

Sarah: I went home to my small town in New York for Thanksgiving three weeks after the Writers’ Strike had begun. I was hanging out with my best friend from high school who had never left and was now friends with all the “cool” kids from high school who had also never left.  She thought they were all really great and I thought they were all losers who had never moved out or on.  And the thought occurred to me – what would happen if the strike continued and I was forced to move back in with my parents. I suddenly realized that this is what Hell would look like.  Most of the humiliations that happen to Anderson in the script happened to me in one way or another and everyone still remembers them.

Neely: Who were your influences in writing and who helped you get your start?

Sarah: Getting started in the business, I first worked as Caroline Rhea’s personal assistant.  Then I got a job as a PA on a Wind Dancer show called “Soul Man” with Dan Ackroyd, and when that went down (fairly quickly) I got a writers’ assistant job on another Wind Dancer show entitled “Costello,” which also faded pretty quickly.  I then got on “The Norm Show” but wasn’t really happy there and left to work as a writers’ assistant on “Jesse,” after which I landed on “The 70’s Show.”  I came in contact with some great writers on those shows but I was really nurtured and taught by Jackie and Jeff Filgo and Mark Brazil on “The 70’s Show.”   They were the Showrunners who helped me get an agent and really get started.  They got me my first staff writing job on “The 80’s Show.”  After that went down I got a position on “What I Like About You” but I was really unhappy there.  When I let Jackie, Jeff and Mark know that things weren’t working out, it happened there was an opening and they were able to fit me onto the writing staff of “The 70s Show.”

Neely: What was your favorite experience on a show you worked on?

Sarah: In the 2000-2001 season of “The 70s Show” there was talk of a writers’ strike and Fox ordered 30 episodes so all the writers’ assistants got an episode assignment.  Because all the writers, and especially the Showrunners, were busy with their episodes I got to work with Bonnie and Terry Turner on my script.  Here were these two legends who had done “Wayne’s World,” “Coneheads,” and “The Brady Bunch Movie;” as well as “Third Rock from the Sun” and they were laughing at my jokes!  It was like a drug that I wanted more and more of.  I got to work on a Carsey Werner show with “The 70s Show” group – they were all like a family.  They knew how to delegate and trust people to do their jobs.  I learned leadership from their example.

Neely: Was “Hudson” your first pilot?

Sarah: The first pilot I sold was over at MTV. Paris Hilton’s ex fiancée had come up with an idea for an animated show where Paris would be a superhero.  They got Stan Lee’s company POW Entertainment to join the project and then went out looking for writers.  I pitched to them while Paris was in jail and they liked my idea so much that I had to re-pitch to Paris when she was released.  The idea was that Paris was a superhero and her superpower was dumb luck. Which is very much like her life – when a sex tape is released that would ruin some people she just got more popular.  And the show was her life in Hollywood, shopping, partying with celebs and solving crimes with dumb luck. Throughout the project I would get notes from Paris and learned about Celebrity Branding and the Paris Hilton “Brand,” which I didn’t know anything about, but was quickly brought up to speed about what was and wasn’t in line with her “Brand.”

Neely: Can you tell us how she defined her “Brand?”

Sarah: Paris defined her brand as on par with Oprah’s and Donald Trump.  Sophisticated, much sought after, much admired.  MTV saw Paris’s brand as silly, blonde and someone who likes to party and shop.  My job was to mitigate the discrepancy of those 2 polar opposites in the script.

Neely: Returning to the topic at hand, as “Hudson” was shopped, what kind of reaction did you get and what were some of the meetings like?

Sarah: My agents at the time, Endeavor, sent it out to various places and the reaction was really good.  They let me know that you really liked it.  Then, for whatever reason, Endeavor lost interest and it just sort of died.  I’ve changed agents and am now with APA.

Neely: Well, I’m going to tell you something that I hammer to my students.  It’s your project so take over and sell it.  It’s a wonderful script and a wonderful idea, so get APA to set up meetings and go pitch it yourself.  Nobody can sell your material better than you can.

Sarah: I hadn’t thought of it that way.  I’ve never pitched it myself.

Neely: No one knows these characters better than you do.  It’s sooo post high school (and believe me most of us never get over it) so you must have lived this. With whom do you identify the most and why?

Sarah: Well, like I said, this was my vision of what Hell would look like if I had to go back.  Of course I know all those characters and I lived those humiliations.  Anderson is me and Keira is my best friend Andrea.  Dennis is my Dad who always says things like “Dignity is like a top hat, wearing it is fine, albeit uncomfortable, but don’t try standing on it.”

Neely: What were you like in high school?  Have you gone to any high school reunions since you became a professional (i.e., getting paid for your work as opposed to keeping a diary or, god forbid, writing a blog) writer?  If yes, what was that experience like?

Sarah: I had bad skin and was chubby and did not know how to dress at all, but I was well liked with lots of energy even though everyone made fun of me. I went to Catholic elementary school and still have lots of Catholic guilt to deal with, but I still go to church. I just felt suffocated by the small town.  I’ve been to one reunion and I was the super star for having moved to Los Angeles and this was before I had a paying writer job!  I was voted class hottie, but that’s probably just because I’m the only one who left who didn’t just get fat.

Neely: Interestingly I understand that you were asked by Sony to rewrite “Hudson” as a half hour.  How did that occur?

Sarah: Endeavor sent it to Sony.  I had a blind script deal there and they thought maybe this would take care of it.  They put me together with Jamie Tarses who has an overall with Sony, and it was Jamie who thought it would make a great half hour.

Neely: What was your process in rethinking and repurposing the material?  Were you given specific notes about what they wanted the characters to be and what direction they wanted the show to go?

Sarah: My original idea for the show was “Gilmore Girl meets West Wing” but Sony didn’t want the show to be set in a political world like the mayor’s office. They also wanted the parents to be more present. In the hour long version, the parents are away when she arrives home and only show up in the end. Anderson had no idea they had gone to Alaska. This was to highlight that Anderson didn’t talk to them much. That was a true story about me. I flew to NY once to surprise my parents and they were on a trip out of the country for a month. But I talk to my parents; I don’t want to get any calls from them after they read this!   When I finished the script, Sony was  trying to get talent attached and approached Lauren Graham who passed.  Then they sort of got overwhelmed with taking other pitches out during pitching season this year and decided to send it out in January.

Neely: When you wrote “Hudson” as a one hour, did you have anyone in particular in mind for the main character?  What about for the half hour?

Sarah: I never write with anyone’s voice in mind because I’m afraid that it would interfere with the originality of the character.

Neely: Are you working on anything else?  What about staffing?

Sarah: I’m not staffed on anything at the moment but would love to be.  I’ve got a pitch that’s going to the Disney Channel and I’m developing a work place comedy.

Neely: I really look forward to following your career; you have a terrific voice.

Up Next:  “Orpheus” by Nicholas Meyer

In the meantime, check out my posting at baseline studio system:  http://www.blssresearch.com/research-wrap?detail/C6/branding_irons_in_the_fire

December 1, 2009

“A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants” – David Lloyd

Filed under: Conversations With, Pilots, Pilots Spec Scripts, Sutton, Writers — Tags: , , , — Neely Swanson @ 10:54 am

They say (whoever “they” are) that somewhere out there is your double.  What are the odds you’ll meet him?  About the same as being struck twice by lightning.

Two Dicks by Phoef Sutton

What: Dick Blubaugh meets his physical double, Richard Amundsen, in a low life roadside bar in New Mexico; and that is where the resemblance ends.

Who: Pulling into a biker bar in Bumf**k, New Mexico, Dick Blubaugh parks “his” Prius with the “My Child is an Honor Student at Jimmie Rodgers High School” bumper sticker and ambles in for a piss and a drink (in that order).  It is the bartender who is the first to notice the strange similarity between Dick and the guy standing next to him – they are identical (and, yes, as a boy Dick was struck twice by lightning).

Dick: So, they say that somewhere in the world there is an exact double of the every person.  Chalk one up for them.

Discovering that they have different birthdays, Dick remarks that they are not identical, but then Dick is also not a genius.

Other Guy: No.  We just look exactly the same.

Dick: Well, not exactly.

Other Guy: No?

Dick: That mole on your cheek.  I got mine on the other side.

Other Guy: You’re used to looking at yourself in a mirror, friend.  It’s on the same side.

Dick touches his face.

Darned if it isn’t.  Compounding the coincidence, the Other Guy, also driving a Prius, is named Richard, Richard Amundsen.  And it is here that the resemblance ends, as Richard is a college professor returning to his University from a year’s sabbatical; Dick is a petty criminal on the lam from something or someone.

Richard: My life, it seems perfect.  I get up, I teach stuff I already know, I can’t get fired ‘cause I have tenure.

Dick: What’s that?

Richard: It means I can’t get fired.  I go to parties, I go to functions, I have students who worship me.  But I’m all empty inside.

Dick: I got the opposite problem.  I got nothing.  Do you know where I’m going tomorrow?

Richard: No.

Dick: Neither do I.  I got no roots, I got no job.  I’m a blank slate.

Richard: You know something?  I envy you.

Dick: Envy is the sixth deadly sin.  Or the second, depending on how you Google it.  Trust me, I lead a lonely life.

Richard: You can be in the middle of a crowd and still be lonely.  Take it from me.

And so a deal with the Devil is made and Richard and Dick exchange lives after a few preliminary instructions on what to expect on the other end; and they go their separate ways – Richard down the road in a stolen Prius, seemingly without a care in the world; and Dick in Richard’s pristine Prius, off to a teaching job in Illinois where he will give new meaning to the Socratic method.

But of course there are unexpected consequences, which for Dick involve complicated love triangles and a dead body in the freezer of his new campus home; and for Richard it involves a bounty hunter and a pair of handcuffs.  As Richard so aptly put it:

I thought by trading Richard Amundsen in for a new name, I’d get a fresh start.  All my troubles would be over…What I didn’t count on was that every name carries its own troubles right along with it.

No Meaner Place: Although this pilot has made the rounds of the various studios and networks and brought deserved attention to the writer, no one has had enough vision to attempt a production.  Though clearly not a broadcast network project, surely it fits within the brand of one of the more progressive cable channels – Showtime, HBO, even USA and F/X come to mind.  The premise is smart, complex, ironic and hilarious.  Certainly in the past network execs were reluctant to mount a show with a seemingly unsympathetic character (and here we have two, even if they are the same – although Dick, at least, has a caddish, almost innocent charm, for someone with such a long rap sheet), but this is no longer true.  At the very least, Sutton has all the elements in place for farce – as each man’s attempt to remove himself from difficulties will, no doubt, result in fresh difficulties.  In its own way, this potential series is a down and dirty successor to “Frasier.”  This is fish-out-of-water to a new extreme and gives special meaning to the old adage “be careful what you wish for, it may come true.”

Life Lessons for Writers:  If they read the pilot and want you, you’ve won half the battle. After all, half a battle is better than none (or is that a loaf?) or maybe it isn’t.

Conversation with the Writer:

Neely: Phoef, I know before you began your television career you were a playwright.  How did you get started and what brought you into TV?

Phoef: I got started writing plays and acting in them in college.  I really liked the process of writing them and then seeing my work performed in front of people.  One of my plays was published by the Theater Communities Group in their “Plays in Progress” series.  My play “Burial Customs” was mounted several times, including at the University of Michigan.  When I moved to LA, my play “Thin Walls” was presented at the Back Alley Theater.

Neely: To digress a few minutes, this belongs to one of those “the world is small” moments because last Spring you and your wife Dawn came to dinner at our house and our other guests, Laura Zucker and Alan Miller, unbeknownst to me, were two of your oldest friends in LA. Laura and Alan who ran the Back Alley, gave you your debut in LA.  As I recall, Dawn was their accountant and you worked as stage manager.  Laura is now the Executive Director of the LA County Arts Commission and Alan continues to act.  You and I got to know each other on “Boston Legal,” but I was aware of you long before that as you had a rather famous career arc on “Cheers” going rapidly from Staff Writer to Showrunner in an 8 year span.  How did you land the original writing job?

Phoef: So I was a very happy stage manager at the Back Alley Theater making $100 a week when Dawn got pregnant and I realized that I needed to make more money, and fast.  Interestingly, I had written a spec “Newhart” script three years before and had sent it to Barbara Hall who I knew from college, but shortly after she and most of the rest of the staff left the show, so no one had read my script.  Now, here it was, almost three years later and I got a call from someone on “Newhart” that they had found my script and liked it.  So I thought maybe I could start the process again and sent it to Elliot Webb who looked at it again and liked it; he sent it to Heide Perlman at “Cheers,” who also liked it and asked to meet with me.  They didn’t have any staff jobs available but invited me to pitch some ideas.  After a couple of tries, they liked one of them and gave me a freelance script.  Then I got a couple of freelance assignments for a show called “All is Forgiven,” another Charles/Burrows/Charles production, followed by an assignment for “Mary,” the Mary Tyler Moore follow-up show.  I had made about $30,000 doing these scripts and I thought we were rich!  Well at least I thought so until I got a staff writer position on “Cheers” in the third or fourth year of the show (ed. Note: staff writers are paid very little their first year and any scripts they write that year are usually credited against their salaries).  I stayed for eight years and ran it the last four years.

Neely: Wasn’t the transition from theater to television difficult?  You were actually quite young when you started on “Cheers.”

Phoef: I may have been young when I started, but I had already been writing plays for five years before I got my job on “Cheers” so I actually had a great leg up.  Half hour multi-camera sitcom is essentially a play.  “Cheers” was a 2 act play with entrances, exits, stage directions; it was people talking and behaving and getting it across to the audience.

Neely: I’m sure there were lots of special moments on that show, but what immediately comes to mind?

Phoef: Working on that show was wonderful beyond belief; the whole experience.

Neely: Since that was the start of your successful writing career, who were some of the most important influences on you, both on and off that show.  Did you have a mentor?

Phoef: Les Charles, David Lee, Bob Ellison, Jerry Belson, David Isaacs, Ken Levine, David Angell, Peter Casey, Cheri and Bill Steinkellner – everyone had an Emmy.  Bill Steinkellner was an improv teacher and taught us in the writing room to just keep spouting ideas. As for a mentor…it’s always been difficult to be my…I never really…well if anyone was my mentor it was David Lloyd.

Neely: David Lloyd died about 2 weeks ago; I know you were just at his memorial service.  Please tell us something about him.

Phoef: Learning from David was like going to college at MTM.  David was a weekly consultant on “Cheers.”  He had a razor-like wit which was great as long as it wasn’t directed at you; he didn’t suffer fools.  He was like someone who would have been comfortable at the Algonquin Round Table.  He always worked on a typewriter and he never took notes when he was pitched ideas for the stories he would write.  He’d just listen and then go off and two hours later he’d have the outline.  If you were unlucky enough to have to rewrite his stuff, he made your life a living hell, although he never held a grudge; but most of his scripts didn’t have to be touched — they were just that good.  And when you were in trouble on somebody else’s script he could fix it.   He’d just pitch out a whole act and you’d sit there and marvel at it and try to get it down verbatim.  David never had an agent; he always did his own negotiating – in the third person.  He’d come in and say “David Lloyd needs this” or “I’ll discuss it with David Lloyd.”  Later on in the run he decided that he wouldn’t work past sundown…and he didn’t; he’d go home.  He was unique and amazing.

Neely: Of course you’ve done a lot of other things; including but not limited to (that pesky Business Affairs background keeps getting in my way) developing the British show “Coupling” for American T.V., writing a series for Bob Newhart, and are credited with several screenplays, most notably “The Fan.”   Which projects in your post-“Cheers” career stand out to you, and why?

Phoef: My absolute favorite was a show I created called “Thanks.”  It was a period piece involving Pilgrims who’ve just arrived in the New World and starred Tim Dutton, Jim Rash and Cloris Leachman, among others.  I got to do anything I wanted because the network execs couldn’t figure out what to say or what notes to give.  When people have said to me that they couldn’t believe that the network cancelled it after 6 episodes, I say I was amazed that they actually ran 6 episodes.  It was truly a joy to go in and work on that show.

Neely: Just as a side note, Tim was hired on “Ally McBeal” based on his work on “Thanks.”

Phoef: Sarah Vowell has championed that show in her book on the Pilgrims, THE WORDY SHIPMATES.  And she talks about it all the time on NPR – she’s kind of a one-woman cult, and I really appreciate it.

Neely: What about your features – “Mrs. Winterbourne,” “The Fan” and “Analyze This?”

Phoef: I am credited on “Mrs. Winterbourne” and “The Fan,” but I don’t think I got screen credit on “Analyze This;” I also worked but didn’t get credit on “Men in Black” and “High Fidelity.”  In screenwriting you just never meet the other collaborators.  It’s a very solitary life and you often don’t get credit on the things you write.  They just keep passing the script from person to person and sometimes it ends up being passed back to you again.

Neely: Let’s talk about “Two Dicks.”  When I mentioned to you that I wanted to write about your unproduced pilot called “The Impastors,” (which, by the way, I still love and reserve my right [again with the Business Affairs] to write about it at some future date) you mentioned this pilot.  Intriguingly you said that it had gotten you lots of work but that the project itself was always declined.  Any thoughts?

Phoef: With “Two Dicks” I woke up one morning with the idea and wrote it in a week; the first time that ever happened to me.  I sent it to my agent and he loved it; he sent it out and everyone loved it but no one would make it.  I see it as a Film Noir sitcom.  Maybe one of the problems is that it is serialized.  We almost had it set up at Fox.  The exec said “This is great!  Let me think about it over the weekend.”  We were sure we had it sold until the next Monday morning.  It’s made the cable rounds without luck.  It’s a huge disappointment.  The show doesn’t have a defined path which is wonderful in the execution but scary as hell for a network executive.  I saw it sort of as a parody of a “Lost” or “Flash Forward” type show.  There would be a new revelation behind every door.  I’ve always been a fan of the Raymond Chandler quote:   “When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.” I think of that whenever I’m stuck in the story.

Neely: Could there still be a cable home for this show?

Phoef: Well, unencumbered by any trace of success, it may still have hope.

Neely: Are you more Richard or more Dick?

Phoef: Definitely Dick.  Richard is darker and I don’t trust him.

Neely: In 2005 you made the jump to one hour drama with “Boston Legal.”  How big a leap was that and what were the challenges?

Phoef: Well I’d already done some features and I’d written several one hour pilots.  I didn’t find it to be that different.  The legal stuff took a lot of research and I needed to learn to write in David Kelley’s voice.  I loved writing the balcony scenes.

Neely: After “Boston Legal” you worked on a show called “Valentine” that had a very interesting business model – one that ultimately failed, but interesting none the less.  The show was produced by Media Rights Capital which, simplistically put, basically bought out Sunday night from the CW in exchange for the bulk of the advertising revenue.  I thought the strategy was brilliant, but I think they failed because they didn’t have the proper financial controls in place.  The two shows produced under this system were way too expensive to allow for break-even, let alone profit.  Did you feel any difference in working for a show under this new model?

Phoef: Well it did sound like a great idea.  But by the time we had written and produced 6 episodes and were ready to premiere, MRC had run through all of their money so there was no marketing and there was no way to even find out that we were on TV.  They ran out of money and that was the end.

Neely: What are you working on now?  Got any new pilots?

Phoef: I’m working on “Terriers” for F/X.  It’s the show that Ted Griffin (”Oceans Eleven”) wrote for Shawn Ryan’s company.  Shawn is a really good showrunner.  I’m in the outline phase of my episode (and I should get back to it).  I’m also doing a half hour pilot for ABC with Rob Long.  I was Rob’s first boss when he started as a staff writer on “Cheers.”  Rosie Perez is attached to the pilot and everything’s going well so far.

Neely: You’ve been at this for some time.  Has anything changed?

Phoef: When I started, I knew it would be hard to break in; I didn’t realize that I’d have to continue to break in.  You can’t coast.  In Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, he explains that to be really good at something you have to work 10,000 hours at it and he gave many examples of people who had done that like Bill Gates.  In television comedy they don’t want that experience.  They think that someone who has written a script can run a show. They think young and inexperienced is better.  Networks now have to approve everyone on the writing staff and they make sure that there isn’t more than one “old” guy.  I’m not sure they would ever have approved me.

Neely: Over the years, have you continued to write plays?

Phoef: No.  The average person doesn’t go to plays and I’m not interested in writing for the intellectuals.  When I was in the theater and a young actor, everyone was always talking about the Theater with a capital T and hating TV.  I always thought about Chuckles the Clown (a character on the original Mary Tyler Moore Show) and reaching a wider audience.  In “Chuckles Bites the Dust,” one of David Lloyd’s Emmy-winning episodes for the series, David wrote the best eulogy ever – “A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.”  I like writing for television.

November 24, 2009

“Dying is easy, comedy is hard.” A conversation with Jon Sherman.

Filed under: Conversations With, Pilots, Pilots Spec Scripts, Sherman, Writers — Tags: , , , — Neely Swanson @ 9:06 am

Neely: Before we get started, can you give me a bit of your background – where you grew up, family, interests, college…you know, “Jon Sherman the Early Years.”

Jon: I grew up in Riverside, though I had very little Southern California influence.  My dad’s originally a New Yorker and my mom is English.  He was a biology professor at the UC campus, while she started as a biologist, then went to law school about the time I was in 7th grade, became a D.A. and eventually a judge – so no show business connections to help me get started.  My younger sister’s a magazine writer and the author of “Frenemies”, a series of  tween novels.  In high school I was pretty geeky (a “Dungeons and Dragons” kid) and then in college I was in the Stanford Marching Band playing trumpet and mellophone; eventually I was in charge of the band.  After college, I started as an assistant on the Paramount lot, which is how I met Ann Blanchard.  At the time she was an agent’s assistant, but when she eventually became an agent, I was her first client.  My parents, though really worried about the instability of my chosen profession, were always incredibly supportive — and by ‘incredibly’ I mean I never totally believed them.

Neely: But you had enormous talent.

Jon: I’ve always felt that you can’t have talent without luck and you can’t have luck without talent.

Neely: You were one of the first present era television writers I became aware of, not because of your amazing skill or talent (neither of which is in question) but because when I was a temp assistant in Fox television Business Affairs I had to process a “blind script” contract that had your name on it.  This was pretty early in your career (“The Preston Episodes” years, or should I say half year) and I had never heard of a “blind script.”  Investigating, I discovered that it meant you were being given money to write a pilot script, essentially of your own choosing.  Wow, I thought, this guy must be really good; and I looked for your name in the credits ever after.  Of course ever after took a while because I can’t honestly say I watched “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.”  But when you landed screen credit on “The Naked Truth,” I instantly perked up.  So what was that 1995/96 blind script about?

Jon: Honestly, it’s pretty fuzzy.  I think 20th might have been trying to hedge their bets with me and the next job I might take.  I might not have actually written a script, though I did kick some ideas around with David Babcock, who’d been a co-exec on “The Preston Episodes.”

Neely: You created MTV’s first scripted series, “Dead at 21” – how did that happen?

Jon: Ann told me to go pitch them ideas for game shows and action adventures.  So I did, only they didn’t like the ideas because they weren’t “MTV” enough.  I had no idea what that meant, so they explained it to me and told me to go away and come back when I had something that fit their brand.  Now, as most people know, that was just short hand for “go away.”  But I was new and didn’t understand the subtleties so I came up with some ideas I thought would fit and eventually devised “Dead at 21.”  I ended up being a staff writer without any say whatsoever on the show I created and I can’t say it was a very positive experience.  Nevertheless, I did work with some great writers, notably Manny Coto who went on to run “Enterprise” and exec produce “24,” and P.K. Simonds, who worked on “Doogie Howser,” “Party of Five” and now is showrunner on “Ghost Whisperer.”

Neely: I find some irony in the fact that you are a great comedy writer and yet you started in drama (“Dead at 21”) and are back on a one hour drama (“Royal Pains”).

Jon: Comedy has always been my primary love.

Neely: Great comedy writers are quite rare and you have some great credits (for the record, I truly believe what I tell my students, and that is to never sneer at a gig, and that would probably be what “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” falls under).  Tell us a bit about the experience of working on “Sabrina.”

Jon: Actually this never fell into the category of “a gig is a gig.”  I loved working on this show.  Nell Scovell was one of the writers on “The Preston Episodes” and she became my mentor.  After “Preston” went down, Nell got me an interview with Steve Levitan who had a 6 episode order for a show called “Just Shoot Me” and he offered me a job as an Executive Story Editor (the logical next step from where I had been on “The Preston Episodes”).  But then Nell ended up getting a job running “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” because the guy who originally created it and was set to run it was unable to get out of the show he was on and she asked me to come on board.  In the end it was loyalty to Nell and a leap frog to Co-Producer that convinced me to do “Sabrina.”

Neely: Moving on to “The Naked Truth,” any experiences jump to mind?

Jon: “The Naked Truth” was really hard; one of the hardest years I ever had.  The people involved were interesting and very talented but it was a show that never found a footing or could figure out what it was supposed to be.  The hours were horrendous, I had no life, and there was a lot of conflict in the Writers’ Room.  This was my only experience where hostile factions erupted.  It was like bailing water on a ship that was sinking.  This show really burned me out and for the first time I wondered if I had chosen the wrong profession.  It made me question my ability and undermined my confidence.

Neely: “Encore, Encore” was seen by so few and had some of the best writing on television at the time; Ernie Sabella who played Leo the vineyard manager is a personal friend and he loved doing the show.  And who knew that the fabulous Joan Plowright, Olivier’s widow, had such fabulous comedic timing!  I was blown away by James Patrick Stewart’s fake French accent and was totally smitten to learn that he was the son of Chad Stewart, of Chad and Jeremy fame. (What a clash of the demographic groups, especially since I always have to explain that Chad and Jeremy were part of the “British Invasion” singing groups, contemporaneous to the Beatles…and I’ve now targeted myself as a no longer viable demographic group.)  Well, whatever went wrong with that show, it wasn’t the writing.  It also appears to have been the most influential of your career as it brought you to the attention of David Angell, Peter Casey and David Lee.

Jon: Well I think everyone was trying too hard to fit “Encore, Encore” into the “Frasier” mold.  I wasn’t sure a sitcom about opera and wine was what America was craving, but the mentoring on this show put me back in the groove; and, honestly in the back of my head I thought if it didn’t work out, maybe it could lead to a job on “Frasier.”  One outgrowth for me was that I fell in love with wine.  Paramount flew us all on the corporate jet to Napa.  When we got there, I asked Peter Casey who I’d be sharing a room with and he raised an eyebrow, saying “No one.  You’re in the big leagues now.”  I guess I was still that Stanford band geek who was used to sharing a room with 4 other guys.  After “Encore, Encore,” David, Peter and David told me they’d like to put me on “Frasier.”  And then Steve Levitan called and offered me a position on “Stark Raving Mad” and I had to turn him down again.  I would still really like to work with him.

Neely: “Frasier” is probably in my all time favorite top 10 of comedy.  How did that work in the room?

Jon: I was hired by David, Peter and David, but they weren’t in the room on a regular basis; Chris Lloyd and Joe Keenan were running it, so I felt a bit like a redheaded step child.  I had to prove myself to them.  I started in Season 6 and continued to the end of the run in Season 11, eventually moving up to Executive Producer.

Neely: The pressure to write a farce every week must have been enormous pressure.

Jon: It wasn’t all farce.  Joe Keenan’s particular strength was writing farce.  A particular favorite of mine was called “The Ski Lodge” where there are misunderstandings, misinterpretations and lots of slamming doors.  Mostly, though, I think “Frasier” was a character-based comedy with really strong characters and performers.

Neely: Who were your most important comedy influences, both from the standpoint of people you’ve worked with and those whose style or careers you admired as you were coming up?

Jon: Definitely Nell Scovell, as I mentioned earlier.  Also the Grub Street guys, David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee, both from the standpoint of comedy and support.  Also Chris Lloyd who was always asking the hard questions – “What makes this funny? Why are we doing this?”  As to early influences I’d cite Peter Tolan who not only wrote on what I consider to be one of the best comedies of all time, “The Larry Sanders Show,” but also wrote some terrific one act plays.  My favorite show growing up was probably “Monty Python.”  I got a healthy dose of British comedy from my English mother.  As a kid I watched everything and loved period piece shows like “When Things Were Rotten.”  In college I was a hard core “Simpsons” fan.  I also liked “Taxi” and “Cheers.”

Neely: It should be noted that when we tried to talk last time, you were a world away; on a train from China to Nepal, about to lose all cell phone and internet contact.  What were you doing there?

Jon: Let me give a little in the way of back story.  The first sitcom I ever worked on was the Margaret Cho comedy called “All American Girl.”  One of the other writers who worked on it, Rita Hsiao, went on to write on a number of Disney projects like “Mulan” and “Toy Story 2.”  She was contacted by an independent Chinese production company to write an animated feature based on a Chinese comic entitled Tibetan Rockdog and we’re working together on it.  The Chinese production company wants to do it totally independently and control distribution.  They wanted us to come to China and Tibet to get a feel for the area culturally and visually.  Our job on that trip was to enjoy the landscape.  We’re in the outline stage at this point.  I’m going to Rita’s place to work on it later this morning.

Neely: Like many of your colleagues, you’ve jumped to one hour drama with “Royal Pains” on USA.  Is the writing process different?  What are the similarities?

Jon: The writing process is very different.  Comedy is easier to break and harder to write.  Drama is harder to break and easier to write.  There are only so many things in the moment that can happen in drama.  A comedy writer I once worked with said, “if a kid gets kidnapped in the first 5 minutes everyone agrees it’s dramatic.  But nobody agrees what’s funny.”

Neely: This gives me the perfect opportunity to repeat a quote variously attributed to George Bernard Shaw, Edmund Gwen, Donald Wolfit or Edmund Kean when asked about imminent death – “Dying is easy.  Comedy is hard.”  Now not to ignore the elephant in the room, but let’s talk a bit about “The Compleat Pratt.”  Does anyone get it?

Jon: Yes, some people have gotten it. But mostly I’ve found that people either love it or don’t get it. 

Neely: I have to tell you that whenever I taught coverage to any of our PAs or assistants, I would use “The Compleat Pratt” as my successful comedy example.  It worked well until one day when a particularly bright PA who had recently graduated from UCLA in playwrighting handed the script back to me indicating that it had disappointed him.  Surprised and perplexed, I asked him why and he responded that he “would have liked to have seen what Tom Stoppard would have done with the material.”  Dumbfounded, my only response to him was that there were two words I didn’t want to hear when discussing situation comedy – “Tom” and “Stoppard.”

Jon: Well, actually I would love to see what Stoppard would do with the material.  His writing has been a big influence.  Do you think maybe I could get him to do a polish on it?

Neely: What are you working on now?

Jon: Besides the movie, I’ll be going back full time on “Royal Pains.”  I have a very full plate right now and don’t want to spread myself too thin.

Neely: Talking to you was an enormous pleasure and exceeded my already very high expectations.  Thank you so much for taking the time.

November 18, 2009

Given a choice between charging elephants and development season, I’ll still choose No Meaner Place.

Filed under: Conversations With, Pilots, Produced, Todd, Writers — Tags: , , , — Neely Swanson @ 9:10 am

What if the Buddies are girls?

“Soccer Moms” by Donald Todd

What: An upscale neighborhood is being systematically robbed; the disappearance of an illegal maid threatens to upend the campaign of a local politician; and a “June Cleaver” soccer mom has too much time on her hands.

Who: Brooke Benning, the perfect suburban mom we all wanted as kids and hate as adults, was running her own one-woman neighborhood watch even before her neighbors were being robbed blind in a series of daring daylight robberies.  Curious, some would say nosey, by nature, Brooke takes a walk each evening, strolling the neighborhood, a habit her husband calls spying.

Ed: …you’re one step from turning into Mrs. Kravitz from “Bewitched”.

Brooke: To be fair to Mrs. Kravitz, there was a witch next door.  And Darrin did turn into a monkey.

This particular evening she spies a beat up Volvo that doesn’t belong in the area.  Taking things into her own hands she harasses its inhabitants – Dana, a mom, and her two kids, Jack and Molly.  Not only does Brooke force them to leave but she also reports the license to the police.  Imagine her chagrin the next day at the local elementary school when Dana, a fellow mother at the school, confronts her.  Dana, an ex-cop whose husband is in jail for fraud, is now a private investigator and Brooke had interrupted her stake-out, her livelihood.  Furthermore, because Brooke had reported Dana’s car, Dana is no longer able to enter the neighborhood and finish her job.

Brooke: You were on a job?  Who were you watching?

Dana: (showing her card) See the “private” in “private investigator?” That stands for “private.”

At this point, both worlds collide as Dana’s son runs up to her and reminds her that she forgot to make him a lunch.

Brooke: Here – I made an extra lunch, he can have that.

Dana: …What do you mean, you made an “extra” lunch?  Who packs a spare lunch, that doesn’t even make sense.

Very remorseful, and extremely intrigued, Brooke offers to lend her the family van and takes care of Dana’s children while she works.  Unable to resist the call of the gumshoe, Brooke visits Dana on her stakeout (bringing a plate of dinner and calling attention to herself yet again).

Brooke: Okay, you’re watching the meeting, so whoever you’re sitting on must be inside, am I right?  I bet I can guess.  Is it Daniel Haven?  Because I always thought there was something funny about how he suddenly “came into” the money to put in that pool.

Dana: I’m sorry, did you say “sitting on?”

Brooke: I know the lingo.  So who’s the mark?

Dana: (laughs; tough talk) The mark? No can do, sister – I rat out the mark, they’ll lam it outta here toot suite.

Brooke: (embarrassed) Never mind. (They sit in silence, as Dana eats.  Beat.)  Okay, I’m already bored.  How do you do this?  And where do you go to the bathroom?

If Oscar and Felix of “The Odd Couple” were women, they would be Brooke and Dana, although unlike Felix, and potentially more annoying, Brooke is preternaturally perky; but even though we all hate perky, it’s impossible not to like Brooke.

Dana: Oh, god, don’t tell me – you’re one of those families that eat around the table every night.

Brooke: Yes, we are.  I think a family should all talk to one another at dinner.

Dana: Then how do you hear the TV?

Brooke soon finds a new case for Dana, one which Dana, when she sees the $2,000 retainer, is unable to refuse.  Dana, grateful, falls into that syrupy trap of “be careful what you wish for.”  Enormously pleased with herself, Brooke soon insinuates herself into the case and Dana’s life.

No Meaner Place: Again, this wonderful script was produced as a pilot…over and out.  I have no idea what happened, but whatever it was, it wasn’t the writing.  Crisp, funny, with clearly defined and visualized characters (Shelly Long and Bette Midler played similar characters to perfection in “Outrageous Fortune” in 1987); a male-dominated genre written perfectly with originality for women with the potential for endless stories told humorously.  For any woman who has ever had to find her fulfillment as a suburban soccer mom, this is Walter Middy-land with that sexy bit of danger.  To a certain extent, each of us wants the potential excitement of Dana’s life and some (god knows not all) the perfection of Brooke.  There are those of you out there (you know who you are) who always brought extra orange sections to the games in case, god forbid, that week’s soccer mom brought apple slices instead.

Todd is skilled at understanding the vulnerabilities and traps into which middle class women often find themselves.  He has always written interesting female characters, most recently on “Samantha Who?” and “Ugly Betty;” as well as another unproduced pilot entitled “Robin’s Nest.”

I could care less if a network or studio stays ahead of the curve or behind it.  It’s useless to anticipate what the audience will want.  Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue (that would have to be on cable), but do it well and let the audience decide.  The audience will often surprise you.  Why program for 14 year old boys?  This isn’t the tentpole business where you only need two weekends and a lot of noise and special effects; 14 year old boys aren’t watching TV and “Knight Rider” didn’t bring them back.  I’m watching TV and eventually advertisers will learn, if they haven’t already, that brand loyalty is a thing of the past and they should aim for that part of the audience that still has money to spend. This is a show I want to see and if the first pilot didn’t work, for whatever reason, do it over!

Life Lessons for Writers:  Beware the Upset Price and negotiate your separated rights (it can’t be said too many times) because as near as I can calculate, if they still exist those rights to “Soccer Moms” should be reverting any day now, allowing for a return to the market.

Conversation with the Writer:

Neely: I have been a big fan for a long time.  Everyone I’ve talked to absolutely loves you, something that is rare in this business.

Don: Keep digging, you’ll find plenty of detractors.  It’s always that way, some people love you, some people don’t.

Neely: Your comedy bona fides are incredible dating back to “Alf.”  You’ve come a long way – please tell us how you got started in the serious business of comedy.

Don:  It was like the Butterfly Effect – how small actions on one side of the globe create huge changes on the other.  In my case, I was cold one night. I was a staff writer on a show called “Misfits of Science” that was filming out by Magic Mountain.  Staff writer, but more, because we all did everything.  The hours were incredibly long: 16 hours a day; a lot of the filming was outdoors and it was freezing.  One day when we were waiting for Magic Hour (finding just the right lighting for the shot we needed), and all of us cold as hell, I was talking to Burt Brinkerhoff, one of our directors, and he said, “You know, there are jobs where you work indoors all the time.”  I landed the job on “Alf” and didn’t look back.

Neely: Almost all of your credits were in half hour and then you transitioned to one hour.  How did that come about?

Don: Multi-camera shows never alter.  Table read, rehearsal, film in front of an audience; repeat.  It all felt the same and I needed a change.  I was working on “The Hugleys” and realized that I no longer enjoyed the process.  I wondered if it was the show, and would it be any different if I were working on “Friends,” and I realized that it was the format.  So, I wrote a drama spec pilot to show that I could work in one hour and made the jump.  I was lucky enough to write a pilot for Greer Shepherd and Mike Robin entitled “The Boneyard” about an obituary writer. Working with them was a great experience, and by shifting to drama right before the comedy business collapsed, I felt like a stunt man who jumped over the speeding car.  The strategy worked so well, that during the press tour for “Samantha Who?” a critic asked me how a drama writer like myself could hope to write a comedy.

Neely: Any favorite experiences outside of the shows you created?

Don: This is going to sound strange, but one of my best experiences was getting fired off a show.  I created something with Danny Jacobson for the WB called “Simon.”  You never want to get fired, but being sent home and then paid off for the rest of the season is a great job.  I got to spend time with the woman I’d started dating who eventually became my wife.  She was a dancer and I was able to travel with her.  So I owe my life and family to the WB.  “Thanks, WB, sorry you’re dead now.”  I also really liked working on “Dave’s World.”  It was a great writing experience.  Some of the best scripts I ever wrote were written for that show.   Oh and then there was the time Farrah Fawcett handed me a tennis ball.  I was working on “Good Grief” and my bungalow was next to the bungalow of Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O’Neal who were also working on the lot. I watched them batting around a tennis ball and when they were called to set, Farrah turned to me, smiled and tossed me the tennis ball.  And when I was working on “Brother’s Keeper” I got to put Jack Klugman and Tony Randall together for the first time since they did “The Odd Couple.”  We basically cast them as the odd couple.

Neely: You have a gift for writing women.  Any comments or explanations?

Don: Three marriages, maybe.  The “women’s voice” is not  a problem – it’s getting them out that’s the challenge. I started out writing male buddy comedies and then just started writing women because I enjoyed it more.  I really enjoy working with female stars.  I have to say no writer could ever ask for more than to have Christina Applegate and Jean Smart say their lines.  To paraphrase Jim Brooks, “They make me want to be a better writer.” Those two could sell anything, but if the scene isn’t working, it isn’t because of them.

Neely: Let’s talk a bit about “Soccer Moms.”  How did you pitch it and to whom (i.e., did the studios get it, were you under an overall, was there any kind of competition to produce this)?

Don: The idea was pitched by Rick Copp who has written several mystery novels.  Marla Ginsberg got on board and took it to Francie Calfo at ABC. I met with Marla and Francie and liked the idea and wrote the pilot.  Francie was a big supporter of mine.  Like “Soccer Moms,” the idea for “Samantha Who?” also came from a novelist.

Neely: At the studio level, what kind of notes did you get?

Don: It must have been a cooperative experience because I really don’t recall.

Neely: How about at the network level?

Don: I was working on “life as we know it” which was filming in Canada, so the whole development process was over the phone.  And in Canadian, which made it tough.

Neely: In terms of production, how involved were you at the various levels?  Did you have a say in choosing the director?  How about the cast?  How much time did you spend on set?

Don: As the showrunner, I was fully involved.  I spent a lot of time on set, I was there every second — to the extent that it might have even hurt my other project, “Testing Bob” starring Peter Dinklage.  “Soccer Moms” was a satisfying experience all the way up to production; the product didn’t come out right.  Eventually the network wanted to see a very cut down version just to see cast chemistry.  Then I think Steve McPherson accidentally taped the Super Bowl over it.

Neely: Did what happened on this show influence you when you worked on “Samantha Who?”

Don: Any showrunning experience should inform and improve the next one and the bad experiences inform the most.  I learned that I don’t have an interest in working with difficult stars.

Neely: I so love “Soccer Moms” and would still love to see it.  Who owns the rights? If ABC was willing to redo “Eastwick” (and that’s all I’m going to say about that show), do you think there’s any way to convince them to retry this one?

Don: If the network loves a project, then they’ll run with it again.  I’d really hesitate to do “Soccer Moms” at this point.  I have kids and I realized something: if the character has kids in school or at home you can’t put the Mom in real danger and because of that you immediately take away the drama.  If I redid “Soccer Moms” it would have to be very light and no one could carry guns.

Neely: What’s the pilot process like?

Don: The wonderful thing about doing pilots is it’s great for the ego.  During casting, you have people coming in all day telling you how great you are.

Neely: Well onward and upward.  Can you tell me what you’re working on now?

Don: I have two pilots in the works, one for CBS and the other for ABC.  The ABC pilot was my assistant Correne’s idea.  She was a lawyer before trying her hand at writing and she’s co-writing the story; I’ll write the teleplay.  It’s a half hour comedy about Millenials (the 20-26ers).  These are the Trophy Kids the ones who got trophies for anything they did – you know, the “everyone’s a winner” kids.  What happens when these entitled but very happy kids, the largest generation, hits the work place?  The CBS pilot is a domestic comedy about the many versions of me – I’ve been single, married, divorced, married, divorced, married, a stepfather, an adoptive father, a biological father, and so on.

Neely: I’ll look forward to reading and seeing those shows.

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