20 A-Not-So Safe Space on Friends from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]

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20 A-Not-So Safe Space on Friends from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]

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When the folks hosting the conference announced their theme as “Screen Narratives: Chaos and Order” the word ‘chaos’ immediately brought to mind writers rooms. I offered a quick history of writers rooms (the presentations are only 20 minutes long) and then quoted several current showrunners on how they compose their rooms and how they run them.

Transcript

Friends provides an interesting case study because they were sued by the writer’s assistant who said that the room was unsafe to her. She didn’t like the kind of sexual conversation that went on. She did not win that lawsuit because it was understood that your presumption going into that job — a show about a bunch of single people in New York — is that we’re going to be discussing these things and you should be comfortable in that — or take a different job on a different show. so that was an interesting — how do we run a room? — Safe but open and I don’t that we’ve found a perfect answer to that yet. I think they got away with what they did because they were all new. It was their first show. Look at how young they were. This is them nowadays, right? So, it — they weren’t sure how to run things, right? They were working the best they could.

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19 Make It A Safe Space from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]

With the full recording of “How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television”

19 Make It A Safe Space from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]

Subscribe to Rosanne’s Channel and receive notice of each new video!

 

 

When the folks hosting the conference announced their theme as “Screen Narratives: Chaos and Order” the word ‘chaos’ immediately brought to mind writers rooms. I offered a quick history of writers rooms (the presentations are only 20 minutes long) and then quoted several current showrunners on how they compose their rooms and how they run them.

Transcript

In terms of Handmaid’s Tale, they talk about how much work ahead of time they have to do and how much he wants the whole staff to contribute. He doesn’t want to be the full runner of the show — Bruce Miller — he wants everyone to be part of what he’s creating because he recognizes he’s a man running a show about women being oppressed in this Margaret Atwood future. So he has a particular take there and of course, we’re back to Vince Gilligan who I love greatly. He’s talking about making people feel comfortable, which I said, and I think comfort is very, very important. It has to be a safe place so that everyone is willing to tell their story. I laugh because my first days on Touched by an Angel the way they got all the writers to know each other was everyone had to tell the story of how they lost their virginity and once you told that to a room full of strangers you were willing to tell anything else. So it was an interesting first day of work to be sure. I’m not sure that qualifies as safe anymore but we’ll see.

For more information on the Screenwriting Research Network, visit

Screenwriting Research Network Conference, Porto, Portugal, All Sessions


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18 Fresh Off The Boat from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]

With the full recording of “How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television”

18 Fresh Off The Boat from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]

Subscribe to Rosanne’s Channel and receive notice of each new video!

 

 

When the folks hosting the conference announced their theme as “Screen Narratives: Chaos and Order” the word ‘chaos’ immediately brought to mind writers rooms. I offered a quick history of writers rooms (the presentations are only 20 minutes long) and then quoted several current showrunners on how they compose their rooms and how they run them.

Transcript

So for me what’s interesting and important about a writer’s room is what you have to do. In this case, this show called Fresh Off The Boat. It’s based on the memories of an Asian-American man and his immigrant family and for their room they wanted to make sure all the people they hired had an outsider perspective. People who understood what it was like to go to a new place and be different and how do you manage that balance of I’m an American-Korean but my parents are truly Korean and in moving to another country the parents have given away part of the knowledge of their children because they won’t share the same kind of childhood. So that was an important aspect that Nahnatchka Khan wanted to bring to her show and really interesting that she’s not a Korean American and she’s running the show. So it’s about an experience she shares emotionally not the same ethnic experience and so I think that’s an interesting movement forward — which is pretty good.

For more information on the Screenwriting Research Network, visit

Screenwriting Research Network Conference, Porto, Portugal, All Sessions


Ready to present my talk yesterday at the Screenwriting Research Conference here in Porto, Portugal via Instagram

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* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!

17 Representation from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]

With the full recording of “How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television”

17 Representation from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]

Subscribe to Rosanne’s Channel and receive notice of each new video!

 

 

When the folks hosting the conference announced their theme as “Screen Narratives: Chaos and Order” the word ‘chaos’ immediately brought to mind writers rooms. I offered a quick history of writers rooms (the presentations are only 20 minutes long) and then quoted several current showrunners on how they compose their rooms and how they run them.

Transcript

I think inclusive writer’s rooms, obviously, create more inclusive stories. I happen to adore Torchwood. I’m a big Russell Davies fan and I love the stories he tells about how, when he came to create the show, he created a female police officer whose husband stayed at home and took care of the house and the baby and he hadn’t seen enough of that on television. So he provided that in the story and as they went through you got many more characters of color, characters from other backgrounds. it definitely shows, right? And He, I go to interview him, as I said, for Written By and he said it was a very difficult thing to watch people watch television seeing how badly so many were represented. So, his rooms have always been about representation.

For more information on the Screenwriting Research Network, visit

Screenwriting Research Network Conference, Porto, Portugal, All Sessions


Ready to present my talk yesterday at the Screenwriting Research Conference here in Porto, Portugal via Instagram

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* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!