Someone on another thread asked about writing and producing. I figured I'd take a stab at explaining.

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WRITING FOR A TV SERIES

There are a couple of ways that one can write for a television show. They can be part of the staff writing team or they can do freelance work. Most tv writers are of the freelance variety, which means they submit work to a show through their agent and hope that the producers like it enough to hire them to write a script for that show.

The submission isn't usually a script/story for that particular show as the writer will want the producers to read their work on its own merits, not in conjunction to that show. Once the producers say, "Joe, we love your work, here's a story that we want fleshed out." Joe will often do a spec script - which means he'll write a shortened version of the story without all the fleshed out parts to further entice the producers to hire him.

There's also the established writer that gets hired directly because of their work; i.e. producers call up Brittany's agent and say, "We liked her work on XYZ, is she available to write a script for us by April?" If she is, she gets the story outline and starts to work.

Then there's the staff writers. They are the core writers that do the bulk of the series' scripts. They'll sit in a room together tossing out ideas with the head writer and figure out which stories should be fleshed out and which ones won't work. After that, the head writer will divvy out the stories and assign a staff writer or two to each. They go off, work on the script and come back for notes and rewrites and revisions.

Sometimes, no matter which version of writer we're talking about, the person(s) who ends up with screen credit isn't necessarily the person originally assigned the script. A lot depends on who did the bulk of the work, how much of the original idea is intact when the script goes off to the WGA for screen credit, etc.

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PRODUCING FOR A TV SERIES

Producers are a wide and varied lot. There are producers who control the money. There are producers that created the original show idea. There are producers that came up the ranks of writers and got a title as a result. There are producers that are also actors. There are a LOT of producers. LOL But for arguments sake, we'll talk about the basic producer job.

A producer, as most viewers would understand it, is someone that keeps the vision of the show true. They're the ones that say, "We went left here when we should have gone right." They're the ones ultimately responsible for the look, tone, feel and personality of a show. If things go right, they get credit, if things go wrong, they get blamed.

Some of these producers are moneymen. They're the ones that sit in their offices making sure that budgets are adhered to and schedules are kept. They help make decisions about location costs, giving extra perks to cast, building that courtroom set instead of going to the court itself, determining which scripts can be done this season or need to be put off until next year because of budgetary concerns.

There are also the writers that went from writer to staff writer to story editor to producer because the show wants to keep them on, but without the upgrade in title, they might walk.

The other producer we'll talk about is the actor/producer (usually executive producer). Generally, but not always, that's a vanity title meaning that the actor said, "I won't do the show unless I have executive producer title and a share of the profits." But there are other actors (like Richard Dean Anderson on Stargate and Kiefer Sutherland on 24) who actually take their producer titles to heart and do the work associated with it. I know that RDA spent a lot more time working behind the scenes than he had on other shows because he wanted to really earn and honor the title, he didn't want it to be a vanity thing.

That's the basics, folks. There's a lot more to each of these and I probably couldn't get too more detailed because my own exposure to these activities is limited, but if you have questions, I'll do my best to answer them or get answers for you.

Thanks! I was wondering some of that. I know there are like a TON of producers.. you see like "Executive producer, producer in charge of.. blah blah blah".
Thanks!

thanks

Thanks Kat for explaining this. I often wondered about the producer thing myself.

Any time. I may not have all the answers myself, but I have a lot of resources to get answers, so if you want info, just ask and I'll do my best to unconfuddle you.

Thank you neighbor!

LOL I live in Santa Monica and work in downtown.


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this is way ot but how do you guys handle the traffic in la...i spent three years in dc and it really sucked sitting in a five lane parking lot going to and from work...

I listen to my MP3 player and talk on the phone. I also have a carpool buddy 3-5 days a week, so we alternate driving and when he drives, I read the paper on the way to work. We also talk about what's going on at the studio, what plans we have for the weekend, etc, etc, etc.

My commute is 35-50 mins in the morning and approximately an hour coming home. It's not awful, but I wish I lived closer. At least I don't have to venture onto the freeway to get there.

you defn lucked out by not using the freeway...my cousin works for disney out there and she doesnt need to use the freeway either...

Technically I could and many would use the 405 to drive from the Valley to my work, but I hate the 405 at 1 AM on a Sunday, there's no way I'd take it during rush hour traffic. I just travel the canyon roads instead and know every alternate route possible if things start getting ugly. LOL

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this is way ot but how do you guys handle the traffic in la...i spent three years in dc and it really sucked sitting in a five lane parking lot going to and from work...

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My hours at the office are 11:00am to 7:15pm, so I avoid the rush hour traffic all together and make the 16-mile, one-way commute on the Santa Monica Freeway in about 20 minutes without even going over the speed limit.



However, in 2003 I couldn't drive for a while and had to take the bus along Venice Blvd. It was awful. It took about 90 minutes, plus waiting on the sidewalk for the bus. One time, on my way home at night, the bus driver saw me waving at him to stop and kept on going without stopping to let me on. I complained to the MTA but I doubt if anything ever happened. If you don't drive in LA you'd have a miserable life. NYC was so much better. Buses and subways run all the time and cabs are cheap. And everything is in just about walking distance.

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