Put six TV show writers together with different experience levels and professional backgrounds and you get excellent input for an enlightening article about not just what they do, but also how they do it. There are many egos, a huge amount of stress and teamwork involved and we know that a great show can and does grind to a halt when the creative team does not deliver.
In the article published by science blog io9.com, the six writers give their individual responses to the questions:
- For the layman, what is a writers room? What service does it perform for a television show?
- What don’t people understand about writers rooms — people who think that it’s just a bunch of people having a conversation?
- What makes for a good writers room, personnel-wise? Environment wise?
- As a showrunner, how do you go about creating that mix?
- What’s the single most poisonous thing to a room’s chemistry?
- What’s the one thing a writers room can’t be without, aside from other writers?
- What was your first experience in a room like?
- What’s been your best experience?
- Without naming names, what’s been your worst?
- Who have you, personally, learned the most from?
- What’s it like as a baby writer? As a showrunner? Aside from the pay grade, how does the job differ?
- Are there any times as a showrunner/executive producer, you wish you were a baby writer?
If you’ve been following the tweets of the Hawaii Five-0 writers, then this piece at the very least will clarify the importance of the coconut M&Ms and the football on the table as well as writer’s assistant Mike Schaub’s role (who apparently is the second most important person in the room, after the showrunner):
*** Inside the TV writers room: a place of magic and mystery and making shit up for money ***
[tags]alex o’loughlin, alex o’lachlan, steve mcgarrett, hawaii five-0, hawaii five-o, hawaii 5-0, cbs[/tags]
I’m sure we will have many of these on H50!
Thank you Mizz for this fascinating article.
Very insightful article; thanks for the link, Mizz!