1/ Good Christ, I just looked at my replies and some questions. I don’t mean this *literally*. I was just reinforcing Justin’s statement that the base of the show is the script, from this all else flows, and from this comes both power and responsibility.
2/ somebody said this was “dry, workmanlike advice” and asked if I also meant creatively successful. Well yes, because the script is the key to everyone else getting to do their best job, and timely ones give people TIME to do that WITHIN THE CONSTRAINT of the budget & schedule.
3/ it’s a metaphor for valuing other departments/artists time as much as your own, and understanding creative sacrifices & collaborations are necessary in making TV. Because doing otherwise is saying to everyone else “fuck you, work in a crunch,I got mine.” Which is uncool.
4/ and that metaphor ONLY WORKS if you value the script as the starting point — which of course values the process by which you arrive at the script, and the people who produce it.
5/ “Timely” means, at least to me, “no drama”. Which in a city of drama-manufacturing personality types at all levels, is not something to be taken lightly. “No drama” means it’s about the work.
6/ In my experiences “dry & workmanlike” is the thing that needs to be taught. “Be creative & true” doesn’t need to be taught. Thats your instinct as a writer. That’s why you’re attempting the batshit crazy idea of making up stories for a living. You don’t need aphorisms for THAT
7/ but absorbing the fact that hitting your budget & schedule means you have more leverage to fight to protect your staff’s vision of the show from those ABOVE and time & respect to do the best work BESIDE your crew and actors, that may be non-intuitive.
8/ and worth saying in the “diva/hero/auteur” model of showrunnibg that young writers romanticize and even some execs tolerate. It sound awesome — and it’s *bullshit*, and burns out the human beings around them, and is fundamentally unsustainable.
9/ There’s a reason you see old people who successfully make shit nodding at the original statement. It’s not about your rifle being clean. It’s about the care, respect, and work REPRESENTED by the fact your rifle’s clean. So to speak.
10/ tl ;dr You’re spending millions of dollars of other people’s money and thousands of hours of other people’s time to tell your stories. Be a goddam adult about it. /fin
